‘We have the power’: How SELA organizations worked to promote the vote

Amid the fear-mongering and stress the Trump administration has ignited in California communities, nonprofit organizations like the South East Los Angeles (SELA) Collaborative, Council of Mexican Federations in North America (COFEM), CalMatters and several others continue to create and develop safe spaces for residents around Los Angeles County.

Similar to previous elections and midterms, SELA Collaborative and COFEM collaborated in hosting another caravan event for the Nov. 3 midterm elections, where members of both nonprofit organizations drove to nine cities, including Huntington Park, Bell, Bell Gardens and others, to encourage the community to submit their votes before the 8 p.m. deadline on Tuesday. 

The SELA Collaborative consists of a network of 12 organizations working together to revitalize the communities of Bell, Bell Gardens, Cudahy, Florence-Firestone, Huntington Park, Lynwood, Maywood, South Gate, Vernon and Walnut Creek. Its mission is to strengthen the Southeast region by investing in the civic infrastructure, nonprofit sector and community resources, therefore curating events where everyone is able to participate and engage in change.

“One of our goals is to increase civic participation, and voting is one of those,” said SELA Collaborative Executive Director Dr. Wilma Franco. 

From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., organization members drove around the SELA area, letting people walking or driving down the street know they still had over seven hours left to submit their ballots. 

COFEM Executive Director Francisco “Paco” Moreno suggested the idea of having live mariachi in the caravan because music is a great way of getting people's attention while not invading their personal space. 

“I always keep my sound equipment in the COFEM van. During all the programs, I play music and speak and people come out,” said Moreno. “I know that this reaches people — playing music while also delivering a message.”

Moreno and Franco said this is the first year they have noticed increased crowd engagement compared with previous years. During the event, about nine cars were behind the caravan. All cars had posters displaying different messages like “Tu voto decide estas elecciones [Your vote decides these elections]” to “VOTE. Your health depends on it.” 

“Mariachi is important because our Latin community, despite being from Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala or other countries, all have mariachi music in common,” said Moreno.

The event had a lot of positive responses. There were several cars that honked, showing their alliance, while others waved, clapped and smiled while showing off their ballots and “I Voted” stickers. 

“I think it’s important to continue to advertise voting despite a few people getting upset with the noise,” said Moreno. “When the crowd sees us with music, excitement and a lot of cars, they know they are not alone. Our community can sometimes be shy, embarrassed or lazy to vote, and when they see us trying, they say, ‘okay, let’s try’”.

According to Franco, encouraging an individual to vote can be tedious as there are many reasons as to why many are not voting. Some citizens have never voted before, are not familiar with political campaigns, or simply do not know where to drop off their ballots.

“One of our biggest goals for us is to make voting fun, like making specific participation exciting," said Franco. “Voting should be as exciting as seeing [an artist you really love]. So that’s the amount of excitement we should have for exercising our right to vote.”

In order to make voting easier leading up to Election Day, nonprofits like SELA Collaborative provided voter guides via Instagram and other social media platforms, paraphrasing certain propositions, where and how to vote, election protection hotlines and other resources. 

“[It’s important] to have an influence on what the government will become and how it’s going to impact the communities,” said Franco. “We have the power to actually change that, but I think sometimes the community feels like it doesn’t make a difference. But all you can do is be kind, empathetic… and meet people where they are so that they can trust us and feel safe enough to come ask questions, even if it's just to ask how to open a ballot box.”