Dustin Cox/Wikimedia Commons
At the 2015 Colorado State Fair, in Pueblo, Colorado
PUEBLO, COLORADO – It’s Fiesta Day at the 150th annual Colorado State Fair, always held the Sunday before Labor Day and always the most popular. You can tell from the cholos and cholas drinking beer and margaritas, dancing along to the Latin and country music bands, amid the typical assortment of fried foods, taco trucks, carnies, and hustling vendors.
“I’ve heard they sell more booze on Fiesta Day than all the others combined,” one local woman said, laughing. “When the sun goes down, people’ll start talking.”
I came to the fair wanting to hear from Latinos what they thought about national politics, at a time when Democrats are starting to see their strong position with Latinos fading. A recent NBC/Telemundo poll showed Democrats with a 21-point advantage with Latinos, which sounds good until you learn that this same poll showed a 42-point edge as recently as 2012. Polling finds that Democrats have a bigger advantage with college-educated white voters than with nonwhite voters. And it’s not just polls; Democrats lost ground with Hispanics in key areas like South Florida and South Texas in 2020. Still, it’s unclear whether that reflected a regional shift, with limited impact on Latino voters nationally, or an emerging trend.
The city of Pueblo is half Hispanic. And in 2020, the county joined the roster of Rust Belt counties that voted Obama to Trump and then Biden, who won by 1,500 votes. But if we really are weeks away from the most important election of our lives, or the fate of democracy is truly on the ballot, most people here didn’t catch the message.
MANY FAIRGOERS SAID THEY STOPPED CARING about politics because of some calamity in their lives. They felt that they didn’t know enough to give substantive answers, and in most cases said they had no intention of voting in the upcoming midterms. But despite their initial jadedness, many expressed concerns over rising violent crime, drug overdoses, cost of living, and inflation, all against a backdrop of diminishing economic opportunities.
“I just let politics happen. I know it’s kind of a cop-out because a lot of people say you can make a difference,” said Bea Martinez, a retired state employee. Sitting nearby, her friend, Jerry Duran, a retired sergeant with the Denver Sheriff Department, said he felt the same way.
Duran didn’t think that either party truly cared about public safety. He said law and order was a talking point for political expediency. He pointed to both Trump’s incitement of rioters at the Capitol and Democrats who sat idly by as riots erupted across American cities, all the while calling for defunding police departments.
Around the corner, near some food trucks, I stopped a group of girls. Danee Aragon, who graduated from the local high school last year, said that she felt belittled by the fact that Latinos are expected to vote Democrat. “My grandma, she’s always coming at me,” she said.
I asked the group what did concern them, but before I could even finish the question, the responses were the economy and the future of abortion rights. Teylor Huaram, another recent high school graduate, said, “Because ultimately, [abortion] is like a two-person decision. But it’s not always a decision at the same time, sometimes it’s forced upon someone, it’s really sad.”
The group of girls talked about how in a previous time, their parents and other family members could pay rent with part-time jobs, even if it wasn’t the most comfortable lifestyle. These days, Aragon said, “you have to work a full-time job that pays over $15 an hour just to get by here.” Huaram added, “Living is fucking expensive. Literally, apartments are like $1,200 [a month]. And we live in a small community. Pueblo is a pretty small place.”
Danee Aragon told me she worked in the service industry, earning below minimum wage. Followed by a nervous chuckle, she said, “People are getting poorer and poorer.” Aragon explained that she didn’t go to college because she cares for her baby brother. “He’s like my little tail. He follows me around everywhere. He’s my best friend.”
Huaram explained how her current job as a receptionist for a health clinic wasn’t cutting it. “Your individuality you’re trying to build [as a young adult] it’s almost like it’s impossible. I’ve been trying to look for a place to move out and be financially stable to do that. Everything’s so expensive. So it leaves me like no choice but to stay where I’m at, even though it’s rough.” What about building wealth through homeownership, I asked. “Almost fucking impossible,” Huaram laughed. Aragon added, “It’s very hard to be a young adult trying to start your life at this time.”
I asked Huaram and Aragon if they had heard about unionization efforts spurred by the pandemic. Aragon was not familiar with the efforts at Starbucks or Amazon. And Huaram hadn’t considered what a union could do for her.
ANOTHER GROUP OF THREE RECENT HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATES shared the same despondency about Pueblo and the country’s future. This group of three requested anonymity because of their involvement in protests two years prior and also the potential for local gang violence.
The first thing they pointed out was how much gas prices had increased since they started driving in the last three years. But that was the least of their concerns. For this group, the fear of gun violence from local gangs looms everywhere. “Pueblo, it’s a crazy town,” one of them said. “We’ve had parties being threatened to be shot up.”
