Editorial:

We were intrigued when we received a press release from the Republican National Committee, announcing that they were expanding their Hispanic effort in California. Their efforts were highlighted with the addition of a Hispanic state director.

We were excited to learn that Francis Barraza, from Chula Vista, was named the state director and we looked forward to interviewing her about her involvement and the Republican Party.

The Republican Party desperately needs to find a way to attract more Hispanics into the Party. Without a greater percentage of Hispanic support, the Republican Party will continue to devolve into a minority Party and will have a difficult time breaking up the super majority that the Democrats now enjoy in California.

Make no mistake. La Prensa San Diego leans Democrat, but that does not preclude us from including and talking about Republican candidates or issues. In fact, we look forward to engaging the Republican Party in the conversation and sharing ideas. We believe that a strong two-Party system, even a three-Party system, makes for better politics and greater accountability.

As it has often been said, the Republican Party holds many principles that are reflected in the Hispanic community. As President Ronald Reagan once said, Hispanics are Republicans, they just don’t know it yet.

But there are the bugaboo issues such as immigration, affirmative action, unions, the constant scapegoating of the Hispanic community, border enforcement, DREAMers, and the list goes on, for which the Republican Party and Hispanics are miles apart. Those critical issues drive Hispanics into the arms of the Democratic Party.

The Democratic Party is the de facto Party for the Hispanic community!

So, back to Francis Barraza. As a home girl from Chula Vista, we thought a background on her would make for a great story. So we sent our reporter out to corral the interview, something we thought would be a slam dunk!

But we had a little trouble attaining contact info for Ms. Barraza, which we thought as odd considering she was statewide director. Further, there was no response to our emails. So we contacted the PR person who sent the press release.

And that was where it went South!

Through the PR person, we found out that Ms. Barraza will not be talking to the press and if we had any questions about the Republican Party and their Hispanic effort we could direct the questions to the PR person and she will answer them!

We shouldn’t have been surprised by this response. Recently we published a commentary by our friend Marisa Treviño who wrote “One Latina journalist’s tips to help GOP politicians follow the Chairman’s directive of engaging Latino media.”

In the commentary, she expressed how difficult it was to get even Hispanic Republicans to return calls to journalists, despite the call for the Republican Party to become more engaged with Hispanic media!

Despite the Republican Party’s best efforts to put on a positive face for the Hispanic community, they are still unable to break the shackles from the past. The Republican Party can’t wrap its mind around the fact that if they want to reach the Hispanic voter they are going to have to empower those few Hispanics who are willing to share their vision. They should incorporate these Hispanics into the process, not only as spokespersons, but as decision makers. Once Hispanics become an intricate part of the Party then maybe they can start to break down some of the barriers that have been erected between the Hispanic voter and Republican Party over the past decades.

One thing we know for sure, propping up puppets such as Francis Barraza does very little in bringing together the Republican Party and Hispanics.