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The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit, (posted 11/30/98) COLUMN OF THE AMERICAS by Patrisia Gonzales and Roberto Rodriguez Ray Bradbury, one of the country's greatest writers and the man who brought us "The Martian Chronicles," recently spoke to us about the role of memory and the writer, and his new movie, "The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit." Memory "collects up within you," says Bradbury, and collides with all the metaphors and ideas and all that you've read to produce what we know as creativity. And now the memories mined from his days of living in a tenement in an L.A. barrio, of hanging out every day with best friend Eddie Barrera and his family, have produced his latest masterpiece. "It's the most beautiful movie I've ever made." "The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit," which was initially a television drama and a play, depicts his memories of growing up poor in the barrio among large Mexican, Japanese, Filipino and Jewish families. There are no Uzis, brawls, knife fights or anyone getting mugged or raped. No one's dealing drugs or in prison. And despite the setting being in Los Angeles, it's not fantasy. People actually laugh and enjoy life in the barrio. We won't spoil the story except to say that this Disney-produced comedy is about five down-and-out friends who pool the last money they have to buy a white ice cream suit, and each one takes turns wearing it on the same evening. "I lived that way, too," said Bradbury. "I shared my father's and older brother's clothes. (And his brother's bicycle and skates because he was too poor to afford bus fare.) In the tenement, I saw how people shared clothes." While the characters are Mexican-American, it could have been about five guys from Italy, Japan, France or Spain, he noted. "It's about poverty and their love for one another," he said. We've long written about the need for Hollywood to begin offering women and people of color meaningful and dignified roles, and to make movies with non-white themes that are not just "blood-ploitation" movies. With this movie, the world finally will get a warm glimpse of the barrio, where people bleed, but where they also laugh, dance, cry, dream and smile. Frank Zuniga, director of the Southwest Institute of Film and Television in Albuquerque, who is bringing "The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit's" world premiere to the Duke City in early December, says that there are numerous movies about Latinos that need to be made. He cites "Rain of Gold" by Victor Villasenor, "Bless Me Ultima" by Rudy Anaya and the story of Elfego Baca. "Rain of Gold" is the epic migration story of the author's family, who are forced to flee to the United States as the result of the Mexican Revolution. "Bless Me Ultima," about a curandera or healer, is the quintessential novel about mestizo New Mexico. The story of Baca is of a determined New Mexico deputy sheriff trying to bring in a band of Texan outlaws terrorizing southern New Mexico. His attempt resulted in a 30-hour shootout between himself and 80 Texans. Despite thousands of rounds fired at him, Baca emerged victorious and "got his man." The books "Face of an Angel" by Denise Chavez and "The House on Mango Street" by Sandra Cisneros could easily be adapted into movies. The life stories of Texas labor leader Lucy Gonzalez Parsons and Los Angeles journalist Ruben Salazar-who was killed during an anti-Vietnam War protest in 1970 -- would make excellent feature films. The life story of Sal Castro-the teacher who led the high school walkouts by Mexican American students 30 years ago in Los Angeles-also deserves to be up on the screen. In reality, the stories waiting to be made are too numerous to list. What makes "The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit" refreshing is that it's not about a great page out of human history or tragedy. It's simply about sharing and life in the barrio. Disney should be commended for producing this movie, made expressly for the home video market. Perhaps if this movie succeeds, it will signal to the industry that blood, gore and gratuitous violence are not the only things that sell. While the producers plan to show screenings nationwide in March, Bradbury says he wishes that Disney would instead do a simultaneous worldwide release in Los Angeles, Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Madrid, etc. It's absolutely time to share our stories with the world. COPYRIGHT 1998 UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE For info regarding the world premiere, call: 505- 764-9191 For info regarding the national release of the movie, call Luis Reyes at: 310-659-3877 *** Gonzales & Rodriguez can be reached at PO BOX 7905 Albq NM 87194-7905, 505-242-7282: XColumn@aol.com Two Arrested After Demonstration, (posted 11/30/98) By NELLY ALAS Two men were arrested last Friday following a disturbance on campus. According to witnesses, an impromptu "Chicano Pride" demonstration was being held near the general quad area. At the end of the demonstration, an ELAC staff member engaged in a hostile argument with the "Chicano Pride" speaker. Campus police then moved in and asked for identification from both the speaker and a bystander, who turned out to be the speaker's father. The father was then arrested for having outstanding warrants. Following the arrest, the speaker began running through the area yelling out "Freedom of speech", and according to Police, attempted to incite the crowd to riot. The speker was then arrested for resisting arrest and because he was carrying two pocket knives, one the size of a keyring, the other about three inches long, both of which are legal to carry out on the streets, but not on campus. Campus Police Officer Sanders states that weapons are not allowed on, campus regardless of their size. What started with the involvement of one officer, ended up involving three officers, a lieutenant, the captain and the attention of a crowd of about fifty people, according to Sanders. Officer Sanders states that they are glad the incident was caught on tape in regards to a police brutality claim because the tape clearly shows there were no punches, kicks or batons used. This article is made available for discussion and analysis only under the "fair use" provisions of the US Copyright Laws. Damage in Central America Stirs Debate on Immigrants, (posted 11/30/98) By STEVEN A. HOLMES WASHINGTON-The devastation wrought by Hurricane Mitch in Central America has kicked up a political and policy storm over the Clinton administration's policy toward illegal immigrants and refugees from that region. This month, the Immigration and Naturalization Service said that because of the devastation left by the hurricane, people from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua who are in the United States illegally and are detained by the INS will not face deportation proceedings until Jan. 7, 1999. "That was the most tangible, concrete, rapid action that we could take to help these governments cope with this disaster," said Andrew Lluberes, an INS spokesman. "The last thing that they needed was to have people deported back to their countries." The administration is also considering granting temporary protective status to refugees and illegal aliens from the four Central American nations that bore the brunt of the storm: Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua. That designation would allow such people to avoid deportation and work legally in the United States. Leaders of immigrant rights organizations Tuesday also called upon the Justice Department to ease the standards under which some refugees and undocumented workers who arrived in the United States from El Salvador or Guatemala before fall 1990 can avoid being deported altogether. "This is absolutely the wrong time to begin a massive deportation to this region," said Raul Yzaguirre, president of the National Council of La Raza, a Hispanic organization. The seemingly mixed message on the issue of Central American immigrants reflects the dilemma facing policy makers between obeying the law regarding illegal immigrants and understanding that deporting people to the devastated economies of Central America could only exacerbate a terrible situation there. "There is a double-edged problem here for those countries with the immigrants," Hillary Rodham Clinton said at a briefing Tuesday on her trip to the region. "One is, they cannot accommodate people at this time. There's literally nowhere for people to live or be put. They also would collapse completely, in some cases, without the funds coming in from the people who are working and sending, in some cases, in at least one of the countries, up to $1 billion a year, which is a huge part of their gross domestic product." Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, chairman of the House subcommittee on immigration, said he expected that refugees from Honduras, which sustained the most damage and loss of life, to be given temporary protected status. But, Smith said, the administration should be careful not to provoke a rush of illegal immigration of Central Americans seeking to escape the chaos following the hurricane. "The worst thing we can do is precipitate an immigration emergency by signaling that individuals currently in Central America should abandon their countries in their countries' time of greatest need," said Smith, the leading congressional advocate of reduced immigration. At the moment, the policy toward Central American refugees is being played out over regulations governing how a group of about 260,000 Guatemalans and Salvadorans can apply to become permanent residents. The group is part of a wave of refugees who fled as their countries became mired in civil wars in the 1980s. Immigrant rights groups have long accused the federal government of a double standard, saying these refugees were deported because Washington supported their governments while others from Communist countries like Cuba and Nicaragua were accepted. Last year, Congress passed legislation that set up two separate procedures. People from Cuba and Nicaragua who arrived in the United States before December 1995 were automatically given amnesty from deportation. Salvadorans and Guatemalans, and some Eastern Europeans, have to prove to immigration authorities that they are of sound moral character and that deporting them would cause them extreme hardship. Immigration rights advocates Tuesday complained that the new regulations do not offer a blanket determination that anyone deported to Central America would automatically suffer extreme hardship because of the hurricane. "After Mitch, it is hard to believe that the administration proposes that each individual prove that he will suffer extreme hardship," said Frank Sharry, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, an immigrant rights group. Lluberes said hearing officers would be trained on the impact of the hurricane, although the law required that hardship findings must be determined on a case-by-case basis. Wednesday, November 25, 1998 Judge Dismisses Tribe's Lawsuit to Regain Land From Agency, (posted 11/30/98) Associated Press Lawyer says Tiguas will appeal ruling on immunity EL PASO - A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit by Tigua Indians, ending the tribe's latest attempt to claim a large tract of land east of El Paso that it says was stolen. U.S. District Judge Lucius Bunton ruled that the tribe cannot sue the El Paso Water Utility District because the 11th Amendment grants states and their agencies immunity from litigation in most cases. The Tiguas filed the lawsuit against the water district in Pecos earlier this year in an effort to eject the utility from what they claim is property granted to the Tiguas by Spain in 1751 and occupied by the tribe since the 1600s. They claimed that the water district, which provides irrigation for 34,000 accounts held by residents and farmers, has trespassed on more than 72 acres of their land. "The Indians came down in here in 1680," Tom Diamond, a lawyer for the tribe, told the El Paso Times for a story in Sunday's editions. "They were given a land grant, acquired the land through aboriginal claims and then lost the lands through the connivance of the state of Texas. And now they want restitution." Jim Spear, lawyer for the water district, declined to discuss the case in detail. The Tiguas have 30 days to appeal the dismissal. Mr. Diamond said he plans to appeal to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, contending that some case law not cited by the judge supports the tribe's claim that the utility can be sued. Since the Tiguas want to appeal, plans for a new housing development on the tribe's land are on hold. The water district refused to give the Tiguas a city-required permit to make routine crossing of an irrigation ditch to the development. It was decided that the permit would not be approved until the district knew the outcome of the lawsuit. In another legal maneuver to stake a claim to the dozens of acres in question, the tribe has intervened in a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in a New Mexico federal court. A ruling in that case could affect water rights in several regions, according to the Times. © 1998 The Dallas Morning News This article is made available for discussion and analysis only under the "fair use" provisions of the US Copyright Laws. Army School Draws Fire In GA, (posted 11/30/98) FORT BENNING, Ga. (AP) -- Some 2,000 people, including actor Martin Sheen, were briefly taken into custody Sunday during a demonstration against the Army's School of the Americas, accused by critics of training soldiers involved in atrocities in Latin America. Unlike past demonstrations, people who defied orders and walked onto Fort Benning property were not charged with trespassing. Instead, they were loaded onto buses, driven to a park about a mile away and released. About 50 Houstonians protested the school Sunday at the Mickey Leland Federal Building. "We want to show solidarity with people crossing the line at Fort Benning," said Awanda Whitworth, chair of Schools of the Americas Watch-Houston, the local chapter of a national group comprised of peace activists. "It's time for the Schools of the Americas to be shut down." During the hourlong protest in Houston, SOA-Houston leaders read the names of hundreds of Central Americans whose murders have been attributed to soldiers trained at Fort Benning. Protests at the U.S. Army's School of the Americas program have been annual events since 1990, the year after six Jesuit priests were murdered in El Salvador. A United Nations investigation found the school trained 19 of the 26 officials implicated in the massacre. Critics cite a congressional study that found that 10 graduates had taken over Latin American countries through military coups or other undemocratic means in the past 30 years. The School of the Americas' graduates include Roberto D'Aubuisson, the reputed leader of El Salvador's death squads; and Manuel Noriega, the deposed Panamanian strongman and convicted drug trafficker. Spokesmen for the school concede some graduates "have been involved in activities outside the law" but say critics exaggerate the school's human rights violations in Latin America. School officials said the institution, which moved to Fort Benning from Panama in 1984, is largely responsible for the growth of democracy in Latin America and teaches its students about human rights in each of its courses. This article is made available for discussion and analysis only under the "fair use" provisions of the US Copyright Laws. Document Disputing Davy Crockett Story Sells for $387,500, (posted 11/30/98) By Jane Meredith Adams / Special Contributor to The Dallas
