Edgar Euceda, 18, divided his time on election day between staffing curbside voting, checking voters in, and setting up the polling place at the Vietnamese Community Center in Alief. In a way, his 14-hour poll worker day was a celebration of his first year of voting.
According to Euceda, it was really exciting. I was anxious because, in addition to participating in the voting process, you also anticipate outcomes. I therefore checked the numbers whenever I could. It made me quite nervous.
This November, approximately 250,000 young people in Harris County will cast ballots, including Euceda. He is in the minority among voters under thirty.
Overall, 59 percent of Harris County’s registered voters cast ballots on election day. The turnout for Euceda’s age group, which consists of those aged 18 to 29, was only 44%, though.
Among Euceda’s age group, the majority of Harris County’s voting precincts had turnout rates below 50%. In the meantime, voter turnout was greater in the arrow and in places outside the county limits.
Through AliefVotes, a nonprofit organization run by young people in the area that encourages civic engagement, Euceda began his civic activism. At the age of sixteen, Euceda started going to its workshops and learning how to advocate for causes.
Among other things, he learned about Mi Familia en Acci n, a nonprofit and nonpartisan civic engagement group that assists Latinos in participating in the voting process, through his involvement in AliefVotes. He was compensated for his involvement efforts before to the election while serving as a youth ambassador for this organization this year.
Particularly in neighborhoods of minority with low voter turnout, groups like Alief Votes and Mi Familia en Acción have directed some or all of their efforts toward enlisting young people like Euceda as potential voters.
According to Dayana Iza, Texas state director of Mi Familia En Acción, formerly known as Mi Famila Vota, it has been demonstrated that students who become civically involved and vote early on go on to become lifelong voters.
They are likely to be the ones who are active and will eventually take on the role of organizers themselves.
In addition, Mi Familia En Acci n aims to dispel the myth that Latinos simply do not cast ballots by emphasizing the various obstacles that prevent them from doing so, such as a lack of awareness and comprehension of the democratic process.
According to a survey conducted this year by UnidosUS, a nonpartisan Latino civil rights and advocacy group, 49% of Latinos in Texas said they had never heard from any organization, political party, or candidate.
Despite Mi Familia en Acci n’s emphasis on Latinos, Iza stated that letting young people interact with their peers results in a diverse youth organizing effort.
“This occurs quite naturally,” Iza added. We happen to organize in a wide range of fields. Our kids come from a variety of backgrounds, so it’s not just Latinos who are enrolled in our programs; everyone is fighting the same battle.
The makeup of young voters
According to a Pew Research Center survey, more than 36 million of the nation’s eligible voters were predicted to be Latinos in 2024. This amounts to around 15% of the eligible voting population in the United States, more than tripling from 7% in 2000.
The number of eligible voters in Harris County who are U.S. citizens and of voting age is growing more Latino and less white. In 2022, Latinos made up about one-third of the county’s eligible voters, up from a quarter ten years earlier, according to census figures.
White county residents still make up the majority of Harris County voters, although their percentage has dropped over the past ten years, from 45% in 2012 to 36% in 2022.
The increasing number of Latinos born in the United States whose families may not have previously been able to vote is largely responsible for these changes. Nearly half of Harris County’s Latino adults, according to the most current census statistics, were born in the United States, an increase of nearly 10 percentage points from 2010.
Daniel Potter, the director of the Kinder Institute’s Houston Population Research Center, described the low voter turnout among young people and Latinos as a regrettable situation given regional and national trends.
“Those two populations have a lot of power,” Potter added. It would demand a change in our lawmakers and continuous attention if you could inspire [them] to cast their ballots.
Euceda’s parents immigrated to the United States from Mexico and El Salvador, making her a first-generation Houstonian. Eventually, the family moved to Alief, a minority-majority neighborhood on Houston’s southwest side. According to City of Houston planning and development records, around 46% of Alief residents identify as Latino or Hispanic, 26% as Black, and 20% as Asian.
Euceda stated that his parents supported his passion for learning about lobbying and civic involvement, despite the fact that these subjects were not discussed on a daily basis. His younger siblings started learning from him as well.
Like most first-generation families, my parents’ primary concentration was on their jobs and supporting their families.According to Euceda, they don’t really consider the advocacy level or the individuals who are responsible for developing the solutions that impact them.
Tommy Wan, co-founder and program director AliefVotes, said this is common for many immigrant families, including his own. Raised in Alief by parents who immigrated to the United States from China, the 20-year-old assisted in founding the group to promote civic engagement while still a high school student in 2022.
According to Wan, we saw a deficiency in local youth civic engagement in the high schools. With over 93 different languages spoken and a majority minority, our town is varied, and the students here truly embody the city’s cultural currency.
According to Wan, voting is only one facet of civic engagement. Every year, the organization hosts a fall fellowship program where 25 Alief ISD high school students get mentorship from other students and alumni on how to become active. They participate in workshops and neighborhood gatherings before taking the lead in an initiative focused on a topic of their choosing.
Through seminars, events, and the fellowship program, the organization has reached over 2,500 Alief middle and high school kids, according to Wan. It also has about 5,000 students, educators and others who have signed up to receive information.
According to Wan, there is a rise in civic involvement. Discussions about what it means to be a community member are becoming more prevalent. I firmly think that if we can do it correctly in Alief, we can do it correctly across Houston and the state of Texas.
In reflection mode
On Election Day, 24-year-old Ryan Martinez also worked at a nearby polling place in Denver Harbor. The lifelong Denver Harbor resident left his home to attend Yale University and returned in 2023 with a degree in political science. He also returned with a renewed excitement to serve his neighborhood.
Shortly after graduating, hehelped launch Denver Harbor Cares, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that seeks to engage community residents, especially those identified as low-propensity voters. For the organization, Martinez analyzes data, helps come up with engagement strategies, works phone banks, block walks and more.
Martinez worries that the outcome of this presidential election and that exhaustion that some people expressed feeling post-election could damper the enthusiasm that has been building among young voters.
One interesting fact is that out of our 18-to-24 year olds who voted this year (in Denver Harbor), about 51 percent of them were first-time voters, Martinez said. So how do we make sure that this election results don t disillusion them to the point that they don t come back?
When asked what answers have come out of this question, Martinez said not many yet. After an intense year of organizing, he is taking a moment to gather his thoughts.
I think we are still in reflection mode, he said. Personally, my own thoughts have been looking at ways to have honest conversations about not just what the problems are, but what can we do locally, as citizens and community members about these problems.
Learning new ways to engage new generations of voters is a pressing challenge, Iza said. An obvious resource is through schools and colleges, but she fears that current programs leave some of these potential voters out of the loop.
A lot of our young voters are not going to third spaces. Outside of school and work, where do you find them? Iza said. We need to start getting creative with organizing our youth.
Weeks after the election Euceda admits he fell into some sort of post-election depression, and wanted to disassociate from politics for a while. But he didn t let himself fall too deep into that.
I feel like I was very excited, very motivated, very determined during this whole semester. And now I’m just questioning what comes next, Euceda said. But for us to get the outcome that we want, it isn t a one-day, a one-month or even a one-year of work So I think that I m still ready to continue.
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