Latino News

WASHINGTON, March 8 /PRNewswire/ -- After months of trying to woo Latino voters nationally, George W. Bush failed his first test yesterday with a poor showing among the Latino electorate in California. According to exit polls from the California primary, Bush garnered only 18 percent of the nation's fasting-growing demographic group. (USA Today, 3/8/00; Washington Post, 3/8/00)

"Bush showed up in California with the belief that speaking broken Spanish and appearing in well orchestrated photo ops would help him woo the Latino vote," said DNC General Co-Chair Loretta Sanchez. "The numbers from yesterday's election show that Latinos resoundingly reject George W. Bush and his agenda," said Sanchez.

DNC General Co-Chair Loretta Sanchez said, "In the past, he has inflated the amount of support he has received from Latinos. I am here to say that 18 percent is all he will get in California."

Bush often inflates the percentage of Latinos that voted for him in the 1998 gubernatorial re-election campaign. Last week, Bush said he had received "over 50 percent of the Hispanic vote." The actual figure is 37 percent. (New York Times, 3/4/00; Austin-American Statesman, 11/13/98)

"Bush does not fight for the issues that affect the daily lives of our community," said Sanchez. "His opposition to an increase in the minimum wage, to statistical sampling and his risky tax scheme leave Latinos behind. Over 70 percent of Latinos in California acknowledged that yesterday by voting against Bush," said Sanchez.

* Bush publicly voiced his anti-minority position on the use of statistical sampling in the census. According to the Census Bureau, 5% of Latinos in the United States were undercounted nationally -- missing about 1.2 million people. Bush said, "I think we need to count, an actual count. I think we need to spend the money, make the effort and work hard to get an actual count." (USA Today, 2/22/00; Associated Press, 3/6/00)

* Bush said he would only support a federal minimum wage increase if states could opt out -- "a condition that could render a proposed increase meaningless." (Associated Press, 8/24/99)

* Bush's risky tax plan would cost up to $2.1 trillion in its first 10 years. Bush's plan far exceeds the only realistic CBO budget surplus estimate and could force massive spending cuts, raiding the Social Security surplus or gutting vital programs like Medicare and Medicaid. Previously, Bush had endorsed the 1999 Republican Congress' $800 billion tax scheme. (Bush speech, 12/1/99; House Budget Committee Democratic Caucus, CBO's Budget Outlook Talking Points, 1/25/00; CTJ Analysis, 1/31/00; Wall Street Journal, 8/11/99)

Pews in Catholic churches across the Sacramento region are kept stocked with English-language missals and hymnals, both essential worship booklets. Spanish versions, by contrast, are often brought out for bilingual services on the weekend -- in those parishes where Mass is celebrated in Spanish -- then packed away for another week.

"I don't think they do it consciously, but it does bother me because we're just not (considered) at the same level," says Martha Garduo, a Sacramento Latina and long-active lay volunteer.

Though Latinos will likely constitute a majority among American Catholics by 2020, they are often relegated to separate and "highly unequal spheres" within the church, according to a report just released by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The concerns raised in "Hispanic Ministry at the Turn of the New Millennium" resound with many members of the Diocese of Sacramento.

The disparities are both subtle and significant, faithful say. They range from off-hours Spanish Masses and poor stipends for some Latino lay volunteers to a shortage of bilingual personnel -- from church secretaries to parish priests.

"I agree we have a long way to go," said Bishop Richard Garcia, a Mexican American and second-in-command of the Sacramento Diocese. "There should be leadership at all levels of Hispanics for Hispanics, pastors to department heads."

According to the Washington, D.C.-based bishops group -- which oversees the nation's largest religious denomination -- Latino priests constitute less than 4 percent of Catholic clergy in the United States, though Latino faithful make up as much as 38 percent of church members.

The local picture is similar. No formal count exists, said Sister Eileen Enright, diocesan chancellor. But officials estimate the Latino Catholic population at more than 40 percent of the estimated 454,000 Catholics in the diocese's 20 northern counties.

