Evening Exchange; Discrimination Against Hispanic Americans

The bone disease osteoporosis and what to do about it. Former President Jimmy Carter versus the Bush administration. I think Cuba and Hispanic power or the lack of it in the district all next month evening exchange. He welcomes the evening exchange later in this broadcast we'll talk about why baby boomers are now on the front lines of battling the disease osteoporosis. And in our news analysis segment former President Jimmy Carter's assertion that the Bush administration tried to undermine his trip to Cuba. But first if you read in the newspaper last week that a series of reports indicate that Latinos in the District of Columbia faced discrimination

and violations of their civil rights. You may have felt a sense of deja vu. That's because it wasn't the first time this has been reported since the riots of May 5th 1991. So you got to wonder what's happened since then. One thing is for sure the city's Hispanic population has increased significantly since that time. Joining us now is Marisa de Mayo regional counsel for the Mexican Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Welcome. Maurice was a member of the civil rights review panel that guided the entire process of the preparation of the Mount Pleasant anniversary reports. She is joined by pedal Habemus organizational development and community organizing specialist at the Center for Community Change at all welcome. It seems as if as I said earlier the Hispanic population has increased but its political influence has not. I observe that you were executive director of the Latino civil rights task force the organization which emerged after the Mt. Pleasant disturbances of 1991. And here we are

11 years later with no region Merissa sitting on a civil rights review panel that's looking at the issue and coming to essentially the same conclusions that we came to you know years ago despite the significant increase in the population if the population is increasing. Why would it seen the discrimination against Hispanics and violations of civil rights are not being reduced. Well I think it's a combination of two factors. One is the disposition in the willingness on the part of the administration to address a series of issues that the community has been bringing to its attention for the past 10 years. The other issue I think has to a lot to do with the transformation that the city went through in the late 90s as a result of the congressional takeover that in a sense made it extremely difficult not only for the members of the Latino community but the homeless advocates and the health advocates to really hold our elected officials accountable. I think that if there's still time in Definitely the present administration must take a look at these series of

findings and recommendations that are being put together by the watching committees in a series of law firms. I think this is an excellent opportunity for the administration to show that one it is sensible one that it is a willing and able to address a whole series of The Spirit is in the provision of service to the Latino community. You raise an issue that I have never heard raised before in terms of the effect of the control board on the District of Columbia during that period you say the Hispanic population of the district did not have any political maneuverability because they were moving targets. You would go to the city council the city council saying to the mayor the mayor will tell you go to the control board to tell you hey we can do whatever we want to do here. And we didn't really have access to the members of Congress. I think that that in many ways made it extremely difficult for the Latino advocacy efforts to impact to bring about the changes because as you know they brought a whole bunch of consultants that. Pretty much a streamlined different processes and a lot of those new systems and reforms that were put into

place were put into place without any input from the Latino community as a result. We have a report 11 years later that it still highlights the same level disparities that we encountered 20 years ago. Let's talk about the process for the report. What led to it to the civil rights review panel to call for this report. Well I think what was happening is we recognized that there was a momentous occasion that we had reached 10 years after the events that happened in Mount Pleasant in 1991 and we wanted to see what progress had been made and in general you don't hear a lot of discussion about the Latino community in D.C. in the media and among the government officials. So we wanted to take an in-depth look. The Washington Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights got involved with about nine law firms and they did very intensive reviews of a variety of civil rights areas. I was involved in terms of an advisory panel a civil rights advisory panel giving advice to the law firms that were conducting the reports and ultimately after a

number of months of review and inquiry getting information from the government getting information from. Private individuals and from the private sector. Eventually the general conclusion that was released last week is that the Latino community is not fairing well in the District of Columbia. But this was not a general conclusion that was arrived at either lightly or quickly. As I look at this report it covers a wide variety of areas access to justice interaction with police education access to health services employment discrimination housing and immigration policy that suggests to me that this is not a report that was done for the purpose of a press release in a story in the newspapers. This is a report that had a much broader purpose. Oh yes we are intentional along was not to just issue a report. We wanted to really build on the fact that there was so much disparities between Latinos and other residents of the District of Columbia. And so even though the report has been issued now we're moving into a plan of action similar to the plans of action

