about one hour 15 minutes. good afternoon.

to meet our democracy is a system of values and institutions that allow each and every person, no matter who they are or whether from to help shape the future of our country. the sobering truth that we face a president that wants to pit us against each other, who thrives on it, who undermined our norm, values and institutions every day. he praises with dictators. the president of the media the enemy of the people. they also have a president would tax integrity of our judiciary whether it's questioning the ability of a mexican american to serve as a federal judge were working on a right-win wing takeover of the court as we can see this

evening. this is a powerful force for defending the rights of the minority against the majority could supporting basic human rights including stopping the inhumane policy of family separation when this power is placed in the wrong hands our justice system and often take our country backwards, whether it's upholding the muslim ban, attacking the basic civil rights to vote, or weakening our protections for immigrants. each and every generation has a fundamental duty to renew the strength of our democracy and in fact, the battles we have today are monks the starkest. the actual weapon we have to save our democracy is democracy in action.

it is all about showing up at about box, showing up in our communities and communicating that this will not stand. we are here to protect it. thank you very much. >> please welcome our next analyst president and ceo, ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ i'm in a room with powerful latinos and i do not hear energ energy. i don't hear energy. i'm in a talk about progress. i know it just in time we feel like we are not making progress. progress is because of the progress we have made that

folks are coming after us. progress is lonelier basically able to put a stake. progress is when the president declared separation of families and opened up the first internment camp of ten cities in the middle of texas in the desert, expecting no one to pay attention. we heard about it on wednesday, on sunday we set we were going to do a march and in less than seven days we had latino leadership leading an effort to turn down texas. we had many leadership thing not on our watch.

that is progress. progress is identifying leadership, young talent and training young people to run for office in the last two years for have run for office and three have one, recently alexandria. progress is having a slate of potential presidential candidates. progress is every single person in this room because one thing this administration does not know is that we are american latinos before we are political parties and progress to be in this room means that you have had to fight tooth and nail to be here. nothing has ever been given to the latino community. you are a testament of that

and that is progress. we are built for this moment, we are strong because progress is recognizing our potential at the voting booth. 80% of latinos who register vote. the mean age of the white american voter is 54. the mean age of the latino voter is 18 years old. [applause] that is progress when we come together as a community, when were running young candidates and setting our sights high to the office of the president and making sure that where executive and mobilizing each other, uplifting each other, we are unstoppable. while we don't realize right now, because we keep hearing these terrible things about the latino community, it's because they see our potential. when they try to prevent us from the voting booth it's because they see our

progress. we know we have an individual who wants to make sure they want to run for office, we have to make sure that we are encouraging them because that is progress but i want you all to here with me. [speaking in native tongue] [speaking in native tongue] this is our moment, our vote and i will see you in november but first we are going to organize. [applause] : : :

captioning performed by vitac fighting for equality. they are about >> our fights are about equality. they are about securing equality, they are about extending equality and perhaps more important than ever before, they are about protecting our equality. some may ask why does hrc care about daca recipients? what about the muslim ban? or why do we care about voting rights or a woman's right to choose? the simple truth is that the

lgbtq community is as diverse as the fabric of this nation. we are muslim, we are jewish, we are women, we are black, white, laninex, asian and native american. we are immigrants and we are people with disabilities. and when donald trump attacks one of us, he is going to keep hearing from every single one of us. because we are all stronger when we stand together. i want to share a quick story with you. last month i was in arizona meeting with latinex leaders to discuss the intersection between lgbt k and latinex issues. i got to meet elena aguilar. she lived much of her life as an

undocumented immigrant. in 2016 she got to vote for the very first time and not only did she get to vote for the first woman presidential nominee, she also got to cast a vote for herself and she won her own race for the local school board. my friends, there is nothing more uniquely american than that story, and that's why i have never been more optimistic about our future. one of the silver linings of this moment, this dark moment that we are all living through today, is that never before have we as a people been more eager to participate, to advocate and to fight back. across social justice movements we have all stood shoulder to shoulder to fight for the equality and the equal dignity of all people. and that is a fight we must pursue with a greater urgency now than ever before.

thank you all very much for having me here. >> ladies, we are honored to bring our next speaker to the stage, welcome president and director council of the naacp legal defense and educational fund, sherrilyn ifill. [ speaking spanish ] >> all right. today marks the 150th anniversary of the passage of the 14th amendment to the constitution, so it's a good day to talk about justice. give the 14th amendment a round of applause. [ applause ] >> it's a good day to talk about justice. the 14th amendment articulated three critical rights that forever changed our country. first, birth right citizenship, meaning that anyone born on u.s. soil is a u.s. citizen, second,

