New York has new high-ranking Latino cop, and a trespass lawsuit with which to cope

Call it a premature step in the right direction, if you will.

But one of the highest-ranking officers in the New York police department is a Latino. Perhaps if we had more officers in New York’s police who viewed the old stereotype of the Irish cop speaking in a brogue as something to aspire to, we’d be better off.

AT STAKE ARE a pair of actions taking place this week that tell us the current state of the police in New York, although the situation isn’t one that is unique to New York or alien to other cities.

The NAACP is cooperating with a lawsuit filed Friday against New York city government and the city’s housing authority, all relating to the behavior of police officers when they are in or near public housing complexes in the city’s five boroughs.

City ordinances give the police authority to stop people when they are on the grounds of public housing to do checks of whether those people have legitimate business to be there.

In theory, it lets the police keep people who don’t live in public housing away from the property, which is supposed to work to the protection of the residents. But all too often, the people who have been getting checked by police (and often harassed) are the residents themselves.

THE LAWSUIT FILED in U.S. District Court for southern New York claims that residents often are the ones who get picked up and arrested by police when they are in or near their official residences. Aside from the harassment factor, those people suffer financial losses if they have to get legal representation to square away the confusion or if they lose jobs because they couldn’t show up for work because they were in jail trying to post bail for the pending charge.

What with the disproportionate share of African-American and Latino people who live in these public housing complexes, it means that the bulk of the people who get harassed by the police due to these laws are non-Anglo.

The groups behind this legal action say that the number of black people arrested due to these trespass laws is 10 times higher than the number of white people – even in cases where a public housing complex is located in or near a “white” neighborhood.

“Our clients are New Yorkers stopped and arrested while gtrying to go about their everyday lives,” said Legal Aid Society attorney Steven Banks said, in a prepared statement. “They are visiting friends, dropping off children or caring for elderly or sick relatives.”

NEW YORK CITY Housing Authority “building residents do not surrender their rights when they sign a lease, and they should not be arrested and drive up the cost of the criminal justice system,” Banks said.

Now I’m not about to come out and declare the lawsuit – which seeks a halt to enforcing the trespass ordinances, along with unspecified financial awards paid to those people who have been harassed throughout the years – a winner. I’m fully aware of the fact that many judges are political “animals” just like any other elected official.

This case is ever so likely to get tangled up in the partisanship of politics in New York, and it is not impossible that it will wind up in the hands of a judge who will be either unsympathetic to the needs of those public housing residents – or perhaps eager to show a “law and order” attitude of support for the police.

If there is a need for some change, it most likely needs to come from the police themselves. Because I have no doubt that many of the officers involved in these cases are merely reflecting their life’s experiences in terms of determining who, and what, constitutes a problem.

AFTER ALL, I’M sure every single cop who made an arrest under this ordinance is going to claim he had adequate “probable cause” to justify his behavior. This is a case where larger numbers of officers who aren’t going to automatically view those public housing residents as a “problem” is the solution to the problem.

That is where I notice the promotion of Rafael Piniero, who on Wednesday was named first deputy commissioner. He’s the highest-ranking Latino (of Spanish ethnicity whose family came to the United States through Cuba) to ever serve in the New York Police Department.,

He also has worked his way up through the department, having served in New York for nearly 40 years.

But looking at the New York police ranks makes me wonder just how much it resembles the composition of its city – 53 percent white, 16 percent black, 4.5 percent Asian and 25 percent Latino.

I’M SURE SOME people look at that “25 percent Latino” figure and wonder how it got to be so high. There are some cities in this country where such a figure would be considered exceptional.

I can’t help but wonder if it is overdue, and if a continued increase in all the figures is ultimately the long-term solution to solving the problem of the public housing “harassment” allegedly taking place these days in New York.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: The federal courts for New York will be asked to determine whether or not the public housing (http://www.hispanicprwire.com/News/in/16426/18/nyc-sued-over-unlawful-and-discriminatory-policing-in-public-housing-) trespass ordinances are improper, or legitimate.

New York’s second-highest ranking cop (http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20100127/FREE/100129891) is a Latino.

“Ugly Betty” moves to world of re-runs

It was a fad when it came into the television world four years ago. “Ugly Betty” was the program inspiring by Latin American television that actually managed to become a hit in this country.

To me, that was always the most interesting part of this program – which I watched regularly early on but ultimately managed to find other ways of spending my Thursday evenings than being perched in front of the television to watch America Ferrera.

I REMEMBER THE early speculation was that this program would be a massive flop because the idea of an unattractive woman being the focus of a soap opera-like show (which traditionally focus exclusively on “beautiful” people) would never play in the United States. Some claimed that the fact that the show “Betty la Fea” was a hit in Colombia was evidence that Latin America was just radically different in mentality from the United States.

But it wound up becoming a surprise hit, and has managed to last for four seasons (most of which already have been produced on DVD and are for sale at your neighborhood Best Buy or wherever you happen to purchase videos).

The idea of a young woman raised in a Mexican immigrant family being able to have the same aspirations as any other ambitious young person was intriguing to many Latinos who watched the show (I know my mother still gets a kick out of watching it, even as it has bopped around the broadcast schedule this season).

While some of the humor came from the idea that her Latino ways were different from those of her Anglo colleagues at the fashion magazine where she worked, keep in mind that many Latinos were getting their laughs at how ridiculously absurd all those white people in the fashion industry were.

ULTIMATELY, THE PROGRAM became bogged down in its storylines that bordered over the top, to the point where the Los Angeles Times reported that ABC executives felt that the focus on America’s “Betty Suarez” character had become lost.

That usually is the point where a television program should go away – unless it wants to become bogged down in so much confusion that it becomes unwatchable.

That is now the fate of “Ugly Betty,” which some of us will think of as the U.S. equivalent of the “ugly girl” phenomenon that is prevalent in Latin American television – an unattractive woman (they usually uglify her by making the actress wear dorky eyeglass frames) in the work world who manages to prevail despite the people around her who would be shallow enough to dump on her.

Reading around the Internet, I have stumbled across some commentaries written by people who are upset to see the show go. Some claim that ABC itself is responsible for the fact that it only has about half the number of viewers now than it did when it first went on the air.

SOMETHING ABOUT BOPPING the show about from Friday night to Wednesday night made it difficult for some people to keep track of when it actually aired.

But I tend to view television programs as being the entertainment equivalent of baseball managers – they’re hired to be fired. Every show eventually gets cancelled.

The miracle shouldn’t be that “Ugly Betty” will no longer produce new episodes following four year on the air, but that “The Simpsons” has managed to survive the changing whims of our society to last for 20 years (and counting).

But the show isn’t going to die off. I’m pretty sure it managed to produce enough episodes to provide a healthy rotation for re-runs. Plus, the program’s episodes are all out there on the Internet for those people who can enjoy watching television on tiny screens.

THAT ALSO GOES along with the DVDs, of which I know those first three seasons are already for sale. Once the final four episodes are created, I’m sure there will be a rush to get the final season on DVD – and we likely also will be offered a chance to buy some fancy boxed set offering the entire show for $199 or some other equally high price.

I don’t know that I feel the need to spend that kind of money for any television program – no matter how interesting. But I must admit that a part of me is thinking about purchasing that first season on DVD, back when the show was fresh and somehow different.

At the very least, it will allow me to once again see the scenes when Betty’s father would be sitting in his home watching Spanish-language telenovelas on television. You remember, that “show within the show” always had Salma Hayek (who was the show's producer) playing the part of a maid who (at the moment we saw the TV screen) was always in the process of taking off her clothes.

Who else could take the thought of Hayek undressing so routinely that the scenes became more humorous than sensual?

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Latinos to lead in the fate of our politicos

Many political observers are convinced that this year will be a big one for elected officials of a conservative ideological bent, as they want to believe we’re all rebelling against the goals of President Barack Obama.

But I can’t help but wonder if the growing Latino population and our potential for votes is going to be the factor that throws a wrench in the dreams of our nation’s conservative ideologues.

IT’S GOING TO be roughly four more decades before Latinos account for one-third of the nation’s population (or so says the Census Bureau). But the fact is that each recent election cycle has managed to set new records for the number of Latinos who cast ballots.

Considering that the one trend against strong Latino electoral clout now is the youthful age of the population – significant numbers remain under 18 years of age, which means they can’t yet vote – also is a trend that will decline with years, the fact is that the Latino vote is going to be one that cannot be overlooked.

And what is happening now is that the Latino vote is going through a period where we’re establishing the trends that likely will determine for decades to come how the bulk of our numbers will vote on candidates and issues.

There are those Latinos who during the years of George W. Bush briefly flirted with the Republican Party, before realizing that the bulk of the GOP loyalists were upset that “their” president (who was mentally a Texan first and foremost) would bother to think about Latinos as people.

IT HAS BEEN that hostility that has driven many Latinos to think about the Democratic Party and its candidates – as evidenced by the two-thirds of Latinos who in 2008 voted for Barack Obama for president.

There are Republican observers now who think that Latinos will be turned off by Obama and will punish Democrats by backing the candidates of the GOP. That is just too wild of a pipe dream to ever become reality.

