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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. Now I'll take some time to delve deeper into the views of Latino voters ahead of election day. One of the big campaign stories this week is Harris and Trump both appearing in televised town halls with Latino voters in particular. We've all heard the phrase Latinos are not a monolith. It's practically a cliche at this point, but how often do we go beyond this saying and explore the different views of the vast variety of people who identify as Latino? It seems more important than ever to do this right now.

Latinos have moved deeper into our country, geographically from the borders. Of course, that's over many, many generations, and make up large swaths of voters in swing states that will decide who becomes the next president of the United States. According to all the polls, they are quite divided. Our guests joining us now have taken on this mission Julio Vaqueiro, an anchor on the TV channel Noticias Telemundo, and Daniel Alarcón, executive producer and editorial director at Radio Ambulante Studios.

They have a new podcast series, El Péndulo, which looks at the issues that are important to Latino voters, especially in swing states. If you know what pendulo means, that's obvious, but they'll explain it further. Of course, they look at how voters there see the presidential candidates. Julio. Daniel, thanks so much for sharing this with us. Welcome to WNYC.

Daniel Alarcón: It's great to be here.

Julio Vaqueiro: Thank you. Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Start off by introducing us to the podcast. What does El Péndulo mean for those who don't know the word and why dedicate an entire series to Latino voters with that frame? Daniel, want to do that?

Daniel Alarcón: Yes, sure. El Péndulo means the pendulum. There's not really an exact term for swing state in Spanish, so we just adopted the idea of the pendulum to represent this idea. We wanted to go to five states where the Latino vote is going to be very important, five states that are very much in play, five states where the outcome of the election could be decided. The idea was not to make any big predictions, but to go and talk to Latino voters and try to figure out where they are, what issues are going to be shaping their decisions, what's important to them, and really go beyond that cliche that you mentioned at the top, that Latino voters are not a monolith.

We went to Pennsylvania, Florida, North Carolina, Arizona, Nevada, states that have very different economies, very different national makeup. The Latino voters are from different countries in each of those states, and just try to understand. Reporting on the ground is the best way to really get a sense of what's happening.

Brian Lehrer: Absolutely. We'll play some clips from the podcast in a minute, but listeners, we also want to open up the phones and invite you to help report this story. Latino voters, the phones are for you. What issues are most important to you in this election cycle? 212-433 WNYC. 212-433-9692. Is it the economy? Is it the border? Is it racism and anti Latino hate speech? Is it something else? Help our guests and our listeners also go beyond that cliche. I'll ask our guests about it in a minute, but you also help us. Go beyond the cliche, Latinos are diverse. Talk about in what ways you or your particular Latino community might be politically different from some others.

212-433 WNYC. 212-433-9692. Also, another way you might contribute on the phones, if you're an immigrant, how are your politics influenced by the politics of your home country? Does your home country's political history impact how you vote here, how you see the world here in the context of the United States? 212-433 WNYC. Are you the first generation of your family to live in the US? Maybe you feel more rooted here than where your parents or grandparents are from and your heritage country politics are irrelevant to you at this point. Call or text us at 212-433 WNYC to answer any of those questions.

212-433-9692 with Julio and Daniel from the new podcast El Péndulo. The first episode takes place in Pennsylvania, which we typically wouldn't think of Julio as a Latino state. Moreover, you didn't visit Philadelphia or Pittsburgh, the big cities in the state. Instead, you spoke with people in Hazelton, a city about two and a half hours north of Philly. You refer to this area as a part of the Latino belt. You want to start introducing us to Hazelton in that context? What is the Latino belt of Pennsylvania?

Julio Vaqueiro: Absolutely. Thank you, Brian. It's interesting how you explain we don't think about Pennsylvania as a Latino state. There are about over 800,000 Latinos eligible to vote in Pennsylvania. If you think about the margins and how a very small margin will make a difference in this state, then Latinos can become very, very important. It was actually Daniel who visited Hazelton. He reported there. This is a city about 2.5 hours north from Pennsylvania, and it's the Latino belt because recently, we've seen a big growth of Dominicans, Puerto Ricans going to that area, some Mexicans, too.

