Voces Unidas de las Montañas is Putting Data to Work for Latinas and Latinos in Colorado’s Central Mountain Communities This Election

All across the country it’s election season, and in Colorado’s high country one of our Mighty Partners is working hard to make sure the views and voices of Latinos in the community are heard where they previously haven’t been. Voces Unidas de las Montañas is the first Latino-created, Latino-led advocacy nonprofit in the central mountain region of Colorado, and as election day quickly approaches, the nonpartisan group is putting survey data to work to advocate for their communities’ values and priorities. 

In many of Colorado’s central mountain communities, Latinos make up upward of 20 to 30% of the population, according to the 2020 census, but many Latino voters feel disenfranchised, says Voces Unidas de las Montañas founder and current president and CEO Alex Sánchez. “Our data suggest that far too many Latinas and Latinos, especially in rural communities, have yet to be touched by any candidate, by any political system, by any organization,” says Sánchez. “And the cause and effect of that has huge implications to the policies that many of us care about.”

Sánchez’s advocacy work stems from personal experience. Having grown up in Jalisco, Mexico, and El Jebel, Colo., as an English language learner, he says he experienced firsthand how it feels to be treated by systems like a second-class citizen and resident. That’s what motivates his current work organizing in the communities he grew up in. 

Alex Sanchez, CEO and President, Voces Unidas de las Montanas

Photo Credit: Voces Unidas de las Montanas

“I never imagined I would come back to a small community in rural Colorado, because most of the Latinas and Latinos who had the same privilege of going to college and starting a profession would most likely find employment in the city, not in the small towns where we grew up,” he says. But winding up back in the Roaring Fork Valley to lead a different nonprofit was eye-opening and led him to start Voces Unidas de las Montañas.

“I think what I found after being out of the Valley for 20 years is that not many things had changed,” he says. “Latinas and Latinos are still not at decision-making tables. We are not reflected in elected office in our governments. We are not reflected on our school boards. We're not reflected in the wonderful people who are teaching our kids today in our schools, in the classrooms.”

Aiming to make Latino voices heard, Voces Unidas de las Montañas has released their second annual Colorado Latino Policy Agenda. Sampling 1,500 Latinas and Latinos across the state, Sánchez says it’s the “largest single poll ever in the history of Colorado, that we are aware of, of Latinas and Latinos.” 

Taken across party, age and region, the feedback reflected in the agenda is meant to inform community members, stakeholders and policy makers alike, and to engage in bold conversations about what’s working and what's not working. For example, many Latinos in Colorado struggle financially and rank the economy, inflation and the rising cost of living among their top policy concerns, as well as gun violence and abortion rights following the overturned ruling of Roe v. Wade by the U.S. Supreme Court. Latinos surveyed for the policy agenda were three times more likely to support protecting women’s reproductive health rights as a priority over limiting or banning abortion, with nearly two-thirds of survey respondents expressing their willingness to vote for pro-choice candidates in 2022.

“We, as an organization, work on the intersectionality of all policies and how they impact Latinas and Latinos,” Sánchez says. “So women's rights, reproductive rights, are issues that we, as an organization, and our leaders, care deeply about.” 

Environmental justice is another deeply held priority for Latinos in Colorado’s mountain communities. The policy agenda reports that nearly a third of surveyed Latinos do not trust the water quality in their own homes, and that number jumps to 40% for mobile-home residents. In a region facing escalating drought, equal access to clean, safe water is only going to become more vital for communities — from urban to rural and everywhere in between. 

Sánchez says he and Voces Unidas partners hope the experiences and perspectives represented in the policy agenda will inform elected officials and candidates during election season and beyond. And looking forward to the future in general, Sánchez is hopeful, inspired by the resilience of his community. The key, he says, is better engaging and including Latinas and Latinos in every single county in the state of Colorado and bringing them into a welcoming space so they can engage politically, participate in civics fully and exercise the right to vote. 

“If all of us get to participate in our democracy,” Sánchez says, “the future will be brighter.”