PBS Newshour
By David Dent
February 4, 2016
Last
Monday, a group dedicated to boosting Iowa’s Latino voter turnout
scored a victory far more certain than Hillary Clinton’s win over
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.
More
than 10,000 Latinos caucused, up from roughly 1,000 eight years ago.
And the group, The League of United Latin American Citizens of Iowa, has
Donald Trump’s rhetoric
on immigration to thank.
The
overwhelming majority of Latinos caucused as Democrats, but it was that
notorious Republican who motivated many of them to caucus at all.
“I
decided to caucus, because I don’t want Donald Trump to become the
president,” said Tania Fonseca, 23, a Mexican American who caucused in
Marshall County, a swing county
in central Iowa that voted for George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004 and
President Obama in 2008 and 2012. “I want to learn a lot more about what
the presidential timeline looks like.”
Fonseca,
like many Mexican Americans, has voted in general elections, but
caucusing always sounded a bit intimidating, especially for registered
Democrats. The Democratic
caucuses require everyone to publicly announce their choices, while the
Republican votes are private.
However,
Fonseca could not resist the lobbying calls from Latino community
leaders to caucus, thanks largely to a Trump rally at Marshalltown High
School, located about
50 miles northeast of Des Moines.
It
was just one week before the caucus that school officials closed the
school early to make room for Trump and his supporters. Fonseca helped
organize and advise the
student protests that greeted Trump when he arrived. Every Latino voter
I spoke to in Marshalltown mentioned the rally and the fear it created
among Latinos in this small town of 27,727.
“It’s terrifying but not surprising, because I feel like the tension has always been there.” — Veronica Guevara
“To
me, it’s terrifying but not surprising, because I feel like the tension
has always been there,” says Veronica Guevara, 24, who grew up in
Marshalltown but moved to
Des Moines months ago to serve as director of Latino Outreach for the
Iowa Coalition on Domestic Violence. “I feel like now, the more front
and center it becomes, the more chances we have of actually confronting
these issues straight on.”
When
Tasnia and her husband, Erich, entered the cafeteria at Fisher
Elementary School in Marshalltown, Iowa, on Monday night, they felt like
they were confronting a new
world. They saw two big crowds huddled together — one side sporting
Sanders paraphernalia and the other with Clinton signs.
Then
there were the two other small pockets of people in corners of the room
who were undecided voters or supporters of former Maryland Governor
Martin O’Malley, who finished
third and dropped out of the race the next day.
Erich
and Tasnia joined the Sanders crowd. In fact, of the 207 caucus goers
at the precinct, 26 were Mexican Americans. They all stood with Sanders,
helping him win the
precinct with 103 votes to Clinton’s 102 and carry Marshall County.
“Bernie’s
track record on immigration is great, and Hillary is not the best on
that issue,” said Jacqueline Guevara, a first-time, Mexican American
caucus goer who supported
Sanders.
Like
many Mexican Americans with citizenship, Guevara has relatives who are
undocumented and live in fear of being deported — a concern that has
only gone up in response
to Trump and the GOP primary field’s rhetoric on immigration. “We can
no longer sit out on any part of the process,” Guevara said.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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