THREAD: For years, I anglicized my Mexican last name. Hate mail from MAGA trolls inspired me to reclaim it. This column is deeply personal to me, but it's also about a broader movement to reclaim names as resistance.
Three months ago I heard Salman Rushdie speak at the PEN World Voices Festival. He said: “A poem cannot stop a bullet. A novel can’t defuse a bomb … But we are not helpless … We can sing the truth & name the liars.” We must tell better stories than the tyrants.
BREAKING: Commander Jonathan White of HHS just admitted he warned Trump
@realDonaldTrump
& Sessions about "significant risk of harm" & "psychological injury" as consequence of zero tolerance & was ignored:
@KPBSMidday
DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen just said DHS isn't separating families who "legitimately" enter country through a port of entry. This is false. I covered story of a 1-year-old baby taken from asylum seeker at port, for
@KPBSnews
&
@NewsHour
:
I’ve been laid off from my job as a columnist for the LA Times today, with 100 of my best colleagues. It’s a dark day. I was the only Latina columnist for the opinion desk. Trump is looming & I’m author of Hatemonger. If you're hiring, I’m at jeangue619
@gmail
.com
I fact-checked the crime stats in Border Patrol's race war propaganda video. They're false. They made a fictionalized migrant murder film with fake numbers. My piece:
@thedailybeast
A question for the white readers angrily emailing me that my last column was racist against them: why does a critique of white supremacy feel personal to you? 🤡
Stephen Miller got a standing ovation from young conservatives
@yaf
who agree w/ him that immigration is a mortal threat to USA. He told them legal immigration is as bad as illegal, & bragged re: ruining refugee lives. This is the future of the Republican Party.
Trump says people bringing kids to US are coyotes and bad people and gangs. Biden says kids came with parents. As a reporter covering immigration I can tell you most of these were in fact parents.
As I predicted, Latina matriarchs are spreading the word and polls now reflect that Latinos will save Newsom, with 66% of likely Latinx voters against the recall: "California voters' growing opposition to recalling [Newsom] is driven heavily by Latinos."
The acting secretary of DHS, Chad Wolf, sent me a barrage of angry, unsolicited text messages earlier this month. He told me I wasn't an "actual reporter" and threatened an official response. Nothing yet ...
@thedailybeast
(1/3)
I'm sending love to all of the journalists, truth tellers and storytellers out there who must live with death threats and fear of violent extremists killing them.
Hoping that Salman Rushdie survives this.
I spoke to
@0liviajulianna
about her remarkable story. Her actions in Texas remind me of what happened in California in the 90s, when youths mobilized against bigotry and said R.I.P. to the state's GOP.
@latimes
Don Jr not only endorsed the private border wall that got Steve Bannon arrested & charged with defrauding donors, but even showed up at a symposium urging the project's supporters to keep "fighting."
@michelleinbklyn
I wrote about the media's whitewashing of Stephen Miller in the
@latimes
. Casting Miller as an aberration is as wrong as normalizing him. That lets his supporters, collaborators and media enablers off the hook. Read my piece:
Yo,
@jeanguerre
, who called me a “white supremacist,” you’ve been canned by the broke
@latimes
. Bet your equally bigoted, but black colleague,
@Erika_D_Smith
, who called me “the black face of white supremacy,” still has a job. She’d pull out the race card in a L.A. minute.
#DEI
Democratic outreach to Latino voters on the California recall election is not working. I've been speaking to young Latinxs and almost none of them have any idea what is going on. This is really, really bad.
My sources tell me Miller is largely responsible for this administration's bungled response to the Coronavirus, focusing on targeting immigrants and BLM instead of distributing masks & medical equipment.
Don’t call it mental illness. Mental illness doesn’t cause mass shootings. Please don’t stigmatize mental illness.
Call it white supremacist terror.
Call it toxic ideas of masculinity.
Call it the Tucker Carlson syndrome.
