Latinos are not just another interest group as Silvia Killingsworth insinuates in her essay “Hispandering to Univision”. However, because we now have more of a political voice—not huge, but more than in the past—this is enough to make many who are caught up in the white racial frame uncomfortable. Still, the Latino political voice is not what it should or could be.

Latinos comprise 16 percent of the population. Even more significantly, they comprise a growing segment of the voting population. However, looking at voting trends this is a good news/bad news story. The good news is that Latino voting is on the rise. In 2008, half of the eligible Latinos voted. So, while the numbers are growing they are still not living up to their potential. Latinos are less likely to register and vote at every age group than whites and of those that are registered they are less likely to go vote than whites.

According to an article in the New York Times, “More than 21 million Latinos will be eligible to vote this November, clustered in pockets from Colorado to Florida, as well as in less obvious states like Illinois, Iowa, North Carolina and Virginia. Yet just over 10 million of them are registered, and even fewer turn out to vote.”

Of Latinos that do vote, Latino Decisions finds that they are increasingly stating they will be voting Democratic, with 69 percent saying they will vote for President Obama and only 24 percent claiming they will vote for Romney in the 2012 elections.

According to Professors García Bedolla and Michelson the key to improving Latino voting rates and the voting rates of other people of color requires mobilizing and engaging new Latino voters directly. Their new book, Mobilizing Inclusion: Transforming the Electorate through Get-Out-the-Vote Campaigns argues that voting is not an “individual” act for Latinos and other ethnoracial groups. Rather it is a sociocultural interaction whereby new voters and low propensity voters of color need to be encouraged or invited to vote, even when they are registered. García Bedolla and Michelson empirically test this by working with nine non-profits in California. Their book describes 286 field experiments conducted during elections in 2006, 2007 and 2008. One of their key findings is that extra measures of outreach are essential to getting Latinos and other ethnoracial groups to become voters, which then has a ripple effect on their families and neighbors. García Bedolla and Michelson have discovered something critical about the political incorporation of Latinos and others people of color.

Perhaps when Latinos vote in numbers that are representative of our population then terms such as “Hispandering” will be seen as the ignorant and disrespectful racism that they are.