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On this occasion imagine as nothing as brings you into prior discussion about the political life of the Latino population in the state with members of the community who are concerned about this topic. You. Know the yes vote. Saludos I might be at Rojas. Me and many of us he has been said that the decade of the 80s would be the decade of the Hispanics bad. Are we prepared to deal with the challenges that head of us. He has also been predicted that Hispanics will be the largest minority in the United States about 1985. But I'm going to be able to channel that force effectively to to clear my share of representation in the political system. To discuss these and other important questions we have with us to a special guest who can talk about this issue as representatives of nonpartisan organizations and perspectives. They are at my left Basque is a

member of the Puerto Rican Congress of New Jersey civil community and community leader of Jersey City a member of the Hispanic political action committee. We also have Charlie recce who is a lawyer in the city of Newark and has been a delegate to the national Democratic convention in 1980 and who has been a person very much involved in the community politics for many years. Thank you for being with us this evening. Thank you Mary. Gentlemen we are in the midst of elections in New Jersey in which the governor the legislature and many municipal officers will be determined. Are these elections important to the Hispanic community or are they at all. Well Maria I think. Part of the importance of the upcoming elections has to do with the fact that Hispanics have been becoming more politically sophisticated and as elections come by and more of us get involved.

Were we to withdraw at this point from from political environment I think it would be a setback. In addition to that I think maybe one of the primary. Reasons why we should be heavily involved in this campaign is because of what is happening this country in terms of the new trend. We see the administration in Washington taking away a lot of the monies for programs that benefit its panic. And this has been turned around. New Jersey is one of two states that are celebrating gubernatorial elections in this year so that the entire country is going to be looking at what's happening in New Jersey. A lot of the people in my community and the statewide Hispanic community that have been affected by the budget cuts then and this cut back mentality have to send a message to Washington and to the rest of the country that government has to respond to needs of people. Charlie what do you think you think that these elections might make me if that's what he's planning. I don't think so. I think that the relationship already established in state government and that's what we're talking about between

those politicians who are in the running now. That's means Florio and King. The relationship they have with the Puerto Rican and greater Hispanic community is pretty much already established. I'm not too certain whether either of the two gentlemen either of which is elected will make any substantial difference within our community. I only hope that whichever is elected will be fair to our community. We'll make certain appointments that will result in certain benefits filtering down to our community. I do think that every election however is important in the sense of our community beginning to show its organized muscle. I think that. This year it's kind of too late for us to do some substantial fund raising because in politics you produce money or you produce votes. I think that the numbers of registered Puerto Rican Hispanic voters has dropped.

The Essex County lost approximately 10 to 15000 registered voters last general election November 1980. Because of moving because of changes of demographic situations as well as the changes within the city of let's say Newark where the predominant number of Hispanics live in Essex County. Well just before we go any further I can know where we stand on NSA on a national level Hispanics. Read making any advance at a national level. We can i am going back. I'm basically an optimist. I think that in the sense that we have progressed. You look back 10 or 15 years ago. There are more national Hispanic organizations now lobbying for Hispanic interest at that level than the work back then. Just recently there was another national group the Puerto Rican national civil rights organization. You know you have the

National Association of a Puerto Rican woman the capital and you have and you have you know all the like is a very established organization but you have no organization at the national level. I think that one of the problems that a lot of us face of the fact that we don't come in contact with national level organization that much so we're not sometimes aware of what they're doing just like local people don't come in time and contacts sometimes with our state organizations and they don't know what they're doing. But there are organizations out there that are working for the betterment of the National Hispanic at that level and I think that there are 20 million or so Hispanics in the country at this point now. So how are we doing on a local level. Let's find the politic involvement the participation out there. People in kind of a well some places I think we're doing good I think. Jaime is right when he says that there are more national organizations now than there were before. However if you really analyze it the question becomes on the local level how effective are grassroots organizations places like where Jaime comes from the Puerto Rican community was able to

finally accomplish the election of a Puerto Rican city councilman. My bet is that Jersey City battle plans. However I was and last 44 years ago Perth Amboy accomplished amazing feat of electing the first woman who happened to be a Puerto Rican person to the Perth Amboy city council I think that the local level is really where it's at. And some places are doing well and some places are doing bad. I like to add a little bit to what Tony said because I think the local levers were out of power and you know that's where the people are and that's where the votes coming up. There are some very key cities in this state that are ripe for a Hispanic elected official. Hoboken is one Union City West New York Weehawken we're not just talking about Cuban and and other Hispanic groups within their city and it's you know a lot of people that have been involved in parks over the years know that those in power try to prevent those not in power from gaining power. But it's like sticking your finger in the dike. Eventually the

