From – Los Angeles Herald Examiner (October 7, 1988)

Title – “Latinos must beware of those Spanish-speaking candidates”

The Dukakis-Bentsen presidential campaign brings to mind an old Texas-Mexican saying about politicians: Never trust a Mexican who smokes a cigar or gringo who speaks Spanish.

Latino supporters of Michael Dukakis invariably stress his fluency in Spanish, implying that makes him mindful of Latino interests. Lloyd Bentsen’s Spanish, they say, is so good that English could be his second language. My cigar-chomping friends, however, never explain why the Texas senator is so proficient in Spanish: His family comes from the Lower Rio Grande Valley, where they made their money buying land and working Mexicans cheap.

In defeating Sen. Ralph Yarborough in 1970, Bentsen said his opponent’s liberal philosophy “breeds disunity, disrespect for the laws, moral degradation and overdependence on Washington’s paternalism.” The Texas Observer said Bentsen owed his victory to his “anti-nigger, anti-Mexican, anti-youth” sentiments.

After Bentsen’s successful re-election in 1976, Jim Hightower, now Texas’ agriculture commissioner, wrote that “Lloyd Bentsen was raised rich, and it shows. He has the sort of self-assured, slightly arrogant bearing that characterizes wealthy corporate executives who are certain of their place in the scheme of things.” Indeed, throughout his career, Bentsen has cultivated the rich. In 1981, he was one of 10 senators praised by President Reagan for supporting his tax-cut bill, which heavily favored the well-to-do.

By choosing Bentsen as his running mate, Dukakis signaled that he would concentrate on Bentsen’s America at the expense of the minorities and the poor. After all, the Dukakis campaign reasoned, those people weren’t going to vote for George Bush, anyway.

Equally regrettable, when Dukakis decided to play the Spanish-speaking gringo rather than seriously address Latino issues, he made it more difficult for those issues to be part of a serious national debate.

Fundamental to the Latino political agenda is economic democracy. That is their only hope for empowerment – especially after the Reagan Revolution, which abruptly short-circuited many of the Latino gains of the 1960s.

At the beginning of the Reagan-Bush years, the top 1 percent of America owned 19 percent of the nation’s wealth. Today, they hold 34 percent. Put another way, 8 percent of America’s families own outright 26 percent of all private assets and control 70 percent of the rest. Needless to say, Latinos are not well represented in those circles.

For 90 percent of Latinos, the Reagan-Bush team also slammed the door on their hopes of owning a home. The median income of Latino workers in the farm, unskilled-labor and services sectors, where 70 percent of all Latinos toil, is $9,000 annually. In the last eight years, the Latino poverty rate has increased from 20 percent to 28 percent.

(Interestingly, both Dukakis and Bentsen have kept their distance from the Latino farm workers and their call for stiffer regulation of pesticide laws. The Democratic presidential nominee never actively supported Caesar Chavez’ fast for life. As for his running mate, he feels comfortable in the company of California’s big farmers.)

Furthermore, Latino wage earners as a group have not kept pace with their white counterparts. In 1971, Latinos earned, on average, 71 percent of a white’s pay check. Two years ago, the proportion was 65 percent. In 1986, the median income of all Latinos was $19,995, a 5 percent decrease in real income since 1978. Meanwhile, the price of homes in Los Angeles during this period rose 400 percent.

What has Dukakis proposed to reverse these trends? Will he use the tax code to achieve a more equitable distribution of wealth? Is he committed to modernizing basic industries to create jobs paying decent union wages?

Sad to say, Dukakis hasn’t said much of anything about any of those issues that are so important to Latinos. Even where he has offered some proposals, notably in education, Latinos aren’t likely to benefit from them. For example, his plan to help middle-class kids get a college education is irrelevant to the majority of Latinos desperately in need of a high school education. What would Dukakis do to keep more Latino youngsters in school? Would he restore funds to bilingual education programs? He hasn’t said.

The cigar-smoking Mexicans in Dukakis’ entourage also should remind their candidate that extolling the opportunities in America for immigrants doesn’t constitute an immigration policy. When Americans talk about immigrants today they mean Mexicans, not Greeks. And, if we are to believe the results of a poll taken last moth, they not only don’t like them, they also see them as a drag on our economy.

