Antonio Gonzalez

Antonio Gonzalez is the paramount expert on Latino voting characteristics and tendencies. He is President of Southwest Voter Registration Education Project (SVREP), the largest and oldest non-partistan Latino voter participation organization in the U.S. and of the William C. Velasquez Institute (WCVI), a non-parisan research and policy institute. Gonzalez and SVREP have been central figures in the dramatic growth of Latino political participation. Gonzalez was the central architect of the Latino Vote USA and Latino Vote 2000 campaigns in 1996 and 2000 that mobilized record numbers of new Latino voters across the U.S. Currently, Gonzalez is leading two nation nonpartisan voter mobilization alliances, the Ten Four Campaign and the Campaign for Communities, which aim to raise Latino voting to a record 10 million registered and 7.5 million votes cast in 2004. Gonzalez put WCVI on the map as the first national Latino organization to include U.S.-Latin America relations in the U.S. Latino Agenda. Gonzalez currently appears as a regular commentator on the National Public Radio’s Tavis Smiley Show and hosts his own weekly show on Pacifica’s KPFK in Los Angeles called “Strategy Session.”