You can say this of all churches. Seriously, many Latinos leave the Catholic Church for evangelical or Pentecostal type churches. All churches are about control to various degrees. Look at the Mormons. These churches all serve the same master, the church hierarchy. Some churches are more committed to social justice (maybe Jesuit or more liberal unitarians), while others are more into devoting energy to their televangelist type preachers. People get scared, don’t want to think for themselves and then become religious. This is why education is so important. The more educated you become, the less likely you are to blindly follow the religious fanatics. Actually, I think that Catholics can be more progressive in certain areas, whereas some of these mega churches are not.

I am not diminishing Salazar and a Solis, but that isn’t enough. Are there any Mexican-Americans in the Justice department? The State Department? The EEOC? Do we have anybody gaining experience in these departments? And you say that you don’t see any Latinos telling their kids to go into the foreign service? I guess you know what millions of people tell their children? Secondly, the Bush Administration recruited Latinos for foreign service. This Administration, probably not.

When I say professional, I mean trained as professional. I don’t mean somebody who has a certain manner.

Re: “Why do you think that 40 some years after the Chicano movement and the Cesar Chavez led grape boycotts, etc. we still haven’t produced many leaders on the national stage?”

Good question. I think the religion and the culture have something to do with it. People are taught to follow, not lead and that dynamic is set up in the church. Reyfeo says that the governemnt makes Latinos dependent. I think it’s the Catholic Church that makes people dependent. People are conditioned to follow. If we don’t even have our own churches, how can we lead ourselves? For both blacks and whites, church is where they learn public speaking and organizing. In the Catholic Church, we sit like sheep and listen to the priest. We don’t learn any skills. The Catholic Church came to Mexico as conquerors with the Spanish. They didn’t come to empower us, but to subdue us and get to accept a new identity and new leaders. I think that attitude permeates the whole culture.

Why do you think Clinton didn’t appoint her to the Supreme Court? Clinton had an opportunity to appoint a Latino/a to the high court, but he didn’t (instead picked Breyer & Ginsberg).
Obama did appoint a Latino to the highest court. Ok, Sotomayor is not Mexican-American, but I know many Mexican-Americans who are proud of her and feel that she is more than qualified.
Also, I don’t think Maria Echaveste has ever been a judge, while Sotomayor has.

Like Cockroach People, I have lived in Orange County and became politically aware there, so I know a thing or two about Rep. Loretta Sanchez and those she has surrounded herself with. And yes, Santa Ana and Garden Grove have sizable undocumented populations.

You seem to diminish the Mexican-Americans that Obama has selected like Hilda Solis and Ken Salazar and even those he has selected for ambassador. Being an ambassador is not only a patronage job, some ambassadors have been career foreign service officers. I don’t see many in the Latino community encouraging our kids to pursue the foreign service either.

Last time I checked Raul Izaguirre was a professional. He ran NCLR and is a lifetime member of the Council on Foreign Relations. I think he has also been on some corporate boards. You don’t get on those boards or on the CFR by being unprofessional.

Why do you think that 40 some years after the Chicano movement and the Cesar Chavez led grape boycotts, etc. we still haven’t produced many leaders on the national stage? Who is there? We have Bill Richardson…and he is a friend of Obama and Clinton. Maybe we have misplaced cultural priorities or are more readily occupied with other things like quinceañeras, telenovelas, cars with fancy rims, etc. I don’t know about you, but when I drive through Latino neighborhoods, I see a lot of loitering and idle behavior with our youth. Taking a walk to the library or visiting the local college or university might be more enriching than cruising the mall or planning the next party. Nobody has really picked up the mantle and insisted on self-reliance.

Re: ” I’d be happy to have an intelligent, sincere Boricua any day over that sorry excuse for a “Mexican-American” legislator.”

Again, you compare somebody you see as incompetent, even though the voters in her district do not, to somebody from another group. How about somebody competent from our own grooup? That’s what I’m talking about. You know, successful gropups lead themselves. They don’t follow. Our group follows. We have so much political capital, but we don’t use it. We give it away.

