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Chapter 1: Rose Petals
Clip: Season 2024 Episode 4 | 5m 42sVideo has Closed Captions
Meet the new generation behind the largest Latino voter registration mobilization in Texas history.
Young Latinos arrive at the Texas State Capitol with a quarter of a million rose petals that symbolize the number of Latinos who turn 18 each year in Texas and are eligible to vote. This new generation of Latino community organizers use the power of art, music and culture to inspire and tell their Texas story.
![VOCES](https://image.pbs.org/contentchannels/qDMQm13-white-logo-41-8EViXw0.png?format=webp&resize=200x)
Chapter 1: Rose Petals
Clip: Season 2024 Episode 4 | 5m 42sVideo has Closed Captions
Young Latinos arrive at the Texas State Capitol with a quarter of a million rose petals that symbolize the number of Latinos who turn 18 each year in Texas and are eligible to vote. This new generation of Latino community organizers use the power of art, music and culture to inspire and tell their Texas story.
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The Lone Star state has seen explosive growth, over 30 million called Texas home, but Texas is changing today.
It is one of the most diverse states in the nation.
Leading this demographic change are Latinos who are now the majority population in Texas.
- Young people of color are registering, mobilizing, and turning out like never before.
- On the eve of the upcoming presidential election, will this new generation of Latinos finally reveal their growing power that neither political party can ignore?
- We're out here today in a celebration of worker power, of community - Power.
This is a story about Latinos taking matters into their own hands.
Determined to have their voices heard.
In Texas, a quarter of a million people of color turn 18 each year.
Today, these community organizers will use rose petals to symbolize the number of Latinos who turn 18 each year.
Their plan to show state legislators the growing power of the Latino vote.
- If the Capitol police do start to get aggressive or ask you to stop, just listen to what they're asking you to do.
Don't try to resist.
So we wanna show the power and beauty of young people of color.
So thank you all for being here.
So early, woo.
- This past year we saw Texas break all voter turnout records and rather than celebrating and asking what we did right, lawmakers are making it more difficult in every phase of the voting cycle to have people's voice heard.
- Alright, y'all ready?
Ready go.
- It was a symbol and a message to the young people of this state and to the Texas legislators that if they wanna claim to the past, they can have it with the future.
It's gonna belong to all of those young people that are determined and have power to see a different kind of government.
In this state, - They call themselves jolt.
They're part of a network of progressive volunteer community organizers across the state working to mobilize and encourage young Latinos to get involved in getting out the vote.
- At Jolt, we believe that our power comes from standing together as one Latino community, that there is no one way to be Latino or Latina.
So our members are dreamers, they're kids of immigrants, they're halfies like me, fifth generation Texans, anos, Mexicanos, and everything in between.
When I came to Austin after finding housing in a place to work, the first thing I did was look for places where I could organize with the Latino community.
I started looking for places to volunteer and I found Workers Defense Project.
We were not afraid to protest.
When do we want it up?
And so when I found organizing where you can bring people together to change their own circumstances, to change how those in power react to them and what they can win and how it changes their lives, it became like oxygen to me.
- Among the early organizers is Greg Casad, who eventually served on the Austin City Council and today is one of the youngest members of the US Congress from - Texas.
I just like all sorts of other young people, wanted to match my passion with my skills and found out that I thought was better at labor organizing than I was at being a teacher or doing something else.
And so I signed up to help and give time at Workers' Defense and we'll not stand out until we get our goal, which is to have our rights.
A lot of organizations, a lot of people would've said all of the younger new people take our lead, do it the way we want to do it.
But instead they told a lot of the young organizers, go ahead.
You make this whatever it is that you think you should make it.
And I think when you entrust young people and entrust the community and trust immigrant workers and trust the Latino community, other people to to own the movement, then you give so much more to it.
Video has Closed Captions
The Texas Mexico border runs over one thousand miles and it has been a political issue for decades. (5m 15s)
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