This blog on Texas education contains posts on higher education, as well as preK-12 policy accountability, testing, bilingual education, immigration, school finance, race, class, and gender issues at both the state and national level. It also represents my digital footprint, of life and career, as a community-engaged scholar in Texas.
Paola Ramos—journalist, MSNBC correspondent, and daughter of Univision anchor Jorge Ramos—offers a timely and provocative reflection on Latino political identity in her book Defectors. Featured recently on Horizonte, Ramos explores why some Latinos are shifting rightward, challenging the tired notion that Latino voters are a unified, progressive bloc.
Through deeply personal storytelling, Ramos listens to voices often overlooked—Latinos who feel disillusioned, religiously driven, or culturally alienated from both parties. Her work doesn’t frame these shifts as betrayals but as expressions of agency shaped by history, geography, and belonging.
For educators, activists, and policy advocates, Defectorsis a wake-up call for all to confront the ideological complexity within our communities—and most certainly, to not assume alignment.
Ramos reminds us that understanding doesn’t mean agreement. It means making space for hard truths and contradictions. In a moment of growing polarization, her call to listen—to really listen—couldn’t be more urgent.
Check out the great interview on Horizonte.
-Angela Valenzuela
Reference
Ramos, P. (2024). Defectors: The rise of the Latino far right and what it means for America. Pantheon.
Alright, the election is behind us and there's lots to reflect on. While things didn't turn out as we had wished in Texas, we nevertheless impressively increased our rate of voter turnout, illuminating how we are a viable battleground for the future. There is a lot to say about this and I'm still waiting on analyses that speak to this. In the meantime, the Latino demographic is making inroads at my university, the University of Texas at Austin, that seeks to earn Hispanic Serving Institution federal status.
It is, of course, heartening to hear our president say,
"UT Austin is deeply committed to supporting the academic success of Latino students in higher education and making this a more welcome and inclusive campus for all students."
This is a process such that HSI status will take time to earn. The Seal of Excelencia is a wonderful first step.
AUSTIN, Texas — The University of Texas at Austin has earned the prestigious Seal of Excelencia, which is granted to a small group of colleges and universities committed to accelerating Latino student success.
UT Austin is one of just five institutions to receive the seal this year from Excelencia in Education, the nation’s authority in efforts related to Latino student success. It is one of 14 institutions to receive the seal since it was introduced in 2019 — and one of only two members of the Association of American Universities (AAU), which represents the nation’s premier research universities.
The designation highlights the university’s ongoing commitment to Latino students. It coincides with the recent announcement that Latino student enrollment has topped 25% for the first time ever this fall, which qualifies UT Austin for consideration as a Hispanic-Serving Institution. The university also reported record graduation rates for Latino, Black, first-generation and Pell Grant-eligible students.
“UT Austin is deeply committed to supporting the academic success of Latino students in higher education and making this a more welcome and inclusive campus for all students,” said UT Austin President Jay Hartzell. “The Seal of Excelencia recognizes this commitment and will help us expand our strategic efforts to support Texas students. I thank Excelencia in Education and look forward to working with Excelencia to promote Latino success both on our campus and across the state and nation.”
Other institutions that received the seal this year are California State University, Sacramento; Long Beach City College; the University of Illinois at Chicago; and UT’s sister institution, The University of Texas at San Antonio. The University of Arizona is the other AAU school that has received the seal, which it did in 2019.
“Accelerating Latino student success requires institutions to go beyond enrollment and show intentionality and impact in serving students,” said Deborah Santiago, co-founder and CEO of Excelencia in Education. “The University of Texas at Austin and the other four certified institutions set the pace for much needed institutional transformation and are confronting structural barriers and inequities of longstanding.”
The Seal of Excelencia is neither a ranking nor an award but a certification that is granted after a detailed review and verification process. It reflects Excelencia in Education’s commitment to closing the education equity gap; meeting a goal of 6.2 million Latino students attaining college degrees by 2030; and supporting America’s civic and workforce needs by effectively preparing Latinos, now the nation’s second-largest ethnic population.
