Just from the continuous media coverage on Obama’s cabinet, White House, and other selections, it can certainly be surmised that few if any Latinos are being considered seriously for cabinet appointments, except perhaps for the one overseeing housing projects and minority related issues like HUD. Perhaps Education or Transporation will emerge with a Hispanic in view. It is almost a foregone conclusion that Hillary has beaten Richardson for the Secretary of State. Many observers feel that Richardson did not understand that an ‘18 wheeler‘ was being prepared to mow him down on this appointment of appointments.
Only Manny Diaz, Mayor of Miami and Mayor Villaraigosa of L.A. have been mentioned in passing as possible candidates for HUD. When one digs deeply into the Transition Teams, it becomes quite clear that it is not promising for Latinos. There is a smidgen of a smattering of a handful of names. On National Security and International Economics, virtually none. On social and domestic economics issues, less than a half dozen appear to be Hispanic out of the list of scores of senior and working level transition team members already named.
The speculation is that the Obama Latin American team for foreign policy, security, and trade will include the long-expected Latino list. Then you will have the usual grousing from Latin America that in appointing Latinos to ‘handle’ Latin American, it is supposed to focus on assuaging the Latin Americans on US policy ramifications in the region…perhaps…but the challenge facing any US policy-maker for Latin America is that ‘benign neglect’ is the coin of the realm at best or merely any effort to combat illicit drugs or illegal immigration must be fought in the lands south of the border. Hence the DEA, Border Patrol, and border enforcement personnel are replete with Latinos. It seems Latinos are seen as the ideal handlers for applying US law to these Latin masses trying to reach the US border. It’s page from the colonial Spanish playbook on overseeing indigenous people has been borrowed: always place as an overseer ‘one of them’ to handle or manage these ‘menacing’ masses. Therefore, it should not surprise us when appointments come for Latinos they appear to be geared to dealing exclusively with Latinos… especially law enforcement …a brazen example of pigeon-holing us.
Then again it may be easy to blame the White and the African-American establishments for not including us in the upper echelons of appointments, but alas! — the fault lies primarily with the Latino community for not providing ’top cover’ for its possible appointees under any administration. This ‘top cover’ comes from Latino Congressional members (CHC), the Latino civil society groups like NCLR, MALDEF, Cuban American National Council, LULAC, Cuban American National Foundation and the various Puerto Rican groups. Add to this mix the increasing emergence of Central American associations seeking a ‘regularization’ or ‘legalization’ of its diaspora. Lastly, the ultimate realization that the Latino agenda may be jettisoned is that a ‘Comprehensive Immigration Reform‘ will continue to elude us in the coming years. The recent election plainly did not provide a mandate for it. Since it was never or barely discussed in the campaign, we can expect it to to go nowhere.
14 responses so far ↓
1 XicanoPwr // Nov 21, 2008 at 4:50 pm
It is true the “fault lies primarily with the Latino community for not providing ‘top cover’” as you say, but the question is how do break the strong hold, our Latino leaders have on the piece of the pie.
There are no leadership mentoring programs within the Latino community or programs on working together. It’s no wonder people there is a revolving door.
But I am tired of bitching about it, Seneca, what do you suggest we do about this lack of ‘top cover’?
2 Michaelr // Nov 21, 2008 at 9:56 pm
New non-profit Latino civil rights (society) organizations have to emerge for this to happen. MALDEF, UCLR, and LULAC are all too corrupt, too self-serving, and maintain too much of an oligarchy mentality to make the changes that can move the Latino community politically forward. MALDEF, UCLR, and LULAC only do the bidding for Corporate America, Wall Street, and the Establishment that controls 70% of this country’s wealth. Who do you think funds them? Its these organizations that have kept us at the bottom of the food chain.
3 Anna // Nov 22, 2008 at 12:42 pm
Nobody is stopping anybody from founding a new organization with funding from dues paying members.
Nobody elected the leaders of NCLR to anything.
As for Villaraigosa, I hope he turns down any Cabinet appointment. It doesn’t take a genius to see that Latinos will not play a significant role in this administration. And if Obama decides to fire him, his career is over.