The problem with that logic is that it would be seen by many Latinos as rewarding the people who are causing many of the political problems we face.

It is the reason why I am curious to see how the whole political battle over immigration reform plays out this year in Congress.

IT WAS ALWAYS a given that the bill now sponsored by Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., was a longshot to be approved, while a measure being crafted by Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., that might get consideration was more likely to have conciliatory measures toward conservative politicos.

Latinos take an interest in the immigration reform battle even if they personally already have achieved U.S. citizenship because we realize that the perception people have of the issue is intertwined with the way some people perceive our growing share of the U.S. population.

We see that some people either can’t, or don’t want to, tell the difference between someone who is an immigrant and someone who is merely ethnic.

If we get the sense that immigration reform is failing to go anywhere because of the apathy of Democratic leaders (some advisers to Obama wish that the issue would go away for a few years because they’d rather not expend the political capital necessary to actually “win” the fight, then there is the very good chance that future Latino turnouts could go against Democrats.

BUT IF WE get the sense that Obama (who has said he will push for some action on the issue this year) is being thwarted, then it will be considered yet another reason why the GOP is making many of us “Democrats by Default.”

I realize there is significant opposition in this country to the goals of those people who prefer the label “progressive” to liberal (but who the ideologues are determined to portray as “socialist” – even though I suspect most of them wouldn’t have the slightest clue what a socialist is if they actually met one).

But for those people who want to believe that we are now at the beginning of a process that will see a return to “conservative values,” I’d have to wonder if the growing Latino vote is going to be the factor that ever prevents those people from being able to return the United States in spirit back to the mentality of the 19th Century.

So excuse me for being arrogant enough (or so it may seem to the nativists) to think that the growing Latino population, and our coming electoral clout, is going to be what keeps this nation moving forward. For that alone, we all ought to be thankful.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Even Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network has a sense of how significant the Latino vote (http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/politics/2010/January/Hispanic-Outreach-One-Key-Point-for-Obamas-Speech/) will be in future election cycles.

Material for those of you desperate for something of substance to read

Call it a bout of laziness if you will, but I’m giving myself a day off from commenting on the issues of the day, as they relate to the growing Latino population.

I will be back Thursday with original commentary and analysis.

YET FOR THOSE of you who absolutely need to know more, there were a few pieces I stumbled across on the Internet that caught my attention.

Hector Tobar of the Los Angeles Times wrote an interesting commentary about how his childhood home of South Whittier, Calif., is so often ignored by political people who prefer to pay attention to the neighboring town that was once the home of Richard M. Nixon. Of course, the South Whittier community (http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-tobar26-2010jan26,0,1543994.column) is now one with a majority-Latino population.

Also, the number of teenage Latinas who become pregnant is on the decline. So much for the thought of (http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/healthday/635319.html?chan=rss_topStories_ssi_5) an irresponsible segment of the populace that is a burden on our society, which is what some nativist types would prefer we think.

Remember those polls from a few weeks ago that indicated people perceived that Latinos were the new targets for violence in this country? It seems (http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opinion/82575012.html) there is an increase in the number of incidents considered to be “hate crimes” against Latino people.

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Immigrants are here. Dreaming of a world without them is futile

The Carolinas isn’t exactly the first place I think of when I ponder the status of the growing Latino population of our nation.

Yet the reality of Latinos in the United States is that we are everywhere. Just about every place, no matter how isolated it wants to be from the mainstream of our society, has some Latinos. In places where there were none before, we get those huge percentage increases that look phenomenal to some – and downright scary to others.

IT WAS A trio of stories I read Monday published at various places that caught my attention. One was little more than a press release indicating that the governor of North Carolina had appointed a new director to the state’s office of Hispanic/Latino Affairs.

Gabriela Zabala is a board member to Rep. Bob Etheridge, D-N.C., who has his own task force to study health issues as they relate to Latinos. She also is a founder of the group within the state’s Democratic Party that tries to get Latinos politically involved.

Now, she gets a title and some authority within state government to try to educate North Carolina residents about the fact that Latinos are living amongst them (the Census Bureau estimated that 7.4 percent of the state’s residents are Latino), and that their best course of action is comprehension rather than hostility.

Such hostility was seen in a story published in The State newspaper, based in the South Carolina capital city of Columbia.

THE NEWSPAPER REPORTED on the various attempts by activists for Latinos to push for immigration reform measures in Congress, while some people are determined to fight and try to keep the country stuck in the 19th Century.

Those activists are like their counterparts across the country in holding rallies and protests to urge people to address the issue. Yet the newspaper noted that the Lexington County Republican organization recently censured Rep. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C. – in part because he expressed a willingness to discuss the issue of immigration reform rather than just engage in diatribes against it.

After reading these two pieces of copy, I couldn’t help but find the commentary of Frosty Wooldridge to be all the more illogical.

He published a commentary that is now out on the Internet that argues against policies that would encourage immigration on the grounds that they will attract another 100 million people to this country – which is the last thing he wants to see.

HE TRIES MAKING the argument that our nation’s struggling economy cannot handle such new numbers of people. He quotes the conservative Heritage Foundation in saying that the numbers would “become a logistical nightmare beyond comprehension.”

In short, he seems to have the vision that opposing such policies will somehow result in massive numbers of people leaving the United States, which he probably thinks means there will be more space for people just like himself.

I’m sorry, but I don’t buy it.

The fact is that these masses of immigrants (regardless of whether or not one considers them to be desirable) are here in the United States. They’re even in the Carolinas. They’re not going anywhere. Anybody who dreams of the day there will be mass deportations is not only morally repugnant, they’re also foolish.

WHEN I THINK of immigration reform and the fact that it will have to give the people already here a means by which they can gain a visa or outright U.S. citizenship (and if that means fines and some sort of waiting period, then so be it), all I’m saying is that we need to acknowledge the reality of what our society is today.

They’re here. They’re working. But that lack of a visa forces them to live in the shadows, which makes them susceptible to people who would perpetuate various scams – taking advantage of the fact that many of these newcomers are in a position where they can’t complain.

If it reads like I’m writing that the real “criminals” are the businesses that hire such newcomers so they can pay them less, or the people who take advantage of them in other ways, you’d be correct.

I happen to believe (and there’s nothing that will convince me otherwise) that our society as a whole will benefit if the people who are forced to live in the shadows are able to come out and live openly.

AT THE VERY least, we’d quit having to rely on those estimates of some 12 million-or-so people living in this country without a visa. We’d know for sure how many people we’re talking about.

For those people who believe that anybody should be forced to live in the shadows of our society, I’d say they’re the ones who have some serious hangups, and those hangups should not be allowed to hold back our society as a whole.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Latino activists in South Carolina are participating in the fight for immigration reform, even though Latinos (http://www.thestate.com/local/story/1126234.html) comprise 4.1 percent of the state’s population.

In North Carolina, state officials felt the need to have a separate commission (http://thegovmonitor.com/world_news/united_states/north-carolina-appoints-new-director-to-office-of-hispanic-and-latino-affairs-22134.html) study the conditions of the Latino population in that state.

Read it for yourself, then figure out whether you truly buy into the belief that more people will make the United States (http://www.officialwire.com/main.php?action=posted_news&rid=55191&catid=862) a “third-world” nation.

Shouldn’t a business manager understand his clientele better?

Condescension, rather than hostility, is the negative sentiment I would expect to feel if I were in that portion of the United States where Ivy League schools are part of the daily life.

While I have never bought into the belief that those universities were all that liberal (perhaps it is just that the “establishment” isn’t conservative enough for the nativist element of our society), I don’t expect to run into the blatant hostility when it comes to racial or ethnic issues that can (and does) crop up in other parts of the country.

SO READING THROUGH the news reports of recent days about activity in and around the Atticus bookstore in New Haven, Conn., has been something of a shock.

I would have been more inclined to learn that people there were of the pompous sort who thought they were showing how “wonderful” they were as people for bothering to do business with me or my ethnic brethren,.

Instead, we have people running that store who don’t seem to understand that they serve a clientele that isn’t openly offended by the presence of someone whose ethnic roots might lie in another portion of Planet Earth than their own.

Specifically, the Atticus bookstore is one of those places that caters to the people who either are a part of Yale University or who enjoy living their lives near the Ivy League school.

IT IS ONE of these modern-era bookstores that seems to put as much emphasis of ambiance as in having a variety of books in stock on their shelves. Hence, the coffee and the rolls and muffins, along with a place for people to sit around and take the experience in, is just as important.

Since we’re talking about a place with a kitchen, that means kitchen help. Which in today’s era has translated into several Latinos being on the bookstore payroll.

That is what caused the store’s manager to recently issue a policy that he saw as essential to maintaining the preferred ambiance – no Spanish spoken in public. At least not where any customer could hear it.

Now store officials have gone so far as to clarify that they were not forbidding employees from speaking Spanish to each other when they were in areas that were restricted to store employees. Nobody was giving the hired help a coscorron to the cabeza for chatting en Español while on a lunch break.

BUT WHILE DEFENDERS of the bookstore have pointed out that the store’s manager speaks three languages and has been known to use his French on the job, critics have noted that store officials in their memorandum on the issue specifically cited Spanish as the problem language.