There must be life after Reagan leaves for Rancho del Cielo. I just wish I knew what kind of life it’s going to be. I surely don’t want to become one of Bush’s “little brown ones.” Yet, I am frustrated that I have no choice but to vote for the lesser of evils, especially when the lesser evil thinks his proficiency in Spanish is a suitable stand-in for a discussion of Latino issues.

From – Los Angeles Herald Examiner (November 20, 1988)

Title – “Archbishop Mahony’s bad example”

The nearly year-old fight between a labor union seeking to represent gravediggers and the Los Angeles Archdiocese’s resistance to it indicates that Archbishop Roger Mahony’s highly touted activism in the name of social justice has its limits. Indeed, the archbishop’s actions seemingly defy church doctrine.

The Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union is representing the gravediggers at 10 Catholic cemeteries. The largely Latino workforce first demanded the fight to form a union after a colleague died and their life insurance policies were canceled. Allegedly, the cancellations were part of austerity measures to pay for the pope’s September 1987 visit.

Of the 140 gravediggers, 120 signed union authorization cards. The ACTWU then presented the cards to Archbishop Mahony, who refused to recognize the union as the gravediggers’ bargaining agent. The workers then turned to the National Labor Relations Board to certify an election. But archdiocese attorneys successfully argued that the gravediggers were not protected by labor laws because they were “religious workers.”

“The cemetery operations are integral to the Catholic church’s religious mission and rituals,” said Victoria E. Aguayo, the NLRB regional director. “Excessive entanglement by the board would violate First Amendment rights.”

The union subsequently appealed to the archbishop to permit elections under the supervision of a third party. At a Nov. 3 meeting, the archbishop finally agreed to allow state mediators to conduct an election on Jan. 13, 1989.

Throughout, the negotiations between the two sides have been less than cordial. Instead of creating a model for employers of poor Latinos to emulate, the archbishop, according to union sources, has responded to them with the same kind of cynicism he has repeatedly scorned in agribusinessmen. For example, when the ACTWU presented the authorization cards to the archbishop, he remarked that “I’ve been around unions long enough to know how you get people to sign cards. You have a big rally, serve a lot of food and drinks, and get people…to sign cards.” According to some gravediggers, the archbishop has even allowed his director of cemeteries to try to coerce them into joining an employees’ association, better known as a company union.

Catholic dicta, needless to say, do not justify such tactics. Pope John Paul II has vigorously defended the right of Polish workers to unionize. His 1981 encyclical, Laborem Exercens (“On Human Work”) reaffirmed that right.

Furthermore, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops’ 1986 pastoral letter, “Economic Justice For All: Pastoral Letter on Catholic Social Teaching and the U.S. Economy,” not only supports but encourages workers to form unions. Thus, it is difficult to understand why Archbishop Mahony has veered from the church’s recent progressivism in dealing with the gravediggers.

Aguayo’s ruling is no less puzzling. The NLRB has frustrated previous efforts by cemetery workers to organize by denying it has jurisdiction over such cases. And the courts have ruled that employees of religious hospitals fall within the NLRB’s jurisdiction while parochial schoolteachers don’t. Just why gravediggers are more like teachers than nurses was left unexplained.

Archbishop Mahony certainly has every legal right to block the collective bargaining process by citing court precedents. But is morality on his side?

The fundamental moral principle raised in Pope Leo XIII’s May 1891 encyclical, Rerum Novarum, the cornerstone of church policy toward labor, is relevant. In holding that “the employer’s principal obligation is to give a just wage,” the encyclical recognizes that workers need unions to demand “a just wage.” That’s because workers are often not free to accept or reject wages.

A “just wage” then, is not a simple matter of employer charity. It is a moral right. In his encyclical, Leo XIII asserts a link between the deterioration of society and poverty, leading to a loss of religion and the decline of morality.

The archdiocese’s cemetery workers earn from $5.75 an hour to $7.85 an hour. Most of them reportedly make closer to the lower figure. Jose Aranda, after 12 years of digging graves for the archdiocese, was earning $5.75 an hour last July. That would put Aranda and his co-workers near the poverty level of $10,000 a year.

Of course, Archbishop Mahony is no secular leader. But he cannot afford to abandon his commitment to social justice. Religious leaders, through example, must stress the dignity of the human person. If they deny their workers the product of their labor, what can society expect from those to whom Leo XIII referred as “avaricious and greedy men”?

