Democrats have traditionally relied on Latino voters, but voting patterns show many Latinos shifting to the right. Paola Ramos is a contributor for Telemundo News and MSNBC, where she is the host of “Field Report,” and she joins host Krys Boyd to discuss her examination of why Latinos voted for Trump in greater numbers in 2020 vs. 2016 and why this powerful electorate is continually misunderstood. Her book is “Defectors: The Rise of the Latino Far Right and What It Means for America.”
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Transcript
Krys Boyd [00:00:00] You’ve heard about border vigilantes, right? These are Americans fed up with undocumented migration who surveil known crossing areas along the U.S. Mexico border, sometimes with weapons in hand as a kind of shadow border patrol eager to boost the effectiveness of the actual agency. What you may not realize is that some of the most dedicated vigilantes have something in common with the people they are trying to keep out. It roots in Latin America. From Kera in Dallas, this is Think. I’m Krys Boyd. Despite broadly anti-immigrant rhetoric, Donald Trump actually made gains with Latino voters between 2016 and 2020. And when you look at the extreme right, folks affiliated with groups like the Proud Boys and those who took part in the January 6th Capitol siege, you’ll find a lot of Spanish surnames. It is a trend that has been building for some time. And while it might sound surprising, my guest reporting reveals a number of reasons why it’s happening. Journalist and author Paola Ramos is a contributor for Telemundo News and MSNBC, where she is host of Field Report. Her book is called “Defectors: The Rise of the Latino Far Right and What It Means for America.” Paola, welcome to Think.
Paola Ramos [00:01:12] Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.
Krys Boyd [00:01:15] So you open at this event in Miami, meant to commemorate the January 6th attack on the Capitol among folks who thought that was a good thing. Who was there and why did they gather?
Paola Ramos [00:01:25] Yes. So this was a year after the January 6th insurrection. And so I find myself in Miami and stepping in to a press conference that was organized by a couple of folks that had actually participated in the January 6th insurrection themselves. Among them was a man called Gabriel Garcia. And he I remember, you know, standing with the with the press folks and with the cameras and observing him and hearing his remarks. And one of the first things that comes out of Gabriel Garcia’s mouth is the following, you know. “I am Gabriel Garcia. My last name is Garcia. There’s no way that I can be a white supremacist.” So that in and of itself, you know, this idea that Latinos, because of our last name, because of our heritage and our background, the idea that we too, can sort of buy into white supremacy or extremism or even Trumpism seems so sort of far removed from from the idea that so many Latinos have of themselves. Right. Because we get to hide under the guise of being Hispanic. And therefore it can claim that, you know, there’s no racism in our community. And so that was really at the heart of that press conference, not sort of shy like trying to to put the guilt and the blame on the press and on the United States for blaming people like Gabriel Garcia and guilting him of being a white supremacist.
Krys Boyd [00:02:47] You’ve also kept track of Enrique Tarrio, who was chairman of the group known as the Proud Boys, who was convicted of masterminding the Capitol siege, although he wasn’t physically present when it happened. As it happens, Tarrio is his background is Afro-Latino. What evidence exists that he, Tarrio, holds white supremacist beliefs?
Paola Ramos [00:03:09] I know it’s if there’s evidence, it’s the way that that he behaves. The people that he associates himself with aim at some of the the values that he holds. And to get that view is someone that I grew up in Miami, actually not too far away from where I did. And he identifies as an Afro-Latino, but he he makes sure that in conversation people understand that he has sort of this proximity and these roots with the Spaniards and with the Spanish colonizers. And that’s something he’s that he’s very proud of. And a couple of years ago, I mean, at this point, it’s been at least 4 or 5 years ago, he was tapped into being the leader of the Proud Boys, the chairman of the Proud Boys. And I mean, I spent a lot of time with him reporting through those years. And I saw sort of the evolution of his character, not someone that was sort of in the sidelines and then someone that stepped into a very powerful role among one of the most violent groups in the United States, which is a proud boys. And in conversations with him and Rick is someone that believed that, you know, there was an invasion at the US-Mexico border, someone that criminalized Black Lives Matter and someone that believed that even though Donald Trump lost the election and that he he was still the legitimate president and someone that was against abortion rights, someone that fundamentally had a lot of problems with LGBTQ folks. And so he is someone in the perfect example of someone who who made a very easy transition into the world of white supremacy and white power, so much so that he was led by the believe that an insurrection was was needed in this country not to take over. I think what is interesting about someone like Enrique is that so much of the heart of what drove so many Latinos to storm the Capitol and you find this paranoia around communism now and this idea that the United States in the hands of Joe Biden would step into the world of socialism and communism. And that layer of myths and disinformation tangled with sort of the the lure of white power that is able to drive some Latinos into that territory. If you put those two things together, that turns into a people like Enrique Tarrio. You know, we’re willing to lead a group of people to the insurrection even though he physically wasn’t there. But he was definitely, as you put it very well, a mastermind behind that.
