ROSARIO DAWSON - DAWSON ENCOURAGES HISPANICS TO VOTE

ROSARIO DAWSON is leading a campaign to encourage Hispanic Americans to vote in the forthcoming presidential election. The actress is proud of her Afro Cuban/Puerto Rican/American Indian Irish heritage, but frustrated that fewer than one third of the U.S. vast Hispanic population votes. She has co-founded a group called Voto Latino, which seeks to help those eligible to vote make it to polls on voting day. She tells Glamour magazine, "This is such an important election. We're trying to tell people, 'Listen, you have rights.'" Dawson, 28, isn't a stranger to campaigning - she marched with her mother as a small child in New York. She adds, "My mom was politically active. We walked in Al Sharpton parades back when he still wore sweatpants."