From – Los Angeles Herald Examiner (March 4, 1988)

Title – “Teachers without eyes”

After reading last summer that the United Teachers of Los Angeles had voted overwhelmingly to adopt the immersion method to teach English to the limited-English speaking, my first reaction was to write the union off as brain dead. Then I decided that maybe the teachers should move elsewhere, since the reality of the Southwest was so unpalatable to them. Finally, I become irritated. Compelling immigrant students to sink or swim in a sea of English has never worked. The history of Latinos in the United Sates attests to that.

It would have been easier to dismiss the UTLA vote as a curiosity if it were not for the fact that the union’s voice is one of a chorus of complaints about bilingual education. The California law requiring bilingual programs has been dead for nearly nine months, and reviving the law this year will be difficult. Although many school districts continue to offer the programs, others have moved to scale down their help for the limited-English speaking. The Los Angeles school board, fortunately, in all likelihood will reaffirm its support for a new master plan on bilingual education soon.

Sadly, the assault on bilingual education signifies a nativist reaction to the arrival of large numbers of Latinos and Asians during the past two decades. Most UTLA members have apparently forgotten that they are the descendants of illegals who, by force of arms, seized more than 50 percent of Mexico’s territory. As a result, the natural northward immigration of Mexicans and Central Americans was cut off.

According to its critics, notably Secretary of Education William Bennett, bilingual education is chiefly to blame for the 50 percent drop-out rate among Latino students. Others have charged that it retards the assimilation of foreign-born students into mainstream “America” and that the quality of bilingual programs which are mostly run by teacher aides, is below standard.

These arguments are smokescreens for teachers who neglect the needs of the majority of their students and who refuse to learn a foreign language or acquire knowledge about the cultures of their pupils. No wonder American education is in a quality tailspin.

Blaming bilingual education for the Latino drop-out problem is outright nonsense. In 1950, Latino students aver(***cut off section***) 12 for Anglos. In the 1960s, when Los Angeles Latino students comprised 20 percent of the school-district population (it is now 58 percent), the drop-out rate exceeded 50 percent. In 1968, conditions were so deplorable that 20,000 Latinos in school had reached only 9.7 years. All this occurred under the auspices of the immersion program!

Teachers are not solely responsible for this failure. Demographer Donald J. Bogue, in “The Population of the United States: Historical Trends and Future Projections,” concludes that school enrollment and achievement are more strongly tied to family income than to culture. Yet UTLA members and politicians opposed to bilingual education apparently prefer the fantasyland in which the answer to Latino students’ problems is a big push onto the English-only gauntlet.

The argument that bilingual education hinders Latino assimilation into the American mainstream is equally obtuse. Blacks speak English, yet are locked up on the fringes of society. Truth be told, racist attitudes and class consciousness still play roles in shaping educators’ perceptions of Latino students, thus impairing the assimilation process. Integration is a social problem that existed long before bilingual education became reality.

The attack on the quality of bilingual education programs is also wrongly headed. Frankly, they are a notch above the quality of public education in general. A recent study, “On Course: Bilingual Education’s Success in California,” by USC linguist Stephen Krashen and Douglas Biber, concluded that students in “well-designed” bilingual education programs learn English quickly and well. Their study singled out the L.A. school district’s Eastman program and the San Diego Unified School District’s immersion (in Spanish) program as exemplary. Commendably, some L.A. school board members, administrators and a minority of teachers are trying to improve a bilingual programs even as UTLA members would prefer to dunk their immigrant students in English.

Yet the most absurd argument of all is that mere diversity of languages (80*** foreign languages are spoken in the L.A. school district) makes bilingual education impractical. Well, of the 159,250 students identified as having limited English proficiency, 143,546 are Latino. The remainder are mainly Asian.

Although the logic and data supports the continuation of bilingual programs, they, regrettably, aren’t sufficient to sway teachers and politicians who feel more secure manufacturing myths. But unlike Ivan Illich in his 1960s classic “Deschooling Society,” I don’t lay the blame on teachers. I have known and worked with too many dedicated ones. I only wish they would realize that the jobs are in part the result of a lot of brown faces and that educated people can master more than one language.