equal protection of the laws, and third, the guarantee of due process to ensure that the states could not deprive individuals of life, liberty or property without recourse. it's important to remember, especially at this moment, that the guarantees of equal protection and due process extend by the very words of the 14th amendment to every person in the united states, regardless of whether they are a citizen or not. what does this have to do with justice? well, most of us think that justice should be a by-product of equality, full citizenship and due process. we expect justice to flow freely from a society that upholds the dignity of every citizen, that purges itself of inequality and that guarantees the right of everyone to be heard, to effectively plead their cause to an impartial tribunal before the

state deprives them of liberty. the injustice that we see every day in our country today, at the border, in encounters with police officers, in voting, in our education system, in prisons, in courtrooms around this country, these injustices exist because we have failed to live up to the words of the 14th amendment. we are 150 years into the new america created after the civil war and we are not there yet. in fact, what progress we have made is being threatened like never before. so today i'm asking all of us to recommit to the promise of the 14th amendment. its guarantees and protections were bought and paid for with the lives of over 600,000 americans who perished in the civil war and countless individuals known and unknown who put their lives on the line during the civil rights movement, because justice, in fact, is not inevitable.

if you want justice, you have to fight for it. fight for justice wherever you stand, in the courtroom, in the state house, in your community, in the streets. fight for our supreme court. fight for a congress that does its job. fight for our educational institutions. fight for our democracy. and then when we think we've achieved justice, we have to fight some more. the forces that would turn us back, they are fighting, too, and they never give up, but we have the words of the 14th amendment on our side and so we fight on like we mean to win. >> joining us from the leadership conference on civil and human rights please give a warm welcome to president and ceo vanita gupta.

>> good afternoon. it's great to be here this afternoon and to see this room so full of people. freedom -- freedom is a value that has undergird the history and founding of this country, but we all know that that freedom was built for white men with property, built on the genocide of native americans, founded around the exclusion and enslavement of africans and african-americans, and that the struggle for freedom in this country has really been a struggle for a more perfect union. it's been a struggle that has defined our own history as a country. and from the founding of this nation the struggle for freedom, about who defines freedom, who gets to be free and who doesn't has been an ever arching quest through the art of our history.

it has sometimes before a freedom from, like the founding fathers who were trying to push from freedom from tyranny all the while living a hypocrisy that resulted in the confinement and oppression of a certain people, but it's also been the freedom from oppression for marginalized and vulnerable communities. a freedom defined by the quest for dignity and humanity because we know that in the course of our history the greatest threats to freedom have always involved the deep dehumanization of certain people and certain communities in our midst. today as civil rights leaders and advocates around the country, we are fighting for a freedom to be with our children, to have families stay whole. a freedom that some of us have taken for granted and yet this administration has put in such deep peril. it's a freedom to live free from mass incarceration, from unlawful criminal justice policies that have devastated black and brown communities. it's a freedom to love who we wish to love and to marry who we

wish to marry. a freedom to worship where we want to worship. a freedom that is fundamentally about being able to be who we are with the full rights afforded to us by the equal protection clause that sherrilyn talked about. but there is nothing inevitable about this freedom and we are seeing today such attacks on the very fundamental value of freedom in every sense of the word. this -- these attacks on freedom can ultimately undermine who we are as a country on our own watch. i call it the boiling of the frog, that things are happening, the attacks on the free press, the attacks on the judiciary, the attacks on our communities, on our families. these things can happen on our watch. there is nothing inevitable about freedom. the only thing that is ever defined our progress as a country and our freedom has been that men and women and young people like all of us in this room have insisted upon it, have insisted on the dignity of every

human being, on the rights inherent and inn alienable of every human being in this country. that is what we are here fighting for today. that is what i do with these leaders on the stage every single day is to never take that for granted, to be out in the streets, to be filing cases in courts. today we are going to be seeing an announcement of a new supreme court justice nominee to the supreme court. let me just tell you the supreme court has played a really important role in defining who gets to be free and who isn't, and we need every single one of you involved in this fight. this is -- we have so much at stake with this fight in the supreme court. and so let's not ever take this for granted. and i want you to repeat after me in the words of fannie lu namer, nobody is free until everyone is free. one, two, three. nobody is free until everyone is free. thank you. >> moderating this important

conversation, ladies and gentlemen, please give a warm welcome to president and ceo of unidosus, janet murguia. >> 52 years ago when cesar chavez was in his first fast, bringing attention to the plight of farmworkers, he received a telegram from dr. martin luther king jr. that telegram, in part, said our separate struggles are really one. a struggle for freedom, for dignity, for humanity. we stand on the shoulders of

giants who understood our common bonds, but yet that unity has not come easily. we've seen those struggles in silos at times, and if there is a bright light in all of this challenge that we're seeing today is that it has created an opportunity for us to truly come together and to leverage our strengths in so many ways. i think about our new name, unidosus. as we were approaching our 50th anniversary we understood that we had to think differently

about how we could take on the challenges that we're seeing today, but to also create opportunities. unidos for us is a cry, a rallying cry, an appeal for our own community to come together, but more importantly it's also an invitation for others to join us. we understand that in this time more than ever we need partners, we need allies, and we have to be a partner and we have to be an ally. because no one person, no one organization, no one community can accomplish alone these challenges that we're seeing, but we also have to recognize that as we come together we have

to use those strengths to push back on the policies that we know are holding us back, but to also understand that we can use our strengths to create the opportunities that we know will lift all of us up. so for us we come together in this moment recognizing that there's never been a more important time to use collectively our voice and our vote and create the vision of america that we know it can be and to uphold the ideals and that vision that we know includes everyone and having that shot for everyone to have their own american dream. welcome to today's panel.

