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Understanding the rise of Latino political clout

by Lory Hough

When former President Gerald Ford visited the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas, on a campaign stop in 1976, he posed for the media cameras to eat a tamale — a small sign that he was simpatico with Latino voters. Unfortunately, Ford, unfamiliar with the Mexican treat, didn’t realize he had to peel back the softened cornhusk before taking a bite.

Much has changed since Ford’s flub. Subsequent politicians began to realize that token gestures were not going to cut it if they wanted to be successful leaders of the nation’s fastest-growing demographic group. In the process, politicians recognized an important fact: Latinos are changing the way the nation will lead and be led.

Presidential hopeful Walter Mondale knew this in 1984, when he actively courted Latino endorsements; four years later, Michael Dukakis wore his Greek immigrant background like a badge and spoke fluent Spanish on the campaign trail.

Today’s politicians have gone even further. From Al Gore spending millions on Spanish-speaking ads to George W. Bush touting the virtues of his Mexican American nephew, Latino voters were aggressively wooed by the candidates during the 2000 election cycle as never before, turning the race into what the New York Times called a “virtual love-fest.”

“Each candidate had a different message,” says Rick Garcia MPA 1996, a senior manager at the Colorado Department of Personnel and an elected official on Denver’s regional transportation district board of directors. “But nevertheless, for the first time, at least in my voting history, there’s been more than lip service paid to Latino voters and issues.”

Count Them In

Part of this recognition has to do with sheer numbers — the most tangible factor that analysts and experts turn to when looking at why leaders are now recognizing the clout that Latinos carry.

“Demography is political destiny in this country,” said Andy Hernandez, former director of Latino outreach for the Democratic National Committee, at a Forum that looked at the changing Latino vote.

By all accounts then — in particular the U.S. Census Bureau’s population predictions — Latinos are destined for big things. The conglomerate of groups that make up what is referred to as the Latino population is, by far, the fastest growing in the nation. Fueled by massive immigration and high birthrates, the number of Latinos has steadily been rising since Ford’s Alamo visit, from 14.5 million in 1980, to its current level of 31.7 million, or nearly 11.7 percent of the nation’s overall population. And the boom isn’t expected to slow down — a sharp contrast to the majority population, non-Latino whites. Whites are expected to contribute less and less to the nation’s total population as the slowest-growing group, while Latinos will surpass non-Latino blacks as the majority minority within just a couple of years. Further down the road, Latinos are expected to number 53 million by 2020 and 97 million — or one in every four Americans — by 2050.

Coupled with geography, said Hernandez, the Latino population “has profound geopolitical implications for this nation’s political life in the next quarter century.” Although Latinos live in all 50 states, they are concentrated in a handful — California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, Arizona, and New Jersey. These half-dozen states not only have the biggest overall populations, but also control almost 70 percent of the ever-important Electoral College votes.

Beyond Numbers

Large numbers alone don’t automatically translate into respect or power for any disenfranchised group, however. For many years, political leaders could pay cursory attention to Latinos without major ramifications for two key reasons: they didn’t vote as one cohesive group or in mass.

Experts agree that voter cohesion as a barrier may be hard to change: Latinos are an amazingly diverse population, coming from more than 20 different countries of origin and living all over the United States. They are Catholic, Jewish, Buddhist, and Protestant. Some are bilingual, others speak only Spanish or English. Nearly a quarter live below the national poverty level, while others are well off. Some trace their American roots back several centuries, and others are first-
generation immigrants. And, although considered mostly Democrats, Latinos are what Ruben Navarette, Jr. MPA 2000, a reporter who spoke in the Forum last year on the issue, called “cafeteria voters.”

“They pick and choose what they like when they vote,” he said, “regardless of what party they are registered with.”

Which comes to the issue of voter participation, something Latinos haven’t historically won gold stars for. It’s not for lack of interest, says Arturo Vargas, executive director of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO), a DC-based public policy advocacy organization.

“Largely, Latinos have been unable to vote,” Vargas says of this group. “About 40 percent of the Latino community can’t vote because they’re not old enough. The median age of Latinos is 24. The median age for non-Latino whites is 34.”

In addition, nearly half of the adult Latino population, according to the 1990 Census, are not U.S. citizens.

“So if you combine age and noncitizenship,” Vargas says, “nearly 70 percent of Latinos in this country are not eligible to vote.” And of those who can vote, studies have shown that other factors such as high poverty and low education rates affect political participation.

The good news for Latinos, however, is that these historical barriers seem to be breaking down. Although Latinos are still less likely to have a high school diploma and are nearly three times as likely to live below the poverty level as compared with non-Latino whites, they are the fastest registering group of any in the country. During the past 20 years, the number of registered Latinos jumped 164 percent compared with the national average of 31 percent. This last election was no exception. Latinos registered and voted in record number — up 17.1 percent from 1996. Led by Texas and California, which accounted for nearly 70 percent of the growth, a whopping 71.4 percent of the 7.7 million registered Latino voters actually voted in the 2000 election. And, as the Census Bureau reports, the number of Latino citizens of voting age is increasing, from 10.4 million in 1994 to 12.4 million just four years later.