Morning News Texans buy soldier's purported account of Alamo hero's death in captivity SAN FRANCISCO - Two anonymous native Texans paid $387,500 Wednesday for a manuscript that contends that Davy Crockett did not go down fighting at the 1836 Alamo siege but instead was captured and executed. During simultaneous, rapid-fire telephone bidding in the San Francisco, Los Angeles and Elgin, Ill., offices of Butterfield & Butterfield auction house, buyers competed for a memoir that is a purported eyewitness account of the disastrous battle. The purported diary of a Mexican soldier, Lt. Col. Jose Enrique de la Pena, states that contrary to legend and a Walt Disney film, Crockett did not perish while fighting to the death, swinging his long rifle. Instead, the de la Pena account contends that Crockett was one of seven survivors of the siege who were captured, tortured and executed. To suggest that Davy Crockett in any way gave up during the battle is sacrilege among many Texans who vehemently believe the de la Pena manuscript is a forgery. Last year, CBS News anchorman Dan Rather, a native Texan, stepped into the fray to defend Crockett by saying that said historians should not believe the word of a Mexican officer who "would have had the most to gain by discrediting the defenders of the Alamo." In response, historian Garry Wills, who believes the de la Pena account, wrote in a syndicated column that "Texans are rarely sane on the subject of the Alamo." The buyers were identified only as two men, born in Texas, who are private collectors. "They believe in the manuscript," said Wendy Hoff Evans, a New York art consultant who bid on their behalf via telephone. "It was our plan to purchase the manuscript in order to have it stay in Texas." The buyers had aggressively bid in increments of $25,000 and, when countered with a bid of $300,000 from the University of Texas at Austin, upped the ante to $350,000. "I was on the phone to buy it, and I think I sent that message," Ms. Evans said. Butterfield & Butterfield had estimated the 700-page document, which includes a diary, a memoir and other papers, would sell for between $200,000 and $300,000. Ms. Evans said the buyers would make themselves known in the next few months. "When their plans for the manuscript are formalized, they'll let us know," she said. Until recently, the documents have been held at the University of Texas at San Antonio. They had been there for nearly 25 years. UT-Austin had hoped to "bring it back home," said Don Carleton, director of the university's Center for American History. He said the university wanted to use the diary for scholarly and public research purposes. Along with the diary, other Texas Republic-era documents and letters from Crockett, Jim Bowie, William Barrett Travis and Sam Houston also were auctioned off. The battle at the Alamo, a former Franciscan mission, has spawned fervent legends of bravery against all odds. Huddled inside the walls on the outskirts of San Antonio, more than 180 Texan soldiers and volunteers fought for 13 days for state independence from Mexico. The Alamo defenders held off thousands of Mexican soldiers. On March 6, 1836, the Mexican forces breached the mission walls and killed the defenders. Shortly after the fortress fell, Lt. Col. de la Pena's diary says that he saw seven prisoners, including Crockett, being led before Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, general and later president of Mexico. An officer explained that Crockett, the American naturalist and outdoor adventurer, was among the survivors and had taken refuge in the mission when the fighting began. Unimpressed, Santa Anna ordered the immediate execution of the prisoners. Some Mexican officers balked, hoping that the men would be spared, but others stepped up to do the job, the diary says. "They thrust themselves forward, in order to flatter their commander," the diary says, "and with swords in hand, fell upon these unfortunate, defenseless men just as a tiger leaps upon his prey. Though tortured before they were killed, these unfortunates died without complaining and without humiliating themselves before their torturers." The diary says that Lt. Col. de la Pena "turned away horrified in order not to witness such a barbarous scene. As for me, I must confess that the very memory of it makes me tremble and that my ear can still hear the penetrating, doleful sound of the victims." The manuscript surfaced in Mexico City in the 1950s and was purchased in 1974 by the late former Texas state Democratic Party Chairman James Peace. His son, James Peace III, a San Antonio bookseller, said his family decided to put the manuscript up for sale. The telephone buyer placed a bid through the Los Angeles branch of Butterfield & Butterfield. Displayed on television screens to the audiences was an open copy of the manuscript, in which off-white pages were covered with scrawling black penmanship. Attendance was light at the auction house offices, and all of the serious bidding came via the phone lines. "People who are aficionados of Texas history are among the most rabid collectors, and sometimes they show their deep pockets," said Joseph T. Silva, a manuscript dealer in Lafayette, Calif., who sat in the back row in the San Francisco auction house. He called the manuscript "priceless" because of its new information about the most heroic episode of the Texas war of independence. At the suggestion that Crockett had laid down his arms in defeat, Mr. Silva balked. "I don't believe he surrendered," he said. "He was captured." Joseph Musso, a Los Angeles-based historic illustrator who was among about 25 people at the Los Angeles office, questioned the validity of the documents because they seemed to surface out of nowhere in 1955 in the hands of a Mexican coin dealer. He said that not enough forensic tests have been conducted and, "I personally feel that historic and journalistic integrity precludes any serious scholar from using this stuff as source material, because in some respects we can be distorting history." Gregory Shaw, director of the book and manuscript department at Butterfield & Butterfield, said the manuscript had been exhaustively analyzed. The paper was found to contain a watermark from a Lisbon, Portugal, manufacturer who used that mark between 1825 and 1832, he said. If modern-day ink had been placed on the pages, they would have blotted unless the paper had been treated with a substance such as ammonia hydrochloride, he said. "The entire manuscript was subject to an intensity-light scan," he said. "The ink was put on the page when the page was new. I can say that until I'm blue in the face." As for Crockett's reputation, Mr. Shaw said that to have been tortured and executed in the name of Texas independence was indeed a heroic way to perish. "He showed great courage," he said. "That is a harder death." Jane Meredith Adams is a San Francisco free-lance writer. The Associated Press contributed to this report. © 1998 The Dallas Morning News This article is made available for discussion and analysis only under the "fair use" provisions of the US Copyright Laws. Vision of Border Tourist Mecca Clouded, (posted 11/30/98) By Staff Writers Valerie Alvord and Diane Lindquist Gateway of the Americas has some tough bridges to cross The International Gateway of the Americas, envisioned as a tourist and shopping mecca, has been billed as a way to beautify the blighted San Ysidro border area and strengthen economic ties with Tijuana. The proposed $192 million project-which combines convention facilities, trendy shops, a hotel and a new pedestrian border crossing into Mexico- is backed by the city of San Diego and local heavyweights such as city schools Superintendent Alan Bersin, who until recently was the region's chief federal law enforcement officer and so-called border czar. But Gateway has skeptics on both sides of the border, and their concerns are so numerous and significant as to imply the project may never break ground. Among the critics are a U.S. senator from California, the U.S. General Services Administration, which controls land proposed for the development, and high-ranking Mexican officials, who say their