The vote of Latinos and women in the United States is complex, changing and very diverse.
This has been the central idea in the virtual forum organized this Monday by EL PAÍS with Latin American policies.
Democratic congressional candidates Michelle de la Isla, from Kansas;
Teresa Leger Fernandez, from New Mexico;
and the Secretary of State of Rhode Island, Nellie Gorbea, have spoken with Jan Martínez Ahrens, director of EL PAÍS América;
on the challenges they face in actively participating in US politics.
In the United States, some 32 million Latinos will participate in this year's elections and the three politicians have agreed that to understand this sector of the population it is necessary to recognize their diversity.
"It is very important to reject the hypothesis that women only vote for women and that Hispanics only vote for Hispanics," said Leger Fernandez of New Mexico.
The candidate for Congress has ensured that Latinos reflect the identity of their communities and that they can be in the places where decisions are made.
"We can be what we can see," he said.
For Nellie Gorbea, the Rhode Island Secretary of State, there is a fairly clear pattern in which Latinos tend to align themselves with the dominant sectors of the region where they live.
“In the most conservative states, Latinos vote conservative.
They tend to vote according to the current of their geographical location and it is something that has not been talked about much, ”he said.
Michelle de la Isla, a candidate for Congress from Kansas, explained that although she lives in a region where the Latino community is not dominant, she has managed to perceive that Hispanics vote based on their belief system and that they are not usually a uniform bloc .
“There are Latinos who are more conservative and there are also liberal Latinos, there is everything.
We are an extremely complex community ”.
The three policies have spoken of the importance of more women being able to open spaces in public positions.
"The Democratic Party is an incubator for women," said Leger Fernandez.
Through organizations such as Emily's List and Poder PAC, Democrats have prepared women to participate in political campaigns and then to serve in the public office for which they are elected.
Politicians have agreed that the Republican Party has failed to mobilize women and that few of them have opportunities to develop a political career through that platform.
"The Republican Party has lost the issue of decency," has settled Gorbea.
When the United States already accumulates 219,000 deaths from coronavirus, according to data from Johns Hopkins University, the political scene has taken the advance of the coronavirus pandemic as a fundamental issue.
Policies have recognized that the Latino population has been significantly affected by the disease.
"Many of them work in essential jobs and generally live in more humble homes where there are several people, some of them were infected and infected their families," said Gorbea.
For Leger Fernandez, the pandemic has exposed the inequality that already existed in the United States and has shown that it is still a challenge for the government to reach those communities and give them access to public services.
Among the concerns of all three policies are discrimination and structural racism in the United States.
"It is a historic moment to confront racism," said the candidate from New Mexico.
The mobilizations of groups with weapons that proclaim the sayings of white supremacism have become a complex problem to tackle in the cities.
Michelle de la Isla, who is a candidate for Congress in Kansas and is now the mayor of Topeka, assures that the change in her region has been noticeable.
"We have seen a significant rise in white supremacy, what is being talked about is worrying."
On November 3, Americans will go to the polls to elect the next president.
"Kamala Harris made history by being the vice president candidate, not only because she is a woman, but because of the diversity in her history," De la Isla explained. Policies cannot imagine a country in which Donald Trump is president for four More years.
“I am a radical optimist, this country cannot have four more years of Donald Trump.
Joe Biden is going to win, ”said Leger Fernandez.
"Four more years of Trump is the end of the country, Joe Biden has to win," added Gorbea.
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