(no link)
Campaign `88 - GOP heavily courting Hispanic voteHide Details
Houston Chronicle (TX) (Published as Houston Chronicle) - AUGUST 21, 1988
NEW ORLEANS - While Hispanics made up a small percentage of the delegates to the Republican National Convention, they were given a high profile by a party heavily courting their votes this fall.
Hispanic speakers at the convention included U.S. Rep. Manuel Lujan Jr. of New Mexico, who gave a podium to address, Columba Bush, the Mexican-born daughter-in-law of GOP nominee George Bush, to Houstonian Ninfa Laurenzo, who mentioned her successful restaurant chain in her seconding speech. Columba Bush spoke partly in Spanish when she seconded her father-in-law’s nomination.
And while many delegates at the convention support having English made the nation’s official language, the Republican National Committee broadcast network provided a gavel-to-gavel satellite feed of the convention simultaneously translated into Spanish.
The Republicans know they must work for the Hispanic vote. They face a bilingual Democratic ticket: presidential nominee Michael Dukakis, governor of Massachusetts, and his running mate, Texas Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, are fluent in Spanish.
(snip)
(no link)
THE QUIET LIFE OF COLUMBA BUSH
Miami Herald, The (FL) - January 19, 1989
EXCERPT
During a campaign picnic in Indio, Calif., Columba spotted a group of Mexican-Americans demonstrating for Dukakis. Disregarding political differences, Columba invited the pickets to join her for lunch. “They’re fellow Mexicans,” she reasoned.
They refused. Columba still doesn’t understand why.
But, on many of these occasions there were monumental struggles with jittery nerves and the English language. Last August Bush referred to his grandchildren in a conversation with the president as “Jebby’s kids from Florida, the little brown ones.”
“I was trembling the next day,” says Columba. But her fear, she says, was that her children would be hurt by the “hype” over their grandfather’s comment. As for the remark itself, Columba took it as a sign of affection. In Latin culture, she points out, loved ones are many times referred to with words some North Americans may consider odd — negro, gordo (fat), viejo (old).
Columba defended the comment, lashing out at the “misinterpretation” of her father-in-law by the public. The controversy taught her a difficult lesson in American politics, but it did not bother her, she says, because it was expressed with a grandfather’s love.
“Brown,” she said at the time, “is a beautiful color.”
“My father-in-law is so sensitive. Sometimes I think he displays too much love for my children,” says Columba.
This same devotion to Bush led her to become a U.S. citizen months before the election. She became a citizen, she says, to vote for Bush.