that were taken after 91 but we're trying to see what we learned in the last decade how we can do things differently how we can work with the District of Columbia as well as the federal government to really make a difference because the growth of the community has been so significant. If we don't do something now there's going to be severe consequences again. The Latino community has grown at least in my view 50 percent says that even though the census doesn't quite say that but everybody acknowledges that it has grown. And you would think that because the one specific incident that sparked the disturbances 10 11 years ago was the result of the interaction with police that at least that area would have received sufficient focus that it would show either some signs of improvement or not even if not improvement some signs of activity or change any such signs I mean how is it reflected in the statistics and that is the number of Hispanics on the police department the number of Hispanics the number of people who can speak Spanish or answering the telephones of the police department.

Unfortunately there's very little change since 1991 when the reports first came out based on the Latino civil rights task force as well as the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. You see now about a 5 percent Latino. Workforce among the Metropolitan Police Department this is about the same that we had more than 10 years ago in terms of those who have Spanish speaking capabilities. Again there's a shortage there. When people call 9 1 1 in 3 1 1 the emergency and non-emergency police numbers. Often times they encounter a situation where if they only speak Spanish or don't speak English well they are not able to communicate their situation to the police department. And it seems that in a variety of other areas testing was conducted and Latino's was seeking housing and then white testers was seeking housing and it was clear that the white Latino testers were being discriminated against. It seems as us as if this was all across the board throughout their lives so on the one hand it seems that there's a major moral issue here that the leadership of the city has

not addressed definitely and we're missing that the report very clearly states that the discrimination is not only coming from from the government but beetles is coming is coming from the private sector from. From the housing sector and so forth employment and I think that it is it is a big task and a big challenge for the community itself I think that we need to definitely put more pressure on the government to address some of the disparity issues that we've been highlighting for the last 10 11 years. And we also need to bring the community together at the grassroots level at the community service level to advocate more actively and to organize the community to ask for those demand to demand that some of those changes put into place. I think that like any other power structure it is only going to respond if there is pressure. I think that there is a moral imperative to address these issues because it's not really it does not bode well for the city to have a growing population not a population that contributes to the economic and cultural development of the society and then mistreats it or does not provide equal access to a series of services that it's mandated by

law. So I think that this is an opportunity for government to implement a comprehensive plan that takes into account the concerns of the community that involves the community at the grassroots level so that we can continue to put pressure into these the public school systems where there's a whole bunch of this Birdie's and health services the police and. Obviously all the different branches of government. I'd like to make some distinctions between what I see as a kind of moral cause a political cause and a legal cause. You're a lawyer. Are there legal issues here that could end up in court. Absolutely there are legal issues. We had law firms look at what are the legal responsibilities that the District of Columbia has as well as the private sector whether it's people who rent houses people who give out housing loans whether it's people who are trying to provide access to government services. And I do believe based on the conclusions reached that there is such a significant disparity in a number of areas that legal action could be brought.

You think if legal action is brought that that will bring it. To the attention of the officials of the District of Columbia in such a way that they might be more moved than they have been during the course of the past 11 years to address these issues. Well certainly legal action I think would get quite a bit of an attention in these areas. Hopefully it would not have to be in so many areas where we found the problems hopefully we can find a number of government officials who are willing to really address these and then look for legal action where we find officials that are not willing to work with us. The moral appeal is best exemplified in the work of Mahatma Gandhi in India in the work of Martin Luther King in the United States picking on behalf of people who are discriminated against and oppressed generally and making that moral appeal and finding it fairly effective but for the last 11 years it can be argued that a moral appeal has been made. How about politics. How about getting the Latino voters in the District of Columbia to show their political clout in ways that officials of the city must pay

