Latinx Voters described as the “Sleeping Giant” is a racist trope that dates to the 1960s because it connotes the sleepy Mexican yawning “manana.”

Michael Powell, Cecilia Ballí, and Betsabeth Monica Lugo have clearly demonstrated in their recent study that Texas Latinx voters are not sleepy.

We found that the popular metaphor of the Latino electorate as a “sleeping giant” is vasty inadequate and misleading — Latino voters are not asleep, but instead will continue to strengthen progressively as an electorate as voting habits grow and as the political system properly responds to them. (5)