A Latinx Vision for an Inclusive America
By Alison Mercure
Democracy may exist but for some people there’s work that still needs to be done.
This was the theme for CBH TALK: A Latinx Vision for an Inclusive America held October 13 via Zoom and sponsored by the Brooklyn Public Library and the Center for Brooklyn History.
Markos Moulitsas Zúniga from the Daily Kos moderated the event and was joined by Rhode Island Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea, Puerto Rican writer and journalist Anjanette Delgado, and Laura E. Gómez, professor of law, sociology, and Chicana/Chicano studies at UCLA. The panel discussed the upcoming release of an essay book titled, “If We Want to Win: A Latine Vision for a New American Democracy” by Diana Campoamor, founder of Nuestra America Fund (NAF). The book addresses struggles Latino people face, their contributions to society, and issues surrounding the Latinx community.
(Left to right) Founder of Daily Kos Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, Rhode Island Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea, Professor of law, sociology, and Chicana/Chicano studies at UCLA Laura E. Gómez, and Puerto Rican writer and journalist Anjanette Delgado.
The panel discussed racial identity, government, diversity, public policy, and demographics. Laura Gómez pointed out that for decades there was no count of Hispanic people.“If you looked at the 1970s U. S.,” said Gómez. “First of all, there was no count of Hispanics or any of us at the national level separately or together, so you couldn’t say we’re at this number.”
According to the Pew Research Center, people of Hispanic origin were not counted until 1976 when the U. S. Congress passed a law to mandate the collection of information regarding Hispanics who live in the U.S. from a Spanish-speaking country, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Central and South America. Hispanics make up 18.5% of the population of the United States, according to the U. S. Census Bureau. There was a 23% increase from the 2010 to the 2020 Census, from 50,500,000 to 62,100,000 people.
Rhode Island Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea described the impact of diversity in elections from her experience. “In my time in office, in the seven years, and this is my second term as Secretary of State, we’ve gone from 12 Latino electives, and I’m talking from school committee all the way to my position, to 35,” said Gorbea.
Anjanette Delgado is a contributor to the book If We Want to Win: A Latine Vision for a New American Democracy, which she described as a collection of views and solutions.“For me, what the book says is before we can solve the problem, before we can win, we need to identify the real problems,” said Delgado.
MARIA PATRICE AMON: The Rep is in San Diego, which isn t the biggest theatre town, but we are in a region that is very, very strongly Latinx in its composition. There had been a plan to put up a festival for Latinx plays for a while, so when I came in, in 2016, it really took off; we did the first one in 2017. And we’ve been working in these five short years to really cultivate and grow the festival to be a national presence, beyond our local audience. We re telling stories not just about the Mexican experience, or the Mexican American, or the Chicano experience; our festival wants to tell stories about Latinidad across the broad spectrum of what Latinidad represents. We do four plays and one solo show, which usually has been touring, and there’s a goal that within every season, one of the shows comes from the festival.