From – Los Angeles Herald Examiner (May 6, 1988)

Title – “Unjust Anywhere”

For minorities, the quality of justice received often depends on where they live. Latinos in Los Angeles are more fortunate than those who dwell in the crevices of society, where national and international media seldom venture. Latinos here, though lacking real power, can count on the news media to spotlight the more flagrant abuses of the legal system.

For millions of Latinos who live in cities such as Tucson and Albuquerque and in semi-rural areas of the Southwest, this is not always the case. The injustices frequently remain a local matter, unheard of and unseen by the rest of America.

Consider the case of Demetria Martinez, 27, who lives in Albuquerque. Under any other circumstances, she would be the model minority member, the sort of person President Reagan is fond of showcasing during State of the Union addresses.

Demetria graduated from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs in 1982. During her senior year, she was a Woodrow Wilson scholar; in 1981, she was an intern in the New York bureau of Time magazine.

After graduating, she returned to her native Albuquerque, where she now works as a freelance reporter, specializing in religion, for the Albuquerque Journal and as a columnist for the National Catholic Reporter. Demetria is also a prize-winning poet.

On Dec. 10, 1987, Demetria Martinez was indicted by the Department of Justice on charges of conspiring to violate United States immigration laws. If convicted, she could face up to 25 years in prison and $1.25 million in fines.

The circumstances leading up to Demetria’s indictment began in late August 1986. Rev. Glen Remer-Thamert, a Lutheran minister, invited her to accompany him to Juarez, Mexico, to report on the plight of two Salvadoran women seeking sanctuary on behalf of their unborn. To Demetria, there were striking parallels between the predicaments of the two women and those faced by Mary and Joseph: The babies were due in December and the mothers were seeking sanctuary for their unborn. What stood in their way was the modern-day equivalent of King Herod – the Justice Department. Demetria decided to gather information for a story.

She interviewed the two women and returned to the United States. The Rev. Remer-Thamert has acknowledged that he helped bring the Salvadorans into the country. (He also has been indicted on conspiracy charges.) Once they were across the border, Demetria subsequently re-interviewed the women. Over a year later, she was accused of inducing the Salvadorans to enter the country illegally and aiding in their transportation.

At the time, there was intense interest in the sanctuary movement. Then-Gov. Toney Anaya had declared New Mexico a sanctuary for Central America refugees. Many religious people supported the so-called Theology of Sanctuary, which has roots in the Old Testament. For example, in time of famine, Jews routinely sought and received refuge and protection in Egypt. During the Middle Ages, churches carried on the custom by becoming sanctuaries to protect the downtrodden from tyrannical civil authorities. Inspired by this tradition, a movement, centered in Tucson, to grant sanctuary to the victims of war and oppression in Central America sprang up in the United States about six years ago. Today, some 450 congregations nationwide participate.

The Justice Department has long sought to break the sanctuary movement. In May, 1986, a federal jury convicted six church workers, including a founder of the movement, of conspiring to smuggle Central American refugees into this country.

Demetria is the first reporter to be indicted on similar charges. In his haste to file the case, U.S. Attorney William Lutz allegedly violated Justice Department guidelines that require express authority from the attorney general before indicting a member of the news media. Federal public defender Tova Indritz has requested that the conspiracy charges against Demetria be dismissed on the ground that her due-process rights were violated. Her case enters the pre-trial stage on June 7.

The Justice Department has principally tried to discredit Demetria’s credentials as a reporter and questioned her statements that she was merely reporting a story.

Commendably, both the Albuquerque Journal and Albuquerque Tribune have editorially supported Demetria, pointing out the potential chilling effect of a successful prosecution of her would on the First Amendment rights of reporters. Labeling the charges a clear case of intimidation, the two papers have editorialized that Demetria is a journalist, that she has a well-established interest in religious issues and that it cannot be doubted that she was gathering news.

Demetria Martinez’s case should concern us all. It represents yet another, though more radical, attempt by the Justice Department to end the sanctuary movement where it began – in the Southwest. By going after a reporter, the department also has signaled its willingness, despite the First Amendment, to undercut the press’ role as a check against government abuse.

One of the pieces of evidence introduced against Demetria is a poem, “Nativity,” composed by her. (The news story never got written.)

