I adore Dr. Jill Biden. I think she’s a lovely woman and a fantastic First Lady. I love how active she is, how many public appearances she makes and how she just seems like a great teacher and like someone you would know. But Dr. Biden made a mistake on Monday. She was giving a speech at a San Antonio conference for UnidosUS, for Latino civil rights. And she compared the diverse Latin communities in the US to tacos and bodegas. Reading her words in context, I can see what she was trying to do, but it came across the wrong way. So she apologized. Or her office apologized.
First lady Jill Biden’s office issued an apology Tuesday morning after Biden faced criticism for citing “bodegas” and “breakfast tacos” to praise Latino diversity.
Biden made the comments on Monday during a conference in San Antonio for the Latino civil rights and advocacy organization UnidosUS, where she commented on diversity of the community and the work of Raul Yzaguirre, the former president and CEO of the organization who just last week was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.
“Raul helped build this organization with the understanding that the diversity of this community — as distinct as the bodegas of the Bronx, as beautiful as the blossoms of Miami, and as unique as the breakfast tacos here in San Antonio — is your strength,” Biden said, while mispronouncing the word “bodega.”
“The first lady apologizes that her words conveyed anything but pure admiration and love for the Latino community,” Michael LaRosa, the first lady’s spokesman, said.
In a statement Monday, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists called on the first lady and her speech writing team “to take the time in the future to better to better understand the complexities of our people and communities,” adding, “We are not tacos,” and “do not reduce us to stereotypes.”
CNN’s Nicole Chavez, who was in the room for the first lady’s speech, reports that Biden’s comments — which cited examples of pieces of Latino life — were met with cheers in the packed conference room. In her speech, Biden also discussed the bipartisan gun legislation signed by the President and the tragedy in Uvalde, Texas, which is about 100 miles west of San Antonio.
Moments before Biden’s remarks, UnidosUS president and CEO Janet Murguía applauded her for appointing Latinos to top jobs in her staff and talked about a recent meeting at the White House to talk about the community.
I mean… Dr. Biden’s staffers and speechwriters should have given this speech another look. Perhaps Hilaria Baldwin contributed! “FLOTUS is talking to a Latin rights group, make sure she says something about tacos!!” DIOS MIO. The way the right-wing a–holes were talking about it, I thought Dr. Biden’s mistake was a lot worse. Again, it’s not good, but she f–ked up (her staff f–ked up) and her office apologized. Also: this is not the first time Dr. Biden has butchered the Spanish language. She needs a Spanish-speaker on her staff who can help her with her pronunciation.
Lots of people pitching a fit over Jill Biden’s taco gaffe, didn’t say a peep, or worse yet, defended Trump when he called Mexicans, “rapists and criminals”, and “invaders” from “shit-hole” countries.
Remember, that?
— Ana Navarro-Cárdenas (@ananavarro) July 12, 2022
Photos courtesy of Backgrid.
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- Washington, DC – United States President Joe Biden speaks to a member of the news media during the Congressional Picnic at the White House in Washington, DC. Pictured: Biden BACKGRID USA 12 JULY 2022 BYLINE MUST READ: MediaPunch / BACKGRID USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
Lack of diversity on her team.
She f*cked up and this was not cool but FLOTUS Biden has more compassion and heart than most of the people bashing her. She should work on adding a more diverse staff. One that reflects the entire country.
She has Latinos in top jobs. She got praised for that yesterday too.
This is a TRASH take. Seriously? Do we NOT remember the Trump years? Have a zillion seats offended folks.
Trash take is right!
How does comparing human diversity found in Hispanic communities to the diversity of iconic products found in those communities translate to calling people tacos?
Some ppl are just primed to be pi$$ed.
I’m Latina and I’m not bothered by the comment at all, or her bad Spanish. She’s American. It’s not racist to not speak a foreign language fleuntly. A lot of Latinos arrive to the USA speaking worse English than that. What the hell.
Seriously. She hasn’t ,iced in an area to hear Spanish a lot, either. I can’t believe they censured her like that from the journalist association.
Journalists kissed trump and Melania’s butts as they were cruel and nasty in word and deed.
But they come for DrJill, who works every day for this country instead of facials and Pilates all day. Plus Biden hired Latinos to top jobs!
She wasn’t outright comparing the PEOPLE to TACOS.
She was implying that the diversity, the addition of something different and interesting, into a culture that otherwise is missing it, is a wonderful thing that is memorable, LIKE the….bodega etc.
It was an analogy that was simply too close to home. Had she said “like the foam on a cappuccino, the frame on a beautiful picture or the hidden details in handmade lacework, diversity is what makes America great” that would’ve not been so fast interpreted as “insulting”.
It feels like a stretch, but I’m not Latino. And IDK aren’t tacos specifically Mexican? So maybe it’s not the best imagery to invoke in honoring all Latin communities. But it does seem like her speech was signed off on by a UnidosUS?
It was cringe AF. But imo (as a Latina) it’s not really that serious. I’m more offended at her saying “bow-dug-uhs” lol She totally butchered the word bodegas. Does she not have any Spanish speakers or anyone from NYC to tell her how to correctly pronounce bodega? lmao
For non Spanish speakers like me, how do you pronounce bodega? I’ve only ever seen it written down. Thank you
Boe-DAY-guh (emphasis on the second syllable)
Bo-Degas rhymes with and flows like Las Vegas is the best way I can write it without the audible assist.
