Wilmer Valderrama Blasts Obama, Democrats For Inaction On Immigration

EFE

September 17, 2014

Wilmer Valderrama Blasts Obama, Democrats For Inaction On Immigration

President Barack Obama's decision to postpone doing anything about immigration reform to help the undocumented will get a strong backlash from the Hispanic community in the November elections, actor and political activist Wilmer Valderrama said.

 

"They're going to see something very interesting and I believe they will learn very quickly who we are as a community," he said in an interview with Efe.

 

The actor said he was displeased with the president's decision to delay an administrative measure favoring undocumented immigrants until after the November elections.

 

"That hurts me a lot because Republicans and Democrats have spent eight years campaigning to Latinos, telling us that 'if you vote for us, we will fix the immigration problem,' but when they get the vote and the time comes to act, they say 'let's wait,'" he said.

 

Valderrama, who was born in Los Angeles of a Colombian mother and Venezuelan father and who spent part of his childhood in Venezuela before returning to the United States at 13, believes the time has come to acknowledge the importance of Latinos in the life of the country as well as their cultural impact.

 

"The solution is for people to get a wake-up call tomorrow when our Latino community unites to show who we are," the artist said.

 

"We're the ones who decide who wins and who doesn't win," and in the next elections the community will show what happens when some politicians don't take into account the views of Hispanics, he said.

 

With the same passion with which he defends the importance of the Latino vote, the actor also works on projects that aim to do away with "the stereotypes they've made of us in movies and on television."

 

"From Dusk till Dawn: The Series," aired on Hispanic cable channel El Rey and directed by Robert Rodriguez, is an example of how to scuttle images that only show Hispanics as gardeners or housemaids.

 

"In this case we're the heroes, the leading characters, and that's important because I believe it will largely redefine who we are," Valderrama said.

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