There is a fear that is being struck in the hearts of those who will vote next week and who will vote in November

Perspective:
By Guadalupe Gonzalez

I watched the twentieth (yes, I am an idiot—twentieth) Republican debate on CNN. I had promised Diosito that I would give up politics and ice cream for Lent, and here we are, only twenth-three hours in and I have already broken my vows. (Well, better those vows than my wedding vows, I guess, huh?)

And, speaking of wedding vows, although this Mamacita watched the Grammy’s tenaciously and intently, my friend, “Edwin’s” category was not shown. Someone told me it would be on the Latino Grammy’s. Although, why, I wonder, do Latinos have to have a separate program? Did we throw “them” out because they just clog up the aisles and do not know how to say “azúcar!” properly? Or did “they” throw us under the camión because we show them up on their lack of dance and singing skills? I wonder.

Somebody told me, “Just leave it alone! It’s all about Whitney! Leave it alone!” Just for a second, I thought, “Is she the madrina of Bobbi-Christina? I don’t remember her at the christening… Is she a fly girl for Bobby Brown? (Whitney’s husband, not the cosmetics maven…) So, I briefly touch upon the Grammy issue.

I have not written since Whitney Houston died. It’s not because I am in luto, but there is a lot to think about after her untimely death. She was so young, and so beautiful, but if you watched “Being Bobby Brown”, you could see who was the more classy of the two—and you could see how Whitney was slowly spiraling downwards.

I know crack and meth are out on the streets, blunts and PCP every so often. But now the meds are in the fancy parts of town. I know, because I used to go to a doctor who, after he finished his exam, would meet me in his beautifully appointed office, behind his wooden desk, med prescription pad in hand, fountain pen at the ready, and he would say,

“Anything you want?” “WHAT?” I would think to myself.

Surely he cannot mean THAT! True, I would see movie people and the wives in the waiting room, but it never occurred to me he was one of the “Dr. Feelgoods” people talk about now, especially after celebrity deaths.

One time, I went to my parents’ house and, spotting a dish full of pills on the table, jokingly said, “Look! Appetizers!” (I tried to channel Karen in “Will and Grace”, a favorite show.) My Mami immediately said, “¡Quita esas cosas de allí! Son las medicinas de tu Papá y mías.” I suspect the medicine cabinets have been on lockdown since my joke.
Why have I wandered into this area…Maybe to warn you, Mi Gente, of the dangers of medicines that doctors have given you. Maybe to say, if you are in a hospital, ask what the medicine is for, before you allow the nurse to have you swallow it. Lives have been ruined, but have looked safe because they have come from a pharmacy and in a little brown bottle. Watchalos!

Back to politics, though. I am so disappointed in the not-so-thinly veiled ads about money going to China, being run by a Pete Hoekstra. They are so proud of it… and have now realized the damage it can do, that they have “scrubbed” the whole of the internet, articles mentioning it, the candidate’s web site, everywhere. It shows a young, pretty Chinese girl near a rice paddy, speaking in broken English, thanking Hoekstra’s incumbent challenger for American money. My impression is that it is an attempt to raise the ire of people living in the United States (porque todos somos Americanos) and anger them about Chinese investments in the U.S.

I called Hoekstra’s campaign headquarters and was asking questions when I told the man at the other end I was in Los Angeles. Los Angeles! I was a nothing, a nobody to them. They want Michigan citizens—so he hung up on me. I had been lodging my complaint about the ad, saying it not only depicted Asian people in a negative way, it was projecting negative types toward all recognizable groups of people. I was not rude, did not “make a scene,” and just questioned if this was not a shameful ad, what was it? (If you want to call the number and lodge your complaint, it is 616.391.3105)

So, Mi Gente, it is not just “us” they are impugning, it is all people who look, speak, dress or hail from another land. There is a fear that is being struck in the hearts of those who will vote next week and who will vote in November.

During the debate, Gingrich talked about two thirty foot fence between Mexico and ourselves. Then joked that the market for two thirty-five foot fences will go up. How dare they?

DO THESE CANDIDATES NOT REALIZE THAT THEY ARE RUINING PEOPLE’S LIVES? People who are not millionaires and billionaires seek not to dethrone those who have money. They simply need money to live. They do not want to die, of thirst, or hunger, or violence crossing the border, they just want to make decent money to live and send home to the others. The young women and girls who thrust themselves into the fray of that lonely desert knowing they may be molested, raped, and left to die—just so they have a chance to earn money to live and send home.

For no matter where they go en route to the piscas, how many buses they take to work for “la señora,” home is where their family is.

I understand and see that everything is not perfect in the Democratic party. I am no fool. But I can see that if one of these Republicans is elected president, our personal rights, which the United States Supreme Court protected under the “penumbra of privacy,” will continue to erode. We should all fear what may be in store for us yet.

Gonzalez is a Los Angeles Attorney and Political Groupie. Reprinted from LatinoLA.com