WEBVTT 1 00:00:03.560 --> 00:00:09.360 So I've had someone on my mind lately, actually not 2 00:00:09.720 --> 00:00:15.240 one person, but a whole group of people. It's our men, 3 00:00:15.800 --> 00:00:20.560 Latino men. I've been thinking about them a lot, especially 4 00:00:20.960 --> 00:00:25.040 after the election, and especially after hearing what the media 5 00:00:25.160 --> 00:00:26.320 had to say about them. 6 00:00:26.520 --> 00:00:29.760 Latinos in Texas, a district that's ninety seven percent Latino 7 00:00:30.000 --> 00:00:32.360 went seventy five percentage points for Donald Trump. 8 00:00:32.440 --> 00:00:35.000 Why misogyny and the mill was on the border. 9 00:00:35.560 --> 00:00:39.720 There's misogyny, but it's not just misogyny for white men. 10 00:00:40.680 --> 00:00:47.080 It's misogyny from Hispanic men. Might be race issues with Hispanics. 11 00:00:47.360 --> 00:00:48.440 They don't want a black woman. 12 00:00:48.479 --> 00:00:51.480 Also, Latino man, y'all voted with Steven Miller and David 13 00:00:51.520 --> 00:00:54.520 Duke and against your own sisters who chose Kamala Harris 14 00:00:54.680 --> 00:00:58.160 with sixty percent of their votes. So you own everything 15 00:00:58.400 --> 00:01:02.200 that happens to your mixed status and to your wives, sisters, 16 00:01:02.240 --> 00:01:02.880 and of wells. 17 00:01:03.120 --> 00:01:06.319 From here on in, what's the root here and how 18 00:01:06.360 --> 00:01:10.600 do we understand what's going on with Latino men and 19 00:01:10.760 --> 00:01:15.520 their decisions? So today we are starting a new series 20 00:01:15.560 --> 00:01:20.720 here on Latino USA. It's called Ombre Understanding Latino Men, 21 00:01:21.240 --> 00:01:25.319 and so we are aiming to have deep curious conversations 22 00:01:25.720 --> 00:01:28.479 about what it's like to be a Latino man in 23 00:01:28.520 --> 00:01:31.600 this moment in the United States. And to start off 24 00:01:31.600 --> 00:01:34.240 our series, we have someone who can talk about all 25 00:01:34.280 --> 00:01:37.120 of this from a political level, but also from a 26 00:01:37.160 --> 00:01:39.920 pretty personal one as well, and all of it comes 27 00:01:39.959 --> 00:01:41.920 with his signature Texas twang. 28 00:01:42.280 --> 00:01:43.360 Some nice digs up in here. 29 00:01:43.360 --> 00:01:45.319 I wish I could afford a place over Quien just 30 00:01:45.440 --> 00:01:47.840 like so nice up in here to see you. 31 00:01:48.360 --> 00:01:49.120 Oh my god. 32 00:01:49.360 --> 00:01:54.080 That's DC based political consultant and Democratic strategist Chuck Roachel. 33 00:01:55.480 --> 00:01:57.080 You know, people looked at me strange when I got 34 00:01:57.080 --> 00:01:57.600 out of the car. 35 00:01:58.080 --> 00:02:02.800 Respect On a cold, early December morning in twenty twenty four, 36 00:02:03.360 --> 00:02:06.840 Chuck arrived to Latino USA's studio in New York City 37 00:02:06.960 --> 00:02:10.920 in Harlem, and of course he was wearing his big 38 00:02:11.280 --> 00:02:12.760 Texas cowboy hat. 39 00:02:12.880 --> 00:02:13.920 People like, oh you wear that hat. 40 00:02:13.960 --> 00:02:15.680 I'm like, yeah, I'm ball headed and this is warm. 41 00:02:15.720 --> 00:02:18.280 I bore this my whole life. This ain't an act. 42 00:02:18.480 --> 00:02:20.520 Well, yea man, what part of East Texas? 43 00:02:20.520 --> 00:02:20.880 Exactly? 44 00:02:24.520 --> 00:02:28.200 From Fuduro Media and PRX, It's Latino USA. I'm Maria 45 00:02:28.240 --> 00:02:32.760 in Josa today the premiere of our new series Ombre 46 00:02:33.320 --> 00:02:45.400 Understanding Latino men with our first guest, Chuck Roacha. You 47 00:02:45.480 --> 00:02:48.800 might have seen people in the media on television after 48 00:02:48.840 --> 00:02:53.239 the presidential election saying that it was Latino men who 49 00:02:53.360 --> 00:02:57.160 cost the Democrats the election, despite the fact that the 50 00:02:57.160 --> 00:03:00.240 majority of voters who came out for Donald Trump were 51 00:03:00.440 --> 00:03:06.440 white men and white women. Still people were confused, right 52 00:03:06.520 --> 00:03:10.080 even outraged, as to why Latino men had shifted further 53 00:03:10.280 --> 00:03:12.919 right in twenty twenty four and how to explain that. 54 00:03:13.400 --> 00:03:16.760 According to the Brookings Institution's support for Donald Trump was 55 00:03:16.919 --> 00:03:21.800 highest among younger Latino men, with forty eight percent of 56 00:03:21.880 --> 00:03:25.239 Latino men under the age of forty voting for Trump. 