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Armando Vazquez. Courtesy photo.
By Armando Vazquez / Guest contributor
If it were not so pathetically packaged as totally absurd, insincere and damaged capitalistic propaganda, of absolutely no consequence or redeeming value whatsoever, for the roughly 18 million Latinos, it would be laughable, cruel, ironic hypocrisy at the highest level. I am referring to this phony period from September 15, to October 15, 2020 that we celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month in the United States of America. Celebrate what? When this our government has effectively declared war on us, the Latinos of this nation.
How does anyone in this Hispanic Heritage month celebrate when the U.S. government still cages our children? How can we celebrate Hispanic Heritage month when the Trump Administration has declared war on our migrant brethren by declaring loudly and often that the “asylum seekers, both adults and minors constitute a national security threat”? Since Trump and his ICE goons (with considerable assistance from law enforcement departments throughout the nation) have no discernible accountability, the number of children (and adults) still in cages, throughout the nation is still unknown. What we do know is that a staggering 76,020 unaccompanied minors, and 473,682 migrants traveling as families were apprehended at or near the U.S.-Mexican border in 2019. And if Trump’s goons can’t cage us, Trump then denies migrants their right to petition the U.S. government for asylum review per The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 14) and the 1951 UN Refugee Convention (and its 1967 Protocol). And, of course, with his criminal wilful negligence in the mishandling of the Covid-19 pandemic he is slowly killing us.
The Latinos of this nation represent the face of the frontline work force, that must show up to work or lose their jobs or get fired, it is as plain and simple as that. No safety net, of any kind for most of this frontline Latino workforce population. Lately Covid-19 infections in Latinos communities has dramatically outpaced the rest of nation. In the past few weeks there has be a surge in Latino Covid-19 infections and deaths.
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention statistics reveal that Latino population make up about 34 percent the new and recent of the Covid-19 infections in the U.S., yet represent only 18 percent of the population. Upon closer analysis, in the past 6 month the new pockets of Covid-19 infections and deaths spiking in the Latinos communities appear to be first in crowded, poor or non-existent safe distancing/safety protocol management and unsanitary worksites (slaughter houses, packing plants, factories and in the fields and orchard), jails, detention facilities and prisons. Eventually all of these adults come home infected, of course, rapidly infect and spreads the Covid-19 to the family and the neighborhood.
Ignoring all scientific data and advice Trump want our kid’s public school kids to go to school, no mask, no safe distancing, and no safety protocols in place. Trump promises and assures us that our kids (not his own kids because he is evil not stupid) will not get sick or die. The Devil has spoken do we follow like lemmings to our children serious health detriment!
In this highly polarized and divided nation, the hate mongers conveniently vilify and scapegoat the Latinos as the face of the Covid-19 problem. Florida’s Republican Governor, Ron DeSantis recently stated that the increase of Covid-19 infections are attributed directly to the “overwhelming Hispanic farmworker” population in his state. Without any national political muscle the Latino frontline worker is, the proverbial “deer in the glaring headlights”, politically abandoned and on his own in this deadly and highly uncertain time of the Covid-19 pandemic. All the while shameless and racist national and local politicians will continue to scapegoat and “Willie Horton” the politically impotent Latino communities in the run-up to the 2020 election.
How can we celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month when in fact what the Covid-19 pandemic has tragically underscored is what we already knew about the American medical model, namely that it is designed to serve those that have money, lots of it! Many Latinos, the poor, immigrants and those millions of other Americans without insurance will suffer greatly and many more Americans will die. So in this wholly inadequate American medical scheme, Latinos, Blacks and the Native Americans now represent over 20 % of recent Covid-19 related deaths throughout the nation. These racial groups will continue to die at a much higher rate than other racial groups in the U.S; it is simple cold-blooded capitalistic economics. “No nos queda otra, al la chamba” we often say fatalistically to our family members as we head out to our potentially deadly work place, “La Corona o la hambre!” Many of us Latinos have no other choice; work or perish!
How can we celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month when the Trump Administration has weaponized and militarized all the branches of law enforcement to wage war against Latinos, Blacks, Native Americans, the LGBTQ community and other minorities throughout this nation? Currently there are over 2.3 million adults and approximately 60,000 minors under the age of 18 years in 1,833 state prisons, 110 federal prisons, 1,772 juvenile correctional facilities, 3,134 local jails, 218 immigration detention facilities, and 80 Indian Country jails as well as in military prisons, civil commitment centers, state psychiatric hospitals, and prisons in the U.S. territories.