Sister I am no saint. Just a woman

who happens to be a reporter.

a reporter who happens to

be a woman.

Watching you vomit morning sickness

a sickness infinite as the war in El Salvador,

a sickness my pen and notebook will not ease,

tell me, Por que estan aqui? (Why are you here ?)

What does this poem prove? Perhaps, that model minorities such as Demetria continue to care. I sure hope that we also care what happens to Demetria before it’s too late.

From – Los Angeles Herald Examiner  September 2, 1988

Title – “A Democratic patron who hates trade unions”

It is often said that behind every successful politician there are high-rollers. But what happens when the interests of the patrons-behind-the-throne clash with those of a community? A labor dispute currently being played out on the East Side may provide an answer.

Local 512 of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union is seeking to renegotiate a contract, signed two years ago, with Angel Echevarria, better known as the “King of the Somma Mattress.” In response, Echevarria according to union sources, is working hard to discredit the ILGWU. A member of the National Right to Work Committee, the mattress king makes no secret of his antipathy toward labor.

Echevarria has many friends in the Democratic Party. He has contributed tens of thousands of dollars to Mayor Tom Bradley’s various campaigns and thousands to Councilman Richard Alatorre’s. Other Latino politicos as well work hard to be on the receiving end of his “generosity.”

Three years ago, the mayor appointed Echevarria to the powerful Water and Power Commission, no doubt in appreciation for his contributions to the Bradley cause. Also important in his selection is the fact he’s a presumed Latino leader.

In 1984, the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce voted Echevarria the Hispanic Businessman of the Year, for good reason. He opened his mattress factory in the late ‘70s with a $25,000 investment. At that time, the waterbed industry suffered a 25 percent return rate because of water leakage. Echevarria developed a highly successful hybrid of the conventional mattress and waterbed.

By the mid-1980s, Somma manufactured 500 mattresses a day. It has 22 warehouses across the country. The company owns and occupies a 16 ½-acre administrative and manufacturing site at Indiana and Union Pacific in East Los Angeles. Its real-estate value is estimated to be $9 million.

Somma employs 200 workers, mostly Mexican and Central American. Echevarria has a reputation for working them hard and paying them little, despite the fact that the company grossed $47.65 million in 1987, according to Hispanic Business magazine. It ranks 33^rd among Latino businesses nationally.

On Jan. 11, 1985, Somma workers overwhelmingly voted the ILGWU as their bargaining agent. Still, Echevarria refused to negotiate. He appealed the union vote on grounds that even the regional director of the Nation Labor Relations Boards said lacked merit. All told, Echevarria spent tens of thousands of dollars in attorney fees to delay collective bargaining. Meanwhile, he fired at least 36 union sympathizers.

Workers called for a national boycott of Somma Mattresses. The ILGWU made the firing a community issue in East Los Angeles. It pressured Bradley to make a statement, but the mayor refused comment until the NLRB ruled on the legality of the dismissals. The union exposed the fact that Alatorre, then running for the City Council, had received a $5,000 campaign contribution from Echevarria. Alatorre fresh with an endorsement from L.A. County Federation of Labor, said he knew nothing about the labor dispute.

In the end, to the politicians’ relief, Echevarria signed a contract with the ILGWU, in part because the national boycott proved a success. Union officials readily admit that the contract isn’t a strong one, but claim it’s the best they could get under the circumstances. Echevarria had the money to starve the workers out, and the burgeoning reserve labor pool of unskilled workers helped him weather the crisis.

Echevarria is up to his old tactics in stonewalling the ILGWU’s request to renegotiate the contract. He reportedly has urged a loyalist to circulate a petition among factory workers that would strip the union of its dues-collecting authority. Until the petition is voted on Oct. 6, he has said he won’t talk. Over the past two years, many ILGWU sympathizers have been laid off, while the remaining workers have been discouraged from participating in union activities, according to the union.

If Somma workers are forced to strike Echevarria in 1988, it should be embarrassing to many of our Latino politicos as well as to the mayor. None of them can claim ignorance about Echevarria’s attitude toward trade unions or his refusal to give his workers and their families a decent future.

The right of Latinos to organize unions is fundamental. Without labor unions, they are powerless. It is only logical to expect Latino elected officials representing heavily Latino districts, to support the ILGWU quest for a better contract.