57 00:03:25.760 --> 00:03:30.360 One in five of them was a first time voter. So, 58 00:03:30.560 --> 00:03:33.120 dear listener, of course there's a caveat because we know 59 00:03:33.240 --> 00:03:36.600 that there's not one single kind of Latino man, right, 60 00:03:36.640 --> 00:03:39.840 and it gets really tricky to define men from such 61 00:03:40.040 --> 00:03:44.040 different cultures and Latin American roots into one category. We 62 00:03:44.240 --> 00:03:48.440 get this Chicano men or Mexican American men, and Cuban 63 00:03:48.480 --> 00:03:51.640 American men or Puerto Rican men. They all have very 64 00:03:51.880 --> 00:03:56.680 distinct experiences that inform how they live and therefore how 65 00:03:56.680 --> 00:04:01.280 they vote. But we do hope that in conversation with 66 00:04:01.360 --> 00:04:04.520 a diverse set of Latino man that we might come 67 00:04:04.560 --> 00:04:08.600 to better understand why as a block they did vote 68 00:04:08.640 --> 00:04:13.040 differently than in previous generations. And here's where Chuck Roache 69 00:04:13.160 --> 00:04:16.480 comes in to help us understand this shift and how 70 00:04:16.520 --> 00:04:27.080 the Democrats failed to reach these important Latino mail voters. 71 00:04:27.920 --> 00:04:31.040 Chuck grew up in East Texas, in what he calls 72 00:04:31.240 --> 00:04:34.800 the middle of nowhere. He says he's a real man's man, 73 00:04:34.960 --> 00:04:39.680 a proud product of the working class, who loves hunting, fishing, boxing, 74 00:04:40.240 --> 00:04:42.800 and he says he hasn't missed a workout in over 75 00:04:42.920 --> 00:04:47.040 thirty years. His political career started decades ago when he 76 00:04:47.120 --> 00:04:50.440 was a union official and that's where he cut his teeth. 77 00:04:51.880 --> 00:04:55.720 In twenty ten, he founded his own political consulting firm, 78 00:04:55.839 --> 00:04:59.159 Solidarity Strategies, and he went on to become the first 79 00:04:59.240 --> 00:05:04.240 Latino to run a presidential campaign. Omrich, let's get to 80 00:05:04.279 --> 00:05:11.960 our conversation now. So the whole impetus behind this series, Chuck, right, 81 00:05:12.200 --> 00:05:15.279 is that we want to have a conversation with Latino men, 82 00:05:15.720 --> 00:05:20.200 about Latino men, about Latino manhood, about the experience of 83 00:05:20.240 --> 00:05:24.120 being Latino in the United States. And you know, just 84 00:05:24.960 --> 00:05:27.599 maybe in an attempt to understand what just happened in 85 00:05:27.600 --> 00:05:30.680 the year twenty twenty four, Right, what did it mean 86 00:05:30.720 --> 00:05:33.960 for you growing up as a young Latino kid in 87 00:05:34.000 --> 00:05:35.000 East Texas? 88 00:05:35.320 --> 00:05:37.400 Look in the seventies. I can't grow up around a 89 00:05:37.440 --> 00:05:39.960 lot of Latinos who weren't named Rocha. I grew up 90 00:05:40.000 --> 00:05:41.800 in the middle of the country, in the middle of 91 00:05:41.839 --> 00:05:45.440 the woods, in a trailer house next to my white grandparents' farm. 92 00:05:45.880 --> 00:05:47.560 So when my book, when I wrote about my two 93 00:05:47.640 --> 00:05:49.880 grandmothers who really influenced my life, there was this white 94 00:05:49.880 --> 00:05:53.039 grandmother named Evelyn Bussell, who cooked in a cash down skillet. 95 00:05:53.040 --> 00:05:55.320 We farmed, we raised cattle, we did all the things. 96 00:05:55.360 --> 00:05:56.560 And then there was Carmen. 