concerns are being ignored. A major obstacle to Gateway's future is what to do about traffic snarls at the border. Not only are there competing traffic plans, but no funding has been committed for new construction. Despite disagreements and bureaucratic hurdles, both developer Sam Marasco and San Diego city officials are adamant about moving the project forward. Some say, though, that in the process, Marasco is trying to bulldoze past problems, and that he is misrepresenting the project's support. There are basic questions about Gateway, which seems to change almost daily in both concept and details. And, as Celiceo Cilia, president of the San Ysidro Women's Club, observed: "The devil is in the details." Border celebration Marasco, once a lawyer for the late redevelopment icon Ernest Hahn, says it's too early for specifics, and in a three-hour interview recently, he acknowledged aspects of the project have changed since it was introduced last year. For instance, he said, he has "in the past" pursued extending the trolley system in the county to Gateway. Now, he says, it's the city and the transit board that would have to make that decision. And although Marasco's drawings and literature show Gateway's development spanning both sides of the border, he says that may not happen. "I'm building on my side and saying to Mexico, 'I invite you to participate,' " he said. Colorful project renderings show a new pedestrian toll bridge that would direct visitors from the United States into Tijuana along the fringe of its notorious Zona Norte. The project is "fundamentally real estate, but . . . there's an element of symbolism to entering Mexico and walking straight down Avenida Revolucion," Marasco said, seemingly unconcerned that the area is considered among the roughest neighborhoods in Tijuana. Marasco and San Diego city officials say Gateway would create a "celebration" at the border, lifting the quality of the neighborhoods, much as Horton Plaza improved San Diego's once-seedy downtown. Marasco likens his bridge to entering Upper New York Bay and beholding the Statue of Liberty. Gateway's supporters include prominent San Diego and Tijuana residents, such as members of San Diego Dialogue, a UCSD organization that promotes regional cross-border relations. Charles Nathanson, the group's executive director, says that while its members, which include Marasco, might favor Gateway, San Diego Dialogue takes no position on such issues. Marasco points out that Gateway has been approved by numerous community organizations, including the San Ysidro Community Planning and Development Group. The San Ysidro Chamber of Commerce and the San Ysidro Women's Club are on record as supporting Gateway, but some members, such as club president Cilia, think it needs more scrutiny. D. Barry Simons, the San Ysidro planning group's chairman, also heads a family investment group that owns the majority of the land upon which the Gateway project would be built. Simons stepped down when the group approved the project, city planners say, to avoid any suggestion of impropriety. Bersin, another supporter, owns land on Otay Mesa several miles east of the Gateway proposal. He listed his and his family's holdings in a disclosure form filed with the Justice Department in Washington when he was U.S. attorney. Bersin did not return a message regarding the project that was left with a school district spokeswoman. Plan bottleneck Much of the disagreement over Gateway comes down to traffic-foot traffic and vehicle traffic, especially relieving the vehicular bottleneck at the nearby San Ysidro crossing. Along with adopting Marasco's Gateway project with its cross-border pedestrian bridge, the city of San Diego supports widening roads to add more lanes north and south at the San Ysidro crossing. That, however, conflicts with a conceptual plan from the U.S. and Mexican federal governments that would reroute southbound cars from the freeway to Virginia Avenue through a reopened border crossing. The current San Ysidro crossing would be converted to exclusively northbound traffic. In the government plan, the new southbound crossing includes no new pedestrian crossing, which Marasco needs. Without it, he said, the major draw to the upscale shopping center-a gateway into Mexico-would be missing. "This project has to have a bridge," he said. "I could build (a shopping center) on the land, but could I fulfill the community plan? No. You need bodies, excitement, pizazz." A U.S. government study released last year says a second pedestrian crossing isn't necessary. In addition, immigration officials contend that a new pedestrian crossing would dramatically increase the costs and efficiency of policing the border. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., recently expressed concern about that possibility in a letter to the head of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. In Mexico, government officials, whose approval had once been described as crucial to the plan, have expressed frustration that Gateway planners in two meetings over the past month have appeared to ignore their traffic concerns. "From my perspective, the purpose of this Gateway project is as a factory outlet shopping center," said Enrique Luna, an official of the Mexican border agency, CABIN. "The project is for pedestrians. What Mexico needs is to improve the flow of cars." Assemblywoman Denise Moreno Ducheny, whose district includes South County, said that at the recent meeting in Mexico City, federal officials were not only concerned about traffic but also made it clear they would not tear down a historic neighborhood shown on Marasco's drawings as part of Gateway. Residents of the neighborhood have begged their elected officials not to destroy their neighborhood "simply to profit a North American developer." Marasco said those fears were unwarranted. Even though the neighborhood, Colonia Federal, is shown on Gateway plans, he said, "It was just a reference point." Money, support Pat Hightman, deputy executive director of San Diego's redevelopment agency, said alleviating concerns is part of making any project work. Gateway, she said, would bring millions into the community -- and San Diego's general fund. The funding, as Hightman describes it, goes like this: Marasco would put up $192 million and San Diego would pay him $20.5 million over 30 years in the form of property and sales tax reimbursements. Among other things, Marasco says he would extend Dairy Mart Road, a local artery. San Ysidro would receive $12.7 million over 30 years for its redevelopment district and $11.8 million for low-and moderate-cost housing. Over the 30-year period, the city of San Diego would receive $2.4 million for the general fund, $33.6 million in sales tax revenue, $39.7 million in transient occupancy taxes and $55.3 million from its share of revenue from the toll bridge, for a total of $131 million. Tijuana would get $110.6 million as its share from the toll bridge. Hightman said officials in Tijuana are behind Gateway, but agreement does not appear unanimous. When Tijuana City Council members recently questioned Mayor Jose Guadalupe Osuna Millan's endorsement of Gateway and its perceived solution to traffic problems, he insisted his support was merely for the concept. When the Tijuana Economic Development Corp., which represents the city's business sectors, sought approval of the plan, several of the group leaders wrote strongly worded letters of objection. Subsequently, development group officials decided to ask the Mexican federal border agency to give more consideration to the Marasco plan. "We want a vehicular expansion and to dignify the entrance to Mexico," said Jorge D'Garay, the group's public relations consultant. San Diego city planners say Gateway can become a reality only if the U.S. and Mexican state departments, which have the final say, give a swift "philosophical" green light. The city is in the process of seeking that approval. Marasco says other federal agencies such as the