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History > 2012 > USA > Latinos / Hispanics (I)
A Record
Latino Turnout,
Solidly Backing Obama
November 7,
2012
The New York Times
By JULIA PRESTON
and FERNANDA SANTOS
Defying
predictions that their participation would be lackluster, Latinos turned out in
record numbers on Tuesday and voted for President Obama by broad margins,
tipping the balance in at least three swing states and securing their position
as an organized force in American politics with the power to move national
elections.
Over all, according to exit polls not yet finalized by Edison Research, Mr.
Obama won 71 percent of the Hispanic vote while Mitt Romney won 27 percent. The
gap of 44 percentage points was even greater than Mr. Obama’s 36-point advantage
over John McCain in 2008.
After waiting in long lines in countless places — more than four hours at some
South Florida polls — Latinos had such a strong turnout that it lifted them to
10 percent of voters nationwide, an increase from 6 percent in 2000. Latino
leaders said their voters had cast ballots that ensured Mr. Obama’s relatively
narrow plurality — fewer than 2.8 million votes — in the popular count.
“Latino voters confirmed unequivocally that the road to the White House passes
through Latino neighborhoods,” said Clarissa Martinez De Castro, a top official
at NCLR, the Hispanic organization also known as the National Council of La
Raza, which joined in an extensive campaign this year to register and turn out
voters.
Latinos’ greatest impact was in several battleground states portrayed by polls
as close contests before Election Day. In Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico, Mr.
Obama won the Hispanic vote by big percentages that well exceeded margins of
victory, exit polls showed. In each of those states, Latinos significantly
increased their share of total voters, gaining influence that could be decisive
in future elections.
In Florida, where Mr. Obama held a narrow lead on Wednesday in a race that had
not yet been called, the president won among Latinos by 60 percent to 39 percent
for Mr. Romney, among a group that now makes up 17 percent of the state’s
voters.
Mr. Romney’s weak showing prompted Latino leaders to warn that Republicans could
no longer afford to ignore or alienate Hispanics in national races. But they
also immediately laid out an ambitious agenda for Mr. Obama, saying they
expected to see jobs programs tailored to Latinos and quick action on
legislation to give legal status to millions of illegal immigrants.
“The sleeping Latino giant is wide-awake and it’s cranky,” said Eliseo Medina,
international secretary-treasurer of the Service Employees International Union,
another group that played a central role in spurring Latinos to vote. “We expect
action and leadership on immigration reform in 2013. No more excuses. No more
obstruction or gridlock.”
In many states, Latinos did not wait for either the Democratic or the Republican
campaigns to come to them. Instead they mounted coordinated voter registration
and education efforts, giving them a degree of independence as a voting bloc and
creating popular networks that they said they planned to mobilize again to bring
pressure on the White House and Congress.
In Arizona, a conservative state known for tough immigration enforcement
policies that Mr. Romney won handily, Latinos saw setbacks. A bid to unseat Joe
Arpaio, the hard-line sheriff of Maricopa County, was declared to have failed. A
Hispanic Democrat, Richard Carmona, apparently was defeated in a Senate race by
Jeff Flake, a popular Republican who has served in the House of Representatives.
Records from the office of Secretary of State Ken Bennett showed Wednesday that
there were 600,000 votes yet to be counted statewide.
Luis Heredia, the executive director of the Arizona Democratic Party, said the
outcome of many close races could not be determined without the counting of
those ballots.
A crucial piece of Mr. Obama’s winning strategy among Latinos was an initiative
he announced in June to grant temporary reprieves from deportation to hundreds
of thousands of young immigrants here illegally. In a survey of 5,600 Latino
voters on the eve of the election by ImpreMedia and Latino Decisions, a polling
group, 58 percent said the reprieves had made them “more enthusiastic” about Mr.
Obama.
Last month, Mr. Romney said that he would end the reprieves if he became
president, a move that solidified the view among many Latinos that he was
hostile to a program they liked. It gives young immigrants protection from
deportation for two years and also work permits that allow them to be employed
legally in this country for the first time.
