In East Los Angeles on Sunday, member of local Latino groups donned hoodies, grabbed bags of Skittles and headed to Mariachi Plaza to express what event organizers said was their "rage with the decision, love for our communities, and solidarity with the Trayvon Family". While many Latino advocacy groups have expressed anger and frustration with the verdict, few have held rallies, and some have chosen to steer clear of the controversy entirely. The split highlights the peculiar racial dynamics at work in the trial of George Zimmerman, whose mother identifies as Afro-Peruvian yet whose MySpace page (since taken down) featured posts containing disparaging comments about Mexicans.
In May 2012, the Miami Herald dug up an old MySpace page belonging to Zimmerman in which described a court appearance over a woman he called his "ex-hoe" and gloated over having had two felony charges (for obstructing justice and battery on a law enforcement officer) reduced to a misdemeanor. About his previous hometown of Manassas, Virginia, Zimmerman said he wouldn't miss "driving around scared to hit mexicans walkin on the side of the street" and "workin 96 hours to get a decent pay check, gettin knifes pulled on you by every mexican you run into!"
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The event description for the East Los Angeles protest, which saw groups like the Not One More Coalition, Immigrant Youth Coalition, Eastside Café, Corazón del Pueblo and La Mina standing in solidarity with the Martin family for two hours, read "We Stand with Undocumented Families. We Stand with All Those Lost to Violence, White Supremacy and Injustice! We Stand TOGETHER!"
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Fox News reported on Monday that Antonio Gonzalez, the president of the William C. Velasquez Institute, a non-partisan Latino advocacy nonprofit, said the Trayvon Martin case wouldn't get widespread support from Hispanic leaders because of lack of a clear race-based narrative. "When there is a clear ethnically-based perception that somebody is being wronged, Hispanics will rally," Gonzalez said. "This is like a square peg in a round hole...it just doesn't fit."
The Congressional Hispanic Caucus had asked the Department of Justice in 2012 to pursue the case as a federal hate crime, but in 2013 it has remained silent on the issue. A spokeswoman from the Caucus told Fox that it would not comment or release a statement on the matter after the trial.
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The National Council of La Raza waited two days to issue a press release saying it was "disappointed and saddened" by the trial's verdict, and president and CEO Janet Murguia asked the Department of Justice to pronounce more "forcefully" on it. But La Raza has stopped short of calling for protests on the matter. In 2012, when Rush Limbaugh criticized the group for its silence on the matter, spokeswoman Lisa Navarrete told CNN, "We really regret people trying to use this to divide blacks and Latinos."
Navarrete added, "The fact that George Zimmerman is Latino is irrelevant to his actions. Personally that's the media's fault. Everything has to fit into a narrative and a paradigm. Initially it was a white guy who shot a black kid. Now they've split the difference."
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