Can a Hispanic vote for Trump?

By Renaldy J. Gutierrez*

Nobody can tell you how to vote, that is a matter of conscience and principles, of values and community interest. However, we can reflect together, and we should, about certain issues affecting us, as Hispanics, in this election, statements that have been made and actions that will be taken, in particular, by the Republican candidate for the Presidency. History may also be helpful in this endeavor as it illuminates the present and guide us to the future

It does not matter how long have we lived in this country or how integrated we are into the American way of life, because we immigrants will never cease to be what we are, especially those values and principles we were raised with and that are part of our personality, as Hispanics, whether Colombian, Argentinean, Nicaraguan or from any other Latin American country.

Let us then reflect on those issues discussed in the political debate about immigrants and Hispanics in particular.

In speeches and rallies the Republican candidate has disparaged immigrants, denigrating us as if we were subhuman; garbage to be discarded, people who have no right to be here; and even less, to be part of the American society. That sentiment trickles down. We saw the Governor of Florida treating groups of immigrants in other states as mere garbage, forcing them out of one state and moving them up North to another as if they were a commodity or simple garbage to be removed and disposed of. That is what the Nazi in Hitler’s Germany did against the Jewish people, seventy years ago, reduced them to concentration camps and then exterminated millions of them in crematoriums or other ways of swift extermination. We can rightly ask ourselves today, where or how will this rhetoric end with us, how far will they go to eliminate the Hispanic people from their sight?

We have also heard the Republican candidate refer to Hispanic immigrants as “vermin,” like rats or roaches that need to be done away with and most surely exterminated to prevent contamination and disease. That is what we do when we find an infestation of rats or roaches in our homes. The Republican candidate talked about immigrants from Latin America or other countries. Now we should recall that Hitler spoke and acted in the same way when referring to the Jewish population, and we know what happened to them at the end.  That kind of talk leads to harsh and deadly consequences. It is not (it was not then and it is  not now) talk to fuel the Republican candidate’s base, as it inevitably calls for drastic action, such as harassment and “removal”. We need to ask ourselves again, where will this take us? What will happen to those immigrants who have found their “heaven” in this country of opportunity and peace? If we look at his rhetoric, the intensity of his speeches, and the continuing threats, we must conclude that a real danger lies ahead. Moreover, the Republican candidate said a little while ago that those evil consequences will fall even upon immigrants who are now citizens of the United States.

The latest derogatory assertions made by the Republican candidate went even deeper into the human nature of the immigrants when he said that immigrants have been poisoning the blood of. America and that we, immigrants, have “genes”, that would incline us to commit crimes, horrible crimes against other people, innocent people. This notion perhaps will require the government to intern the immigrants in camps to be tested to determine what “genes” they have and perhaps to subject them to those horrific “medical” procedures like lobotomies as the Nazi government also did before. This issue then becomes a question of race, more specifically of a supposed inferior race, in the mind of the Republican candidate. This notion does away with the principle that lies at the foundation of our country that all men and women are created equal, with liberty and justice for all. The assertions he has made, clearly indicate, that for him, we are not equal, we immigrants do not deserve neither justice nor liberty.

We must ask ourselves how far that notion will be carried along and how far down immigrants will be pushed.  We immigrants are not garbage, vermin, or so intrinsically evil that we deserve to be discarded or done away with. We are human beings, entitled to be treated as such, with dignity and respect.  The Republican candidate seems to be incapable of understanding that and even less to embrace, as he should, the sacred principles of our country’s founding.

Now one question is far more important, can you as a Hispanic immigrant vote for him?

*By Renaldy J. Gutierrez, is a Florida Attorney, former President of the Nicaraguan-American Chamber of Commerce in Miami, Florida and former President of the Inter-American Bar Association, Washington D. C.