Gang violence is so embedded in the lives of these young people that the idea of following politics sounds silly to them. One in the group showed me a video she recorded from a shooting at a Pueblo carnival in June, of people running, screaming, and dragging their children away from the gunshots.
In the absence of good-paying jobs, the decision to join a gang, with the shiny promises of a “new” family plus quick cash, is a no-brainer. The group dismissed Democratic proposed measures such as banning semiautomatic rifles. “Bullets don’t have a name on them,” one of them said. “Kids are just trigger-happy.”
The girl who recorded the shooting at the carnival was caught in another gang-related shooting weeks later. After struggling and failing to safely get in her car, she freaked out and laughed as the shooting continued in the background. As the group laughed recalling the video, I asked how they could even giggle about such a traumatic experience. One of them said, “We’re used to it. It’s an everyday thing in our town.”
A YOUNG MARRIED LESBIAN COUPLE I SPOKE WITH, Shelby and Olivia Vialpando, proudly considered themselves pro-choice and in favor of an expanded health care system. “I’m 23 years old and I’ve never voted a day in my life. I honestly just feel like my vote isn’t gonna matter,” Shelby said. “[Republicans and Democrats] are gonna do what they’re gonna do, you know what I mean? People will ask you to sign this [petition], and whatever, I’ll sign it. But president and election-wise, I don’t vote.”
Her wife, Olivia, meanwhile, said Trump was a far better president than Biden. “Trump may have been a shitty person, but at least he was making things happen sometimes, you know what I mean?” Shelby and Olivia couldn’t exactly pinpoint Trump’s appeal to Latinos. But they said that liking Trump was commonplace in their social circles.
After the fallout from the Dobbs decision, Shelby and Olivia said they heard rumors about same-sex marriage being at risk. Neither knew how substantive such fears were, but they were concerned. “So what happens if you’re already married? I see things and hear things. But I don’t ever understand the full thing,” Shelby said.
Gang violence is so embedded in the lives of these young people that the idea of following politics sounds silly to them.
For Dolores Medina, a nurse in Pueblo, her cynicism stemmed from what she saw as a racist legal system in Pueblo that punished Mexicans disproportionately. “I know from when my kids were little,” Medina said, “because you’d go to court and [the judge] would give every single little Hispanic he could find a ticket, and you would see one white kid in there. And I know for a fact there were white kids partying with my kids at the time.” When pushed by family to vote the judge out, Medina saw the effort as futile.
When Medina arrived in Pueblo over 20 years ago, she said that it was the first time she saw Latinos working in jobs that weren’t just agricultural or retail, referring to Latino doctors, nurses, and lawyers. Still, despite the varied socioeconomic statuses, Medina said, “[Latinos] still have no say.”
Medina used to be represented by a union for ten years. When the promise of wage increases and better hours did not materialize, she left the union. “It just doesn’t seem like it makes a difference,” she said referring to the influx of travel nurses who make double what she does currently. “It’s crazy that I make $40 an hour and I’ve been there 21 years, and [travel nurses] come in at $95 an hour.”
“When I used to think [voting] made a difference,” Medina said, “I would vote Democrat.” But nowadays, “it doesn’t matter. [Democrats] say one thing, and when they get there, they are completely different people.” However, Medina did vote for Biden in the 2020 election. “Just because I hated Trump, not because I thought he was gonna do any good.”
IN 1991, ANGEL JIMINEZ JOINED THE ARMY. “You gotta be aggressive,” said Jiminez. “Most of the guys that I was with, they’re not scared to go to fucking war, but they don’t want to go a stupid war. And I go to Iraq, we’re like what the fuck are we doing here? And that’s why I got out in 1998.”
Upon re-entering civilian life, working in construction was his best bet. Under Trump, according to Jiminez, “the economy was doing great. I’ve been working in the [construction] industry for 23 years. And it hasn’t been this bad since 2008.” Aside from Trump’s aesthetics, he thought the former president did a decent job. “Trump did OK,” Jiminez said. “But he wasn’t professional enough. It’s fucking good to be outspoken but not when you’re president.”
He also applauded Trump’s attempt to slash food stamp benefits. “Trump did well with food stamps. There’s people that drive a Lexus and are on fucking food stamps. And here I can’t afford a Chevrolet but I work 70 hours a week. How does that make sense? I’m a proud Hispanic. I don’t need the help.” However, he said that food stamps and other social services were necessary for certain groups like single moms.
The cumulative disenchantment of his time in the service, and what he saw as pointless wars waged by every successive president, is why Jiminez says he has never voted before, nor plans to in the future. “I wouldn’t vote either [Democrat or Republican] because it’s gonna be the same bullshit,” Jiminez said. “I don’t think [voting] makes a difference. It’s scandalous.”