BREAKING: Larry Elder’s views on Black crime were shaped by Jared Taylor, a well-known white supremacist he repeatedly cited in early writings. My new column on the threat he poses to California's Latinos and Black people:
@latimes
BREAKING: Attorney General Jeff Sessions has moved to deny asylum seekers a right to bond hearing. That means asylum seekers would have to stay in detention even after passing "credible fear" interviews:
@KPBSnews
They won't stop at abortion or gay marriage. It's only a matter of time before SCOTUS kills birthright citizenship via reinterpretation of the 14th amendment, triggering the biggest expulsion of Latinos the U.S. has ever seen.
People thought AMLO would be the first Mexican president in a long time to stick up to the U.S. and defend Mexicans. Instead, his comments were more ingratiating than Peña Nieto's and perhaps any other president in Mexican history.
NEW COLUMN:
@GavinNewsom
has been one of the most pro-Latino governors in California history. The recall election isn't about him. It's about putting Latinos where many white R's think we belong. If they win, Latinos everywhere are in trouble:
@latimes
While Wolf is venting about investigative journalists & Portland protesters, right-wing extremists are plotting civil war. They're responsible for most terrorist attacks & plots in the U.S. since the 90s & more than 90% this year. You'd have no idea from listening to DHS. (3/3)
.
@JoeBiden
now: "The purpose of our politics, the work of a nation, isn't to fan the flames of conflict but to solve problems, to guarantee justice, to give everybody a fair shot, to improve the lives of our people. We may be opponents but we're not enemies. We're Americans."
A U.S. right-wing media network is using a convicted drug trafficker as a talking head on border security,
@thedailybeast
has learned. He gained re-entry to the U.S. under Trump to hatemonger w/ Marjorie Taylor Greene allies. Read my story:
Border militarization's worst mass casualty event in years, and the
@nytimes
first quote in the story is of nativist Abbott scaremongering about immigration.
Meanwhile,
@washingtonpost
pivots from the news to dehumanizing numbers & stats re: border "surge."
Enraging. Do better.
FYI for those who want to understand how Stephen Miller went from fringe to center stage. You can pre-order the paperback (releasing this month) or buy hardcover:
THREAD: I wrote about COVID-19 conspiracy theorists preying on Latinos. In less than 3 months, my Mexican abuela, my dad and my Puerto Rican aunt were all targeted. But we can fight the disinformation war. Read my piece
@latimes
: (1/3)
Facebook is censoring my nonprofit news org
@KPBSnews
, an
@NPR
affiliate, from sharing my story about a 5-yr-old girl forced to appear in immigration court alone –- because apparently balanced journalism is now "political content."
@facebook
@Official_Markfb
care to respond?
Biden promises to reunify immigrant families separated by Trump. But what about those torn apart when Biden was VP?
I spoke to a daughter separated from her dad under Obama, still separated. "Why can't they help us as well?"
My piece
@nytopinion
:
Just a reminder that insurrection organizer Ali Alexander claims he plotted the Jan. 6 event w/ Congressman Anglo-Saxon caucus co-founder Paul Gosar (&
@StephenM
-backed Congressman Mo Brooks).
A great piece on Gosar by
@Timodc
from last month:
I wrote about
@VP
’s callous message and flawed logic. Our understanding of corruption in countries south of the border is deeply flawed because it conceives of the problem as separate from ourselves and endemic to the region. Read
@latimes
:
Stephen Miller's second-term immigration agenda is worse than he wants you to know––and it could affect you and the people you love. My piece in
@thenation
on what he'd do in a second Trump term (i.e. end birthright citizenship).
Until last year, journalists were told not to use the word “racist.” We're taught to always give White men the benefit of the doubt. Whitewashing is not neutral, and we have to stop pretending it is.
@sdut
BREAKING: Border Patrol took down their anti-immigrant propaganda video within hours of my exposing their use of false stats for the
@thedailybeast
. I'm still awaiting their response.
@DHS_Wolf
@CBPMarkMorgan
@USBPChief
NEW: I'm thrilled to start at
@latimesopinion
as a columnist, joining a team I deeply admire. I can't wait to work w/
@sewellchan
and
@TangLATimes
to tell important stories about this pivotal moment for democracy.
