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Axios Latino is the newsletter that summarizes the key news for Latino communities in the hemisphere every Tuesday and Thursday.
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1. The topic to highlight: The Latino support that the Democrats barely obtained
A new analysis of the November midterm elections in the US suggests that Democrats maintained just enough support from Latino voters to win key races in Nevada, Arizona and Texas, even as they slumped in Florida.
Why it matters
: Democrats didn't lose as much of the Latino vote as predicted they would, at least for now, analysis by research firm Equis shows.
Details
: Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., won re-election by narrowly surpassing President Joe Biden's 2020 vote share in some Hispanic-majority districts, according to the analysis.
In other districts, Kelly performed as well or slightly worse than the president.
Catherine Cortez Masto, Democratic Senator from NevadaBridget Bennett/Getty Images
Hispanic voter support for Nevada Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto, the only Latina US senator in the nation, was slightly lower than Hispanics who voted for Biden in 2020. But enough Latinos voted for her, helping her win by a narrow margin.
In South Texas, Republican Mayra Flores lost in a re-election bid after winning a traditionally Democratic seat months earlier.
The analysis indicates that, therefore, the apparent shift to the right in that region is not yet consolidated and could oscillate.
Yes, but
: The Democrats have continually lost ground among Florida's Latino voters.
The Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, lost in 2018 in Miami Dade County, the most Hispanic in the state, by 20 percentage points.
This November he won there by about 11 percentage points.
Early signs suggest that the November gains for the Republican Party in Florida were steepest among Latino voters who are not of Cuban or Puerto Rican descent, the sectors that have long been most supportive of Republicans.
But Equis says it's not clear why this was the case.
In his own words
: "While in Florida the changes among Latino voters could be measured in yards, in other places it was a matter of inches," said Carlos Odio, co-founder of Equis Labs.
Yes, but
: "I think the bottom line is that Latinos live perpetually open to persuasion from one side or the other," Tory Gavito, president and CEO of the leftist association Way to Win, told Axios Latino.
Gavito opined that if Latino voters saved the Democrats in 2022 it was mainly because the Republicans seem to continue to focus on messages about "chaos and MAGA", the acronym in English of the Trumpist slogan let's make America
great again.
That means, according to Gavito, that Democrats will have to do a better job of explaining how their proposals benefit Latinos rather than relying on the Republican alternative being too unappetizing.
2. Another look at the myth of the Texas Rangers
Academics, mostly Latino, launched a campaign to expose violence committed by a historic armed force before the Texas Rangers bicentennial.
Why It Matters
: Currently existing as a division of the Texas Department of Public Safety, the Rangers have been romanticized in Hollywood portrayals of the Old West and novels, and even used to name one of the state's baseball teams.
But the group's legacy of racial and ethnic violence has been largely ignored.
The questions about the Rangers myth come amid conversations across the US about how history is taught, and what is left unsaid when teaching it.
A group of Texas RangersPhoto courtesy of the Austin Public Library/Austin History Center, via Portal to Texas History
More details
: Refusing to Forget or Refusing to Forget is a coalition of academics, activists and journalists from Texas;
Its objective is to educate the public about the violence of the Rangers against Mexicans and Mexican-Americans, which was endorsed by state authorities at the time.
The group announced last week that ahead of the Rangers' bicentennial they will be sharing data on episodes of violence attributed to the Rangers on their social media.
“These publications will show the important role of the Rangers not only in the racially motivated violence of the 1910s, but also their role in attempts in general in Texas to crush dissent from the idea of ​​white supremacy,” the scholars said.
Refusing to Forget said it will also talk about how the Rangers worked to prevent enslaved black people from gaining freedom on journeys to Mexico, dubbed the
Other
Underground Railroad after the Underground Railroad.
The group has already lobbied
for memorials to be erected at sites where Mexicans were lynched, encountering resistance from several county historic preservation commissions.
Among the founders of Refusing to Forget are historian Monica Muñoz Martinez, winner of a MacArthur Fellowship (nicknamed the "Genius Grant"), and American literature professor John Morán González.
Both are from the University of Texas.
3. Lula's triumphant return
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said this weekend upon resuming the presidency of Brazil that democracy was the biggest winner in the elections.
At the ceremony, the outgoing president, Jair Bolsonaro, who went to Florida after not having recognized his electoral defeat, stood out for his absence.
Big picture
: Lula, 77, made his triumphant return this week to the Planalto Palace, long after his first two terms had ended (he was president from 2003-2011) and less than two years after the convictions were overturned. for corruption they sent him to prison.
On his first day in government, Lula revokes the flexibility of the carrying of arms decreed by Bolsonaro
Jan 2, 202300:28
News Momentum
: Lula campaigned for his third term based in part on nostalgia for his previous government when booming commodity prices helped him pay for programs to reduce poverty rates to unprecedented levels.
Therefore, many details are not yet known about all his political plans for this new presidency.
But it is expected that Lula will focus on the fight against climate change and to protect the Amazon.
Among his first acts this week was to reverse a policy that liberalized gun purchases.
In his speech before Congress after his inauguration, Lula said that he will govern for all Brazilians, given the polarization that exists in the country.
He also made implicit mention of Bolsonaro's departure, saying that democracy has overcome "the most violent threats to voting freedom and the most abject campaign of lies and hate with which they conspired to manipulate and shame the electorate."
In his farewell on Friday,
Bolsonaro did not acknowledge Lula's victory.
He then flew to Orlando, where he would be seeking to avoid criminal investigations against him after losing his political status.
4. In pictures: The last tribute to Pelé
Thousands of people gathered this Monday at the Santos stadium in Brazil, and around the field, to say goodbye to the soccer legend.
Pelé died last Thursday after suffering from colon cancer.
More than 150,000 people come to say goodbye to Pelé at the Santos stadium
Jan 3, 202301:51
Big picture
: Mourners gathered at the Vila Belmiro stadium in El Rey's hometown, and took part in a procession in front of his coffin, which was placed in midfield.
This Tuesday the event closed with a funeral procession and private burial in the Memorial NecrĂłpole EcumĂŞnica cemetery.
The fact
: Pelé won three World Cups during his international career (in the 1958 World Cups, which he won when he was just 17 years old, and in the 1962 and 1970 World Cups).
No one else has achieved the same.
5. Summary of key news in Latin America and the Caribbean
1. Venezuelan Nicolás Maduro
said in interviews this week that he hopes to normalize relations with the US soon, after the opposition voted to end the so-called interim government headed by Juan GuaidĂł.
Washington has recognized GuaidĂł as a legitimate leader since 2019, but the Venezuelan opposition is now looking for another figure to run against Maduro in elections scheduled for 2024.
2. Colombia began the year with a bilateral
ceasefire
between the government of Gustavo Petro and five major armed groups and dissidents, including the National Liberation Army (ELN).
The ceasefire would initially last until June and may be extended.
A UN spokesman said that the agreement to cease fighting "renews the hopes of lasting peace for the Colombian people."
6. Spicy job opportunities
A salsa company in Mexico that was created to create jobs in a remote region of Oaxaca, where many are forced to go to the United States to work, is getting
closer
and closer to its goal.
This Oaxacan sauce company seeks to mitigate migration to the United States
Nov 27, 202201:49
Details
: The founder, Alejandrina Bernabé, says that the Fandango Oaxaqueño, established almost a decade ago, has grown from two employees to more than a dozen.
El Fandango Oaxaqueño makes a thousand hot sauces of 100 flavors daily.
Bernabé tells Telemundo News that he now hopes to open a restaurant.
Thanks for reading us!
We return on Thursday.
Do you want to read any of the previous editions?
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