Our Latino political success is dependent on our ability of overcoming the immigration issue
Yonel Letellier Sosa*
When we speak about Latino growth and how to empower our communities politically, we must first do an auto-analysis of ourselves. We must determine what are some of the most important issues affecting us and are these issues being addressed at a local and national level. What better starting point of our analysis than the current presidential election that has been front page news throughout the nation for the past several months, in particular the Republican debates that have been spearheaded by the actor of “The Apprentice,” Donald Trump.
Donald Trump, who is a native of Queens, has been portrayed as a successful businessman and candidate for the presidency of the United States of America. But upon further inspection, we find that he is practically just continuing what he learned during his portrayal as a successful businessman in “The Apprentice” to convince Americans that he is the right candidate and has what it takes. He uses the same ideas, script and rhetoric that he used for many of the participants and future entrepreneurs of the show. Recently, it was revealed by Trump himself that his father had given him a loan of only 1 million dollars in seed money to start his own business empire, an amount worth many times over in today’s standards.
I then ask how can he say that he is the definition of American success when instead of climbing the ladder of success he rather took the elevator. And how can he advise and educate others about his business success when it is obvious he had a head start, or let us just say he took a more direct route. Additionally, he has attacked the Latino community and has even done us the favor of framing the “immigration” issue for us, as it is usually done by right wing politicians. Yet, I find it amazing that no one, not even those who are well connected politically, has come out en masse to denounce all his racist and derogatory statements against the Latino community.
Racism in American society is a dying breed, and it is being resuscitated artificially by any means possible. Trump is a byproduct of that racist society which feeds on the poor and defenseless, and has no place in the future of America. What is most appalling is that they are injecting this hatred into mainstream America in the hope that it will stick and begin a trend. They believe that if a lie is told often enough, then it will eventually turn into reality. Very much like Trump’s scripted show in which people still believe that it is a true-life reality show. We all remember Jerry Springer who was the king of reality TV and how he fooled us all making us believe that it was all real. Trump is today’s Jerry Springer and we must not allow ourselves to be fooled again.
A Pew Research Center survey from 2013 on registered Latino voters demonstrated that there were other issues that were much more important than immigration. Some 57% called education extremely important, while jobs and the economy obtained 52%. Health care had 43% and immigration only 32%. Yet for many years the immigration issue has dominated the national agenda and has been framed for us to be used by non-Latinos against ourselves and for political gain. If we are to achieve any type of political success in the years to come, then we must include the immigration issue as well as all other important issues in the discussion. Herein lies the key to our future success and development.
*Yonel Letellier Sosa is a community and political leader, president of the Association of Latin American Leaders and past president of the New Visions Democratic Club