Democrats tout Harris endorsement from Hispanic radio host who went on racist rant about black tourists in Puerto Rico

BETHLEHEM, Pa.— A recent mailer from the Pennsylvania Democratic Party features a Kamala Harris endorsement from a local Hispanic radio host who has a history of making wildly racist comments.The host is also the star of a Harris campaign ad running in Philadelphia, Allentown and Reading.

The mailer shows Victor Martinez, owner of La Mega radio in the majority-Latino city of Allentown, offering his support for Harris as a candidate who “listens.”But Martinez’s own listeners will remember his May 2021 on-air tirade about black tourists visiting Puerto Rico.Speaking in Spanish to his audience on the El Relajo de la Mañana morning show, Martinez claimed a “wave of African Americans” had descended on the island.“When I got [on] the plane, I thought I was flying to Jamaica,” Martinez said, suggesting the tourists also must have thought they were going to Jamaica or New Orleans.“The plane was full of African [Americans]!”Martinez’s rant — which reached thousands in Pennsylvania’s Latino belt of Allentown, Reading and Hazleton — decried female tourists for “acting up” in various ways.According to Martinez, the women’s behavior included: “walking almost naked,” “fighting with police,” “jumping [on] the roof of cars,” “destroying the [hotel] rooms” and smoking marijuana and drinking Hennessy in the street.“[It] is not like is a cheap vacation for them,” he continued.

“Then they buy the Hennessy, put it in their purse, and in the street they start drinking.”“They rent a car with a sunroof, and three or four of them out the sunroof that don’t even fit,” Martinez added.The conversation took a darker turn when Martinez’s co-host, Luis “Diamond Boy” Torres, implied black tourists are apes.“We should be thanking them since the last monkey we had was Yuyo,” Torres responded to Martinez’s sunroof comments  — prompting both men to laugh loudly.(Yuyo was a chimpanzee, not a monkey, who escaped from a Pu...