A campaign led by young immigrants eligible for the deferrals was one of the
most effective voter mobilization efforts.
“Even though we could not vote, we had many friends and family members who
could,” said Lorella Praeli, advocacy director of the United We Dream network, a
youth group that led a voter campaign.
In Arizona, a dozen groups teamed up to increase Latino voter registration and
to add more Latinos to the state’s early-voting list, which entitles voters to
receive ballots by mail at their homes. The number of Latinos on early-voting
lists rose substantially, to 225,000 this year from 96,000 in 2008, said Petra
Falcón, director of Promise Arizona, one of the groups in that effort.
On Tuesday, the groups dispatched monitors to poll sites where they knew many
Latino voters would be casting ballots for the first time.
By midmorning, it had become clear that a lot of them were being forced to cast
provisional ballots because officials could not find their names on the rolls.
In a precinct in Tolleson, 300 out of 342 votes cast by 4 p.m. were provisional
ballots, according to poll monitors assigned to the site. At Word of Abundant
Life Christian Center in West Phoenix, 68 out of 123 voters had used provisional
ballots by that hour.
Adilene Montesinos, a poll worker at Progressive Baptist Church in Mesa, said
the problem had affected Latinos and also blacks. “There were so many, we almost
ran out of provisional ballots,” Ms. Montesinos said.
Officials in Maricopa County, which accounts for more than half of the state’s
voters, said the count of provisional ballots was not likely to begin until
Monday. The officials said Wednesday that 344,000 ballots remained to be
counted, among them 115,000 provisional ballots.
A Record Latino Turnout, Solidly Backing Obama, NYT, 7.11.2012,
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/08/us/politics/with-record-turnout-latinos-solidly-back-obama-and-wield-influence.html
The Candidates Face Hispanic Voters
September 20, 2012
The New York Times
Mitt Romney and President Obama made direct appeals to Latino
voters this week, appearing on successive days at a candidate forum sponsored by
Univision, the national Spanish-language television network. The discussion
ranged widely, touching on subjects as varied as the Middle East and student
loans. But it focused heavily on immigration, a difficult subject providing rich
opportunities for evasion and disappointment.
Mr. Romney seized them. He went first, on Wednesday night, and quickly showed
why it is so hard to figure out what he means or believes.
“Well, we’re not going to — we’re not going to round up people around the
country and deport them,” he said when asked whether he would protect young
immigrants who qualify for legalization under the Dream Act, which Mr. Romney
has promised to veto. Mr. Obama used executive action this year to spare
“Dreamers” from deportation. Mr. Romney refused to say whether he would do the
same as president. “That’s not — I said during my primary campaign time and
again, we’re not going to round up 12 million people, that includes the kids and
the parents, and have everyone deported. Our system isn’t to deport people.”
Except that’s exactly what Mr. Romney’s “system” seems to be. His informal
adviser Kris Kobach wrote the radical laws enacted by Arizona and other states
that seek to make it impossible for illegal immigrants to survive and much
easier for police to round them up. And Mr. Romney has praised Arizona as a
model for the nation.
Mr. Romney talks vaguely about possibly exempting a fraction of the undocumented
from the purge — service members, maybe some students — but he has never backed
away from those on the hard right for whom mass legalization is unthinkable. So
if Mr. Romney won’t give 11 million people a way to be legal (that’s “amnesty,”
rejected by Republicans), and he is not going to deport them, but he supports
Arizona-style laws that make people unable to work, drive, study or otherwise
live, then ... what?
Mr. Romney wouldn’t say.
Mr. Obama had a better time of it on Thursday, mostly because he actually
supports a solution — comprehensive reform, not just tougher enforcement but
also a path to citizenship. Hard questions posed by the interviewers centered on
his failure to deliver reform, while deporting more than a million people in his
first term.
Jorge Ramos repeatedly reminded Mr. Obama that he had pledged to fix the problem
in his first four years: “You promised,” he said, “and a promise is a promise.”
