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Activating Justice Through a 21st Century Latinx Lens UCLA co-hosts a dialogue featuring leading Latinx voices with the goal of sparking a full transformation of the criminal legal system 

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By Kacey Bonner

What would our criminal legal system look like if it was truly designed to reduce harm, advance public safety and end America’s legacy as the world’s leading incarcerator?

That was the question on everyone’s mind as leading Latinx elected officials, advocates, academics and media personalities convened to grapple with the issue of criminal justice — a topic of intense national debate.

Hosted by the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Initiative (LPPI), LatinoJustice PRLDEF, the Drug Policy Alliance and the National Hispanic Caucus of State Legislators, the May 13-14 convening “Advancing Criminal Justice Reform Through a 21st Century Latinx Lens” had several goals: creating greater visibility of Latinos within the justice reform movement; identifying opportunities to build solidarity with other communities most impacted by the criminal legal system; and advancing transformative policy focused on justice rather than punishment.

“For too long, Latinos have been left out of the criminal justice conversation, even though we are the second most negatively impacted group by numbers behind Black people when it comes to our criminal legal systems,” said Sonja Diaz, founding director of the Latino Policy and Politics Initiative.

With conversations led by faculty experts such as UCLA Law Professor Jennifer Chacón, over 1,000 participants tuned in to hear from a multiracial cadre of 40 speakers covering topics including ending youth incarceration, defunding the police, and the intersection of the criminal legal and immigration systems – all through a Latinx lens.

Speakers including journalist Maria Hinojosa and author Julissa Arce led lively discussions about the opportunity to create more truthful and inclusive narratives in the criminal justice space and develop tailored solutions that address the underlying structural and systemic deficiencies that drive people to engage in harmful acts.

“It was so exciting to see this come together with so many brilliant people who were able to bring fresh perspective on the issue, the challenges and opportunities before us and how we can work in solidarity across race and experience to achieve common goals that make our communities safer and healthier,” said LPPI fellow Paula Nazario, one of the lead organizers of the convening. A UCLA graduate, Nazario is now pursuing her master of public policy at UCLA Luskin.

The event’s opening plenary session included Kelly Lytle-Hernández, a professor of history, African American studies and urban planning at UCLA. Lytle-Hernández gave attendees key insight into the impacts of the criminal legal system on Latinos, the structural racism propping up the system of incarceration and how the criminalization of immigrants is working to expand systems of mass incarceration.

Breakout sessions then enabled attendees to think about how they can demand better data that creates a clearer picture of the challenges and opportunities ahead and how Latino-facing organizations — both within and outside the justice reform space — can work together to create broad change.

Throughout the convening, conversation returned to the immense data and knowledge gap that obscures the true impact of the criminal legal system on Latinx individuals, families and communities. If this gap persists, there is a risk of creating solutions that fail to address challenges unique to Latinos who are systems-impacted and perpetuating inequities that exist in our current criminal legal system.

A conversation with Juan Cartagena, president and general counsel of Latino Justice PRLDEF, closed the two-day meeting. Cartagena said that, while the U.S. criminal legal system hasn’t changed much in the past five decades, it is on the precipice of big change — change made possible by communities that see an unprecedented opportunity to fundamentally transform systems of justice.

“We cannot lose sight of the fact that there have been amazing opportunities for organizing people around truth, and for having that truth talk to power,” Cartagena said.

“I think we’re stronger than ever to actually have conversations about dismantling systems, about what it means to invest in our communities in different ways and to think outside of every box at every corner so we can get things done.”

 

Latino USA’s Maria Hinojosa moderates the opening plenary session with podcast host David Luis “Suave” Gonzalez, author Julissa Arce, District Court Judge Natalia Cornelio and UCLA Professor Kelly Lytle-Hernández.

Jonathan Jayes-Greene of the Marguerite Casey Foundation moderates a “crimmigration” panel featuring Jacinta Gonzalez of Mijente, Abraham Paulos of Black Alliance for Just Immigration, UCLA Professor Jennifer M. Chacón and Greisa Martinez Rosas of United We Dream.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dominguez-Villegas on Possible Census Undercount of Latinos

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Rodrigo Dominguez-Villegas, director of research for the Latino Policy and Politics Initiative at UCLA Luskin, spoke to the Sacramento Bee about the possible undercount of Latinos in the 2020 Census. States with large Latino populations including Texas, Florida and Arizona did not gain congressional representation as predicted, raising concerns about the potential undercount of Latino residents. COVID-19 created new obstacles for census outreach, and Latino communities were disproportionately affected by the pandemic. “During the count, it was Latino communities that were having really high rates of infections and deaths, which also definitely impacted the way in which people view the priority of a census,” Dominguez-Villegas said. “When your community is dying, you don’t really care so much about participating in the census.” He noted that the Latino population in California grew by 1.5 million residents between 2010 and 2019. More information about the accuracy of the count in California will be available when further Census Bureau results are released.

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Diaz Highlights Power of Latino Voters

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Latino Policy and Politics Initiative Director Sonja Diaz spoke to ABC7 about the role Latino voters are expected to play in the upcoming recall election faced by Gov. Gavin Newsom. Voter turnout has been historically lower for special elections, but Latino voters have turned out in large numbers in recent elections. “Our research showed that more Latinos in California cast a ballot in the 2020 presidential election than ever before,” Diaz said. She explained that both Asian Americans and Latinos are youthful demographic groups with increasing numbers of eligible voters. “This recall is really about a referendum of how we reopen — how our elected leaders including at the top, the governor, is able to ensure that people are having access to things to keep them not only safe, but making sure the world’s fifth-largest economy can continue to thrive,” Diaz said. She added that grassroots and civic engagement this year will carry into future races.