From – Los Angeles Herald Examiner  September 2, 1988

Title – “A Democratic patron who hates trade unions”

It is often said that behind every successful politician there are high-rollers. But what happens when the interests of the patrons-behind-the-throne clash with those of a community? A labor dispute currently being played out on the East Side may provide an answer.

Local 512 of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union is seeking to renegotiate a contract, signed two years ago, with Angel Echevarria, better known as the “King of the Somma Mattress.” In response, Echevarria according to union sources, is working hard to discredit the ILGWU. A member of the National Right to Work Committee, the mattress king makes no secret of his antipathy toward labor.

Echevarria has many friends in the Democratic Party. He has contributed tens of thousands of dollars to Mayor Tom Bradley’s various campaigns and thousands to Councilman Richard Alatorre’s. Other Latino politicos as well work hard to be on the receiving end of his “generosity.”

Three years ago, the mayor appointed Echevarria to the powerful Water and Power Commission, no doubt in appreciation for his contributions to the Bradley cause. Also important in his selection is the fact he’s a presumed Latino leader.

In 1984, the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce voted Echevarria the Hispanic Businessman of the Year, for good reason. He opened his mattress factory in the late ‘70s with a $25,000 investment. At that time, the waterbed industry suffered a 25 percent return rate because of water leakage. Echevarria developed a highly successful hybrid of the conventional mattress and waterbed.

By the mid-1980s, Somma manufactured 500 mattresses a day. It has 22 warehouses across the country. The company owns and occupies a 16 ½-acre administrative and manufacturing site at Indiana and Union Pacific in East Los Angeles. Its real-estate value is estimated to be $9 million.

Somma employs 200 workers, mostly Mexican and Central American. Echevarria has a reputation for working them hard and paying them little, despite the fact that the company grossed $47.65 million in 1987, according to Hispanic Business magazine. It ranks 33^rd among Latino businesses nationally.

On Jan. 11, 1985, Somma workers overwhelmingly voted the ILGWU as their bargaining agent. Still, Echevarria refused to negotiate. He appealed the union vote on grounds that even the regional director of the Nation Labor Relations Boards said lacked merit. All told, Echevarria spent tens of thousands of dollars in attorney fees to delay collective bargaining. Meanwhile, he fired at least 36 union sympathizers.

Workers called for a national boycott of Somma Mattresses. The ILGWU made the firing a community issue in East Los Angeles. It pressured Bradley to make a statement, but the mayor refused comment until the NLRB ruled on the legality of the dismissals. The union exposed the fact that Alatorre, then running for the City Council, had received a $5,000 campaign contribution from Echevarria. Alatorre fresh with an endorsement from L.A. County Federation of Labor, said he knew nothing about the labor dispute.

In the end, to the politicians’ relief, Echevarria signed a contract with the ILGWU, in part because the national boycott proved a success. Union officials readily admit that the contract isn’t a strong one, but claim it’s the best they could get under the circumstances. Echevarria had the money to starve the workers out, and the burgeoning reserve labor pool of unskilled workers helped him weather the crisis.

Echevarria is up to his old tactics in stonewalling the ILGWU’s request to renegotiate the contract. He reportedly has urged a loyalist to circulate a petition among factory workers that would strip the union of its dues-collecting authority. Until the petition is voted on Oct. 6, he has said he won’t talk. Over the past two years, many ILGWU sympathizers have been laid off, while the remaining workers have been discouraged from participating in union activities, according to the union.

If Somma workers are forced to strike Echevarria in 1988, it should be embarrassing to many of our Latino politicos as well as to the mayor. None of them can claim ignorance about Echevarria’s attitude toward trade unions or his refusal to give his workers and their families a decent future.

The right of Latinos to organize unions is fundamental. Without labor unions, they are powerless. It is only logical to expect Latino elected officials representing heavily Latino districts, to support the ILGWU quest for a better contract.

From – Los Angeles Herald Examiner (August 5, 1988)

Title – “The Latinas make their mark” “In fighting East L.A. prison, Molina and Roybal-Allard challenge male politicos”

The Latino community hasn’t given up its struggle to keep a state prison off the doorsteps of Boyle Heights.

