The setting: a two-story home in Whittier prettied with holiday decorations, pet beds, American flags and a shelf of tchotchkes dedicated to John Wayne.
The face-off: 63-year-old Gloria Valles and her daughter, 33-year-old Brittney Valles-Gordon.
The debate: What else these days? Politics. For two hours on a recent morning, the two went at it like the philosophical equivalent of UFC fighters.
Trump. Abortion. The economy. Democrats. Whether ICE agents should wear masks. Trump. Trump. Brittney, a Democrat who works in L.A.’s dining scene, lobbed barbs from the comfort of a couch with an elder shih tzu mix named Chuy by her side; Gloria stood her Republican ground from a recliner covered in a giant Dallas Cowboys blanket.
Soon they were going mano-a-mano over an issue roiling many Latinos: Trump’s unleashing of ICE and Border Patrol in many of their communities.
“Grandma came here as an illegal immigrant,” Brittney reminded her mother, referring to Gloria’s mother.
“But she made sure to make herself legal.”
“ICE doesn’t care about that — they would’ve netted Grandma.”
They’re one of many families across Southern California and the country split right now about what President Trump has wrought upon us in his second term. The divisions are especially pronounced among Latinos, a demographic that voted for him in record numbers last year — Gloria and three of her brothers included.
Trump had made historic gains among Latinos in the last presidential election, only to drop those gains faster than Tommy “The Hit Man” Hearns did Pipino Cuevas.
Among the likely reasons, which include the shaky economy: His rancid, malevolent policy toward immigrants, especially those in the country without papers.
Too many Latino families I know in this situation aren’t talking right now because of these deep political divisions — including some in my own life.
Such scenarios sadden me. But so do the public and private shamings I’m seeing on social media and in my private world of Trumper tíos or cousins who now regret their choice as the president has unleashed the dogs of deportation on Latinos regardless of citizenship status.
While it’s fun to be right, is schadenfreude really the best way to wean them off Trumpism once and for all?
The Valles family provide an intriguing case study that says as much about how Latino politics have evolved over the decades as about the power of patience with those you love.
Born in El Paso, Gloria grew up in L.A.’s Eastside in a family where John F. Kennedy was held in such esteem that one of her nieces was named Jacqueline.
“It was Democrat, Democrat, Democrat all the way,” she said, a party preference further instilled in her by a mother who raised five children on her own with the help of welfare.
“But they [the federal government] told her, ‘You need to go get trained into a job,’ and she did,” eventually working for the Housing Authority of Los Angeles. “Now, we’re just giving out welfare to anyone. ‘You’ve never been here? Here you go.’”
Gloria’s politics changed in 1979, after she met her husband. They shared El Paso and Eastside roots — but, unlike her at the time, Jaime Valles was a “straight up Republican.”
“He would get political pamphlets for us to read and say, ‘Think for yourself. Don’t vote one way just because people think Mexicans should vote one way.’”
For her first presidential election, she chose Ronald Reagan — “He was handsome, and he believed in rehabilitation [for welfare recipients]. ‘You’re not going to get free money if you’re not going to better your life.’”
The couple raised their four children on the values of hard work and faith. Jaime specialized in satellites for Northrup Grumman; Gloria volunteered as a catechist at the San Gabriel Mission while employed as a school health clerk, a job she still holds. Brittney remembers nights sitting alongside her late father watching Fox News. At Gabrieleno High School in San Gabriel, she started a Republican Club — “just six members” — that mostly amounted to “me telling everyone else, ‘You are all idiots.’”
Brittney was such a committed Republican that her AOL Instant Messenger handle was a tribute to John McCain and Sarah Palin’s failed 2008 presidential run. But the first seeds of political doubt started at a confirmation retreat, where she became upset when someone said her brother wouldn’t get into heaven because he was gay. Other family members said homophobic things about him — “the Venn diagram of being Catholic, Republican and Latino,” Brittney said as Gloria shook her head in disagreement.
Working in the food industry exposed Brittney to anti-Latino discrimination. Then she went to Rio Hondo College — “You take one Chicano Studies class, and wow. … My dad always said he regretted letting me go to higher ed,” Brittney said, as Gloria laughed.
Brittney nevertheless voted for Mitt Romney in 2012 for her first presidential vote and admitted that Trump initially intrigued her when he announced his candidacy in 2015.
“I read ‘The Art of the Deal’ and thought, ‘Maybe this is what we need.’ But then you quickly saw his cruelty on display,” mentioning his infamous remark secretly recorded about grabbing women “by the pussy.”
“There was times I was offended, but sometimes he said the truth and the truth hurts,” her mother responded. “How can I say it…”
“Just say it, girl!” Brittney exclaimed.
“We needed new blood.”
Brittney went with Hillary Clinton in 2016 and has voted for every Democratic presidential candidate since. But she became frustrated as progressives kept dismissing Latino Trump supporters like her parents as assimilated anomalies even as more Latinos drifted toward Trump every time he ran. The end result: 48% of them chose him in 2024 — the highest share of the Latino vote by any Republican presidential candidate.
“Liberals can be intolerant,” said Brittney, a flash of her old GOP days emerging. “You don’t change someone’s opinion by being a bully to them. You do it with empathy. And don’t expect someone to flip overnight. It makes them hold on to their beliefs more when you tell them that they’re dumb.”
Gloria voted for Trump a third time in 2024 because she felt Kamala Harris was “going to continue [Joe Biden’s] bulls—” but also because Trump’s promise to deport violent criminals resonated with her. She remembered shopping trips in Ciudad Juarez with family members that had to end because of cartel violence in the Mexican border town.
“Yes, this is what we need — clean it up,” she thought. “We want him to take out everyone who’s breaking laws and not trying to do things right.”
Then for the first time all afternoon, her tone turned serious in a kind of self-correct.
“That’s not happening.”
“Deporting people who are making an honest living — that’s wrong. Or people who are trying to legalize themselves. They’re doing it the right way and what we want them to do, but you’re killing their hope” by grabbing them during court appointments,” she said. “That upsets me a little.”
Gloria sounded like the living incarnation of a recent Pew Research Center poll that showed an 11% drop in support for Trump among Latinos who voted for him and that 47% of Latino Republicans think the Trump administration “is doing too much” on the deportation front — up from 28% in March.
Then, just as quickly, the Republican in her roared once more.
She said Trump didn’t deserve the blame for the cruelty of immigration agents (“His rhetoric is what inflames them,” Brittney countered) and blasted pro-immigrant activists for their protest tactics. She described how a family member earlier this year was nearly pulled out of their car when high school students protesting Trump marched on the 101 Freeway waving the flags of Mexico and other Latin American countries.
“They should be chill,” Gloria said.
“Mother! What ICE is doing is very violent!” Brittney replied. “It’s insane to say we [pro-immigrant activists] should be the ones to chill out.”
“Fine,” her mother agreed. “Both sides should be chill.”
Brittney shrugged. “No lie on that one.”
I concluded my visit with the Valles ladies by asking why it’s important for politically split families to not reject each other. Gloria pointed to the wall beside her. High school graduation portraits of her, Jaime and their four children hung on the wall.
“If we had a world where everyone agreed on everything, it would be boring. I don’t expect my kids to be like me and my husband. My kids, we trust them.”
She then looked at Brittney.
“You shouldn’t lose out on your child’s life because you’re not the same politics. You’ll miss out and regret it.”
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