Big Beat

When San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro spoke at the Democratic National Convention in September, he received varying amounts of criticism from the right. After all, by his own admission, he “doesn’t really speak Spanish.” Republicans snickered and bragged that their Latino, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, speaks perfect English and Spanish. Sadly, they have no idea how much that typifies their lack of relevance to the vast majority of Latino voters.

Of course, beneath the superficial fluency of a few carefully chosen candidates, the Republican Party is woefully out of step with the Hispanic community. Arizona Republicans’ ban on Latino studies classes screams that message loud and clear. In the long run, the language issue is more indicative of a lack of marketing savvy that will bite them in the collective ass.

It’s no secret that voters tend to vote for the candidate they believe represents them most closely. A cursory look at the 2010 U.S. Census will tell you that Mexican-Americans far outnumber Hispanics of any other origin in this country. In fact, Mexicans are the largest Hispanic group nationwide, and the largest Hispanic group in all but 10 states. Additionally, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, 51 percent of all Latinos born in the U.S. are now English-dominant, and native-born Hispanics outnumber their foreign-born counterparts roughly 32 million to 19 million. Those two facts are already translating (no pun) into an impact on Hispanic media. Spanish-language networks Univision and Telemundo are, for the first time, planning bilingual content for the fall 2012 season, including Univision’s “Meet the Candidate” presidential forum, which will air in English and Spanish on television and online. Univision is also launching an English-language cable network targeted at Latinos and an English-language website. In short, speaking so-so Spanish is no obstacle to reaching the country’s fastest-growing group of Latinos. Those who are less tied to their ancestral homelands and more comfortable in English, like Castro, are the rule instead of the anomaly.

One could argue that Rubio, a second-generation Cuban-American, falls into the same category, and he does, but here’s the Latino marketing problem with Marco Rubio that trumps his Spanish fluency: He’s Cuban-American. Since the 1960s, Cubans have been the beneficiaries of a huge immigration double standard in this country and, for that reason, there is the perception among Mexican-Americans that Cubans, as a group, have not suffered in the United States the way other Latinos have.

From the Cuban Refugee Adjustment Act of 1966, which allowed all Cuban exiles to apply for U.S. citizenship, to the ridiculous “wet feet, dry feet” rule of 1995 that says, “If we don’t catch you in the water, you’re in,” Cubans have been set up to succeed in this country while other Latinos, and Mexicans in particular, have been scapegoated and set up to fail. This perception—whether factually accurate or not—combined with the image of an overtly bigoted Republican Party, is a political recipe for disaster.

Ask average Hispanic voters whether they want to vote for a Mexican-American who doesn’t speak much Spanish, or a Cuban-American who speaks perfect Spanish but belongs to the party that criminalized Chicano studies and passed the “show us your papers” law and built a wall between the U.S. and Mexico and wants to make English the official language of the United States. You’ll quickly see how superficial the fluency issue is.

“The Cubans have never been one of us,” retired Albuquerque educator and community activist Moises Venegas told the Associated Press in a recent article comparing Julian Castro with Marco Rubio. Venegas is Mexican-American. “They came from affluent backgrounds and have a different perspective,” he said of Cuban-Americans. “The Republican Party also has opened doors just for them.”

That Rubio didn’t come from a privileged background, and that his parents arrived in the United States in 1956, well before the Cuban Refugee Adjustment Act, doesn’t matter. In marketing, perception is reality. If the Republican Party wants to attract Latino voters, it has no choice but to stop scapegoating Mexicans. Because, like it or not, a little enclave of Cubans in Florida is not going to win over 40 other states.

Last week, I had the opportunity to hear National Council of La Raza president and CEO Janet Murguía speak at a luncheon in Austin. (In my other life, I do communications work for the nonprofit that hosted her.) The 52-year-old University of Kansas Law School graduate and former aide to President Bill Clinton took over as NCLR’s leader in 2005 and has subsequently been on a slow and steady march toward national prominence. Since the 2008 elections, Murguía has built NCLR into one of the largest Hispanic voter registration organizations in the country—a direct result of her emphasis on strengthening the relationship between the group’s Washington D.C. headquarters and its local affiliates. 

