Gay & Lesbian Fund, Latina Initiative Among Local Backers of Campaign Geared to Bolster Latino Voter Turnout

In a push to increase the number of Colorado Latino residents who cast their ballots in the 2008 elections, a national campaign called Ya Es Hora ¡Ciudadanía! ("Citizenship: It's Time!") recently completed a series of five workshops intended to get Latinos to apply for U.S. citizenship. Sponsored by a collection of community partners, the workshops took place throughout the month of July in the Denver metro area. The local citizenship drive attracted more than 400 people.

Ya Es Hora ¡Ciudadanía! is a year-long national campaign intended to inform, educate, and motivate eligible permanent residents in the U.S. to apply for citizenship.

Of the 2,882,438 registered voters in Colorado, only 277,241 or 9.6 percent are Latinos (Source: NALEO Educational Fund). In addition, among the estimated 100,000 legal permanent residents in the state, approximately 70,000 are Latinos.

On July 30, 2007, U.S. citizenship application fees increased from $400 to $675. Timed to immediately precede these fee hikes, Denver's citizenship drive helped Latinos navigate the application process and assisted them in filling out the N-400 citizenship application forms.

"There are many Latinos in Colorado who have been residents for a long time - a few decades - but have never registered to vote. With growing concerns over the country's immigration reform, the recent raids, and now the citizenship fee increase, Latinos have a heightened sense of urgency about their well being. They want to make a change for their families and their communities and better their lifestyle. By becoming citizens, they will secure their right to vote and be able to take a stand," said Maria De Cambra, program coordinator for the Latina Initiative.

Organizedby a collection of groups committed to promoting Latino civic participation and advocacy, the Ya Es Hora campaign was first launched in Los Angeles in January 2007. Since then, the number of citizen applications submitted in the Los Angeles region has increased by up to 149 percent. Garnering national attention for its success, the program has spawned similar campaigns throughout other regions of the country by community leaders and media outlets.

The Gay & Lesbian Fund joined the Colorado campaign as a workshop sponsor and is an active participant on the Ya Es Hora steering committee.

"We at the Gay & Lesbian Fund hold a firm belief that all people should be guaranteed quality of life. Having a good quality of life includes the freedom to have a voice in the decisions that impact our country, and the ability to vote is one piece of that. Latinos comprise such an important and impactful part of Colorado's population, and they need to be more fairly represented. As part of our commitment to promoting civic engagement, we are taking an active stance toward helping Latinos get U.S. citizenship so that they may exercise their right to vote," said Marcie Moore-Gantz, deputy director of the Gay & Lesbian Fund.

By the campaign's end in December 2007, Ya Es Hora anticipates facilitating the naturalization process for over one million legal permanent residents in the United States, and beginning a voter mobilization campaign to motivate these new citizens to vote in the 2008 presidential elections.

The campaign's community strategists are a nationwide alliance of immigrant, grassroots, labor, local, statewide, and national organizations including the NALEO Educational Fund, the National Council of La Raza, the ServiceEmployees International Union, and the We Are America Alliance. Univision, the nation's largest Spanish-language media company, is the media sponsor.