To receive the seal, universities must demonstrate:
* Evidence of effectiveness and intentionality in institutional practices serving Latino students
* Positive momentum for Latino student progress
* Dedication to transforming the institution into an environment where Latino students thrive
* Strategies in leadership that clearly articulate institutional focus on advancing Latino student success
In addition to its growth in Latino enrollment, UT Austin has:
* Expanded recruitment efforts across the state and developed mentor-like relationships with admitted Latino students to deliver student-specific information and enrollment support
* Brought together faculty and staff members, students and alumni to engage Latino students directly in their communities
* Developed specific programs to attract and support students in disciplines across campus, including computer science, engineering and business
“Providing colleges and universities with the means to reflect how they intentionally serve Latino students while serving all students, and advancing this during a global pandemic and national reckoning for social justice, is how Excelencia leads the way through these challenging times,” said Sarita Brown, Excelencia’s co-founder and president, who is also a Texas Ex.
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Latino voter registration is growing at a rate six times faster than the general population. Latino voter turnout is growing at a rate five times faster than the general population. Only ill-informed experts, Latinos and non-Latinos, refer to Latinos as “the Sleeping Giant.”
(What’s more, the Latino population is growing at a rate three times faster than the general population. That tells me that Latinos are not even sleeping when they go to bed. Let’s stop this “Sleeping Giant” nonsense already.)This is the 14th presidential election in which I am voting. I have seenLatino voter registration and voter turnout increase in every presidential election. Still, in every presidential election, so-called Latino and non-Latino experts refer to us as “the sleeping giant.” ¡Ya basta con esaignorancia! In 1982, when USHLI started registering voters in Chicago, there were about 80,000 Latinos registered to vote. Today, there are 288,000Latinos registered to vote, and the number of Latino elected officials has
increased from three to over 30, at all levels of government. There’s noLatino Sleeping Giant in Chicago! In 2012, the so-called “sleeping giant” cast 11.2 million votes nationally.
In 2016, 12.7 million Latinos voted, an increase of 1.5 million, whileBlack voter turnout decreased by 765,000 (the largest decline by any ethnic or racial group in 20 years).Voter turnout among all groups historically drops in midterm elections, but Latino voter turnout increased from 6.8 million in 2014 to 11.7 million in 2018, an increase of 4.9 million voters, the largest among all ethnic/racial groups nationally!Texas is a perfect example. In the 2018 election, Latino voter turnout reached 1.9 million, almost double over 2014. Voter turnout among young Latinos 18-32 years of age increased 500%, and two Latinas
were elected to Congress! This blue wave of Latino voters helpedDemocrats flip 12 State House seats and a few Senate seats. In HarrisCounty (Houston), the 3rd largest county in America, the Latino vote helped flip 17 judgeships and a Latina was elected County Judge, the highest office. This is the result of amazing work being done bySouthwest Voter Registration Education Project and several other groups that have been working diligently to register, educate, and getLatinos out to vote. There’s no Sleeping Giant in Texas!
Similarly in Arizona, the surge in Latino voter registration and turnout flipped the US Senate seat held by Republican Martha McSally in 2018.In Virginia, Latinas defeated several Republican incumbents who ran anti-immigrant campaigns in races for seats in the House of Delegates.In 2018, Latino voter turnout, which nearly doubled nationally, turned conventional wisdom about midterm elections on its head.In 2020, a record shattering and history-making 16,000 million Latinosmay turn out to vote. That’s an increase of 3.3 million voters, enough to flip the White House and possibly a few US Senate races in majorbattleground states. Hopefully, any references to “the Sleeping Giant”
will become a thing of the past for good, and donors will finally realize that growing the Latino vote is a very worthwhile investment.
Along with a really good story about immigrant right's activist Carlos Garcia's recent election to Phoenix City Council in Arizona with a thin, 384-vote lead, this piece by Dianna M. Náñez of USA TODAY offers a substantive analysis of the Latino vote. Key quote:
Nationally, there are an estimated 58.9 million Latinos, making up about 18.1% of the U.S. population and accounting for the nation’s second-largest ethnic group, after whites. Yet only about 6,700 elected officials are Latino, according to a 2018 analysis by the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, or NALEO. That amounts to a political representation rate of 1.2% in local, state and federal elected offices.
We are indeed in a crisis situation. We have been in one. Yet an increasingly larger and animated electorate, resulting in key victories, there is enormous reason for hope. Recent elections, including this one by Carlos Garcia in Arizona, suggest as much.
The USA TODAY Network is launching a series on the
Latino community in the U.S. called Hecho en USA, or made in America. Roughly
80% of all Latinos living in the U.S. are American citizens. But media coverage
of Hispanics tends to focus on immigration and crime, instead of how Latino
families live, work and learn in their hometowns. Hecho en USA tells the
stories of the nation’s 59.9 million Latinos – a growing economic and cultural
force, many of whom are increasingly born in the United States.
