Voter's Pipeline; Hispanics: Refocus for Survival

Why. Non. General BML presents a program on the subject of global and national interest. The Hispanic community as the year comes to a close. The Hispanic population continues to be the fastest growing minority segment in Orange County. Many Hispanic leaders are speaking out on priorities within their community. This week's program is entitled Hispanics refocus course. Survival. Is particularly wrenching as ripe and diversity of ethnic and minority groups. Certainly a Spanish surname heritage is one of the most treasured legacies that it has. A population of just under two million Hispanics account for more than two hundred thirteen thousand or

nearly 11 percent of Orange County's inhabitants. That make them easily the largest minority group in the county. And if you add to that the number of non-citizen this panic it could push the percentage to as high as 16 percent of the population. But what of the plan. The priorities the dreams of this panic. My guest this week are going to discuss these important questions. Doris Iranis is the vice chair person for concealed and Hispanic central planning and coordination body member who lacked the League of United Latin American Citizens and the founder of the community center. She is currently pursuing a degree in Business Administration at Santa Ana College. Edward Morgoth is the Board chairman of conceal who sits on the national board of directors of Lakin said a service employment and redevelopment group. He's also a member of the Lac foundation and in addition Mr. Market is a certified public accountant. Frank runs as an attorney. He's a member of the Mexican American Bar Association the Orange County Bar Association and the Orange County trial lawyers that is also a member of the golden city

award committee in Santa Ana and he sits on the board of directors of United Way. He's also an associate professor of business law at Pacific Christian College located in Fullerton. I like to start out with with this title because it's not our title it's a title that comes from can feel you know Hispanic refocus or survival. Who wants to tell me what you see in that title. We want this done. Well there really is and we have that title is because of the recently passed election and with the change in political parties being at the head of this country and with all the. Predictions of perhaps dire consequences as a result of that. There is a feeling that. There have to be a rethinking on the part of Hispanics in order to do the things that have to be done. And that's a reason for the title refocus for survival. Actually I would have preferred personally refocus for advancement. I think we're surviving.

That is a problem throughout advancing What do you see in that title of it. The focus for events for all it's sharing in this country and all aspects you know economically socially no different than any other citizen group and other citizens simply stated this is surrounded. What's your idea about that. I concur with what you said I think that. Survival is something we have always done. I think we have to quit surviving now and start thinking about what we have to do to read back. I think that's when all of this will really help a lot of you. You know word survival survival is the term. It's already down by where I am but refocuses it is an encouraging word revolving around priorities refocusing on what things need to be done and I know that's a broad question but I would hope in our discussion today we could look at some of the principal concerns that some of the

major concerns that affect Hispanics and I know that we all talk about housing problems everybody has housing problems here everybody has transportation problems everybody has an education problem but some of those are even magnified within certain areas of the Hispanic community. Do you have any thoughts on that Frank. Well I think one of the major problems here is the as we all know the condition economic conditions of the country are vital importance to everybody there at this point. The even the stock market took a jump when they when they saw the election returns coming in because they saw some type of positive attitude that they felt was going to make a significant change in the economic conditions of the country. Orange County is nothing but a microcosm of the rest of the country. But in particular housing when we have a significant problem such as 40 over 40 percent of 47 percent of the housing is declining new construction has declined in the last year and the average price of a house in Orange County is one hundred two hundred twenty thousand dollars more than that. Some

people say I heard it's even higher. More many more than the majority of Hispanics cannot afford to get into that housing as well as Majority many other people. But even more aggravated with many Hispanics. That's what you're saying. Yes exactly. And when you have by figuring out the ratios the 55 760 percent of the people in the Hispanics Orange County can afford to buy a $30000 house $30000 house anyway United States at this time and at least $30000 a garage. If you're anything like the man who was renting to 30 people at $7 a day that I read that in the report I think that might be interesting to share with our viewers this idea of. How some people get so desperate that they put four and five and six and eight people 10 people 20 people in one house. I don't know if it's just because of the individuals or as desperate as may be the landlords willing to exploit individuals.

