2:00

sensitive face-to-face conversations.

2:02

You have to be uncomfortable.

2:04

You have to become familiar

2:07

with your own weaknesses and addressing them and

2:09

aware of them. You have

2:11

to work hard and you have to put

2:13

in real work. In the ring, there's nowhere

2:15

to hide. And on election day, there's nowhere

2:17

to hide. There's going to be an election.

2:19

Votes are gonna be cast. And if you

2:21

did the work or you didn't do the

2:23

work, it's going to become apparent in the

2:25

ring or on election day. Florida

2:30

is just one of a number of

2:33

states putting measures on their November ballots

2:35

that would enshrine abortion as a constitutional

2:37

right. Passing these

2:39

measures takes a lot of door-to-door

2:42

activism around a really personal issue.

2:45

So, Post reporter Molly Hennessey Fisk

2:47

went to Florida to see how

2:49

groups like me, Vassino, were organizing

2:51

around Amendment 4. I

2:54

wanted to be there when they

2:56

were having these conversations about abortion because

2:58

I was interested in how they talk

3:00

about it, both in English and Spanish,

3:03

because in some countries, in

3:05

some Latino communities, there's

3:07

been a lot of stigma around

3:09

even just discussing abortion or even

3:12

using the term el aborto. A

3:15

lot of times, the words people

3:17

will use are verguenza, shame, pecado,

3:19

sin. Molly

3:22

went to Florida before Vice President

3:24

Kamala Harris became the Democratic presidential

3:27

nominee. Harris has been

3:29

a vocal supporter of reproductive rights. But

3:31

in Florida, Molly saw how

3:33

deep-seated people's views on abortion

3:36

are, no matter what conversation

3:38

is taking place nationally. And

3:40

so to be having these conversations at a

3:42

doorstep with strangers was very

3:45

interesting to me, like, how does that play out?

3:47

And will people just shut the door and not

3:49

even want to talk about it? And

3:51

it was interesting to me that while I was

3:53

there, not a single person just shut their door

3:56

and said, no, I don't want to talk. There

3:58

were a lot of interesting and at times very

4:00

personal. conversations that happened. From

4:05

the newsroom of The Washington Post, this is

4:07

Post Reports. I'm Martine Powers.

4:10

It's Thursday, August 15. Today,

4:13

my co-host, Elahe Isadi, talks

4:15

with Molly about her time

4:17

embedded with grassroots groups, and

4:20

how organizers were reaching out to

4:22

Latino voters in Florida as they

4:24

pushed to protect abortion rights. Molly,

4:36

before we get into what you discovered in

4:38

spending time with these organizers and the conversations

4:41

that they were having with voters, can you

4:43

just tell me a little bit, what

4:45

do I need to know to understand the

4:47

landscape regarding abortion in Florida right now? So

4:50

we saw with the fall of Roe

4:53

v. Wade that a lot of states

4:55

had trigger laws that took effect. Florida

4:58

law has changed since then,

5:00

since the Supreme Court decision

5:02

on abortion. And it's

5:04

gone from being a 15-week ban to,

5:07

as of the beginning of May, a

5:09

six-week ban. And this ballot

5:12

measure would expand

5:14

abortion access by making it

5:16

protected, reproductive rights protected, as

5:19

part of the state constitution.

5:22

So when it comes to these

5:24

groups that are canvassing voters in

5:27

Florida, who are these groups?

5:30

What are they called? And what

5:33

is their mission right now? So

5:36

there are a lot of Latino

5:38

voters who are not affiliated with

5:40

a particular party, or they're what's

5:42

called low propensity voters. They don't

5:44

vote that often, or they haven't

5:46

voted in more recent elections. And

5:48

so their votes are seen as

5:50

in play, in particular, on

5:52

the abortion referendum. And they're

5:54

trying to, some of these organizers

5:57

are really trying to target those

5:59

unaffiliated voters undecided. voters. And

6:01

how big is the Latino electorate in

6:04

Florida? So Latino voters are about

6:06

18% of

6:08

the electorate but that also assumes that they

6:10

turn out right so part of what organizers

6:12

are focused on is not only talking to

6:14

them about what they're gonna vote for but

6:17

how they're going to get out and vote

6:19

whether they're signed up to vote by mail

6:21

to ensure that they do actually vote. We

6:23

don't we don't care if you're a Democrat

6:25

we don't care if you're a Republican. A

6:28

political affiliation is just a little letter next

6:30

to your name on a voter file with

6:32

the supervisor of elections right it means nothing.

