The Field: A Divided Latino Vote in Arizona

[0] Hello.

[1] Hello.

[2] What do you think about this heat, Jenny?

[3] Dry heat, dry heat.

[4] Let's see.

[5] It's 103.

[6] I sort of underappreciate how it is nearly October, and it is still 100 degrees every single day.

[7] From the New York Times, this is the field.

[8] I'm Jenny Medina in Phoenix, Arizona.

[9] So we are in Estabon Park, predominantly Latino and predominantly Mexican -American neighborhood, pretty working class.

[10] So we are seeing canvassers with Lucha.

[11] Lucha is a progressive social justice organization in Arizona that really in the last few years helped get many local Democrats elected to office.

[12] Hey, guys.

[13] Hi, how are you?

[14] So we walk up to a group of about half a dozen.

[15] young Latino canvassers standing under the shade of a tree.

[16] Could I ask how old you are?

[17] Me?

[18] I'm 15.

[19] Like really young canvassers.

[20] I'm 22.

[21] I'm 17.

[22] I'm also 17.

[23] Most of them can't even vote, but they're preparing to go door -knocking in support of Joe Biden.

[24] Lucha!

[25] On three!

[26] One, two, three, Lucha!

[27] Do you mind if we tag along with you?

[28] Yeah.

[29] We shadowed a 17 -year -old named Nancy Roldon.

[30] Nancy, you're your parents.

[31] Is immigrants?

[32] Yeah.

[33] Where are they from?

[34] Mexico.

[35] Okay.

[36] She heads off into the neighborhood with a clipboard and a stack of flyers.

[37] An app on her phone tells her which houses to go to.

[38] That's where they give us our list and our people.

[39] Lucha has already identified what they call occasional voters.

[40] They try to get the people that haven't voted in a really long time.

[41] Those voters are the target.

[42] Renee live here?

[43] Hi.

[44] Does Evita live here?

[45] Hi.

[46] Does Daisy live here?

[47] Nancy has her script memorized.

[48] Hi, my name's Nancy, and I'm part of Lucha.

[49] And we're just going around the community asking what has been your guys' biggest concern of 2020 and who you guys are planning to vote on.

[50] We canvass with Nancy for two hours.

[51] And the most common concern?

[52] Right now, probably why you're all wearing the mask.

[53] Like overall health of the community.

[54] My main concern was the virus.

[55] And as you might expect, plan you'll you vote this year?

[56] And you got it?

[57] Yeah, vote?

[58] And how do you?

[59] For Joe Biden?

[60] The majority of people...

[61] Do you know who you're voting for this year?

[62] Probably Biden.

[63] Probably Biden?

[64] So basically you already know who I'm voting for, Biden.

[65] Already support Biden.

[66] Progressive groups like Lucha know that, like Lucha, know that, like, Latino communities and other communities of color in the Phoenix area lean Democratic.

[67] Their goal is not really to convince undecided voters or Trump supporters to go for Biden.

[68] For them, sending these teenagers out in 100 -degree heat for hours every day, it's part of a year's long effort to fully energize the Latino vote in Arizona.

[69] Over the last decade, national races have been tightening in the traditionally Republican stronghold of Arizona.

[70] Obama lost by about nine points there, both in 2008 and 2012.

[71] But Clinton lost only by three and a half points in 2016.

[72] And in the 2018 midterms, Democrats won a Senate seat for the first time in three decades, and also flipped a House seat.

[73] Thank you very much, Phoenix.

[74] This year, President Trump has visited the state five times.

[75] And we are going to win Arizona in a landslide.

[76] We've paid too high a price already for Donald Trump's chaotic, divisive leadership.

[77] Biden has only visited once, and that was just a few weeks ago.

[78] We're going to get this virus under control.

[79] Yet polls show Biden with the lead.

[80] Part of that is the trend that we're seeing nationally of white suburban women moving away from Trump.

[81] And part of it is this activation of the Latino vote.

[82] But will it be enough?

[83] and do enough Latino voters actually want Biden as their president?

[84] So where are we right now?

