By Milli Legrain
CULPEPER, Virginia.— A month before the presidential election, at the Republican Party headquarters in the center of a small town in Virginia, a man in a
Make America Great Again
cap
serves, without a mask, a stream of voters who they go in and out.
His name is Dewey McDonnell and he is a veteran in the Republican Party.
Many come to him for campaign posters that say 'Donald Trump', others make donations and the occasional
register to vote for the first time.
"
This is freedom
," McDonnell proudly announces.
"This is freedom."
[Follow our coverage of the 2020 presidential elections]
At his side, Alexander Valle, a Hispanic volunteer, ex-military with a calm air, prepares for an event of 'Latinos for Trump', which he is organizing this Saturday in a town park.
It is not common to see Latinos in the Republican headquarters in Culpeper.
Although
20% of the inhabitants are Hispanic,
many of them are undocumented, others are still waiting to process their citizenship and the majority of those who vote favor the Democratic Party.
But Valle, born in the United States to Honduran parents, knows several small local Latino entrepreneurs whose businesses have flourished in recent years and who, like him, "are happy with Trump."
Alexander Valle, of Honduran parents, plans to vote for Trump this year.
This Defense Department contractor voted for former President Barack Obama in 2008. Milli Legrain
Valle wants to do his bit to encourage Hispanics to get involved in the electoral process, but at the same time warns that the United States “is like your home.
You don't let anyone in.
You have to be a little careful.
There are good ones, but there are also bad ones ”.
A melting pot of cultures in times of change
Culpeper is a town an hour and a half from Washington, DC, in the state of Virginia.
He has voted Democrat since 2008 and here, as in the rest of the state, Democrat
Joe Biden leads Trump in the polls by at least 10 points.
In addition, it is a true melting pot of culture.
According to Census data, 20% declare themselves Hispanic, 20% black and 56% white.
Due to its demographic composition, it
is more like a large city,
but it has only 20,000 inhabitants, neighbors who know each other.
That contrasts with the rest of Virginia, a state where 61% are non-Hispanic white, 20% are black, 7% are Asian and 10% are Latino, according to federal data.
In the 2016 presidential elections, it was considered a pendulum state (
swing state
, in English): where political preferences are so even that with each vote they can oscillate between one party and the other.
During Trump's tenure, it already became Republican-secured territory.
But then COVID-19 arrived, the economy, (as in the rest of the country) suffered, and now Biden has the upper hand.
Larry Giesting, a Democratic activist, a neighbor of ultra-conservative City Representative Jon D. Russell, remembers
the Culpeper of 40 years ago as a "typical little southern town"
where "they" (that is, the Republicans) "had control of everything."
But since then the town has seen many changes.
From 2000 to 2007, Culpeper County's Hispanic population grew an impressive 312%.
After Frederick, a neighboring county,
Culpeper was the county with the largest Latino population in the country.
This is the importance of the census for the Latino population in the United States
June 18, 202001: 02
Today, everyday scenes are very different from those that were traditionally lived here.
Just a few blocks from the Republican Party office, in a Mexican store that sells bottles of detergent, cans of beans, bags of chicharrón and wrestling masks, a young woman born in El Petén, Guatemala, speaks in an indigenous language with the cashier, while Mexicans, Salvadorans and Hondurans wait in line to make their purchase.
Giesting tells how the arrival of immigrants caused the population to multiply and generated reprisals at the local level.
One of the first immigrants to arrive in Culpeper, when it was still a rural town, in 1987, was the Mexican Martín Bernal.
He went on to open several successful businesses in the area, such as the emblematic store in the center, which was then called El Nopal.
His activism in favor of the Hispanic community led him to participate in protests in Washington, DC, and made him known in the area.
Thus he became the target of racism and harassment,
and clashed with the local authorities.
In 2013, he claims, he received threats from the Ku Klux Klan, the racist and violent white supremacist group.
Resistance to immigrants is felt from the government, officially.
Since 2018, Culpeper County Police have an agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to detain undocumented immigrants.
This,
in line with an executive order from President Donald Trump,
makes Culpeper police one of 77 local authorities in 21 states participating in the program with ICE nationwide.
The latest raid in Culpeper occurred in March this year, at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, when several immigrants were detained at a 7-Eleven store.
