One of the stories of 2016 will be the effect of the non-white vote on races up and down the ballot. All early indications are all that voters of color are highly engaged and motivated, but most of that legwork hasn’t happened by accident. There are organizations all around the country working on registering, educating, and turning out those traditionally low-performing demographics. Today, we talk to Lizeth Chacón, an immigrant from Chihuaha, Mexico, who has been organizing in Colorado, not just around the election, but on the issues that can motivate these communities into becoming politically engaged.
1. Can you tell us a little bit about the Colorado People's Alliance, how it was formed, and the kind of work it does?
Colorado People’s Alliance (COPA) was founded the fall of 2015 to honor the legacy and shared histories of Rights for All People (RAP) and Colorado Progressive Coalition (CPC). Rights for All People was founded in 1995 by a group of attorneys and activists in response to the growing immigrant population as well as the growing anti-immigrant sentiment in the state of Colorado. Colorado Progressive Coalition was founded in 1996 to fight, build, and win progressive change for Colorado voices that refuse to be marginalized. Over the years, both CPC and RAP achieved victories in the areas of immigrant rights, healthcare access, transportation access, payday-lending reform, minimum wage, police accountability and more.
Colorado People’s Alliance works for low-income, people of color, immigrant and youth communities; we are battling corporate and moneyed interests, interests that are actively working to maintain and increase systems of oppression that are affecting our members and communities. COPA was created with the desire to radically change and expand grassroots organizing in Colorado. We are working to build a mass base, organize those most directly affected by the issues to lead not only on campaigns but on a bold new strategy for long term change. We will work to ensure our work is tied to a long-term agenda that helps us tilt the power to our side to ensure people are at the decision making table.
COPA is committed to community-led organizing that focuses on passing progressive polices for economic, immigrant, climate and racial justice by developing strong leaders, and creating a strong black-and-brown alliance in our state.
2. How does your personal story inform the work you do with Colorado People's Alliance? Or put another way, what brought you into the activism?
I am an immigrant, I am a Mexican-American, the daughter of an amazing man that has been working for a meatpacking plant for the past 16 years. I came to this country from Mexico at the age of 12, and I have been a proud Coloradan for 16 years now. My early and continued experiences as an immigrant have shaped who I am and the work I want to do—I experienced a lot of discrimination, I can recall a time during my freshman year of high school in which a fellow student called me “wetback” and physically moved me south, “that is where you belong.” All of these experiences motivated me to get involved. Early on I became a mentor in my school for other students and began to see the world in a different way.
I was fortunate enough with so many sacrifices to be the first one in my family to go to college, I graduated with two bachelor degrees, one in Political Science and the second in Criminal Justice. I have been organizing in the immigrant rights movement for over 10 years and I am now the founding Executive Director of Colorado People’s Alliance, a racial justice organization in Colorado.
For me this work was an easy choice, it is extremely hard but it is also extremely rewarding.
3. What is the profile of the typical person your organization serves, and what are the issues that motivates that person? I may be asking an overly broad question, so feel free to offer several profiles.
Our organization is member-led, that means that our members lead our work, from planning, evaluation, implementation of campaigns to electing our board of directors.
Our membership is currently mostly Latino(a) with some African American and Caucasian members, it’s important to mention that a lot of our members are undocumented. Our long term goal is to diversify our membership to represent both black and brown communities in our state, which are the two groups who are most directly impacted by the issues we are working on. Colorado is 21 percent Latino(a) and 4 percent African American. Our larger supporter list of over 32,000 individuals is 39 percent Caucasian, 0.5 percent Asian, 8 percent black, 51.5 percent Latino and 1 percent unknown.
4. How electorally engaged are these people? How can they be better motivated so the final turnout this year and beyond is a success story, as opposed to another sad "people of color don't vote" narrative?
There are different labels of involvement but a really powerful story for me is the fact that some of our members who are undocumented are working to register others to vote. We understand that our voice at the polls matters and even if some of our members can’t vote, we are working to mobilize others who align with our values and will vote.
We know that a lot of our folks are not frequent voters, so this year we are working to call over 5,000 of our members/supporters that are low propensity voters to walk them through a plan to vote. Since we are leading on the campaign to increase the minimum wage to $12 an hour by 2020 we are using that as a motivator for our community to vote, and it seems to be helping.
5. What would success look like for the Colorado People's Alliance, and how would you measure it?
For us success will be if we increase the number of people who turn out to vote in this election, if we win on our initiative to increase the minimum wage, but most importantly, success will be if we are more powerful after the election because of the work we did during this election cycle. Our work does not end on November 8, in so many ways because this is the first year of COPA our work will just be beginning. We will continue our work until we have an economy that works for all not just the wealthy few, until our community has access to clean water, until we have a government that is representative of our community, until we have a real democracy in which we are all respected and valued. This year is the start to an organization who will fight to restore our democracy.
6. Bonus question: What can Daily Kos readers do to help?
If you like what you just read you can support our work by making a donation, becoming a member or getting involved—just go to our website for more information at wwww.coloradopeoplesalliance.org.