“There is no single action the president can take all by himself that would have such a profound effect on racial justice in this country,"
@ewarren
tells
@latimes
.
Here's the case for canceling student loan debt for tens of millions of Americans ASAP:
I spoke with Terry Gross of
@nprfreshair
about my new book HATEMONGER, Stephen Miller and the story of how an extremist became Trump's most powerful advisor. It was surreal, a dream come true but a very somber subject:
@WmMorrowBooks
THREAD: I have some thoughts about the deceptive media coverage of
@larryelder
's campaign for CA governor. He's pretending he's not a Trump shill so he can get bipartisan support, and many (mostly East Coast) journos are helping him by not pushing back on his false narrative.
Journalist Q's matter. If you ask asylum seekers if they came because Biden is more humane, many may say yes, trying to accommodate you, even if they know little about US immigration policy. If you ask, "Why did you come here?" You get a very different answer. Avoid leading Q's.
THREAD. I was sick of being asked and harassed about the term "Latinx," so I decided to debunk the lies driving much of the debate. The lies are peddled to pit us against one another, Latino vs. Latinx. Read here:
@latimes
Stephen Miller was radicalized as a teenager. His mentor David Horowitz believes "anti-white racism" is the most dangerous social problem today and that liberals pose an "existential threat." An excerpt of my book HATEMONGER:
@politico
@WmMorrowBooks
BREAKING: The architects of the war on affirmative action, poised to succeed in the Supreme Court, have close ties to leading white nationalists.
@latimes
The man who wrote the Newsweek piece peddling the racist theory about Kamala Harris' citizenship works w/ the Claremont Institute, a CA think tank that is supported by the parents of Trump's chief advisor Stephen Miller. I'll be talking to
@CBCNews
about what this means briefly.
News orgs need to start calling Mr. Trump and his chief adviser Stephen Miller what they are: traffickers in hate, laundering a white nationalist agenda through narratives about national identity, prosperity and security.
@nytopinion
@WmMorrowBooks
.
@mattyglesias
deleted this tweet after called out by
@MichaelEHayden
w/ facts. His comment is an example of the media's whitewashing of white supremacy I wrote about here, where "neutrality" always gives white supremacists the benefit of the doubt:
This came after he called
@Haleaziz
not "a real journalist," and his deputy secretary Ken Cuccinelli tried to argue with
@mollymotoole
about journalistic objectivity. (2/3)
Dear trolls, who take the time to write me to "go back to Mexico" or to eat sh*t cuz I'm a bleeping bleep: writing from your work emails with company names visible is evidence of your vast intelligence. Lucky for you, I'm too busy actually doing something with my life.
Marcela García is one of the mothers separated from her child by U.S. officials in '17. She hasn't seen her son in 3 years. Her case stems from Stephen Miller's Jan. '17 executive orders which I wrote about in HATEMONGER, not the zero tolerance policy:
As I wrote in my
@latimes
column, Elder’s planned inaction on Covid and climate change will disproportionately impact communities of color, who’ve born the brunt of both disasters.
Ted Cruz, performing empathy for migrants after touring the border in a boat with machine guns, is pictured here with Anthony Aguero, a conspiracy theorist who broke into the Capitol during the Jan. 6 insurrection (per CNN) and who compares migrant families to "roaches."
Chris Wallace of Fox pulls examples of Trump talking disparagingly of the US. Trump's senior policy advisor Stephen Miller says Trump is motivated by patriotism while Congresswomen of color like
@AOC
and
@Ilhan
"detest" America:
If you missed me on
@MSNBC
, here's the segment on why it's so problematic that news outlets are helping Miller launder white supremacist ideas into the mainstream.
BREAKING: QAnon conspiracy theorists, including Jan. 6 Capitol rioter, are filming kids in Border Patrol custody to use in child sex trafficking disinformation. One agent tried to stop it, but CBP says it's powerless.
