Latinos in L.A. : Homelands’ Politics Stir Immigrants

The last time Mayra Sossa flew to Costa Rica to vote for a president, the normally ebullient woman smiled politely but kept to herself amid the raucous singing and laughter of her rowdy compatriots on the plane from Los Angeles.

“They were making such a fuss about returning for the election,” recalled Sossa, 39, who said she felt put off by the loud revelers. “I kept thinking, ‘What’s the big deal?’ ”

But as the plane approached the capital of San Jose and Sossa caught her first glimpse in several years of the familiar geometric patterns below, she began to cry uncontrollably.

“I surprised myself,” Sossa said. “Though I live happily in the United States, it was then I realized the powerful pull of homeland. . . .”

Election on Sunday

This week, after a year of political gatherings and fund-raisers in Los Angeles, Sossa will again join several hundred of her countrymen traveling from Los Angeles to Costa Rica to vote in Sunday’s presidential election, the country’s most colorful national holiday--”bigger even than Christmas,” some say.

Reared in a country where the electoral process is a respected and much-celebrated tradition, Costa Ricans are perhaps the most active of Southern California’s Latino immigrant communities in their home country’s presidential campaigns.

But the trend toward civilian governments in Latin America as a whole, the sheer growth in immigration and concern over Central America’s increasingly volatile political situation have fueled interest across Los Angeles in Latin American politics.

Only a few of the groups have the right to vote while living abroad, and attitudes toward the electoral process--like the character and size of the communities themselves--vary greatly. In contrast to the unabashed patriotism of Costa Ricans, cynicism and even fear marked the Los Angeles view of the recent Guatemalan presidential campaign. And while politics can be a divisive force in some Latino communities, enthusiastic electioneering in others actually serves to make friends of political adversaries.

A Favorite Topic

Politics--second only to soccer--remains a favorite topic of discussion wherever Latin Americans gather in Los Angeles.

At varied election times, Los Angeles’ Peruvian and Costa Rican restaurants, Guatemalan grocery stores and Colombian community picnics, are abuzz with talk of the candidates and their political platforms. Public service announcements on Spanish-language television stations urge Colombians, Peruvians or Argentines to register at their local consulates and advertisements in local Spanish-language press and talk shows on Spanish-language radio also herald upcoming elections.

Over the last six months, leading presidential candidates from Costa Rica and Guatemala visited Los Angeles and other cities across the United States, where they attended events organized by supporters and local chapters of their parties. In Los Angeles, they held banquets at some of the city’s luxury hotels and a star-studded Guatemalan variety show at the Sports Arena that drew about 7,000 participants, as well as a group of protesters handing out leaflets.

With Costa Rican, Guatemalan, Colombian and other immigrant populations here that compete in size with some of their countries’ largest cities, candidates say they visit here mainly to motivate local supporters to write home to influence relatives to vote for them. They also widely publicize their trips upon their return home.

“When you have such a substantial proportion of your population in exile and it happens to be in the dominant nation in the hemisphere--a nation whose every move can affect your fate--your political support there and the image it creates are very critical,” said William Bollinger, who heads the Interamerican Research Center in Los Angeles.

Moreover, according to a veteran in local Costa Rican campaigns, “candidates don’t come to the United States just to greet their people anymore.” They come to raise money, he said.

Mexicans, by far the largest of the area’s Latino communities, are a notable exception to the trend--at least officially. Mexico’s ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which professes strict political autonomy from its northern neighbor nation, does not officially campaign in the United States.

But, across the long history of Mexicans in the Southwest, social and political ties have continued to bind Mexicans in the two countries. In recent years, Mexican opposition parties, which have increasingly challenged the PRI’s political monopoly, have sought grass-roots support among sympathizers in the United States, according to community observers.

There has also been growing U.S. interest in Mexican politics--”particularly among Republicans and other conservatives who make no secret of their support of Mexico’s right-wing PAN (National Action Party),” Bollinger said. He added that Mexican party politics in the United States will prove to be “the most fascinating in the long term.”

Guatemalans and Salvadorans, with a combined population in Southern California estimated as high as 1 million, far outnumber all other Central and South American groups put together. Reflective of the chaotic conditions that have propelled them out of their troubled homelands, only a very small percentage in these communities take part in their countries’ elections.

