Down in the Trumps: Part 1
A young Hispanic mindset on a Trump Presidency
The word shocking has been used quite a bit in the last few days and I don’t plan on stopping the trend myself. The shocking results of the circus show that was known as the 2016 Presidential Election, has currently rocked, stunned, upset and flabbergasted millions of Americans, myself included, as it has finally reached an end. Donald J Trump has climbed the ladder of impossible and defeated Democratic Nominee Hilary Clinton in a truly historic election that most millennials will struggle to tell their grandchildren. After yet another year of African Americans being gunned down and killed by the lack of control and racism by police officers from around the nation, I constantly found myself questioning my every move and checking my rearview mirror for the boys in blue whenever they drive near me on the road, yet somehow, I find Trump sitting in the oval office a more terrifying experience. How this election’s results will effect me, I’m not really sure, I don’t live and never have lived in “Inner Cities,” and frankly, Trump’s views on African Americans haven’t been as brutal as his views on other ethnicities and cultures. My main concern is for my Hispanic, Muslim, and LGBTQ friends and their families and I took the time to sit down with a couple of them to get their reactions to the events of 11/9/16 or what will forever be known as “Trumpocalypse” to some.
Donald Trump has made countless comments about Hispanics that ranged from ridiculously insane to blatantly offensive. From threatening to build a wall around Mexican borders to accusing some of them of being rapists and killers, he has made quite the effort in ensuring that the Mexican people are offended and scared. Living in Los Angeles, you hear a lot of chatter about what people think will happen in the near future and the general consensus is not good. Some of my Hispanic friends have made jokes in the past about “being thrown over a wall” or “losing their parents,” but I’m sure that was made with the idea that Trump would not have made it this far; now that he has, the sweat beings to drip and the hands start to tremble. Though Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto tweeted “I trust that Mexico and the United States will continue tightening their links of cooperation and mutual respect,” that doesn’t put the minds of millions of Hispanics across the US at ease. I still have to ask, “what does a Trump presidency mean for the Hispanic community here in the U.S.? What will happen to my friends?” 79% of Hispanic votes went to Clinton, 18% went to Trump and 3% went to 3rd parties. This would be an all time low for Hispanic voters, with even Romney pulling 23% in 2012 and McCain with 25% 2008. To you 18%, I hope you take the time out of your day to read this.
I had a conversation with my good friend Eric, whose brain I’ve always enjoyed picking when it comes to political topics. He has always shown a passion for politics, and many times has put me in my place when I’ve been wrong and has enlightened me when I’ve needed it (even if I didn’t want it). I’ve always admired his tenacity for government, just as much as I admire his drive to always do and be better. So this time around I decided to get a more in depth look at his inner thoughts and hear his true feelings on the political event that I know he (like the majority of us) kept a very close eye on.
Eric, great to see you my friend, hope all is well. Do me a favor and give me a brief history about yourself.
Alright, my name is Eric Ochoa and I am a first generation Mexican-American (both of my parents are from Mexico) born and raised here in Los Angeles. I grew up in relatively low income area and went to a Title I high school (majority of students come from low income households). In high school my favorite class was always math though government came in a close 2nd senior year of high school. I went to undergrad at USC and studied Industrial and Systems Engineering.
Going into college my mentality was set on “getting good grades so I could get a good job” but that ended up changing drastically throughout my 4 years there. I was accepted into this scholarship program called the Norman Topping Student Aid Fund at USC that was aimed at helping first generation college students adapt to school and help us graduate on time and my freshmen year they had a fully paid research trip to Japan that was intended to help first generation college students expand their ambitions to include international opportunities since so often we tend to stay close to home. I was fortunate enough to get accepted into the program and Japan became the first country I ever visited outside of the US (not counting Tijuana, Mexico) and the first time I ever got on a plane. That was a turning point in my life and I realized I wanted to continue to travel and looked for as many opportunities as I could going forward and ended up working in China the following summer and studying abroad in Ireland a year after that.
The final summer before my Senior year I interned at IBM in New York and on paper finally achieved my goal of getting a “good job” (I was making $25 an hour as a Finance intern). But I hated my life at work and couldn’t fathom that being the rest of my life so when my senior started I began looking at all sorts of alternatives for my future. I ended up being a physics teacher after graduating for a brief 2 months, and didn’t like that either. I quit that job, found another job at a start-up as a tech support specialist and thought it would be a good way to get my foot in the door for the tech world but after a few months there felt like I had peaked and wasn’t learning anything new anymore. It was then I decided to teach myself how to code and am currently striving to eventually be a full time web developer in order to work remotely and continue traveling without having to worry about financial or freedom restrictions
Let’s get straight to the point, you’re not a Trump supporter, so tell me who you support or supported and why?
