Latino college student in Connecticut called a “race traitor” for voting for Trump.

Conn. Latino college student criticized for voting Trump

The 2020 election has resurfaced a political divide among the Latino community with some voting red because they claim Democrats have neglected them.

“I’ve been called a race traitor by white people because I said I was going to vote for [President Donald] Trump,” said Gabriel Matos, a Fairfield University senior from Bronx, N.Y.

Matos, a member of Fairfield's College Republicans, said he was called a “race traitor” by a friend who he describes as, “a white man from the Upper West Side,” of New York where the median household income is $136,735, according to census data.

“I find that offensive, for a white person to assume a Latino has to vote Democratic because of my race. ... They dismiss you if you have a different opinion,” Matos said. “It makes me feel like at the end of the day, we’re just a number; we’re Hispanic and we have to vote a certain way.”

He said he feels this attitude is self-perpetuating and is something he experiences often.

Bianca Gonzalez-Sobrino , a sociology professor at Quinnipiac University, said many believe they can “easily predict” the behavior of Latinos.

“What people should know is that generally, Latinos are difficult to predict because there’s variation between this huge group and that is why we’re seeing 30-40 percent of Latino voters that might vote Republican,” she added.

Some Latino votes are going red because, contrary to what is widely perceived, certain Latino groups, like Cuban Americans, have more socially and fiscally conservative views, GonzalezSobrino said.

Matos, a 21-year-old Latino man voting for the first time in New York, said he cast his absentee ballot for Trump this year. He is one of a predicted 14.8 million Latinos who voted in this election, according to data from the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Initiative.

Matos lived in New York for years before beginning college at Fairfield Univer

sity. He said he was motivated to vote for Trump after growing frustrated with a “lack of progress” from New York Democrats.

“I feel like the Democrats have dismissed the Latinos’ vote. The Democrats haven’t really taken concern for the people,” he said. “Every four years they come around, they campaign a little bit. We have guys like Beto O’Rourke on the debate stage talking a little bit of Spanish thinking that wins us over. That’s almost insulting and demeaning to me because why do you have to speak Spanish? There’s a bunch of Latinos in this country that speak English. You don’t need to pander us to win our vote.”

Matos is impressed by what he believes to be pre-COVID America’s economic growth and low unemployment rates for Blacks and Hispanics under Trump’s leadership.

“I feel that Trump, at the end of the day, is not perfect — he isn’t the perfect candidate — but I feel like he can lead this country better than Joe Biden,” Matos said.

According to Pew Research, the unemployment rate for Hispanics was significantly lower before the COVID pandemic. The unemployment rate has since sharply risen as Hispanics endure the loss of jobs and wages.

“Yet, even before the outbreak, Hispanics were concerned about their economic situation despite near-record low levels of unemployment through the end of 2019,” Pew staff reported.

Matos thinks Trump’s pandemic response could have been better, but said it would have been difficult for any candidate.

Gonzalez-Sobrino said Latinos’ health and economic status under Trump’s leadership “hasn’t been good and will continue not to be good, particularly with the response to the pandemic.” More Latinos are contracting and dying from COVID-19 and experiencing higher unemployment rates than white people during this time, she said.

According to Charles Venator Santiago, an associate professor in the University of Connecticut’s political science department, Trump’s pandemic response has made it much harder for Latinos to survive.

“Latinos are losing a lot of housing, they're consolidating with families, and they’re losing jobs,” he said.

Venator Santiago finds that Latinos often end up voting for Democrats because they realize it’s “in their best interest materially.” They could have access to resources, social services and other benefits under Democratic policy that they would not acquire under Republican policy, he said.

So while Matos was prompted to vote for Trump — because he thinks Trump would help elevate the impoverished portion of Latino people — many others are voting differently for the social services the Democratic Party promises to provide.

Some experts say people often think the best way to take political action is by voting in a presidential election, rather than local elections, The Hill reported .

Matos did not vote in other local or state elections, nor in the previous midterm election, he said. He found it difficult to travel back and forth between Connecticut and New York to vote and did not use an absentee ballot.

Matos also shared that he feels his vote wouldn’t matter in a local election.

“I feel like it’s difficult when you’re in a heavily Democratic district to actually sway, and it really isn’t going to change much,” Matos said. “It’s not really going to make a difference if people go out and really vote in that district when there’s 80 or 90 percent that are going to vote Democrat anyway.”

But, according to Becky Kip, CEO of Hear My Voice, a mobile-first civic engagement platform based in Florida, voting in local elections is more important than presidential races.

“Our local elected officials are the ones who dictate the local laws, policies and budgets that affect us the most, and these officials are being elected every year with little citizen involvement,” Kip said.

The changes that most affect everyone’s day-to-day lives are “often closer to our backyards,” she said.

Gabriel Matos