Texas Weekly; Mexican-Americans and their Concerns in Texas

instead this is texas weekly an un reversible question and answer session between members of the state's working press and a prominent figure in the news here is your moderator bill emerson the oldest hispanic organization the country is the league of united latin american citizens or lou i liked was found in corpus christi fifty years ago and only last week concluded its annual state convention in el paso at the convention texas legislative leaders were accused of political hypocrisy for supporting a separate presidential primary chicano see that bill as a ploy to do with the mexican american vote at that same convention like no that's also express support for the twelve killer bees and endorsed the bill by us senator lloyd bentsen that would create an office of hispanic affairs in the white house and provide forty five million dollars to public education agencies and those taxes border counties where there's a high concentration of indian schoolchildren i guess this week on tech's his weekly is jose antonio garcia legal advisor to the league of united latin american

citizens mr garcia we question like alex the american goals in the coming years first of all it's a silicon the texas we find and vine converse with mcgurk mr gresser what contributes in your opinion are harvested childbirth but why such a large increase in mexican american population state is a great deal that due to illegal immigration well not necessarily so i've we look at the statistics we will find that the young there's a big difference between mexican american bald people in terms of the median age of the population is compared to say the anglo population we find that the er the median age for mexican americans is gonna be out in the teens possibly seventeen or eighteen bizarre contrast to a median age for our the rest of those people for say twenty eight maybe twenty nine and there's a large gap well obviously a younger population median age is going to lend itself to a higher office potential for population

growth in terms of love though fertility rate and we find that this is so this is so in texas and across the country are traditionally are mexican americans being catholic tend to have a larger sized of families are not having as much education as at other the average of person are in the united states they will also love the hell you know not only a more religious but the tend to have large families and this is so something that we find that is ongoing and that is why we have all these projections for chicano art people for our knowledge state but also for the nation increasing its ranks and i we feel that this is their combat mission but what was it that got the mexican american communities don't seem to be assimilated those as perhaps only italian americans were jewish americans were those eminent irish americans why is that there's a reason for it there's gonna be many reasons on

i think that there's several factors involved of first of all we salt great waves of immigration first well not necessarily chronologically but from how our irish people in german people attend and people and so forth can these came in waves whereas the er our hispanic are to an extent was already here they were already in grown and also you have the proximity factor mexico's right on the border with the united states we have a constant influx of constant flow of people coming in these are people who are yeah of course of spanish speaking in and retain their their culture of customs and this is a never ending process mexico oh it's right on the border they have a lot of television network which is carried throughout the united states to various parts of the country and it's just a constant flow of people which will prevent a live or a seal from being formed say at the bottom are at the base of this flow and

isolating the people in such a manner that they cannot assimilate naturally with prices so just the passage of time are you will find that the chicano people are as a whole are very complex you can have everything off i'll from mom you're a typical low or you're out you really lay on the community and coming across with no knowledge of what america's like to your very well educated people who have been here for several generations who are very conservative or quite often republican and very well educated so you have now a combination of different different shades of the spectrum some people do wanna be assimilated on and you find is going on all the time are changes of names so for instance are not uncommon but at the same time we have got a movement especially yo one which got going in the early sixties so all through the sixties and seventies to retain this

political language the customs lot of great pride in and just chicano heritage and disown paradoxically you seems to apply across the country not just in texas with their suitability for sears as the most important pieces of legislation that could come out of the state legislature that would affect you mexican americans first in a positive way and secondly you know pressed up a monolith but in a positive way i think we can look at the legislation that would allow for criminal prosecution for violations violations of civil rights of hispanics oh we feel bad time there is sort of an open season on to cons across the state we see china's getting killed san antonio houston dallas talk ul paso just all over and they sought legislation would allow for art chicanos to go to state court in texas to seek

vindication of the rights on like the one we have right now we have two hours of resort to all federal legislation to civil rights legislation that was so ironically over a hundred years old to add to vindicate these rides what would happen in a room and the mayor the state record mart has called on the federal government and griffin bell to expedite that the sort of inspections a lot of the ban a local basis federal officers for many years for what happened sort of record that is correct on fortunately we feel that the justice department under our riff and bill has been lax in its prosecution of civil rights violations cases of comes in texas for example one of the most gruesome cases the samples will be his case in dallas where twelve year old boy all were shot to death in the backseat of a police car while his hands were cuffed on this was so in the presence of his brother we use our prosecution under federal statutes own griffin bell at first though indicated didn't prosecute and i believe president

does seem to fall with that but at the last minute he turned around and said that the case was a little too old to prosecute yet out in new york a case very similar to that was so recommended for prosecution prosecution which was ironically older than the sum total divas case that is why we are unhappy with the justice department are in its efforts to prosecute under the federal civil rights act is pleased to talk radio callers politically split on to our mexican americans is a non rooms that it's hard to say right now would say that there is a greater awareness of that not only on the part of law chicanos in texas of the media but also the help police association in march in san antonio had a historic meeting of police jeeps all other armed police officers and sheriffs and so forth so and i'm meeting with serbia representatives of various hispanic leaders in the state who like jeff long brown braids image and this pried it an excellent form for both

