She has been living with the disease for the last 12 years; the disease took the lives of her mother and brother back home in the Dominican Republic.

For years she kept on, unchecked and clueless as to how to take control of her disease until she joined the Win for Diabetes program at her local healthcare clinic.

“It’s so important [to check your sugar], I don’t even know how to describe it but diabetes is so dangerous, it’s a silent killer,” says Vargas. ”So many times I’m just sitting down and thinking to myself ‘Oh, I feel so great today,’ but then I check my sugar and it’s through the roof.”

The program was launched in early 2012 by New York Presbyterian Hospital and operates out of the Washington Heights Family Health Center in Washington Heights — just a few blocks from Vargas’s home.

After a 2004 study conducted by the NYC Department of Mental Health and Hygiene found that 19,000 people in the Washington Heights-Inwood communities were living with Type 2 Diabetes, the hospital reached out to community-based organizations to partner up and create a program to fight diabetes in the neighborhood.

Historically, low-income residents of New York City have been found to be twice as likely as others to have diabetes, 2.8 times more likely to be hospitalized for complications associated with it and 2.3 times likelier to die from its complications.

Program director Crystal Cartwright says the key to the program’s success is giving free access to treatment and developing life-long relationships with participants.

“A piece of caring for a patient is also knowing the person that you’re caring for, so again, I think this program recognizes that in a way that we don’t always do so in a medical system; it recognizes that patients are people,” Cartwright says.

Powered by an all-mighty core group of community health workers in charge of giving participants one-on-one guidance and support, this group of nine women is the backbone of the year-long program.  Their main objective: providing patients with all-around support for success. Patients are given home visits, weekly phone calls, support during doctor check-ups, educational information and most importantly, provided links to local social service providers that help meet their needs. All of this, completely free.

Miriam Coss is in charge of Vargas and in just a couple of months, they’ve become great friends; they’re like family, she says.

“I’ve totally seen a different side of her now, I think she’s more jolly, much more alive,” says Coss.

Her daughter, Karina, has seen the changes too. Vargas says Karina is her inspiration for getting the disease under control.

Once a month, the program also opens its doors to the community with educational workshops. These are hosted by Cartwright, along with Carmen Cruz, who manages the community healthcare workers, as well as all nine community health workers in the flesh.

A big fan of the meet-up, Vargas is known for bringing along large groups of friends to every class. Not surprisingly, all Latino and all diabetic, as well.

“This is an epidemic,” she says. “It’s always seven or eight of us, so I hope they never [get] rid of [the program]. How could we possibly get better if no one is invested in teaching us how to do better?”

Before joining the program, Vargas says her biggest drawbacks were diet and exercise, both of which she’s completely revamped. Her favorite foods now include fresh spinach, lentils, brown rice and chicken breast – items she says she rarely ate growing up.

But it’s hard to lead a healthy lifestyle without access to good food, she says. So back home, the hard work continues as she cooks for herself and her family.

“I’m so thankful and so happy with the program,” says Vargas. “Truth is I don’t want to have the burden of leaving Karina behind, on her own, so I have to do what it takes so I can stick around as long as possible.”

Vargas has made significant strides, successfully lowering her blood sugar by nearly point five points from 7.9 to 7.4 since last June.  Her goal is to reach 7, which she says she’ll reach in no time.

A graduation for the program’s first class of 122 is scheduled to take place this fall on September 16^th.

“At this point, information is relatively low but the desire to be engaged in the process is very high,” said Dr. Gabriel Sanchez, Director of Research for Latino Decisions, who conducted the survey for Adelante con la Salud: Latino Health Care Engagement Project, which seeks to inform the state’s Hispanics on the new law.

A key finding was that only a mere 6 percent of Colorado Latinos knew about the health care exchanges — the main mechanism created by the law so families can purchase affordable insurance.  This is significant, because the law was set up so that health care costs would gradually go down as millions of  Americans sign up for health insurance through the exchanges.

Currently, the high cost of health care has taken its toll among Latino families, according to the poll. Forty-three percent of Hispanics in Colorado say they have used up savings to pay medical bills, and almost one in three say they can’t cover their basic needs due to medical costs.  Forty-five percent of Latinos surveyed say they rely on home remedies to defray medical costs, almost three in ten skip treatments and more than a quarter of Latinos did not get their prescriptions filled due to costs.