attention. Why not that tactic. I think that definitely that is a tactic and the community has tried for the last couple of elections to really elect someone at the city council level I mean we have to run for city council for the last two elections and he's got a significant number to vote. I think that we need to definitely develop a coalition of progressive voters that will recognize the moral imperative and allowed for a Latino. Representative to be elected to city council because that is the only way to which Latinos will have access to the table where decisions are being made. When there are problems with that because when you talk about the African-American population you're generally talking about a fairly cohesive population that all live in the same country and that of all been born in the same country very often when you're talking about the Latino population it is only those of us outside of the Latino community that sees this as just one group of people. The people inside the Hispanic population are often descendants of people from different countries

and generally they congregate or socialize with one another on that basis. Is that an impediment to political organizing. Well I think in the District of Columbia you do see certain populations being the majority of the Latino population the Salvadoran karate is the largest percentage and so at least with regard to the situation that the Salvadoran American population the issues that they face you can see a lot of youth unity. But I believe that the situation that all the Latinos face in the District of Columbia causes a situation where they can come together as one group and could mobilize politically if there's the will to do that. There are quite strong cultural obstacles to this and that by that I mean people who come from societies in which they are not used to very active political participation either because those societies were ravaged by war or dictators. I think to a certain degree that that argument could be made that that's part of the case but I would say that the number one barrier to its immigration status and the fact that not all of us

are U.S. citizens I think that when second generation you know Americans Rice and that then it will be easier. But I think that we should not necessarily look at these as we need you know as a Latino issue I think that it is more of a low income marginalized moderate income community and I think that what we need to do is to develop a coalition that addresses the needs of this community and that includes the immigrant community that includes the Latino community. We are all being impacted by issues that pretty much impact low income communities. Gentrification in the communities that we live is one issue that we need to confront in discrimination in employment unemployment others a whole the rate of issues that are impacting not only the Latino community but all the low income communities and I think that a coalition of that sort is what we need to go about and that would allow for a person of Latino descent to be elected to city councilmen as a sort of. The interest of the Latino community but to represent the interests of the low income community of which the Latino

community happens to have a significant portion off. I have heard suggested what could be a fairly radical move on the part of some governing body in the District of Columbia it's been suggested that they remove the requirement of citizenship for voting in local elections in the District of Columbia and replace it with some form of residential requirement. Do you think that would a guest significantly change the picture of election outcomes in the district. Well I think it certainly would in the sense that I do know of jurisdictions that allow for example and school board elections. When you look at the students who are going to school a significant percentage are children of Latino parents the Latino parents may not currently be able to vote but their kids are still being educated with the taxes that they pay and in the schools with everyone else. So I think it could impact the ultimate outcomes of elections if those who are here as immigrants could still be able to vote at least in those local elections. Mayor Williams himself has been out of town for much of the past two weeks but have you received any

responses to the reports you have issued from any other officials in the city. The responses that can be considered more than lip service. Well city council members Graham and Fenty both attended the releases of the report. They expressed an interest in working with the Latino community. Councilman Graham also expressed an interest in helping us reach out to the mayor in terms of bringing these issues to his attention. We are going to individually on our own be contacting the mayor to discuss this report in person with him and we'd like to bring it some of these issues before the full city council. We know they're having a hearing next next month on police issues and access to justice issues and we think that it will be important to highlight the Latino concerns at that hearing. Betto does this represent progress over say 11 years ago. I think that definitely that is one way that we need to go. But I would insist that it is it behooves the Latino community to organize itself and to begin to put more consistent and continuous pressure. I think that we need to hold Mayor

Tony Williams accountable for some of these statements and commitments that he's pressed publicly in the last three years since we've been mayor. I mean it we need to you know hold him accountable and I think that that's that's the key consist in organizing on the part of the community pressuring the city because that's the only way that we're going to bring about change. Pedro Vito FLOTUS of the mail thank you both for joining us. Thank you. When we come back 10 years and two hundred thousand deaths later elections in the West African nation of Sierra Leone our news analyst join us. Stay with us.