Latinizing a Deindustrializing Pennsylvania: The Rust Belt Origins of Trumpism?

Starting in the 1980s, several of Pennsylvania’s small and midsized industrial cities went from overwhelmingly white Anglo to majority-Latino at the same time as they lost working-class job opportunities. Two decades later, this part of Pennsylvania was arguably the birthplace of an anti-immigrant, especially anti-Hispanic political tendency that brought figures like Lou Barletta and Donald Trump to nationwide notice and national power. Meanwhile, organized labor at the national level moved sharply from anti- to pro-immigration politics.

The basic historical raw material for this papper is places like Bethlehem, Allentown, Reading, Lancaster, York, and Hazleton—and their highly politically bellwether counties of Lehigh, Berks, Lancaster, York, and Luzerne. These include 4 of the 10 biggest cities and 5 of the top 10 counties in Pennsylvania. The cities are 33% to 66% Latino today, the counties 10% to 26% Latino.

This juxtaposition of Hispanic settlement and political realignment calls out for a historical interpretation that doesn’t simply take Hazleton as the touchstone of Trumpism, but instead considers the longer history of Hispanic resettlement in nearby municipalities with very different histories of immigration politics. Instead of putting the white working class at the center of these regional narratives, we need to start with Latina and Latino working people as citizens (broadly defined) and as voters.

This paper will outline key trends in the politics of these smaller metropolitan areas, addressing questions such as, How did political opportunists seek to highlight or harness political xenophobia, starting at the local level? What were labor organizers doing and saying to a legacy white but increasingly Hispanic workforce? And who was voting for whom in these cities and metropolitan areas?