97 00:05:56.360 --> 00:05:57.239 Who lived in the city. 98 00:05:57.240 --> 00:05:58.960 And I would drive fourteen miles in the city and 99 00:05:59.000 --> 00:06:01.800 see Carmen Rocha, and I would talk about walking into 100 00:06:01.800 --> 00:06:03.640 her house and your nose would burn a little bit 101 00:06:03.640 --> 00:06:06.159 because she'd have the mogihete and she chopped in grind 102 00:06:06.160 --> 00:06:09.360 peppers every morning and made tortillas every day, made sausa 103 00:06:09.520 --> 00:06:11.320 every day. And you couldn't walk in that house and 104 00:06:11.360 --> 00:06:14.200 not be fed like every other grandmother. Right, So there's 105 00:06:14.200 --> 00:06:16.120 a reason why I weighed three hundred pounds when I 106 00:06:16.160 --> 00:06:17.039 graduated high school. 107 00:06:17.080 --> 00:06:20.600 As I was getting good food on both ends, and 108 00:06:20.640 --> 00:06:23.320 you're talking about growing up, what were the messages that 109 00:06:23.360 --> 00:06:30.039 you were getting about? Specifically? Latino manhood was the male message. 110 00:06:30.200 --> 00:06:34.040 It is macho, you know, you're a strong Texas man. 111 00:06:34.600 --> 00:06:37.960 Or manhood is about being really good to women. 112 00:06:38.400 --> 00:06:40.920 You know. I would discover the Latino manhood later when 113 00:06:40.920 --> 00:06:42.640 I went to work in the factory with my dad. 114 00:06:42.720 --> 00:06:44.359 My dad left when I was five, and I would 115 00:06:44.720 --> 00:06:46.240 we would reconnect and I'd go to work in a 116 00:06:46.279 --> 00:06:49.479 tire factory making tires when I'm nineteen. But growing up, 117 00:06:49.520 --> 00:06:51.599 I was raised by this old white man who was 118 00:06:51.640 --> 00:06:53.960 my white grandfather and his two kids who were my 119 00:06:54.000 --> 00:06:56.839 two uncles. So hunting and fishing and be a man 120 00:06:57.000 --> 00:06:59.040 was just ingrained in what you did. You worked with 121 00:06:59.080 --> 00:07:02.239 your hands, you protect your woman, you fought for things 122 00:07:02.240 --> 00:07:05.800 that were right. And as I got older and realized, 123 00:07:06.279 --> 00:07:08.680 you know, was there a Latino piece of this. It 124 00:07:08.800 --> 00:07:11.560 was my father in the factory and five of his 125 00:07:11.600 --> 00:07:13.640 brothers who also worked in the factory with me, like 126 00:07:13.680 --> 00:07:16.320 eight of my cousins, every Mexican in that factory, and 127 00:07:16.880 --> 00:07:19.920 watching these men do manly things as what the stereotypical 128 00:07:19.960 --> 00:07:20.720 reporter would think of. 129 00:07:20.760 --> 00:07:21.960 It's like driving a fork truck. 130 00:07:22.240 --> 00:07:24.600 Having I had two hay hooks that I used to 131 00:07:24.680 --> 00:07:27.360 throw seventy pound bales of rubber onto a moving conveyer 132 00:07:27.440 --> 00:07:29.040 belt every fifty seconds. 133 00:07:29.080 --> 00:07:32.239 Wait a second, what in each hand? 134 00:07:32.400 --> 00:07:35.640 So you would at hooks, so I would lift it 135 00:07:35.680 --> 00:07:36.120 and throw it. 136 00:07:36.240 --> 00:07:38.640 So I was a big old boy in that stereotype 137 00:07:38.680 --> 00:07:41.120 me into giving me a tough job in the dirtiest 138 00:07:41.120 --> 00:07:44.080 apartment in the factory, because that's where ironically all the 139 00:07:44.120 --> 00:07:46.760 black and latinos worked, was the dirtiest part of the factory. 140 00:07:47.000 --> 00:07:50.240 And so you started having some questions around the messaging 141 00:07:50.280 --> 00:07:51.080 around manhood. 142 00:07:51.160 --> 00:07:53.200 Is that what you're saying you reflect back on that, 143 00:07:53.280 --> 00:07:55.600 I think becoming a father at the same time, I'd 144 00:07:55.640 --> 00:07:59.040 just become a father at nineteen twenty, and I just 145 00:07:59.040 --> 00:08:01.800 got in full custom of son and he wasn't three 146 00:08:01.880 --> 00:08:04.760 months old yet, so it was something very unusual. So 147 00:08:04.800 --> 00:08:06.800 I understood what it was like to have a baby 148 00:08:06.800 --> 00:08:08.560 and be fully responsible. 