Nice spin Anna–I had just accused you of the converse. If Obama doesn’t come through (e.g. Mexican-American appointments) it’s horrible, but if Loretta doesn’t come through (e.g. Dream Act) it’s not her fault because she has political considerations she must weigh in her OC district). Slick switcheroo there.

For the record I am originally from OC and most of my family and many of my friends are still there; so Loretta has some effect on those close to me. I’m not sure about others. In any case, were I still back home, I’d be happy to have an intelligent, sincere Boricua any day over that sorry excuse for a “Mexican-American” legislator.

Webmaster,
good point about Gonzalez and Chavez…

I think Latinos were about 2 or 3 % when I was in Law School. It’s gotten a little better in some places. There are some possibilities in Chicago still for judgeships, but the nominations get funneled through local politicos first; so, it’s hard to make the final list for Obama to look at regardless of race.

Clinton appointed Maria Echaveste, a Stanford Law grad as one of his advisors, so give a me break. Qualified people are out there.

The reason I want more Mexican-American representation is for the very obvious reason that we are underrepresented, and if we don’t advocate for ourselves, nobody else will.

Amd you keep mentioning names like Monica Lozano and Raul Izaguirre. I’m not talking about patronage positions for people who bring in the vote.I’m not talking about Ambassador to the Dominican Republic! lol I’m talking about real jobs held by professionals.

Obama hasn’t even made most of the appointments that he has to fill yet. What makes you think that he isn’t going to select them or that these transition team members didn’t want a job in the administration? Not everyone on the transition team wants to work in the administration. Monica Lozano was appointed to some board, but I doubt she wants to leave La Opinion for example. It has to be Mexican-American or bust with you. What about some other Mestizo or Latino/a brother? Do you think that Mexican-Americans are best represented by other Mexican-Americans? Isn’t that rather short-sighted and limiting? Remember Alberto Gonzales (GWB) or Linda Chavez (under Reagan)?

And you didn’t even see the paltry numbers for Latino judges in CA, one of the most Latino states in the US. It isn’t as if Latinos are burning up the law schools with clerks or jurists. I actually have visited law schools, and let me tell you, they are dominated by whites and Jews. We aren’t even knocking down the doors of the major state colleges and universities. Obama actually has a plan to increase accessibility to college, but it is up to our community to take advantage of those opportunities and not squander them away.

As for Loretta Sanchez, if she is representative of the best our community has to offer, I can see why we don’t have a lot of representation at the federal level. Oh, but wait, she’s Mexican-American and that makes it ok!

Baloney!

I saw the Mexican-Americans on Obama’s trasnition team and it was full of highly qualified, accomplished people. They were much more qualified than the people he ended up appointing. These people are out there, but he isn’t going to hire them. He’s failing our community. I hope he loses in 2012.

Yes, but the difference is African-Americans work the system more efficiently. Jewish-Americans build better networks and are actually over-represented in the federal govt. The blacks have a more effective congressional caucus. Just because Mexican-Americans are graduating from top universities every year doesn’t mean that they are automatically ready for federal appointments. I graduated from a top 50 university, and so did many of my Mexican-American friends, and not all of us want to pursue a career in the federal bureaucracy. Pursuing appointments involves becoming donors, meeting the right people, finding “padrinos,” etc. It is more complicated than just applying or filling out the paperwork and hoping that someone selects you.

According to the La Raza Lawyers of CA, “Only about 6% of all Judges in California are Latino, despite Judges being elected officials who are supposed to represent the population of their counties, and a Latino population in the state of 33% Latino.” This is a very small pool of judges to pick from, and this is at the state level. This isn’t an excuse, this is the reality…we haven’t cultivated enough judges.

The more important question is…what are you doing to affect Mexican-American appointments? Have you contacted your elected officials about this, written letters to the editor, or given contributions to candidates while lobbying for the community? Complaining about it is one thing, doing something about it is another.