[85] So we're in sort of central Phoenix on a kind of main drag.

[86] And we're about to meet Tomas Robles, who is the co -executive director of Lucha.

[87] In late September, I went with producers Austin Mitchell and Robert Jimison to Lucha's headquarters in Phoenix.

[88] There's Tomas.

[89] The 38 -year -old co -executive director of the group, Tomas Robles Jr., pulls in.

[90] Hey, Thomas.

[91] Hey, how's it going?

[92] Good, how are you?

[93] He's decked out in Lucha swag.

[94] Blue Lucha t -shirt, blue Lucha hat on backwards, even thick grim glasses and a matching shade of blue.

[95] Right now we're in the Alhambra neighborhood, densely Latino Latinx populated.

[96] Thomas often uses the gender neutral term Latinx.

[97] One, one of the highest concentrations of Latinx voters.

[98] Two, one of the highest infection rates of COVID.

[99] In the state?

[100] In the state?

[101] Yeah, in the state.

[102] This is one of those districts where it's Democratic district, but if people don't participate in this district, we can lose the state or the presidency as a whole.

[103] Do you want to take us inside?

[104] Yeah, we're going inside.

[105] Tomas takes us inside the office, which no one is working out of these days because of COVID.

[106] And we sit down in an empty meeting room on socially distanced chairs.

[107] And he starts to tell us the story of how we have a lot of.

[108] we got into activism.

[109] Yeah, so I'm the oldest of four kids.

[110] I was born in Tucson, Arizona, the second largest city, and then immediately moved back to a small town called Naco, Arizona.

[111] It's on the border of Arizona and Mexico.

[112] And my family, for generations, went back and forth.

[113] Some were minors, some were construction workers, others were farmers.

[114] So Tomas's parents were born in Mexico, but growing up, first in rural Arizona.

[115] Those schools were predominantly white.

[116] So I wore wrangler jeans and tucked in pole.

[117] I looked like a cowboy.

[118] And then you moved to Phoenix.

[119] And then in Phoenix.

[120] So I changed my name to Tommy in high school.

[121] So I could avoid the Spanish part of it.

[122] Tomas did not see himself as Mexican.

[123] Because I didn't know what to identify as.

[124] I just knew I did not identify as a Mexican or even a Mexican American in some people's eyes.

[125] And obviously I still had to figure out who I was going to be.

[126] Ironically, it was the Marines when I joined the Marines.

[127] It wasn't until 2001 when Tamas joined the Marines that he started to feel connected to some kind of larger identity.

[128] I was stationed with a ton of Latinx Marines from different backgrounds, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Venezuelan, Ecuadorian, and they immersed me in Latinx culture.

[129] Not necessarily Mexican culture, but Latinx culture.

[130] And so I started listening to the music.

[131] I started to read about the history.

[132] I started to read about U .S. relations with Latin American countries.

[133] And I started to learn how many bad, horrific things the U .S. has done to countries of color.

[134] There's been so much colonialism that you start to see just what exactly it is.

[135] And so I started really getting acquainted about the political structures, the systemic racism, and understanding even in the military, how that seeps through.

[136] And then...

[137] Senate Bill 1070 happens.

[138] Comes this moment that was huge for Tomas' political awakening.

[139] It was also probably the single most important catalyst for the political shift that we've seen in Arizona.

[140] The passage of Senate Bill 1070.

[141] This is one of the toughest immigration reform bills on the books in U .S. history.

[142] The Senate Bill 1070 is a bill that was passed in the 2010 Arizona state legislature.

[143] Since the new law allows police to question a person's immigration status, if they have So the original law basically stated that if you see somebody that could be undocumented, any person living in the state had an obligation to question that individual's citizenship.

[144] And that police officers would be forced to do that anytime they came in contact with anybody, whether it be a victim of a crime or a perpetrator of a crime.

[145] teachers would be encouraged to ask their kids of their documentation status.

[146] Some of the most fervent backers of the bill were politicians in Maricopa County, where Phoenix sits, including the county sheriff.

