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At first glance, the only similarities that Senators-elect Mel Martínez of Florida and Ken Salazar of Colorado share is that they are both Latino and come from humble origins. After that, their backgrounds become a study in contrast.

Nevertheless, come January, each will occupy a senate seat in Washington, the pinnacle of legislative influence and power. Latinos from throughout the nation look to this with great anticipation because it has been 27 long years since a Hispanic sat in that chamber.

It’s as if Martínez, a Cuban-American Republican, and Salazar, a Mexican-American Democrat, had been elected “national” senators as far as an enthusiastic Latino constituency is concerned. Finally, Latinos will once again have a voice in that storied legislative body that makes and shapes our country’s laws and policies.

Three Latinos have been elected to the U.S. Senate and, until this year, all had been from New Mexico. The late Joseph Montoya, a Democrat, was the last, serving from l964-1977. Before him came Dennis Chávez, also a Democrat, who held a Senate seat from 1935 to 1962 and became a Latino legend, if only because of his celebrated status in those deprived times.

The first Latino U.S. senator, Octaviano A. Larrazolo, however, was a Republican, but little is known of his legislative career and his Senate tenure was short – l928 to 1929.

Decades later, two Latinos from different parties and with disparate political backgrounds have reached the Senate and many are viewing it as a new dawning for Latinos. Or as the political epiphany that was long predicted but so long in coming.

“The election of Martínez and Salazar is a landmark for Hispanics,” said Dr. Harry Pachón, president of the Tomás Rivera Policy Institute, a Hispanic think tank that is a research affiliate of the University of Southern California and associated with Columbia University.

“The senators-elect may be at political extremes, but the phenomenon is that both will find themselves at the center when it comes to Latino issues,” Pachón added.

Political analysts may find it striking that two Latinos from opposite parties could be elected in statewide races to important national offices by an electorate that, in the case of Colorado in particular, based its choice more on abilities than on backgrounds.

“It’s a brand new development and symbolic that it comes at the beginning of a new century,” Pachón said.

No one should misconstrue their election as senators to mean they will now become the champions of Latino issues. Both have broad constituencies with diverse demands, and their lawmaking success will hinge on their utilitarian approach to duty and not as the prelates of Latino agendas.

Martínez, his supporters like to say, “is the genuine American dream.” He was 15 years old when he left his Cuban parents to come to the U.S. under the Catholic Charities’ “Pedro Pan,” or “Peter Pan,” program, which eventually settled 14,000 Cuban children dispatched by parents or relatives to the U.S. to escape Castro’s Cuba.

Martínez, now 58, first lived in two youth homes and later with two foster families in Orlando, where his talents and ambitions began to reveal themselves. He mastered the English language and worked at odd jobs to help out his parents when they and his two siblings joined him in Florida four years later.

He worked his way through college, earning a law degree from Florida State University, and was soon partnering with prestigious law firms in Orlando. Martínez started on his career path in politics by winning seats on local and county boards and immersing himself in Republican politics.

It helped that he ingratiated himself with the Bush family and its political activities, first the governor, Jeb, and later the brother, George W., whom he served as state campaign co-chairman in 2000.

When Bush won the presidency, he appointedMartínez as secretary of housing and urban development, probably in gratitude for Florida’s support and for the Cuban vote that was key to his win in 2000.

President Bush, knowing he would again need the decisive coattails of the Florida Latino constituency, particularly the Cuban bloc, in the 2004 elections, tried to persuade Martínez to run for the U.S. Senate seat against popular incumbent Bob Graham.

Martínez, at first, balked at being the sacrificial lamb, until Graham announced he was retiring. As it turned out, Bush didn’t need Martínez’s purported coattails, convincingly winning the Florida vote; but this time, Martínez needed Bush’s.

Bush won 52 percent of the Florida vote to Kerry’s 47 percent while Martínez barely edged out the popular Democratic candidate, Betty Castor, with the winner in doubt until the last tallied vote. Martínez won, not so much because of the loyal but insubstantial Cuban vote, statewide. He won because the lily-white Florida Panhandle, which went heavily for Bush, included Martínez as a matter of course in its straight ticket vote.

Martínez at least had some national exposure before running for the Senate, but Colorado’s Ken Salazar made his political bones largely in local political activities. His résumé is sparse in national political affairs nor does he have much exposure in national events. Frankly, few outside his state, particularly Latinos, had ever heard of Salazar until his Senate run.

Like Martínez, Salazar has a résumé steeped in early hard knocks, but with variations. Salazar was apparently poorer than Martínez growing up, but he wasn’t a refugee fleeing repression.

Salazar, 49, was born in the San Luis Valley in Southern Colorado in a settlement that predated statehood. Salazar tells of growing up with seven brothers and sisters in a family so poor his family home did not have electricity or phone service until the mid-1980s.

In a speech to the state’s Democratic convention, Salazar said, “My parents were farmers – poor but humble people, with the strongest of America’s values – hard work, integrity and honesty, faith and love for America. Those values are my values.”

