Dear White America,
Let me vote for who I want to vote for.
If I choose not to vote for Hillary Clinton, do not threaten me with what the future might hold. Do not blame me for a situation created because of YOUR lack of a vote. Do not say “if you’re Latino, you must want Hillary Clinton to be president,” assuming that the blatant disregard her opponent holds for my culture and people has guaranteed her our vote. Do not forget her record in Latin America. Do not forget how she pandered to us: ella no es mi abuela. This does not excuse Donald Trump and his xenophobic language, it is just a reiteration of facts. Who we vote for is OUR choice. We are not to be manipulated.
Do not threaten the continuation of circumstances created under previous administrations, Republican and Democrat, as a reason you deserve my vote. You alone cannot fix these problems. Do not make promises you cannot keep. Do not throw in our faces our dire economic straits, our inferior place in the fabric of American society, as a reason to vote for you. WE fight, WE struggle, WE survive. Candidate after candidate has promised change, but, still, here we are, the victims of broken promises and shattered dreams. Yet you promise change, and this should endear you to us?
Nothing is guaranteed. If I choose to vote for Donald Trump, it is because I have the right to do so I do not judge my Latinx brothers and sisters who support Trump. I may question them and their decision, but I don’t judge them. Their choice is their choice. If I were a Trump supporter, I do not need the constant reminder of what he has said of my people. I am quite aware. I do not need his missteps broadcast to heighten the “appeal” of his opponent. Attack his policies, attack his vague understanding of foreign affairs, but do not bombard us with the same story over and over.
A Latino vote for Donald Trump does not make one less Latino, any more so than a white vote for Trump does not make one an inherent racist. We vote for who we want to vote for. The response? He called us criminals, drug smugglers and rapists. I can’t argue this point, he did say this. But, why are YOU so offended by his words? Did he, by uttering such a statement, place a collective identity on YOU and YOUR culture and people? Oh, but that shouldn’t matter, because YOU are by our side, YOU are here to help us. Thank you, oh great white savior, for without you, we could do and achieve nothing! For your help is the answer to our prayers!
Sarcasm aside, your offense, if it is authentic, is appreciated. But, it must go beyond offense to xenophobic statements. It is one thing to be offended by his words, and stand beside us as we battle the hatred hurled our way, but does your offense go beyond the borders of stated rhetoric?
Do you hold offense to the mass deportation of women and children seeking refuge from an oppressive government? Does violence committed as a consequence of the Drug War offend you? Does the disappearance of Latinx youth offend you? Does the shooting of unarmed brown lives offend you? The problems in our community go beyond comments made about immigrants. We are more than just immigrants.
We are also citizens. Your offense to statements that label us as criminals, drug smugglers and rapists only further perpetuates the narrative that we cannot be citizens. It insinuates that we can only be naturalized. Do not help perpetuate this stereotype. If help should be offered to combat the stigma related to hateful rhetoric, do not just call those labels offensive. Do the same when others refuse to acknowledge our citizenship and our humanity.
If I choose to vote for the third party, do not blame me for the loss of your candidate. Do not threaten me with the idea that my vote for a third party cheapens the election.
“The third party does not have a chance,” they say.
“Now is not the time to take a stand for what you believe in,” they say.
I’m sorry, but why must I conform and vote for what YOU believe in, for my vote to count? Am I not allowed to vote for who I deem as the most responsible candidate? Does my vote only matter if it conforms to the standards that you hold so near and dear to your heart?
I should not have to defend my vote to you. Who I vote for is my decision. I do not aim to please you, or the system that has been complicit in the oppression of my people for so long. I do not apologize for not conforming to the narrative that you have assigned to me. Because of this, you have labeled me a threat.
I am a threat because I voice my opinion.
I am a threat because you can’t control me.
I have news for you: I am not yours to control.
Sincerely,
Nathaniel Santos Hernández
***
Nathaniel Santos Hernández is a recent graduate of the University of Maine-Orono with a B.A. in Anthropology. He is a new contributor to Latino Rebels. You can can follow him on Twitter @saint_nate12, on Medium and on BeVisible.
DIdn’t I read you were heading for graduate school?
Shouldn’t you be packing? Or renting a moving truck? Or kissing Brit’Nee (or Brad) good bye?
Instead, you’re wasting time writing inane rants for anonymous internet “rebels” about the fallacious and non-existent “La Tino” demographic?, the “La Tino” vote?, the “La Tino” agenda?, the “La Tino” perspective?, the “La Tino” race?
Mi’jo parece mentira que no te has metido ya en un apartamento en Boston, no?
Y no me diga’ que que te estan pagando pa’ estas babosides politicas?
Que ma’ podemos esperar de ti? Un “articulo” de “La Tino” papel de toilet?
And I guess in Maine you never learned that “La Tino” is NOT a race and that many of us are in fact white. I hope you don’t run into too many of us in graduate school. We don’t take too kindly being racially re-assigned a convoluted, contorted and caca-mamie “La Tino” identity by an internet “rebel”.
I do however agree with you that the mainstream political sewer flows very full with nothing more than insulting cliches, caricatures and even cartoons of the fictititious “La Tino” voter, as if we came in one size, one political stripe, one cultural context, one ethnic reference and one racial background.
To BOTH of the presidential A-holes, “La Tinos” are the people who skim their pools, mow their lawns and wash their cars. And anyone who kids himself about this is really in for a very rude awakening after election day.
Just think back a couple of months ago where everything I read in the internet “La Tino” political toilets was about how IMPORTANT the “La Tino” vote was that FOR SURE, that little clown in San Antonio (who can’t read a Taco Bell drive-up window menu with a Spanglish translator) was DESTINED to be Hillary’s Vice Presidential nominee.
And guess what? He’s still in San Antonio selling Made-In-Korea Pinatas to Japanese tourists on River Walk.
Mario,
They “single out” white people because they are mired down in the ignorance of the non-existent faux-political caca of the “La Tino” race, which has not existed in the history of man as a bi-pedal species on the face of the earth EVER!
But what they don’t realize is that this level of “intellectual” (and I am being VERRRRRRRY generous using this word in this context) FRAUD only underscores that their low-grad “intellectual” prowess is about as “potent” as a limp strand of over-boiled spaghetti.
They are an infestation on the internet and worse yet they are typically anonymous cowards attacking those who challenge their neo-political fictions with irrefutable facts.
Check out Huffington Post’s “Latino Voices” section if you REALLY want to see what anti-white 3rd-rate “La Tino “Journo-gism” looks like…but be prepared. There is not bottom to the level of political and racist revisionism they sink to on that site.
And who write their “articles”? The WHITEST Starbucks-sipping “La Tino” fops you will ever meet. And check their FaceBook pages…nothing but THOUSANDS of selfies of themselves in Paris, London, Berlin and Stockholm, where no doubt they leave their “La Tino” politics at home because they KNOW they will be laughed out of the disco in their French berets and Moroccan hijab scarves…you can’t make this shit up!!!
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