Empowering a growing minority
It’s a question on many observers’ minds in an election year: Will Latinos vote in large numbers? And why, historically, haven’t they? Davíd Carrasco, Neil L. Rudenstine Professor for the Study of Latin America, had an answer for a group of young Latinos gathered at Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) on Wednesday, and it had very little to do with numbers (say, the 50 percent voter registration rate among Hispanics) or political theories. Instead, his answer came from a phrase coined by poet Robert Duncan: “across great scars of wrong.” In this case, it was a metaphor not just for the long-embattled Mexican border but for generations of oppression and exclusion from mainstream American civic life. “We’ve got to face up to those great scars of wrong,” Carrasco practically yelled at his 41 charges. “Under great leadership and great courage, we can heal those scars.” The Latino Leadership Initiative (LLI), where Carrasco was holding forth,...