

During the primary of the year 2000 Presidential Election, the major candidates focused their advertising and campaigning to attract the growing Latino vote. By the year 2025, the Latino population will be the largest minority in the United States. Significant for presidential candidates, most of the Latino growth is in States with high electoral votes. How this growing electorate will affect future state and national election is investigated and critically analyzed. The unit is divided into three objectives. Objective one includes graph information from the 1999 US Statistical Abstract that states on US Census Information. The activities allow students to analyze data relating to the growth of the Latino electorate, its potential effect on the Electoral College, and the factors affecting immigration growth. Objective two focuses on tactics and campaign strategy used to attract Latino vote. It describes the issues used by both major political party to attract their support and analyzes vote barriers faced by Latinos. Activities include political campaign analysis, review of propaganda techniques, polling the Latino voter, and developing a campaign strategy for a candidate’s trying to appeal to the Latino voter. Objective three addresses issues important to Latinos such as immigration laws, abortion, bilingual education, English-only initiative, etc. Activities include writing opinion papers, holding a Mock Congress to debate some of these issues, and researching the major candidate to find their opinion on these issues. This teaching unit is ideal for the 2000 Presidential Election or can be adapted to go with other elections. It is written so that the teacher may use the entire unit or only selected activities.