Outraged Puerto Rican community leaders and Latino elected officials railed against a racist joke made about Puerto Rico during a Donald Trump rally, but they also thanked the comedian who made the joke for lighting a fire under an influential voting bloc. They said the community’s voice could be decisive in the Nov. 5 election, especially in tight swing states with a large Puerto Rican electorate like Pennsylvania.
“I want to thank the man for his stupidity and ignorance in giving 500,000 Puerto Ricans in Pennsylvania something to stand up for,” said Hipolito Roldan, chief executive of the Hispanic Housing Development Corp. Roldan was among nearly a dozen speakers at a news conference Tuesday at Mercado Del Pueblo on Division Street in Humboldt Park — the heart of Chicago’s Puerto Rican community. Their condemned the joke and implored eligible Puerto Ricans to go to the polls.
“It’s important that we turn this anger into real action, otherwise it’s meaningless,” said Jose Lopez, executive director of the Puerto Rican Cultural Center, which organized the event. Stand-up comic Tony Hinchcliffe, during a rally for Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, at Madison Square Garden in New York on Sunday joked that Puerto Rico was a “floating island of garbage.” He made crude jokes about other Latinos, Black people and Jews.
Other speakers at the rally also denigrated minorities. Puerto Rican stars, including singer Bad Bunny, Jennifer Lopez and Ricky Mar.