Mr. Obama’s reply was that he had tried, that the economy was terrible, and that
a president can’t require Congress to act. It was good to see him forced to
acknowledge his failure, though we wish he had been pressed harder about the
deportation efforts his administration has expanded, like Secure Communities,
which have led to the removal of tens of thousands of noncriminals and left
thousands of citizen children in foster care.
Mr. Obama talked proudly about helping Dreamers, saying he had been persuaded by
“wonderful kids” he had met. “If you heard their stories, there’s no way you
would think it was fair or just for us to have them suffering under a cloud of
deportation.” Which is true. But not just for the 1.7 million or so Dreamers.
There are about 11 million people waiting for the government to fix the broken
system. They did not get satisfactory answers in Miami this week.
The Candidates Face Hispanic Voters, NYT,
20.9.2012,
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/21/opinion/the-candidates-face-hispanic-voters.html
New Democratic Voice Challenges Republican Vision
September 5, 2012
The New York Times
By JEFF ZELENY
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Mayor Julián Castro of San Antonio made his
national debut on Tuesday evening at the Democratic convention, presenting
himself as a generational testament to American opportunity that would not have
been possible without hard work and a helping hand.
“The American dream is not a sprint, or even a marathon, but a relay,” Mr.
Castro said. “Our families don’t always cross the finish line in the span of one
generation, but each generation passes on to the next the fruits of their
labor.”
Mr. Castro, 37, was the first Latino to deliver a keynote address at the
Democratic National Convention, and the applause in the arena was reminiscent of
the party’s convention eight years ago in Boston when an Illinois state senator
named Barack Obama brought delegates to their feet.
In his address, Mr. Castro offered a blistering critique of the Republican
Party, sharply questioning whether Mitt Romney could understand the challenges
of the middle class. He smiled as he assailed the policies of the Republican
ticket, declaring, “Mitt Romney, quite simply, doesn’t get it.”
His speech was not a call for a new spirit of bipartisanship, as Mr. Obama had
pledged in 2004, but rather a spirited assault on the Republican philosophies
offered up by Mr. Romney and Representative Paul D. Ryan, his running mate. Mr.
Castro offered a direct rebuttal to the argument presented at last week’s
Republican convention in Florida.
“Of all the fictions we heard last week in Tampa, the one I find most troubling
is this: If we all just go our own way, our nation will be stronger for it,” Mr.
Castro said. “If we sever the threads that connect us, the only people who will
go far are those who are already ahead.”
Introduced by his twin brother, Joaquín, a Texas state representative who is a
candidate for Congress, Mr. Castro stood before the convention as a new face of
the Democratic Party. Elected mayor only two years ago, he is a rising figure in
a party that has a far smaller bench than its rival.
He suggested that Mr. Romney and other Republicans were out of touch, noting a
speech Mr. Romney gave in Ohio this year in which he urged students to start a
business by borrowing money from their parents.
“Gee, why didn’t I think of that?” Mr. Castro said with a smile. “Some people
are lucky enough to borrow money from their parents, but that shouldn’t
determine whether you can pursue your dreams. I don’t think Governor Romney
meant any harm. I think he’s a good guy. He just has no idea how good he’s had
it.”
Mr. Castro told the story of his grandmother Victoria, an orphan who moved to
San Antonio as a young girl and dropped out of school after the fourth grade. He
repeatedly paid tribute to his mother, who was seated in the convention arena
here, saying that she “fought hard for civil rights so that instead of a mop, I
could hold this microphone.”
New Democratic Voice Challenges Republican
Vision, NYT, 5.9.2012,
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/05/us/politics/julian-castro-addresses-democrats-at-convention.html
Networks
Struggle to Appeal to Hispanics
August 5,
2012
The New York Times
By TANZINA VEGA and BILL CARTER
Sofia
Vergara is probably the most recognizable Hispanic actress working in
English-language television. She is one of the stars of “Modern Family,” the
highest-rated scripted show on network television, and she has parlayed her
celebrity into commercials for brands like Pepsi and Cover Girl.
