Adriana Almanza: Her Moving Response To Donald Trump Goes Viral — Will Trump Bother To Reply?
Adriana Almanza is a 28-year-old college admissions officer with a Masters Degree and career that she loves — but not nearly as much as she loves her dad, Raul Almanza, who came to the United States more than 30 years ago as an undocumented immigrant, and to whom she says she owes everything.
So when the young woman heard what Donald Trump had to say about people like her dad – people Trump described as criminals, drug dealers, and “rapists” — she felt she had to say something. So she took to Facebook and posted an “open letter” to the reality TV personality and newly minted Republican presidential candidate.
Her Monday post clearly hit a nerve, because it went widely viral immediately. As of Wednesday afternoon, the letter to Donald Trump was closing in on 115,000 Facebook shares, and more than 217,000 likes.
But Adriana’s post was not an angry rant or sarcastic “takedown” of Trump — tempting though those options must have been. Rather, her letter is an eloquent portrait of her father, a man who “has worked 5-6 days a week since I was a child and I’ve never heard him complain about it one time. He doesn’t drink. He doesn’t use drugs. He is certainly not a criminal, rapist, or drug trafficker, as your speech suggested,” she wrote.
Trump, in his campaign announcement speech, made a point of declaring, “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending the best. They’re not sending you, they’re sending people that have lots of problems and they’re bringing those problems.”
But Adriana had a response to that too, obviously bothered by Trump’s insinuation that her dad was not one of “the best.”
“If my dad is any representation of the type of people Mexico ‘sends,’ there is no doubt in my mind this country is getting the best. The problem is that you and I have a different definition of ‘the best.’ ”
“I sit here now with a Masters degree and a rewarding career. You know what that means? Absolutely nothing. My entire life the only thing I ever wanted was to make my dad proud. I wanted to be sure he knew that his sacrifices would never be taken for granted. We are not rich in wealth, sir. But we are rich in what matters.. knowledge, culture, & faith. We come from humble beginnings.. and every year we are reminded of that when we travel to Mexico to visit our beautiful family. To us, THAT is what matters.
“The best, to me, are those that work hard and still remain humble. That is exactly what my father embodies; that is exactly what the other millions of Mexicans embody.”
Read the entire open letter from Adriana Almanza to Donald Trump at this link. So far, Trump has not responded to her letter, which based on its Facebook numbers, continues to be read by hundreds of thousands of people — many of them potential voters.
[Images: Adriana Almanza/Facebook]
