Louisville Hispanic community 'hungry for representation' with few candidates on ballot

Yarieli Cuevas has only lived in Louisville for five years, but the 25-year-old from Puerto Rico said she's picked up a trend – her community, she believes, is not represented by the city's current slate of elected officials.

Cuevas, who transferred to the University of Louisville after Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico in 2017, works as a communications specialist at La Casita Center, a local nonprofit that aims to provide a "foundation for systemic change with long-term effects" for the city's Hispanic community.

And in her eyes, a lack of elected officials with a Hispanic background means the people who make decisions that impact her and her community aren't in tune with the experience and struggles of many people they represent.

"If it's somebody that's making decisions that are going to affect me, I would prefer somebody that has maybe gone through an experience similar to the one I have gone through – that maybe has gone through the same obstacles like me, of the language (barrier), of being a minority, of being looked as less because they are Latina, that can bring that experience, that vision, at the moment of making those decisions," Cuevas said in Spanish in an interview with The Courier Journal.

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Election Day is around the corner and high-stakes seats and issues are on the ballot, including the race for Louisville's next mayor and the potential elimination of the right to an abortion in Kentucky. Representation, though, will also be on the minds of many voters from Louisville's Hispanic community – many who spoke with The Courier Journal said seeing more people that look like them in office is a priority.

Where Louisville's Hispanic population lives

The number of people that identify as Hispanic or Latino has grown in Louisville in recent years, but several in those communities say the number of candidates that look like or represent them has not.

Across Jefferson County, according to 2020 U.S. Census data, about 59,000 people identify as Hispanic or Latino, accounting for 7.5% of the city's population of about 783,000 residents. The number of residents has jumped by about 81% since 2010, according to the data, when just over 32,500 people of Hispanic or Latino ethnicity were reported to be living in the area.

Newburg is home to a large portion of that population, with 2020 Census data showing 25% of residents in the neighborhood identify as Hispanic. Between 2010 and 2020, The Courier Journal previously reported, 3,198 Latino residents moved into the subdivision.

Other neighborhoods with relatively high percentages of Hispanic residents include Fairdale (24%), Okolona (22%) and Watterson Park (20%). Every other neighborhood in Louisville, 103 in total, has a Hispanic population rate of 20% or less, including nine neighborhoods with population rates of just 2%.

Why aren't there many Hispanic Americans in office?

Louisville's Hispanic population has risen in recent years. So why hasn't the number of elected officials risen with it?

One key factor is sprawl. Louisville's Hispanic population has grown but it's spread throughout different parts of the city, which lessens its impact in hyper-local races like a neighborhood council elections. Areas like Newburg, Fairdale and Okolona have relatively higher amounts of Hispanic voters, but those are only a few communities out of more than 100 across Jefferson County.

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Irina Baptiste ran in the primary with hopes to represent an area with a high Latino population, but she fell short of her goal to make it on the November ballot.

Baptiste ran in the Republican primary for Metro Council to represent District 21, a South End district that's home to 14% of Louisville's total Hispanic population in neighborhoods like Beechmont, Iroquois, Southland Park and Southside. She lost, though, garnering 36% of the votes against her opponent, Stephen Dattilo.

Baptiste ran for a seat on Metro Council "because of the community, the people would like to really actually have representation. ... I think after 2020, really the community understand that somebody must be in the public arena to tell everybody else at least what the Hispanic people think about what's going on."

Other candidates with Hispanic backgrounds were on the ballot in the primary this year but fell short, including Darien Barrios, who lost his race against Stuart Ray for the Republican nomination Louisville's seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, and Philip Molestina, a local pastor who lost to Bill Dieruf in the Louisville mayoral Republican primary.

Other members of the Latino community have held political positions in the state, including Luis Fuentes, the publisher and editor of Louisville's "El Kentubano" publication, who was appointed to the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights Board of Commissioners in 2018 by former Gov. Matt Bevin and was later reappointed by Gov. Andy Beshear. His term wrapped up in October.

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And while many in the community are optimistic about the future, another factor that has kept more Hispanic residents out of office, candidates running this year said, has been a low number of Latino candidates on the ballot.

The Kentucky Secretary of State's office does not collect data on ethnicity from political candidates, according to communications director Michon Lindstron, which means the number of Hispanic candidates who have been on the ballot in previous years is unclear.

But Diana Duran, the founder of a local organization that strives to get more Hispanic people involved in politics, said she believes the lack of Latin Americans on the ballot can be attributed to personal priorities such as work (many members of the community work two jobs, she said) and taking care of their families. Her organization, "Nueva Fuerza," works to promote Hispanic involvement in Louisville politics, including efforts to get more candidates to run.

