From Latinos' Rally, Hopes for a Movement

Two successive Democratic candidates were swept into the governor's mansion, and the state became a reliable voter for Democratic presidential candidates.

Once the sense of crisis abated, fewer California Latinos turned out to vote. In the 2002 general election, for example, Latinos represented 17 percent of registered voters but 10 percent of those who voted.

Organizers of the demonstrations set for tomorrow said they plan to counter the pattern by convening a national conference in June, probably in Milwaukee, to craft an agenda that carries the movement beyond a single legislative goal.

"We're going to be talking about what a pro-immigration platform looks like and how to maintain it," said Kimberly Propeack, advocacy director for CASA of Maryland, an immigrant rights group.

The effort to mold an issue into a movement might be hampered by the absence of a nationally recognized leader to fulfill the galvanizing role that Martin Luther King Jr. played for the African American civil rights movement, or that Mexican American labor activist Cesar Chavez played for West Coast farm workers.

The lack of such a figure is at least partly due to the nature of the organizations underlying the current mobilization.

Although many leaders of the civil rights movement emerged from historically black colleges or Protestant churches that fostered the rise of a select group of orators, the recent demonstrations have been the work of a diverse, dispersed, grass-roots network of community service organizations, social clubs, unions and Spanish-language media outlets. The Washington demonstration alone is being coordinated by more than 60 such groups.

"Without a Dr. King-like figure, we lack the capacity to create that personal connection, not just within our own community but with folks on the outside," said Cecilia Munoz, vice president of policy for National Council of La Raza, a Latino advocacy group. "Someone with that kind of visibility is really useful in terms of educating people."

Although there is no identifiable leader to reconcile the inevitable fractures that have emerged as so many groups try to harmonize their activities, Salas said the decentralized nature of the movement also has an advantage.

"There's no one leader who could disappear and affect the movement," she said. "Instead, you have all these local communities with their own independent local leaders."

And many Latino leaders say that whatever the fate of their movement in the short run, their success over the long term is virtually guaranteed by the millions of U.S.-born Latinos who will be turning 18 over the next decade.

The most lasting impact of the demonstrations might be the passion it ignites among the young people who participate, said Antonio Gonzalez, executive director of the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project, which is dedicated to increasing Latino political involvement.

"The way you get youth to vote is to have a sort of revolution, an evil enemy to fight," he said. "That has just been handed to us by [the Republicans]. We ought to send them a thank-you letter."