Krys Boyd [00:05:26] You also write about Mauricio Garcia, who had self-identified as a full blown white supremacist. He was accused in the Allen Premium Outlets mass shooting. So let’s just talk about this this pattern. You have some people with Latino backgrounds throwing themselves in with white supremacist causes whose white supporters might presumably have otherwise excluded. That like, what have you learned about the relationship between the perceived privileges of whiteness in the country and the paths that some Latinos and Afro-Latinos might see into that level of privilege?
Paola Ramos [00:06:01] Absolutely. So I think what’s what’s interesting about this conversation now is that to me goes way beyond the politics and MAGA and Trumpism. And I think I think the hard part of this conversation is understanding that as Latinos, regardless of whether you’re Cuban, you’re Afro-Latino, you’re indigenous Latino, you’re white passing Latino like I am, and regardless of our backgrounds. We share many things in common, and that is this idea that we carry a lot of racial baggage from Latin America into this country, and we carry a lot of baggage from what it meant to carry the legacy of having been colonized, as well as the legacy of the political trauma. And so what I try and argue in this book is that none of that manifests neatly in the United States. So to your question, I’ve interviewed beyond Enrique Tarrio, who I definitely want to caution, you know, he is an extreme example of what we’re talking about. I’m talking to you from New York City. If you just go to the Bronx. And I had several conversations with Afro-Latinos, black Latinos that are Trump supporters. And part of that discussion. What you find is that even the idea among these folks of people that I that I talked to, even the idea of having them identify themselves racially as black, and you receive pushback from that. Now, I always go back to one of the conversations I had where I was talking to a black Latina and I said, well, how do you identify? She said, “well, I’m Hispanic.” And then I said, “well, what what is your race?” She’s like, “well, I’m Hispanic.” As people around her hair salon were saying, but you’re a black woman. So that rejection of what it means to be black in this country comes from what I argue is the sort of internalized racism that a lot of Latinos carry. We carry that with us. I mean, that’s part of our history and part of what the Spanish colonizers did in Latin America was not only implement and institutionalize a caste system, but within that caste system creates the phenomenon, of course, of racial mixing within and of itself has created the illusion in Latin America that not only a lot of our a lot of our society’s raceless, but it has given us the permission, regardless of your skin color, to claim a direct line to the Spanish colonizers, not to whiteness. And that then you transfer all of that to the United States now, which is a country where we sort of frame everything in racial binary as you’re either black or you’re white. What you find is whether it’s Enrique Tarrio, whether it’s through, you know, folks that I’ve met here in the Bronx, what you find is that very often we get to hide under the guise of being Hispanic and we have to choose between being black or white. You opt for whiteness. And that’s a very long, long answer to say that it is very complicated. And so many of the answer actually lie in the history, you know?
Krys Boyd [00:08:46] Well, you mentioned a minute ago that you are a white passing Latina. You are light skinned. You grew up with significant economic privilege, partially in Miami. Your dad is Mexican. Your mom is Cuban. You say you hadn’t really thought about yourself in racial terms as a kid in Miami. Did you feel white in Miami?
Paola Ramos [00:09:10] Yeah, I think Miami, one of the things if you live in the, first of all, I grew up between Miami and Madrid now so imagine I, I when I was two years old and my parents separated, and so I spent most of my upbringing in Spain. So I, I was ping ponging between Madrid, in Miami most of my life. And I think if you are part of the Cuban exile privileged community in Miami, that’s a bubble. That’s a bubble that drives you to believe that most Cubans look like me or light skinned. And it drives you to believe that most immigrants are privileged like we are know that have a direct pathway to citizenship. And it drives you to believe that to be Latino is that everyone actually, like speaks Spanish and has this background because in Miami, like most people speak Spanish. I mean, it’s very rare now in Miami-Dade County that you find a Latino that does not speak Spanish. And so once I was removed from that bubble and I go and I get to New York City, where suddenly I walk into this campus in New York City, and my English was so bad back then that they that they told me that I had to go to an English as a second language classroom. And I walk into that classroom kind of with shame, honestly, you know, and with this idea that I belong in the other classroom where the white students were, you know, that is unfortunately, when I when I really start to to grasp what it meant to be different, you know. And even with the amount of privilege, what it meant to be part of a minority and what it meant then to find like real solidarity and allegiance to this group, something that I had really didn’t really have to think about when I was in Miami because you don’t really define what it means to be Latino in that sort of Cuban privileged bubble.