Not even close, he literally began his campaign by calling my family criminals and rapists (since they all came from Mexico). I supported Bernie Sanders in the Primary and then later (out of necessity) Hillary Clinton in the general election. I supported Bernie Sanders because I felt he was the only candidate who truly understood the plight of the poor in this country and openly spoke about it candidly. I’ll never forget the interview he had where he mentioned that it was “expensive to be poor in this country”. A lot of people don’t understand that. Poverty is a vicious cycle and people don’t stay poor because they’re lazy they stay poor because everything is working against them. That’s the kind of person I wanted to stand behind and support because I knew deep down he understood the issues the poor/middle class people in this country face (and we are the majority). But not only did his personality and authenticity resonate with me I also genuinely agreed with his policy proposals. I love reading and read about economics and politics worldwide all the time. I genuinely believe (and a lot of math and economics back me up) that a single payer system, higher minimum wage, free public universities, and higher taxes on the rich would propel this country forward in ways we can’t even imagine. Though this may seem theoretically like it would “hurt our economy” we need look no farther than California and Minnesota who have implemented liberal policies similar to these and prospered while states like Wisconsin and Kansas have implemented their conservative policies and destroyed their economies
In the end once he lost the nomination I supported Clinton because realistically I still believed in the policies Bernie fought for and the democratic platform reflected those policies so it only made sense to support her because I wasn’t just supporting Bernie Sanders I was supported the liberal policies he was championing and given the choice between the two candidates it was obvious who was more closely aligned with what I believed. Plus not to mention Bernie is still in the senate and will do everything in his power to continue to fight for his people.
Also little side-note: Bernie’s ads were amazing and reflected the populism he championed. His ads were never about him, they were about the people he was fighting for and their struggles and why those struggles led them to understand he was the best choice for President. Meanwhile Hillary Clinton’s ads were more centered on her. Even in their speeches it felt like he said “we” and she said “I”
Bernie Ads:
Hillary Ads:
Do you think Bernie would have taken this election? Had he been the democratic nominee?
While it’s difficult to say because of the fact that the voter turnout from the white rural areas was so high I do think he could have taken the election. Many of the states she lost (Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, West Virginia) he won in the primaries and I’m almost positive it’s because of the fact that she doesn’t feel relatable to poor working class Americans when Bernie did. On top of that he has the highest favorability rating of any politician. So yea, it hurts because this was something us Bernie supporters kept saying during the primaries. We talked about how he consistently polled better against Trump in a general election, he generated much more excitement with his campaign (if you didn’t go to one of his rallies you missed out), and he didn’t have a superPAC he was legitimately running on money and energy from “the people” and the DNC was like nope she’s more “electable” and people listened to their advice because they were worried about a Republican president and well now we have Trump.
What was your thought process as you saw how far Donald Trump was progressing? Did you imagine it would ever get as far as it did, ultimately leading up to this moment?
I think like most people I was in denial about the legitimacy of his chances because I live in California and have like 1 Republican friend (that I know about). Then the shit show that was the election happened and Wikileaks and emails happened then Trump’s tape came out and he debated terribly so despite not liking either candidate I believed his flaws were worse and thought the rest of the country would see it that way as well (and technically I guess I’m right because she won the popular but Electoral college screwed us). I think when I saw how close Florida was that’s when it really sunk in that “holy shit he might actually win”. But yea clearly the Democratic Party underestimated how sick of all their bullshit poor people are that they are willing to chance it with Trump than accept another stereotypical politician
What scares you most about the next 4 years?
Almost everything, although I think people are too quick to jump to 4 years as the nightmare count. Midterm elections exist and if he crashes and burns we may be able to take the senate (and maybe more of the house) back and be able to unite against him. But I’m scared of him doing literally any of what he said to get elected. I’m worried of him increasing police militarism when tensions are already so high, I’m scared of my family members who might be discriminated against in public for speaking spanish or simply being Mexican, I’m worried about my undocumented family and friends who’s chances of gaining some sort of legal path to citizenship here now appear slim to none, I’m worried about the well being of muslim americans especially in Red states, I’m scared of the future of this country due to the now definitely conservative supreme court, I’m scared of the fact that Republicans control everything and they are notorious for disagreeing with science, and I’m scared of literally every interaction he is going to have with other countries and how they will view Americans. We were hated as Americans under Bush and I have a feeling Trump is going to be worse than that for our reputation abroad
Is there anything at all you can look forward to?
