August
2006
A Growing Hispanic Population but will they vote?
Recent US census figures suggest that hispanics number nearly 100,000 in Milwaukee County but does this translate into real political influence?
If historical trends hold true, the answer is no.
Demographically speaking, hispanics areas of town show a more abysmal lack of interest in our political process than any other group. Consistently showing a low voter turnout, the hispanic vote doesn't even bother to come out to vote for their own. State Representative Pedro Colon would likely be a State Senator now had the hispanic community come out to show that they care to vote. Colon would also have had a fighting chance to be Mayor had hispanics bothered to take 5 minutes out of their day to vote.
This first came to my attention when I was told that then-Supervisor Tony Zielinski, who represented a larger hispanic population than any other district, knocked on the average voters door in his district three times before each election. Impressive I thought — that was until I found out that less than 3000 bother to vote in any given Supervisory race and that's from a district that used to have nearly 40,000 constituents. When you're passing entire blocks and there are no voters, it's not as impressive as it otherwise would be had Zielinski represented a district where the average of about 10,000 voted.
Hispanics flexed their muscle recently when they rallied and marched against Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner's anti-immigration bill. It was an impressive showing with many marchers carrying American flags. Now the real question is, will they actually begin to vote to support people who support their issues or were the marches all just a bunch of show?
Political strategists will be itching to find out if there is any difference in the voting patterns of hispanics or if the republican snub of hispanics will simply be vindicated by a display of hispanic voter apathy. The real question for many political wonks this fall will be, "do hispanics matter in the political process"? That question can only be answered by the numbers of people in the hispanic community who vote.
Share
Jim McGuigan
Jim McGuigan
Well – their numbers may be growing but there is no correlation to voting – and for a very good reason.
As you know, much of that population consists of ILLEGAL aliens. They cannot and should not be voting.
Jane,
We don’t publish most of your comments because you use a bogus email address. Please fix it.
This is a very serious issue. And as a politically active and socially conscious Latina, the low voter turnout in the Hispanic community alarms me greatly. I firmly believe that a long term Get Out the Vote campaign must be implemented in the Hispanic community.
I believe it is true that many in my community are unable to vote. But certainly not because we are all “ILLEGAL aliens” as Ms. Roe alleges. Many are LEGAL RESIDENTS here in the U.S., but are still unable to vote as you must have U.S. citizenship to vote.
Still, I have much hope for my community. Why? Because the children of these non-voting Latinos will eventually come of age. And if we get off our proverbial butts and implement a long term GOTV campaign specifically targeting the Latino community, those children will become the voters that answer every political wonk’s question, “Do Hispanics matter in the political process?”
I have spent many months now talking to many Hispanic households on the Southside, many are not naturalized but a lot are US citizens or have the right to be here. The issues surrounding immigration today has the community torn with those who went through the application process and the young who are demanding naturalization without going through the process. The Hispanic population in this country is young with many being under 18. There is tremenous apathy to the voting process in our hispanic brothers and sisters.
With that being said though there needs to be a voice for our hispanic brothers and sisters, someone who understands and can look out for their well being in our district. We need to teach them in our schools the history of the US and how it was formed through the hard work and dedication of the immigrants, from the Italians, Irish, Mexicans, Germans, and many others and to encourage them today to fight for their freedom and their right to become US Citizens. In this way we will be able to build a strong hispanic community banded together to celebrate the richness of their culture in the land of freedom which they can their own.
My motto is and always will be that, “Without a sense of caring, there can be no sense of community”. I am dedicated to bringing our communities together to celebrate its diversity.