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First there were seven. Then 50. Then \nthousands of people, mostly Latino and many undocumented, who held a \nvigil on the lawn outside of the Arizona State Capitol in the spring of \n2010, praying that Gov. Jan Brewer would not sign an anti-immigrant \nbill, the most punitive in generations, which had sailed through the \nRepublican-controlled Legislature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A \ndozen undocumented women, the \u201cvigil ladies,\u201d set up tents and a \nfour-foot-high statue of the Virgin Mary, borrowed from a church. \nStudents walked out of their classrooms and marched for miles to the \nCapitol. Abuelas put out traditional Mexican food: pozole, tamales, \nfrijoles. At night, around 50 people slept on the lawn. In the morning, \nthey pulled grass out of their hair, clasped hands and prayed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The two of us were part of these protests, and we had good reason to be angry \u2014 and afraid. One night, Ku Klux Klan hoods were placed near where people prayed. Anti-immigrant groups patrolled close by. Such menaces had long found a haven under Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who ordered his deputies to target Latinos in traffic stops, workplace raids and neighborhood sweeps. Some were later deported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite the enormous opposition to the \u201cshow me your papers\u201d bill, which essentially turned the state\u2019s police officers into immigration agents, Governor Brewer signed it. Arizona Republicans no doubt hoped the law would chase out every immigrant, documented or undocumented. Some did leave. But many more stayed, determined to turn their fear and anger into political power. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In less than a \ndecade, many organizers who first cut their teeth fighting that bill are\n now lawmakers, campaign managers and directors of civic engagement \ngroups like Mi Familia Vota<\/a> and the Arizona Dream Act Coalition<\/a>.\n While it\u2019s easy to dismiss mass protests as short-lived eruptions of \nanger, Arizona offers a model for how this energy can become real \nelectoral power: It happens when people learn to work with one another, \nbuild deep connections and create something bigger than themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the wake of the vigil, we built an organization called LUCHA, short for Living United for Change in Arizona, that serves as a political home for people of color. We talk to working-class families about the issues important to them and how to get involved in politics. Civic groups and political parties used to do more of this work, but they have become disconnected from real people, too focused on donors and elite influence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n While the anti-immigrant bill was propelled into law by Republicans, Democrats were also to blame. They have long treated communities of color as instruments of someone else\u2019s power rather than core progressives who should be instruments of their own power. This neglect created the space for the bill to pass so easily. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The vigil stretched into the early summer, 103 days<\/a>\n in total. It was a training ground for novice organizers like us who \nwould stop by the snack table, gather clipboards and then head out to \nlaundromats and convenience stores to register neighbors. Since then, \nactivists have brought hundreds of thousands of voters into the \npolitical process, increasing turnout among Latinos in Arizona from 32 percent in 2014<\/a> to a whopping 49 percent in 2018<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n With\n this power, people of color have ousted racist lawmakers and passed \nstatewide legislation that helps low-wage workers, among a string of \nsurprise victories. Activists accomplished what was unthinkable in 2010:\n Arizona is a battleground state in 2020. Progressives who obsess over \nwhite swing voters in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania should pay \nclose attention to Arizona because it\u2019s a model for how to mobilize \nLatino people nationally. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Here is the story of how, under Joe Arpaio\u2019s reign of terror, Latinos built progressive governing power. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The\n first order of business was to dismantle the anti-immigrant law. \nUndocumented people like Maria Jesus drove all across the state to \nregister voters. A vigil lady, Paty Rosas, set up tables with voter \nregistration materials every morning at the vigil. One of us sold his \nplasma for $105 each week to pay his bills so he could knock on doors in\n Maryvale, a Latino neighborhood in Phoenix. Students registered \npartygoers outside bars and nightclubs on weekends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By Election Day 2010, hundreds of volunteers had registered 13,000 new voters. The law had also set off a nationwide boycott, costing the state some $140 million<\/a> in tourism and convention revenue. But it was not enough to prevent a Republican supermajority in the Legislature where a state senator, Russell Pearce, the chief sponsor of the bill, became the Senate president. