10A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, AUGUST 12, 2016
Crown: Topics involved life before and after the bridge
Continued from Page 1A
Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian
Regatta Princesses Kristen Travers and Victoria Holcomb wait beside 2015 Regatta
Queen Ally Bentley for the judges decision Thursday night at the Liberty Theater.
feels nice, I was not expecting
to hear my name,” said McMa-
han, a Knappa High School
junior.
The festival honoring the
heritage of the Lower Colum-
bia has always had a queen
for the celebration. For the
past year, the court, made up
of local high schoolers, has
acted as dignitaries for the
North Coast by traveling to
events and walking in various
parades. Now that Regatta has
opened, they will take part in
public events, this time closer
to home.
As is tradition during the
coronation ceremony, the
court was asked to come for-
Trump: More Hispanics are registering to vote
“For the past 15 to 20 years,
we’ve been focusing on mov-
ing swing white voters. If you
talk to Hispanic voters, they
say, ‘No one has asked me to
vote.”’
Continued from Page 1A
for it by threatening to cut off
remittances those living in
the U.S. send to relatives. He
questioned the impartiality of
an Indiana-born federal judge
hearing a lawsuit against him
because of the judge’s Mexi-
can ancestry. He’s complained
Mexico has sent “rapists” and
“criminals” illegally to the
U.S.
Now some Republicans
worry Trump is creating more
people like John Herrera, 38,
who signed up to vote in June
in Las Vegas.
“I’ve never really voted until
now, only because of Trump
being against Hispanic people,”
he said. “I didn’t think my vote
would count before but now I
want to make a difference.”
Republicans blame a 1994
ballot measure targeting illegal
immigrants in California for
alienating that state’s growing
Hispanic population and turn-
ing it solidly Democratic.
“With Trump saying the
things he’s saying, we might
see this same thing again,”
says Jody Agius Vallejo, a Uni-
versity of Southern California
sociologist and author of “Bar-
rios to Burbs: The Making of
the Mexican American Mid-
dle Class.” “Only this time, it
would be nationally.”
Voting record
There is reason, though, to
be skeptical. Overall, the His-
panic voting record is not good.
Success stories
AP Photo/Eric Gay
Gil Cadena wears buttons
supporting Democratic Presi-
dential candidate Hillary Clin-
ton during a Democratic Na-
tional Convention watch party
in San Antonio on July 26.
The irst obstacle is that
more than half of the nation’s
Hispanics cannot vote because
they are either under age 18 or
not citizens. Relatively few of
the Hispanics who are eligi-
ble to vote actually register and
then cast ballots. Their turnout
rate in the 2012 was lower than
that of blacks and whites.
In Texas, where 39 percent
of the population is Hispanic,
Democrats have been shut
out of statewide elections for
decades. During 2014’s elec-
tions, fewer than 2.3 million
Texas Hispanics reported being
registered to vote, or about 46
percent of the nearly 4.9 mil-
lion who were eligible, accord-
ing to U.S. Census Bureau
surveys.
“We’ve been spending our
money wrong,” concedes Crys-
tal Zermeno, director of spe-
cial projects for the Democratic
ield organization Texas Orga-
nizing Project.
There are success sto-
ries. In Nevada, Latinos have
demonstrated the power they
wield when they either turn
out or stay home. In the 2014
midterms, for example, His-
panic turnout plummeted, and
Republicans swept every state-
wide ofice and won control of
both houses of the Legislature
for the irst time since 1929.
But in 2008, 2010 and 2012
they helped deliver the state for
Democrats.
“When you have the
resources put in, you see turn-
out that favors the Democrats,”
says David Damore, a political
science professor at the Univer-
sity of Nevada Las Vegas. “But
you need to put resources in the
community. It’s not just going
to happen.”
This year — with Trump
priming the pump, and with
former state Attorney Gen-
eral Catherine Cortez Masto
running to become the irst
Latina senator — resources are
lowing.
In June, two days after grad-
uating from high school, Fabi-
N orth w es t H a rdw oods • Lon gview , W A
Contact: Steve Axtell • 360-430-0885 or John Anderson • 360-269-2500
Ally Bentley. During her inal
few moments bearing the title,
she spoke about how inluen-
tial the experience had been.