I’d hate to think that this is a case of somebody who is upset that his preferred “second” language is becoming less relevant in the world, and wishing he had focused more attention on being able to converse in Spanish – which whether one likes it or not is becoming more prominent in the United States.

Like I wrote earlier, this particular store serves a clientele that likes to think it is more sophisticated because of its connection to the university (whether or not Yale really offers a better college experience than many other schools in this country is an issue to be debated another time).

Hence, it is not going to be a place with people who will want to be associated with a business that gives off the impression of singling out a particular ethnic grouping (Latinos consist of people of many different ethnicities).

I’M WONDERING HOW many people will stop showing up at the store to purchase their overpriced cup of coffee. While I’m not saying that the local Starbucks franchise is going to get much of the businesss (these are people who most likely think they’re too good for a “chain store” like Starbucks), I wonder how many people will choose to spend their money elsewhere.

This is a stupid issue for this particular store to have chosen to take a stand upon. It shows a misunderstanding, or disrespect, of who the clientele is. If a business truly believes that the now-defunct Marshall Field’s retail chain was correct in saying, “the customer is always right.”

It’s not even like they can argue the logic used in some parts of this country that such attitudes are in accordance with the local thought process. Not that such logic justifies ethnic hostility. But maybe some people have been too isolated from the reality of modern-day society to comprehend. That is not the case here.

This has the potential to hurt the bottom line, and that is something that businesses should be wary of doing – particularly in today’s day and age where economic struggles cause many people to re-evaluate how important all those little $4 cups of coffee (or however much Atticus charges) truly are.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: What would happen if a non-English speaking customer entered this store? Would employees (http://www.courant.com/community/new-haven/hc-atticus-0123.artjan23,0,4430214.story) be expected to stumble about in English to try to serve them?

This incident is more silly than offensive, like the attempt last year of a New Mexico-based motel manager (http://southchicagoan.blogspot.com/2009/10/perhaps-he-thinks-it-should-be-new-un.html) to require his workers to use English on the job.

Worthwhile weekend reading

Is the United States’ lessening influence throughout the Americas a sign that our nation is achieving a more sensible policy toward dealing with its neighboring nations? Or is the United States incapable of maintaining the stranglehold it used to do when it came to the governments of Latin American nations?

One-time Mexico foreign minister Jorge Castañeda offered up his thoughts (http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/viewpoints/stories/DN-castaneda_24edi.State.Edition1.1c37d74.html) on the U.S. foreign policy in a commentary published recently by the Dallas Morning News newspaper – a piece worth reading.

At the very least, it will likely be more significant than anything published in your local newspaper (unless, by chance, you happen to have been in Texas and seen this commentary when it was published by the Morning News).

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NOTICIAS de LATINO: What constitutes a worthwhile test?

I have always been skeptical about the thought that a written examination of any kind could really tell much about who is qualified to be a police officer or firefighter.

There is legitimacy to the thought that such examinations, rather than being designed to weed out unqualified people, were more meant to weed out certain kinds of people. Which is why I found some sense to a ruling that came out of the federal courts in Brooklyn, which were critical of the process by which New York City hires firefighters.

THEY FOUND THERE to be too few African-American people, and also wondered if the exams were meant to keep many Latinos from getting their foot in the door – let alone advancing within the department’s ranks.

There are those who find joy in the fact that some people who were rejected for jobs will now have to be hired and given several years of back pay for the time that they should have been employed.

But what I find a positive step by the courts is the fact that the city is now being required to justify the examinations it gives to prospective hires. The courts want city officials to explain why the examinations should not be considered biased.

Which means that if those people who are now going to rant and rage about the injustice of this court ruling (unless they’re all tuckered out from having partied too hard the nights before over the “victory” in the Massachusetts special election for U.S. Senate) think about it, they’d really relax.

FOR IF THE points that they always try to make really are true, they should have no problem being able to justify the exam. Unless that exam is (as I suspect it is) little more than a crock. In which case, it should be disregarded.

I always have a mixed feeling about this type of issue. Because personally, I never had problems with written examinations when I was a student. One of the reasons I had no problem getting into the college of my choice a couple of decades ago is that I did well on the ACT my first (and only) time around. Why subject myself to that agony more than once if I don’t have to.

But I’m not sure that those college entrance exams really say much, other than whether or not someone’s nerves got the best of them and caused a low score. I can’t help but think that a written exam for a firefighter would be even worth less.

We will have to see (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/22/nyregion/22vulcan.html) how this review process procedes. What other issues of interest to the growing Latino population are taking place these days?

CALL IT THE “¡LFCMN!”: Marketers are working on a series of stunts to engage the growing Latino population into thinking enough of “football” that they will bother to join the masses in watching the Super Bowl when it takes place Feb. 7.

In one sense, it is good. It means the National Football League sees Latinos as people with money, which means they want to treat us equally to every other viewer. If that means we have to put up with the Tazon Latino (an exhibition game between retired NFL players and Latino “celebrities”), I suppose it is no more ridiculous than those people who get all worked up over watching the Super Bowl broadcast to see television commercials.

Just one question? How should we refer to the NFL itself when talking to Spanish-speakers, since a literal translation wouldn’t work. After all, the Liga de Futbol Nacional would be an organization that plays soccer – which when you think about it is the logical game that should be called football.

Somehow, the “Liga da Futbol NorteAmericano Nacional” just seems like too much of a mouthful to spit out (http://www.multichannel.com/article/445159-NFL_To_Blitz_Latinos_At_Super_Bowl.php) every time we speak. And “Liga de Futbol Con Manos National,” while accurate, is just silly.

LA CENSUS, EN ESPAÑOL: The Census Bureau is making another initiative to ensure that Latinos aren’t intimidated out of letting themselves be counted – a separate website on the Internet “en Español.”

The site differs from the main Census Bureau site in that instead of focusing on making past Census data accessible, the Spanish site includes a lot of explanatory features telling people why the federal government feels the need to know how many people are living here.

That actually makes sense for a lot of foreign nationals living here, since some come from countries where the government sees no need to do a Census. The concept of being counted as an individual is not a universal one. It is, in fact, one of the perks that helps make our society special.

The Spanish site (at www.2010census.gov/espanol) also had one other feature that amused me – taking into account that there might be some bilingual people using the site whose other language is something other than English. It has a “translation” feature that makes it possible to translate the Spanish explanations into one of about 60 other dialects spoken on Planet Earth.

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Texas school doesn’t need to concern self with ethnicity

Irving, Texas is now a suburb of contradictions.

The suburb of Dallas that for many years was known as the home of the stadium where the Dallas Cowboys played their games is a place where local officials were being sued because of the way in which local government officials were elected.

IRVING IS LIKE many other small municipalities – they chose their officials at-large from throughout the town rather than from specific districts or wards. That method had Latinos convinced that the growing Spanish influence in the town was being diluted and resulting in their receiving less representation than their population numbers would represent.

The City Council was sued by activists and actually had a negative ruling from the U.S. District Court. The only reason that matter ultimately came to an end was that local officials elected to settle the matter out of court, rather than dragging the affair to higher-level courts – including possibly the Supreme Court of the United States.

But now we have a bit of confusion, since the school district in that city also was being sued for the way in which school board members were chosen. Latino activists claimed that the school boards were comprised in ways that also resulted in fewer Latinos being able to serve than would be indicated by their share of the local population.

This week, a U.S. District judge ruled against the Latino activists, claiming that trying to craft districts with majority Latino populations strong enough to ensure election of Latinos to the school board would be too awkward.

THE PROBLEM?

Too many Latinos who have not completed the process of becoming U.S. citizens.

Judge Sidney Fitzwater cited figures showing that while 60 percent of adults in Irving are Latino, only 17 percent of the registered voters in town were. For the record, 69 percent of the school district’s enrollment these days is Latino, while there has only been one Latino ever to serve on the school board.

The activists who brought about both lawsuits were surprised at their legal failure with the school district, since they don’t see the difference between the two legal battles.

A LOT OF it is going to come down to how much consideration people want to give to those people living in this country who were not born within the United States.

There are those people who argue that those who cannot vote do not deserve any consideration from their local government or school officials. There is a certain practical thought to that, since it means officials only show accountability to those who bother to cast votes for them.

Yet the problem with such “logic” is that it ignores the reality of the situation. Those people without citizenship are still living in the community and are still going to be a part of it. As a result, only a public official who is a complete fool would think that he/she can get away with only paying attention to a select portion of the population.

That is how government officials build up resentment to the point where the growing numbers ultimately indicate a majority that feels the need to “take over” by some type of force.

IT WOULD BE better to give the growing numbers of Latinos a sense of belonging within the community, which would make many feel like they have a real stake in its future and have them want to see their municipality/school district succeed.

Which is why it always amuses me to think that for all the griping that the more conservative members of our society do about these “foreigners” not “fitting in” with society, it always seems that the conservatives themselves are the ones most interested in throwing up barricades that prevent people from being able to assimilate.

