Q&A With Eliseo Medina

Eliseo Medina, executive vice president of the 1.9 million member Service Employees International Union (SEIU), spoke to CandidatoUSA about the dramatic backlog in processing a little over one million naturalization applications. The topic was the subject of a Congressional subcommittee hearing this morning and of executive action earlier this month. The federal Office of Personnel Management recently issued expedited authority to the United States Citizenship Immigration Services Agency to re-hire 700 agency retirees to process the backlog of applications.

The SEIU participates in a coalition working to boost the number of Latino citizens and increase Latino voter turnout.

Are you frustrated by these delays?

Yes. It is absolutely shocking and unforgivable that we have an agency increase their fees claiming they were going to provide better service and then we wind up with worse service. It is totally unforgivable that all this kind of bureaucratic bungling could end up denying people the right to vote.

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Spanish-language Media Watch

Electoral coverage in the Spanish-language press has picked up since the presidential race left Iowa and New Hampshire and headed for Nevada and Florida.

Today, Los Angeles-based La Opinión reports on the increasing number of California Latino voters who are registering as independents. New York’s El Diario/La Prensa reports on Guiliani’s declining poll numbers in New Jersey.

Opinions on the op ed pages of the major Spanish-language dailies are often forcefully expressed. For instance, former Miami Mayor Xavier L. Suárez wrote a piece (”Why McCain?”) for Tuesday’s edition of the local Diario Las Américas that is practically a paean to the Arizona senator. Suárez wrote “If given the opportunity to spend a few hours with McArthur, either of the Roosevelts, Washington, Jefferson or Benjamin Franklin - I’d stick with McCain without blinking.”

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Latino Voter Profile

This is the first in an occasional series of profiles of individual Latino voters. The profiles are meant to provide a glimpse into the life and politics of a given individual. None of these individuals are meant to be stand-ins for a specific class of Latino voters.

The format is “as told to” whereby the entire article consists of quotations from the person interviewed. This ensures the subject’s voice comes through loud and clear.

Today’s Latino Voter Profile is Javier Barajas, owner of the Lindo Michoacán restaurant in Las Vegas where last week Hillary Clinton held a campaign event. Most of the interview was conducted in Spanish.

As told to CandidatoUSA editor Luis Clemens by Javier Barajas:

“I must have been about 16 when I arrived in Las Vegas in 1976. I was traveling with an uncle of mine and we were planning on going to Indio, California, to pick grapes. We were traveling as illegals. The migra grabbed my uncle. I managed to get away. I got on a bus that was supposed to go to Los Angeles where a cousin was waiting for me.

“I don’t know how, maybe because I was so tired. But the only thing I remember about the bus ride is that I woke up in Las Vegas. The next day I started working at Terrible Herb’s Car Wash. I worked there for three years. I worked mornings at Terrible Herb and nights at Viva Zapata restaurant. I worked some fifteen, sixteen hours a day.

“I progressed from dishwasher to busboy. I eventually became the chef at the restaurant.

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Huckabee proposes ending immigration from Cuba?

A rival campaign tipped me off to the following statement by Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, ”I say we ought to put a hiatus on people who come in
here … if they come from countries that sponsor and harbor terrorists.”

Such a move would presumably end immigration from Cuba, which is on the official State Department list of terrorism sponsors. And that would not sit well with the Cuban-American voters who represent a hefty percentage of likely Florida Republican primary voters. The U.S. government’s existing immigration quota of 20,000 visas a year for Cubans was created in 1994 to stem the dramatic flow of balseros from the island.

New Clinton Spanish-language TV Ad in Nevada

Here’s the first Clinton Spanish-language campaign commercial in Nevada.

The translation of the script is my own and not that of the campaign.

“The Voice of the Voiceless”

“Nevada Latinos want a better life for our families.

“This is the moment for our vote to become our voice.

“Let us support our friend Hillary Clinton. She favors universal health insurance and economic policies that will create millions of new jobs. And Hillary has said ‘Enough’ to anti-Hispanic demagoguery.

“Hillary is the voice of the voiceless.

“This Saturday, January 19th at 11am, let’s go out and vote for Hillary in order to have a better life.”

At the very end of the ad, Hillary Clinton says in English “I am Hillary Clinton candidate for president and I approve this message.”

Giuliani, Obama and Romney have all ended their Spanish-language ads actually saying “I approve this message” en español.

Obama’s Spanish-language TV Ad in Nevada

The Barack Obama campaign posted on YouTube a new thirty and sixty second Spanish-language television ad targeting Latino voters in Nevada. The thirty-second spot contains a grammatical mistake.

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