The author, an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at Northwestern University, was born and raised on the northwest side of Chicago where he participated in Puerto Rican activist projects. In the Preface he recalls that in 2006 he first questioned how his Puerto Rican identity could so easily coexist with his newly adopted Latino identity (a term he prefers for this historical work). As part of a graduate research project, he was exploring why local Puerto Rican elected officials, all citizens, became such ardent advocates of a “Latino” immigrant rights movement. He came to realize that part of the answer could be found in the “Latino” category itself. The fact that the community and the larger society had so quickly adopted it, and began speaking of a “Latino agenda,” helped make real the very entity they purportedly were simply describing. During his first year as a doctoral student at Brown, the 2010 census was taking place. He researched the census promotion campaigns that Latino politicians and activists were undertaking. All were excited about the prospect of documenting how quickly Rhode Island's Latino population was growing. In their eyes, Latino population growth was not just a statistic, it was a road to power. But all knew that this road was not necessarily a straight one. They worried that Latino growth might easily trigger a white backlash. They began engaging in what the author calls “population politics,” working out how to frame Latino population growth so that the public would see it in a positive light like they did.

This 2010 research evolved into Figures of the Future, which looks at how certain political figures (national Latino civil rights organizations) and demographic figures (present and projected numbers of Latinos) came to play a role in the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections. The author spent seven years participating in voter registration drives, attending conventions, interviewing Latino political figures, and collecting print and multimedia materials, all with the goal of better understanding how Latino demographic numbers were being marshalled for political ends. These years encompassed both the Obama and Trump administrations, a period of growing partisan polarization that provided the author with a clear view of how ethnoracial population trends get used in the political arena. The author identifies three tactics of population politics that Latino advocates used to press their case. The first is “forecasting,” painting a bright picture of the nation's future in which Latinos become firmly established as the nation's second largest ethnoracial group. The second tactic is “foreshadowing,” noting how current demographic trends, for instance, Latinos accounting for more than half of all U.S. population growth, will soon usher in even more dramatic ethnoracial change. The third tactic is “forewarning,” clearly outlining the political consequences that will result from ignoring these changes. The author writes the account chronologically, so the reader experiences both the high hopes of Latino leaders that comprehensive immigration reform would pass after Obama's victory in 2012, and their great disappointment when the legislation bogged down in the House of Representatives. The aftermath of Trump's victory in 2016 was even more devastating. The candidate who had called Mexican immigrants “rapists” and “murderers” had won.

In the Conclusion, the author questions the validity of the “demography is destiny” refrain. Population politics certainly is real, but it always is relational and can be used by multiple groups in multiple ways. There is a need for a follow-up book, one that documents how white nationalists have “forecasted,” “foreshadowed,” and “forewarned” using the same demographic figures as Latino advocates, only to arrive at a very different conclusion: Democracy will increasingly be a problem for them, and alternatives need to be considered. In this era, population politics has become a high-stakes game with our nation's future as the prize. —D.H.