PHOENIX — Inside a
banquet hall at the Corona Ranch and Rodeo Grounds, tired couples and little girls
with long braids dance to the easy sway of ranchera music.
Election Day has turned into a sweaty-hot May night in Phoenix,
and Carlos Garcia, the
candidate everyone is here for, is waiting for the votes to be tallied.
Standing under a puffy mulberry tree, he’s listening to campaign supporters
swap stories and nursing his beer.
The historic race is still too close to call.
If elected, Garcia, a longtime human-rights activist, will become
the first Mexican immigrant to serve on the Phoenix City Council. He’ll
represent the fifth-largest and fastest-growing city in the nation. He’ll lead
a Latino-majority district once known as the segregated part of town where
Latinos and black families in Phoenix could own businesses and homes.
As if to ease nerves, Garcia directs the people crowded around him
to a woman whose coal-black hair whispers against her shiny hoop earrings.
She’s holding a piggy bank the size of a mango. It's stamped: “Carlos for Phoenix Council
District 8.”
“Tell them about the piggy bank,” Garcia says, nodding at Jacinta
Gonzalez.
In 2016, Garcia, Gonzalez and other protesters set out to block a
road leading to a Donald Trump campaign rally outside Phoenix. Gonzalez was
arrested – by deputies of then-Sheriff Joe Arpaio, famous for being known as
“America’s toughest sheriff” and for being held in criminal contempt of court
for ignoring a federal judge’s order to stop racially profiling Latinos.
After deputies questioned Gonzalez about her citizenship, she sued
and won a settlement. And she turned that money into something Garcia
desperately needed, the thing many rising Latino candidates lack: campaign
funding.
“We don’t have access to big donors, we don’t have access to
corporations that are going to invest in his type of leadership, so we have to
find other ways to support,” she says. “And so sometimes that’s litigation,
sometimes that’s fundraisers, sometimes that’s car washes. We do whatever we’re
able to do, because we need hope and we need the belief that we can actually do
things differently. And we can change the culture of how people get to office
and what people do when they’re there.”
Jacinta Gonzalez locks her
neck to a vehicle blocking the principal route of a rally for President Donald
Trump in Phoenix, Arizona.LUCY
SANDOVAL/PUENTE ARIZONA.
Despite
the nation’s ballooning Hispanic population, Latinos running and winning
political offices across the U.S. are too often an anomaly. Even in
Hispanic-majority districts, Latinos don’t run or win elections at the rates of
their white counterparts, various studies show. Now, candidates such as Garcia
– and his supporters – are looking to change that.
Nationally,
there are an estimated 58.9 million Latinos, making up about 18.1% of the U.S.
population and accounting for the nation’s second-largest ethnic group, after
whites. Yet only about 6,700 elected officials are Latino, according to a 2018
analysis by the National
Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, or NALEO. That
amounts to a political representation rate of 1.2% in local, state and federal
elected offices.
When
Garcia made his campaign public, most people didn’t expect him to win, and not
just because of his anti-establishment background. Statistics are stacked
against outsider Latino candidates as much as they are traditional ones.
But ahead
of the 2020 presidential elections, Latinos across the U.S. have rallied
against policies and rhetoric they feel target their community and are working
to build momentum. Political activists are recruiting Latinx candidates to run
in local and federal contests and aiming to win.
Latinos
will need more than passion to reach political equity, said Angela Ocampo, a
University of Michigan political science professor. Indeed, if Latinos continue
to be elected at the same rate as they have in recent years, it will likely be
more than 50 years before parity is reached, she said.
“It’s
going to take a very long time,” Ocampo said. “It’s even worse when we
look at gender, at Latina representation.”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY, listens as Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies before the House Financial Services Committee in October.
JACK GRUBER, USA TODAY
More
Latinos running for political office
In recent
months, Latinos have been courted to run for congressional seats in Texas,
Colorado and New Mexico. At the local level, Regina Romero was elected in early
November as the first female mayor of Tucson, Arizona’s second-largest city,
making her the only Latina mayor in the 50 largest cities in the U.S. In 2018,
Democrat Michelle Luján Grisham, a 12th-generation New Mexican, was elected as
the first Latina Democratic governor of New Mexico. She replaced Susana
Martinez, a Latina Republican.
Some
political analysts are calling it the Trump effect, a backlash against
political rhetoric and measures they believe harm Latinos, migrants and people
of color. Ahead of 2020 White House and congressional races, that phenomenon
could favor Democrats, who historically garner more support from Latino voters.