Krys Boyd [00:10:49] Did you initially find yourself resisting against that sense of solidarity with, you know, 62 million other Americans with Latino heritage?
Paola Ramos [00:10:59] I think initially before I understood, no. And then what happened was was actually beautiful. It made sense. No, I mean, I was I felt more comfortable among people that spoke my language. And I felt more comfortable among people that could talk about, you know, their parents being exiles and having families that had migrated. I felt more comfortable and culturally know among among people that I had many more things in common. And so once I sort of stepped into that community, personally, of course everyone has their own sort of journey, but personally I felt kind of an acceptance that made sense. And I think so much of my life and I think many Latinos can relate to this I was like Cuban, but also Mexican. I lived in Spain. When I was in Spain. I felt more American. When I was in the United States. I felt more Spanish. When I was in Cub- , when I had visited Cuba, I felt more related to my Mexican family. So you kind of feel like you have to pick and choose and then to be a young queer Latina in New York City and to finally step into a classroom of people in very different, very socioeconomic backgrounds, but still that fundamentally share a lot of the values that I did, and for lack of a better word, like it felt kind of like being home, knowing that’s a that’s a very beautiful feeling that I still remember what that felt like.
Krys Boyd [00:12:17] You write in this book about history that there you remind us there were Mexican-Americans fighting on the Confederate side in the Civil War, including this very famous Confederate colonel who built a reputation for himself as a so-called slave catcher that he was very proud of. Why do we tend to treat stories like this and the stories of people like Gabriel Garcia and Enrique Tarrio and Mauricio Garcia. Why don’t we treat those as anomaly?
Paola Ramos [00:12:41] I notice, at least among a lot of progressive circles in Democratic circles, I notice this reluctance to be alarmed by the idea that even even someone like Donald Trump, regardless of your politics, whether you’re Republican or Democrat or an independent, that even someone like Donald Trump could poll close to 40% with this community. And and still part of the conversation is, well, that’s an anomaly. That doesn’t mean anything. Latino voters will overwhelmingly vote for Democrats. That’s absolutely correct. They will overwhelmingly vote for the Democratic Party. But this tendency to see that movement as just an anomaly has always been sort of repeated time and time again, because I think so much of the stereotype of what it has meant to be a Latino in this country. I mean, as long as I can remember and during my initial years working in Democratic politics was always based around this idea that Latinos would be at the heart of the Democratic Party’s success. So I think when you start to see examples of Enrique Tarrio of Santos Benavides, of course, during the Civil War, and that was the highest ranking kind of a for the Confederacy, the tendency is to treat that as an anomaly. And of course, it is true that those are extreme examples, but I think the tendency in the ability to turn around and go that way towards extreme and the curiosity that exists among many Latinos is absolutely there.
Krys Boyd [00:14:02] Paola, as you have seen growing Latino support for Donald Trump, in particular in Latino communities, despite his rhetoric, vilifying those same communities, you know, these three influences driving that shift, There’s tribalism, traditionalism and trauma. Let’s start with tribalism. This is about internalized racism and discrimination. Where does that come from?
Paola Ramos [00:14:26] Yeah. I mean, I think like we said before, you know that comes from understanding the, the impact that the Spanish colonizers and the colonial times had in Latinos and whether we’re talking about the caste system, like I said before, and whether we’re talking about the way that Latinos think about race and Latin America. And what I argue in the book is that all of that is something that we carry in into the United States and into American politics. And so when you use that framing of, you know, the reality of having a form of internalized racism, then you start to make a little bit more sense of the idea that like a Dominican Black Latina would vote for Trump. Or then you start to really understand why Mexican-Americans along the Rio Grande Valley would be so keen on voting for Trump. Not only that, no would hold such visceral anti-immigrant sentiment towards immigrants and or then you start to make sense of the idea that even myself, as a sort of as a Latina, that carries a very thick Spanish accent because of where I grew up, then you understand why so many people sort of romanticize and are enamored with that Spanish background and that Spanish accent, not to the point even that, you know, they make some of their life’s work in defending a Spanish colonizers statues in a place like New Mexico. So I use that framing of tribalism to make sense of some of the folks and the characters and the reporting that I have done over the last four years.
Krys Boyd [00:15:58] So let’s talk about that. You write about the Spanish explorer known as Don Juan de Onate, who is very popular in New Mexico, also in my hometown of El Paso, Texas. For folks who may be unfamiliar. What should we know about Onate?
