Area Minorities Try to Expand Political Power, Involvement

" ¿Qué pasa? ¿Quieres votar? " asked Biaggi, dressed in gym pants and a T-shirt.

For Biaggi, the voter registration drive is an outgrowth of the pro-immigration demonstrations staged in April in cities throughout the United States.

"We already marched. Now we have to vote," he said.

CASA of Maryland Inc., an immigration advocacy group in Silver Spring, counts 277,000 minority and immigrant residents in Maryland who are eligible to vote but not registered. The coalition has declined to set a target for the election, and the work is slow going. In one hour, Biaggi and the volunteers registered 12 people. All were naturalized citizens from countries such as El Salvador, Mexico and Peru. Nearly all were in their twenties and thirties. They heard Biaggi's message on the radio and drove to meet him after work.

José Yanez, 26, a deliveryman born in El Salvador, became a citizen about six months ago. "Too many Spanish people don't vote," he said, including his older brother and sister. "There are important issues."

The trouble is that most of the people lined up at the registration table last month were not familiar with the candidates' names.

"People don't hear enough about it in advance," said Costa Rican-born Yamila Chacon of Damascus, a project manager for a computer service company. "I need to know who I'm voting for."

Since 1990, the Washington region's immigrant population has more than doubled as the overall population has grown by about a quarter. In Maryland, about 12 percent of the household population last year was foreign-born, according to numbers from the 2005 American Community Survey. In Montgomery, it was 29 percent, and in Prince George's, 17 percent.

The two leading Democratic candidates for Montgomery county executive -- Isiah "Ike" Leggett and Steven A. Silverman -- have sought out these residents, giving interviews on Spanish-language radio and Telemundo's local Telenoticias 64 and appearing on the local Chinese cable TV channel.

Silverman's campaign literature has been translated into Spanish, Mandarin and Vietnamese, and visitors to the Web sites of many Montgomery candidates for the General Assembly can click on Spanish versions. Hans Riemer, a County Council candidate in District 5, has a version of his site in Amharic, the official language of Ethiopia.

The Hispanic Democratic Club of Montgomery County intends to spend $9,000 this election season to mail sample ballots in Spanish to Democrats with Hispanic surnames culled from a database. Hispanics represent 5.7 percent of the state's population but account for 13.6 percent in Montgomery and 10.7 percent in Prince George's.

In the District, local Democratic leaders and community organizations estimate there are 5,000 to 10,000 registered Latino voters. Gustavo F. Velasquez, director of the mayor's Office on Latino Affairs, estimates from census and election data that Hispanics might make up 2.5 percent of the vote "if we have a strong showing." That percentage "can be extremely important in a close election," he said.

In Maryland, Montgomery leaders have found common ground on such issues as education, affordable housing and health care, but they have not coalesced around a slate of candidates. In the county executive's race, the Hispanic club endorsed Leggett, a former council member and chairman of the state Democratic Party. The Coalition of Asian Pacific American Democrats of Maryland backed Silverman. His fundraiser last fall with the Chinese community attracted 600 people and raised $20,000, according to the campaign.

At a fundraiser for Del. Susan C. Lee (D-Montgomery) recently at the New Fortune restaurant in Gaithersburg, O'Malley worked the crowd for three hours to make inroads with Montgomery's Asian community.

The Montgomery coalition has stated its preference in at least one race. In Wheaton recently, Korean leaders mobilized minority and women's rights organizations on a Sunday afternoon to chastise Comptroller William Donald Schaefer (D) for what they called a series of intolerant statements. Del. Peter Franchot (D-Montgomery), a party rival, was there, and Leggett and Silverman made a rare joint statement.

Schaefer's comments, which he said were misinterpreted, linked a North Korean missile test to the immigrants, most of them from South Korea learning English in public schools, and were front page news for several days in the area's two main Korean language dailies.

At a series of voter registration drives last month at Korean churches, participants said the remarks were the hot issue inspiring congregants to sign up. Korean leaders registered 190 people in Montgomery and 140 in the Baltimore area.

Asian Americans who have put off registering in the past "don't want this to happen again," said Chung Pak, chairman of the League of Korean Americans of Maryland. "They feel they have to raise their voice, and the way to do so is to participate in elections."

At the state level, Asian leaders have demonstrated their burgeoning political strength, persuading legislators and the governor during the General Assembly session this year to have the state officially recognize the Asian Lunar New Year. Ehrlich marked the occasion by hosting a reception at the governor's mansion. He recently stopped by the Asian American Business Conference in Rockville, where he was joined by Benjamin H. Wu, assistant secretary for business and economic development.

In the past 15 years, the Asian population in Montgomery has increased 60 percent and now makes up 13.2 percent of the county's overall population, compared with 4.8 percent statewide. Although Asian Pacific Islanders are still a fraction of all voters, their participation in presidential elections in Maryland increased 85 percent, to 50,000, between 2000 and 2004, according to U.S. Census figures analyzed by the District-based Asian Pacific Islander American Vote.

With limited time and money, candidates have traditionally spent their resources on those parts of the county identified through voter rolls as routinely having high turnout in elections. Newly registered voters have no such track record and tend to be younger and more diverse. But with super voters aging, Del. Ana Sol Gutierrez (D-Montgomery) said, the growing population of younger immigrant voters are the future and need to be taken seriously.

"Candidates are still not considering them as important; there's still a gap. I want to take advantage of it and so should those truly interested in inclusion and in building a movement of Democratic voters," she said. "The trick is, Will they get out and vote? I'll let you know after September 12."

Staff writers Tim Craig, Michael D. Shear and Nikita Stewart contributed to this report.