(AFP) – The chants Tuesday in the largely Hispanic Pennsylvania city of Allentown came from a small but proud and passionate group of protesters outside Donald Trump’s latest campaign rally: “Immigrants make America great!” The refrain — a play on Trump’s “Make American Great Again” slogan — along with pointed calls of “Trump, fuera!” (Trump, go away) reflect mounting anger among Latinos, in particular those from Puerto Rico, after a comedian who spoke at last weekend’s Trump rally in New York likened the US island territory to a pile of garbage.
“Latinos are very disgusted by this,” 60-year-old clerk Ivet Figueroa, raised in working-class Allentown by Puerto Rican parents, told AFP as some 50 protesters gathered near the long line of Trump supporters waiting to enter the arena for the former president’s speech. “We are citizens, and he’s referring to us that way?” she added. “How dare him!”
The shock remarks at Sunday’s Madison Square Garden rally from the comic who called Puerto Rico “a floating island of garbage” have reverberated across the American voter landscape with just a week before Election Day on November 5. And in a race going down to the wire, the biggest battleground state of all is a toss-up, polls show. A shift of just a few thousand votes could tilt Pennsylvania either to Democrat Kamala Harris or Trump.
Which makes comedian Tony Hinchcliffe’s remarks all the more startling. They have galvanized Puerto Rican voters — not those on the island, who cannot vote in US presidential elections, but the million-plus so-called “Boricuas” who reside in the country’s 50 states, notably the seven battleground states likely to determine the result of the race between Trump and Harris.
Pennsylvania is home to more than 400,000 Puerto Ricans, and get-out-the-vote organizers have already said they see evidence that the controversy is turning Latinos against the Republican former president, even as Trump claims he has been making inroads with the traditionally Democratic-leaning bloc. “We have heard people actually changing their minds, who are Republicans and now because of this are going to vote for Kamala,” said Armando Jimenez, a deputy organizing director for Make the Road Action Pennsylvania.
Tuesday’s protest was not the flashpoint it could have been. Many Puerto Ricans stayed home out of fear or nerves, and road closures suppressed the protest attendance, Jimenez argued. It was also a weekday, when people were at work. But the demonstration — with Trump supporters occasionally trying to shout down protesters as they marched toward the venue — highlighted the potential influence of a scorned voter demographic. “We’re the largest-growing voting bloc in the whole country, so anything can really sway the election if we continue to be attacked,” Jimenez said.
For Puerto Rican Michelle Fernandez, a devout Trump supporter standing in line at the rally, the comedian’s remarks were water off a duck’s back. “It didn’t touch a nerve with me,” the 54-year-old told AFP alongside her husband, both of whom held “Boricuas con Trump” placards, explaining that the remark “didn’t come out of Trump’s mouth.” “The comment was ugly, but the comment is not the deciding choice for me,” Fernandez, a private sector worker, told AFP. More important to her: undocumented immigration, crime, and the US economy.
While she is more than ready to see a woman win the White House, Harris “has shown no leadership at all in my eye.” As Garbage-gate raged, Trump allies warmed up the arena crowd before the headliner arrived. They included Puerto Ricans like Tim Ramos, a former mayoral candidate in Allentown.
The current mayor, Democrat Matthew Tuerk, was outside at the protest, venting over Hinchcliffe’s garbage remark. “It’s an insult to the people here in Allentown!” he told dozens of protesters. “They’re making a closing argument of grievances, about ‘the enemy within,'” he said, paraphrasing Trump’s own provocative words about Americans he perceives as evil. “You know who he means? Us. He’s talking about us.”
Nearby a lone man held up a sign: “Make Racism Shameful Again.” Figueroa, the Allentown native, held her own handmade sign featuring an image of a garbage can. “Nov 5 is trash day,” the sign read. “Let’s put you where you belong.” – Michael Mathes
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