I'm Following A Dream

The clip above is from Sueños Ilegales, a film still being shot with the goal of a February release. Director Angel Camilo, a naturalized U.S. citizen who immigrated from the Dominican Republic, presents the story of two young brothers of Salvadoran origin crossing the U.S./Mexico border illegally. It's a trip that changes their lives forever. Sueños Ilegales is an emotionally powerful and compelling drama, as you can see from the clip above, that shows the courage and determination of Rafa Guerra to help his brother after he become paraplegic while fighting to fulfill his own dreams of becoming a successful artist in a cruel and foreign land. I spoke with Sandra Hernández of Latino Media, Angel's executive producer. Her family moved to the U.S. from El Salvador when she was a child and she is also a naturalized citizen. She sees the necessity of increasing voter awareness and action, especially among the young Latino population and feels that, although that's not what  Sueños Ilegales is about, crossing the border to follow your dreams very much is. "If," she told me, "we allowed our leaders to change the laws so that people like the main character of the movie have access to policies that are more open. The purpose of young voters is to change the policies for a better and more inclusive future." For those who would like to support the production of the movie please click on this GoFundMe link to make a donation.

Can anyone blame their plight on the DCCC? Only me. Other than the sheer incompetence and corruption of the DCCC, it has never made any sense to me that Republicans keep getting elected over and over again in congressional districts with huge Latino populations-- like CA-10 (Jeff Denham), CA-21 (David Valadao), CA-22 (Devin Nunes) and TX-23 (Will Hurd). Except for Denham, they are favored to win next month. These are the 538 forecasts in these districts:

• CA-10- 40.0% Latino-- Denham reelection chances- 27.2% (2 in 7)
• CA-21- 72.1% Latino-- Valadao reelection chances- 79.9% (4 in 5)
• CA-22- 47% Latino-- Nunes reelection chances- 97% (29 in 30)
• TX-23- 71% Latino-- Hurd reelection chances- 65.9% (2 in 3)

Needless to say, the DCCC was guilty of jaw-dropping weak recruitment again. You'd think, may they would have recruited a Latino in the 4 districts? They didn't-- not even one. And if you're asking, yes, Pelosi has lost her marbles. NBC News, however, pointed to greater Democratic problems with Latinos in a piece Sunday by Alex Seitz-Wall and Benjy Sarlin. First the obvious: "Given Trump's rhetoric about immigrants and his border policies, you'd think Hispanics would be leading a march to the polls. They aren't."

"Even with phenom Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke at the top of the Texas ticket," they wrote," it hasn't been easy, as Democratic officials, party operatives and tied-in organizations in this state and across the country are seeing signs-- surprising to some-- that many Hispanics may sit out the midterms. The lack of enthusiasm among Latinos has party leaders concerned that a key part of the coalition needed to take back the House and Senate may stay home." People are pissed off and discouraged and ask-- why bother to vote if people like Trump win anyway? Cook's House editor, Dave Wasserman: "There's a mountain of evidence showing Latino voters are a weak point for Democrats this cycle."

Nationally, Latino voters favor a Democratic Congress over a Republican one by 64-21 percent, according to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal Telemundo poll last month. But self-reported interest in the election is low, according to the same survey, and the picture in some individual races looks even worse for Democrats.

On paper, some of congressional Democrats' best opportunities to pick up seats come from heavily Hispanic districts that are currently held by Republicans, but which Hillary Clinton won in 2016. Yet those are also some of the places where recent polls are showing Democratic candidates not doing as well as anticipated.

In Miami, Democrats risk blowing what was once seen as a sure-thing after they nominated former Bill Clinton Cabinet secretary Donna Shalala, who doesn't speak Spanish. Next door, GOP Rep. Carlos Curbelo is neck-and-neck with a Democratic challenger in a 70 percent Latino district that Clinton won by 16 percentage points.

In Nevada, incumbent Republican Sen. Dean Heller has been able to cling to a narrow lead by keeping a healthy 38 percent of Latino voters in his camp, according to a recent NBC News/Marist poll. And in the Las Vegas suburbs, handicappers just downgraded Democrats' prospects of holding onto the majority non-white 4th Congressional District.

Not far away in California, where Democrats are well-positioned to overcome 80 years of Republican dominance in the wealthy suburbs of Orange County, two GOP incumbents, Reps. Jeff Denham and David Valadao, look relatively strong in heavily Hispanic parts of the Central Valley.

And in Arizona, Democrat David Garcia's campaign to become the state’s first Latino governor has struggled to gain traction, even though Clinton came closer to winning that state in 2016 than any Democrat in years.

But nowhere is the Latino challenge this year more evident than Texas.

O'Rourke, who is of Irish descent but adopted a Hispanic nickname, needs strong backing from Latinos to win against Cruz in the heavily Republican state. Cruz, whose father was born in Cuba, is earning the support of almost four-in-10 Latino voters, according to a Quinnipiac poll.

"The problem with Texas for Democrats is not that it's a red state, it's that it's a non-voting state," Julian Castro, the former Housing and Urban Development Secretary and ex-mayor of San Antonio, told NBC News. "The issue we have is with ourselves00 it's getting more people registered to vote, it's getting the Hispanic community to turn out and vote."

...About 55 percent of Latino voters reported that they had not yet been contacted by a campaign or party about registering to vote this year, according to a Latino Decisions survey for the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials last week.

Hispanic turnout traditionally lags behind other demographic groups, especially in midterm elections, where it dropped to a record low of 27 percent nationally in 2014, compared with 45 percent among whites, according to the Pew Research Center. And recent polls show Latinos less enthused about November than other minorities.

The issue is compounded by the fact that the Latino voting population skews younger than the overall one... Some Democrats worry this dynamic has created a dangerous cycle of futility: The party needs to engage millions of young Hispanic voters to win tomorrow, but pursuing them means less time spent on voters who are likely to show up and decide elections today.

...O'Rourke told NBC News that he's had to defy political consultants and experts who encourage him to focus only on those voters who data show are most likely to turn out next month.

"They say, 'There are so few days left, time and money is so precious, don't spend it on people who traditionally don't vote,'" O'Rourke said. "Our response to that is, I would't vote either if no one ever showed up to where I am, listened to me, included me in what they campaigned on and what they wanted to delivered on."

But Democrats and activists worry that years of neglect may put a ceiling on O’Rourke's potential.

"(Democrats) don't invest in grassroots organization, they don't invest in the year-round work that needs to happen after an election cycle," said Cristina Tzintzun Ramirez, the founder of Jolt, which is trying to organize young Latino voters in the state. "Beto's greatest hurdle is the lack of infrastructure that exists in the Latino community."