Barrios: representation and health care for all

Editor’s note: The Rider reached out to Texas gubernatorial candidates Beto O’Rourke (Democrat), Delilah Barrios (Green Party) and Republican incumbent Gov. Greg Abbott to discuss their thoughts or plans of action for several topics, if elected into office.  Gov. Abbott’s team told The Rider they are unable to make an interview work at the moment and, as of press time Friday, O’Rourke’s team had not responded to the request.

Texas gubernatorial candidate and Green Party co-chair Delilah Barrios spoke about her thoughts on climate change, abortion, gun control, critical race theory, election and voting security, the LGBTQ+ community and immigration.

Although Barrios was born in Brownsville, she considers Port Isabel her hometown and currently resides in the Central Texas town of Kyle.

She works as a cardiovascular certified surgical technician at a Level II trauma surgery hospital and has been doing so for almost 20 years.

Barrios told The Rider she is running for governor because she believes politics often lacks representation for people like her and wants to do her best to represent them. 

“Indigenous people, Latin people who have been aggressed upon for centuries,” she wrote in an email to The Rider last Thursday. “Socialists who want all of our citizens to not simply survive but thrive here. Hard workers who are being crushed by capitalism.”

In an interview with The Rider in August, she said her family didn’t have fair representation.

“What we’re lacking is somebody with the courage to do the things that are necessary and we’re lacking the people with the morals to do what they promise once they’re elected in office,” Barrios said.

Asked what her main focus would be if she were elected governor, Barrios replied that health care is top priority due to her experience as a health-care worker.

“With Roe v. Wade being overturned and physicians and health-care providers being faced with felony charges and things like that, health care is top priority,” she said. “I’ve been a health-care worker for almost 20 years now so I can see very clearly that there are a lot of improvements to be made and I know that we just need somebody with a little bit of a backbone to be able to make the changes necessary to make sure that everybody is being covered like they should be.”

Climate change

“To me, it looks like and it feels very much like us taxpayers are paying corporations to poison us and our communities and that needs to be stopped,” Barrios said. “We’re talking billions of dollars that are going, basically, for us to, you know, get sick from their leaks or their spills, or them not cleaning up properly. … We do not have enough corporate oversight at all, especially in Texas.”

Abortion

“I would just want any of these pro-life individuals to have to hold somebody’s hand who spontaneously had an abortion and had no control over it,” Barrios said. “I want them to look into their eyes and try and paint them a villain. People do not know why your pregnancy may be lost and it’s nobody’s business. And it’s very cruel and inhumane to treat people like cattle. … It makes me very mad when I talk about it because I know a lot of people that have been affected by this. … Everybody just feels overwhelmed and stressed out because of these things and they’re all good people, you know. Anybody can need an abortion for any particular reason and it’s nobody else’s business at all and it’s a violation of your privacy and your autonomy for somebody else to be trying to criminalize you for needing medical care.”

Gun control

“I think that this time of age is very critical,” Barrios said. “There are a lot of things happening and, so, I fully understand people clutching to their Second Amendment rights because, you know, as a woman, knowing that your rights can be violated and taken away, it’s not a very comfortable thought. I do think that what we should do is limit the amount of magazines.”

Although she knows of people who teach classes on gun safety and are cautious with their weapons, Barrios said there is still a risk of what happened on May 24 at Robb Elementary School in the southwest Texas city of Uvalde, where a gunman killed 19 students and two teachers. 

“Some of the people are like, ‘Oh, I collect,’” Barrios said. “It’s a hobby to them. … There’s a risk that people could do something horrible, like what happened in Uvalde. … One of the things that I talk about a lot in conjunction to gun violence is that we don’t address any of the systemic problems our communities are facing. So, for one instance, community police is a good viable option. … It would prevent things, like [the Robb Elementary School shooting], from happening.”

Critical race theory

“Are we trying to say that we want to ban books and people should not read about history because it hurts their feelings?” Barrios said. “I can’t take that question very seriously because … it’s not even a subject. 

“Most children I know are more than willing and capable to look at history and take time processing that information and go forward and do better. But for some reason there’s a small group of very loud people who are against that, and I’m not gonna let them speak for me and my communities. So, yeah, I’m not gonna entertain those ideas.”

Election and voting security

“If we had publicly funded elections and there was equal time on debate stages, equal amount of information to be published, it would be more fair,” Barrios said. “There’s also proportional voting representation, which is something that not a lot of people talk about. … They just use the statistics of the populace to make sure that there is some fairness in the representation. And, of course, there’s ranked-choice voting as well, which I would be happy to support. It’s on our Green Party platform, nationally.”

LGBTQ+ Community

“I think that the trans community has suffered a lot because of the bigotry and, you know, the political pointing of the fingers,” Barrios said. “They’ve suffered quite a lot. … So, we wanna make sure that, regardless of your sex or race or gender or the way you look, that you’re being treated as a human and that you have rights and liberties.”

Immigration

“Everybody’s fighting to not have to cover the budget for it but most of these places were more than happy to claim rights to the natural resources and labor from these areas,” Barrios said. “So, on the conservative side, you have a lot of hypocrites complaining about people that they, for probably generations, have used and exploited. And then, on the left, you have the framing of, ‘Oh, we need a savior because these people are helpless and they need us to save them.’ And that’s not true either.”

She said the process of immigration needs to be sped up.

“We need to do what’s best for all of our citizens,” Barrios said. “And a lot of the people that live here, they pay taxes, too. … They may not be fully fledged American citizens, but they’re almost more proud than people who are born here, you know, because they’re grateful for the opportunity to be here. … They’re constantly being demonized just for existing.”

Asked what qualities make her stand out in comparison to her opponents Abbott and O’Rourke, Barrios joked that she is CPR certified.

“I know basic life-saving skills,” Barrios said with a laugh. “No … I did not come from privilege like many people that I know. I don’t think that these other candidates can offer that real perspective of a working-class person, especially not from the medical field where you see day in and out exactly how hard it is for some people, you know, to make it to survive. So, I think that that perspective and the fact that I’m a working-class person is what you won’t find with any of the other candidates.”

Asked what message she has for voters, specifically those in college, Barrios said she knows how hard students work and wants to make sure the next generations have a future.

“I wanna help you get everything that you need,” she said. “I think that education should be free. I think you should be able to live comfortably. I think you should have public transportation wherever you need to go. I don’t feel like you need to be killing yourself just to survive. I think that you have every right to thrive here.”