It’s just Republican rhetoric

A Latino-oriented coalition (although I suspect they will be greatly offended to be referred to as “Latinos”) is using New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson’s final days in office to denounce him as being worthless in advancing Latino interests.



RICHARDSON: What was he worth to Latinos? Photographs provided by New Mexico governor's office.



The Hispano Roundtable of New Mexico is a coalition of some 50 groups. None of them has much influence on their own. But by sticking together, they hope to build up some political pull.

THERE’S NOTHING WRONG with coalition building. It is a basic tool toward gaining political influence.

Yet this coalition managed to pass a resolution that inspired the Associated Press to write a short story that is popping up in newspapers and websites all over the country.

Many are playing it similar to the Las Cruces Sun-News, which headlined the story, “NM Hispanic group: Richardson doesn’t speak for us.”

Their resolution calls Richardson, the California-born but raised as a child in Mexico City official who on Saturday ends his eight years as governor of New Mexico, “ruthless, dishonest, dishonorable, contemptuous and abusive” toward Latinos.

SPECIFICALLY, THEY BLAST him for never creating a separate state agency for Hispano Affairs, which they claim was a specific promise of his when he got elected governor following his time in Washington as a part of the Bill Clinton administration.

They also say he should never express any opinion on issues relating to Latinos, “today, and in perpetuity.”

While I don’t know much about this particular coalition (other than that the respected League of United Latin American Citizens chapters in New Mexico have worked with them on projects in the past), it’s that last part that makes me think there’s a touch of absurdity to this particular resolution.

It also makes me think that somebody with the Associated Press should have put just a tad more thought into whether or not this action was worth a story. I don’t care if it is the week between Christmas and New Year’s. Some happenings are too cheap to take seriously, no matter when they occur.

MY REACTION IS that this coalition is favoring the interests of that segment of the Latino population that would prefer to think of themselves as Republican. That “Hispano” part of their name (not even Hispanic) makes me think that these are the types of people who like to associate themselves specifically with the Spanish conquistadores, and not the lowly Indios – even though anyone who’s honest admits that modern-day Latinos are a mix.

So the idea that GOP partisans are saying something hostile toward a Democratic official with a national reputation who may well become a part of the Obama administration in coming years strikes me as, “So what!”

I expect certain people to speak out against others based on party labels. What next? You’re going to tell me that Obama backers don’t think much of that crazy witch from Delaware who seems to have gotten caught up in a mess related to her campaign funds.

Could 'Ponch' play Richardson in a film someday?

Of course they’re getting a giggle, particularly at the way in which she is getting all worked up by labeling it a “thug politic tactic.”

IF IT SEEMS like I think this group’s rhetoric is about as credible as Christine O’Donnell’s these days, you’d be interpreting me correctly.

It comes off as vague allegations that aren’t really allegations, being made by people who wouldn’t mind if they could make something stick against Richardson to prevent him from having any kind of future in public life.

It is much like the investigation that wound up turning up nothing, other than that it scared off political types when Richardson was being considered for Secretary of Commerce.

This just has too little specificity to stick.

  -30-

Ideologues ought to look more closely at Latino GOPers

I’m not a regular reader of the City Weekly newspaper. But the Salt Lake City-based publication came up with a piece of reporting that ought to be read by anybody who is gloating these days because of the failure of the DREAM Act to advance in the Senate.

The publication came up with a profile of the new head of the Utah chapter of Somos Republicanos – the group that is trying to bolster the Latino presence in the Republican Party.

WE’RE TALKING ABOUT that one-third of the Latino population that is politically active and willing to align itself with the party that openly demonized our ranks when looking to take pot shots at the DREAM – whose real goal was to allow these youthful newcomers to the country a chance to advance themselves so as to benefit our society.

Antonella Packard is the new head. And as is so appropriate for Utah, she’s a Mormon (she converted after coming to this country from Colombia). She considers herself fully in line with the GOP agenda, except when it comes to all the immigration talk.

It’s not so much that she’s sympathetic to any newcomers. It’s that she hates the way her so-called political allies are willing to use cheap-shots, and she is indulging in what could be the ultimate weapon – voter registration.

She is trying to get Utah’s Latino population (which is growing, no matter how much anyone wants to believe that Latinos don’t live in such places) registered to vote. While she wants them to vote for Republicans, she’s not going to have them voting knee-jerk for the politicos who are more than willing to appease the nativist element of our society (the ones who want the Republican Party to “protect” them from Latino growth).

SHE EVEN TALKS in religious terms when it comes to talking about Republican officials who provided the overwhelming majority of the votes earlier this month against the DREAM.

