Washington Post
By Mary Jordan
July 13, 2015
It took a while for Edgar Galicia to realize that maybe Donald Trump had done him a favor.
As
it turns out, Trump’s disparaging comments about Mexicans have been a
morale boost to Latinos who see the sharp public rebuke of the
billionaire as evidence that they
are a rising force in the United States.
“At
first I was upset. I felt insulted,” when Trump called Mexicans
“criminals” and “rapists,” said Galicia, a graphic designer and business
leader in Kansas who is from
Mexico. “Now I see this as the wake-up moment, the time when our eyes
were opened to our power.”
“It’s
an ‘aha!’ moment,” agreed CiCi Rojas, chief executive of Central
Exchange, a large women’s business group in the Midwest. “This has
ignited the ordinary person,
those of Hispanic heritage. It’s motivating and mobilizing.”
Across
the country, Latino leaders say they are energized by the response from
Macy’s, NBC, NASCAR, Serta and a growing list of companies that have
decided to sever ties
with Trump because of his remarks. Latinos lit up social media and
online petitions to complain, and their complaints got heard. Trump,
however unintentionally, many said, has triggered what some are calling
“the Latino moment.”
Arturo
Vargas, executive director of the National Association of Latino
Elected Officials, a network of more than 6,000 Latino elected and
appointed officials in the country,
said in the past public figures have made disparaging remarks about
Hispanics but there was little, if any, fallout.
“Now the moment has arrived, a standard has been set. You can’t do that and get away with it,” he said.
The country’s stunning demographic changes have a lot to do with the new corporate and mainstream respect Latinos are feeling.
Nationally,
the number of Hispanics has soared from 9 million in 1970 to 55 million
— nearly one in six Americans. In California, the number of people who
identify themselves
as Hispanic surpasses those who classify themselves as white, according
to a new census report.
In
many parts of the Midwest, Latinos are driving population growth, like
here in this city in Kansas where Latinos account for more than 30
percent of its 150,000 residents.
In
the past 15 years a swell of Latino immigrants moved here and reversed a
steady decline in population, said Mayor Mark Holland, a
fourth-generation Kansan.
Holland
said big grocery stores know their customers and stock, for example, a
wide variety of salsas and other Latin American specialties.
Holland,
a Protestant pastor, said many Latinos are Catholic and purchase “Jesus
candles” — votives with Jesus’s likeness on them — so now you can find
those in the grocery
store, too.
The mayor says his city is richer for its diversity.
“What
Trump has done is pull back the thin veil of racism underlying the
immigration debate” and arguments against a path to citizenship for
law-abiding, hardworking Latinos,
he said.
Holland
said Trump’s unapologetic bashing of Mexicans has started “a great
coming-out party” for Latinos, who are saying, “We are here. We don’t
have to pretend we are
not.”
Even
Latinos who never paid much attention to politics are tuning in —
Trump’s remarks are featured prominently on Spanish-language television,
Facebook and Twitter, and
anti-Trump chants have become wildly popular at televised soccer
matches.
“People
who normally don’t talk about politics are,” said Cris Medina, chief
executive of Guadalupe Centers, which provide social services in the
Kansas City metro area.
“This has focused them on the candidates.”
Medina
said he went from being “mad at Trump” to being “mobilized by Trump”
when he realized that the negative comments were uniting Latinos from
Puerto Rico, Guatemala
and many other countries and causing them to pay attention to the
presidential nomination campaign.
Medina
said that, so far, he has heard only “disappointing” or “ lukewarm
responses” from most Republicans — though he thinks Jeb Bush “gets it
more, understands more,”
noting that Bush has a Mexican-born wife. But he said he felt Democrats
were more forcefully repudiating Trump and embracing immigration
reform.
On
Monday, just across the river in Kansas City, Mo., Democratic
presidential candidates Hillary Rodham Clinton, Bernie Sanders and
Martin O’Malley will be addressing
thousands of Latinos at the annual convention of the National Council
of La Raza, a national civil rights advocacy group. What they have to
say on immigration is drawing new interest — and more media coverage in
Spanish-language media outlets — partly because
of Trump’s remarks.
Vargas,
from NALEO, said it was unclear how the Trump fallout would affect
other Republican candidates because “Trump is such an outlandish
character.”
But,
he added, “I think Donald Trump will go down in history like Pete
Wilson,” referring to the Republican governor of California in the
mid-1990s who backed Proposition
187, an anti-immigrant bill that caused enormous backlash among
Latinos.
On
Saturday, Trump continued to rail against undocumented immigrants,
saying to a large crowd gathered in Arizona: “We have to take back the
heart of our country. . .
. These are people that shouldn’t be in our country. They flow in like
water.”
There
will always be those who do not want people in their neighborhood who
speak another language or look a little different, many Latinos said.
But
Latinos have “reached a turning point,” said Carlos Gomez, president of
the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Greater Kansas City. They realize
they have clout, especially
if they stand together, noting that Latino purchasing power is
estimated at over $1.5 trillion.
Before
Trump started his anti-Mexican rant, Macy’s had been making a concerted
pitch to Latinos, Gomez said, recalling a prominent Macy’s ad featuring
mariachis this spring.
“It’s a special time” he said, because big U.S. corporations are standing with them, telling them they matter.
He said the message Latinos are hearing is: “You are the customer. You are the voter.”
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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