Villaraigosa is needed here as Mayor.
4 Anna // Nov 22, 2008 at 2:09 pm
I just read something interesting. Did you know that Obama lost the white vote? He only got 43%.
If Obama had only received 43% of the Latino vote, the media would be calling us racists–just like they did when the majority of us voted for Hillary in the primaries.
In the following article the author makes sure not to call all white people racists, stating that “white people have all sorts of reasons for deciding who they vote for.”
Gee, I wish the white media would keep that in mind when writing about minorities!
http://www.slate.com/id/2204464/
5 Reyfeo // Nov 22, 2008 at 8:45 pm
Are you really surprised an Obama Administration was going to leave the Latino out of its play book for running the country?
He got our votes this time, will he get it again in 2112? I still intend to see if he’ll brings us into the mix, but if this trend doesn’t change, I can see the latino vote going away.
6 Anna // Nov 22, 2008 at 10:26 pm
No, I’m not surprised at all, and I doubt many others are either. But as I said Republicans were not an option this year. And yes, I do see Latinos bolting in 2012 if we’re excluded from the Cabinet and from economic development.
7 Reyfeo // Nov 23, 2008 at 8:28 am
Agreed..so what are we to do? I think about the latino leadership and there is non…I mean there is but just not any single one or two we can point to and say they actually represent the overall Latino population.
Think about the past and the current players…Cisneros: started off great and then couldn’t keep it in his pants long enough to represent. Villaraigosa: I wouldn;t put that guy anywhere, even if I were made President!
I could go on and on…but the point is, we may be too diverse and differentiating in opinions that a one or two players never arises. Consequently leaving us high and dry when it comes to political appointments and or future potential candidates for the Presidency itself…?
Thoughts?
8 Seneca // Nov 23, 2008 at 8:47 pm
As for getting “top cover’ from our own community, this is an excellent question. I agree that there are no systematic mentoring efforts to help Latinos move into the federal public sector and plan out a path to high office appointment…I do believe that some of our leaders like Xavier Becerra who is Stanford and Ivy league educated are certainly in the category to be considered by an Administration like Obama ‘s. This incoming Administration is most impressed and longs for the Kennedy era when it was seen as an Administration re[lete with highly talented people ( the Best and the Brightest who nonetheless gave us the quagmire of Vietnam, so the best brain power does not preclude colossal errors of judgment)…but, alas, no diversity existed since there was no pressure during the early sixties to appoint women or minorities.
Let me say that the victims of discrimination like people of color and women have come along way…some more than others…women, especially white women have been the truly most successful of the affirmative action struggles of the 60′s, ’70′s and 80′s. Next are the African Americans. Why have these two groups been most successful in achieving ‘top cover’ not only from their communities but from others? Very simple: legal action. By and large in Washington for years every new cabinet officer was greeted in their incoming briefings with the reality that the courts had ruled in favor of affirmative action or demanding remedy to a discriminatory situation (primarily women and Blacks)..hence this was a key driver in appointing and adding diversity to the Federal work force….law suits and continuous litigation were primarily the ‘top cover’…later aggrieved communities rallied behind their own…Latinos (or Hispanics) are seen as rarely suing or been less litigious hence no real or driving pressure to address their grievances…this has further been exacerbated by the Latino communities’ less than fiery activist mode.
The bottom line is that the Establishment has not really perceived a ‘penalty’ for not delivering to the Latinos…at the same time ‘top cover’ has never emerged as a factor with Latinos…our divergence in ‘nationalities’ among our community further impedes this situation and also the largely ‘unrecognized’ internal debate or better yet the ‘elephant in the room’ syndrome of race awareness haunts our community and leads to disunity…a vast number of Latinos do not feel comfortable with designations like: ‘people of color’, ‘non-white’ Latinos, the mixture of indigenous people with Europeans, the further mixture of Europeans with the African descent population…Latinos can have Native American, European, African, Asian and Middle East ethnic roots. Quite a mosaic. But managing all the accompanying cultural freight of this racial and ethnic hodge podge remains one of our principal challenges as we determine whether to proffer political ‘top cover’ or not to our fellow Latinos… these musings are merely some thoughts on the question…certainly we all have our own personal ‘take aways’ on this subject and these issues…we can certainly opt for forceful litigation and help create a ‘penalty’ or simply be more thoughtful in our understanding the nature of our challenges in education, employment, health and housing as we continue to be modestly confrontational…yet rally around our own when they are being considered for high office or just ordinary jobs in the government and the private sector.