We've seen a transformation of this area. What we found is how the Latino population there has really evolved from being new immigrants to seeing how the city and the area didn't really accept them at the beginning. Then they became the majority there, and now they are seeing a new wave of immigrants. That has really made them evolve their political points of view.

Brian Lehrer: Daniel, you want to pick this up? Maybe on a point from your second episode, you're still in Pennsylvania. You head to the Broadacre Market. Oh, no, I'm sorry. That's from Nevada.

Daniel Alarcón: Taht's from Nevada.

Brian Lehrer: Why don't you pick it up in Pennsylvania and maybe talk about the diversity of Latino voters in that state?

Daniel Alarcón: I think Hazleton was one of the most eye-opening reporting trips I've had here in the United States. It was wonderful to speak with local folks, and they told me the history of the town. I think the change is dramatic, and that is really important to point out. In 2000, it was a town that was 95% white, mostly Italian and Polish. Today it's over 60% Latino, mostly Dominicans. The change really came after 9/11. Latinos, Dominicans specifically, mostly from the tri-state area, from New York and North Jersey started moving because there were jobs, warehouses, and that cost of living was cheaper, rents were low. People priced out of the city here were looking for a place to start fresh.

The change was overwhelming. The change was overwhelming for local residents. There was, in 2006, a really racist law proposed by the then mayor, Lou Barletta, that basically said you could be fined if you rented to anyone who was undocumented. There was a lot of controversial violent episodes as well. Two Latinos were killed in a town called Shenandoah, not far from Hazelton. It was a politicizing event for a lot of Latinos. We spoke with a man named Amilkar Arroyo, who's 75 years old. He's Peruvian. He thought of himself as a Republican until 2006 when he was basically being threatened in the street. There was a lot of hate, people cursing at him if he spoke Spanish, "Go back to your banana boat."

Really aggressive and--

Brian Lehrer: Right out there.

Daniel Alarcón: Yes, violent tactics. That made him switch his affiliation. Now he votes Democrat.

Brian Lehrer: You mentioned that mayor, and I see that according to your reporting, despite the majority Latino population there, there aren't any elected officials local to that area who are Latino. I'm curious what you think explains that. Is it lack of political engagement? There aren't enough us citizens who even can register to vote to express what might actually be a majority opinion there or is it gerrymandering of some kind? Why aren't there any Latino elected officials in this largely Latino area?

Daniel Alarcón: The line that sticks with me, we spoke with a man who said, "Look, Daniel, I came to this country to solve an economic problem, not a political one." The economy is central. There's a certain lack of engagement at a local level with politics just because people have other concerns. That's one thing. I think the other thing is that the Dominican political system is different from the local system. For example, we talked to a man who ran for school board, and he was talking about how difficult it was to explain to other Dominicans what school board even is because that doesn't exist in the same way back home. See?

There's a little bit of that lost in translation. What exactly is the political system? However, people do vote for president There is high turnout, and the split is 50/50. I think one of the most interesting things that we saw was that the anti-immigrant rhetoric that we would have heard from, say, Lou Barletta in 2006, now you're hearing it in Spanish from Dominicans living in Hazelton.

Brian Lehrer: Explain that. Why is that the case?

Daniel Alarcón: The town went from being a place that was in economic decline, revitalized by new Latino residents economically, to being a town that is now, from what we hear, full. Rents were 500 for a house, and now they've tripled. People told us this, you could arrive, if you had papers, the next day, you'd have a job at one of these warehouses nearby, and now you can't. There's a sense among people, it's like, okay, we grew, but we grew too much. The schools are bursting at the seams. There's no more housing, there's no more jobs. We went to a job fair, and there were hundreds of people applying for a handful of jobs.

Now people are saying, "Oh, this town is full," except they're saying it in Spanish, so it's really interesting to me. It was a fascinating shift that I wasn't really expecting.

Brian Lehrer: One more follow-up on that, then. How did you find people explain if they're thinking of voting for Trump? Because the town is full, as you put it, the contradiction that they must be dealing with over that condition of life as they see it, as you were describing, versus Trump's very aggressive, racist rhetoric about largely Latino immigrants destroying our country, all being criminals, all of that?