Despite her popularity, “Modern Family” is not a hit with Hispanic viewers. Out
of its overall viewership of 12.9 million, “Modern Family” drew an average of
only about 798,000 Hispanic viewers in the season. That audience accounts for
only about 6 percent of the show’s viewers — less than half of what you might
expect given the 48 million Hispanic television viewers that Nielsen measures.
The same pattern can be seen on other top network shows: “Two and a Half Men” on
CBS averaged 611,000 Hispanic viewers out of an average total of 14.6 million
viewers. “Grey’s Anatomy” on ABC averaged 583,000 out of 10.9 million. “Glee” on
Fox averaged 518,000 out of 8.7 million. And “NCIS” on CBS averaged 509,000 out
of 19.1 million.
The numbers encapsulate the problem facing English-language television
executives and advertisers: they desperately want to appeal to the more than 50
million Latinos in the United States (about three-quarters speak Spanish),
especially those who are young, bilingual and bicultural, but those viewers seem
to want very little to do with American English-language television.
They do, however, continue to watch Spanish-language networks in huge numbers.
In May, on the final night of the most recent season of “Modern Family,” far
more Hispanic viewers were watching the top Spanish language show that week, the
telenovela “La Que No Podía Amar,” on Univision, which attracted 5.2 million
viewers.
“We’re part of the fastest-growing demographic in the country,” said Randy
Falco, the president and chief of Univision. The company recently entered into a
partnership with ABC News, which is owned by the Walt Disney Company, to create
a 24-hour news channel to serve Hispanic viewers.
At this spring’s upfronts, the meetings hosted by network executives to sell
advertising airtime, there were nine presentations to advertisers by broadcast
and cable channels including ESPN and Discovery aimed at creating content for
Hispanic viewers. In 2011, there were only five such presentations.
The list of top English-language shows watched by Hispanics is headed by the
same competition shows as among the total audience, with “Dancing With the
Stars,” and “American Idol” faring best this spring, while “Sunday Night
Football” was the leader in the fall.
But the discrepancy between English and Spanish language shows is most acute
among shows that are scripted in English. The issue, many viewers and critics
argue, is that there still hasn’t been the Hispanic equivalent of “The Cosby
Show,” meaning a show that deals with Latino culture in a way that doesn’t
offend viewers with crude stereotypes.
This winter, CBS hoped to have a cross-cultural hit with the show “Rob”
featuring the comedian Rob Schneider. The show, based loosely on Mr. Schneider’s
own life, showed his experiences of marrying into a Mexican family and the
culture clashes that ensued. But the chief conflict ended up being between the
show and its intended viewers.
“Big family,” said Mr. Schneider’s character, when he meets his wife’s family
for the first time. “Now I know what’s going on during all those siestas.” In
another scene, the character Hector, played by Eugenio Derbez, tells Rob that he
is visiting from Mexico. Then he gets closer to Rob and whispers, “I’m not
leaving,” and after pausing for effect adds, “Ever.”
For Joe Zubizarreta, the co-owner and chief operating officer of the advertising
agency Zubi Advertising, with headquarters in Miami, the comedic devices used in
“Rob” were too much. “They’ve used just about every stereotype they could in the
pilot,” Mr. Zubizarreta said. “I understand that the general market taste will
find humor in the idiosyncrasies of Hispanics. But as Hispanics, when we watch
general market television, we’d like to see some semblance of reality to our
lives.”
For Julio Ricardo Varela, the founder of the Web site Latino Rebels, both the
content of “Rob” and how it was marketed relied too much on stereotypes.
“ ‘Rob’ was a big running joke among our community,” Mr. Varela said. “It just
felt lazy, stale and I think that mainstream television is missing the boat.”
Mr. Varela noted a contest on the show’s Facebook page where viewers were
invited to hit a virtual piñata to “whack and win” a trip to the show’s set.
Also on the page were promotional images of Mr. Schneider and the rest of the
cast in a conga line. “I thought the marketing was beyond ridiculous,” Mr.