Paola Ramos [00:16:15] Well, look, Juan Onate, there’s two versions of him, no? Juan Onate is in the eyes of many folks and one camp is seen as a sort of the founder of New Mexico. Now, as someone that, in the words of so many of the pro Onate activists that I met someone that in civilized New Mexico someone that sort of transformed a lot of indigenous folks into Catholics people and someone that brought science and humanities to New Mexico. And then the other side of the spectrum, of course, you have indigenous folks, Latino folks that see the symbol of someone like Juan Onate, the quote unquote, founder of New Mexico, as a criminal, as someone who took the lives of countless indigenous people, as someone who forced assimilation into, you know, these marginalized communities of indigenous folks. And so the way that that transfers in to today or that manifests today is that that sort of tension between one side of Latinos that sort of want to romanticize and continue to romanticize their Spanish heritage. That can be explained. For instance, there’s an incredible scholar, Frank, that is that sort of labels this phenomenon as a fantasy heritage or this tendency to fantasize and these colonial times and these colonizers and our tendency to to romanticize that time. And that camp is still very much opposed to or finds tension with the other side know which are Latinos that believe that those symbols of Juan Onate should no longer be part of of the culture in El Paso or in New Mexico. And so what was so interesting during the Black Lives Matter, two, three, four years ago during that time, there was a lot of sort of activism in a lot of protests around this Juan de Onate statue in New Mexico. You know, a lot of people wanted to see Juan de Onate’s statue come down. Others were opposed to it. And in the heart of that discussion was, is everything to do with this? How much as Latinos should we be honoring that? And that was at the heart of that discussion. And that’s still happening to this day.
Krys Boyd [00:18:26] So what accounts for some Mexican-Americans in particular who identify with Onate and view him as a hero rather than a conqueror?
Paola Ramos [00:18:36] I mean, the conversations I had, it was really interesting. And I talked to two Mexican Americans. He is a gentleman that I that I met in New Mexico, and he’s one of the biggest activists that wants to ensure that the statues of Spanish colonizers in this country remain intact and especially someone like Juan de Onate. And he is someone that even when you talk to him, he will first identify as a Spaniard and then then he’ll say he’s Mexican and then maybe he’ll say he’s sort of the son of immigrants and but he wants to present himself in public as a Spaniard and and in conversation with him even. It was so interesting because, you know, when we talked about his time in Spain, which he called the homeland, he had only been there once or maybe twice. And I asked him, how did it feel for you to sort of go back to to to the homeland, for you? He felt this sort of like discomfort and detachment and almost even like a sense of discrimination in Spain. And then when he came back to New Mexico and sort of came back to the activism around Juan de Onate, he was even more sort of adamant about claiming that those Spanish roots, because at the end it was just it’s such a big part of his sense of belonging. And I think, you know, there’s there’s so many ways to to make sense of that and you can make sense of that. And again, I’m not in his head, you know? So, this was all sort of my analysis with him. He seemed like someone in his own worries that had felt like a misfit and he felt like someone that had in the past experience discrimination. And he felt like someone that once again, when given the option to identify one way or the other and he opted to to claim this direct routes to the Spanish colonizers. That gave him a sense of power, that gave him a sense of belonging, that gave him a sense of status.
Krys Boyd [00:20:28] It’s worth noting that Onate himself was not actually born in Spain, right? He was born in what is now Mexico, and he himself was treated with some disrespect by the Spanish government, was Onate a mestizo? Did he have mixed heritage?
Paola Ramos [00:20:41] He was mestizo. No, he was mestizo. And I think that’s such a big part of this discussion, you know. And we can all claim to be mestizo. Juan Onate was born in Mexico and I think but that is it doesn’t matter no for someone like Ortiz or because Onate, even though he was born in Mexico, he’s someone that through the idea of mestizo and racial mixing he is someone that can still claim and can still be perceived as the ultimate Spanish colonizer. And I think that’s the point, you know. Part of the history, of course, there was a caste system in and, you know, enslaved folks were all the way at the end of the latter during Spanish colonial times, then were indigenous folks. Then there was mestizaje and then there were white folks. But as I said before, in the large umbrella and the large tent of mestizaje, so many people can walk and sort of do the dance between sort of their own ethnicities and racial backgrounds and mestizaje. And so ultimately, for someone like Ortiz, it didn’t matter that someone like Juan de Onate was not born in Spain, because so long as he’s part of the mestizaje and he can claim a direct line to being a Spaniard, as can Ortiz, as can Enrique Tarrio, as can so many of the different people that I talk to in this book.
Krys Boyd [00:21:59] It does seem like an interesting even thought exercise to come from a country or a culture where racial fluidity is sort of understood to be a nuanced and multivariate thing, to then, you know, find yourself in a place like the United States where it’s changing. But it’s we’re still foundationally working on this black white binary.
