2016 Republican presidential candidate Gov. John Kasich (R-OH) trotted out a tired stereotype about immigrant women this week when he appeared to suggest that part of attracting the Latino vote involves tipping hotel workers.
Fielding a question about attracting Latino voters at a luncheon in southern California on Thursday, Kasich said that his plan involved inclusiveness. He brought up his moderate immigration stance, which involves finishing a border wall along the southern U.S. border and providing an eventual pathway to citizenship for some undocumented immigrants.
“I look at our friends in the Latino community as people that ought to be voting Republican,” Kasich said, according to the Columbus Dispatch. “I mean, they’re very strong family. We could all learn a little from them about the importance of family, couldn’t we? Because they are great, they are God-fearing, hard-working folks. And a lot of them do jobs that they’re willing to do.”
“That’s why, in a hotel, you leave a little tip, you know?” Kasich added, stating that he found out his housekeeper at his Los Angeles hotel room was Latino when he asked for “a little more soap.”
Chris Schrimpf, a Kasich spokesperson, explained to the Los Angeles Times that Kasich was “talking about how great the service was and how we should respect everyone in our society, no matter what their job or position might be.”
However, some Latino advocates were offended by the comment. Jorge-Mario Cabrera, communications director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, told the publication, “Most candidates have lopsided, stereotypical ideas about immigrants, which include the sense that immigrants, especially undocumented immigrants, are only good while serving others. The comment lacks history, sense of how important immigrants are to our economy, and vision where immigrants are more than just ‘the help.’”
As one of the more moderate Republican candidates on the topic of immigration who have yet to suggest Mexican immigrants as rapists or drug dealers, Kasich likely meant well. In fact, he has met with undocumented families before, appearing to be “touched by the stories,” families told ThinkProgress in July.
But Kasich’s anecdote about meeting a Latino maid is a sad reflection of a society that views Latinos as low-wage, domestic workers who appear only when Caucasians need toiletries. As USA Today’s Raul Reyes pointed out about the ABC show Devious Maids, the show “takes Latinas back to mops, brooms and aprons, to a world where one white character says to her maid, ‘If you don’t stop screwing my husband, I’m going to have you deported.’”
According to a 2012 National Hispanic Media Coalition survey, “non-Latinos report seeing Latinos in stereotypically negative or subordinate roles (gardeners, maids, dropouts, and criminals) most often in television and film.” And a 2012 University of Cincinnati study found that Americans’ perceptions of Latino Americans and immigrants were “strongly linked to their beliefs about the impact of immigration, especially on unemployment, schools and crime.”
Latinos do disproportionately work in the hotel industry — a 2011 National Council of La Raza study found that nearly one in five employees in the accommodation industry is Latino. They also disproportionately work in the agricultural industry — data from the 2000 U.S. Census shows that about one-tenth of the Latino population work in agriculture. But Latinos also excel in other industries, too. There are even undocumented immigrants attending medical school, law school, and even one practicing law legally in California.
What’s more, tipping Latinos doesn’t do much to mitigate the broader wage theft issues that they deal with on a daily basis. According to a study from the National Employment Law Project, the UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment and the Center on Urban Economic Development, “foreign-born Latino workers had the highest minimum wage violation rates of any racial/ethnic group.” Latinos make 70 percent of the amount earned by whites, a Department of Labor analysis found and many live in poverty.
Kasich isn’t alone in perpetuating the low-wage stereotype, however. Kelly Osbourne did it last month while rebuking Donald Trump’s remarks, asking, “If you kick every Latino out of this country, then who is going to be cleaning your toilet, Donald Trump?”
And another Republican candidate, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), said in 2013, “I am not in favor of a housekeeper or a landscaper crossing the border illegally.”