Posted on 10/07/2003 10:29:59 AM PDT by TaxPayer2000
Workshop helps new citizens learn rights, feel comfortable when casting what may be their first ballot
To Jaime Lopez, who plans to cast his first vote as a U.S. citizen on Tuesday, the recall election is just "a little confusing."
The date of the election was uncertain for a time, the list of candidates is long and, adding to it all, Lopez said in Spanish, "my English is not very good."
So the 42-year-old native of Mexico spent Friday evening at a workshop intended to inform immigrants about voting.
After thumbing through a voter guide written in Spanish, seeing an actual voting booth and hearing explanations on ballot measures and the consequences of not voting, Lopez said he had new confidence about heading to the polls.
"I'm going to vote for Bustamante," said Lopez, a Santa Rosa resident who became a citizen about 11/2 years ago. "He will give Latinos a lot of help."
About 40 people, mostly Spanish-speaking Mexican immigrants, gathered in the Roseland Elementary School cafeteria to learn about voting.
They heard, in their native language, that the deadline to apply for an absentee ballot for Tuesday's election has passed. They saw sample ballots and were told they can ask for new ballots if they make a mistake at the polls.
For those who vote for the first time Tuesday and among those who have done it before, the election is seen as a monumental step in an immigrant's rite of passage.
"If we don't vote, nothing's going to change. If we don't vote, we're going to stay in the same position we're in now," said Maria Mendoza of SALVA, a Santa Rosa committee working to strengthen Latino participation in the community.
Although about a third of California residents are Latino, they make up only 12 percent of the electorate, according to the Tomás Rivera Policy Institute, a research group associated with the University of Southern California.
According to a Field Poll released Friday, the proportion of Latino voters who favor the recall is the same as the entire electorate: 57 percent.
But Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, a Democrat, is favored as a replacement candidate by 40 percent of Latinos as compared with 26 percent of the entire electorate.
Republican actor Arnold Schwarzenegger polled 34 percent of Latinos, and 36 percent for all voters.
Marcia Koenig, a naturalization supervisor for Catholic Charities of Santa Rosa, which helped organize Friday's workshop, said Bustamante's presence on the ballot may attract more Latino voters to the polls.
"I think that people are more inclined to vote in this election, especially because there's Latino candidate who has a good chance of winning," she said.
Jose Barva, who lives in Santa Rosa and described himself as a farmworker for Kendall-Jackson Winery, was still unsure how he would vote.
"I think I will vote no on the recall, but that's what I need to see tonight," said Barva, who became a citizen in 1997 but has not voted for three years.
"I like what Gray Davis did with the licenses, though, because that helped. It's good for Mexicans," Barva said, referring to the governor's recent signature on a bill that will allow undocumented immigrants to apply for driver's licenses.
When a workshop moderator asked those present to stand if they have lived in the United States for more than 10 years, nearly all did.
But in a telling sign of the prevailing confusion surrounding voting in general and the recall election, none stood when asked how many felt prepared to cast a vote on Tuesday.
"There's a feeling of not knowing how to do it because they come from a different country," Koenig said. "They don't know that they can actually take someone with them to the polls to help or that that they can take their sample ballots with them."
Organizers said they distributed more than 1,000 fliers and broadcast announcements on radio stations and in churches to let the Spanish-speaking public know about the workshop.
"It's not an easy thing to come to this," Manuel Rivera, legal services coordinator for Catholic Charities, told the participants. "It means we have a tremendous amount of work in front of us."
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