6:34

This is Alex Barrios again one of the

6:37

founders of Mi Visino. At the end of

6:39

the day we're all people and especially

6:42

when it comes to Latino people we

6:45

have a lot of common ground as much as there's

6:47

a lot of nuance and diversity within

6:50

the diaspora you know it means

6:52

Mi Visino focuses on finding what we have

6:54

in common. And for someone like Alex I

6:56

think this effort is really personal. I think

6:59

you know growing up I was very

7:02

limited you know

7:04

I grew up very poor I grew

7:06

up in an abusive environment I

7:09

didn't have options I didn't have choices and

7:15

I have worked really hard to

7:18

provide a life for my son

7:22

and options and choices that I never

7:24

had and

7:26

what I've seen in the state of Florida

7:28

is all that hard work being stripped away with

7:30

the stroke of a pen here and the stroke

7:32

of a pen there. I just

7:36

won't accept it. I won't stand for it

7:38

and I'm gonna do anything I can to change

7:42

it. So

7:47

Molly can you walk me through what

7:50

a you know day in the life

7:52

looks like for these organizing groups you

7:54

know just set the scene a little

7:56

bit what does an average day look

7:58

like for them? Well,

8:00

it depends on the group and where they

8:02

are. I can say Mi Vasino is one

8:05

of, if not the busiest, and they have

8:07

a pretty regimented schedule. All right. Does

8:10

everybody have your turf assignments? Yeah. Okay.

8:13

So we're all set? Yeah. All

8:15

right. Let's go. Okay. Everybody...

8:19

So they're going out all day. They're out on holidays

8:21

because they say that's actually a great time to catch

8:23

people because they're home and doing cookouts. And so they'll

8:25

go and see them and chat with them there. They

8:28

have a map of what they call their turf,

8:31

which is the area they're assigned to go

8:34

visit that particular day, houses that

8:36

they need to hit. I

8:38

was going around canvassing with Alex

8:41

and we came to an apartment building

8:43

and a young woman answered the door

8:45

with her little dog and her name

8:47

was Naomi Rojas. She was 20. She's

8:51

Puerto Rican Dominican. And

8:53

when they asked her about Amendment 4, she

8:55

talked about her thoughts about abortion. As

8:58

a Latina, I

9:00

do think that that's important because...

9:04

And she was talking about her experience

9:06

and how she'd had a recent pregnancy

9:08

scare and it really drove home to

9:10

her the fact that a six-week ban

9:13

like Florida has on abortion doesn't leave

9:15

much time for a person to even

9:17

figure out that they're pregnant, let alone

9:19

make the decision. For, you know... And

9:23

I remember that I went to Planned Parenthood and they told

9:25

me, okay, you're going to take a pregnancy test now and

9:27

we're going to see what we get from that. And then

9:29

I want you three weeks from now to take

9:31

another one. And I'm like, dang, what if

9:33

I was already... What if I really

9:36

was pregnant and then three weeks from now is already

9:38

too late for me? Because it's

9:40

only six weeks. And it's like, that's so

9:43

nervous. And

9:46

as we were talking, she said, you know, this

9:48

not only had an impact on her, but she

9:50

was also having conversations with her mom about it

9:52

because her mom was opposed to the

9:55

ballot measure, but she felt like her mom didn't really understand

9:57

it and she was trying to get her to... to

10:00

understand better. And she

10:03

said that there are

10:05

these complicating factors, right, like that she and

10:07

her mom had lived in a shelter at

10:09

one point. So

10:11

we saw a lot of women that

10:14

had a lot of issues with their kids

10:16

and their housing and everything. And just a

10:18

lot of them weren't ready to be mothers.

10:21

This was something she was reminding her mom

10:24

about, that when you talk about abortion,

10:26

it's in the context of what people

10:28

are going through and that you need

10:30

to remember why people are making that

10:32

decision or the different things that they're

10:34

taking into account. Well,

10:36

it's interesting because hearing what you're

10:38

saying about the canvassers and people

10:40

like Alex Barrios, they're going out,

10:42

they're wanting to have conversations with

10:44

all different types of voters. And

10:47

this assumption that, oh, this is

10:50

at a political level, that for Democrats,

10:52

this is a harder issue for them to

10:54

reach Latino voters on. But here you have

10:56

Alex Barrios, who isn't trying to convince them

10:58

to vote one way or the other when

11:00

it comes to a political party, but is

11:03

talking to them about an amendment. I'm just

11:05

wondering what he has to say about the

11:07

strategy of canvassing and talking to people on

11:09

the ground in the Latino communities on

11:11

the issue of abortion and whether Democrats

11:14

who have been trying to make this

11:16

their issue, whether they've done enough there.