[147] I'm not going to turn them over to ICE.

[148] Joe Arpaio.

[149] I'm going to turn them over to me. They're going to jail.

[150] Arpaio had been the sheriff since 1992.

[151] In 1993, I put up Korean war tent.

[152] And he is probably most famous for setting up an outdoor tent city, a sort of extension of the county jail, where inmates were given pink underwear and forced to work on chain gangs.

[153] We now have room for 2 ,500.

[154] And we'll put tents up from here to Mexico.

[155] Arpaio and other supporters of 1070 claim that it was simply meant to support existing federal immigration laws.

[156] but to Thomas and many others.

[157] Clearly, that was a racial profiling law.

[158] It was nothing more than a legal mandate for racial profiling.

[159] And that passage of that policy brought me right back to childhood.

[160] And it felt personal.

[161] For me, it resonated so much.

[162] And although it had moved to the back of my memory bank, Thomas says he was reminded about an experience he had had had as a kid, when his family was in the car together.

[163] It was June, and we were driving back from Naco to Phoenix.

[164] My parents in the front, there's me, my brother, and my sister.

[165] My sister is four, my brother's eight, I'm 12.

[166] And they get a couple flat tires.

[167] So it's 1994, as you can imagine, there's no cell phones.

[168] There's no way for us to contact anybody.

[169] And so we're literally stuck waiting for about an hour and a half.

[170] all of a sudden a cop pulls up behind us and to this day like i remember he was a redhead he had those aviator rayban on the copper ones with the black as soon as he comes out my dad said i'm glad you're here we're stuck and the second he starts to try and talk the officer says i'm going to need you to back up puts his hand on on his holster in the gun and says i need to know if you have drugs or weapons in the car.

[171] My dad's like, no, we're a family of four.

[172] Like, no, we're stuck.

[173] We've been stuck in a half.

[174] And then the guy then pulls out his gun.

[175] He doesn't pull down it, but says, I need you to put your hands on the hood.

[176] And my dad doesn't want to.

[177] He's 106 degrees out.

[178] He finally says, if you don't put the hands on the hood, I'm going to have to arrest you.

[179] So he puts his hands on the hood.

[180] It's hot as hell.

[181] He searches my dad.

[182] And then he opens the trunk of our car without permission and starts to search through our whole So I'm witnessing this whole thing, right?

[183] And I'm a 12 -year -old.

[184] And this guy's looking and he's throwing shit on the ground.

[185] He's throwing clothes, toys, diapers, everything is moving.

[186] Finally, my dad is yelling.

[187] He's like, why the hell are you doing this?

[188] Would you be doing this if I was white?

[189] And the cop ignored him.

[190] He glances at me once.

[191] He looks back down.

[192] He's like, all right, you guys are good.

[193] Gets back in this car and drives off.

[194] He didn't ask if we need help.

[195] He didn't ask him from here water.

[196] He made my dad feel like a criminal, threatened to arrest him, threatened to shoot him, basically, all because we were stuck on the road.

[197] And so SB 1070 made those racial profiling moments a necessity under the eyes of the law because my dark ass might be undocumented.

[198] And so the same day the governor signed the bill into law, Tomas went to the Capitol and signed up to do voter registration.

[199] And finally found the type of service that I wanted to do.

[200] And a couple years later, Sheriff Arpaio was up for re -election.

[201] And so I took a job as organizing director of Lucha.

[202] At the time, the organization had three total employees, including myself.

[203] And I was charged to build up an organizing program to vote out Sheriff Jorapayo.

[204] It didn't work.

[205] Arpaio won re -election.

[206] But his margin of victory was the lowest it had ever been.

[207] And Tomas saw other encouraging signs.

[208] We won a couple campaigns that year, some very small local campaigns, but we were expected to lose and we won.

[209] In 2015, Tomas was promoted to help lead Lucha, and the next year, in the midst of a presidential election, they went after Arpaio again.

[210] The most talked about race back here in the valley.

[211] And this time, on November 8th, Maricopa County Sheriff, Joe Arpaio loses his seat to Democrat Paul Penzone.

