Wearing a sombrero and mustache for Halloween? It’s racist | Opinion
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Republican leaders circulated sombrero and mustache memes invoking racist Mexican tropes.
- Media and historians tied the memes to histories of stereotyping and white supremacy.
- Advice: Avoid derogatory Halloween costumes and go with frog, dinosaur themes.
My tip to those who want to follow Republican protocol for Halloween and dress up in the sombrero-and-mustache meme popularized by trendsetters like President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance: Don’t!
Don’t even think about sinking down to their level of using racist tropes in lieu of policy or to attack the country’s largest ethnic community.
We’re too familiar with how Republicans popularized the sombrero and mustache memes in October. Trump posted an AI-generated video of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries in a sombrero and mustache accompanied by the Mexican tune “El Jarabe Tapatío.”
Vance defended the video, saying the president “was joking, and we’re having a good time.” A Trump supporter even posted a picture of Jeffries in the sombrero standing next to a Frito-Lay delivery van and said, “FRITO BANDITO SPOTTED. Take extreme caution if encountering this thief!”
Not to be outdone, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas posted on X a video rotating Democratic senators in sombreros and mustaches. Yes, even female senators.
A conservative podcaster posted an AI-made video of him decked out as Batman beating up on immigrants wearing sombreros and mustaches.
The sombrero/mustache memes were in response to Republican claims that Democrats have shut the government down because they want to fund free health care for undocumented immigrants, a point that is completely false. Besides, using racist tropes that stereotype Mexicans as lazy is no way to cultivate support among Latino voters.
Would they dare put Jeffries on an AI-generated plantation dressed as a cotton picker for his support of the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act? This nation’s minority community has suffered enough from racist legislation like Jim Crow Laws, the Chinese Exclusion Act, Operation Wetback and the mass internment of Japanese during World War II.
There is nothing funny about these memes. I’m completely insulted.
White supremacy is the cause
Growing up, I’d watch Speedy Gonzales on television race away from danger with his oversized sombrero hanging on for dear life and, despite hearing his heavily accented English, I’d marvel at his smarts and heroism. Latino organizations successfully fought to keep him on the air in 2002 when The Comedy Channel tried to pull the rodent from its lineup.
Is Speedy Gonzales, the “fastest mouse in all of México,” a stereotype? I don’t think so, but others will argue with me.
Is the Frito Bandito a racist stereotype? Yes, just like the Trump sombrero memes.
Patrick Fontes, a Fresno State professor of American history, has a better nuance of the history of racist stereotypes and tropes.
“That our culture can be boiled down to these (memes) really shows their arrogance and their disrespect toward all Latinos, especially in light of what’s happening with the ICE raids,” Fontes told me. “When these are shown on social media posts, what they’re saying is ‘F-you’ to Latinos.”
That arrogant approach, said Fontes, can be traced to the mid-19th century when Mexican men were vilified. “You’d be hard-pressed to find one positive representation of a Mexican man in American newspapers.”
Blacks were depicted as a cartoonish Sambo, said Fontes, “the same way Mexican men were portrayed as rapists, drunks, thieves in a very boyish manner.”
As long as they were characterized in a cartoon, the creators didn’t see them as “real men,” he said. But the damage has been done in that some, maybe many, Americans assume the portrayals are real.
“Slavery was dealt with after the Civil War, but the idea of white supremacy — the idea that white people and white men, in particular, are better men than Mexican men, than Black men, than Asian men,” said Fontes.
The tropes reappear in the second Trump administration because of white supremacy, said Fontes. “It’s happening again because (white supremacy) has never gone away. It’s always been under the surface.”
Don’t hold your breath thinking Trump and his followers will soon address the problem of white supremacy. Until then, it’s best to dress as a frog or dinosaur for Halloween. And avoid costumes of American Indians, Arabians or other ethnic attire that’s not yours.
This story was originally published October 23, 2025 at 5:30 AM with the headline "Wearing a sombrero and mustache for Halloween? It’s racist | Opinion."