‘Get off the stage!’ Crowd yells at commencement speaker after she uses Spanish, mentions Trump

*Where do you fall on this, if any place at all? She spoke a few words about holding Donald Trump accountable, she spoke a few words in Spanish, and she spoke at length about the work of journalism. But not all in the audience were anti-Trump, some spoke no Spanish and there were public relations, tourism, advertising, photography and entertainment graduates in the seats as well. They spoke up, they say, because they felt left out. And after the graduates got their diplomas all was well. Are we making more out of this than needed? VL

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By Susan Svrluga, Washington Post (5 minute read)

Some people in the crowd at a graduation ceremony at California State University, Fullerton, shouted at the commencement speaker after she talked about presidential candidate Donald Trump and gave a brief section of her address in Spanish.

“It’s really sad,” the commencement speaker, Maria Elena Salinas, an anchor for Spanish language broadcast network Univision, said Tuesday. “And it’s a testament to what has happened in our country. Our country is really divided.”

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Salinas gave the keynote address to the entire university Sunday morning, was presented with an honorary doctorate, and spoke some words in Spanish to the parents of graduates. The student body is 40 percent Hispanic, and she felt the speech was well-received; several students thanked her afterward for addressing their parents in their native language. University leaders had encouraged her to say a few words in Spanish . . . READ MORE

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[Screenshot courtesy of YouTube]

Suggested reading

Chicano! The History of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement is the most comprehensive account of the arduous struggle by Mexican Americans to secure and protect their civil rights. It is also a companion volume to the critically acclaimed, four-part documentary series of the same title. This volume is a testament to the Mexican American community’s hard-fought battle for social and legal equality as well as political and cultural identity.

Since the United States-Mexico War in 1846-1848, Mexican Americans have striven to achieve full rights as citizens. From peaceful resistance and violent demonstrations, when their rights were ignored or abused, to the establishment of support organizations to carry on the struggle and the formation of labor unions to provide a united voice, the movement grew in strength and numbers. However, it was during the 1960s and 1970s that the campaign exploded into a nationwide groundswell of Mexican Americans laying claim, once and for all, to their civil rights and asserting their cultural heritage. They took a name that had been used disparagingly against them for years—Chicano—and fashioned it into a battle cry, a term of pride, affirmation and struggle.

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