hope pops out something that I hope pops out someplace in the whole thing come down on your Hispanic elected officials within the next 10 years or 15 years is going to be like a wart like a dike breaking down in the well coming through because I expect to see a Hispanic mayor in Union City one of these days within the next decade in Hoboken. Oh Hispanic councilman. Or in Weehawken on North arrogant and other cities to write in a decade. Couldn't we have a Hispanic mayor or even Governor Assemblyman today and I mean theoretically we could we have in certain areas we have the populations. The problem is is money. Cost big money to elect any local official in a town like New York. It would cost anywhere between fifty thousand two hundred thousand dollars to elect a city councilman. That's what the other guys spend. If you can spend that kind of money well then you're not in the competition. Also it's a question of organization. We don't have we have the population and we don't have the registered vote.

And thirdly we have bad attitudes probably caused by bad leadership in the past. People among whom that it is done amongst their own people they feel that the leadership in the past has betrayed them by being motivated by self-interest. The prior leadership in many times was incompetent and many times were mere puppets of the existing ministration. I would venture to say that the new look is a classical example of that. You have a situation where Mayor Gibson who was running for governor had a vacancy in the position of deputy mayor and allow that position to remain vacant for nine months and did not fill that vacancy until a week before the election. Now here you have a situation where Puerto Rican Stephon Lee assisted in the election of Mayor Gibson back in 1969 I know that I was there. But where are the Puerto Rican leaders who helped me then. And where are the young people who are sustaining them.

Well there will really have to have a Hispanic person at a higher office it is that important consummately else do the job for us. Or you know we were talking about having people enrolled in the political system is that important. Definitely I think the job's part to patronage administered through the elected officials if the elected official in your town or the representative the Democratic or the Republican Party whoever is the strongest party in that senator in that jurisdiction that person has a say whether or not you're appointed to anything. If the governor is going to appoint you he will contact the county chairman of the county within which you live and your last name is his hobby Vazquez a good Democrat and if he is to get appointed if he's not he won't. How would be and how would we assured that if we elect a Hispanic

candidate that person would do the job for us. There's no guarantees. You know you can elect a Hispanic candidate could be the worst candidate you can like non-Hispanic or worse can their or the best candidate before that has to do I think before with the leadership that Charlie was talking about before you know what kind of people represent the opinions and the needs of the Hispanic community. I'm not as critical as Charlie because we have a lot of Hispanic leaders you know they have been at this for 20 years without the benefit of a. What am I calling quote technical education like I was able to go to college Charlie was ever able to go to law school. You know we are more used to this environment as compared to the people the generation before me who came from whatever native Hispanic country were because Puerto Rico or whatever and came without the ability that we have at this point now I think that it's very important that a group aspire to have their people in high places. You know it's not to say that people can't be sensitive about you if they are

not from your ethnic group. But it has been proven in the past the discrimination exists in those situations sometimes and sometimes you just need we need our own people to be able to identify our own needs in the past we had other people identifying our own needs and they weren't really our needs. You know and same thing with blacks look at what happened to the Department of Community Affairs in New Jersey in the early 70s very number if you're not a high number of the people working in that department were black so in trying to respond to black problems they were having a gap and only when blacks were included in that department were they able to start to respond to those issues. The same with Hispanics. You know if you only have whites and blacks in the prime of community affairs and they have to respond to Hispanic issues they're going to miss the mark by a little bit not that they're insensitive but they don't have that perspective that we have about our own people. Well do you think that there are politicians and political parties that path to the Hispanic population that are responding to it. Well you know I think that part of the reason why political parties

haven't responded to our needs and I don't want to write but what Charlie mentioned before about our lack of organization. We have more than a half a million Hispanics in the state. But if you look at the actual voter registration rolls it's probably maybe one hundred twenty five thousand. OK. People might dispute those figures but another thing about the Hispanic community it is very young because half of the Hispanic population of the state is under the age of 19 years old. That means if you have a half a million Hispanics in New Jersey you have 250000 maybe joining for them because they're not citizens. But you do have a potential of 250000 registered voters and of that we have half and that there's a lot of reasons why people are not registering to vote or participating in the electoral process. You think that has an influence on how are these politicians feeling that they don't have to respond because they don't get a vote let me get let me give just one example. I gave testimony one time before the drug joint Appropriations Committee when Hispanic impact programs had their budget threatened because the state budget cuts. We went to the meeting

