Palabrero

*This post first appeared in NewsTaco.

I did something this past Sunday that I’ve never done in my life. I walked out of mass in protest. No, fire and brimstone didn’t descend upon me; my leaving wasn’t followed by the gnashing of teeth.  In fact I’m sure that if anyone noticed they probably thought I was going to relieve myself – which I was, in a real sense.

Some pertinent background: I was raised Catholic.    I was born in a Catholic hospital and was educated in Catholic schools. But for many years I’ve nurtured a healthy distrust of all organized religion – my own Catholicism included. For the past several weeks, though, I’ve been going to mass on Sundays again. The priest who celebrates the mass I go to is a long time friend, I consider him a mentor, a spiritual and intellectual leader. So I returned to church because I missed his presence in a Sunday service context.

The mass is a Spanish service, standing room only, I’d say 90% immigrant, awesome choir included. I felt at home, although not entirely in place with the overall organized religious context. Still, my friend the priest hadn’t missed a beat since I last attended one of his services: vibrant, relevant, compassionate… After that first service, he saw me, gave me a bear hug and said “I was so happy to see you here.”

So I went back, twice. Then last Sunday he wasn’t there. Another priest was substituting for that day. I’ll call him father “Spaniard of the condescension.” He reminded me of the reasons I had stopped going to church. It took him all of 90 seconds to turn his homily into a diatribe against President Obama’s directive concerning healthcare insurance in Catholic institutions. He misrepresented the directive saying it forced women to have abortions, and then he said the congregants shouldn’t vote for Obama.

That’s when I blew. I felt my fists tighten, my neck expand. My wife turned to look at me with what I sensed was concern (Not so much for me; I think she was afraid I’d challenge the priest out loud. But I wouldn’t, out of respect, for the same reason I still push my chair in when I leave the dinner table: Catholic school upbringing.) I said, under my voice, “I didn’t come to church to be told who to vote for.” And I walked out.

So what do you do when you walk out of church to a parking lot filled with empty cars? I paced. Over the years I’ve learned to tame what was once an unmanageable temper. I give myself room to be angry, and get over it – it’s my responsibility after all. Ten minutes later, when the froth had gone, I returned to the back of the church and stood through the rest of the service. I didn’t confront the priest. In fact I said nothing to him, at all. I’ve also learned strategic patience and knowing to choose my battles.

This Presidential directive, though, has been taken out of context. It doesn’t force women to have abortions, regardless of what Father Spaniard says. All it does is raise the question of preventive services for women who work in Catholic institutions – excluding churches. All together Catholic hospitals and universities employ hundreds of thousands of women, not all of them Catholic. The directive makes preventive services accessible to them, that’s all. It also includes an 18 month period to look for creative ways to follow the directive. It’s about healthcare, and it’s about the law.

On the political side, it was a calculated move. I’ve said before that everything the President does is calculated. This time he may have gotten the equation wrong. I don’t think he expected the loud and angry fallout.  Just as I didn’t expect politics in my church. I emphasize “my” church, because I don’t belong to one of those evangelical congregations where politics is religion. In fact, the one time I disagreed with my friend the priest was when he allowed then presidential candidate Michael Dukakis (we go back that far) to speak from the pulpit during a Sunday service. I didn’t walk out that time, my conviction-to-action link still needed some simmering. But I felt it was wrong.

Here’s the thing: I wouldn’t have minded if father Spaniard would have asked the congregation to pray for a resolution to the healthcare directive, or to pray for the President to understand the Catholic institution’s position. But he crossed a line when he told the congregation not to vote for Obama.

I understand the long legacy of social and political movements that have had their birth in churches – the U.S. civil rights movement, the Mexican independence of 1810 to name just 2. But those were movements, not political ads. What’s more, 60% of the congregation that morning were women, and 90% of those probably don’t vote because they’re not citizens. You’d think a leader would know his congregation better (you may have noticed that I’m not quite done getting over it).

In the end, this directive will be fodder for punditry and homilies for weeks to come. And I’ll make my way back to church on Sunday, hoping my friend leads the entrance procession. This time, though, I’ve got an earful for him.

