Juan Andrade, president and founder of the U.S. Hispanic Leadership Institute, spoke to about 40 students Thursday night in Fisk Hall about the political implications of Latinos becoming the largest minority in the United States.
“It won’t be that long before we see a Latino on a national ticket — as president or vice-president,” Andrade said at a forum sponsored by the Office of Hispanic Latino Student Services and Omega Delta Phi fraternity.
Andrade said Latinos would be the largest minority group by 2005 and could, by forming alliances, increase representation to match the population growth.
“If we win every position that we can win, we will finish this decade with 36 to 40 elected Latino officials in all levels of government in the city of Chicago and state of Illinois,” he said.
Andrade, a Presidential Citizens Medal recipient, leads the U.S. Hispanic Leadership Institute, which has trained 200,000 present and future leaders, registered 2 million new voters and published 315 studies on Hispanic demographics. It also sponsors the largest Latino leadership conference in the world.
Providing a brief history of Latino politics in Illinois, Andrade spoke about William Rodriguez, who in 1915 became the first Latino to enter the political limelight in Illinois. Andrade said there was no progress for the next 40 years.
“Those are what I call the years of obscurity, because we fell off the radar screen,” he said.
But Andrade said the Latino population was “exploding” at the same time, and by 1990 there were 500,000 Latinos in Chicago. Through the 1980s Latinos held 13 elected positions in the state, and through the 1990s there were 26 elected Latino officials.
“Today things look even better, even brighter for Latino political candidates in the state of Illinois,” Andrade said. “It’s going to be a tremendous decade for us.”
He said the growth of the Latino population counts for three-fourths of the total population growth in the state of Illinois.
“The Latino population is growing in leaps and bounds,” Andrade said. “The political implications of that growth is something that should not be underestimated.”
He assured the audience that others also were taking note of this growth in the Latino population, and although “half of the country is scared to death” by this growth, he said it is starting to effect national politics.
“When I was growing up, the price of the Latino vote in the minds of the Democratic party was to give them a bottle of beer and a pot of beans,” Andrade exaggerated, adding political candidates now are trying to reach out to the Latino population through more sophisticated methods.
But Andrade said Latino political candidates face the dilemma of reaching out to the Latino population without seeming “too Latino” to the rest of the population.
“Latinos have had to fight against being cast as a strictly Latino candidate that can’t serve everybody else,” Andrade said. “They have to break that stereotype.”
Students in the audience said they were impressed by Andrade’s speech.
“It was intellectual, inspiring and very empowering,” said Joe Ortiz, a Weinberg freshman. “He’s very dedicated to the Latino community, and he kind of gives you a lot of hope for the future.”
Education senior Ebo Dawson-Andoh said he hopes more students of different backgrounds will come out to participate in these cultural events.
“It’s a great opportunity to learn about different communities and their issues,” Dawson-Andoh said.
