Still no Latinos in Trump’s Cabinet, with few picks left

As pundits on cable television discuss the merits of recent nominations for the Cabinet , one glaring omission has been ignored.

There are no Latinos.

This is hardly surprising, given the paucity of Latino pundits, but we’ll save that for another column. More to the point here is that Latinos will not have a place at the table in the Trump administration.

Nor should this surprise anyone, since President-elect Donald Trump began his campaign with one of the most outrageous ethnic slurs in modern political history, that Mexican immigrants were “bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.”

By now this is ancient history, but Latinos have a long memory.

We also won’t forget that Latinos have been represented in the Cabinet since President Reagan appointed Lauro Cavazos as secretary of Education in 1988. President George H.W. Bush retained Cavazos and added Manuel Lujan Jr. as secretary of the Interior.

In all, 15 Latinos have had Cabinet rank, including Hilda Solis and Tom Perez at Labor, Julián Castro at Housing and Urban Development, Mel Martínez at Transportation, and Carlos Gutierrez at Commerce. All served their country with distinction.

The only name floated by Trump’s transition team was Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) for attorney general, though this must have been for irony’s sake. As we’ve learned, Trump has a sense of humor.

{mosads}What could be funnier that former critic Mitt Romney, the 2012 GOP nominee, eating frog legs (with a side of crow)?

One by one, Cabinet slots have been filled by billionaires, generals, CEOs and campaign contributors, along with a few vanquished foes. Any Latinos hoping for Veterans Affairs or Agriculture are probably smoking the drapes at Mar-a-Lago. There are still a few unfilled positions with Cabinet rank, such director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) or the U.S. trade representative, but good luck with that.

This is no accident, and should not be viewed as anything but deliberate; another whack at the Latino piñata. Or to use the president-elect’s own patois, we’re getting schlonged, bigly. In real time.

No one has yet dared suggest (as in Silicon Valley) that it’s difficult to find qualified Latinos to fill these jobs.

But it can be argued that few Latinos even want to be considered.

By the last week of the campaign, nearly all his Latino allies had abandoned Trump, with the exception of consultant-cum-commentator Steve Cortes, who was so memorably schooled by NPR’s Maria Hinojosa for his use of the pejorative term “illegals.”

Cortes had been billed as a member of the “Trump Hispanic Advisory Council,” which met only once following the infamous taco bowl tweet on Cinco de Mayo. But most members resigned after Trump’s scorched-earth immigration speech, following his bizarro summit in Mexico, and it never met again. (So much material, here!)

Cortes has been off the air lately, but surely some are willing to make the walk of shame through the lobby of Trump Tower, if only they’d get the call.

Don’t count on it, amigos.

While there have been some encouraging (if contradictory) statements from the president-elect regarding mass deportation, the status of Dreamers, and even the “big, beautiful” wall on the border, don’t count your pesos.

The cynical nomination of Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) as attorney general and the gloating presence of Kris Kobach on the transition team make it clear that Trump will lead the most anti-immigrant administration since the days of President Eisenhower’s Operation Wetback.

It sure doesn’t look like we’ll get invited over to the White House for Hispanic Heritage Month.

That’s the problem facing our current Latino leadership, which now lacks leverage with either Democrats or Republicans. In 2016, the myth of the sleeping giant proved to be a dangerous fallacy, since population growth was no guarantee of political power.

To be relevant, we must be strategic and carefully pick our battles. Can our elected officials and community leaders meet this challenge, or will it be up to a new generation?

Some have taken a wait-and-see approach, giving Trump the benefit of the doubt. They’re happy to bury the hatchet, since he’s the one who wielded it.

But wouldn’t this normalize all that’s come before, as the media has done, by neglecting to condemn it? And it’s wishful thinking, like the long, comical wait for Trump to “pivot” during the campaign.

The office of president deserves our respect, but its occupant must earn it. No one is expecting an apology from Trump, nor is one forthcoming.

So what’s the bottom line?

If he is to earn our respect, he must start with two things.

First, Latinos must be represented not just in the Cabinet, but in the White House staff, and at all levels of government.

Second, Trump must enact a humane immigration policy that will address economic realities and protect the right to due process of millions of undocumented workers.

If these things doesn’t happen, and we accept it out of cowardice or careerism, the fault is our own. But leadership is born in adversity, and those of us in Latino media will be watching which leaders emerge to lead the fight.

Donald Trump’s presidency will be a harsh and painful lesson for Latinos, one we’ll never forget. It can also be a valuable one if we take advantage of it.

Alfredo Estrada is the editor of LATINO Magazine.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the views of The Hill.