Mr. Sanchez grew up in middle-class circumstances of a sort, the daughter of a union machinist and a secretary. She and all her siblings attended college. She lived for a time with her “white” former husband in Palos Verdes. Mr. Tran, in contrast, as Ms. Sanchez’s “anti-immigrant,” is the only immigrant in the race — who braved war and ruin to come to the United States.
(…)
If Ms. Sanchez were a right-wing Republican and Mr. Tran a “progressive,” then we probably would hear innuendo that Sanchez was a second-generation sell-out and Tran an authentic American hero fighting racial oppression. (…)
Ms. Sanchez in a former persona was one Loretta Brixey or, in some accounts, apparently Sanchez-Brixey, a one-time Palos Verdes Estates resident and Republican wannabe councilwoman—until Congressman Dornan was deemed vulnerable to ethnic bloc voting and the prize of a congressional seat beckoned.
At some magical moment, she morphed from the country-and-western sounding “Loretta Brixey” to the more authentic sounding Latina Loretta Sanchez, her maiden name perhaps much better reflecting her new found liberal politics and the changing demography of her district.
In deference to Ms. Sanchez, note this is standard fare these days in America. I cannot count the number of Hispanic students I have had who had a divine revelation in the university (e.g., scholarships, awards, admissions, etc.) and thus reinvented themselves after 20 years of being pedestrian Joe Lopez into a trilling José López…
