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Not all of the key players in the 2012 election were politicians. Here’s a list, that by no means is comprehensive, that gives us a look into the Latinos and Latinas that were instrumental in the 2012 election.

Latino volunteers – Those who basically made campaigning across the country possible, from registering voters to fundraising, phone banking, getting out the vote, and organizing for local and national candidates.
Latino voters – Accounting for 1 in 10 votes this cycle, Latino voters took to the polls to potently remind politicos across the spectrum that they cannot ignore this constituency when it comes to policy and campaigning.
Katherine Archuleta – The first Latina to ever hold the title National Political Director of any presidential campaign. Archuleta served as the National Political Director for Obama for America 2012. READ MORE

For the first time in thirty-five years a sitting U.S. President will step foot in Puerto Rico. President Barack Obama has accepted an invitation to visit Puerto Rico next month, a trip that would make him the first sitting president to come to the U.S. Commonwealth in decades, the island's governor said Tuesday.

The president, who campaigned in Puerto Rico for the Democratic primary, will visit the island June 14, Gov. Luis Fortuño said, without disclosing details of his itinerary.

"With his visit, the president makes good on the promise he made during the presidential primaries in 2008 that he would return to Puerto Rico as president," Fortuno said in a statement.

The governor's office described the Obama trip as the "the first official presidential visit" since December 1961, when President John F. Kennedy stopped on the island to a formal welcome on his way to Venezuela. But that was not the last time a U.S. president set foot in the territory: President Gerald Ford hosted an economic summit in Puerto Rico in June 1976.


Pedro Pierluisi, the island's nonvoting representative in Congress, said he expects Obama will discuss a recent White House report on the options for changing Puerto Rico's formal relationship to the U.S. mainland. The president may also visit projects that have benefited from the administration's stimulus spending to aid the economy.

Puerto Rico is home to nearly 4 million U.S. citizens but its residents cannot vote in the general presidential election, only in the primaries.

Andres W. López, a member of the Democratic National Committee from the island, said the president's visit may also help him with Puerto Ricans on the mainland, particularly in South Florida, which is home to some 725,000 people of Puerto Rican descent and an important battleground state in the 2012 election. READ MORE

A comprehensive look at voter behavior and demographics reveals a momentous prospect: A Hispanic electorate that votes en masse, allies itself with one political party and changes America’s political balance for decades.

The rapid growth in the U.S. Hispanic population over the last 40 years — both in terms of raw numbers and percentage of the population — is probably the most important emergent force in American politics today. The evidence is around us: In 2008, each party conducted an entire presidential primary debate in Spanish. In 2009, the first Hispanic judge, Sonia Sotomayor, was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court. And in 2010, for the first time ever in a single election, three Hispanic candidates won top statewide offices: Republican Brian Sandoval became Nevada’s first Hispanic governor; Republican Susana Martinez won in New Mexico to become the nation’s first Hispanic woman elected governor; and Republican Marco Rubio was elected to represent Florida in the U.S. Senate.

Despite these notable top-of-the-ticket wins by Hispanic Republicans in 2010, most political observers continue to assume there is significant and stable support for Democrats among Hispanics, similar to the support that African Americans have shown in recent decades. Indeed, new Hispanic voters have entered the electorate more often as Democrats than as Republicans in recent elections.

But the current degree of Hispanic attachment to the Democratic Party is by no means a future certainty. READ MORE

State's Latino population surges – political power, too

California's Latino population grew nearly three times as much as the state as a whole in the past decade, making it home to more than a quarter of the nation's Latinos, according to a new Census Bureau report.

While the Golden State's population grew by 10 percent in the past decade, the Latino growth was 27.6 percent, accounting for more than 90 percent of the state's population gain overall.

Latinos now are 37.6 percent of all Californians, up more than five percentage points since 2000, according to the census. READ MORE

When Fernando Molina left central Mexico to move to Illinois, he was searching for affordable housing, job opportunities and established Hispanic neighborhoods with grocery stores, bakeries and clothing shops.

He didn't head for Chicago, a well-known magnet for Mexicans pondering the journey north. Instead, he settled in Aurora, about 40 miles to the west.

"It's like Mexico inside the United States," said Molina, 37, a social worker who has lived in the U.S. for more than a decade and now assists other immigrant families. "You can find everything in the stores."

Over the last decade, tens of thousands of others have followed his path to Aurora — more than 35,000 of about 55,000 new residents between 2000 and 2010 were Hispanic. The city, which is now 40 percent Hispanic, has surpassed Rockford to become Illinois' second-largest city.

The trend of immigrants heading directly to American suburbs instead of starting in a major city intensified from 2000 to 2010 — and was one factor in Illinois' 32.5 percent increase in Hispanic population in that period, according to recently released U.S. Census data.

Demographers say they aren't just seeing it around Chicago. The same thing is happening around other major cities that have long been entry points for immigrants, such as New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Even as the steep growth of the Hispanic population in Chicago tapered off, the arrival of Hispanics helped make Kendall County west of Aurora the fastest growing county in the U.S. for several years during the decade.

For many Hispanics in northern Illinois, Aurora supplanted Chicago as a cultural hub, and the growth has transformed smaller and smaller towns. READ MORE

Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel proposed Tuesday reorganizing the Chicago City Council to reflect the city's diversity by incorporating Latinos into its principal committees.

Emanuel, who takes office next Monday, said in a communique that the changes are a result of meetings he held with the 50 members of the council.

