Guest Column
Double-speak, inaction hurt GOP Hispanic outreach efforts
- Double-speak, inaction hurt GOP Hispanic outreach efforts
- By Gil Cisneros
There are no doubts the Republican Party needs Hispanics, both as party members and as voters, if Republicans want to win the 2008 presidential election.
Recently (May 6), the former Republican National Committee Chairman, Ken Mehlman, said, “Hispanic outreach is crucial to the GOP,” adding that “Smart Republicans who have listened to, and offered solutions to, concerns of Hispanic-Americans have done even better” in local, state and even national elections that those Republican who did not seek the Hispanic vote.
“Hispanics, the fastest-growing and most conservative segment of the population are natural Republicans. The question is whether we will reach out and welcome these new voters into our ranks,” Chairman Mehlman remarked.
Mehlman (who served as chairman from 2005-2007) said he wants Hispanics to feel that “Mi partido es su partido” (My party is your party). However, it is clear that not all the GOP leadership shares this welcoming attitude towards Hispanics.
Some Republicans openly say it, making very difficult the task of those of us who would like to see again in 2008 more than 40 percent of Hispanics voting for a Republican presidential candidate, as it happened in 2004.
The following statements are examples of thoughtless, unfounded and bigoted comments by Republicans. It needs to be made very clear these comments do not express the views or the positions of the Republican National Hispanic Assembly (RNHA) or the Republican National Committee (RNC).
In fact, our suggestion for those who made this kind of remarks is to retract their comments immediately and resign from their GOP posts. We cannot allow any person holding a position of power be so openly bigoted. This goes way beyond freedom of speech.
For example, on April 28, 2007, it was reported that Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck, a Republican, said “The cavalry is coming!” after learning that the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will potentially open an office in Greeley, Colorado.
If ICE officers are “the cavalry,” who then are the immigrants? Is this Republican elected official insinuating that immigrants should be displaced and send to reservations, as the cavalry did to Native Americans?
That very same day, D.A. King, founder of The American Resistance Foundation, spoke at a Newton County (Georgia) Republican meeting, saying, “(Immigrants) are not here to mow your lawn - they're here to blow up your buildings and kill your children, and you, and me.”
According Jerry Gonzalez, Executive Director of the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials (GALEO), GALEO asked the local GOP leadership “to denounce the inflammatory and baseless statements made by D.A. King,” but “We have heard nothing from GOP leadership so far.”
Gonzalez feels “Georgia has created a very hostile environment towards all immigrants” precisely at a time when “Our nation, and particularly the state of Georgia, both continue to depend upon immigrant labor for our economy.”
Buck’s and King’s remarks happened the same week that a prominent Republican, Don Larsen, Chairman of the Utah County District 65 in Utah, submitted a formal resolution to the Utah County Republican Convention, saying that immigration from Latin America was “Satan’s plan to destroy the freedom of all people.”
The resolution was eventually defeated at the Utah County GOP convention (held on April 28). However, as reported by the local media, another Utah Republican delegate, Joe Ferguson, said he agreed with Larsen. According to Ferguson, “The devil is involved” in immigration issues because undocumented immigrants are “Marxist,” and “Marxism is the devil.”
Don Larsen is an 80 year old man whose extreme views by no means reflect the majority of Republicans in Utah. Ferguson, on the other hand, should read more about Hispanic traditional values before claiming all immigrants are Marxist.
These well-publicized remarks do not help our current recruitment efforts of Latinos into the GOP. And we didn’t even mention Congressman (and presidential candidate) Tom Tancredo and his constant anti-immigrant rhetoric.
However, it is not only what Republican say, it is also what they don’t say. Even more, what they don’t want to hear or learn is also revealing. Recently, for example, both a prominent Colorado businessman who supports Tancredo, and also Colorado State Rep. David Balmer, Assistant House Minority Leader, canceled their subscriptions to the Colorado RHNA email list.
That action asking for removal from the Colorado GOP Hispanic list indicates that those GOP leaders have not made the Hispanic community a priority. They should rethink their decision and choose to help Hispanic Republicans to involve more Hispanics in the party.
Hispanics already face many challenges. A report by the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics released on April 29, 2007, reveals Hispanic drivers who are stopped by police are more than twice as likely as whites to be subjected to a search.
Another report, in this case by the Southern Poverty Law Center, says the number of hate groups, including the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis and skinhead groups, has risen by 40 percent since 2000. And these hate groups are now targeting Latin Americans, particularly Mexicans, “in an alarming number.”
All that means Hispanics will be now even more cautious than before in deciding to participate in any political activity.
We need to overcome all those barriers and reach out to Hispanics. As RNC Chairman Mehlman said, “The majority party in the 21st century will be the party that reaches out to Hispanics.”
What should the GOP do to attract Latinos? Chairman Mehlman proposes several steps, including new policies to provide better access to education, health care, and homeownership, and, of course, a solution to the immigration problem.
However, building a wall at the Mexican-American border is not a solution to our immigration problem. In fact, that wall sends the wrong message to all people in Latin American, saying to them they are not welcome here, giving the impression we don’t want to business with Latin America.
In building a wall at the border, we are also building a wall around ourselves, telling the millions of good Hispanic citizens who contribute every day to the economy, culture and safety of this country that they are not welcome in our party.
No party agenda should ever include ethnic fear and bias as the basis to solve social, cultural and economic problems. We should stop the tasteless and inexcusable attacks on Hispanics now.
- We also need to take some practical steps now, not in late 2008. The decision is ours. As the saying goes, “Don’t come to us on election day and eat our tamales, expecting us to vote for you.”
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- Gilberto (Gil) Cisneros is the State Chair of the Colorado Republican National Hispanic Assembly, and the President and CEO of the Chamber of the Americas, a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to facilitate commerce and understanding between the businesses and governments of the Western Hemisphere.
Contact at: gil@chamberoftheamericas.com
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed by HispanicVista.com (www.hispanicvista.com) without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)