8 November 7 - 13, 2024 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents and medical training. … We’re afraid that one day, eventually, our residency programs will not fill and then the numbers of OB- GYN providers throughout our state will de- crease.” For Hamilton, the path forward will be an attempt “to find a way to be happy,” while struggling with the belief that “America is broken.” He is also concerned about state- ments made by Trump late in the campaign about punishing his enemies, and whether or not he — along with other outspoken abortion rights advocates like Kate Cox and Amanda Zurawski — will face retribution for their campaigning. “These people who say, ‘This is not who we are.’ I mean, this is who we are. Appar- ently we’re racist, sexist and women’s rights don’t matter as much as the economy. More women will die, but that doesn’t seem to matter as much as the price of groceries,” Hamilton said. “God help any woman who needs abortion care in Texas.” ▼ IMMIGRATION/ELECTION TEXAS DEMS PLAN TO AID IMMIGRANTS PROMISES TO HEIGHTEN BORDER SECURITY MAY HAVE PAID OFF FOR REPUBLICANS IN THE RIO GRANDE VALLEY, WHICH IS TYPICALLY WON BY DEMOCRATS. BY EMMA RUBY A s Republican Ted Cruz stepped up to the podium to celebrate yet an- other successful run for the U.S. Senate on election night, audience members broke out into chants of “Build the wall.” Cruz, scanning the crowd, nodded, pointed at the raucous audience members, and said simply, “We’re going to.” He was met with cheers. Immigration emerged as a major talking point in the final months of election season, with disinformation surrounding Haitian immigrants in Ohio, fear-mongering about the Southern border and conspiracy theo- ries about Venezuelan gangs taking over American apartment complexes signaling a return to former President Donald Trump’s 2016 political rhetoric. The anti-immigrant shift is concerning, but not surprising, to Jen Ramos, a South Texas native and state Democratic orga- nizer. Ramos told the Observer that Texas Democrats will need to work overtime in the months leading up to the presidential inau- guration to secure resources and aid for Texas’ “most vulnerable populations,” in- cluding immigrants, who she believes will be targets of the Trump administration and the Republican-led Texas Legislature. “We know what’s going to happen be- cause of what happened in 2016,” Ramos said. “We experienced fear in the Trump ad- ministration, so we know the terror that is to come.” Promises to ramp up border control mea- sures may have paid off for Republicans in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley region. Along the Texas-Mexico border, Repub- licans tallied wins across a region that was won by Joe Biden in 2020 and has histori- cally voted for Democrats. The trend is in line with national data that shows Latino voters skewed increasingly conservative in the polling booth. One major shift was re- corded in Republican Monica De La Cruz’s race; the representative for Texas’ 15th Con- gressional District ran a campaign centered on border security, and she claimed a victory in Hidalgo County, where the majority of her district lives. De La Cruz lost the primarily Hispanic county by 13 points in 2022, and by 20 points in 2020. On election night this year, she won it by four points. On social media, De La Cruz celebrated the county’s flip, stating “The Democrats took us for granted, in- sulted our values, and foisted a radical open borders agenda on us. Republicans are the party of prosperity and opportunity! ¡Gra- cias!” Border policy can’t completely account for Republicans’ overwhelming victory in South Texas, Ramos warns. Instead, she thinks the economy was the motivating is- sue for a majority of Latino voters, who she believes do not typically identify with anti- immigrant rhetoric or rhetoric targeted at Latinos from countries other than their own. Ramos points to comments made by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who referred to Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage” at one of Trump’s final rallies, as a comment that may have caused shockwaves within the Puerto Rican community but not the La- tino community as a whole. “In South Texas, where everybody’s His- panic and everybody’s Latino, there’s this conceived notion of, ‘Oh, you know, that’s those immigrants,” Ramos said. “We look at communities that are predominantly Mexi- can-American, and they don’t see