5 minute read
What Color is a Vote?
from SDPB October 2020 Magazine
by SDPB
by Katy Beem
This year Latino (increasingly referred to with the gender-neutral “Latinx”) are projected to be the country’s largest voting-eligible ethnicity.
Because voters in Florida, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Florida could determine the next United States president, engaging these state’s sizable Latino voters is a high priority for both parties. But Latino Vote: Dispatches from the Battleground, premiering this month on SDPB, demonstrates the folly in wooing voters based on cultural assumptions. Recent data and polling are demonstrating traditional views around voters of color and their conservative or liberal leanings are anything but monolithic.
Taneeza Islam is the Executive Director of South Dakota Voices for Peace (SDVP). SDVP formed in 2017 in response to that year’s state legislative session, which Islam says included several antiMuslim and anti-refugee bills. SDVP formally incorporated when anti-Muslim and anti-refugee events persisted in South Dakota, says Islam. Since then, the organization has grown to provide free legal representation for children in immigration court and immigrant domestic violence survivors. SDVP also undertakes education, advocacy, and civic engagement for and about South Dakota’s refugees and immigrants. “We don’t delineate between ethnic origin when it comes to this work,” says Islam. “But clearly our largest immigrant population in South Dakota is Latinx. We serve all of our immigrant communities, documented and undocumented. I would safely say 90% of our clients are Latinx.”
SDVP’s mission extends to Get Out the Vote work, including providing messaging in multiple languages. This year, SDVP received additional funding to hire a consultant who is helping SDVP become more strategic in engaging eligible voters throughout South Dakota’s immigrant communities by gathering voter profiles. Islam believes SDVP may be the first organization to organize Get Out the Vote work specifically concentrating on South Dakota’s Latinx, North African, Muslim, and Black voters in South Dakota.
For a rural state of 557,509 registered voters, the projected numbers are substantial: perhaps as many as 10,500 Latinx/Hispanic, 3,220 Muslim Arab and South Asian, 1,998 Middle Eastern and North African, and 1,300 Black/African American voters live in South Dakota.
SDVP is keenly aware that one approach does not resonate with all. To get a clearer picture of these voters, SDVP is engaging first- and second-generation immigrant and refugee children. These comprise South Dakotans in their 20s, as well as an older group in their early to mid-30s who typically moved here as refugees, grew up in the state, attended college and/or served in the military, and are working. Migdad Mustafa is one example. Born in Sudan, Mustafa moved to South Dakota at 13. A graduate of Sioux Falls Washington High School, Mustafa studied construction management at Southeast Technical Institute. After joining the Marines, Mustafa was deployed twice: once to Afghanistan, then to Iraq. A Muslim husband and father, Mustafa is a construction project coordinator in Sioux Falls.
Islam says learning from these first- and second-generations is key to engaging more voters. “They’re multilingual, they understand the culture, they know how to approach their communities and talk about voting,” says Islam. This incudes factors that may dissuade them from going to the polls.
SDVP is gleaning more information about the state’s immigrant and refugee populations from the COVID-19 emergency relief it launched last May when it formed the South Dakota Dream Coalition with the South Dakota Community Foundation. South Dakota’s agricultural, meat, dairy and direct service workers have been hard-hit by the pandemic; however, undocumented workers, including “mixed status families,” in which one person has legal status but another family member is undocumented, are not eligible for CARES Act assistance. “When COVID hit Smithfield, we were getting calls for food, clothing and necessities,” says Islam. “Smithfield workers were getting sick, not knowing if they would be able to go back to work,” says Islam. Aside from legal aid, SDVP does not provide direct services. The immigrant relief fund raises private money to provide a safety net to those living and working in South Dakota who were born in other countries, including international students whose home countries were shut down due to the pandemic. Thus far, the statewide fund has received over 1,200 applications representing 61 different countries. “Even as an immigration lawyer, I knew we had a diverse population, but I didn’t know it was that diverse,“ says Islam. “I don’t believe we have an accurate understanding of how diverse our population really is and how detrimental it is to not have a representative government, or elected decision makers, even if they don’t represent us racially or from a national or immigration status perspective, who realize that and understand the impact.”
While SDVP has advisory council members from Aberdeen and Rapid City, they’re working harder to involve more communities statewide. Currently, they’re hiring bilingual field outreach coordinators who will travel to communities with larger pockets of immigrant populations, like Alpena, Plankinton, Aberdeen and Huron, to apprise them of COVID relief funds. “The types of hurdles or bigotry they face can be different based on the size of their community and what resources are available,” says Islam.
While COVID presents obstacles to meeting face-to-face, Islam hopes the initial conversations will grow into relationships that can encourage eligible voters to the polls. “Building trust in our communities is essential to do our work effectively,” says Islam. “We can’t just show up one time, tell them to register to vote, and then come back two years later and say, ‘here, do this now.’”
SDVP is building its capacity in recognition of the reality that, like the 19 th century Norwegians, Germans, Czechs and Swedes or 1980s-era Vietnamese immigrants who came to the area, immigrants become South Dakotans. “It’s important to be statewide because our immigrants are statewide,” says Islam. “And at the end of the day, when it comes to civic engagement work, I’m a firm believer that we should all be voting.”
