Can there be one unitary Latino vote?  Which "Latino strategy" will succeed? 

If you walked into a room full of Latinos in New York City where there are many people from all over Latin America, and dozens of variations of hyphenated Latino-Americans whose families have been here for several generations, and ask them to paint a mural representing their people, you could not find enough cans of paint: We have many colors, many cultures, many customs, and many variations of the Spanish language.
 
We eat many different foods: Ask for a pupusa in an Argentine restaurant, and you will be met with a blank stare, while in El Salvador, you can buy them from women grilling them on comales on the street, as common as hot dog stands in Manhattan. In Mexico, a quesadilla is a kind of cheese taco made by putting cheese in a tortilla, folding it over, and grilling it. In El Salvador, a quesadilla is a rich cornbread made with parmesan cheese and ten egg yolks. And a turkey sandwich? Depending on the ethnicity of your cook, you would be ask for pavo, chumpe, guajolote, or chompipe; if you used the wrong word, again, you would get a blank stare.
 
Now, which presidential candidate do you think “the Latino community” will support in the upcoming election?  Which Latinos do you mean?

Let’s start with the Cubans. Some 248,070 escaped to the United States in the wake of the Cuban revolution between January 1, 1959 and the Cuban Missile Crisis, October 22, 1962. They are now in their eighties. They tended to be middle- or upper-class, well-educated, business owners and professionals. Their arrival in the U.S. was eased by a Communist-phobic American government, who placed them in refugee communities in Miami, New Jersey or Indiana, and provided jobs and shelter, thus gaining  everlasting loyalty for the most conservative politicians.  They repaid the Cubans’ devotion by sustaining the embargo against Castro’s Cuba and engaging in all matter of subterfuge to assassinate Castro.  

But they are not the only Cubans. A trickle of refugees followed that initial rush, the balseros, arriving in the U.S. after perilous sea voyages in rafts, across the 90 miles to Florida, resulting in only a small percentage surviving the trip. Most came for economic reasons. Life in Cuba has been hard for a long time; the American embargo guaranteed that Cuba would remain in a kind of time-bound suspension. Getting the things you need there has been impossible.  Since no cars are imported, the cars on the road are from the late fifties and sixties, running with parts that Cuban mechanics have created to replace the parts they cannot import. Most buildings in Cuba are in frightening condition but there is no money for paint, repairs, or reconstruction. Now the Cuban currency has been undermined by an underground economy of American dollars, making it hard for ordinary Cubans to buy the few things that are available. 
 
Adding even more confusion to the mix are the 125,000 Marielitos. In 1980, Castro said rancorously, you want refugees? I’ll give you refugees!  And he emptied his prisons and sent them to the United States: Political prisoners; common criminals; “sexual outlaws,” that is, gays, lesbians, prostitutes; petty thieves, and residents of mental institutions. Neither President Jimmy Carter, nor the governors of the states where the Marielitos ended up, including the youthful Bill Clinton, at that time, governor of Arkansas, knew what to do.