Latinos want to double their numbers in Illinois legislature
Chicago - Latino groups on Monday presented a proposal for a new map of legislative districts in Illinois that could more than double the presence of Hispanics in the state's General Assembly.
"If Illinois' 2 million-plus Latinos were proportionately represented, there would be 28 Latino-elected leaders in Springfield. There are just 12 such leaders today," Sylvia Puente, executive director of the Latino Policy Forum, said.
The policy forum is one of 49 organizations that make up the Illinois Latino Agenda coalition that wants to influence the current round of legislative redistricting based on the 2010 Census.
Currently, a great disparity exists in representation because Latinos are the second-largest racial and ethnic group in the state, Puente says.
Figures released by the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights show that Latinos make up 15.8 percent of the state's population but only hold 6.8 percent of the seats in the Assembly.
In the face of the marked growth in Illinois' Latino population over the past 10 years, the Assembly has until June 30 to approve the redistricting.
In any case, Puente said at a press conference, given the geographic dispersion of the Hispanic community, the coalition is proposing the creation of 20 new districts, 16 for the House and 4 for the Senate.
In 13 of the proposed new districts, the Latino population would be 50 percent, and in the rest it would be 65 percent.
Michael Rodriguez, the executive director of Enlace Chicago, also said that almost 40 percent of the residents in those potential districts are under 18.
On the local level, residents of Chicago's main Mexican neighborhood, Little Village, asked that that community be included as a single House district.
The 90,000-resident community is currently divided into two congressional districts, four state House and three state Senate districts and five municipal wards.
"With just a single representative, we would have a single voice and greater political power," Rodriguez said.
In addition to proposing the new legislative map, the coalition asked for "transparency and inclusion" in the process.
Artemio Arreola, the policy director for ICIRR, suggested that a "block by block" discussion be held to determine the impact the changes would have on the lives of local Latinos and other ethnic groups.
Immigrants of Asian origin, for example, don't hold a single seat in the state General Assembly, although they comprise 4.6 percent of the state's residents, but they would have the potential for eight seats under the Latino Agenda proposal.
An ICIRR study emphasizes the growing flow of Latinos to the Chicago suburbs, a population shift under way since 2000, and the demographic changes are affecting both Republican and Democratic districts.
Gonzalo Arroyo - the executive director for the organization Family Focus in Aurora, Illinois - said that the growth of the Latino population in the suburbs will force politicians and those who want to get elected for any public office "to pay attention to the issues that concern us."