Lorella Praeli, who was an activist in favor of immigrants, leads the Democratic candidate’s strategy to connect with the most thriving demographic group in the United States.
Lorella Praeli had a car accident at age 2 when she was in Peru. Doctors had to amputate her leg, which affected her walking. She tried unsuccessfully to get up. He father would not allow anyone to help her.
“When I fell down, he used to sing: ‘When I fall down, I get up, when I get up, I fall down again.’ It was a message with a deep thought: ‘You are going to fall down in real life. You will have to get up.’ He wanted me to believe that I could do it by myself, and that falling down is not the end of the world,” she said.
Praeli then got up, learned how to walk and emigrated to the United States, studied and became a prominent activist in favor of ‘dreamers’, the so-called illegal immigrants, who like her arrived in that country as minors.
She is now Hillary Clinton’s Latino Outreach Director. Based at Clinton's Brooklyn campaign office, Praeli supervises efforts to mobilize this segment of the population, whose votes were considered key in Barack Obama winning in 2008 and 2012.
Clinton needs the Latino votes to guarantee her victory in the caucuses and primaries, which will decide the Democratic nomination.
“Sometimes I pinch myself,” says Praeli, 27, at the campaign office. “You say to yourself: ‘I’m not supposed to be here.”
The Peruvian-born activist has married an American man; she is a legal resident now, but has no citizenship yet.
She has driven the Hispanic voter mobilization, but has never voted in such country. She hopes to do so in 2016 by the time she has become an American citizen.
She is not indifferent to illegal immigrants’ world. Her father remained in Peru, but her mother, Chela, resides in the United States illegally.
Clinton’s formula
This is Praeli’s work. Her plan involves, first, adapting Clinton’s program to Latino voters. She cites the example of educational policy. Clinton wants to support the access to university for people with children. Praeli explains that more than 30% of Latino women and 18% of men have children.
Second: the use of social networks is essential. "We are in contact with the Spanish-speaking community all the time, through Twitter, Facebook and text messages."
The third pillar of the campaign refers to traditional methods. “There is nothing more powerful than the door-to-door visits.”
The fourth has to do with Clinton’s personality. “Her first political experiences were those with Latinos in southern Texas,” Praeli says. Her connection with community comes from the past, she recalls. “In the end, voters want to know why they will vote for you. I might have two jobs, two or three children, a wife or a husband, I’m a student. Our job is to give voters a reason to stop doing whatever they are doing in life to vote for her.”
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Published: 11/25/2015