Of the 260 priests in the diocese, just 25 are Latino -- and fewer than a handful are in charge of their respective parishes. Most serve as assistants.

There are some signs that such imbalances are evening out. For example, more than half of the 47 seminarians now training to become priests in the Sacramento diocese are Latino -- a ratio on the rise in recent years, according to Garcia.

Anglo priests are also increasingly turning to church-run linguistic and cultural programs to hone their Latino ministry skills.

And efforts have been made in recent years to offer training for Latino lay members to deepen their faith and equip them to become lectors, eucharistic ministers and other volunteer leaders within the church.

The Sacramento Diocese launched the Hispanic Institute of Lay Formation five years ago. Eighty-two men and women are now enrolled in the two-year program. Tani Muiz McPherson participates through Sacred Heart Parish in Red Bluff, which has added a third weekend Mass in Spanish to accommodate recent Latino growth.

"Before, Hispanics kind of felt like they couldn't be more active in the church, at Sunday Mass and things like that," she said. "The institute has helped a lot to teach that you can be, that you need to be."

Attitudes toward Latinos in the church have undergone profound change in the 22 years since he became a priest, said the Rev. Bob Copsey. A New Yorker of Irish descent, Copsey spent most of his seminary training in Mexico. His ordination at Sacramento's Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament in 1978 marked the first bilingual Mass in diocesan history, he says.

"The attitudes were not very supportive of the Hispanic community at the time, mostly because of ignorance. It wasn't because of meanness," he said.

Things have moved quickly in the past 10 years, he said. Copsey credits Bishop William Weigand -- who ministered in Colombia -- with pushing clergy to preach in Spanish wherever possible. Until recent years, Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish at Seventh and T streets was the only local church to offer bilingual Mass. Now, 25 churches in the diocese do so.

Copsey holds two Spanish-language Masses on the weekends at his own church, St. Joseph Parish in North Sacramento. He says he is "in desperate need" of a third to accommodate crowds.

Beefing up resources is needed not just to cater to Latino members, but also to slow the stream of Latino immigrants to other faiths, many say. In the Sacramento region and across the United States, such traditional Catholics have become coveted prospects, especially to Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons and evangelical and Pentecostal Protestants.

"I think people are leaving because we don't give them the key leadership positions," said the Rev. Alex Castillo of the Sacramento-based California Catholic Conference.

Castillo weighed in on early drafts of the bishops' report, which also points to "ongoing tensions" over the best approach to ministering to Latinos: Should new immigrants assimilate into existing parishes or worship and socialize separately until better acclimated to the United States?

The Rev. Rodolfo Delgado, pastor of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, believes it's best to integrate. When he came to Sacramento 18 years ago as a newly ordained cleric, his English was so bad, he says, his job options were few. He eventually enrolled at American River College, where he improved his vocabulary through computer and business administration classes.

While Delgado's parish is almost exclusively Latino, he routinely celebrates Mass in English and Spanish -- largely to connect with bilingual youth. He believes his Latino colleagues would advance more quickly within the church if they honed their English skills.

"I think if we learn the language, we will be able to communicate with those in power," he said. "The church is doing as much as it can."

Garduo agrees. Her pastor at St. Peter's Parish in south Sacramento has been especially supportive. A few years back, for example, he tried to pay her a monthly stipend for helping direct the church's Spanish choir. Such stipends are much less common among Latinos than among their Anglo counterparts, several church leaders say.

Garduo turned the money down because she considers her volunteer work a service to the church. The priest's gesture was a gift in itself.

COLUMN OF THE AMERICAS
by Patrisia Gonzales and Roberto Rodriguez
(EDITOR'S NOTE: This week's column is a first-person account by Patrisia Gonzales.)

Dreaming Guatemala -- they came for me in the night when I felt safe enough to dream. They took my mother and tortured her with cigarettes.

The dream came months later, after I covered the civil war in Guatemala in 1983. I called those months my summer of living dangerously. While I was there, I was not afraid in that green and frightening place. It seemed a useless emotion in war zones, where I saw dying babies and dead soldiers, heard crazed pronouncements from President Efrain Rios Montt. His army scorched the earth of native communities, butchered a people.

