Filipino-American CBS News anchor Elaine Quijano, 42, is in the spotlight after she served as the moderator in the recent US vice presidential debate.
Quijano is a second-generation immigrant. She was born to Filipino parents in Chicago. Her mother is from Batangas and her father is from Davao City, notes Heavy.com.
Anyway, the vice presidential debate took place on Tue, Oct 4, at Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia.
As expected, the verbal smackdown between veep candidates Tim Kaine (running mate of Hillary Clinton) and Mike Pence (running mate of Donald Trump) provoked violent reactions.
Quijano got compliments. In fact women’s magazine Cosmopolitan thinks she “stole the show.” Men’s magazine Maxim was also ecstatic over Quijano.
However, Quijano also got criticized for supposedly losing control of the debate.
Dylan Byers of CNN Money pointed out: “Fiercely committed to her script, she stopped the candidates when they were in the middle of a good discussion and failed to stop them when they were simply talking over one another.”
Then again, Byers’ criticism may be considered kind when compared to what pro-Trump trolls said about Quijano.
It’s worth noting that many of the pro-Trump trolls attacked her ethnicity. They hurled racial slurs at her. They also assumed that she was Mexican.
Some comments cited by The Business Standard News are particularly nasty.
One commenter wrote, “I’d like to see her green card. Is she even here legally? I bet she gave Kaine the questions in advance. Mexicans are good at being sneaky. It’s in their blood.”
Another nasty comment read, “These debates are a joke. Trump and Pence need to pull out of this fiasco. Riding blind into an ambush is pretty stupid. Having a wetback as a moderator is just disgustingly stupid.”
“Wetback” is a derogatory term used to refer to foreign citizens living without documentation in the US. The term has, unfortunately been associated with Mexicans.
As of this posting Quijano has not issued any official statements on the compliments or the nasty attacks against her.
This could mean that Quijano possesses a life skill that most people fail to learn. She knows when silence is the best response.
