28:58
Transcript
Maria Hinojosa 0:00
I just said, Well, if I have a Latino agenda, then you must have a white male agenda. And he was very offended.
Isabelle Barbour 0:06
Hello, beautiful WPKN listeners. My name is Isabelle Barbour, and I’d like to welcome you to speak and make check, which comes to you on this station every Sunday at 5:30 p.m.. Our diverse roster of hosts presents a wide range of topics for discussion, focusing on global, national and regional issues and their effect on our local community.
What does it mean to belong and how do conversations about belonging fit with what’s going on in our country right now? I have a chance to meet and speak with the amazing Maria Hinojosa, an award winning journalist, to get her take on where we are right now. She has done so much that it’s sometimes hard to figure out how to best introduce her. So I asked for some help.
Maria Hinojosa 1:08
So I actually don’t like the super long introductions. So, you know, I mean, you can’t get away from the fact that I won a Pulitzer. That’s pretty frickin cool. That’s all I would say. You know, Pulitzer Prize winner. Anchor of Latino USA, which won a Peabody and founder of Futuro Media.
Isabelle Barbour 1:30
I also know that you’re a Cancer with a Virgo rising.
Maria Hinojosa 1:34
Now everybody knows it.
Isabelle Barbour 1:37
Obviously, with with President Biden’s stepping aside and putting his endorsement behind Vice President Harris, I know you’ve had a chance to speak with her in the past. What are your thoughts and feelings about right now where we’re at?
Maria Hinojosa 1:52
Wow. You know, what’s fascinating is how politics can change in 24 hours, right? We have just basically been reeling from a month of a debate performance from Joe Biden that left everybody just kind of confused and frankly shocked. The assassination attempt, the rambling convention speech from Donald Trump, where at least half of it was spent attacking immigrants, and most of it with lies to really feeling quite desperate. I, in fact, didn’t watch any of the Republican National Convention except for Donald Trump’s speech, because I just I mean, I just couldn’t it was just too much.
And then you have this news, right, that all of a sudden Joe Biden is deciding to step away. I think it had a lot to do with the fact that he came back with COVID and that it became almost impossible to find an argument for how he was going to sustain an election, a campaign when he might have had to have been in isolation for, who knows, two weeks, let’s just say. And then it was frankly, a surprise that it all happened so quickly. And then not only is he saying, okay, I’m stepping down, and then he puts another message out that says I’m endorsing Kamala. And then all of a sudden it was like this pause of like, what’s going to happen? What’s going to, you know, now what’s going to happen? Will will the country become even more divided because of the naming of Kamala as his ideal replacement for the candidacy?
And since then, what a turn of events, the raising of tens of millions of dollars within a period of about 24 hours, about $80 million, I believe a Black women mobilizing in a way that we have witnessed before. So not a surprise, but to just kind of see it happening, to see the delegates, everybody basically all, you know, from Nancy Pelosi on down, the number of endorsements, the possibility that there does not have to be a contested convention because of the amount of support that has poured in for Kamala and the surprising moment of having the immigrant rights organizations that I know well and have reported on well, and that they have basically all fall in line behind the candidacy of Kamala Harris because she’s the daughter of immigrants and has had some progressive politics in her past. But there’s a lot of there’s a lot of weight and baggage that comes with a with Kamala Harris in terms of the issue of immigration. A lot to be criticized. And yet immigrant rights organizations just kind of fall into line.
This was like the the most surprising thing for me is just watching how all of this has happened. I mean, U.S. politics have become absolutely fascinating, the amount of energy that people feel now because of what’s happening in our democracy. I mean, it was just last week that I had a conversation with somebody and we were talking about Kamala, and they said, well, you know, she’s not very visible. And I was like, well, it’s the job of the vice president not to be visible. But while Kamala is everywhere now and in terms of the means and social media of the kind of loving means, of course, on the other side, there’s been a lot of hatred. I haven’t watched Fox News, but a lot of the critique that is just coming after Kamala. But the funniest one was I can’t remember who it was that just said she wants to ban plastic straws and she’s got a weird — and she’s got a strange laughter and it’s just like, okeydokey. So I am feeling reinvigorated by the process of democracy because what’s happening energetically in our country, it’s fascinating. So, yeah, I’m happy to be alive to witness this. It’s kind of incredible for a journalist to to be able to live through this and document it.