When the army took us to a village where the people returned to be "protected" by the army, I saw children's eyes grow large like moons and I knew then not to go beyond the brush where guerrillas hid. I was working with a team of reporters, and over the course of our reporting, our phones were tapped and we were followed by security forces. After I made a cavalier joke inside my hotel room about wanting roses at my grave, a mysterious man sent me a corsage of roses when we went to the bar for a nightcap. But the bartender could not identify him because he disappeared among the drinks.

Before we were allowed to leave the country, Guatemalan police questioned us and fingerprinted us. I remember regretting giving them my mother's name.

These memories were stirred by the power of narrative after Roberto and I spent three days immersed in prose at the recent Guadalupe InterAmerican Book Fair and Literary Festival in San Antonio, Texas. I steeped my memory in the sounds and words of poets' tea leaves, making it thick and strong. That dream came back to me as story.

In Guatemala an ex-Marxist, Alfonso Portillo Cabrera, is president and a current ally of Rios Montt, who once again has power. An indigenous woman, one of the three persons who made up the Historical Clarification Commission, is in the Cabinet, but Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchu still faces threats from fascist elements. She recently filed a complaint with the international tribunal that handled Augusto Pinochet's case, charging Rios Montt and other heads of state and army officials with genocide and torture.

I interviewed her long before the world knew of her. She still cried for her family then; the mourning was still in her skin. She and I were about the same age, and I remember thinking this young woman was important to her people. That summer, I interviewed Guatemalan Christian ministers who came to a clandestine meeting in Mexico to plan God's work of social justice. Many knew they would not live to see each other again. I felt so insignificant before all these heroic people.

At the bookfair, I heard author Martin Espada read a poem about Sister Dianna Ortiz, who was kidnapped and tortured by Guatemalan security forces on Feb. 2, 1989. While in detention, she met a tall, fair-skinned man who spoke Spanish with a thick American accent, and whom the torturers called "their boss."

"Sister Ortiz simulated the kidnapping, violated the Eighth Commandment against false witness, said the U.S. ambassador. A sadomasochistic lesbian nun, said a State Department official. A case of delicate nerves, said the Guatemalan Minister of Defense." -- from Espada's book "A Mayan Astronomer in Hell's Kitchen" (W.W. Norton, $21.)

He read a poem about imagining the day justice arrived, when billy clubs would disintegrate in the hands of their possessors. In democracy's contradictions, sweeping constitutional reforms failed last year that would have recognized Mayan self-determination and reformed the army and government. They were supposed to unify the country by rectifying the past. Inspired by the poem, I imagined the justice of magical realism.

If justice came to Guate, Menchu would be president. And a generation of leaders, some of the best of the country, would be alive to lead, not only in Guatemala, but Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Chile, Argentina, South Africa and East Timor. The disappeared would talk among the living. And there'd be resurrection in the mass graves, and among the masses. There'd be no armies. I've wondered, what do people dream of in Guatemala? What if their dreams slipped outside their minds for all to see -- dreams with cigarette burns and floating limbs, butterflies for dead ancestors and bright red healing thread for stitching wounds and democracy's cloth.

Then would a country find its reality so undeniable, so unreconcilable that justice would arrive, not because of a "democratically elected president" but because when the people dreamed, the dreams came true?

The writers can be reached at PO BOX 7905, Albq NM 87194-7905, 505-242-7282. Gonzales can be reached directly at: PatiGonzaJ@aol.com

The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (March 8) - People of Mexican descent, who comprise more than 65 percent of the country's Hispanic population, are the least likely among Hispanics to be college-educated, Census data released today show. More than 7 percent of the nation's 20 million Mexicans held bachelor's degrees. Cubans were the Hispanic group most likely to be college-educated, with 25 percent of that population holding bachelor's degrees or better. Nearly 28 percent of non-Hispanic whites finished college. With one quarter of the nation's 31 million Hispanics living below the poverty line in 1998, the possibility of Hispanics - and especially recently arrived immigrants - to get better wages could get smaller because of increasing demand for college-educated workers, said Gumecindo Salas, vice president for governmental relations of the Hispanic Association for Colleges and Universities.