“Watching the girls in the
court grow has helped me gain
mentorship,” Bentley said.
The nerves of anticipa-
tion and public speaking may
be settled for the court, but
the festival’s duties will keep
them busy throughout the rest
of the weekend.
For McMahan, the respon-
sibilities have just begun but
she seems eager to bear the
crown.
“I’m proud to represent the
community and, most impor-
tantly, thankful for the friend-
ships that I’ve made,” she
said.
Pot: FDA last evaluated
medical use in 2006
Continued from Page 1A
“It is best not to think of
drug scheduling as an escalat-
ing ‘danger’ scale — rather,
speciic statutory criteria
(based on medical and scien-
tiic evidence) determine into
which schedule a substance is
placed,” Rosenberg wrote.
The Food and Drug
Administration said agency
oficials reviewed more than
500 studies on the use of med-
ical marijuana, identifying
only 11 that met the agency
standards for “legitimate test-
ing.” For various reasons,
none of the trials demon-
strated “an accepted medical
use,” the agency concluded.
The FDA last evaluated
marijuana for medical use
in 2006 and said in its latest
review that the research “has
progressed,” but does not
meet federal standards.
While the DEA won’t
reclassify marijuana, the
agency did announce plans to
make it easier for researchers
to study pot’s possible medi-
cal beneits by expanding the
number of entities that can
legally grow marijuana for
research purposes.
Currently only research-
ers at the University of Mis-
sissippi are allowed to grow
marijuana, as part of a con-
tract with the National Insti-
tute on Drug Abuse.
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.,
said the DEA’s decision “is
keeping federal laws behind
the times.”
“The DEA’s decision
lies in the face of choices
made freely by voters in
Oregon and many other
states about the legality of
marijuana,” he said. Oregon
legalized pot last year.
Washington Gov. Jay
Inslee, a Democrat, said he
was disappointed with the
DEA’s ruling but his state
would continue “to main-
tain a well-regulated adult-
use marijuana system and
continue to allow patients
to have access for necessary
medicinal purposes.”
Jaclyn Stafford, an assis-
tant manager at The Station
dispensary in Boulder, Colo-
rado, called the DEA’s deci-
sion “an inaccurate judg-
ment of the plant.” She said
rescheduling
marijuana
would allow for more regu-
lation to an already growing
market and allow more peo-
ple to take advantage of what
she described as the “holistic
beneits” of pot.
3
W A NTED
Alder and Maple Saw Logs & Standing Timber
ola Vejar stood outside a Latin
grocery store on a sweltering
afternoon quizzing a parade of
customers in Spanish: “Are you
registered to vote?” Most shook
their heads no. Vejar followed
up: “Are you eligible?” Again,
most responded in the nega-
tive. One man laughed and bel-
lowed: “Soy Mexicano!” I’m
Mexican!
Vejar cannot vote. Now 18,
she came from Mexico with her
mother when she was 2 years
old.
So she volunteers with Mi
Familia Vota, encouraging oth-
ers to be heard at the ballot box.
“I don’t have that voice,”
she says, “but there’s other peo-
ple ... who feel the way I do.
They should vote.”
Xiomara Duenas will.
She immigrated legally to the
United States from Cuba in
1996 to join her father. She had
always believed that her shaky
English prevented her from
becoming a citizen. She was
resigned to the idea that immi-
grants didn’t have the same
rights as native-born Americans
— until Trump’s candidacy.
Last November, she became
a citizen. This November, she
plans to act.
“I didn’t want him to become
president, but I couldn’t do any-
thing,” says Duenas. “But now,
I can vote.”
ward individually and speak
to the crowd. Coinciding
with the 50th anniversary of
the Astoria Bridge, the top-
ics involved life on the Lower
Columbia before and after the
bridge’s construction.
McMahan spoke about
how the historic bridge was
the inal piece constructed of
U.S. Highway 101, but had
skeptics when plans were irst
made public.
“People called it ‘the
bridge to nowhere,’” she said.
“Needless to say without the
bridge, people wouldn’t be
able to cross the Columbia
River at any time of day.”
Thursday evening also
signiied the passing of the
crown from last year’s queen,
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