At Latino summit, McAuliffe’s message is direct: Don’t forget to vote

Washington Post (Virginia)

By Antonio Olivo

August 6, 2015

At Latino summit, McAuliffe’s message is direct: Don’t forget to vote 

There were workshops on improving public education and starting a business, and programs touting better options for jobs and health care. But the central message that Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe brought to the Latino community on Wednesday was the value of political and civic engagement.

“When you go to the polls, things happen,” McAuliffe (D) said during a speech that emphasized that Latinos are the fastest-growing segment of Virginia’s population. “Don’t let anybody tell you that elections don’t matter.”

The governor’s first Latino summit — held inside George Mason University’s Arlington campus under the rubric of building “a new Virginia economy” — drew about 200 community activists, business leaders and educators.

Volunteers stood ready to register new voters. Event speakers, including first lady Dorothy McAuliffe, emphasized the importance of voting, engaging with state and federal elected officials and running for office.

The event highlighted the increasing importance of the Latino electorate in Virginia, which was a swing state during recent presidential elections and is expected to again play a key role in 2016.

About 214,000 Hispanics in the state were eligible to vote in 2012, according to the Pew Hispanic Center. Since 2010, it noted, the state’s Hispanic population has grown by nearly 30,000 people, to about 660,000.

The summit also fit into McAuliffe’s larger efforts to use his office as a lever to secure more support for the efforts by close friend Hillary Rodham Clinton to win the Democratic presidential nomination.

“It is evident, people, that the future of Virginia is inextricably linked to the future of the Hispanic/Latino community,” said Aida Pacheco, co-chair of the governor’s appointed Latino Advisory Board, which coordinated the event. “We need to vote in all elections. Our local officials are critical to getting things we need done.”

Attendees agreed, and applauded the focus on better jobs and opportunities for Latino residents. But they also expressed frustration with McAuliffe and other state officials over more basic problems that continue to impact the Latino community — such as the dire working conditions and low wages endured by some recent and undocumented immigrants.

Molly Maddra-Santiago, director of the Centreville Labor Resource Center, which helps day laborers, called working conditions “the elephant in the room.”

“A lot of what we’re talking about is how to become extraordinary, how to become entrepreneurs,” she said. “Well, not everybody’s going to be able to do that. How do we make sure that people who work in restaurants have decent lives as well?”

Andres Tobar, director of a group in Shirlington that also works with immigrant laborers, said their workplace problems will fester unless more Latinos are elected to the Virginia General Assembly or existing members become more sympathetic to Latino concerns.

“We are grossly underrepresented,” Tobar said.

McAuliffe encouraged summit attendees to seek more solutions by volunteering for state commissions and government committees, as well as by making themselves better known to their local elected officials.

“They should recognize the sound of your voice,” the governor said. “And they should know what issues are important to you.”

McAuliffe also appealed to the audience by reiterating his support for federal immigration reforms — a stance that won a standing ovation from the crowd.

He criticized Republican efforts to wipe out an executive order signed by President Obama that allowed up to 5 million people brought into the United States illegally as children to stay in the country and legally work.

“They talk about how some of our brightest students in the commonwealth should be deported,” McAuliffe said. “Let me be very clear: I am 100 percent against that. We should not be deporting any of our talent.”

David E. Ramos, an assistant vice president at BB&T Bank, said he was encouraged to see other business professionals attending the summit.

“It’s important to have participation from the private sector,” he said. “It’d be nice to see a little more outreach to the private sector.”

Jason N. Puryear, a counselor at Virginia Tech who works with low-income high school students hoping to get into a four-year university, also found the summit to be encouraging. But he was cynical about the event’s political overtones and timing, three months before state elections and just as the 2016 presidential primary contests are starting to heat up.

“With any elected position, every move is calculated,” Puryear said. “But what comes after? Is there going to be follow-up and is there going to be continued engagement with the community? Or, is this is a one-off kind of event that was more about lip service?”

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