When asked how they would prefer to obtain information on the ACA, Latinos surveyed said hospitals  (27 percent) followed by doctors (21 percent).  ”We cannot assume doctors are informed about the Affordable Care Act,” said Sanchez, who is also the Assistant Director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Center for Health Policy at the University of New Mexico.  Giving the medical community key talking points, said Sanchez, is necessary to avoid medical doctors giving “misinformation” about the new health care law.

Melanie Herrera Botz, co-Project director from Adelante con la Salud, said Colorado is already ahead of some states, especially on the rollout of the health care exchanges, which are supposed to be in place in October. “We changed the name to Connect for Health Colorado, we’re running TV commercials, and bus ads will be rolled — let’s hope our work pays off in October,” she said.

“One of our jobs is educating on how to navigate the health care system,” said Herrera Botz, explaining many families need to understand the basics, like what a premium or a deductible is.  ”If we don’t educate them on how to use it, it won’t work,” she said.

An interesting finding of the survey was that only 25 percent of Latinos knew that undocumented immigrants cannot participate in the health insurance program. Half of Latinos thought they could — and 62 percent think they should be eligible.

“It’s tough to encapsulate in words how difficult is to see your child slipping away from you,” says Mojica, the executive director for Family and Community Engagement in the city Department of Education in New York City. “You feel like you don’t have the power to hold on to them, he was slipping into a world you could not reach him,” he adds.

After 6 months of  tests, and switching doctors, Jesse and Ana Mojica finally found out the truth — their son Adam was autistic.  That’s why Mojica is supporting Austism Speaks’ new ad campaign “Maybe” aimed at helping Latino and African-American families recognize the signs their child may be autistic.

“We went through a lot of the maybes, may be Adam is losing his hearing, may be Adam is shy like me, we went through all the maybes and never thought he had autism,” explains Mojica.

Liz Feld, president of Autism Speaks, says the reason they are aiming to reach Hispanic and African-American parents with the campaign is because the age of diagnosis is higher among these groups than anyone else.

“Earlier diagnosis are so important because if we can get a child by 2 years old, in most cases, with help that child can go to regular kindergarten,” says Feld, “the window between 2-5 years old is the most important time to deal with treatment.”

Besides partnering up with the Ad Council to create English and Spanish ads, Autism Speaks will also work with churches, local community groups and federal and local partners to spread the message to parents.  The group is also using text-messaging by having parents text “may be” so parents can answer 6 questions about their child privately to see if there are any signs of autism.

Most importantly, says Feld, they want to make sure to erase cultural barriers with this campaign and eradicate the sense of shame and stigma some parents may feel about having an autistic child.

“Sometimes mothers feel such blame if something is wrong and might not want to speak to their husbands about it, so the text message campaign not only saves having to spend $90 on a checkup but also allows the parent to ask questions privately,” describes Feld.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 1 in 88 children in the United States has an autism spectrum disorder, being most common among boys (1 in 54).  A recent CDC study pointed to the largest increase in the number of  children diagnosed with autism to be Hispanic and African-American children.

RELATED: Study: More Hispanic children with autism remain undiagnosed

For Mojica talking about the campaign brings back memories of what he went through with his son before being diagnosed with severely impacted autism, and hopes these ads will empower other families to take charge and seek help sooner than he could.

“A parent’s heart is always right, if you have any questions ask,” says Mojica. “Our journey with Adam is glorious, and autism will never change that. Autism will never rob you of the love for your children.”

His son is now 14 years old, and while he still does not speak, his smile has come back. He wants more than anything to make sure Latino and African-American families know early intervention can make such a huge impact.  His son smiles at school all the time, so much that if he is not smiling the teacher knows he must be sick and takes his temperature.  And while he loves to be around people, he still needs help every day.  Mojica and his wife are still trying to figure out what will happen to Adam when they are no longer around but hope for better services for autistic adults.

“My son is a blessing to me, he has taught me more than anyone on this earth, I am just a better person because of him.” he adds.

“Do you know how hard it is to say a 28-year story in a few minutes?” said McGuire-Maniau, describing how everyone went around the room telling the President their story. “But I told him my husband applied and tried to do it the right way, but regardless, the system is broken and it doesn’t work,” she said.

