Guest Column
Hispanic Republican keeps stirring the pot
- Hispanic Republican keeps stirring the pot
- By T Griego
- Rocky Mountain News
- May 10, 2007
A recent squall has developed within a small circle of Hispanic Republicans, a subset of which has been consumed by a single question: Why won't Gil Cisneros just keep quiet?
The question is not phrased in this blunt way. It would not do to accuse a man of lack of tact in his communications with elected Republicans by employing poor manners oneself. Especially not with a man of Cisneros' stature - founder and president of the Chamber of the Americas, newly elected chairman of the state chapter of the Republican National Hispanic Assembly, possessor of a resume in which both Presidents Reagan and Bush the First make an appearance. No, the question comes in the form of suggestions: You should tone it down. We need to be team players.
The rumbling began within the past few weeks, coming from within a group of 300 people who receive Cisneros' frequent e-mail dispatches. By last week, it had grown loud enough that a Democratic friend of Cisneros' asked, half-jokingly: "Why are you trying to commit suicide, Gil?"
Cisneros has blasted Republican politicians in Georgia and Utah with "a bad Republican is a bad Republican!" A fool, he pronounced a Utah county convention delegate who called illegal immigration a stealth weapon by which Satan plans to destroy the free world. Of course, no one sane would have defended that particular position, so Cisneros did not run into any flak until he disagreed with one of Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo's supporters who argued that the congressman was not anti-immigrant, but anti-illegal-immigrant. Cisneros raised more eyebrow! s when he criticized Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck, a Republican, for greeting the news of the possible opening of an immigration office in Greeley with: "The cavalry is coming!"
"If immigration is the cavalry then who are the immigrants?" Cisneros asked, adding - in his own fit of hyperbole - that the district attorney was insinuating "immigrants should be displaced and (sent) to reservations."
This week, he sent a tsk-tsk note to Rep. David Balmer, a Centennial Republican, who begged off Cisneros' distribution list saying he can't keep up with all his e-mail.
"The decision is yours," Cisneros wrote, asking Balmer to reconsider. "But as the saying goes, 'Don't come to us on Election Day and eat our tamales and want us to vote for you.' "
"Eat our tamales?" I ask Cisneros when I reach him by phone. He laughs.
"I know I'm being criticized, but what am I going to do? Run?" he says after we meet. "I'm 63 years old. I still have a few years left. I want to change some things and I'm not going to apologize for being a Mexican."
I don't share all of Cisneros' politics. Nor do I care whether Hispanics register Democrat or Republican, I just wish they would register. But, I rarely pass protesters waving signs on a corner without wondering what last straw drove each of them to the street.
"I can't tell you that it was one thing," Cisneros tells me. He comes from a long line of New Mexicans and is the son of a mother who was Catholic and Democrat and a father who was Protestant and Republican. Cisneros grew up in Denver, raised by his aunt, a socially conservative Democrat. He was a Democrat himself until the early '80s, when conversations with Mexican businessmen who touted the free market persuaded him to switch parties. "I'm convinced that more than half of Hispanics are Republicans," he says. "They just don't know it."
What drives him to his computer these days is the fear that overheated rhetoric on illegal immigration by Republican politicians is driving Hispanics away from the party. Democrat Hispanics already outnumber Republican Hispanics by about 2-to-1, according to the Pew Hispanic Center. "Every time a Republican says something that is not just anti-illegal-immigration - there is room for us t! o disag ree on solutions there - but anti-Hispanic, it sets us back 10 years. It's basically stupidity with these guys."
In recent days, Cisneros has been receiving his fair share of "attaboys," and several Republican legislators have asked to meet for advice. Weld County DA Buck also called. After a cordial conversation, Buck wrote an e-mail of his own - which Cisneros, of course, distributed - explaining that the cavalry comment was meant to express relief that the county's fight against crime would be getting reinforcement.
"I think it was a misunderstanding," Buck told me. "I would have preferred that he speak to me privately first, but as an elected official I wouldn't get very far if I had a thin skin. I think he's trying to do the right thing to increase sensitivity among elected Republicans and the Hispanic community."
Cisneros says he's in a position now where he can do some good, a Republican who can hold fellow Republicans accountable, a Hispanic who can bring other Hispanics to the party, a man who's had enough.
(Editor’s note: Gil Cisneros is President and CEO of the Chamber of the Americas based in Denver, Colorado. Contact Gil at: gil@chamberoftheamericas.com)
Letter from reader to Gil Cisneros:
I just have to tell you that I am so honored to know you and definitely support what you are doing here in exposing the truth and opening up a forum for honest and straightforward conversation. I am a registered Democrat, but as of late have felt that there is a very thin line between either major party due to all the "hand washing" that goes on in politics. For me, the bottom line is that we are all human beings on this earth just trying to make it the best we can and maybe even get ahead in life. Although I do think we need some sort of reform here regarding illegal immigrants, I think we need to address the issue that this entire debate has led to the villification of hispanics as we all get lumped into it because of our skin color...despite the fact that many of us have been here before this was even the United States. This entire immigrant issue has become a platform for many of our more conservative/Republican politicans to e! xpose t heir bigotry and in my opinion, stupidity. I am not generalizing but rather stating that it appears that more conservative Republican's have come out of the closet so to speak on this immigrant issue and their true colors revealed.
As a younger person with still idealistic views of the world, it saddens me to see the families being ripped apart by the latest immigration raids. Again, to me we are all human beings and we all deserve a chance to succeed in life.... just like our ancestors before us. While I don't have exact numbers I do know that China is issued more visas to the U.S. than Mexico. So why is it okay for people of that country to come here to work and take high paying jobs from Americans or get an education here and go back to their country with that knowledge and its not okay for Mexicans to come here to build our homes, cook our food, clean our houses? For that matter, why is it not okay for them to come here and get an education and take it back to Mexico where they can actually help themselves? People from India do it all the time! I know this issue isn't just affecting illegal Mexican's but this group seems to be the "face" and victim of t! his deb ate.
I hope that you continue to challenge people in your sphere of influence to think about what they say and certainly how they view their fellow man. We are all created equal. Unfortunately, in this day and age there is still that mentality out there that "If you ain't white...you ain't right!" Hopefully this is the view of only a few people and as long as people like you continue to call them out and expose them for what they are... maybe this mentality will start to change. One can only hope.
- Vero
- Veronica Montoya
Broker Associate
Metro Brokers Downtown - Basham Investments
(303)868-8496
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