The candidates

After Baptiste, Barrios and Molestina lost in the primary, just two candidates remain on the ballots this month who come from Latin American backgrounds – Nathan Hernandez, who's running for a St. Matthews City Council seat, and Yvette De La Guardia, a candidate for district judge.

De La Guardia is not the first member of Louisville's Hispanic community to run for a seat on the bench, but tragedy has followed local Latin American judges and judicial candidates in recent years.

Local attorney Danny Alvarez won a judicial primary in May 2018 but died unexpectedly a day later, an incident that rocked the city and robbed the Latin American community of a chance at seeing a Hispanic district judge in Louisville for the first time in history. And Ellie Garcia Kerstetter, a Jefferson County family court judge who became the first Latina judge in Kentucky when she was sworn in in 2020, died in late September due to ALS.

De La Guardia is well aware of that history, and the impact it's had on the local Latin American population.

"I think, because of how close we've been in the last four or five years, and the tragedy that has followed, the community is just very much looking forward to seeing themselves in the judiciary," De La Guardia told The Courier Journal.

She was hesitant to enter the race for a number of reasons, she said, including a lack of people in her community who have done this before. But De La Guardia eventually decided to run after speaking with her supporters and "knowing that people believed in me."

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A 34-year-old attorney, De La Guardia is running against Lora Chisholm Holman for a nonpartisan position as a judge in the 30th Judicial District's Fourth Division. In her eight years as an active lawyer, she's defended kids in juvenile court as a juvenile public defense attorney and represented indigent people as an appellate attorney in the Kentucky Supreme Court and Kentucky Court of Appeals.

Hernandez, meanwhile, is one of 13 candidates running for a seat on St. Matthews City Council, in a home rule-class city that has a Hispanic population rate of 5%. He was surprised initially by the support he felt from the local Hispanic community, he said. But he soon learned why.

"Hispanic people in Louisville," Hernandez said, "are so hungry for representation."

Hernandez, the youngest candidate on the ballot at age 30, said he would be the first person of color elected to the council in St. Matthews. The son of a Mexican father and a self-described "Appalachian hillbilly at heart," Hernandez was born in Texas but moved to Greenup County in Eastern Kentucky at a young age. He ended up in the city at age 18, when he enrolled at the University of Louisville.

He's interned for former state Rep. Jim Wayne and U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth, two Democrats, but touted his platform as nonpartisan. His biggest goals in office, he said, would be to promote and support local businesses – he called St. Matthews the "retail hub of Louisville" – along with addressing racial equity issues and advocating for local employees and unions.

The 'new strength'

Hernandez said he feels responsible to represent the community and, win or lose, encourage other Latin Americans to run for office. He plans to use what he's learned from his campaign to help Hispanic candidates in the future.

Two candidates are running this year, but Hernandez said he hopes 10 make it on the ballot in 2024. He's optimistic, he said, because Louisville's Hispanic population is young and "aging into being politically active."

Duran, a 31-year-old woman from Peru, is working to encourage more members of the Louisville's Hispanic community to have a voice in politics, from getting on the ballot to simply learning how to vote, with her nonpartisan group Nueva Fuerza, which translates to "New Strength"

"I've always been passionate about the community and giving back and how we can elevate each other because there is definitely no representation of the Hispanic/Latinx community in like, the leadership roles, and in the spaces where people make decisions that impact the community," Duran said. "It's always been a passion of mine, kind of like fighting for that."

"Nueva Fuerza" started as a project for the New Leaders Council Kentucky, where she serves as a 2022 fellow. The team currently has three people, including her, but she has the support of other Latin Americans from different countries and backgrounds who give their opinions on the plans she has for the future of the organization.

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Duran does not want to run for office, though. She said that given the political history in her country, including a history of corruption by the people in power, she wants to exclude herself from any political position.

In the meantime, Cuevas is just one of many who hope to see more Hispanic representation in office. The La Casita Center employee said if people outside her community aren't ready to see that, then they need to get ready.

"Us Latinos are just as qualified as non-Latinos. ... We have been to the same schools, we have taken the same tests, the same bar exams, everything," Cuevas said. "So if they aren't ready, I think it's just their problem."

Reporter Bailey Loosemore contributed. Reach reporter Ana Rocío Álvarez Bríñez at abrinez@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Kentucky election: Louisville Hispanic community wants representation