them- selves reflected in the comments about immigrants being rapists or terrorists or criminals.” ▼ LGBTQ/ELECTION NEVER GIVE UP THOUGH REPUBLICANS LIKE DONALD TRUMP AND TED CRUZ WERE VICTORIOUS, THE NORTH TEXAS LGBTQ COMMUNITY SAYS THE FIGHT FOR THEIR RIGHTS IS FAR FROM OVER. BY CARLY MAY GRAVLEY G oing into the 2024 election, many in Dallas’ LGBTQ community were feeling cautiously optimistic. Javan Gonzalez, a precinct chair for the Dallas Democratic Party, was in good spirits while campaigning at the Oak Lawn Branch of the Dallas Public Library, a popular poll- ing location in Dallas’ historic “gaybor- hood,” on Tuesday. “I think we are hopeful and anxious,” Gonzalez told the Observer. “At the end of the day — gay, straight, trans — they all want the same thing. They want to live their life and be happy and free.” Gonzalez came armed with pocket-sized voting guides listing pro-LGBTQ candi- dates. High-profile Democrats Kamala Har- ris, Colin Allred and Jasmine Crockett were predictably at the top of the bill, but the guide included candidates all the way down the ballot, including John R. Ames for Dallas County tax assessor-collector and Katherine Culbert for railroad commissioner. “As the minority party in Texas, our Dal- las representatives are very important in representing us on a state level,” Gonzalez says. “They advocate against some of the more extreme legislation that comes through. [...] They killed a lot of bills or tried to kill a lot of bills in the committees that would harm our community.” During last year’s legislative session, Texas lawmakers passed a staggering num- ber of bills targeting the LGBTQ community, with a particular focus on transgender peo- ple and drag performers. Senate Bill 12, for instance, criminalized sexually explicit performances in front of children, but was originally designed to re- strict minors from attending drag shows. Though language explicitly referring to drag was removed, references to “accessories or prosthetics that exaggerate male or female sexual characteristics” remain. On Tuesday night, Station 4 in Oak Lawn hosted the “fiercest and most patriotic” watch party in Dallas. Local drag queens Marsha Dimes, Shantae Morgan, Velma K. L’Amour and Kylee O’Hara Fatale per- formed in character as Kamala Harris. The performances were exuberant and lighthearted, with Dimes stealing the show as Ted Cruz leaving for Cancun during the 2021 winter storm (suitcase and all) and Fa- tale lip-syncing to classic soundbites from Harris (and Maya Rudolph as Harris on Sat- urday Night Live). The anxiety was palpable even before the queens took the stage. When we spoke to Fatale backstage at around 7:45 p.m., Donald Trump’s lead was already dampening the party atmosphere. Fatale is no stranger to working under these circumstances. She was incorporating current events into her performances long before donning the Kamala wig and is an ambassador for Drag Out the Vote, a non- profit dedicated to promoting voting rights. “I’ve been very active in politics with my drag,” Fatale tells us. “I remember the year that Hillary Clinton [ran for] the presidency. I was in the middle of a show and the whole show just stopped and was canceled. With this show .. .I know the world sucks right now, but we’re trying to give you some joy.” Fatale says that regardless of the out- come, she will remain steadfast in her mis- sion to entertain and educate through drag. “A lot of people were really scared when drag was attacked, but I was not fazed,” she says. “I knew we weren’t going anywhere. We are literally party clowns that look fabu- lous. I’m just confident in my community that we’re not going to get fazed by this. [...] I make sure to keep calm and carry on. Keep calm-ala.” After Trump was projected to win the presidency and Republicans such as Ted Cruz won control of the Senate, reactions from LGBTQ advocates nationwide were swift. Brad Pritchett, interim CEO of advocacy group Equality Texas, still believes Cruz’s days in the Senate are numbered. “While Ted Cruz may have won this elec- tion, his tenure won’t last much longer,” Pritchett said in a statement in the Carly May Gravley Kylee O’Hara Fatale was one of the performers dressed as Kamala Harris. Brad Greeff / iStock Democratic organizer Jen Ramos is “very concerned” that a second Trump presidency will initiate a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment and policy in Texas and nationally. Unfair Park from p6 >> p10