[212] It works.

[213] About 10 minutes on election night, we were on cloud night.

[214] A pile had just been voted out.

[215] We had just one more seats in the state legislature.

[216] And we had an outside chance for winning the presidency for the state.

[217] And then I remember when I saw Virginia's numbers come out.

[218] I knew we were going to lose the presidency.

[219] And it was the weirdest feeling of joy.

[220] joy coupled with fear, anxiety.

[221] This is this weird cocktail of mixed emotions that you just ended up numb by the end of the night.

[222] For Thomas and Lucha, the only thing to do was to keep working.

[223] The elections aren't the finish line.

[224] The elections are simply a marker and that we need to keep going and keep organizing.

[225] In the 2018 midterms, Democrats saw big games.

[226] gains in Arizona, including the first senator elected in the state since 1988.

[227] And so the strategy then was voter registration, get these people out, and then we can change the laws.

[228] Yeah.

[229] We had to build a foundation of voters.

[230] We had to build a foundation.

[231] For Tomas, the frustrating series of losses from 2010 to 2016, it was a time of crucial foundation building that has led to this moment.

[232] years we added around 600 ,000 people to the early voting list so people got to go out to vote.

[233] In those same six years we registered about 350 ,000 people.

[234] Since that year, since 2016, we put a total of 800 ,000 people on the permanent early vote list and registered almost 600 ,000 people.

[235] So it's without that, you don't have the makeup we have in the state right now.

[236] That's an enormous amount of people.

[237] I didn't realize it was that much.

[238] You know, maize what you can do in 16 hours when no sleep.

[239] And now, it looks like Arizona has the kind of mobilized, registered Latino vote that could make a real difference.

[240] Ten years ago, Latinos made up 18 % of eligible voters in this date.

[241] And now that number has grown to 25%.

[242] How do you feel now today in this moment that we're in?

[243] Um, nervous.

[244] I feel a sense of urgency.

[245] I feel a sense of worry.

[246] Tomas is worried about how effective all this work will have been in getting people to turn out in the middle of a pandemic.

[247] Is there excitement about Biden?

[248] I think in the beginning of the year, there was not.

[249] I definitely think in terms of exciting candidates that would have been Bernie Sanders until we endorse.

[250] And for us, it's talking about why Biden is, from his ties to military, to his ties to family, health care being a major issue, him coming from a working class background, we hope, resonates well.

[251] But he's also got another concern.

[252] But Biden needs to get better at talking up an economic message with Latinx voters, especially Latinx men, and worry that Latino men and men of color in generally are starting to be peeled off.

[253] Men of color will majority support Biden, much higher ratio than white males.

[254] But any peeling off of any constituencies that could vote for Biden could spell a victory for Trump, especially in states like ours.

[255] He's worried about Latino men voting for Trump.

[256] Are you able to kind of articulate how you're seeing that happening?

[257] The way that my personal relationships I'm seeing that get peeled off is through conspiracy theories through social media.

[258] So the QNOND's theories, especially about pedophilia, has been major.

[259] Most of my friends are parents.

[260] All of them come to me concerned that there's literal pedophilia happening around liberal circles.

[261] He's talking about QAnon's central conspiracy, that a cabal of Satan worshiping pedophiles is running a global child sex trafficking ring and that Trump is trying to stop them.

[262] Misinformation and conspiracy theories have been spreading beyond fringe groups and into the Latino community this year.

[263] So that's one major way that's peeled them off.

[264] Second is Trump almost comes off as the last person to be proud of masculinity to some of these men.

[265] He's loud, he's obnoxious, he quote -unquote takes what he wants, he doesn't succumb to political correctness.

[266] and in a way it's almost like being at high school and liking the cool kid again if you really unpack the layers there's still this belief that there is a economic and color caste system that if you keep moving up in terms of socioeconomic you will be able to classify yourself as white and they do believe that as an American, as long as you pull yourself up by the bruce straps, that you can be successful in this country.

[267] This is a phenomenon that I started hearing about more than a year ago.

