For the first time since 1999, Evanston voters are preparing to send a new U.S. representative to Washington. For advocates from Evanston’s growing Latino community, there are several priorities they are bringing to the ballot box.
Evanston’s Latino population nearly doubled from 2000 to 2020, according to U.S. Census data. As of 2024, about 13.7% of the district’s residents identify as Latino.
Linda Tortolero, the president and CEO of the Chicago-based Latino Policy Forum, said there is an underlying distrust of the government in many Latino communities. She added these feelings were exacerbated by Operation Midway Blitz, the Trump administration’s federal immigration crackdown targeting undocumented immigrants in the Chicago area, which has disproportionately targeted the Latino community.
At Latino Policy Forum, Tortolero leads a nonpartisan, statewide policy effort advocating for “equity, justice and economic prosperity” for Illinois’ Latino community, according to its website. The forum is currently working with the Illinois Latino Agenda to launch Vota Ya!, an initiative to increase voter engagement among the state’s Latino community.
Though Tortolero said she believes there has been momentum regarding voter education in Chicago and Cook County, she said distrust in government has still clouded the electoral process. Tortolero said the aftermath of Midway Blitz will affect the community’s voting agenda but not change ultimate priorities like the economy.
“This election cycle, immigration probably will not necessarily be more important than issues of affordability or education or economics, but probably more important than it has been in recent elections because of what we have seen here in Illinois in our backyards,” Tortolero said.
Northwestern political science Prof. Jaime Dominguez echoed this sentiment. He said some candidates are putting the issue of immigration “front and center” in their campaigns in hopes of appealing to Latino voters.
However, Dominguez referenced recent national polling that shows the economy and job market are greater concerns for the community.
This is consistent with national polling from the 2024 U.S. presidential election. According to data from Pew Research Center, most Latino voters who voted for either Harris or Trump both listed the economy as their top issue.
National patterns are reflected at the local level in data commissioned in February by the Evanston RoundTable and gathered by Public Policy Polling, where 26% of Latino primary voters from the district listed inflation and the cost of living as the most important issue in the upcoming primary.
“People just assume that because Latinos are disproportionately affected by it, that’s their number one issue,” Dominguez said. “And it isn’t.”
Nonetheless, the threat of federal immigration enforcement has not subsided after many encounters in the fall with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. On March 9, federal agents returned to Park Ridge, a Chicago suburb west of Evanston, according to a verified Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights alert, and were spotted traveling east on Oakton Street, which leads into Evanston.
Tortolero added that many Latino voters are “fearful” that federal agents will be at polling stations this week.
Tortolero cited information from a political consultant explaining that, due to heightened fear of immigration enforcement, Mexican Americans who are naturalized citizens might not turn out in large numbers to vote in Tuesday’s primary. Tortolero said this demographic comprises a large share of the Latino voting population in Illinois.
“Those are people like my parents,” Tortolero said. “I was born in this country. My parents are naturalized. For me, the fact that they would be fearful to vote — I fear that.”
Tortolero said the Cook County Officers Electoral Board is preparing for potential voter intimidation by providing voter education in various languages and promoting early and mail-in voting.
For Latinos who closely follow politics, candidates’ methods in handling immigrant rights throughout Operation Midway Blitz will be influential in determining who to support, according to Tortolero.
She also pointed to a tendency among some politicians to treat immigration as the sole issue for Latino voters, even though their priorities often reflect those of the broader electorate.
Dominguez has moderated campus forums for Illinois’ 9th Congressional District candidates Mayor Daniel Biss and progressive content creator Kat Abughazaleh. During these events, Dominguez said outreach to the Latino community “never came up for both of them.” Instead, he said the two candidates were more concerned with larger issues such as immigration and the economy.
Dominguez said the campaigns’ limited outreach to the district’s Latinos could be explained by the fact that Latino voters are only a small percentage of the electorate.
But, that doesn’t mean they aren’t involved. Earlier this month, Alianza, NU’s Latine student alliance, and Local Mojo NU, a student group that promotes local artists on college campuses, collaborated with Abughazaleh to host a benefit concert for the National Immigrant Justice Center.
Alianza’s Associated Student Government Senator and Medill junior Vincent Díaz Bonacquisti, an organizer of the event, emphasized the concert was not an endorsement or campaign event but a collaboration to raise money for the justice center.
Díaz Bonacquisti said he had the idea to organize a benefit concert at the start of the quarter after he felt that “there wasn’t enough being done by students when it comes to the ICE terror in Chicago and across the nation.”
In the end, the concert raised over $3,300 for NIJC, according to Díaz Bonacquisti.
On a larger scale, Díaz Bonacquisti said he understands the distrust Latino voters feel toward the government, but he still stressed the importance of voting.
“I feel like within the Latino population, as well as within populations that feel like they’ve been neglected by the dominant political system, there’s a tendency to feel disillusioned or lack trust in any possibility for change through voting,” he said. “It ultimately leads to those same groups being underrepresented in the vote.”
Díaz Bonacquisti said he believes the only way to rebuild political trust is for candidates to show up for the community they are seeking to represent.
For him, it is essential that his community turn out on election day.
“If we’re not showing up to vote and we’re not representing our interests, I feel like no one else really will,” Díaz Bonacquisti said.
Email: [email protected]
Email: [email protected]
Related Stories:
— Mayor Biss discusses immigration enforcement, congressional campaign at campus forum
— ‘Abughamentum’ making ground against Biss, 9th District poll indicates
