Sunday, October 8, 2000
The shuck’s coming off
for Hispanics
By Bill Whitaker
By all accounts, the leading presidential
candidates are wooing Hispanic voters like never before, doing
everything from gamely braving (and butchering) the Spanish tongue
to sampling every Mexican dish this side of menudo.
But if it all seems to border on outright
pandering, take heart. At least no politico courting Hispanic
voters will ever again try consuming a tamale with the shuck still
on the way poor Gerald Ford did.
Shrewd campaigners today say they assume
nothing when it comes to the Hispanic vote.
That’s good, because a funny thing
happened as Hispanics became more and more assimilated into the
American culture that long kept them at arm’s length: They
became us.
If Abilene Hispanics are any indication,
anyone who presumes Hispanics are concerned only with such issues
as immigration and bilingualism will discover he’s badly
misjudged this increasingly pivotal electorate. Whether for George
W. Bush or Al Gore, local Hispanic leaders cite mainstream issues
such as health care and education as chief concerns.
“We’re no different except many
more of us are in poverty,” said local businessman Billy
Enriquez, who has often tussled with City Hall.
“The same problems that concern Anglos
also concern us. They just affect us more harshly.”
City Council member Victor Carrillo, a Bush-touting
academician who attended this summer’s GOP national convention
and is well to the political right of Enriquez, nevertheless echoes
his friend on the folly of political stereotypes.
“I think it’s hard and perhaps
even dangerous to generalize and say Hispanics are interested
in any one issue,” he said. “For one thing, we’re
not really all that homogenous.
“What’s important to Cuban-Americans
in Florida is different from what’s important to Mexican-Americans
in California, which in turn is different from what’s important
to Puerto Ricans in New York. But if I had to generalize, I’d
say education is very important.”
Many Hispanics see education as absolutely
crucial in lifting future generations from the barrios and menial
labor. Carrillo, 35, still has the 1964 encyclopedia set his father,
a laborer born in Mexico, read to him, volume by volume.
Health care also remains a concern. When
word got out that Texas faced losing millions in federal funds
allocated to provide health care for low-income children, local
Hispanics such as feisty Maria Velasquez blamed our “absentee
governor.”
Other Hispanics insist it’s not that
simple. Indeed, 40 other states, plus the Democrat-dominated District
of Columbia, face the same situation, also because of administrative
complications.
The emerging Hispanic electorate of the
21st century may well be a “sleeping giant,” to borrow
the cliché often used by pundits.
But it’s a giant of multiple, wide-ranging
personalities, lending further weight to the rich complexities
of America’s voting public.
Contact associate editor Bill Whitaker
at 676-6732 or whitakerb@abinews.com.
His column runs Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday.
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Abilene Reporter-News / Texnews / E.W. Scripps Publications
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