Ricardo Velasquez, president of the Hispanic Democrats of North Carolina, and Javier Castillo, chair of the Pitt County Republican Party, debated Wednesday night about education, health care, foreign policy, immigration and other issues pertinent to the Latino community for the upcoming election Nov. 2.
The debate, sponsored by La Unidad Latina and Lambda Upsilon Lambda fraternity, was one of the first events held at Duke for Latino Heritage Month, which runs from Oct. 15 to Nov. 15, Lambda Upsilon Lambda president Jurgen Fernandez said.
Moderator Omar Rashid, a medical and law student and advisor to Lambda Upsilon Lambda, asked questions to the representatives with a “Hispanic bias” to address issues relevant to the Latino community.
Each representative told the audience of roughly 30 people why his respective party catered best to the interests of the hundreds of thousands of Latino North Carolina residents.
“Hispanic workers aren’t saying, ‘I don’t have a job,’” Castillo said. “They’re working, and they’re prospering. Why? Because we’ve got a president who gave us a tax cut that stimulated the economy.”
But Velasquez fired back, charging that “Latinos understand why Hispanic support of the president is down to an all-time low of 19 percent,” he said. “Seven percent of Hispanics are unemployed—that’s 1.4 million Hispanics without jobs. This administration has a misunderstanding of what’s important to Hispanic families. Hispanics understand who has been supporting them, and that’s the Democratic party.”
— Davis Ward
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