9 Anna // Nov 24, 2008 at 12:13 pm
I don’t agree with most of what you just said. First of all, Mexican-Americans have been involved in Civil Rights litigation over Affirmative Action , desegregation, voting rights and marriage.
And Latinos have had more cabinet positions than you seem to be aware of. I don’t think it’s just litigation that got other groups into the cabinet. There were movements, and their voting power. We haven’t had the numbers to swing an election until now.
You say that white women have done very well under Affirmative Action. They make up about 50% of the population and they have high levels of education. They are actually underrepresented in government.
The Mexican-American culture has a huge problem with sexism. We have never had a Mexican-American woman in the Cabinet.
Do you remember that show American Family on PBS? There was an episode in which Contance Marie’s character, who had a law degree from Stanford, was forced to turn down a job in Washington DC because she got trapped into raising her nephew, while living at home with her father.
The show depicted this as the “right” choice. The last scene of the show was of her making tortillas for this whiny brat in the middle of the day. It made me sick.
Mexican women always get trapped into taking care of other people’s children, elderly parents–you name it. And going away to college, or moving to a different part of the country is an ordeal. It’s like you’ve betrated them if you leave.
Yeah, because they won’t have anyone to work like a slave anymore!
More Mexican-American women need to be taught to aspire to careers. marriage and children should come later–in the mid 30s.
10 Michaelr // Nov 25, 2008 at 12:29 pm
As usual, you totally miss Seneca’s points. And since when does Network Television create drama that actually reflects real life? You should turn off the TV, and try a read more books.
11 Anna // Nov 25, 2008 at 1:57 pm
I understood his points. I just disagreed with them. White women and blacks could swing an election. We’ve never had that power until now. Plus both of those groups had movements that changed our culture, whereas in many parts of the country, Latinos are still seen as “new.”
12 Michaelr // Nov 25, 2008 at 2:19 pm
We are non-entities. And we have been treated by the Federal and State governments for the last 150 years as non-entities. And our so-called representatives in Washington DC, and Sacramento in large part continue to treat us as non-entities because they are only committed to self-service and self-enrichment. Most of us are still have that slave mentality that the Black Community paid so dearly to shake off forty-four years ago. We embrace religion as a way to deal with it, but all of that is illusionary. None of that propels us forward as a community. All our political idealism has been beached out by mass consumerism, the slave mentality, and the idiocies of machismo.
13 Anna // Nov 25, 2008 at 2:35 pm
I don’t think we’re non-entities, and by saying that we have been treated as such for 150 years, suggests that you think our treatment hasn’t changed in 150 years. That isn’t true.
Maybe instead of bashing people in government, more attention should be given to leaders outside of government.
The next wave of leadership will come from the immigrants and children of immigrants and that generation is more open to differences and not stuck in the past. They did an excellent job of organizing the immigrant marches.
14 india blanca // Nov 26, 2008 at 1:14 pm
Seneca shows great understanding of how the game is played inside the Beltway and how it should be played to support our Latino brethren…maybe what we need is people like Seneca representing us…in the meantime why don’t we just simply hold those that are our representatives accountable…If we don’t let them know how we feel, all we will have is the opportunity to continue to complain about it. Fact is the few Latinos who are in high office simply want to play the gringo game so they can be invited to play…unfortunately no matter how nice we are, we are still counted out…so lets groom our young, instill in them the pride and loyalty that goes along with being part of a community and until they reach their goals lets be effective in our need to come together and offer top cover for those of us who have a chance to be effective public servants…without forgetting their roots…I am a proud Latina who advocates for pragmatic ways to solve our deficiencies…let’s run Seneca for office..
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