2009 didn't completely suck

For one, we won our election! Council Member Edward Gonzalez will be sitting at his seat in Council Chambers for a full term.

He is one of my dearest friends and one of the best persons you could ever meet. Working for him was pretty great. He is an awesome boss, and I am loyal to him come hell or high water.

I must confess that after that grueling campaign, I really did lose enthusiasm for elective politics. On the positive side, I can no longer say that I hate Republicans, because I don't. Edward's campaign taught me that we really must work together to win and to make Houston a better place to live for everyone. Two of his best friends in the world are Republicans and they put their whole hearts into getting Ed elected. In the process, one friend has begun laying the foundation for his own campaign, several years from now.

I'm still a Democrat. I still believe in the Democratic party. However, I realize that the Democratic party is severely lacking in engaging Hispanics in Texas and especially right here in Harris County. Sure, some of it is cultural. Latinos have a distrust for politics because they don't see how it directly affects their lives. It doesn't help that the national Democrats completely ignored Texas last year and showed complete disregard for Latino voters.

The Harris County Democratic Party Chair once observed out loud to me that there were no Latinos at his stupid nighttime brown bag event. It's usually the same old white liberals with no small children at home and no second jobs who are able to attend the boring shit at HCDP headquarters. "Didn't they get the email?" He wondered. For one, people are struggling to stay in their homes and feed their families. It's a bad economy and Latinos are taking a hit just like everyone else. Latinos are younger, have more kids and don't really see the value of hearing Gerry Birnberg talk for a hour about the topic of the month. If Latinos made it to HCDP, would you have someone there to address them in Spanish or talk about the issues that concern them? There is a huge disconnect that is very offensive.

I'm really sick of Democrats who blame Latinos for not voting in higher numbers in elections. How about doing some outreach, and I don't mean hiring a token employee to placate a few elected officials. How about admitting that the future of this state, the future of THIS COUNTRY is a brown face whose surname will likely end in a "z" or a vowel?

White liberals are enjoying their day in the sun right now, as they should. They should know that it will not last if they don't stop ignoring Latinos. There are simply not enough white liberals to carry the Democratic party to continuing victories. Wake up.