When the Estefans announced they would be coming out with an anti-Trump song, we thought: oh yeah, here comes that ether. Instead, “We’re All Mexican” may be the corniest thing we’ve heard all year. The song sounds like a generic mashup of Latin music tropes (the “lalalalas”, por dios…). And then there’s the video, which basically looks like something we could have made using iMovie and random YouTube clips of dancing chihuahuas and sarapes.
“The song, ‘We’re All Mexicans’, celebrates the positive contributions of immigrants in the United States as a balance to the negativity being expressed publicly,” the song’s description reads. Is this really all our best and brightest Latin music stars could put together? Does Emilio Estefan really think some of Latinos biggest contributions to society are guacamole and dancing chihuahuas? It’s almost enough to make you think Trump was secretly behind this and trolling us all with an unending parade of clichés.
UNLESS, as our Film Editor Vanessa Erazo has suggested, this is actually a brilliant, subtle satire of how Trump views immigrants. In that case “We’re All Mexicans” may be less of a statement of Latino solidarity and more a send-up of racist notions that all Latino immigrants are Mexican.
And to be fair, guacamole IS pretty bomb.