Prospero Latino Blog (Opinion)
By Jose Parra
December 18, 2015
“Hispandering.”
It’s a nifty and interesting little word we’ll be hearing a lot this
campaign season (although Republicans seem to be more interested in
Hispanicking,
as we saw in last night’s debate, but that’s a topic for another post).
Hispandering is essentially saying things de dientes pa’ fuera, in
other words paying lip service, in this case, to Latino voters. In fact,
Shereen Marisol Meraji of NPR's All Things Considered
did a great job last week explaining its meaning and its etymology.
As
with any emerging new term, surely linguists and political scientists
will write dissertations about Hispandering. It does beg several
questions. For example, does
the term cover more the delivery than the intention? Or, can a Hispanic
engage in Hispandering? During an interview for the above-mentioned NPR
piece, I shared with Shereen my definition of what Hispandering isn’t:
Reaching out early, reaching out consistently,
and ensuring that future actions match words.
Senators
Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio provide a telling example of this
interesting dichotomy and the afore-mentioned ingredients. Both are
Republicans and yes, one
is Latino and the other is White. Rubio speaks fluent Spanish and waxes
nostalgia about his parents’ refugee— or rather, immigrant— experience.
Senator Graham is an orphan from South Carolina’s piedmont and a U.S.
Navy veteran who has a distinct Southern drawl
and is monolingual.
Both
men were part of the Gang of Eight that wrote the Senate’s 2013
Immigration Reform bill. And in my opinion it’s actually Senator Graham
who meets the criteria of
NOT committing Hispandering. And Senator Rubio? Well, he does speaks
Spanish, but more on him later.
Before
2013, Senator Graham was the only Republican engaged in immigration
talks with Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY). Then, last year he drew a
primary challenger— every
sitting Republican’s worst nightmare—in deep red South Carolina. His
support of immigration reform became a main line of attack. Yet Senator
Graham stood by the bill he helped write.
When
questioned about it, he continued to explain how immigration reform
would boost wages for all Americans by doing away with an underground
labor market and how it
would make America safer by accounting for everyone who is currently
here. Senator Graham won his primary and reelection. At worst, his
voters gave him credit for being honest.
Senator
Rubio’s immigration history is more complex. When he represented
immigrant-heavy Miami-Dade County in the Florida Legislature, he was
considered immigrant-friendly.
He ran out the clock on a few anti-immigrant bills. Then he ran for the
U.S. Senate in 2010 and plunged head first into the Tea Party stew.
Rubio became a protégé of Jim DeMint, current head of the Heritage
Foundation, and one of the Republican right wing’s
ideologues. Rubio was soon talking about the militarization of the
Mexican border, though I’m not sure he didn’t give Canada much thought.
Later,
when Arizona passed a bill allowing police to demand proof of
citizenship to anyone who looked or sounded funny, candidate Rubio gave
it a public thumbs-up. Then
came the Mitt Romney’s drubbing in 2012 after the self-deportation
campaign, which seems so benign now compared to the language spewing
from the Republican field... Shortly after, Senator Rubio rushed to
become part of the Gang of Eight— which by the way,
started during a call between Senator Graham and Schumer where he
allegedly said, “let’s get the band back together.”
Of
course having a Latino face on the Republican negotiating team who
spoke Spanish seemed like a good idea. Rubio didn’t waste time milking
it. He developed a habit of
talking to the press, often without consulting his colleagues. At one
point, he went on ALL the Sunday political shows— including Univision
and Telemundo— to sell the Senate bill and claim authorship.
Given
Rubio’s previous 180-degree turns on immigration, I was skeptical he’d
make it to the end, but I was wrong. I had promised a reporter that if
Rubio indeed stayed
on board through the bill’s final passage, I’d send his office a box of
Cuban pastelitos (pastries). And by golly, I had to keep my word. I had
a box overnighted from Miami to ensure freshness. It actually felt good
to lose that bet.
Fast-forward
to today and I feel like the pastelitos were a total waste. Now Rubio
has embraced the Trump stump, demanding to build a wall between the U.S.
and Mexico.
Granted, his delivery is more suave. And, on top of that, he has
denounced the Senate bill he helped write, saying he would not vote for
it today.
In
sum, these are four diametrically opposed positions on immigration in
less than a decade. This is a clear sign of Hispandering in my book:
actions not matching words
(regardless of what language you utter them in). Even more interesting,
Rubio has gone beyond Hispanics.
First
he Hispandered, then he Tea-pandered. He Hispandered again some, and
has now moved onto pandering to Trump voters. (No, I am not going to
mash that last name with
pander). Republican voters should not be asking themselves if Rubio is
soft on immigration. Rather, they should be wondering which of his
personalities is asking for their vote, and if come the summer he won’t
be back to his Hispandering ways.
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