Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden speaks at a campaign event at the William “Hicks” Anderson Community Center in Wilmington, Del., Tuesday, July 28, 2020.(AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
On Tuesday, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden published “The Biden Agenda for the Latino Community” a comprehensive plan for the Latino community, trying to gain these votes 89 days before the 2020 Presidential Election.
Two days later, the former Vice President’s campaign was featured in several events with Latino politicians, organizations and journalists.
The day started Thursday morning with a virtual pre-recorded interview at the joint virtual convention of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ).
At one point during the interview, Biden was asked about relations with Cuba and how his position of re-opening relations with the Caribbean nation would be viewed in Florida.
“By the way, what you all know, but most people don’t know, unlike the African-American community, with notable exceptions, the Latino community is an incredibly diverse community with incredibly different attitudes about different things. You go to Florida, you find a very different attitude about immigration in certain places than you do when you are in Arizona. So it’s a very diverse community,” Biden said.
Those comments soon faced backlash, even getting criticized by President Trump, who said that Biden had “insulted the Black community.”
“If you look at the full video and transcript, it’s clear that Vice President Biden was referring to diversity of attitudes among Latinos from different Latin American countries. The video that is circulating is conveniently cut to make this about racial diversity but that’s not the case,” Symone Sanders of the Biden campaign told ABC News.
During the National Association of Latin Elected Officials (NALEO) 37th Annual Conference on Thursday afternoon, Biden shared similar comments.
“We can build a new administration that reflects the full diversity of our nation. The full diversity of Latino communities. And when I mean full diversity, unlike the African American community and many other communities, you’re from everywhere. From Europe, from the tip of South America, all the way to our border and Mexico, and in the Caribbean. And different backgrounds, different ethnicities, but all Latinos, we’re gonna get a chance to do that if we win in November,” Biden said.
By Thursday night, Biden’s Twitter profile issued a clarification about his comments:
Earlier today, I made some comments about diversity in the African American and Latino communities that I want to clarify. In no way did I mean to suggest the African American community is a monolith—not by identity, not on issues, not at all.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) August 7, 2020
My commitment to you is this: I will always listen, I will never stop fighting for the African American community and I will never stop fighting for a more equitable future.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) August 7, 2020
A poll of young Latino voters released on Wednesday by Telemundo and BuzzFeed news indicated that 60% of Latinos between 18 and 34 years old would choose Biden in the election and that 19% would choose President Donald Trump.
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Diego Jesús Bartesaghi Mena is a 2020 Latino Rebels summer correspondent. A recent graduate of Columbia Journalism School, he is based in Newark, NJ and tweets from @bartesaghi_mena.
