(ambient sounds) [Natalia] - Latinos began settling in Yakima Valley in the 1930s, and since 1980, the Latino population in the region has increased fivefold.
[Maria] - The Yakima Valley is Latino majority, but when you look at historically, who's been representing these communities, does not reflect it.
[Natalia] - Latinos are not this monolithic group.
There's a lot of diversity and ideology and identity that often present a challenge for organizers who ultimately just wanna get out the vote.
(guitar music) [Mark] - A lot of the times they say, well, Latinos don't vote.
And a lot of these folks are first time voters, first generation.
It takes a lot of civic consciousness to be able to know how to vote, but a lot of times we just wanna create access to them.
Ballot walkthrough parties, literacy access, language access.
When you work together, people do turn out.
[Jake] - Oh, if you're a Latino, you just vote Democrat.
Well, no, we just wanna see fair representation.
And so building that narrative around fair representation, making sure folks do exercise their right and their power to vote and utilize that voice of theirs.
That's really our, our primary goal.
[Natalia] - For the first time, no matter the outcome of the general election, a Latina will represent the district in one of two state representative positions.
Democrat Chelsea Dimas, will face Republican Gloria Mendoza.
[Chelsea] - There's been a few folks that have been like, pues por que voy a votar?
Like, why am I gonna vote?
It's not gonna do anything.
I have felt that before as well, but we have three progressive Democratic Latinas running for the first time in our history.
Them seeing this win, even one of us is gonna show, wow, this can actually happen.
My vote actually means something here.
[Natalia] - The other dynamic in play here is that there is still a lot of discrimination and racism that exists against Latinos in Yakima Valley, and a lot of community members are still really reticent to elect Latino candidates.
[Chelsea] - I had to figure it out at the beginning by myself when the first time I ran, and it sucks.
And now that I have this infrastructure and this strong support, if any of my community or any of my colleagues wanna run, I'm going to support them because I don't believe in gatekeeping.
For me, it's about like this full circle moment where we keep getting the next generation of leaders ready for what's next.
[Maria] - I want people to like when they see my material, when they see me on TV, when they talk to us, I want them to feel like this is a part of them and I'm running just to make sure that people don't feel left out.
(reflective music)
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