Popular DJ takes registration drive to Latino voters
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Popular DJ takes registration drive to Latino voters
'El Cucuy' starts national tour in San Jose, broadcasting from a bus to millions of fans
- Tyche Hendricks, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 1, 2006
"Today we march, tomorrow we vote!" marchers shouted in the immigrant rights rallies that filled the streets of U.S. cities this spring.
Trying to motivate Latinos to flex their political muscle, popular Spanish-language DJ Renán Almendárez Coello, known to his estimated 35 million listeners as El Cucuy or "the boogeyman," began a national voter registration drive Monday in San Jose.
San Jose was the first stop on Almendárez's two-week, 10-city bus tour, which he also hopes will influence the debate on immigration reform and a host of other issues.
Almendárez broadcast his daily morning talk show, "El Cucuy de la Mañana," live from the parking lot of Mi Pueblo Market, a bustling full-service grocery store specializing in Mexican foods. The show is syndicated in 36 cities; the road show will hit 11 of them and wind up in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 11.
Through the Votos por America campaign, Almendárez hopes to get 1 million new voters registered before November's election. That's a big number but a fraction of the more than 7 million Latino citizens who are eligible to vote but have not registered.
The Latino electorate has grown in recent years -- with a record 7.6 million Latinos casting ballots nationally in November 2004, accounting for 6 percent of all votes. But Latinos remain under-represented politically because many Latin American immigrants are not citizens and many U.S.-born Latinos are not yet adults.
"We're building a movement," said Almendárez, after broadcasting for six hours from the back of the tour bus. "The marches made us visible, but by voting we can help decide the destiny of this country. If we vote, politicians will heed us."
Almendárez, 51, whose folksy show is best known for its bawdy humor, was one of several popular Los Angeles-based locutores, or disc jockeys, who drew more than a half-million people to marches in that city on both March 25 and May 1. He encouraged protesters to show their unity by wearing white T-shirts and their civic spirit by carrying American flags.
El Cucuy has long punctuated his goofy drive-time entertainment with avuncular advice for the lovelorn and earnest charity drives that have raised millions of dollars for victims of natural disasters. But the show took a more political turn in December when Almendárez, on a trip to Indonesia to deliver tsunami aid, learned that the U.S. House of Representatives had just passed a bill to build a wall along the Mexican border and criminalize illegal immigration.
The bill's punitive approach hit Almendárez in the gut, said Charo Martínez, who contributes to the show from KRZZ-FM, the San Francisco station that carries it.
"I can tell you, people are now more interested in political issues and social issues," she said. "They want more than just jokes and songs. We have community leaders and political leaders on every single week."
Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, who spoke on the show Monday from Mi Pueblo Market, told listeners: "An election is the only time when the voice of the poor is equal to the voice of the rich. Voting is essential for our democracy."
The primary goal of the campaign is "a dignified immigration reform" that respects the contributions to the United States by the country's estimated 12 million illegal immigrants and creates a path to legal residence and eventual citizenship for them. But the Honduran-born Almendárez also wants his immigrant listeners to play a more integral role in their new country.
Penny Raile, director of the El Cucuy Foundation, which is helping lead the voter drive, acknowledged that the two-week bus tour won't be able to register a million voters at 11 parking lot events. In addition, her group is coordinating with the We Are America alliance, which includes national immigrant rights groups and service employees' unions involved in Latino voter registration efforts. And Almendárez will keep plugging voter participation on his show.
Political leaders who turned out Monday emphasized that California alone has 4 million Latino citizens who are not yet registered voters, and El Cucuy is uniquely positioned to reach them.
"In California, in most Latino households, someone speaks Spanish," said Assemblyman Joe Coto, D-San Jose. "The youngsters born in this country are citizens and getting to voting age. He is able to connect with their parents and that translates to the whole family."
On the radio Monday, Almendárez chatted with Jovita Solís, a citizenship educator at Oakland's Spanish-Speaking Citizens' Foundation and encouraged listeners, "If you're a citizen, register to vote! If not, find out how to become a citizen!"
In typical El Cucuy fashion, the interview was peppered with laughter and banter about infidelity and women's breasts.
In the parking lot outside, listeners began arriving before dawn to pick up voter registration forms on the way to work. By mid-morning, as shoppers passed in and out of the supermarket, a couple of hundred El Cucuy fans waited in the sun to catch a glimpse of Almendárez -- and find out about naturalizing and voting.
Barbara Friend, 37, an Alameda cashier, picked up a booklet on citizenship and said she was eager for the day when she could vote.
"I listen to El Cucuy every morning, and he motivated me to come," said Friend, who was born in Mexico but has been a permanent U.S. resident for seven years. "I want to help those who don't have their papers yet."
Inside the tour bus, state Sen. Gil Cedillo, D-Los Angeles, stretched his legs after finishing an on-air interview.
"El Cucuy is one of the major cultural leaders, one of the moral leaders in our community," he said. "He has a very personal relationship with his audience, so when he says, 'We should register to vote, and we're going to do this together,' people respond. I've seen him raise over $1 million in nickels and dimes and quarters."
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E-mail Tyche Hendricks at thendricks@sfchronicle.com.
A profile of Latino voters
Although California's Latino electorate has grown in recent years, Latinos
remain underrepresented politically.
California's total population:*
White 47%
Latino 32%
Asian 11%
Black 7%
California's likely voters:
White 74%
Latino 14%
Asian 6%
Black 5%
Latino voters are less likely than Asian, white or black likely voters to
have a college degree:
Asian 69%
White 56%
Black 44%
Latino 36%
Latinos are more likely than white or Asian voters to have household
incomes under $80,000:
Black 79%
Latino 74%
White 60%
Asian 57%
Most Latino voters are registered Democrats:
Democrats 56%
Republicans 23%
Other/decline to state 21%
But most Latinos identify as moderate or conservative:
Latino White Black Asian
Very or somewhat liberal 35% 33% 41% 38%
Moderate 30% 29% 32% 29%
Very or somewhat conservative 35% 38% 27% 33%
* from Census 2000, in which Latinos are considered to be of any race.
"Other" categories are not shown.
Source: Public Policy Institute of California, May 2004-'05 survey; U.S. Census Bureau
Todd Trumbull / The Chronicle