[268] And honestly, at first, I was skeptical of how meaningful a number of Latino men were feeling this way.

[269] Latinos had turned out for Trump in a surprisingly high number in 2016, about one and four voters.

[270] But the thinking had been that after all the rhetoric and policies of the past four years, and with Biden rather than Clinton as the nominee, that the Latino vote would solid solid Democratic voting block, more like the black vote.

[271] But this view of Trump, that he is a symbol of economic success, I've now heard it again and again from Latino men I've spoken to covering the election this year.

[272] I've heard it in Texas, Florida, New Mexico, Nevada, and in Arizona.

[273] Biden has not been able to put out a message that makes Latinx men who are feeling insecure about their economic realities.

[274] His message is not resonating with them to the poem where they can believe that he can lead them into economic prosperity at a level higher than Trump could.

[275] And for a lot of male Latinx voters who aren't directly impacted by his policies, the economics is what matters most.

[276] The latest polling suggests that something like 30 % of Latino voters plan to support Trump this year.

[277] And that same polling suggests that their primary motivation is this economic promise.

[278] I remember just last night, I got into a Facebook debate with my friend, he's Lennox.

[279] He's a real estate guy here.

[280] And when it came to Trump's taxes, he laughed and said, man, I need to get his accountant.

[281] So, like, he saw it as a, they see themselves as future billionaires who are just stuck in a non -billionaire situation right now.

[282] Would you be willing to read a couple of those exchanges with your friend?

[283] You don't have to say who it is or anything, but...

[284] I want to preface that this is a Facebook debate, and so these aren't going to have, like, deep dive stuff, but I can read a couple.

[285] Tomas pulls out his phone and starts scrolling.

[286] Oh, my goodness.

[287] He picks out another exchange with a friend named Jesse.

[288] And I think his dad was an immigrant, but they're business people.

[289] And so he posted this, wearing this tonight during a debate, L .O .L. Trump, 2020.

[290] And so you can see.

[291] It's a shirt that has Biden and Trump's faces photoshopped onto the bodies of two wrestlers.

[292] Trump is basically behind a kneeling Joe Biden in which he has him in the headlock.

[293] On top of that image, it says, night night, sleepy Joe.

[294] And at the bottom, it says, four more years, Trump, 2020.

[295] his cousin then responds funny cousin what about all the women who were violated then jesse responds by saying cousin joe likes touching kids i'll pass on the pito biden so then i responded i said you just stay believing lies how about you show a reference that this is actually true a reference of biden and pedophilia but you're in a cult so i can see why you can't clearly he sees you as cheap.

[296] So as you can tell, I'm not nice to some of these people.

[297] And then Jesse responds by Tomas keep drinking.

[298] The communist lies of free stuff and social justice BS.

[299] Be American, be proud, get paid and get rich.

[300] It's the only way.

[301] So that was kind of like the economic message that you're talking about.

[302] It's like you get rich, get paid.

[303] And forget everybody else.

[304] No, no, thank you all for taking a time.

[305] I know two hours is long for anybody.

[306] With Tomas's friends in mind, we set off to find these voters.

[307] Can you either text me or messenger me if him or anybody else is willing to talk?

[308] I'm going to reach out to him today and see if I can connect you over Facebook and then I'll let you all right.

[309] I'll walk you all out and then I can close up shop.

[310] So before we left Tamas, he agreed to reach out to two of his Trump supporting Facebook friends and ask if they'd be willing to talk with me. for this story.

[311] Just a few hours later, he texted me their responses.

[312] One friend said, would love to talk, but not in this environment and with the way things are.

[313] A simple comment, mistaken, or written out of context would not be good for me or my family.

[314] The other simply wrote, LMAO.

[315] Nah, bro.

[316] But that's okay.

[317] I had gone to an event in Phoenix hosted by a campaign group called Latinos for Trump.

[318] And where's Hunter?

[319] That's the question I ask every single day.

[320] Featuring an appearance by Eric Trump.

[321] The media is so fake, they don't even ask about it.

[322] And there, I met a charming guy.