Isabelle Barbour 5:58
Yeah. No, it’s fascinating. I feel like when Hillary Clinton was running, her laugh wasn’t ok too. And I was just like, okay, so it’s the misogyny, okay.
Maria Hinojosa 6:09
Yeah. And I think that, you know, when we step back and we look at how the Hillary Clinton campaign was covered, I mean, it reeks with misogyny. I mean, it’s just extraordinary how my colleagues in the mainstream media, I don’t even think that they’re capable of doing a self-critique at the level that needs to be done in terms of how they covered the candidacy of Hillary Clinton. And frankly, they’re misogyny, and their bias against her really changed everything.
If Hillary Clinton had been covered in an honest and truthful and balanced way, there’s a good chance that she might have won the election and we would not be where we are today. There would not have been a Donald Trump presidency. And so they have a lot to carry. Again, I don’t think that they’re self-aware enough. My friends and colleagues in the mainstream media, my white male friends and colleagues, but those of us who are women and who are journalists certainly are able to see what happened. And it is inexcusable. And I hope that it’s different this time. Again, as a journalist, I have to manage my expectations. But we’re certainly hoping for something very different in terms of the coverage this time.
Isabelle Barbour 7:28
Yeah, no, absolutely. And it’s it’s always shocking to me that we are even having a conversation around a criminal and somebody who doesn’t make a lot of sense. And we have these incredibly prepared and smart and amazing women running. And there’s just this narrative of of like this male vigor being something that people want in this country. And I I’m kind of bracing myself, to be honest with you.
Maria Hinojosa 7:59
Well, the thing is, is that if you attack a black woman right now in the United States of America as a journalist, if that’s your starting point, in other words, it’s not just misogyny, it’s the question of race and misogyny now. And I think it’s a very different time.
You know, it’s it’s eight years in the distance. And so this I don’t I don’t think it’s going to be that easy. And I think that, frankly, my colleagues are going to struggle because since Hillary Clinton ran, we had the police murder of George Floyd and we had yet another moment of the Black Lives Matter movement taking over our cities in a call for justice for George Floyd. May he rest in peace. It’s a very different time. And that’s what’s great about any democracy, about really any society, is how it changes depending on the moment.
You know, I was born in Mexico. I’m a Mexican immigrant, a proud Mexican immigrant, and I never thought that I would see Mexico electing a woman president before the United States if the women did. That’s what happened. Mexico elected a progressive woman from the left who’s actually Jewish. What in Mexico!? So so in my view and what I posted on on my social media was what the United States is really catching up with the rest of the world.
I posed after we did our hour long documentary on Latino USA about Claudia Sheinbaum, now the New Mexican president who will be sworn in at the end of this year. I said, you know which country is more machista? The United States, which at that time had two old white men running for president or Mexico? Well, you know, the answer back then was clearly Mexico. You know, the United States is more machista. Now — we have a woman, a black woman, the daughter of immigrants, a progressive, a child of the civil rights era who is running for office.And I just think back to when Barack Hussein Obama announced his candidacy and the number of people who said, oh, my God, well, nobody will vote for a black man. This country’s not ready for a black man to be president, a black man from the Southside of Chicago, a black man with a middle name of Hussein, a black man with the last name of Obama. And he won twice, overwhelmingly.
So I think it is the intent of certain people in our country, certainly certain politicians, frankly, the Republican Party, to portray our country as this racially divided, torn country and ripped down the middle. And having been to all 50 states plus two territories, Puerto Rico and Guam. I actually think that the United States is not that horrifically torn. I think people are more on the same side on questions like gun violence, on questions like reproductive rights and the federal government staying out of a woman’s life, the Supreme Court staying out of our lives and our bodies.
