MARIA HINOJOSA: There's obviously an interest, from Latinos and Latinas, of knowing. What's sad is that, up to a point, we were again, invisible, in terms of Latinos, in terms of the topics that we're interested in, that touch us, we were invisible. Which is why, both of you have said that we must have Latinos and Latinas in these debates to bring up these issues. We are a voting bloc that should be included and we're not.
JORGE RAMOS (CO-HOST): What did you think of Lester Holt? Lester Holt, of course, the moderator of the debate -- what did you think, Maria?
HINOJOSA: Well, I would've not have liked to have to be seated in his position. It's tough. At a point I put up a tweet that said “Facts, facts, facts” because sometimes him, as a moderator couldn't stop things to say “this is a falsehood” or “this is another falsehood,” but there were some moments were I would've wanted him to define more, request clearer responses from Donald Trump, and at the same time, from Hillary Clinton.
MARIA ELENA SALINAS (CO-HOST): This has been debated through out these last weeks, the role of the moderator, [whether] they should be lie detectors. But it's interesting that Hillary Clinton in several occasions said that fact-checkers should've been very active. [...] Jorge, you mentioned earlier that the immigration issue was absent and many people on social media said the same thing. Do you believe that's a topic that will determine the Latino vote? Latinos are also very interested in the issue of employment, and health care and the economy.
JORGE HERNÁNDEZ: Well, we're interested in all of them. The economy, sure. But the issue for us is immigration, specially the problem we are having.
[...]
HINOJOSA: You know, Jorge, it is said that one of the reasons the Latino population doesn't come out to vote in the numbers we could is because we don't feel included in the political conversation in the country. It's even said Latino families, what we should be talking about -- when we're having dinner, when we're enjoying the weekend -- that we should be talking about political issues, starting when our kids are very young, to start talking about political parties, about elections, about participation so that this becomes part of our culture. Not see ourselves as Latinos separated from political participation but say, “this is our country.”
SALINAS: At some point, the Hispanic community needs to not only take its rights seriously, but also its responsibilities.
RAMOS: This is our country.
