Latinos: The Forgotten Democratic Constituency : Campaign: When Clinton has called, the speech is all-purpose, the imagery stereotypic. Hasn’t anyone told him <i> mariachis</i> are outdated?

SANGER, CALIF. —  The Latino vote is like a mythical monster. There have been a few sightings. The Viva Kennedy cam paign of 1960 is the grandfather of the get-out-the-Latino-vote movements, and has been followed with similar Viva efforts every four years. It is considered potentially immense--25 million to 30 million Latinos live in the United States. Everyone wants to capture it--GOP and Democratic operatives both speak of the importance of Latinos to the presidential campaign.

Still, there is doubt the beast exists. We are mostly young and undocumented. In Los Angeles, for example, Latinos comprise more than 40% of the population but only 16% of eligible voters. In past elections, the majority of eligible Latinos have not voted. When they have, it is never as a bloc. Though we are baptized Catholic and Democratic, Republicans heavily courted Latinos in the 1980s. They were rewarded, in two elections, with strong support. It culminated in 1984, when 40% of Latino voters--many of them Cuban-Americans seduced by a hard line against communism--cast their ballots for Reagan-Bush. Yet, if our size and diversity empowers us, our ambivalence and disunity emasculates us. The fabled Sleeping Giant has lapsed into a coma, from which he may never awaken.

It is not likely that, this year, the Democratic Party has the alarm clock. The campaign of Bill Clinton and Al Gore has, since its inception, been noticeably non-Latino. The candidates have been successful in escaping what their handlers consider the ethnic trap that has helped doom their recent predecessors. By appearing to pander to the interests of racial minorities, the wisdom dictates, Democrats have alienated white voters who feel threatened and left out. Clinton won the Democratic nomination, in part, to bring home Reagan Democrats, party refugees who felt their interests had been sold out to “special interests.”

Furthermore, as sons of Dixie, he and Gore are more at home in the South than in the Southwest. In states like Texas and California, they have delivered a generic, mainstream message to Latino voters. The result: Such pressing Latino issues as language rights, high school dropout rates, immigration restrictions and the Free Trade Agreement have been unaddressed. Clinton and Gore have courted the suburbs, not the barrio.

Remember Walter F. Mondale inviting San Antonio Mayor Henry Cisneros to his home in Minnesota for a vice-presidential audition? Remember Michael S. Dukakis praising Willie Velasquez in Spanish at the 1988 Democratic Convention? Clinton does not speak Spanish.

Where there has been attention, it has been trite and superficial. Clinton went to San Antonio and addressed an enthusiastic crowd of Latino supporters. He posed in front of a group of mariachis while vendors sold tacos. There were red, white and green balloons. He concentrated on all-purpose topics issues, like jobs and the economy. It well could have been the same speech he delivered to auto workers in Detroit days earlier.

Clinton spent the Sixteenth of September at a ceremonial rally in Baldwin Park. Again, the mariachis . I wonder: Do they rent themselves out by the hour to white politicians traveling the Southwest?

The Democrats seem not to realize that old stereotypes have given way to a more complicated reality. They actively court a new generation of voters. Yet, mine is a generation defined by blue contacts, white spouses, middle-class lives and English as our first language. Though we hear mariachis at our Grandma’s birthday party, we do not understand the words to their ballads. And Clinton may have eaten more tacos lately than I have. We live with immense changes that had not yet taken hold 30 years ago, when my parents’ generation first voted for John F. Kennedy. These changes should not be ignored by those who court a new generation of Latinos.

With a mass of voters who are hard to define or inspire, Democratic strategists may have decided that political rewards can be found elsewhere. We have been lost in political expediency, sacrificed for the greater electoral good. Forgotten.

One group who apparently has not been forgotten is gays and lesbians. A friend calls from San Francisco to tell me excitedly that he is working 64-hour weeks for the Democratic ticket. There is more motivating him, and thousands of gay volunteers like him, to support what has been called “the most openly pro-gay and lesbian ticket in history” than revenge for Patrick J. Buchanan’s homophobia. My friend is inspired by Clinton’s repeated disdain for discrimination in the military and endorsement of a federal gay civil-rights bill. Throughout the campaign, when Clinton has been asked about gay rights or AIDS funding, he has not hedged. My gay friends feel included in Clinton’s vision for America. I wish I did.

Ironically, Latino leaders who have stomached Democratic neglect in the hope of collecting political favors from a victorious ticket may be in for a surprise. A low turnout of the constituency they claim to represent may mean they enter the Washington poker game with a weak hand. In any case, it’s hard to imagine how millions of Latinos ignored by Candidate Clinton in October will suddenly capture the attention of President-elect Clinton in November.

What is most disheartening is that Clinton is our only hope. Like other Americans, even if Latinos wonder if they can trust Clinton, they know they cannot trust George Bush to address their concerns beyond superficial gestures like appointing Cabinet members and parading brown grandchildren. For 12 months, Clinton has given Latinos a cold shoulder; for 12 years, Bush has not given them a thought.

We also know that Clinton is no Robert F. Kennedy. In 1968, Kennedy endangered his political future by celebrating with United Farm Workers leader Cesar Chavez the breaking of a month-long fast. Instead of Ivy League lectures, he asked Mexican-Americans two questions: What do you want? What can I do to help? He treated us as people, not caricatures. So deep was the affection among Latinos for the man my grandmother still calls El Bobby that on Election Day, an incredible 98% of Mexican-American voters in California went for Kennedy. Even in politics, a little dignity goes a long way.

A quarter-century later, Kennedy’s two questions are still relevant.

What do you want? We want what all Americans want: a reaffirmation of the American Dream, safe streets, health care and an end to discrimination and hatred. But we also want not to be taken for granted.

What can I do to help? You can discard antiquated eastern conceptions of America’s racial dilemma in black and white and recognize a new reality in which the color brown cannot be overlooked. You can approach us not with mariachis and beer or brown grandchildren, but with dignity and respect.