But for
decades, Latino candidates like Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
of New York or Garcia have received sparse support from mainstream political
machines.
Like
Garcia, Ocasio-Cortez, a self-identified democratic socialist, built her campaign
around community support that few establishment politicos saw coming. The
29-year-old, born in the Bronx, was working in a bar to support her family
before she was elected in 2018, becoming the youngest woman in Congress.
Ocasio-Cortez’s
ethnicity stands out. There were only four Latino U.S. senators and 34 U.S.
representatives as of January 2018, according to NALEO. That number increased
slightly after the 2018 election when voters sent four additional Latino
members to the House and made the 116th Congress the most representative of
Latinos in history. Still, that’s just a fraction of the nation’s 100 senators
and 435 representatives.
Analysts
point to varied reasons for the disparity, including policies that suppress the
Latino vote and political funding systems that benefit candidates perceived as
viable winners, which in many cases are white people picked by top Republican
and Democratic party leaders.
“These
parties and their donors, they’re very influential, but in many cases, Latinos
are receiving limited support from the important actors as they’re trying to
launch their campaign,” Ocampo said.
Ocampo
analyzed congressional races in Latino-majority districts. She found that even
with the majority-minority advantage, electoral success falters. For example,
Latinos are the largest ethnic group in California (40%) but make up
only 24% of the California Legislature, according to a 2018 Ocampo
study.
And in
New York, where Latinos make up about 19% of the population, there are only 20
Latino state legislators, accounting for about 9% of all New York state
lawmakers.
The
outlook for Latina lawmakers is especially bleak, Ocampo said. Of the 6,749
elected Latino office-holders across local, state and federal levels, only
2,485 were women.
The
highest rate of parity by Latino political representation is in Florida and New
Mexico. New Mexico has the nation’s highest percentage of the Latino population
at 48.8%. In Florida, the state with the sixth-largest Latino population,
Latinos represent 26.1% of the population, according to 2018 U.S. Census data.
But the state’s estimated 4.8 million Latinos in Florida have benefited from
decades of political activism in Cuban, Puerto Rican, Venezuelan and other
Hispanic communities largely in Miami that has resulted in an unusual number of
Hispanic lawmakers holding local and statewide offices.
Data
shows that when candidates of color run, their races draw more voters of color
to elections, and those voters are more likely to vote for a candidate from
their own racial or ethnic background, said Matt Barreto, a University of
California, Los Angeles, professor of political science and Chicana/o studies
and co-founder of Latino Decisions, a political research firm.
“The
research suggests that they aren’t being recruited, they are not being sought
out by the Democratic Party or the Republican Party,” he said.
The
Latino vote isn’t monolithic, but the growing demographic can wield power in
competitive races won by the margins.
Mark
Lopez, a Pew demographer, noted that while Latinos tend to vote at a higher
rate for Democratic candidates, there’s a significant conservative Latino
voting bloc. He points to the 2004 election when former President George Bush
captured an estimated 45% of the Latino vote. Roughly 29% of Latinos voted for
Trump in 2016 after he launched his campaign by calling Mexicans “rapists.”
In the
closely watched Texas Senate race in 2018, Ted Cruz won over Beto O’Rourke.
Cruz, the incumbent, repeatedly pointed out to voters that he was the son of a
Cuban immigrant and that O’Rourke was not Hispanic. Cruz ultimately captured
50.9% of the vote in the tightest U.S. Senate race in Texas since 1978.
O’Rourke, who also targeted his campaign to appeal to Latinos, captured 64% of
the Hispanic vote.
Two years
before the Senate showdown, Cruz ran for president against Trump and another
Latino candidate, Marco Rubio, whose father also came to the United States from
Cuba. A robocall during the 2016 election on behalf of Trump and targeting
Rubio suggested even Latino candidates with conservative credentials can face
rhetoric and challenges winning over voters unsure about supporting non-white
candidates.
"The
white race is dying out in America and Europe because we are afraid to be
called 'racist.’ Donald Trump is not a racist, but Donald Trump is not afraid.
Don't vote for a Cuban. Vote for Donald Trump," the robocall said.
Congressional Hispanic Caucus chairman Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-TX, arrives for a news conference to discuss the Supreme Court case involving Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals on Nov. 12, 2019.DREW ANGERER, GETTY IMAGES
Latinos
inspired by civil rights fight
For
Democratic Texas U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, who chairs the Congressional
Hispanic Caucus, it’s simple: Either you have a voice on issues that affect
you, your family and your community, or others make those decisions for you.
