Milagros in Forgotten Places

Last story before E-Day!

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Mural in West Liberty, bilingual and beautiful like its residents.

As forsaken as Iowa feels by the Harris/Walz campaign, our state house district feels the same by the Christina Bohannon campaign, the Democratic congressional race. Her multi-million-dollar operation driven by the DCCC pulled out of here over a month ago to focus on larger cities. It wouldn’t have hurt so much if it hadn’t been so disingenuous and the last in a long a series of insults to local activists.

As organizers we get it, that’s where the sure votes are, but since rural Iowans are the only voters our state rep candidate has, we need to earn every one of them. (If we win this longshot of ours, I’ll have plenty to say about a Democratic Party that is still scratching its proverbial head at the loss of rural America to Republicans.)

So, after weeks of tracking down farmers in barns and chatting up seniors at firehouse breakfasts, we turned our attention to working a miracle in the City of West Liberty, population 3,500. It was time for some grassroots organizing. Like farming, that meant getting down in the dirt and the weeds to see what we could grow.

West Liberty Public Schools graduated its first entirely bilingual class in Iowa not so long ago, an endeavor they had embarked upon 20 years earlier. They’ve managed to limit White Flight during an influx of Mexican immigrants attracted to jobs in the poultry plant. And West Liberty, now nearly 60 percent Latino, has one the best public safety records in the state, defying all racist assumptions to the contrary.

In other words, the people of this town are no strangers to miracles, “milagros” as they say in Spanish. They also know most miracles involve a huge dose of hard work with a dash of prayer, not the other way around.  

Yet as black-haired-Mexican as West Liberty is becoming, it’s treated as the red-headed stepchild of the region. Based in Iowa’s Southeast quadrant, it’s far enough from the urban core of the City of Muscatine (population 23,000) that few institutions in recent history have paid it much attention.

Yet West Liberty is overwhelmingly Democrat. Who were we to look a gift caballo in the mouth?

First, we took some time to learn about the sociopolitical landscape - which leaders held sway, which weren’t getting along with each other and what role ethnic background, gender, the interfaith council, the local chamber and the turkey processing plant played.

Then we invested time and effort in the community.

• We set up and staffed a double-wide tent at the town’s biggest festival. All day long we bought and ate too much Mexican food, handed out loads of candy and cookies and pasted on lots of tattoos.

• We walked downtown on a business day so Phil could meet business owners and buy their stuff, which he always does. Phil doesn’t know Spanish, but that doesn’t get in the way of a smile, a handshake and body language full of sincerity and kindness.

• Local residents - with the campaign’s help - ran petitions to get early onsite voting on a Sunday at a place with childcare. (This is how voting goes in other countries. They don’t try to squeeze it into a workday, a commute, school activities and childcare like we do.)

A few days before the designated Sunday, we gathered volunteers and asked for feedback on the plan for the day. We oriented them about what to expect. Some took cards to distribute at early Sunday services. Local leaders saw the gaps in the group and got on the phone to more people.

That Sunday, nearly 40 volunteers came together to mobilize residents throughout six hours of voting. Some spoke Spanish, others didn’t. Some had mobility issues, others had technology challenges. A good-sized group helped all day and others jumped in for a couple of hours. Young people were mentored by veteran organizers or the candidate himself.  

Everyone at church got a card in English and Spanish in church and again at the exits with voting information and a number to call for a ride. Nearly every resident stopping into the supermarket, eating Sunday dinner out or picking up something at the Dollar Store received these cards along with a smile and a request to vote.

Teams of volunteers went door-to-door in low-voting neighborhoods. Two sat in the polling station and texted us about the challenges of the auditor staff, the latest vote count and the long lines they could see out the conference room door. Another moved chairs into the line for older folks and handed out donuts once that line spilled onto the sidewalk to keep voters in line. Some texted voters one at a time all day until their phones died. Two dodged cars at a 4-way stop downtown to get cards to workers driving home from the turkey plant.

The mood was celebratory. People waved their cards from their cars or pointed proudly to their “I Voted” sticker on their chest to save volunteers the trouble of approaching them.

I’ve worked elections in small cities, college towns, suburbs and Chicago. I learned something from each one and tried to implement those lessons with this team. There were times I was tempted to measure our success against a place like Chicago or even Iowa City.

But when that abuelita (little grandmother) with a big gap in her smile rolled down her passenger window of that old sedan, my worries disappeared.

“I voted!” she said in a heavy accent, smiling as she pointed to her sticker. “You gave me pastry! Yes? I remember you! Remember me?”

“Yes! Of course!” I said laughing and backing up to let their car pass safely. I had handed her a Mexican pastry in line. I suddenly felt like I’d made a new friend.

The best, most gratifying organizing is a lot like farming. Long after the planting, tending, guessing and hoping are over, what remains is the harvest. In this case, the entire season had lasted just a few weeks.

The highest turnout West Liberty had every seen for early voting was 59. That day, it was 293.

Quite a haul from such a long-neglected field, but we’ve left the soil healthier than it was. It’s bound to grow more next time around.

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Note to Readers:

The stakes are greater than they’ve ever been. If Harris doesn’t win, democracy as we know it is over. Trump has said it himself, many times. Believe him! No matter your party loyalties, please do not put our country in the hands of Donald Trump a second time. Thank you.

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Photos from the Campaign Trail (because I haven’t been on the land in a month!)