Varela said.
Nina Tassler, the president for entertainment for CBS, declined to comment on
“Rob” specifically, but said that reaching out to the Hispanic community was
important for the network. (The network declined to pick up “Rob” for a second
season.)
“Everybody’s culture is wholly unique, so finding the storytelling language that
can reach out and communicate with the biggest cross section of the Latin
population is obviously what we are trying for,” said Ms. Tassler, who is the
highest-ranking network television executive with a Hispanic heritage. Mr.
Schneider declined to comment for this article.
Among the series that were in development for next season by English-language
networks, one, an ABC show called “Devious Maids,” gained attention for its
focus on a Latino stereotype — maids working in Beverly Hills. The show was
being produced by Marc Cherry of “Desperate Housewives,” and had been based on a
Spanish-language telenovela.
When Liz Colunga, a 31-year-old Mexican-American documentary filmmaker heard
about “Devious Maids” she wasn’t surprised at the show’s theme. “I’m used to
watching stereotypical roles for Latinas and Latinos,” Ms. Colunga said.
Neither “Devious Maids” nor another Latino-tinged pilot called “El Jefe” about a
Hispanic family in Los Angeles that included a maid and a landscaper were picked
up by the networks. (“Devious Maids” did win a spot on the cable network
Lifetime.) But no new Hispanic-centric shows made it onto any major networks’
fall prime-time schedules.
ABC had minor hits several years ago with two of the more respected shows among
Latino audiences, the comedy “The George Lopez Show,” which is regarded as the
closest thing to a “Cosby Show” by many Hispanics, and the comedy-drama “Ugly
Betty.”
But the network suffered a setback in January after a character on the show
“Work It” said he would be great at selling drugs because he was Puerto Rican.
The show was canceled after just two episodes because of lackluster ratings, but
it also sparked weekly protests in front of the network’s Manhattan
headquarters.
Paul Lee, the president of the ABC Entertainment Group, said in an e-mail that
ABC was “committed to diversity on our network because it’s critical to creating
relevant stories that resonate in today’s America.”
No character stirs more mixed emotions for Hispanic audiences that the one
played by Ms. Vergara on “Modern Family.” She plays Gloria Delgado-Pritchett, a
sexy Latina trophy wife whose persona has gotten mixed reviews from Latinos.
“It’s working for her, but at what expense?” said Ms. Colunga, the filmmaker.
“She’s playing the clueless Latina.”
In a show where all of the characters are a bit extreme, the least stereotypical
of all is Gloria’s smart-talking son Manny. Lynnette Ramirez, the senior vice
president for development and production at Encanto Enterprises, a production
company owned by George and Ann Lopez, said Gloria’s character works because she
is tempered by her son.
“Sofia’s character is a first generation Latina,” Ms. Ramirez said. “Manny’s
going to grow up to be like Sara Ramirez’s character in ‘Grey’s Anatomy,’ ” she
added, a reference to the actress Sara Ramirez’s role as a doctor on the show.
The Fox network’s parent company, News Corporation, signals one direction that
broadcast companies may be headed in their attempts to reach Hispanic viewers.
In an effort to share in the $3.6 billion in advertising revenue directed at the
Hispanic market, News Corporation announced it would start a new channel,
MundoFOX. The programming will be in Spanish.
Networks Struggle to Appeal to Hispanics, NYT, 5.8.2012,
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/06/business/media/
networks-struggle-to-appeal-to-hispanics-without-using-stereotypes.html
Latino Growth Not Fully Felt at Voting Booth
June 9,
2012
The New York Times
By ADAM NAGOURNEY
DENVER —
The nation’s rapidly growing Latino population is one of the most powerful
forces working in President Obama’s favor in many of the states that will
determine his contest with Mitt Romney. But Latinos are not registering or
voting in numbers that fully reflect their potential strength, leaving Hispanic
leaders frustrated and Democrats worried as they increase efforts to rally
Latino support.
