Caucasian GOP support for anything having to do with immigration reform is so far and in between that when such a Republican voices support for immigration issues and proudly declares:
I personally like the Hispanic people and their commitment to family and the work ethic. They are also a Christian based culture. I don’t blame them for having made it to America by hook or crook.
And goes on to urge his fellow Republicans to welcome Latinos into the party, it leaves that fuzzy warm feeling that has been void for too long in the relationship lately between Latinos and Caucasian GOPers.
Dr. Steve Hotze
It was exactly that kind of warm feeling I was getting as I read Dr. Steve Hotze’s open letter to his colleagues in supporting immigration reform that was published online at Texas GOP Vote.
Dr. Hotze, according to his online bio, was trained as a traditional physician in family medicine and now takes an alternative approach to administering medicine by treating the causes of his patients’ illnesses, rather than the symptoms.
His unorthodox approach has garnered him media attention from CNN to the CBS Early Show and he hosts his own health and wellness radio program in Houston. Obviously, Dr. Hotze is the type of person anyone would welcome on their side to give credibility to an issue.
In his scolding of his state party colleagues, Dr. Hotze made the wry observation that:
It seems to me that there may be nativistic and prejudicial thinking on the immigration issue by many Caucasians.
Finally, I thought to myself, there’s someone willing to speak out and state the obvious and call offenders to task.
Yet, in further reading Dr. Hotze’s letter, it became too apparent that there are different shades of obvious. In his conclusion, he writes:
The majority of the Hispanic culture in America is Christian, pro-family, pro-life and pro-free enterprise. Sounds like they would make great Republicans to me. Let’s go recruit them!
Gentlemen, it seems that the real problem we face is the Muslim immigration invasion of America. The Hispanics are our natural allies against the Democrats and Muslims.
With all things being the same when it comes to discrimination and prejudice, it’s amazing that in this educated man’s mind he can’t see the connection of his earlier statement (It seems to me that there may be nativistic and prejudicial thinking on the immigration issue by many Caucasians) with his closing argument to recruit more Latinos.
It would seem to me that a party that wears discrimination and prejudice so proudly on their sleeves would not only be insincere in the recruitment of any person of color but prove to be a major turn-off for any rational person of the 21st Century.
Unfortunately, it didn’t sway the latest Texas Democrat from switching parties — Rep. Aaron Peña.
Rep. Peña was expected to announce his party switch sometime today. His reason?
In a recent interview with the Rio Grande Guardian, the lawmaker said Hispanics — a group that tends to vote Democratic when it turns out at the polls — will increasingly vote Republican because Democrats no longer reflect their values.
As long as Republicans, like Dr. Hotze, see Latinos as nothing more than allies in “ganging” up on other ethnicities and refuse to endorse the DREAM Act or work on immigration reform out of party spite and still think deporting 11 million people is feasible, then those are values that aren’t reflective of Latinos either — or signs of a party that really care about the Latino vote.
