VivirLatino

It was the first time in history that candidates in a presidential campaign addressed Latino voters on Spanish language television. The drum beat of buzz around this event began several weeks ago, and anticipation has been building up in Latino media about the “historic event”. Historic it may have been, but groundbreaking it was not. After watching the YouTube debate and the PBS forum, the Univisión event seems like más de lo mismo — more of the same. The only real difference was the terrible simultaneous translation and how hard it was to differentiate the candidates’ stances on issues, as they all seemed to be either parroting their closest neighbor in the responses, or punting questions to avoid straight answers. I guess it’s only fair that the Latino community get the same treatment as the rest of the U.S. — dancing around issues and excuses made for prior fouls.

Speaking of fouls, the boulder hurled at Clinton and Obama as to why they voted for the border wall left both candidates repeating their same old lines: “border security is necessary for immigration reform”…”Immigration reform benefits immigrants because it provides a path to citizenship.”

Still it’s hard for Latinos whose families — or even they themselves — have crossed “illegally” via the Mexican-American border to understand why increased migra presence is the right thing for them. When abuses are committed by border authorities and La Migra are such a part of the Mexican immigrant experience, saying that a wall needs to be built and there needs to be increased patrolling isn’t going to be a popular proposition, even among Latinos who believe immigration reform is necessary. Most, like myself, believe that immigration reform is, in fact, possible without building a medieval wall between two countries and without making the border a more conflictive place than it already is.

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