November – December 2024 / Noviembre – Diciembre 2024
Letter from the Executive Director
It was chilly on Election Day 2024, and voters in Chaparral were spending up to three hours outdoors waiting to vote. Part of this was because the same-day voter registration process experienced snags around the state – but part of it is deliberate.
Chaparral is an isolated community, split by a county line, and closer to El Paso than to Las Cruces and Alamogordo, their county seats. It also has historically low-voter turnout. One reason is that it has a large immigrant population, but it also has nominal early voting on the Otero County side. Doña Ana County’s early voting location in Chaparral was open Tuesday to Saturday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. On the Otero side, it was just Thursday to Saturday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Those are inconvenient hours for working people in Chaparral, most who have to commute. If you lived in Alamogordo, you could drive over to the fairgrounds in town and vote from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. Chaparral shouldn’t feel singled out. The voter center serving the Mescalero Apache Reservation was open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Friday. I wonder what the difference is between Alamogordo voters and the voters from Chaparral and Mescalero.
When you force people to spend hours in line, to skip dinner, to wait outdoors in the cold and dark or allow disinformation that voting ends at 7 p.m. even if you were in line before then – you are engaging in voter suppression. This situation could have been foreseen by the Otero County clerk — and it was foreseen — by our community organizer in Chaparral, Maty Gonzalez. NM CAFe sent out canvassers and our civic engagement lead, Ytzel Cano, to monitor the polls. Ytzel talked to the presiding judge when people who had been waiting for hours to register in Doña Ana only to be told when they got to the front of the line, that they actually needed to register in their home county of Otero and made sure they could go to the other polling location and register. Our team called the Secretary of State’s office to alert them to the registration issues. Maty and Ytzel made sure that people in line knew that as long as they were there before 7 p.m., they would be allowed to vote – if you’re in line, stay in line. They even bought snacks and water to the people waiting to cast their vote.
The true champions were the dedicated voters in Chaparral who stuck it out – some folks did go home in frustration. But I have to give a shout out to Maty and Ytzel and our command team in the Las Cruces office for helping make sure people had the chance to have their voices heard at the ballot box. This situation points to the work we still need to do in New Mexico to make sure every citizen can exercise their constitutional right to vote.
It’s going to be a tough few years ahead to protect our communities and to fight for justice, and it’s hard to know where our efforts are going to be best spent. But we’re looking to our communities and our leaders to guide us. While our efforts in Chaparral were a highlight, we also fielded a canvassing operation that took an issue-based lens to getting out the vote. Canvassers knocked 12,530 doors in Dona Ana and Otero counties. Canvassers attempted to reach 18,387 voters, and had 2,977 conversations. Of the people we contacted, 1,863 people voted for an astounding 62.5% percent voting rate.
Rising Youth Organizing Work
Karla and her leaders are dedicated to strengthening community ties by offering vital organizing and Know Your Rights trainings in collaboration with partner organizations. She is also spearheading the creation of a Diversity Coalition for student leaders of diversity programs at NMSU, aiming to amplify and create connections among diverse voices on campus.
Recently, Karla led a transformative Power Mapping training with students from New America School (NAS), equipping them with the tools to advocate for change in their communities. Looking ahead, she is thrilled to offer mentorship and real-world experience to interns from NAS next semester, furthering her work in developing the next generation of leaders.
Victoria continues to focus her efforts with the youth mental health core team and is working closely with leaders to determine the best way to advocate for more accessible and affordable mental health care resources.
In fact, she is working towards re-establishing a partnership with the Our Lady of Health Catholic Church. Victoria will also attend a Kinder-Career Coalition Quarterly Meeting in December to learn more about the coalition’s ongoing efforts to bring parents, students, nonprofits, and educators together to improve education in the county.
Chaparral Organizing Work
Maty is organizing in her community of Chaparral with young people and working to analyze the problems affecting them. We find ourselves in a time of challenges and, often, where social and economic barriers seem to make access to equitable education and growth opportunities impossible.
By bringing information forums and presentations by local organizations to the community of Chaparral, it gives young people the opportunity to learn about available resources and learn from those who, like us, are working for a more inclusive and fair future.
The adults in our community will have the opportunity to be a source of inspiration for new generations, showing that working together transforms lives. Every small effort has a significant impact, and the support we provide to our community is a step towards real change.
Maty is available to discuss further how we can work together for a more united and supportive community in Chaparral, NM.
Congregation Work
Our community organizer in Las Cruces, Ellice has been primarily working to organize congregations in Southern New Mexico with faith leaders who can use their power to foster changes in the Las Cruces community.
Meeting with clergy and lay leaders has been a rewarding experience, specifically hearing how faith directly impacts their view of the world and social justice. Currently, Ellice is assisting in building a group that will work around issues involving gun violence and gun reform in Southern New Mexico and the state.
Working for a change in gun reform is, for them, an outward expression of love for their community through their faith.
Donate & Support NM CAFe’s Work
Our team at NM Comunidades en Accion y de Fe is thankful for you and the people of southern New Mexico who continue to support our work for a better city, state and world in which ALL people and the communities in which they live in have full access to all the rights and resources for freedom and justice.
Local and sustainable donations, like yours, provide our organizers with the freedom and flexibility necessary to best serve our communities. We are grateful for your donation and your continued support.
DONATE HERE: https://organizenm.org/invest/
