One Arizona
Template:TOCnestleft One Arizona was formed in 2010 as a direct response to the growing disenfranchisement of voters and to the attack on the Latino community in the form of SB1070. Over the past years, One Arizona has worked under a successful collaborative format on civic engagement efforts in statewide, gubernatorial, and municipality-based election seasons. The table members represent a broad tapestry of 501c3s focused on voter registration, voter engagement, voter mobilization, election protection, and issue advocacy.
The boom in the Latino population, combined with concerted and wide-ranging efforts to increase Latino voter registration and participation, have begun to shape the results of the local, state and national elections.[1]
People
Staff
- Ian Danley, Executive Director.
- Montserrat Arredondo, Executive Director.
- Pita J. Samayoa Director of Media and Communications at One Arizona.
- Yolanda A. Medina Olague is GQ coordinator of One Arizona.
Activists
Allies
One Arizona allies circa 2016.
Changing demographics
Arizona’s Latino population trebled from 1990 to 2015 from 700,000 to about 2.2 million. Thirty-one percent of Maricopa County residents are now Latino, according to the U.S. Census. But because the population is so new to the state (and in many cases, unable to vote), political representation has lagged. In terms of Latino political participation, Arizona is “in a place California was in the 1980s,” says Montserrat Arredondo, who runs One Arizona, a Phoenix nonprofit that works to register Latino voters. Her goal is for “political representation to reflect the local population,” she says.”[2]
Voter registration
Montserrat Arredondo of One Arizona says her organization’s goal is to register 200,000 voters before Oct. 9, which is the deadline if you want to vote in the November elections. (One Arizona is nominally nonpartisan, but plainly politically liberal.) To reach that lofty target, her groups sets up shop at “the local grocery store, the park, Target.” In recent years, they’ve gone beyond the traditional set-up-a-booth approach, too: They’ve implemented techniques like text messaging to encourage Latinos to vote.
Arredondo says One Arizona gained “a lot of energy” after Donald Trump’s election, but that obstacles remain, particularly in getting middle-aged and older Latinos engaged. They recall the 2006 ballot measure, she says, which overwhelmingly passed, that made English the official language of the state. After that the older group became “turned off” to politics, according to Arredondo. The other big problem is simply taking the time. People tend to view voting as akin to “going to the DMV,” she says.[3]
CAIR ally
One Arizona is an ally of CAIR - Arizona.