For example that state I've just made landlords running to house to people at. $7 a day. 30 people. He was making $7000 of a month off a house rental and that's nothing but pure exploitation. And it's it's a fact that the people are that desperate the people who are paying the $7 might be that desperate because they have no place else to live that they will pay the $7 a month. That's exactly true. So in dollars and. Let me read a couple of figures that I think are interesting. Despite advances in many areas of social agencies according to Santa's school district the dropout rate in the barrios is between 25 to 50 percent whereas the dropout rate in the non-bio barrio areas is only maybe eight to 10 percent unemployment in the bio the cording to the Mars God study commissioned by the Orange County Board of Supervisors it's five point four to 30 per cent more than the average rate of fifteen point eight percent unemployment as

opposed to this month in Orange County. The general unemployment is only 4.3 percent. One of the most significant facts uncovered by the substandard housing conditions which exist in these areas drugs and alcoholism burglaries are prevalent in the barrio in other words some of the areas which are jointed in other words there's no such thing as a homogenous single Hispanic community in Orange County. Rather it is a number of disparate communities all over the county. So if I understand your group you conceal your pride to act as a catalyst among our lead agencies do I understand that correctly. That's correct. An umbrella agency nonprofit non-government funded we connected with United Way and to the extent that we are viable because of our backgrounds Rabaul and here we are. Let's run as a leadership group in Orange County to act as. But that person

or as you say a catalyst to focus on the problems in the community Hispanic community. You know it seems to me that one of the one of the things that your group is interested in doing is acting to affect change within the system. For example within the government structure within the corporate structure or even to encourage more within the political realm. In other words from our Hispanic involvement to affect changes in government. What I have personally and I think I think it's my belief is shared. I have a great deal of confidence and faith in this country and the people of this country. That's why I'm not discouraged at all by the administration being out in public and I think that even though their focus would be private sector endeavors to overcome some of the problems of Hispanics. I have a great deal of faith that the people that are going to be relied upon to respond to that challenge by Republicans

will respond and I think it's our job to tell them advise them what proper things should be done and how it could be done. I think we have a responsibility to the Hispanic community to involve ourselves in a positive manner and I could say it through the system. And I think that's the way it should be done. Is there progress being made in that to Hispanics for example and want the streets paved need to have houses upgraded substandard housing upgrade where they were required appearances before the government sector appearances before the Board of Supervisors appearances before the housing agencies. Is that being done more effectively now or some of the people. Who live in the barrios can have more effective input in those decisions. I would I think that there's a few groups involved in that. The bar association for itself. We're not able to involve ourselves in some of those problems but other groups such as son of the South had a neighborhood organization involve themselves and representation in front of city councils and the Orange County Board of Supervisors to

lead a unified community support and voice to those to those groups asking for particular things such as street paving stop signs. The only people that know whether a stop sign should be on a corner or not. The people who live in that community but some of the people may even have language difficulties and feel apprehensive about coming before the Board of Supervisors or any of the other city council that would come in and CDO. I think that SR has already proven it's able to do the things that you said are being done. We recently had gone before. A commission subcommittee go the Orange County Commission to our concerns about the second language fund being expanded to see to see the program. And so yes we are and I'm very very enthused about the fact that it will prove itself to be

to do the proper things that in the past haven't been done because of the language because of the lack of funds that we have a paid staff that will could do research and can look up the figures they can contact people on a paid basis I think this is really a step forward. But what about the condition of. Young people that understand the young the young person's unemployment factor is also much higher than the barrios than it is in the other areas. I'm about encouraging young people to get more than economic by getting jobs getting education getting becoming a lawyer as you have for example or whatever profession. RA I think you just mentioned the 30 percent I believe it was 30 percent unemployment as high as 30 percent but an average rate of fifteen point eight percent according to this study of United Way of North and South Orange County. If you have 15 or 30 percent among in of what the percentages are always higher among the youth. Yes. And unfortunately the extremely high in the in the body or Hispanic

sectors. Maybe one of the ways we were discussing this over the past the idea of increasing the minimum wage for. Teenagers what effect is this going to have on Hispanics. Some people seem to think that it's going to get a lot more of them to work but the end result might be might be a catalyst for causing a lot more to leave school earlier. And that the very thing you would be the worst thing that I would have greater than the dropout rate are terrible and with increasing population 25 to 50 percent dropout rate it exacerbate the problem. If anything we need more success as we need more people you know we're growing so that's going to be I think a joint responsibility obviously not just the community but the society at large with the Hispanic community. The sad part about that whole thing is that. In fact that has been proven and I bet on it that says that when a trial

starts getting going to start school then any other trial. By the Chinese imports grade he dropped out. And I'm just wondering what is going on in our education that is making our children drop by that by the time their birth rate isn't as it. Let me ask you about something that you touched on earlier. The Advancement this idea of advancement getting a fair share. No devices see a vision of 16 percent of our people are Hispanic. The question is that they don't have anything right 16 percent of the economic benefits of this county. The disproportionate share in the economic growth of the county. Tell me at that does your group contact private corporate groups end of the floor Corporation for example and some of the other corporations that are interested in working with you. Tell me about your links with private wealth. Yes we do have we have members of corporations on our. Board of Directors. And not only does that