Daniel Alarcón: Brian, nobody thinks Trump is talking about them. That was my impression because I'm an immigrant. I know that most Latino immigrants are hardworking, that they're family first, that we came to this country to fulfill a dream and work hard and make that happen, just like everyone I spoke to in Hazelton, same thing. When Trump describes immigrants as dangerous and violent, the people that I spoke to think he's talking about someone else. They don't think he's talking about them because they're not that way, so why would he be saying that about them? That was my impression speaking with a lot of people. The other thing that I--

Brian Lehrer: Do you really-- oh, go ahead, Daniel

Daniel Alarcón: Just one last point.

Brian Lehrer: Sure.

Daniel Alarcón: One last point, sorry, that is specific to Dominicans. The Dominican Republic shares a border with Haiti. They have a long, contentious relationship with immigration from Haiti. At least in Hazelton, among the Dominicans that I spoke to, the rhetoric that Trump uses about immigrants here is not out of the ordinary. It's not weird to many people because that's how people talk about Haitians in the Dominican Republic. That's specific to [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: Julio, I want to bring you in on this same topic, but I'll also amplify it as another thing that Latino listeners may want to call in and talk about. Do you feel the way that Daniel was just explaining that he heard from a lot of mostly Dominican residents of Hazelton, which he says is very divided in the Latino population regarding who they plan to vote for for president? Do you have an experience of a contradiction in your own mind? When Trump says those things do you think "He's not talking about me, he's talking about somebody else who probably is a criminal"? Or do you recoil and say, "No matter what the economics may be, I can't vote for somebody who says that."

Talk about if this is a conflict for you or anyone in your community. Listeners, 212-433 WNYC. If you're Dominican, if you're Venezuelan, if you're Cuban, if you're Colombian. Any Latino listeners, 212-433-9692 call or text. Julio, what were you thinking listening to Daniel? Or I'm sure by now you're aware of that reporting, you were in on it.

Julio Vaqueiro: I am aware, and I actually agree with Daniel in the most part. I think I've heard both things. Some Latinos don't really think President Trump is talking about them when he says immigrants are poisoning the blood of the country. Other Latinos do believe that they cannot vote for somebody who's talking that way about immigrants. I went to the Republican Convention in Milwaukee. I was on the floor speaking to delegates on the day most of them were holding these signs that were saying, "Mass Deportations Now." We all remember them. Most people were chanting that phrase. I talked to--

Brian Lehrer: Those signs are all over the Trump rallies from city to city.

Julio Vaqueiro: Absolutely. I talked to Latino delegates about those signs and what they thought about it. Number one, some of them think that it's only a campaign slogan and that he's not really going to fulfill that promise of mass deportations. Others really think he's talking about new immigrants, but not them, not their relatives, not their friends. I found that very interesting. Also in Nevada, I was reporting in Nevada. That's the second episode in this podcast. I talked to a Mexican immigrant. She's also an American citizen. She has a number of stalls in this Broadacres Market outside of Las Vegas. Her name is Marta.

She was saying how her family is very divided because, yes, the economy is number one issue for them. Prices have been going up in the ingredients they used to sell their products. They sell Mexican food in the market. At the same time, the business is not going well, but then, on the other hand, other members of her family think that they cannot vote for President Trump after they hear what he says about immigrants, that immigrants are eating the pets or that Mexicans are rapists and so on.

I asked her, "What do you think?" She's still undecided. Even polls show us that Latinos might be willing to question their loyalty to the Democratic Party, and that's why we're seeing some of them move to the right. A lot of them are still undecided and have many questions that they would like to answer.

Brian Lehrer: Here's a clip from your podcast, El Péndulo, that goes right to what you were just describing, featuring a woman named Marta who runs several food stands in a market. This is in Broadacre Market in the Las Vegas area. This is 30 seconds in Spanish, then we'll translate for those who need it.

Marta: [Spanish language]

Julio Vaqueiro: [Spanish language]

Marta: [Spanish language]

Brian Lehrer: The translation is basically what Julio was just describing. In my family, they are divided. In my family, some believe this one is better, and the other half believes that that one is better. You asked, "What do you think?" She said, "I think we already had Donald Trump and I think the economy was better, but afterwards it was worse because I felt it worse after him, be is bad at dividing us all. I, as an immigrant feel he divides us more every day instead of uniting us in this country. I feel we are divided with him." Translation of that clip. Anna Maria in Lower Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Thank you for calling in. Hello, Anna Maria.