[Photo By Dougtone]

*This post first appeared in NewsTaco.

We’ve been beating this drum since we started NewsTaco, looking at it from every pertinent angle: Latinos are surging and now form the most important and fastest growing part of the U.S. labor force.

That fact was empirically backed this week by the Pew Research Center that studied the matter and found that Latinos will, in fact, account for 76% of the growth in the labor force through 2020.  The Pew results were gleaned from numbers gathered by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). For many of us this is not a big surprise. Here’s what Pew had to say about why this shift is happening:

One major reason is that the Hispanic population is growing rapidly due to births and immigration. At the same time, the aging of the non-Hispanic white population is expected to reduce their numbers in the labor force.

There’s more. The BLS also counts the number of people, age 16 or older, that either have a job or are looking for one, they call it labor force participation. In 2010 that number was 64.7%, but for Latinos that same year it was 67.5% — that’s because Latinos are younger and have a higher percentage of immigrants in their ranks. But this thing gets even wonkier. According to Pew, the BLS says overall, in the next 10 years, the labor force will grow at a slower pace than in decades past (the numbers, if you want to take the deep dive: 11.3 million labor growth from 2000 to 2010 and 10.5 million labor growth from 2010 to 2020).

Economically, the recessions in 2001 and 2007-2009 pulled down the labor force participation rate by generally frustrating people’s efforts to find work. Demographically, baby boomers—the giant generation born between 1946 and 1964—are now entering their retirement years.

So where do Latinos stand in all this?

Hispanics will account for the vast majority—74%—of the 10.5 million workers added to the labor force from 2010 to 2020. That share is higher than in the previous two decades. Hispanics accounted for 36% of the total increase in the labor force from 1990 to 2000 and for 54% from 2000 to 2010.

I agree, it is a little dizzying. But here’s the point: the growth of the Latino population overall and the subsequent growth of Latinos in the labor force highlights the urgency for changes to education and training, access to political policy making, and the importance of Latino-owned small business.

To draw a simple picture, Latinos will soon carry the nation’s work force and its contribution to the nation’s economy on their shoulders. So when we talk about Latino equity in education, Latino access to the political process, inclusion in the nation’s business boardrooms, and help for Latino small businesses , we’re talking about issues of national concern, not just the concerns of a cultural slice of the American whole. We’ve got the evidence now, in real numbers. American prosperity runs through the U.S. Latino community.

The question for us all is, what are we going to do about it?

[Photo By Kamal H]

*This column first appeared in the San Antonio Express-News on Feb. 24, 2012.

The last time the U.S. Supreme Court took up the issue of affirmative action in college admissions, it was thought that the subject wouldn’t resurface for another 25 years. That was nine years ago.

This week, the justices of the Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments in the case of Fischer vs. University of Texas at Austin that, according to the Supreme Court blog, “review(s) the constitutionality of a broad affirmative action program used to admit the freshman class at the University of Texas at Austin.”

Nine years ago, in Grutter vs. Bollinger, the Supreme Court ruled that the University of Michigan Law School could use race as a factor in helping to achieve admissions diversity. As a result, the University of Texas put a plan into effect that drilled the racial-diversity idea past its law school and into the classroom level across the school.

It’s called the “Grutter principle,” and it’s at the center of the latest court challenge: A student named Abigail Noel Fischer contends that she was denied admission to the University of Texas’ Austin campus because she is white. Fischer claims that minority students with lower grades were admitted to the school under the terms of the Grutter principle and that because of Grutter she was denied.

This is an old argument with layers of nuance. The University of Texas at Austin automatically admits all Texas high school students who graduate in the top 10 percent of their class. (The law was modified for UT in 2009, giving the school some flexibility.) Fischer didn’t make that cut. But she applied for one of the remaining open slots, where Grutter is in effect.

The 10 percent rule has its own rough edges. There are students in some academically rigorous Texas high schools who don’t qualify for automatic admission to UT under the 10-percent cutoff but who easily gain admission to prestigious Ivy League schools — an inherent collateral talent drain.