``The tradition among all immigrants in the U.S. is that after two or three generations, you tend to see a movement up in educational level,'' Salas said. But with Hispanics, ``because you have so many coming in over time, it tends to undermine that level of improvement. It may not appear to be improvement, but it actually is.''

The data are part of the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey on Hispanics, the last population estimates before the 2000 Census. The Hispanic population is expected to triple to 98 million in 2050. Hispanics could become in the half-century the nation's largest minority group with their percentage rising from about 12 percent now to 24 percent. Poverty level for a family of four in 1998 was considered to be $16,600. About 8 percent of non-Hispanic whites lived in poverty in 1998. Meanwhile, 27 percent of Puerto Rican families lived in poverty, compared with 24 percent of Mexican families and 11 percent of Cuban households. ``The country's Latino population is not as homogeneous as some might think,'' said census analyst Roberto Ramirez.

Clinton Names Guillermo Linares as Chair of President's Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans

WASHINGTON, March 3 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The President today announced the appointment of Guillermo Linares as Chair of the President's Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans.

Guillermo Linares, of New York, N.Y., has served as a member of the Commission since January, 1995. He has been Vice Chair since 1998. Linares became the first Dominican-American to be elected to public office in the United States when he was elected to the New York City Council in 1991. He was re-elected in November, 1993 and again in November, 1997. He continues to serve as a councilman.

Previously, Linares was president of Community School Board #6 in Northern Manhattan. His prior experience includes positions as an Adjunct Professor and Project Director at the City College of New York, an Adult Literacy Consultant/Instructor at the Hispanic Women's Center, a Project Associate at Teachers College, Columbia University, and as a Resource Specialist and Curriculum Specialist at the New York City Board of Education.

Linares was a founding member of the Community Association of Progressive Dominicans, where he served as coordinator of educational programs. He was a founding member and Co-President of the Parents Coalition for Education, Inc. in New York City, served as President of the Chancellors Commission on Bilingual Education and as a member of the Board of Directors of Advocates for Children of New York City, Inc. He was elected Co-President of the Black and Hispanic Caucus of the New York City Council in 1998. In addition, he serves as a member of the Executive Board of the National Council of La Raza and as a member of the Board of Directors of the National Association of Latino Appointed and Elected Officials.

Linares earned a B.A. in 1973 and a M.S. in 1979, from the City College of New York. He is currently an Ed.D. candidate at Teachers College, Columbia University.

The President's Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans has been established in the Department of Education to advise the President and the Secretary of Education on the progress of Hispanic Americans toward achievement of the National Educational Goals and other standards of educational accomplishment. The Commission develops, monitors, and coordinates federal efforts to promote high quality education for Hispanic Americans. The Commission also examines ways to increase state, private sector, and community involvement in improving education.

OREM - Following the lead of an increasing number of Latino-operated Utah businesses, a new radio station in Orem is banking on widening its reach beyond Latinos.

"We are an advertising company," said David Kifuri, who launched the Spanish news and talk programming in December. "We can deliver the Hispanic market but not just to Hispanic businesses."

Kifuri, who worked at a McAllen, Texas, radio station before moving to Utah last year, hopes to convince non-Hispanic businesses that advertising on "Radio Unica" (1480 AM) makes sense. That's a good approach because Hispanics in Utah wield increasing economic and social influence, said Joseph Madrigal, who last year founded the five-county South-Central Utah Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

"The purchasing power of Hispanics in Utah is now $1.69 billion per year," Madrigal said.

Kifuri believes that while the Latino population in states like Utah has grown rapidly in recent years, services have not kept pace. While the latest U.S. Census Bureau figures put Utah's Latino population at about 140,000, Madrigal - a statistician -estimates the number could be twice that.

