01 April 2021
The League of United Latin American Citizens, the nation's oldest Latino civil rights group, isn't getting any younger — but the people it represents are,a reality that's quickly reshaping its focus.
Why it matters: LULAC's median membership age is 66 and its meetings still open with the Pledge of Allegiance and a prayer. But the median age of today's U.S. Latino population is 19.
- Many Latino Gen Z and Millennials are more likely than their parents and grandparents to identify with multiethnic coalitions fighting systemic racism.
- Latinos' political influence is growing. The U.S. Hispanic population, now 61 million, could nearly double in the next four decades.
- These factors are helping to drive the evolution of an organization that was founded in Texas in 1929 by Hispanic veterans of World War I, and whose early initiatives focused on court fights over desegregation, education, and minimum wage protections.
Driving the news: Today, Domingo Garcia, LULAC's national president since 2018, is speaking out against anti-Asian American violence, standing with the Black Lives Matter movement, and supporting Native American activists seeking the removal of public monuments to Spanish conquistadors.
- He's encouraging the creation of LGBTQIA councils and pushing his group to open student councils on community college campuses.
- LULAC also is active in opposing voter suppression proposals in Texas, Georgia, and Arizona.
- He's seeking to attract younger members as the group's Mexican-American Baby Boomer base ages.
What they're saying: "This is not your grandfather's civil rights organization anymore," Garcia tells Axios.
- "We have to make these changes to survive and continue to fight for our communities," he said. "The nation's changing. We have to, too."
- The organization reports about 132,000 members across 50 states and Puerto Rico and says it's grown by about 15,000 over the last 15 years.
Between the lines: LULAC's national board and its local councils across the U.S. are still led by Baby Boomers who kept the organization alive through membership declines in the 1980s.
- Women have gradually taken on more leadership in the organization, after some councils blocked women from being members as late as the 1990s.
- The organization has become increasingly outspoken on immigrant rights.
What we're watching: Can a modernizing LULAC expand its core beyond a base in Texas and the American Southwest base and attract more Puerto Rican and Central American leadership?
Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times
Section2Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.
Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.
The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.
- The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.
What the transcripts say:
- Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
- The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
- Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."
Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.