sides of the fence to get together and try to figure out what was missing communication of what could be done about it right now will education and what could be done in the future selection recruitment those terms but i unfortunately are another chicanos killed in wichita falls some there's contradicting out evidence as to what was the cause of his death so we really can't say that we've come to an end or violations of civil rights at cons and what we're trying to do is we're trying to slow it down and at the same time our art make sure that these people do not get their sole rights violated gorges nothing that we can do right now to bring back the old the dead chicanos that that but i'd like to believe that i mentioned could go the more violent side of castro but we hope that we can put a stop to it and then we started that is like hoping to get something out of the courtroom well yes we are armed

one of our speakers at the ousted convention was attorney general more quiet and he said that he was in full support of the legislation which would provide for criminal penalties for police officers or any person acting under color of law who would take the life of law of a person in violation of civil rights and he indicated that this would make taxes the first date in the league in the nation to have said criminal penalties everybody else seems to have the ball lesser penalties misdemeanors that you would for us such violations that so it's always so call a felony for lunch counter kill local police officer but it's not always true on the other hand on another of piece of legislation which iran to which a general point referred to was the requirement of having police candidates trained specifically to determine if they were qualified candidates for the

task of enforcing the law for police officer psychologically and so forth and we feel that if we have these two factors are approved that we can certainly go a long way to solving this problem collective bargaining for farmworkers on this it's dead as far as its legislature goes what was like doing anything with the idea the next legislature in mind well we certainly are all you stated correctly that the chances of that legislation passing are for all practical purposes no at this time but even at that it came a lot farther than he did the first time around and earl our own agriculture commissioner reagan brown has indicated maybe not directly but in some way that he would favor collective bargaining for farm workers and we feel that this is not just an economics issue but also one of human rights lawyers supposes is the first agriculture commission to come out for organizing for more so unable to ten commissioner

brown down any more than say the american statesman was home or followup to that television program i know we we haven't bought but his statement along with the fact that the health bill that a little bit further down the legislative process this time around certain encourages us to feel that we may have a better chance of getting such legislation passed on the next time the legislature meets well on the only a negative side the history bill that has been passed on home mortgage loans in higher interest rate of howell's up to fight in europe and the mexican american population steady it's going to have the very big effect on the next american population because so looking at the terms of forcing an average median income i didn't find that a lot of the potential to come home buyers are not going to be as well off as some of the other umpires in the market therefore anyway he's an increase in the interest rate is going to

affect him tremendously maybe to the point of not being able to afford housing altogether two percentage points could translate into quite a bit of money on a monthly basis in terms of payments and this could there just put them are completely on the market the present state director of life than twenty years and has urged to boil all along some some sort of things isn't going for two terms now well you say that sort of movement of his continuing as strong under the new leadership of what coming up in in june twenty eleven years later director like hughes dated at the outset we just celebrated our fiftieth anniversary state convention in el paso the new director is from austin now has an attorney and alaska's and he told me a convention that he would try to continue the gold has advocated by ruben borneo mr lanier has been a very strong

and articulate advocate of that a common cause and we would feel that there would be a lot of pressure from all of the state on the news day director to continue in that direction tonight has been gained in the past two years to work to try to slow down anyway we you know saw a lot more visibility for like it became a truly revitalized organization and has become more lawyers say a lot of frontal for audio for all because of the of the next american people now i would hope that i would feel that unused a director would continue to advocate these issues and i am confident that you will well let's talk about the us census doesn't affect specifically max martin there is you know more about the life of me that the nineteen seventy one they brought up a lot by something like turned to twenty percent as i understand it two questions is not next years the mighty the critically important alone chicanos but to

other minorities that's my first question and secondly having not ask for a new system of some sense of being utilized five years the census is just very very important and i cannot fail to stress how important it is because there's untold millions of dollars in federal assistance and other programs too yet the outcome people and for that reason we need the malls actor account of all of our citizens of all of our people all over the united states this fall's with the legislative redistricting and of course that's just very very important in terms of getting the adequate representation that we need in the legislatures throughout the country the figures we're all for the first time around and we felt that there were some of flaws inherent in the system we hope that these have been at least alleviate it this time around there's there's ways in which earle the census taker can intimidate a group of people into not revealing the full extent of information that is required on the

forms paul perhaps an inability to speak the language may be a one factor or perhaps an inability to work to relate to a certain conditions off well i'd say about you or or some other part of the city which will not produce the yarn the exact count that you would need for an accurate census does not affect also perhaps of judgeships well yes it does we're trying to get more to camels appointed to our federal judge show shit compositions and of course on judge o'donnell outside of brownsville has just been no recommended therefore position now one of the resolutions at the state convention was to work to have more to come as appointed as just judges to the federal district courts us one specifically out of houston phoenix on some assad who's presently serving in the court of appeals how was recommended along with another one for more el paso but we're trying to good judges so in san antonio a dallas course of texas houston and other parts of the country well as you

