On Tuesday, First Lady Jill Biden issued an apology after she likened the diversity of the Hispanic community in San Antonio, Texas, to “bodegas” and “breakfast tacos.”
Biden made the comments during a conference for the largest Latino civil rights and advocacy organization, UnidosUS, on Monday in San Antonio.
In her speech, the First Lady praised the work of Raul Yzaguirre, the former president and CEO of the UnidosUS, in helping to build the organization to serve the diverse Hispanic community in the U.S.
Just last week Yzaguirre was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest honour an American civilian can receive.
“Raul helped build this organization with the understanding that the diversity of this community — 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 — is your strength,” Biden said. While speaking, she mispronounced the word “bodegas” as “bogedas.”
“Yes, the Latino community is unique. But what I’ve heard from you again and again is that you want what all families want. Good schools. Good jobs. Safe neighbourhoods,” Biden said at the conference.
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On Tuesday morning, Biden issued an apology for the diversity comparison through Press Secretary Michael LaRosa.
“The First Lady apologizes that her words conveyed anything but pure admiration and love for the Latino community,” he wrote on Twitter.
The apology came after the National Association of Hispanic Journalists issued a statement, calling on Biden and her communications team to “better understand the complexities of our people & communities.”
“We are not tacos,” the organization wrote on Twitter.
“Using breakfast tacos to try to demonstrate the uniqueness of Latinos in San Antonio demonstrates a lack of cultural knowledge and sensitivity to the diversity of Latinos in the region,” the NAHJ wrote.
“Our heritage as Latinos is shaped by various diasporas, cultures and food traditions, and should not be reduced to a stereotype,” the organization concluded.
This is not the first time Biden has been criticized for a speech given to members of the Hispanic community in the U.S. In March 2021, the First Lady received ample online attention for her strange pronunciation of the Spanish phrase, “Sí se puede” (Yes we can). The phrase was said to farmworkers in Delano, Calif.
A Quinnipiac opinion poll from May found that only about 26 per cent of Hispanic Americans approve of President Joe Biden‘s performance as a democratic leader in 2022. This is a decrease from a 55 per cent approval rating from a year earlier, also polled by Quinnipiac.
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