Loretta Sanchez: Lying Racist Xenophobe?

Loretta Sanchez is a member of the U.S. House of Representatives who represents a district that takes up much of California's Orange County. This has always struck me rather funny, because Orange County is always talked up by the chattering class as being some kind of conservative Republican stronghold in mostly leftist California. Then again, the part of Orange County she represents is east of the beach, and has a 65+% Hispanic population, which tends to vote Democrat.

My mention of the demographics of Sanchez's district is not superfluous; not after an astonishing comment that Loretta Sanchez made during a Spanish-language interview with Univision the other day.

Sanchez is currently in the fight for her political life against Republican opponent Van Tran, who currently represents Orange County as a member of the California State Assembly. As his name might indicate, Van Tran is of Vietnamese heritage, rather than Hispanic. Let's roll the tape and see what Congresscritter Sanchez thinks about that:



So, those mean ol' Vietnamese are trying to take this seat from "us," huh? Who is "us," and why is so horrible that "the Vietnamese" are running for that seat?

You know what is funny though? If you take in the entire soundbite, her comment about the Vietnamese trying to take away the apparently Hispanic congressional seat is not even what I found the most offensive. Did you catch what Sanchez said about Van Tran being "anti-immigrant"? Does she even know how Van Tran came to this country?

He was born in 1964. When Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese communists in 1975, Van Tran - only 10 years old at the time - was evacuated from South Vietnam by the U.S. Army, along with his family. They settled first in Michigan, and then later moved to Orange County. "Anti-immigrant," Loretta? Van Tran IS an immigrant!

Then Sanchez goes on to describe Van Tran as "anti-Hispanic." I don't know what is in Van Tran's heart, so I have no idea what to do with Sanchez's ad hominem attack. On the other hand, Sanchez's comments make it perfectly clear that she is anti-Vietnamese.

Loretta Sanchez no longer deserves to be a member of the U.S. Congress; not that a racial panderer like this ever deserved the honor in the first place.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson