Posted on 05/08/2006 10:11:55 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
Even as Latinos in recent weeks have pushed for immigration reform on the streets and over the airwaves, another goal has emerged among a broader immigrant community: Translating street activism into political participation.
Latino and Asian civic groups last week reignited voter-registration drives by calling upon the thousands who participated in protests to take their enthusiasm to the ballot box in November.
But experts said that if history serves as any guide, short-term gains are likely to be few, while long-term gains will be significant.
‘‘If the next step and what we are seeing in the streets moves toward citizenship, voter turnout and registration, if that has any kind of legs beyond this year it will make California the darkest shade of blue possible and give rise to more Latino candidates at all levels,'' said Jaime Regalado, executive director of the Pat Brown Institute at California State University, Los Angeles.
‘‘It will probably usher in a decade of increased Latino political victories." Regalado said. "But, that's if things play out as organizers hope they play out.''
For now, organizers of Latino and Asian immigrant rights groups say that not since 1994 when a California proposal to deny illegal immigrants social services was on the ballot has there been such an urgency among their communities to register to vote.
Still, some election experts say boosting Latino and other immigrant communities' numbers on the voter rolls will likely do little to change the immediate political landscape in Southern California.
In California
While the rest of the country is grappling with a chasm between the Latino population and the dearth of elected Latino officials, California has gained an entrenched Latino political class.
But despite steady gains among Latinos over the last decade that have reshaped the state legislature and local political races, heavily gerrymandered Latino districts all but continue to ensure partisan wins in Southern California.
And some argue that mostly Democratic Latinos are merely picking among similar candidates from city council districts to state legislative seats.
‘‘In the Latino districts there is not that much disagreement ... And overwhelmingly, non-Hispanics don't like to touch certain issues. Some Democrats have gotten so soft - and to get harsh would turn off Latinos,'' said Allan Hoffenblum, a Republican strategist.
A prime example is the Northeast Valley's 20th Senate district race between Los Angeles City Councilman Alex Padilla and Assemblywoman Cindy Montanez, D-San Fernando, where many see few differences in their stances on the issues and instead whittle the race down to endorsements and personalities.
While efforts are afoot to qualify a November ballot initiative that would place redistricting in the hands of citizens rather than politicians, for now statewide candidates from governor to controller must make direct appeals to Latino voters, many of whom are demanding to know their stance on immigration.
‘‘Everyone knows if you don't get 35 percent of the Latino vote you can't win,'' Hoffenblum said.
Meanwhile, experts say the boost in Asian votes over the past decade has spawned a viable constituency for candidates like John Chiang, who is running for Controller and Betty Yee and Assemblywoman Judy Chu, D-Monterey Park, running for State Board of Equalization.
With more than 500,000 eligible Asian voters not yet registered, experts say Asian Americans could decide these statewide races in California.
But until 1994, many considered their votes, particularly the Latino vote with about 7 percent of turnout, marginal. Still, it was also the year that a slow tide, prompted by Proposition 187 that would restrict social services to immigrants, changed the face of California politics.
Many Latinos and Asians - outraged by Republican support of what was viewed by many as an anti-immigrant proposal - turned away from the Republican Party. From 1994 to 2000, Republicans lost 10 state Assembly seats, shrinking to 31.
It was also the year that then-Los Angeles City Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa was elected to represent the 45th Assembly district and rose to the rank of speaker. And it was the year that the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus was created.
By 1996, term limits took effect as a galvanized coalition of Latino groups organized voters. And Villaraigosa was followed by a string of Latino and Asian elected officials.
Today the Latino Caucus boasts 27 members, up from 14 in 1996, and is considered a heavy hitter in Sacramento. Their place was in part secured by the tide of Latino voters. During that same period nearly a million Latinos registered to vote statewide.
‘‘What (Proposition) 187 and its aftermath did is make California a deeper shade of blue. It drove additional Latinos into the Democratic Party. That sleeping giant label Latinos had for so long was to a large degree laid to rest,'' Regalado said.
Lessons learned
For their part, groups like San Antonio-based Southwest Voter Registration and Education Project and Mobilize the Immigrant Vote, a coalition organization of immigrant rights groups, are taking a cue from 1994.
