New Group Hosts Rally to Boost Latinos’ Clout

SANTA ANA —  Patterning itself on the trade union movement of the 1940s, a new Southern California group launched a campaign Saturday to encourage more Latinos to become citizens and vote.

“We want to move beyond protests into full participation,” said Gil Cedillo, director of the Los Angeles-based Campaign for Dignity and Civic Participation, which drew about 25 volunteers to the Southwest Senior Citizens Complex for a morning voter registration drive.

Cedillo, a member of the Food Service Workers Union, which helped organize the nonpartisan group, said it was formed in response to a pattern of attacks against immigrants, including the contention by former Rep. Robert K. Dornan that he lost the November election because noncitizens voted.

“We think much of the response [by Dornan to his loss] has been hysterical,” said Cedillo. “What we want to do is bring dignity and more civil discussion to the issue.”

Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Garden Grove), who won Dornan’s seat by 984 votes and who is now defending her victory before a congressional task force, urged the volunteers to register voters and encourage legal immigrants to become citizens “every day until the next election.”

Referring to Dornan’s contentions, as well as legislation that cuts benefits to legal immigrants, she said, “The best way to counteract what they’re trying to do to us is to be even stronger.”

Also at the morning meeting was Nativo V. Lopez, director of the Santa Ana headquarters of Hermandad Mexicana Nacional, a Latino rights group that helped thousands of immigrants become citizens last year and ran an aggressive voter registration campaign. Hermandad is under state and local investigation for allegedly registering hundreds of noncitizens to vote.

Lopez addressed the group for about 15 minutes, devoting most of his talk to an angry attack on the Los Angeles Times for stories published regarding alleged noncitizen voting.

Volunteers later went to the Top Value supermarket to contact potential voters. Cedillo told them to encourage any noncitizens who are eligible for citizenship to contact Hermandad for help.

Cedillo said the organization, which has held similar drives in Los Angeles, Baldwin Park and the San Fernando Valley in the past week, differs from established groups such as the Southwest Voter Registration Project because it encourages naturalization as well as voter registration.

He said the campaign will publish a manual next week that explains the naturalization process and describes recent changes in the laws affecting immigrants.