What Grutter tries to do is level the field. The problem is that it does so at the end of the line with filters and tweaks and catch-up measures. But if we look to the UT system as the end of a process, it becomes clear why the affirmative action rule is creating a judicial ruckus. As long as we continue to educate Texas children in unequal primary and secondary schools, we will continue to produce graduates with unequal access to higher education.

So this isn’t about access to higher education in Texas as it pertains to the university level. This is about the state’s education system in a holistic sense; it’s wrong that Texas education funding has decreased as minority student population has increased.

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case during its next session, which starts Oct. 1. But written briefs can be filed this summer. To make matters more interesting, the panel of justices will be an even number. Justice Elena Kagan has disqualified herself because as solicitor general she filed a brief in this case in the 5th U.S. Circuit Court.

vlanda@palabrereo.net
Read more: http://www.mysanantonio.com/opinion/columnists/victor_landa/article/Affirmative-action-case-really-about-unequal-3359537.php#ixzz1nhWDvJ2T

*This column first appeared in the San Antonio Express-News on Feb. 17, 2012.

A recent Twitter post sent by Jim Messina, President Barack Obama‘s campaign manager, has set off a minor firestorm. It has to do, specifically, with Latino politics, but it’s propped up against a backdrop of national politics, presidential campaigns and cultural innuendo.

Here’s the gist of what happened: Messina posted his reaction to a comment written by Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank. Milbank wrote about a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that was considering the appointment of Cuban-born Adalberto Jose Jordan to a federal bench. The hearing had been stalled because Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., wanted to leverage the appointment to, according to Milbank, “secure an extraneous amendment (rescinding foreign aid to Egypt) to an unrelated bill (transportation).”

The trouble was that no one on Rand’s side of the aisle objected to the stall. In fact, the GOP senators rose to speak about all manner of things except the matter at hand. At one point, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., addressed the committee and, according to Milbank said: “The lettuce in your salad this month almost certainly came from Arizona.” McCain also said, “It’s also believed that the chimichanga has its origin in Arizona.”

Milbank’s point was that the GOP senators were clueless about Latinos and Latino politics and that unless they change their tune they will lose Latino voters, in droves. He ended his column by saying “The chimichanga? It may be the only thing Republicans have left to offer Latinos.”

Messina picked up on the comment and put it on Twitter, calling it the “Line of the day from WAPO’s Dana Milbank.”

That’s when the Twitter tempest started. What followed was the typical snarky banter, accusations and the shallow debate that you get with 140-character spurts.

The Hispanic Leadership Network — a conservative-leaning Latino organization — jumped on the opportunity and started a Tweet-spat: How insulting and condescending, (Jim Messina) must apologize immediately and Obama must disavow.

It’s become a big deal on the Internet. Proponents and opponents are clashing online. One website even called it the Chimichanga War.

I’m mystified. First of all, I’m from South Texas where chimichangas are nonexistent. I think it’s a quaint word, but it makes me think of dancing monkeys. And second, what does this have to do with the issues that matter? Messina didn’t insult Latinos; he tweeted his delight at a writer’s comment.

Would it have been different if the tweet in question had been sent by a Republican? Given the original context, that wouldn’t have happened.

The truth is that this Chimichanga War says as much about our national debate as it does about the constraints of micro-blogging.

But keep this in mind: Latino unemployment is stalled at about 11 percent and Latino education is dismal, yet Latinos are poised to carry the U.S. economy on their shoulders and hold a big chunk of the vote in key swing states.

And we’re talking about chimichangas? If anything, that’s what irritates me. There are real issues to contend with, and the conversation reaches it’s highest pitch when the subject is food. Even the undercurrent is a farce.

vlanda@palabrero.net

Read more: http://www.mysanantonio.com/opinion/columnists/victor_landa/article/Chimichanga-politics-plague-U-S-3339953.php#ixzz1nhVr0xEi

*This column first appeared in the San Antonio Express-News on Feb. 10, 2012.

This is not an easy subject, so forgive me if I tread lightly. Last Sunday, the priests in Catholic churches across the Archdiocese of San Antonio read aloud a letter from Archbishop Gustavo Garcia-Siller outlining his and his fellow U.S. Bishops’ stance and opposition to the controversial Health and Human Services Commission mandate that Catholic institutions (other than the churches themselves) offer, through their health insurance, access to women’s preventive services such as contraception, morning after pills and abortion.

