The post Oh, so you wanna talk about Latino men? Me too appeared first on El Tecolote.

If there is one thing guaranteed to follow a disappointing election, it’s the slew of political bad takes attempting to explain it.

But let’s focus on the one getting a lot of play.

“Latino men just didn’t want a woman president,” read a headline from The Hill. “Trump’s return to power fueled by Hispanic, working-class voter support,” declared Reuters. CBS News ran with, “Latino men showed out in huge numbers for President-elect Donald Trump.”

Amazing. And here I thought mainstream media only cared about us during Hispanic Heritage Month. Latino men really went from being blamed for drugs, crime and stealing jobs by the right wing, to being blamed for losing the election by centrist Democrats.

But if Latino men didn’t want a woman president, well, neither did white women, and apparently not white men (53 percent of white women and 60 percent of white men, respectively, voted for Trump). But I digress.

This sobering post-election narrative — that Latino men (55 percent according to most exit polls) sided with a bigoted, sexist, misogynist, racist, xenophobic, lying abuser — is one that I,  and many others,— have been thinking a lot about. Of course, we’re all entitled to rage, sadness and despair.

I’m disgusted. And I’m sure others are too. But what none of us should be feeling is shock or surprise. Anyone feeling that hasn’t been paying attention or is suffering from denial.

This is yet another reminder of why we must tell our own stories. Because when we don’t, mainstream media will parachute in to tell us, and everyone else, who we are. And, as usual, they get it wrong.

Pundits and commentators in the mainstream were “shocked” and “dismayed” by the uptick in Latino men voting for Trump — up from 2020, where Biden won 57 percent of Hispanic men, according to Pew. This shock is rooted in the media truly not knowing who we are, because they’ve never made the effort to understand us. To them and many others, Latinos are one faceless bloc, largely working class or poor, and one whose migration story is relatively recent.

But how many of us, who were raised in Latino households where sexist, racist, queerphobic and islamophobic rhetoric were commonplace amongst the men, were truly surprised?

The mainstream narrative claims Latino men voted against their own causes and interests, that deportations of their loved ones awaits. Some of this is true. But how many times must we repeat that Latinos are not a monolith? Despite the best efforts of mainstream media, there is no such thing as the “Latino Vote.” We are, at best, a fragmented bloc, divided by class, religious or nonreligious beliefs, and geography. Each of these factors shape our migration stories and experience in the diaspora.

When we start to unravel the context of our history, migration experiences, and our collective proximities to whiteness, we see that just as Latinos aren’t a monolith, neither are Latino men.

The truth is, fascist and rightwing rhetoric has long resonated within our communities — and not always just among the men. We still have Latinos who glorify the right wing dictatorships of Trujillo, Fujimori, Somoza, Bautista, Perón, Pinochet, and the many others who led military juntas across Latin America. Did we forget upon what platform Bolsonaro was elected in 2019? Or Milei last year? Have you not heard of the wildly popular, self-ordained “Millennial Dictator” Bukele, who has fans far beyond El Salvador?

So when asked how could Latino men vote for Trump, I offer this: the same way centrist liberals went from “We’re all Puerto Rico” one week, to “I hope you get deported” the next; the same way “liberal” California voted to keep prison slave labor, and voted against raising the minimum wage — you aren’t as progressive as you think.

We’ve never been progressive. A country built on the  principles of white supremacy, where white men were ordained to rule; where the doctrine of Manifest Destiny justified the horrors of genocide and slavery; where migrants lured by the bait of opportunity could simultaneously have their labor exploited and bodies scapegoated; where military might expands the empire, damn the cost of destruction and destabilization; where leaders can tout the sacredness of democracy while overthrowing democracies elsewhere — such a country can never be progressive. No matter the skin color of the empire’s Caesar, Caesar will always rule like Caesar. 

So don’t mourn a country that was never yours to begin with. Build. Build with others. Build by sharing your stories, and not having the clueless tell them for you. Build with our communities, with the people already nurturing the land and doing the work. That is where we must pledge our allegiance. Everyday. And not every four years.

Cartoon: Yano Rivera