“They actually want to punish the children for the sins of the father,” Packard told the publication, while also saying that Republican officials seem to have forgotten parts of scripture that say, “Every man may be accountable for his own sins in the Day of Judgment.”

It sounds to me like the share of Latinos who do wind up siding with the Republican Party (some will have their own hang-ups) are going to create a force that could wind up pressuring the GOP to moderate its own views. Which is pleasing to me in that the element that thinks it accomplished significant victory in the most recent election cycle probably did nothing more than shoot themselves down for the long-term.

Despite such efforts by Republicans to include some Latinos in their ranks, I am inclined to think that the “ball” is really in the court of the Democratic Party these days. They do have the bulk of the Latino voter bloc, which is going to grow as the Latino population becomes older and even less immigrant-oriented than it is now.

MAKING AN EFFORT to push for serious action now could be what persuades those now-non-voters to ultimately align themselves with the Democrats. If there isn’t such action, then it will be people like Packard who wind up getting them for the GOP.

Which would go a long way toward reducing the number of nitwits who insist on using the “A” word every time immigration comes up.

  -30-

We’re not on television. Is that a blessing?

A pair of groups concerned about the lack of Latinos on television (the pop-culture medium that most influences the way we perceive our society) are giving out their own grades to the networks.

The grades stink. They’re about as good as those of a 300-pound high school linebacker.

SURE ENOUGH, IT is true that there aren’t very many Latino characters on the television programs that people watch. In fact, there are too many instances when it seems like a Latino actor who finds work winds up having to downplay his ethnicity.

The actor claims it helps enhance his/her ability to find work, which is true enough. But it still reeks when a Latino actor winds up getting cast in roles that are written to be “Italian” or “Greek” or some other not-quite-white ethnicity that people don’t have too much trouble accepting.

Yet I must admit to not being as offended as the National Latino Media Council or the National Hispanic Media Coalition are these days.

Perhaps it is because I look at the overall quality of the programming that appears on television. A part of me is actually pleased that none of these third-rate programs has a strong Latino-oriented flavor to it.

BECAUSE YOU JUST know there are people in our society who would blame the low quality on the Latino presence.

That particularly goes to the new genre known as “reality” programming, which always struck me as being incredibly unrealistic. These shows play off the rank stereotypes that exist – more to make us try to feel better about ourselves than anything else.

After all, we’re not “loser” enough to ever go on one of those shows. Are we?

These coalitions actually think it is a bad thing that there aren’t any Latinos on these “reality” programs. I say they’re nuts.

JUST THINK OF how tacky a Latino-themed “reality” show would be. It would wind up feeding into every tacky theme that isolated white people have about the growing Latino population.

It might very well make the “Amos and Andy” programs of old seem like serious, sociological studies of the African-American population (Or should I refer to it as the “Negro” population, to keep in touch with the times?) that existed back in the 1950s?

I’d rather not have my ethnic brethren associated with it.

Not that I’m saying there isn’t a place for Latinos on television. If anything, the programs we watch ought to be reflective of the time period in which they were made (which is why I find so much of the television programming of the 1980s to be so unwatchable today).

BUT THE REALITY of today is that there is a growing Latino population. It is becoming a significant part of our society, and in some places a dominant one.

So there is a place for that to be reflected in the programming that appears on television.

I’m just hoping that some network nitwits don’t look at the “F” grades that the council and the coalition are giving out these days concerning the lack of Latinos working in television or appearing in its programs, and don’t decide to appease it by putting some schlock on the air.

That kind of trivial, knee-jerk reaction is what I would expect from television executives, and it likely would produce more third-rate embarrassment from which we would have to hide.

  -30-

Is the Bill Richardson comeback heading our way?

RICHARDSON: What next for 'Guillermo'?

To listen to the rumor-mill these days, soon-to-be former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson is headed back to Washington.

Some people seem to think that President Barack Obama’s gesture to the Latino voter block when he runs for re-election in 2012 will be to dump Vice President Joe Biden and replace him with the Mexican/Irish-American official who actually lived during his childhood in Mexico City (albeit among the expatriate community in the capital city).

OTHERS ARE PEDDLING the notion that Hillary R. Clinton is on her way out as Secretary of State, which would mean Richardson would get the political post that many people thought he was going to get two years ago.

I’m not sure what fate is in store for Richardson. Although I can’t help but think that his involvement in negotiating a key agreement with North Korea has much to do with reminding us of the existence of this official who on paper was the best qualified candidate who ran for president in 2008.

Unfortunately for him, campaigns are rarely won on paper, and Richardson’s political persona had all the fiery temperament of mayonnaise.

So he didn’t get elected president. Nor did he get a choice cabinet post because of the allegations that arose about improper business dealings by the New Mexico governor’s office.

