damian trujillo: hello, and welcome to "comunidad del valle." i'm damian trujillo. we have another exciting show today. we're talking about the latino vote. we sit down with julie chavez rodriguez, who is the campaign

manager for kamala harris, also the granddaughter of cesar chavez. senator alex padilla also on the show. we sit down also with the co-founder of voto latino, maria teresa kumar, on your "comunidad del valle." ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ damian: and we begin with the fiestas patrias celebrations here in the south bay. ambassador alejandro bologna is the consul general of san jose, but also part of the organizing committee, as is don jesús flores, who is a merchant here in san jose, but a community leader as well. welcome to the show. alejandra bologna: thank you so much. damian: thank you for being here. ambassador, you and i talked about this topic last week on "comunidad del valle," but if you can reiterate your emotion

of being the one who does el grito de independencia for our community. alejandra: of course, you know, i think it's a special celebration that mexico has. we do it all around the world. each representation does it also inside our country in mexico. each governor, each city. what we do is to reproduce the code of starting our fight for independence. so, it's really a unique--what we do is to remember the heroes that start our independence fight. and it's an indescribable emotion, because when you see the people that is responding, and it was--and if we think about that moment that we start, and it was starting the fight of

independence, is like transformation about the first time that was called mexico as a country, as a community, so that's indescribable. damian: oh, i bet, and we're watching a video from last year. you're doing a grito, the mayor is ringing the bell. don jesús, this takes a long time to put together, right? it doesn't happen overnight. jesús: yes, yes, this takes a lot of planning, a lot of work, a lot of commitment from many of our volunteers and from our committee de fiestas patrias. but i believe it is very well worth it. we are very excited about the event, especially the response that we get. because, as you know, this is a family event. we invite all of the families. we don't have any alcohol or beer at the event, so we wanted to make it a family event. and, of course, the idea here is to emphasize on the celebration of el grito de independencia, which once again is

september 15. and it's been an amazing event. this is our third year, actually. first year we got a little bit over 6,000 people at city hall. at this last year, we had over 10,000. and this year we're expecting a lot more, because once again people loves this event. and, obviously, as you mentioned, our ambassador, alejandra bologna, will be given the el grito de independencia, and that's something that attracts our mexican and mexican-american community. damian: that is beautiful, and ambassador, we're looking at video of some of the low riders, the charros, the dance folklorico that is out there. it's an all day celebration in-- at city hall. alejandra: it's an all day celebration, it's a national day, history. we have a common history with california, especially this area also in san jose. so, it's an opportunity to share with the mexican community,

with the community in san jose our cultural, our dancing, our meals, and, of course, it was the moment--and that's the significant of ringing the bell--when the conspiracy against the spanish government was discovered. what happened is that miguel hidalgo ring the bell, calling the people to start the fight. so, that's what exactly we reproduce on september 15 at night. damian: all right, so we expect the same thing, don jesús. comida, danza, mariachi, poco poquito de todo, a little bit of everything. jesús: poquito de todo, just like like us, mexican, poquito de--we bring all the food, all the families. yes, we're gonna have some folklorico dances. we have--we will have live music mariachis. of course, the main event, i will say, we start actually at 1 p.m. this year,

because it's a sunday, so we start it at 1 p.m. starting at 1 p.m. we will have vendors selling the products and art, and then we will have dances folklorico, mariachis, music. at 6 p.m. is when we start actually our big protocol, and that will start with the the raising of the flags. and then at 7 we start with el grito de independencia. and then we continue with the mariachi singing "el son de la negra" right after the evening nacional mexicano. and then we continue with some music to dance. so, we'll go all the way from 1 p.m. until 9 p.m. so, it's going to be an amazing day. we are all invited, and thank you for reminding us, ambassador. this is a party and a festivity for all our diverse community, not only our mexicanos and mexican american community, but all of our community is invited, and you're gonna love it.

damian: well, we appreciate what you're doing, and it's beautiful. we're looking, again, the mayor, you're at the top steps of san jose city hall in the rotunda there, and the mayor is ringing the bell. it's a combination, it's a fusion of the two communities here in san jose. congratulations on the work. we'll see you at fiestas patrias. jesús: gracias. damian: all right, well, we'll share that information. it is happening on the actual day of independence from mexico, september 15. it's called el grito fiestas patrias from 1 to 9 p.m. there at san jose city hall. up next here on "comunidad del valle," we're gonna bring you the latino vote. remember that qr code there? we're gonna talk about that in our next segment, stay with us.

