Latino Workers Have a Message for Donald Trump: We Make Your Hats Christine Mai-Duc - Hamilton Spectator
go to original November 28, 2015

Workers stitch together hats on the factory floor of Cali Fame and Cali Headwear in Carson, Calif. The hat and apparel maker is best known for producing Donald Trump's "Make America Great Again" baseball caps. (Luis Sinco/TNS)

Donald Trump's hats have quickly become a signature totem of the 2016 presidential campaign, a kitsch magnet that serves ironic hipsters and sincere supporters alike. The red-and-white caps are emblazoned with the real estate mogul's oft-repeated slogan, "Make America Great Again."

But look around the factory floor where these hats are being made by the thousands, and you'll find faces that don't seem to fit into Trump's vision of America.

Yolanda Melendrez is one of them. Melendrez, an immigrant from Mexico who was brought to the United States by her parents when she was a baby, has worked at the Carson-based Cali-Fame headwear company since 1991.

"When we first got the order (for the Trump hats), I said to myself, 'Just wait until he sees who's making his hats. We're Latinos, we're Mexicans, Salvadorenos,'" she recalled.

Melendrez, 44, started out as a machine operator, stitching the seams of baseball caps. She now works as a lead on the floor, roaming as she checks on the flow of work, supervising other sewing machine operators and embroiders. She became a citizen when she was 20; her parents are permanent residents. Melendrez was 14 when she had her first child, and the job has helped her pay rent and put food on the table for her kids, she says.

Brian Kennedy, president of Cali-Fame, says that when the Trump campaign asked his family business to make the now-famous hats, he knew he would need to address his workers.

"I said to them, 'We're not political. We're here to work,'" Kennedy said from the second floor of his factory, over the sound of sewing machines in action below him. "And I haven't gotten any negative comments.

Read the rest at Hamilton Spectator

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