Political conventions highlight Latino split

WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON The Hispanics with the highest profiles in this year's political conventions, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and Mayor Julian Castro of San Antonio, stand as opposites in a cultural and political split that has divided millions of U.S. Latinos for decades.

Republicans chose Rubio, who is Cuban-American, to introduce Mitt Romney at the party's convention last week. Democrats, meeting this week in Charlotte, N.C., picked Castro, who is Mexican-American, as keynote speaker, the role that launched a young Barack Obama to national political prominence.

Although they often are lumped together as Hispanics, Rubio and Castro are emblematic of acute political distinctions between Mexican-Americans, who are the largest Latino group in the U.S., and Cuban-Americans, who are the most politically active. Despite their shared language, these two constituencies have different histories in the United States and are subjected to distinctions in immigration policy that go easier on Cuban immigrants.

"Historically, many Cuban-Americans for the last few decades have tended to be a little more conservative. So it's not surprising that you would see Sen. Rubio and the Republican nominee for Senate in Texas, Ted Cruz, running as Republicans," Castro said. "And I don't begrudge them for that. I think the policies they espouse are wrong, are not the best ones. But, you know, they're doing what they believe. And I applaud them for that."

Rubio, 41, was born in Miami. His parents left their native Cuba for the U.S. 2½ years before Fidel Castro overthrew the Cuban government. Fifty-nine percent of Cubans in the U.S. in 2010 were foreign-born, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, and three-quarters were American citizens.

Julian Castro, 37, was born in the U.S., as were his parents. Almost 64 percent of people of Mexican descent in the country are U.S.-born, according to the Pew Hispanic Center.

Moises Venegas, a retired Mexican-American educator and Latino community activist in Albuquerque, N.M., said the two groups have little in common besides a historical connection to Spain, and Spanish surnames.

"The Cubans have never been one of us," Venegas said. "They didn't come from Chihuahua or Sonora in Mexico and from poor backgrounds. They came from affluent backgrounds and have a different perspective. The Republican Party also has opened doors just for them."

Pedro Roig, a Cuban-American attorney and senior researcher at the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies in Miami, disputed the notion that there is rivalry between the groups. He attributes divisions between Cuban- and Mexican-Americans in part to geography and noted that many in the Cuban community admire Castro's selection as the Democrats' keynote speaker.

In 2008, 9.7 million Latino voters cast ballots in the presidential election, and 5.2 million were Mexican-Americans, about 45 percent of eligible Mexican-American voters, according to Pew Hispanic Center data. When it comes to showing up at the polls, however, Cuban-Americans outpace Mexican-Americans -- some 713,000 Cuban-Americans showed up to vote in 2008, 69percent of eligible Cuban-American voters, the center found.

Obama won 47 percent of the Cuban vote in Florida in 2008.

Immigration is the greatest source of division between the groups, with Cubans having an easier route to legal residency and citizenship. Early migrations of Cubans included upper- and middle-class families, but people who came to the U.S. during the 1980s Mariel boatlift were not as well-off.

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Besides the Hats, What Good Are State Conventions?

Are political conventions necessary?

Texas Democrats are in Houston for their state convention. Texas Republicans are in Fort Worth for the same thing. The Libertarians are meeting this weekend near DFW Airport, and the Green Party is having its convention outside San Antonio.

It’s actually easier to make the convention case for the Libertarians and the Greens, who use their gatherings to put people on the ballot, because they don’t hold primary elections.

The two major parties, on the other hand, held their primaries on May 29 and will sort out the remaining 37 contests in runoffs on July 31. The conventioneers don’t have anything to do with that, except when they vote back home.

They are at their conventions to elect the officers of their party and the executive committee members who meet periodically to handle party business, as well as to pick the delegates and others who will get passes and floor and voting rights at the national conventions this summer. Whether those conventions are still necessary is another open question, but this is about the state contests.

How many people need to be at these gatherings?

Is this a scam invented by the state’s convention and visitors bureaus and the rest of the travel industry?

Is it meant just to get some publicity for the parties and candidates? To get the party faithful enthused for the remaining five months of the political season? To make money?

And, as a selfish and personal side note, how is it that both of the political parties landed their conventions in the only two places in Texas with Major League Baseball teams, on a weekend when the Astros and the Rangers are, respectively, in Chicago and San Francisco? Do the teams know something we don’t? Do the planners want everyone to concentrate and avoid sports and other amusements?

State conventions don’t usually make news — other than the perfunctory official business stories — unless candidates say amazing things or partisans get into arguments.

Texas Democrats have historically made news with their intramural fights, where two caucuses take opposite positions and put everyone else in the party on edge, or when two or more groups contend to represent the same part of the party.

Texas Republicans almost always make news with their platform, which is full of specific programs and planks that spook candidates and other Republicans alike.

The Democrats have a long list of weird caucuses. The Republicans fly their colors in their platform. These are conventions, after all, for the most Republican Republicans and the most Democratic Democrats. They are fervent, like ham radio operators or model rocketeers, quilters or comic book collectors.

The conventions rally the faithful. Like those various and numerous rabid hobbyists, political people find comfort with members of their own herd. It’s not appropriate in most other settings to put on that vest with 57 different campaign buttons, that bowler with the red, white and blue sequins, or the old Ross Perot T-shirt.

And the conventions do give the partisans a chance to see many of the people on their ticket, like them or not. But not the big dogs: Mitt Romney didn’t schedule a visit to the Republican convention in Fort Worth. President Obama wasn’t planning a stop in Houston.

Unless they’re looking for money, presidential candidates from both parties ignore us, assuming that the state will hand its electoral votes to whatever Republican gets the nomination. That’s been a safe bet for more than 30 years.

These can be risky places even for the locals. On Thursday, the crowd at the Republican convention roared with boos when Gov. Rick Perry reasserted his support for Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, now a United States Senate candidate.

Tough crowd.

Soon, they’ll be gone. The Fort Worth Convention Center will get ready for real estate asset managers and then for a gathering of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Houston’s George R. Brown Convention Center will get the State Bar and then a gun and knife show.

The delegates, energized and/or exhausted, will pack up the vests and funny hats and get to work on elections, safe in the knowledge that they are a part of something bigger than themselves.

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