Hialeah Gladys
 | |
| Era | The 2000s |
|---|---|
| Age | 50-59 |
| Home | Hialeah, FL |
| Demographic | Cuban exile, small business, Catholic |
| Lean | Strong Republican |
| Race | hispanic |
| Predecessor | Coral Gables Orlando |
| Successor | Miami Maria |
Gladys is a Cuban-born pharmacist in Miami-Dade County, raised among Cuban exiles, and the most reliable Republican voter in Florida. She judges every question of foreign policy by its relation to Cuba, and supports whichever party takes the hardest line against Fidel Castro.
Who they stand for
At the 2000 census, Florida had more than 800,000 Cuban-Americans. Operation Pedro Pan had flown around 14,000 children out of Cuba between 1960 and 1962. Through the Bush years, Cuban-American voters in Florida supported the Republicans by about three to one. In April 2000 federal agents seized the boy Elián González on the order of Attorney General Janet Reno, to return him to his father in Cuba. Exiles blamed Clinton, and that November Bush won Florida by 537 votes. Bush rewarded Cuban-American voters. Family travel to Cuba was cut to one visit every three years and remittances were capped in 2004, Mel Martínez became the first Cuban-American senator that year, and the Iraq War was framed as removing a tyrant. By this time, though, their grandchildren were moving away from these positions, and in 2009 they welcomed Obama's easing of travel to Cuba more than their parents did.
In the lineage of personas, Gladys is the middle of three. She inherited Castro-focused politics from her father, and the González case and the Iraq War confirmed them. Her daughter, the next persona, will apply the same hostility to Bernie Sanders, and will abandon the Church's position on abortion.
Playing to them
Gladys responds well to a president who keeps and tightens the embargo on Cuba, names Cuban dissidents from the White House, takes a hard line against Venezuela's Hugo Chávez, presents the war on terror as a fight for freedom, keeps taxes low on small business, and supports school vouchers and Medicare. She will not forgive a president who opens talks with Havana, loosens travel or remittance rules, or calls the Iraq War a mistake. Support for abortion rights or gay marriage closes the door on a socially liberal candidate. A Democrat wins her only on Cuba, and only from the Republicans' right.
Winning her costs the cast's anti-war left, including Protest Paige, Berkeley Leonard, Park Slope Dana and Beltway Meredith, who see the war as a lie. Gladys makes an exception for Cuban immigrants she does not make for others, favouring her own people and doubting other immigrants' claims. This irritates Bakersfield Jesús, Mesa Ruben and Las Vegas Marisol, who want the opposite. Little Saigon Tuan is a similar voter shaped by a different lost country, Vietnam, but his identity is weaker, because no Vietnamese leader is as identified with that loss as Castro is for Gladys.
Where they live
The five states where Hialeah Gladys makes up the largest share of the electorate in the 2000s:
- New Mexico
- Texas
- Florida
- Arizona
- California
Lineage
Coral Gables Orlando → Hialeah Gladys → Miami Maria
Cuban-American anti-communists, one step weaker in each generation as the distance from Cuba grows. For Orlando, who left Cuba as a child, Castro decides every issue. For Gladys the anti-communism is inherited from her parents and confirmed by the Elián case and the Iraq war. For Maria, Castro is dead and the anti-communism is directed at Bernie Sanders and at anyone who uses the word socialism. Their Catholicism weakens at the same rate: Maria supports abortion rights, which Orlando and Gladys would never say. Strong Republican, then strong Republican, then lean Republican.