McGuire-Maniau’s husband, Hector, arrived from Mexico when he was 17 on a B2 visa.  His mother became a naturalized citizen and petitioned him, and he was approved in 1998.  He was told to wait and then apply for adjustment of status.  But according to Melissa, an attorney told Hector’s family he could legally expedite his case, which was not true. “Then immigration took the application and money, but placed him in removal proceedings, which happens all the time – so many people are in deportation proceedings because of someone else, meddling in their case,” says McGuire-Maniau.  She describes ICE coming to her house three times until they finally found her husband home and put him at the Broward Transitional Center in Pompano Beach, Florida.

Melissa McGuire-Maniau, a U.S. citizen by birth, told President Obama why her husband almost got deported.

The couple fought his situation successfully with help from the community, and Hector now has a green card. But Melissa’s sister was deported, and is still in Mexico, with her children in the U.S.  ”It  makes me sad; we fought back, but others are so paralyzed with fear and they don’t fight back.”

The President listened to Melissa’s story, as well as to Miguel Leal, a U.S. citizen originally from Cuba. Leal told Telemundo’s Lori Montenegro that he was there for his Uruguayan wife, who is undocumented, and who has several family members in detention.  Other immigrants from South Korea and Morocco shared their stories with Obama, and DREAMers shared how their lives had changed with deferred action, while emphasizing many of their family members were still facing uncertain futures under current laws.

“He was very moved,” says McGuire-Maniau. “He says his commitment is unwavering and he wants to get immigration reform done.”  Others said the President said it would be hard work, but that he was committed.

The White House sent out a statement after the meeting.  ”At the meeting, the President reiterated his commitment to passing a bipartisan, commonsense immigration reform bill this year.  He made clear that while the current bill is not perfect, it does represent an important step towards the broad principles that need to be part of any immigration reform package,” according to the White House.

For her part, McGuire-Maniu says there was another reason why she wanted to talk to Obama.

“He was a community organizer, like me,” she says. “There are so many issues he has to manage – sometimes you get worn down, but hearing people’s stories grounds you,” the Florida resident states.

Republican Carlos Gutierrez, former Commerce Secretary under George W. Bush and co-chair of the center-right Hispanic Leadership Network,  says, “Republicans are right in pursuing the IRS scandal, which sends shivers down the spine of the average American, because these are tactics that are used in authoritarian governments,” says Gutierrez.  ”If an authoritarian leader wants to go after an enemy, they send the IRS-type government arm,” he adds.

Today Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio said he was “concerned” about a report that the Obama administration had investigated a Fox News reporter regarding a possible national security leak, and said “we must insist” it was not done for partisan reasons, saying the IRS scandal shows “this White House has created a culture where we do have to explicitly make these kinds of requests.”

Cid Wilson, a New Jersey-based Democratic activist and national Dominican-American leader, says the IRS scandal needs to be dealt with to ensure this does not happen again, but says this has also been an issue for Republican administrations as well, saying the NAACP was targeted during the Bush administration.  Wilson lashed out at Congressional Republicans.

“Americans should start calling out the Republicans for what they are; they haven’t gotten any legislation passed, and all they’re doing is obstructing,” said Wilson.  ”They’re getting paid very nice salaries, they’re getting the best health care, but want to defund health care for the rest of Americans,” adds Wilson. “I think the Republicans, especially in the House, need to stop pleasing their extreme right-wing and do what’s right and put country first.”

RELATED: White House defends IRS scandal, McConnell asserts ‘culture of intimidation’

Gutierrez, who started a political action committee to fund and to back Republicans who favor immigration reform, concedes there is a danger of Republicans “overplaying their hand.”

“I am worried about the IRS scandal potentially slowing down or in the worst case derailing immigration reform,” says Gutierrez, who says he would advise Republican legislators to continue pushing for immigration reform while not belittling the IRS issue.

Maribel Hastings, senior adviser of the pro-immigration group America’s Voice, issued a warning to Republican legislators.

“It would be imprudent to allow the desire to deny Obama a legislative victory to supersede the Republicans’ need to recover their electoral viability at the national level by appealing to the Latino vote—and to waste the opportunity that immigration reform presents them to do so,” Hastings said. “It would be imprudent—scandalous, even, in its own way. And it would surely demonstrate a low IQ,” she added, in a not-so-veiled reference to the Jason Richwine/Heritage scandal.