作者是西北大学社会学系的助理教授，出生并成长于芝加哥西北侧，曾参与波多黎各激进主义项目。在序言中，他回忆说，在 2006 年，他第一次质疑他的波多黎各人身份如何能够如此轻松地与他新采用的拉丁裔身份（他更喜欢这部历史著作的一个术语）共存。作为研究生研究项目的一部分，他正在探索为什么当地的波多黎各民选官员，所有公民，都成为“拉丁裔”移民权利运动的热心倡导者。他开始意识到部分答案可以在“拉丁裔”类别本身中找到。事实上，社区和更大的社会如此迅速地采用了它，并开始谈论“拉丁裔议程，”帮助使他们据称只是描述的那个实体成为现实。在他作为布朗大学博士生的第一年，2010 年的人口普查正在进行中。他研究了拉丁裔政治家和活动家正在进行的人口普查宣传活动。所有人都对记录罗德岛拉丁裔人口增长速度的前景感到兴奋。在他们眼中，拉丁裔人口增长不仅仅是一个统计数据，而是一条通往权力的道路。但所有人都知道，这条路不一定是笔直的。他们担心拉丁裔的增长很容易引发白人反弹。他们开始参与作者所说的“人口政治”，研究如何确定拉丁裔人口增长的框架，以便公众像他们一样以积极的眼光看待它。2010年人口普查正在进行中。他研究了拉丁裔政治家和活动家正在进行的人口普查宣传活动。所有人都对记录罗德岛拉丁裔人口增长速度的前景感到兴奋。在他们眼中，拉丁裔人口增长不仅仅是一个统计数据，而是一条通往权力的道路。但所有人都知道，这条路不一定是笔直的。他们担心拉丁裔的增长很容易引发白人反弹。他们开始参与作者所说的“人口政治”，研究如何确定拉丁裔人口增长的框架，以便公众像他们一样以积极的眼光看待它。2010年人口普查正在进行中。他研究了拉丁裔政治家和活动家正在进行的人口普查宣传活动。所有人都对记录罗德岛拉丁裔人口增长速度的前景感到兴奋。在他们眼中，拉丁裔人口增长不仅仅是一个统计数据，而是一条通往权力的道路。但所有人都知道，这条路不一定是笔直的。他们担心拉丁裔的增长很容易引发白人反弹。他们开始参与作者所说的“人口政治”，研究如何确定拉丁裔人口增长的框架，以便公众像他们一样以积极的眼光看待它。所有人都对记录罗德岛拉丁裔人口增长速度的前景感到兴奋。在他们眼中，拉丁裔人口增长不仅仅是一个统计数据，而是一条通往权力的道路。但所有人都知道，这条路不一定是笔直的。他们担心拉丁裔的增长很容易引发白人反弹。他们开始参与作者所说的“人口政治”，研究如何确定拉丁裔人口增长的框架，以便公众像他们一样以积极的眼光看待它。所有人都对记录罗德岛拉丁裔人口增长速度的前景感到兴奋。在他们眼中，拉丁裔人口增长不仅仅是一个统计数据，而是一条通往权力的道路。但所有人都知道，这条路不一定是笔直的。他们担心拉丁裔的增长很容易引发白人反弹。他们开始参与作者所说的“人口政治”，研究如何确定拉丁裔人口增长的框架，以便公众像他们一样以积极的眼光看待它。

这项 2010 年的研究演变成“未来人物”，它着眼于某些政治人物（国家拉丁裔民权组织）和人口统计人物（目前和预计的拉丁裔人数）如何在 2012 年和 2016 年总统选举中发挥作用。作者花了七年时间参加选民登记活动、参加大会、采访拉丁裔政治人物以及收集印刷和多媒体材料，所有这些都是为了更好地了解拉丁裔人口数量是如何被编组用于政治目的的。这些年涵盖了奥巴马和特朗普政府，这是一个党派两极分化日益严重的时期，这使作者清楚地了解了种族人口趋势如何在政治舞台上得到利用。作者确定了拉丁裔倡导者用来施压的三种人口政治策略。第一个是“预测”，描绘了国家未来的光明前景，拉丁裔成为美国第二大种族群体。第二种策略是“预示”，指出当前的人口趋势，例如，占美国人口增长一半以上的拉丁裔，将很快迎来更加剧烈的种族变化。第三种策略是“预警”，清楚地概述了忽视这些变化将导致的政治后果。作者是按时间顺序写的，因此读者既感受到了拉丁裔领导人对 2012 年奥巴马获胜后全面移民改革将通过的寄予厚望，当立法在众议院陷入僵局时，他们感到非常失望。特朗普在 2016 年获胜的后果更具破坏性。曾称墨西哥移民为“强奸犯”和“杀人犯”的候选人获胜。

在结语中，作者质疑“人口就是命运”这句名言的正确性。人口政治当然是真实的，但它始终是关系性的，可以被多个群体以多种方式使用。需要一本后续的书，记录白人民族主义者如何使用与拉丁裔倡导者相同的人口数据“预测”、“预示”和“警告”，结果却得出了一个截然不同的结论：民主将对他们来说越来越成为一个问题，需要考虑替代方案。在这个时代，人口政治已成为一场以国家未来为赌注的高风险游戏。—DH