Hillary Clinton, leave our grandmothers out of it
*Twitter lit up yesterday after the Hillary Clinton campaign published a picture on their website of the candidate holding a swaddled baby with Bill looking over her. The caption read “7 things Hillary Clinton has in common with your abuela.” The majority of the online complaints called-out the picture, the caption and the page’s content as “hispandering.” It sparked the #NotMyAbuela hashtag and a rush of Latino indignation. What do you think? VL
By Raul Reyes, CNN
(CNN) – She had to go there.
On Tuesday morning, Hillary Clinton’s campaign released a post on her campaign site with the headline “Seven ways Hillary Clinton is just like your abuela.” “Abuela” is the Spanish word for “grandmother,” so presumably this list was designed to appeal to potential Latino voters.
On the list were items such as, “She reads to you before bedtime” and “she had one word for Donald Trump … ‘Basta!’ Enough!”
With all respect, Clinton’s latest effort to connect with Latinos is beyond lame. Her campaign’s list is an example of “Hispandering” at its worst. It is condescending to Latinos and has generated deserved pushback on social media.
Clinton is an intelligent, accomplished woman and certainly presidential material. But let’s be clear: She is not “just like” my abuela or those of most Latino voters. My grandmother did not go to Wellesley College and Yale Law School; she was fortunate to finish grade school. My grandmother did not give speeches for $200,000 a pop at Goldman Sachs; for most of her life, she cleaned other people’s houses. My grandmother raised seven children In El Paso, Texas, yet did not live long enough to know most of her grandchildren.
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[Photo courtesy of Hillary for Clinton website]
