Heather Curtis
WMAL.com
WASHINGTON — (WMAL) About a hundred protesters stood in front of the Old Post Office Pavilion Thursday waving signs and chanting various messages in both English and Spanish denouncing Donald Trump.
Trump angered many in the Latino community after his comments about illegal immigrants.
“I’m here because I’m very offended by the words of Mr. Donald Trump. I think he accused the Mexican the immigrant and the Latino community of rapists, drug dealer and criminal, and we are not. I pay my taxes. I vote every single year,” said José Gutierrez, a member of the city’s Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender Latino community.
Protesters said Trump should not be a candidate for president in a country built by immigrants. They also called for people to boycott everything Trump, including the hotel set to open at the Old Post Office Pavilion in 2016.
“There are great hotels around this country that are not Trump related. We are here to encourage spend your money somewhere else, not with Donald Trump Enterprises,” Arlington County Board Vice Chairman Walter Tejada said standing in front of the blue Trump hotel sign.
Maryland State Delegate Ana Sol Gutierrez said shoppers aren’t the only ones who need to dump trump.
“I would urge everybody who is working to keep this empire afloat to leave, to find another job,” Gutierrez said.
Hotel construction workers have been reluctant to take a public stance on Trump. Some of the workers told WMAL Wednesday they did not want to comment and lose their jobs. Another man, who did not want to be named for fear of retribution, said he thought Trump should keep those types of comments to himself.
Paul Strauss, a U.S. shadow senator from D.C., was handing out a letter he wrote to Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell asking her to take the Trump logo off the scaffolding in front of the Old Post Office building.
“I understand it is the policy of the Department of the Interior to not permit the use or display of racist or insensitive logos on Federal land,” Strauss wrote. He said the logo perpetuates support for a man who made hateful and insensitive remarks about the Latino communities.
Copyright 2015 by WMAL.com. All Rights Reserved. (Photo: Heather Curtis)
