The videos that go viral on a regular basis of white Americans viciously insulting Spanish-speaking people infest my social media, but what gets me with each one is the hatred etched in deep grooves on the white interrogators’ faces. They really hate us — and they are being encouraged to express it from on high — and applauded for it in some circles.

The opprobrium against us Latinos coming from Trump’s mouth — bad hombres, rapists, lazy — have been the spark needed to ignite this latent powder keg of racism. And it really doesn’t matter if you are technically a U.S. citizen — just ask any Puerto Rican. It only matters if you speak Spanish, and do not fit the image of what Americans supposedly should look like: white.

An artist friend, Io Carrion, said: “It is no longer the land of the free. You lose your freedom the moment you realize you are being defined and judged by those adjectives” — Latino, brown, alien, illegal.