Last night -introduced by Robin L. Garrell, President of the Graduate Center- brought together an audience of people interested in Latinx voter issues and US democracy. John Gutiérrez, director of Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies (CLACLS) at the CUNY Graduate Center made sure it’s understood this would not be an academic event but still needed to know what is the Latino community. From the outset the discussion acknowledged the high degree of historical, political and geographic diversity within this group, making it difficult to target “The Latino Voter”.
The panelists brought the sharp insights of their various careers. Rochelle Garza, president of the Texas Civil Rights Project, and was the 2022 Democratic nominee for Texas attorney general, having won the Latino vote in every district, contributes that people want representation, no matter their political orientation. Democrats, who would stand to loose most by loosing the Latino vote would do well to put forward POCs or Latinas, who know the concerns and complexities of families, especially in the borderlines, where she’s from.
Sabrina Rodriguez, a national politics reporter covering voters for The Washington Post, responded to John’s question about low rates of voter registration and turnout in the Latino community as well as an alleged swing towards the Republican party, that often it’s the media that would contribute to false narratives. Latinos continue to be overwhelmingly Democrat, but have never all been Democrats – something that has been missing from public discourse. Media exploiting early exit polls, not covering all districts, and wrongly extrapolating that Latinos didn’t go out vote somewhere, contributing to a narrative that sticks.
John asks the question of political misinformation within the Latino community. Besides trust issues with the mainstream media, Luis A. Miranda, Jr., founding partner of the MirRam Group, founding president of the Hispanic Federation, and a community leader for over four decades, contributes the important point that Spanish speaking people don’t have a broad spectrum of Spanish speaking media, but have to rely on their friends or informal sources for news coverage and analysis, as nobody would tell stories in Spanish.
The panelists agree on a minor role of religion driving voting outcomes. First, catholicism loosing ground to protestantism, and then Latinos often think that everybody should make decisions for themselves, often support pro-choice issues. The more important issues driving elections are derived from not overly religiously colored issues such as immigration or education.
The importance of these issues cannot be overstated and we look forward to continuing the conversation.