Word: velasquez
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...movement began to succeed in the early seventies, when the party scored a political victory in Crystal City, Texas. "I was the only one who could write worth a goddam, so I did fundraising," Velasquez recalls of his role in the campaign...
...success, as far as Velasquez was concerned, did the party in. It became unresponsive, radical, and too ambitious--"These guys thought they would have someone running for president"--and he left it soon after for another vehicle of Mexican-American political organization, the Voter Registration Board...
...took five years to get tax exemption" for the Voter Registration Board, Velasquez boasts proudly of his group's first successful battle. As he flips through piles of documents, he rattles off some other accomplishments: Since 1977, the organization has filed 50 gerrymandering suits and has yet to lose one; between 1976 and 1979, the number of elected Mexican-American officials in Texas increased more than one-fourth; during the same period, voter registration jumped...
...Velasquez' goal now is not numbers but results. California and Texas, both with substantial Mexican-American populations, control a substantial portion of the electoral votes for the presidency. Mexican-Americans in those states, Velasquez posits, have the potential to swing "the votes necessary to become president...
...Velasquez believes Mexican-Americans could exercise influence not only in domestic issues, but also in foreign policy questions, especially those involving Central America. "We are going to get involved with the making of public policy," he predicts, and then adds, firmly: "By the end of the decade...