149 00:08:07.960 --> 00:08:08.480 For that baby. 150 00:08:08.480 --> 00:08:11.440 Thank God for my grandmother and my family. There was 151 00:08:11.480 --> 00:08:13.600 lots of family to help me raise this boy of mine. 152 00:08:13.640 --> 00:08:16.640 But becoming a father is really when I think a 153 00:08:16.720 --> 00:08:18.840 boy becomes a man and you understand what man it 154 00:08:19.000 --> 00:08:20.760 is because you'll never love a thing like you love 155 00:08:20.800 --> 00:08:23.080 your child. There's just no other love like that. They're 156 00:08:23.120 --> 00:08:25.160 going to mess up. But there's things that you would 157 00:08:25.200 --> 00:08:27.760 do and you feel that you've never felt before. Of literally, 158 00:08:27.760 --> 00:08:29.720 I would kill somebody for that boy if somebody tried 159 00:08:29.760 --> 00:08:31.240 to hurt him. 160 00:08:31.320 --> 00:08:37.239 So I'm trying to understand how that chuck ROACHA becomes 161 00:08:37.280 --> 00:08:41.840 the chuck ROACHA that then understands how to message. 162 00:08:43.000 --> 00:08:44.120 There's a direct line. 163 00:08:44.280 --> 00:08:47.120 What is that direct line? Because you become an expert 164 00:08:47.200 --> 00:08:51.600 in political messaging specifically to Latinos and Latinas, and I 165 00:08:51.600 --> 00:08:53.640 would say, you know, Latino men. 166 00:08:53.800 --> 00:08:54.160 Sure. 167 00:08:54.720 --> 00:08:57.520 What people don't understand is that the way modern campaigns 168 00:08:57.520 --> 00:09:00.480 are run is there's a small group of consultants control 169 00:09:00.559 --> 00:09:02.920 most of the messaging and the strategy of how campaign 170 00:09:03.000 --> 00:09:05.640 is run. And because we've made this kind of an industry, 171 00:09:05.640 --> 00:09:07.360 it's all run out of a box where you all 172 00:09:07.360 --> 00:09:09.280 do the same thing. You reach into your box, you 173 00:09:09.320 --> 00:09:11.960 do your poll, you do your message testing, you raise 174 00:09:12.000 --> 00:09:14.200 your money, and you buy TV and digital advertising and 175 00:09:14.200 --> 00:09:17.040 pretty much call it today. But there's very few Latinos 176 00:09:17.120 --> 00:09:19.439 or very few Latino men or Latinos or black people 177 00:09:19.440 --> 00:09:21.640 for that matter, who do this work at that level 178 00:09:21.640 --> 00:09:24.360 where you really listened to the part of the story 179 00:09:24.400 --> 00:09:26.560 that I just told that connects that dot and that 180 00:09:26.640 --> 00:09:29.680 through line is I also remember going to a payday 181 00:09:29.760 --> 00:09:32.480 lender when I was twenty one twenty two to get 182 00:09:32.559 --> 00:09:35.040 forty bucks to buy diapers to get me to payday. 183 00:09:35.679 --> 00:09:39.160 I remember after I became an organizer with the union 184 00:09:39.679 --> 00:09:43.040 and falling behind on my truck payment, my truck getting repolled, 185 00:09:43.080 --> 00:09:45.960 and understanding that they actually would come and get your truck. 186 00:09:46.720 --> 00:09:50.439 And I remember watching my mother who was fifteen when 187 00:09:50.480 --> 00:09:52.000 I was born, so a really young mother in my 188 00:09:52.080 --> 00:09:53.880 whole life, like me having to fight grown men when 189 00:09:53.880 --> 00:09:56.800 I'm fifteen or sixteen and learn how bad men can 190 00:09:56.840 --> 00:10:00.400 be with women. All those things happened to me. And 191 00:10:00.440 --> 00:10:02.280 at no point in this story is it that Chuck 192 00:10:02.360 --> 00:10:04.480 goes off to college. I've never been to college a 193 00:10:04.559 --> 00:10:06.880 day in my life, but I've lived all these real 194 00:10:06.920 --> 00:10:09.960 life experiences that make me way more closer to people 195 00:10:10.080 --> 00:10:12.320 that we want to talk to and get to vote 196 00:10:12.320 --> 00:10:13.920 for us. So when I write an ad, it looks 197 00:10:13.960 --> 00:10:16.960 much different than a guy who's well intentioned who's got 198 00:10:16.960 --> 00:10:20.880 a Latino studies degree, who mama and daddy probably immigrated 199 00:10:20.880 --> 00:10:23.480 to their grandparents and he got the luxuries of getting 200 00:10:23.480 --> 00:10:26.200 a great education. And they're well meaning and great people. 