LULAC Director of Education Policy Luis Torres Discusses Future of Latino Millennials in Elections

By Michael Oleaga Jan 13 2015, 00:00 AM EST

About Turnout:
LatinPost.com presents "Turnout", a series that features leading Latino politicians, government leaders, and advocacy groups discussing and debating the most important issues facing the Latino voting bloc.
The following is the interview for Latin Post's Turnout, presented by politics reporter Michael Oleaga, featuring the League of United Latin American Citizens' (LULAC) Director of Education Policy Luis Torres on the Latino voter turnout and mobilizing millennials to have their voices heard on various issues.

Michael Oleaga: With the midterm elections now behind us, how do you think LULAC, as a Latino-based organization, performed in mobilizing Latino millennials to go vote?

Luis Torres: Why, I think we're very proud of our efforts. We did several different things to try to reach out to Latino voters in general. We had leading up to the elections voter registration drives, coordinated with other organizations -- Rock the Vote, other different organizations that are working on voter engagement - and so we're very glad to say that we were able to train over 400 people, one-on-one people, to do canvasing, to do voter drives, we trained 30 of our councils in key elections and our councils are local chapters who do a lot of the grassroots work, we had poll monitors, we also had a call center during the election, on Election Day. We had lots of people filling up this room making calls, taking calls from people who were interested in casting a vote, may be they didn't know where their precinct was. So, we're very proud of our efforts.

With millennials, in particular, this is a hard group to reach - millennials. The potential to be a sizeable electorate is there, right, every 30 seconds, depends on what sources you're using. Every 30 seconds a Latino turns 18, so, again, depending on what numbers you use, that's 60-to-80,000 people. Latinos, who turn 18 every month, who are eligible to vote, who are eligible to participate, so what happens after they turn 18? You have to register them. You have to educate them, and then you have to engage them to come out to the polls and actually show up. This is a very diverse group -- millennials - that voting block. It's more likely to be civically engaged, but less likely to show up at the polls, for some reason. They also have varying opinions about the government. Sometimes, those opinions are counterintuitive. They're more likely to have qualms about the Affordable Care Act, but they believe the government should spend more money on health care. They oppose higher taxes, but they believe the government should be investing more in transportation projects, education and so forth. So, this is a group you can't really pin down, and I think there is an opportunity there. We're certainly heading in the right direction in doing the traditional voter engagement but we're also moving to online platforms. We're doing online voter registration. This is a group that's very tech savvy, that grew with technology at their fingertips, and I think that organizations like LULAC and others are evolving to make sure we meet those at this new group. So, we're proud of our efforts, but we're certainly trying to adapt to get more people.

Oleaga: Sure, and for LULAC, as you mentioned, it's hard to take millennials out of the homes to go out and vote. Do you notice if that's just for the midterms or the general elections, is there a trend?

Torres: Yeah, well, let's talk about the trend, the trend for young people, millennials in particular, it has remained at, flat, at 12 percent over the past several election cycles, midterm elections, 12 percent, that's about the percentage that comes out, except this year it was 13 percent, so there was a one-percent increase. So, the challenges exist for this group - the challenges that are there for every group - access to the polls, having a right to the poll, knowing where your precinct is, are you registered, did you register in time, etcetera, those challenges exists for this particular group, as well, and I think that the amount of people who turn 18, at least with the Latino community every 30 seconds someone turns 18, 60 to 80,000 every month, that poses a significant challenge for organizations who want to get these people registered and engaged. We, there's not enough time in the day to go register all these people.

Oleaga: Right.

Torres: And there's certainly not enough resources. We want more resources to be able to engage more people, so, those things there contribute, I think, to the slight one-percent increase. It could have been more. We're certainly looking to change that in the future, but, in general, the trend has been 12 percent. This year it went up by one point.

Oleaga: And knowing what we know now about the immigration executive actions, originally Obama delayed it for a few months, now that he has announced it, do you think the delay was a right move? The wrong move? Could it have benefited his political party at the midterms? What do you think?

Torres: Well, we are a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, but we are certainly very much aware that the Latino community very much supports President Obama, and actually, the American public supports his immigration policies, period. Lets look at the polls: the polls say that 89 percent of voters - registered voters according to some sources, Latino registered voters - approve of the president's decision to move forward with administrative action on immigration. Sixty percent, according to some polls, show that the general American population is support of the immigration policies. That can't hurt. Right? When do you have 89 percent of a voter demographic agreeing on a particular issue that's --

Oleaga: That's huge.

