Only in Miami, boy
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/miami-beach/article254462843.html?
Former Miami Beach Commissioner Kristen Rosen Gonzalez said Thursday she “wasn’t even conscious” of what she was saying when she told Democratic Party leaders while seeking their campaign endorsement last week that she was Hispanic — even though she is not.
“I have always identified politically as a Hispanic,” Rosen Gonzalez, who is hoping voters will return her to the Miami Beach Commission this November, told the Miami Herald Editorial Board during a scheduled interview Thursday. “I’ve apologized and I’ve said I am obviously not Hispanic.”
Rosen Gonzalez, who served on the city’s seven-member commission from 2015 to 2018 before resigning to run for Congress, added “Gonzalez” to her last name upon her marriage in 2001 to Emilio Gonzalez. Rosen is her maiden name. The couple divorced in 2009.
According to CBS4 Investigative Reporter Jim DeFede, this isn’t the first time Rosen Gonzalez has played up her last name during campaigns. When she placed third in 2018 in the Democratic Party’s primary race for Florida’s 27th congressional district, other campaigns attributed her surprisingly strong showing to her Hispanic surname, the only one in the race.
This year, Rosen Gonzalez faces Hispanic opponents in her current race for city commission. But during her interview last week with the Miami-Dade Democratic Party, Rosen Gonzalez is heard calling herself “the most high-profile Hispanic Democrat in the City of Miami Beach.”
Rosen Gonzalez, who is fluent in Spanish, posted a Spanish language campaign ad Thursday. In a comment with the video she once again asked for forgiveness.
“My children are Hispanic, I am very close to our Hispanic community, my fiancée is Cuban and I made a mistake,” she wrote. “That does not make me Hispanic. I deeply apologize to any one I may have offended.”
