Trump's Cabinet is the first in 30 years to not have a Hispanic member

Donald Trump.
(Image credit: Getty Images)

If all of Donald Trump's top nominees are confirmed, his Cabinet will be the first since 1988 to not have any Hispanic members.

On Wednesday night, transition officials said that Trump has tapped former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue to head the Agriculture Department. There were several Latinos under consideration for the position, including former Rep. Henry Bonilla (R-Texas); Abel Maldonado, who briefly served as California lieutenant governor; and Elsa Murano, a former undersecretary for food safety. Hector Sanchez, chairman of the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda, told The Dallas Morning News that considering Hispanics make up 17 percent of the U.S. population, this underrepresentation is unacceptable: "By not including Latinos in the Cabinet, he is just showing how he is planning to govern." Trump, who started his campaign by calling Mexican immigrants "rapists" and promising to make Mexico pay for a border wall, received only 18 percent of the vote among Hispanics.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.