damian: at the democratic national convention in chicago back in august we set up a powerful panel of some of the most powerful latinos in the country. thank you to the latino leaders network for helping us with the venue, the space for this interview. the folks are being recognized at their annual luncheon. we're talking about julie chavez rodriguez, exclusive interview.

she is a campaign manager for the kamala harris campaign and also the granddaughter of cesar chavez. senator alex padilla also joined the panel. the--it was a--topic was on the latino vote and why we're not going out to vote. that's why the qr code is there on your screen, so you can register to vote right here on this show. and our third guest on that panel was the co-founder of the group called voto latino, maria teresa kumar. here's that interview. damian: i mean, wow, what a panel. we're truly amazed here. julie, tell us what the last few weeks have been for you. what a whirlwind. julie: well, it's, you know, been incredible. i think, you know, first to be able to see the leadership that we saw from president biden as he made, you know, a difficult decision, and, you know, continued to put country first, and it's something he's done throughout his career as a public servant, as a leader. and so, for me, it was, you know, phenomenal and tremendous to see that kind of leadership. and then to see that coupled with the leadership that vice

president harris has shown as she's stepped into this incredible role at the top of our ticket, has made. you know, one of the most important decisions she'll make as a candidate in choosing governor walz. so, we could not be more excited about the energy, enthusiasm, and real momentum that we're seeing at this stage in our campaign. damian: a lot has been said about the vice president not doing a lot of interviews. i wanna offer my camera and my microphone for any time. julie: i appreciate that so much. and, you know, she has been hitting the trail, you know, first with governor walz. they went on a running mate tour as we've sort of affectionately called it. and they went to, you know, so many of our battleground states to be able to speak directly to voters, because we know we have a short amount of time. i think today we're at 77 days until election day, so we know we have important work to do, and we need to reach our voters, we need to speak directly to them. and the kind of energy and enthusiasm that we've seen from

rallies to also volunteer shifts to people, you know, being willing to go out and knock on doors and make phone calls, you know, it's historically early to see this kind of energy in a campaign, and we're gonna continue to really focus on that and make sure that we're turning that into votes come november. damian: senator, you're a former secretary of state. in the last few primaries the latino voter turnout in california has been 10% to 15%. why are they not coming to the polls? alex padilla: the--well, i think the exciting news is there's definitely enthusiasm with the candidacy of now vice president kamala harris leading the ticket for democrats. someone who californians know very, very well and voters across the country, especially latinos across the country, are getting to know and excited about her prospects. so, that's gonna do wonders for turnout, i believe, this november. it's estimated that 17.5 million latinos will cast ballots in november.

and more than one in five voting in a presidential for the very first time. and when you look at some of the key states that will determine the winner, states like arizona, states like nevada, and even though states like wisconsin, michigan, pennsylvania, georgia aren't as known for a big latino population, the population is big enough to be determining factor in who gets elected in those critical states and who's gonna be the next president. damian: the--some folks are saying that the democrats are trying hard to get back the latino vote. why did democrats lose it in the first place, do you think? alex: yeah, well, i think there's a little bit of a misperception. there was a concern going back to 2020 that, oh, donald trump may be doing better with latinos and democrats are in trouble. that did not materialize. there was the same concern in the 2022 midterms, and it did not materialize. but what it has done, i think in a healthy way for our community, is it was a wake up call that the latino vote cannot, should not be taken for granted. and so, you've seen not just the democratic party and democrats

in congress, but especially vice president harris focus on the latino community when it comes to our issues from economic opportunity, education for our kids, access to healthcare, immigration reform, and more. and the campaign is actually making record investments in reaching out to latinos. not just on broadcast television, typical ads that we always see around election time, but on digital platforms through social media and beyond. so, it's not taken for granted. julie chavez rodriguez, the daughter, says that--the granddaughter of cesar chavez is the campaign manager. and so, that just goes to show you the priority and the commitment that the campaign is paying to the latino vote. damian: we're talking about the latino vote, and there have been some great successes by voto latino. talk about the registration drives and what you've been able to accomplish. maria teresa kumar: well, first of all, damian, i wanna thank you, because one of the first people to tell our story, actually, the first person to tell our story was you. and i think it was because you saw what happened when the

