This November, Santa Ana voters will get to decide whether to make our elections fairer by giving its noncitizen neighbors voting rights in the city’s elections. If Santa Ana’s Measure DD passes, immigrants like me who live, raise families, work, and pay taxes in Santa Ana would have a say in who represents us at City Hall.
I was only 14 years old when I first arrived in the United States. My mother was already living in Santa Ana when I joined her. We hadn’t seen each other since I was 4. Starting a new life in California as a teenager was a major shift and a learning experience for me as I got to know my new neighbors.
I attended Los Amigos High School, where I was initially placed in an English language class. Half of the class was Mexican, the other half Vietnamese. I grew to appreciate our cultural diversity and became more involved in school and in the community. I joined a club to promote college readiness. I played volleyball. I got involved at a local community center. Over time, I was proud to call myself a part of the Santa Ana community.
Santa Ana has been my home for many years. I work and pay taxes. I’ve been involved in civic engagement and youth mentorship programs. I lead a nonprofit organization as its executive director. I recently got married, and my wife and I are building our life together in Santa Ana.
Despite my deep commitment to the Santa Ana community, I don’t have a say in who represents me at City Hall simply because I do not have U.S. citizenship. I have been told that my needs do not matter to elected officials, because I cannot vote. The political exclusion of Santa Ana residents like me, who make up a quarter of the city’s population, is unfair and undemocratic.
Our country was founded on the principle of no taxation without representation, or in other words, no decisions about us, without us. Those who contribute to the community deserve a voice in electoral politics. I’m one of the many Santa Ana noncitizen residents who pay a combined total of over $117 million in state and local taxes annually. If Santa Ana was truly a democratic city that aspires to live up to its American ideals, noncitizens would be included in the political process and given the right to cast a ballot in local elections.
For much of American history, noncitizens could vote and even hold office. In fact, noncitizen voting was viewed as a pathway to citizenship, that is, to primarily encourage immigration and settlement in the United States. Santa Ana’s Measure DD is about the restoration of voting rights to noncitizens, who were disenfranchised by exclusionary, racist laws in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
In recent years, it’s become extremely clear that we must strengthen democratic accountability in Santa Ana to preserve the strides we’ve made. One important way to do that is to enfranchise voting-age noncitizens like me, because we make up about a third of the city’s adult residents. When all Santa Ana residents are given the opportunity to vote, we ensure that our representatives at City Hall are transparent and responsive to everyone’s needs.
As the California Court of Appeals ruled last year, it is constitutional in California for charter cities like Santa Ana to expand who can vote in local elections. Measure DD is an opportunity for us to allow residents like me our rightful access to the local ballot box so that we can be part of the American democratic process.
Carlos Perea is the founding Executive Director of the Harbor Institute for Immigrant and Economic Justice. Harbor Institute is one of co-founder of Santa Ana Families for Fair Elections (not to be confused with Santa Ana Families for Fair Elections – Yes on DD Ballot Committee), a multiracial coalition of residents and community organizations.