well, this is incredibly exciting. you know, we work together as leaders of all of these distinguished, distinguished entities and organizations, but we don't often get a chance to sit down and talk about what's happening. we work together very closely in coalitions, as i was talking, but i think this is a very important time for us to talk a little bit about what the state of our civil rights movement is right now. let's share with folks what we think are some of the biggest challenges, but also some of those big opportunities that we know that we can take on together. so obviously we've got a lot happening. there is a supreme court nominee about to be announced, vanita, you talked about that a little

bit. you know, one of the things that i keep hearing is that it is important obviously for us as a civil rights movement to stay together and to keep pushing, but what is it that we need to do differently or in a new way that you think can be the path forward for all of us? sherrilyn or vanita, do you want to take that first? >> thank you so much, janet. i appreciate it. it is so exciting to just be sitting here with my colleagues and before all of you. i'm going to identify two things. first of all, i think that notwithstanding our very optimistic picture of what will happen in this country demographically, right, and maria teresa was referring to some of that in terms of the median age of the latino voter and we talk about the browning of america and we talk about being a majority minority country and so forth and i think

we have to rely less on the idea that demography is destiny because it is not. there is such a thing and minority rule, it's very ugly, many of us know it from south africa, it's brutal. we shouldn't assume that just because there are numbers that there's power. if you want power, you have to decide that you're going to exercise power, and to exercise power requires that you lean in to every moment when you can acquire power. and that means that you're not just voting in the midterm elections this year because trump is a nightmare. you're not just voting in the presidential election because you want to influence who the president is and because the president picks the supreme court and so forth. you're voting in every election. you're voting in the school board election. you're voting for the town council, you're voting for the water commission, you're voting in the sheriff election, you're voting in the city council election.

you're voting in every election. and you're looking at all of the candidates and you're educating yourself about them. i think that's what we have to do differently. we go in the voting booth, all of us have done it, right, you vote for the president or you vote for the governor, you vote for the mayor, maybe you know somebody on the city council you vote for, then it says pick three judges. you don't know who those judges are, right? so you either pick three because maybe you like their political party or you don't vote in that election. so voting in every election. and then the second thing is just to recognize we have to fight in a different way than we fought before. this is about raw power at this moment. we didn't ask for it to be this way. we are high-minded people, but right now this is about raw power. and that means you play every hand. every possible hand we have to play has to be played. and i think we are not accustomed to that, we think we will wait on this, we will wait for two years. no. every hand has to be played. >> well, let me ask you this this -- you're right about that.

so is this about more demonstrations, more marches, fully using our voice, doing more of it, or doing it more intensely, or is there also other avenues we should be pursuing because obviously we've seen a lot of people inspired to be in the streets and to make sure that we're denouncing policies, but i've often said that that alone may not be enough. we know that we have to do other things. what are some of the other things, neera -- >> just to add and to answer that question, i think politics now and engagement now has to be 24/7, 365 days a year. so what we see are forces aligned against us who have a vision of the country that is reactionary and we are basically fighting for the soul of the country in every battle. i think what that means is

voting everywhere, but participating and looking at a supreme court fight or a fight around the affordable care act or around immigration and dreamers as one in which we have alliances across all our organizations and that we each have to step up and bring everyone to those issues. the only thing that has defeated this -- these assaults on democracy, equality, freedom and justice that we have seen is direct democracy engaging. calling your member of congress, disrupting politics as normal, engaging not just at election day, but before the elections. in this supreme court fight right now we need senators to hear from their constituents all across the country to say we are not just going along with politics as usual. >> so we've talked about in this

conference certainly about our community having been under assault. >> yes. >> we've seen that since day one. you know, rapists, drug dealers, even animals, we've seen references in very extreme ways, we've seen pardoning of sheriff joe arpaio and of course repealing daca, repealing the temporary protected status and of course now the families being separated on the border. one of the reaffirming things that i think has been extraordinary is that everybody has owned these issues. it's no longer just been our community speaking out on behalf of ourselves, we hosted a press conference a few weeks ago for national civil rights leaders, everybody showed up and responded and said that this is also about human rights and not just civil rights. talk a little bit about either the family separations issue or

