On Latino USA's New Series "Hombre" And My Hopes For The "Latino Men" Discourse
Latino USA has a new series Hombre, and it is going to try and explain Latino Men because Latino Men need explaining after the 2024 presidential election. Twitch reactions from the media credited the victory of Trump on the significant shift right of Latino Men in one poll and had some pundits go as far as to say things along the line of “I hope you get what you deserve” which was all bullshit. So when I saw this episode pop up in my subscriptions I was pretty excited until I saw the first guest, political strategist Chuck Rocha.
Chuck Rocha is a a Democratic Party strategist, and former union organizer who is the president of Solidarity Strategies. He’s from outside Tyler Texas, wears a cowboy hat and has an East Texas accent. Last year he also hosted a “Latino Men for Kamala Harris” which had George Lopez as its headliner and a bunch of other congressmen and Washington figures which spoke of nothing but bland mamadas and said “Chinga tu Maga” at some point. Legitimately almost turned it off then, but much like another famous Democrat Hillary Clinton, nevertheless I persisted.
There’s a fair bit of establishing who Chuck is and why Maria Hinojosa, host of Latino USA, is speaking with him before they get to the guts of the conversation. Why did Latino Men vote for Trump? And when talking about this Chuck has plenty of good points that show he has an understanding of the people. There’s an emphasis on the working class, on worker’s rights, on providing a path out of the working class for people but time and time again he falls back to the same points of blame that Democrats have been using. It’s like he wants to overtly say Democrats abandoned the Working Class but can’t. At one point Hinojosa brings up her Guatemalan bodega sandwich guy having anti immigrant sentiments and Chuck goes on to bring up Fox News and the “brosphere” podcasts which are outpacing the communication that Democrats are using, which…sure but I highly doubt that kind of Latino is listening to the Shawn Ryan show. Young Pocho blowhards sure…
Chuck’s ultimate big point when talking about Democrats’ outreach to Latino Men is “The message is broken” to which I say, actually, there is no message. Even in the aforementioned Zoom that was organized by Chuck, where he probably got paid a handsome amount, there was no message. Puras platitudes y payasadas. Chuck is right that Latino Men often feel overlooked and ignored and he’s right that the Democratic party does not talk to them anymore. However, this message coming from a Political strategist doesn’t really carry as much weight as one would hope. Chuck could have a great story and background but as soon as one hears “political strategist” you’ve lost half the room. The Democrat’s problem is they’re being guided too much by political consultants and have lost touch with the real people, the working class. Too much political messaging and not enough earnest communication. For as well intentioned and as compelling a communicator Chuck is, he is still the beneficiary of a system that has failed the working class and needs severe reformation. Which is unlikely to come from someone whose livelihood depends on that very system existing.
This is also the problem with Latino Media. It has nothing to do with “woke” it has to do with all of it feeling like a Student Council meeting. Instead of engaging with the people, it engages too much with people “in power”. I swear we don’t need Eva Longoria or Julian Castro in everything, much less George Lopez. Which is why I was a little disappointed that the first guest for this series was THE political strategist for the losing side that stopped short of saying “We messed up”. Which raises the final question, who is this series for? Is it for Latino Men? Doesn’t feel that way. Is it for Latino women? Doesn’t feel that way. At least not when you put a political strategist on first…
I still have high hopes for the series and hope that the promise of speaking a diverse group of men is actually fulfilled and that the exploration is focused on making Latino Men themselves feel more visible and not scapegoated. I don’t know the statistics of the listenership of the show but making a show about Latino Men for Latino Men to listen to and not be shamed, instead understood and brought to light seems to me very valuable. There’s lots of Latino doofuses out there so it could be difficult and potentially problematic to do so but if the show is truly interested in “doing the work” and in not just being more of the same they’ll show us, warts and all. I’ll be listening.
Listen to the first episode of Latino USA’s Hombres here or anywhere podcasts are found: https://www.latinousa.org/2025/01/12/hombrechuckrocha/
