MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
You never know who you'll run into on the sidewalk in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
MATT TUERK: (Speaking Spanish) Allentown in Pennsylvania.
MARTIN: That's the mayor, Matt Tuerk. He was rolling by on his bike on his way to one more campaign rally in the closing days of this election season.
TUERK: I'm the first Latino mayor of a majority-Latino city. I've been mayor for 2 1/2 years.
MARTIN: What brought you to Allentown?
TUERK: My grandparents were still living here, my abuela, mi mimi.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ALLENTOWN")
BILLY JOEL: (Singing) Well, we're living here in Allentown, and they're closing all the factories down.
TUERK: The Billy Joel song - it's a great song, I guess, but it's so wrong. It was written in 1982 about a different era. And since that time, Allentown has completely changed.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Do you want coffee, or do you want...
MARTIN: We find out just how much has changed when we step inside a cozy Mexican restaurant owned by Greenberg Lemus - who's from Honduras, by the way.
GREENBERG LEMUS: Welcome, welcome. Thank you very much for coming to Grandpa's Kitchen.
MARTIN: The host of a Latino affairs show on a local public radio station asked people she knew to come by and give us their thoughts about the election. They trickled in while deliciousness was set down on a long center table - fried plantain, guacamole and chips, fried yuca, fresh coffee.
(LAUGHTER)
MARTIN: It's a diverse group - straight, gay, married, single, a retired steelworker, police chaplain, a writer, some citizens by birth, others with a different road to citizenship. But they all had something in common - they all vote, and they said they take their identities as Latinos into the voting booth with them.
GUILLERMO LOPEZ: I already filled in my ballot and mailed it in. And I can feel the rush of my ancestors going through me.
MARTIN: Latinos are now considered a coveted swing vote all over the country, including in places you might not expect, like here in Allentown, where Latinos make up 54% of the population. Some in this group, like Guillermo Lopez, are all in for Harris.
G LOPEZ: Yeah. If I keep talking, I get weepy because I never imagined in my life that I would be voting for someone that looks like my daughter.
MARTIN: Yeah, you - I can see that it makes you emotional. Why do you think it does?
G LOPEZ: I just didn't think it was possible.
MARTIN: Lopez, like his father before him, was a steelworker and now spends much of his time volunteering. He's wearing a Pennsylvania for Harris button and a bracelet that reps his Puerto Rican heritage.
G LOPEZ: Especially since it seems like there's this desire to turn back the clock on how it is that we care for each other.
MARTIN: Lopez is sitting across the table from Aurea Ortiz. She's the one who helped pull the group together, and I asked her why she thinks Latinos have become such an important swing vote.
AUREA ORTIZ: Our Latino vote cannot be taken for granted because people think, oh, these Latinos vote for this and that. We are more intentional in our vote. So if you really promise something, you better comply with whatever you promise. To the politicians that think that we're dumb enough that we don't remember things, we are very intelligent voters.
MARTIN: Next to Ortiz, Liberka Banks. She's a writer, a member of a queer writing collective and a new U.S. citizen. Originally from the Dominican Republic, she's voting for the first time.
LIBERKA BANKS: I am voting for the people who are getting paid on Friday and not having any more money Sunday, Monday, for the people that are underpaid, for my kids and for my family, who - 'cause we are part of a minority.
MARTIN: And Banks says many Latinos come from countries where they think things will never change - that's why they leave - so hope for a different future drives their vote.
BANKS: And we are so used to not have hope that we think it's going to stay like that. We're going to stay here working in our warehouse, and they can do whatever they want.
MARTIN: Nydia Ramos moved to Pennsylvania from Puerto Rico decades ago.
NYDIA RAMOS: As a pastor, I don't say vote for this and that, but you have to have faith and vote.
MARTIN: Her congregation is the Allentown Police Department.
RAMOS: I have 28 years in - as a Allentown police chaplain, and that's the best job we have in the city.
MARTIN: What drives your vote?
RAMOS: Well, I prefer to say we would like to have more Hispanics. That's my goal.
MARTIN: Alfa Lopez lives in Allentown, too. She says she's undecided.
ALFA LOPEZ: My honest opinion, I don't think the United States, in general, is ready to have a female. And with that being said, I believe that Donald Trump is going to win.
MARTIN: But you're not sure you're going to vote. You're saying you're not sure you're going to vote?
A LOPEZ: I don't want to make a mistake or just be, like, oh, she's a female, and she's African American, then I got to go for it. OK? You have to study hard, and you have to study every candidate.
MARTIN: Jose Rivera was tight-lipped about who he voted for in the last election. This time around...
JOSE RIVERA: I can say the messaging on both sides has been horrible because - I've said this to some of the Democrats today - when someone called my house and said, you know, vote for us because you don't want a convicted felon in the White House. And I'm like, hold up, but I'm a convicted felon. I might not like him, but you - now you push me towards him. One person asked me, why would you vote for him? I was like, hey, because if he can win the White House, I can go for city council. I can go for mayor. Like, it opens up doors.
MARTIN: Rivera also wants more consistent attention.
RIVERA: Some of our community votes for Trump because they've been neglected by the Democrats for far so long. Now it's an election season, now you want to come razzle-dazzle the Latino community. And it's, like, we've been ignored for how long?
MARTIN: And one thing that stood out in our conversation is that no matter where they came from, pride in their Latino heritage did not mean they wanted to be defined by it. Luis Acevedo, who manages a plumbing supply company, said the tone of the current political discourse, especially attacks on people's ethnicity, is painful, even if it's not directed at him.
LUIS ACEVEDO: We got to go back to politics and what it was back in the days, about what you're going to do for us, not what she's not doing for us or what he's not doing for us.
MARTIN: You feel like it's all about identity, like, who are you...
ACEVEDO: Correct.
MARTIN: Who are you for...
ACEVEDO: Correct.
MARTIN: ...And who are you against, not what you're going to do?
ACEVEDO: Correct.
MARTIN: OK.
ACEVEDO: And there's nothing about what they're going to do for us as citizens of the United States of America.
MARTIN: Another thing that also became clear is that many of these voters received messages differently than the messengers intended. For example, a number of the Puerto Rican voters we talked to felt attacked and offended by anti-immigrant rhetoric, even though, as American citizens, they're not immigrants. And as Allentown's Mayor Tuerk told us, their identities and their concerns are deeper and broader.
TUERK: There's a very high level of practicality among folks who live in the Lehigh Valley. The people have changed a little bit over time, but we're fundamentally Americans. I mean, when you're talking about voters, you're talking about American values, so whether we speak Spanish or we speak - or, you know, grew up multiple generations in Pennsylvania, we're pursuing the interests of our children. We're also looking out for our neighbors.
MARTIN: As the mayor tightened his bike helmet before heading off to his rally, he made it clear why he was going - his constituents, voters like the ones we talked to, are taking the election seriously. They take their citizenship seriously and want to be taken seriously in return.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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