Mexican Americans

And how's that hitting you?

Oh, I mean, you know, for two Mexican-Americans to get elected governor in California and Texas this past Tuesday was just amazing.

And, you know, in the two largest states in the nation, right, in California and Texas, just incredibly special.

Especially because there were so many years where Latinos and Mexican-Americans were badly underrepresented in everything from school board to Congress and, you know, Senate, governor, everything.

And to see those huge breakthroughs all at once, it was just really incredible.

And I think that they'll both do tremendous jobs for their states.

And they kind of don't believe it.

But then you give them examples, as Mr. Ross did to us, Mr. Fred Ross, you know, showing us pictures of people in East Los Angeles, how they had brought in streetlights and sidewalks and clinics into their community, how they put policemen in prison for beating up Mexican American youth.

And I thought, man, if they can do that, I want to do that too.

I want to put a cop in prison for beating people up.

No, I can't really say it did.

If I were African-American and young and Mexican-American, I would think of all kinds of things from ice on down that this administration has done that would scare me and that I would take a every left turn.

Peter Field, Zoe George on tonight's panel.

Thank you for your feedback.

And Neuralink and all the brain-computer interfaces, the development that we're leading, who knows? I think it's not very far away.

Okay, now I have to ask you a personal question because I'm just curious because most of my Mexican friends have been Chicanos throughout my life, right? They're like Mexican-American, born like sangre por sangre.

You know that movie, Blood In, Blood Out?

No, no,

After the terrorist attacks, border security became increasingly connected to national security.

In 2009, new federal identification requirements took effect for Americans returning from Mexico by land.

The relatively casual crossings I remembered from my younger years were no longer possible in quite the same way.

And over time, the border became an increasingly powerful political symbol.

That surprised some political observers who had assumed that those communities would naturally vote Democratic.

But that assumption overlooked something important.

Mexican Americans in Texas are not a single political bloc.

Some families have lived here for generations.

Yeah, lifelong fan.

And I grew up in a household, I think, first memories with my grandfather, as many people in like this area of Los Angeles, Mexican American roots, and he was a big Fernando Valenzuela fan.

And I can't remember a time when I wasn't at, you know, my grandparents house without hearing Ben Scully in the background or hearing games.

And so just kind of It was always it was always around.

They want somebody who has the courage to speak for them, who's going to stand up for them.

The thing about the Rio Grande Valley that I think is very much misunderstood, it's majority Mexican-American.

There's a lot of patriotism.

There's a lot of pride.