President John F. Kennedy was supposed to just stop by and wave hello.
Instead
a group of eager Latinos persuaded him to come inside and speak to a
packed room of Mexican-American civil rights activists. And then he
persuaded his wife, first lady Jacqueline Kennedy, to address the crowd
in Spanish.
It was Nov. 21, 1963. Hours later, the president was
dead, his assassination overshadowing the significance of a speech that
can be seen as the birth of the Latino vote, so instrumental in 2012 in
helping re-elect the first black president, Barack Obama.
To
historians, Kennedy's appearance at the Rice Ballroom in Houston was
likely the first time that a president officially acknowledged Latinos
as an important voting bloc.
Though there are no plaques marking
the historic occasion, the event is a touchstone for activists even if
the spot where Kennedy sat and heard a band play Mexican ballads and
where the crowd yelled "Viva Kennedy!" is now a refurbished ballroom in a
loft apartment complex that often plays host to weddings.
"That
evening ... that's where it began," said Ignacio Garcia, author of "Viva
Kennedy: Mexican Americans in Search of Camelot" and a history
professor at Brigham Young University. "But because very few people know
about the meeting, it's like it never happened."
The surprise
visit came after Mexican-Americans in Texas, New Mexico, California,
Arizona, Illinois and Indiana helped Kennedy win critical swing states
in 1960, thanks to an unprecedented voter registration drive in Latino
communities. Independent "Viva Kennedy!" clubs sprang up. Sen. Dennis
Chavez, D-N.M., and Texas legislator Henry B. Gonzalez of San Antonio, a
future congressman, began speaking in Hispanic neighborhoods across the
country and positioned themselves as the first recognizable national
Latino political figures.
Just as in 2012, Republicans in 1960 did
little to woo Latinos to support their presidential candidate, Richard
Nixon. Latinos also identified with Kennedy, who was Catholic and
Irish-American, a member of an ethnic group that had battled
discrimination similar to what Latinos faced in the segregated
Southwest.
On Election Day in 1960, Kennedy won 85 percent of the Mexican-American vote.
But
during Kennedy's first months in office, Latino leaders expressed
dismay that the president had failed to appoint Hispanics in his
administration. Chavez even openly criticized Kennedy for his lack of
appointments; other leaders embarked on a letter-writing campaign over
the slow movement on civil rights.
Sensing another close election
in 1964 and hoping to ease tensions, Kennedy visited Texas in November
1963. Advisers suggested that he at least pay a quick visit to
Mexican-American activists at a Houston gala sponsored by the League of
United Latin American Citizens, then the largest Latino civil rights
group in the country.
"The Secret Service told us that he may stop
by, but not to advertise it because it wasn't part of his official
schedule," said Alexander Arroyos, 76, who was an officer in LULAC at
the time. "We could spread it through word of mouth. No one believed
us."
Then Kennedy showed up.
The president was greeted at
the door by Macario Garcia, who was awarded the Medal of Honor for his
service during World War II. Inside the ballroom, Kennedy and the first
lady found an enthusiastic crowd of World War II veterans, civil rights
advocates and future elected officials.
Kennedy spoke briefly
about foreign policy in Latin America and the importance of LULAC. The
first lady told the crowd in Spanish that Texas had a deep history with
Latinos. The crowd responded with chants of "Viva Kennedy!" A band
played a ballad in Spanish as photographers took photos of the Kennedys
and Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson and his wife, Lady Bird Johnson.
Before
that moment, historians believe that no president had ever acknowledged
Latinos as a voting bloc, said Emilio Zamora, a historian at the
University of Texas at Austin.
President William Taft, who served
from 1909-1913, may have met with a tiny group of Latino activists in El
Paso, Texas, Zamora said. President Dwight D. Eisenhower likely shock
hands with some Mexican-American voters in a campaign visit to South
Texas in 1952. "But I think no president had ever publically thanked
Mexican-Americans in that manner," said Zamora.
Fifteen hours after the historic meeting, Kennedy was dead.
Band
members who had played for the president the night before wept as the
news unfolded. When Arroyos heard about the assassination, he told his
boss at an import company he was too upset to work. Arroyos rushed to
collect from friends as many photos as possible of Kennedy's visit at
the Rice Hotel as he could for a future edition of a LULAC newspaper.
On
Election Day 2012, analysts routinely spoke of Latinos finally
awakening as a "sleeping giant" by giving Obama around 70 percent of
their vote. But Ignacio Garcia said that assessment ignores how Latinos
have influenced presidential elections for more than 50 years.
In
1960, for example, their overwhelming backing helped put Texas and New
Mexico in Kennedy's column during the tight race against Nixon. The
Republican's campaign did not have a presence in Mexican-American
neighborhoods and did not have a Spanish language TV ad, unlike Kennedy,
who tapped the first lady for it. Kennedy also made promises to appoint
Mexican-Americans to his administration.
Johnson enjoyed support
from Hispanics who campaigned for him during his landslide victory in
1964, and Mexican-Americans came out strongly for Sen. Robert F.
Kennedy, D-N.Y., during the 1968 Democratic primary in California.
In
2000, then-Texas. Gov. George W. Bush, a Republican, was able to edge
Democrat Al Gore, thanks in party to receiving about 40 percent of the
Latino vote, according to various estimates.
"The Latino vote did not come of age the night Obama was re-elected," said Garcia. "It came of age Nov. 21, 1963."
The
reason the Latino vote is attracting attention in 2012 is that Latinos
are now the largest minority group in the U.S. and voter participating
rates are up, Garcia said.
Voter participation for eligible Latino
voters has gone from 3.7 million in 1988 to an estimated 12.5 million
in 2012, according to the Pew Hispanic Center. That number could to
double within two decades, the center said.
Arroyos said most of
the older activists shrug off the pronouncements that Hispanics are
finally influencing national elections even though his generation helped
give birth to the Latino vote. Still, he said even those who are still
alive and remember that Kennedy speech probably don't even know what
role they played that eventually led to the voting numbers in 2012.
"I didn't know that evening was so historic," said Arroyos. "I was just happy that he dropped by and just didn't say hi."
Associated Pres