People of Color

As we support partners in their campaign work, we consistently seek opportunities to organize across racial lines. For two years, the Task Force has worked with Asian Pacific Islander (API), Latino and African-American leaders in California to build a multiracial, multiethnic movement ready to talk with voters in every community about marriage equality and seek their support.

In June of 2006, we worked with leaders from BIENESTAR, the Latino Coalition for Justice – L.A., API Equality – L.A. and the Jordan Rustin Coalition to send 60 volunteers to talk with voters at the polls during the California primary election. Our multiracial team of volunteers spoke with voters in English, Spanish and Mandarin Chinese about the need for marriage equality, also carrying surveys in case the volunteer and voter had no shared languages.

One volunteer from BIENESTAR reported on a Spanish-language conversation in which she persuaded two people who were opposed to same-sex marriage to become supportive. They were an elderly heterosexual Latino couple who didn’t support the idea of same-sex marriage, but when asked, “Do you know anyone who is gay or lesbian?” they mentioned that their nephew and two of their grandchildren were gay.

After thinking about it further, the grandmother wanted her gay relatives to have all of the same rights that she had. The grandfather, however, was still indifferent. His wife then pinched him and said, “These are your grandchildren!” And then he changed his mind, too.