A new kind of Hispanic leader

By Timothy Pratt

Wednesday, Sept. 6, 2006 | 8:01 a.m.

Ruben Kihuen, who is poised to become Nevada's first elected Hispanic immigrant lawmaker in modern history, excused himself for being a little scattered.

Twelve hours earlier, a guy sporting gang colors and baggy jeans had pressed a gun to his head. The teenager made Kihuen empty his pockets - one dollar and a credit card - and lie face down on the pavement in front of his house. Then the gunman split, accompanied by another bandanna-wearing thug.

"I thought about my parents. I figured it was the end. Your life depends on that one guy," says Kihuen, 26, his voice trailing off.

He had told only two people about the stickup: his father and his girlfriend.

The up-close moment shifts abruptly to politics.

"I think it's a sign," he says, "that your neighborhood is in desperate need of representation. What happened to you has probably happened to a lot of people. It's very eye-opening.

"I'm thankful I woke up today."

His restaurant lunch - chicken tostadas he compares to his mother's cooking - arrives at the table. He prays silently over his meal.

Kihuen (pronounced key-when) is fit, with a college student's energy. He regularly attends church and is close to his family. He works as a student adviser at the Community College of Southern Nevada.

Despite his youth, Kihuen is quick to remind that he's no newcomer to politics, with eight years of state and national politics on his resume.

That resume's first line would be a 1998 job walking precincts as a volunteer for Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev. That was the election decided by 428 votes.

"My little effort helped elect Reid," Kihuen says.

Three years later, at 21, he left home after catching political fever and landing a job as part of a Hispanic outreach team for Mark Warner, then a candidate for and now governor of Virginia.

His job was to get out the Hispanic vote, but he learned much more.

"The perception people (in politics) have toward the Hispanic community is very broad - they thought it was (about) using two words in Spanish," Kihuen says.

He also found that fellow Hispanics knew little about the political process: "That was surprising to me."

Kihuen brought those lessons home and has since actively worked to register, educate and mobilize Hispanics.

His campaign for the District 11 Assembly seat, against incumbent Bob McCleary, featured all three steps. He registered several hundred Hispanic voters in a district that Kihuen says has a voting-aged population of about one-third Hispanic.

He knocked on doors and hand-wrote - not typed - thank-you notes, in Spanish and English, to those he visited - all 2,000 of them.

Kihuen won the primary handily, with 992 of 1,642 ballots cast. He is running unopposed in November.

Andres Ramirez, a political consultant who lost his 2005 bid for North Las Vegas mayor, called the results "probably the first state Assembly election in which the Hispanic vote was decisive in the victory."

Ramirez also says that Kihuen's victory closes a chapter of sorts. After Census 2000, Ramirez and others lobbied for two new Assembly districts, which they hoped would result in a state Legislature that more closely reflected the population: One in five Nevadans are Hispanic. The result: Districts 28 and 11. District 28 fulfilled its intended destiny when Moises Denis was elected in 2004.

Now Kihuen steps up to the plate. "In effect, we've doubled our (Hispanic) caucus," Denis quips.

Ramirez says building Hispanic participation and representation is a process: "Both districts had Anglo representatives at first. People said, 'What are you doing?' "

He thinks Kihuen's background as an immigrant to the U.S. from Jalisco, Mexico, is a huge benefit.

"He's bilingual, bicultural, from Mexico. Nevada's only becoming more Latino; so the ability to bring his experience and background will bring a more definitive voice on issues affecting his district," Ramirez says.

Kihuen is most likely the second Hispanic immigrant to serve in the Legislature. Pablo Laveaga, who was elected in 1875 and born in Sinaloa, Mexico, was probably the first. That would make Kihuen a "pioneer in modern Nevada history," state archivist Guy Rocha says.

As with many Mexican immigrant families, Kihuen's father arrived in the U.S. first, making the trip from Jalisco, where he worked as a teacher, to California, where he picked strawberries. Two years of separation from his father, which ended with his family's trip north when Kihuen was 9, are now a blur, he says.

And the circle is complete. His father has returned to the classroom, teaching at Robison Middle School. His mother, a housekeeper at the Mirage, was nominated for employee of the year in 2002, a fact Kihuen notes with pride: "She went up against dealers who bring in millions a year."

His devotion is obvious. "I have hardworking parents," he says. "If it wasn't for them, I'd probably be in gangs."

As a teenager, Kihuen ran on soccer fields instead of the streets. In 1997-98, he was named Nevada player of the year, the only Rancho High School player ever to earn that honor, according to his coach, Thomas Bywaters.

Bywaters, who is now a special education teacher, answers a call to Rancho about Kihuen by first declaring, "That's my son."

He remembers the center forward "holding the team together."

"He would say, 'I think we're strongest in a 2-5-3 formation' - and I'm standing right next to him! He saw the whole field and knew where the ball needed to be."

Kihuen says he lived to score goals. But he came up against his own background when attempting to take another step forward in that life. At a tryout for the United States' national soccer team, he discovered that players had to be citizens to try out. He only had a work permit; his immigration paperwork was still in process.

He enrolled at CCSN and later continued his studies at UNLV, graduating in 2004 .

"Life has its destiny," Kihuen says, matter-of-factly. "I wasn't meant to be a pro soccer player."

His destiny may still be unknown, but some predict great things. Lorena Chambers, a Washington consultant who worked with Spanish-language media on the Warner campaign with Kihuen, calls him part of the "new wave of Latino leaders that understands the Hispanic vote can be found across the country, including in nontraditional places."

Chambers thinks Democratic presidential hopefuls will need to work with him in the early 2008 Nevada caucus. "If they don't," she says, "it's at their peril."

Some have compared Kihuen to another good-looking, youthful, successful Hispanic Democrat: Dario Herrera. The Miami-born Cuban was recently sentenced for taking bribes as a Clark County commissioner.

"People need to realize we're two different people," Kihuen says.

"He did some damage to the Hispanic community. They're (Hispanics) already convinced politics is corrupt, and then he comes in, the only Hispanic politician, and he's indicted. That creates extra pressure.

"But you have to remember what my dad brought us up with. If there was 5 cents on the ground, he would say, 'Don't pick that up - it's not yours.' "