Research

Publications

Zárate, Marques G., Enrique Quezada-Llanes, and Angel D. Armenta. 2024. “Se Habla Español: Spanish-language Appeals and Candidate Evaluations in the United States.” American Political Science Review 118 (1): 363–79.

Political candidates use Spanish-language appeals in efforts to increase their support among Hispanic voters. We argue that candidates, Hispanic or not, can use Spanish to signal closeness to Hispanics and posit that the effectiveness of these appeals is conditional on proficiency. To test this, we run two experiments where participants listen to an audio clip of a hypothetical candidate’s stump speech. We vary the ethnicity of the candidate (Anglo or Hispanic) and the language of the speech (English, non-native Spanish, and native-like Spanish). We find that Hispanic support for the Anglo and Hispanic candidates is higher in the native-like Spanish condition compared with the English-only condition. Relative to the English condition, non-native Spanish does not increase support for the Anglo candidate, but it decreases support for the Hispanic candidate. We find mixed effects for Anglo participants. Our results suggest that candidates can effectively appeal to Hispanic voters using Spanish-language messages.

Olson, Shayla and Enrique Quezada-Llanes. 2024. “How Sermons Became More Political in the Trump Era.” In Paul A. Djupe and A.E. Sokhey (Eds), Trump, White Evangelical Christians, and American Politics: Change and Continuity. University of Pennsylvania Press.

Quezada-Llanes, Enrique. 2020. “U.S. Citizenship Test.” In Voting and Political Representation in America: Issues and Trends, ed. Mark P. Jones.

Under Review

“Ethnic, Linguistic, and Religious Minority Participation and Representation in the United States.” Oxford Bibliographies in Political Science.

Work in Progress

“When Candidates Become Preachers: Religious Appeals in Campaign Advertisements in the U.S. from 2010-2020” (with Pedro Magarao Ribeiro*)

“The Contours of Latine Interests” (with Marques G. Zárate)

“The Role of Spanish Language on Latino Group Consciousness”

“The Use of Shibboleths in Political Campaigns”

“Faithful and (A)political: Reexamining the Impact of Religion on Political Participation.”