It is too similar to those people these days who are griping about the upcoming Census that will include a population count of everybody living in this country – even if they’re NOT U.S. citizens. People who are in this country ought to be counted to get an honest figure of how many people are living in the United States.

In that same vein, people who are in Irving, Texas ought to be acknowledged by their local government and school system. Deliberately ignoring people because they don’t fit into someone’s ancient image of what local people should look like is only asking for problems in the future.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Latino activists are hopeful that the 2010 Census will show enough of an increase in the Latino share (http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/politics/local/stories/DN-irvskuldistricts_21met.ART0.Central.Edition1.4bcc873.html) of the local population to change the school board composition without continued legal battles.

Those activists have had successful legal battles in the past with regards to the local City Council, which makes (http://southchicagoan.blogspot.com/2009/07/what-is-activist-court.html) them confused about what to think of this week’s courtroom loss.

God won’t be able to watch the Dallas Cowboys play football through the hole in the roof (http://www.ci.irving.tx.us/news-articles/0110-ts-implosion-update.html) of Texas Stadium.

Haiti won’t take Dominican aid

I remember back five years ago when Katrina took out New Orleans as we knew it, and there was world-wide interest in helping the United States try to rebuild.

I particularly remember the image of the assistance received from Mexico, because it included military troops who, among bringing various supplies such as fresh water and food, also brought along portable kitchens.

IT WAS THE Mexican army that cooked meals for those Louisiana refugees who were left homeless and forced to live in the Houston Astrodome for a time until more traditional housing could be found for them.

A search of the Internet will easily produce a lot of half-baked commentary written back then by nativists who hated the image of armed Mexican troops headed north of the Rio Bravo del Norte/Rio Grande, although I’m sure the intellectual knowledge that Mexico was a nation fully capable of coming to our aid also hurt them because it challenged much of their nitwit thought processes about the respective roles of the two nations.

But in the end, we took the aid – which lasted about one month before those troops went back home. It was a significant boost, even though there are parts of New Orleans that remain devastated even today and likely will never fully be rebuilt.

It was encouraging to see back then that two bordering nations that often get caught up in ridiculous rhetoric could work together.

IT’S JUST TOO bad that we’re not going to see an encore performance in the relief efforts taking place these days to help earthquake-ravaged Haiti – where an earthquake last week and an aftershock this week have caused severe damage and death (some 200,000-plus casualties and counting).

The Dominican Republic offered to send a contingent into Haiti (the two nations share the same island in the Caribbean) that would have included some 800 armed troops, some of whom could have helped to provide security to Port-au-Prince or other parts of the island,.

But history got in the way. Haitian officials turned down this Dominican offer, although I fully appreciate the history behind the two nations that would make the two nations skeptical of each other.

The island of Hispaniola may have been Christopher Columbus’ true discovery for Spain, but the side now known as the Dominican Republic was the Spanish colony, while the French colonized the part now thought of as Haiti.

EVEN AFTER DISPOSING of their European colonizers, the two “nations” have fought in recent centuries for which should be prevalent. There even was that period from the 1820s to 1844 when the “Dominican Republic” was nothing more than the east side of Haiti – Dominican people had to fight for their independence from Haitians after having just won it from the Spaniards. Throughout the years, there have been many more outbursts between the two nations.

So I can appreciate the context in which some people might have an ideological qualm about Dominican troops being on Port-au-Prince. It’s probably similar to all those people who made their half-wit jokes about the Mexican Army being allowed to march into Texas (and even held ceremonies in San Antonio on Sept. 26, 2005 to conclude their mission – flying their flag not all that far from the remains of the Alamo, a touchy image in and of itself).

For those who will criticize Haiti for being upset about something that happened nearly two full centuries ago, keep in mind that the U.S./Mexico War took place around the same time as the Dominican Republic’s fight for independence from Haiti. Political grudges have a knack of lasting for centuries, no matter where they take place.

So what happens now in Haiti, a place which truly can use all the assistance that can be provided to cope with burying the dead and beginning the process of rebuilding that impoverished nation?

REPORTS FROM THE Reuters news service indicate that the United Nations is trying to find some other nation to provide the military assistance that the Dominican Republic was willing to give – even though they admit it would make their lives easier if Haiti were to accept their neighbors’ full aid.

There also are negotiations taking place to see what kinds of assistance the Dominican Republic could provide that would not be offensive to the mindsets of their Haitian neighbors.

So I guess we’ll have to wait and see just what kind of cooperation the two nations are able to achieve.

Will we see the Dominican Republic help out Haiti in some form like Mexico came to the aid of its neighboring nation at a time of natural disaster? It’s just encouraging to see that Latin American nations are willing to come to the aid of the rest of the world in a time of need, despite the negative overtones some people try to place on that region of the world.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: We won’t see the Dominican army in Haiti, although officials are trying to negotiate other (http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINIndia-45553320100120) assistance that the Dominican Republic could provide to its island neighbor.

It was nice to see (http://www.dentonrc.com/sharedcontent/APStories/stories/D8CF2P2O0.html) politics put aside for a humanitarian good.

What is Taco Bell legacy?

I can remember once someone I worked with asking me in all seriousness whether my mother had ever made me quesadillas, “just like the ones at Taco Bell.”

If it weren’t for the fact that this particular co-worker was a truly sweet human being, I would have considered responding by giving her a coscoron to her cabeza. It would have hurt.

INSTEAD, I RESPONDED politely by explaining how much of the Taco Bell menu consists of items that no self-respecting Mexican would ever touch. It reminds me of Aaron MacGruder and his now-defunct comic strip “The Boondocks.”

One particular strip had one character asking another whether Mexicans who ate at Taco Bell were “sell-outs.” I’d say they’re just people with deadened taste buds.

If you’re getting the impression that I don’t think much of the foodstuffs served at a Taco Bell franchise (and why it nauseates me to learn I have nephews and nieces who enjoy it), you’d be correct.

What Taco Bell has done for our society is create an environment where people eat stuff that might remotely be inspired by Mexican food, then get the impression that they’re somehow adventurous or exotic for eating something that is barely more than a hamburger.

SERIOUSLY, THINK ABOUT the ingredients in that basic taco – beef, cheese and lettuce, stuffed inside a preformed shell instead of a bun. It sounds like the basic McDonald’s hamburger to me.

I don’t consider Taco Bell to have much of anything to do with Mexican food. So long as people realize that, I can handle it. When they start feeding me a load of bunk, then I have to start feeding them a load of culinary truth.

Now what is bringing on this rant?

It is the stories appearing in recent days that report the death of Glen Bell Jr., the 86-year-old man who converted his hamburger stands in California in the 1950s into taco stands that later evolved into the Taco Bell chain.

I’M NOT TRYING to bad-mouth Bell, who became a very wealthy man by creating a chain that has crept its way into the U.S. culture in large part because his original hamburger stand was in a Mexican neighborhood. I just wish it didn’t have to slander Mexican cuisine with its offerings.

To read the account published this week in the New York Times, Bell was the inventor of the taco shell – which allegedly made it much less messy to consider mass production of tacos.

That is just too much of a stretch, since a taco shell is nothing more than a tortilla that has been deep-fried. Mexicanas have been doing this for centuries when trying to prepare overly elaborate tacos. For all a taco truly is is any kind of meat or other fillings stuffed into a tortilla.

It doesn’t have to be crisp.

THE ONLY REAL thing with many people deep-frying their own taco shells is that the end result is a crisp tortilla that drips with oil. The grease can overpower the fillings, if one is not careful.

That is why contemporary Mexican restaurants that serve tacos usually go so far as to offer up the soft-shell concept. Whether corn or flour tortillas, they’re just the meat and vegetables and cheeses (whatever you choose to put inside) put into a folded tortilla.

There are times when it seems that only Taco Bell still bothers with the idea of crisp taco shells (although my mother still will deep-fry some tortillas from time to time, allowing for extra time to let the grease drip off them to reduce the fat).

Considering that those preformed shells usually have the texture of cardboard, I have a hard time seeing why some people find this particular form of junk food edible. I rank it down there somewhere with a Domino’s Pizza, and at least they in recent weeks have started an effort to improve the actual quality of their product.

I SUPPOSE THE overall Bell legacy is that he got some Anglos to think of Mexican food with a more respective image than they ever would have done so before – even if what they are eating has nothing to do with Mexican food.

But then again, there’s also the fact that I am just a crank when it comes to Mexican food – one of those people who can find fault with many dishes in large part because while there are many places peddling dishes inspired by Mexico and the Southwestern U.S. parts that used to be Mexico, there are few that aren’t selling foods so overly laced with lame attempts at spices that the overall product turns out to be inedible.

So while the rest of you may head for Taco Bell to get your chalupa fix, personally I’ll head for my mother’s house. She doesn’t like to cook as much as she used to, but still is capable of producing a meal much more apetizing than any item you’ll find for 79, 89 or 99 cents.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Creating Taco Bell made the death of Glen Bell worthy of mention in the (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/19/business/19bell.html?hpw) New York Times.

Who invented (http://eatsblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2010/01/what-you-never-knew-about-taco.html#comment-3313378) the taco shell?

Taco Bell acknowledges (http://www.tacobell.com/glenbell/) its founder.