Democrat Cid Wilson says, “Republicans are making a huge strategic mistake if they think the only thing Latinos are concerned with is immigration.

“If they try to block the highly qualified Thomas Perez for Labor Secretary, you will see major reaction next November for Republicans who blocked the first Latino appointment of Obama’s second term,” Wilson adds.

University of Maryland political scientist Stella Rouse says Republicans could use the IRS and other issues to put aside voting for immigration reform if it gets too tricky in the House. “It will be interesting to see if Republicans come back and say ‘we were working on immigration reform but then we had to deal with the IRS scandal, and this took priority,’” she says.

Democrats, Rouse states, should focus on the fact that the economic indicators are better, and tie comprehensive immigration reform to improving the economy. “Democrats don’t always use the momentum to help themselves out,” says Rouse.  ”On immigration, it’s now or never.  You can’t let that die again.”

“We’re having people from all political beliefs coming over, saying how excited they are about my candidacy and how they can’t wait to send someone who is not a career politician to Washington,” he says.

In liberal-leaning Massachusetts, Gabriel Gomez touts himself as politician who promises to work across the aisle. “I am not going to tow the ideological hard-line,” says Gomez in an interview with NBC Latino.  ”In DC you have not only career politicians but hyper-partisan politicians who refuse to work across the aisle, and we can’t do that,” Gomez says.

In Massachusetts, this is a wise strategy, says Arizona State University political scientist Rodolfo Espino. ”If he wants to win, he needs a message appropriate to his state’s base – he just needs to say enough to appeal to more than half of the electorate, and in Massachusetts, you have to be left of center” says Espino.

While Gomez is a Catholic married father of 4, he supports gay marriage. On abortion, while Gomez has been facing many questions on what he does and does not support, Gomez repeatedly says he does not believe in overturning Roe versus Wade, though he is personally opposed to abortion. Gomez supports immigration reform with a pathway to citizenship, though he says he agrees with Senators Rubio and McCain on securing the border as a priority.

“Ninety nine-point nine percent of undocumented immigrants are like you and me, good people who are here because it’s better than where they came from, and want to be taxpayers and in many cases start their own business,” he says. “It’s not just a moral issue – it’s a net plus on the economic side.”

To win the Republican primary, Gomez emphasized his background – and this is still his main selling point in the Senate race. Gomez is a former Navy fighter pilot as well as a former Navy Seal.  And being the son of Colombian immigrants, explains Gomez, has given him a unique – and optimistic – perspective.  ”I saw how hard my parents worked, and how my country embraced my parents with open arms – that was one of the reasons I decided to join the military, to give back,” he says.

He also touts his years in the military as a plus if he gets elected. “It gives me real experience with national security issues and threats we’re facing – we were reminded of the dangers we’re living with here in Boston a month ago,” he says. Gomez ran in the Boston marathon that day, but was not injured. Veterans issues, he adds, would be one of his top priorities in Washington.

After the military, Gomez obtained his MBA at Harvard, and then made his wealth in the private equity business. He says he would use his experience in the private sector to clear the “uncertainty” businesses are feeling right now. Gomez is opposed to the Affordable Care Act; he thinks there should be basic access to healthcare only through the state, like in Massachusetts. When asked if he would vote to repeal the ACA, he says he would vote to repeal parts of it, like the medical device tax.

Moderate Republicans in more liberal states like Massachusetts face a double challenge. If they are elected in the first place, their more liberal stance clashes with the conservative base in the Republican party, which was the case with former Republican Senator Scott Brown.  ”Brown had initial Tea Party support, but as he was elected they soured on him for some of the stances he took,” says Espino.

Still, Gomez says he feels “great enthusiasm” about his campaign, which today released his first ad.  ”For a kid who didn’t know English until he came to school, I’ve lived the American Dream,” he says in the ad.

As a Latino politician, Espino says, Gomez’ more affluent and educated immigrant background shows that  ”the life experiences of Latinos are very diverse,  just like that of white politicians.”