But as far as radio stations go, Utah Latinos are getting plenty of attention. In addition to "Radio Unica," which began broadcasting a half-day's worth of programming in December, Utah County is home to "Radio Latina." The two operations share air time on 1480 AM.

"Radio Latina" was started in November by a group of Utah County residents who felt other Spanish-language radio stations in Utah catered only to natives of Mexico.

"We wanted to provide programming for people from all over Central and South America as well as returned (LDS Church) missionaries," said Amanda Montecinos, who hosts a "Radio Latina" program on Saturdays.

Both "Radio Latina" and "Radio Unica" lease air time from KHQN, a Spanish Fork broadcasting company owned by devotees of Krishna. Construction of their temple, New Kusum Sarovara, made the Krishna followers too busy to continue producing 24 hours per day of radio programming, said Vai Bhavi Das.

Vai still oversees operation of the station's transmitters during the day. Eastern religious music and other programming is now broadcast only during the early morning hours on 1480 AM.

"We've had a lot of disappointed callers," said Vai, referring to the new programming schedule. But, "it takes the weight off us and gives us money for the temple."

Programs broadcast by "Radio Unica" and "Radio Latina" join offerings from "La Fiera" (960 AM), which also focuses on Utah County's Spanish-speaking radio audience. "La Fiera" started in April 1999 and already has grown to 17 hours per day of live, local programming.

About 80 percent of advertisers on "La Fiera" are Latino-owned businesses, said general manager Oralia Lopez. But like Kifuri, Lopez understands the importance of delivering the growing Latino market to non-Latino businesses.

"It just continues growing," she said of her station's clout with advertisers. "Now we have businesses that want to advertise calling us."

The dean of Spanish-language radio programming in Utah could be "La Mexicana" (730 AM), which is based in Hooper, Weber County, and serves mostly northern Utah and southern Idaho. "Radio Fiesta" (1600 AM) seems to have established itself as the leading Spanish-language broadcaster in Salt Lake County, Madrigal said.

Utah's Latino radio stations, like other Latino media, are discovering their power in reaching a fast-growing and vibrant market. Businesses hoping to reach that market cut across racial and ethnic boundaries.

"Hispanic media have traditionally approached Hispanic businesses for advertising," Kifuri said. "That's a mistake."

Bank One Corp. and the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce will announce plans today for a five-year alliance that includes formation of the nation's first venture capital fund aimed at Hispanic-owned businesses.

The alliance, which will bring Bank One offices around the country closer to local Hispanic chambers of commerce, was conceived in Phoenix by leaders of both organizations and will be directed for the next year by Bank One officials in the Valley.

The program, to be called Alianza, which is Spanish for alliance, is designed to increase access to capital and credit for Hispanic businesses.

Chicago-based Bank One is a leading lender to small businesses, and the U.S. Hispanic Chamber, based in Washington, D.C., oversees a network of 200 local chambers.

The Alianza effort will include several efforts, bank and chamber officials said:

The first national venture capital fund exclusively for Hispanic-owned businesses.

Bank One will invest $5 million to start the fund and has agreed to help raise another $5 million for it. The fund is expected to be up and running within the year and would be available to make direct equity investments of $250,000 to $15 million in businesses with at least 51 percent Hispanic ownership and $4 million in annual sales.

A rewards program that will donate funds to local Hispanic chambers based on the growth of members' loan and savings accounts with Bank One. The funds would be used for education programs such as mentoring, new technology and financing a business.

The rewards program will be a first, bank officials say, in that it will go beyond existing programs in the banking industry that offer customers goods and services based on their credit card purchases.

The Alianza program will reward chambers when businesses that identify themselves as Hispanic chamber members open Bank One deposit accounts, take out loans with the bank, or make business credit card purchases on a Hispanic Chamber affinity credit card. Chambers also would be rewarded for growth in members' existing accounts with the bank.

Bank One subsidiary First USA will offer business credit cards under the U.S. Hispanic Chamber brand name. Cardholders will be eligible for discounts beyond the rewards program.

Sponsorship of Hispanic Business Today, the chamber's monthly television program that is broadcast in 32 markets including Phoenix.

