Groups to Build Civic Engagement among Immigrants
Feature Story by David Schraub - 7/15/2008
On July 10, a nationwide alliance of community, immigrants rights, and ethnic organizations announced an aggressive new campaign to encourage civic engagement and participation by immigrants.
The We Are America Alliance (WAAA) was formed to capitalize on the energy from an unprecedented mobilization in 2006, when millions of immigrants attended marches, rallies, and other events throughout the country to speak out for their rights.
The goal of the campaign is to register 500,000 new Latino, Asian, and immigrant voters and to initiate "get out the vote" efforts targeting one million voters in 13 states, including California and Texas.
In a press release, WAAA said it would focus on young people, newly naturalized citizens and infrequent voters.
In addition, the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO), a WAAA partner, will hold citizenship workshops in 15 cities and encourage immigrants to apply for citizenship.
Leaders of the alliance described the campaign as non-partisan and geared towards ensuring that the voices of Latinos, immigrants and ethnic communities are valued.
Although politicians courting Latino voters often talk about immigration, Arturo Vargas, executive director of the NALEO Education Fund, warned politicians against treating Latinos as "single-issue voters."
He said that Latino voters do care about immigration issues, but noted that it is not the only issue of importance to their community. Vargas described his goal of making this election year "the year of the Latino," with the hope of directing the attention of presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain to issues of importance to Latino voters.
NALEO estimates that more than 9 million Latinos will vote in the November election, but they "hope to prove ourselves wrong," noting that there are 17 million Latinos who are eligible to vote. However, according to the Pew Hispanic Forum, only about half of these voters are currently registered – a key area of focus in WAAA's campaign.