U.S. Customs Service and the INS have supported Gateway through the advisory committee known as the Ports of Entry Council for Tijuana-San Diego-Tecate. The committee, which includes virtually all local representatives of federal, state and municipal government agencies involved with the border, recently wrote a letter to the U.S. State Department asking that the Gateway project be "considered." But when questioned recently, INS District Director Adele Fasano and Rudy Camacho, local head of customs, made it clear their agencies have not endorsed any plan. And some line inspectors at customs are openly scoffing at the prospect of trying to police a border set up inside a shopping center. Sheryll White, a planner for the U.S. General Services Administration, says nothing can happen with the federal land or the proposed pedestrian bridge until an environmental, traffic and socioeconomic study is completed "of every alternative." Copyright 1998 Union-Tribune Publishing Co. Court Strikes Down Latin School Race Admissions Policy, (posted 11/30/98) BOSTON, November 20 -- Saying that diversity should not be defined strictly by race, a federal appeals court ruled yesterday that the Boston public schools' use of race in admissions to the prestigious Latin School is unconstitutional. In a dramatic opinion that throws out two decades of race-based admissions policies used for the city's exam schools, the court ruled that the school department failed to prove the educational value of diversity, and that past discrimination is not reason enough to admit students to the school today based on race. The 2-1 strongly worded decision immediately called for the case's plaintiff, 10th grader Sarah Wessmann, who is white, to be admitted to Latin. The Boston School Department declined to say last night if it would appeal the decision to the US Supreme Court. The decision also could have implications for the city's entire student assignment process, and others around the country, because it uses race in deciding where children go to school. In recent years, federal courts have increasingly overturned racial quotas, including several private-sector employment and college admission cases. (Boston Globe) School District Takes Advantage of Prop. 227 Loophole, (posted 11/30/98) SANTA ANA, Calif. November 20 -- Bilingual education is still an option for 4,700 students in Orange County's largest school district, despite the Proposition 227 English immersion requirement. Santa Ana Unified School District accounts for about 80 percent of the county's requests for parental waivers, which exempt students from the English-immersion classes required by the new law. Other districts with sizable numbers of limited-English students had only about a dozen waivers requests each. Santa Ana board President Nativo Lopez said there is a disparity between the number of waivers and the number of limited-English students at schools. Placentia-Yorba Linda had a large number of waiver requests- 800 out of 4,000 limited-English students. However, Garden Grove Unified had 12 waiver requests, although 22,000 of its students are classified as limited English. "These are telltale signs that perhaps schools aren't doing enough to explain the language, the law, the various programs available and the rights of parents," Lopez said. (Sacramento Bee) Bilingual Pact Frees Up DPS, (posted 11/30/98) DENVER, November 20 -- The unofficial agreement between the federal government and Denver Public Schools over bilingual education would give the district more flexibility in how it moves non-English-speaking students into regular classrooms. DPS has agreed to move away from a controversial three-year timeline it proposed last year for students in bilingual classes, said Roger Rice, an attorney familiar with agreement. Instead, DPS will be allowed to "mainstream" students whenever they are demonstrably proficient in English. Details about the new plan were sketchy Thursday. But Rice said it places a lighter emphasis on standardized test scores than did the old one, which required students to score at a certain level on tests before they could move out of bilingual classes. "The school system will have more of a say," said Rice, who represents the Congress of Hispanic Educators, plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed against DPS. "Kids will be transitioned by a process. Transition teams will have to weigh certain criteria and facts. Instead of using one test score, there are more things to look at now." (Denver Post) Court Strikes Down Latin School Race Admissions Policy, (posted 11/30/98) By Beth Daley, Globe Staff, 11/20/98 Saying that diversity should not be defined strictly by race, a federal appeals court ruled yesterday that the Boston public schools' use of race in admissions to the prestigious Latin School is unconstitutional. In a dramatic opinion that throws out two decades of race-based admissions policies used for the city's exam schools, the court ruled that the school department failed to prove the educational value of diversity, and that past discrimination is not reason enough to admit students to the school today based on race. The 2-1 strongly worded decision immediately called for the case's plaintiff, 10th-grader Sarah Wessmann, who is white, to be admitted to Latin. The Boston School Department declined to say last night if it would appeal the decision to the US Supreme Court. If it does not appeal, the decision almost certainly means the overhaul of the admission policy of Boston's three exam schools, under which currently half of students are admitted based strictly on scores, and the other half based on both race and scores. The decision also could have implications for the city's entire student assignment process, and others around the country, because it uses race in deciding where children go to school. In recent years, federal courts have increasingly overturned racial quotas, including several private-sector employment and college admission cases. "I am disappointed with the result but I am not discouraged about the strong efforts we made," said Boston School Superintendent Thomas W. Payzant at a press conference yesterday. "The court recognized the values that the School Committee and I endorse - the commitment to diversity - that these are noble ends. But the court was clear no matter how noble the ends, constitutionally impermissible means do not justify the ends." The decision overturned a lower court decision six months ago by US District Court Judge Joseph Tauro that upheld the Latin admission policy. Tauro had declared that schools have a "unique" mission to ensure diversity; that "diversity in the classroom is the most effective of all weapons challenging stereotypical preconceptions." Tauro had also agreed with the school department that some preferences based on race were needed to counter lingering effects of past discrimination. Yesterday's decision, however, brings Boston's 24-year tumultuous desegregation history full circle: Then, a federal court ordered the city to desegregate its exam schools partly because the school department failed to show that the schools' racial imbalance was not due to racial discrimination. Yesterday, the federal court ruled against the school department because it was unable to show that racial imbalances were a result of discrimination. The ruling caps a three-year battle at Boston Latin School that involved two admission policies and two white students, each claiming she was unfairly denied entrance because she is white. The plaintiff in the first case, Julia McLaughlin, was admitted two years ago after successfully challenging an admission policy that automatically set aside 35 percent of all seats for blacks and Hispanics. The school then revised its policy, admitting half of students on merit alone and the other half on merit and race. Wessmann, a close friend of Julia, challenged this policy after she was denied entrance as a ninth-grader last year, even though she scored better than 