Biden shortchanges Latinos in Cabinet picks

I don’t mean to sound ungrateful.

Isn’t that what we’re supposed to say? But wait a minute. Ungrateful is exactly how I mean to sound.

Because, as a Latino — and especially as a Mexican American

— I have very little for which to be grateful when I look at the early round of Cabinet picks by President-Elect Joe Biden.

Given that the 78-year-old has spent his whole life trapped in a Black and White world, I knew he would eventually shortchange groups that don’t fit into that demographic straitjacket. That includes Latinos, Asian Americans, Muslim Americans and others.

It just never occurred to me that the betrayal would happen before Biden was even sworn into office. Everything, these days, rush, rush, rush.

Aside from the vice president, there are 15 seats on the Cabinet, but only four really matter. The chance to serve as Attorney General or lead the departments of State, Defense or Treasury are coveted, angled for, and usually given to white men. The other 11 seats are at the kid’s table, and that’s where you usually find women and people of color. The “also rans” in the Cabinet include the departments of Labor, Energy, Education, Transportation, Interior, Veteran’s Affairs and Housing and Urban Development.

In the entire history of the Republic, there has only been one Latino to occupy any of the top jobs. Alberto Gonzales served as Attorney General in the George W. Bush administration, and he was put there by a Republican.

Not surprisingly, in Biden’s Cabinet, Whites and African Americans were invited to board the aircraft first. Biden recently nominated retired Gen. Lloyd Austin to be Secretary of Defense. If confirmed, Austin would be the first African American to lead the Pentagon.

This means three of the four top nominations are already filled — by a White male (State),

White woman (Treasury) and African American male (Defense). For Democrats, those three groups cover a lot of the bases. And if there is a fourth spot, it’s usually filled by an African American woman.

While Latino groups demanded as many as five Cabinet positions, they’ll be lucky to get three. Biden’s two Latino picks thus far are Alejandro Mayorkas, a Cuban American who would head the Department of Homeland Security; and Xavier Becerra, a Mexican American who has been nominated to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.

Both are immensely talented with long records of public service.

As a former U.S. Attorney and director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Mayorkas is a perfect fit for a position that is squarely in his wheelhouse.

It’s tragic that we can’t say the same about Becerra, a Stanford Law School graduate who served as a California state legislator and 12-term congressman before becoming California Attorney

General. As was pointed out by a scathing editorial in the Wall Street Journal, the lawyer has no experience in the health care field. And so his nomination is being chalked up to pure identity politics, and Biden’s need to check a box for Latinos.

Thanks a lot, Joe. You took one of our rising stars, and instead of nominating him for Attorney General — a position that would have been a natural fit, and one for which he would have been supremely qualified — you throw him the crumb of HHS and set him up to be mauled by critics.

This is karma. Four years ago, Democrats mocked the idea of Ben Carson — a Black doctor with no experience in urban affairs — serving as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Now some of those same folks applaud the nomination of a Hispanic lawyer with no experience in medicine to head the department responsible for protecting public health.

Well, it could be worse. We could be facing a national health crisis.

If Biden wants Latinos to be grateful, he can start by giving America’s largest (and, apparently, least powerful) minority something of value — beyond lip service and promises of a Cabinet that “looks like America.”

Sixty million Latinos make up 18.5% of the U.S. population. In 20 years, that figure is estimated to grow to 25%. According to a study by the Latino Donor Collaborative, Latinos have an annual GDP of $2.13 trillion. We’re also swing voters who decide elections and are up for grabs. Three battleground states — Arizona, Florida and Nevada — have large Latino populations. We’re a growing presence in Michigan, Georgia and Virginia.

Guess what, Joe? Increasingly, America looks Latino. The country has changed. Someone should have told you.