11:19

Alex Barrios and folks at

11:21

his group are pretty frustrated

11:23

that there hasn't been more

11:25

in-person outreach by Democrats in

11:27

Florida, especially by the state

11:29

Democratic Party. They feel like

11:32

the most effective approach is

11:34

actually going and knocking on

11:36

people's doors and seeing people in

11:38

person and having these conversations. I

11:41

will say in the neighborhoods where we

11:43

were, and the people we talked to

11:45

were not getting outreach from the Democratic

11:47

Party. They were not having literature drop.

11:49

There were not other canvassers going around

11:51

where we were, which is what

11:53

the Mi Visino folks told me, that they

11:55

are often the only people out in the

11:57

neighborhoods where they're going. They're the only one.

12:00

answering voters questions, explaining the issues

12:02

to them. A lot of these

12:05

voters didn't fit neatly into a

12:08

party box. So, me, Vasino's and Alex's argument

12:10

is that they are up for grabs and

12:12

there should be more effort to try to

12:14

reach them. And I should

12:17

say, when I visited Florida in

12:19

June, Joe Biden was still the

12:21

presumptive Democratic nominee. So, things

12:23

have been changing on the ground in Florida pretty

12:25

quickly. But Barrio said more

12:27

recently that he believes there is still

12:30

a fundamental disconnect between

12:32

Democrats and the Latino community

12:34

there. And even if Kamala Harris's

12:36

campaign put millions of dollars

12:38

into funding outreach in Florida, that

12:40

it wouldn't necessarily fix that

12:42

disconnect. And so, it

12:45

sounds like Alex and his colleagues feel

12:47

like a different strategy is needed, this

12:49

sort of door-to-door approach and talking to

12:51

people on the ground in the grassroots

12:53

is not just crucial but

12:55

more effective. But I just wonder if he's

12:57

right and if that's what you went to

12:59

go to see. I did.

13:02

I mean, there's been a lot

13:04

of buzz around reaching voters more

13:07

effectively through technology, right, through text

13:09

messages and phone calls. And Alex

13:12

and his group are pushing back

13:14

against that saying, you know, using

13:16

all this tech doesn't necessarily get

13:19

people to the polls or motivate

13:21

these undecided voters to get to

13:23

the polls doesn't necessarily reach the

13:26

Spanish speakers or people who are

13:28

hesitant to engage. So, I mean,

13:31

what I saw at the doors was a lot

13:33

of engagement and

13:35

people who really seem to care

13:38

about voting. All we do is

13:40

talk to people. That's how

13:42

you persuade people. That's how you change hearts

13:44

and minds by building a relationship with them.

13:47

If you don't know, if they don't know who you

13:49

are, they've never seen you before. They have no reason

13:51

to believe anything you say. You're

13:53

just showing up out of nowhere if you even bother

13:55

to show up and

13:57

telling them who they should vote for and what

13:59

they do. should think and why and also give

14:01

me your money too, you're not

14:04

going to succeed with that strategy. After

14:12

the break, how organizers navigate

14:15

these tricky personal conversations about

14:17

abortion. And what happens

14:19

when they meet people who disagree with them?

14:22

We'll be right back. Yup,

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Come get your cup while you still

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can. Have a participating McDonald's for a limited time

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while supplies last. Molly,

15:13

I'm so fascinated to hear

15:16

how these conversations at doorsteps and

15:18

on front lawns and porches go

15:21

because I'm interested in this idea

15:23

that people can change their mind

15:25

or think one

15:27

thing and then maybe reconsider

15:29

on especially intractable issues like

15:31

abortion where people do have

15:33

such strong opinions. So when

15:36

these organizers that you are shadowing

15:39

encountered voters who did not seem

15:41

to support abortion rights, what was

15:43

their strategy? How did that conversation

15:45

go? Well, I

15:48

think part of it was drawing them

15:50

out about why they believe what they

15:52

believe or what

15:54

their interpretation of this particular ballot

15:56

measure is. if

16:00

there was any question there. For instance,

16:02

the medical complications, if they were aware

16:04

about the kind of complications people could

16:06

encounter during a pregnancy, the issues that

16:09

could come up, the six-week ban and

16:11

the things that could come up after

16:14

six weeks, like getting into a little

16:16

bit of the nitty gritty, but then

16:18

also talking to people about who they

16:20

are, their background, what their values are.

