‘Why Would They Be Trying to Suppress Them?’: Dolores Huerta on What’s at
Stake in 2016
Ally Boguhn, Rewire
Republican
nominee Donald Trump launched his campaign for president in June 2015 with
a speech notoriouslyclaiming [1] Mexican immigrants to the
United States “are bringing drugs, and bringing crime, and their rapists.”
Since
then, both Trump’s campaign [2] and the Republican Party at
large have continued to rely upon anti-immigrant [3] and anti-Latino rhetoric to
drum up support. Take for example, this year’s Republican National Convention
in Cleveland, where Sheriff Joe Arpaio—whose departmentcame under fire [4] earlier this year for racially
profiling Latinos—was invited to take the stage to push [5] Trump’s proposed 2,000-mile border wall. Arpaio told
the Arizona Republic that Trump’s campaign had worked with the
sheriff to finalize his speech.
This
June, just a day shy of the anniversary of Trump’s entrance into the
presidential race, People for the American Way and CASA in Action hosted
an event highlighting what they deemed to be the presumptive Republican
nominee’s “Year of Hate.”
Among
the advocates speaking at the event was legendary civil rights leader Dolores
Huerta, who worked alongside [6] César Chávez in the farm
workers’ movement. Speaking by phone the next day with Rewire,
Huerta—who has endorsed [7] Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton—detailed
the importance of Latinos getting involved in the 2016 election, and what
she sees as being at stake for the community.
The
Trump campaign is “promoting a culture of violence,” Huerta told Rewire, adding
that it “is not just limited to the rallies,” which have sometimes ended in violent incidents [8], “but
when he is attacking Mexicans, and gays, and women, and making fun of disabled
people.”
