Trump’s baseless description of immigrants who will eat your pets is dehumanizing | Opinion

I watched a presidential debate Tuesday night and was rewarded with several slaps to the face! As an immigrant who arrived in this great country 65 years ago, I was repelled by former President Donald J. Trump’s ugly depiction of immigrants as dangerous criminals who are destroying the United States.

At five different times during the almost 2-hour, televised debate, Trump brought up his Chicken Little thinking that migrants = gloom and doom. That included his closing statement.

Responding to a question about his proposal to increase tariffs, Trump sidetracked to attacking Vice President and Democratic Presidential candidate Kamala Harris on the opening question about the economy.

Opinion

“We have millions of people pouring into our country from prisons and jails, from mental institutions and insane asylums,” said Trump. “And they’re coming in and they’re taking jobs that are occupied right now by African Americans and Hispanics and also unions.”

He was only warming up.

“In Springfield (Ohio), they’re eating the dogs. The people that came in. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating – they’re eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is happening in our country,” Trump claimed, responding to a question about immigration.

His solution? Massive deportation of what he claims are 21 million people – many of them “criminals” – “because they are destroying the fabric of our country by what they’ve done.”

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Trump’s absurd words triggered a negative past

His horrible words woke up not-so-happy memories as an immigrant.

Suddenly, I was no different than the Haitians he has accused of eating people’s pets or the Venezuelans he blames for rising crime rates that are refuted by data. Fresno’s crime rate did not explode earlier this year when 16 Venezuelan families, some with children as young as 1, seeking asylum were bused from Colorado to Fresno where they were quietly taken in by locals.

I don’t want to relive a past where the color of my skin, my surname or an accent that stubbornly remains have made me feel less than human.

▪ At Fabens (Texas) Elementary School, my best friends were Kenny Wilson and Carl Andes in the fourth grade. We would often explore a canal near our homes, catching frogs or tossing dirt clods into the murky water.

Those were fun days. I didn’t think twice when asked to help them with their homework, be it math or history. But then, I discovered I was always tracked at the second level, which meant the school thought I wasn’t smart enough to be in the same classroom with Kenny and Carl and the “smartest” students. I blamed my brownness.

▪ A few years later, my family moved to Earlimart. My school transcripts from New México were delayed, so the junior high folks figured they’d put me at the bottom track filled with students who caused trouble and didn’t care about their studies.

I remember finishing an aptitude test and acing it, only to be accused of cheating or getting lucky. I was forced to retake the test, and the results were the same. I was moved to the second level where I remained for two weeks before being allowed into the top track. I blamed my accent.

▪ In the late 70s, I was heading home post-midnight from my sports reporting job at The Bakersfield Californian when a police officer quickly passed me and quickly moved ahead of me. I was extra careful with my driving, as I had to make a right-hand turn two blocks away. The police car sirens went on and I pulled off to the curb.

Reason? Tailgating! The officer, after getting my driver’s license, pointed his flashlight inside the car and asked if I had a gun or knife under the seat. No, I didn’t. I was then asked to open the car trunk and asked if I had any rifles or grenades hidden there. No, I didn’t.

At that time, a bicyclist was headed in our direction. The cop stopped him for not having a headlamp on his bike. I was allowed to leave, but only after the police officer ran a warrant check on me. My co-workers, still on the job, heard my name on the police scanner and scratched their head about what was going on. I blamed my surname … along with the fact I was driving a 1972 white Impala and sported a thick mess of hair.

▪ When I helped launch The Fresno Bee’s bilingual publication Vida en el Valle in 1990, I received plenty of phone calls denigrating me and ordering me to “Go back to México!” Sadly, I expect this writing to trigger the same feedback. This time, I blame xenophobia.

No one in my extended family has taken to eating dogs or cats. There are law enforcement officers and educators among my numerous cousins. Some have served in the military.

Trump dehumanizing immigrants is not new. He did it when he announced his presidential run in 2015 by implying México was sending “rapists” and criminals into the country.

The danger is that he’ll provoke his followers into seeing immigrants as bad Americans. As criminals. As dog eaters.

In 2019, a man drove 10 hours from Dallas to El Paso where he massacred 23 Walmart shoppers. Nineteen of them had Hispanic surnames. “This attack is a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas,” the gunman, who pleaded guilty to various federal hate crimes and weapons charges, posted on social media before the attack. He is serving 90 consecutive life sentences.

I’m reminded of French writer and philosopher Voltaire, who wrote: “Anyone who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”

My mother would call Trump a sinvergüenza (shameless). I do too.