ITEM PHOTO BY OWEN O’ROURKE
Dulce Gonzalez talks about her involvement in politics.
BY GABE MARTINEZ
LYNN — Millennial Latinos are becoming increasingly involved in politics in the U.S. and abroad.
Ruben Holguin of Lynn, a student at North Shore Community College, has already worked on one political campaign.
“I love politics,” he said. “Politics are my passion. The last campaign I was involved in was the Brian LaPierre campaign.”
Holguin, a Dominican immigrant, is part of a small number of Latinos who are politically involved within the city, despite its large Hispanic population.
The Hispanic population in the U.S. and Lynn continues to grow. Lynn’s Hispanic population was 18.4 percent, but grew to 32.12 percent in 2010, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Latinos, especially younger ones, feel dissatisfied with their elected officials.
Jaime Figueroa, a junior at Suffolk University, said many Latinos feel politicians don’t have their interests at heart.
“They only show up during election time,” he said. “They need to walk the walk instead of just talking the talk.”
He also said many politicians attend Latino events during election season, but vanish afterward. Figueroa believes many Latinos don’t vote because they feel underrepresented, and the most effective way to make a change is to become politically involved.
Figueroa also mentioned government corruption as another reason for the lack of political participation among Latinos.
Holguin, a member of the Dominican Republic’s Partido de la Liberación Dominicana party and the JPLD, the youth wing of the party, said many Latinos come from corrupt countries, which discourages them from becoming politically involved in the U.S.
One of his tasks is getting Dominicans in Lynn registered to vote for elections in the Dominican Republic, similar to an absentee ballot.
“I’m heavily involved in politics in the Dominican Republic,” Holguin said. “I am going door-to-door and canvassing just like I would for an American candidate.”
In the 2012 Dominican Republic elections, there were approximately 200,000 Dominican-Americans registered to vote.
With a significant amount of its voters residing in the U.S., it’s not uncommon for Dominican presidential candidates to make campaign stops in American cities with heavy Dominican populations, such as Lynn.
Dulce Gonzalez, a politically active Lynn Latino and an intern for Rep. Seth Moulton, has been politically active since she was 12.
“I think being involved in this city, and being able to see how there’s a lot of things that can change, has motivated me to be active,” she said.
Gonzalez said she aspires to be a voice of the voiceless.
Gabe Martinez can be reached at [email protected] follow him on Twitter @gemartinez92.