16:23

And how much was Luz? Luz Santo. Luz

16:26

concerned that. So

16:28

that was Luz Santo. She's 72. She's

16:32

a Puerto Rican woman who I spoke

16:34

with in St. Cloud in a mobile

16:36

home park. We were inside of her

16:38

mobile home, sitting down, talking, and

16:41

she's a very religious lady,

16:43

Catholic, and you

16:46

could hear her say for her abortion

16:48

is a pecado, a

16:51

sin, and she was

16:53

pretty absolute about it. She

16:55

says that for her, abortion is a

16:57

crime and

17:00

that an unborn baby is still a life given

17:03

by God. So

17:08

she's one of those voters, when I

17:10

talked to Alex and

17:13

folks from his group, who they are

17:16

not gonna be revisiting and trying

17:18

to introduce themselves to. And

17:20

she's a very religious woman. They're

17:23

gonna be revisiting and trying to

17:25

inform about this because they

17:27

feel like she knows she's made up

17:29

her mind and she knows how she

17:31

feels about it. And it's very much,

17:34

for her, rooted in religion and her

17:36

idea of personal responsibility and it being

17:38

a moral choice. And

17:40

it sounds like Alex and his colleagues are not trying

17:42

to change people's minds who

17:44

are expressing such a strong opinion that

17:46

way, but they're not trying to argue

17:48

with them. Exactly. So when they go

17:50

back to that neighborhood, they're

17:53

gonna go to visit other people who said

17:55

they were still making up their mind but

17:57

wanted more information. You know, Molly, one assumption.

18:00

that I hear made

18:02

a lot about Latino voters is

18:04

this idea that Latino voters are

18:07

socially more conservative on issues like

18:10

abortion rights for religious reasons. And

18:13

I'm just wondering what your

18:15

reporting actually tells us about that

18:17

assumption. Well, there were

18:19

some voters who I met

18:21

when I was out there

18:23

with the organizers canvassing who

18:25

were very conservative, religiously

18:28

conservative and were very anti-abortion. So I

18:30

should say there were people I met

18:32

who were like that. But there

18:34

also were a lot of people who when I first

18:36

met them, I sort of assumed,

18:38

oh, this is going to be an anti-abortion person, a

18:41

Nicaraguan American evangelical woman I met in

18:43

Hialeah Gardens, who was adamant saying this

18:45

is a medical decision that should be

18:47

made by someone with their doctor. And

18:49

only at the end of us talking,

18:51

did she mention she was evangelical. And

18:53

when I asked her, well, how do

18:55

you reconcile your religious views with your

18:57

view on abortion? She said, well,

19:00

this is not a scriptural question for me. This

19:02

is a medical issue. And so I

19:04

thought that was interesting.

19:06

And then there were also a

19:08

number of voters I talked to

19:10

who were very pro Trump, like

19:12

I remember one retired NYPD, former

19:14

police officer from New York, a

19:16

Puerto Rican guy who was very

19:18

pro Trump, but also very pro

19:20

choice. Instead, I stand by a

19:22

woman's right. It's a bodily autonomy

19:24

issue, like no negotiation. And

19:27

so I think the answer is

19:29

that things are way more complicated

19:31

than people sometimes assume. There's this

19:33

broad diversity of opinion within Latino

19:35

communities. That's what I saw. I

19:38

want to learn more about what trends these

19:40

organizers are seeing based on who they're talking

19:42

to and whether they're finding,

19:44

for instance, women or men

19:46

are more receptive to their message. What did

19:49

you see and what did they tell you?

