In this Conversation with Authors, we spoke with Dr. Roberto Carlos about his recent APSR article, “The Politics of the Mundane.” Here, Dr. Carlos discusses his article’s relationship to current events, research ethics, and the surprises he encountered when conducting research.

APSR: Can you discuss the aims of your paper, where the idea came from, and the big points you want people to come away with?

Roberto Carlos: My goal was to get people to try to understand how certain populations, not just persevere but thrive in unexpected places. I think that a lot of literature, particularly in the domain of REP, looks at these marginalized populations and tends to focus on a lot of the negative aspects of it. And for good reason, but I want to do the opposite; in this case, I look at a population that you wouldn’t necessarily expect to see overcome some of the hurdles they face related to resource availability and yet you still see them persevere. But not in this sort of heroic way, but in a more like, “Wow, this type of perseverance is happening every day and people respond by developing a skillset to adapt to the life around them, and they don’t think twice about it.” For them, doing some of the things that I talk about, particularly language brokering, which is the translation and interpretation on behalf of parents or family, that’s not anything special for these young people. That’s like a Tuesday, for them. Yet what they don’t realize is that they’re building a skillset that allows them to present themselves to the world with a type of confidence that has an impact as adults because they’ve been engaged in activity like this since they were six or seven years old. So, it’s not that big of a stretch of the imagination to assume that they wouldn’t think it would be difficult to get involved in politics, because they’ve already proven, time and again, that they can navigate these adult spaces.

So, that was the big impetus, to highlight perseverance in everyday spaces. The major aim of the paper was to point that out, because sometimes the stories are sad and tragic. These young people sometimes must take on such a heavy burden, and I think that it’s worth thinking about the negative consequences of that as well. But it doesn’t always have to be negative.

APSR: What did you find most difficult in researching or writing about this topic?

Roberto Carlos: So, there were two concerns I had: Anytime I deal with the subject matter that I’m working with, there is a concern that I’m exploiting the population to benefit my career and thinking about what that looks like and how that translates. And the other difficulty was actually a methodological one, which is trying to convince people that this is happening. I tell a causal story and try to show it is causal by including a longitudinal data set that highlights this type of dynamic at work. But that’s not necessarily dealing with a causal question directly, it just gets me close. But because of the lack of data surrounding populations of color, particularly Latinxs, are just difficult to find. We have these great studies that focused largely on white populations that traced children to adulthood and their parents. Those are a little bit older now, but they’re still a valuable resource that people use. And we don’t have anything like this for the Latinx community. Then, the question becomes, how can I try to present this. Part of this was trying to look at this idea that I’ve shown you in multiple ways – to highlight that this effect is still holding on, even by comparing not just the Latinx community to other communities, but within themselves and then looking at those individuals who probably look similar on a lot of dimensions, except for this one unique characteristic where they’re interacting with their parents in this particular way.

APSR: Could you talk more about how you dealt with concerns of exploitation? I think a lot of scholars have these worries when we are analyzing and examining more sensitive subject matter and communities.

Roberto Carlos: I think that’s always going to be a big concern. I think the big thing for me was not to make this more than it is. It gets back to what I was saying, a little bit earlier, which is I could have spun this paper as, “Man, look at these heroic kids, and they are just amazing.” And they are in many ways, but to present them in such a way – it sort of gives this false view about what’s actually happening. I think that’s one way to potentially be careful.

So, this is a tough question. I don’t know that I have a good answer. I’ll be honest, because there are times, where you come across things that you’re like, “I don’t want to necessarily report on this.” But I feel like, as an observer, I have to sort through all of these things and can try to be as clinical as possible about it. But, at the end of the day, you’re a human being, and you know that this has consequences, and so I think it’s a work in progress, and this is why I’m excited about the scholarship that’s actually tapping into this vein and talking more about it, because I don’t think we do a good enough job. So maybe that’s the answer, which is to say that developing context and familiarity with the group and presenting a true sense of who this group that you’re examining, in my case the Latinx community, particularly young people, and not giving a one-sided view that meets my objective to get a publication out of it. I think that the thing is, can we give these people a sense of wholeness, completeness, dignity before we talk about them in this way? I think that is at least a step in the right direction

APSR: What was the big thing or things that maybe surprised, confounded or excited you as you were conducting your research or writing?

Roberto Carlos: I think the surprising thing that I would probably say is the level of agency that I don’t think I realized was actually there when it comes to these young people and how we think about the process playing out within that family. So, I’m currently writing a book on political socialization, and the traditional narrative about political socialization is it’s largely a top-down narrative, so think of children as empty vessels that parents fill up with political norms and values. But there’s more of a reciprocal thing happening in certain communities, and I think in immigrant communities, in particular, you see this dynamic play out. Young people are not only empowered with this skillset that translates as they turn into adults, but actually, within that very time period, they have way more agency than I think we give them credit for. That leads to things, like purchasing power, that you probably wouldn’t think of teenagers having decisions about – about where to live, about where to shop, all of these things. They’re entrepreneurs in more ways than I initially expected.

APSR: How do you see your research fitting into current discussions on political inequality outside of academia? How do you think your findings could be potentially mobilized by activists, organizers, or those communities?

Roberto Carlos: So, this is only tangentially related to the findings that I discussed, but I do hint at them, which is, I talk about the fact that young people in the Latinx community, particularly those who have immigrant parents – because of the sense of agency – they can also behave as, what I labeled, political brokers, which means, instead of just language brokering, they’re also trying to help their parents navigate the political environment around them.

Part of the larger project is looking at the work that these young adults are doing to mobilize their parents, because I think, for a long time, if you are an activist and you’re saying, “What’s the best way to reach out to the immigrant community?” I would say reach out to their children. Convince their children that this is good for their parents and you’re going to go a long way in convincing, not only those kids that this is good, but you’re going to convince their parents. We know that immigrants take roughly about 20 years before they develop their political chops in the United States. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that their kids are coming of age around that time, and I think that’s kind of the missing ingredient. The best way to mobilize is convince the kids of immigrants that this is good for their families and, I bet you, you see that take off.

APSR: Is there anything else you want readers to know about your article? Anything that had to be left on the cutting room floor? Or how you see this research moving forward?

Roberto Carlos: So two things – one in terms of what was left on the cutting room floor and then to moving forward. So, in terms of what was left on the cutting room floor, what I found is not exclusively a Latinx immigrant thing. I think you see this dynamic play out across several immigrant communities. I think language matters. I think language is a big part of the story, but it is not the only thing that matters. This is anecdotal, but I have a small contingent of immigrant students from the Caribbean, and they talk about the cultural navigation that they have to do for their parents and the kind of cachet that buys them within their community. In the Polish community – I’ve seen evidence of this already happening when I have done some fieldwork. But I think that this mechanism we’re seeing play out has actually happened in several different communities. So the statement I made earlier about activists trying to engage children, I think that applies to more than just the Latinx community.

In terms of future work, I think the dynamic between immigrants and their children is a big part of the puzzle about why we don’t necessarily see political engagement. As we come to understand that dynamic, more and more, I think that this is going to start making sense. We’re going to miss the boat if we ignore that dynamic in terms of what’s happening 10, 20 years down the road when we’re like, “Well, where’s this coming from?” My argument is that it’s coming from a lot of the pushing that the children of immigrants did to get not only themselves involved but their parents involved.

– Roberto F. Carlos, University of Georgia

– Doctor Carlos’ APSR article is available free of charge until the end of November 2021