Clinton looks to shore up support among younger Latinos in California

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Hillary Clinton meets with Californians at Los Angeles Mission College Culinary Arts Institute in Sylmar, Calif. on June 4. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post)

By Abby Phillip June 5 at 6:00 AM
Washington Post

OXNARD, Calif. — Most of Albert Magana’s friends are evenly split between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at his social-media feed.

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In a state like California, that trend is an acute problem for Clinton. The state’s 15 million Latinos are about a third of the Democratic electorate, and they are much more likely than any other minority group to be younger — prime targets for Sanders’s message. The median age for Latinos is 27, compared with 34 for blacks and 43 for whites, according to the Census bureau.

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“Immigration is at the center of this presidential campaign,” Clinton said at Mission College as she sat at a lunchroom table sandwiched between two undocumented DREAMers. “This is very personal to me.”

Quietly, she began weaving a story of how she grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, and through her church, volunteered to babysit the children of Latino migrant workers.

At the end of the day, a ramshackle bus carrying the workers would fly down a dirt road, and the children would run out to greet their parents.

“I remember so vividly watching that and thinking, they’re just like our family,” Clinton said. “I used to run and see my father when he came home from work. I know what that feels like.”

“I never forgot that,” Clinton added, wistfully.

Her campaign believes that the key to making inroads with Latino voters is in closing this information gap.

“It’s more just a matter of letting folks know her history,” said California Rep. Xavier Becerra, a Clinton supporter. “I remember going to speak at UCLA, and I mentioned she’s been doing this for the longest time; they couldn’t remember.”

Complete article at Wash Post