Caucuses are foreign affairs to Hispanics

Friday, May 18, 2007 | 7:19 a.m.

Hernando Amaya trots out the memories as if they were some bizarre "greatest hits" of what happens when you mix guns and bombs with presidential elections.

There was the time a rocket blasted the walls of Colombia's capitol building as newly elected President Alvaro Uribe was being sworn in behind the doors of its congressional chambers.

And five presidential candidates have been assassinated in midcampaign during the Andean country's bloody history.

Amaya, associate editor for the Las Vegas Spanish-language weekly El Tiempo, said those memories take a long time to wither .

Such memories also may generate an understandable reluctance to publicly express political preference among many Las Vegas Valley residents born in Latin America, Amaya said.

Experts say that could be an obstacle when it comes to persuading valley Hispanics to participate in the Democratic presidential caucus in January.

Nevada was chosen to stage the event between the traditionally important early caucus and primary states, Iowa and New Hampshire, partly because of its diverse population, about 23.5 percent of which is Hispanic. So the issue of barriers facing Hispanics when it comes to the very public process of choosing presidential candidates in a caucus is vital.

State and local GOP officials are still deciding what type of format to use in their caucus, which was recently moved to January. They were unavailable for comment on the issue of Hispanic participation in the caucus.

The issue hasn't escaped the attention of the Democratic Party.

"First of all, you don't have caucuses in Latin America," said Andres Ramirez, hired by the Nevada Democratic Party to reach out to Hispanic voters.

"But also in Latin America many voters are very private about their vote - because there is voter intimidation and abuse, and violence," he added.

Lisa Garcia Bedolla, associate professor of Chicano/Latino studies at the University of California, Irvine, called presidential caucuses "a very American cultural space that dates back to the town meeting in New England."

"It's also a very privileged space, with the kind of discourse you tend not to see in most Latin American countries," Garcia Bedolla said.

Harley Shaiken, chairman of the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, said with the early caucus, "Nevada is breaking new ground ... (and) the Latino vote in particular could be very influential in shaping the primary races, given (Nevada's) position between New Hampshire and Iowa."

Because of that, "Whatever cultural barriers there may be on the part of Latino voters, there will be a strong effort on the part of the Democratic Party and labor to overcome those barriers," he said.

Ramirez said he plans to organize activities that will reach Latinos through issues close to them - such as family and soccer.

That includes doing mock caucuses with high school students, the reasoning being that the teens will bring their parents or at least tell them about the process and get them involved.

Pilar Weiss, political director for the Culinary Union - about 45 percent of whose 60,000 members are Hispanic, said she won't target any one group when it comes to informing members about the caucus in the coming months.

"This (the caucus) is a different tradition than people are used to in general ... (and) for a lot of voters ... it's going to be new," Weiss said.

Assemblyman Ruben Kihuen, D-Las Vegas - the first foreign-born Hispanic in the Nevada Legislature in modern history - said although he understands the particular challenges facing Hispanics, a steep learning curve faces Nevadans in general.

Although his district is about two-thirds Hispanic, Kihuen said he has been getting calls from non-Hispanic constituents as well asking about how the caucus works.

"The Democratic Party is going to have to use a lot of resources doing the education - not only for Latinos , but for everybody," he said.