“What’s significant about these numbers is not just that Latinos have increased numerically,” said Hernandez. “What matters is our share of the vote on election day.”

Impact on Democracy

Also significant, says Kennedy School Lecturer Marshall Ganz MPA 1993, is what this rise in Latino clout means for American democracy.

“To me, it says that we are seeing a big wave of young Latinos who have been allowed education opportunities, including at the college level, that now is being transformed into having qualified Latinos run for office and win,” says Jose Solorio MPP 1995, who was recently elected to the Santa Ana, California, city council. “The great success of Latinos winning office today pays tribute to how our democracy is now full of educational, political, and economic opportunities for all ethnic groups.”

It also allows space to make change, says Ganz.

“This rising wave reminds us that democracy can create an arena in which people with less power can contest the influence of those with more power, if they organize,” Ganz says.

Organizing certainly played a key role in the record showing of Latinos at the polls in November. Nonprofits like the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project launched massive voter registration drives along with its sister organizations across the country. In addition, controversial ballot measures like those advocating English-only laws and immigration reform helped ignite voter interest and mobilized larger turnouts.

“Political conflict is a sign of a healthy democracy, and people become more engaged to the extent that they think the conflict has something to do with them,” says Ganz, a former field secretary for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and a 16-year organizer with Cesar Chavez’s United Farmworkers Union.

“The surge in Latino political leadership in the West, in particular, is a result of not only a demographic wave increasing the proportion of the Latino community within the overall population,” Ganz said, but also “in response to assaults on it in the form of Proposition 187, welfare reform, and other initiatives associated with [former] California Governor, Republican Pete Wilson.”

Some, in fact, believe Wilson and his support of Proposition 187 did more to naturalize and register Latinos than any previous mobilization effort could ever dream of doing.

“Proposition 187,” says Ganz, “gave new immigrants an interest not only in becoming citizens, but also in becoming Democratic voters.”

A small survey conducted by NALEO of Latinos who applied for U.S. citizenship between 1992 and 1995 backs this up: 96 percent said they were applying to become citizens so they could vote.

“Many of the citizens during this period of overt hostility toward immigrants, and Latinos specifically, sought out U.S. citizenship, I believe, as an act of self-defense, out of anger, out of fear, and out of a real desire to play a role in politics,” Vargas said at a 1999 lecture in Colorado. Of these new voters, 80 percent voted for Bill Clinton in 1996. During the past election, fellow Democrat Gore received 62 percent of the Latino vote.

Approved by voters in 1994 by a 59 percent to 41 percent margin, Proposition 187 sought to make public social services, health services, and education ineligible for undocumented immigrants. Shortly after its passage, opponents legally challenged the measure, stating that it had become a racist attack on all Latinos. It has been held up in the courts ever since.

Learning to Lead

Hot button issues that seem to be Latino-specific aren’t the only ones that drive this constituency to the polls, however. And, say experts, they’re not the ones that political leaders should focus on when trying to appeal to Latino voters. The real means for political survival nowadays,
says Armando Ramirez MPP 1996, is recognizing how mainstream issues like education and health care specifically affect Latinos.

“Political parties need to respect and address the needs of all communities, and confront disparities where they exist in areas of access to capital for small businesses, educational attainment, health accessibility, mortgage lending, and everyday municipal lending,” say Ramirez, who ran for a city council seat in Santa Ana in the 2000 election. “If at the local level, political parties don’t address these needs, they may risk garnering the political support of a significant portion of the vote.”

“We are overwhelmingly placed in poorly funded public schools and often lack the support for achievement in education,” says Marisa Castuera, a second-year Kennedy School MPP student. “We have the highest dropout rates in the nation, the highest teen pregnancy, and a child poverty rate of 30 percent. Despite our diversity, we can organize around these and other social concerns as a community. I think politicians recognize that when they cater to the ‘Latino vote.’”

Future leaders must also be inclusive, says Marisa Rivera-Albert, president of the National Hispana Leadership Institute, if they expect to succeed with Latinos, or any minority group.

“Being inclusive is now a necessity to succeed in this country and in a global world,” she says. “The skills that leaders needed 40 years ago are quite different in the year 2001, and beyond. Look at purchasing power, for instance. Latinos do have a say, and corporate America must look at this power. It’s the same for political leaders. Diversity must be included in their agenda.”

Getting political leaders to pay attention is crucial, says Kennedy School Lecturer Mickey Edwards, a former member of Congress who currently teaches courses on political leadership and American elections.