Quite possibly the only thing I can look forward to is the end of neoliberalism and hopefully a stronger united movement behind progressivism. Being a center democrat doesn’t work and this election has proven that. Bernie had the perfect model to fight back and I hope someone can pick that mantle up and fight back in 2018 and 2020. The democrats need to be unapologetically liberal and progressive and believe that we truly know which policies can move this country forward. My biggest criticism of Obama is probably the fact that he tried too hard to work with Republicans rather than being the hope and change we elected him to be. And not necessarily look forward to but the silver lining is that I live in California and in Los Angeles. If there was a safe place to ride out this Trump presidency it might be here. Latinos are the largest population block in this state and we just voted to allow multilingual education so at least the atmosphere here seems to be ok
How does this effect your friends and or family members?
I think it affects our mentality and sense of safety the most. It’s the day after the election and already two people I know have shared stories of being on the receiving end of “go back to where you came from” both of them were Latino. So this isn’t some wild fragility we’re feeling it’s very real and it’s worrisome. I worry about my parents who don’t speak English and any discrimination they might face whenever they are running errands. I worry about the fact that their residency is up for renewal and I hope there are no issues with that getting all sorted out (really going to push them to go for citizenship this time around). I worry about my dad who just started working at the airport and finally has a steady job after years of struggling but again only speaks spanish at work so I would hate for him to lose his job or be given a hard time as a result of that. I have a friend in Law school who was finally able to work in this country because of Obama’s Deferred action program (DACA) and I’m worried about what might happen to him because DACA was an executive order. And in general I worry about the economy, when we were in our last recession I was in school and didn’t feel it’s effects really, I hope the people I know don’t struggle under whatever ends up happening
I imagine your social media sites have shown the best and worst of people, do you believe that somewhere somehow we can become united like Trump hopes for?
I like Bernie Sanders’ response (shocker) but here it is: “To the degree that Mr. Trump is serious about pursuing policies that improve the lives of working families in this country, I and other progressives are prepared to work with him. To the degree that he pursues racist, sexist, xenophobic and anti-environment policies, we will vigorously oppose him.”
I think it’s important that we understand we are all still Americans and as such must respect the laws of our land because that is what makes it so special. After all how would we have felt if protestors tried to ruin the legitimacy of President Obama in 2008? The very fact that I can denounce my future president and not go to jail is not a privilege to be taken lightly. So I think we need time to grieve (Jan 20th will be another hectic day) but time goes on and we must work with what we have, not moan about the past. Ultimately, as a country we have to move forward and in order to do so we have to together there literally is no other way to do so BUT if he begins to cross the line on those discriminatory racist, sexist, xenophobic issues you better believe we’re not going to accept it just because he’s the president.
Humor me here, but this election has undoubtedly been humorous at some points, just as much as it’s been terrifying, what were some of your laugh out loud or even Oh my gosh moments?
Well all of those funny moments just became unfunny because of our new reality lol but uhhh Ben Carson’s entire campaign was hilarious, Carly Fiorina falling that one time, Ted Cruz being compared to Kevin from The Office, the pitifulness of Jeb Bush. If only I could look back at Trumps moments like I do these but now it’s just embarrassing and shameful that despite everything he was still elected
What’s a message you would send to your fellow Hispanics living across the US and what can we learn from this experience?
I mean only to not lose hope and continue fighting and adapting to whatever your situation becomes. I can’t lie and say everything is going to be ok because I don’t know that, especially for those in states like Texas and Tennessee, but I can say that we are a strong people and we persevere. Where others may grow discouraged we analyze the situation and find a way to make things work. While others complain we put our heads down and chug along because we know we are blessed and we know that working hard is the only way through a tough situation, not sitting idly by and hoping things get better. We have to respect the election and what happened because these institutions are the reason our parents came to this country, for the stability and its democracy. We must fight for change but we must do so within the system so that when it is achieved it cannot just be taken away from us in an angry revolt. However, I think my mentality can best be summarized by this quote by Malcolm X at one of his speeches and I firmly believe this needs to be our collective mentality (Quote starts at about 1:05),
Read Part 2
Read Part 3
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