This Happened In 2008 For Obama Too: 'Young Latinos Convert Parents Into Supporting Bernie Sanders' [View all]

[WillyT]

Young Latinos convert parents into supporting Bernie Sanders
By Amanda Sakuma - MSNBC
03/15/16 08:51 AM—Updated 03/15/16 09:33 AM


Democratic presidential candidate and U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders speaks at a campaign rally at Chicago State University in Chicago, Ill., Feb. 25, 2016. Photo by Brian Snyder/Reuters

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CHICAGO — Lidia Rodriguez always assumed that she was a solid Hillary Clinton supporter.

Her decision was simple: She knew Democrats were more inclusive toward immigrants, and as the most experienced candidate, Clinton stood the best chance of winning the White House. But days out from the Illinois primary, Rodriguez’s allegiances firmly shifted to a candidate she once barely knew. Her swift conversion to Bernie Sanders was kindled by a single factor: her 26-year-old daughter Brenda.

Rodriguez speaks only broken English. And like many parents who are new immigrants, she sought election guidance from her children, who tend to be more politically engaged and better assimilated into American life. And so when Brenda said that Sanders was the strongest candidate for their family, Rodriguez didn’t bat an eye. She would support him, too. “It’s because you’re a trusted messenger, for everything — reading documents, translating, etc.,” Brenda said her mother later told her.

Their family is not alone. The clear enthusiasm among young people for the Sanders campaign is slowly having a double return within the Latino community— fired-up millennials with immigrant roots are going home to their families and convincing them to buy into Sanders’ revolution. “Older Latinos are already established in the political system. But the young people voting for Bernie are having an influence on how their parents vote,” said Anahi Tapia, 26.

The dynamic factors into almost shocking results in Illinois, where according to the latest NBC News/Marist/WSJ poll out this week, Sanders is leading Clinton by 34 points with Latino voters, claiming 64 percent to her 30 percent. This, while he is still trailing overall in the state by six points. “It’s all because of the grassroots. It’s the young millennials that refuse to be anyone’s firewall,” Cesar Vargas, a national Latino outreach strategist for Sanders, said of the campaign’s success.

The younger Rodriguez, Tapia and Yesenia Mata, all women in their mid-20s, took that grassroots message to heart when they banded together to create an unofficial Sanders outpost at the center of the Little Village, a Latino-heavy neighborhood in West Chicago. They opened up their own makeshift field office in the space above the local liquor store, Morenos, owned by the father of a friend. When they started out two weeks ago the office was completely empty. They swiped tables and chairs from their parents’ homes to make the space feel more official.

By the time volunteers started pouring in, most all of them millennials, they noticed a trend: Their community wasn’t familiar with Sanders, but they were defiantly against Donald Trump...

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More: http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/young-latinos-convert-parents-supporting-bernie-sanders