TUCSON, Ariz. – Communist Party leaders and activists met here to discuss plans to bring out the broadest possible Mexican American and Latino vote to defeat the ultra right in the November elections and to strengthen the CPUSA’s work among this section of the population. The participants at the meeting, held in the Salt of the Earth Labor College on May 15-16, came chiefly from the Southwest and the West Coast.
Lorenzo Torrez, chair of the Party’s Mexican American Equality Commission, reviewed the Commission’s work in the recent period. He proposed the organizing of a left-center Latino coalition to mobilize the progressive sentiments of U.S. Latinos.
Rosalío Muñoz, CPUSA organizer in Southern California, reported on Latinos and the elections. He noted that the presidential race will be decided in key “battleground states.” A number of these, such as Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado, are states where Mexican Americans are concentrated, he said.
Muñoz proposed that the CPUSA put out literature in both Spanish and English explaining what is at stake for Latinos in the upcoming elections.
José A. Cruz, editor of Nuestro Mundo, the Spanish-language section of the People’s Weekly World, discussed ways of improving the paper’s coverage of critical issues in the Mexican American and Latino communities.
On Saturday evening, meeting participants were joined by local activists from the Latino, labor, peace and justice movements to celebrate Torrez’ birthday and his decades of activities in progressive politics.
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