Interviews with Latino voters across the country suggested a range of reasons
for what has become, over a decade, an entrenched pattern of nonparticipation,
ranging from a distrust of government to a fear of what many see as an
intimidating effort by law enforcement and political leaders to crack down on
immigrants, legal or not.
Here in Denver, Ben Monterosso, the executive director of Mi Familia Vota, or My
Family Votes, a national group that helps Latinos become citizens and register
to vote, gathered organizers around a table in his office and recited census
data demonstrating the lack of Latino participation.
“Our potential at the ballot box is not being maximized,” Mr. Monterosso told
them. “The untapped potential is there.”
More than 21 million Latinos will be eligible to vote this November, clustered
in pockets from Colorado to Florida, as well as in less obvious states like
Illinois, Iowa, North Carolina and Virginia. Yet just over 10 million of them
are registered, and even fewer turn out to vote.
In the 2008 presidential election, when a record 10 million Latinos showed up at
the polls nationwide, that amounted to just half of the eligible voters. By
contrast, 66 percent of eligible whites and 65 percent of eligible blacks voted,
according to a study by the Pew Hispanic Center.
That disparity is echoed in swing states across the country. In Nevada, 42
percent of eligible Hispanics are registered, while just 35 percent are
registered in Virginia, according to Latino Decisions, which studies Latino
voting trends.
Although Latinos do not turn up at the polls in the same numbers, relative to
their population, as other ethnic groups, their overall numbers are growing so
rapidly that they are nevertheless on the verge of becoming the powerful force
in American politics that officials in both parties have long anticipated — an
effect that would only be magnified should they somehow begin to match the
voting percentages of other ethnic groups.
Mr. Obama’s campaign has seized on that as a central part of his re-election
strategy, with an early burst of three Spanish-language television
advertisements in four swing states, including Colorado, and voter registration
drives in Latino neighborhoods.
“Hi, are you registered to vote?” Linda Vargas, 62, called out in English and
Spanish to people walking into a public library on the outskirts of Denver as
she sat behind a table stacked with voter registration forms.
This segment of the American electorate is by any measure sprawling, with
near-explosive population growth in places like California and Texas and growing
numbers in swing states like Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Nevada and New Mexico.
Their presence in such politically important states has only fed the frustration
of Latino organizers over their underrepresentation at the polls.
Matt A. Barreto, an associate professor of political science at the University
of Washington and head of Latino Decisions, said the population growth had
produced a higher Latino vote in every presidential election over the last
decade, a number that had the effect of masking the political apathy of many
Latino voters.
“The population growth has driven increases in the Latino vote every year,” he
said. “But we still need to confront a registration gap that is quite
significant.”
Jim Messina, Mr. Obama’s campaign manager, said Latino voters were a critical
factor in the president’s re-election hopes. “Look, if we do our job right and
have a good ground game, I absolutely believe that Latino voters can be one of
the big reasons we win this election,” he said.
Officials in Mr. Romney’s campaign argued that he would cut into Mr. Obama’s
Latino support by challenging his record on the economy, and how, they said, it
had been particularly harmful to Latinos. Last week, the Romney campaign posted
a Spanish-language advertisement on its Web site pointing to rising unemployment
among Latinos.
“Understand the dynamic of this election: it’s about the economy and it’s about
jobs,” said Joshua Baca, who is responsible for the Romney campaign’s Hispanic
outreach. “Whatever the Obama campaign wants to do with regards to targeting
Hispanic voters, that’s fine. Our message is going to be, ‘It doesn’t matter if
you are Hispanic, if you’re a woman, if you’re African-American: it’s the
economy.’ ”
Latino voters overwhelmingly support Mr. Obama over Mr. Romney, according to
recent polls. The anger at Republicans for supporting tough immigration laws,
like the one passed in Arizona last year, is powerful and potentially damaging
to Mr. Romney after a Republican primary in which the candidates largely rallied
behind that law.
Yet interviews suggest lingering concerns with what many see as Mr. Obama’s
failure to deliver on promises to change the immigration system, as well as
distress about his stewardship of the economy. Together, those forces appear to
be producing a general wariness of government.