The letter was concise and impassioned, and laid out the Catholic Church‘s position on the HHS directive. But the fallout, on a national level, has been everything but concise. The problem is that this directive is trying to find its footing on the fuzzy fault line that separates church and state. To make matters worse, that fuzzy line is more of a wide open space and many Catholics, Catholic women especially, are standing in it.

The idea behind the opposition to the directive is that it will force many Catholics to violate church doctrine and go against their conscience and the constitutional guaranteed freedom of religion. Archbishop Garcia-Siller asked for two things from the congregants: to pray and fast for wisdom and justice, and to contact their congresspersons to have the opposition voice heard.

Simple enough, but, it’s not that simple. The mandate is not automatic. It provides for a one-year period to search for ways for the church to comply. In other words, there are creative ways around this thing; there is precedent in places like Hawaii where a similar mandate has been made to work. There are 28 states in the union that already have such mandates in the books — there must be something to glean from those experiences.

Then there is the matter of American Catholics. A Public Religion Research Institute poll released this week found that 58 percent of Catholics agree employers should be required to provide insurance plans that include contraception. A National Survey of Family Growth study found that 98 percent of Catholic women have used some form of contraceptive. Ninety-six percent of those have used a form of contraceptive banned by the Vatican. Sixty-nine percent of Catholic women have used birth control pills.

This doesn’t make the HHS directive right or wrong; it just makes that fuzzy field more crowded.

And then there’s this, a quote that has been making the rounds of the social media sphere: In 1967, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, theological advisor to the Second Vatican Council, wrote — “Over the Pope as expression of the binding claim of ecclesiastical authority, there stands one’s own conscience which must be obeyed before all else, even if necessary against the requirement of ecclesiastical authority. This emphasis on the individual, whose conscience confronts him with a supreme and ultimate tribunal, and one which in the last resort is beyond the claim of external social groups, even the official Church, also establishes a principle in opposition to increasing totalitarianism.”

The directive allows for one year to find a creative compromise. May I suggest the time be well spent?

vlanda@palabrero.net

Read more: http://www.mysanantonio.com/opinion/commentary/article/Find-compromise-on-HHS-contraception-directive-3249674.php#ixzz1nhV3CDbw

If you’re Latino and looking for a job you’re 1 in 10 (actually you’re 1.1 in 10, I rounded). This recession has been harder on Latinos than it has on the general population and even though official word is that we’re in a recovery, they’re quick to add that it’s a jobless recovery- which bring the question: who’s recovering?

That said, if you’re looking for work you won’t find it in official reports and public statements. You’re going to have to do what everyone else looking for a job is doing, only better.

So I’ve got some tips for you. And before you go thinking “who is Victor to give me tips on finding a job?” – I’ll tell you where I got them.

I made some friends recently at a recruiter’s un-conference, called TalentNet Live. It’s a social recruiting conference that brings together the brightest brains and best experience from around the world to chat and exchange ideas about finding and hiring the best talent.

Luminaries in the field – like Robert Scobel, China Gorman, Don Ramer, Bill Boorman, Maren Hogan, and Jason Seiden - held court in free-flowing conversations with about 30 human resources and talent recruiting executives. I went as the invited guest of one of the best professionals there, Alicia Arenas, of Sanera PDC.

I took furious notes about what HR executives are thingking, what they’re looking for and what get’s their attention. But then I wondered, is any of this different for Latinos?

I posed the question directly to almost all of the presenters and they gave me mostly the same answers. Michael Long, from Rackspace, was very concise and to the point. Here’s how he answered my questions.

Michael Long: I suppose that this applies to anyone who wants to use social media for a job search, but I would recommend some heavy networking.  Do some research, figure out where you want to work and use the tools to find people who currently work for the company.  From there, structure a plan to reach out to each person.  If you can’t find an email address, sometimes the best way is to call the company directly.  Job search is about discipline and consistency.  Seekers need to treat their search like a job and they will eventually find success.