201 00:10:26.600 --> 00:10:28.800 They don't understand the life that I've lived, So it 202 00:10:28.840 --> 00:10:32.480 makes my creative experience a little different. And then if 203 00:10:32.520 --> 00:10:35.160 you really live in the elite part of consulting that 204 00:10:35.200 --> 00:10:36.840 I do, you have a little bit of a chip 205 00:10:36.880 --> 00:10:39.680 on your shoulder and you're a little mouthy. And because 206 00:10:39.720 --> 00:10:42.120 I'm six foot tall and two hundred pounds and don't 207 00:10:42.120 --> 00:10:44.199 take a lot of shit, I can also be known 208 00:10:44.200 --> 00:10:47.520 as quote unquote like being too loud and too aggressive. 209 00:10:47.120 --> 00:10:47.760 That rebel guy. 210 00:10:47.880 --> 00:10:50.680 That's right, that radical, right, very radical, Like you're trying 211 00:10:50.679 --> 00:10:52.320 to do things that are going to hurt our campaign 212 00:10:52.400 --> 00:10:54.640 if we do something crazy like this and put Ruben 213 00:10:54.679 --> 00:10:57.600 Diego in a rodeo the friday before the election. 214 00:10:57.440 --> 00:10:59.120 Who won Ruben Gego? 215 00:11:07.080 --> 00:11:10.559 So what is your sense of Is there a chip 216 00:11:10.600 --> 00:11:14.880 on Latino men's shoulders that we need to talk about. 217 00:11:15.280 --> 00:11:16.720 You have to separate them in two ways. 218 00:11:16.760 --> 00:11:20.400 One is Latino men in general and Latino men who 219 00:11:21.000 --> 00:11:22.760 are coming of age. 220 00:11:22.520 --> 00:11:23.280 And who are voters. 221 00:11:23.280 --> 00:11:25.319 There's a lot of Latino men who just don't participate 222 00:11:25.360 --> 00:11:27.760 in the process, who feel so left behind, and they 223 00:11:27.760 --> 00:11:30.120 work their butts off just trying to give out voting 224 00:11:30.200 --> 00:11:32.800 is the last thing on their mind. That's almost a 225 00:11:32.840 --> 00:11:35.920 majority of Latino men now. The Latino men who are voting, 226 00:11:36.280 --> 00:11:39.480 who have some appetite for voting, are younger than they 227 00:11:39.520 --> 00:11:41.920 were ten years ago when they were voting for Democrats 228 00:11:41.920 --> 00:11:45.040 at seventy percent. What people miss in the conversation about 229 00:11:45.040 --> 00:11:47.680 our people is that because we are so young and 230 00:11:47.720 --> 00:11:50.400 coming of age so quickly, it's a much different demographic 231 00:11:50.400 --> 00:11:52.560 than when I came of age. There were three TV 232 00:11:52.600 --> 00:11:54.719 stations when I grew up, and if the president was on, 233 00:11:55.080 --> 00:11:57.079 you're not was ruined because he was on all three channels. 234 00:11:57.120 --> 00:12:00.160 You couldn't watch cartoons or wrestling or nothing else. It's 235 00:12:00.200 --> 00:12:03.120 a different time. My son now is thirty five. I've 236 00:12:03.120 --> 00:12:06.599 got twenty eight year old grandkids that live in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 237 00:12:07.040 --> 00:12:09.800 He's followed in my footsteps and is a union steam fitter. 238 00:12:09.840 --> 00:12:11.839 He's got a pension, he's got health care. But when 239 00:12:11.880 --> 00:12:13.640 you think about the way he thinks about being a 240 00:12:13.640 --> 00:12:16.120 man and the way I thought about being a man, 241 00:12:16.480 --> 00:12:19.040 it's really more similar than you would think because he 242 00:12:19.080 --> 00:12:21.160 didn't go to college either, and he works with his 243 00:12:21.240 --> 00:12:23.840 hands every day, and because he's a single father, his 244 00:12:24.000 --> 00:12:26.240 sole purpose is taking care of those two little boys. 245 00:12:26.920 --> 00:12:28.640 And so when you think about. 246 00:12:28.600 --> 00:12:31.320 What is manhood, what does that look like and having 247 00:12:31.320 --> 00:12:35.320 a chip on your shoulder? Men today feel like these 248 00:12:35.360 --> 00:12:39.160 younger men most second generation, third generation, not newly immigrants 249 00:12:39.240 --> 00:12:42.000 like they were in the sixties and seventies. That's a 250 00:12:42.040 --> 00:12:44.559 big difference. And when you add in social media to that, 251 00:12:45.040 --> 00:12:47.760 then there's a whole group of men who have never 252 00:12:47.800 --> 00:12:50.960 been told what the Democratic Party is or what we 253 00:12:51.040 --> 00:12:54.319 stand for, and if we