@latimes
Stephen Miller styled himself after his favorite mobsters. He repeatedly dressed up like Robert DeNiro's character in "Casino" on trips to Las Vegas, his favorite place. A longtime friend of his told me it's why he's into Trump. Book excerpt in
@VFHIVE
:
Here are the two main fact-checks regarding Border Patrol's anti-immigrant propaganda film. It features a succession of false and misleading headlines. The full piece:
An anti-vax relative brought Covid into my high-risk mother’s house where 4 generations of Latinos live, and now we are all in purgatory.
Get your f$&
@ing
vaccines.
Stephen Miller's pro-immigrant grandmother died from COVID-19 complications, and the White House is denying it, reports
@DavidCornDC
. As I reported in
@DailyBeast
last month, Ruth's life depended on immigrant cartakers from the moment she got the virus.
This column means a lot to me. It’s a about love, the unfathomable cruelty of bipartisan border policies and a father’s fight to the death to return to his family. Please take the time to read.
@latimes
Elder literally told Stephen Miller, Trump's most divisive advisor, that he wants him to be President of USA. Here's a screenshot of the email, which I obtained for my book "Hatemonger." Elder shaped Trump's campaign via Miller.
NEW COLUMN: If it weren’t for U.S. gun makers supplying Mexico’s cartels, my 16-year-old cousin Diego might not have been kidnapped. His mom wouldn't be sifting through sewage searching for him today.
Why Mexico should win its historic lawsuit:
@latimes
NEW COLUMN: A call I received from
@kdeleon
last year suggests the leaked audio wasn't a one-time lapse. All three of these LA City Council leaders must resign and make way for a new generation of Latinos who've shown they can lead this overdue reckoning.
Trump's attacks on the 1619 Project are 100% Stephen Miller, who was mentored by this man––who denies the existence of systemic racism EXCEPT against white people.
Mexico's low-wage factory workers are playing a significant role in saving American lives from COVID-19 by making medical supplies sent north. They are unlikely to have access to equivalent healthcare if they or their loved ones get sick.
Less than a year after Trump threatened tariffs on Mexico, the country is exporting billions in Coronavirus medical equipment to the US (even though its own hospitals lack basic resources).
Steve Bannon wrote that I'm an "insane hater." Stephen Miller's mentor David Horowitz called my journalism "worthless garbage." DHS's illegal boss Chad Wolf says I'm not an "actual reporter." Are there awards for the most insults received in writing from Trump stalwarts?
The leading Republican in the CA recall race, Larry Elder said: "You could make an argument that the people that are owed reparations are not only just Black people but also the people whose 'property' was taken away after the end of the Civil War."
California Republican candidate for Governor Larry Elder once said it can be argued that slave owners were owed reparations at the end of the Civil War.
NEW COLUMN: The House is voting to censure Rep. Gosar for his video of him killing AOC. Republicans defended him. I wrote about how this reflects their violent extremist turn, catering to incels & neo-Nazis:
@latimes
Mary Ann Mendoza, the "angel mom" speaking tonight at
#RNC2020
about her son who died in a car crash with an immigrant, spoke at an event promoting Steve Bannon's fraudulent border wall scheme that got him arrested:
BREAKING:
@GavinNewsom
may be the anti-Trump after all. His spokeswoman confirmed to me that he signed the bill to facilitate farmworker unionizing today.
It's a big victory for immigrant rights & California labor. My
@latimes
column from Monday:
Stephen Miller has tested positive for Coronavirus, senior administration officials tell
@HallieJackson
. He helped prep Trump for the debate with Biden shortly before Trump tested positive.
As a freshman at Duke, Miller left garbage strewn across the floor of his dorm. When a student asked if he was going to pick it up, Miller asked, "What hellhole are you from? We have people here for that." Review of HATEMONGER by
@nlanard
@MotherJones
Trump is making Día de Los Muertos a national day of vilifying Latinos. It’s a last-ditch effort by the Stephen Miller team to distract Americans from real threats before Election Day.
