Themes

While the topic of the article “Why Latino Children Are Scared of Donald Trump” by Héctor Tobar is – as its title announces – the negative effects Donald Trump’s campaign against immigration has on Latino children, its themes are more subtle: discrimination and fear.

Discrimination

The article explores the way in which immigrants are discriminated against and threatened by the discourse of a politician who is running for presidency in the US, namely Donald Trump.

According to the article, Donald Trump acts in a very offensive manner whenever he speaks on television about his views on immigrants and his plans for deporting them, should he become US President: “His unapologetic xenophobia has helped to push his presidential campaign to the top of the fractured Republican field.” (ll. 39-41)

The author draws attention to the dangers of xenophobic discrimination by making an analogy with Hitler’s attitude towards Jews, and implicitly referring to the Holocaust.

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Fear

Fear is another important theme the author deals with in the article. Focusing on the way children feel in reaction to Donald’s Trump aggressive attitude towards their immigrant parents, the author explores how fear has led to children turning the politician into a boogeyman.

Though the associations with Latino folk tales of boogeymen create humor in the text and help ridicule Donald Trump, they also convey the way children of immigrants experience fear:

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