Latino Evangelicals: How Their Multiple Identity Influences Their Political Preferences

<p>The pews of the American Evangelical church are browning, and so is the Evangelical voting bloc. Latino immigrants are fueling the growth of the Evangelical church in America and Latinos have the potential to influence the Evangelical voting bloc writ large. However, we have a limited understanding of the political needs of the Latino Evangelical who identifies as an ethnic person and a religious person. As the discipline of political science attempts to predict, describe, or explain the political attitudes of Latinos, understanding the political preferences of the Latino Evangelical is essential. This study seeks to understand how race and religion intersect and influence the political preferences of Latino Evangelicals. Participants of this qualitative study were interviewed and asked a series of open-ended questions regarding their identity as Latinos and as Evangelicals. Participants were then asked to articulate whether either identity plays a role in how they decide on their policy and party preferences. I found that Latino Evangelicals have deep connections to both their ethnic group and their religious group. Those deep connections are often in tension with one another when they consider their policy needs and their partisanship. In some instances, their Latino identity took primacy over their Evangelical identity when considering their attitude on immigration policy. In other instances, their Evangelical identity took primacy over their Latino identity when considering their partisanship. Almost all participants expressed feelings of in-betweenness, what this study called nepantla. The Latino Evangelicals in this study maintain that as ethnics and as evangelicals, they occupy a space in the polity that is in constant tension with their multiple identity.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Political Science, PhD

Level thesis:degree_level

Open Access Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

School of Social Science, Politics, and Evaluation

Year dc:date.available

2020

Author dc:creator

• Alexander, Noemi Hernandez

Contributors dc:contributor

• Jean Reith Schroedel
• Adrian Pantoja

• Evangelical
• Identity
• Latino
• Nepantla
• Party
• Political
• Political Science

Repository record dc:identifier

https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cgu_etd/629

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholarship.claremont.edu:cgu_etd-1651