“Any increase in clout must come from an increased awareness by the target audience of the concerns and interests of the mobilizing audience,” Edwards says. “The target audience may be the nation, generally, the federal government, or a state legislature, a city council, or chamber of commerce. Awareness is the key to clout.”

In the Hot Seats

So, too, is getting more Latinos elected to office. Although the number of Latinos in both the U.S. House and Senate remained the same after the 2000 election and one state senate seat was lost, Latinos gained eight state house seats. Advances were also made in some of the power states like California, which increased the number of Latinos in the state assembly from 16 to 20. New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado also picked up state seats. Even tiny New Hampshire added one Latino to state office, the first for the New England state.

“The Latino impact is clearly at the state and local level, and I think that’s appropriate,” says Garcia. “It’s where the rubber meets the road. It’s where impact is really felt and will continue to be felt.”

“Leadership in this country clearly has a very different face than it use to,” adds Jan Shubert, adjunct lecturer of public policy at the Kennedy School and faculty chair of the National Hispana Leadership Institute, which trains its fellows at the Kennedy School for two weeks each year. “And this new face is more than symbolic.”

It’s also highly public service-minded, particularly by up-and-coming, younger Latino leaders.

“We grew up in the generation of Caesar Chavez, who was an outstanding example of service to the public for not just Latinos, but for all Americans,” said Solorio, who moved to the United States from Mexico when he was eight years old. “I was raised in Wasco, California, only about 10 miles from Delano, where Chavez was headquartered for many years. His presence had a great influence on me all of my life.”

Chavez’s lingering influence, and that of other grassroots work within the labor and Chicano movements of the 1960s, have made it possible for today’s younger leaders to be in positions of power, says Ganz.

“A foundation of leadership networks was built up over the years by unions, community organizations, and civic associations,” he says. “It’s a chicken and egg thing. Mobilization wouldn’t have happened without good leadership. On the other hand, mobilization has created more opportunities for leadership — at all levels.”

In fact, say the authors of a paper on Latino politics, presented by the Harvard Civil Rights Project under the direction of Kennedy School Professor Gary Orfield, “The political changes of the 1960s are very much in evidence in discussions of Latino politics and Latino empowerment in the 1990s. The civil rights legislation of that era, particularly the Voting Rights Act and the establishment of affirmative action programs, laid the foundation for the political and economic gains of the intervening years.”

One subset of the Latino population clearly benefiting is women, whom Rivera-Albert says seek political office not for their own power, but “for the betterment of society.” According to figures provided by the institute, the number of Latina officeholders, from school boards to the U.S. Congress, is skyrocketing. In 1984, of the 3,128 total Latinos in office nationwide, 376 (12 percent) were women. In 1999, just 15 years later, the number shot to 1,879 (38 percent) of 4,977 total — a 500 percent increase.

“The success that women and Latinas in particular are experiencing today is a result of the passion, motivation, and hard work that came from the civil rights movement,” Rivera-Albert says. “We must not forget what our mothers and grandmothers went through. We don’t do things in a vacuum. A lot of people put their families and lives on the line at the grassroots level to get where we are today. Today’s Latino and Latina success isn’t a phenomenon that just showed up.”

Nor should that success disappear, says author Harriet Woods IOP 1988, if Latinos, like other traditionally disenfranchised groups, move beyond simply having their voices heard. Using women, the subject of her new book, Stepping Up to Power, as comparison, Woods says, “What we must do now is change our focus from just winning a place in the system to changing the system itself.”

African American leaders in California can attest to this. Following hard-fought battles during the civil rights movement, the number of African American elected officials began to rise, including strategic positions as mayors, lieutenant governors, and state superintendents. Three decades later, however, the number of African American elected officials in the state is shrinking dramatically, due, some say, to the rise of Latino power, suburban flight, and the changing needs of African American voters, who may no longer automatically support a candidate of color if they don’t deliver the goods.

One way to avoid this, say experts, is for Latinos to not only build coalitions with other groups, but to also ensure that they hold the ladder for other Latinos moving up the ranks. The majority of Latinos surveyed last spring by the Kennedy School’s Robert Blendon and other researchers for a report on Latinos in America, in conjunction with the Washington Post and the Henry J. Kaiser Foundation, agreed. Eighty-four percent said they thought Latinos would be better off if various Latino groups worked together.

“In my experience, the first efforts of Latino politicians were to get their foot out the door, get established, then create opportunities for others,” Solorio said. “In my case, in Santa Ana, we had our first Latino mayor elected in 1994. He was a great supporter of my campaign.”

It’s this level of support, say some, that is critical for continuing the rise of Latino power.

“I have high hopes that the future will hold much more opportunity to nurture younger Latinos seeking public office,” says Garcia. “It’s important. As leaders, Latinos need to ensure that this wave isn't a one-shot deal. It needs to continue.”