The latest chapter in the 2-year-old story came July 26, when the state Department of Corrections held hearings on a draft Environmental Impact Report on the proposed prison. The proceedings and the report provide valuable insight into how Latino politics may be changing and how the state uses studies to further its goals.

“No prison in East L.A.” supporters filled the hearing room. An indoor temperature of 120 degrees and the crowded conditions stoked longstanding tensions. Many of the protesters charged that Department of Corrections staff had purposely cut off the air conditioning to punish them.

Attention, however, quickly shifted to Councilwoman Gloria Molina, whose political and personal appeal has climbed immeasurably as a result of her commitment to the East L.A. cause. She combatively addressed the English-speaking panel members in Spanish. Translated, she said: “This community, which already houses 75 percent of the county’s inmates, does not deserve another lockup in its midst. …[The proposed prison is sited] in a community that houses 870,000 people within a five mile radius.”

The absence of Latino politicos – other than Molina, Assemblywoman Lucille Roybal-Allard was the only other Latino politician to testify – angered many in the audience. State Sen. Art Torres and Rep. Edward Roybal sent administrative assistants. Councilman Richard Alatorre and Assemblymen Richard Polanco and Charles Calderon, or their aides, were nowhere to be seen. President Pro Tem of the Senate David Roberti, who made the East L.A. prison something of a cause last year, was also missing. Which makes one wonder if the Chicana feminists were not right when they asserted that Latinas were more sensitive to the needs of Latino families.

Significantly, the “No Prison in East L.A.” movement has given both Molina and Roybal-Allard a forum to showcase alternatives to the “Let’s make a deal” politics of the Latino male establishment. Without them and the Mothers of East L.A., various service organizations and little Resurrection Parish, the no-prison issue would have died long ago. Clearly, the two Latinas, especially Molina, pose a serious challenge to the male dominance of politics in East L.A.

The hearings also highlighted another important issue: Why are state agencies allowed to squander taxpayers’ dollars on studies that do not meet minimum standards of scholarly review? The agencies depend on consulting firms to measure objectively the various effects of proposed state projects. Trouble is, the proposing agency commissions the studies.

The Department of Corrections’ EIR is a case in point of this conflict of interest. At the hearings, numerous experts and lay persons exposed the report’s methodological weaknesses. Deputy City Attorney William Waterhouse characterized the report as “legally inadequate and completely biased.”

For example, the study mentions no specific prison site, despite a recent court decision (Anaheim vs. Orange County) requiring the report’s authors to do so. The views of experts on the history and social development of East L.A. were also conspicuously absent.

Worse, the authors of the EIR revealed a total lack of common sense. Not one of them thought to consider the symbolism of a 70-foot-high prison located in an area, easily visible from the freeway, where the tallest buildings are 35 feet. But maybe L.A.’s proposed Statue of Liberty West should be a prison.

In any case, the Department of Corrections says it wants to soften the potential eyesore by use of greenery. Interestingly, one of the greenbelts would sit on top of the infamous Capri Dump, one of the most highly contaminated sites in California and a potent symbol of government’s indifference to protecting the health and safety of the poor.

Symbolism aside, the report concludes that fears by East L.A. residents about prisoner security are unfounded, citing case studies in rural areas in Alabama and Florida. Furthermore, in assessing the impact of the prison on Los Angeles’ General Plan, the report glosses over the fact hat the prison would further strain the city’s already beleaguered sewage system and delay construction of needed housing units.

Yet most annoying of all is the EIR’s cavalier attitude towards the question of how building a prison would reduce Los Angeles’ industrial property, the shortage of which has reached crisis levels. Wiping out industrial zones would clearly hurt minorities who could not qualify for the civil-service jobs the prison would generate. (Private use of the proposed site would create four times the jobs the prison would.) Moreover, a prison would discourage industrial development nearby, thus costing the city considerable tax revenue.

Even the most partisan of prison advocates will find it difficult to accept the EIR. East L.A. is just not getting a fair hearing. Regrettably, because the media regard the prison as “old news,” taxpayers will remain ignorant of how their tax money is being wasted to satisfy George Deukmejian’s caprice to dump a state prison in a minority area.

From – Los Angeles Herald Examiner (August 5, 1988)

Title – “The Latinas make their mark” “In fighting East L.A. prison, Molina and Roybal-Allard challenge male politicos”

The Latino community hasn’t given up its struggle to keep a state prison off the doorsteps of Boyle Heights.