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Domínguez-Villegas on Latino Voter Trends

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Rodrigo Domínguez-Villegas, research director of the Latino Policy and Politics Initiative, spoke to the Atlantic about Latino voter trends in the United States. In the 2020 election, incumbent President Donald Trump won a higher share of Latino votes than he did four years earlier. Domínguez-Villegas said he thinks Trump’s 2020 performance with Latinos was mostly a reversion to the mean after a low ebb in 2016. “It was going back to the historic numbers for the Republican Party,” he said. However, experts disagree about what to expect in the next election. “Latino voters still prefer the Democratic candidates by pretty large margins,” Domínguez-Villegas said. “In some places, [there were] smaller margins than 2016, but nothing out of the ordinary.” The 2020 election also challenged the common misconception that Latino voters are a monolith. “We slice white voters to tiny little slivers, and we don’t do the same with Latino voters,” he said.

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Report Highlights Pandemic’s Racial Disparities

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A San Diego Union-Tribune article cited a report by the UCLA Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy and Center for Neighborhood Knowledge (CNK) that highlighted the disproportionate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Latinos and other minorities in California. Latinos account for nearly half of the San Diego County residents infected by COVID-19 in the past year, but only 1 in 5 people vaccinated so far are Latino. CNK Director Paul Ong authored the report, which found that “Blacks and Latinos in California were more than twice as likely to have trouble making monthly rent payments than white people.” The report also pointed out that 23% of those who could not pay rent in the initial months of the pandemic were Black and 20% were Latino. “These systematic racial or ethno-racial disparities are the product of systemic inequality,” Ong wrote. “People of color, low-income individuals, and those with less education and skills are most at risk.”

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Diaz on Ensuring Equitable Distribution of COVID-19 Vaccines

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Director of the Latino Policy and Politics Initiative Sonja Diaz was featured in the Sacramento Bee, CNN and the San Francisco Chronicle discussing the importance of prioritizing Latino and other disadvantaged communities’ access to vaccines. Gov. Gavin Newsom has announced a new plan to ensure that COVID-19 vaccines reach California’s most disadvantaged communities by targeting neighborhoods in the bottom quartile of the “Healthy Places Index.” Diaz explained that minority communities have been hit the hardest by the pandemic and that California has a responsibility to get them help first and fast. “Communities of color are keeping the economy afloat, and prioritizing them is not only the right thing to do, but an economic imperative,” she said. “The state’s new approach is the right step to stop the bleeding and affirm that Californians of color are not collateral damage but the catalysts to recovery.”

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Dominguez-Villegas on Prioritizing Vaccination of Latinos

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Rodrigo Dominguez-Villegas, director of research at the Latino Policy and Politics Initiative (LPPI) at UCLA Luskin, was featured in a Univision video discussing a letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom about the importance of prioritizing the vaccination of Latino residents. Sent by LPPI and Latino leaders from across California, the letter is “a call to action for the governor, his administration and state leaders to increase the investment of resources and necessary information so that the vaccines get to Latino communities,” Dominguez-Villegas said. Despite making up the majority of the essential workforce and suffering a disproportionate number of COVID-19 cases and deaths in California, people of color are not receiving equitable access to vaccines, he said. “This is why we wrote the letter and called on Latino leaders to get the governor’s attention,” he explained, adding that the letter was signed by more than 60 leaders who are important in the Latino community.

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Diaz on Deep-Seated Disparities Exposed by COVID-19

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Sonja Diaz, executive director of the Latino Policy and Politics Initiative, was featured in a New York Times Magazine article about the disproportionate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Black and Latino communities in Los Angeles. The disease has killed Black residents at nearly twice the rate and Latinos at nearly three times the rate of white Angelenos. “This is a public policy conundrum and systems failure of a whole other level because of the economic and the public health consequences,” Diaz said. “Ultimately, we’ve failed to respond and to stop the bleeding because we’ve made decisions that either willfully or because of the lack of understanding have excluded the very populations that are critical to the state’s functioning and are also the ones that need our help the most.” She highlighted the importance of making investments now to address these disparities so that vulnerable communities are able to not only survive COVID-19 but also thrive in recovery.

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Dominguez-Villegas on Bill to Support Immigrants and the Economy

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Rodrigo Dominguez-Villegas, director of research at the Latino Policy & Politics Initiative at UCLA Luskin, spoke to Marketplace about new legislation aimed at overhauling the American immigration system. The U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021 would update family-based immigration and work visa programs, protect workers from exploitation, and provide a path to citizenship for some unauthorized immigrants now living and working in the country. Dominguez-Villegas weighed in on the impact of the “earned roadmap” to citizenship. “There is a 35% income gap between documented and undocumented immigrants,” he said. “So we refer to this as the undocumented wage penalty.” That penalty doesn’t just lead to hardship for individuals. It also translates into reduced spending and economic activity overall, he said. Supporters of this reform argue that bringing these workers fully into the legal workforce will boost wages for both them and their documented peers.

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Diaz Discusses Invisibility of Latino Voters

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Sonja Diaz, founding director of the Latino Policy and Politics Initiative, joined a conversation with KQED about the role of Latino voters in the 2020 elections. Diaz explained that the “invisibility of Latinos is not simply a political issue but goes across all parts of our institutions in society,” including media, entertainment, academia and philanthropy. She pointed to a general lack of understanding about Latinos as the source of this invisibility. According to Diaz, Latinos are often misconceived as having singular policy preferences, but polls show that they care about bread-and-butter issues such as jobs and health care. The Latino electorate showed up in force in 2020, said Diaz, whose research estimates that 16.6 million Latinos cast a ballot in a pandemic, despite misinformation and widespread voter suppression. These voters will be included in the system moving forward, getting mail and door knocks that will motivate them to show up and vote, she said.

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