The 2016 presidential election is largely split across racial lines that seem thicker with each passing week.

Donald Trump’s visit with Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto, announced at an Everett rally last Tuesday, has likely done little to alleviate racial tensions.

What does this say for the future of a country that once bore the slogan, “Out of many, one?”

Even as the United States becomes more diverse, the popularity of Trump is a symptom of our collective fear and isolation.

In 2007, Harvard sociologist Robert Putnam found that people were less trusting, less secure and less involved with the other people than they had been in the past.

His study, “E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-first Century,” was published during a time when the U.S. faced mass immigration and a serious demographic shift.

According to Putnam’s study, the numbers got worse in areas with greater diversity for people of all ethnicities and their distrust and fear extended to people of all groups – including their own.

The people Putnam studied felt less confident in their ability to improve their lives and work with people from other groups, but became more involved in protests and pushes for reform along the lines of identity, what we call today identity politics.

People from more diverse areas had fewer friends and reported those friendships to be weaker than those reported by people living in less diverse areas.

The friendships of WSU’s Latino students like Luis Monfeda have felt the strain. Donald Trump’s campaign seems to highlight differences in the country that people wouldn’t talk about before.

“There’s a lot of fear in the things he says,” Monfeda said.

It seems that neither candidate in the upcoming election fits the bill to many young Latino voters.

The result is a feeling of voicelessness even though a win for Clinton will be a win for women’s rights, said Cecilia Arevalo, another student at WSU’s Chicana/o Latina/o Student Center.

That feeling isn’t unique. According to the RAND Corporation, a nonprofit organization for studying public policy, feeling voiceless is the single greatest predictor of voting for Trump in his overwhelmingly white and male base of support.

It’s not uncommon for people faced with this election to feel both fear and optimism either.

“There’s a lot of work to do,” Monfeda said of the current situation. It echoes a sentiment across the lines of race and politics that things can and should be better for everyone in the U.S.

Distrust, fear and isolation from larger communities are the hallmarks of this election cycle, but in this instance, take this message from Putnam’s research: look past Trump and look past 2016.

The definition of ‘we’ is something that can and will change over time. We won’t be looking at a first for Americans, Putnam wrote; the current struggle for the U.S. is short-term.

He pointed to different ethnicities of those who today consider themselves white people in America, but one hundred years ago were divided and distrusted one another.

They were immigrants in great numbers. They didn’t intermarry. They were feared.

The idea of getting cold feet for a partner on the basis of their ethnicity is as absurd to us today as this election year may seem after a few more generations. All the gains of unity, prosperity and increased creativity are likely waiting too, Putnam said.

Remember now that many people voting this November are voting from the same feelings, even though they might vote for different candidates.

Even though we live – and look – different, we all want to belong in America.

Don Cooper is a junior political science major from Pasco. He can be contacted at 335-2290 or by [email protected]. The opinions expressed in this column are not necessarily those of the staff of The Daily Evergreen or those of The Office of Student Media.