Diverse groups try to use King birthday to appeal to Latinos

A pair of stories out of Texas made me wonder about the ways in which people try to appeal to the sensibilities of the growing Latino population.

A group that tries to acknowledge the contributions of black and Latino people to the “cowboy” culture made a point of staging a rodeo in Fort Worth on Monday, while in Houston, anti-abortion activists made a point of protesting a new Planned Parenthood facility that was built in proximity to Latino neighborhoods.

AS THE ACTIVISTS who showed up on Monday in Houston from around the United States said, they wanted to see the new facility as an attempt to kill Latino children. After all, such facilities were not being put in upscale neighborhoods.

Of course, people in those upscale neighborhoods that might have a disproportionate share of Anglo people likely have access to other means of health care. The need for a Planned Parenthood facility might not be as necessary, compared to putting one in a neighborhood with lower-income individuals.

I’d like to think that most Latinos will be able to see through this tacky attempt to pretend to care about our ethnic concerns while really just trying to peddle their agenda on the issue of abortion.

Which means I’d like to think that most of the Latinos who live in the area will merely remember this day as the one when all the crazy Anglos showed up in the neighborhood for a couple of hours before going back home, where they likely will give us little thought or concern.

IN CASE YOU haven’t figured it out, I do not get all worked up over abortion.

A part of me thinks I have little right to say what someone does because it is a medical procedure I am never going to have. I’m not going to pretend that I can comprehend what goes through the mind of a woman when she is confronted with an unexpected pregnancy.

So I honestly believe it is borderline tacky for these people to show up and start making phony ethnic appeals when, on so many other issues, the kind of people who most get worked up about abortion show they have little to no concern about the lives of Latinos.

Besides, it has always been my understanding (no matter how much the anti-abortion activists want to pretend otherwise) that there are medical needs other than abortion that are provided by Planned Parenthood. I’d hate to think that these activists – in the name of claiming to protect life – are willing to see other medical services made less accessible just because they have their hangups about one procedure that the Supreme Court of the United States proclaimed to be legal nearly four decades ago.

MUCH MORE POSITIVE was the activity at the Will Rogers Colisseum, where the Cowboys of Color Rodeo staged an event meant to highlight the fact that the original weren’t all Anglo, and that they were inspired by the Spanish who were in Texas first.

If anything, that Anglo cowboy image that all too many people have in their heads was really nothing more than an attempt to copy the culture of the vaquero – the cattle movers who did their jobs with a touch of Spanish style.

In some sense, the American cowboy is something similar to those extra-mild brands of salsa that one can buy in the ethnic aisle of a full-scale supermarket – a lame copy of the real thing.

On Monday, about 4,500 people got to see non-Anglo people participate in events such as bareback riding, steer wrestling, tie-down roping and bull riding.

WHILE I’M NOT about to claim I wish I was on hand in Fort Worth (something about the smell is just too much of a turnoff for me) for the rodeo, I find such an event to be humorous enough to almost be a worthwhile attempt to spend the day.

If it acknowledges that Latinos are the ethnic brethren of those original southwestern settlers, then it is an event with a worthwhile point. Unlike the protesters who are eager to push their viewpoint on abortion onto all women, and want to use Latinos to try to bolster their point.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: From rodeo to abortion, Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday was put to heavy use (http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/breaking/6821521.html) to try to appeal (http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/6822010.html) to Tejanos.

The original vaqueros were Spaniards trying to copy the methods of the peoples indigenous to what is now (http://west.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/pager.php?id=14) the southwestern United States.

Immigration reform won’t wither away

There are those people who are eager to pronounce health care reform dead, what with the possibility that a special election in Massachusetts may give the Republican caucus the one extra memb er they need in order to successfully filibuster issues – which means that they won’t get voted on even if a solid majority is in favor.

With that being the situation, I can already hear those same people giggling at the thought that they will be able to prevent anything from occurring with immigration reform – no matter how needed the reforms truly are.

IT MAY VERY well turn out that way. If the partisan split in the Senate becomes 59-41 (57 Democrats and two aligned “independents” against 41 Republicans), then it will be possible for that conservative minority to use the provisions of the law that were designed to prevent a majority from running roughshod over the opposition to turn the upcoming year into a legislative pile of sludge.

There is a part of me that isn’t too bothered by that concept. I’m convinced that 50 years or so from now, historians will look back on the activity of the past year (and likely the next three, regardless of how the election for Sen. Ted Kennedy’s seat turns out) and see it as an irresponsible use of partisanship by conservatives.,

In short, I think that the people who are so eager to vote “no” everytime anything associated with Obama comes up will wind up looking foolish.

And it may even come back to bite them in the tushy in future Election Days. For the fact is that the elements of our society’s population most inclined to back Obama are the ones that are growing. The people who are trying to flex muscle against Obama now come off as trying to hold our society in the past – a past that had its ugly moments and should have been disposed of a long time ago.

WHAT MAKES ME so sure of this is learning of recent activity that relates to the immigration reform measure introduced by Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., that is intended to come before Congress for consideration some time this year.

Political observers have been quick to note that the Gutierrez bill likely will never get voted on. There are other members of Congress who likely will be given the chance to get credit for sponsoring the measure, and those bills may well be put together in a spirit of offering something that the Anglo population with hangups about immigration will feel more comfortable with.

But even with the realities of the legislative process that make the Gutierrez measure the “bill of our dreams” rather than something passed into law, that measure still has its backers.

Gamaliel of Metro Chicago task force leader Diana Alarcon said in a prepared statement, “we can’t be talking about human rights in other countries when we don’t want to talk about it here.”

THERE IS ONE Chicago-area group that literally has taken to camping out at congressional offices in hopes of convincing the House of Representatives members and the people who live in their respective districts to support the Gutierrez bill.

Rep. Dan Lipinski, D-Ill., who has developed a reputation as one of the more conservative of Democrats in Congress, had his office draw attention last week by the Gamaliel group, which plans to show up at suburban Chicago offices of the Reps. Bobby Rush and Jesse Jackson Jr., both D-Ill., come this Wednesday to hold similar prayer vigils.

Then, there was the activity just this weekend at the First Baptist Congregational Church in Chicago, where an event timed for its proximity to the birthday festivities for the late civil rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. turned into support for Gutierrez’ immigration refom measure.

Gutierrez himself was present, telling the church congregation, “this is the year we’re going to get it done.”

SOME WILL DISMISS him, and these other activists, as delusional. Others will say this is nothing more than partisan rhetoric that should be ignored.

But what I hear coming from these people is an acknowledgement that this issue is too important to be ignored any longer, and that political people who choose to ignore it face retribution from a different source.

Ultimately, this is going to be a difficult issue for people who want to view issues purely in terms of their political partisanship.

A vote too eagerly for immigration reform could cause negative votes on future Election Days from the conservative elements of our society (most of whom are opposed because they realize these newcomers to our country are willing to work harder than they are, thereby making it likely that they will get surpassed on the class scale).

BUT A VOTE that is too dismissive of immigration reform is going to stir up the growing numbers of people who realize the benefits of a constant influx of new “blood” into our society. It also will be seen as a slur against the growing Latino population of our country, which realizes that many of these nativists are can’t, or don’t want to, acknowledge the differences between Latinos who were born in this country and those who weren’t.

So do I think the immigration reform “critics” ultimately will get what they deserve for spewing nativist thought? Yes.

There are just too many people to whom this issue matters, which makes me think that the immigration reform “critics” (along with health care reform – in reality, they’re largely the same people) are in serious danger of putting themselves on the wrong side of history.

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Haitian plight perfect example of how artificial “legal” status is

We have conservative radio commentator Rush Limbaugh accusing federal officials of taking advantage of the earthquake in Haiti to score political points, and the Rev. Pat Robertson claiming that Haiti’s independence from France is evidence that some sort of “deal with the devil” was made.

With this kind of irrational rhetoric being spewed, how long will it be before the nativists start complaining about Haiti for creating a situation where thousands of people whom they would prefer to think of as “criminals” are now going to get legal immigration status.

THEY’RE GOING TO be fully legitimate. They can start living their lives more openly. It only makes so much sense, which is why he nativists will scream “amnesty” because the current situation involving Haitian citizens in this country without a visa shows tha the whole concept of “legal” and “illegal” people is phony – legal is whoever we choose to say ought to be.

As we speak, the federal government is coordinating what is says will be at least $100 million in aid to Haiti, which was hit with the 7.0 Richter Scale earthquake on Tuesday, causing massive death and destruction on the Caribbean island nation.

But federal officials also are working on the immigration status of Haitians who got into the United States without a visa, or whose papers may once have been legitimate but the individuals chose to stay in this country after their exparation date came and went.

The Homeland Security Department has halted all deportation proceedings to people who would have to be returned to Haiti on the grounds that it would be absurd to send more people back to the earthquake-devastated nation.

THOSE HAITIANS WHO are in this country who have been hiding from immigration officials can now receive ‘temporary protected status,” which usually lasts a little over a year, but can be extended for as long as U.S. officials deem it worthwhile.

