The State of the State for Washington Latinos

Hello, world! A quick introduction before I get to the main point of this blog post: my name is Zach Duffy and I am conducting a project for the State of the State for Washington Latinos course in conjunction with Seattle University Law School’s National Voting Rights Advocacy Initiative initiative, led by Professor Joaquin Avila, a nationally recognized Latino/a voting rights expert who has successfully argued two voting rights cases before the United States Supreme Court. I am also being assisted by Naomi Strand, a 3L at SU Law.

In my own research, I have been looking at the representation of Latinos in Washington State’s local voting jurisdictions, and examining the electoral methods and demographic factors that may be contributing to what I have started to find is a severe lack of Latino representation  – even in areas with very large Latino populations.

This all makes a couple of stories that have made the headlines very interesting to me. The first, an article in the Visalia, California Times-Delta, serves as an example of how even local voting districts like Visalia’s school board can be set-up in such a way that minority voices within them are disenfranchised. Juan Guerrero’s effort to change the school board to a district-based election system is not an isolated case, but the fact is that even forty-something years after the Voting Rights Act was signed into law, there just really isn’t enough research on whether minority candidates are being systematically denied access to local offices. That’s where I come in for Washington State, and I think I’ll find some really compelling information.

The second piece,  an AP article addressing the immigration reform efforts of one of the nation’s most prominent Latino rights organizations – the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) – notes that one of MALDEF’s top priorities is “protecting Latino’s voting rights when legislatures take up redistricting after the Census, probably on an expanded geographic scale than in previous years because of growth of the Latino population.” This just serves as a reminder to me that even with the voting rights work that is going on around the country, new and unpredictable challenges to Latino enfranchisement lie ahead. Still, here’s to a beginning.

It’s hard to get the personal stories of almost 3000 farm workers about housing conditions, employment issues, health and child care. But that’s exactly what the Washington State Farmworker Housing Trust spent most of 2006 doing. Last Thursday they presented a compilation of the state-wide survey results to a room of interest groups, ranging from representatives from Habitat for Humanity to the Washington State Farm Bureau to interested college students like myself. They presented some striking findings showing the important impact farmworker housing issues in Washington  have on the agricultural industy and the economy as a whole . The agricultural industry provides $2.30 in economic growth for every $1 invested in crops – or $8.4 billion a year – making it the largest contributor to Washington’s economy and all the more reason to make sure it is sustainable on economic, social, and environmental levels.

After conducting nearly 3000 interviews across the state, the Housing Trust was able to start pinpointing where the main issues are with housing conditions for farm workers in all different kinds of crops. Some of the more shocking findings included:

- over 1/3 of all farmworkers interviewed reported some kind of housing problem

- 6% of those interviewed live outside, in a shed, or in a car

- 91% of farmworkers said better housing conditions would encourage them to continue work in the agricultural industry

- 80% are without health insurance (slightly higher than the estimated 85% national average for farm workers)

The Trust works to provide more sustainable and humane housing conditions for Washington State’s  187,000+ farm workers and their families through various housing projects, including year-round, seasonal, and temporary structures. One of their main concerns right now is getting more private investments to fund these projects and get more input about the regionally specific and crop specific housing needs in different parts  of the state.

One of the current projects is going up within the next year in Franklin County. Despite some initial opposition, the Ringold “green” housing project that will provide seasonal housing for 96 farm workers has gotten State funding and plans are well in the making. There will be a “ground-breaking” event this October and the housing project is on schedule to be completed by June 1, 2010 – just in time for the harvesting season.

One of my friends once told me that he didn’t think there was any point to being an activist at Whitman. He explained that he was here to learn and that he didn’t want anything interfering with that. He also doubted that anything he did in Walla Walla would have any sort of national or statewide impact.

Last week I saw this friend and told him that together with my fellow researchers, I had spent an hour in the Washington Secretary of State’s office informing the Secretary’s staff on how they could do better outreach to Latinos. They were asking us questions, looking to us, undergraduate students, as experts.

My research in Walla Walla was defied my expectations. I had always thought of research as a process of reading a ton of information and then compiling that information into a report. While “researching” strategies to engaging Latinos in the Walla Walla community, I attended visited different homes, attended neighborhood meetings and developed strong relationships with the people I was “researching.”