The media-savvy Murguía has also aggressively pursued a strategy of promoting “fair, accurate, and balanced portrayals of Latinos” in the public eye, according to her official bio. She is often remembered for debating former CNN host Lou Dobbs on his show over his anti-immigrant hate speech, was instrumental in his eventual resignation. 

NCLR—not to be confused with La Raza Unida, the grassroots political party formed in the Chicano movement of the 1970s—is not a political party, though it leans Democratic. They work on civil rights issues affecting the Latino community in the U.S. through nearly 300 community-based affiliate organizations across America. The nearly 50-year-old organization is no fringe player—they’re funded by the Ford Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and staid corporations like Citigroup and Walmart. This year, Murguía said, they are on track to register nearly 100,000 new voters in time to vote in November. 

Local NCLR affiliates in Texas will contribute thousands to that total, Murguía said. The meeting of Texas NCLR affiliates broke a record for attendance with more than 80 percent of its local groups represented. In short, NCLR is on the ground in Texas and mobilized to take control of this state’s political future.

Add to that the news that nearly 40 percent of Texans under 18 are Latino, and I have to wonder why most mainstream news outlets in Austin declined the chance to hear Murguía speak about how NCLR plans to harness that political power.

Maybe they should talk to people in California. “The DREAM Act is alive and well in California and it is because our folks came together,” Murguía told a crowd of about 100 Texas Latino dignitaries gathered in East Austin, including former state Sen. Gonzalo Barrientos, Austin’s first and only Latino Mayor Gus Garcia, and Consul General of Mexico in Austin Rosalba Ojeda. 

Now, Murguía says, California legislators are coming to NCLR for help in gathering key support for legislation. According to Murguía, California Attorney General Kamala Harris asked for her affiliates’ help in passing the California Foreclosure Reduction Act, a bill that protects homeowners facing foreclosure—a huge problem for Latinos there—that Gov. Jerry Brown signed in July.

“We want to do the same thing right here in Austin,” she said, “and that’s what we’ve been talking about for the last two days.”

This fall, NCLR will launch the Texas NCLR Latino Leadership Institute, to teach community organizing, advocacy and campaign building. In February, they will re-launch their Texas Advocacy Day, modeled after the California event where leaders from local affiliates lobbied at the State Capitol in Sacramento.

Murguía said her organization will take on anti-immigrant legislation like Arizona S.B. 1070 copycat bills and voter ID laws in the Texas Legislature next year. “It’s also about enacting laws to help our community. We can’t be on defense anymore,” she said. “We need to be affirmatively passing laws that we know are going to help our community.”

This week two Greek-sponsored parties at the University of Texas at Austin landed in the news for containing offensive Mexican themes.

On September 20, UT’s Delta Delta Delta and Zeta Tau Alpha sororities rented out a downtown Austin nightclub for their “fiesta-themed” party.

A Mexican fiesta can be innocent enough, but as one anonymous commenter on Greekchat.com said, “When you add in alcohol and 18-22 year olds, there’s no way it’s not going to ‘go there.’”

And go there it did. Young men were photographed at the party wearing T-shirts reading “Illegal” and “Border Patrol.” Others were videotaped in less inflammatory outfits like ponchos, sombreros and peasant blouses. Well, less inflammatory to me. But that’s the issue on the table. Some people see those as stereotypical and antiquated and therefore offensive. So, can a non-Mexican person get away with throwing a Mexican-themed party in this current anti-immigrant/anti-Latino political climate?

Before you answer that, consider the case of the UT chapter of Alpha Tau Omega. The fraternity planned to throw a party themed “A Border to Cross” until student outrage was such that they were pressured to not only cancel the plan, but issue a public apology. ATO member Nick Davis, a UT sophomore, told The Daily Texan that the fraternity planned to build an obstacle in the middle of the party to represent the border between the U.S. and Mexico.

Davis described the vision innocuously enough. “We’re going to have a Mexican side and a Texas side, with Mexican-themed drinks and then Texas-themed drinks,” he said. “We’re going to have a Mexican flag hanging up and kind of have a little party on the Mexican side. Then the band will be on the Texas side, and you can choose where you want to hang out, what kind of drink you want to get. That’s really the only reason we have that side.”