After mass protests then, organizers began voting drives that are expected to be replicated in the coming months.
‘‘This will have an effect on turnout on registration if there is a convincing case that there is threatening legislation against the community,'' said Karthick Ramakrishnan, an assistant professor of political science at the University of California, Riverside, and author of ‘‘Democracy in Immigrant America.''
But although register rolls could spike, turning voters out may prove difficult in upcoming state elections where new voters, both Latino and Asians, cannot clearly see their issues spelled out as they did in 1994, he said.
And organizers will continue to face challenges registering immigrants, which proportionally vote less than their white counterparts, partly because of what a 2005 California Voter Foundation survey suggests is a lack of ‘‘a pro-voting culture.''
Statewide, only 30 percent of Latinos eligible to vote are registered, according to the William C. Velasquez Institute, a think tank examining Latino voting trends. That compares to 72 percent of all whites and 68 percent all blacks.
Latino and Asian populations are heavily dominated by immigrants. Nationally, about 64 percent of Asians are foreign born as are 40 percent of Latinos, compared to just 3 percent of whites, according to a 1994 study by the Urban Institute on Latino and Asian Voters.
‘‘The population of the state is growing young and more diverse but the electorate has been stagnate, it continues to be those that are older, white and better educated that are voting. Those trends can be turned around and they need to be turned around,'' said Kim Alexander, president of the foundation, a non-profit group that tracks voting trends.
Even in areas like Los Angeles where Latinos played a pivotal role last year in electing Villaraigosa to the city's helm, they turned out in far lower numbers than the general voting population.
Voter registration
Ana Gonzalez, a community activist and a leader with the Pomona-Inland Valley Cluster of One LA, said the organization is planning a non-partisan voter registration campaign.
The goal is to educate and encourage people to take part in the electoral process, she said.
‘‘We known there are many immigrants who are citizens and who have the opportunity to vote,'' Gonzalez said.
Many of those same people don't exercise their right to vote because they come from countries ‘‘where their vote hasn't been respected,'' she said.
To get people to participate in the electoral process is going to require education and explaining that their vote can make a difference, Gonzalez said.
So far plans include efforts to reach youth who are eligible to vote but who haven't been active in the electoral process, she said.
With the increased attention to issues such as immigration reform now is the time to approach people and training them to become voters, Gonzalez said.
People who want to see immigration reform and other changes take place need to understand that ‘‘the strength isn't going to be felt with one march or one boycott. The way it will be felt is through voting,'' Gonzalez said.
Efforts call for explaining to people how the electoral process works including the role of primaries, general elections and learning about candidates, she said.
Jose Calderon, a college professor and the president of the Inland Valley and San Gabriel Valley Latino and Latina Roundtable, said groups like his are in the process of organizing a series of forums around the Inland Valley that will focus on explaining the various immigration reform proposals. The forums will also tie in with voter registration efforts.
‘‘We're going to use the forums as a foundation for voter registration drives,'' Calderon said.
Calderon will also work with high school students so that those eligible can register and begin participating in the electoral process, he said.
The efforts will begin in time to get people involved in the June primary and continue during the summer leading up to the development of a plan for the fall elections, he said.
Part of the strategy includes moving beyond the voter registration and get-out-the-vote efforts and moving into developing strategies for lobbying political leaders.
Efforts to get people to the polls must change too.
‘‘We have to be sophisticated,'' Calderon said, adding that means teaching people to go to the polls consistently and capitalizing on technology to remind people, especially youth, to re-register when they move or take advantage of voting by absentee ballot, he said.
Since the Latino population has a large number of young people it's important to instill in them the significance of voting in addition to teaching them how to run for office, Calderon said.
Only through such work can voters make an impact on things such as immigration reform that includes paths to legalization for those who are undocumented, he said.
Organization as key
All the efforts will require grass-roots organizing and the participation of community-based groups, churches and others, Calderon said.
Part of the education process is going to involve explaining to people that to be effective they have to be consistent about voting.
Youth will have to be shown that ‘‘you will have the power to vote individuals out of office...but you also have the power to move policy'' forward, Calderon said.