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Veteran activists like Randy Parraz knew that the long-ignored Latino voters in Mesa, Mr. Pearce\u2019s district, could help unseat him. So organizers gathered signatures there to have Mr. Pearce recalled, ignoring Democratic elites who warned this was impossible \u2014 no state legislator in Arizona<\/a>\u2019s history had ever been removed that way. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This strategy of \nbringing in new voters of color, rather than trying to change the minds \nof frequent voters, paid off. Mr. Pearce was recalled in a special \nelection in 2011 and replaced with a more moderate Republican. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Then,\n a number of groups turned their attention to removing Sheriff Arpaio, \nwho had been in office since 1993. He ran a sprawling outdoor detention \ncenter he once referred to as a \u201cconcentration camp<\/a>\u201d where he subjected detainees to cruel theatrical practices like chain gangs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jacqueline\n Garcia, a young leader whose father was deported in 2012, registered \nhundreds of voters and trained new volunteers. Despite efforts like \nthis, Mr. Arpaio won another term in an election that was marked by \nirregularities. The Maricopa County recorder\u2019s office sent out \nSpanish-language fliers to Latino neighborhoods that misstated the date of the election<\/a>. Officials called it a clerical error<\/a>. Voters reported<\/a> being denied provisional ballots and turned away at the polls. Joe Arpaio won<\/a> again. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But with scores of young people turning 18, Joe Arpaio\u2019s empire was shrinking. In 2016, the leaders of LUCHA, Puente<\/a> and Poder in Action<\/a>\n created a campaign called BAZTA Arpaio, featuring neighborhood \ncanvasses that were more like block parties. Mary Ramirez, a powerful \nse\u00f1ora originally from Hidalgo, Mexico, invited women to \u201cZumba vs. \nArpaio\u201d before they knocked on thousands of doors. The goal was not to \nreach the entire electorate, but to continue to prove that investing in \ncommunities of color could make the difference in a close race. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The\n thing is, people want community. They want to belong to something that \nhelps them make sense of the political world. But they don\u2019t trust \npolitics or Democrats because both have failed them. They can be \npersuaded, however, by a neighbor or a friend that they can work collectively<\/em> to solve problems. <\/p>\n\n\n\n On Election Day 2016, Joe Arpaio lost<\/a> to a Democrat, and the Maricopa County recorder was replaced by a champion of voting access. Around that time, the \u201cshow me your papers\u201d law was diluted<\/a> in the settlement of a lawsuit brought by civil rights groups. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Election\n Day 2016 held another victory that had been in the works for a while. \nWe learned at listening sessions with our 2,600 members, whom we\u2019ve \ncultivated through neighborhood teams and high school civics clubs, that\n they wanted us to fight for higher wages and family leave. Such \nsessions are where we and our members commit to standing with one \nanother. Because we could not ignore their needs \u2014 even when our donors \nor party leaders pressured us to do so \u2014 we decided to try it ourselves \nthrough a ballot initiative. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Some \ninfluential progressives doubted the ability of a grass-roots \norganization, led by us, two young Latinos, to organize and pass a \nstatewide ballot initiative. One person said its failure would set back \nprogressive politics in Arizona for a decade. But we knew the \nsignature-gatherers, most of whom were working for low wages in their \nregular jobs, would pound the pavement. In July 2016, activists delivered 275,000<\/a> signatures to the secretary of state to place the minimum wage increase on the ballot that year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To\n build support, organizers talked to small businesses and found that \nmost of them were already paying their employees far above the minimum \nwage. So about 350 small businesses endorsed the campaign, effectively \ncountering the argument that the ballot initiative would hurt them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On election night that year, Proposition 206 passed<\/a>\n with 58 percent of the vote. The new law provides up to five days of \npaid sick time for all workers and will raise the minimum wage to $12 \nper hour by 2020. Contrary to opponents\u2019 fearmongering, economic \nforecasters found that Arizona\u2019s wage increase benefited the state\u2019s \neconomy, especially food service employees. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The 2016 victories allowed the movement to get stronger. In 2018, local organizations started the MiAZ campaign<\/a>,\n knocking on one million doors and adding new tactics to contact voters \nby text, billboards and TV and radio ads. All of this helped elect a \ncommunity organizer, Raquel Ter\u00e1n, to the Arizona Legislature and \nKyrsten Sinema to the Senate, succeeding a Republican. In addition, the \nnoted political scientist Hahrie Han<\/a>\n and her colleagues found that since 2010, Republican legislators in \nArizona have been less aggressive in pushing through harmful \nimmigration-related bills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The \u201cshow me your papers\u201d law was intended to destroy Latino families who make up one-third of the state, but it had the opposite effect. Since 2010, organizers have registered more than half a million new voters in Arizona. Continuing to expand the electorate could tip the state to the Democrats next year. Donald Trump won Arizona by fewer than 92,000 votes in 2016. An estimated 271,000 more Latinos may cast ballots here next year, according to Latino Decisions \u2014 but only if local organizations have resources to conduct robust voter mobilization. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Of the billions \nof dollars the political industry will spend before Election Day, a \nnegligible amount will go to grass-roots groups. But for the left to \nachieve 2020 electoral victories and long-term governing power, the entire<\/em> political industry \u2014 donors, party elites, campaigns, voters \u2014 must invest in authentic grass-roots political organizations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Early\n investment allows voter-engagement programs to be bigger and more \neffective. Year-round investment lets groups prepare for the next \nelection cycle, rather than suffering through the boom-and-bust of \nlast-minute get-out-the-vote funding. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Presidential\n candidates are spending tens of millions of dollars on TV ads that \ncommunities of color either won\u2019t see or won\u2019t pay attention to. They \nshould put this money toward face-to-face voter contact instead. And \nthey would be wise to hire local people to do this engagement who know \nsending a message in Spanish using Google Translate isn\u2019t going to cut \nit, but canvassing with cumbia and banda music just might.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If\n the Democratic Party\u2019s old guard learns nothing else, it must stop \nusing a majority of its resources to chase white swing voters and \ninstead pay more attention to the millions of voters of color. For too \nlong, they have treated us like cheap laborers who can knock on doors to\n deliver them 51 percent of the vote. In exchange, they run candidates \nwho are out of touch with Latinos. In Tucson\u2019s mayoral primary, the old \nboys\u2019 club endorsed a white man over Regina Romero, a popular and highly\n qualified Latina who eventually won, even though the city is almost \nhalf Latino.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The story of Latino political power is playing out across the country. Latino voters had a bigger increase in turnout<\/a> than white or black ones between the 2014 and 2018 midterm elections. They will be the largest minority group<\/a> in the electorate next year. But demographics are not destiny, so groups like the Texas Organizing Project<\/a>, the New Florida Majority<\/a> and the New Georgia Project<\/a>\n are building the electoral power of communities of color. And LUCHA now\n travels to Texas and other states to teach others how to create ballot \ninitiative campaigns and help everyday people become elected officials, \nas well as leaders of campaigns and nonprofit groups. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Defeats did not destroy this movement and victories will not end it. At the vigil in 2010, Latino people found safety in numbers. Since then, they have proven that their power will always be in rooted in their community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n .<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alejandra Gomez (<\/em>@Gomez_Alex07<\/em><\/a>) and Tom\u00e1s Robles Jr. (<\/em>@TomasRobles14<\/em><\/a>) are co-executive directors of LUCHA. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/latinosreadytovote.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/00Gomez-Robles2-superJumbo-1024x683.jpg\")
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