Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from Radiotopia.

My name is Jody Avergan.

This day, November 8th, 1973, a man by the name of Ben Fernandez appeared before the Senate Watergate

Committee.

Fernandez was an early vocal and influential advocate for Latino involvement in Republican

politics. He co-founded the Republican National Hispanic Assembly. He served as a

fundraiser for Nixon's 1972 re-election campaign. that is what brought him before the Watergate hearings

where he testified but was ultimately exonerated of any wrongdoing.

But we want to talk about Ben Fernandez less for his testimony during Watergate and more as a way to talk about the group of

voters that he devoted his life to organizing Republican Latinos. In the wake of the 20-20 election

I'm sure you've noticed there is lots of talk about

conservative Latinos how they may have helped secure Donald Trump's victory

though different groups in different ways and we will get into that question of how

different Latino groups often get clumped together in modern politics, but this feels like a good moment to talk about the history of the GOP and the Latino vote.

And here to do that, as always, is Nicole Hammer of Colombia. Hello, Nicki.

Hello Jody.

And also with this is Geraldo-Kurava,

professor of history at Northwestern University

who specializes in just this.

He's written a book about it,

the history of the Hispanic Republican Geraldo welcome to the show

Thank you thank you for having me so tell us let's start with the guy at the center of all this what do we need to know about Ben Fernandez

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