Biden Lauds Latino Diversity, Gets In Trouble

“Diversity” has been a buzzword, an undefined goal for Democrats and most U.S. colleges for decades. But Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden found himself in hot water on Aug. 7 when he said “What most people don’t know is that the Latino community is an incredibly diverse community with incredibly different attitudes about different things – unlike the African American community.” Biden was speaking to NPR’s Lulu GarciaNavarro with Black and Latino journalists present. He was referring to the unity of Black Lives Matter.  Later, but not right away, Biden tweeted that African Americans are “not monolith.”

In truth, diversity has become a double-edged sword for Democrats. Washington Post columnist Eugene Scott writes, “Democrats are leaning really hard into the notion that displaying their diversity will help them win the election this year because the country is more open to it after the protests this summer. Long term, Democrats’ diversity is a winning argument because of the nation’s unstoppable demographic changes.”  But diversity to Democratic strategists seems to mean only BETWEEN various separate ethnic and identity groups, not WITHIN them.  It can be argued however that those “unstoppable” demographic changes are NOT because of increasing numbers in separate identity groups but because of an increase in diverse multiethnic/national/cultural individuals like vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris (Jamaican father, mother from India, raised in French-speaking Quebec). Since 2016, marriages between Asians and Latinos make up the fastest growing percentage of intermarriage in America, according to the PEW Research Center.  Increasingly, college students mark their ethnicity as “mixed.” Individual diversity defines the nation today.    

Latinos Struggle For Visibility In Virtual Presidential Conventions

The ways to campaign for a presidential and political candidate and to lobby for specific interest groups’ issues were completely changed this the year of the coronavirus pandemic, when few if any personal interactions were allowed.  Everything was virtual and remote at the Democratic nomination convention. Hispanic delegate Corina Garay told The Hispanic Outlook on Aug. 21 that it was frustrating.  “While we tried to motivate party leaders via computer to support our issues, there is nothing like having the human contact. It was hard to get people motivated to even turn on the computer. Even political activists are all zoomed out.”

Still organizers tried to make the convention as normal as possible, including scheduling meetings of various ethnic group councils and caucuses during each day. The Latino Caucus met on Monday and Wednesday from 12-2 p.m.; they presented full panels of Latino leaders addressing mostly many of the issues brought up in prior conventions, especially immigration. One new topic, however, focused on Latinos as “essential workers” in the pandemic,  as health specialists, grocery and drug store clerks, and farmworkers. On the second day, the caucus’ focus widened to include the need for more educational support. But Garay, who grew up in Washington D.C., said it was hard without personal interactions to push for action on the issues she believed were most important, including settling the immigration status of DACA and TPS recipients, and the vulnerability of Latino immigrant LGBTQ and sex workers. The only issue that was emphasized on both days of the Latino caucus and the entire convention really was: GET OUT THE VOTE.  “Latinos have the power to have the outside word in this election” most Latino leaders concluded.

Teachers Unions Determine School Openings, But Not For Charter Or Catholic Schools

Whether or not to open schools during the COVID-19 crisis was still in question right up to late August. The decision impacts Latino children and teachers particularly with their special language needs, often multigenerational living arrangements, and disproportionate attendance at public charter and Catholic schools. The core question was said to be how much risk to undertake if school children could infect others. But dig deeper and the decision became political…between teachers unions at public schools and administrative boards of charter and private schools, including Catholic parishes that mostly do not require teachers to be union members. Throughout the country, national teachers’ unions were demanding schools stay closed until teacher safety could be fully considered; they threatened strikes if the schools opened. But most parents at charters and private schools wanted their children to return to small and restricted in-person classes. They cited the low risk of infection and illness of children globally and their absolute need to develop crucial social and academic skills through in-person school interaction. Many of these schools’ parents also work at jobs that cannot be done remotely. And those schools are not under city jurisdiction. By August, it seemed that many mayors – except New York City’s – were going to bow to unions’ demands to keep public schools closed at least for another few months. They hoped charters and private schools would follow.  “The decision to open or close is not based mainly on health matrixes but on personnel availability,” D.C.’s Mayor Muriel Bowser admitted. •