and I spoke to him or I'm sorry I spoke to the Appropriations Committee. And I expressed my concern over the impact of these budget cuts and that we had these many thousands of people that need for you to help them. And a man looked me straight in the eye and very candidly and in a very honest way said to me. You can tell me you have 30000 people or 50000 people that need but what I want to see is how many people you have on the books. See how many value diversity you have because that's what got me here. That's what gets me out and that's what puts pressure on me. And the problem is the Hispanics have to develop the voter registration rolls. That's very important. So we have been established in some major new mutations let's say of the community our respective political participation. Some day you lack of unity in organization. How about leadership. Is there no way that you are Hispanic among our community to a certain extent is abundance of leadership I think it's a question that the leadership to a certain extent is misguided to lack

of good information. Also a lot of our friends really are our friends and as a result we don't get the systems that we that we need because of the situation Jaime just described it. We are organized our friends sometimes are scared to go to bat for speak cause they might not be able to come out of it OK. I think it's important because you know that leadership you know what is leadership. You know somebody it's not just me says Let's go out you know let's go up this hill and everybody follows you know I think that leadership has to come from the collective decision. You know we come to a collective decision as a group and you represent that opinion. You know you don't represent your own opinion. One of things at least how to do it had to be brought to itself from something that Charlie said before from the patronage. Because when you depend on government for a job. Then you want those people in government tell you OK. And so we have to be very careful you know of you know have to be a dichotomy there in terms of

you know who do you owe your allegiance to and I'm very strong about that. I'm a member of the Democratic Party and that's a critical of the Democratic Party for not giving Hispanics a broader participation in the political process. Are there any Hispanics running for major offices in this state. Very quickly and I think you have less progress in the parasympathetic areas than for the assembly and the Republican banner. He is probably the person that has the best opportunity to be elected and why would he have lost control of the Republicans. But imagine the Republican city it has a Republican mayor and it has a lot of people a lot of Hispanic people that are used to it and they and I support red very much in that area. Would other candidates have a chance to win. Do we really have a chance. We have a candidate or nothing at this point and that's very crucial because there are 40 senators and 80 assembly people one hundred and twenty state members or members of State Legislature. There is not one hispanic just like D-CA Mr. Black's the legislature misses the gap on his benefit was there no Hispanics there.

It was probably a common one of the important aspects of this particular year is the fact that this is the first year that the candidates who run for state office are running under the present geographical lines that compose the districts. 1980 marked the redistricting of New Jersey and the lines were redrawn. I think that in two years it will be a different situation. I think that you know we'll be discussing the district of redistricting of the different areas of New Jersey in our second program. I think we started some limitations and I would like to open the discussion now to include our other guest. I believe there probably have other things to add as far as broader things that are holding us back from getting involved. Well as we said they have established some of the limitations like lack of unity lack of leadership or limitations as for the

leadership or lack of interest in the political life of our people or the political life of this country. I probably also lack of knowledge about how the system works when the general consensus the consensus is that they span if people don't vote we don't get involved. We're not really participating I would like to ask any of you if you believe that is so. I will I am participating in the political system. If we're not why would not. Go ahead whoever would like to just identify himself. I live here in New York. My my statement is more in this in the context of a question why the general and seems to be that the leadership of the Hispanic community has always been drawn from the type of leadership that has come out of community

based organizations and and the entire anti-poverty programs. Have we reached or have we not yet reached a point where we can start reaching out for leaders outside of that sector. Well I think that one of the reasons why a lot of us have come from the type of background is because they were involved in the every day struggled up people are facing you know a person that works for a community based organization has to deal with people that come to them for unemployment has come to them for public assistance has revealed that come to them for housing problem and they're at the forefront. You know they have to go to city council meetings and meetings and try to struggle for a piece of the economic pie so they can make their programs work. So it's sort of like a natural process that had come up. But what's happening now and I think yourself and me myself and telling other people are exemplary of that is that I generations of Hispanics become older we're developing younger more technically educated Hispanics and these people are now getting involved into leadership. So I think at this point it's time to include

other people except people you know from CBO. I myself did not come from that type of background. You had mentioned that we are becoming more sophisticated us by the political involvement what do you mean by that. Well for example you know go back 10 or 15 years when Hispanics were involved in political organizations or political campaigns and asked them what is targeting you know how do you target an area when this final next is really I'm saying only me. It won't even in terms of targeting or in terms of some of the logistical after the bombing campaign we have learned from our experiences. I became involved in politics in 1070 you know this 12 years already and I'm only 32 years old. So a lot of the people you know a lot of the Hispanics who are who have been educated here to a certain extent just this is our environment where participants are participating more the political process and so we become more sophisticated and also look at the at the registration I think you said before that there was a consensus that people don't vote. I think that that's a myth that it's done