how every community represented here has been under assault and what does that mean for us as we go forward because in some ways is it harder for us to work together on this or should it be easier for us to work together? >> you know, there's few moments in history where the kind of most fundamental things and ideals about america really get pronounced in such a way as they are right now, and i think that we are seeing daily attacks on all of our communities, but fundamentally i think a lot of us are doing this work not because -- out of protection of one community or the other, we are seeing us in the fight literally for as neera said the soul of our country. these are about american values. when the trump administration nine days in announced the first muslim ban, you didn't see just muslim people rushing to the airports, you saw people of all stripes, people who never believed that they were

activists before rush to the airports, rush to the streets out of this belief that this is not who we are as a country. this is not who we want to be. this is not who we deserve to be. that's why you're seeing in almost -- on kind of a regular basis, we are on calls, we are at press conferences, we are speaking out for each other, the assaults on lgbtq rights, the assault and confrontation on voting rights, all of the anti-immigrant, you know, underpinnings of almost every policy that is being put out there right now. in a lot of ways, i mean, i have the luxury of being at the leadership conference which unidosus is a part of, a coalition of over 210 national and civil rights organizations and in some ways this is exactly the moment that we were called for because the level of solidarity and defense of fundamentally american values that we are kind of coming together on right now, it's not about one community, it's about who we are as a country. and that's why the family separation issue in many ways just crystallizes the ways in

which we have to stand up when one part of our community is dehumanized in this way. we cannot stand for it because an attack on one of us is an attack on all of us and that's why we're rising to the challeng challenge. >> so one of the challenges i feel like i've had and, i don't know, chad or maria teresa, maybe you want to talk about this, but i worry that there's so much information out there and someone said earlier, you know, technology has revolutionized how we receive information and whether people are making references to fake news or trying to minimize how we get the facts out there. how do we convey to people, whether it's in our own community or others, what's really true? how do we deal with that challenge right now? do either one of you want to take that, chad or maria teresa?

>> i think the challenge that we all face is breaking through, is breaking through in this insane moment where you have this so-called president with this tiny little thumbs sending out tweets every ten seconds. what he wants you to do and what he wants all of us to do is to get distracted, to look over there so you won't see what's happening right here. we see it all the time. there's still an epidemic of this country as it relates to hiv and aids, or as it relates to violence and, in fact, murder of trans women, especially trans women of color. the media do not focus on that enough and so many other issues. what we've got to do is keep telling stories because that's how we change hearts and that's how we change minds and that's ultimately how we're going to win this battle. but we can't get distracted. don't get distracted by bob mueller, he's going to do his job. don't get distracted by stormy

daniels, she's going to do whatever she's going to do. >> she's doing her job. >> what we all have to focus on is where we have power. midterm elections, midterm elections, midterm elections. that's how we can finally pull the emergency brake on this president and that's exactly what we have to do. >> and just to piggyback, we oftentimes for the work that we do it's really hard for folks to pay attention. my mother still does not know what i do. my grandmother still says that i was -- i was special counsel for the white house. i didn't go to law school. but americans are paying attention and because americans are paying attention every single one of us it allows us for mobilization and organizing. so while the president is trying to distract us we need a clear vision.

93 million americans sat it out last election. 93 million. we are expecting 12 million young voters by the next presidential. two-thirds of them are young people of color. our job is not to leave any voter on the table. our job is clear because as they distract, we have to build. and i will share in california we had pete wilson, he was the precursor to trump and what we did was threefold. we invested in infrastructure, we had a communications campaign to clearly define the person that was trying to target the latino community and we registered and naturalized. if you were to ask me what we need to do differently, janet, is as a latino community we need to start investing in organizations because for too long we're sitting on the sidelines expecting someone else to invest in us. until we start investing in our leadership and the institutions that we need that is the reason

we are weak. 60% of latinos are 33 years or younger. we have to make sure that we are making the contributions because right now we're expecting someone else to do the work. i will let you in on a secret. right now the way the establishment is structured, people just register enough latinos to get their candidates over the top. just enough. there's a strategy called the 50% plus 1 strategy where campaigns deploy basically saying i'm going to register the 50% that i know will come my way and that 1% that will get my candidate over the top. by that structure latinos will never have the political power that is represented that they need. african-americans will never have the political power that is represented their their needs, lbgtq will never have the political power, south asians will never have the political power. we need to run candidates, and we need to talk to the 18-year-old and say we're coming

at age and we need to pull out our checkbooks to invest, whether it's $5, $10 or $20 because it's on our watch. >> so i agree 100% and i am proud of the work we've been leading in voter registration in particular. in the last decade we've registered at unidosus 600,000 new voters and between now and november we're going to register 100,000 new voters. so we are very invested in this and you're right, we need other people to be investing in the way that we can engage more and more of our community. >> the 2016 election was a $2 billion election. less than $70 million of that was invested in the latino community. for national organizations less than $10 million. there's 56 million latinos. if each person gave $1 that would be three times more than what was invested in the last election in the latino community. >> when it comes to voting,

