Journal Article

“What Are We?”: Latino Politics, Identity, and Memory in the 1983 Chicago Mayoral Election

Sánchez, Jaime

2021

Overview

The 1983 Chicago mayoral election, which polarized Black and white voters, left the nascent Latino electorate in an uncertain position. A reevaluation of this election clarifies the impact of Black mayoral candidate Harold Washington, whose candidacy laid bare significant political divisions and anti-Black sentiment among Latinos as they grappled with their relationship to whiteness. Divisions aside, Washington's effort to court the Latino vote helped legitimate a monolithic, panethnic label in Chicago politics, as evidenced by organizational records, campaign advertising, electoral data, and bilingual media coverage. Reframing the 1983 election as a dual process of race making and panethnic labeling bridges scholarship on Black mayors, Latino politics, and urban history, and questions an enduring political memory of 1983 that has obscured both Latino anti-Blackness and the fragility of Latino unity.

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Subject: Advertisements / Advertising / Black people / Black white relations / Candidates / Courts / Elections / Ethnic identity / Hispanic Americans / Labeling / Latin American cultural groups / Mayors / Media coverage / Memory / Political advertising / Politics / Primaries & caucuses / Race / Racial identity / Urban history / Voters / Washington, Harold