10 minorities who were admitted. Yesterday, the jubilant lawyer for Wessmann, Julia's father Michael McLaughlin, said it was time for the school department to focus on education rather than "placating groups or being politically correct" by admitting students to the exam schools on the basis of race. "This is victory number two, but I just hope we stop going down this road," said McLaughlin."This is something we should not be fighting. It's clear what the law is." It remains to be seen when Wessmann, now at Boston Latin Academy in Roxbury, will enter Boston Latin in the Fenway. School officials said she could start today, but her father, Henry Wessmann, said he may wait until he can ensure a smooth transition for his daughter. "I was only in this battle for my daughter, and that is still my goal," said Wessmann, an architect from Dorchester. Wessmann said his daughter was eager to go to Latin School but would miss her friends and teachers from Latin Academy. "Change is never easy. ... I can't help but feel a little sad that one and a half years is gone for her" since the case was first brought, he said. In its ruling yesterday, the appeals court did not dispute the opinion in Tauro's lower court ruling that diversity can be as important as academic rigor in preparing students. Majority judges Michael Boudin and Bruce Selya said that based on an abstract definition, "few would gainsay the attractiveness of diversity. "Encounters between students of varied backgrounds facilitate a vigorous exchange of ideas that not only nourishes the intellect but also furthers mutual understanding." But the court said that the School Department did not prove that simply admitting students based on race achieves these values. "The School Committee has provided absolutely no competent evidence" that the policy "is in anyway tied to a vigorous exchange of ideas," the 121-page ruling said. Furthermore, the court indicated the school's definition of diversity was flawed because it "focused exclusively on racial and ethnic diversity" and took "into account only five groups - blacks, whites, Hispanics, Asians and Native Americans." However, it did not specify what characteristics about an applicant should be used to attain diversity, such as income or gender. It said the school department has confused "racial balancing" with "diversity." The appeals court also said the school department failed to show that the exam school admission policy was needed to combat lingering effects of past discrimination. While an achievement gap between white and minority students may exist, the court ruled, and teachers may have lower expectations of minority students, the school department gave no concrete evidence that this was because of past racial discrimination. Dissenting Judge Kermit Lipez said that while he has doubts about the school department's diversity argument, he had "none about its remedial argument," and favored the admission policy as it stands. Lipez said that while the majority judges found the combination of achievement gap statistics and anecdotal evidence the school department offered as evidence of the lingering effects of past discrimination "unacceptable," other courts have accepted similar evidence as adequate. Jordana Hart of the Globe Staff contributed to this report. This story ran on page A01 of the Boston Globe on 11/20/98. © Copyright 1998 Globe Newspaper Company. Cal Turns Away Record Number 28% of Applicants Get In - Big Drop in Ethnic Minorities, (posted 11/18/98) Laura Hamburg, Chronicle Staff Writer A record number of students clamoring to get into the University of California at Berkeley-and the recent death of affirmative action-has made it one of the most academically selective colleges in the country. UC Berkeley admitted only about 28 percent of students who applied for admission as freshman this year, a record low that puts the campus in the same company as Duke and the University of Pennsylvania for selectivity. Also this year, a record number of qualified students from all races was turned away from UC Berkeley. More than 30,000 students applied to UC Berkeley for this year's class, nearly a 44 percent increase since 1994. Among the 26,000 students who did not get in, 7,000 applicants had a 4.0 or better grade point average. More than 750 of those students with perfect grades were black and Latino. This year also has seen a staggering shift in the overall makeup of the first freshman class since race and gender preferences were banned, according to final enrollment figures released this week. As expected among this year's class, the numbers of white and Asian American students increased somewhat. At the same time, the number of black students plummeted by more than half to the lowest figure since the university began keeping figures in 1981. Chicano/Latino students also were hard hit, with their numbers dropping by 43 percent. Other under-represented minority groups also dropped in enrollment. At UCLA, the drop was not as severe. Minority students-Latinos, American Indians and blacks make up 17.5 percent of the fall 1998 class compared to 24.4 percent last year. Final enrollment numbers for other UC campuses will not be made available until later this year. But the declining numbers at UC Berkeley and UCLA provide a hard look at the fallout from Proposition 209, the 1996 voter-approved measure that makes it illegal for UC officials to use racial or gender preferences as one of many admission criteria. Even though UC officials say the new numbers are grim, they say they are not surprised. They said they saw this coming last spring when they launched an unprecedented recruitment blitz to woo black and Latino students to Cal. Supporters of affirmation action also anticipated a sharp drop in black and Latino freshmen this year. "'It's clear that what we predicted has occurred," said Eva Paterson, director of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights and a vocal supporter of affirmative action. "The flagship school in the state is being resegregated." However, Ward Connerly, the African American UC Regent who spearheaded the drive to end affirmative action, has said that such a shift would more fairly represent who should get into Cal. In this year's class of 3,735 freshmen, 126 are black, or 3 percent. There are also 269 Chicano/Latino freshmen, making up 7 percent of the class, compared to about 13 percent last year. "'This is just the beginning. In three of four years, this campus is going to look even more white and more Asian," said freshman Gregory Wesley. "I think diversity is important, but I think students should be judged on merit and not race." Other students said the dearth of black freshmen this year has changed the academic climate at Cal for the worse. "Berkeley has become this elitist institution where you have these these huge lecture halls with 400 students in them, and there's maybe one or two African Americans," said Jimar Wilson, director of the student-run Black Recruitment and Retention Center. "That's not good for the black students, and it's not good for the white students." The idea that the campus has become so fiercely competitive is a concern to many who fear the public university is too far out of reach for many of the state's qualified students. "I couldn't get accepted to this school now, it's too tough," said Paul Omelich of Berkeley, who went to graduate school at Berkeley in the 1950s, and then returned as research scientist and teacher for two decades before he recently retired. "We need to remember this is a public school," he said. "We spent more than 100 years doing de-affirmative action in this country, so 20 years of affirmative action shouldn't be considered too much."
CHART: UC BERKELEY FRESHMAN REGISTRATIONS:
Fall Fall
Percent
1997 1998
Change
African American 257 126
-51%
Chicano/Latino 472 269
-43%
American Indian 23 14
-39%
Other 76 48
-37%
Asian 1,468 1,562
+6%
White/Caucasian 1,018 1,090
+7%
No ethnic data 187 540
+189%
.
Total 3,501 3,649
+4%
.
