Yes, Rural Voters of Color Exist—and Mónica Ramírez Is Helping Them Head to the Polls

From Oprah Magazine

Mónica Ramírez knows that rural voters have been something of a media obsession since the 2016 presidential election. She's also well aware that news coverage leading up to November 2020 has continually centered on the concerns of white rural voters. That's due—at least in part—to the story exit poll data told four years ago, in which white rural voters overwhelmingly chose Donald Trump over Hillary Rodham Clinton, even in counties that previously leaned Democratic.

The four years since have brought an avalanche of takes on why that was: Residents felt ignored by the "liberal elite," or have a fundamentally different value system than urbanites, or they'd voted from a place of fear over immigration and race. Whatever the reason, it'd be easy for a casual news reader to conclude that "rural voter" is simply shorthand for "white rural voter"—which implies that any other type doesn't exist.

Ramírez is ready to change that story. As founder of Justice for Migrant Women, the attorney and activist is leading efforts to mobilize an overlooked segment of the 60 million people who live in rural America: A diverse population of women who are Latina, Indigenous and native, Black, and Asian. That includes American farm workers have labored through a coronavirus pandemic and wildfires to keep planting, picking, and packaging the produce we all eat for dinner.

"I am a rural Latina. I was born, raised, and live in a rural community in Ohio, and I know what the perception is of rural America—that it's white, and male," Ramírez tells OprahMag.com. "The reality is that there are many people of color who live in communities like mine, across the country."

Don't buy the narrative that "rural voters" describes a static, homogenous group. "I think it's dangerous to paint a community of people all with the same brush, because our experiences, our world views, and our priorities really differ," she adds. "Try to put us all in one box, and we're going to miss out on understanding what people need and want."

Justice for Migrant Women's big 2020 rural civic engagement push has included a voting toolkit, campaigns across their social media platforms, and a new leadership training initiative called the Rural Women's Collective Fellowship. Awarded to five women in rural America, the fellowship will fund media training, provide mentorship for writing op-ed articles, and help place the pieces in newspapers—so that they can start shifting the narrative with their own voices.

Helping more nonwhite rural residents become active voters is a major goal. "In my town, there's 16,000 people. We can't have a population of 16,000 where only 1000 turn out to vote, because that means there's a real problem in our democracy," she says. "It's dangerous to have so few people engaged."

But bridging what's been deemed "the urban-rural divide" goes both ways—so here are five things Ramírez wants you to know about rural voters.

Rural voters face three major obstacles in getting information.

"When people look at rural America's voting numbers and they see low turnout, they think it's because we're apathetic," Ramírez says. "Or they think that it's because we all lean in a particular direction. It's more likely that people haven't been receiving the information they need." Three major hurdles contribute to being underrepresented because of the parts of the country they're living in, she says.

The first is a lack of infrastructure. "Accessibility to broadband is a challenge for many people, so when people are relying on the internet for information about candidates, or about anything, that isn't always available to us here," Ramírez explains.

Second, the nationwide trend of newspapers shuttering—with 2,000 communities losing a local paper as of January 2020—has led to information deserts in rural areas, making it that much harder for people to find accurate info on what's happening both locally and nationally. And with local reporter jobs vanishing, reported stories about rural America are currently most often written by people who don't actually live there.

Finally, Ramírez says the major parties and foundations don't compensate for these information gaps by truly investing in rural regions, thus creating what she calls civic deserts. "If a political leader or someone who's running for office wants to represent our interests, they need to spend money on setting up offices and making sure that we've received materials about their platforms," she says. Otherwise, "the more likely scenario is that folks will get elected, and they'll then try to legislate on things that impact our lives directly, when they have no firsthand or even secondhand knowledge of our experience."

Rural voters of color are "real" Americans, too.

Ramírez, who comes from a farm worker family, says Justice for Migrant Women's civic engagement project arose from a need to accurately reflect who rural America is. "Not just the fact that we're very diverse, but also that we're contributing."

While Ramírez points out that American farmers are important, and provide the opportunity for jobs, "the 2 to 3 million farm workers across our country are contributing by doing that work. So when we erase them, we're erasing their contributions."

Rural Latinos are not a voting bloc.

The rural American population is diverse, and there's a diversity of opinions as well. "We've met Latinx community members and other people of color who support Trump," she says. "We also meet people who say, 'I'm not going to do anything because no matter what I do, it's not going to matter for me.'" Ramírez says Justice for Migrant Women's project's aim is empower people to go to the polls, not to encourage anyone to vote a particular way.

In listening to potential Latinx voters, Ramírez and her team have heard a mix of concerns with an emphasis on financial instability and healthcare. With shrinking populations and factories closing, even before the pandemic, "many of our communities in rural America were already dying," she says.

Any assumption that immigration is a top issue is just that: An assumption. "We come from 20 Spanish-speaking countries, with different immigration history," says Ramírez. "Some of us are U.S.-born. We're not a monolith."

The 2020 election is just the beginning.

While Ramírez would love to see a quantifiable uptick in rural nonwhite voters in 2020, the work doesn't end on November 3. "Our project was never meant to be only about this election," she says, "We're focused on the long term well-being of our democracy."

In addition to her work through Justice for Migrant Women, this year Ramírez collaborated with celebrities like Eva Longoria and America Ferrera to launch She Se Puede, a nonprofit digital initiative to inspire and educate U.S. Latinas across the country. Boosting civic engagement among Latinas is a goal of She Se Puede's as well. Their campaign's efforts have included a free virtual Latinas Make a Difference Tour from October 19-23, with high-profile Latinas like Ferrera, Rosario Dawson, and Ramírez herself hosting talks on topics like "A Latina Making a Difference in Arizona" and "The Backbone of America."

"In my mind, it all fits together," Ramírez says of the dual efforts. "When I think about the work that we're doing with She Se Puede and why it's important to engage Latinas, the perspective that I bring is ensuring that when talking about Latinas, we're also talking about rural Latinas. We're also talking about low-paid Latinas, and farm workers. We need all of these different projects, strategies, and tactics to actually make the kind of change that we're trying to make."

You can get involved, too.

Whether you're Latina yourself, hail from a rural town, or just want to help empower new rural voters, educating yourself is great first step. Keep up with Justice for Migrant Women and She Se Puede on Instagram for updates, including a forthcoming Justice for Migrant Women podcast that centers the voices of rural women and rural women's leadership.

Ramírez's dynamic positivity is a reminder that hope can be a powerful thing, even when the news cycle feels decimating.

"If we only allow ourselves to focus on the problems and obstacles, then it will paralyze us, you know?" Ramírez says. "So I stay really focused on the possibilities."

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