5/4/08-By Xavier Lopez-Ayala; lopez-ayala@hispanic.com
I was volunteering at the East Los Angeles Hillary Clinton campaign office on Super Tuesday when the non-partisan election reform organization Why Tuesday? interviewed Dolores Huerta, one of my heroes. Huerta, a human rights activist and community organizer discussed the need for serious voter reform to ensure that every voice is heard in our democracy. It was out of the East LA office that the organization she co-founded with Cesar E. Chavez, the UFW, organized hundreds of farmworkers from California’s Central Valley to canvass Spanish-speaking neighborhoods in the weekend before Feb. 5th. Huerta has spent her entire life empowering people of color and other marginalized groups to organize and push for change.
It was in that spirit that hundreds of Latinos--organized by the United Latin American Citizens—protested outside of the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in Washington, DC.
Latinos came from Orlando, Tampa, Miami, Jacksonville, and beyond to express their outrage at their disenfranchisement
“This is a civil liberties issue – not a campaign or candidate issue,” said Jose Fernandez, president of the Democratic Hispanic Caucus of Florida, speaking to the crowd… Another speaker was Anita de Palma, 66, of Clearwater, Fla. She is a past Florida director of the League of United Latin American Citizens… “This is our heritage!” said de Palma, referring to the right to vote and have that vote count. “Our forefathers fought for it, our father’s fought for it, and I’ll be damned if we are going to let it get away from us now!”
And she’s right.
Julian Bond, the chairman of the NAACP, has said that this selective disenfranchisement could remind voters of America’s “sordid history of racially discriminatory primaries."
And it does.
There are a lot of people who think it perfectly acceptable to the 2.3 million voters who voted in Michigan and Florida "tough luck," and to blame the MI and FL party leadership.
"Tough luck" is what election officials told African-Americans when they failed arbitrary “literacy tests.”
"Tough luck" is what African-Americans were told after states began to include “grandfather clauses” in their Constitutions in the days before the Voting Rights Act.
"Tough luck" is what people of color were told when they tried to buy a house, only to discover there were "whites only" restrictions in the deed.
"Tough luck" is what my mother and her black neighbors were told when they wanted to swim in the city pool on "whites only" days.
And "tough luck" is what people of color hear time and time again when whites overlook us for the job, promotion, or recognition we've earned.
So, excuse me, if I don’t think "tough luck" is the appropriate response.
In early March, I posted about a rally a grassroots "activist" organized in Lansing to raise awareness about the disenfranchisement of Michigan's voters. I also wrote about the MI and FL union workers who protested in front the DNC. But there was something that struck me about the coverage of the LULAC rally (per Marc Ambinder):
MISSING from the demonstration: Michigan Democrats.
Which begs the question: why are my brothers and sisters in the Michigan Democratic Party remaining silent when the votes of hundreds of thousands are not being heard? Where is their sense of outrage?
NAACP Chairman Julian Bond is right to recall the history of systematic and institutional disenfranchisement of people of color when talking about the Michigan primary, because the most common excuse for disenfranchising millions of voters is that this is an "intra-Party dispute over the system of selecting our presidential nominee."
The history of people of color here in America is full of rules and systems which either overtly sought--or functioned effectively –to silence our voices.
But quiescence never did suit us well (just look at the May Day rallies for humane immigration policy), and quiescence certainly should not be the position of the members of Michigan Democratic Party.
To quote the most recent platform of the Michigan Democratic Party:
Some of the greatest tests for society have always been: Do we respect the rights of all? Do we ensure that each and every person is given a voice and full representation in decision-making?
A discussion focused on complicated “party rules” and “delegate apportionment,” obfuscates the very real fact that 2.3 MILLION everyday citizens of Michigan and Florida cast their ballots in their states’ January primaries. As Democrats, we fought hard in 2000 to see that no vote was left uncounted and no voter disenfranchised by the "rules" (as interpreted by Katherine Harris), where is that same fervor now?
Whenever my grandmother talks about the Democratic Party, she does so with a youthful idealism. You can hear the excitement in her voice and see it in her eyes, which widen, when she talks about starting the first “Democrat Club” in Pico Rivera, CA and getting paid $0.02 to register voters. She speaks with great passion and excitement, because the focus is not so much about the Party itself, but about what it represented—and what it ought to still represent.
My grandmother became a Democrat because the Democratic Party gave her a voice. She and the other members of the Pico Rivera Democratic Club were tossed out of area schools when they tried to have meetings, called “communists,” and I’m sure much worse.
But what those people did not see was that there was nothing more true to the spirit of this country’s founding and the American dream than the principles of the Democratic Party. Because it was the Democratic Party, which welcomed people of color, like my grandmother, and gave no second thought to the fact that she was the daughter of farmworkers or had little formal education. The Democratic Party worked hard for my grandmother, and my grandmother worked hard for them—as a member of the Los Angeles City Commission and as a party activist.
My grandmother is a Robert Kennedy Democrat in the truest sense of the word. She was at the Ambassador Hotel the night he was assassinated, and hard worked hard to get both he and his brother elected. I can’t begin to imagine the visceral reaction my grandmother had to his death, but, along with many others, she hoped that his legacy of fighting to advance the cause of poor and marginalized communities in America would continue.
It is that same spirit which ought fuel our Party today, and we mustn't rest until the votes of every last Chicano/Latino, African-American, be they Michigander or Floridian are counted. Because, it is a sad day when Democrats and the Michigan Democratic Party are silent on a matter of the voting rights of millions. The votes of minorities have been silenced too often in the past, and we must not allow our Party to repeat this mistake.
At the end of the day, 2.3 million Americans should not be punished because their state legislatures, acting out of a long-standing frustration with the disproportional clout of Iowa and New Hampshire, violated party rules by moving up their primaries. Because the 2.3 million Michigan and Florida voters who cast ballots on January 15th and January 29th, respectively, didn’t choose those dates and they should not be punished for something out of their control. We mustn’t allow them to be silenced, because our vote is our voice. But Florida Latinos cannot do it alone, and Michigan Democrats, and the Michigan Democratic Party, need to live up to our party’s legacy and principles and protect the votes and voices of the 600,000 Michigan voters who are being disenfranchised.
The LULAC protest and the sound of silence from Michigan Democrats is reminiscent of Dolores Huerta’s statement: “we're here celebrating a new civil rights movement, and it's headed up by Latinos.”
We must remember never underestimate the power of our community’s efforts. Because, when they continue to tell us “no,” we will continue to respond, ¡Si, se puede!
By: Xavier Lopez-Ayala
lopez-ayala@hispanic.com
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