Like typical self-possessed people with a mission, Salazar worked his way out of that hardscrabble environment to seek a college education. He earned a political science degree from Colorado College and later a law degree from the University of Michigan, financing his studies with odd jobs, scholarships and student loans.

One reason why few Latinos had heard of Salazar until recently is that he seemed to prefer a low-profile style, dabbling mostly in unobtrusive activities. He seldom ventured outside his turf to participate in national Hispanic organization events, as do most ambitious Latinos.

After practicing environmental and public lands law for 11 years in Colorado, he joined the administration of Democratic Gov. Roy Romer as chief legal counsel. Salazar later became director of Colorado’s Department of Natural Resources. In November l998, Salazar was elected attorney general, the first Latino to win a statewide office.

As with Martínez, serendipity stepped in for Salazar to propel him to national off ice. Incumbent Republican Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, a virtual shoo-in for re-election, announced unexpectedly that he was retiring. Salazar survived an early party challenge to take on Republican Party candidate Peter Coors, the deep-pockets beer maker.

Coors, heir to the brewing dynasty and from one of Colorado’s first families, was supposed to win in a state where Republicans outnumber Democrats and the not-that-large-Latino voting base has been noted in the past to skip elections.

Despite its Republican Party tendencies, you can’t depend on Colorado’s somewhat quirky electorate to toe the party line. In the past, Coloradans have elected such Democratic stalwarts as Sen. Gary Hart, Rep. Patricia Schroeder and Govs. Romer and Dick Lamm.

Another incongruity in the 2004 Colorado elections is that although Bush lost the Latino vote 44 percent to 53 percent to Sen. John F. Kerry, he trounced Kerry in the overall state vote, which means many voters who went for Bush nevertheless preferred Salazar over Republican Coors.

Salazar won 51 percent of the vote, with Coors receiving 47 percent, leaving no doubt of the voters’ preference. Salazar ran a campaign that was neither too liberal nor too conservative, playing, not surprisingly, the middle against both ends.

He was helped by the image he evoked as the people’s everyman, with no pretentiousness, wearing a western hat and rattling around the state with only a two-person family entourage in a pickup truck that racked up 148,850 miles on the odometer during the campaign.

He will be joined in Washington by his brother, John Salazar, a state legislator and potatoseed farmer, also elected to Congress.

Like most freshman legislators, Salazar is eager to tackle Washington, firm in his belief, but with some naivete, that noble intentions and a work ethic that helped him escape the farm poverty in San Luis Valley are transferable to Washington, a city that can rapidly sap idealistic energies.

In a news program interview during the campaign, Salazar said he would be a party faithful but that he was not “going to be a rubber stamp for either party, and I’m not going to be a rubber stamp for the president, whether it’s Kerry or Bush.”

Well, it’s Bush, and as a freshman member of the party out of power, Salazar can expect lousy committee assignments until he gains some seniority. The Senate is still a “good ole boys” club that makes you earn your perks.

Martínez should have it a lot easier since he already knows his way around Washington and Congress as a former Bush Cabinet member. He also holds a few chits on the president by agreeing to run for office and helping Bush solidify the Latino vote, particularly Cubans, in Florida.

In his acceptance speech, he called his election as senator “my improbable journey.” He spoke in English but interjected comments in Spanish.

“I believe in the promise of America, the promise that regardless of where you came from, what language you speak, the color of your skin, or your economic circumstances – if you share the American dream of freedom and opportunity – and you pursue it with hard work, respect and an abiding faith in God – then all things are possible,” Martínez said.

Martínez is a latter-day Latino in this country with a lot to be thankful for, and he expresses it eloquently. Salazar also knows well the pathways of a minority group in this country, where the struggle and the hardships are still evident. Whatever affection he has for his fellow Latinos, he said he would be an impartial representative of all his constituents.

“I hope to be one of those driving forces that creates unity in America and brings Republicans, Democrats and Independents together,” Salazar said.

One political observer said his impartiality will be tested because he has never been exposed to a Latino constituency that extends beyond Colorado and that considers him one of theirs in his role as a U.S. senator.

“He’s never had a job where he gets lobbied on this scale,” Jennifer Duffy of Cook’s Political Report told the Denver Post. “He may not want to be the spokesman for the Hispanic community, but he may end up that anyway.”

Replying to similar suggestions, Salazar said he expected to be lobbied heavily by Hispanic advocates, but he was not worried because he represented “all the people of Colorado and I won’t be pigeonholed by one group. I won’t let that happen.”

Nevertheless, Salazar said in an interview with the Washington Star that he considers that the election of himself and Martínez to the Senate “a great step forward.”

“When you have 100 senators with no minority representation, I don’t think that’s good for America,” Salazar said.

Reprinted with permission from The Hispanic Outlook In Higher Education Magazine®, Vol. 15 #7, December 27, 2004. For more information, visit http://www.HispanicOutlook.com