BUT THAT INVESTIGATION wound up finding nothing improper done by Richardson. So when one considers that he’s about to leave the New Mexico governor’s post (term limits, he didn’t lose a re-election bid), we have to wonder if the timing is right for the Richardson comeback.

I doubt that Richardson wants to remain in Santa Fe and be an “elder statesman” of New Mexico state politics.

This is, after all, a former congressman, secretary of Energy and a U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. The man has skills that could be put to use in an Obama administration, and could be part of what props him up, even though we’d have to deal with some wags who would want to make an issue over whether or not he was ever a professional baseball prospect for the old Kansas City Athletics.

He wasn’t.

BUT THAT MIGHT be the biggest blotch on his record (unless you’re so intensely partisan that the “D” associated with his name is blotch enough).

So where is Richardson headed?

I think the whole “vice president” tale is too far-fetched, even though there was a time when I thought Obama would have been sensible to make Richardson his running mate during the 2008 election cycle.

I just happen to think that the emphasis would be less on Richardson coming on board, and more on Biden being given the boot.  That kind of “stink” would be more trouble than any benefits from having Latino Richardson on the ballot would be worth.

I’M ALSO NOT sure I believe the rumor-mill that has Hillary stepping down from her very high-profile post. Not that I would expect her to remain for all eight years of an Obama administration (just trying to infuriate the conservative ideologues who are reading this).

But I don’t believe the people who think she would try to run for president in ’12. Nor do I think she really wants to spend that much more time with esposo Bill.

Although if she were looking to move up, now would be the time to consider it. The Gallup Organization came out with a new poll showing Clinton to be the Most Admired woman of 2010. Then again, the poll has Obama as the Most Admired male.

So all that such a move by Hillary would do would be to reopen the ’08 Democratic primary wounds among people who currently are united by their detestation of the concept of Sarah Palin as any kind of public official.

THE BOTTOM LINE? I don’t know what is going to happen to Richardson once he is no longer a governor as of Saturday. Only that I won’t be surprised to see him continue to pop up again in public.

Some people just have too much to offer to be kept down and out in anonymity.

  -30-

Fighting Irish? Or Hurricanes, down along the border

The current sponsor ...

There are so many college football bowl games played these days that it is hard for any outside of the Rose Bowl to truly distinguish themselves.

Which is why I have been amused by the Sun Bowl’s attempt to give itself a Mexican flair. This particular bowl game will take place Friday in El Paso, Texas, and will give Notre Dame football fans a chance to pretend that their team is still the mighty Fighting Irish of old when they take on the University of Miami Hurricanes.

THE TWO TEAMS arrived in the town along the U.S./Mexico border on Sunday, amidst mariachi bands, Tex/Mex food, and several Latina beauty queens.

Not that any of these fine, upstanding student/athletes (yes, I realize the “gag” factor at work in that statement) are going to get to see the real thing. Reports made it clear that Notre Dame officials specifically took away passports from their players who had them, so as to discourage them from crossing the border into Mexico for a little foreign fun.

Not so much because of its “sinful” nature, but because the across-the-border municipality is Ciudad Juarez, which has been the base of much of the narcotics-related violence that some nativists like to exaggerate into occurring all across Mexico.

... and a few ...



Nonetheless, the student bodies of Notre Dame and Miami who made the trip to El Paso (while probably wishing they could play in Pasadena, Calif., instead) will get to check out the border region, before having their teams check out the football facilities used by the University of Texas at El Paso.

THERE IS JUST one aspect of this affair that tampers with the image of a Latino bowl game as far as the Sun Bowl is concerned. The game – which throughout the years has had John Hancock, Wells Fargo and Vitalis among its corporate sponsors – now officially is the Hyundai Sun Bowl.

Hyundai? I know there are studies showing that Latinos are less likely  than other groups to purchase a U.S.-manufactured automobile, and in fact seem to enjoy the Japanese auto brands.

But even we Latinos prefer a Honda or a Toyota. Do we really have to settle for a bowl game sponsored by a South Korean automobile knockoff?

It almost makes me wish that the Aztec Bowl could somehow catch on in popularity. And yes, you would not be alone if your reaction to hearing the name of the bowl game played most years between an NCAA Division III all-star team against a Mexican college all-star football team is to scratch your head and say “¿Què?”

SO FOR THIS this week, we’re going to get the Latino color to the surroundings meant to puff up attention for this particular bowl game, trying to make us believe that the matchup between two teams that finished their regular seasons with identical 7-5 won/loss records is somehow a major gridiron matchup.



... from the past.



If I have to venture a guess as to how this particular bowl game will turn out, I’ll have to say it will be Miami (who probably wish they could play in the Orange Bowl instead of Stanford or Virginia Tech).