I think that the country actually, up until this year when the myths and disinformation on immigration was just piling on, I even think on the question of immigration, our country was not that divided. You know, about 75% of Americans up until earlier this year said that there should be a pathway for citizenship for undocumented immigrants who have committed no crimes in this country. But then you flood the country and my colleagues fall for it, Right? Myths and disinformation about immigrants lies in not turning to the data and the facts. And it’s a very different reality now. So I’m actually I’m so excited to be a part of American Democracy now. And I just love being able to say that.
Isabelle Barbour 12:00
No, I am really glad to hear your enthusiasm and I’m feeling it in myself as well. You know, you and I met at a conference in Oakland, California, this past April. I was in your book line, getting the children’s version of your memoir signed by you. And, you know, one of the things I was thinking about – I was wondering if you could share your understanding of kind of how you’ve experienced othering and belonging in your life and how that’s shaped you in your journalism.
Maria Hinojosa 12:32
Well, I love the fact that you brought up Isabelle, that we that we met in that in that conference, the Othering and Belonging Conference, which actually was really important to me. And I’m going to tell a story that you may or may not know, but I love the fact that we’re talking on WPKN, one of my favorite all time favorite radio stations in Connecticut — because, you know, people know me as a proud Mexican immigrant raised on the South Side of Chicago, a very proud Harlem night in Harlem, USA, in New York City, a historically black community. But people also know that I have a little teeny, tiny cottage in Connecticut, actually in Bethlehem, Connecticut, which is a little bit of the red part of the state. And because of the pandemic, I ended up spending a lot more time in Connecticut than ever before. You know, Connecticut really became a really important part of my life. And the point is, is that I became a member of a Connecticut gym. And I didn’t realize that I had unknowingly basically infiltrated into a MAGA gym run by a woman who is clearly MAGA and I you know, it was actually in the whole conversation of othering and belonging. This was like my gym.
Isabelle Barbour 13:52
So this is what we all heard during the conference.
Maria Hinojosa speaking at the Othering and Belonging Conference on 4/26/2024 13:56
And so every week I am there in an engagement of seeing them and not ceding space and not silencing myself and negotiating that place. Because when we’re in the gym together, we all belong together. So what happens when suddenly we leave? I’m considering asking them all to my house. That’s how seriously I take this, which is come into my space, see where I live. So I am no longer a stranger to you and therefore not scary.
Maria Hinojosa 14:48
And then. Then I was kicked out of this gym because of the work that I do as a journalist. And it was shocking. And it was about a week after I met you, actually, that this happened. And I remember when I was kicked out of my Connecticut gym, I cried. Actually, I haven’t said that publicly because I have never been kicked out of anything. You know, I’ve I’m an outsider. I’ve never denied that. As a Mexican immigrant. Yes, an outsider. I was, you know, the first person in almost all of the newsrooms where I worked. So I get the other side of it. But I was always brought in or fought my way in and never kicked out of anything until this year. Kicked out of the MAGA gym in my small town in Connecticut.
Now the end of that story is that I ended up finding the most amazing little gym even closer to my home in Bethlehem, where I have been welcomed and not only welcomed by Connecticut women, but they are so happy that I’m working out with them and they’re so thrilled that I have all of this information about being a journalist out in the world that they are now asking me to be a part of conversations that are being had where I’m going to be leading a conversation with my fellow Connecticutins, talking about my work as a journalist, where they want to know what I see when I go to the border. They want to know what I see and feel as a Mexican immigrant and so there’s a saying in Mexican Spanish–No hay mal que por bien no venga – there is no bad from which good cannot come.
So I was thrown out of this Connecticut gym, desperate, sad. But now I find a new home. And to me it’s like both of those things existed within a mile of my house. So this to me is like a very, very symbolic of this particular moment in my life. And I believe that the essence of this moment is to say we belong. Right? And and I believe that the U.S. actually has the capacity to do that, which is why I was on the BBC yesterday and I said, look, the whole issue now is for our country to see that a white straight man, let’s just say, can work and be the number two to a black powerful woman. Like, yeah, and there’s not going to be any drama and everything is going to be fine. I have tremendous amount of hope about the possibility of our country and the fact that I believe that people really want more of the belonging, not the othering, because the othering doesn’t get us anywhere because no one is going anywhere. I’m not leaving Bethlehem. I’m not leaving the United States. Immigrants and refugees and travelers are not leaving. We are here and we are part of, you.
