Georgia’s Latino Community Should Be Respected And Protected In The Redistricting Process

by Jerry Gonzalez

Between 2000 and 2010, Georgia’s population grew from 8.2 million to 9.7 million, an 18 percent increase. During the same period, the Latino population nearly doubled by growing from 435,227 to 853,689, an increase of 96 percent.

The increase in Georgia’s Latino population contributed significantly to the state’s overall growth in the last decade. Consider these statistics:

• Between 2000 and 2010, the Latino population increase accounted for 28 percent of the state’s total population growth.
• Between 2000 and 2010, the Latino share of the population grew from five percent to nine percent.
• Latinos comprise 13 percent of all Georgians under 18 years of age.
• In 2010, Georgia’s Latino population was significantly younger than the non-Latino population.
• More than a third of Latino Georgians — 37 percent — were under 18, compared to 25 percent of non-Latinos.

Census 2010 data reveal that many of Georgia’s 10-largest counties have significant Latino populations. The Latino share of these counties’ population ranges from 4 percent in Richmond County to 20 percent in Gwinnett County. In fact, the 10-largest counties are home to 57 percent of Georgia’s total Latino population. What’s more, the seven-largest Georgia counties are also home to the state’s largest Latino communities: Fulton, Gwinnett, DeKalb, Cobb, Chatham, Clayton and Cherokee.

It is essential that Latinos have an equal voice in redistricting, to ensure that our community has a fair opportunity to elect their candidates of choice. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 prohibits racial discrimination in voting practices in all federal, state, and local elections. Redistricting is a change in election law because it changes districts for the purpose of elections. All redistricting plans must comply with the federal Voting Rights Act.

Given the hostility of Georgia’s anti-immigrant and anti-Latino legislative initiatives, like the most recent HB87, it is important that the Latino community be able to fairly influence the outcome of elections to select the candidates of their choice for representation. This is critically important to ensure candidates and/or elected officials will be responsive and respectful of Latinos within their districts.

For example, one can look at recent testimony during the debate on Georgia’s anti-immigrant law HB87. Georgia Sen. Renee Unterman (R-Buford) took to the well to provide a speech in the Senate chambers. She then proceeded to embarrass herself, the Georgia Senate, the Georgia General Assembly and our entire state. She said she receives calls from constituents about the hospital emergency rooms and how they are crowded because of “illegal immigrants.” Of course, there is no way to tell who is an undocumented immigrant by just looking at a person. Here, Unterman relies upon racial profiling of her constituents, with the belief that if one is Latino, then the person must be an “illegal immigrant.”

The senator continued: “We don’t mind taking care of people. Let’s just take care of our own people. People who are here legally….I want to take care of our people. I don’t want to take care of Mexico’s people.” She praised Gwinnett County’s 287g program, a partnership with immigration. She credited it as a success because when she rode down the street, she said, “I don’t see as many people that are foreign because they’ve scattered. They are scared to death to be there in Gwinnett County now.”

Unterman’s comments are embarrassing to our state but they illustrate the anti-immigrant and anti-Latino hostility that exists in Georgia, even with some of our elected officials.

Due to this environment, it is even more important to ensure that the Latino electorate’s voice will not be diluted nor compacted in the redistricting process in order to have an equal and fair opportunity to influence elections for candidates of their choice.

Mr. Gonzalez is executive director of the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials. He, along with U.S. Rep. John Lewis, will be a panelist on a redistricting and Voting Rights Act discussion scheduled for 6 p.m. Monday at the .