The Politics of Latina/o Faith:Examining Religion as a Potential Political Cleavage among Latinas/os

Team Members/Contributors

Alicia Reyes-Barriéntez Duke University Contact Me

About this dissertation fellowship

This project explores the intersection of faith and politics among Latinas/os in the U.S. by examining religion as a potential political cleavage between Latina/o Catholics and Latina/o Mainline and Evangelical Protestants. As the fastest growing and the largest minority group in the United States, Latinas/os are contributing to increasing cleavages in the demographic profiles of the two major parties, specifically, and the overall sociopolitical landscape, generally. Do religious beliefs inform the political attitudes and behaviors of Latina/o Catholics and Latina/o Mainline and Evangelical Protestants in the same way and to the same extent? Given that Latinas/os are largely (albeit not definitively) affiliated with the Democratic Party, how likely is it that a segment of the Latina/o population—namely, Latina/o Evangelical Protestants—will join the ranks of the Republican Party sometime in the near future? Specifically, I examine the effect of religious traditionalism, group consciousness, and priming on the political choices of Latinas/os to assess whether there is a clear trend in the political ideology and partisan implications of Latina/o faith. While Latinas/os have historically been a predominantly Catholic group, Latina/o Protestants now compose almost a quarter of the overall Latina/o population, although this segment of the Latina/o population has remained largely invisible to mainstream American culture. This project attempts to inform our understanding of the relationship between religion and politics among Latina/s, an underrepresented minority in U.S. politics and an understudied group in scholarly research. I employ a mixed-methods approach, utilizing data from three existing surveys—the 2006 Latino National Survey (LNS), the 2007 Pew Hispanic Religion Survey (PEW), and the 2006-2007 National Congregations Study (NCS), along with two controlled lab experiments.