latino community woke up in california. and we talk at voto latino about how we wanted to do that model in colorado, nevada, arizona, georgia, north carolina, even texas. you're like, of course, that makes sense. and when we started the very first time, we had registered 2,400 voters. in the last election in 2020 we registered 650,000. and as of this morning we have registered 97,000 folks. and by the end of the election we'll have registered half a million, which is equivalent to 1% of those who voted in 2020. damian: congratulations, that's--the key now, how do you get those half a million to the polls to actually go vote? maria: so, one of the things that voto latino started, because we had no business doing voter registration, was trying to answer a question. everybody kept telling us that latinos don't vote, and so we asked ourselves a simple question. why not? and it turned out that there was real friction because the

majority of us were unregistered, and so not being part of this world, we said, "well, how can we have people voting if they're not registered?" so, from the beginning we registered our voters under (c)(3), nonpartisan, getting them excited, meeting them where they are, because most of our community still thinks that politics is not about them. but politics makes it about them. and so, the moment we started registering folks, what we do is then we start educating people about the issues they care about, whether we're talking about abortion, access to healthcare, whether we're talking about environmental protections, we go down the list, and once we find out what you care about, damian, then we inform you all the way through. and right up to election day we say this is what this policy means to you and your family. try it. i am pleased to say that because we have a model where we don't hand someone to a third party, but we cultivate you all the way through, 83% of the people we register go on and vote. that's 23% higher than the rest of the latino community.

and once you're registered, we keep bothering you. do you want to volunteer? do you want to go to a concert for free? do you want to volunteer? what about paying it forward? do you know someone in your network that's not registered? forward this to them. and the idea is that it becomes less of a handoff, but more of a relationship. and what makes me really proud is in a place like arizona where we registered 23,000 folks, 19-- i'm sorry, 36,000 folks, 19,000 were first time voters, and biden won by 10,400 votes. as of this morning we've already registered 11,700 folks just in arizona. damian: what a panel, thank you to the panelists on that exclusive interview with julie chavez rodriguez, campaign manager for the harris campaign; voto latinos co-founder maria theresa kumar; and california senator alex padilla. we'll be back with more on that exclusive interview here on "comunidad del valle," stay with us.

e, powerful interview, a panel discussion with julie chavez rodriguez, the campaign manager for the harris campaign, also the granddaughter of cesar chavez; us senator alex padilla; and the co-founder of voto latino, maria teresa kumar. damian: is that the organizing part of you that--the knocking on doors, face-to-face conversations. julie: oh, yes, and we know--i mean, look, this election is gonna be close. we have seen, you know, just how close 2020 was. we know that we're gonna win this election on the margins in all of our battleground states. and we know that latino voters make up the percentage of what we need to win, especially in states like arizona, nevada, pennsylvania, but also critical coalitions that we're building in states like north carolina and georgia as we have emerging latino populations. so, we're excited to be able to do the work to, you know, hit

the ground to, what we say, focus on the fundamentals, right? the canvassing, the phone banks, the door knocks, the text banks, and yes, of course, we'll post on social media and do all that fun stuff too. damian: the messaging, did it have to change when mr. biden was at the top of the ticket to now that the vice president is? julie: you know, we've been pretty focused on i think a core message frame throughout the campaign. it's a, you know, frame that's focused on delivering for our voters, first by addressing the issues that matter most. one, lowering costs for families. two, you know, upholding our fundamental freedoms, like the, you know, freedom to make decisions about our own body. but also the freedom to vote, the freedom to live safe from gun violence. and continuing to draw contrast, we know what the choices before voters, the selection, they have a really important choice to make. and that's one that we're gonna make clear. we know that donald trump is someone who is a 34-time convicted felon who is only fighting for himself, who--and

who continues to despise our community time and time again. whereas we have vice president kamala harris and governor walz, who are focused on continuing to lower costs, prescription drug costs, rent, housing, you know, continuing to focus on, you know, the price gouging that we are seeing across the board. those are the issues that matter most to voters, and that's what we're gonna continue to focus on. damian: we talk about latino vote not being a monolith. senator, the latino voter in california is not the latino voter in texas and is not the latino voter in florida. they're different latino populations. alex: no, that's absolutely right. and, you know, one of the things that is very well known in politics more broadly is all politics is local, right? because we're a diverse country in so many ways. so, how you reach out to, how you communicate with, how you persuade latinos in los angeles, for example, is very different than in south texas or south florida or chicago or new york,

