Taking a look at me, you wouldn’t assume I grew up in a predominantly Hispanic community. But my mother is Nicaraguan and that meant my family and I spent many weekends with our Nicaraguan, Guatemalan, and Honduran neighbors. From the late-morning on into the night we’d spend many days cooking, laughing, and jawing about current events.
Believe me when I tell you this: The “Hispanic community” doesn’t lock arms on every political issue—they never have, and never will. That’s why I used italics there - I use it with a sense of irony, because I think the term lacks meaning.
Yes, Hispanic-Americans exist, and are the largest growing demographic in the country, but the label simplifies reality. It takes a vast and complicated coalition of nationalities and lumps them all together, completely removing the cultural, lingual, and religious distinctions that make these communities what they are.
Unlike the Democratic leaders and activists, I don’t believe one can sum up the Hispanic-American community in one broad brushstroke. This is one of the reasons why so many Latino voters flocked to the Republican party this election, because Democrats continued to neglect the needs of individual families and voters, instead assuming they could win Hispanics on identity-based politics.
Of course, the issue of immigration stands as a major concern, and is an issue Democrats get completely wrong. They claim conservatives hate immigrants and want to drag them kicking and screaming back across the border. That’s just flatly untrue. Yes, there’s been some crazy rhetoric that’s come from specific members of the GOP, and I disapprove of any unguided or baseless accusations about immigrants of any nationality. However, I find that the mainline Republican stance lines up with more and more Hispanic voters: We want people to enter this country, but want them to do so the right way.
Many of the folks I’ve met have family members who’ve waited 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, or 10 years to get into this country legally. They wait in growing frustration, watching record numbers flood the border illegally while progressive politicians continue trying to reward those who do it the wrong way. What Democrats don’t get is that these folks left their country because their leaders back home went the wrong way every day. They want to be part of the right way.
It amazes me how progressive-types can’t step out of their ivory tower for long enough to recognize their strategy for courting the Hispanic Community is backward and patronizing, assuming that every person of Hispanic descent wants an open, lawless border.
From there, the issue only unravels further. Democrats constantly fail to consider that many of these families that assimilate legally from South of the border go on to join the military, local and state police forces, and border patrols agencies at rates that now outpace almost any other group. So what do you think will happen as the party continues to unite around these anti law enforcement, anti-American ideas?
When it comes down to it, the folks I grew up with and talk to now still care deeply about the thing we call the “Rule of Law.” They want that. I want it, and it’s a big reason why the Democrats were rejected at the ballot box by Latino (not Latinx) voters of all nationalities on Nov. 5th.
