http://nbclatino.com/2012/08/23/growing-number-of-latinos-have-no-religious-affiliation/
A Pew Hispanic Center’s National Survey in April 2012 shows Latinos have become increasingly less religious with newer generations. The survey explains while only about one in ten foreign-born Latinos are religiously unaffiliated (9 percent), twice as many native-born Latinos are unaffiliated (20 percent). The trend continues to increase in third-generation Latinos, with 24 percent saying they are unaffiliated.
Juhem Navarro-Rivera, a research associate at the Public Religion Research Institute, says his data shows 18 percent of young Latinos claim to have no religious affiliation, and he thinks that number will grow. “This has accelerated since 2008. The difference was not so large,” says Navarro-Rivera.
This follows the general trend in the U.S. with more and more young people deciding religion is not relevant to their lives, according to another Pew Poll also from last year.
The Pew Hispanic Center reports one-in-five (19 percent) Latino adults say they are Protestant, and 14 percent say they are unaffiliated with any religion.
It’s not just Latinos; the 2012 Millennial Values Survey indicates many young Americans aged 18 to 24—identified in the survey as “millennials”—are leaving their childhood faith and ending up mostly unaffiliated. Overall, college-age millennials are more likely than the general population to have no claim to a religion.
http://religions.pewforum.org/reports
More than one-quarter of American adults (28%) have left the faith in which they were raised in favor of another religion - or no religion at all. If change in affiliation from one type of Protestantism to another is included, 44% of adults have either switched religious affiliation, moved from being unaffiliated with any religion to being affiliated with a particular faith, or dropped any connection to a specific religious tradition altogether.
The survey finds that the number of people who say they are unaffiliated with any particular faith today (16.1%) is more than double the number who say they were not affiliated with any particular religion as children. Among Americans ages 18-29, one-in-four say they are not currently affiliated with any particular religion.
People moving into the unaffiliated category outnumber those moving out of the unaffiliated group by more than a three-to-one margin. At the same time, however, a substantial number of people (nearly 4% of the overall adult population) say that as children they were unaffiliated with any particular religion but have since come to identify with a religious group. This means that more than half of people who were unaffiliated with any particular religion as a child now say that they are associated with a religious group. In short, the Landscape Survey shows that the unaffiliated population has grown despite having one of the lowest retention rates of all "religious" groups.
You can also look at the experience of black Americans and political affiliation.
Of all the major racial and ethnic groups in the United States, black Americans are the most likely to report a formal religious affiliation. Even among those blacks who are unaffiliated, three-in-four belong to the "religious unaffiliated" category (that is, they say that religion is either somewhat or very important in their lives), compared with slightly more than one-third of the unaffiliated population overall.
African-Americans are also consistently among the Democrats' strongest faction - and this is based upon the alignment of the Republican Party with racists after the Civil Rights Act. There's nothing to suggest that the Republican Party of old white guys has anything to offer immigrants and their descendants either. The Republican stance on immigration has not endeared them to the people who make up the largest group of immigrants to the U.S.
Issues of a living wage matter for those who immigrate and work to assimiliate, as do worker protections. ALSO, many Latin Americans are of African descent.
I don't have experience living in a Latin American country, but I do have experience living in a "Catholic" country and a lot of people in those nations in Western Europe are "cultural Catholics." They christen their children, go to Midnight Mass at Christmas, but vote for social democratic candidates and support social democracy.
Liberation Theology has a tradition in Latin America - but this has been opposed by the Catholic hierarchy. Protestant evangelicals do not offer anything that aligns with that tradition in their teachings as they currently exist.
Another trend concerns education. The more education someone receives, the less likely that person is to be religiously affiliated. As immigrant children gain access to more educational resources, there's no reason to believe they would not also follow that same demographic.
We already see that Latin Americans follow the trend of "no religious affiliation" for younger people in the information, above.
http://repository.berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/120419BC-PRRIMillennialValuesSurveyReport.pdf
Only 57% of "millenials" i.d. as white. They claim identification with the Democratic Party at 33% but don't claim a party most of all (44%) - but they "lean" toward Democrats by 58%, versus 39% for the Republican Party.
THE MOST IMPORTANT ISSUE FOR THEM IS JOBS AND THE ECONOMY.
That's what Democrats need to pay attention to now. Minimum wage is too low. People cannot afford to rent an apt. working 40 hours a week. That's a problem for EVERYONE in this nation - that impacts everyone because this means people have little or no disposable income or they are sharing a house and don't need to purchase things for their own, etc.
So, it seems to me that the Democrats would benefit from a focus on the economy in ways that benefit the 99% rather than the 1%, if they want to secure a lasting majority in this nation.
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