sherrilyn, i want to ask you, we're out there hustling, trying to make sure we're connecting with everybody, but yet we're seeing more and more barriers to voting, suppression efforts. you've been a great champion in this space. what can you talk to us about, what either are you doing but what can more people do to feel like they're also helping in making sure that we are breaking down barriers for people to have access to voting and to their right to be part of this electoral process. >> look, we cannot pretend that there is not a movement in this country that is designed intentionally to keep african-americans and latinos from voting. i'm not making that up. i'm not saying that because i'm an activist. i'm repeating what federal courts have found in texas, what federal courts have found in wisconsin, what federal courts have found in north carolina. that legislatures met and enacted voter suppression laws, voter id laws for the purpose of keeping african-americans and in other instances african-americans and latinos

from voting. we challenged texas' voter id law, the trial court found in an over 90-page decision that the purpose of the voter id law that texas created, this was the voter id law that did not allow our clients who were university students to use their university id to vote, no using a tribal id to vote anymore, no using a federal employee id to vote anymore, but you could use a concealed gun carry permit. that this law was created for the purpose of suppressing the vote. and i emphasize this because we can't pretend that voter suppression is some thing that's out there that is not defined and real. it is racist and it is targeted at our communities and that's real. okay? so we are going to keep litigating, we're going to keep pushing back against those rules and those laws and you have to be conscious of the fact that they exist. and this is why i think it's important for us to talk beyond just the actual physical act of voting, because our power is not only in our vote, but it's in our engagement.

this is where we fall off. even when we have some of the highest voting participation levels as african-americans did in the 2008 presidential election when barack obama was elected, they were excited about the candidate, voters came out and were voted. we have to stay engaged. engaged doesn't mean you vote two years later. engaged means you're showing up at meetings, you're contacting your congress person. right now the president wants you to think that the selection of a supreme court justice is a reality tv show and that you're supposed to wait until 9:00 tonight, fix yourself a cocktail, get some popcorn and watch this unfold. he wants you to think you have no power. but under the constitution someone can only be confirmed for the supreme court not only if the president picks them, but if they are confirmed by the united states senate and the senators represent you. so your job -- your job -- your job as a member of this great community in this country is to contact your senator and tell

them what you want. every senator will have a vote. there will be a senate judiciary committee first and then every senator will have a vote. what do you want them to do? tell your senator i don't want you to roll back voting rights. tell your senator we stand for treating immigrants humanely. tell your senators we stand for upholding lbgtq rights. tell them what you want. tell them the questions you want them to ask those senate nominees. you have power. those senators want to keep their job. so what we miss is that we have power between elections. every single person in this room could run for school board. there is nothing stopping you. it's not a full time job. do you run for office? do you tell your children to run for office? do you run for the county commission? do you run for the water commission? you have the ability to stay engaged in your community. let me tell you if you show up in mass with your family and other people that you know at a county council meeting they will be scared to death.

they want to know why you're there, they want to know what's going on, are they in trouble? just your presence puts pressure but we don't do it. we stay home, watch tv and let government happen somewhere else and that has to be over. power is not just about voting. show up. >> that should strike a chord with our community because when we all decide on a saturday we are going to go to the movies or something there's three carloads that end up going. if we could just approach this and take the whole family, right? neera, i had a question for you because i really want to understand, there is a little bit of a challenge right now because in many ways we have never seen our country more polarized, right? it seems like there's factions. on the one hand we want to be able to talk honestly about how passionate we feel when we see

many in our community being assaulted with these policies and the harm and suffering that's causing them, and it's hard to remove some of the anger from that. you want to make sure that we're getting our community excited and engaged and passionate and telling those stories, but at the same time it feels like there is a disconnect with folks who may not see things exactly the way we see them, and yet they need to be convinced that we're really talking about issues that should be issues we hold in common in terms of how we treat families. how do you kind of make sure you are talking to your own community or getting folks out there engaged without seeming to be pushing away others who need to better understand what we're going to. is it about our rhetoric or is it about our tactics or is it something that you think needs attention or doesn't need

attention? >> i mean, i think this is one of the hardest things we're facing, which is right now we are -- and we've seen this in previous periods in america, but this is the starkest its been in many decades in my mind, which is we have a person leading the country who is trying to pit groups against each other. who is trying to sow fear of different people, immigrants, muslims, any group out of favor. and i think the challenge we have is that it's hard to break through when different groups are listening to different sets of facts, right? it's hard to break through when the president can say something that's a demonstrable lie and people -- there is a group of people who will just believe it. now, my view of this is that

that does not mean we fight lies with lies. we actually have to hold to the truth more strongly and to be a little bit optimistic. if you look at the last year and a half, you know, donald trump has said a variety of things that were not true, he said the affordable care act was terrible and that they would replace it with a bill that would cover as many people, but at the end of that debate, you know, 70% of people did not believe him. he has tried to defend the family separation policy. you know, within a week or two two-thirds of americans said he was wrong. i do not think we have to convince every group, although we should try, but we are in a battle, again, for, you know, the most basic questions about our democracy which is who is american? what does america stand for? and in that fight we have to be tireless as we are all tested, but we also have to be fearless

