|
Nevada Democrats Seek to Boost Hispanic Turnout |
|
|
|
|
Page 1 of 2 
May 8, 2008
WashingtonPost.com
Ilene Rosenblum
As Nevada gears up to host the nation's second presidential caucus on Jan. 19, state Democrats are increasing their efforts to reach out to the Hispanic community, which heads to the polls in fewer numbers than its proportional share of the population in the Southwest.
One of the state party's latest initiatives is to create a new Spanish-English glossary that breaks down the process. After all, a caucus can be a difficult process to describe, even in English.
"I think education is one of the biggest barriers," said Andres
Ramirez, the state caucus's outreach director. "I think there are many
Hispanic voters who simply don't understand the process and because
they don't understand the process they are more hesitant to
participate."
A common problem Ramirez identified is that some new citizens were
reluctant to vote in general elections after voting in the primaries
because they were taught that you can only vote once. "For many of
these folks that wasn't made clear to them. They didn't understand that
there are two different elections so close together in the same race,"
he said.
What he found, he said, is that education efforts in the past have
sometimes been more confusing than productive because words such as
"caucus" that do not have a Spanish equivalent were being translated a
myriad of different ways. Furthermore, the concept has no equivalent in
the Latin American political system.
Other words in Spanish can mean different things, depending on what
part of the Spanish-speaking world one is from. To create a new
comprehensive glossary, he and the party's new full-time translator met
with members of Nevada's Spanish media outlets to establish a standard
of translations they could all feel comfortable with. One of the
results is that the troublesome word "caucus" is not translated at all,
he said. Like the words "Internet" and "e-mail," they are just given a
Spanish pronunciation.
<< Start < Prev 1 2 Next > End >>
|
