‘It’s not going to be easy’: Washington Latino voters address Kamala Harris’ Democratic nomination

In the last presidential election, Cristian Gonzalez, now 23, voted for Kanye West as a joke.

And just a few weeks ago, with the same nominees for the Democratic and Republican parties as four years ago, he was ready to do it again.

“I was just basically set on doing the same thing again, where, you know, voting as a joke just because I know that Washington state’s going to be blue no matter what,” said Gonzalez, who identifies himself as an independent voter. “… I was not very interested in voting again.”

When President Joe Biden dropped out and Kamala Harris came in, however, it changed his view on the importance of his vote, although he isn’t fully set on voting for Harris.

“Seeing Kamala Harris in there for a change is actually quite nice,” Gonzalez said.

While some Latino voters are undecided and others have made up their minds on who will get their vote, there is one thing Latino voters, like Gonzalez, all over Eastern Washington can agree on: Kamala Harris has changed the trajectory of the rest of the presidential campaign.

In a recent survey released by the Northwest Progressive Institute, since Biden has dropped out, 52% of Washington respondents are likely to vote for Harris, 38% will vote for Trump. The survey also finds that Democratic voters are as equally supportive and enthusiastic of Harris as Republican voters are of Trump, believing she is a strong nominee for the Democratic party.

Independent voters are almost evenly divided, with 41% backing Harris and 43% backing Trump. Another 10% support Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Oracio Vargas, a 23-year-old Pasco resident and undecided voter, said before Harris stepped in, he didn’t feel confident with Biden’s strategies and how he was conducting himself, but now with Harris in the picture, he feels like the race could go either way.

“They should get together and try to debate, talk about what their stances are, just to help people understand like, ‘OK, do I lean more left or right, or do I just stay independent for this year?’ ” he said.

Undecided voters and Spokane residents Luis and Yolanda Perez, 58 and 54, respectively, said they needed more from Harris and believe she will have to prove herself to get their vote.

“She’s going to have to work really hard because the elections are just around the corner,” Luis Perez said in Spanish. “Biden was always alone. She was never around, so she has to make her image stronger.

“Even though she is the Democratic nominee, it’s not going to be easy.”

Trump supporter and Spokane resident Fernando Clemente, 55, said that although he knows who he is voting for, he can’t deny that this change could help undecided voters.

“I think a lot of people that were on the bench are probably going to be swayed,” Clemente said.

He said his decision was an easy one, though, after looking back at the past four years and comparing the price of gasoline. He believes prices have doubled.

Harris supporter Noahloni Garcia, a 27-year-old mental health therapist in Spokane, also has picked her candidate. She said it comes down to making sure Washington stays blue and remembering how Trump ran the country when he was president.

“It’s not even the lesser of two evils – we have to pick the one that’s hopefully going to stop some of the laws being overturned that are really scary,” she said.

She hopes the Democrats’ change of candidates will help middle-ground voters in swing states to turn their states blue.

When Garcia saw there were crowds of Trump supporters waving “mass deportation now” signs and chanting, “Send them back,” at a Republican National Convention, she was disappointed.

“Without Latinos, without immigrants, we would not have a literal society right now,” Garcia said. “My parents are immigrants. They came from Mexico and they work in the fields, and if it weren’t for their field work, and they’re getting paid like minuscule amounts to be out there in this hot … weather for hours a day, then there would be no $8 grocery or $8 cherries that you can buy from your store.”

Luis Perez also said he doesn’t believe immigration is an issue as long as a person comes with good intentions and aspires to live the American dream.

“This land was built by immigrants,” he said.

Gonzalez said this topic can be tricky. He said he can understand people coming in for more opportunities but does think there should be changes to the current rules.

“I do think there needs to be stricter policies on the Border Patrol, but I also think there needs to be less strict punishments for it,” he said. “I don’t think we should be sending people to jail. I don’t think we should be super hardcore at the border and stuff because, you know, most of the time, it’s people just looking to create a better opportunity for themselves and their families,” he said.

Even when a hard topic such as immigration comes up, it can be difficult for eligible Latino voters to know how to take the next step, not because they don’t want to register, but because they don’t know how the voting process works.

In 2020, there were 446,179 eligible Latinos who weren’t registered to vote, according to Voto Latino. Nationally, Latinos had the lowest registration rate among racial and ethnic groups for the 2020 election, a policy report through UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute says.

Because of this, the League of Women Voters has been translating the ballot for the past two presidential elections to encourage voter participation in Spokane. The league is taking the initiative to help eligible voters who come from other countries understand how the voting process works.

Becky Dickerhoof, a member of the league’s ballot translation committee, said LWV has partnered with Eastern Washington University’s design department to create graphics that will help people who primarily speak other languages learn how to vote.

Last Saturday, when they were doing outreach at El Mercadito, a Latino farmer’s market in Spokane, she said she was able to get through to someone by showing them the graphics, without needing an interpreter.

“We couldn’t communicate because my translators weren’t there right at that time, so she was able to understand what I was trying to explain to her and she responded,” Dickerhoof said. “She was so excited, because evidently, whatever she wanted to know, she discovered on that graphic.”

Dickerhoof said they’ve partnered with several other organizations, including Latinos en Spokane, Spokane Slavic Association and Asians for Collective Liberation in Spokane.

The Smith-Barbieri Progressive Fund, Empire Health Foundation and Rotary Club 21 are each helping with the translation ballot process by printing, doing outreach and providing workshops.

The ballot will be available by September and translated to nine languages: Spanish, Vietnamese, Arabic, Swahili, Dari, Kinyarwanda, Russian, Chinese and Ukrainian.

“We discovered that while they register to vote, when they get the Washington state ballots in the mail, they don’t understand what to do with them,” Dickerhoof said. “… In their home country, they may have voted in such a different way that this is so alien to them they don’t understand and because of the language barrier, they often give up in frustration.”

Vargas, the undecided Pasco voter, said these translated ballots may encourage undecided Latino voters to vote if they understand what each party is trying to represent.

“That would be easier for everybody to find the ideal candidate that falls under their beliefs and ideals,” Vargas said.