Protests Prevalent

Protests, rather than fund-raising events, marked the 1984 Salvadoran election campaign in Los Angeles.

After 30 years of military domination that began with the CIA-orchestrated coup of 1954, Guatemala last November joined other Central American countries in electing a civilian president. But like other Central Americans in Los Angeles, Guatemalans, while hopeful, remain skeptical that the military has given up its behind-the-scenes hold on the country.

Mindful of the military’s reign of terror during which tens of thousands of their countrymen perished, Guatemalans in Los Angeles often cite fear as a reason for not participating in their countries’ electoral process.

“In this country you are free to talk, but in our country, if you talk, they shut you up,” said Jose Luis Lopez, 35, president of a Guatemalan amateur soccer league, one of the few organized groups in the community. “So a lot of my compatriots are afraid that if they express their opinions, when they return to our country they’ll be marked, apprehended and never heard from again. So it’s better to be silent.”

Even those who organized activities for visiting Guatemalan presidential candidates avoided identifying themselves too closely with a political party. For most, it was their first foray into electoral politics.

‘There Is Hope’

“In the past there was no reason to get involved, but this time there is hope,” said Roger Arriola, a travel agent who headed a small group, many of them members of the Guatemalan Chamber of Commerce in Los Angeles, who organized a $100-a-plate dinner last fall during the campaign for President-elect Vinicio Cerezo of the center-left Christian Democratic Party.

Arriola said the group raised about $44,000 for Cerezo’s campaign. The Sports Arena event netted about $98,000 for conservative candidate Jorge Carpio, he said. But some who attended later complained that they were not aware that the event, billed as entertainment, was actually a fund-raiser.

Costa Ricans, who have historically maintained a neutral stance in Central America’s conflicts and take pride in noting that their country has no army and more teachers than policemen, have seen the political debate in this year’s election shift to the right.

Conflict with Nicaragua over anti-Sandinista guerrillas based in the border area between the two countries has given an anti-Sandinista tone to the presidential campaign. Campaigners in Los Angeles quote both leading candidates’ opposition to the Sandinistas and portray them as staunch U.S. allies.

In ‘Eye of the Storm’

“We are in the eye of the storm but not a part of it,” said Carlos Valverde, 37, Costa Rican consul in Los Angeles and one of the organizers of the National Liberation Party campaign here. “Whoever wins the election, the most important thing is that we maintain our neutrality, our peace and democracy.”

Nicaraguans in Los Angeles, deeply divided over their war-torn country’s Sandinista government and U.S. backing of anti-Sandinista guerrillas, have shown little proclivity for electoral politics, according to Manuel Valle, former consul at Los Angeles’ Nicaraguan Consulate, which closed last year.

Recalling the activity of the 1970s when the community stood united against the Somoza dictatorship, Valle said that Nicaraguans have splintered politically since the Sandinistas’ rise to power in 1979. Sandinista revolutionary leader Daniel Ortega was elected to the presidency by an overwhelming vote in 1984 in an election boycotted by some parties and termed a “farce” by the Reagan Administration.

Valle said that long-established Nicaraguan activists in Los Angeles did not participate in the campaign because they are no longer familiar with politics in their homeland. And, since the anti-Sandinista forces “already have the Reagan Administration’s backing and financial support, they don’t need to conduct campaigns here,” Valle said.

Meanwhile, Sandinista government supporters, such as Ramon Diaz of the Nicaraguan Cultural Center, maintain that the crucial issue is battling U.S. intervention in Nicaragua.

“When you’re under constant threat and attack, how can you worry about elections?” he asked.

Generally, however, distance appears to temper political differences. Those involved in electoral campaigns maintain that members of opposing political parties are more cordial to each other here than they are back home, even participating in each other’s political gatherings.

“We love to get together because when we do it’s like bringing Costa Rica alive in Los Angeles,” said Sossa, who has lived here about 12 years. “The campaigns have helped to unite the community by giving us another reason for getting together.”

Peru’s presidential election last year, which brought 35-year-old Alan Garcia and his left-of-center APRA party to power, “was more like a community reunion (in Los Angeles) than an election,” said Enrique Coello, 53, a Los Angeles restaurateur who led the campaign for an opposition party candidate.

