Rise Up, Latinos

In spring 2006, Latinos in the United States mobilized like never before against Republican anti-immigration policies. “Today we march, tomorrow we vote,” the demonstrators shouted. Ten years later, the Latino minority’s influence during elections remains secondary to their astonishing demographic growth.

On March 26, 2006, in the city of Los Angeles, 500,000 people descended on the streets to protest measures voted on by congressional Republicans to criminalize illegal immigrants. It was an even larger collective outburst than the protests against the Vietnam War, 35 years earlier. Other “A Day Without Immigrants” protests would be held in several American cities during the month of April, with Latinos going on strike in the hundreds of thousands to remind Americans of their key contributions to the economy and the American job market.

Fifty years ago, Latinos comprised 3 percent of the American population. Today, they are a community of around 55 million (17 percent of the population), although these figures are inevitably inaccurate, given the presence of some 10 million illegal immigrants. Whatever the number may be, Latinos are now the country’s most important minority, in front of blacks. In a state as electorally important as Texas, they represent almost 40 percent of the population, and their proportion continues to grow. However, “today we march, tomorrow we vote” has largely been abandoned. Why?

It’s surprising, given everything else, that the outrageous statements uttered by Donald Trump, who promised to throw out all illegal immigrants and to seal the border at Mexico’s cost if he becomes president, haven’t provoked more massive denunciations. Alongside the Black Lives Matter movement, which was born over the past few years out of multiple cases of police violence against blacks, the Latino community seems apathetic, despite their having every reason to turn against the brutality of illegal immigrant deportation policies that Washington has implemented for far too long.

The proportion of Latino voters who are casting ballots has grown in the last ten years, but remains distinctly inferior to that of whites, and to that of blacks. Could that change during the next presidential election? It will be difficult. The arsenal of measures employed by Republicans to obstruct minorities’ right to vote – most of whom are won over by Democrats – will not diminish. The hijacking of the democratic process that allowed George W. Bush to take power in 2000 could theoretically be repeated.

This is all the more possible considering that the next presidential election will be the first held since the Supreme Court’s June 2013 nullification of a cornerstone (Article 5) of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In the United States’ modern history, Article 5 has played a fundamental role in giving the federal government the power to block discriminatory electoral laws in states with a heavy segregationist past, such as Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama. In 2013, the Supreme Court determined, in a tight 5-4 decision, that this article had become useless for the reason that, at the very least, the United States had now overcome its racist past.

Redistricting for a Republican advantage, the reduction of advance voting times, increased demands for identification at polling stations (under the completely false pretext that non-citizens rush to the ballot boxes to vote illegally) … Republicans have developed a veritable science for controlling the right to vote. This science allows “Anglo” votes to be shielded from the growing demographic pressure of minorities in states, like Texas, that are essential to the party’s survival.

This dynamic is combined with a more “psycho-political” dimension.

To be a native of Latin America is to know and to have internalized a repressive political history. In the southern United States, where deep-rooted ethnic and racial distrust persist, the white majority perpetuates a culture of intimidation. As a result, while they may have become American citizens, many Latinos will keep themselves from voting for fear that they might be taken for illegal immigrants. This power struggle has no end in sight, but, by walling themselves up, the Republicans will eventually lose. Things will change quickly, as soon as Latinos dare to defend their political rights with more audacity.