Thanks to @TeamMeghan and @ReginaGeorge
That’s what I had guessed. There’s a lack of Spanish speakers where I live, so didn’t have anyone I could ask and having a hearing impairment means googling the pronunciation doesn’t really work. Thank you
In Spanish, it’s pronounced bo-deh-gah not bo-day-guh. Bo-day-guh is the Americanized version that everyone uses in NYC.
Democrats need to get it together about the needs and identities of the Latino community. THIS IS NOT NEW NEWS but they keep doing things that equate to ignorance, like showing up with a taco truck when speaking to Argentinians or Puerto Ricans. It’s an egregious miss for the left. Dr. Biden’s comments are another expression and example of this liberal ignorance bc unfortunately many people, including liberals, don’t practice what they preach. This is a group too taken for granted by the left, and it’s so obvious it needs to stop. Rancho libertarians, and overzealous church goers are happy to microtarget and recruit for the right wing.
100% THIS!
Isn’t her chief of staff Dominican? Anyway, the right-wing response was predictable and this entire saga was completely avoidable so she and her entire staff should be embarrassed.
As a Latina I don’t think this was the biggest deal in the world (definitely not ‘Mexicans are r*pists level by any means), but it’s horribly written, eyeroll inducing attempted pandering that falls way, way flat. The timing couldn’t be worse and it’s just frustrating that on a day that the J6 committee revealed that TFG is tampering with witnesses etc etc, we give the right an easy distraction that they can use to further alienate our community. It’s not as if Dems are hitting it out of the park with Latinos and this is just more fuel for the right’s faux outrage machine. It’s just exhausting.
As a Latina, I really didn’t take her citing of breakfast tacos as offensive because she wasnt saying Latinos are tacos. Sheesh. IMO that take is like missing the forest for the trees.
Because what I do feel frustrated with (and likely why Latino journalists pushed back) is this outdated, over-simplified characterization of Latinos. As much as I admire Dr Biden, her team did her wrong here. This is a speech that feels like it was written 25 years ago. Bodegas and tacos have been a part of the fabric of modern US culture for decades already. This is lazy writing that thinks they are celebrating our community, but it really just comes off as patronizing and a little insulting that with all the ongoing positive impact Latinos have in the U.S. we are being characterized through the same narrow lens over and over.
And I’m from Miami and have no idea what “blossoms in Miami” means. Like that’s not a thing we reference here, it’s not culturally relevant. I feel like someone thought of Florida orange blossoms and just used that. Again, just lazy all around.
She needs someone on her team who is of Latino heritage to help with these events.
The Democrats really need to get it together with all of the Hispanic community.More people in the Hispanic community are moving over to the Republican party and that is just tragic.Look at the solidly blue community in Texas that went red and voted for the Hispanic Republican candidate .I am also from Miami and most of our sizeable Hispanic community is Republican.
Do you attribute some of this to the republicans stance on abortion?
I mean… she’s married to the man who complimented Obama with “clean and articulate.” She’s also 71 years old. It’s not surprising that she’s racially clumsy. It IS an indicator of imbalanced staffing or insufficient prep work which does reflect poorly on her and the team she leads.
I was face-palming all day when I head about this. This shit needs to stop. Little tacos.
Ok so I’m in San Antonio and to add a little more context here- San Antonio is famously proud of our breakfast tacos. Like they are a really big deal here and we have been in a war with Austin for years over our tacos being better and more authentic.
It is a huge source of pride for our largely Mexican American community and while I am not Latino – I can not picture our local community taking offense to this.
We have the best breakfast tacos- they are unique to here and this is fact.
Reminds me of New Mexico’s Breakfast Burrito Byway. Breakfast burritos are such a big deal there they created a byway! As for Dr. Jill, I read the quote, thought it wasn’t so bad, but then realized because I’m not Latinx my thoughts/feelings were irrelevant. As Ann Navarro-Cardenas & many others pointed out–you don’t get upset over trump’s ‘Mexicans are murderers & rapists’ but you’re upset about this? DO NOT FORGET!!!
thank you for this context. Context and intent are SO IMPORTANT.
Absolutely they are.
I expected this to be way worse.
I would imagine our local community cheered for this and I feel it’s essential for people to understand the reverence we have for breakfast tacos in this community.
Love Jill. Everyone makes a mistake sometime. She apologized. End of. I know she will try hard to do better.
At least her apology said she’s sorry “THAT her words . . . ” and not the usual “IF her words . . . ” It’s not non-apologies (“IF anyone was offended” etc.) that bother me.
This headline bugs me. It’s misleading -like something you’d see on a right wing website. Unless that was some Onion-level sarcasm.
Certainly bad but certainly more understandable and less egregious than Don or Melania. But it happens sometimes. Recently I was talking about how food trucks have flourished and expanded out of “taco neighborhoods.” OMG my friends were mortified and I was even more mortified and had to explain that I wasn’t referring to any ethnic area, I was referring to industrial areas and construction sites because that’s where I usually see them, and in my area they are typically taco trucks. I’m not racist and I’ve worked hard to identify and work on conditioned and implicit bias. It was awful but it was a slip, a misunderstanding, and my BIPOC friends accepted my explanation and told me to just be more thoughtful and careful.
Not to blow this up to an unreasonable degree, but the next presidential election hangs in the balance here (even over a taco flub). There are excellent media experts and speechwriters and diverse PR people to read (and reread again) before the FLOTUS speaks at a podium in front of the world. This stuff is avoidable. Every appearance should be a slam dunk. One mistake won’t sink you, but repeated unforced errors will totally ruin every bit of good will in the bank. Also, I cannot have another conversation with Mr. Smith about how Joe and Kamala are a lost cause.