‘Get Together and Share’

Recalling the festive atmosphere that drew more than 2,000 voters to a high school where the Peruvian Consulate had set up polling booths, Coello said it offered “an opportunity for us to get together and share.”

Eduardo Pisculich, a South American seafood products importer who coordinated the victorious APRA party campaign in the United States, said he has noticed a rise in political interest over the last decade among Latin Americans in Los Angeles.

“When I first arrived here, there was practically no political consciousness,” recalled Pisculich, who immigrated from Peru 23 years ago. “I’d try to talk politics with my fellow countrymen, but they weren’t interested.” He added that the “situation” in Central America “has awakened people.”

Still, Pisculich terms the heightened activity “just a temporary phenomenon.”

“Over time, as the old men who miss their homeland die, the next generation will assimilate to American culture and participation will stop,” he said. “The children will forget where their parents came from. . . .”

Already Happening

Some Colombians contend that this is already happening.

In their country’s last presidential election four years ago, only about 400 of an estimated 25,000 Colombians eligible to vote in the Los Angeles area cast ballots, according to the consulate. In contrast, about half the eligible Peruvians in the area voted, the Peruvian Consulate reported.

“There’s a group of opinionated old men, like me, who like their politics and don’t want anybody else speaking for them, so we vote,” said Teofilo Arboleda, publisher of a monthly newspaper geared to the Colombian community. “But most people lose their enthusiasm for the political process as the years go by.”

In response to criticism during the last election about rigid registration and voting hours at the consulate, Colombia’s Los Angeles Consul General Maria Eugenia Correa said plans are under way to ease registration requirements and for locating polling places throughout the county in time for the presidential election in May.

Political activists agree that the level of political activity is often directly related to a community’s overall cohesiveness.

Raise Thousands

For example, many of the estimated 35,000 Costa Ricans who reside throughout Los Angeles and Orange counties come together regularly at events sponsored by about a dozen social, business and athletic organizations. And they raise thousands of dollars each year for charitable causes in Costa Rica.

Efrain Quiros, a dentist who has served as consul in Los Angeles the last four years and who has lived here for about 22, is among the founders of the Costa Rican National Liberation Party Committee in Los Angeles. Similar committees have formed over the last decade in cities across the state, as well as in New York and Miami. “But this is where it all started,” he said.

The opposition Christian Unity Party has also taken note of the fund-raising potential here. For the first time, supporters here also formed a party committee and organized monthly fund-raisers as well as a $250-a-plate dinner for their visiting presidential candidate, Rafael Calderon.

Organizers of the gala dinner blamed a competing soccer championship match in Torrance between teams from Costa Rica and the United States for a disappointing turnout at the dinner. Nevertheless, the committee raised about $27,000 during the yearlong campaign, organizers said.

Met With GOP Leaders

Quiros would not say how much money was raised locally for Liberation Party candidate Oscar Arias, whose campaign here was reportedly more successful. Quiros added, however, that he has met with high-ranking Republican Party members in California to lay the groundwork for future financial backing.

Returning to one’s country of origin, even after decades of residing in the United States, remains an important though sometimes fading option in the minds of many Latino immigrants. This and the issue of personal identity are frequently cited as reasons for maintaining one’s original citizenship.

“One of the sadnesses of living in this country is that everybody tells you, ‘Become American, become American’ but either way you continue being Latino and discriminated against,” said Nelly Orona, who immigrated to the United States nearly two decades ago, and although a legal resident, has not chosen to become a U.S. citizen. “As a Costa Rican, I retain my identity whether living here or in China.”

Others contend that they are more effective participating in the familiar politics of their home countries than they would be in American politics.

Unity Is Lacking

Nor does there appear to be much effort among Latin Americans involved in their country’s electoral politics to join forces with other Latino groups. The few Pan-American associations that exist steer clear of politics, according to members of such groups.

“Despite the language, religion and other things that we have in common, I see a great lack of unity among Latinos,” said Orona, whose husband is Mexican-American. “With nearly 20 million of us in this country, we should have great political power. Unfortunately not many believe as I do.”