Anna Maria: Oh, hi. Good morning. When I hear these things about Trump that we are the worst of the worst in the United States, that really hurts because we are not like that. Also, I'm voting for Kamala Harris because I cannot afford to continue with our Supreme Court. They are too radical, they just fall to one way. They are not central. This is no good, specifically with the Roe v. Wade when they just change it. Something that is part of the DNA of this country, it was imprinted in our blood, in our DNA. So simple. If you become pregnant, a woman, I cannot believe that if I'm in my 20s, 30s, 40s, become pregnant and not able to have an abortion. That is insane.

Please, we cannot afford for this man to be president and change the whole Supreme Court. Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you, Anna Maria. Going to go right to another caller. Here's Sydney in Central Islip on Long Island. You're on WNYC. Sydney, hi.

Sydney: Hi, good morning, Brian. So one of the biggest things that I feel like right now, like what you said before, that Trump is actually dividing our community. A lot of our families feel like one is better than the other, but at the end of the day, I feel hurt because I myself came here when I was 16 years old. My dad told me to do the best that I can do to make him look better. I did. I have done that throughout my life. For these men to say that we are here to take people's jobs, to kill other people, that is wrong. That is 100% wrong. I feel like he's dividing the Latino community even further up.

Brian Lehrer: Do you know people who say what are guests from the El Péndulo podcast say they heard in Pennsylvania that, "Oh, Trump's not talking about us. He's talking about other Latino people. I know I'm here just to better myself and my family, so I dismiss Trump's talk"? Do you hear that or do you experience that as a conflict in your own head?

Sydney: Oh, yes, I do. Within my own family, I hear that. Oh, they're not talking about us, he's talking about the people that are coming right now. I feel that it's wrong either way, because either way, we have a language in common that divides us from others. I feel that's what is happening right now.

Brian Lehrer: Sydney, thank you very much. Let's go right to another caller. Here's Ernesto in Cortlandt Manor, New York. Ernesto, you're on WNYC. Thanks for calling in.

Ernesto: Hello, Brian. This is Carlos Ernesto again. I want to add, I really don't know how to, but I'm going to try to briefly just bag it all up in maybe a minute. I am from El Salvador. My family-- and you have different levels of people that come to this country. I came here not because I wanted to. I was a kid. Half my family was murdered in El Salvador during the war in the '80s. When I mean murder, as a two-year-old, my cousin was murdered with her grandmother, my grandmother's 15-year-old daughter, her 18-year-old, her 20-year-old. These were all raids that soldiers that the US trained.

At some point, actually, I was working in Boston, and I went over to apply for a job at a coffee shop. I started the interview with this guy, and he asked me, "Where are you from?" I said, "El Salvador." He's like, "Oh. I trained--" Proudly exclamated that he trained soldiers in El Salvador during the war. The only thing that came out of my mouth was, "Half my family was murdered in that war." The whole interview turned so awkward, I don't even remember how we finished it. I said, thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Bring it to the present, Ernesto. How does it lead to whatever you're thinking about this year's election? Go ahead.

Ernesto: I've been in the United States for 25 years before Trump actually revived or ignited racism even more. The entire time I've been here, I've heard people over the years, "Go back to your country. What are you doing here?" Or we're here to clean toilets. We never wanted to come here. You went over to my house, to my country. You meddled. You decimated everything. You left everything a mess. The people you put in power were corrupt people from the beginning because those are the people you were dealing with. Then I had to flee. My family had to flee. I had no choice. I was a kid. They were fleeing. They were trying to do the best for me.

They were trying to run away from violence, from being murdered on top of that. Again, different levels, because my family barely escaped with their lives. They were hunted.

Brian Lehrer: How do you experience in your life the contradiction of fleeing--

Ernesto: Everybody is sick.

Brian Lehrer: Can you hear me, Ernesto?

Ernesto: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: How do you deal with the contradiction of having fled to the very country that was training the soldiers who were killing your family members?

