In early September, TelevisaUnivision announced that Jorge Ramos, the most famous Spanish-language journalist in the United States, would be stepping down after more than 40 years. The news came as a shock to Latinos in the U.S. who viewed Ramos as synonymous with the news.
However, Ramos' legacy lives on through his daughter Paola, who, besides working with both the Obama administration and Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign, is currently making the rounds to promote her book Defectors -- the Rise of the Latino Far Right and What It Means for America.
Her most recent stop took her Amanpour & Co. on PBS, where she sat down with Hari Sreenivasan to talk about what she believes is driving Latinos away from the Democratic Party and in favor of former President Donald Trump.
In a passage of the interview, Ramos theorized that the idea of Latino Trump supporters did not originate with the MAGA movement, but actually brings into question a lot of Latino history, including what she referred to as "internalized racism":
"I think what I discovered in the book is that the real answers, the hardest answers, are the ones that are perhaps more uncomfortable to talk about. By that I mean really understanding the sort of racial baggage that I believe a lot of Latinos, including myself, a lot of us are carrying from Latin America. What it means to sort of have been colonized for so many years, the weight of colonization. That in and of itself creates I believe a lot of internalized racism, a lot of colorism, that manifests in American politics."
Ramos went on to say that internalized racism is "how you can explain the fact that even someone like Donald Trump feels so comfortable going to the Bronx, talking to a group of Black Latinos, and Latino Trump supporters, because he believes that he can sort of tap into a racial and ethnic grievance that is very familiar."
It's not the first time the Ramos has tackled these ideas. Back in September she published a piece on The Atlantic titled "The Immigrants Who Oppose Immigration". In it, she argued that Latinos in the U.S. value assimilation above everything else and have resorted to anti-immigration stances "to prove themselves as 'real Americans.':
"The quest to fit into American society is driving some Latinos toward extreme nativism; after all, nothing is more nationalistic than making immigrants, a sworn enemy of many white Americans, your enemy as well."
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