This year's elections were a historic show of strength for the Latino community. As a friend of mine said, "we got on the electoral bus and took a front seat."

Indeed, across the United States, Latinos made their way to the polls in droves on Election Day and made history. A record of roughly 12 million Latinos turned out to vote and for the first time made up 10 percent of the electorate.

Latino voters made the difference in deciding the Presidential Election with nearly three-quarters voting to reelect President Obama and were specifically key to the outcome in several swing states including Florida, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Colorado and Nevada. We also helped elect a record 31 Latinos to Congress and 276 state legislators across 36 states.

None of this would have been possible without Latino and community-led voter registration and mobilization efforts in many states in 2012. For instance, the Federation registered over 20,000 new voters and made well over 100,000 calls and door knocks to get our community out to vote in key states throughout the eastern seaboard. HF's "Movimiento Hispano" collaboration with sister organizations LULAC and LCLAA also enabled us to expand our voice throughout the rest of the nation. According to a pre-election ImpreMedia-Latino Decisions Poll, as many as 1 in 7 Latinos nationwide were contacted by a community organization in recent months to register or vote. That is almost on par with the major political party efforts targeting Latino voters.

HF Launches ABLE Initiative
with 300k Award
from Walmart Foundation

On Monday, February 2, 2012, the Hispanic Federation (HF) announced the launch of its Adult Basic Literacy and Education (ABLE) Initiative with $300,000 from the Walmart Foundation.  ABLE provides grants to New York City-based HF member agencies that want to expand ESOL, Adult Basic Education, Pre-GED or GED classes.

Latinos, especially low-wage workers and new immigrants, have been devastated by the economic recession.  Lack of high school and college degrees, language barriers and difficulty accessing job training all contribute to this crisis.  Further, there is little availability of free or low-cost ABE, ESL and GED classes.

Hispanic Federation Stands for Freedom

On Tuesday, November 8th, HF President Lillian Rodriguez Lopez joined U.S. Congressman Charles Rangel, NAACP President Benjamin Todd Jealous, 1199SEIU President George Gresham and civil rights leader Rev. Al Sharpton to announce the "Stand for Freedom" voting rights campaign.

Stand for Freedom is a nationwide grassroots mobilization effort to prevent bills designed to suppress the vote from taking effect in more than 30 states across the nation. Many of these bills would seek to end early voting and require voters to obtain and present an official photo ID in order to cast a ballot.

Hispanic Federation Selected by Lumina Foundation to Lead Latino College Success Initiative

The Hispanic Federation is proud to announce that it has been selected by the prestigious Lumina Foundation to lead one of its 12 partnerships in 10 states focused on significantly improving Latino college success.  Under the project, Lumina will provide each partnership with $600,000 over four years to build, implement and sustain successful "place-based efforts" in key metropolitan areas.

For the New York partnership, the Federation will partner with the City University of New York (CUNY), Latino community-based agencies, select NYC public high schools, Citibank and other business and civic leaders to launch the CREAR Futuros project.  The project, which means "To create futures" in Spanish, will build a "community of care" for 1,000 Latino college students in which they are provided multiple supports, including dedicated Latino upper class mentors, college advisors, specialized tutoring support, and internship opportunities at Latino CBOs and corporations. Equally important, HF will develop a Latino College Success Coalition of key stakeholders in government, education, business and the non-profit sector to promote policies that improve the postsecondary attainment of Latino students. To find out more about this exciting project, please contact our Director of Education Initiatives, Jessica Guzman.