Source: University of California
Chronicle Graphic
©1998 San Francisco Chronicle Page A17
Latina Activist Not Re-signed by Channel 10, (posted 11/18/98) By Preston Turegano - San Diego Union-Tribune November 16, 1998 KGTV/Channel 10 reporter Laura Castaneda's role as president of the California Chicano News Media Association may be, she says, one reason why the station is dumping her after four years. A memo from news director Don Wells to Castaneda says he has "significant and ongoing concerns about the consistency of your reporting and story telling, your level of productivity, and your constructive involvement in the newsroom environment." Consequently, Castaneda's contract, expiring Jan. 8, will not be renewed. Not mentioned in the notice is Wells' apparent concern over Castaneda's involvement with the news association. "Verbally, he told me it was a conflict of interest for me to be the president," said Castaneda, 34. In telephone voice mails, Wells' reaction to an inquiry about the departure of Castaneda (and of Channel 10 weathercaster/reporter Leon Smitherman and weathercaster/traffic reporter Andrea Cochran) was curt: "We do not make statements about personnel matters. There are people who leave all the time." Castaneda said her activism as a Latina was first criticized by Wells (who is black) when he confronted her about a letter she wrote last summer on behalf of the association to KFMB/AM 760. It asserted sports talk show host Hank Bauer's July 9 remarks about a local TV reporter was "unacceptable, unprofessional and insulting to other professional Latino journalists." In a reference to Channel 10 sports free-lancer Salvador Rivera, Bauer noted on the air, "I was home the other night watching TV and I saw this Hispanic reporter who was really awful." Castaneda said Wells recently reiterated that her activities with the California Chicano News Media Association was a conflict of interest when she asked him why Channel 10 wasn't sponsoring a table at the association's Oct. 17 Pluma Awards, which honor Latino journalists. Channel 10 reporter/weekend news anchor Leonard Villareal was master of ceremonies of the awards dinner. The association works to better portray Latino images in the news media, and to advocate the presence of Latinos within news organizations. Associations for other minorities such as African-Americans, Asians and gays and lesbians within the news media advocate similar recognition for their members and constituency. During her time at Channel 10, Castaneda won San Diego Press Club and California Chicano News Media Association awards for stories about the border. An investigative report she did last year on immigration was nominated for a local Emmy Award. Castaneda said she had the lead story on 14 5 p.m. newscasts during last May's ratings sweeps. Some of the reports were about issues pertinent to Latinos. (Approximately 25 percent of San Diego County's population is Latino, according to the San Diego Association of Governments.) As a result of Castaneda's ouster at Channel 10, the San Diego chapter of the National Hispanic Media Coalition has requested a meeting with station managers. "She's served such a vital role in the local Latino community and we're concerned that her departure is going to create a huge void," said Ray Aragon, an attorney and chairman of the San Diego chapter of the media coalition. Ramón Ruiz receives National Medal of Arts, (posted 11/17/98) November 16, 1998 WASHINGTON. Noted San Diego author Ramón Ruiz was honored at a White House ceremony earlier this month by President Bill Clinton and Mrs. Hillary Rodham Clinton honored with 1998 National Medal of Arts. Ruiz, an emeritus professor at the University of California, San Diego, and a distinguuished historian of Hispanic America, was among the recipients which included Stephen Ambrose, E.L. Doctorow, Diana L. Eck, and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Ruiz has had an influential career as an educator and writer. Author of a dozen books and numerous articles, he has written on mutiple aspects of Mexicos history and on the two most important upheaval in Hispanic America, the Cuban and Mexican revolutions. His books include: Cuba: the Making of a Revolution (1968), The Great Rebellion: Mexico, 1905-1923 (1980) The People of Sonora and Yankee Capitalists (1988) and On the Rim of Mexico: Encounters of the Rich and Poor (1998). Ruiz who lives in Rancho Santa Fe, taught at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de MÈxico and other Mexican institutions. A former president of the Chicano/Latino Faculty Association of the University of California system, he has been honored for his contribution to education by the Chicano Federation of San Diego and his students at UCSD. President Clinton said, "Growing up in La Jolla, California, Ramón Eduardo Ruiz spent nights listening to his immigrant fathers tales of the heroes and history of Mexico. After serving as a pilot in World War II, he took his passion for Mexicos past to the halls of academia, becoming one of Americas premier and pioneering scholars of Latin American history." Clinton added, "He has dedicated his lilfe to exploring what he calls åthe saga of the Mexican peoplem, a story of sporadic triumphs played out on a stage of tragic drama. His history of Mexico, Triumphs and Tragedy, is taught in colleges and universities all across our country, shaping a new generations understanding of the heritage and homeland of millions of our fellow Americans." LAPD and La Raza, (posted 11/17/98) Monday, November 16, 1998 PERSPECTIVE ON THE L.A. POLICE COMMISSION Learn From LAPD's History With Latinos Diluting the power of its inspector general could void hard-won gains in community relations. By FRANK DEL OLMO Los Angeles is a mecca for Latinos, and not just immigrants from Mexico or Central America who fill the low-wage jobs U.S. citizens won't take. Many young Latino professionals also come here to establish careers after being raised in smaller cities or rural communities of the U.S. Southwest. Sometimes they are educated along the way at Stanford, an Ivy League college or a fine state school like the University of Texas. We can endlessly debate whether poor Latin American immigrants help Los Angeles, but who can argue that we don't benefit from the no-less-persistent flow of ambitious Chicanos from all over the Southwest? They include some of our top professors, scientists, engineers, doctors, lawyers and business executives. Some have provided valuable political leadership, too, even if that sometimes annoys locally bred Latinos. Normally, I have no qualms about a Latino from outside L.A. taking an important public position here-except when they do things that betray an ignorance of the city or that could have negative implications for public policy. That is what I fear may now be going on in the Los Angeles Police Commission, whose president is Edith R. Perez. Perez is a native of Marysville in Northern California and a partner in the big downtown law firm Latham & Watkins. In legal circles she has a reputation as a smart, no-nonsense real estate specialist. Those are credentials that surely impressed Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, wheeling-and-dealing businessman that he is. So it was no big surprise when he appointed Perez to the civilian police panel in 1992. Perez's tenure on the Police Commission had been unremarkable until recently. She now is embroiled in a nasty bureaucratic brawl over LAPD Inspector General Katherine Mader that seems to go beyond a conflict that is perhaps inevitable when two strong-willed attorneys disagree. (Mader is a former prosecutor and defense attorney.) This fight could set back the long and difficult campaign to reform the LAPD. Mader wearied of the battle last week and abruptly resigned. Through an official spokesman, commissioners made it known that they were preparing to fire Mader because they did not like the quality of her work. For her part, Mader blasted the Police Commission for trying to turn her job, as the first independent inspector general the LAPD has ever had, into "a fraud." If true, Mader's charge is frightening to someone