[323] So I'm a Marine veteran named Paul.

[324] I am next to him.

[325] I am.

[326] My grandmother, the immigrant.

[327] My father was born here.

[328] Who agreed to meet up with me again.

[329] But when I reached out, reached out many, many times, I might add.

[330] He reached the voicemail box of six.

[331] He totally ghosted.

[332] So, all right, should we go in?

[333] Yeah.

[334] Alston, Robert, and I decided to just go to the Latinos for Trump office and ask them directly if they had anyone in mind who they thought would be great for us to talk with.

[335] Hi.

[336] How are you?

[337] I'm sorry.

[338] If you're not invited, you cannot come in.

[339] Oh, we're reporters.

[340] We're just here to talk to people.

[341] Yes, if you are not invited, you cannot come in.

[342] Is there anybody here I can speak with?

[343] No. There's nobody here who would be willing to talk to a reporter.

[344] No. So it's press in general that they're...

[345] It seems like it was press in general that she was averse too.

[346] Yeah.

[347] I've gotten used to this kind of thing, this election season.

[348] As we were standing outside, the Latinos for Trump office, though, we noticed people pulling up and heading inside.

[349] So we started talking to them.

[350] About what you out here today and what you're coming for?

[351] About what?

[352] About what brought you out here today?

[353] I am a Latina and I am for Trump.

[354] Why?

[355] Because I am for God, for life, and for family.

[356] That's it.

[357] Luce is a Catholic shelter worker in Phoenix.

[358] I'll tell you one thing.

[359] My father was one of the founders of the Democratic Party in Chile.

[360] And when he came here, he said to me, unfortunately the Democrats have dropped God.

[361] And believe me, that was a long time ago.

[362] So anyway.

[363] Can I ask you, how has the pandemic impact?

[364] impacted you or people you know?

[365] Yeah, we have to be cautious.

[366] I think it has been exploited for the leftist reasons.

[367] You know, I know churches that are open and we don't have any extra COVID.

[368] I think it's a pandemic in many ways.

[369] You know?

[370] She's referring to misinformation that circulated on social media a couple of months back, that the pandemic was orchestrated as a power grab by global elites.

[371] Do you know anybody who's gotten sick?

[372] No, I don't.

[373] I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

[374] I did meet a worker.

[375] And this man decided to go back home and start using all the natural remedies of his mom, meaning boiling vapor and breathing and, you know, did all the teas and all the things that the mom and the grandma used to use at home in Mexico.

[376] And they're all fine.

[377] They were all healed.

[378] Not sure.

[379] No vaccines with babies in it.

[380] I'm an old man. I'm 67 years old.

[381] Been around a long time.

[382] And it makes my heart feel good to see Hispanics and blacks representing the Republican Party.

[383] Myron is a Baptist minister who's doing security work right now.

[384] Trump sees things in the real world, the reality of really what's going on.

[385] He knows there's a difference between blacks and whites.

[386] But rather than harp on it and do nothing about it, Trump says, I'm not going to harp on it.

[387] I'm going to do for you what Democrats said they would do and never done.

[388] I'm going to give you an opportunity to do something for yourself.

[389] Republicans say, I'm not going to give you a fish.

[390] I'm going to teach you how to fish, and you can go catch whatever damn fish you want.

[391] If you want a minnow, catch the minnow.

[392] If you want a shark, take your ass and catch your shark.

[393] Go get in your boat and catch your sea baths.

[394] But the limit is yours.

[395] But Democrats say, we're going to give you a can of tuna and some crackers and be satisfied with that.

[396] They've been eating tuna and crackers so long.

[397] That's all they want.

[398] And then, a large pickup truck with several Trump bumper stickers on it pulls up and a man hops out.

[399] What name's Cruz?

[400] Cruz.

[401] Zipeda.

[402] Cruz Zepeda, dressed in full Trump supporter gear.

[403] I'm wearing a MAGA hat that I got online.

[404] Everything I bought from Trump made in America.

[405] This one's actually Bangladesh kind of pisses me out.

