Readers of this byline are familiar with our efforts to catalogue the media's ongoing campaign of ethnic vitiation against Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Marco Rubio (R-FL), which has gained intensity since their respective presidential campaign announcements. The latest effort played out in print media, but is no less insidious and no less worthy of attention and scrutiny.
Years ago, back when Univision had waged its first war against Marco Rubio, I identified the main driver behind that particular atempt at ethnic disqualification, as well as those that continue today.
The immigration grievance lobby, the institutional Left, and their media enablers shudder at the notion that a conservative Hispanic could rise to power without submitting to their ideology or otherwise owing them anything. They are even more afraid of the example that this could set for Hispanic children, and of what this means to the long-term prospects of institutional Hispanic media here in the U.S.
This existential fear is the main driver behind efforts to smear Rubio as "inauthentic" or not sufficiently Hispanic. It is the fear of irrelevance, and of Oblivion.
Again, this was written nearly four and a half years ago, and in response to a specific situation, but those points clearly stand today as it pertains to Rubio and Cruz. Now, on to yesterday's piece published yesterday in the AP's Big story site by Scott Bauer, titled "Cruz may be first Hispanic president, but rejects the label."
The story itself is nothing over-the-top, and is pretty much a by-the-numbers ethnic disqualification piece designed to cast Cruz as a race-betrayer, as has Univision's Jorge Ramos (and even some Jeb Bush surrogates), with pretty rote components.
There's your basic attempt to adjudicate ethnic authenticity via a political issue (immigration), your standard condemnation of a Hispanic politico who dares build a base from within the entire community as opposed to willfully limiting one's appeal (unlike, say, amnesty hero Luis Gutiérrez), the memorialization of Cruz' Spanish fluency as "lousy" (which doesn't seem to be a problem for the anointed Julián Castro), and the singling out of a key chapter in Cruz' assimilation and acculturation, his switch from "Felito" to "Ted".
But in case it wasn't clear to you that this piece was about ethnic vitiation, go back and click on the link above, and then take a look at the URL (or web address, if you will). At some point (before an editor likely stepped in) the story's original title was "Cruz Not Embracing Hispanic Community Despite Cuban Roots".
For added empasis, the piece closes out with the opinions of a couple of activists from both sides of the aisle, namely, labor leader Dolores Huerta - who goes around calling Hispanic conservatives "sellouts", and Alfonso Aguilar, former head of the Office of Citizenship under the Bush 43 administration but known lately as the head of the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles, and for demanding support for Gang-of-8-style comprehensive immigration reform at Republican debates. Both saw fit to adjudicate ethnic authenticity (with no standing whatsoever, mind you) based on policy. And that's the piece in a nutshell.
But what happens to the piece when Spanish-language media picks it up?
Univision went Univision and got creative with the AP piece. The first thing they did after removing Bauer's name from the byline (does Univision think that the story would have appeared less credible to Univision's viewers if it were not written by a Hispanic? Why wipe Bauer from the byline otherwise?) was to retitle Bauer's article to "Cruz' Complex Relationship With His Hispanic Heritage".
Univision's mobile site (from whence I grabbed the feature picture) shortens it, in Spanish, to "La relación compleja de Cruz con lo hispano"...but to properly render that into English, it would read "Cruz' Complex Relationship With That Which Is Hispanic", speciously suggesting a complex relationship with his own Hispanity. Unlike the AP and El Nuevo Herald (which we'll get to in a minute), Univision appears to think very little of its viewers' reading comprehension - which is why the network's website helpfully bolded all the incendiary parts of the AP article.
In fairness, Miami's El Nuevo Herald didn't do that, nor did it wipe Bauer from the byline. However, it inexplicably redacted the autobiographical account of Sen. Cruz' transition from "Felito" to "Ted". Without those crucial elements of the story, readers are left to surmise that the name change was some sort of throwing off of Cruz' ethnicity, and not a child's response to ethnic bullying. But the most insidious thing El Nuevo Herald did was, again, to play with the title.
The translation of the title, although somewhat more in line with the AP's original than that of Univision, was much shadier. Somehow, "Cruz may be the first Hispanic president, but rejects the label" became "Ted Cruz admits to being Hispanic, but does not want to be labeled".
As a professional interpreter, I see no basis for how El Nuevo Herald got there. The idea of an admission is suggestive of a denial, and I have to ask: When did Cruz ever deny his Hispanity? Of course, he didn't, but that's beside the point when the clear and present agenda is to disqualify these candidates that threaten to dismantle everything that the Left-media complex has worked hard to establish and implant in the collective psyche of the Hispanic community.
Conservatives, you have been given fair warning. Beware.
