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twitterCommunity’s involvement has Hispanic leaders excited
Steve Marcus
Fernando Romero, president of Hispanics in Politics, speaks during a breakfast meeting Wednesday at Dona Maria Tamales restaurant.
Thursday, Oct. 8, 2009 | 2 a.m.
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Breakfast at Doña Maria Tamales Restaurant has been the setting for many a turn of the wheel as politics has followed population for the Las Vegas Valley’s Hispanics, and Wednesday was no exception.
For 14 years the group Hispanics in Politics has been pushing the idea at its monthly meetings that Hispanic representation — in local, state and national offices — should mirror the number of Hispanics in Southern Nevada, now nearly seven times what it was in 1990.
At Wednesday’s meeting Fernando Romero, the group’s president, gave shout-outs to the next generation of potential leaders, all candidates in next year’s elections: Tibi Ellis and Richard Carrillo, running for the state Assembly, Mo Denis, who plans to vacate his Assembly seat and run for the state Senate, and Marco Rauda and Lucy Flores, who will compete for Denis’ seat.
The emotions ran so high that Romero apparently tipped Rauda’s card — he hadn’t officially announced his plans.
But the significance of the moment cannot be overstated. When Ruben Kihuen reached the Assembly in 2006, Denis joked that the 42-member house had just doubled its Hispanic membership. Now that he and Kihuen hope to move to the Senate, this crop of candidates, if successful, could triple the number. And so it goes.
Speaking from Washington, D.C., where he is vice president of Hispanic programs at NDN, a think tank and advocacy group, Andres Ramirez observed that the day’s event held another significance.
In addition to introducing candidates to a friendly crowd, Romero turned over the microphone to no fewer than nine groups — from big to small — that are all on the ground, working on the other key ingredient in electing Hispanic candidates: Hispanic voters. The groups work on registering voters, getting out the vote and building civic participation in general.
This, said Ramirez — who lost a 2005 bid to become North Las Vegas’ first Hispanic mayor — is the main difference between now, and say, 10 years ago.
“We learned that having candidates was not enough. We had a lack of infrastructure back then,” he said.
“Now there are more groups doing all this work ... there are more people engaged. And having more people engaged means they need more representation.”
Which also means there will be more to talk about in years to come over tamales at Doña Maria.
Discussion: 19 comments so far…
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Ah, the hispanic supremacists are gathering over tamales, sounds very racist to me.
Does the Border Patrol know about these clandestine meetings?
afvet, again you are a racist and a bigot. I recognize in your eye, all Latinos are illegal, but unfortunately that is not the truth.
To all the bigots,
please stop with your anti immigrant crap. It hurst me the businessman who has a beneficial relationship with immigrants
JSilver
jsilver,
Racism aside, do you then support an increase in taxes to support the immigrants? You cannot have it both ways (high rates of immigration and low taxes).
Hispanics are good, hard-working people, but the demographic of the immigrants puts stress on the state's struggling budget.
Hispanics are not good, hard-working people, I take a huge exception to that. They have a lousy society that preys on spouses (wife-beating), glorifies the drinking of beer to the tune of them killing our citizens on the roads and streets by driving drunk and hopped up on reefers. Just about every negative in any society can be traced back to these backward, uneducated people wholely. Let's deport them all, and enjoy a society that used to be entirely better until they broke the laws by coming here uninvited.
Why wasn't Brian Sandoval mentioned?
Race has nothing to do with illegal aliens. An illegal alien is a national from a foreign country that has entered our country illegally by breaking our federal laws. This foreign nationals' race pertains to the foreign country this immigrant has illegally come from.
Our government doesn't seem to care that when they bring in immigrants on a work visa card or an immigrant on a green card they are taking jobs away from americans who are in dire need of any job that could give them a paycheck right now. Why is our government still doing this when millions of americans need work? Oh, thats right , it benefits big business.
All americans should thank the Sun for trying to make "We the people" think this is O.K.
Pretty soon the Sun will being printing its' newspaper in Spanish.
Timothy: why wasn't Brian Sandoval mentioned? Of course, we know that you know Tibi Ellis is a rabit Republican with no chance of success. But Brian is mainstream and a future governor or U.S. Senator.
Priceless....a bunch of Cubans calling themselves "hispanics" telling the mexicans what to do.....
Timmy, you're still trying to convince americans that making illegals citizens is good for the U.S.. You must get a good paycheck by following directions.
Everyone in America empathizes, we all belong to certain parties, be it political or otherwise, it is the American high privilege that we do so. To make disdainful comments, about Americans for their caucus is utterly un-American, and smacks of intolerance. Somewhere, in everyone's life there is a group which they identify with, and true some groups or clubs may not be for open public forum, but those that are must pass a litmus test.
There are many shadow groups and clubs that enjoy the dark alcove to extol their precept; this is not one of them. They are out in the open, discussing nothing more or less than any other legitimate group would wish to discuss. The meeting presented Issues that relate to their governmentally designated appropriations, where it up to some, the status quo would never change. I assure you, this group did not write the laws that they are pursuing, nor have they tilted them in their favor.
As the pie becomes smaller and more want the same portion as before, fighting ensues, for the crumbs. We are all entitled to register, no more, no less, as was the case prior to enlightenment; it is just now some don't want to share with rightful title-holders, citizens of the United States of America. Stop it, not anyone else who isn't entitled, as is the detractors' ploy for derailment.
This article has nothing to do with immigration or the ramifications you fear. Why must a select few continually degenerate the thread to off topic terror, rather than commenting on the events.
Because the illegal aliens in the caucus are trying to increase their numbers, illegally, that's why.
Geht after'um, dag-mabit!
Openrange,
Sure, as long as I can keep my business cost down, ask yourself this, why does American public policy not reflect American public opinion when it comes to immigration.
All I am saying what I have always said, regular Americans do not make public policy. When was the last time Joe blow testified before Congress? People blame the wrong people, blame elected officials.
JSilver
I would add that regular Americans like myself and others on the forum have been largely ignored by the pols simply because the society we are members of, has degraded due to political correctness degradations, affirmative action degradations, and liberal leftwing blitzing degradations. When America returns to basics, returns to times as found circa 1900, then and only then, can the wrongs and ills in the society be corrected and eliminated.
UNTIL and ONLY UNTIL
E-VERIFY IS THE LAW
(with REALLY STIFF penalties along with it)
will this (don't-call-me-names-defense) EVER CHANGE.
So...the next time you are at a CORPORATE OR BUSINESS Meeting, ASK the Corporate OR Business Honchos IF their company uses E-Verify. The answer WILL surprise you, (the question WILL surprise them).
(Hint, they know EXACTLY what it is, AND what it does.)
Wouldn't it have been a screeeeeaaam if somebody in the audience at THIS meeting had asked the owners of Dona Maria Tamales Restaurant if THEY used E-Verify.......? I would have liked to have had that answer on VIDEO....
One More Thing.
ASK the new up-and-coming Nevada Candidates: Tibi Ellis, Richard Carrillo, Marco Rauda, and Lucy Flores,
and also ESPECIALLY ASK everybody's favorite Nevada Assemblyman Mr. Ruben Kihuen,
just EXACTLY what THEY THINK of E-VERIFY.
Just BE SURE to have a VIDEO CAMERA rolling BEFORE you ask.
(No need to ask Mr. Fernando Romero or Mr. Andres Ramirez, I think we may already KNOW their answers....)