did, we promise them things 254 00:12:54.559 --> 00:12:57.559 and never got delivered on, whether it was immigration or 255 00:12:57.640 --> 00:13:01.040 minimum wage or health care for everybody or whatever that 256 00:13:01.120 --> 00:13:03.960 thing was. That's why you didn't see this happen overnight, 257 00:13:04.240 --> 00:13:07.400 but you saw a slow erosion of that. And a 258 00:13:07.440 --> 00:13:09.360 lot of it has to do with Donald Trump. Donald 259 00:13:09.400 --> 00:13:12.319 Trump is such a unique story because people at least 260 00:13:12.400 --> 00:13:14.720 knew his name and they knew who he was. And 261 00:13:14.760 --> 00:13:17.520 in politics, that's where so much money to just have 262 00:13:17.640 --> 00:13:19.000 name idea where people know you. 263 00:13:20.160 --> 00:13:24.440 So can you link that imagery of Donald Trump name 264 00:13:24.520 --> 00:13:29.160 recognition to his connection to Latino men. 265 00:13:29.400 --> 00:13:31.960 Sure, and that is going back to what I just 266 00:13:32.000 --> 00:13:34.240 said about the age. Let's start there, because people miss 267 00:13:34.320 --> 00:13:36.199 the most crucial part of this argument is that I'm 268 00:13:36.200 --> 00:13:39.160 not talking about a fifty five year old Mexican who's 269 00:13:39.200 --> 00:13:42.240 got grandkids that is Chuck Roache. Most of people in 270 00:13:42.320 --> 00:13:45.480 my category are still voting Democrat. It's all of our 271 00:13:45.559 --> 00:13:48.920 kids and our grandkids, and they knew Donald Trump as 272 00:13:48.960 --> 00:13:50.760 this character caricature. 273 00:13:51.440 --> 00:13:52.880 And then I would add to that. 274 00:13:52.840 --> 00:13:55.360 Point when it comes specifically to Latino men, let me 275 00:13:55.360 --> 00:13:57.240 connect this and this is going to blow people's mind. 276 00:13:57.360 --> 00:14:01.160 To Bernie Sanders. I ran Bernie's and presidential campaign in 277 00:14:01.160 --> 00:14:03.680 twenty twenty. We had historic support because I was not 278 00:14:03.760 --> 00:14:06.360 the Latino consultant. I ran the whole damn thing. I 279 00:14:06.400 --> 00:14:08.200 was in charge of a two hundred million dollar budget, 280 00:14:08.280 --> 00:14:10.960 so I made sure we were fully funded. And you 281 00:14:11.000 --> 00:14:12.080 know what we talked about. 282 00:14:12.720 --> 00:14:17.960 We're looking at young people leaving school deeply in debt. 283 00:14:18.800 --> 00:14:23.080 We're looking at young people having jobs that, in real 284 00:14:23.120 --> 00:14:26.960 wages pay less than what their parents earned. We're looking 285 00:14:27.000 --> 00:14:31.680 at a generation that cannot afford to buy a home. 286 00:14:32.080 --> 00:14:37.040 We talked about keeping jobs in America. Revitalizing manufacturing, not 287 00:14:37.200 --> 00:14:41.200 funding foreign wars. Investing That sounds like Donald Trump. The 288 00:14:41.240 --> 00:14:44.480 point I'm making here is that we've let and allowed 289 00:14:44.600 --> 00:14:47.760 a carnival Barker and a Shastra to steal our verbiage 290 00:14:47.800 --> 00:14:51.160 to full enough mainly men. You add in that he's saying, 291 00:14:51.240 --> 00:14:53.440 I want to drain the swamp. The system is corrupt, 292 00:14:53.520 --> 00:14:56.000 it's not working for you man. To a Latino man, 293 00:14:56.200 --> 00:14:57.080 that is cat neep. 294 00:14:57.240 --> 00:14:57.840 What do you mean? 295 00:14:58.280 --> 00:15:01.360 Men bust their ass every day, and that in most 296 00:15:01.480 --> 00:15:04.200 cultures to be the provider. You're supposed to be taking 297 00:15:04.200 --> 00:15:06.000 care of your wife and these kids, and you're supposed 298 00:15:06.000 --> 00:15:08.080 to be out there working. Donald Trump saying the system's 299 00:15:08.120 --> 00:15:10.160 rigged against you. No matter how hard you work, you 300 00:15:10.200 --> 00:15:13.280 can't get ahead. That's what I said with Bernie Sanders. 