Isabelle Barbour 17:32
No– well said. And, you know, one of the things I’ve been thinking so much about is kind of the ideas of othering and belonging in American democracy. Right. And that’s a huge topic and something I appreciated about your memoir – Once I Was You – was talking about some of the policies that were in place at different times in some of the elections that meant different things in terms of immigration changes. And our democracy is fraught with these moments of of othering and belonging and even belonging for reasons that aren’t very pure. Right? Like, I want the Latin X vote. I want to build support among this population. So I’m going to match my immigration policy.
Maria Hinojosa 18:21
So I don’t know where I saw it. Some place on social media, they had a collection of the presidents starting, I think with John F Kennedy talking about immigrants and how everyone’s even, you know, even George W. Bush, if you remember before 911, he was very pro-immigrant. In fact, that’s why he got about 35% of the Latino vote. People forget about that with George W., He was very popular as a Texas governor. So up until you get to Donald Trump, the rhetoric was still, we love our immigrants and we want to welcome them.
Having said that, of course, all of them, including President Bill Clinton, who started the wall, George W. Bush, who did massive deportations. Obama, who was known as the deporter in chief, massive amounts of deportation. We are all witness to either believing the rhetoric that is being said about who we are as immigrants and refugees, believing the rhetoric, believing what you’re hearing on Fox News or opening your eyes and believing what you are seeing every day, especially in a state like Connecticut, where immigrants and refugees are everywhere in every capacity. So, yes, of course, you’re going to see them, you know, gardening and you’re going to see them, you know, in the farms and you’re going to see them cooking in the restaurants and diners. But come on, they’re in our top law firms. They’re, you know, performing the highest level of medical surgeries and investigations at all of the hospitals across the United States.
So I just say to my fellow Americans and to my fellow folks from Connecticut, open your eyes. Don’t believe what you’re being told. Look at the data and then compare that data that says that immigrants and refugees are not bringing in crime or of any sort and then see how it compares with what you actually see in your daily life.
Isabelle Barbour 20:28
Yeah, And I think something that’s challenging for folks, especially because Connecticut is very segregated. You know, what we see in mainstream media really mischaracterizes what’s happening in our southern border. I know that you’ve spent a lot of time and a lot of visits at the southern border. Can you just tell people what’s really happening?
Maria Hinojosa 20:52
The easiest thing to say is there is no invasion. Please, everyone calm down. There is no invasion that is happening. This term should not be used. And again, having been to the border most recently, I guess a couple of months ago, there is no such invasion. And I have heard friends and neighbors in Connecticut say, you know, people who are as far away from the border as possible and yet they will parrot this: “But we’re being invaded”. I’m like what are you talking about. I understand how people might feel that way if they only consume certain media.
I mean, immigrants and refugees have been a part of American life since forever. But just in the last 50 years, if you believe everything that Donald Trump says about immigrants and refugees, our country would be in an absolute economic depression. And the crime would be out of control. Both things are not true. Our economy is strong. And yes, actually crime has decreased over the past 30 years by about 49%, as per the FBI and Department of Justice. So it is not true. There is no invasion.
Now, you do have groups of people who are at the border and people say, “well, why”, you know, “Why are there a hundred people? Why are they amassing there?” And it’s like, well, because the United States under Donald Trump actually created a policy. And he said so proudly that was going to close the border and make people –the policy was – remain in Mexico. And then, of course, there was Title 42, which was brought on because of COVID. All of these things pushed people to literally remain in Mexico to wait for some moment where they could be allowed legally into the United States to ask for asylum or to be processed. And so that’s why you have these these groups of people who have basically been waiting, waiting as far south as the Mexican border with Guatemala. So the border is not just the US-Mexico border. The border now is down between Mexico and Guatemala, where immigrants and refugees are stuck –people coming from Central America, from South America, and from, frankly, yes, all over the world, traveling from different parts of Africa, from Indonesia, from Asia, from Pakistan, from India. Now, and Bangladesh, again, people are like, “Oh, well, that sounds really scary”. Well, no, it’s not. There’s nothing to be afraid of.
