Black-Latino Relations in U.S. National Politics: Beyond Conflict or Cooperation

Description

Social science research has frequently found conflict between Latinos and African Americans in urban politics and governance, as well as in the groups' attitudes toward one another. Rodney E. Hero and Robert R. Preuhs analyze whether conflict between these two groups is also found in national politics. Based on extensive evidence on the activities of minority advocacy groups in national politics and the behavior of minority members of Congress, the authors find the relationship between the groups is characterized mainly by non-conflict and a considerable degree of independence. The question of why there appears to be little minority intergroup conflict at the national level of government is also addressed. This is the first systematic study of Black-Latino intergroup relations at the national level of United States politics.

Rodney E. Hero is Professor of Political Science and the Haas Chair in Diversity and Democracy at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of Racial Diversity and Social Capital: Equality and Community in America (Cambridge University Press, 2007), Faces of Inequality: Social Diversity in American Politics (2000) and Latinos and the U.S. Political System: Two-Tiered Pluralism (1992), winner of the American Political Science Association's 1993 Ralph J. Bunch award. He is co-author of Latinos in the New Millennium: An Almanac of Opinion, Behavior, and Policy Preferences (Cambridge University Press, 2012). Robert R. Preuhs is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Metropolitan State College of Denver. His research focuses on representation, state politics, policy and racial/ethnic politics. His research has been published in the American Journal of Political Science and the Journal of Politics.

'In this path-breaking book, Rodney Hero and Robert Preuhs bring to the fore a long-neglected dimension of American politics - the relationship between African-American and Latino elites in national-level politics. Studies of intergroup behavior at the local and state levels often report significant conflict between blacks and Latinos. In contrast, looking at several forms of evidence, Hero and Preuhs find little such intergroup conflict at the national level. All students of American politics will want to read [this book], both for what it tells us about the evolving relations between these two increasingly powerful groups in American national politics and for its critical role in reminding us that the American federal system is capable of both dividing and uniting us.' Lawrence C. Dodd, University of Florida 'This is the first systematic study of black-Latino relations in the national government. The critical finding - that black and Latino legislators and interest groups have been working largely independent of each other, with occasional moments of collaboration, but little evidence of conflict - as well as the empirically rich explanations for why these political groups have acted as such, will shape the agenda for our understanding of racial politics within Congress for a long time to come. Comprehensive, nuanced, and of fundamental importance.' Paul Frymer, Princeton University 'This is a masterful analysis of the political science literature on blacks and Latinos at the national level. Hero and Preuhs unlock the variables that frame the complex developments between these two groups and that shape black and Latino relationships. Black-Latino Relations in U.S. National Politics will be especially important for scholars, graduate students, and advanced undergraduates, as well as political activists and public officials.' Dianne Pinderhughes, University of Notre Dame