For Latino voters, election booths have added significance

At age 7, Janer Trejos and her younger brother parted ways with their mother.

After her father was murdered, the family had tried sustaining a small family business, but the insecurity and violence in Colombia led Trejos’ mother to leave to the U.S. to find work.

Trejos and her brother stayed in Colombia with their grandmother. After seven years of long-distance communication with their mother, Trejos and her brother were approved for a visa to travel to the U.S.

Janer Trejos (left) became a citizen at 18 and says her vote represents the votes of many more who can't. (Photo from Facebook with permission)

“It was a very beautiful moment when we arrived at the airport and they were waiting for us,”  Trejos said.

Today, Trejos works in the medical field and lives in Madison. She obtained her citizenship at the age of 18 and understands the importance of exercising her rights, specifically voting.  Despite not being fully convinced by the two major presidential candidates, she will be voting on Tuesday, Nov. 8. According to her, all Latino Americans need to go out and vote. 

“I am going to vote for the person that has less negative impact on Latinos,” said Trejos. “At this moment, the difficulty is that we are struggling between bad and worse, but I believe that as Latinos, we need to make sure that the worse does not prevail because that worse will affect every Latino.”

Trejos also believes her vote also counts for those that are unable to vote due to lack of documentation.

“If we don’t vote, it is because we are not thinking about the well-being of other people, the dreams of others,” she said. “We forget the effort that we or our parents did one day and how hard they had to work and the struggles they had to go through.”

According to Barry Burden, the director of the Elections Research Center at University of Wisconsin–Madison, Latinos are the largest minority group in the U.S. However, Latinos are still voting at lower rates compared to other race groups. Burden predicts that reasons for low voter turnout in Latinos may be lack of resources and/or language barriers.

“By not voting, you are letting others make decision for you,” said Burden. “We are going to live with these decisions with the next president for four years…I would encourage people not to let the rest of the country or state to make those decisions for you. Take advantage of the right to vote and use it. Figure out what needs to be done to get registered and vote.”

Burden points toward online tools that can help voters make decisions, including websites that “do a kind of match making” between a voter’s views on issues and where candidates stand.

Trejos is one of those voters still making a decision but that won’t change her commitment to engaging in the process.

“Now I am in this limbo where I am not sure who to vote for but I know that I am voting. Obviously I wouldn't vote for Trump but I  would consider either Hillary or one of the third party candidates. I simply believe that I need to vote,” said Trejos.