He said the new leadership of the committees will reflect the diversity that exists in Chicago and will help implement the reforms needed for the city to progress.

The alderman of Puerto Rican origin Ray Suarez will have the post of vice-mayor and will remain chairman of the Housing Committee.

Mexican-born Ald. George Cardenas will preside over the Health and Environment Protection Committee, while Puerto Rican Roberto Maldonado is to be deputy chairman of the Human Relations Committee.

Mexican-American Ald. Daniel Solis, who was one of the most influential Latino councilors during the mandate of outgoing Mayor Richard M. Daley, will continue to head the Zoning Committee. READ MORE

While attending the Republican National Convention, I received several emails and messages asking why, as Hispanic, I am a Republican. This question puzzles me a bit, because there is some implied assumption that if you’re Hispanic, by default you are expected to be a Democrat.

However, it seems to me that because of the values in the Hispanic community, it would seem only logical that Hispanics should actually be more aligned with the Republican Party than they would with the Democratic Party. President Ronald Reagan would say, "Hispanics are Republicans, they just don’t realize it yet."

I am a Republican because I believe in conservative values and principles — values such as faith, family and country; principles such as fiscal discipline, limited government and personal responsibility.

I believe most Hispanics also believe in these values. Hispanics overwhelming support the right to life, traditional marriage and parents’ choice in education. They have the highest enlistment rate in the military among ethnic groups.

Hispanics also believe in the principles of hard work and self-sufficiency, not wanting a handout, but a hand up, hoping that their children can realize the American dream. For the most part, Hispanics are not waiting for government to do for them what they can do for themselves. Hispanic entrepreneurs are the fastest-growing segment of small business ownership.

Democrats talk about immigration as though it were the only, or the most important issue, for Hispanic families, when poll after poll shows that immigrations ranks consistently fifth or sixth in level importance behind such issues as jobs, the economy, education and health care. Hispanic issues are not much different than the issues that concern other Americans.

It was the Republican Reagan who brought about the last substantial immigration reform. It was also President George W. Bush and Sen. John McCain, both Republicans, who proposed the last major effort to address this issue.

President Obama talks a good talk and promised to submit an immigration bill in his first 90 days in office, yet it has been over 900 days and he has done nothing to address this issue, despite having two years of overwhelming Democratic majorities in the Congress. In his first three and a half years in office, he was responsible for more deportations than any other president. READ MORE

The self-described American patriot leaps into the ring amid blaring music and loud boos from an overwhelmingly Latino audience, who hold aloft signs in Spanish supporting his masked Mexican opponents.

"My name is RJ Brewer and I'm from Phoenix, Arizona," the wrestler proclaims, in a video of a recent match provided by the promoter. Taunts inside the arena get louder.

The wrestler proceeds to rail against Mexican beer and to demand that people speak English. Then he points to the message painted on the backside of his red trunks: "SB1070" — a reference to Arizona's controversial immigration law. The crowd, some wearing masks of their favorite Mexican wrestlers, shrieks even louder.

When his masked opponent in a red cape appears, the crowd erupts into cheers.

Lucha libre — or "free wrestling" in Spanish — is a brand of Mexican wrestling that dates to the 1930s. The sport came north to the United States along with Mexican immigrants, and over the years it has spawned clubs in U.S. cities with large Latino communities.

As promoters target growing Mexican immigrant and Mexican-American markets, they and their wrestlers' fictional personas have begun to adopt a more overtly political storyline revolving around immigration. It's akin to what U.S. wrestling promoters did in the 1980s and 1990s, when they took on race and the Cold War, but with one key twist — now the American is the bad guy.

"It's something that we've been building in our TV shows and we've gotten a lot of positive reaction to it," said Steve Ship, CEO of Lucha Libre USA, which this week is launching a "Masked Warriors" tour. "So we are bringing it right to our audience."

Arizona's immigration law requires all immigrants in the state to obtain or carry immigration registration papers and requires police, while enforcing other laws, to question people's immigration status if there is a reasonable suspicion they're in the country illegally. The law is being challenged by the federal government and has sparked protests by Latino advocates around the country. READ MORE

The Republicans are committing political suicide by catering to the xenophobic vote. Assuming that Latinos will vote for the candidate promising the most free taxpayer money shows how out-of-touch the mainstream media and a lot of American politicians from both parties are with voters in the Hispanic community.

If the Republicans would talk about social issues and economic issues and drop the endless ranting about immigration I would almost guarantee they'd receive 60+ percent of votes from Latinos. That said, those advising them apparently don't get it because the message remains more of the same, and those GOP candidates and office-holders who do attempt to be the voice of reason are lambasted by conservatives in the media for being too lax on immigration.

The Democrats appeal is that they don't care about the immigration issue and don't come across as xenophobic --- at least not on the surface. Not that I'm in the country illegally. I was born in America. My father and maternal grandfather were not, but both are now citizens.

I know I for one am not the least bit motivated by the idea that I might get some money that someone else earned. I wouldn't even take it if they tried to give it to me. If I cannot earn it, I do not deserve it.

All that said, I find the Democrats' contention that Latinos are somehow too stupid to get a driver's license or some other form of photo ID to be both racist and extremely offensive.

So how will I vote in the upcoming Presidential election and the congressional races slated for the ballot in November? I've not yet decided, and may or may not reveal the decision publicly when I do arrive at a conclusion.