By next
year, Hispanics are expected to become the largest ethnic minority voting group
to be eligible to vote in a presidential election, according to a study of the
2020 electorate released earlier this year by the Pew Research Center. In all,
32 million Latinos will be eligible to vote compared with 30 million voters who
are black. It would mark the first federal election where Hispanic voters
outnumber black voters.
Castro
said Latinos have made great strides since the civil rights era in the 1960s,
when Latinos battling discrimination formed the Chicano movement to fight for
the rights of Mexican Americans.
“It was a
community that was marginalized, and in some places, repressed,” he said. “When
my grandmother came to Texas, there were signs that said, “No dogs, Mexicans or
Negroes allowed.”
Castro and his brother, former presidential candidate Julián Castro, grew up in San Antonio, a city where Latino politicians run and win. Their mother, Rosie Castro, was a Chicana activist who in the 1970s joined La Raza Unida, a third-political party seeking to engage Latinos in politics.
Castro said he and his brother entered politics because they grew up watching Latinos raise their voices as activists and successfully run for office. In 1992, San Antonio-born Henry Bonilla was the first Hispanic Republican from Texas elected to Congress. And in 1981, Henry Cisneros became one of the first Latino mayors in the U.S. when he was elected by San Antonio voters. San Antonio had not had a Latino mayor since the 1800s, before Texas became a state. Later, Cisneros was appointed by former President Bill Clinton as U.S. secretary of Housing and Urban Development.
“Henry Cisneros inspired a lot of young people, I think you see that often times, when there’s a first in the community who runs for something,” Castro said. “The turnout rate for the Hispanic community was astronomical” during Cisneros’ election.
Castro’s brother, Julián Castro, was the only Latino in the 2020 presidential race before he dropped out last week.
“I think for a community that for many years had been marginalized and left out of politics, to now see someone from the community running for the highest office in the nation is important,” Joaquin Castro said in an interview before his brother exited the campaign.
Julián Castro has always embraced his Mexican immigrant roots. He followed in Cisneros' footsteps to become mayor of San Antonio in 2009. But a recent poll by Telemundo Noticias showed he lagged in Latino voter support compared with other Democratic presidential hopefuls. The November poll showed Castro in a three-way tie for fourth place among Latino voters, with only 2% support, while Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders are leading the candidates among those voters, with 26% and 18%, respectively.
More Latinos are voting in local and federal elections
The White House isn’t the only political arena where Latinos are demanding a voice.
In 2006, when the nation considered a seminal immigration reform bill, there were only two Latinos in the Senate and 28 in the House.
“That was a critical bill that needed more Latino voices,” said Barreto, of UCLA. “That issue was so consequential at the time. It was a bill that was going to affect the lives of more than 10 million undocumented immigrants, many of them Latino.”
Some political analysts say the lingering effects of failed action helped spur today’s hardline immigration policies and public divide over nationalism and migrant’s rights.
But Barreto said lagging representation goes deeper than immigration issues.
“Every bill matters,” he said. “There’s a Latino angle to education reform, economic policies, health care.”
“These aren’t white issues, these are everyone’s issues,” he added. “Black, Latino, Asian communities, we should all be equally represented. That’s what we should expect in a healthy democracy.”
And the Latino vote is only poised to become more influential. Latinos represent the greatest number of Americans under 18, at 18.3 million, according to a 2018 Pew report.
Grassroots groups and larger ones like the Latino Vote Project have launched massive voter-registration drives in recent election cycles. Latino voter turnout in 2018, at 40%, reached a record high, increasing from 6.8 million in 2014 to 11.7 million. That’s the second-largest turnout among Latinos of any election year, presidential or midterm.
Lopez, the Pew researcher, said Latinos may be motivated to protect their rights and place in the U.S. About half of Latinos surveyed said their standing in the nation had worsened in 2018, compared with 32% who said the same in the weeks after Trump won the 2016 presidential election, according to a Pew report.
An estimated 55% of Latinos said they were worried that a family member or friend could be deported, and two-thirds said the Trump administration’s policies had been harmful to Latinos. That’s up from similar feelings about Barack Obama, at 15% in 2010, and George W. Bush, at 41% in 2007.
“Many experienced some kind of discrimination event, like being told not to speak Spanish,” Lopez said. “Their lives have changed in a somewhat negative way in the last few years, primarily, since the election of Donald Trump.”
