By Sabrina Rodriguez, The Washington Post (c) 2024
ALLENTOWN, Pa. – Tairy Pagan,41, had no plans to vote next week, exhausted with politics and frustrated by the state of the economy. She changed her mind after a comedian’s racist joke about Puerto Rico at a Donald Trump rally. Now she’s voting for Vice President Kamala Harris.
Samuel Negron Jr., 55, proudly showed off the tattoo on his arm of the Puerto Rican flag as he stood in line to enter the former president’s rally here Tuesday night. While comedian Tony Hinchcliffe’s insult that Puerto Rico was a “floating island of garbage” was infuriating, Negron is still all in for Trump. He cares more about Trump’s plans for the economy and immigration, he said.
Enid Santiago, 46, was already voting for Harris, but up until Sunday night, she had no plans to try to mobilize other voters beyond her immediate family. Now, she’s enraged and channeling it into making sure every Puerto Rican knows how Trump and those he surrounds himself with feel about her community. “There is no excuse,” she said. “I’m telling everyone to wake up.”
The anger over the insults at Sunday night’s Trump rally at Madison Square Garden was almost universal in conversations with Puerto Rican voters in Allentown ahead of Trump’s rally here, a former steel town in Pennsylvania that is majority Latino and home to thousands of Puerto Ricans. They talked about how upset they were to hear their island – known as La Isla del Encanto – described so negatively.
But that anger wasn’t automatically translating into support for Harris. Several voters said the moment reinforced their support for the Democratic presidential nominee and was the latest evidence that Trump is not a friend of Puerto Ricans or other Latinos. Others said they felt the episode was overblown and were more concerned about the cost of living and the U.S.-Mexico border, which was driving them to support Trump.
The battle for Puerto Rican voters has been most pronounced in Pennsylvania, a battleground state that is home to the third-largest population of Puerto Ricans off the island. There are more than 615,000 eligible Latino voters, according to the Pew Research Center, and roughly half of them are Puerto Rican. While Puerto Rican voters have historically tended to align themselves with Democrats – and Trump has angered many with his past actions – he and his allies have been waging an effort to win some over.
In the fallout over Sunday’s rally in New York, cultural pop stars have expressed support for Harris in messages to hundreds of millions of followers on social media, the archbishop of Puerto Rico asked for an apology from Trump, and the Harris campaign has transformed the issue into an ad.
In four appearances Tuesday, Trump declined to apologize, dismissing the furor over the insults.
“Nobody loves our Latino community and our Puerto Rican community more than I do,” he said at his rally here.
Earlier in the day, he called the Sunday night rally, where speakers launched racist and demeaning insults, a “lovefest” in remarks to reporters in Florida. Trump later told Sean Hannity in an interview that he “had no idea” who the comedian was and suggested that people were blowing the episode out of proportion. “I can’t imagine it’s a big deal,” he said. And at a roundtable in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, Trump said that “no president has done more for Puerto Rico.”
Trump’s administration withheld billions of dollars in hurricane relief for the island. He threw paper towel rolls at people when he visited to deliver aid supplies on the island after it was ravaged by Hurricane Maria in 2017, a move that critics panned as an offensive gesture. While president, Trump reportedly joked about trading Puerto Rico for Greenland to get rid of the U.S. territory.
Opening speakers at Trump’s Tuesday rally told the crowd of several thousand supporters how life was better under him. The speakers, most of whom were Latino, didn’t directly mention the “island of garbage” insult. Instead, several delivered portions of their remarks in Spanish and spoke of their love for Puerto Rico.
Outside the event, a few hours before Trump was scheduled to take the stage, a few dozen protesters – many of them Puerto Rican – sported Puerto Rican flags and signs denouncing Trump. One man held a sign that said: “The garbage will be thrown out on November 5th.” Another woman held up a sign that read: “Puerto Rico is NOT garbage! Puerto Rico se respeta!”
Santiago was among the speakers amping up the crowd of protesters. Hours earlier, as she sat eating at a local Dominican restaurant, she recounted how she felt when she first saw the clip of Hinchcliffe. She initially thought it had to be fake because there was no way a speaker could be so reckless a week before the election. But once she saw it was real, “me entró una rabieta,” she said – she was incensed.