The action instilled fear in the Hispanic community and even mistrust towards the authorities when seeking a test of COVID-19.
[Follow our coverage of the coronavirus pandemic]
But over time and despite the anti-immigrant stance of Culpeper County Sheriff Scott Jenkins, and the Trump Administration, Bernal believes that the town today is “calmer” and its residents have been accepting the presence of immigrants.
"They have realized that immigrants bring taxes and money comes in through them."
The entrepreneurial footprint of Latinos has also been undeniable.
"Hispanics have opened construction companies and
landscaping
(landscaping)," he
adds.
One of them is Antonio Morales, who arrived from Guatemala 15 years ago.
Antonio Morales arrived from Guatemala 15 years ago and works in landscaping.
Her family has seen their income reduced due to the pandemic.Milli Legrain
Morales says that with the arrival of COVID-19, he only has work two days a week to support his wife and two children.
They are not the only ones who have suffered financially from this health crisis.
Through 'Impactando Culpeper', an organization that supports the Hispanic community, Latinos have as an ally Yanet García, a community leader who has lived in Culpeper for 19 years and has her own construction business.
Although she declares herself a Democrat, this perfectly bilingual Latina has learned not to politicize the organization she leads, especially in times of coronavirus.
The Hispanic community has been disproportionately affected by the pandemic and needs have been growing.
"You can be a Democrat or a Republican, but we all have to survive," says Garcia.
The eternal debate on weapons
Carrying weapons is another issue that, as in the rest of the country, divides Culpeper residents.
“They've gone crazy about guns,” laments Marilyn Dunphy, a Democratic Party volunteer and founder and organizer of Culpeper Fiesta, an annual celebration of Latino culture.
Dunphy believes that Republicans have been taking increasingly radical positions on this issue.
Ed Dunphy, secretary of the Culpeper Democrats, and Marilyn Dunphy, founder of Culpeper Fiesta, support the re-election of Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger and hope to bring Democrat Joe Biden to the presidency. Milli Legrain
According to City Representative Keith L. Brown, allowing weapons to be carried ensures that Culpeper residents are protected.
For this reason, this year, local authorities passed a resolution allowing the carrying of guns in public, making
Culpeper a 'sanctuary town' for carrying guns.
“Gun-free zones encourage bad people to come into our community and hurt us,” says Brown.
But just last month, a drunken and armed Culpeper resident took the life of a local resident mother of a family.
Brown regrets the facts, but says "you can't stop someone with no record from doing this kind of thing."
In turn, the same Culpeper County Sheriff Scott Jenkins, who promotes military training for citizens as a form of entertainment, is also known for his inflammatory comments against the black community.
Racial protests and COVID-19 are factors that motivate young people to vote, according to survey
Sept.
10, 202001: 16
Faced with the posting of a recent video on Facebook calling Black Lives Matter a “terrorist” organization, Sandra Reaves, the director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) He claimed that his words were "damaging, divisive and disappointing."
Still undecided
Although he does not always speak out loud,
in Culpeper the tension is latent, a county divided between supporters of Trump and Biden.
But not everyone falls into one side or the other.
With just a month to go before the election, some residents are still undecided who to vote for.
One of them is David Pollard, an electrical engineer part of a multiracial family.
Pollard weighs the importance of race issues and how tensions around racism have increased in recent years, but
acknowledges that he has also done well economically during the Trump administration.
David Pollard, left, and his family: Heather Seation, Greg Robinson and Lee Moore, in Culpeper, Oct. 3.
Pollard is an electrical engineer and is undecided a month before the election.Milli Legrain
Meanwhile, Sherrie Settle, a Republican Party official in Culpeper who works for a Christian radio station, sees how
the values and priorities of the cities have become closer to this town
, now known as a 'bedroom town' because it connects the town with Washington DC with other cities on the train track.
This 57-year-old grandmother speaks well of her Hispanic neighbors.
But Settle says he doesn't want to pay for services as if he lived in a city.
He thinks that the changes are enough.
"I want my quiet life here in the country," he says.
In turn, Yanet García appreciates the support that her organization has received from Christian groups.
But he warns that “change cannot be stopped.
It's here."