Que? Hispanic Voters Think for Themselves
About half of Arizona's Hispanic voters supported a proposition to make English the official language of the state. The Tuscon Citizen breaks it down for us gringos this morning:
Gabriel Cordoba is a good indicator of the Hispanic vote.
Which is to say, there is no one Hispanic vote.
He voted against Proposition 300, which would take adult education and English classes away from illegal immigrants, but for Proposition 103, which would make English Arizona's official language.
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In reality, Hispanics tend to be varied in their political leanings, with the starkest difference between those Hispanics who have been in the country for a while, who tend to vote more conservatively, and those that are more recent arrivals, who vote more liberally.
The official language question is a tough nut to crack. Such propositions are often used by anti-immigrant agitators as the reasonable-sounding thin end of the wedge, which makes me wary. But to conduct government in English does seem, well, reasonable. In the end, Arizona voters made English the state's official language with 74 percent support (Prop. 103)--Hispanic voters were more or less evenly divided. And 71 percent of Arizona voters opted to deny illegals in-state status at AZ colleges and universities (Prop. 300).
