In an except from his upcoming book, Emmy Award-winning Univision anchor Jorge Ramos writes that twice in his decades-long career has he been physically manhandled and prevented from asking questions and doing his job. The first time was by Fidel Castro in 1991, when he had his bodyguards shove Ramos aside after he questioned “the Cuban dictator about the lack of basic freedoms on the island.” The second time was by Donald Trump in 2015.
For Latinos who for years have tuned into the Mexico-born anchor’s newscast—“often called the Walter Cronkite of Latino America”—the image of bodyguard Keith Schiller pushing Ramos out of the Iowa press conference for questioning Trump on immigration was seared into their memories. “Go back to Univision,” Trump barked at him. But brown people heard loud and clear what he really meant: “Go back to Mexico,” and it affirmed what they’d been insisting but media was too nervous to say: Trump was, and is, a racist. Ramos:
Trump, first with a strange movement of his mouth, followed by one with his arms, called in one of his bodyguards. The man strode across the room, stopped in front of me, and grabbed me by my left forearm before dragging me out of the room. “Don’t touch me, sir,” I said.
The security officer said I was being “disruptive” and that I should wait my turn to ask a question. But I insisted that as a reporter, I had the right to do so. He asked to see my credentials, and I said that they were with my briefcase next to my seat. I also kept telling him not to touch me, but he didn’t care. He kept on shoving me and didn’t release my forearm until we were out of the room.
But the racist harassment wasn’t over just yet. Once outside the room, Ramos was then accosted by a Trump supporter—“campaign button and all”—which was also caught on film. “Get out of my country. Get out!” the man shouted at Ramos. When Ramos replied, “'I’m also a U.S. citizen.' His response made me laugh. 'Whatever,' he said, sounding like a teenager. A police officer who overheard the exchange outside the press conference stepped between us, and that was where it ended. But the hatred stuck. Hatred is contagious. And Trump is infectious.”
“I’ve been accused of being an activist,” Ramos continues. “I’m not. I’m simply a journalist who asks questions. But when there’s a politician such as Donald Trump who consistently lies, who makes racist, sexist, and xenophobic comments, who attacks judges and journalists, and who behaves like a bully during a presidential campaign, you cannot remain neutral. To do so would be to normalize his behavior … our primary social duty as journalists is to question those who have and those who seek power.”