Juan Leo Salazar speaks optimistically about the future for conservative Latinos in Maryland, before digging into a Peruvian potato and tuna salad – causa de atún – in Rockville on Nov. 16. Photo by Robert Stewart/Capital News Service
By Robert Stewart
Juan Leo Salazar is on a mission to awaken a dormant political power in Maryland – the state’s conservative-leaning Latinos.
Salazar has compiled a list of 28,000 names he believes he can galvanize for conservative causes. He says his organization of Maryland Latino Republicans has roughly 300 paying members.
He and many of his conservative friends had been working and keeping their heads down, he said. Now they’re not afraid of sharing their views, despite possible criticism and even retaliation. Not anymore.
“Now that Trump is in,” Salazar said, “nobody’s afraid.”
The victory of President-elect Donald Trump has put wind in their sails. Salazar, a native of Peru, is happy to talk about the ways he believes Trump’s return to Washington will improve life for Latinos in Maryland, even Trump’s immigration plan.
Trump’s 2024 election victory created shockwaves across the country. What’s more, exit poll data on Latino voters had some analysts’ heads spinning: Nationwide, 46% of this group voted for Trump.
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But that turnout for Trump was not surprising for some Latino Republicans like Salazar. He and others had watched the ways people in their networks were responding to the Biden-Harris administration and said they saw the writing on the wall. Now, with a Republican trifecta at the federal level, they’re organizing to create momentum behind a Latino-Republican agenda in the state.
Salazar, who came to the area in the late ’60s, has many thoughts on how Trump will benefit folks in Maryland.
To start, he praised Trump’s promise to cut taxes on tips and overtime as a win for the working-class Latino community.
“Now with the tips, no tax on tips. That is wonderful,” Salazar said. “You should see how the Latino community, Hispanics, are so happy about [that].”
He also thinks the Republican victory can help improve cultural issues conservatives care about at the state level. Connected with Latino Republicans across six counties in Maryland through his organization, Salazar has a good sense of how politically transformative the issue of parental input into the school curriculum is. He believes it unifies many minority immigrant groups in the state. This, he said, could change the state’s political map.
“If those [other] minority groups can get organized … with chapters in different counties, I’m sure we can turn this state at least orange,” he said.
But to strengthen the Republican hand in a state overwhelmingly run by Democrats, you need friends.
Alirio Martinez is one of Salazar’s friends on that mission.
Martinez, 50, lives in Easton with his wife Ann and their six cats. Outside of his entrepreneurial work – the two have an online business – Martinez enjoys connecting with fellow partisans.
The two men met this October outside of an early-voting polling place in eastern Montgomery County. Martinez was in the area and wanted to see if his buddy was canvassing. Salazar happened to have a table set up there, where he was doing outreach to the Latino community.
Martinez said there are a number of reasons why he’s hopeful that Trump’s return to Washington could help Latinos in the state.
“I tell people it’s about what’s going on, they’re hurting people’s pockets big time,” Martinez said. “They’re seeing the price of the eggs, the milk … the gas.”
Martinez, who went as a Republican delegate to the Republican National Convention in 2016, said he can remember the time under Trump when his favorite sandwich cost him $5 and when gas prices were more affordable. Things changed under Biden, he believes. “Everything,” he said, “started going up.”
International politics also plays a role. The two presidential candidates took different stances on the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele. Where Trump embraced the so-called “world’s coolest dictator,” Harris expressed concerns about a decline in the country’s democratic institutions under Bukele.
“Ohh, I love that [man],” said Martinez. “He’s my hero.”
Martinez said that many Salvadorans, who comprise the largest foreign-born population in Maryland, were disgruntled with what they perceived as Harris attacking a national hero. He said Bukele has done an amazing job of fighting crime in El Salvador.
Then, there’s the elephant in the room.
Prior to the elections, immigrant rights groups warned that Trump’s return to power would spell devastation for immigrant communities. But, in Trump’s defense, both Martinez and Salazar pointed to a greater number of deportations under President Obama than under Trump.
Martinez said that there’s no way Trump is going to undertake mass indiscriminate deportation, a promise that had been a key part of his campaign.
He said people should remember that Trump extended Temporary Protected Status to Salvadorans in 2019. Trump initially revoked TPS for Salvadorans in 2018 before restoring it the next year. But Martinez, who perceives Democrats as more lenient toward illegal immigration, believes Harris was worse for immigrants in the state.
“There are bad and good people,” Martinez said.
He added that many Latinos in the state support tougher immigration. The vast majority who come to the U.S., he believes, are good and hardworking people. It’s the small percentage of undocumented individuals doing bad things in the country who he said make Americans perceive all Latinos as criminals.
Salazar also said he believes Trump would not undergo mass indiscriminate deportations.
“He’s not going to do this, because if that happens, we will be here to say, ‘Hey, that’s not right,’” Salazar said.
Both men plan on attending Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20. Both hope to meet with the administration and lobby for what they believe is important for Latinos in the state, and they are embracing optimism.
“For the Latino community,” said Salazar, “there are a lot of good things that are happening.”