#HispanicsforTrump: Ethnoracialization, Identity, and the Paradox of Hispanic Republicans?

As the Republican Party strengthens its reliance on xenophobic rhetoric and racial dog-whistles, Latinx Republicans are seen as paradoxes. At the same time, research shows that Latinxs’ lives are structured in diverging ways – thus representing a divergence of intragroup interests. To understand how Latinx Republicans explain the connection between their ethnoracial and partisan identifications, I draw on original semi-structured interviews with Latinx Republicans from throughout the country. I find Latinx Republicans interpret their identities relationally based on experiences of discrimination, socioeconomic mobility, ethnoracial boundary crossing with white Americans, and drawing boundaries between themselves and poor, urban, and undocumented immigrant Latinx and Black people. When challenged as “sellouts,” Latinx Republicans reinterpret the meanings of the group and the political party system by adopting ethnoracial frames that align Latinx identity with the Republican Party. This study reconsiders assimilation theory and its implications for intra-categorical racialization and political behavior.