Ernesto: I love this country just as much as I hate it. It's very, very contradicted because I grew up here. I would have never learned the things. I would have never met the level-- El Salvador is like number 122 in education worldwide. The United States is way beyond that. There is a huge ocean in education. I don't believe education here is actually good, but I do believe that you meet people that are smart, people that are very-- I grew up in Boston. Again every other person that serves you coffee in Boston has a bachelor's degree. Everywhere I went-

Brian Lehrer: There's something about the job market.

Ernesto: -everybody has a bachelor's.

Brian Lehrer: Ernesto, I'm going to leave it there. I really appreciate your call. Daniel, a very rich call. It goes to some of the contradictions that probably a lot of people feel. He said, "I love this country as much as I hate it." The perspective for him, at least, he's one individual, but for him and his family's Salvadoran experience going back decades is that people were forced to immigrate here because of US policy there.

Daniel Alarcón: I think that the Salvadoran case is very specific. Carlos Ernesto's experiences are his and his feelings speak to what he and his family went through and the heartbreaking circumstances under which he had to emigrate. I don't think that most Latino voters or most Latino immigrants are going to say something quite as stark as what Carlos Ernesto said, that I hate this country as much I love it. I think most people will express some ambivalence, but a lot of love for the opportunity that the United States provides.

I think in some ways, in my own experience, and I'd be interested to hear what Julio had to say, too, no one loves this country quite the way immigrants do because it's a country that in some cases, you chose to remake your life here. You chose this country for opportunities for your children. That's a powerful kind of love that's different from just, "I was born here, so I love it by default."

Brian Lehrer: Julio, you want to get in on it?

Julio Vaqueiro: Yes. I agree. Most people came here because they made a decision to come here, and they just want to make sure that that decision was the right decision. They have to make it work. That's why, in general, I would say Latinos and Latino community are a very hardworking community. I do think all of this discussion really is what our third episode is about. It just came out today, the Florida episode. It really talks about how people's home countries really change their views, their votes, their politics. It's very interesting to discover how diverse Florida is and how diverse the Latino vote is, depending on the country they come from and their personal experience.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, If you're just joining us, our guests are Julio Vaqueiro, who was just speaking, an anchor on the TV channel Noticias Telemundo, and Daniel Alarcón, executive producer and editorial director at Radio Ambulante Studios. They have a new podcast series, El Péndulo, which looks at the issue that are important to Latino voters, especially in swing states, and how voters there see the presidential candidates. We can take more of your calls, Latino listeners helping us, helping them. Report this story. 212-433 WNYC 212-433-9692. We'll play another clip from the podcast series now.

You mentioned mass deportation briefly and the signs that show up at Trump rallies and even at the Republican Convention. Here's a clip from a conversation in El Péndulo's first episode. In it, you will hear how the issue of immigration changed the politics of Amilkar Arroyo, a 75-year-old Peruvian immigrant living in Hazelton, Pennsylvania. Again, about 30 seconds in Spanish, followed by a translation.

Amilkar Arroyo: [Spanish language]

Brian Lehrer: He said, "Then all the people started saying-- coming up to me and insulting me with bad words and saying, 'Illegal immigrant, go back to your banana boat.' When I looked around, I saw people I sat with at chamber of commerce meetings. They were people I did business with. Nobody said, 'I know that guy. He's not illegal. That guy is a citizen.'" That's Amilkar Arroyo. That's another portion of the various contradictions that we were talking about, the various, multiple threads of what's going on in this country that people in the community have to deal with.

I want to go onto the news this week on Harris versus Trump competing for Latino voters on television. Both of them participated in town halls on Univision, Trump last night, Harris a few days prior. First, let's hear an exchange between Trump and a voter in Illinois, Guadalupe Ramirez.

Guadalupe Ramirez: [Spanish language]

Speaker 1: what is your plan for an immigration reform?

Guadalupe Ramirez: [Spanish language]

Speaker 1: I also would like to ask you why you used your influence to ask the Republican legislators to not back up the strengthening of our border through the proposal.

Trump: You like strong borders, so do I, and we have them. We had the strongest border we've ever had in the recorded history of our country. Four years ago, we had a border that was great. Again, people were coming in, but they were coming in through a legal process. There were great people coming into our country. When you say Chicago, immediately we have to think about the crime because it's so dangerous in Chicago and some of these people came from other countries. Many of them came from other countries.