While Latinos, Blacks and Native Americans represent about 17% of the total American population, they represent approximately 50%+ of the total incarcerated population of this nation. Additionally there are approximately 1 million parolees, 3.6 million adults on probation, the majority of these folks under law enforcement supervision, are of course, Latinos, Blacks and Native Americans. The prison industrial complex is the new Jim Crow law enforcement policy tool that disproportionately ensnarls Black, Latinos and Native Americans into a revolving and cruel penal system that keeps these populations as perpetually disenfranchised ghosts of this nation.
How can we celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month on the public and mean streets of America when the local cops increasingly use violent and deadly force with encounters of Latino, Black and Native Americans. In a wicked insane twist on white privilege, the FBI has advised all of us who are listening that the greatest terrorist (violence, killing, destruction of property) threat in this country comes from extremist white nationalist and not the minorities or external enemies. So why then are the nations cops coming down so brutally violently and deadly on the minorities and giving “if your white your right” passes to the violent and deadly white militant groups throughout the nation? The question is acutely troublesome, however the answer is blood chillingly vivid and real. Turn on the news, surf the internet and you will see the cold blooded killing of Andres Guardado, Antonio Valenzuela, George Floyd, and Dijon Kizzee and video clip after video clip of white cops shooting and killing Latino, Blacks and Native America for no other apparent reason, except that they can kill us with complete and total impunity, and so they will! These frequent cold blooded law enforcement and cop killing of our people will continue, until we have the political power to stop them, not one second before!
The 2020 Latino population in the United States is approximately 61 million. We represent about 19% of the entire USA population. In 2020 even with the horrific economic national downturn due to the pandemic, the Latino economy will generate and add about 1.7 trillion dollars to the economy. Put another way, if we, the Latinos of this country represented a separate nation we would constitute the 7th largest economy in the world.
Yet we have no discernable national political power. We are politically impotent on the national stage. Our significant economic contribution and impact on this nation’s economy does not translate into any semblance of equitable political power. With the exception of the Squad, this small group of brilliant, bold and brave Congresswomen, we have no collective political backbone, heart; or a concise, cogent and comprehensive social justice national political agenda that demands exacts more equitable and reciprocal political power sharing and Trump and his goons know this and exploit it to the hilt!
We are less than 50 days away from this nation’s election on Tuesday, November 3, 2020. Our primary goal as Latinos in the 2020 election is to defeat Trump, and run him and his gang of criminals out of national office. This mi gente will be no easy task as Trump and his cabal will fight, cheat and kill us in plain sight on Main Street, USA, to retain power.
So we must all vote, and get every one that is of voting age to vote. We must be guardians of the poll booths to assure that no intimidation of our people is taking place. Must by any means necessary be present at the poll booths to assure that any one that has the right to vote, can exercise that privilege! If you vote by mail it is, of course, imperative that you mail your completed ballot as quickly as possible so that every vote can be counted. I have receive a mailer for the USPO recommending that we should mail our ballots at least 7 days before election. I am very sceptical about this small turnaround window of 7 days. I recommend that as quickly as you get you mail in ballot sometime in the first week of October, you should mail it back the same day and at the very latest the following day to assure that it get postmarked and counted in this tumultuous, potentially compromised, and treacherous political election year.
Once we have disposed of the tyrant in the White House in the November 3, 2020 election, we the Latinos of this nation must do a lot of soul searching. We must ask ourselves the hard question. Why are we so politically impotent on the national stage? Where we the Latinos of this nation complicit in putting this monster into the presidency in the first place? And if we were how do we go about redirecting and committing all of our energy and efforts to this nation so that it does not slip further into tyranny. A familiar tyranny, that functions to serves the few elite and oppresses the masses. A tyrannical system of government that so many of us Latinos escaped from in the first place to be here in America.
No gente this is no time to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month! We have a lot of heavy sacrifice and work to do to dispose of the tyrannical monster that is on our collective neck. And then we must confront the long and arduous challenges that awaits us as we in reinvent our America into a truly inclusive, transparent, democratic, equitable and just nation for all of us. We have a lot of work to do!
— Armando Vazquez, M.Ed., founding member of CORE and the Acuna Art Gallery and Community Collective.