On the Senate floor yesterday, Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio said about Perez, “We have a nominee right now to the Labor Department who has an admirable personal story which I admire and applaud but who has a history of using the government and his position in government to intimidate people to do what he wants them to do,” said Rubio. Other Republicans have said Perez, who is Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the Department of Justice, is too ideological.

This is disputed by other Republicans who have come out in support of Perez, who would be the first and as of now only Latino in the president’s second-term Cabinet.  John R. Dunne, who had Perez’ same job at the Justice Department in the first Bush Administration, wrote a letter to Senate leaders saying he hired and worked with Perez, “and as a result of those experiences, I found Tom to be an excellent lawyer, a dedicated public servant with a deep commitment to the common good.”

RELATED: Obama nominates Thomas Perez for Labor Secretary, calling him an “advocate” for working families  

New Jersey Democratic Senator Robert Menendez lashed out today at the Republican Senators in the HELP committee who voted against the nomination. “At a time when Republicans should be reaching out to Hispanic Americans rather than reverting back to the same old political strategies that failed them during the last election, it is unfortunate that the president’s first Hispanic choice for his second-term cabinet continues to be under attack,” said Menendez. “I urge my Republican colleagues to stop the obstructionism and do what’s right for the country: vote to confirm Tom Perez as the next Secretary of Labor when his nomination comes before the full Senate for consideration,” added Menendez, who chairs the Senate Democratic Hispanic Task Force.

Today California Democratic Congresswoman Linda Sanchez and 138 House Democrats sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid urging him to ensure Perez gets confirmed by the full Senate.  The legislators touted the fact that Perez has worked for both Democrat and Republican administrations.  They also stated Perez had successfully increased human trafficking prosecutions and ensured enforcement of voting rights laws in his current role, as well as enforced wage protection laws as Maryland’s Labor Secretary.

Many of the nation’s most prominent Latino leaders have been denouncing Republican opposition to Perez.

“We are outraged over the unjustified and unfair delays in his confirmation and in the unjust treatment of his nomination,” said Janet Murguia, president and CEO of the National Council of La Raza.

Most Republican leaders have expressed the need to reach out to Latino voters after their dismal showing in the 2012 elections.  The question is whether they will keep Latino voters in mind as they vote on whether to confirm a son of Dominican immigrants to the nation’s top Labor post.

“While I am sure Republicans are sensitive to the fact that the Perez nomination definitely matters to many Latinos, I suspect that if it were a major issue to Republicans you wouldn’t see such a clear difference in today’s vote,” says University of New Mexico political scientist Gabriel Sanchez.  ”When it comes to the full Senate, it will probably be an individually-based decision for some Republican Senators, depending on their districts,” Sanchez adds.

If there are not enough votes, the question is whether Senate Majority Leader Reid will consider the “nuclear option” –  where Senate Democrats vote to change Senate rules to prevent Republicans from filibustering the nomination by requiring 60 votes.

In the meantime, for some Latino leaders, a Perez rejection goes beyond the nominee.

“Senators who are threatening to filibuster him and prevent an up-or-down on his confirmation are filibustering the Latino community,” said Hector Sanchez, chair of the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda and executive director of the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement (LCLLA).

“The biggest problem is we are not asking them for their vote,” said Dr. Julie Martinez Ortega, vice president of  policy and advocacy for PowerPac, a progressive political action committee.  Ortega conducted a poll of over 2,600 randomly selected Hispanic registered voters.  According to the poll, 57 percent of Latino registered voters said Democrats best represent their views on social issues like same-sex marriage, religion and abortion, and 57 percent say Democrats best represent their views on jobs, economy and immigration.

And though Texas is considered a “red” state, only 23 percent of Latinos said they generally vote Republican, whereas 52 percent said they generally vote Democrat and 16 percent say they vote Independent.

One of the reasons why Republicans are still winning elections by about a million votes is that there are over 3 million Latinos “sitting on the sidelines,” according to Democratic state representative Trey Martinez Fischer and founder of One Texas PAC.   There are over 2 million Latinos in Texas not registered to vote, he says, and another million mostly Hispanic registered voters who are not voting.