301 00:15:13.360 --> 00:15:16.120 I was making ads with that four years before he 302 00:15:16.160 --> 00:15:19.360 ever got there. It's the same thing that these men 303 00:15:19.440 --> 00:15:22.400 wanted to hear, is that nobody understands what I'm having 304 00:15:22.440 --> 00:15:25.720 to go through. These are the underlying anxieties that are 305 00:15:25.720 --> 00:15:29.400 a little more fairly or unfairly put on men, because 306 00:15:29.400 --> 00:15:32.560 in certain cultures, especially Latinos, even though the women run 307 00:15:32.600 --> 00:15:34.720 the households and we all defer to our grandmothers and 308 00:15:34.760 --> 00:15:38.240 our mothers. It's this piece about nobody cares about the 309 00:15:38.280 --> 00:15:40.720 shit I'm having to go through every day to provide 310 00:15:40.720 --> 00:15:43.480 for my family. And at least this guy seemed like 311 00:15:43.480 --> 00:15:44.920 he's a little crazy, but he's not part of this 312 00:15:45.040 --> 00:15:47.040 system that I've not been able to break into for 313 00:15:47.080 --> 00:15:47.760 a long time. 314 00:15:51.720 --> 00:15:54.200 Coming up on l you know usay, I continue my 315 00:15:54.240 --> 00:15:56.680 conversation with Chuck Rochak. We're going to get into the 316 00:15:56.800 --> 00:16:00.840 strategies that the Republican Party used to app into the 317 00:16:00.920 --> 00:16:18.400 Latino male voter. That's when Ombre continues. Stay with us DIVI. Yes, Hey, 318 00:16:18.680 --> 00:16:22.720 we're back for our new series, Ombre Understanding Latino Men. 319 00:16:23.200 --> 00:16:26.280 Let's get back to my conversation now with political strategist 320 00:16:26.520 --> 00:16:29.560 Chuck Rocha. I think what you're saying is what I've 321 00:16:30.080 --> 00:16:33.400 in my decades of reporting, right, I'm not gonna name 322 00:16:33.400 --> 00:16:41.440 how many, but several, is that Latino men are American men. Sure, 323 00:16:42.080 --> 00:16:44.800 I mean there is an element of race. Obviously, for 324 00:16:44.960 --> 00:16:48.480 white men, it is the system is against you because 325 00:16:48.520 --> 00:16:51.880 you are white men. For Latino men, this system is 326 00:16:51.920 --> 00:16:55.920 against you because you're quote unquote a minority. 327 00:16:56.760 --> 00:16:59.080 This has more to do with class that most of 328 00:16:59.120 --> 00:17:01.080 the men I'm talking about I ever went to college. 329 00:17:01.640 --> 00:17:04.199 Latino men who go to college perform like night and 330 00:17:04.359 --> 00:17:06.200 day with a Latino man who did not. 331 00:17:06.520 --> 00:17:07.240 In elections. 332 00:17:07.440 --> 00:17:10.040 I've run races this year from California to New York, 333 00:17:10.280 --> 00:17:12.520 and the one thing that really stands out was if 334 00:17:12.560 --> 00:17:14.480 you went to college and you were a Latino man, 335 00:17:14.520 --> 00:17:17.080 even a young Latino man in your thirties, you voted 336 00:17:17.119 --> 00:17:20.480 twenty percent more democratic than the non college educated Latino men. 337 00:17:20.960 --> 00:17:23.159 You're consuming information a little differently, you're looking at the 338 00:17:23.160 --> 00:17:25.600 world differently, and at least the guy who's got the 339 00:17:25.640 --> 00:17:29.720 degree sees a pathway out, a pathway to aspire to 340 00:17:29.760 --> 00:17:32.000 be as good as his parents, or to make money 341 00:17:32.119 --> 00:17:34.920 or do whatever he wants to do. One in four 342 00:17:35.000 --> 00:17:37.720 Latino men are connected to the construction trade. They're in lumber, 343 00:17:37.840 --> 00:17:40.760 they're in concrete, they're in plumbing, they're in ditch digging. 344 00:17:41.280 --> 00:17:44.600 So when you start seeing things like the pandemic happening, 345 00:17:44.720 --> 00:17:47.680 downturns in the economy, lumber going up, all of those 346 00:17:47.680 --> 00:17:51.000 things over indexed hurt Latino men and their work, so 347 00:17:51.040 --> 00:17:54.480 there's even more anxiety. So we were fighting an uphill 348 00:17:54.520 --> 00:17:57.520 battle and you couple that with a party who says, 349 00:17:57.560 --> 00:17:59.960 if you haven't voted in the last two or three cycles, 350 00:18:00.080 --> 00:18:02.720 you're an infrequent voter and you're not worth the dollar 351 00:18:02.760 --> 00:18:04.560 to spend to talk to you. And that in itself 352 00:18:04.640 --> 00:18:06.880 is part of the biggest problem. So you couple all 353 00:18:06.880 --> 00:18:09.200 those things together. There's not one answer to your question. 