provide a linkage of itself it also provides the corporate corporations an insight as to exactly what it is we're doing. That's of importance. And there's no question that. That activity is going to and has resulted in a lot of benefits. I think that without without fear of contradiction we are perhaps the most viable organization in Orange County. In terms of being the first that have contacted private industry here in the US exactly In other words it's good business. I think you're alluding to it in your question and the answer is that it's really good business to have great Hispanics in terms of jobs because the more money they have in their pocket the more money they're going to spend the better consumers are going to be worse. I mean rather than have affirmative action say you have to hire 10 percent of your people have to be a

Phenix 1 percent your people have to be black or whatever. And morally right to do it and economically right doesn't make economic good sense to have people in good gainfully employed John. There's no doubt that. A Hispanic group that has more economic wealth is obviously going to spend more money. I mean if you have and in the end you're in the wealth instead of if you take the other extreme where they don't have any job at all and they become a burden on welfare they become a burden on social agencies and that kind of thing. Right but I think one of the biggest problems is to dispel a lot of the myths. So there's I mean there's a lot of them. Well one of the big some of the biggest myth right. First of all the Hispanic community is a very very complex. Group because they're made up of native born Hispanics such as myself people who have migrated from Latin America as well as people who come from Spain here and they consider themselves part of the Hispanic

group and all of these people are Mexican nationals who have come in and apparently with the Census Bureau can't tell us how many Mexican nationals living on exactly whether or not they're here and they're here in big numbers. Yeah and the thing to do is how do we work with that. How do we take advantage of that. In Syria for example is trying to draw these people in together. So now we have a lot of groups here. What are their needs. What are their problems. Let's see what we can do about them. How do we address these problems. How do we find methods of one of the one of the big fears is the new administrations and the cutbacks in revenue sharing and things like that are going to cut back all the soldiers services who picks up the slack in Iraq and private industry pick up that agency's share and providing jobs for the people in on the job training in the private sector. That's the challenge of the private sector. We've been told that what is going to happen that the private sector now is going to chance to solve a lot of the problems that the government has been solving are trying.

Obviously I'm sure you're aware that there have been surveys made about the extent of faith that people generally have in the institutions of this country. I think it's correct for me to say that people have the greatest faith in business and industry to solve problems and I think second labor and third with government. But interestingly enough the minorities Hispanics I think rank businesses there as having done correct that they have to think corrective action on behalf of them in all the different dropping that type of thing so. On the one hand you have people believing the business can do it but when it comes to minorities we don't have that perception and so it's going to be very interesting to see how they're going to respond to that what they what kind of corrective action to take so that we can believe in that believe and what they're doing. I've heard that there are many areas now that have that very strongly Hispanic

economy where some of the story legs gentil in the big story that have an enormous amount of their dollars come because of the bendix who come in and spend their dollars with them. Look at Los Angeles and Broadway I mean when I when I grew up that's where I grew up we were 10 percent now I think the dominant businesses in we are Hispanic. Let me ask you about you've touched on misconceptions is there any misconception Laura that you tell us about that non-Hispanic that that kind of bug noise you that maybe people who are not authentic have about the Hispanic community mostly that. They have the feeling that. The women especially on welfare and not their husbands have just run out on them and left them barren and now they're taking all the tax dollars away from the people and. They're having a baby there every year. And that that.

Yes very much so what would you correct that I mean what is a more realistic and accurate image of what the facts really are. Right there were the study that was done on that and there were frank and I were talking 30 percent of the minorities that are on welfare. Or the other 70 might be adding jobs or they're be spending money as you know. Are buying something and getting ready for it. Only 30 percent of them are out there. Yes that means that 70 percent are not. That's right. Who will make up that other 70 percent. I think there's a focus on minorities particularly Hispanics because we do make up such a large group in one county as being the ones that are are not as productive as some other people but I think it's just the opposite I think they're extremely productive when they work with the latest image of saying that they're not good at Exactly exactly. Or one of them are far beyond the so-called money on image and the kind of hope or beyond that I think the mere fact that there's a lot of of Hispanic lawyers and accountants and other businessmen here perfessor than