There’s nothing new about the individuals who are now going to be able to come out of the woodwork of our society. Nothing has changed about them. But now, they’re going to be regarded as “legal,” which is better because it always is a drawback for our society as a whole when people are forced to live secretly in order to survive.

Haitians who can now live openly in the United States will be able to more easily earn a living and contribute back to society. In short, everybody has the chance to win.

Except for the conservative ideologues who have their own warped view of who should be permitted to live in this country – which ultimately is what the immigration reform debate is about no matter how many people claim they support “legal,” but not “illegal,” immigration.

MAYBE THE SIGHT of Haitians being able to take on a more public existence is part of what it will take to convince the masses who are unsure what to think, but have been subjected to so much xenophobic rhetoric that they wrongly assume there must be some degree of truth to it.

It would be nice to see if the situation of people in this country from Latin American nations could wind up experiencing the same situation.

But should it really take a devastating earthquake to attract the attention of federal officials and get them to do the right thing? People are not illegal by their very existence, no matter how much some ideologues desperately want to believe that as fact.

I often wonder about the people who are most vehemently outspoken on this particular issue. Do they have some sort of person in their family tree who was an immigrant of less-than-high moral character, so they assume all newcomers sink down to their family’s low standards?

THAT MIGHT BE an overly cynical, even absurd, thought on my part. But it is no more ridiculous than the rhetoric that is often spewed by the right these days with regard to immigration reform.

If it turns out that the Haitian predicament can help sway the thinking of at least a few people in this country, then that might be the one small benefit that crops up amongst a sea of suffering that should capture the hearts of all of us.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Wouldn’t it be nice if Haitians wound up showing to the nation how ridiculous (http://www.hispanicbusiness.com/news/2010/1/15/obama_allows_haitians_illegally_in_us.htm) the idea of people being “illegal” truly is?

It appears Canada (http://www.cbc.ca/politics/story/2010/01/15/haiti-canada-immigration.html) is coming to the same conclusion with regards to Haiti citizens.

Only by the standards of Haiti is the Dominican Republic (http://www.gallup.com/poll/26614/island-divide-haiti-vs-dominican-republic.aspx) a thriving nation.

South Texas Latinos shaken down by local cop

In one sense, the system worked. A police officer in South Texas who was singling out Latinos for traffic stops where they would be “shaken down” for money got caught, was prosecuted and now faces the possibility of some time in prison.

But on the other hand, the fact that this could happen in South Texas, the place where Latinos are the majority (in large part because Mexico lies just across the county line), is evidence that such misbehavior can occur just about anyplace.

IF THERE WAS somewhere in the United States where I would think that local officials would be sensitive to the fact that Latinos make up a significant chunk of the population, it would be the southern part of Texas where the majority are Latino and the Anglo minority are people who chose to live in proximity to Latinos.

The idea that one of the people who was supposed to be protecting this public instead saw them as more targets to solicit cash from is a sad commentary on our society.

The “issue” involves an officer with the Texas Department of Public Safety who this week was found guilty of violations of civil rights laws during his trial in U.S. District Court for south Texas.

Prosecutors say that Michael A. Higgins would specifically stop motorists who appeared to him to be Latino, then would refuse to let them run along until he got whatever cash he could from the motorists – most of whom got so intimidated at the sight of a cop that they were eager to give up whatever they had in order to cut the law enforcement involvement short.

IN MOST CASES, Higgins was alleged to have gotten a few hundred dollars per traffic stop. The individual incidents might not sound like much, but they add up into a few extra thousand dollars in cash – which means that this particular officer may have seen being a cop as being a more financially rewarding profession than a woman who works as a waitress and is thankful for the instant cash from her tips.

The problem is that for all the rhetoric police like to throw out about being in the business of public safety and how officers are the elite of our society, seeing this particular cop (who faces sentencing in April and could also wind up getting probation instead of prison time) view Latinos as just the equivalent of human cash machines ought to be seen as an embarrassment.

In fact, some of the Internet commentary that already has started to spring up about this case comes in defense of Higgins. Some people want to claim that the word of “lowlifes” is somehow being considered more trustworthy than that of a police officer.

Of course, the fact that Latino testimony is thought of as so low by these people shows just how out of touch they are with the trends our nation will take in the 21st Century. They’re still stuck in the 19th.

CENTURY, THAT IS.

But like I wrote earlier, this can be considered somewhat of a positive story, because local law enforcement (including the Texas Rangers, which in its history of law enforcement has its own anti-Latino incidents to live down) took the complaints seriously when someone did show the courage to complain about having to give up all his cash to this cop.

For Higgins wound up being arrested due to an undercover sting operation.

The Courthouse News Service reported that the Texas Rangers got a Latino officer to pose as a local resident who drove into Higgins’ area so he could get pulled over.

WHEN THAT OFFICER handed over his cash to Higgins, he did so with marked bills.

Police said they later found two $100 bills that had been marked in Higgins’ possession.

He ultimately was found guilty by a federal jury at the courthouse in Corpus Christi, Texas, of four counts of civil rights violations, the Caller-Times newspaper reported.

U.S. Attorney Tim Johnson issued a statement about the case saying that Higgins was supposed to, “protect and defend motorists, not to profile drivers and steal their money.”

NOW PERHAPS IT is a sign of the superiority of our justice system that prosecutors felt the need to pursue this case. I’m glad they did, because I am aware that there was a time in our society when officials would have ignored the case – or prosecuted the person who complained for “defaming” the police.

All I know is that the next time I hear some Anglo tourist complain about how some “Mexican” cop solicited the dreaded “mordida” on them to avoid a court appearance and legal complications, this story is going to be what pops into my head to get them to pipe down.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Prison time and a $400,000 fine is the potential maximum sentence for a Texas state trooper (http://www.caller.com/news/2010/jan/13/former-dps-trooper-convicted-on-civil-rights/) who allegedly (http://www.courthousenews.com/2010/01/14/23666.htm) liked to lighten Latinos of their cash on hand.

This isn’t a defense of the “mordida,” but to the best of my knowledge, officials who are trying to scam extra (http://businesssob.blogspot.com/2007/03/corruption-bribes-mordidas-tips-doing.html) cash aren’t singling people out on ethnic criteria.

Electoral politics by intimidation

Campaigning against someone for elective office is an old tactic. It’s not at all uncommon for people to go to the polling place on Election Day and cast their vote for at least one race based on who they don’t want to see in office.

But if one New York-area politico were to have his way, it would be borderline criminal to think in such terms.

THAT IS THE situation involving Steve Levy, the Suffolk County, N.Y., executive who is running for governor of New York. Levy has a record interpreted by Latinos as anti-immigrant, and anti-Latino.

Some have said that Levy is a significant part of the cause of conditions in Suffolk County that the Southern Poverty Law Center last year said put Latinos in a hostile environment – regardless of their citizenship status.

To that end, Latino legislators recently held a press conference to say they opposed Levy’s bid for New York governor, and that anyone who supported him would be “personna non grata” with them.

Now to my mindset that has followed campaigns, this sounds fairly mild. Latinos are making it clear they don’t want someone to win election, and they’re stating their reasons why.

BUT LEVY IS interpreting such talk as a threat to anyone who supports him. So he’s trying to file complaints that could wind up having legal sanctions against his critics.

Which means this really is a case of a guyt trying to cover up his own political intimidation by screaming “Imtimidation!!!!” against his opponents. Poor him. Levy’s the victim (at least in his own mind).

Now as it turns out, Levy screwed up by filing his complaint with the Public Integrity Commission in New York, which it appears has no jurisdiction over the political behavior of legislators.

The commission that does have the authority to censure New York legislators is CONTROLLED by New York legislators, which makes it unlikely that they will feel any serious rush to address Levy’s poltiically partisan complaint.

SO ASSEMBLYMEN PETER Rivera and Phil Ramos likely are safe from any serious threat of being penalized for expressing their opposition to Levy. But it shouldn’t have to take partisan politics to squash a politically-inspired complaint like the one filed by Levy.

I have a real problem with the thought of someone thinking that sanctions ought to be entailed everytime someone says something bad about them.

By that same mentality, does that mean that Levy supporters are going to think that I ought to be penalized for writing this commentary that says Rivera and Ramos didn’t do anything improper.

Now Levy wants us to think that people will be so politically intimidated by Rivera and Ramos that their comments are a “threat,” even though in reading the words expressed by those Latino politicos I don’t see where there was any specific retribution suggested by failing to back Levy.

VAGUE COMMENTS JUST don’t strike me as being threatening. If anything, I would have to wonder if Rivera and Ramos have the political influence to do anything negative if a majority of people were to choose Levy for governor.

In short, this could be a case of Levy treating an empty threat as serious solely for the purpose of creating an issue by which he can try to portray himself as a victim.

If it turns out that he can try to make himself appear to be being picked upon by those crazed Latinos, it may be all the better for the kind of people who have no problem with Levy’s record – which includes an attempt to pass a law that would have forced contractors to prove beyond reasonable doubt that all their employees were citizens or with valid visas if they wanted to get county government contracts.

But if that’s the case, then wouldn’t that go a long way toward indicating that those Latino politicos aren’t totally off-base by thinking that we’d be better off with someone other than Levy as governor?

