Maria Elena Salinas used her commencement speech at Cal State Fullerton’s college of communications ceremony to bash GOP presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump. She also spewed her diatribe in Spanish, further alienating her audience. From an eye-witness reporter and graduating senior, Denise DeLaCruz:
Salinas’ speech was well-received until it became a little too Latino-centric for some and blatantly anti-Trump. The Univision broadcaster began specifically congratulating Latino journalism graduates for what seemed like a large chunk of her speech. She then began speaking in Spanish and asked the crowd to repeat a few inspirational words after her, in Spanish. This left non-journalism grads and non-Latinos/non-Spanish speakers feeling excluded. Parents in the audience and even students in the ceremony began demanding Salinas switch to a more inclusive tone by shouting phrases such as, “What about us?!”
As the ceremony painfully continued, I sat in my chair cringing at both the spectators’ rude comments and Salinas’ brazen speech. The racial aggression experienced at the recent Trump rally in Costa Mesa was not something I wanted seeping into my graduation ceremony. But alas, reality sunk in, and audience members began booing Salinas while others combatted the voices of dissent with louder cheers.
A couple points: 1) Yes, the media is biased, including Spanish-speaking media, 2) The division Obama has wrought has seeped into our culture everywhere, 3) People booed. That’s surprising. People have tended to sit quietly during this kind of thing in the past.
How long until the culture war turns into an actual war with bloodshed?