Is Ted Cruz Latino Enough?
By Roque Planas, Huffington Post Latino Voices
Ted Cruz is still taking heat from critics who say he’s not Latino enough.
The Cuban-American with a southern drawl faced criticism over his level of Latino-ness this summer, after handing Texas Lt. Gov. David Dewhurt an unexpected defeat during the GOP primary for the U.S. Senate seat Kay Bailey Hutchison will leave behind. Cruz brushed those criticisms in August, but they refuse to die. The Houston Chronicle reports that Democrats like Gilbert Hinojosa, the party’s state chairman, continue to question Cruz’s “Hispanic credentials.”
“His last name may be Cruz, but there is nothing, not an ounce, about the way he thinks and the way he has led his life that in any way is similar to Hispanics in the state of Texas and all across America … Ted Cruz is as much Hispanic … as Tom Cruise.”
Republican state Rep. Aaron Peña, once a Democrat himself, called the remarks “highly offensive” and “a base attempt to reach the ugliest part of our human nature, to despise people because of their racial and ethnic origins,” according to the Chronicle.
It’s true that Cruz’s positions are generally at odds with the majority of Latinos. In a state where Mexican-American liberals make up the Hispanic mainstream, Cruz has more in common politically with the Cuban exile generation of Miami. He enjoys the full-throated backing of the Tea Party — not a group that attracts many Hispanics in Texas. He opposes expanding Medicaid in Texas under Obama’s health care reform and calls Social Security a “ponzi scheme.”
This article was first published in Huffington Post Latino Voices.
[Photo by Gage Skidmore]
