Inside: Local students react to debate and overall political landscape.
HVCC program focuses on role of xenophobia in presidential race
TROY >> Just one day after the first presidential debate between Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton, Hudson Valley Community College students and faculty filled the auditorium of the Bulmer Telecommunications Center to discuss xenophobia and its effects on the campaign.
Rosemary Armao, a journalism professor at the University at Albany and commentator for public radio station WAMC, addressed those issues and more during a lecture Tuesday afternoon titled, “When Hating Mexicans and Muslims Wins Votes: Xenophobia and its Effects on the 2016 Presidential Election.”
“Like Donald Trump to the debate last night, I am not fully prepared,” said Armao, “and the reason for that is because I fully expected the topics of immigration,
refugees and migration to be the main topic last night. If you did watch the debate last night, you didn’t really hear anything about any of those topics, so I was left
wondering what do I do with this lecture here today. I don’t think it was ridiculous of me to think these topics would have been discussed during the debate last night.”
Armao admitted she is a Clinton supporter and believes immigration, migration and refugees have been major topics during the campaign and should have been treated as importantly during Monday night’s debate at Hofstra University on Long Island.
“At this point and time, we have 65 million refugees without homes,” said Armao. “We have not had numbers like that since the end of World War II, and that is happening now. I thought for sure that this would be a topic that would come up last night, but instead, they talked about things like Rosie O’Donnell.”
During Tuesday’s discussion, Armao brought up the previous presidential election, when President Barack Obama survived a challenge by Republican Mitt Romney, specifically discussing Romney’s one regret after losing.
“When Mitt Romney lost badly in 2012, he told his party after-
wards that the one thing he most regrets was not focusing earlier and more on minority voters,” explained Armao.
Armao said that the GOP has recently taken a stance that appears to be anti-immigration and that are backing Trump’s platform, which includes building a wall along the Mexican border to keep people from illegally entering the United States.
“The GOP has been overcome by this wave of anti-immigration, and the union that represents Immigration and Customs Enforcement [officers] for the first time has endorsed a presidential candidate, and it is not Hillary Clinton,” said Armao.
While they were not discussed Monday night, students who attended the 50-minute program Tuesday said that the topics
Armao discussed tied in well with the campaign.
“I wanted to attend this lecture today because these topics are just really close to my heart,” said HVCC student Nicole Adami.
“I’m very against any
kind of stimulations for putting down anyone in any way for something as simple as the color of their skin or their religious beliefs.”