I was nervous while writing my forty-page report, but my anxiety didn’t stem from the grade I would receive but rather from an urgent desire to do justice to the people I was writing about and present their issue in the best manner possible. The true test of my research came when I communicated that research first to the community and then to policy-makers.

I have learned more from my community-based research that I could have possibly learned in any class. I met incredible people I never would have known otherwise and discovered abilities I never thought I had.

Social change doesn’t require a degree. As college students, we are uniquely positioned with resources and freedom that we can use to make change.

No Money?!

After engaging in a rather uncomfortable discussion with Senator Mike Hewitt of our own Legislative District 16, I left wondering how Washington will be able to afford the changes we so desperately need. I asked Senator Hewitt to consider funding a state Earned Income Tax Credit (which was passed last year) and to encourage bilingual outreach of the federal Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC).

“Who would you have me take the money from to implement your suggestions?” he demanded. What he didn’t seem to realize was that my recommendations will actually bring more money into the state.

With an $8 billion dollar deficit, Washington needs as many federal dollars as it can get. The EITC is a federal tax credit available to working families with low incomes. Families can receive up to $4800 a year, enough to boost many families past the poverty threshold. Unfortunately, I found through extensive surveys and interviews that Latinos are unlikely to know about the EITC, and are even more unlikely to claim it. This means there are many people living in poverty that needn’t be.

This should upset you. Simply on a humanitarian level, you should be concerned for these people who should be claiming the tax credit – the mother who can’t afford to buy her 16-year-old son new jeans, the young couple who is evicted because they can’t afford rent. But even if that doesn’t strike a chord, you should be upset because this money belongs to your town! Walla Walla County alone stands to gain an extra $8 million dollars if every eligible person claimed the EITC. I know I can think of a few things to do with an extra $8 million dollars.

The costs of implementing bilingual outreach would be minimal. The IRS already offers many EITC outreach materials, and some in Spanish. Senator Hewitt need only encourage the use of these materials, as well as provide training for Spanish speakers at free tax preparation sites. A simple public acknowledgement of the problem may prompt local tax preparers who work with Latinos to inform their clients of the EITC and to make sure those who are eligible are actually claiming it.

Click here for my full report.

As my colleague Alisa Larsen-Xu pointed out in her post To Cut or Not to Cut, in this time of severe economic crisis it is incredibly important that we figure out which programs are most crucial for government funding. I would add that it is also crucial that we find ways government can influence policy without spending money.

Alisa noted that there is a neighborhood organization in Walla Walla called Commitment to Community (C2C) that has had great success in engaging Latinos in the greater community. I also worked with C2C but took a different approach, analyzing their strategies of engagement to figure out why they have had such success.

I found that the C2C strategy can be divided into three categories: trust, empowerment and a sense of common group identity. C2C builds trusting relationships in the neighborhoods by literally going door to door and talking to people about their needs. They find out what people want and then help them to make it happen; such as painting murals over graffiti. By bringing the neighborhood together to fix problems they all face (such as crime) they create a sense of common group identity.

So what happens if we apply these strategies to government?

One of the things we asked legislators in Olympia to do was to encourage more Latino political participation through the provision of voter education materials in Spanish. The representatives were quick to tell us that they couldn’t help us because of a lack of funds.

What if instead of asking them for funds, we asked them for leadership? And not just any type of leadership but a type that utilizes the above mentioned strategies, trust, empowerment and common group identity.

What if those legislators all went back to their home districts and made a real effort to get to know their Latino constituents? What if they had a town hall in Spanish where they responded to their constituents questions? What if they worked with the community to set up volunteer booths where Spanish-speakers could go to have their ballots translated, thereby avoiding printing costs? What if they did outreach to their non-Latino constituents and told them that  problems the Latino community faces are problems that we all face, thereby creating a sense of common group identity?

It is clear that something needs to change. Perhaps we need to stop looking at our representatives as mere piggy banks and start looking to them to provide the type of leadership that they were elected for.

Our projects:
• Raising the standard of living (income, housing, education)
• Voting rights
• Civic engagement
Do you have a comment?