And then let me just paint a picture for you. So I go to the places that are considered the most dangerous. You know, I was in the Darién jungle, which you have to cross if you are coming from South America. This is the border between Colombia and Panama. It is a very dangerous rainforest. It’s just geographically dangerous and hard to get to. And people say, “Oh my God, it’s so scary because there are so many migrants and refugees”. And I slept out there in a makeshift refugee camp where I actually traveled with my daughter, who was documenting the experience. And my producer and I slept in the middle of nowhere and felt safe.
The same thing like when I got to the U.S. Mexico border a couple of months ago, where, you know, we hear that it’s so dangerous on the U.S. Mexico border. On the U.S. side of the border — I was so committed to proving to people that it is so safe – I came back and I told my team, look, I want to go and spend the night out there on the border. That’s I want to prove to people how safe it is by me sleeping out there in the middle of nowhere. I wanted to do this because there is no danger.
The 98% –I’ll give you 2%– but 98% of the people who are coming are dreaming of like extraordinary possibility. The way I talk about them is that they are the super humans who believe in themselves, believe that they belong. Isabelle. So much that they’re like, Sure, I’m going to leave my country and travel as far as possible and climb, you know, in through a jungle and cross. Who knows how many countries and borders and even believe that I can get through that wall because I believe that I can have a better life for myself and my kids in the United States, or because I’m running away from such danger. But I’m going to save my life.
So do not be afraid when people talk about: “Oh my God, but the caravan”. Well, traveling in the caravan is the safest way to make your way through Mexico, because Mexico is in fact, dangerous for immigrants, refugees and travelers. That there there is danger there. You do have human trafficking wars now on the Mexican side of the border. All of this United States was so much a part of all of this happening. The criminal now human trafficking that has escalated beyond belief along the US-Mexico border. So, yeah, it’s dangerous in Mexico. It’s dangerous to get north. The people who I saw, the stories that I heard is that people are now they cross the border, they get through the wall, but there are gaps in the walls those people are crossing and then basically sitting down and waiting for the Border Patrol to come and get them. So this notion of like– they’re coming in, they’re flooding. Nobody knows who they are. –No. They’re actually handing themselves over to the Border Patrol.
The Border Patrol is the most inept and badly and poorly run law enforcement agency in our country. It is the largest law enforcement agency in the country. And frankly, they don’t know what they’re doing because the movement of humans will always exist. And the movement of humans north to the United States will always exist. And by the way, not everyone wants to come here, but there is room, certainly for all of us. And frankly, Connecticut is the perfect example of how you of how we welcome people because immigrants and refugees are everywhere in our state of Connecticut. And again, there is no fear. In fact, they’re reinvigorating our small towns and cities. We’ve all witnessed that.
Isabelle Barbour 27:38
I know I’ve witnessed this. The congregational church in my small town has worked with IRIS, the Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services Group in New Haven, and there’s a house that the church has where they work with IRIS to place a refugee family. And I can’t help but think that this is part of the solution for creating more spaces of belonging.
We were coming to the end of my time slot and I asked Maria for her best advice on how we should move forward in this moment.
Maria Hinojosa 28:13
Well, I actually say it to everybody. It’s like you just have to talk to people. So that’s what I think we need to do, especially now. I also think that, you know, there’s a lot of fear. And I think those of us who are not living in a world of fear have the responsibility to say, please don’t don’t be so fearful. There is nothing to be afraid of.
Isabelle Barbour 28:36
Well, that’s our time. I want to thank Maria Hinojosa and the whole team at Futuro Media for making this possible. I also want to thank the Othering and Belonging Institute. This broadcast was made possible in part through funding from the Connecticut Office of the Arts, which receives funding from the National Endowment of the Arts. See you next time.
