Editorial:

Last week we published a commentary by Sylvia Puente entitled “Immigration Isn’t Everything: The Latino Vote Will Not Be Blindly Cast.” This has been our sentiment over the many years. This point was further highlighted this week, when we sat down with a delegation from Africa which was in San Diego to learn more about immigration, human rights issues, and the media.

One of the first questions from this group of men was are Hispanics unified, did the different groups all agree on the issues? The Hispanic community is complex and is diverse as we explained to the African delegation. The term Hispanic in of itself is ambiguous at best, a term created to fit all of the different ethnic groups into one neat box in order to deal with these burgeoning communities and potential voters. And as a way to deal, or better said, not to deal with the issues of the Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Bolivian, etcetera, etcetera, the term Hispanic does very little to identify these communities and nothing in regards to identify the issues related to these diverse groups. Miami’s Cuban issues are different than the issues of the Mexican Americans in San Diego.

At the same time the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, and special interest groups have marginalized the various ethnic group’s issues down to the single issue of immigration. It is because of this, we believe, that Ms Puente wrote her commentary.

As we stated to the Africans, when we go to bed at night what keeps up tossing and turning is worring about maintaining our business, our children’s’ education, employment, home foreclosures, these issues and many others that have historically and distortional impacted minority communities. To address these issues would take political commitment and accountability and this something that the politicians have done their best to avoid. A prime example would be President Obama’s lukewarm stance on immigration. So the issues we were addressing in 1976 when we first started publishing La Prensa San Diego are the same issues that we are addressing today, in reality, very little has changed.

By stating that the Latino vote is much more than about immigration is by no means stating that immigration is not important – it is an important issue.

How society deals with immigration gives us the opportunity to see how they view our communities. The every increasing right wing attitude of the Republican Party as demonstrated by the Minute Men and the Tea Party with their view that immigration should be dealt with as a police action, as criminals breaking the law. This justifies the building of a border fence and a militia roaming the borders in the name of protecting the borders from illegals. We asked the African visitors, if stopping illegal immigration was the goal then why not a border fence along our northern border with Canada?

The immigration issue provides us with a prism by which we can see and determine how we as Mexicans are viewed by many. The immigration issue is then highlighted by the draconian measures like banning ethnic studies and anti-immigrant laws passed in such states as Arizona.

The Democratic Party while taking a humanistic approach to the issues of our ethnic communities has historically taken this voting bloc for granted.

As we wrapped up our meeting with the delegation, and as we do with all groups that we are fortunate enough to talk with, we state that what makes America great is that we are provide with the tools to make changes, to change our circumstances, and this is through the power of the vote. But that it is incumbent upon us to exercise this power and that the role of this newspaper is to inform, educate, and encourage our readers to vote in their best interest.

Change does not come over night, it is a long drawn out process but it does come. We saw this recently in Arizona where state Senate President Russell Pearce (R) in Mesa, Arizona, the author of the state’s controversial immigration legislation, lost a recall election this past November and was voted out of office.

When we vote we can change the topic of discussion and hold elected officials accountable for their actions. The election year is upon us and we have at hand the opportunity to create change through the power of our vote, make it count!