Actress Maria Conchita Alonso is an anti-illegal immigration activist and fierce opponent of both the Castro brothers and the late Hugo Chavez. She has never hid her politics, appearing several times on Hannity and The O’Reilly Factor.
But Alonso’s endorsement of Tea Party candidate Tim Donnelly proved to be a bridge too far for San Francisco Latinos. After Alonso cut an ad with the colorful Donnelly, the local Hispanic community went ballistic. This led to Alonso being forced to quit a production of The Vagina Monologues that was set to open next month.
Donnelly has voiced strong views against illegal immigration and was once involved with the Minutemen Project, a group that patrolled the border with Mexico to catch immigrants coming across.
“Politicians and big government are killing our prosperity, pushing welfare costs through the roof and driving our schools into the ground,” Donnelly said in the ad.
Standing next to Donnelly, Alonso jokingly translated in Spanish, “We’re screwed.”
Alonso is an actress of Cuban and Venezuelan descent. She is perhaps best known for her role in the movie “Moscow on the Hudson” which also starred Robin Williams.
The actress was to perform next month at the Brava Theater Center in San Francisco’s Mission District in a Spanish-language version of “The Vagina Monologues,” scheduled for a run from February 14th through 17th. The show is being produced by none other than Eliana Lopez, wife of San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi.
“We really cannot have her in the show, unfortunately,” Lopez told KPIX 5. She said Alonso abruptly resigned from the cast on Friday, given the backlash on the immigration issue.
“Of course she has the right to say whatever she wants. But we’re in the middle of the Mission. Doing what she is doing is against what we believe,” Lopez said.
Oh, dear. We musn’t have that, must we? After all, there’s only one belief system among all Hispanics and if you don’t agree, good luck getting a job, sucker.
Alonso received an earful from listeners of Spanish-language radio station KIQI 1010 AM in San Francisco on Friday, after she said in an interview that she supported many of Donnelly’s views on illegal immigration. Several listeners took her to task after she used the term “illegal” to describe undocumented immigrants.
In the ad, Alonso holds a chihuahua named “Tequila” and uses some vulgar language which has also been a point of contention among some Latino viewers.
“We don’t act like that. First of all, that is not a typical Latina,” said Jim Salinas, a long time Mission resident and former president of the San Francisco Latino Democratic Club. Salinas said there probably would have been boycotts if Alonso had stayed on the production.
Liberal Hispanics tie themselves into knots trying to avoid saying what everyone in America knows; people who are in the U.S. without proper documentation are here illegally. I couldn’t care less if someone is “offended” by the truth. What does being offended have to do with the law? “Illegal” is the perfect word to describe those who broke the law to get here. Why mess with the English language except to obscure the truth?
Here’s the offending ad, which I find pretty clever, actually:
If the play had been about the heroic actions of illegal immigrants, or portrayed illegals in a positive light, her participation could have been questioned on the grounds of hypocrisy. But the VagMons is about female empowerment — something Alonso is demonstrating by taking an unpopular political position in the face of hysterical denunciations.
Caving in to pressure was probably inevitable given the narrow-minded intolerance of much of San Francisco’s Hispanic community. Simple economics demanded Alonso’s removal. It would be grossly unfair to the investors who put up money in hopes of making a profit, as boycotts would have made it nearly impossible to make money on the production.
Rather than criticize the company that is putting on the production, save your heat for a community of ignorant Hispanic leftists, slaves to a worldview that can brook no opposition, and casts out those who don’t toe their rigid, ideological line.
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