ML: When it comes to recruiters, many of them are impressed with candidates who come in knowing as much as possible about the company.  If someone had the foresight to research the company, get to know some contributors and then reach out, it will look impressive.  That said, recruiters stay extremely busy, so it’s important for job seekers to pursue various companies at once in hopes of finding the right position. Don’t take rejection personally and realize that we are still in a very competitive job market.  As I pointed out with the first question, discipline and consistency will go a long way.

ML: Given the demand in the market for diversity of thought and background, I think there are some real positives that come along with highlighting involvement.  If someone is involved with clubs or associations that highlight their background, I think it would be great to have them include it in their resumes.  Most of the time, this can come under a section titled “Involvement” on their resume.  That said, I would not recommend overwhelming their resume with references to any particular ethnic background – i.e. Latino Professional Seeking Great Company … that would be a bit too forward.

ML: I don’t think there is anything in particular that Latino job seekers should do differently.  Just be confident in their heritage and recognize that it should in no way represent a disadvantage in their job search.  At the end of the day, everyone wants to join a company that accepts each individual for who they are.  So, I always recommend that job seekers first understand their own narratives and what makes them stand out as a great candidate for the companies they are applying to.  Practice, discipline and consistency will greatly improve a job seekers chances of identifying and securing the best employment.

ML: I don’t know recruiters who judge Latino candidates this way.  In general, I think that the candidates who work the hardest will win.  Be yourself, be proud of your background and, again, know your story and the value you bring to the table.

If you needed these tips and found them helpful, good luck!

If you’ve got a job you probably know someone who doesn’t, so pass this along, any help is appreciated, no?

[Photo by jamestruepenny]

In the minds of generations of San Antonians, Durango Boulevard will always be Durango Boulevard regardless of what the City Council, the Conservation Society or a state judge say. It’s not out of disrespect or disregard for the law, it’s just habit.

The strip of asphalt that runs across the southern edge of downtown has been called Durango for too long for people to forget. And the fact that every single Latino member of the City Council voted for the name change while every single non-Latino voted against it will probably reverberate more in people’s minds than the name change itself.

Fifteen years ago we had the same skirmish over the same issue, and at that time there was not enough backing in the City Council to make the name change. It was another time and it was another strip of asphalt, but the basic idea was the same.

This time around the votes were more in favor than against. That’s all that’s different. César Chávez is still a remarkable person in U.S. history and in San Antonio history in particular. Back in the late 1960s, members of Chavez’s United Farmworkers marched through San Antonio and inspired a political movement that changed the power status quo, challenged entrenched authority and led, more than 40 years later, to a Latino majority on the City Council. That’s historic. It’s also a matter of perspective.

The issue this time around is hung on a technicality and very obvious cultural lines (keep in mind that Latino is neither a race nor an ethnicity; it is a culture). The issues of the cost to the city and the burden of address change for businesses along the boulevard are significant. The cost to the city has been calculated around $99,000. And the Conservation Society’s concern over historic significance is legitimate. The society claims that the street in question has been called Durango since the settlement along the San Antonio River was first organized into a city. The opposition to the name change is, from the Conservation Society’s perspective, a defensive thing. But seven votes on the City Council trump both concerns and technically the trump is valid — seven elected representatives of the citizenry have approved the measure.

But now that the name change is in the hands of a state judge, after the Conservation Society filed for an injunction, the name itself is inconsequential. It might as well be John Doe Street; the battle now isn’t about the name.

This fight is about the change that began decades ago when Chavez’ supporters marched through our city on their way to Austin. It’s about the political descendants of those United Farmworkers and the changes they inspired. So the cultural line that divides the City Council on this vote is not a fluke. The name change, the vote and the opposition are all decades in the making.

And yet, 10 years from now, change or no change, ask any San Antonian the name of that street and they’ll say Durango.

Here’s a pail-of-cold-water dose of reality. Almost 15 million Latinos sat out the 2010 midterm election.

I have a problem with the term “sat out,” and I’ll get to that, but first, the staggering number.