whatever exactly proves that there's a there's quite a bit. Growing up is exactly what we going to say Mr. Moore I didn't mean to interrupt you know I was ascending to the remark really made nothing more. Let me pick off some problems that I know that the whole community of Orange County has but tell me which one that you feel have a special meaning for the Hispanics employment problems housing problems education problems crime problems we haven't talked about that. Do any of those have to Lackland among Hispanics. Well you know if you're what you say all of that. Good as you're ticking them off yes housing only 57 60 percent of the people who are counting Hispanics North County can afford a $30000 house as I said earlier. Do you find that the harmony represented can afford the hundred thirty thousand. We were talking about earlier I think 1 percent 1 percent 1 percent and you see a young Hispanic man and woman are going to get married in the American dream is they they get married and they're going to go

out and have their home. Part of the American dream. Where are they going to get that part other than on First Street in Santa trying to rent a house that cost $400 for a one bedroom apartment or something. They're going to move out of going to grannies we're going to have and that's that too in the church in Orange County. It's bad for business because there is a growing need for employees for the workforce and sophistic said that they're put out by the state of California employment development in that and the 80s that it's going to be a problem. County is decreasing the labor force to keep up commensurately with increasing businesses and the fact that housing is it's so expensive and not available. What are you going back to the laundry list I gave you here Miss Wyman housing education crime employment goods. Hand in hand with housing. If you can't afford to live somewhere reasonably near your job at these prices. Yeah I'd deliver the go to San Diego County or up to L.A. to

live that's right and they're certainly not going to be able to commute back and forth because the gaps are so high I think I think education goes with going wrong. Also crime too you mention crime you mean that that problem is actually that many Hispanic communities right. Because the people who don't have even a mediocre share of the economic wealth. A lot of them are driven to crime which is a very sad this bear this area. This bears upon the anger if you have 50 or so frustrating to figure 60 percent of the Hispanic population or I should say Head of Household in the community making $10000 a year. To say they have even if they have what is considered the mean average of children 2.5 I don't anybody have that. But if they do have that how are you going to exist on $10000 a year. You're the head of household. How does your family so difficult and then put huge on the children's and the school town they have to go to college because if they go to college they can get a professional job ready for a better

employment than if they drop out of school in the sixth grade. I'd like to ask another question one on the same with that I like that this divorce. Are there any problems that are unique to Hispanic women that you are concerned about. They're the same ones the same one for employment education getting a bigger part of the pie. I keep coming back to this idea that you hit on Benjamin of involving more and more of the of the so-called corporate structure the economic power bases of Orange County. Are they becoming more and. Coming to you like you said several of them on your board that are saying we have a problem here let's not get involved let's work it out together. Like I said it's really good business. They're aware of the market that the Hispanic comprises a market of what they're going to spend it I'm sure what about I might get a view of a human resource of people who can hold that sense of the coin other words

where we're coming from is that sure we're always with relevant consumers but now we want to be producers and not just at the lower rungs of the ladder but at all in all the different rungs of the highway of the earth. Well it's been it's been called corporate social responsibility I don't know that that is sounding name I don't know that that translated into action or is that just a beautiful name I think it's so far it's a beautiful name I have and there's a few corporations. Private sector there are but what we need is all of them as we said as conditions are changing. Cut cutbacks in service organizations and service groups that social service agencies are occurring. Somebody is going to have to help and see what we can do and private sector is the perfect place in the private sector. You either make it or break it with a question Are you a good lawyer and are you a bad accountant. That's the question I mean that kind of I think anyone is willing to accept those rules. But if the rules are I don't I don't think that we

want this guy because he has vanished with another one because he's black I mean I hope we're getting beyond that but I don't a lot I hope we're beyond that. Well I think that. A mentality to have to come about and say how can we all exist together but we need to do together so we we're all here we're going to make the best of it now. Let's talk about power to have a couple of minutes left and I would like to ask you this and feel you are the president of the board you're all board members can you tell us one or two of your top priority that you'd like to see get done this year. The top priority right now is to involve ourselves with economic development projects. Trying to establish can see the industries hopefully we can start an industrial park in the middle of town and that would impact mediately neighbors I mean and the neighborhood and habit and. That's our primary focus right now we're hoping to involve that company to Iraq for example the

touching base that we have a Hopper who was born she worked for Rockwell. And that's the. To get some economic opportunity as we are progressing the technological information you need to have a good job becomes more severe. So therefore the people without that information get out of the private sector. We've been talking about. The good part of the north and we're going to have more programs to come. I appreciate your being with us next week. I'll be traveling to Sacramento for includes an interview with Lieutenant Governor on some of the problems including some of the ones we've been talking about today. I'm Jim Cooper thanks for being with us.