AMERICA: The Latino vote could be decisive in next year's presidential election
THEY ARE the sleeping giant of US politics, a community whose demographic and economic weight far surpasses their political influence.
“Right now, there are 54 million Americans of Latino descent – one-sixth of our population,” US president Barack Obama said in a speech to the White House American Latino Heritage Forum this week.
Although Obama didn’t say so, he took his most famous line from César Chávez, the farm worker, labour and civil-rights activist who is the hero of American Latinos. “Sí, se puede,” Chávez said during a 24-day fast in Arizona in 1972. Thirty-six years later, Obama made “Yes, we can” the slogan of his presidential campaign.
Dolores Huerta is credited with helping Chávez (who died in 1993) to come up with the slogan. Still fighting at the age of 81, Huerta, the co-founder of the United Farm Workers, spoke at the October 12th event.
“The Mexican president Benito Juárez was a friend of Abraham Lincoln,” Huerta reminded the audience. “Mexico freed its slaves before the US did . . . Sí, se puede.”
Huerta and other speakers argued that a raft of anti-immigrant laws being enacted by states were self-defeating. “Alabama [which recently passed the most draconian law] will be like Georgia and west Texas,” Huerta predicted. “Lots of businesses will close because they can’t get workers. We have to educate people. Everybody who came to this country was an immigrant.”
Hispanic leaders believe the laws are motivated by racism. Huerta mentioned a bake sale held by the University of California Berkeley Republicans on September 27th, where cupcakes were priced $2 for white men and $1 for Latinos, with a 25 cent discount for women. The Republicans were protesting against a Bill that would allow universities to consider race, gender and ethnicity when screening applicants.
“Brown is the new black,” Huerta said, reflecting the widespread perception that racial prejudice has shifted from African Americans to Hispanics.
Obama faces disillusionment in both communities, in part because he has carefully refrained from any measures that could be seen to favour them.
In his speech to the Hispanics, Obama recounted how Martin Luther King wrote to César Chávez, saying they were “brothers in the fight for equality”. But Obama did not mention the word “immigration” once in 15 minutes.
Instead, the president delivered his stump speech on legislation he is struggling to push through Congress, saying 25 million Latinos would benefit from the American Jobs Act.
The Latino vote could be decisive in next year’s presidential election, particularly in the swing state of Florida.
Two-thirds of Latinos voted for Obama in 2008 but, like other voters who are disillusioned with him, they must decide whether it is better to have an ineffectual president who means well or vote for a Republican who is likely to be more openly hostile to their cause. Not only has Obama failed to promote immigration reform; his administration has deported more illegal immigrants than any other.
This week, Obama boasted that he had appointed Hispanic secretaries of the interior and labour, and the first Latina supreme court justice. The White House has a Spanish-language e-mail service, and the administration holds regular meetings with hundreds of Hispanic leaders in the hope of rekindling excitement about the Obama presidency.
Hispanics lean towards Republicans on social issues such as abortion and gay marriage. Many are receptive to the Republicans’ small-business-friendly rhetoric.
Experts estimate the Republican candidate would have to win 40 per cent of the Hispanic vote to seize the White House.
Mitt Romney, the Republican frontrunner, is believed to be considering Marco Rubio, a charismatic Cuban-American senator from Florida, as a running mate.
The immigration issue bubbles away on the back burner but could boil over during the campaign.
In the meantime, Hispanics are asking for greater recognition of their role in American history.
“The oldest city in America, St Augustine, Florida, celebrating its 500th anniversary, was founded by Don Pedro Menéndez de Avilés,” Senator Robert Menendez noted.
Hispanics fought in every American war since the revolution. “Thirty-thousand Latinos have served with distinction in Afghanistan and Iraq, including Marine Lance Cpl Jose Gutierrez, the first American soldier to die in Iraq,” Menendez said.
Gutierrez was from Guatemala, and had not yet obtained US citizenship. “And yet there are those who dare to question our contribution to American life,” Menendez added.
US interior secretary Ken Salazar wants to build a national museum of the American Latino and to make the “40 Acres” site used by Chávez in California a national park. “We need to make sure the history of all peoples in America is told,” Salazar said.