Paola Ramos [00:22:21] Absolutely. And I think I think that’s it. In Latin America, I know where we’re used to the dance and the racial mixing in the sort of mestizaje. And you can be racially black but still identify as white and you can be indigenous but still say that you’re Spanish. And then suddenly to step into a United States where you’re sort of facing a country and as you say, racial binaries and black and white. But not only that, no, you’re staring into a black population that has been so deeply criminalized for so many years. And then as Afro-Latinos or as Latinos in this country. And there’s there is no there can be a tendency to sort of not want to be a part of a black American culture because of the level of degree of discrimination and because of the level of degree in which black people have been criminaslized in this country. And so that’s why you find time and time again this reluctance among many Latinos to be lumped into the minorities or be lumped into marginalized folks or even after Latinos that do not want to be lumped into sort of their perception of black America. So, I mean, it’s it is it’s so complicated, no? And I think that’s kind of like the point of this book. We have such complex histories and identities, and it’s very, very messy, the way in which that manifests in American politics and in the sort of American dynamic.
Krys Boyd [00:23:46] Especially throughout Latin America. And then it becomes messier here. I mean, you write about the kind of broad denial of the existence of Afro-Latinos in many parts of Latin America. You went to stay with your aunt in Mexico City and she literally didn’t believe Afro Mexicans existed.
Paola Ramos [00:24:02] Yeah, and not to mock my aunt, but like, that’s absolutely I mean, I remember I was like meeting a an Afro Mexican activist. I remember I was I was telling her and she was like, well, what do you mean and I was like, what do you mean what? I mean? So the, the the idea I mean, even even of now know for listeners and I always do this exercise even even among my friends and I was guilty of this as a kid. Now the idea that there could be black people among Latinos has been so far removed from my psyche for so many years. But even as a kid, I remember thinking, where were black Cubans? And that’s because I was always taught like to. As I said before, I like to be a Cuban, meant to be a light skinned Cuban. That’s absolutely false. Now, let’s remember that during the colonial times, over 11 million enslaved folks were brought in to Latin America. There’s a huge percentage of Latin Americans right now that are after Latinos, particularly in places, of course, like Brazil, like the D.R. and, of course, even Puerto Rico. And so that is always been a Cuba where I grew up now and so know where I grew up, where my family’s from. And so black people have always, always been a sort of distance from our believe of what it means to be Latino in the United States and in Latin America.
Krys Boyd [00:25:18] Tell us about Anthony Aguero out in El Paso.
Paola Ramos [00:25:22] So I had, I had been following Anthony for the 2022 midterms for a while. I had been following his, his Twitter, his Instagram, his rumble, his telegram accounts. And online Anthony, a widow who’s from El Paso, is someone that sort of presents himself as an independent, a border correspondent. And so what that means in practice and what you can see through his livestreams is someone that spends his time obsessively “patrolling.” And I’m using that in quotes “patrolling” the US-Mexico border, doing live streams. And in those livestreams, his fixation is finding migrants, capturing migrants and asylum seekers that are crossing the border. Part of that content is to frame them as sort of this existential threat that is happening to the United States. And he usually is someone that tends to use the words invasion and threat, danger criminals. And so that was that’s how I came across Anthony. He’s been deplatformed many times from a place like Facebook. I mean, he has the accounts now, but because because of so much of his content is full of misinformation and oftentimes like he’s he’s called migrant men and threats and he’s even used the word like cockroaches to in to present some migrants. And and so meeting him in person in the midterm elections it was was quite interesting. And one of the things that I say in the book was who he is online is very different from who he was in person.
Krys Boyd [00:26:57] Explain that a little bit more.
Paola Ramos [00:26:59] Yeah, I feel like there’s it not just with Anthony, you know, I feel like there’s this capacity to to hide behind a screen and then hide behind a phone and a television. And you can have this big persona, this sort of scary persona that uses the fear mongering to sort of build yourself up as having this strong voice. And then when I met him, he was timid, he was shy. We barely made eye contact. And he wasn’t the sort of scary, quote unquote, Anthony Aguero that I found online. I hopped in the car with him and I spent a couple of hours sort of shadowing him, shadowing, shadowing his work. And Anthony Aguero is someone that. Is an extreme, I think, manifestation of one of the phenomenons that we’re seeing in this country, which is a Latino community, a small, very small but a small but growing Latino community that is warming up to sort of the anti-immigrant rhetoric and no warming up to the idea of building a wall and even mass deportations. And I always say this. It is small, but it is growing. Anthony Aguero is an extreme example of that. And when you meet someone like Anthony Aguero, you start to understand kind of the reality that we find ourselves in now as a country, which is the way that Latinos have changed so much. Anthony Aguero’s first generation American. But right now, in this country is third generation Americans that are the fastest growing segment within Latinos, because you have people like Anthony Aguero in a lot of third generation Latinos that identify more as being American than they do, perhaps with their immigrant backgrounds. And even though there’s this distance between themselves as American Latinos or as Latino Americans, there’s a distance between themselves and their immigrant backgrounds. The fear is and I felt this so much with Anthony, the fear is that white America that the majority of Americans will always see them, see us as these sort of like perpetual foreigner, you know? And part of my time with Anthony, was him constantly reminding me, no, that those people, quote unquote, asylum seekers and migrants, they were other. And he was American. And that sort of the distance, even in our conversation and in his reporting that he’s always trying to ingrain in his audience’s eyes, which is I am part of the United States and they are the other; that ability to otherize, I think, is something that Trumpism does really well now, which is this belief that Latinos are so Americanized right now that they too can tap into the nativism and the anti-immigrant sentiment. And Anthony is an extreme example of that.
