Groups Work To Turn Out Immigrant Voters

The voting machines sat locked-shut along the wall of the Renaissance School auditorium in Jackson Heights on Saturday waiting for their big day, but the loud clanging of red voting levers echoed around the room anyway.
In one of the final events of a campaign to turn out immigrant voters, several televisions were blaring instructional videos on how to operate New York voting machines in Korean, Cantonese and Spanish for an attentive audience of nearly 50, mostly elderly immigrants preparing to vote in Tuesday’s elections.
Ana Mara Archila, executive director of the Latin American Integration Center and a leader at the training, stood in front of the diverse crowd and exclaimed, "This is whatNew York should look like on election day."
Immigrants make up 40 percent of New York City’s population, yet accounted for only 10.5 percent of voters in the 2000 election. Organizers from more than a dozen immigrant advocacy groups sponsored Saturday’s event as a part of a six-month effort to get over 150,000 more immigrants to the polls this year.
Separated by language, the new voters learned the mechanics of the voting machines, how to find the correct polling place, and what to do if their name did not appear on the list of registered voters at their polling place. After watching videos, the groups crowded around life-size demonstration posters of the ballot they would encounter behind the curtain on Election Day.
But the organizers’ central message at the session in Jackson Heights went beyond the mechanics and focused on mobilizing immigrants as a voting block with common interests.
"We have to let our elected officials know we have needs and problems," said Margaret Chin, deputy executive director of Asian Americans for Equality. The immigrant advocates who led the training encouraged the attendees to think of themselves not as individuals, but as representatives of communities with shared concerns about housing, immigrant rights and jobs.
The new voters were enthusiastic, many vowing to bring friends and family with them to the polls on Tuesday. Several people in attendance were still waiting on citizenship applications to be processed, but came eager to learn so they could vote in future elections.
Not yet a citizen, Mery Salazar, a 64-year-old immigrant from Colombia, attended the meeting on Saturday anyway, excited about the prospect of voting in future elections once her application is processed. "In the time I’ve been here, I’ve become worried about immigrants," she said. "Voting, we can help a lot of immigrants who come to this country."
E-mail this reporter at sarah@queenscourier.com