about the truth and honest about the stakes and impact on people's lives. i think we do continually have to communicate to people who don't always agree with us. i personally believe you have to call your annoying relatives in that other state or friends who don't agree with you and convince them or at least try to engage them, because we know one thing which is falsehoods fester when they are not challenged. it's up to all of us to engage in that. that is what the right has been doing for decades. they have been engaged in an entire communications strategy around a narrative that sees all of us -- and i hate to say this, but sees all of us as a threat. >> i appreciate hearing that. i know it's going to be something we're all trying to figure out. we want to make sure we're bringing people on. people look to the lgbt community and they have said,

wow, we've seen so much progress -- of course we know that those wins are not permanent, but the lgbtq community has been really an example that people have lifted up for how you've made progress, you've organized, you've mobilized. chad, do you want to talk a little bit about how you've seen that sort of arc and that story occur and kind of what's at stake now? >> there is a couple things i would say to that. one, the power of telling stories. all of the research shows regardless of what issue we are up here talking about, taking away, you know, affordable healthcare for someone, taking away a woman's right to safe and legal abortion, or lgbtq -- for marriage equality, nondiscrimination protections. if you know someone that is suffering from the lack of one of those rights or if you know someone that lives next door to you or sits next to you at the church pew on sunday morning, it

personalizes it. and all of a sudden it breaks down the clutter that's -- that surrounds these issues on a regular basis. and then the second thing i would say is we can never forget that the vast majority of the american public, that means democrats and a whole lot of republicans and independents, too, agree with us on virtually every issue we are up here talking about. the dream act, nondiscrimination protections, the affordable care act, whatever the issue is. now, folks in congress and the leadership and the house and senate are just so out of touch with the american people. they're not with us on many of these issues, but the american people are and that's what we have to remember, that we have to continue to engage the electorate. we have to engage them on all of these issues because more times than not when they hear our stories, when they hear your stories, it changes hearts, it changes minds and then we just got to get them to the voting

booth to change some of these elected officials that are in office at the local, state and national level. >> one issue i want to raise, there are so many, but one -- maybe vanita and maria teresa you all can talk about it, is the census. a lot of times people hear about the census, they understand that this requires us to fill out forms but they don't really understand that at the end of the day how this process is completed and fulfilled really will affect the way communities have access to resources and power. and a lot of times that can get lost in translation. obviously one decision we've seen made most recently by the trump administration has been to add a question that to get to nearest point they are looking for ways to continually divide, to separate, to marginal lies

folks in this process and asking individuals whether they are a citizen or not. some might say, what's the big deal? but, maria teresa, we know that in our community when you have mixed status household families, where many of the folks are u.s. citizens, but perhaps one is not, it means that there is a fear created for anyone to participate for fear of what that might mean, but yet the constitution says every person should be counted. do you all want to talk about the impact of the census. >> i will take a stab at it from our perspective. we were official census partners in 2010 and we identified that 15-year-old is going to help fill out the census for their families an inform their families to fill out the census. we made sure in three communities we were able to do so, but the census basically identifies who gets public money. we are talking billions of dollars to every investment, from schools to healthcare to clinics to roads.

it also identifies, though, where corporations want to make investments. where do they want to have their next amazon headquarters? it also informs whether or not how congressional lines are going to be drawn. so jerry manned ring. when they go after and ask for a citizenship question, 16 million americans live in mixed-status families. 16 million. disproportionately latino. when we hear that ohio decided that they want to purge infrequent voters, they are talking about young people and disproportionately american latinos. the people that voto latino registers to vote. right now we are on track to registers close to a million folks by 2020, but those folks are infrequent voters. so when we talk about the census, when we talk about purging voter files, when we are talking about how the president perceives the latino community, it's lying squarely in the backs of latinos because we are the largest group of americans, but

we are young, infrequent participants, we don't believe that the census necessarily impacts us and we have to make sure we are organizing and talking to each other. one thing i always like to say is that latinos we love to talk on our phones. love to talk on our phones. we have to talk on our phones to make sure we're sharing information. just like other folks like to spread misinformation on facebook, we have to do peer to peer work making sure everybody understands what the notions are. our possibility is high, but this is all by design. when the supreme court went after shelby county basically to remove the voting rights act, the protections that allow disadvantaged folks from participating, shelby county was the fifth largest county of the latino population growth in 2010, over 100%. every single jurisdiction, 22 jurisdictions that followed were latinos who had at least a 20 to 25% growth in their population. folks -- other folks have been impacted, but disproportionately they see the future and are

