Mom, Obama and me
She's for Clinton, I'm not -- and it's getting hot.
Politics played the central role in my family's nightly dinner conversations. I don't recall ever disagreeing with my mother politically.
Until now.
Our differences are so profound that we are tiptoeing around the subject, heeding the age-old advice never to discuss politics. It has gotten ugly. She calls me foolhardy, ignorant and a traitor to my gender. I tell her she is irrational, blind and stuck in the past.
I am an ardent Barack Obama backer. She is a passionate Hillary Clinton supporter. She is 67; I am 36.
My mother and I are members of a key demographic that both candidates are desperately courting in California -- Latinos who are likely voters. Obama needs all the help he can get, with Clinton currently holding a 2-to-1 lead among Latinos in the state. Clinton has high name recognition -- mainly due to Latinos' love of President Clinton -- while Obama is still a bit of a mystery.
Among California Democrats, Latinos are perhaps 20% of the electorate. Pollsters say a majority seem inclined to vote for Clinton, but I am hopeful that Obama's themes of unity and aspiration will resonate with immigrants like me.
Obama lacks experience, or so it's said. But what good is experience if it doesn't lend you wisdom? Clinton supported the disastrous foray into Iraq; Obama gave a rousing speech against it in 2002 and laid out the terrible consequences that have come to pass.
I try to win my mother and her Latina girlfriends over to the Obama camp. But it is difficult, risky. They take my lack of support for Clinton as a personal affront, a betrayal of sisterhood and a youthful folly. One of my mom's friends suggested threats might help: "Tell her you will stop baby-sitting the kids if she goes to one Obama fundraiser."
My family moved to this country from Mexico when I was 6. I've tried to sway my mom by using the "immigrants unite" card. Obama bravely supports granting driver's licenses to illegal immigrants (a stand my mother agrees with), while Clinton has backed away from the hot-button issue. "Doesn't it excite you to see a black man, whose paternal grandmother is still living on a farm in Kenya, reaching the highest level in political office?" I ask her.
No dice. Clinton has sparked a raging feminist flame in my mother that is much stronger than her identity as an immigrant.
