Hasta La Gadget!

This post was written for the launch of HuffPost Mexico on September 1st. To read this article in Spanish from HuffPost Mexico, click here.

America’s current presidential race is not only one of the longest in living memory (it started over a year ago, with an array of floundering candidates), but also one of the most atypical.

“Who knows?” answers Juan, a smiling Mexican-American from Tlaxcalteca heritage, to the question of who will win on November 8th.

The surprise in this case is not that Juan doesn’t care to predict the final result of the popular vote or even the electoral college, but rather that hardly anyone dares to forecast the kind of result that we’ll see.

Experienced political analysts, journalists, opinion leaders, local politicians, businessmen, financiers and academics agree that this campaign for the White House can’t be compared to any other in recent history. Not only is it outside the norm; it’s completely unpredictable. There is something else that practically everyone agrees with, at least in the Big Apple: the Republican candidate, Donald Trump, is largely responsible for this race being so scandalously special.

 
Thank you for giving us Mexicans, documented or undocumented, American or not, a reason to unite and share one voice.

Mr. Trump has called us (Mexicans) rapists and illegals, drug dealers and criminals. He has said on more than one occasion that Mexico is planning to attack the United States — this in a tone that rests somewhere between black humor, candid ignorance and latent threat. Although he has recently backtracked on his intention to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants, his voice, sharp and hard to digest, still rings in all of our ears.

We have a lot to question, or, even better, a lot to argue about with Mr. Trump. But there is also something to thank him for: if it were not for him, Mexicans in this country north of the Rio Bravo, would have no reason, incentive or motive to work towards a more integrated and more vocal community, one that is more present and more active.

That’s right, my dear readers, you will have to add a resounding “Thank you” to the long list of things to tell Mr. Trump if you ever have the privilege of meeting him. Thank you for giving us Mexicans, documented or undocumented, American or not, a reason to unite and share one voice.

For years, the various communities of Mexicans in the United States, from Seattle to Chicago and from Los Angeles to the Carolinas, were plagued by a grid of multiple internal divisions. But today, and largely thanks to the narrative that Mr. Trump has managed to inject into the national debate, the Mexicans on this side of the border are more united than ever and with a very clear goal in sight: to avoid what has happened from happening again.

 
Today, everyone, absolutely everyone, is Mexican and we have only one voice.

In New York we’re witnessing this effort firsthand. Among the hundreds of thousands of Mexicans who live in the Big Apple, all past grudges and regional or political affiliations are now in the past. Today, everyone, absolutely everyone, is Mexican (even some gringos). It doesn’t matter if you are an elder who arrived in the ’60s or ’70s; if you are younger, a dreamer, or someone who was brought to the U.S. as a kid at the beginning of the twenty-first century. It doesn’t matter if you are Mixtec, Zapotec or a Ñhañhús, from Guerrero, Puebla, Oaxaca or Veracruz. It doesn’t matter if (in Mexico) you support the yellow, the white or the Tri. It doesn’t matter if you work on Wall Street or if you sell tamales at Roosevelt Av. in Queens. Today, everyone, absolutely everyone, is Mexican and we have only one voice.

And this one voice speaks of our huge and ancient cultural heritage; of our privileged and noble history; our entrenched family, moral and spiritual values; our undying hope and our endless desire to succeed. This one voice becomes stronger every day. This one voice yearns to be heard throughout the United States. This one voice wants to echo the importance of the Mexican community in every corner of this city and every part of this country. This one voice aims to establish a fluid and perennial dialogue with the rest of the American society so as to make, together, this country (and, incidentally, our country) the great country that it deserves to be.

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