Ruben Ramos, national program manager for Alianza at Bank One, said the alliance grew out of discussions he had with George Herrera, president and chief executive officer of the U.S. Hispanic Chamber, and Ray Arvizu, chamber chairman and president of Arvizu Advertising in Phoenix.

The three discussed an affinity rewards program that would help the U.S. chamber add value to local chambers, Ramos said.

Some affinity reward programs in the industry generate more than $1 million in benefits to the sponsoring organizations, he said, and the Alianza effort could run into an even more "significant dollar amount" because of the additional accounts eligible.

Beyond the affinity program, though, the three soon saw an opportunity to do more.

"There was a case to be made on their side that access to capital was an issue," Ramos said.

That is how they developed the idea of a rewards program based on the growth in members' accounts, and from there the discussion progressed to how to help middle-market businesses grow more quickly, he said.

Though Bank One has been the lead investor in six to eight venture capital funds that seek out women- and minority-owned businesses, this will be the first time it has taken the lead on a fund strictly focused on Hispanic-owned firms, Ramos said.

It hopes to raise additional investment from other banks and financial services companies, for a possible total fund size of $70 million to $75 million, he said.

Hispanic-owned businesses saw an 82 percent increase in numbers and a 152 percent rise in annual revenues between 1992 and 1997, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration.

Bank One officials said they will promote Alianza with a major direct-mail campaign to chamber members in March and through presentations to local chambers throughout the year.

The bank also has trained a number of bilingual telephone bankers to handle small-business questions at call centers in Tempe and Chicago.

Hispanic performers' success sets stage for Latin Grammys

From Time to Time: Nando's in-depth look at the 20th century

By DAVID GERMAIN

LOS ANGELES (February 24, 2000 4:11 p.m. EST http://www.nandotimes.com) - Such a "Smooth" segue. Big Grammy wins by Carlos Santana and Christina Aguilera provide a high-profile lead-in for a Latin Grammys show that debuts next fall.

The Mexican-born Santana won eight Grammys on Wednesday, tying Michael Jackson's record for most awards in one night. Aguilera, whose father is from Ecuador and who plans to release a Spanish-language album this spring, was a surprise winner for best new artist.

The success of Santana and Aguilera and the high visibility of Hispanics throughout the ceremony emphasize the growing popularity of Latin performers and music - and so September's Latin Grammys will honor performers, producers and other music professionals recording in Spanish and Portuguese.

"Demographic trends show Latinos eventually will be the largest ethnic minority in the U.S.," said Ricardo Dopico, director of Latin music for the Recording Industry Association of America. "As a result of those sheer numbers, the Latin culture is going to continue to seep into mainstream culture."

Ricky Martin's performance at last year's Grammys helped kick the Latin sensation's career into high gear. Martin and fellow Latin singer Marc Anthony had nominations in top pop categories at Wednesday's Grammy show, which included a Latin musical segment featuring numbers in Spanish.

Latino awards presenters included Gloria Estefan, Jimmy Smits, Andy Garcia and Jennifer Lopez, perhaps the evening's most-talked-about celebrity with a gown cut in a loose V that left little to the imagination.

Both Latino and non-Latino Grammy winners and performers, including guitarists B.B. King and George Benson, praised Santana, whose commercial comeback "Supernatural" put the guitar impresario on top of the album charts for the first time in almost 30 years. It won album of the year honors, while "Smooth" - Santana's first-ever No. 1 single - won record and song of the year.

Ruben Blades, who won the Grammy for Latin pop performance for "Tiempos," said he grew up listening to such mainstream acts as Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, but Santana broke ground for Latin artists because he was "hailed worldwide and was respected and treated as an equal by his peers."

"His success inspired a lot of people," Blades said.

Latin bandleader Tito Puente, who won a Grammy for traditional tropical Latin performance, joked that he has profited off the talent of Santana, whose early hits include Puente's "Oye Como Va."

"Everytime he plays 'Oye Como Va,' I get a nice royalty check," Puente said.