Anniversary of the Voting Rights Act
Evokes César Chávez
Arturo Vargas

This week's 40th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 represents a time to reflect on our history and plan for our future. In 1952, César Chávez joined a California civil rights group, the Community Service Organization, for which he conducted a voter registration drive in the San Jose area.

Chávez learned quickly about the challenges facing Latinos who wanted to vote. At that time, voters could not register by mail; instead, they relied on deputy registrars, who placed restrictions on CSO organizers' efforts to contact Latinos. The organizers were forbidden to go door-to-door, they could not register voters on Sunday or after daylight hours, and they could not speak Spanish to the voters. Chávez also found that poll workers arbitrarily subjected Latinos to literacy tests before allowing them to cast their ballots.

Chávez fought the discrimination he encountered and convinced officials to appoint six Spanish-speaking deputy registrars. He succeeded in registering 6,000 Latinos. Chávez also contacted then-Gov. Edmund G. "Pat" Brown, protesting the treatment of Latinos on Election Day.

Chávez's experiences in San Jose foreshadowed the fight against voter discrimination that would result in the enactment of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In 1975, Congress extended its protections to "language minorities" - essentially, Latino, Asian American and Native American voters.

August 6 marks the 40th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act. And, along with invoking the memory of César Chávez, we must also honor the work of African-American civil rights leaders. The 1964 murder of voting rights activists and the unprovoked attack in 1965 by state troopers on peaceful marchers in Selma, Ala., persuaded President Lyndon Johnson and Congress to issue a call for a strong voting rights act. Congressional hearings began on the bill that ultimately would become the Voting Rights Act.

Since its passage, the VRA has become one of the most successful civil rights laws in U.S. history. It ended literacy tests, poll taxes and other purposefully prejudiced mechanisms that prevented Latinos from voting. It helped establish the right for Latinos and other language minorities to obtain language assistance during the voting process in communities across the country. By ending scores of discriminatory election practices and procedures, it created equal opportunities for racial and ethnic population groups to elect candidates of their choice to thousands of federal, state and local offices.

In 2007, crucial sections of the VRA will expire unless Congress votes to renew them. These provisions include Section 5, which generally requires states and local jurisdictions with a documented history of discriminatory voting practices to obtain prior federal approval of planned changes in their election laws or procedures. Congress must also renew the sections of the VRA that require communities with concentrations of U.S. citizens who are not yet fully proficient in English providing those voters with language assistance when they register and cast their ballots.

The VRA provisions up for renewal have helped Latinos and other language groups in their fight to gain equal and fair access to the electoral process. In San Antonio's Bexar County, civil rights groups were able to combat efforts to undermine Latino voting strength when officials deliberately failed to put polling places in areas that were accessible to Latino voters. In diverse communities throughout the nation, the U.S. Department of Justice has used the VRA to compel jurisdictions with growing Latino populations to improve the language assistance for Latino voters, from San Benito, San Diego and Ventura counties in California, to Orange and Osceola counties in Florida, to Suffolk and Westchester counties in New York, to Yakima County in Washington.

César Chávez's legacy provides us with an opportunity to honor his unwavering dedication to the struggle for justice by ensuring that our policymakers preserve and strengthen the necessary tools that will enhance the vitality of our nation's democracy. Reauthorization of the 1965 Voting Rights Act is a critical next step.

(Arturo Vargas is executive director of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) Educational Fund. He can be reached via e-mail at info@naleo.org)

© 2005, Hispanic Link News Service
08/07/05
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