Councilman Carlos Garcia
(right) makes a point as the Phoenix City Council conducts a meeting at the
Orpheum Theatre in downtown Phoenix, July 2, 2019. Councilman Sal Dicicio
listens (left).TOM TINGLE/THE REPUBLIC
From
protesting the government to running for elected office
In many ways, Garcia had already taken his place in history long
before election night in Arizona.
Years before his Election Day party, while attorneys for Arizona
and civil rights groups were battling over Senate Bill 1070 – the state’s
notorious “show me your papers” law – Garcia and other protesters
stood outside the Phoenix courthouse under the brutal July sun blocking the
intersection. When police officers moved in to make arrests, Garcia was in the
middle, wearing a white T-shirt with the words “We will not comply.”
After Trump was elected, he traveled to Arizona in 2017 for a
speech in downtown Phoenix. Garcia joined hundreds of people protesting the
president’s visit in the wake of a rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that
turned deadly when a white nationalist drove his car into a crowd of
demonstrators. The mostly peaceful protest outside the Phoenix Convention
Center turned chaotic when police used tear gas and stun grenades on the
crowd.
Hundreds of people later attended a Phoenix City Council meeting
demanding officials hold police accountable. By then, Trump had pardoned Arpaio
for the contempt conviction, further roiling many in the crowd.
The Phoenix Law Enforcement Association wrote a Facebook post on candidate Carlos Garcia.VIA FACEBOOKThe Phoenix Law Enforcement Association wrote a Facebook post on candidate Carlos Garcia.
Garcia stood before officials in a blue T-shirt that read “Not one more deportation.” He told council members the community would hold them accountable.
“To think that we spent three-quarters of a million dollars for this person, this president, to come spew hatred and bigotry, to come spit in our face and pardon the sheriff who was convicted," Garcia said. “The city paid for a campaign rally. We have an opportunity to ... do this and to stand up for not only Phoenix but cities across the country.”
Two years later, the Mexican immigrant’s face was plastered on campaign ads across south Phoenix where Garcia lives in a community with deep Latino roots. In the photo, Garcia wore a familiar cornflower blue traditional Mexican guayabera shirt, his baby girl on his shoulders and his wife, a teacher, and his son standing in front of him.
New City of Phoenix councilman for District 8, Carlos Garcia, poses with his family after taking the oath of office during the inauguration ceremony on June 6, 2019, at the Orpheum Theatre in Phoenix, Arizona
Latinos making political history at the voting booth
At the Election Day party, Garcia and his supporters continue to
wait for voting results in the shadows of a saguaro-studded mountain.
Gonzalez and her piggy bank the size of a mango still have the
floor. Earlier in the evening, Garcia called her onstage, named her the
campaign’s No. 1 donor and gave her the memento.
“Carlos has been on the front lines – organizing, fighting against
SB 1070, fighting against Joe Arpaio,” she says, her eyes filling with tears.
“It’s actually been a great joy of mine to be able to use the same money that
came from Arpaio, the same money that came from the state’s incarceration
system, to actually support his run for City Council.”
As the desert night fades, Danny Ortega, a Phoenix attorney who
has fought for civil rights since the Chicano movement, leans against a
wood-carved bar watching Garcia mingle with campaign supporters. Ortega
says young and old Latinos backed Garcia because they saw a candidate who
looked like them, cared about them and sacrificed for them.
“For too long, we lost our way,” Ortega says, standing with his
longtime friend Alfredo Gutierrez, who served for 14 years in the Arizona
Legislature and has protested with Garcia. “Too many Latinos thought they had
to act white to win. Now, they’re seeing the power in our own identity.”
Garcia moves closer to a grove of old trees, where it’s quiet. He
says it's justice that money won from a lawman who targeted his family and
community, would help him overcome the campaign financing barrier most Latinos
face when they run for office.
“I’ve had six people in my family that have been deported, I grew up undocumented. And hold that truth,” he says, shaking his head. “I grew up working class. I’m a single child of a single parent. And with my mom’s strength, that she was able to raise me, that she was able to succeed in this country and make sure that I got through school, went to college, I’ve been able to help my community for the last 16 years.”
By the night’s final vote tally, Garcia holds a slim two-point margin. As his supporters leave the plaza, no one knows if Garcia’s lead will hold.
In the morning, the final election results are in. Garcia is at home with his family. With six words on his Facebook page, he says what everyone who supported the outsider Latino candidate – despite the odds – is waiting to hear: “We got it! Thank you all!”
He wins the race with 51.47% of the vote. By 384 votes, Garcia, and the community who voted for him, has made history.