354 00:18:09.480 --> 00:18:11.920 But I've done this long enough not that they're all interconnected, 355 00:18:12.080 --> 00:18:15.520 and that's where you start losing ten percent as we go. 356 00:18:16.240 --> 00:18:17.720 So I'm going to give you this other thing that 357 00:18:17.800 --> 00:18:20.480 happened here in New York. At my deli, there's a 358 00:18:21.160 --> 00:18:23.560 I thought he was Mexican. Turns out he's Guatemalan. But 359 00:18:23.600 --> 00:18:25.960 you know, he makes the sandwiches like in every pillar 360 00:18:26.040 --> 00:18:29.360 across New York City. And after the election, I asked him, 361 00:18:29.359 --> 00:18:31.040 you know, what's up, and he was not happy that 362 00:18:31.080 --> 00:18:35.920 Trump won, But very quickly he was like, yes, but 363 00:18:36.880 --> 00:18:39.720 why did they give all those immigrants people here in 364 00:18:39.760 --> 00:18:41.680 New York City? Why did they get a check? Why 365 00:18:41.680 --> 00:18:43.840 did they get a hotel room? These immigrants who are 366 00:18:43.880 --> 00:18:45.840 arriving here, why are they getting the foot up when 367 00:18:45.920 --> 00:18:47.320 you know, I came this way and I had to 368 00:18:47.320 --> 00:18:49.159 work my way up, and I was like whoa hold 369 00:18:49.200 --> 00:18:53.640 on talk to me about that in terms of Latino men, 370 00:18:54.080 --> 00:18:56.960 to just be like, I'm now prissed off about other 371 00:18:57.040 --> 00:18:59.720 people who i think are getting one over on us, 372 00:19:00.040 --> 00:19:01.280 that whole messaging there. 373 00:19:01.680 --> 00:19:04.480 I think that we've allowed the Republicans to become more 374 00:19:04.520 --> 00:19:07.560 than a party, and they're kind of a social brand now, 375 00:19:07.920 --> 00:19:10.600 a social brand of what it is to call out 376 00:19:10.680 --> 00:19:12.760 what we used to do, which is call out power, 377 00:19:12.960 --> 00:19:14.879 call out people that are trying to rig the system. 378 00:19:15.200 --> 00:19:17.400 And if you are younger than most white or black 379 00:19:17.440 --> 00:19:20.080 men in this country, if you're tied to construction or 380 00:19:20.160 --> 00:19:24.080 jobs that really suck, then you see an immigrant, documented 381 00:19:24.200 --> 00:19:27.119 undocumented immigrants like my grandparents, like all of the beautiful 382 00:19:27.119 --> 00:19:29.520 immigrants who've come here to make this country better. Then 383 00:19:29.560 --> 00:19:32.200 you can play on people's worst fears because they see 384 00:19:32.200 --> 00:19:34.880 it in their social circles. This is the biggest difference 385 00:19:34.880 --> 00:19:37.439 than when I ran campaigns in the nineties is that 386 00:19:37.480 --> 00:19:42.480 the social influence of social media, Fox News, this bromosphere 387 00:19:42.680 --> 00:19:47.280 of podcasts and information makes it okay socially to be 388 00:19:47.359 --> 00:19:50.200 like those bad people there are trying to take something 389 00:19:50.200 --> 00:19:52.800 that I'm working hard for. My mother was on food stamps. 390 00:19:52.800 --> 00:19:55.159 I ate government cheese, and I make more money in 391 00:19:55.160 --> 00:19:57.880 a congressman. Now I've lived the dream, and thank god 392 00:19:57.920 --> 00:20:00.440 my government was there to give my mama, who didn't 393 00:20:00.440 --> 00:20:02.520 have a high school diploma, a little help when we 394 00:20:02.560 --> 00:20:04.640 wanted some cheese. I ate a lot of grilled cheese sandwiches. 395 00:20:04.640 --> 00:20:06.920 They were awesome. But I'll have to know more. 396 00:20:17.440 --> 00:20:20.479 So the way we were talked about before the election 397 00:20:21.560 --> 00:20:23.919 and the way we've been talked about now post election, 398 00:20:24.320 --> 00:20:27.480 and there was that immediate it's all the Latino's fault 399 00:20:27.600 --> 00:20:30.480 and in particular Latino men. What do we need to 400 00:20:30.560 --> 00:20:31.880 understand about that? 401 00:20:32.280 --> 00:20:34.720