AP
February 17, 2016
After
his big win in the Iowa caucuses, Ted Cruz is one step closer to
becoming the first Hispanic president in U.S. history. But that's not
how he wants to be known.
Cruz,
whose father was born in Cuba, admits that his Spanish-speaking skills
are "lousy." He offers up only the occasional "muchisimas gracias" on
the campaign trail.
His
positions on immigration, including ending birthright citizenship and
building a border wall, put him at odds with many Hispanic voters and
advocacy groups. They accuse
him of ignoring his heritage and issues that matter to many Latinos.
Florida
Sen. Marco Rubio shares some of the same conservative positions on
immigration, some of which antagonize the Hispanic community — an
ever-growing and increasingly
powerful demographic in American elections.
For
both of the young senators, their heritage has not defined their
supporter base or their political philosophies. But Cruz in particular
has risked alienating many
Hispanics by surrounding himself with conservatives such as Iowa Rep.
Steve King, Cruz's national campaign co-chairman, who has compared
immigrants living in the country illegally to drug mules and livestock.
In
appealing to conservatives in mostly white Iowa and New Hampshire, it
wasn't necessary for Cruz or Rubio to appeal directly to Hispanic
voters. But that could change
quickly in Nevada on Feb. 23, where Latinos make up 28 percent of the
population, although they made up only 5 percent of Republican voters in
the 2012 caucuses.
Cruz's
top strategist, Jason Johnson, says the Texas senator can win the
general election by capturing just 30 percent of Hispanics — not much
more than the 27 percent
Mitt Romney got in his failed 2012 White House bid. Instead of luring
more Hispanics to his side, Cruz is counting on bringing out millions of
mostly white evangelical Christians and working class voters who sat
out the past two elections.
"In
the Democratic Party, you're the Hispanic guy, you're the
African-American guy, you're whatever your little bloc is, you're
pigeonholed and simply a quota representative,"
Cruz told The Associated Press in a November interview. "One of the
reasons I'm a Republican is because we treat people as individuals. ...
When I ran for Senate in Texas I didn't run as: 'Vote for the Hispanic
guy.'"
Cruz said he ran for the Senate as the strongest conservative and "that's exactly how I'm running for president."
As
a teenager in Cuba, his father Rafael Cruz joined an uprising against
Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista, during which time he was arrested and
beaten. In 1957 — two
years before Fidel Castro took power — the elder Cruz fled Cuba for the
U.S., a story that Cruz often recounts on the campaign trail.
He told AP that nothing sums up why he ran for office more than his father's journey and fulfillment of the American dream.
"Being
the son of an immigrant who has fled oppression makes you appreciate
how precious and fragile our freedom is, and is integral to who I am,"
Cruz said. "But I think
a great many of Hispanics in this country are tired of being
stereotyped or taken for granted by the Democratic Party."
Cruz was born Rafael Edward Cruz in 1970. He spoke no Spanish at home and his parents spoke only English when around him.
Cruz described in his 2015 autobiography "A Time for Truth" how as a child he was known by the nickname Felito.
"The
problem with that name was that it seemed to rhyme with every major
corn chip on the market," Cruz wrote. "Fritos, Cheetos, Doritos and
Tostitos — a fact that other
young children were quite happy to point out."
Cruz
changed his name to Ted when he was 13 — a move that infuriated his
father. For about two years, his father, who now travels the country
campaigning for him, refused
to call him Ted.
By
distancing himself from his cultural heritage, he's opening himself to
criticism from the other Cuban-American in the race. Rubio and Cruz
clashed over their Spanish-speaking
skills in last weekend's GOP debate, with the fluent Rubio criticizing
Cruz for not speaking Spanish. Cruz lashed back in heavily accented
Spanish, a rare display of his limited knowledge of the language.
Alfonso
Aguilar, president of the Latino Partnership for Conservative
Principles, said Cruz "doesn't fundamentally understand the Latino
community." The Washington-based
group of national conservative and Republican leaders has criticized
both Cruz and Donald Trump for their opposition to legalizing people who
are in the county illegally.
Cruz
and Rubio "have turned their back on our community" and are catering to
the anti-immigrant fringe of the Republican Party, said Dolores Huerta,
a longtime civil rights
activist.
"They
really don't share the values of the Latino community even though they
happen to be Latinos themselves," Huerta said. "We have to vote our
values and for the people
who are standing up for us. ... We can't vote for somebody just because
they happen to be of Latino descent."
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