[406] He's got a bright red MAGA hat, a mask that reads Keep America Great, and a Trump keychain.

[407] He's also wearing a T -shirt reppping his local gun store.

[408] Do you mind if I just ask you real quickly what brought you back here today?

[409] Any more rubber stickers?

[410] What?

[411] You need more buffer stickers?

[412] Another yard sign because they keep getting stolen.

[413] How many yard signs have you had stolen?

[414] Several.

[415] I don't count them.

[416] But there's Biden signs in the neighborhood.

[417] They don't get stolen.

[418] What do you consider yourself?

[419] What's your ethnicity?

[420] I'm Mexican.

[421] I don't say Hispanic.

[422] I'm an American first.

[423] I know that's not an ethnicity, but, yeah.

[424] Are you from here?

[425] From here, meaning Phoenix.

[426] My family's been here since before.

[427] It was a territory.

[428] Yeah, yeah.

[429] My grandmother was born in a year before, Arizona became a state.

[430] Where did you grow up?

[431] All over.

[432] I was a military brat, Air Force brat.

[433] My father was born here.

[434] My grandfather was born in Mexico.

[435] Part of what I'm curious about is, like, being Mexican, is that important to you?

[436] Does that feel important to you, that identity?

[437] The identity?

[438] Yes.

[439] Yes, it does.

[440] So clearly I'm fishing to understand how Cruz reconciles his Mexican -American identity with his support for the president.

[441] What do I like about Trump?

[442] He gets getting stuff done.

[443] He's getting stuff done.

[444] He's pragmatic and a results -oriented person.

[445] He has to deal.

[446] This man who could be sitting, he's a billionaire.

[447] He doesn't need a job.

[448] He doesn't have enough money to influence people if that's what he wanted to do in politics.

[449] He's not taking a salary.

[450] I think it takes $1 a year right now.

[451] Here again is this idea that Donald Trump is a man who knows how to get rich and wants you to have the chance to get rich.

[452] too.

[453] What do I want?

[454] Well, I want the American dream.

[455] I mean, I want to pursue life, liberty, pursued happiness.

[456] I mean, that's it, basically.

[457] In a nutshell, I don't get complicated with it.

[458] Do you feel like you've attained your American dream?

[459] That's another fair question.

[460] I think, I think that I've been getting, I was going to say it was an only fair question.

[461] Have I attained it?

[462] The question should be, do I have the opportunity to?

[463] First and foremost, the American dream is the opportunity to pursue, the opportunity to go for what you want.

[464] Fiscal or financial security, you know, home, two kids, white picket effects, all that jazz.

[465] Regardless of yours is the mansion on the hill or yours is just that, you know, that double wide, at some point where you're comfortable and secure in your government, for instance, I've thought a lot about this now, and I think ultimately it's about two very different views of the American dream within the Latino community.

[466] One is about making this country a better, more just version of itself.

[467] As Tomas came of age, and as many young Latino voters have come of age, they've been activated in part around their identity as Latinos.

[468] They are voting on behalf of a community that they see themselves as a part of.

[469] and that they believe is marginalized and subject to systemic racism in the form of policies like the one Sheriff Arpaio supported in Arizona.

[470] Through that lens, it's very difficult to understand a vote for Donald Trump.

[471] But if you're like Cruz and you see your primary identity as an American, that the American dream is about any individual being able to go after what they want and to get it, then you can see how Trump might be an attractive candidate.

[472] But these are such fundamentally different ways of viewing the world that it can be very difficult for the first group to see the actions of the second as anything other than a betrayal.

[473] Do you have kids?

[474] Do I have, pardon me?

[475] Do you have children?

[476] Yes.

[477] The Democrat, my daughter, is, yeah.

[478] She's a Democrat.

[479] How old is she?

[480] 36.

[481] What are the conversations like with you and your daughter?

[482] Like, are you able to go back and forth with her?

[483] The other day, actually, I texted her about having a conversation about several different topics, and I stuck one in there on her.

[484] She said, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I just don't know that that topic's off limits.

[485] Love you, dad, bye.

