How a Puerto Rican Auto Shop in Philly Views the 2024 Election
Special | 4m 11sVideo has Closed Captions
In North Philadelphia, an auto shop serves as a respectful and playful political forum.
Marz Auto Central is a fixture of the predominantly Puerto Rican community in North Philadelphia. Marz is a spot for unfiltered conversation that is nonetheless respectful and playful. The shop has become something of a political forum for topics as wide-ranging as the economy, the election, and conspiracy theories. All the while, everyone is trying to make each other laugh.
How a Puerto Rican Auto Shop in Philly Views the 2024 Election
Special | 4m 11sVideo has Closed Captions
Marz Auto Central is a fixture of the predominantly Puerto Rican community in North Philadelphia. Marz is a spot for unfiltered conversation that is nonetheless respectful and playful. The shop has become something of a political forum for topics as wide-ranging as the economy, the election, and conspiracy theories. All the while, everyone is trying to make each other laugh.
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship- [Mónica] Marz Auto Central is actually located specifically in Hunting Park, North Philadelphia.
It's 60% Latino and out of the 60%, 50% of it is actually Puerto Rican.
Boricua.
He had 'em all over his windows, like 50 of 'em.
Marz, um, he's, you know, my husband and we own this shop together.
And when we were children, actually, Marz's dad owned a shop that painted cars and my father owned a shop of fixing the inside of the cars.
So we both have a background of growing up in shops and knowing how they run and the dynamics of all of that.
Growing up in a shop, we didn't really talk about religion or politics.
Those were two taboo things that we just do not discuss.
'cause it'll always end up in a fight.
That's all evolved and I kind of dragged Marz into it.
So now we have these discussions at home and they kind of just transpired into shop talk.
Our conversations go lovely with Luis.
He works for the funeral home up the street.
See, he will come in every now and then, and he gets so angry and you can see like his veins bulge outta his neck.
I think sometimes I just pick with him, I'll like throw something out here just for him to like blow a fuse.
And then some people are like, "Ay ya viene este" like he's coming down the street ready to talk his stuff.
So conversations with him are really funny.
- [Mónica] Why?
Why?
- [Mónica] Sometimes I ask, "why do you like Trump?"
- That's it.
- [Luis] I'm gonna be honest with you.
I voted for the man, you know, at the beginning, you know?
But - [Mónica] At the beginning, In my community, there's definitely a divide when it comes to Kamala Harris.
The older generation, they aren't as enthusiastic or happy about her being a candidate.
But despite that, I definitely feel like I have a choice now with Kamala in the race, because my values are more aligned, especially when it comes to women's rights and representation of people of color.
[Mónica] This is all a learning experience.
It's not easy to have those discussions about your values, and you can't instill in someone your viewpoint and only your viewpoint.
Like we talk about it, we joke about it.
So that's how we kind of maintain the respectability in these type of conversations.
