Workshop aiming to prepare immigrants to run for office
First- and second-generation immigrants who want to break into politics are training this weekend for the rough-and-tumble reality of campaigning.
About 25 people from across Arizona are attending a Phoenix workshop designed to move them from political newcomer to viable candidate in two days. They’ll learn how to form a team of volunteers, secure endorsements and talk to voters on their doorsteps.
Pedro Lopez, 20, credits the training, organized by the New American Leaders Project and Promise Arizona, with helping him win office last year as the youngest member of the Cartwright School Board in west Phoenix. He believes he is the youngest elected official in the state, too.
The New American Leaders Project is a nonpartisan group that encourages immigrants to run for office across the country. Promise Arizona, formed in response to the state’s tough enforcement law known as Senate Bill 1070, advocates for immigration reform.
Lopez was no stranger to politics when last year he took the groups’ first workshop held in the state. He had become an activist while still a teenager in the wake of SB 1070. But the training showed Lopez he had more to learn.
“For years, I’ve been working campaigns, and I thought I was ready,” he said. “But once I took the training, it was a whole different ballgame.”
Lopez said he honed his 90-second stump speech, took note of how to raise campaign cash and created an election game plan. He was hoping to win 4,000 votes in his school board election last November. He took in 6,000.
Immigrants are expected to become the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. population sometime between 2027 and 2038, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
The training is geared toward immigrants of all ethnicities, though in Arizona, Latinos make up the majority. This year, a Latino lawyer and a Dream Act activist are on the roster. So is a Somali community organizer.
James Garcia, spokesman for Promise Arizona, said the training reflects the group’s belief there is a need “to get the Latino community in a place so it can defend itself.”
“For political empowerment to occur, for people to get into office, it doesn’t happen by itself,” he said. “It has to happen with a concerted focus.”
Garcia said the goal is to grow leaders from the ground up, preparing them for school board or city council so that later they can run for mayor, state Legislature or Congress. “It’s a ladder,” he said. Lopez is looking to play the long game with his political career. He plans to serve one four-year term on the school board, recruit a parent or student to replace him, graduate from law school and then run for the state Legislature. He said several of his friends who attended the candidate training last year have also won office.
Lopez hopes new candidates will lead to better voter participation by immigrant and minority voters, who he chided for too often voting for president but failing to check the box for smaller offices at the bottom of the ballot.
“We need our community leaders to be our elected officials,” he said. “We can’t win something at the national level, if we can’t win something in our backyard.”
politics.azcentral.com.