"Among Hispanics you find people openly racist with others of the same nationality"

Maribel Hastings is an expert in migration, politics and the Latino vote. She is the director of America's Voice in Spanish, an NGO that works so that the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States gain access to citizenship. Hastings was born in Puerto Rico, and for many years she was a Washington correspondent for the newspaper La Opinión. Now she is a member of this renowned pro-immigrant organization. It is thanks to America's Voice that the story of different Latino generations living in the United States can be told. Its executive director, Vanessa Cárdenas, was born in New York, raised in Bolivia and returned to the US with her mother at the age of 14. The story of Hastings is different. "My family settled in California in the sixties, and my uncles married Mexican women. I moved to Los Angeles from Puerto Rico two years after Ronald Reagan amnesty in 1986. I arrived in California at a very young age, in 1988, and I experienced the whole process of people regularizing their situation. Since then, the issue has been very close to me," she says. How would you describe the life of the Latino community in the United States? Obviously we suffer many things that immigrants suffer in terms of discrimination or lack of access to health insurance, affordable housing and all that kind of things, but when you are born a citizen, you are spared yourself a trauma. You don't have to cross deserts or jump into the sea in a flimsy boat. Those who have the resources buy a ticket to the United States and look for a better opportunity. America's Voice was founded by an activist who is almost legendary in the pro-immigrant movement, Frank Sharry. The immigration issue is super complicated. You not only have to seek the support of the crowd, but also the will of the politicians, and that has been the big problem. Because even when there is public support to legalize immigrants, to give more opportunities for asylum, because the political will is never on a par with the wishes of the public. It has always been very uphill to find that balance, becoming the communications arm of the pro-immigration reform movement. How is it done? They have had to reconsider, not the objectives, because the central aim is always to obtain the paths to legalize the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, but we have had to adapt the way we achieve goals, the strategies, especially during Donald Trump presidency, which has seen an explosion of extremism, racism and conspiracy theories. The impressive thing about this is that it has been standardized. Most of the Republican Party has completely normalized the discourse of extremism, white nationalism and conspiracy theories. "Todo el mundo entiende que necesitamos a los migrantes, incluidos los políticos racistas que los usan para la campaña" What is it like to continue with the same objectives and demands when the Democratic Party governs? It happened during the Obama presidency. They think that to attract Republican votes they must leave with conservative strategies and proposals. They say "we are going to increase deportations, we are going to strengthen the borders, and that will bring us Republican votes," when the reality has always been that Republicans are never satisfied. It is never enough. They keep shifting the target and you are never going to please them. Immigrants experience discrimination or a lack of access to health insurance and affordable housing. But when you are born a citizen, you spare yourself a trauma. You don't have to cross deserts or throw yourself into the sea in a flimsy boat. After the end of Title 42, data seems more encouraging. Why do you think the government could not do it before? Everything indicated a rise in immigration without documents, that there was going to be chaos. The President and the Secretary of Security have a lot of advisers and among those advisers there have perhaps been people who gave more weight to all that information that chaos was going to break out. Finally, when Title 42 ended, we saw a normal flow, people trying to apply for asylum in an orderly way. There are those who use migrants as if they were pawns to satisfy this ultra-conservative sector. What kind of person utilizes an asylum seeker for that? What kind of person uses the desperation of a human being for political advantage with their supporters? In one of his last speeches, Biden said that immigrants own 1 in 5 businesses. How is it possible that the United States economy needs migrants and politics attack them? I think those are cycles and it is part of the history of this country: perhaps not showing its best face for migrants, at different times in history. Governor DeSantis enacts a completely anti-immigrant law in a state like Florida, which is home to so many refugees, Cubans, Haitians, Honduran, Nicaraguan, Venezuelan, Mexican, Guatemalan. In this state, economy depends to a large extent on this migrant workforce, on agriculture, on construction, on the hospital system, on tourism. He talks about punishing undocumented immigration or preventing them from reaching the state when they are already there, they are already doing the work. DeSantis has received complaints from business sectors, the workers have resigned, they have left the State, they are very afraid and that obviously affects the economy. The sad thing is that this has already happened in previous decades, in Alabama in 2011 and in 2010 in Arizona. There were two anti-immigrant laws that had that effect on the economy. "Los republicanos seducen a los latinos porque hablan el lenguaje del sueño americano" The DeSantis thing seems like part of a desperate race to beat Trump. They seem to be competing to see who is the most anti-immigrant candidate. The immigration issue is super complicated. Even where there is public support to legalize immigrants, to give more opportunity for asylum, because the political will is never on a par with the wishes of the public. In an article you wrote together with David Torres, you considered that it is not surprising that Latinos feel hatred against their peers that drives them to commit barbaric acts. Why is white supremacy growing among Latinos? We propose that you cannot take Hispanics as if they were something separate from what American society is. There are people of Hispanic origin who are third, fourth, fifth generation. There are those who, like me, are "transplanted", we settle in the United States until we reached the undocumented. In this great varieties of nationalities, social origins, educational backgrounds, colors, whatever you want, you will find everything. You find people who are openly racist with people of the same nationality, with American people, sometimes they don't like African-Americans. There are people from certain nationalities who do not like people with other nationalities. They consider them inferior and that will lead to unbalanced people who are therefore capable of joining these movements, or even carrying out an attack, as has been a case. You cannot think that because he is Hispanic he won't have that kind of feeling towards other people, including Hispanics themselves. And it is also to deny the history of the different nations that many of us represent here, because we come from countries where racism is totally open and has been open against indigenous and other populations. And then you come here and you continue to do it against other groups. There are people who change and others who don't. What importance do you give to the theories promoted by influencers like Nick Fuentes or the leader of the Proud Boys Enrique Tarrio? If it is about disseminating a message of hatred, well, they are going to do it, especially if they think that can benefit their candidate or their cause, if they really have any. Sometimes the only thing that interests them is division. People talk about aspirational whiteness. There are people who deny their origin and manifest it by supporting causes in quotes that extremist groups promote. They think they are contributing to some cause or they want to be well seen or welcomed by those sectors. I am not a psychologist, I dare not to speak as an expert in human behavior, but I can speak of what I have seen during so many years covering the subject. You cannot consider Hispanics something separated from the American society. You cannot think that because someone is Hispanic, he or she won't have hatred feelings against other people including Hispanics. The thing is the political impact it can have, because the Republicans also dispute the Latino vote in their own way. Yes, and the great thing is that they are effective with some sectors. You find everything, extremist and ultraconservative people, and it also depend on the interests of the voter. Perhaps he or she feels he or she has been supporting the Democratic Party for many years and does not see that what he or she expects is fulfilled. They feel the Republican Party does a better job on the economy than the Democratic Party. It all depends on the topics of debate that are on the table in each electoral cycle. If we are going to talk about migration, it has been said lately that the issues are not among the central issues of the Latino voter, although it continues to define how Latinos see the candidates or the parties. I am Puerto Rican and I have empathy for the migrant community and, like me, there are many people who want to see a permanent solution and it is an element in our electoral decision. What will be the key in these upcoming elections? On a personal level, my message is how to fight misinformation, because it was a factor in the 2016 election and it was a bigger factor in the 2020 election. It is like a snowball of misinformation and unfortunately Latinos get their information on platforms like Youtube, WhatsApp and others, and there you find a lot of fake news. My constant concern is how you, as a voter, fight that, as a community, as a party, you look for a way those voters get clear information. There are disinformation campaigns and that is my main concern. For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.