As Sen. Hillary Clinton ended her White House bid on June 7th 2008 in Washington D.C, I looked at mother and noticed a tear falling down her cheek. I didn’t have to ask why she was emotional I knew because I was feeling the pain, too. We both felt that our voices had been ripped away and forced into Sen. Barack Obama’s corner. We were angry, in denial, and frustrated. How could a woman who had cared for us so much lose to someone who didn’t?

We Latinos have been affected by a surge in power of African Americans. My mother told me, “In my time and my mom’s time, blacks and Latinos have had a rivalry with jobs. It seemed that jobs went to blacks over Latinos. I came to this county as an immigrant from Mexico and told that this county was about equality, but it seemed like everything was about favoritism. African Americans seemed to get more jobs and better pay because they seemed more American than Latinos.”

I asked my brother how he felt about this rivalry and he said, “For me, it’s not about jobs or stuff like that, it has always been about territory. When I say that, I don’t mean gangs or anything, but just where we live. In primarily Latino communities African Americans have slowly come in and taken over our home towns.”
Both my mother and brother didn’t want to be seen as racist or un-American. My grandmother a die-hard Clinton supporter said, “Blacks and Mexicans have fought for the same things separately. It’s sad because if we worked together for better jobs, better pay, and more respect then maybe we could reach it sooner, but we fight separately and we fight against each other.”

Why the resistance to Obama?

My mother, brother, and grandmother all say the know Sen. Barack Obama will favor African Americans if he becomes President of the United States. They say they know he will forget Latinos after the election, they say they know he will treat Latinos like every other president has treated them (except Bill Clinton) like secondclass-citizens, and they know they will not be voting for him. My mother who was touched by the Hillary Clinton campaign, said “I’m writing Hillary’s name in.”  My brother said, “I don’t think I’m voting,” ,and my grandmother said “ I’m not voting for that man, I’m voting for my girl.”
Recently, at the National Council of La Raza Conference,I heard Obama speak live for the first time. He was addressing his first large crowd of Latinos; the first thing that stupidly slipped out of his mouth was “Si Se Puede!” How dare he, not only did he use a phrase birthed by a Latino leader, Cesar Chavez, but he didn’t even give him credit for it. The table I was seated at was disgusted.”One young Latina said, “That’s not right.” An older Latino said, “We are Latinos, we know who really made those words powerful.”

I was personally hurt: What right does Sen. Barack Obama have to rip off words that are sacred to our Latino communities? Sen. Barack Obama doesn’t know what that phrase really means, he doesn’t know the sweat and blood that was fought in that Latino battle, and he doesn’t know that in the Latino community we hate lars and cheaters, and in the Latino community it’s seen as cheating by stealing another man’s words. After his thrilling speech he received a roaring ovation, but I still heard murmurs about that slap in the face to Cesar Chavez and to Latinos. Though it may not seem like a big deal, it’s everything to us. We take pride in those words and they aren’t on loan.
My grandmother has been hurt for months because whenever she hears “Yes We Can,” she thinks that Sen. Barack Obama has stolen and erased Cesar Chavez from history. Latinos across California all feel the same.A member of the Chicano/Latino Caucus of California said: “He has made Americans forget where those words come from and that’s truly unfortunate.” We Latinos will never forget, and Sen. Barack Obama owes a large apology to us. We will not be stepped on, as we have in past elections. If he wants his so called united county then he must be reminded that includes Latinos. I asked my mother one last time if there was any chance that she would vote for Sen. Barack Obama and she said: “He lost me and I’m never coming back.”

Tags: hillary clinton, Latino, nobama