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EDITOR’S NOTE: The complaint itself might not accomplish much, but the fact that it was filed at all (http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypolitics/2010/01/levy-files-complaint-against-l.html) says quite a bit about the thought process behind a suburban New York official who wants to be that state’s governor.

Immigration brawl evidence of growing discrimination against Latinos

Something is going to have to happen in the federal government with regard to the nation’s immigration laws, or else President Barack Obama and Democrats run the risk of being perceived by the growing Latino population as being just as much a part of the problem as the nativist elements of the GOP.

That is a viewpoint I have often expressed, and it was one that was confirmed in my mind when I read some of the results of the Pew Research Center’s latest study on public perception of race relations,.

THAT STUDY CONFIRMED that black people remain pleased with the idea of Obama as president (95 percent supportive) and that it is causing them to be optimistic about the future of race relations even in instances where the “facts” might not back up such a view.

Yet it also shows that the growing Latino population doesn’t share in any such optimism, and that even non-Latinos can see the increase in hostility toward those of us whose ethnic origins lie in a Latin American nation (if not Spain proper).

That is a dangerous mood to have in a growing segment of the population, and it is one that Obama could go a long way toward resolving by taking immigration reform seriously.

For the record, the Washington-based Pew center’s study found that 42 percent of Latinos think Obama is not paying enough attention to us – even though many of the year-ender reports for 2009 focused on Obama’s choice of Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court, Hilda Solis and Ken Salazar for cabinet posts and many other Latino officials for various federal jobs as evidence that he is giving Latinos more attention than any other U.S. president ever did.

NOW SOME MIGHT argue that “42 percent” means that more than half of Latinos think there is not a problem with regard to attention.

But the figure becomes serious when one considers that only 13 percent of black people and 22 percent of white people think Obama does not pay enough attention to their interests.

There obviously is a difference in the discontent level when it comes to Latinos, and it is something that could boil over into hostility in the future if it is not nipped in the bud right now,

The same study, which was based off a month-long telephone survey of more than 2,800 people conducted in late 2009, found that 47 percent of Latinos think more needs to be done to ensure racial/ethnic equality in our country.

THERE ALSO IS the perception that was played up by the Pew Center in their study – that Latinos now get the brunt of hostility in this country. Twenty-three percent of all people said they thought Latinos got “a lot” of discrimination, which was higher than any other possible group – and nearly three times (8 percent) the amount of discrimination that Asian people were perceived to have faced.

And this isn’t going to devolve into some sort of a rant against white people. That study found that while 70 percent of black people said they got along well with Latinos, only 50 percent of Latinos felt they did not receive hostility from black people.

Now how does this turn into a viewpoint on immigration reform?

A large part of the reason why Latinos are taking an interest in this issue is because we realize that much of the hostility directed publicly toward newcomers to this country is actually coming from people who have their ethnic hang-ups about the growing mass of people with origins in Latin American nations,.

THERE ALSO IS the fact that we see that the people who publicly claim they’re only against “illegal” immigration or who say they’re all for the immigrants who do things “the right way” have their own ideas about who should be considered illegal or who should be allowed to do it the right way.

And those ideas usually don’t include us, not even the growing percentage of Latinos born and raised in the United States and more “American” than some of the white people who like to complain the most (it always cracks me up to hear nativist rants from people whose families haven’t even been in the United States as long as mine has – some 90 years and counting).

Seriously, the Pew study found that 48 percent of Latinos born in another country (the immigrants) felt “a lot” of discrimination, while 79 percent of those of us born in the United States feel “a lot.”

Could it be that newcomers from other places expect a certain amount of difficulty in adapting to life in the United States (counter to the belief often spewed by nativists that these “foreigners” are coming to this country to leech off its resources and expect to be given everything)?

OR IT COULD be that those of us born here who hear the rhetoric that gets spewed about this issue as the nonsense that it truly is, and the fact that nearly four of every five of us are willing to call it what it is means we’re at the point where we’re going to speak out about it.

Or in my case, let my fingers do the talking in writing commentary to be published here,.

Our numbers are growing (the Census Bureau likely will wind up concluding that we are now nearly 20 percent of the overall population, and growing to a point where we will be about one-third of the U.S.’s people in a few more decades).

Wouldn’t it make sense to straighten out this immigration mish-mash and try to knock down this growing discontent now while it’s still simmering, rather than let it boil over and somebody gets burned?

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EDITOR’S NOTE: When it comes to the perception of discrimination, one group that is seen to get more of it (http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1459/year-after-obama-election-black-public-opinion) than Latinos is gay people (45 percent of the public thinks gays face “a lot” of discrimination). That, I’m sure, is a comparison that will offend many of the more devout Catholic among us Latinos, although I'm sure many will not appreciate the irony.

What to do with the “race” question

Among the issues on my mind these days is one trying to figure out what “race” I should confess to being a part of when the Census Bureau gets around to sending me the form in a couple of months asking me to be counted as part of this country.

In the last population count, I was counted as “white” because a Census Bureau canvass worker said I “looked white” to her and because the federal government does not consider all Latinos to be a single race.

WHEN I GET that Census form in mid-March, should I go out of my way to state something different? A part of me says “yes,” but then I have to confess that I wouldn’t have a clue what “race” to claim.

Now as far as the last Census and the upcoming count are concerned, nothing has changed about me.

The last time, I answered “yes” to the question about whether the label “Hispanic” (with Latino and Spanish being synonymous) could be applied to me. I also used the boxes associated with the follow-up sub-question to indicate that the “Mexican” ethnic label was the one most applicable to myself.

With three of my four grandparents being born in Mexico (and in the case of my one U.S.-born grandmother, it was her parents who were the immigrants), I certainly find that to be an accurate description of my background.

PERSONALLY, I FIND the specificity of claiming to be Mexican-American to be more accurate than any of the racial categories offered up by the Census Bureau.

But there are those who are goiong to spend the next few months griping about the way the Census Bureau is acknowledging race and ethnicity with regard to the growing Latino population.

Part of the problem is that the Census Bureau is correct when they say that “Hispanic/Latino/Chicano/whatever” is not a race. Among the various ethnicities that comprise Latinos are people of every race.

In fact, those of us who are willing to be honest with ourselves wil have to admit that we’re probably multi-racial, although some racial strains may only be discovered going back several generations.

BUT THERE ARE those who are going to complain, either because they want “Latino” (which is an attempt to group together similar ethnicities) to be a race. Then, there will be those who gripe because the Latino ethnic category doesn’t get specific enough for them.

Specifically, we’re talking about people who can trace themselves directly back to the various tribes indigenous to Mexico or central American countries.

We’re talking about , for example, those people from Mexico who think of the concept of “Mexico” as being a foreign country that conquered their peoples.

The Census Bureau isn’t about to recognize Yaquis or Zapotecs as an ethnic group, but the Associated Press published a report recently that indicates some of those “indios” are trying to figure out a way to be acknowledged.

ONE ATTORNEY TOLD the wire service that those people should mark “yes” to “American Indian or Alaska native,” then use the “fill in the blank” provision to indicate the specific tribe they claim.

Personally, I find that inaccurate, since the intent of that racial category is to acknowledge people whose ancestors didn’t come from any other country but are native to what is now considered the United States.

Not only that, but it leads to tacky jokes about Latino Eskimoes (when we all know that Latinos have too much sense to live in any place that cold, or that close to Sarah Palin).

But I can’t criticize those people too much (in 2000, 8 percent of Latinos said they were American Indian), because at least they have a specific plan. I’m trying to figure out how I fit into the federal government’s racial classifications – even though as a person, I think I fit in completely as a Mexican-American.

SO WHAT SHOULD I do with the next Census form?

Should I try to rectify the situation by giving myself some other racial classification? For that matter, which one should I pick, since I really don’t think of myself as American Indian or Asian? Maybe that Census worker was on to something, or maybe her judgment was off after being on her feet all day.

So while I realize that this commentary is likely to be forgotten within minutes, this is one piece I wish could survive for several decades.

For when that day comes some eight decades for now that this year’s Census Bureau data becomes public record, something is going to have to explain how my “race” may have changed even though I as a person did not.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: I’d think more Latinos, if they had to pick an oddball racial category, would prefer to (http://www.etaiwannews.com/etn/news_content.php?id=1152399&lang=eng_news&cate_img=317.jpg&cate_rss=news_Features) identify themselves as Polynesian (Hawaii, rather than Alaska, much nicer weather).

I’m trying to figure out how to rectify the last racial classification I received from the (http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Security-Industry/2003/08/20/Commentary-Hispanic-race-categories-odd/UPI-57941061387970/) Census Bureau.

EXTRA: Lopez goes after Leno through Conan

Stand-up comedian-turned-talk show host George Lopez couldn’t help but gloat a bit at the saga taking place at NBC, where legendary late-night host Jay Leno has fizzled out into a mediocre prime time entertainer who is now being demoted back to his old post.

Yet it’s not like Lopez, who likes to brag about being the only talk show on the air with a Latino sensibility (which at times can be as lame as Lopez asking singer Ke$ha whether Latino guys are asking her whether she want to try their “chorizo”), went after the legendary (at least in his own mind) Leno.