Brian Lehrer: That's Trump in a Univision town hall. Here's a clip from Harris. She's speaking with Yvette Castillo, a voter from Las Vegas.

Yvette Castillo: With the way immigration laws change over time, I was only able to help my dad get his legal status squared away, but not my mom's. My mom passed away just six weeks ago.

Harris: Oh, I'm so sorry.

Yvette Castillo: She was never, ever able to get the type of care and service that she needed or deserved.

Harris: I'm so sorry. Take your time. Take your time.

Yvette Castillo: My question for you is, what are your plans, or do you have plans to support that subgroup of immigrants who have been here their whole lives, or most of them, and have to live and die in the shadows?

Brian Lehrer: Here's part of Harris's response.

Harris: A bipartisan group of members of Congress, including one of the most conservative members of the United States Senate, came together with one of the strongest border security bills we've had in decades. It included 1,500 more border agents to go to the border to help those hardworking folks who were working around the clock. The border agents supported the bill. It included more resources to stem the flow of fentanyl, which is killing people of every background in every region of our country. It would have allowed us to have more resources to take on transnational criminal organizations.

I have prosecuted transnational criminal organizations from the Guadalajara cartel to the Sinaloa cartel. Donald Trump found out about that bill, realized it would be a solution, and told them not to put it on the floor for a vote because he would prefer to run on a problem instead of fixing a problem.

Brian Lehrer: Daniel, you can hear the empathy Harris sounds like she has for Castillo, but her actual answer to the question from Yvette highlights the more conservative aspects of the border bill that failed to pass due to Trump's intervention. We don't hear about how she would help the undocumented people who have built lives in this country, which was Yvette Castillo's question. How do you interpret Harris's messaging on a question like that?

Daniel Alarcón: Brian, first, as a journalist, and I'm sure Julio feels the same as you do. God, I would love to interview these people. I would love to have the opportunity to do a real substantial interview with Kamala Harris or with Donald Trump because I do think both of them as politicians do, they know what they're going to say to an answer before, irrespective of the question. I think it's not a surprise that she's leaning into the conservative answer to immigration. We've seen that in the Democratic Party as a whole. We've seen it even in important Senate races.

In Arizona, for example, Ruben Gallego used to be very progressive on immigration and has moved to the center and even to the right on this issue because that's the mood of the country. Politicians are in the winning elections game at the end of the day. Yes, there are different policies and different rhetoric, but Harris and the Democratic Party see immigration as a weakness they have to shore up and that's why she's speaking this way.

Brian Lehrer: Michael in Red Hook, you're on WNYC. Hi, Michael.

Michael: Hey. Hi. I've actually called in a couple of times with this very same point. I wonder if the current wave of immigration, and just since we seem to be talking about who's who, my great grandparents were from Puerto Rico on one side, so not immigrants. The huge wave of immigration right now is from countries that do not have a tradition of organized labor at all. That was in the post-World War II era. The foundation, the bedrock of Democratic strength in the United States. Lately, a whole side issue is how the Democratic Party has moved away from that.

I wonder if that's a factor in increasing Hispanic, Latino, whatever word you want to use, support for Donald Trump since they were never anchored to that. I've never really heard anyone talk about that, not in the liberal press, The Times, NPR, The Atlantic, anything. I haven't seen that, and I'm wondering about it. I wonder if your guests have talked about that.

Brian Lehrer: Very interesting. Julio, do you get the question? Do you have a thought?

Julio Vaqueiro: I think it's an interesting question. The answer is not very simple. I think the reason why some Latinos support Donald Trump and more and more Latinos are supporting Donald Trump are various and complicated. The economy being one of them, feeling that new immigrants are coming in without any order. Many, many different reasons. I don't think there's one clear answer to that one, to be honest.

Daniel Alarcón: Brian could I add something to that?

Brian Lehrer: Please, Daniel.

Daniel Alarcón: I think that there was, for many years in the Democratic Party, a real pie-in-the-sky notion. That was the demographic shifts in the United States were going to create a permanent majority and that Latinos were going to be part of that. That assumption betrays a complete ignorance of Latin American politics. In Latin America, there has always been an admiration for what we call the caudillo, the strongman. Our countries, and I mean from Mexico down to Chile, are very polarized politically.

