Hillary Clinton Courts Latinos With Julián Castro’s Backing

New York Times

By Amy Chozick

October 15, 2015

Hillary Clinton Courts Latinos With Julián Castro’s Backing 

At a sunny pavilion amid a rainbow of ballet folklorico dancers and mariachi music, Hillary Rodham Clinton tried her best to speak Spanish as she picked up a major endorsement and sought to transfer the momentum off her performance in the first Democratic debate on Tuesday to the critical constituency of Latinos.

Julián Castro, the former mayor of this South Texas city and currently the secretary of housing and urban development, endorsed Mrs. Clinton at a Latinos for Hillary organizing event here on Thursday, the first of a series of such events designed to drum up enthusiasm among Latinos beyond the early four voting states.

“She has always, always, been there for us,” Mr. Castro told the crowd as people waved Hillary signs that read “Estoy Contigo!” (“I’m with you!”)

Switching to Spanish, Mr. Castro said “la diferencia” between Mrs. Clinton and the Republicans is that “she respects the Latino community.”

Mrs. Clinton tried a few words of Spanish. “I love being La Hillary,” she said, referring to what signs scattered around the event called her. “But I am not just La Hillary, I am Tu Hillary,” using the Spanish word for “your.”

In an interview, Mr. Castro, who has mostly avoided politics to focus on his cabinet position, said he had discussed his endorsement with Mrs. Clinton last week at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus conference in Washington.

“Now that the campaign is getting into gear, I felt like it was time,” he said. “It’s an added plus to get to do this in San Antonio, my hometown,” adding that the 63 percent Latino city was a “bellwether” for the changing demographics nationwide

Mr. Castro, 41, has been mentioned as a possible running mate for Mrs. Clinton should she capture her party’s nomination — a notion she did little to dismiss on Thursday. “I am going to really look hard at him for anything because that’s how good he is,” Mrs. Clinton said when asked about the vice-presidential rumors.

She reiterated her position to go beyond President Obama’s efforts to overhaul the immigration system, saying such changes would “boost wages, create jobs and save the taxpayers money.”

And she wasted little time reminding the crowd of some of the Republican candidates’ comments about Latinos. “They are using offensive terms like ‘anchor baby,’ ” she said. “As if any baby is anything other than precious or perfect.”

But Mrs. Clinton also addressed issues like her plans for small businesses, equal pay for women, student debt and affordable child care. She even used the setting — deep in the heart of pro-Second Amendment Texas — to discuss the need for gun control, an issue that led to a contentious exchange with Senator Bernie Sanders in Tuesday’s debate.

“I will not be silenced and we will not be silenced,” she said, alluding to Mr. Sanders’s comment in the debate that “all the shouting in the world” will not keep guns out of the wrong hands.

In the interview, Mr. Castro said that while immigration was not the only issue Latinos care about, it could serve as a “litmus test to determine who is supportive of Latino concerns and who is not.”

The setting served as a nostalgic backdrop for Mrs. Clinton, who spent time in South Texas when she was a young organizer working to register mostly Latino voters on behalf of George McGovern’s 1972 presidential campaign.

“I was a blond girl from Chicago. I hardly knew a word of Spanish but I drove around South Texas and the Valley,” she said. “I made friends of a lifetime, so for me this is personal.”

The Latinos for Hillary events are part of a larger push by her campaign to persuade Latinos to register and vote, a goal that has somewhat eluded Democrats in the past. In the 2012 presidential election, 48 percent of Hispanics eligible to vote turned out, compared with a 64 percent turnout rate among whites and 66 percent among blacks, according to census data compiled by the Pew Research Center.

In June, in a speech in Houston, Mrs. Clinton accused some of her Republican rivals of supporting new state laws that make voting more difficult for Latinos and other minority groups, a message she reiterated Thursday.

“I am running for president to continue the work I started all those years ago, in Texas,” she said.

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