Jolene Nacapuy
Editor in Chief
The hanging of a Donald Trump piñata from the side of Miller Hall caught the attention of many as the Latino Student Forum held an event, “Today We March, Tomorrow We Vote,” to draw awareness toward voting Sept. 24 in the Johnson Family Plaza.
The purpose of the event was to draw attention to the lack of youth political engagement and help students to register to vote and get their voices heard.
Many students are unaware of voting or how to vote. LSF successfully got the attention of the campus with an extravagant prop.
“So what we did that was kind of outrageous that got everybody’s attention was the piñatas, the Donald Trump piñatas, because I know that it has been a very sensitive topic in the political atmosphere,” Gerardo Cuevas, senior director of finances for Latino Student Forum said. “So basically what we’re trying to do is bring everybody out, which worked because a bunch of people came out and are seeing what is going on.”
To make things clear, LSF emphasized that they were not trying to attack Donald Trump in any way, but wanted a way to bring attention to the real message that they were trying to send, which was that students should vote.
Trump has been negative about many things during his campaign, including comments towards the Hispanic community.
“We’re not trying to attack him back, but we’re just trying to show that we do have a voice and we’re not what he’s saying. We’re not these aliens coming in and taking over,” Jacqueline Perez, senior vice president of Latino Student Forum said. “No, we came here to this country to make ourselves have a better life. We’re not criminals and you can look online and look all the statistics and he’s saying things that are not real and not true, so we just wanted to give the students the opportunity to express how they felt.”
By doing this, many students and faculty stopped by the plaza and were also directed toward a table to get information on the voting process and registering to vote.
“We made this event just so we could get students to come out and learn about the voting process and we understand that we are the majority, we are the age range between 18-25 that is the population with a lot of the voting power, but we don’t use it,” Perez said. “So we wanted to be able to tell them to like ‘hey give them the resources’ because sometimes people don’t know.”
At the quad, the Latino Student Forum set up a graffiti board to express thoughts or questions people may have toward voting, laws or Donald Trump.
They also set up a Donald Trump letter writing station, where students and faculty are able to write a card about themselves and express where they come from and where they stand about the things that he says. LSF will mail them sometime next month.
“We do tell people to keep it respectful and more or less explain where your family comes from and what you bring to the table and how you’re actually an asset for America and not a deficit,” Cuevas said.
As part of the process, LSF’s goal is not to sway students to go Democrat or Republican, but to be able to voice their opinions, but also to educate themselves before they vote for a candidate at an election.
“The thing we dislike most is the apathy around campus. Martin Luther King said it himself you know, the worst thing you could do is just not care. It’s not going against something, but just having complete apathy toward something because then you’re allowed to do all these things that really shouldn’t go on,” Cuevas said. “So just having an opinion, even if it’s an opinion that is against mine, it’s good to rebound back-and-forth and kind of work with than nobody caring at all and just letting whatever happen.”
LSF aimed to emphasize the importance of voting at elections.
“We have E-board meetings and at that time is when they start looking at what is going on in the daily life of everything and since we are dealing with the politics and potential presidential candidates and since this has got to do with Latinos and the Latino institution, I would say that this even would create some type of awareness about registering to vote,” Cres Gonzalez, assistant athletics director and adviser of Latino Student Forum, said. “As far as advisers go, we just want to support them in whatever it is that they want to do. Like creating awareness and in this case, about voting and the anti-immigration lyrics,” Gonzalez said.
This event was a part of Fiestas Patrias, which is a week-long event that originated in Mexico in the 19th century and was observed as five public holidays.
Cuevas said the event is a way for Latin cultures to recognize and celebrate their independence, similar to those held in the United States.
“We’re kind of doing the second part of our mission statement, which is to provide the community, the campus community a place to vent about social and political issues, whether they be on the campus, nationally, internationally, so we really try to target those and really be expressive to what our members want,” he said.
The Latino Student Forum encourages students to register to vote and actually go vote because each voice counts, no matter how small it may be. Whether they support Trump or not, LSF says it is important for students to vote in the upcoming election.
“If this inspires you to take action whether it’s politically or whether it’s in a community to start a different club then yeah, it’s exactly what we want to do out here and what we want to get across,” Cuevas said.
Jolene Nacapuy can be reached at jolene.nacapuy@laverne.edu.
So had someone put up a piñata of Obama or Hillary would it have been okay? I’m sick of this school pushing the liberal agenda! If it had been Obama then that group would be racist or had a group put up a Hillary piñata then that they would be sexist. Give me a break! Read a book, Trump’s vision of America puts more people to work, plain and simple. If you ask me these HISPANIC students are racist and ULV is promoting it!