Paola Ramos: ‘There’s a segment of Latinos that have this constant fear that mainstream America will always see them as perpetual foreigners’

Behind Paola Ramos there is a piece of furniture with piles of books, but it is not a personal library. They are many copies of the same book, Defectors: The Rise of the Latino Far Right and What It Means for America, written by her and published just over a week ago. Available in Spanish and English, it is a courageous and sensitive journey to the most uncomfortable fringes of what it means to be Latino in the United States. Ramos connected with EL PAÍS via video call to talk about her research, what she encountered along the way, and the lessons she has learned, all against the inevitable backdrop of the presidential election pitting Kamala Harris against Donald Trump.

After years working as a political strategist for the Democratic Party, it was Trump’s 2016 victory that prompted her to look elsewhere for answers. Ramos, born in Miami 37 years ago and daughter of the renowned journalist Jorge Ramos, made an effort to understand the complexity of the Latino vote, which has become crucial to winning votes in the U.S: “It takes unpacking things like racism, colorism, political trauma and the weight of colonialism to understand the new dynamics of Latino voters now.”

Q. How has the way you see American politics changed since you left party politics?

A. So much of the winning formula of the Clinton campaign revolved around the idea of Latino voters rising in unprecedented numbers in the face of someone like Donald Trump, but Clinton got less than 50% of Latino voters to show up to the polls. That sparked in my mind that I wasn’t asking the questions that I should be asking. At that moment, I started wonderig, what is truly holding together the Democratic coalition? What is wrong with this message? So that led me to leave politics and go out to the field and talk directly to people.

Q. Have the parties, the media, even society as a whole learned to ask the right questions?

A. No, because I think we know that at the end of the day, Latino voters will overwhelmingly vote for the Democrats. I find it alarming that, with Donald Trump promising mass deportations and making criminalizing immigrants the heart of his campaign, we’re at a place where people aren’t really questioning that. I think there is a level of complacency in the Democratic Party and in the media. But I think that the reason it’s so hard to find answers about this “rightward shift” is that it goes beyond politics. It takes unpacking things like racism, colorism, political trauma and the weight of colonialism to understand the new dynamics of Latino voters now.

Q. Do you think the Republican Party is conscious of the messaging they’re giving Latinos or is it more like a happy coincidence for them that a segment of Latinos seem to be so susceptible to some of their rhetoric?

A. I think it’s both. When you’re overwhelmingly using the same language, and when you understand the risk that that language entails, given the rise of hate crimes, and you’re still using words like invasion and bloodbath, and that they’re poisoning the blood of this country, I think that’s intentional. Republicans understood finally that in order to win they need a segment of Latino voters, and they have also understood that in fact there is a segment of us that are so Americanized, so assimilated that they can buy into the nativism and that othering.

Q. But will they actually be accepted into this extremist right wing coalition, or is it more just a cosmetic, electoral thing?

A. That remains to be seen. It makes me think of Enrique Tarrio from the Proud Boys. After Donald Trump loses in 2020 one of the first things that the Proud Boys do, led by a person called Kyle Chapman, is distance themselves from Enrique Tarrio’s brownness. He says something along the lines of “the West was built through the white race and the white race alone, and we owe nothing to any other race.” Tarrio served a very strategic purpose, which was to shield them from the criticism that they were receiving about being white supremacists. So there’s some of that going on, of course, but I do think ultimately there is a small but growing segment of Latinos that fundamentally see themselves as part of white America.

Q. How is it possible that Latinos can feel part of a movement whose leader says things like ‘they’re poisoning the blood of our country’, which leaves little room to interpretation?

A. Well, first of all, I always say just because you’re Latino or an immigrant that in no way makes you immune to holding anti-immigrant sentiments. When Donald Trump is talking about immigrants, there are a lot of Latinos that feel absolutely no sort of solidarity with them. The Latino community today has fundamentally changed. In my parents’ generation, it used to be obviously the case that immigration was the heart of our story and our identity. Now, third-generation Latinos are the fastest growing segment within the Latino voting block. This means that the majority of that Latino electorate is U.S.-born, under the age of 50, and speaks mostly English. What I have found is that within that reality, there’s a segment of Latinos that have this constant overshadowing fear that mainstream America and white America will always see them as perpetual foreigners. Xenophobia is so contagious because it’s based on fearmongering, and if you couple that with the fact that there is a segment of Latinos that wants to prove their belonging in this country, that can turn someone into a Latino Trump supporter.

Q. You mention in the book a particular moment that made you aware of the existence of a shared Latin identity like you hadn’t been before. How would you define it?

A. We’re at a time when even the concept of Latinidad or a Latino voting block or a Latino community is being questioned because we obviously come from so many different ethnicities and backgrounds and stories. But I do fundamentally believe that as Latinos, regardless of our generations, we have one thing that distinguishes us from the rest of the country and that is the fact that in all of our lines, there’s someone in our families that came to this country for the very same reason. And that drives me to believe that at our core, we are compassionate people and we are empathetic people.

Q. At the same time, you say Latinos are “permanently trapped between progressive and ultraconservative positions”. Could you explain this idea further?

A. If you look at our history, you understand that you can’t really talk about us without taking into consideration the weight and the impact of colonialism, which is something that we rarely talk about in modern American politics. You understand there are a lot of racial and ethnic grievances that Latinos carry. You understand why colorism and internalized racism is something that a lot of Latinos hold. But more than anything, you really understand the way that colonialism for centuries really shaped the moral code and compass of a lot of Latinos through this idea of traditionalism.

Q. In the book you describe a meeting in El Paso, where one person says: “This is a free country and we have a particular way of life here”, which seems like a paradox but it also points at the long battle in defining and redefining “liberty” and “freedom”, these cornerstones of American identity. Would you say in this campaign there seems to be a new chapter in this struggle?

A. That’s what’s so interesting about right now. Typically, it was the Trump campaign and Republicans who were raising the American flags and talking about freedom and centralizing their campaign around that. And yes, after the DNC, you really see a Democratic Party that is trying to redefine what freedom is. What Trumpism has always tried to do is define patriotism around a story of an America that is particularly white, conservative and traditional: an America that is supposed to be like it was in the past. And I think that what the Democrats are doing now is really trying to reestablish an America that is about freedom, meaning freedoms for more people around reproductive justice and diversity. Really trying to engrain in people’s psyche a more diverse America, normalize that image, which I think is really needed.

Q. You have been part of Democratic campaigns before. Do you feel the Democrats have learned and are targeting Latino voters in a new and more productive way?

A. I think both Trump and the Democratic campaign have learned a lot. One of the biggest differences in 2024 is the fact that both understood that you can’t knock on Latino voters’ doors three months or four months before the election. I also see both campaigns have understood that to reach Latino voters you don’t need to speak in Spanish, you don’t need to just talk about immigration. Both campaigns have become more nuanced. You see that in the way that the Trump campaign even inserted this idea of it’s no longer Latinos for Trump, but Latino-Americans for Trump. That in and of itself tells you that it is a campaign that really wants to normalize being Latino. And then you also see a Harris campaign that is kind of using that same language, talking to Latinos not just about immigration, but also about the economy and housing and college affordability. Normalizing, again, being Latinos not as a distinct identity but as an American identity.

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