This is from a Pew Hispanic Center report, titled “The Latino Electorate in 2010: More Voters, More Non-Voters,” published this week:

“ … (E)ven though more Latinos than ever are participating in the nation’s elections, their representation among the electorate remains below their representation in the general population. In 2010, 16.3 percent of the nation’s population was Latino, but only 10.1 percent of eligible voters and fewer than 7 percent of voters were Latino.”

All those percentages translate to almost 15 million potential voters who didn’t go to the polls. Many people, and I include myself, talk about the increase in Latino political clout that is a natural byproduct of the increase in population that was revealed in the 2010 Census. We know that more than half of the general population growth in the United States was due to Latinos; and we know that the vast majority of that growth was attributed to birthrate, not immigration. It follows that it bodes well for Latino political prospects, and national leaders of both major political parties have taken notice: the Democrats counting un-hatched eggs and the Republicans plotting to build their own coop.

But these new numbers can take a little of the swagger out of your step. When there’s more than 20 million eligible Latino voters and less than 7 million go to the polls the political momentum suddenly hits a steep climb.

So the idea that almost 15 million Latinos “sat out” an election is not so accurate. Sitting-out implies an intention. It means that they purposely didn’t vote to send a message.

An explanation might be that that many Latinos weren’t motivated to vote; that maybe they weren’t compelled because they didn’t feel part of the process. Another reason may be old-fashioned apathy — it happens. And another, more palpable reason may be youth. More than 31 percent of Latino eligible voters are between the ages of 18 and 29. A little more than 17 percent of those voters went to the polls in the midterms.

In all ethnic, racial, gender and cultural groups the rate of voter participation increases above the age of 29. So you can check off youth as a partial reason for the lag in voter participation. But you can’t put all the blame there.

Some people blame the political parties and the politicians for using fear and wedge issues to bolster a voting base, like immigration. But those tactics only serve to alienate many Latinos. Others think that Latinos feel excluded by the political discourse. But the problem with those ideas is that they place the blame on someone else.

While there may be some merit to thinking that the political process should be more inclusive of Latinos, maybe if more Latinos voted they’d be included.

There’s no quick answer; we’ve been talking about this for decades. We’ve gotten to a point now where talk is not enough.

vlanda@sbcglobal.net

Our leaders need to realize the emergency this has become.

The conference, organized by the College Board, brought together more than 500 educators and education administrators of all stripes and levels to look specifically at increasing Latino college attainment. It was done not as a set-aside or special program, but as a pressing need. Here are some hard facts: Since 1975, there has been only a 2 percent increase in Latino college graduation. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the Latino community is the youngest and fastest-growing segment of the American population.

State budget cuts across the country threaten to eliminate hundreds of thousands of teachers and increase the number of students per class. Funding for college financial aid is threatened as well and could keep many minority college students from pursuing their degrees. Latino dropout rates continue at an alarming average of about 50 percent. Meanwhile, the American work force is becoming less competitive.

There’s a double edge here that some folks are going to have to learn to live with. For America’s sake, Latinos need to be brought up to par in education. They need to graduate high school at higher rates, go to college at higher rates and graduate from college in increasing numbers. They also need to be trained in technical fields, and this is where many Latino leaders balk.

Technical school reminds them of the days when Latinos in high school were relegated to plumbing, mechanics and other trades. It was an idea that eliminated vocational courses in public schools with the goal of producing large numbers of Latino college graduates.

But today’s vocational course is not your daddy’s shop class. Technical courses in high school can prepare students for anything from biomedical careers to aviation and sophisticated computing technologies. There has to be a concerted effort to educate Latinos at all levels and in all fields, and while that may look like a special consideration for a specific group, it really is in the country’s best interest.

You can call the 55 percent graduation by 2025 an impossible goal; I’d say it’s lofty. But you have to set your sights on something. Excelencia in Education, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit, has called for 5.5 million Latinos to earn college degrees in the next nine years. The reason for the large goals over a short period of time is urgency. We know where we need to be in 20 years, and we realize what we need to do today to get there.

Our national leaders should recognize the emergency that this is and then act as if they understand what needs to be done. There is no time to wait for it to become politically viable. But that would require political courage, vision and compromise — and who’s got time for that?