trying to hold it back. >> did you want to talk about the census. >> the census is in some ways i sometimes say it's the least sexy civil rights issue and yet it is one of the most foundational issues to our democra democracy. apart from the developing out of close to $800 billion by the federal government to communities that is based on the census, based on the count, it is also the basis for political apportionment and representation in the house of representatives. it is the only program mandated by the constitution, written into the constitution, that the government has to count every single human being within our borders every ten years. so when jeff sessions asked the department of commerce to add a citizenship question back in december and three months later secretary ross decides with no testing, no science behind it to add that question, we learned through subsequent litigation that behind that question the lobbying forces were steve

bannon and chris co vac the kansas secretary of state responsible for sb-1070 in arizona and a whole slew of anti-latino and anti-african-american voting measures around the country. we know exactly what this is about and what this agenda is. the risk to the census now of it being a sabotaged census because of the addition of this question, because of the levels of fear that even before the citizenship question was arded. the leadership question which has been through three census cycles understood that the political climate for immigrants to respond to the census was already going to be charged, now with the addition of the question was taking us to the risk of entirely sabotaging the census. there has been a number of lawsuits that have been filed but there isn't a path to undoing it in congress. congress can undo it but it's going to depend on what happens in november for there to actually be a path to undo it. there will be a count and i will tell you that for the leadership

conference and all of the groups that are a part of us, we have to have an all hands on deck organizing effort to make this happen. it is going to be so important that all of you in your communities where you have trusted leaders, trusted messengers that we are going to need to enlist you to get organized, to organize in your communities, to get our communities counted and we are going to need to fight back, to undo this question. we need to make sure that our communities are able to see the resources and have the political power and political representation. it is so foundational and this is going to be an effort that's going to involve all of us. i will also say that the census is as a core democratic institution we need to know -- and this is kind of tying this together -- that when our communities vote, when we vote we win. this is all -- you're hearing all these issues tied together, it's about the courts, it's about the census, it's about voting. we've got to be engaged. every moment is an organizing

opportunity. you're seeing it in your local communities, you're seeing it whether it's about what's happening in your schools, whether it's about the know the rights with the police department, whether it's about, you know, getting folks registered to vote. every moment is an organizing opportunity and all of you are organizing out in your own communities and you were saying, well, there's so many things to organize around. sometimes we have to bring our people in based on the issues that they care about. they may feel very alienated from government but we know that without investment in our democratic institutions we are seeing some of the most basic aspects, democratic institutions get eroded and that's why we've got to be organized to fight back because when we organize we win. when we vote, we win. when we are able, then, to have the power that we need to have in our local communities, we can fight the big fights in washington. >> can i just add one thing. naleo.org actually has right now open comments asking for community leaders to provide information on the census so that they can provide feedback.

it's an open forum. you go to naleo.org you can go ahead and basically provide public comment saying we do not want a citizenship question on the census. use that power. >> can i just add one thing here because let's keep it real. when i was a little girl the rule in my house was that, you know, if a stranger was at the door and rang the doorbell we didn't answer the door. like that was a thing. so the census was already very challenging for us because -- and certainly somebody with a clipboard taking information saying they were from the government, these were not people that we invite nood our living room for coffee. so that was just culturally what we did. but i was a census taker when i was 18, that was my first grown up job. i will not tell you the decade. it was ten years ago. no. i was a census taker, it taught me about my own neighborhood, i was in blocks that i had never seen before or heard of and it also showed me the confidence that people need to have in you to actually open the door and answer those questions. and so who gets hired to do the

census is also an important one, it's a nice little job for young people because the more we are part of the ranks of who is taking the census, the more confidence people will have to open the door. to talk to people, the more you're going to have people who are bilingual or multilingual and can engage with people. we shouldn't forget that part of it. we should be asked to start asking when are they going to put out the job applications? who is going to get hired for those jobs? i will say that the current climate that we're in the climate with these awful i.c.e. raidses has produced real fear. and if we're honest, those fears are well founded. we can't pretend that they don't exist. and that's why the organizations that are represented up here are so important and especially the latino organizations that maria theresa were talking about. because they have the good information and they're the resources for you. and we've got to start bringing this in to our faith communities, to all of you who are leaders, so that people in the community feel i know who i

can call. should i be opening the door to this person? what could happen to my family? you've got to be holders of that information and disseminators of that information and real leaders in your community so we can make sure we get that count that is the key to political power. >> i want to have you talk a little bit about access to health care. just -- so important you know, the latino community, four million latinos had access to health care as a result of the affordable care act. all of that is at risk it seems to be very much eroding as we, with every administrative act we see. there's a lot happening in the states as well. what, what's the best way we can protect what we have in the affordable care act and at least try to keep that in place until we have an opportunity to do more? what do you see out there? >> i think that you're absolutely right. that there's, there's occasion

for great worry and great optimism. at the state level we see conservative states looking at expanding medicaid. utah could have a referendum, is likely to have a referendum in which it's likely they'll pass the medicaid expansion. obviously virginia was a state in which the governor's election really hinged on medicaid expansion and passed medicaid expansion, we should be realistic that the core view of the trump administration is that this is a central part of the obama legacy and they would like to destroy it. they're taking administrative acts to weaken the aca. it's still strong, people should know they should still sign up. to be 100% blunt if conservatives keep the congress after everything we've gone through, the aca will be gone. the aca is on the ballot just like all the values we hold dear