to be dispelled because if you go to certain cities like Tony much before adjourning city Perth Amboy and Camden has been a councilman. If you go to those cities and you look at the district breakdown there's been a higher turnout Hispanic voter participation in these areas than anytime before and I said before in the next 10 years we'll have more of this because in the next 10 years we'll learn more from what's going to happen in the next few years. Does that answer your question anybody else. It was a man of us a member of this county Democratic Committee as well as a candidate forced councilman at large in the city of Newark. But for you gentlemen to mention leadership and the lack of interest and unity amongst our people don't you feel that in order for our community to effectively choose a quote Hispanic leader he not only has to be a leader of the Hispanics but also all of the blacks and the whites. Yeah that's true. However when you as an

individual select on your own to run for political office that indeed that's what you're doing you're running on your own. If you are representative of a people on the move then you have to be part of that people on the move. Anybody can sign a petition. Anybody can submit that petition to the county clerk and get on the ballot. That doesn't really make you part of what we're talking about. Councilman Lodge is a fantastic position to run to I think in Newark it's a viable position to run for. However when you really look at it you go back and you look at for example and yes see Ramon Yes Raffa councilman in one thousand sixty nine along with the mayor gets his ticket and he lost terribly and he was running with Mel Gibson on his ticket. So indeed yes you can hope to get the support of other communities. However it would behoove you to have a base. Now if you're base and I believe you represent the

11th electoral district in the north ward of New York if I'm correct in the ninth as it were that's right across the street from the 11th it was the map in my mind although it's a burnt in there sometimes it fizzes up. You have predominately a Puerto Rican neighborhood. Indeed there is a town there are blacks and they are poor whites. However when you really go out there to raise dollars because it costs you a lot of money and when you go out to raise votes who are you saying you're representing by you part of the wave of Hispania that or are you something else. I think that that he had an important point. Gentlemen the question because I have a very strong believer in coalition politics. I don't think anybody has ever gotten elected to office only because their people voted for them. I think that put Reagan and his batiks all of us have specific needs that can be addressed by a person of the ethnic background but I think that we but we will become myopic. You know we are scoped out so

much that we say I am a Puerto Rican candidate. I am a Hispanic candidate. But people don't want to hear that in my ward. I have 57000 people and 15000 voters. I have Puerto Rican think you into the minigames and Polish and Italian and black and everybody OK. So I have to I have to project political. Positive political images for all those people there at the same time I realize that as a Hispanic as a Puerto Rican my community has specific need to have to be addressed. But if you carry on this ethnic campaign that you know I'm the Puerto Rican candidate then the other people are not going to vote for you. No I don't want to get into this into this thing about well you're an American citizen and I was an American citizen because ethnic politics is a reality. You know everybody plays ethnic politics but the same time if you want to be elected you have to have a coalition behind you can't collect on your own vote. You look back in history you know it does the analyst did not like it I was only with their own vote.

You know there were some IRA's that went along with them and vice versa that that's been the history of this country in the past what I would like to as somebody in the audience perhaps even our own people are surprised by supporting their Hispanic political figures candidates people involved in politics our own people supporting those other candidates a man and a dancer. It's been my experience working in the north ward that that's not true. What it what is true is that the powers that be identify certain Hispanic members who they will allow to work with them and will then let them enjoy all the benefits that come from working with them. And the Hispanic members of the community who want to promote the Hispanic interest who want to truly see the Hispanics be elected and be represented there by stifled and are subject to a whole array of

political strength that comes from being with powers having perhaps two people running for the same office that type of problems. We understand the splitting of the vote that we think that that is that a problem. Well sometimes sometimes it's not just the Hispanic community who does it. Sometimes it's the other forces that control the political the political scene that promote several ethnic candidates at the same time to allow their own candidate to just filter through knowing that the geographically and numerically they would not ordinarily be allowed to win. You know the politics of the vision is nothing new and it has been used against every ethnic group trying to develop politically in the South Bronx for years and years and years. Let's say for the past 20 or 25 years that Puerto Rican in a specific area had a majority. There'd be five candidates running against each other they split up each other's vote and a non hispanic

might get in there or if Mr. Garcia mentioned before your opponents might ask. One of your own to sponsor OK. But OK you know we're going to have to continue this question in the next program I think we're leading into something very specific which is that the vision of the differences in culture among our own people. And would I like to take a look at that later on and find out how we could get together specifically designed perhaps an agenda for the future. There are still many other topics for discussion but at this point I want to thank you all for being with us. Please join us again next week. Thank you for that. Do you believe by North America. Normally I don't but I'm going to live up to the

door a lot of the time to heal the world.