The State of the State for Washington Latinos

New futures after the 2008 election.

In the fall of 2005, Whitman College undergraduates completed the initial report on The State of the State for Washington Latinos. This document was the first-ever widely inclusive account of social and political conditions for Latinos in Washington State. Spanning issue areas ranging from education to health insurance, from farm labor to housing, and from voting rights to domestic violence, the 2005 report showed graphically that the challenges and inequalities facing Washington Latinos are multiple, interwoven, and deeply entrenched. It also brought to light innovative efforts to solve these problems and sought to stimulate a new resolve by the people of Washington to address them through a comprehensive agenda for racial and social justice.

The State of the State for Washington Latinos: 2006 dramatically expanded the scope of our inquiry, supplementing the earlier report with an entirely new array of research on pressing questions at stake in ensuring a better future for Latinos and all residents of this state. As before, a class of advanced and highly motivated undergraduates at Whitman College, located in Walla Walla, conducted the inquiry.

The project continued in 2008 with a special focus on Voting Rights during the winter and spring. A new course at Whitman, Voting Rights and Latinos in Washington State, explored Latino voting patterns in several communities to see how Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act might be invoked. It also examined Latino voter mobilization efforts in anticipation of the 2008 election.

The project has new funding from the Community Based Research project at Princeton University. In the fall of 2008 students completed research to create The State of the State for Washington Latinos: 2008.