THOSE OF US who watched the opening monologue of Lopez Tonight Monday night got to hear an all-out attack on Conan O’Brien, the one-time writer for The Simpsons (among other gigs) who is losing his time slot in order to accommodate Leno’s ego.

Usually, the guy with the poor ratings is the one who gets dumped on. Not with Leno. But I couldn’t help but sense that Leno might have been too big for Lopez to feel comfortable attacking.

So instead, we got to hear repeated gags about how Lopez was the guy who was keeping his time slot while O’Brien was getting bumped around and may wind up having to shift to the Fox network (“or maybe he’s moving in with Jamie Foxx,” Lopez quipped).

“For a Mexican talk show host to have the most job security is strange,” Lopez told the audience of his show, which is now officially entering its seventh week of original programming.

SO LOPEZ’ ATTEMPT at a Latino-influenced talk show (some nights are better than others) continues, even with his Creepy Little White Girl sketches (where we learned that “Up in the Air 2” is not a George Clooney film, but a movie about Conan O’Brien’s future) that can border on tacky.

But none of those gags are as tacky as the few whisps of chin hair Lopez sported that he claimed was a goatee.

Lose the goatee, George. It makes you look like a 13-year-old who takes “pride” in having to shave once a month.

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EDITOR'S NOTE: I don't know how long he will maintain such ratings, but George Lopez didn't completely embarrass himself, although nearly three-fifths of his viewers during December were (http://tvbythenumbers.com/2009/12/22/ratings-notes-for-tnt-adult-swim-trutv-and-tbs-lopez-tonight/36991) non-Anglo television viewers.

Language issue can cause police distrust

Sometimes, it is an issue of improper activity. But other times, it comes down to a need to learn to communicate.

I’m referring to the relationships that can exist between neighborhoods with heavy Latino populations and the Police Departments that are supposed to patrol them.

A PAIR OF stories turned up in newspapers Sunday in Charlotte and Houston that would indicate problems occurring from cops who can’t behave properly, or professionally, amongst Latinos.

The situation in Charlotte is more serious. It seems a police officer in that North Carolina city faces criminal charges for incidents involving five women who were involved in traffic stops.

Those women say the officer gropped them in sexually suggestive ways as part of his behavior during a traffic stop. In all the cases, the women initially did not report the officer because they were unsure of their language skills and whether they would result in police downplaying, or ignoring outright, their complaints.

But when a Spanish-language newspaper in Charlotte picked up on the incidents, local officials felt compelled to respond.

CHARLOTTE POLICE CHIEF Rodney Monroe told the Observer newspaper that he wants everybody in the city to feel like they can turn to the police when there’s a problem, and Monroe has gone so far as to spend a part of his time Friday appearing on the local Spanish-language radio stations in hopes of calming what could be ugly tensions.

For what it’s worth, the answer is “no.” Monroe does not speak any Spanish. He had to rely on a translator when he appeared on the radio and took telephone calls from local Latinos who are upset about the situation.

Part of what caught my attention was learning that in Charlotte, the Police Department pays a 5 percent premium to police officers who can speak Spanish – which is appropriate considering that Mecklenberg County, N.C., experienced a 571 percent increase in the number of Latinos between 1990 and 2000, and likely will show another significant boost in its Latino population when the Census Bureau conducts its population count this spring.

How well Charlotte police are taking to the chance to earn some extra money by having additional language skills is questionable. Some people are creatures of habit.

THAT SEEMS TO be the situation in Houston, where the Chronicle newspaper reported about how only 20 percent of their Police Department’s officers can speak foreign languages, mostly Spanish – in a city that is 42 percent Latino.

Admittedly, the police in Houston have some officers whose bilingual skills are in other languages (mostly Asian). But the point of the Chronicle’s report was that the police are not keeping up with the local breakdown – and the end result often is that English-only speaking officers are sent into situations wehre they cannot be understood by the locals.

It almost sounds like the premise of a bad Saturday Night Live sketch that there are times when Houston Police have to rely on local children who can speak both languages in order to communicate with the people of an ethnic neighborhood.

According to the Chronicle, however, it is a part of reality in that Texas city.

IN ALL HONESTY, that is a risky situation to put any police officer into. He is just as clueless and confused as the people of the neighborhood. That confusion could cause the officer to act irrationally to what he might wrongly perceive as a threat, which then winds up causing harm to the people of Houston.

Oddly enough, the Chronicle took down their story from their website about an hour after it was first published. The only thing remaining on the Internet is one reader comment, coming naturally from someone who thinks the problem is the people who can’t speak English with the police.

There is too much of that mentality pervading our society – not just in Houston. I will be the first to admit my own language skills are limited. So I’m not going to mock anyone who has trouble picking up on a second language later in life.

The only one who deserves to be mocked is the one who thinks that his/her ignorance of other languages is somehow a skill for which he/she ought to be rewarded.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Prosecutors in Charlotte, N.C. are prosecuting a now-former police officer whom several women (http://www.charlotteobserver.com/wcnc/story/1170308.html) claimed engaged in inappropriate behavior (http://www.wbtv.com/global/story.asp?s=11792681) during traffic stops.

Here is what was left of the Houston Chronicle’s report about local police being in need of more (http://www.chron.com/disp/discuss.mpl/metropolitan/6808383.html) bilingual police officers.

Are we going to start studying Latino contributions to our history?

I find it ironic that Texas education officials will meet next week in a building named for William B. Travis (the commander of the garrison that got slaughtered at the Alamo) to determine whether or not the current history curriculum taught to Texas schoolchildren shortchanges the contributions of Latinos.

For it is the image of the Alamo and brave Texian patriots who got slaughtered by Mexican tyrants that has so pervaded the mentality of the way in which Texas people learn of their history.

WOULDN’T IT BE perfect if the first steps toward rectifying that problem and providing people with a more accurate historical account were to take place at the Travis Building (the Austin-based home of the Texas Board of Education)?

It’s not like Texas is the only place where such fights are taking place. In Illinois, one of the new laws that took effect last week was a requirement that the state’s history curriculum be altered to acknowledge Latino contributions to the United States, and the fact that during the Great Depression this country engaged in some inappropriate behavior that included the deportation to Mexico of people who were native-born U.S. citizens.

But it is in states such as Texas and California where the Latino history contributions have to be most greatly acknowledged. After all, those states were once a part of Mexico (along with the vast unincorporated territory that Mexicans called Arizona, but which we now think of as the states of Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada and Colorado).

It is largely because those states, Texas especially, have taught their history as though there was none until the Anglo settlers came from out east that other places think they ought to follow the lead when teaching about the contributions to our society from the fastest-growing segment of our population.

EARLIER THIS WEEK, the League of United Latin American Citizens told reporter-types that they were considering the Wednesday hearing in Austin to be an important part of the process.

State officials are expected to take a preliminary vote some time next week on whether or not changes are needed, with any specific changes to what is taught likely to be approved some time in March.

LULAC officials have their list of contributions they’d like to have added, such as a Spaniard naval officer who assisted in the British colonies’ desire for independence, and the number of Tejanos who fought during the U.S. Civil War an d the Second World War.

But what is more important than adding a couple of names and numbers that can be associated with traditional Spanish names is acknowledging the fact that not everybody of signficance in the past was of an Anglo racial background.

PERSONALLY, I CAN remember going through history courses where the only “Spanish” name included was that of Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana – the bungling general who managed to get captured by Texians just weeks after leading the slaughter at the Alamo.

It will be curious to see what becomes of the efforts in Texas, since there are those who will toss out the cheap rhetoric that there isn’t enough time during the course of an academic year to teach everything.

They will claim a history course is about selection of the most important elements, and that Latino contributions just aren’t important enough. I’m sure that is the way the nativist elements of our society want to perceive the issue – we just don’t matter.

Unfortunately for them, they’d be wrong. Our growing numbers are going to force a number of changes in our society in coming decades, and that will include a realization that part of the reason that the current populace is having trouble accepting the growing Latino population as significant is that they were taught a load of caca when they were in school.

I STUDIED HISTORY in college, and found I had to unlearn much of the bunk that I had been taught in elementary and high schools (which wasn’t wrong as much as it was grossly oversimplified).

But the Lone Star State is going to be a potential leader in this issue just because the Latino population is so overwhelming and has been in place for so much longer than the Anglos who’d like to think they “discovered” Texas.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Texas education officials are going to be asked on Wednesday to consider (http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6804513.html) how to alter history courses so as to (http://www.victoriaadvocate.com/news/2010/jan/08/jc_lulac_mexicans_010910_80839/?features&education) provide adequate acknowledgement of the people who were native prior to all those Tennesseeans and Kentuckians arriving in the early 19th Century.

Illinois law now says that history courses taught in Abraham Lincoln’s home state must acknowledge the fact that Latinos (http://chicagopressrelease.com/press-releases/new-year-means-new-laws-in-illinois-as-of-jan-1-2010) existed in our past and were not always treated with the greatest of respect. That fact has many people outraged (check out the reader comments).