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UPDATE, May 27, 2016: Salinas wrote an opinion piece for Univision about the incident where she felt that the original OC Weekly story was sensationalist and not fully accurate. OC Weekly’s Gustavo Arellano has responded to Salinas’ opinion piece.

A Monday article published by OC Weekly and written by Cal State Fullerton graduating senior Denise De La Cruz gave a firsthand account of a commencement speech by Univision news anchor María Elena Salinas, where Salinas was booed and heckled by some audience members for speaking Spanish and discussing Donald Trump. At the time of that OC Weekly story, a video of Salinas’ remarks at the university’s College of Communications ceremony was not available, although her keynote address to the entire graduating class was.

On Tuesday, The Washington Post published a video of that specific speech to the College of Communications (above) and also published Salinas’ reaction to her speech, which included shouts of “No!” when the award-winning journalist asked to speak in Spanish and “Get off the stage!” near the end of her appearance. This is what Salinas said on Tuesday: “It’s really sad. And it’s a testament to what has happened in our country. Our country is really divided.”

At an earlier point in The Washington Post video, Salinas mentioned Trump: “They blame us so much for so many things, that now they’re even blaming us, the media, for creating Donald Trump. Imagine that. Isn’t that terrible? But we didn’t, right? Who did it? I don’t know. Who did it? But they’re to blame.” During those comments, shouts and boos can be heard.

According to the Post, Salinas also said that “University leaders had encouraged her to say a few words in Spanish.” Forty percent of Cal State Fullerton’s student body is Latino.

Salinas’s Twitter profile did share praise from students who saw her speak that day during the larger keynote speech:

There was also a Twitter exchange between Salinas’ profile and a student who was at Salinas’ College of Communications speech:

That exchange led to other reactions:

6 thoughts on “Univision’s María Elena Salinas Booed and Heckled During Commencement Speech at Cal State Fullerton

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