Yet one of the poll’s findings was that only 54 percent of Latinos recall being contacted by a campaign in the last presidential election. “When pretty much half of Latinos didn’t even get a piece of mail, we have a problem,” said Martinez Ortega.  She added that while a third of Texas Latinos who voted for Obama also voted for conservative Republican Senator Ted Cruz, about a third of Latinos who voted for Senator Cruz did not know he was a Republican, according to the poll’s findings.  ”Here in Texas we didn’t make a concerted effort to educate Latinos on who Ted Cruz really is,” said Martinez Ortega.

Texas Republican Joshua Treviño takes issue with the Democrats’ contention that more Latino voters would turn Texas blue. “This is the old trope that gets trotted out, that demographic change in the state will go Democrat, and you hear this a lot these days from them,” says Treviño, who was a speechwriter for George W. Bush and is currently vice president of communications at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. “While there are partisan tendencies among groups, the fact is that as affluence and social integration occurs, political pluralism increases,” he says.

Treviño adds it is not a “safe assumption” that more Latino voters will translate to increased Democratic numbers and Democratic elected officials, though he does say current Hispanic voter participation does not represent the proportion of Latinos in Texas.

But Texas Democrats say a focus on 6 key counties in the state where the majority of Latinos reside can make a big difference in increased voter registration, turnout — and future Democratic victories.

“Some look at my district and think it should be functioning as a Republican district,” says Senator Wendy Davis, who represents an area that is 29 percent Latino, 19 percent African-American and 47.6 percent non-Hispanic white.  ”But we’ve demonstrated that by talking and connecting with these voters — it will happen,” Davis said.  She adds that while many areas have been redistricted as “purely Democrat” or “purely Republican,” the strategy is to take a district approach and apply it statewide — “focus on places where you have the biggest potential gain,” says Davis.

Democrat Martinez Fischer stated he is not concerned whether Texas turns blue in 2016 or 2020 — “the key is not to be fast, but to be right,” he said.

This week a high-profile Latino Republican, the former head of Hispanic outreach for Florida’s RNC, publicly left the party.  For Pablo Pantoja, the straw that broke the camel’s, or in this case the elephant’s, back was the Heritage Foundation’s anti-immigrant report and its co-author’s public defense of Latinos as a group having low IQ scores.  In his public farewell letter Pantoja references the general harshness of the Republican rhetoric toward immigrants, then points to a specific racist exchange at this year’s Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC), and concludes with a rejection of the likes of Dr. Jason Richwine (author of the Heritage study) as a voice for the GOP.  To sum up his rationale, Pantoja simply states that his former party had resorted to “intolerance and hate.”

He’s not the first and he won’t be the last.

Another high-profile Republican departure occurred close to two years ago, half way across the country in Arizona.  Dee Dee Garcia Blase had helped establish the Somos Republicans, a national organization for Latino Republicans based out of Arizona.  But in the wake of Arizona’s S.B. 1070 she also publicly rejected her party.  Though a fiscal and social conservative, she simply could not synthesize the GOP’s anti-immigrant rhetoric into her politics.  So she left the Republican Party and Somos Republicans and became officially “unaffiliated.”  Not too long after her departure the organization itself, Somos Republicans, took a similar route, officially abandoned the GOP and became Somos Independents.

The departures of Pantoja and Garcia Blase made the headlines because they were public partisan figures.  However, thousands of other Latinos have taken the same path of migrating out of the GOP.  Their decision is just not public, but rather taken in the privacy of a voting booth.

The out migration is especially stark when we compare the most recent presidential election with George W. Bush’s 2004 re-election.  The 2004 election was the Republican Latino high water mark.  At that time half of Latinos identified as being Democrats, 27 percent Republican, and 24 percent Independent.  Democrats clearly were the preferred party of Latinos, but slightly more than half did not identify as Democrats.  Moreover, in his re-election, Bush received 40 percent of the Latino vote.

Fast forward to President Obama’s re-election.  In 2012 the percentage of Latinos identifying as Democrats jumped to 57 percent and the number of Republicans decreased by half with only 14 percent of Latinos claiming a GOP affiliation.  The group that had the least movement was Independents or those unaffiliated.  In 2012 they rose to 29 percent.  But the biggest shift came in presidential vote choice, with Romney receiving only 27 percent of the Latino vote.

The correlation between the GOP’s Latino communications and outreach strategy is linear.  The harsher and more racially negative the messaging, the fewer Latinos will stand by your label and vote for you.  It’s not a complicated concept.

