LULAC Responds to ‘Don’t Vote’ Campaign

I wrote previously about how hard it is to vote anyway. Then, when people like Robert De Esposada — a highly paid Republican operative and a former highly placed party leader — buy time on Univisión urging Latinos not to vote because Obama didn’t get any farther into comprehensive immigration reform because the same GOP members of both House and Senate blocked even its discussion, it just makes things worse.

Of course, Univisión eventually backed down, kinda, but the whole affair was just silly.

Except, of course, for the families of those who are affected by it all. And there are millions.

We can’t allow the Latino community to be manipulated by paid operatives living in lavish homes paid with money made from claiming credit for keeping Latinos from being active participants in the electoral process.

Now more than ever, your voice — expressed through your vote — is critical. Perhaps the most important election in Latino history will be decided when the polls close Tuesday, November 2. If Latinos don’t turn out in unusually large numbers to cast ballots, to show that we will raise our voice, we will be doomed.

Latino voters will be taken for granted and the issues of special interest to us, like jobs, workers’ rights, education, home-ownership, health care and the rest, will be dismissed, simply because every American politico will know that Latinos are a paper tiger that might look ferocious but does not bite.

This year, don’t let that happen.

And if you are, like me, a fan of traditional Chicano music, and you need more reasons to get off your nalgas to go cast a ballot, check this out:

Never forget: Si no votas, no vales. Tan simple.