[486] Well, that's not fair.

[487] Cruz says when he tries to talk with his Democratic daughter about politics, she won't even go there.

[488] No, she and I remain civil.

[489] I'm disappointed that she doesn't have enough I think that anybody that doesn't want to have an open discussion about it disrespects to the person on any level that's disrespectful you know you tell me stories that you tell nobody else in the world about your personal life and I do too I share deep stuff but when it comes to this turn the light off and I find that that's horrible that you can have that kind of relationship and then all of a sudden, if it becomes politics, you just shut it down.

[490] I mean, at one point in my life, people had pretty much the same goals.

[491] There might be different stuff like Roe versus Wade abortion.

[492] There's a couple of division bells that ring real loudly.

[493] But for the most part, we all want to the same thing.

[494] We just had different ideas on how to get there.

[495] And now it doesn't seem like anybody wants the same thing.

[496] I'm guessing that your daughter has said some version of this to you before, but, like, Dad, the president's racist, and he's racist against Latinos.

[497] I was shopping for my daughter.

[498] I took my grandson to go shopping because it was Mother's Day.

[499] We sneak out.

[500] He killed him to call him, eh, grandpa, abuelo, he calls me. So we go shopping, and we're talking this, that the other, and I was on the radio.

[501] He saw a sticker.

[502] It's Trump.

[503] He's, yeah, yeah, Trump.

[504] I'm going for Trump.

[505] And he's racist.

[506] And I beg your pardon.

[507] And my grandson's half black, and he's going to have to grow up in that environment, being a black American.

[508] I looked at him.

[509] I said, what do you?

[510] What?

[511] What?

[512] Why?

[513] I didn't have an answer much more than being indoctrinated somehow in that belief.

[514] So I said, well, before you start saying that, then I didn't tell him how to think.

[515] I didn't say, listen, that's both.

[516] You're going to do it this way.

[517] And the grandfather said, hold on now.

[518] Do me favor.

[519] Let's think about it.

[520] Go find out why first.

[521] I want him to think for himself.

[522] I'm a Republican with a gay daughter, a black grandson.

[523] I mean, you're going to pick the better guy to talk to.

[524] Right.

[525] Do you believe that there is such a thing as systemic racism?

[526] Overall, no. I believe that there's a certain part of our population, okay, that, black, white, or whatever, that needs to be a victim.

[527] Yeah, I mean, people do racist things all the time.

[528] I mean, I've experienced racism.

[529] I grew up in military bases when I was younger, and as soon as we went off base, and I'm in a particularly white neighborhood.

[530] I got my ass kicked all the way home sometimes.

[531] I got people that, because I'm Mexican.

[532] As he's talking, I'm starting to think of Tomas and how he came to think about events like this in his own childhood.

[533] When was the last time you experienced racism against yourself personally?

[534] Against myself?

[535] A lot of times you don't know if you experienced you're not.

[536] You don't know if you didn't get a job because of it.

[537] You don't know if you...

[538] So a lot of times racism is an experience.

[539] It's implied but not inferred.

[540] It's funny you said that because the first thing that popped in my head was a police officer, but that was 30 years ago.

[541] I was asking for his help.

[542] Told me he'd arrest me, but I get away from him.

[543] One of those things.

[544] Do I hit all cops because of that?

[545] No, that guy's a jerk.

[546] That guy's an idiot.

[547] You showboating for somebody.

[548] And I felt it, though.

[549] And it really, ugh.

[550] It really hurt deeply.

[551] Like when a parent scolds with him or stuff, I'm like, Justin, you're not.

[552] Thank you so much.

[553] Thank you.

[554] I forgot what you're doing here.

[555] I'm picking up yard signs?

[556] Because they were stolen, right?

[557] Yeah, yeah, they get stolen.

[558] Text her if your sign gets stolen.

[559] You want to know what happens with the signs.

[560] Okay, you bet.

[561] Have a good day.

[562] After I left Phoenix, I got a message from Cruz.

[563] His yard signs only lasted four days before they were ripped up and thrown in the street.