Latino Voter Drive in Valley Picks Up Steam

Eighteen-year-old Marisela Rodriguez has been frustrated lately, but not with typical teenage complaints of homework, peer pressure and curfews.

A dedicated volunteer in the San Fernando Valley’s largest voter-registration drive, Rodriguez is upset by the apathy of some Latinos who don’t vote.

“We want to get them motivated and show them that if they vote, things can change,” Rodriguez said.

After a slow start, the drive to register 35,000 Valley Latinos is picking up steam, backed by an army of volunteer college and high school students like Rodriguez.

The Southwest Voter Registration and Education Project, a Montebello-based nonprofit group, is organizing the program, but the real work is coming from student volunteers who are recruiting new voters at malls, churches and campuses.

“It’s pretty much volunteer-driven,” said Tony Vasquez, Southwest’s man in charge.

If successful, the drive would add to the momentum Latino voters are gaining at the polls, where they have represented a larger portion of the statewide electorate each year over the past three years.

In the Valley, the number of Latino voters increased from 7% of the electorate to 9% between 1993 and 1997. According to Southwest officials, about 30,000 Latinos are registered to vote in the Valley, but more than 70,000 are not.

With about 521,000 registered voters overall in the Valley, Latino voters are not expected to become a dominant force any time soon, but a successful registration drive could give Latinos the power to tilt the scales in close races.

The Valley is already beginning to see a stronger Latino presence in politics. In 1993, Valley voters--led by Valley Latinos--elected their first Latino city councilman, Richard Alarcon. Last year, Valley voters elected their first Latino state legislator, Assemblyman Tony Cardenas.

Also last year, Latino voters helped approve Proposition BB, the school bond measure to create a $2.4-billion fund to fix dilapidated schools. Despite opposition from conservative white voters, strong support from Valley Latinos--who voted 86% in favor of Proposition BB--helped the measure pass, according to exit polling by The Times.

“We have to establish a culture where [Latinos] do get out and vote,” said Rudy Acuna, a Chicano studies professor at Cal State Northridge. “It’s important because there are so many policy issues that are going down right now, things that will be affecting our everyday lives.”

But registering young people will be a challenge. Voting records show that people between the ages of 18 and 24 have one of the worst voting records of any age group.

“I think students do care what happens,” Acuna said. “They do care and I think that you just have to create a space for them to be able to do that.”

When Vasquez took over the drive in December, he put the emphasis on volunteers. Using contacts with several colleges, he was able to increase the volunteer force from about 30 to nearly 300 in about three months. Five paid staff members direct the work.

So far, the effort has registered about 4,500 voters, which Vasquez says is about 500 voters behind schedule. But he hopes the larger volunteer force and growing intensity of the campaigns leading up to the June 3 primary will re-energize the drive.

“As we get close to the election, it is on people’s minds,” Vasquez said. “They are getting more excited about it.”

From the beginning, the drive has focused on registering Latinos attending high school and college.

But Vasquez believes the effort got off to a slow start in December and January because many students were off campus for the holidays. Since January, however, he said the number of voters registered has increased each month.

Vasquez was able to get the volunteer support through longtime contacts among the college professors who have offered their students extra credit for working on the registration drive.

Vasquez, a former Santa Monica councilman, got to know many professors in area colleges more than 20 years ago when he was chairman of the USC chapter of MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan--the Chicano Student Movement of Aztlan).

Jose Hernandez, a CSUN professor of Chicano studies, is among those encouraging students to participate in the drive.

He has offered students a choice of working on the registration drive or a mini census of their neighborhood.

“When students get involved and knock on doors and talk to people, that is quite an experience for young people,” he said. “It makes them more aware of what the people are doing on the street.”

During a recent visit to Pierce College in Woodland Hills, Vasquez recruited several members of Club Latino United in Education to help in the drive.

Club President Martha Garcia, 26, volunteered to organize a registration effort at the college, saying: “My goal is to have the Latino voice be heard so that things change for the better.”

Vasquez makes it a point to remind volunteers to register only legal residents to avoid the type of scandal that has plagued Hermandad Mexicana Nacional, the Santa Ana civil rights group accused of illegally registering noncitizens to vote.

Rodriguez, a senior at Van Nuys High School, also got involved in the drive after hearing Vasquez speak at Valley College, where she is taking extra courses.

Although she finds the work enlightening, Rodriguez said she is often frustrated.

Last month, for instance, she and other volunteers set up a table at Mary Immaculate Church in Pacoima to register churchgoers on Ash Wednesday.

“There was a lot of people. The lines were going around the block,” she said. Still, she only registered 70 people.

“It’s very frustrating, especially when you see lots of people and you get a small result.”

Volunteers do more than register voters.

Heber Reyes, 22, a senior at Valley College, uses a wheelchair due to a spinal injury he suffered after a fall years ago. But he helps the registration drive by punching voter information into a computer database at the Southwest office in Reseda.

“I like challenges,” he said. “This is another challenge.”

Reyes said he is motivated to help give Latinos a voice in policies that may impact them, such as Proposition 187, the 1994 initiative that cuts government service to illegal immigrants.

“If we get people in Congress, we can have laws to help us instead of discriminate against us,” he said.

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* MEDIA BLITZ: Two-pronged effort will aid Latino voter registration. B18