{"id":152272,"date":"2016-05-20T06:32:20","date_gmt":"2016-05-20T12:32:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=152272"},"modified":"2016-05-21T19:18:23","modified_gmt":"2016-05-22T01:18:23","slug":"local-sanders-supporters-vado-residents-see-opportunity-in-candidates-visit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2016\/05\/local-sanders-supporters-vado-residents-see-opportunity-in-candidates-visit\/","title":{"rendered":"Local Sanders supporters, Vado residents see opportunity in candidate’s visit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bernie\u00a0Sanders’ campaign says the venue chosen for his Saturday rally<\/a>\u00a0in Do\u00f1a Ana County\u00a0— a school in Vado,\u00a0a\u00a0rural, largely Latino and Spanish-speaking community south of Las Cruces — was the best spot it\u00a0found to give voters in Southern New Mexico a chance to see the candidate.<\/p>\n

\"Bernie<\/a>

Michael Vadon \/ flickr<\/p>

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders speaking in the South Bronx on March 31. (photo cc info<\/a>)<\/p><\/div>\n

“Vado actually ended up\u00a0just working best for us logistically,” said\u00a0Hannah Elhard, Sanders’ New Mexico state coordinator.<\/p>\n

Others saw the visit as an opportunity.\u00a0Local supporters of the Democratic presidential candidate said\u00a0his visit presented a chance\u00a0to reach Latino voters. And some residents of Vado saw\u00a0an opportunity to shine light on the community’s needs.<\/p>\n

Max Mastellone, one of the organizers of the local nonprofit Las Cruces for BERNIE<\/a>, said he believes the Sanders campaign picked Vado “to go right to solid Latino country.”<\/p>\n

“It is great that he is coming, demonstrates again that he truly wants to reach out to regular folks and show respect and appreciation for their support,” Mastellone said. “I believe it gives credence to his assertions that he stands with us.”<\/p>\n

Claudia Piper, another organizer of Las Cruces for BERNIE, agreed.<\/p>\n

“The choice of Vado is brilliant!” she wrote in an email. “When was the last time a presidential candidate ever visited a small Latino-populated town? I expect the rally will be huge, with people from all over Southern New Mexico\u00a0and El Paso coming.”<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the organizing group\u00a0NM Comunidades en Acci\u00f3n y de F\u00e9 (CAF\u00e9) was working with local residents to use Sanders’ visit to shine light on the needs of the community.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have been working hard to get the attention of our local and state officials, and have invited them to visit and see the conditions of our roads,” Vado community leader Ruben Lugo said in a news release from CAF\u00e9. “It\u2019s good to have a presidential candidate taking time to see our community.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Disclosure<\/a>: This journalist is dating CAF\u00e9’s executive director.)<\/em><\/p>\n

Teresa Zamora, a longtime Vado resident who teaches at the elementary school where Sanders will hold his rally, said the community has “beautiful families who are really struggling to make it.”<\/p>\n

“We need elected leaders to see us, and we don\u2019t expect systemic change from candidates who only show up for a few hours,” Zamora\u00a0said. “We need real change.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vado had an estimated population of 3,194 in 2010,\u00a0according to the Census<\/a>.\u00a0An estimated\u00a095 percent were\u00a0Hispanic or Latino in 2000 and 34\u00a0percent lived below the poverty level, according to the Census<\/a>. Roads are a significant problem\u00a0in the area, which is a federally designated colonia<\/a> — a community\u00a0near the U.S.-Mexico border that lacks basic infrastructure.<\/p>\n

Former Gov. Bill Richardson was one of the most high-profile politicians to ever visit Vado\u00a0when he swooped into the community\u00a0about a decade and pledged to improve its roads. Despite county and state efforts, residents say\u00a0there are still lots of problems, particularly after heavy rains and floods. Lots of\u00a0roads belong to\u00a0a patchwork of private owners — a situation many say was created by developers and lax government oversight, not current residents. The county can’t legally maintain the roads without\u00a0ownership of the land.<\/p>\n

Communities around Vado also struggle with significant poverty. There are 17 federally designated colonias south of Las Cruces in Do\u00f1a Ana County.<\/p>\n

Presidential candidates have often visited the metro area that includes Las Cruces and Mesilla in the last two decades, starting when\u00a0Democrat Bill Clinton held a rally at New Mexico State University in 1996<\/a>. But Sanders’ Saturday visit to Vado may be the first rally\u00a0a presidential candidate has\u00a0held in\u00a0the rural region\u00a0south of Las Cruces and Mesilla.<\/p>\n

In 2004, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry had lunch with Richardson and then-Lt. Gov. Diane Denish in Anthony, Texas<\/a> — just across the state line from Anthony, N.M, and\u00a0within sight of the state line. Kerry\u00a0also attended a private mass<\/a>\u00a0at a church on the New Mexico side of Anthony during that trip.<\/p>\n

Hillary Clinton, Sanders’ remaining opponent in this year’s Democratic presidential primary, held a rally in Sunland Park in 2008<\/a>, but it was after she lost the presidential primary to Barack Obama that year. She visited Sunland Park to campaign\u00a0for Obama.<\/p>\n

Elhard said the Sanders campaign is excited about the candidate’s\u00a0visits to Santa Fe and Albuquerque on Friday<\/a> and Vado on Saturday<\/a>. She said the campaign added the Vado rally to Sanders’ swing through New Mexico because it\u00a0wanted to give Southern New Mexicans a chance to hear him speak.<\/p>\n

“What we’re looking for is just a really wonderful bringing together of community,” Elhard said, “and coming all together to get the chance to see him in person.”<\/p>\n

Sheila Angelo, who’s working on logistics for the Sanders campaign, said there will be a Spanish translator on hand at the Vado rally for people who don’t speak English — and there are many monolingual Spanish speakers in Southern Do\u00f1a Ana County. The campaign has had to provide translators\u00a0before — including several days ago when Sanders held a rally in Puerto Rico<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This article has been updated to include information about Spanish translation services at the Vado rally.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Local supporters of the Democratic presidential candidate said his visit presented a chance to reach Latino voters. And some residents of Vado saw an opportunity to shine light on the community’s needs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":145691,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[708,115,146,226,143,116],"class_list":["post-152272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-2016-election","tag-dona-ana-county","tag-poverty","tag-presidential-race","tag-race-and-ethnicity","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152272\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}