Commentary: Heads up, Latino men: The future of democracy hangs on your vote

This is read by an automated voice.Please report any issues or inconsistencies here.

See more from the L.A.Times in Google Search.

Set us as preferred Man, we Latino men have it rough.Americans have demonized us as criminals, buffoons, lechers, invaders, criminals and job stealers since the fall of the Alamo.Latino culture typecasts hombres as eternal machos always a few drinks away from brawling or bawling.

Educators view us as underachievers.The political class long stereotyped Latino men as a sleeping giant who could change the country, if only we showed up to vote with the same enthusiasm as attending a Raiders game or lining up for a sneaker drop.And then came Donald Trump.So many of us fell for his siren call that 48% of Latino voters of all genders chose Trump in 2024, the highest percentage ever captured by a Republican presidential candidate.

Progressives immediately blamed Latino men for Trump’s victory while holding up Latinas as the brave heroines who stood up against tyranny.The blame game continues.A study released this month by UCLA’s Latino Policy & Politics Institute basically paints Latino men as little better than MAGA minions, trumpeting a gender gap on standing up to this administration’s deportation deluge, defending democracy and “fighting the Trump agenda.” To the media and to outraged internet commentators, it didn’t matter that two-thirds of Latino men had responded that each of those three issues was “very important” or “somewhat important.” California Young and working-class Latina voters in California care more about protecting immigrant communities and fighting President Trump’s agenda than their male counterparts, according to a UCLA study.We just aren’t anti-Trump enough, which marks us as alien to the president’s critics.

The UCLA paper’s cover page even features a red man and a blue woman conversing in what look like Aztec speaking glyphs — as if the sexes can’t understand each other...