On July 11, first lady Jill Biden was at the 2022 UnidosUS Annual Conference in San Antonio, where she spoke at its “Latinx IncluXion Luncheon.” There, she made remarks about the diversity within the Spanish-speaking American population, noting cultural treasures “as distinct as the bodegas of the Bronx, as beautiful as the blossoms of Miami, and as unique as the breakfast tacos here in San Antonio.”
I can’t defend all of this. Do “the bodegas of the Bronx” have something special to them distinct from Manhattan’s or Brooklyn’s? No. Does Miami have famous blossoms related to its Hispanic population culturally? Again, no. Is this good writing? Also no.
But what inflamed public opinion against the first lady was that third part — about the tacos.
What kind of racist boor hears “Hispanic community in San Antonio” and thinks “tacos,” right? This is exactly what the Texas Standard interviewed an NPR producer of the racial language show Code Switch about in 2015, the phenomenon called “hispandering.” In 2016, the Washington Post’s Philip Bump noted that “hispandering” was a term in vogue because Hillary Clinton’s campaign had released a sheet explaining how the candidate was like the voters’ abuelita. It had been popularized by blogger Mickey Kaus in Slate in 2002 and was possibly coined the year earlier in a newsletter called The Federalist. The Code Switch producer explained that “an easy definition, I think, is faking interest in issues important to Latinos like immigration or feigning interest in Latino culture. Think mariachis and tacos.”
Hence Biden’s gaffe. The National Association of Hispanic Journalists tweeted: “NAHJ encourages @FLOTUS & her communications team to take time to better understand the complexities of our people & communities. We are not tacos.”
The first lady apologized through her office “that her words conveyed anything but pure admiration and love for the Latino community.” And apologizing was the right political move: “If you’re explaining, you’re losing,” Ronald Reagan famously said. He might have added that if people are explaining to you that they are not tacos, you are losing big time.
But on the merits, she should not have apologized. I must defend the first lady here, who only looks bad because the national media are ignorant of what she and her speechwriting staff knew. Breakfast tacos are, in fact, a vaunted San Antonio specialty. Per a March 2022 entry in Eater’s regional guide: “Breakfast tacos are San Antonio’s pride and joy, which is why you’ll find them on nearly every taqueria’s morning menu.” Or, in December 2021’s Texas Monthly: “The River City is the cradle of Tex-Mex, and its tacos reflect that fact. First and foremost, there are the city’s breakfast tacos. Or as San Antonians call them, tacos.” Sorry, but taco facts are stubborn things. The first lady was just pandering to a region, not a race, like telling New Yorkers they have great pizza by the slice. Just because something sounds like a racist stereotype to oversensitive ears doesn’t mean it really is one.
While the “taco” incident made more news, the name of the panel Biden spoke the offending words at explains much more of why her husband shows record-low numbers with American hispanohablantes. What the hell is “incluXion”? Frankly, Democrats could stand to do more hispandering and less latinalienating.