There is a strong right wing, a strong sense of support for the strongman, and the idea of the leader with authoritarian tendencies. That's a big part of the draw. Trump is not different from Bolsonaro. He's not different from a lot of-

Julio Vaqueiro: Bukele.

Daniel Alarcón: -these figures that we have. Bukele, there's Fujimori in Peru, where I'm from, Milei in Argentina. We have had these figures throughout our history who are very Trumpy, so it's not really a surprise to me.

Brian Lehrer: Is it helpful to consider policies that are pro-working class generally as pro-Latino? Is Harris missing out on an opportunity to speak to these voters by referring to the working class as the middle class?

Julio Vaqueiro: Brian, that's interesting. I remember interviewing Senator Marco Rubio a few months ago when he was among the least people who could become the candidate for the vice presidency. He told me that the way to talk to Latino voters was just by talking about the American issues because he believes that by addressing issues like they addressed them to the general electorate, they would be really addressing Latino voters. That's an interesting approach. Lara Trump also told me that they just talk about issues as they talk to a middle-class American voter. They would do the same to Latino voters.

We are seeing that more and more Latinos might describe themselves as Americans before they describe themselves as Latinos. Maybe that's an opportunity that the Democrats are missing out.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take one last call. Lynette in Copiague on Long island. You're on WNYC, Lynette. Hi, we've got about 30 seconds for you.

Lynette: Hi, Brian. Thank you for picking my call. My family is from the Dominican Republic. They all immigrated here in the '80s. They love Reagan, and they think Trump should win. They also don't understand that Trump is actually talking about them. My parents came here, worked for business owners. Most of my family are business owners, and they educated their kids. My sister and I went to school up in the northeast, in the Boston area. We vote Democrat because we've been here. We understand the history of the United States. We're employees.

My parents owned businesses, so they identify with the Republican Party about taxes, about business owners being the majority, which going to one of the people that were speaking before, yes, in Latin America, there's a lot of dictatorships. Almost people are conditioned to vote for a male-dominant person like Trump because it's familiar, it's comfortable. Us who are educated here understand who they're speaking about. One last thing. Americans don't understand immigration. This is not the immigration that your great-grandparents or that happened in the 1800s and 1900s that people came off boats.

My former husband is from El Salvador and was undocumented, and I had to leave my high-profile job on Wall Street to claim hardship in order to have him stay in the United States. That affected me long term. It's just not right the way immigration works in this country and what's needed to do, the actions needed to take to marry somebody who's undocumented and keep them in this country.

Brian Lehrer: Lynette, thank you very, very much for your call. As we run out of time, Julio, the theme that you came with, and, boy, have we heard it reflected in our callers, is a lot of Latinos don't think Trump is talking about them when he uses all that racist language. We heard it from some callers directly. We heard it from a caller like Lynette there, talking about her parents don't get it, even though she sees it differently than they do. We just have 30 seconds, but I want to throw in one final issue very briefly, Julio. Abortion. We heard one caller earlier, Anna Maria in Lower Manhattan, so upset about Trump and the Republicans generally wanting to restrict abortion rights.

Latin America is a predominantly catholic region. You go into this in the podcast, do you think that issue divides the community, even women in the community who are voting in this election? We have 30 seconds.

Julio Vaqueiro: Yes, we do talk about it in this third episode in Florida, this proposal to approve a constitutional amendment that will overturn the Florida's abortion ban. We see that division. I really invite people to listen to the podcast if they speak Spanish because they will see how diverse and complex Latino voters are and even within this issue, a real division. I hope people can listen to El Péndulo.

Brian Lehrer: Julio Vaqueiro, an anchor on the TV channel Noticias Telemundo, and Daniel Alarcón, executive producer and editorial director at Radio Ambulante Studios. They have a new podcast series in Spanish, El Péndulo, which looks at the issues that are important to Latino voters, especially in swing states, Florida, too, and how voters there see the presidential candidates. Thank you so much for spending time with us and sharing your magnificent work with us.

Daniel Alarcón: Thank you, Brian.

Julio Vaqueiro: Thank you, Brian.

 

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