IN THE MIX OF VENDORS, ONE TENT caught my attention. It was emblazoned with David Gonzales’s Homies characters from an underground comic strip that debuted in Lowrider magazine in 1978. George Autobee, a Vietnam veteran, was inside the tent running a voter registration drive geared at Latinos. “I’m going to be straight-up with you man,” Autobee said in a cool, slow cadence. “We are underrepresented. We need more Latinos to vote.”
Since Autobee left Vietnam, he has dedicated his life to political organizing and activism in some form. “Vietnam radicalized me,” he said, followed by a laugh. “I was pissed off. So I got involved in the Chicano movement, and that was my therapy because I had to put that anger somewhere else, man.” Autobee’s activism eventually led to a stint working for Colorado Gov. Richard Lamm during the 1970s, where he tried to implement a Head Start program for children but left for the reserves soon after.
According to Autobee, Pueblo’s political apparatus suffers from deep divides between Chicano and Latino activists like himself, and the Italians who currently run Pueblo’s Democratic Party.
As a proxy example of these racial tensions, Autobee pointed to debates over removing a bronze bust of Christopher Columbus in Pueblo. The monument still stands. A local Colorado Public Radio affiliate reported that Pueblo Mayor Nick Gradisar, former Pueblo Democratic Party leader, believed that putting the decision to remove the monument on a citywide ballot would be too divisive. “My take on it is that most people in Pueblo don’t care about that statue one way or the other,” Gradisar said in August.
“People feel disenfranchised from the Democratic Party, especially here in Pueblo,” Autobee said. It’s unlikely a statue is the only reason why the Democratic Party leaves a sour taste among Latinos in Pueblo. But for Autobee, the incident is one example of how the local party ignores the concerns of the community it claims to represent.
That’s why, according to Autobee, narratives about Latinos shifting to the Republican Party have such gravity in the national landscape. “I see it happening, man.” He went on to describe a feud between the local Democratic Party’s leadership and himself during the 2020 election.
“People feel disenfranchised from the Democratic Party, especially here in Pueblo.”
Autobee and Stephen Varela co-founded the political action committee Rural Colorado United and campaigned against far-right Congresswoman Lauren Boebert, who represents the state’s Western Slope. “We got most of our money from Lincoln Project people. We got $350,000. We did commercials and billboards … She won, that’s the way it goes. Then we got money to do voter registration from CLLARO [Colorado Latino Leadership, Advocacy & Research Organization] up in Denver … We went to [Pueblo’s] East Side and Bessemer neighborhood and we got 600 new Chicano voters. We flipped the county from red to blue.”
Despite turning the county blue, Autobee alleged that the local party was not happy with the results. “Because now there’s brown faces coming in and the Italians control this place, man. They’re not gonna give us their power. They are the head of the committees. They’re the heads of the Democratic Party.” He added that after the election, local party chair Mary Beth Corsentino alleged that he and his PAC co-founder were stealing money with their PAC. Autobee said the allegations had no standing. “We were kicking ass getting Chicano voters out there.”
Today, Stephen Varela is running for state Senate as a Republican. Autobee had mixed feelings on his friend’s decision to leave the Democratic Party: “I can vote for whoever I want, it’s person over party now.” He continued, “Me and Stephen are both combat veterans. I got wounded twice. And they’re going to accuse me of theft? Who the hell do they think they are?”
Autobee said that such battles ignore the real issues that plague Pueblo’s Latino community. During the worst of the pandemic, Autobee said Latinos suffered most because they were most likely to be essential workers. Local hospitals reached capacity during the third wave of the pandemic in late 2020. Autobee currently runs COVID-19 vaccination drives even as the pandemic has faded from the national conversation.
“Down here in Pueblo, we’re talking gangs, shootings, especially in the Lower East Side where I grew up,” Autobee said. “The drugs, that fentanyl shit.” In Pueblo, according to 2019 data, the drug overdose death rate was 36.7 per 100,000 residents; the state average is 19. “Good kids, young kids, they’re dying young because of bullets and fentanyl,” Autobee said.
As we moved our seats deeper into the shade, and Latin music played in the background, Autobee did not hold back. “We’re in a battle right now, man. Dealing with drugs and alcohol within our own communities, let alone dealing with these goddamn Nazis trying to attack the Capitol.” On the importance of reaching out to young Latinos, he continued: “If kids aren’t educated to take on the responsibilities, we’re gonna lose this democracy. That’s why voter registration is so vital for me. It’s the first step … Do something positive in the community because it’s ours to lose. We don’t do it, man, it’s gone.”
