Donald Trump touts his own Mexican staffers as proof that he is not racist – but Hispanic employees at his own golf club say they are offended by his comments and support Hillary Clinton.
“I’m Mexican and I don’t like how he speaks about Mexicans,” said one of his employees at the Trump National Golf Club in Westchester, shortly after the presumptive Republican nominee spoke on the night of the Tuesday primaries. The Guardian spoke with three workers who said that many Mexicans work at the golf club, in the restaurant and the grounds of the lush golf course.
Although Trump didn’t bring up his usual lines about building a wall between Mexico and the US on Tuesday night, he did speak about ensuring criminals did not enter the country as immigrants.
“I’ve embraced the victims of illegal immigration … the moms and dad who’ve had to bury their own children because of people who shouldn’t have been in the country,” said Trump in a speech read off teleprompters, his family standing beside him.
“Not everyone who is Mexican is like how he says – rapists, criminals,” said one frustrated Mexican staffer.
“There are people who think that we take away work from them. But it’s not like that … you think that an American is going to come and do this work? No one, not one. It’s hard.”
The three employees, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of putting their jobs at risk, all said they found their direct superior to be very kind, and that they’d only met Trump a handful of times. They say he always asks staff two questions: what is your name and how many years have you worked here?
“He’s very formal, very respectful,” said a South American worker, who also declined to give their name.
Because of Trump’s behavior toward his employees over the years. “I thought he was a good person … that he wouldn’t think like that,” said the Mexican staffer, who was speaking alongside another colleague who nodded in agreement throughout.
The Mexican staffer said they try not to think about the fact that they are working for him. “You work because it is necessary. If you are here working, you’re thinking only in completing your work.”
When asked if they’d vote for Trump, all three employees said no. The Mexican staffer replied: “He thinks totally negatively about Hispanics. No way. He’ll kick us out of the country.”
Two of the employees said they’d vote for Hillary Clinton over their own boss, the other said they wouldn’t vote for either of them.
The most vocal of the three said of Clinton: “At least she doesn’t think badly about us. She doesn’t believe in attacking Hispanic people, or in kicking us out, ‘clean the country’ like he says. She doesn’t speak like that.”