“We could not excuse it then, and we cannot excuse it now,” she said, wearing a T-shirt that said “Boricua” and a Puerto Rico baseball cap. “And I’m done with the excuses from anyone who supports him. I’m done listening. I’ll argue all day. I’m ready.”
Allentown Mayor Matt Tuerk, a Democrat, said he was angered by the Puerto Rico comment but that it paled in comparison to the anger he was seeing from some Puerto Ricans in his city. He said those who don’t follow politics asked why the former president disparaged “the place we love.” For Puerto Ricans who follow politics more closely, he said, “There’s anger like, ‘You don’t get to talk that way about our island.’”
A few blocks from the rally, a group of Dominican barbers was excited ahead of Trump’s visit. Their position on the former president was unanimous: They want him back in office. As they stood outside the barbershop, they talked about how business was much better while Trump was in office, adding that they wouldn’t be standing outside with empty chairs inside if he were president.
And the comment about Puerto Rico? “He wasn’t talking about the Dominican Republic, so what do I care?” said Luis Alfredo Mato, 29.
His co-worker, Antonio Suarez, 29, nodded in agreement and said people are more concerned about how the cost of living shot up while Harris has been vice president.
Amanda Martinez Rosario, their friend who is a home health aide, began listing groceries she said have gotten more expensive under President Joe Biden, including milk, eggs and steak. The Puerto Rican woman said the comment about Puerto Rico wouldn’t cost Trump her vote.
“He didn’t even say it,” she said. “It didn’t really even catch my attention.”
Some of the men also said they didn’t believe a woman should be president. Mato said he felt Trump represented strength and stability while Harris represented what he described as the same bad leadership that Americans have seen from Biden.
The Harris campaign has already launched an ad attacking Trump’s record on Puerto Rico that is targeting Latinos in battleground states, and it added a rally in Pennsylvania that is scheduled for Wednesday afternoon. On Thursday, Puerto Rican star Jennifer Lopez and Mexican rock band Maná are set to campaign with Harris in Las Vegas. Maná’s presence serves as a moment of trolling the Trump campaign, given that the band removed from streaming platforms a collaboration it had with reggaeton star Nicky Jam after the artist endorsed Trump last month.
Lopez has already expressed support for Harris. She shared a video of the vice president outlining her plan for Puerto Rico to her 250 million followers Sunday, the same day Hinchcliffe delivered racist remarks at the Madison Square Garden rally. Bad Bunny, Ricky Martin and Marc Anthony – all major Puerto Rican artists known around the world – have expressed support for Harris.
Bad Bunny on Tuesday morning posted a video on his Instagram highlighting the rich history of the Puerto Rican people. The caption on his post was “garbage” in a clear reference to the “island of garbage” comment.
“We’ve been fighting since day one of our existence. We’re the definition of heart and resistance,” he wrote in a statement at the end of the video. “For those who forget who we are … don’t worry, we will proudly remind them.”
The comment made during Trump’s rally has struck a nerve with Puerto Ricans just a week before the election as figures who do not typically weigh in on partisan politics have spoken out. Roberto O. González Nieves, the archbishop of Puerto Rico, criticized Trump in a letter Monday, saying he was “dismayed and appalled” by the comments. He called on Trump to personally apologize.
In Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, Lillianne Rivera Caso, 45, also wanted an apology from Trump and said her support for him will hinge on whether he issues one. She did not get that apology when he spoke at a community roundtable she attended Tuesday afternoon.
The joke from the comedian was “very Klan-like thinking,” she said, referring to the white-supremacist hate group, the Ku Klux Klan. It “not something that should ever be portrayed in a presidential election speech,” said Rivera Caso, who wore a hat and T-shirt with the Puerto Rican flag on it.
“We’ve never been on welfare. We’ve never needed public assistance. So to insinuate that that’s what Latinos are is hurtful, and it’s not somebody I want to be the face of my country,” she said, mentioning her Puerto Rican family members who have served in the military and on a police force.
If the former president doesn’t end up apologizing for the remarks made at his rally, she said, she will not vote at all and “just ride the next four years out.”
“I vote for people, not the parties. I vote for the person whose beliefs most closely align with mine and my heart,” she said after the roundtable. “As of right now, I am truly undecided.”
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Brianna Tucker in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, contributed to this report.