New Haven Independent

Organized by Kica Matos (pictured enter in red), New Haven’s government’s Community Services Department administrator, and Fair Haven Alderman Joey Rodriguez (on the left), the group includes politicians, government officials, business leaders, community activists.

“When he worked on the streets of Chicago as a community organizer,” Rodriguez said, “Obama wasn’t just working on behalf of African-Americans; he was working for Hispanics as well. Likewise, when the culinary workers in Nevada supported him, they recognized qualities in Obama that we desperately need to unite the country

“Despite some of these national polls,” said Rodriguez, “that show Latinos have some kind of problem with an African-American candidate, we wanted to show how many prominent Latinos are for Obama. And that that’s the case here in Connecticut.”

Among those who attended the press conference held Saturday at Noche Mia, 229 Grand Ave., were its owner and Fair Haven entrepreneur Angelo Reyes; Paul Nunez, deputy chief of staff for Mayor John DeStefano; Sandra Trevino, head of Junta for Progressive Action; Rafael Ramos, of the Bregamos Theater Company and an officer with the Livable City Initiative; Seila Mosquera, director of Mutual Housing; and Adriana Areola, who works in youth services for the city; and Fair Haven Alderwoman Migdalia Castro.

Board of Aldermen leader Jorge Perez, also a member of the committee, was not in attendance.

In an inaugural flyer sponsored by the committee, and widely distributed Saturday from the Quinnipiac to the Mill, Obama was cited as fighting for the Latino community on issues near to its heart, including health care, immigration solutions, and education, including allowing undocumented students to pay lower in-state tuition.

A simultaneous press conference was held, Matos said, in Hartford. Among the non-New Haven members are city council and school board members from Hartford, Meriden, and Bridgeport. The non-profit leaders also include Lee Cruz of the Greater New Haven Community Foundation and Juan Figueroa, president of the Universal Health Care Foundation. (Note: Figueroa’s foundation grants money to the Online Journalism Project, which publishes the Independent.)

There was a surprising range of reasons offered by these Latino leaders to support Obama. Several gave brief, but very much from-the-heart, testimonies. For example, Julia Santos (on the left in photo), a community activist from Hamden, said, “I honestly feel that with Obama, Martin Luther King’s dream will be much closer to coming true. And so will the promise of the Constitution that ‘all men are created equal.’”

Seila Mosquera of Mutual Housing said that she came to this country and benefited from a good education. “It breaks my heart — and it’s the issue that matters most me — that kids of immigrants are being denied a college education. Obama can bring people together on this.”

Rafael Ramos, the father of seven children, said that not only is he a veteran himself but two of his kids had served tours in Iraq. “More clearly than the opposition,” he said, “Obama is against this war and will bring the troops home.”

But Adriana Areola (pictured on far right at the top), who was Mayor John DeStefano’s campaign manager last year, spent the morning organizing some 25 volunteers doing a “literature drop” of Obama materials on every door step in Fair Haven. She caught the sense of urgency in Fair Haven for which Obama’s message seems to resonate, at least among this group.

“It’s absolutely time,” she said, “to recapture the hope that brought my parents here from Mexico 30 years ago. We just can’t go on this way with ten million people living in the shadows due to the immigration mess. We’re sick of the broken health care system, of no affordable housing or college for so many people.”

As Latina, she said, she was also sick of people telling her she can’t support an African-American who is the best candidate to address these issues.

The Latinos for Obama Committee will continue, Matos said, to phone bank and to canvas and organize events after Tuesday’s primary. “We are going to be very vocal in our support of this candidate.”

In addition to the major canvassing of Fair Haven on Saturday, the group, working with Yale’s Obama supporters and others, Fernandez said, would be canvassing in the Hill on Sunday. On Monday they are organizing a bus up to Hartford for New Haveners interested in attending the rally, when the candidate arrives there at the civic center. Those interested in that and future activities of the committee can contact Alderman Joey Rodriguez: 691-7009.