The infamous wall at the U.S.-Mexico border was visible in the distance at Joe Orduño Park in San Luis, Ariz., and the sun was just beginning to set beyond it when the organizer of the music festival climbed onto the stage on an evening in October.
Esau Torres, co-founder of the group Grita. Canta. Vota., which translates to Shout. Sing. Vote., talked about the famous musical artists that would be playing that evening. Then he told the crowd of about about 5,000 that this was much more than a concert. “The festival,†he told them, “ has the power to change the future of the state of Arizona.â€
By the time the evening was over — and artists such as Juan Olivas, Las Marias and the corrido group T3rcer Elemento, had played — about 1,000 people, mostly Mexican Americans, had registered to vote, organizers said.
It was a performance that the founders of Grita. Canta. Vota. have tried to repeat again and again around the country in the months leading up to this presidential election.
The Latino population in the United States now numbers more than 60 million, nearly 20% of the population, according to a 2021 report from the Pew Research Center. Though the number of Latino voters has grown accordingly, Latinos also have lower election turnout rates than white, black or Asian voters.
“In the 2020 election, Latinos had the lowest voter registration among racial and and ethnic groups at 61.1%,†noted political strategist Mike Madrid in his book “The Latino Century.†`
That’s where Grita. Canta. Vota. comes in — a nationwide campaign taking an unconventional approach to voter registration. The group seeks to use the popularity of regional Mexican music to get out the vote, intergenerationally.
To do so, it has teamed up with acts that appeal to young people, such as Xavi, Eslabon Armado and Chiqui Rivera, as well as some that might appeal more to their parents and grandparents, such as Los Tucanes de Tijuana and Banda El Recodo.
They have staged a series of concerts, eight in all, in Illinois, North Carolina, California, Arizona, Nevada and Georgia, with the goal of getting more people to cast ballots. They also set up tables at other concerts to register potential voters.
The places they’ve been: concert venues, college campuses and even jaripeos and charreadas across the United States.
The term Latino is an umbrella term that captures many different ethnicities across Latin America, and for that reason the “Latino vote†is difficult to define, and is especially difficult to predict. And, due to rising population numbers — especially in swing states — they will be determinative in this election. If they vote.
Many political organizing campaigns, whether party based or nonpartisan, have targeted Latinos as a whole, with messaging that has treated Latinos as a monolith. But Latinos come from many different cultural backgrounds, so a monolithic message does not speak to all Latinos, if any.
Grita. Canta. Vota., by contrast, aims straight at one group: Mexican Americans.
The organization launched earlier this year, after the founders noticed that musical artists from South America and the Caribbean were doing get-out-the-vote efforts, but few Mexican and Mexican American artists were doing the same.
“You really need to target that 43 out of that 63 million, which are those of Mexican descent,†said Torres. “Which is why you hear us talking about the Tucanes, the Xavis, the Banda MS, the Grupo Control, because this is the community that breathes and lives this music every single day, every weekend.â€
In addition to Torres, other founders include his brother Euler,; Bridgette Gomez, who manages nonprofit alliances; and consultant and public speaker Bacilia Angel.
Grita. Canta. Vota. is not the first get-out-the-vote campaign to use music or celebrities as a way to get people civically engaged.
In 1990, Rock the Vote, a collaboration of celebrities and pop stars, was formed to encourage younger people to vote. The campaign was launched by Virgin Records executive Jeff Ayeroff, in response to perceived censorship of the music industry. In 1992, MTV created a multimedia campaign called Choose or Lose that targeted young voters — this led to the largest youth election turnout since 1972.
In 2020, numerous groups put music at the center of get-out-the-vote campaigns, including: Spotify’s “Play Your Part,†Voto Latino’s “En La Lucha,†and Sony Music’s “Your Voice, Your Power, Your Vote.â€
While political scientists have debated how influential celebrity messages can be in influencing voting, many also note thatwithin 24 hours of Taylor Swift posting a Vote.gov link on Instagram406,000 people clicked the registration link.
Dan Schnur, a political strategist and professor of political communications at UC Berkeley and USC, said Grita.Canta.Vota was doing something subtly different from some of these efforts, because it was reaching Mexican Americans in an intergenerational context, through music festivals enjoyed by the whole family.
“MTV reached out to young people independent of their families,†he said. â€By, integrating politics into broader family and community involvement, I feel like there’s a much greater likelihood for success, because you’re not introducing politics as something separate and distinct and unique in an individual’s life, but rather it’s a natural extension of the portions of their life.â€
Grita. Canta. Vota. is counting on the intergenerational settings that regional Mexican music creates. At Xavi, Peso Pluma, Los Tigres Del Norte concerts you see very intergenerational crowds — parents bringing kids, mother-daughter duos. They are events that bring together families.
“If you go to our concerts, which are called Vota Paloozas,†says Euler Torres, “you’re going to see grandparents, parents, children, and grandchildren. So you’re going to get to see three, four generations at one event. ... That’s how we are.â€
Of course, registering people to vote doesn’t always translate into votes being cast. In the Latino community, there is a participation gap: Latinos may be registered, but that does not mean they cast the ballot.
That’s why the group is also partnering with artists to push out messages about the importance of voting.
The band Grupo Control released a song in May called “Grita. Canta. Vota†that is getting airtime on regional Mexican music stations across the country.
Grita. Canta. Vota. is also airing a public service announcement on more than 240 radio stations across the country called “Hey, Dad, â€. In it, a son talks to his father about the importance of voting.
The latest set of public service announcements, “Vota Con Botas (Vote with your boots)†was released Thursday. Cowboy boots are commonly worn in the Mexican American community in everyday life, but especially as part of a wearer’s “Sunday best.†The message of the PSA is that voting is an occasion worth putting your “botas†on for.
“It is a special moment. It is something that gives every individual that is a U.S. citizen the right to say, “This is my voice,’†says Euler Torres.
This campaign is not over when the election ends — it will transition to Pertenecemos (We belong), where their efforts will turn to legal residents to help them complete the naturalization process. It will be like the TurboTax of immigration, says Angel.
For this campaign to be successful, Madrid says it has to go beyond registering voters: It must have a cultural impact. The goal of campaigns should be focused on changing culture because it is downstream from politics.
“Change the culture, and you change the politics. [If] you try to change the politics [first], you’re not going to affect the culture,†says Madrid.
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