Latino Vote Magnified Following Final Presidential Debate

Connecticut has one of the most robust Latino and Hispanic populations in the United States per capita and it will be a critical voting bloc in the upcoming presidential and General Assembly elections.

One of the most influential writers on issues relating to members of the Latino community and those affecting Connecticut as a whole is Bessy Reyna. For years she was a columnist for the Hartford Courant and now publishes her writing on CTLatinoNews.com.

Reyna said since Donald Trump announced his candidacy at Trump Tower in New York with talk about illegal immigrant Mexicans as "rapists" and similar comments since, Latinos in America have taken notice to a trend never seen before in a presidential race.

"Trump has allowed racism in this country to bloom," Reyna said.

During the most recent debate, Trump described some illegal immigrants as "bad hombres."

Reyna said such comments are par for the course and part of a larger trend when it's come to his rhetoric.

"The issue for me is that Trump has allowed this bigotry to really explode."

There are small pockets of Trump supporters in Connecticut. One of them is Ruben Rodriguez, who is the chair of the Latino National Republican Coalition.

He heard the "hombre" comment differently.

"We take it as a compliment some times because hombre means a man and that’s something that a lot of Latinos won’t take as an offense like another word. But hombre for us is not a big thing," Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez said the issue of immigration is an important one for many members of the community because for the ones who immigrated to the United States legally, he said they feel like they played by the rules and so should everyone else and that's why Trump has resonated with some.

"What he is meaning is that look, every country has their own laws we’ve got to follow. If you go to Mexico, if you go to Canada, you’ve got to follow their own laws and that’s how we want to make it happen here in the United States," Rodriguez said. 

The most critical issues Rodriguez said are not just limited to being important to Latinos. They are jobs, the economy, and education.

Reyna, who holds a Masters and Law degree from UConn and was born in Cuba, said any rational voter, Latino or not, needs to look at Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump through a critical lens. She said her choice is clear.

"If you have a toothache, rather than going to a dentist, you go to an ophthalmologist, Trump is the ophthalmologist and Hillary is the dentist. Would you go to someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing?" Reyna said. 

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