Fish tacos in California. A supporter of Donald Trump warned last week that the "dominant" and "imposing" Latino culture might lead to "taco trucks on every corner". Photo / AP
Fish tacos in California. A supporter of Donald Trump warned last week that the "dominant" and "imposing" Latino culture might lead to "taco trucks on every corner". Photo / AP
A taco truck on every corner? How about a taco truck at every polling site instead.
The US Hispanic Chamber of Commerce hopes that a new campaign to bolster taco truck vendors will serve as a strong symbolic response to a supporter of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who warnedlast week that the "dominant" and "imposing" Latino culture might lead to "taco trucks on every corner."
Marco Gutierrez, who founded "Latinos for Trump" issued his warning last week in an MSNBC interview, sparking days of social media reaction that resulted mostly in mockery and some cases of political activism.
The Democratic parties in Arizona and Colorado quickly deployed taco trucks to Trump campaign offices or rallies, while Democrats in Nevada sent one to the offices of Congressman Joe Heck who is running for an open US Senate seat.
Today the Hispanic Chamber, which says it represents 4.1 million Hispanic-owned businesses nationwide, took things a step further, announcing a "Guac the vote" campaign to encourage taco truck owners to register customers to vote and then to park outside polling sites on Election Day in a symbolic, if tasty, protest at Gutierrez's comments.
The chamber will push the idea primarily on social media, believing that Gutierrez's remarks are a two-fold affront. First, to Hispanics overall, but also to all food truck vendors - small business owners - who are believed to number into the thousands nationwide.
"Taco trucks are American small business at it's finest," said Javier Palomarez, the chamber's president and CEO. "Fifty states of taco trucks at polling stations on Election Day would make one hell of a statement about the reality of Hispanic patriotism in America."
Albert Morales, the chamber's vice-president of government affairs, added that having food truck vendors help register new voters is "ideal" because "you have predictable foot traffic in public spaces with people waiting in line. Buried in the taco truck meme, the Clinton campaign has a huge opportunity between now and Election Day to earn iconic credibility at the intersection of Hispanic culture and small businesses."
The USHCC endorsed Clinton's presidential campaign in July - a first for the traditionally non-partisan group.
The Trump campaign hasn't weighed in on Gutierrez's remarks and the Clinton campaign didn't respond to requests for comment about whether it's planning to do anything to pick up on the taco truck meme.
So how many polling sites are there in the United States? Hard to say, since it's a decentralised process. But in 2004, there were 113,754 polling places across the country, according to a report by the US Election Assistance Commission.