like me, who grew up in Los Angeles and knows personally the difficult history of the local Latino community's periodic clashes with law enforcement, particularly with the LAPD and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. And while I have no doubt that Perez and other Latinos from out of town also know that history, I wonder if they feel it in their gut the way L.A. Latinos do? Just this week I expressed concern about Mader's departure to a young Latina professional who was not raised here but holds an important position in town. I was taken aback when this very smart woman did not know that the so-called "Bloody Christmas" incident was real and not a fiction concocted by screenwriters for the hit film "L.A. Confidential." For anyone else who doesn't know, the incident depicted with dramatic license in the movie is based on fact: the beating of seven Mexican-American prisoners in the city's central jail, in the predawn hours of Christmas 1951 by inebriated policemen. At first, LAPD Chief William Parker denied any police brutality. But subsequent investigations led to the first grand jury indictments of serving officers and the first convictions for excessive use of force in LAPD history. The incident also led to the formation of organizations to defend Latino rights. Among them was the Community Service Organization, which employed an organizer from Arizona named Cesar Chavez. Chavez would go on to greater fame as founder of the United Farm Workers union. But years later, he would tell biographers that CSO's role in the Bloody Christmas case was his most effective calling card as a young community organizer. Latinos outside L.A. might not have known CSO back then, but they knew LAPD's harsh reputation. And they were eager to learn about any group that could help bring justice in the notorious Bloody Christmas case. That collective memory must not be forgotten. Not because the LAPD should be forever punished for the sins of its past. Indeed, it deserves credit for how far it has come since then. But memories of past injustice provide a context for reform. And without that context, it is easy to dismiss the urgency of the needed reforms, or even to backslide. The recent election of Lee H. Baca as Los Angeles County sheriff created the opportunity for a new, more positive era in relations between Los Angeles' ever-growing Latino community and local law enforcement. So it would be not just ironic, but tragic, if Edith Perez and her fellow LAPD commissioners were to set the clock back-however unwittingly-to a darker time. Frank Del Olmo Is an Associate Editor of The Times and a Regular Columnist Copyright 1998 Los Angeles Times. All Rights Reserved 'Black Power' Activist Kwame Ture Dies at 57, (posted 11/17/98) By Debra Hale Shelton Kwame Ture, who as Stokely Carmichael made the phrase "black power" a rallying cry of the civil rights upheavals of the 1960s, died Sunday in Guinea, a member of Ture's All-African People's Revolutionary Party said. He was 57. Sharon Sobukwe, a member of the organization in Philadelphia, said Ture died of prostate cancer. She learned of his death from Amadou Ly, an AAPRP member and one of Ture's closest friends, who was with him when he died. The Rev. Jesse Jackson said he visited with Ture three times at his home in Guinea during a trip to Africa last week. "In many ways he was at peace with himself," Jackson said in a telephone interview from Washington. "He wanted for his last days to be in Guinea and in West Africa. ... He wanted to be amongst the people of Africa. "He was one of our generation who was determined to give his life to transforming America and Africa," Jackson added. "He was committed to ending racial apartheid in our country. He helped to bring those walls down." Ture was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1996. A self-described socialist, he was treated in Cuba and received financial help for his treatment from Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. As the young Carmichael, he was among the most fiery and visible leaders of black militancy in the United States in the 1960s, first as head of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and then as prime minister of the Black Panther Party. He cut his ties with the American groups over the issue of allying with white radicals and moved to Guinea in West Africa in 1969. There, with a new name taken from the African leaders Kwame Nkrumah and Ahmed Sekou Toure, he organized the All-African People's Revolutionary Party. For the rest of his life, both overseas and in appearances before largely black audiences at U.S. colleges, he continued preaching black power and championing socialism while condemning America, capitalism and Zionism. Born in Trinidad on June 29, 1941, and raised there and in New York, Ture described himself as a pliant acceptor of white dominion while growing up. He recalled in a 1967 interview in the London Observer that as a boy in the Trinidad capital of Port-of-Spain, he and his black schoolmates "went to the movies and yelled for Tarzan to beat the hell out of Africa." "I'm angry because I didn't rebel," he said. At age 11, his parents brought him to New York, where the bright youngster attended the academically elite Bronx High School of Science and moved in a liberal, middle-class white circle that he later reviled as phony. In 1960, he enrolled at Howard, the predominantly black university in Washington, D.C., where he received a degree in philosophy and plunged into the civil rights revolution. In a time when black college students were being beaten and arrested for daring to sit at whites-only Southern lunch counters, Carmichael joined the first freedom rides ã bus trips aimed at desegregating public transportation ã and suffered the first of what was to be about three dozen jailings when he reached Mississippi. As an SNCC field organizer there later, he led a perilous voter registration effort that raised black enrollment from 70 to 2,600 in Lowndes County, 300 more than the white registration. In June 1966, three weeks before his 25th birthday, he was elected national chairman of the SNCC and shortly afterward raised the cry of "black power" as he led a freedom march in Mississippi. Responding to those who called the slogan racist and inflammatory, he wrote that by black power he meant political and economic empowerment. "We want control of the institutions of the communities where we live and we want to stop the exploitation of nonwhite people around the world," he said in the New York Review of Books. He also took an anti-America message to Cuba and North Vietnam and critics said his speeches at home, and those of his successor, H. Rap Brown, had effectively removed the word "nonviolent" from the SNCC's name. In 1968, he left the SNCC for the Black Panthers, but broke with that urban-guerrilla movement the following year because it favored working with radical whites. He said history showed such alliances had "led to complete subversion of the blacks by the whites." >From Guinea, where he had moved with his then-wife, South African-born singer and political activist Miriam Makeba, he declared himself a Pan Africanist with a goal of forming "one cohesive force to wage an unrelenting armed struggle against the white Western empire for the liberation of our people." He long hoped to see a single, socialist state for all of Africa, which would give Africans there and abroad ã he rejected the term "African-American" ã pride and power. Although he denied being anti-Semitic, his condemnations of Israel and Zionism, particularly before U.S. campus audiences in the early 1990s, led the Anti-Defamation League to say, "He remains a disturbing, polarizing figure." Asked at one campus lecture to comment about black-on-black violence, he said: "All we got to do is show (blacks) who the enemy is. At least they're ready to shoot." Ture is survived by his wife, his mother, three sisters and two sons. Services in the United States, Africa, Britain and the Caribbean will be organized by the AAPRP, the group said. © Copyright 1998 The Associated Press Nationwide Employment
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