(Texas Monthly) Latinas Are Pushing a Political Revolution in South Texas--to the Right

[BradAllison]

https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/republican-latinas-rio-grande-valley/?utm_source=pocket-newtab

Adrienne Peña Garza remembers the insults at least as vividly as her triumphs. In 2018, Peña succeeded in her campaign to lead the Hidalgo County Republican Party, based in McAllen, becoming the first Hispanic woman to sit as chairwoman. As someone proud to call herself raza (a word Mexicans use to describe themselves as a race), a woman of color, and a Latina, the win meant something special to Peña: it wasn’t just for her, but for South Texans who looked like her. That feeling of warm pride, however, soon clashed with the caustic burn of scorn. When she began leading meetings at the HCRP office, two women swung a sledgehammer outside, smashing open a coconut. The symbolism wasn’t subtle. With the shell cracked, Peña could see the brown on the outside and the white on the inside.

In 2018, that disdain from fellow Mexican Americans was not unusual for Republicans in Hidalgo County, especially with then-president Donald Trump in the Oval Office. In response to the indignities, Peña formed deep connections with the other Latinas who came in the HCRP office doors. In particular, Peña remembers when she met Monica De La Cruz and Mayra Flores. De La Cruz, a local insurance agent, started attending meetings the same year that Peña was elected head of the local party, and eventually volunteered as a precinct chair. In 2019, Flores, a respiratory nurse whose husband is a Border Patrol officer, began coming in for events supporting immigration agents during the government worker furlough. Peña recalls how the two immediately brought fresh energy into the office, as if someone had turned on music in a room that had been quiet. “I just thought, ‘Wow. You’ve got that something,’” Pena says. “‘And we need your help.’”

Through 2019 and 2020, the women worked to increase Republican turnout in South Texas, with Flores running the HCRP’s Spanish-language outreach. For the most part, they toiled outside of the spotlight. Even when De La Cruz announced a bid to try to unseat two-term Democratic congressman Vicente Gonzalez, national Republicans—and even the statewide GOP—paid little attention to her campaign. South Texas was still a blue firewall, a place where it seemed Republicans had no chance of winning. Some counties there had not elected a Republican in more than one hundred years, and in 2016 Trump hadn’t mustered even 30 percent of the vote in Hidalgo County, where Gonzalez’s district was anchored. Most of the time, the local news painted conservatives such as Peña as outspoken but hopelessly outnumbered in deep blue South Texas, like horseflies biting cattle down in the Rio Grande.

Then everything changed. The political world of deep South Texas was rocked in November of 2020 when Trump smashed expectations in all the counties along the Rio Grande, transforming once-clear political boundaries in Texas into disputed territory—and leading Democrats around the country to question whether they were losing Hispanic voters. Republican politicians from Governor Greg Abbott to U.S. House minority leader Kevin McCarthy made pilgrimages to South Texas in the months after the election. Money and resources have followed: hundreds of thousands of dollars have poured into midterm races for House seats, and the Republican National Committee opened new Hispanic community centers in Laredo, McAllen, and San Antonio. On the local level, Republican organizations like “Project Red Texas” have paid the filing fees for a bevy of local candidates across South Texas

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[Paladin]

1. Gracias por nada, Latinas. (nt)

Last edited Sat Feb 19, 2022, 09:20 AM - Edit history (1)

[czarjak]

2. Roaches For Raid?

[jimfields33]

4. Your calling Latina women roaches?

[czarjak]

6. "You're" missing the point. No, I'm not calling Latinas roaches. I'm like... Never mind.

[jimfields33]

7. Not really.

Thanks for the grammar lesson. Priorities.

[czarjak]

3. Roaches For Raid?

[Chainfire]

5. They will get the government that they deserve.

For the life of me, I can't figure out why someone would support politicians that are openly hostile to them. Are they that desperate to become "mainstream?" The Republicans may extend an open hand to the Hispanics, but the other hand conceals a dagger. The Republican party will never be a party of minorities, except the minority of billionaires.

[Paladin]

8. As will millions of we Texans who DON'T deserve it.

Like me and my family, for instance...

[dalton99a]

9. One of them is married to Abbott

[Moebym]

10. Seems like religion has a lot to do with it

With abortion being on her agenda.

And if she's going to bring up following the rules, the party she's chosen to pledge her allegiance to hasn't exactly had the best track record when it comes to rule-following, especially among those in power. But ordinary people who crossed the border illegally because they could not afford to wait to immigrate through legal channels? Rules are rules.

(But hypocrisy and kicking the poor and disadvantaged while they're down are common Republican traits, after all.)

[NickB79]

11. The Hispanic vote is extremely volatile for Democrats to hold onto IMO

Seriously, the ONLY thing stopping a rightwing wave among the Hispanic population is the underlying racism in the traditional GOP.

Seriously, we have a group with many members who:

-are devout Christians
-love big families
-are STRONGLY pro-life
-love anything uber-masculine (big trucks, guns, drinking heavily)
-lots of blue collar workers who take pride in hard, physical labor

And I'm basing this just on my wife's family and friends, in case anyone thinks I'm using stereotypes.

If you took away the extra melatonin, I just described my very Trumpy, conservative, rural white family. The less racist members of my family absolutely love my wife's family. They can talk for hours, they relate so well, it's kind of scary.

If the GOP ever figured out how to temper the racism in their base while retaining their core, the payout would be huge for them. Thankfully they haven't figured it out yet.

[appalachiablue]

12. Kick for visibility

[Skittles]

13. the GOP despises these folk

this is just plain sad