25-year-old Dan Santos is part of the new wave of Filipino Americans in Nevada. Growing up, he says, “I never had mentors in politics or community organizing that looked like me.” This month, he’ll be a precinct chairman on caucus day.
A young Filipino American finds community – and a political mission – by moving to Las Vegas. Now he’s at ground zero as Nevada Democrats race to fix the caucus process in their state, following this month’s high-tech debacle in Iowa.Video by Jeremy Moorhead and Jeff Simon, CNN– On a sunny Saturday morning, just a short drive from the neon and glitter of the Las Vegas Strip, a traditional scene from the Philippines unfolds in the corner of a nondescript office building.
One sign of the growing importance of the Filipino vote: The state’s Democratic Party, for the first time, will print presidential preference cards for the February caucuses in Tagalog, in addition to English and Spanish. Santos, whose parents emigrated separately from the Philippines in the 1990s, grew up in suburban Chicago and graduated from the University of Illinois in 2017. He moved to Las Vegas last April – drawn by a job with Teach for America, which recruits recent college graduates to teach in high-poverty schools.
“It’s truly ‘Asiatown,’ ” Sonny Vinuya, a Filipino-American banker who serves as president of the Las Vegas Asian Chamber of Commerce, says of the commercial strip. “Everybody's represented.
“It was a shock, a slap in the face and a wake-up call,” Santos says of the 2016 results. “To hear the rhetoric about immigrants and about people of color … is really just disheartening.He says he began to reconsider everything about his future during his final year in college. He’s not sure whether he will settle in Las Vegas for the long haul; his girlfriend lives in Seattle, and his family is far flung. But right now, he focused on trying to have an impact on what he calls “the most consequential election of our lifetime” in a state where his vote counts.
The administration has moved to make it make it more difficult for immigrants who rely on public benefits, such as food stamps, Medicaid or subsidized housing, to obtain legal status on the grounds they are likely to become a “public charge,” dependent on US taxpayers. After several court skirmishes over the Trump policy, the Supreme Court in January voted 5-4 to let the new rules take effect.The Asian Night Market is now a popular annual event.
The backlog in legal immigration to the United States is particularly acute for people from Asian countries. “Signs are pointing to a historically large turnout for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, very likely favoring the Democratic Party,” Ramakrishnan says. Vice President Mike Pence and Donald Trump Jr. both are slated to headline two Nevada events in the days leading up to the February 22 caucuses.Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are not single-issue voters, Gorka adds. He says the Trump team is emphasizing economic growth and the administration’s efforts to cut down on government regulation, particularly with business owners in the AAPI community.
The Nevada caucuses, the third 2020 nominating contest, after Iowa and New Hampshire, offers the first chance for Democratic contenders to demonstrate their appeal in a diverse state. Nevada is one of five “majority minority” states in the country, alongside Texas, California, New Mexico and Hawaii. Latinos alone account for nearly 30% of Nevada’s population, census figures show.
At the training following last October’s Kamayan feast, Santos focused intently as Joey Reid, the Nevada Democratic Party’s deputy field director, ran through the caucus intricacies: Four days of early voting will precede the main event on February 22. Candidate signs and swag are prohibited inside early voting sites. Deadlocks during the caucuses are determined by a draw of the cards.
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