To the Latino community on Trump's election

I knew my Aunt Lupita had gone right-wing. My aunt who in the ‘80s urged us go without grapes, (“las uvas — César Chávez said not to eat them!” And then Reagan eating them deliberately on national TV …) Then suddenly in the ‘90s, visiting family in south of Texas, I realized her grapes had turned into sour grapes. I had become for her the northern liberal who had too much time on my hands going to college and all, reading “loco” books with exotic views and listening to “commie” professors. Oye — Didn't my family want me to be educated?

This coming from her and other members of my family of erstwhile Mexican-American migrant workers who had historias: stories of horrors with gringo cops and Texas Rangers. During the Eisenhower era’s “Operation Wetback” (yes, the largest deportation program in American history was really called that), they were taking anyone with or without papers, the browner the better.

Maybe it was with evangelical Christianity the right-wing break began. Praying to the Virgin is a sin, we were told. We are in the time and the Antichrist is alive and well and we gotta be ready to defend the Holy Land, ay yay yay!; By the way, did you know that your great grandmother wasn’t Mexican, she was Jewish? Was conservatism like a dystopian telenovela?

Where was this coming from? Maybe it was life in Texas, my Tejana family lives there: Everyone speaks English now down there. “Don't speak Spanish; we are Americans!” (said in Spanish) “Shave that mustache and beard. You know they are arresting people in Falfurrias (a Border Patrol checkpoint in Texas 70 miles from the border).”

Much of the borderlands of South Texas now looks like massive Schaumburgian sprawl with palm trees — endless strips of 'Macdonas' fast food chains with or without terracotta roofs, big box stores and friendly folk with border drawls. The crime there has been going down for many years. But you wouldn't know from the rhetoric: “The drug cartels are going crazy, Colombianos!” you hear them say, “We no longer go to Mexico, Reynosa has been overtaken. But some of my friends were there, a lovely place. Yes, but they are gringos!”

Surveys show 46% of Latinos voted for Trump, among Latino men 55%. It is hard to imagine support for a candidate who has mainstreamed white nationalism of the far right, who has made Latino bashing his forte of filth. “Mass deportations,” we heard. “We are going to build a big wall (with Mexican labor!), … rapists and prostitutes … poisoning the blood of the nation … eating dogs and cats … Puerto Rico a floating island of garbage.”

Still, many Latinos wouldn’t budge.

The Democrats failed the Latinos in matters of immigration and inflation (we are the most affected) and it’s coming back to haunt them. Biden asked the Republicans to “join” him in one of the most draconian border bills. The failures of Luis Gutiérrez, the indifference of Rahm Emanuel, the lies of Chuy García, they dropped the chili ball, it was good night (Tia) Irene for immigration reform. This as the party in the recent failed election made a “rightward shift” on immigration (Newsweek) and Kamala Harris would be the first Democratic candidate in years to not talk about comprehensive immigration reform, at all.

And where are our defenders? Without Latinos, Illinois and many other states would be losing population. Immigrants commit far fewer crimes than native sons. The economy of Texas would be destroyed. Far from taking jobs, Latinos are the most likely to create their own jobs starting small businesses. Our food, from the field to the shelf and the table of the Latinos. Undocumented Latinos are overwhelmingly “essential workers.”

A day without a Mexican could sink the United States. “Y ahora quien podrá ayudarnos’ (“who will help us now?”).

Hard to believe, Reagan was the last president to carry out amnesty for immigrants — more than 3 million and said, in essence, “If you are willing to walk 1,000 miles to come to the United States, welcome! We want people like you here.”

Latinos overwhelmingly cite economic concerns and advancement as their main reason for voting. But in associating Trump with prosperity, we’re putting the search for the green before the love of liberty and our neighbors. Now with Trump’s administration looking to take away the citizenship of so-called “anchor babies,” i.e., many of them adult Latinos and children of Latinos who themselves voted for Trump.

We have to remember what we learn from history. Economic stability means nothing without freedom because freedom can be taken away, para siempre.

• Cristóbal Cavazos, of Wheaton, is co-founder of Immigrant Solidarity DuPage and an activist for the Latino community in Chicago's Western suburbs.