Yakima is a city of roughly 94,000 people located in the northern part of the Yakima Valley, an agricultural region in central Washington just east of the Cascades, where farmers produce the nation’s apples, cherries, pears, and hops. Driving west into the valley, evergreen-topped mountains suddenly give way to grassy, rolling hills and a patchwork of farms. This region also has one of the largest and fastest-growing Latino populations in the United States, mirroring a trend found across the Western U.S.. The number of Latinos in Yakima County, which stretches from just north of the city of Yakima to the Tri-Cities, 100 miles away, has doubled since 1970, and as of 2020, Latinos make up the majority of the population. These changes are largely due to an influx of immigrants, many of them Mexican farmworkers, who have settled throughout the Valley since the 1930s.
In partnership with PBS, PBS SoCal, Quiet Pictures and VOCES, we dive into what the Latino vote looks like this year through the reporting of High Country News’ Editorial Fellow Natalia Mesa and the lens of HCN’s Visuals Editor Roberto “Bear” Guerra, witnessing the campaigns, organizations, and the individuals working to increase representation of the Latino vote.