Krys Boyd [00:29:33] Does it work? I mean, to the extent that some Latino Americans who feel othered trying to distinguish themselves from new immigrants, does that cause Americans with white privilege to extend that privilege to their Latino neighbors?
Paola Ramos [00:29:44] Well, that that I don’t know. What it certainly works psychologically, You know, I don’t know. Like, who am I to say that, like, white America truly embraces, of course, like many, many people do. But like, I can’t say from my reporting that Trumpism truly embraces Latinos and immigrants. Right. I know that the rhetoric doesn’t say so. No. I know that some of the actions don’t say so. I know that. But what I do know is that anti-immigrant sentiment in this country is so deep and it is so visceral that it is like this contagious virus and it works really well. And what I always say is that to be Latino or to be an immigrant does not make you immune at all to a phobia. I mean, I think one of the things that’s so interesting, like even if we think about Florida, let’s go back to the 2022 midterm elections, when Ron DeSantis, when Governor DeSantis does this move, when he’s suddenly, quote unquote, shipping migrants from South Texas to Martha’s Vineyard, you look at the polling and you see that it was most supported not just by Latinos, but by recently arrived immigrants. All this to say that the ability to otherize you know and when you give permission to people to otherize themselves and otherize asylum seekers and other as new the new arrivals and that’s pretty powerful.
Krys Boyd [00:31:05] Well, I mean, I grew up and spent many years on the border. It can be a violent place, but it seems like the real danger on the border comes from cartels that are running smuggling operations of humans and drugs rather than the people trying to escape that violence. How has it happened that we blame the victims of this kind of violence for the threats carried out against them?
Paola Ramos [00:31:28] No, you’re absolutely right. I mean, I know you’re from El Paso, the south Texas and that border region is not only one of my favorite places, but since you mention since you mentioned that it is also one of the safest places on the border, statistically is one of the safest places in the United States. And why is it that we’re that we’re placing so much blame in sort of the victims of the cartels and sort of framing migrants and asylum seekers as criminals? Well, because we have a Republican presidential candidate that is using a huge megaphone, not just in his rallies and on national television, but also through social media, casting asylum seekers as criminals. I think the rhetoric has become so vile, it has become so intense, so constant. I mean, I can’t even believe or I truly can’t even believe that here we are. We are having to have discussions with people and through through reporting, trying to convince people that migrants don’t tend to eat pets, not even the fact that we have to, like, get to this places is kind of surreal. But that’s why because I think the fear mongering has become so persistent for not just for the last year, for the last four years. No, I think this idea of the migrant crime wave that Republicans have really, really injected in the news cycle is really powerful. I mean, I’m talking to you from New York City. And if you if you go out and you talk to people, they feel sort of a threat in miles and miles or miles away from the border, the feeling is that, well, well, migrants are coming here and they’re taking things away from us. And that’s why you see an American electorate where suddenly, of course, the economy is one of the first issues and of course, abortion. But the issue of immigration has become a very mobilizing issue. And now no longer just El Paso or in Arizona, but also across the United States, miles and miles away from the border. And I believe it’s because that fear mongering has been so, so injected. Into American psyche and that it’s worked. And we can have a whole conversation. I’ve spent many, many times at the border in Juarez and a Matamoros, Tijuana. Understanding the ways that the cartels are exploiting migrants and asylum seekers and understanding that they are the real danger, you know. And to your point, migrants are just a victim, a victim of that, and also a victim of, I believe, an American system that now has decided not just to go to the center on this issue, but to go to the center right now that is making it even increasingly harder for asylum seekers in to use their fundamental right to claim asylum in the United States.
Krys Boyd [00:34:08] How important for you is the distinction between Latinos who may broadly support the Republican Party and Latinos on the far right?
Paola Ramos [00:34:16] Huge. Huge. I mean, I come from a family of Cuban exiles.
Krys Boyd [00:34:21] Fair enough.
