Puerto Rican statehood backers poised to take over oldest Latino civil rights group

A Puerto Rican is poised to be elected to lead LULAC, the nation's oldest Latino civil rights group started by Mexican Americans and back statehood for Puerto Rico.

Puerto Ricans have the numbers to seize control of a 93-year-old civil rights group founded by Mexican Americans in Texas, but the organization could end up in a messy legal fight over it.

The League of Latin American Citizens, established in Corpus Christi in 1929, is holding its annual conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico, this week, the group's first in-person gathering and elections since 2019 because of Covid.

In advance of the conference, the number of councils in Puerto Rico— what the group calls its chapters — has exploded from 54 last year to at least 343, according to LULAC. That outnumbers the councils in Texas, which has been home to most of the group's presidents elected over the years, though LULAC said it has had a similar number of councils in Puerto Rico in the 1990s.

Dallas attorney Domingo García, who is Mexican American, could very well be defeated by his challenger, Juan Carlos Lizardi, a New York resident born in Puerto Rico and son of longtime board member and Puerto Rico statehood activist Elsie Valdes.

A woman waves the flag of Puerto Rico during a news conference on Puerto Rican statehood on Capitol Hill on March 2, 2021. Patrick Semansky / AP fileThat's in large part because members must be at the conference in Puerto Rico to vote, which many mainland members, who tend to be older, have opted against in the midst of inflation.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/lulac-puerto-rico-statehood-conference-vote-rcna39853


Post ID: 70da98a2-885b-4a26-a641-d798bf100b86
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Updated: 1 year ago
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