Latino groups are seeking to mobilize, register voters

LOS ANGELES — For years now, the metaphor that political strategists and commentators fall back on to describe the millions of Latino voters in the United States has been "the sleeping giant."

On Friday at the National Latino Congreso conference in downtown Los Angeles, no one uttered that phrase, except in attempts to debunk it.

"This is our moment," Angel Luevano, regional vice president of the League of United Latin American Citizens, said at the outset of the three-day conference. "We are no longer a sleeping giant."

That's the hope, anyway, among the hundreds of conference delegates.

Most represent Latino political and civic groups such as LULAC, the Mexican American Political Association and the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund.
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