and i'll add one little additional thought to everything that's been said here. whether it's voting or the census, essentially conservatives do not like the future of the country and are trying to remake the rules to limit the power and voices of people that they fear. and pea have to act differently. you asked earlier, how do we act differently? people cannot be passive about voting. depending on what state you're in, you have to check that you're on the rolls, that is a new thing that we all have to do over the next several months. and tell your friends and neighbors -- check yourself on the rolls. make sure you're registered. or register afresh. because this, all of these issues, the affordable care act. the census, they're not 2020,

they hang in the balance months from now. >> we're about to wrap up here. i want to make sure i get each of you, maybe responding to one aspect of some of the messages we heard from on saturday. from brian stevenson, author of "just mercy" someone who has headed up the equal justice initiative. he talked to us about proximity and how important it is to be prox mate to the poor and marginalized. he talked about rejecting the politics of fear and anger and to change the narrative. he also said we have to recognize what the truth is really before we can have reconciliation. but he also said that we have to be prepared to do something inconvenient and make us uncomfortable. that maybe you know, certainly addressing this passivity issue, it doesn't mean that we just decide i'm going to go vote and

that's it. it means you've got to do more than that. you voting alone is not going to be enough. you're going to have to deliver more. you're going to have to make sure you're encouraging others. you're taking others to the poll. you're making sure they're signed up. you're helping people understand what the steps are. he said we're going to have to do something that makes us uncomfortable and finally he said we're have to stay hopeful. we can't be drowned out in our despair and be so forloren that we give up. we can never give up. as we close out, final thoughts, can you take any one of those aspects of brian's message and maybe make some final thoughts for our folks here to create some final thoughts for our folks here? >> i think first of all everything he says is right on, spot-on. i'm a huge fan. but i will take one thing in particular and yes, we have to remain hopeful. and i think there's real reason

for it. first of all, recognizing our privilege. if we're in this room today, regardless of our background and our particular circumstances, or situations, we're the lucky ones. we're the dam lucky ones if we're in this room. and with that comes incredible responsibility. and this moment in history calls on us to all do more. and yes, not just vote and not just register other people to vote. but then to show up and to volunteer and knock on doors and register more people to vote and take them to the polls on election day. and when we all do that, when we do our jobs, between now and 2018 and then in 2020, i really think that we will look back on this moment in history and see it as a great awakening of our democracy. but it's on us. >> that's right. maria theresa, thank you, chad. >> i'll close where i started.

i believe that the latino community, we're built for this moment. we know how to fight. that is all we've ever known and they brought the fight to us. and that means that we have to organize, we can't leave any votes on the table. we have to be clear on our vision. i think that we're challenged, but it's when we are challenged, i know that's when our community rises, that's when we get to work and that's when we recognize that this country, when you make calls to congress, when you fight in our military, when you march and when you vote, it's patriotism. my family left colombia, i won't tell you how long ago. when it was on the brink of being a failed state. so when someone tells me what broken looks like, i've been there. this is not broken. what we need to do and i believe we're part of the resistance, what we need to do is stop resisting and occupy. we need to occupy power, we need

to occupy the voting booth, we need to run for office and occupy those, and also occupy the echelons of executive wards so we can start changing the country that we know we believe in. >> mira? >> i think the power of helpfulness is really critical. because i believe that the constant assault on all of our values and all of our principles is a strategy to weaken us. to make us tired. to make us, you know, i mean there are days i want to climb under my bed and under the covers becausis too much. but i think we have to recognize it is a strategy. and we have to remind ourselves that there is, there are moments of great hopefulness. i'm incredibly optimistic about the fact that we have seen waves of activism. not just one march or two marches, but waves of activism that i have not seen in my adult

life. and what we need to do is take that energy and anger and resistance to what's happening in the country. and mobilize it politically. that is totally doable. we face forces, forces that have been in our country for hundreds of years. that are trying to take power away from people who are different from them. but we also see a mobilization of people who look different from each other. women, people of color, young people, lgbt, south asian. latino, african-american, who are united and uniting to take our country back. >> thank you, neera. >> we will leave this conversation at this point to request live to the house foreign i fairs committee. members are gathered this morning to hear about foreign policy in the western hemisphere.

officials from the state department and u.s. agency for international development are witnesses. they'll be asked about u.s. interests in latin america and the caribbean region this is live coverage on c-span 3

[ gavel ] we'll call, call this hearing to order. today we look at u.s. policy toward latin america and toward the caribbean. our relationships in the western hemisphere are forged by deep cultural and economic ties. we export a lot of goods to the caribbean. and that supports many u.s. jobs across latin america, our trade ties are just as