19:52

Well, what they told me was that

19:54

men have been, Latino men have been

19:56

very receptive to the message when they

19:58

frame it in terms of rights,

20:02

like their right to make decisions

20:04

for their family or their community's

20:06

right to make decisions for itself

20:08

rather than the government taking rights

20:11

away. In particular because a lot

20:13

of folks came from countries where

20:15

they had, you

20:18

know, the government was taking rights

20:20

away or they're opposed to socialism,

20:22

to the government regulating medical care,

20:24

access to medical care. And so

20:26

there's concern there and that's part

20:28

of what a lot of these

20:31

folks like about America, right, is

20:33

rights and freedoms. And so when

20:35

they frame it that way, that's

20:37

very appealing or has been appealing

20:39

to male voters. So that's just

20:41

interesting to me that this message,

20:44

when framed that way, could be really appealing

20:46

to male voters and then what did they

20:49

find with women voters? So

20:51

with women voters, they said, and

20:54

again, it's they're following the lead of

20:56

the voters, right, when they have these

20:58

conversations. So it's the female voters who

21:00

are taking them more in the direction

21:03

of talking about personal experience,

21:06

about economic issues that they encounter,

21:08

religious or moral questions, just wrestling

21:10

with the idea of can I

21:12

have a child right now in

21:15

my life? How many

21:17

children can I have? How

21:19

you make those family planning decisions

21:21

or life decisions and then

21:23

bringing it back to like their personal

21:25

experience or stuff that's happened in their

21:28

family, which the organizers said can be

21:30

a much more difficult, much more sensitive

21:32

personal conversation to have. But

21:34

it's one that they are prepared to be having. They're

21:36

just going down like a different road than they would

21:39

with the male voters. Right? So

21:41

interesting. Yeah. I mean,

21:43

this is such a personal thing. I'm

21:46

also struck by the connections these organizers

21:48

are having with the different voters. And

21:50

I'm wondering how much they think about

21:52

the organizers, how they think about their

21:54

strategy depending on the nationality

21:58

of the voters they're encountering. So does

22:01

that change the strategy? Are

22:03

there other people from other countries that

22:05

you encountered in your reporting and you

22:07

saw that there was a difference? Definitely.

22:10

So I think one of the

22:12

bright line differences between Latino

22:15

people of different nationalities or come

22:17

from different country backgrounds is that

22:19

there are some countries where abortion

22:21

has historically or still is illegal

22:23

and others where it isn't, like

22:26

Cuba. So when I

22:28

saw organizers out there talking to them,

22:30

that certainly came into play. Like talking

22:32

to some of the Cuban voters, they

22:35

really got into the rights issue

22:38

and being able to

22:40

exercise your rights and having a right

22:42

to do that and not losing that

22:44

right, versus talking to some of the

22:46

Central or South American people. They really

22:48

talked about the criminalization of abortion and

22:50

how difficult it is in other places

22:52

and the things that they or people

22:54

they know have had to go through

22:56

versus being here in

22:58

the United States. Were

23:01

there any moments you

23:03

were witness to where it seemed as

23:06

if someone might actually

23:08

be changing their mind or at

23:10

least thinking a little differently about

23:12

abortion and the amendment issue by

23:15

the end of the conversation? Yes,

23:18

there definitely were. And these

23:20

conversations can be a safe

23:23

space for people to ask questions about

23:25

things that they're wrestling with, in particular

23:28

around issues like medical

23:30

complications, rape, domestic violence. I

23:33

think that there

23:37

is a more important moment for

23:39

people to be able to do

23:42

that. So that's

23:44

Johan Valdez. He's 48. He's

23:47

Cuban-American. And we met him in his

23:49

driveway. And we were

23:52

talking about his views on abortion. And

23:54

at first, he was pretty opposed to

23:56

any kind of pro-abortion rights measure because

23:58

he said if someone gets pregnant, it's

24:00

their responsibility. If they didn't want to

24:02

be pregnant, they shouldn't get that way.

24:04

And within that conversation, how

24:10

did the organizer navigate it? What

24:12

was she telling him? So one

24:14

of the organizers I talked to

24:16

with Florida Rising, Diane Alarcon, is

24:19

Colombian-American, and she

24:21

would share with folks when she

24:23

was canvassing her story of having

24:25

had abortions, including one when she

24:28

was homeless, living in her car

24:30

with her husband and her two

24:32

children. So she talked a little

24:34

bit about her own experience in

24:36

having had an abortion. And so that's

24:38

the kind of thing where I think

24:41

people hear that and you

24:44

can picture it and it

24:46

complicates things, right? Or

24:48

maybe it doesn't. She was

24:50

listening to him and she wasn't telling

24:53

him he was wrong or challenging him. She was just

24:55

giving him something else to think about. And

24:57

I think he appeared to be very receptive to that.

24:59

No, no, no. And you could see that he was

25:01

starting to wonder and

25:07

think about it in a different way. And

25:10

he said he would take another look at

25:12

the proposal. So maybe

25:14

he didn't completely change his mind, but

25:16

he was considering another

25:18

perspective. Do the organizers

25:21

consider that a success? Yes,

25:24

this organizer, Diane, did. Because

25:27

for her, I talked to her afterwards

25:29

and she said her main goal is

25:31

just that people seek out more information

25:33

and educate themselves. And so she feels

25:35

like whenever she plants that seed and

25:37

gets people wondering, then they're gonna go

25:40

and do research on the internet or go and

25:42

talk to someone and sort of mull

25:44

it over some more. And that's her main goal,

25:47

is that they educate themselves. And then, you

25:49

know, whatever conclusion they come to, fine. But

25:52

she just doesn't want them making uneducated

25:55

decisions or not voting, not caring. So

25:58

we are not that far.