Paola Ramos [00:34:22] So so it’s it’s huge. It’s huge. I mean, I think, look, traditionally Latinos are at least 30, 25% to 30% have typically voted for the Republican Party. And my grandfather for many years has, you know, voted Republican. And many people in my family voted Republican. But Donald Trump became where they drew the line. No doubt that was the line. So I think it’s super important to your point, to distinguish what we’re talking about. We’re not talking about Latinos that are conservative. And that’s part of our culture and that’s part of when we say Latinos are not a monolith. That is such a crucial part of the conversation. To be a Latino does not mean that you’re a progressive or a Democrat. It also means that we hold conservative values now that there are Latino conservatives, Republicans. I think where I draw the line is in Trumpism. What are some Latinos finding so attractive in Trumpism? In the sort of culture wars around around trans folks in the sort of warming up to Christian nationalism in the sort of warming up to anti-blackness, to anti-immigrant sentiment. That’s where I draw the line.
Krys Boyd [00:35:28] In addressing Christian nationalism, your sense is that the history of Latin America and its colonization makes some form of Christian nationalism, maybe feel familiar to people who have a history of being traumatized by this, like the institutionalization of Catholicism by early missionaries and then the European governments that followed them.
Paola Ramos [00:35:48] I think that’s one element. I don’t think that’s all of it. I think I think that’s that’s one sort of element of understanding our history. You know, the tendency to blur the lines between state and church. And that’s been very blurry throughout Latin American history, from colonialism to, as you said, and the American evangelical missionaries now. So this tendency to blur the lines and to resort to sort of these like authoritarian figures like that is part of our history. But I think the way the way that I’m seeing it now is couple that sort of familiar part of our history with what you’re seeing play out in some of these churches now. It is the fact that right now Latino evangelicals are the fastest growing group of evangelicals across the United States. And many of these Latino evangelicals are finding historically, you know, that’s been the case, refuge in a safe space in these churches, a kind of for many years. It was a place where you didn’t talk about politics, where you found community. So many times I’ve talked to many different folks of of the Latino community. The first thing they say is, when I come to this country, the first thing I wanted to do was find the church, no? Because that’s where I felt like home. That’s where I wanted to find my community. What you see now, though, is that I think what the Christian right has understood really well, a white evangelicals have understood really well, is that in order to survive, in order for that movement to survive at a place where the rate of white evangelicals and white Christians is declining, they need Latino evangelicals to survive. And so that’s why you see many folks in the far right and going into places like the Central Valley, California, to Miami, to Texas, to Nevada, to Arizona. That’s why you see sort of these pastors that are have become more politicized in these, quote unquote, traditional safe spaces where suddenly there’s some pastors that are mixing MAGA and faith. And that in turn, leads you to a sector within Latino evangelicals that, according to every poll, is warming up to Christian nationalism now. And so it is it’s just layer after layer after layer. And that’s why I mean, according to the Public Research Institute, the level of Latino evangelicals that is warming up to that idea of Christian nationalism is increasing.
Krys Boyd [00:38:02] You met a member of the group Miami-Dade Moms for Liberty. First of all, explain what that group is about.
Paola Ramos [00:38:08] Moms for Liberty is a group that that really starts to take force around the 2022 midterm elections around this idea of parental rights and this idea that parents had to stand up to, quote unquote, what they believe to be sort of woke indoctrination that was taking place in schools that woke indoctrination for them, translated into the teachings of critical race theory. It translated for them into the teachings of LGBTQ history. Even some, like even having teachers sort of self-identify as being queer or gay in that for them was being cast as sort of this quote unquote, democratic indoctrination. So Moms for Liberty sort of became this national movement of mothers that were on the sidelines and mostly conservative, but also some Democrats that sort of, you know, felt motivated to be part of this fight of parental rights. And I think the framing is so important because part of that framing was brilliant, which is this idea that your children are in threat now, that here comes the government that is trying to manipulate your children’s mind and teaching them about race and teaching them about, critcal wokeism and teaching them about transgender people. And it worked. It really worked. So I had the ability to go to Miami-Dade County in to meet with one of the leaders of the Miami-Dade County Moms for Liberty chapter. There’s many chapters across the country, and the one in Miami-Dade County is particularly big. And that one was led by a woman by the name of Eulalia Jimenez and so, yes, that’s sort of the the big picture explanation of Moms for Liberty.
Krys Boyd [00:39:46] And one member of that chapter thought queer kids in schools ought to be placed in separate classrooms like special needs kids are. And I gather this did not come across to you, like concern for protecting these children.