“They promise, ‘Oh, we’re going to do this for the Hispanic community, we’re
going to do that,’ and we never get even half of the things that they promise,”
said Derkis Sanchez, 51, an independent who lives in Miami.
Evidence of the lack of participation can be found across the West, and
particularly in Colorado, a state that could be one of the most contested in
November. In 2010, 114,000 of the 455,000 Latinos eligible to vote in the state
turned out, a study by Latino Decisions found; 47 percent of eligible voters are
registered today.
The number of Latinos eligible to vote nationally may overstate their actual
influence. Of the 21 million, nearly 10 million live in California or Texas,
which are unlikely to be in play in November.
And while an influx of younger voters is helping to push up the overall number,
younger voters have historically been disproportionately uninterested in
politics, a particular challenge in Colorado given that the Latino population is
younger than the overall population. A Pew study found that one-third of the
nation’s eligible Hispanic voters are between 18 and 29; but they make up just
22 percent of the overall population.
Arturo Vargas, the head of the National Association of Latino Elected and
Appointed Officials, said his organization projected that 12.2 million Latino
voters would turn out this November.
“But we do have a performance gap between Hispanic voters and non-Hispanic
voters,” he said.
Many analysts argue that the demographic wave of Hispanic voters that began in
California in 1994, with a backlash to a state voter initiative backed by
Republicans that prohibited illegal immigrants from using public services, is
now sweeping over Arizona and Colorado, and eventually will return even Texas to
the Democratic fold.
“I believe long term all those states are coming on the map,” Mr. Messina said.
Democrats and Republicans have recognized the rising power of Latino voters for
over a decade; advisers to George W. Bush had repeatedly identified Hispanics as
central to building a long-lasting electoral coalition. But the Republican
position has dropped sharply as the party has been identified with tough
policies focused on illegal immigrants.
Republicans have also pushed to impose tough restrictions on voter registration,
which Democrats and Latino groups attacked as a way to discourage Hispanics,
among others, from voting.
“Our state government is kind of repressive against immigration,” said Alejandro
Martinez, 32, a Democrat who lives in Nogales, Ariz. “They’re afraid to go out
there and vote.”
Organizers meeting with Mr. Monterosso said they had encountered deep
reservations among Hispanics across party lines.
“When I hear a lot of Latinos say they are U.S. citizens but they are not
registered to vote, that makes me worried: we are not helping one another,” said
Jose Sanchez, 24. “I’m seeing in our community a lot of frustration, a lot of
anger, a lot of disappointment and a lot of fear. We have a president that
promised so much to our community but has offered us really bad news.”
Mr. Monterosso, sitting quietly as Mr. Sanchez spoke, responded that Republicans
had led the way in demonizing Latinos for political gain. “Every single attack
on our community has come from the Republican side,” he said.
Just outside Denver, Daniel Lucero, the co-owner of a barbershop, said neither
political party had paid enough attention to Latino voters.
“I would say the majority I know, maybe 10 to 12 percent of them vote,” said Mr.
Lucero, 66. “The rest don’t care. They feel like politics doesn’t affect them.”
In Nogales, Barbara Gudenkauf, said many of her fellow Latinos “feel like their
issues aren’t being addressed. ‘My vote is not going to count. Why bother to
take the time off work if it’s not going to make a difference?’ ”
On a hot afternoon in Las Vegas recently, Leo Murrieta, the director of Mi
Familia Vota in Nevada, drove to the Department of Motor Vehicles office in a
Latino neighborhood and watched as his workers, voter registration forms in
hand, stopped people outside the office.
“I have staff out in 10 places today,” he said. “There’s a lot of work to be
done.”
Marisa Gerber
contributed reporting from Nogales, Ariz.;
Dan Frosch
from Colorado and New Mexico; and Susannah Nesmith from Miami.
Latino Growth Not Fully Felt at Voting Booth, NYT, 9.6.2012,
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/10/us/politics/latino-growth-not-fully-felt-at-voting-booth.html
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