by Emil Guillermo
Breaking News: Donald Trump is not a liar.
Not when it comes to immigrants. He said he would do what he was doing.
But that doesn’t mean he has to do it with an iron fist. Or without an allegiance to the Constitution and all the people.
Especially those who didn’t vote for him.
When Trump authorized ICE to arrest 1,000 immigrants recently in Chicago, were all of them undocumented? All criminals? Hardly.
With quotas installed, mistakes will be made. Innocent immigrants here legally will be arrested. He said he would do it, and won the election.
Now, there’s a real fear present in all immigrant communities. Not just Latino ones. Filipino. Spanish surname. Visa overstay?
Confirmation today from the new press secretary Karoline Leavitt: You are a criminal and be subject to deportation.
But I don’t deal drugs or am a gang member, pare. I’m not that kind of criminal you say.
Immigration law is now seen as criminal law in this new administration.
The eyes of scowling Donald Trump are upon us.
He is not just the new president, he’s the new face of the Statue of Liberty. Doesn’t make it right.
By executive order, he’s authorized DEA and other federal agents to be judge and jury during raids. He’s allowed them to go into churches, places of worship, and even schools.
That wasn’t done before. And he has a quota. Quotas are a bad word, for example, when it comes to affirmative action.
But quotas in a “negative action” like a mass deportation? The better for Trump to run up the numbers.
And for countries that don’t want to get along, like for a brief second Colombia, here comes the threat of Trump’s big stick—tariffs.
And it’s only the beginning, for all of us.
The way to fight back
Here’s the one reprieve so far. When Trump sent out the order to halt the flow of all federal grants and loans to government entities and organizations, it was an illegal usurping of power. The Congress appropriates and now Trump wants in to negate it? That’s unconstitutional.
He did it anyway, but the one day of calls about chaos and confusion, and the shutting down of the Medicaid website was too much for Trump.
He was hurting all of America, even his supporters.
So Trump governed like he plays golf. He called for a mulligan, a do-over.
His office rescinded the executive order in a simple one-page memo, essentially saying, “Never mind.”
That’s like hearing a doctor in the operating room saying, “Oops.”
Trump is not infallible. He is OFTEN wrong. But he’s given us the way to fight him. Push back hard and he’ll call for a mulligan.
Maybe that’s the answer when people fight the things they hate the most—anything in the culture wars that has to do with diversity, equity, and inclusion, or climate programs, or generally programs good for us all.
That raises Trump’s ire. Especially, DEI.
But Trump’s killing DEI means reversing all the laws and programs that gave Filipino Americans, Asian Americans, and all people of color equal footing in society.
Undoing America
As an American who grew up in the “Civil Rights” era of the ‘60s,
I could not conceive or dream of an “Un-Civil Rights” era.
But here we are, nostalgic for an America where the prevailing belief in fairness was on our side. The peoples’ side.
Still, even with all we had to support us in the past, it wasn’t easy.
Someone asked me the other day why I looked so young. An old guy like me? It was flattering. But how I look isn’t just due to the increased melanin in my skin or my ethnic Filipino Asian-ness.
Part of it too was I have been underutilized—all throughout my life in my various careers. The door opened occasionally for me but mostly remained shut.
When it did open, I had my chance to prove myself, and I was always proud of what I could show. I worked hard for the little work they allowed me to do and I’m grateful for that.
But there never were enough spaces. I was often the only Filipino or person of color in the room. And too many times one of us was deemed enough.
Hard to imagine now in a diverse America. But I’m talking 50 years ago.
Now my heartaches, when I see the federal government is not only keeping the door shut, it’s eviscerating the office and its founding philosophy intended to help minorities and people of color get a fair shake.
Donald Trump’s executive order on affirmative action aims his wrecking ball at the order issued by President Lyndon Johnson in the ‘60s. Johnson’s vision led to more than six decades of trying to erase the white bias in government jobs and contracts.
It served as a model to both the public and private sectors. It created the crack in the door where I got my shot.
Johnson’s order also served as a model for higher ed. Those efforts were essentially killed when the Supreme Court ruled against affirmative action in the Harvard case in 2023.
We all knew with that ruling the next step would be public employment and contracts in some fashion. Some states had already banned what was rebranded as DEI. But since the Trump election, it was clear the feds would follow suit. The private sector was already ahead of the pack. McDonald’s, Walmart, and Meta, have all ended or changed their diversity programs.
Trump at his inaugural speech, didn’t dare mention the Jan. 6 pardons to come, saving that for his COB surprise. He didn’t even mention the unconstitutional act of dismantling birth-right citizenship from the 14th Amendment.
But his official inaugural address was clear when he said he’d get “race and gender out of public life, including the standard policy of America is color-blind and merit-based.”
Colorblind just means you’re blindfolded. Unless you pledge allegiance to Trump.
DEI is dead, strange coming from the president who said he was saved by God to make America great again. Does he even know DEI is God in Latin?
But we’re no longer in Johnson’s “Great Society,” we’re in 47’s diminished “Trumpville.”
Welcome to Trumpville
It’s where the remedies of discrimination are seen as the sources of discrimination. It’s an America in reverse in a speedy cybertruck, heading back to our racist past. And masking it all as a color-blind meritocracy.
That’s why Trump’s leading by example, nominating some of the most unqualified people to his cabinet. Pete Hegseth now the head of the Department of Defense as an example of meritocracy? Or White affirmative action.
And what are other nominees like RFK Jr? Or Kash Patel and Tulsi Gabbert? They are as unqualified as a nomination hearing is long.
When I started writing primarily for the ethnic media it was because we anticipated a New America, where minorities would grow in number, we had a real voice in society.
Trumpville is not the New America I imagined.
EMIL GUILLERMO is an award-winning journalist, commentator, speaker and humorist. Watch his mini-talk show “Emil Amok’s Takeout” on www.YouTube.com/emilamok1 or join him on www patreon.com/emilamok.
About Author
+ There are no comments
Add yours