But does experience not tell us that a bunch of drunk, college kids are probably going to, in the words of our anonymous Greek friend, “go there” with Mexican stereotypes? And is that reason enough to create a petition to shut the Mexican-themed parties down as some students did?

“Just because something is not illegal or not a violation of policy, it can still have a detrimental impact on student or campus climate,” Ryan Miller, UT’s Associate Director of Campus Diversity and Strategic Initiatives, told me. Miller is lead team member for the Campus Climate Response Team, a group launched this spring that investigates incidents of bias at UT.

Miller, who is quick to point out that the CCRT is not a disciplinary team, says he often encourages those who are offended by someone else’s free speech to use their own free speech to answer back. And for those doing the offending, Miller says, “Often we’ll have conversations with them asking, ‘Is what you’re doing in line with the mission you say you have? With the goals you say you have?’”

It’s quite the balancing act to create a campus that both respects free speech and fosters an open and encouraging atmosphere for all—a dilemma we all grapple with in this modern, politically correct world. The alternatives are going back to Mad Men-era bigotry or this faux P.C. outrage that says, “I don’t agree with you so I want a public apology.”

At the end of the day, there’s no blanket solution. Each situation is different, but one thing’s for sure: there’s no shortage of demand for Miller’s team.

On July 29, a bus full of undocumented immigrants calling themselves UndocuBus began a journey from Phoenix, Arizona, to Charlotte, North Carolina, to raise awareness about immigration reform and, ultimately, to protest against President Obama at the Democratic National Convention in September. You might be surprised to hear that, since Obama just made a big speech about how his administration will no longer deport qualified undocumented immigrants under age 30. Unfortunately, like many of the president’s well-publicized immigration decrees, this one doesn’t exactly match up with his record.

In July, one month after Obama’s speech from the White House Rose Garden, 26-year-old undocumented immigrant Viridiana Martinez turned herself in at Broward Transitional Center in Pompano Beach, Florida, to document U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) failure to comply with the new Deferred Action Process for Young People Who Are Low Enforcement Priorities, published by Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano on June 15, 2012, and marked “effective immediately.” From inside Broward, Martinez reported to Democracy Now! and the National Immigrant Youth Alliance the presence of more than 60 detainees without criminal records, another three dozen eligible to request that discretion be applied in their cases, and several immigrants requiring medical attention. Now, remember, the Deferred Action Process came after another highly publicized Obama directive, issued in June 2011, ordering ICE officials to “refrain from pursuing non-citizens with close family, educational, military, or other ties in the U.S. and instead spend the agency’s limited resources on persons who pose a serious threat to public safety or national security.” If the president’s directives aren’t completely ineffectual, why has he had to make two?

In August, as UndocuBus rolled through Austin, certain Texas Democratic groups tried to convince the protestors not to go to Charlotte. The critics weren’t willing to go on record, but suffice it to say the complaints were made to activists who were closest to the UndocuBus as it came through the state.

I experienced the same blind loyalty to the Democratic Party from Texas Observer readers who came out to defend the president on Facebook last month when my story about his pandering to the Latino vote was published. Despite having the worst deportation record of any American president, President Obama enjoys a 70-percent approval rating among Latino voters. This is probably because those voters, by definition, are documented. At the end of the day, if it’s not your problem, it’s tough to do more than keep up with an issue through the headlines. And the president’s administration does a great job of making the headlines read like he’s really got your back.

“The Democrats have helped us—even if it’s been in a very limited way,” Eleazar Castellanos, a 45-year-old day laborer and UndocuBus rider, told daily news site Colorlines. But he doesn’t believe that Obama’s policy, which allows young undocumented immigrants to apply for “deferred action” to avoid deportation, is nearly enough. “What if, during that time, someone has a radical idea to change the deferred action? They would have a new database of young people who applied, with their names and addresses. … Maybe they should hold off until a real change happens, before applying. That’s why I say Obama’s deferred action was not enough.”

Latino immigrants are only the latest in a long line of immigrant groups given the worst jobs for the lowest pay in America. That the majority of people in previous immigrant groups came here legally proves that they weren’t mistreated for breaking the law. They were treated like second-class citizens because they were different. Make no mistake: that’s the same reason undocumented immigrants are mistreated today. If you care about stopping bigotry and discrimination, you should care how immigrants are treated.