Torres: That's a huge thing, so it certainly can't hurt. Right? Whether or not that translates into votes depends on how we're able to capitalize - and I'm saying as if I were a political strategist, right? - depends on how you were able to capitalize on that type of sentiment: are you going to engage people, are you going to educate them, are you going to invest the funds and try to get them registered? Those are the details, right, and it's always in the details where we need to see. We think that, at least LULAC in the past, we had expressed that were disappointed with the calculation that the president made. We certainly understood that there were people who were pushing that delay, but we certainly weren't. We thought that we needed to move forward as quickly as possible. We think that the people responded as they thought they should have responded, and if you're a Democrat right now in Congress, you're feeling a little down because you've lost both sides of the Congress and that at least will remain like that for at least the next two years before we have the next midterm.

Oleaga: Now, had he announced it prior to the midterm elections, does LULAC think perhaps more Latinos would have gone and vote? Would it have made a difference?

Torres: Well I think energy makes a difference, right? If people are energized to go vote for you, if you give them something to vote for, they'll go out and they'll vote. Immigration is a very important issue for Latinos, but there are other issues that Latinos care about: number one: the economy, right? Number two: health care, number three: immigration. That's how they rank their issues, in that order, but immigration is very important to Latinos, people have called it a "gateway issue." What does that mean? Gateway issue is an issue that Latinos use to measure, engage a candidate's seriousness on other issues. They'll listen to your talking points on the economy and everything else, but if immigration is not right, they will not consider you as a serious candidate. The analogy I use to sort of analyze this trend, or this thought process, is this: it's like you're going to buy a car. You go by, Latinos care about the gas mileage, Latinos care about the efficiency of the tires, but if that car doesn't accommodate your whole family, guess what, they're not going to buy that car because it doesn't [fit] the whole family. If the policies of a politician doesn't fit the whole family -- undocumented or otherwise -- they're not going to look at that car, they're not going to take that politician seriously. So, I think energy matters. I think if the president would've moved, his base would've been more energetic. We've seen more support among Democrats for the immigration administrative actions, so, like I said, we're a nonpartisan organization, but if I were a political operative in one of the other parties, I would be, I would have made a different calculation.

Oleaga: Now you just mentioned the word "energetic," and I think people, after the midterm elections have become definitely mobilized on the streets due to various reasons, due to racial profiling concerns, the treatment by law enforcement or basic human rights from L.A. to New York City, even here in [Washington] D.C. due to the Michael Brown case and the Eric Garner case. People have been very mobilized. Do you think LULAC can ensure similar activism, outreach movements when it comes to Latinos who should be, perhaps, out being vocal for their rights, for their concerns?

Torres: Absolutely, absolutely and we're very proud of our history. We were founded in 1929 when, in Texas, there was a very segregated state from Latinos were being sent to Mexican schools, segregated from their white counterparts, we sued the state of Texas, we sued the state of California, we won those states, we desegregated those states. Our lawsuits were key, pivotal cases that were cited in the Brown case, which desegregated schools across the country. We come from that history, from that environment and our members have been very much involved locally in those type of issues. This became national news but we've had Fergusons throughout our history when the Latino community has come out.

Forty years ago in Dallas, there were riots over the shooting death of a young Latino boy who was accused of stealing gum at a grocery store. He was shot by a police officer - white police officer - that was later sentenced to five years in jail, released after two years. Riots broke out in Dallas and through that turbulence, you saw some changes. You saw that hiring of police officers - Latino police officers - more recruitment and now Dallas has an openly gay, lesbian Latina as their sheriff, right, if one of the few places. So, my point is that our community has been engaged for a very long time. We may not be in the news that often or as much as others, but we've been and there's silent victories here and there and we'll continue to push our folks. There's certainly a new opportunity to become more engaged and more visible with media and the social network savvy or atmosphere that we're in today.

I have to say that LULAC did send out releases and statements on the Michael Brown case, the Eric Garner case. We very much know and understand the frustration when we see that our justice system doesn't align in a way that we think is fair for our community. We've seen it on our end, so we certainly empathize. There's varying opinion about facts and what happened and the details and what not --

Oleaga: Right, right.

Torres: But I think the overall perception of the injustices in our system are those that are clearly understood by, I think, our community, so.

Oleaga: And, finally, do you think seeing so many youths - millennials - out there protesting, do you think this can continue for the next election? Can they maintain their voice being out there? Is it possible?

Torres: I think it can. I think, especially among millennials, this is a diverse group of people, a group of people that's very tech savvy. I think as they become politically empowered by turning 18, by registering to vote, by being eligible, I think there's going to be a sense to continue that activism, transferring that energy from, you know, the streets to the ballot box is certainly one thing that should be a focus. How do we get those people who are engaged and passionate about these issues to the ballot box? That's a key question, that's a question that civil rights organizations need to look at. We were able to do it in the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s throughout the history of our organization, we certainly have that same expectation moving forward, but I think you'll see that, and I think we'll be pleasantly surprised by the movement.