know as you know the poor traditionally have avoided that so called census takers when they come knocking on the bill not only among chicanos but poor white as well how do you do you have any sort of program in mind that you can get them to talk to those people still be a true person to suspect time yes we've had very good op were poor with be a bureau of the census for this upcoming senses i know that people out of dallas have been meeting with not only do x here in austin would all over the state to try to come up with the best possible way of taking the senses and these are meetings with grassroots people who know what to do what not to do and there's quite a few are undocumented aliens in the country who would nevertheless who are be included in the center's taking part but this problem may be overblown to some extent they're so they're so multiple families a lot of times in one single blowing and it's easy to overlook certain members possibly because of

age or whatever word we are we have made and we are meeting with the censors people to try to come up with a local all people to want to work for the census this it's a census takers and just try to work out the problems that were armed that will present the first time around you overcome that traditionally mistrust that the fed does that not only a pollution acid are the most americans have been on the ring that my family and servants improve enough and nuisances to acknowledge who argue that the mexican american perhaps someone who's recently though one that shows and we've got to get them to talk and become a part of that sense so that it helps them well it's easy to understand how these people can be intimidated say are an undocumented alien for example he is totally without recourse to somebody say blowing the whistle on that person for any reason they're afraid to go and apply for our food stamps or other well for assistance because it's so easy to be deported and they will lose

everything they have here almost without any other remedy available to them so theyre gonna be apprehensive the best way we feel to overcome this not just for the undocumented alien for rv of resonate in chicano but for people like people whatever is to use people who are from that same area not all the people living in a group of four seo say a project or going and the evil aliens you have some people who come from those bodies wiggles areas will social economic strata who would be more comfortable around these people and these people at the same time be more receptive to them would be as intimidated and would be more prone to release the full information that is required by the forms where do you see must pursue governor bill once he does foresee mexican american goes in the state do you think he's pulling up to a small from his appointments so

also up in the air some facilities he said several times that his religion from ramallah with the conditions that their patients are in that and i think it will help it it's unfortunate that we have a person like bill clements and government right now because his style his manner lends itself to a being misunderstood so easily all sides were well just below the statements that he makes a lot of times they come at the wrong time at the wrong place with the wrong people and they're picked up and it spreads like fire and it comes back and but we feel that he's been a little bit like some disappointment to camels to bow to political office are some of the first people fired when he came to office work to come and they were not necessarily replaced with other to condoms as far as we know there's really only one person who is at closely associated with the

governance gigi garcia from holland our state director ruben gonyea has been trying to meet with the governor and has so some resumes of qualified to constant cross date to whom he would recommend for appointment office we feel that if he can recruit and surround himself with some mom some qualified competent to tunnels that he can begin to communicate a little bit better and understand the tunnels and their problems a little bit better and have a little more communication than what we feel we have right now with the governor's office oracle poetry collection the first in the northeast lew archer's of theirs was only a hispanic group of state we did not consult or forgoing as they as a relationship unlike improve the governor's office since our times are beyond the relationship is something that we're trying to improve our we invited governor clements to our state convention in el paso but he was unable to attend i don't know if it was because so his schedule did not

permitted or he was reluctant to come out in and meet with as i know it has been invited to attend the national convention coming up next month in houston and our believe that this time he's so he's going to be a lot more willing to accept and we can get that we can get his participation in sylmar activities then all we feel that we can establish a better reporter the governor's office you mention that you went to mexico on that's true yeah some other chicano leaders were critical of that they felt that he was just trying to grab headlines he bypassed the young mexican american caucus which was already here last ignored them totally and that's why you have all these other critics come up and say that the governor was often than men end as he was in the past totally oblivious to be a mexican american in texas what would you say if you had the entree into two government permits or what would be in reich's first part or i would have to say that we need to go in or two to sit down with lou lang and hash out some problems that we have all

the employment for example we understand that is trying to cut state employment down with twenty five percent but unfortunately a lot of times it's gonna be either chicanos who were last hired and regularly the first fired and we would like the governor to propose a plan whereby he can ensure that common people who are already under represented as it is at the state level and even at the state level bills that are there are gonna be an inferior positions there's very few attorneys very few division directors department heads of all mexican ancestry who are unemployed right now in a state that would be one of our first priorities was secondly we would like to meet with him a smooth the next american caucus and discuss issues that are of great concern to us education for example bilingual education i can say i'm sorry we're out of time i guess has been jose garcia who's a legal advisor to work on television you've been listening to texas weekly an

unrehearsed question and answer session between members of the texas press corps and a prominent figure in the new texas weekly is produced by katie fm npr mtv and distributed by communication center university of texas at austin this is a long war and radio network and its chief mission schools are