Latinos For Texas Blog

(This is a little late, but you can read the discussion here.)

This Monday My Vote My Voice will be holding its first ever interactive Guest Blog in Spanish and you are invited! I will be blogging in Spanish from 8pm, EST to 9pm, EST and would like to invite you to join me.

We are a bilingual, bicultural community and this is a golden opportunity for us to raise our political voices in Spanish. I look forward to seeing you and chatting with you this Monday at 8pm EST on the web.

“¡Juntos Si Podemos!”

Kety Esquivel
Communications Director and LFA National Board Member

Victor Landa, journalist and Central Regional Director for Southwest Voter Registration and Education Project (SVREP), has a great article in today’s Express-News:

Web Posted: 07/25/2005 12:00 AM CDT

San Antonio Express-News

Howard Dean and Ken Mehlman sparred last week, which isn’t news in and of itself. They went at each other after Dean made a prediction about Republican politics in the coming years. Mehlman was incensed, he retorted. Dean stuck to his words and re-attacked. So? Business as usual, no?

I would have agreed, were it not for the date on the calendar.

Dean and Mehlman, the respective chairs of the Democratic and Republican national parties, jousted at an event of the National Council of La Raza. It’s mid-2005, what are they thinking? Latinos aren’t supposed to get political party attention until at least another two years. I know there are mid-term elections coming up next year, but that’s never lit a Latino fire under the political party chiefs. It kind of makes you suspicious, doesn’t it?

¿Qué quieren? Dean was his usual adrenaline soaked self. Mehlman came back at him as expected. Dean said that Republicans are going to turn immigrants into a wedge issue in the near future. Mehlman said Dean was nuts.

What is it that they say about being careful what you ask for? Nine years ago I wouldn’t have been writing about party leaders sparring at a Latino convention in July of an off-election year. Nine years ago I would have lamented the lack of attention, I would have railed against the way the national parties ignored us (actually, nine years ago the complaint would have been against one party, not two, because Republicans had not “discovered” us yet).

It used to be that parties and candidates came to the barrio once every four years, glad handed, stumped, made some promises and moved on. Now they’re coming in July of an off year, calling attention to themselves, making a scene, an escándalo. Da pena ajena, but what do you do? This seems to be the price of political clout. And I’ll tell you what’s worse, I’ll tell you what’ll be the end-all insult: Soon political commentators will be referring to the Latino community as the “soccer moms of 2008.” Can you stand it?

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The current issue of American Journal of Public Health includes the results from a recent Harvard/Columbia study that turns the conventional wisdom on it’s head: Latino immigrants receive less health care than Anglos and actually end up subsidizing health care for all Americans through payroll taxes, etc.

For the study results go to the Physicians for a National Health-Care Policy website and type in password “Carrasquilo” (case sensitive).

Imagine two different families: a rich, middle-aged couple who go to see specialists several times a year, gets expensive prescriptions covered by their insurance, and pays very little out of pocket vs. a large Latino family who gets free vaccinations for their kids, sporadic dental and doctor visits at community health centers, and who, through lack of regular check-ups are forced to visit the emergency room when an illness gets out of hand.

Now you can see how the study is correct.

Last week, I started to write this:

In the final analysis, the rich must not ignore the poor because both rich and poor are tied in a single garment of history. All life is interrelated, and all men are interdependent. The agony of the poor diminishes the rich, and the salvation of the poor enlarges the rich.

We are inevitably our brother’s keeper because of the interrelated structure of reality.
– Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., December 10, 1964

In preparation for DemFest, some of us at LFT attended meetings and contacted leaders in the African-American community in an effort to increase minority participation. It was a tough sell on Juneteenth weekend, but we gave it our best effort. We spoke with a few people about the importance of building a true collaborative effort amongst our communities because we share many similar characteristics – high drop out rates, low post-secondary education rates, high poverty rates, frequent interactions with the police, frequent meetings with death row, and some diseases that seem to favor people of color more than anyone else. While all this sounds not-so-good, we also share amongst us strong family, church, and community ties; after all, we are our brothers’ keepers.

Something else we have in common? GOP lust - they want us and they have it bad.

I never got to finish that really smart-sounding post I was gonna write, but the gist of it is that Ken Mehlman appeared before the NAACP about 10 days ago. The big news about Mehlman’s speech was his apology for the party’s past use of “racial polarization” to win elections.

The Week Magazine has a great write-up that touches on some of the reactions to Mehlman, here’s one:
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From HispanicBusiness.com:

In a speech to an influential Hispanic organization, Dean said that Republican-sponsored immigration legislation and escalating rhetoric on the issue are part of the latest GOP effort to use fear as a political tactic.

Full story here.

Famous SA E-N columnist tells it like it is.. read his blog about the Texas-Mexico border here.