‘‘This is a long term effort,'' he said. ‘‘It's not going to end even with a bill on immigration.''
Gaining greater youth participation will require exposing youth to Latino role models such as Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigos and Gloria Molina.
What has taken place with the recent marches ‘‘especially in terms of Latinos is unprecedented,'' Calderon said.
The recent marches and boycotts have shown people it is possible to make an impact on a large scale if they become politically active, Calderon said.
In the 1960s, Latino protests against the Vietnam War and for improvements to the educational system would draw 30,000 to 40,000 people, Calderon said.
Protests opposing Proposition 187, a 1994 state initiative that called for denying undocumented immigrants social services, health care and public school education, would draw crowds of 80,000 to 100,000, Calderon said.
Those figures pale in comparison to the March 25 event in downtown Los Angeles that drew some 500,000 people, he said.
‘‘The energy is there but if that energy is captured many, many wonderful things can happen,'' Calderon said.
Part of the education process involves letting undocumented immigrants know they may not be able to vote but that doesn't mean they can't be involved in other ways.
Illegal immigrants can handout leaflets, attend political forums and encourage those who can vote to do so, he said.
Jesse Diaz said preparations are being made leading up to a nationwide get-out-the-vote effort in early July. Diaz is an Ontario resident and a principal planner of the March 25 march in downtown Los Angeles in opposition to HR 4437.
Like other groups, Diaz said the work ahead includes education and explaining the pros and cons of the various immigration proposals so people understand ‘‘you shouldn't just jump on the first offer'' made.
Various organizations in Southern California, New York, Washington, D.C., and Atlanta among others are working together on such efforts, Diaz said.
It's on-going work and voting that will lead to long term changes including changes in political leadership.
‘‘Politicians are not going to be the nemesis of immigrants but advocates,'' Diaz said.
Over the past year, the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights has been registering voters outside citizenship ceremonies. More than 30,000 new citizens have been registered.
But unlike Latinos and Asians of the past, who leaned heavily Democratic, these new citizens are divided equally among parties and express less loyalty, said Angelica Salas, executive director of the immigrant rights group.
And much of their politics is informed by immigration experiences.
Over the next few months CHIRLA with the Mobilize the Immigrant Vote will be working on a national immigration platform, working to increase the rolls in areas where there are propositions affecting Latino and where the debate becomes heated among candidates.
Other voting rights groups are focusing on suburban or rural areas like San Diego and San Bernardino, where a strong Latino vote can tip elections.
‘‘We think the participation by new citizens and newly registered Latino and Asian voters is going to actually have an impact in defeating those propositions and electing politicians favorable to immigration causes,'' Salas said.
‘‘If we look nationwide, there are many elections won by 3,000 votes. If we can increase the electorate, we feel these voters can become divisive.''
California a Democracy?
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship." (? on who actually penned the quote)
Falsifying documents and voter fraud? I hope the INS is ready for this one. The communist left is planning on massive voter fraud this time, because Americans won't vote democrat anymore.
The government had better not let us down. Mexico does not dictate to the American population.
Why not put the states in charge of their own welfare benefits? Let the voters of the state use their taxes to support their own state citizens. That way, the red states will be able to support themselves rather than democrats and illegals in California etc.. All the states would be happier and freer that way. Everyone will have the life they want to have.
This way, if people want illegal labor, they alone can support them. If a state doesn't want illegal labor, the laborers can go to the more liberal states for their support.
"Voter Fraud Alert"
You should know why the Motor Voter Act was passed for in the begin with. So anybody can vote no matter what his staus is !!!
"Many Latinos and Asians - outraged by Republican support of what was viewed by many as an anti-immigrant proposal - turned away from the Republican Party. From 1994 to 2000, Republicans lost 10 state Assembly seats, shrinking to 31."
This bullcr*p has been repeated so often that even (maybe I should say especially) the Republicans believe it. What happened is that the Democrats under Clinton put on a full court press to register illegals in CA to ensure he would be re-elected in 1996. The Republicans didn't even put up a whimper resulting in the current situation.
They're doing the same around the country now. Colorado and Arizona will be the next to flip to pure Blue unless something totally unexpected happens, like the Republicans getting some back bone.
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