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That was the message the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and others sent to First Lady Jill Biden on Monday after comments at a Latinos conference in San Antonio in which she appeared to compare Hispanics to tacos.
Addressing the UnidosUS annual conference in Texas, the first lady praised the diversity of the community, saying it was “as different as the wineries in the Bronx, as beautiful as Miami flowers and as unique as breakfast tacos. here in San Antonio. ”
Biden also mispronounced “bodegas” while trying to praise the Latino community, and a video clip of his comments attracted more than 2 million views.
The reaction was quick. In a tweet, NAHJ wrote that the organization “encourages @FLOTUS and its communications team to take the time to better understand the complexities of our people and communities. We are not tacos. Our heritage as Latinos is shaped by various diasporas, cultures and food traditions “.
“Don’t reduce us to stereotypes,” the tweet concluded.
On Tuesday morning, First Lady spokesman Michael LaRosa had tweeted an apology, writing, “The first lady apologizes because her words convey anything but pure admiration and love for the Latino community.”
Most Hispanic and Latino groups did not publicly criticize the First Lady’s comments. But that didn’t stop some Republicans from taking advantage of the analogy and using it to beat her and her husband, President Biden.
Deputy Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) Tweeted a video of Biden’s comments and wrote, “Jill Biden says Hispanics are as ‘unique’ as tacos and calls wineries ‘crazy.’ Hispanics flee the Democratic Party!
An average of Washington Post polls of Hispanics found that 49% approved of how President Biden is doing his job, more than voters as a whole. However, its degree of approval has dropped among Hispanics since last year.
In a series of tweets, Irene Armendariz-Jackson, a Republican candidate for Congress in the Texas district that includes El Paso, was especially blunt. “I’m an American who was born of legal Mexican immigrants,” he tweeted. “I don’t identify as Latinx. I don’t identify as a bo-guh-da. Nor do I identify as a breakfast taco. I am a proud American woman. I am a proud Hispanic woman. Enough of these racist idiots, please. “
And Danielle Alvarez, communications director for the Republican National Committee, issued a statement accusing the Biden and Democrats of taking the Hispanic community for granted.
“His attempts to please are disrespectful and contemptuous,” Alvarez said in the statement. “With Jill Biden comparing us to tacos, it makes sense for Hispanics to overwhelmingly disapprove of this disconnected and failed administration and leave the Democratic Party en masse.”
Biden’s statements at the annual Latin conference were subject to the White House’s usual process for such a speech, which required the signing of several White House units, including intergovernmental affairs offices, legislative affairs and public participation, according to a person familiar with the speech. , who spoke on condition of anonymity to talk about internal dynamics.
As first lady, Biden has become a key administration messenger for the Latino community and immigration activists. This role has been met with a mixed response from activists who say they appreciate it being a direct line with the president, but who would like them to have more direct incursions into White House policy officials.
Biden began learning Spanish during the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, and during the 2020 campaign she began meeting weekly with small groups of Latino members of Congress, sharing her concerns with her husband. During the campaign, he also crossed the border to serve a Christmas meal to asylum seekers at a refugee camp in Matamoros, Mexico.
After her husband was elected, one of Jill Biden’s first acts was to appoint three Latinos as key members of her team: Anthony Bernal as chief adviser, Carlos Elizondo as social secretary, and Julissa Reynosso as chief of staff.
Since then, Biden participated in a naturalization ceremony in 2022 in Bakersfield, California, before Caesar Chávez Day. He toured three cities in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month last October and chose Latin America as the venue for his third solo trip this May, making a six-day diplomatic visit to three countries in the region.
In his comments Monday, a person familiar with the matter said, Biden was trying to highlight, albeit uncomfortably, a local pride point in San Antonio: the breakfast taco.
In an interview, Yvette Cabrera, vice president of Internet for NAHJ, said that after Biden’s comments, the group’s rapid response team met to assess their own reaction. They realized the first lady intended to praise the community, she said, but also concluded that her comments were deaf and decided to offer a “proportional” response: a tweet, rather than a full statement to her website.
“I understand his intention was positive, he was trying to congratulate the uniqueness of Latinos, but in fact what he did was resort to a stereotype that didn’t really represent the diversity of the Latino community in the United States,” Cabrera said. “It was disappointing, because it seemed like a shallow stereotype was being resorted to when I could have taken the opportunity to examine and give some examples of this diversity.”
Cabrera added that there are a myriad of complex challenges facing the community (difficulties in accessing reproductive health care and abortions, for example, or barriers to access to the vote), which Biden he might have mentioned it to better show his understanding of the Latins.
“It would have been great to see her show her understanding and knowledge of these issues,” Cabrera said.
The first lady is not the first political figure to deviate when she uses food to try to relate to the Latino community. In 2016, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump tweeted from a photo where a bowl of tacos was eaten in honor of the Cinc de Mayo.
“The best tacos bowls are made at Trump Tower Grill,” Trump wrote at the time. “I love Hispanics!”
Mariana Alfaro and Emily Guskin contributed to this report.