The latest chapter in the 2-year-old story came July 26, when the state Department of Corrections held hearings on a draft Environmental Impact Report on the proposed prison. The proceedings and the report provide valuable insight into how Latino politics may be changing and how the state uses studies to further its goals.

“No prison in East L.A.” supporters filled the hearing room. An indoor temperature of 120 degrees and the crowded conditions stoked longstanding tensions. Many of the protesters charged that Department of Corrections staff had purposely cut off the air conditioning to punish them.

Attention, however, quickly shifted to Councilwoman Gloria Molina, whose political and personal appeal has climbed immeasurably as a result of her commitment to the East L.A. cause. She combatively addressed the English-speaking panel members in Spanish. Translated, she said: “This community, which already houses 75 percent of the county’s inmates, does not deserve another lockup in its midst. …[The proposed prison is sited] in a community that houses 870,000 people within a five mile radius.”

The absence of Latino politicos – other than Molina, Assemblywoman Lucille Roybal-Allard was the only other Latino politician to testify – angered many in the audience. State Sen. Art Torres and Rep. Edward Roybal sent administrative assistants. Councilman Richard Alatorre and Assemblymen Richard Polanco and Charles Calderon, or their aides, were nowhere to be seen. President Pro Tem of the Senate David Roberti, who made the East L.A. prison something of a cause last year, was also missing. Which makes one wonder if the Chicana feminists were not right when they asserted that Latinas were more sensitive to the needs of Latino families.

Significantly, the “No Prison in East L.A.” movement has given both Molina and Roybal-Allard a forum to showcase alternatives to the “Let’s make a deal” politics of the Latino male establishment. Without them and the Mothers of East L.A., various service organizations and little Resurrection Parish, the no-prison issue would have died long ago. Clearly, the two Latinas, especially Molina, pose a serious challenge to the male dominance of politics in East L.A.

The hearings also highlighted another important issue: Why are state agencies allowed to squander taxpayers’ dollars on studies that do not meet minimum standards of scholarly review? The agencies depend on consulting firms to measure objectively the various effects of proposed state projects. Trouble is, the proposing agency commissions the studies.

The Department of Corrections’ EIR is a case in point of this conflict of interest. At the hearings, numerous experts and lay persons exposed the report’s methodological weaknesses. Deputy City Attorney William Waterhouse characterized the report as “legally inadequate and completely biased.”

For example, the study mentions no specific prison site, despite a recent court decision (Anaheim vs. Orange County) requiring the report’s authors to do so. The views of experts on the history and social development of East L.A. were also conspicuously absent.

Worse, the authors of the EIR revealed a total lack of common sense. Not one of them thought to consider the symbolism of a 70-foot-high prison located in an area, easily visible from the freeway, where the tallest buildings are 35 feet. But maybe L.A.’s proposed Statue of Liberty West should be a prison.

In any case, the Department of Corrections says it wants to soften the potential eyesore by use of greenery. Interestingly, one of the greenbelts would sit on top of the infamous Capri Dump, one of the most highly contaminated sites in California and a potent symbol of government’s indifference to protecting the health and safety of the poor.

Symbolism aside, the report concludes that fears by East L.A. residents about prisoner security are unfounded, citing case studies in rural areas in Alabama and Florida. Furthermore, in assessing the impact of the prison on Los Angeles’ General Plan, the report glosses over the fact hat the prison would further strain the city’s already beleaguered sewage system and delay construction of needed housing units.

Yet most annoying of all is the EIR’s cavalier attitude towards the question of how building a prison would reduce Los Angeles’ industrial property, the shortage of which has reached crisis levels. Wiping out industrial zones would clearly hurt minorities who could not qualify for the civil-service jobs the prison would generate. (Private use of the proposed site would create four times the jobs the prison would.) Moreover, a prison would discourage industrial development nearby, thus costing the city considerable tax revenue.

Even the most partisan of prison advocates will find it difficult to accept the EIR. East L.A. is just not getting a fair hearing. Regrettably, because the media regard the prison as “old news,” taxpayers will remain ignorant of how their tax money is being wasted to satisfy George Deukmejian’s caprice to dump a state prison in a minority area.