Fidel Estrada is a proud Latino who owns a dry cleaning store in East Austin. He voted early this election, and his desire to be heard lead him to the streets last spring, where he joined thousands rallying and protesting proposed immigration laws.
Seven months later, Estrada doesn't understand why more Latinos aren't heading to the polls.
"Nobody is coming out to vote. Some people don't care," he said.
The San Antonio nonprofit Southwest Voter Registration Education Project aims to educate and register Latino voters across the county. Vice President Lydia Camarillo said she knew there wouldn't be an influx of voters following last spring's protests.
"In the sixties, when white voters and white activists were
organizing against the Vietnam War, people didn't expect for every one of those folks to go and register," she said.
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Latino vote
While Latinos united this spring for immigration protests, many say that kind of turnout won't be repeated at the polls.
 
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While Camarillo said the number of registered Latinos voters did go up from 2.5 million in 2002 to an estimated 2.7 million today, there's a reason why the influx some had hoped for didn't materialize.
"A third of us who were marching cannot vote because
we are under age. A third of us may not be eligible because we are not citizens, and a a third of us probably were already registered to vote," she said.
Camarillo said 1 million more Latinos are expected to participate nationally in the Nov. 7 midterm election, but she doesn't predict there will be as large of a Latino turnout in Texas like there was in 2002. That year, 819,000 Latinos cast their vote.
"We think about 810,000 out of 2.7 million Latino voters will
vote because the interest is just not there," Camarillo said.
Camarillo said one reason for the decline in interest is the fact there are no Latinos running for governor. In 2002, Democrat Tony Sanchez was on the ballot.
PODER (People Organized in Defense of Earth and her Resources) co-founder Susana Almanza said the lack of state interest is why her organization is focusing on informing the Latino community about local issues.
"We are actually going door to door and talking to all the Latino
people in the community and we are talking about the affordable
housing bond," she said.
Almanza said local Latinos get excited about politics when it affects them.
"It's really real to them. It's tangible. Sometimes, with the
statewide issues, they really haven't made those connections," Almanza said.