Paola Ramos [00:40:00] This happened a lot, throughout this reporting where you’re kind of faced and having come out, you know, I’m gay, I’m a lesbian. And I was facing this group of Latinas that were essentially saying they were tiptoeing around it. I think they felt some form of discomfort because of my own identity. But they were there essentially saying that they believe that it was fundamentally incorrect to talk about LGBTQ and people, LGBTQ history in the classrooms.
Krys Boyd [00:40:27] But before colonization, like a lot of indigenous peoples in what we now call Latin America, accepted gender fluidity in a way that would strike us today as quite progressive.
Paola Ramos [00:40:38] And I think again, going back to to the history known and what’s interesting about this subject, the sort of Moms for Liberty, the Culture wars, is that and I write about this a little bit, is that it incites this type of like moral panic, and it does that very easily. And that moral panic, I think, has also been sort of ingrained in our culture. I think you just mentioned ism. And when I write a little bit about this, when someone like Francisco Pizarro lands in Ecuador for the first time, the Spanish colonizer goes to Ecuador, and he is faced with indigenous men that have effeminate traits. And there’s a sense of disgust. And this is something that’s written in the journals back then. When someone like Vasco Nunez de Balboa, another Spanish colonizer lands in Panama, and he is faced with two spirited indigenous folks and the reaction is to execute. And so that visceral disgust, which I write about in the book, which is a science, which is something that people learn that disgust is has then been sort of implemented and layered throughout times in in in Latin America. And people people you teach that to people. One of the things that I love doing in the book is that it wasn’t just about the reporting I had to rely on, like scientists and psychologists. And one of the things that someone told me is, look, disgust is stronger than fear and it is stronger. The anger in it is the heart of dehumanizing that to dehumanize means comes from disgust. And so that sort of that. Level of disgust is what I felt in Moms for Liberty, in the way that some women had the ability to dehumanize queer kids. It’s the level of disgust that I faced sometimes as a reporter in front of a very few Latino men that I that I sense are sort of disgusted by the power dynamics that they feel in these interviews. And that’s the level of disgust that I think as Donald Trump, it tries to spread among his crowd when he talks about trans kids. And and yeah, it’s like I said before, it can spread like like a virus because that you teach people disgust. That’s something that you learn.
Krys Boyd [00:42:55] If you could just explain what galileo means and and what relationship that term might have to a leader, a figure like Donald Trump.
Paola Ramos [00:43:04] Yeah. So. So I think so what I find really interesting is that the Democratic Party, you know, and one of the strategies that Democrats have used, they did this in 2016, they did this in 2020 they’re doing it right now. Is frame Donald Trump as an galileo. And in that they believe that if you tell many Latinos in this country that Donald Trump is like a strong man, that he can behave like a dictator. The believe is that most Latinos will run away from that and will run towards Democrats because they will be appalled and scared and threatened by the idea that Donald Trump can be a galileo. Now, the word really, galileo goes back to to the era of Simon Bolivar in like 1815 Simon Bolivar. And in the 19th century, he’s he’s known as the liberator of Latin America. Now, one of the one of the men that sort of liberated Latin America from the Spaniards. And one of the things that Simon Bolivar says in 1815 is the following that I think is really relevant. He says that “the American states will need paternalistic governments to cure the wounds and the ulcers of despotism and war.” And in that, he implies that he infers that there will be occasions where American states will need these strongman figures, these galileos, these liberators, to cure the wounds and the ulcers. And so what we know and you said it yourself, know like Latin American history is messy. Latin American democracy has been messy. The wounds in the ulcers carry a lot of weight in Latin America. The wounds and the ulcers of political instability and political violence, the wounds and the ulcers of socialism, the wounds and the old stories of cartel violence. And it has been the case that in occasions that have sort of forced the population to believe that strong men when democracy is messy, it is strong men that can sort of appease and bring calmness. And then I think about the idea that the United States very much reinforced this idea of the strongman rule in a place like Latin America through the Cold War. Before from Nicaragua to Salvador in. They do. There was this idea that strong men were needed, that military hunters were needed to remove the wounds of communism and socialism. Is all this very long explanation to say that the way that transfers are manifest in the United States among some Latinos is that there is this curiosity around strongman war because we come from a lot of Latin American democracies where when things got messy, the tendency was to resort to the strongman rule.
Krys Boyd [00:45:43] Journalist and author Paulo Ramos is a contributor for Telemundo News and MSNBC, where she is host of Field Report. Her book is called “Defectors: The Rise of the Latino Far Right and What It Means for America.” Bella, thank you so much for the conversation.
Paola Ramos [00:45:57] Krys, thank you so much for the time and for the questions and I really appreciate it.
Krys Boyd [00:46:02] Think is distributed by PRX, the public Radio exchange. Again, I’m Krys Boyd. Thanks for listening. Have a great day.