denver, anywhere in between. and so, i think that's the beauty of the voto latino model. it's meeting people where they are, getting to know voters and what they care about, and speaking to that to make participation in our democracy, participation in the political process, personal for them. the other thing that's beautiful about the voto latino model is not just getting them to register and getting to vote the first time, because studies show once a young person especially votes the first time and then the second time, they're much more likely to be a very consistent voter for the rest of their life. so, we're talking about all this work that's going into impacting this november's election. but really at the foundation it's changing politics for the next generation. damian: what's the strategy with the latino vote? julie: well, we know that our latino community is not a monolith. we know that when we're talking about arizona and nevada, we're most often talking about folks with mexican roots, mexican american roots. those voters are different from puerto rican voters in lily high

valley in pennsylvania as we think about, you know, issues that matter to them. so, we're, you know, being thoughtful about, you know, the issues we're talking about, but also making sure we're speaking to folks in language, in spanish. we know that there's a lot of, you know, part of our community that are still monolingual spanish speakers. but we know that mexican spanish sounds different than puerto rican spanish, so we're also mindful of the accents, the language we're using. we just actually launched--and i'm so excited because it's the first time a presidential election has ever launched this--but we have a whatsapp. latinos go on harris-walz channel, and so we are organizing everywhere, and we're meeting our community where they are, where they're already gathering. so, whether that's in-person, online, on whatsapp, we're definitely doing what we can to reach them. damian: is that to demystify the chatter, the wrong chatter that is out there on whatsapp? julie: it's definitely to combat the disinformation, definitely, because we know that that can spread very quickly. we have seen it, and we saw it in 2020.

we've seen it in every election since. but it's also to, you know, to meet our folks where they are, right? to make sure that, you know, our tias, our tios, are primos as they're in their little family chats or maybe they're in, you know, their soccer league chat or maybe they're in, you know, the kind of--pesopluma is their favorite new artist, that, you know, they have a new whatsapp channel for, so it's really meeting our folks where they are and really trying to find ways that we can tap into culture, you know, throughout this campaign, because we know that's an important part of how we identify, how we come together as a community, and it's also an important part of how we organize. damian: and we're going to-- we're reaching out actually to the trump campaign also to appear on the show and tell us their version of going after the latino vote, getting latinos to vote. that's why we do have that qr code at the bottom of the screen. no excuses, you need to register. up next, we'll wrap up our interview, our exclusive interview with the three powerful panelists.

stay with us.

damian: well, we won't be with you until october, so we wanted to kickstart hispanic heritage month by bringing you this exclusive interview, powerful interview. and we're gonna leave you with that here today. here is julie chavez rodriguez, senator alex padilla, and voto latino maria teresa kumar. we'll see you in october. alex: matter of fact, can just say, julie is awesome. she's worked in the obama administration, the biden administration, three presidential campaigns. organizing is in her blood. maria teresa, leader of the most innovative, effective, and impactful voter registration program, not just for latinos, but especially for latinos and young latinos. i'm honored to call them friends, but this--the three of us sitting together is just evidence that none of us succeeds alone. we've been working together for years on different campaigns, different issues.

we need each other, we need the community leaders that are out there, the elected officials that are out there, and especially this november, the voters that are out there because our community depends on it. damian: maria teresa, if you wanna add. maria: i think he did it. so, you know, our theory of voto latino was really based on the experience of growing up in california under pete wilson and proposition 187, show me your papers, where all of our families got racially targeted. and i feel so privileged to be sitting here with julie and with alex, because we are the fruit of what pete wilson planted, and now we're taking it across the country. and julie, i've seen you grow in your career, and i have to say that i am so proud to see you where you are, because you're an exemplary to a young little girl saying, "what can i do?" and you can demonstrate, "si se puede." julie: well, i'm fortunate that i too had those women that i could look up to throughout my life and throughout my career. and, you know, also as i came into politics, people like maria

teresa would help to pave the way, people like alex who went to school with my brother-in-law, not a lot of people know that. so, i've had the opportunity to see him throughout his career and to see him now as a senator representing our great state of california. i couldn't be more proud. but that's what this work is about. it's not about any one of us as individuals, but it's about the collective work that we can deliver for our community. and that's hopefully the kind of leadership that we can continue to emulate and the kind of leadership that we'll elect come november with vice president harris and governor walz. damian: thank you all very much. all: thank you. julie: thank you, guys. ♪♪♪ [speaking in spanish] ♪♪♪ [singing in spanish]

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