Loving HispanicsEvery Four Years

I feel love all around. Recently Republicans and Democrats adore Hispanics. All of them in general, but particularly Latino voters.

The political conventions in Denver and St. Paul have been converted into parties to celebrate Hispanic pride (or whatever makes us feel good). Today everyone wants to invite us to their homes. My home is your home, they say.

Let us say that it is a cyclical love. It appears, surprisingly, every four years. And always when there are presidential elections. How strange, right? The candidates Barack Obama and John McCain tell us what we want to hear. They are all hugs and smiles.

But, why, suddenly, do they love us so much? What happened? Well, the answer is very simple. In such a tight presidential election, as that which we will have in the United States, it will be the 9 to 10 million Latino voters who will decide the winner of the White House.

Never before in the history of the United States have the Hispanic voters been so sought after. They are like the pretty girl at the party that every one wants to fall in love with.

Almost all the pre-candidates for the presidency participated in two forums transmitted exclusively for television in Spanish. This has never happened before.

Both Obama and McCain have had multiple interviews with the Spanish press. This has never happened before. The Democrats announced that they spent 20 million dollars to capture the Hispanic vote and Republicans have put up a sophisticated system to attract the voters in Spanish. This has never happened before.

The new rule of North American politics is that no one can reach the White House without first passing through the Spanish media. No one.

Only one of every 10 voters who goes to the polls on Tuesday November 4th is Hispanic. But the importance lies in the fact that Latino voters will be concentrated in states that could decide the election.

A little bit of history. The 2000 presidential election was decided by 537 Cuban American voters in Florida. And the 2004 presidential election was decided by 67 thousand Latinos (the majority of Mexican origin) in New Mexico, Colorado and Nevada who voted for George W. Bush and not for John Kerry.

The lesson is evident; the Hispanic vote decides elections. Each time there are more Latinos in the United States and each time more vote. The political parties are treating us so well because we are the future of that country. I am not exaggerating.

In 2106, Latinos will become the majority in the United States (if the births and immigration remains constant and my calculations are correct). This growth is based on the fact that Hispanics have more children than other ethnic groups – 2.3 children per family on average – and immigration that comes from the South – the government of Mexico has just informed us that almost 12 million Mexicans live in the United States and that 580 thousand arrive every year.

In the meanwhile, based on the latest data from the Census bureau, Hispanics will increase from 46 million currently to 132 million by the year 2050. That is to say that Latinos are now 15 percent of the population, and will be 30 percent in 2050 and 50 percent or more in the year 2106.

We will not see the time when the Hispanic population will exceed the total population of Whites, African Americans and Asian Americans, but we are going towards that. It is difficult to imagine how the United States will be with a Latino majority. But I would dare to guess a couple of things; one, that Spanish people will be very active in the United States and two that by then we already will have had several Hispanic presidents.

Furthermore, I think that the first Hispanic president has already been born. But who knows if he just entered kindergarten or is exploring the latest video games or texting on his cellphone or returning to college after having watched the Olympics. What is happening is that Latinos are, on average, younger (27) than the rest of North Americans (36).

What all of this signifies is that political parties and candidates are right to treat Hispanics well. Latinos today decide elections and tomorrow they will decide the direction of this country. So that if in the next days they see Barack Obama, John McCain and delegates at the conventions demonstrate effusively their love for Latinos, we already know why. It is that they love us very much…every four years.