The issue of immigration reform not only affects the lives of undocumented people, it sets the tone for how all Latinos are viewed in this country. While many Latinos aren’t willing to vote for Republicans because that party has aligned itself so closely with whites openly hostile to them, Latinos could decide to vote for no one, concluding that neither party has their interests at heart. This would be damaging to the Democrats. Ergo, someone better start making immigration reform a priority.

In the meantime, it’s the UndocuBus riders who have the courage to risk everything for their convictions.

The janitor strike in Houston—which concluded last night with an agreement between janitors and cleaning companies—was historic and rare for many reasons. Texas is a right-to-work state. That means it’s illegal to require a person to join a union to keep or get a job, making the organization of a protest of this magnitude, which lasted more than four weeks, difficult. The right-to-work law also makes it illegal to fire someone for joining a union, but don’t be fooled, the law was adopted because of a long history of anti-union sentiment in this state. Reasons for anti-union leanings are as amorphous as a child’s fear of the dark, mostly driven by the conservative view that unions spawn unwanted social and political agents. But Texas’ anti-union sentiment also has its roots in the very concrete strategy of attracting outside industries to take advantage of cheap labor—a tactic that has worked well in this border state, with Mexico providing us a steady stream of exploitable employees. New York-based companies like ABM, Pritchard and JP Morgan Chase are all contractors of the Houston janitors that, until yesterday, refused to increase the paltry $9,000 a year average wage for janitors.

What little union labor was organized in Texas took a hit following the 1960s when the state grew more Hispanic and more female. Union organizers failed to adapt their recruitment tactics to the changing demographics. The growing number of high-tech jobs also decreased union membership in the state. Across the country, 11.8 percent of wage and salary workers were members of a union in 2011; but in Texas, union members comprised only 5.4 percent of the work force. In fact, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, Texas had about one-fourth as many union members as New York in 2011, despite having 2.3 million more wage and salary employees.

But with the advent of the immigration reform and Occupy movements, Texas’ traditionally lowest paid workers may be realizing their situation doesn’t have to remain the way it is. There is a support system if they seek it. Last week, janitors and human rights activists in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Detroit, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, New York City, Portland, San Diego, San Ramon, Seattle, St. Louis, Toronto, and Washington, D.C., protested in solidarity with those in Houston. Texas Observer reporter Emily DePrang described the scene from Houston on August 2, where members of the janitors’ union had gathered in front of the city’s swankiest mall, the Galleria, to demonstrate:

The crowd was largely middle-aged and Hispanic with lined faces, more women than men, some with children in tow. They were people with something to lose.

These are the people the other unions failed to organize and they now represent the new face of Texas. A promotional video created by the Service Employees International Union Local 1, which represents the Houston janitors, is full of this face: Poor, female and of color. Struggling, not only to feed their children, but act as primary caretaker too. The description on the YouTube page recalls the rallying cries of the Occupy Wall Street movement. “For the richest 1%, Houston is booming. Yet, Houston janitors, who clean the offices of some of the largest corporations in the world, live in abject poverty on less than $9,000 year.”

SEIU Local 1’s Paloma Martinez says it’s not the union’s goal to target members of color or female gender. “It isn’t about who you are or who does the job, but about the job itself. Is it actually going to help families thrive? Is it actually going to revitalize the community? That’s a really important point the janitors are making because we can’t get into identity politics. It has to be a more serious question of how we revitalize the middle class. That’s the conversation the janitors want to have.”

Regardless, SEIU is succeeding in Texas where few unions have, organizing a strike of this longevity that even managed to get mayoral support. Houston mayor Annise Parker urged contractors, in a press release on July 20, to return to the negotiating table remarking that, “Their unwillingness to talk has left the union with no other choice but civil disobedience. That is not good for the City of Houston or our economy and it is not how we do business in Houston. We work hard, we work together and we treat each other fairly. The union has made good-faith offers. Now it’s time for the janitorial contractors to sit back down at the table to work out an agreement that is fair and just.”

They began negotiating again on August 3, and late last night, the union announced a deal. As DePrang reports, the janitors will receive a one-dollar-an-hour raise in the next four years. That’s less than the $1.65-per-hour increase the union initially sought, but much higher than the paltry 50-cent raise the companies had offered. In that way, this historic strike proved a success.