The Republican National Committee has publicly discussed its intention to not just retain but actively recruit Latinos.  However, mixed messaging will not staunch the migration.  Being a Latino-friendly party will require all segments of the party, not just the moderate ones, to put aside harsh rhetoric, or what Pablo Pantoja pointed to as intolerance.  No one wants to stick around where they’re not welcome.

Dr. Victoria M. DeFrancesco Soto is an NBC Latino and MSNBC contributor, Senior Analyst for Latino Decisions and Fellow at the Center for Politics and Governance at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, at Austin.

After nearly a year of breathless reports about how Latinos were going to trip over themselves to get to the polls and vote against Mitt Romney’s hard-line immigration stance — remember Time magazine’s Spanish-language cover “Yo Decido“? — the reality is less dramatic.

Yes, 11.2 million Latinos turned out to vote in 2012. But these headlines tell a different story: “As Hispanic Vote Lags, Millions of Votes Left on the Table,” “‘Record’ Hispanic Voter Turnout In 2012 a Misnomer, Census Numbers Show,” and “Gains in Hispanic vote fall short of projections.”

Last year I took heat for suggesting that the Latino vote wouldn’t live up to the hype. But the numbers don’t lie.

According to the Census Bureau, the percentage of Latinos casting ballots went down to 48 percent from 49.9 percent in 2008.

Paul Taylor and Mark Hugo Lopez summarized it for the Pew Research Center: “Hispanics continue to punch below their weight. Much was made right after the November election about the clout of the Hispanic vote (by, among others, the Pew Research Center). But the new Census Bureau data show that Hispanics’ turnout rate — just 48 percent — was far below that of whites (64.1 percent) or blacks (66.2 percent).”

Taylor and Lopez noted that because of population growth, the number of Latinos who voted for president did increase, but the number who were eligible but chose not to vote increased even more — by 2.3 million — from 9.8 million in 2008 to 12.1 million in 2012.

The reason you don’t hear much about these sobering numbers from the Hispanic advocacy organizations — as opposed to how they react to any statistic even remotely suggesting an impending Latino supremacy — is obvious. After all, immigration reform is only in play because Republicans are scared witless that unfavorable Latino voting power will sink their party in upcoming elections.

But how true can this be when fewer Latino voters bothered to vote in a contest featuring an incumbent Democrat and a Hispanically tone-deaf Republican candidate who could never quite get past “self-deportation” than in 2008, when Barack Obama and John McCain — a longtime supporter of immigration reform — were running?

Yes, Republicans have a Hispanic problem, but it may be less a voting-power dilemma than it is a perception issue.

One big misperception is that Latino voters care foremost about politicians’ stand on immigration, a notion that has been disproved time and again. And even though it is a topic of importance to them, Latinos do not speak with one voice on immigration, as a recent study by the Pew Research Center for People and the Press reaffirms.

When asked whether those living in the U.S. illegally should be allowed to stay legally, 9 percent of Latinos said “no” and another 6 percent didn’t know. Asked about giving those in the U.S. illegally a way to obtain legal status, 29 percent of Latino respondents said it would be “like rewarding them for doing something wrong” and another 10 percent weren’t sure. Yes, these are minority opinions, but they point to a diversity of thought Latinos are rarely credited with.

Another perception is that Republicans hate Hispanics.

Many Latinos see the Republican Party as a mix of a few opportunistic politicians trying to make inroads to win their votes and many xenophobes who believe not only that most Hispanics are living here illegally but that they’re intellectually inferior.

It’s hard to assume otherwise after the controversy over the Heritage Foundation’s estimates on the cost of legalizing the 11 million immigrants living here illegally.

At the same time as some conservative leaders were rushing to register their disapproval with the report — which accounted for costs, but not benefits, of legalization — others were quiet after news outlets reported that one of co-authors of the study had written a Harvard Ph.D. dissertation contending that Hispanics have low IQs that will likely never reach parity with whites and will produce more low-IQ children and grandchildren.

Shout this from the rooftops: Perception, not voting power, is the Republican Party’s biggest Hispanic challenge.  Perception, not voting power, is the Republican Party’s biggest Hispanic challenge.

Esther Cepeda is a syndicated columnist and an NBC Latino Contributor.