Gradually, our notions of who a person is have expanded — first to include Germans and Swedes (look it up, Ben Franklin was repulsed by how not-white they were), then Irish men and other European men, then white women, then slowly, everyone else. But that habit — dare I say, pleasure — of being a person among non-people? This country doesn’t let go of it easily. And the personhood of everyone who isn’t a white man is constantly open to question.
You can work non-people like dogs. You can set a non-person on the task of cleaning your house and feeding your children, and whether she likes doing it doesn’t have to enter the equation. You don’t need to care if a non-person drowns in the Rio Grande or dies of thirst in the desert. If non-people are rounded up and sent to Mexico, well, look at the rest of us! We’re all people here, and our being here after the purge of the non-people proves it.
And, sure, maybe you think you’re white. Latinos can be white. Hell, Latinos like Nick Fuentes, Enrique Tarrio and Mauricio Garcia are well-known white supremacists. But that’s not how it works when the monster is loose. White people will point their fingers at other white people and say, “They’re not people like us!” And then, just like that, you go from being white to being the target of white people.
So the reason many of us are confused about why Latinos would vote for Trump is because of that frenzied evil that so often shamefully overcomes white people in America when we let loose our racism. When white people act on our worst racist impulses — like deciding that non-white people don’t belong here, or that some people here are "vermin," or that everyone from a certain place or background is a criminal and a rapist — we enact terrible violence on our neighbors. People get hurt. People get killed. And it is never only the “right” people. When the beast is feeding, it eats everything it can reach. Including you. Including me.