Journalist
@josie_huang
repeatedly shouted the name of her news org indicating she was exercising 1st Amendment rights as a reporter as this happened. Under Trump, people are increasingly emboldened to treat journalists like enemies and criminals. This is how fascism starts.
Thank you for what is the clearest footage of my arrest by
@LASDHQ
.
It’s how I remember it — like being tossed around in the ocean and then slammed into rock
THREAD: I wrote a piece in
@jezebel
about how the stories of “bad hombres” have long been distorted and deployed to terrorize entire immigrant communities. Obama’s “felons, not families” paved the way for Trump’s “criminals” and “rapists.” 1/6
98% of mass shootings are committed by men.
Bullying doesn't cause murder, nor do hard lives or mental illness. We have to talk about how we culture men to embrace violence as a quick fix for discomfort.
Violent masculinity is a cultural pathology.
NEW COLUMN: Blake Masters is the GOP's most dangerous '22 candidate. He's posing as a nationalist, but he's a pawn of billionaire Peter Thiel, who brags of participating in "the erosion of the nation-state."
@latimes
FACT-CHECK on Trump. He says: "In California we have a certain area that is heavily infected on the Mexico side and if we didn’t have a border wall there it would be a really catastrophic situation." Baja CA numbers are still below CA's. Outbreak was in US before MX.
The threat isn’t coming through the border. It’s here. The top homeland security threat are racist white men.
When people talk about “border security,” it’s deliberate distraction.
BREAKING:
@larryelder
, the right-wing LA-based talk show host, is running for CA governor. He’s a black man who says Black people are “more racist” than whites. He mentored Stephen Miller from teen through Trump years.
@AkiPeritz
@yaf
Yeah. I just meant the packed room of youths fawning over the architect of Trump's white nationalist agenda is the future. So if anyone thinks these fanatical ideas are dying with older generations – think again.
What will mass Latino journalist layoffs in an election year mean for the spread of disinformation in our communities? Crucial piece by
@SuzGamboa
, honored to be included with
@MariaTeresa
.
Job cuts of Hispanic journalists at the L.A. Times and other newsrooms raise worries of fewer watchdogs calling out misinformation and fake content aimed at Latinos.
THREAD: My new column
@latimes
explores the mind of OAN's Pearson Sharp and how OAN fits into San Diego’s long history as a magnet for extremists "who dream of being white heroes at the edge of darkness."
Remember when the US military destroyed a hospital in Afganistan, then blamed the Afghans? (See 2015 Kunduz hospital airstrike). It’s our job as journalists to report facts we’ve verified, not be state mouthpieces.
Below is today’s lead headline at
@latimes
. The Times simply accepts what terrorist organization Hamas said even though it’s false. This both sides journalism is factually wrong. A true headline would say “Rage spreads over Gaza hospital blast amid false narrative from Hamas.”
Congressional Republicans are meeting with Stephen Miller to discuss immigration because they, like him, despise the idea of the "browning" of the United States.
Rep. Paul Gosar is doubling down on his staff's racist animated video of him murdering AOC, saying she "is representative of the plague of illegal immigration." And
@GOPLeader
is still silent. The GOP is cool with this.
NEW: The RNC was thick with themes from the neo-Nazi conspiracy theory of "white genocide," which inspires Trump's senior advisor and speechwriter Stephen Miller, the El Paso massacre terrorist and more:
@nytopinion
@WmMorrowBooks
“For at least its first 80 years, the Los Angeles Times was an institution deeply rooted in white supremacy and committed to promoting the interests of the city’s industrialists and landowners.“ Remarkable reckoning.
Alex Padilla is the first U.S. Senator to put literal sweat into the work of immigration reform. It's past time for Democrats to prioritize immigration protections for the people who keep our country from starving.
Migrant farm workers put food on our tables & kept grocery stores stocked throughout a global pandemic. Their work is essential.
Today, I'm joining workers with
@UFWupdates
and
@ufwfoundation
in the fields for a day in their boots.