Democrats or Republicans, Latinas Are Swaying the Vote

They hold cellphones to their ears, and in their laps they balance bilingual scripts and lists of registered Latino voters who live around Roanoke. Sundays, the salon becomes a phone bank for Obama.

"¿Fuerte por Obama?" Strong for Obama? "¡Qué bueno!" Great!

Depending on how the voter answers the phone, the caller will speak in Spanish or English.

A handful of children scamper around, including the 11-year-old son of Roxana Cazares Olivas, the salon's co-owner and a founding member of Latinas Unidas por Obama.

Olivas, 35, knows what it's like to be a Latina Republican -- she used to be one.

She grew up in El Paso, the daughter of Mexican immigrants from just across the border in Chihuahua. Her father is a retired real estate broker.

Being Republican is a family tradition, the origins of which she does not recall. Like many Texas Latinos, the members of her family liked their governor, George W. Bush. He seemed to understand and appreciate Latinos, in the manner of that other former Western governor, Reagan. Running for president, Bush spoke Spanish in campaign commercials and declared: "There are people in this country who would like to build walls between Mexico and America. And make no mistake about it: A president George Bush will work to tear those walls down."

Olivas became a member of Amigos de Bush in El Paso, and helped cut a music CD for the campaign that played locally. Fours year later, in 2004, with waning enthusiasm, she voted for him again.

"This is the first time I'll be voting Democratic," she says.

Why Obama?

"Immigration, the war, the economy, Katrina," she says. "We just need a change. . . . He not only captured me in his actions but also captured my heart."

She doubts McCain's continued commitment to immigration reform, and says she has never forgotten Obama addressing a huge march for immigrant rights in Chicago in 2006. She wants the Dream Act enacted as much as Drain does. Obama told Latino audiences in Washington this fall that he supports it.