It’s not that I think a team from Miami is all that superior. It’s mainly that my Midwestern U.S. location puts me in enough contact with Notre Dame football that I have that little faith in the Fighting Irish to win the big game. I also realize the fact that Notre Dame is playing in the game is evidence enough that this is a lesser sporting event.

Go Irish. Try not to embarrass yourself too badly on Friday.

  -30-

Don’t you have anything better to do?

If you are reading this commentary, or anything else, on the Internet on Saturday, all I have to say is that you need to get a life.

In accordance with this being one of the most sacred holidays we celebrate in our society, I’m giving it a rest for one day. No fresh commentary based on the news as viewed by the growing Latino population.

SEEING THAT NAVIDAD this year comes on a Saturday, it will stretch into a longer weekend. No fresh news until Monday morning.

So until then, get away from your computer (or whatever device you use to read this weblog). Turn the thing off altogether. Go out into the real world and find something to do, or someone to interact with.

You will be much better off as a person, since I doubt there will be anything on the Internet today that will make that much of a difference in your life.

So have a ¡Feliz Navidad! (and I’m sorry for reminding you about that Jose Feliciano tune that gets overplayed so often that it has become annoying). To get that tune out of your head, check out Celia Cruz and “Jingle Bells” (my personal favorite) or Manic Hispanic and “Santa Got Run Over By My Chevy” (a recommendation of my brother, Christopher).

  -30-

Times change. Why don’t the partisans?

Sometimes, I wonder if the conservative ideologues who comprise a dominant segment of the Republican Party these days think all Latinos are like this particular 73-year-old Latina (who probably would object to use of the word “Latina” to describe herself).

Fox News Channel’s new Latino-oriented website included a commentary written by a woman whose grandmother is more than willing to buy into much of the ridiculous rhetoric that these ideologues like to tout.

SPECIFICALLY, SHE’S PUSHING the conspiracy about a “Muslim Christmas” stamp (which is about as much of a contradiction of terms as a Jewish Nazi) and how people should show their patriotism by refusing to use this particular stamp.

Now I’m not about to denounce anybody’s abuelita, particularly since I remember my own maternal grandparents (while loving people, in their own way) weren’t exactly the most tolerant when it came to racial matters.

I can remember my own grandfather having his rants about darker-complected Latinos, implying they weren’t really us, but were somehow merely posing as us.

Those are the thoughts of an older generation (my grandparents have been gone for nearly three decades), and there are times when I hear those poll results that indicate about one-third of Latinos identify as Republican that I figure they’re talking about the older generation – the one that is gradually dying off and will shrink with the passage of time.

OBAMA: Not making excuses



HECK, EVEN MIAMI’S Cubano exile community isn’t quite as hard-line conservative as it used to be, because it has been watered down with the effects of age. The youthful members of this community are more likely to see Fidel Castro for what he is – a doddering old fool, rather than some serious threat to our national security.

This is why I am all the more convinced that the people who think they can take a hard-line approach to appealing to the people who want to view Latinos as “the problem” are shooting themselves in their collective feet.

They’re creating enemies, particularly since the few Latinos who would be inclined to agree with their view of the world aren’t exactly on the uptick among the overall population.

It is why I was sort of pleased when, earlier this week, President Barack Obama said he considered the failure of the DREAM Act to be his “biggest disappointment” of 2010 and that he will continue to push for the measure.

I DON’T EXPECT him to succeed in 2011 or 2012. In fact, I fully expect the soon-to-be Republican majority of the House of Representatives, under the guise of “national security,” to come up with some sort of immigration-related bill that is about as hostile toward newcomer and ethnic interests as one can get.

It will stir up their supporters, and those politicos will try to claim the failure of the still-Democrat-controlled Senate and Obama himself to get behind their version of reform is a sign that we’re supposedly “un-American.”

People of sense will realize that such rhetoric is nonsense. It will backfire. And in the long-run, it will cost them more than what little gains they may have made in this year’s aberrant electoral cycle.

So in some ways, I’d have to argue that we ought to stay the course. Because the people who are most hostile toward our presence are on the decline, even though they seem to think that by increasing the volume of their shouting they somehow increase their overall numbers and influence.

SO MY HOLIDAY gift to my fellow Latinos with an interest in increased political empowerment is a few words of encouragement, knowing full well that the nativists who stumble onto this commentary will be so outraged that they will blow a gasket in response.

Just keep in mind that for every political nitwit who insisted on using the word “Amnesty” to describe anything related to immigration reform, we’re going to someday see all too clearly that the real “A” word referred to those individuals and what they truly are – as in culos.

  -30-

Debatin' da (Census) Bureau statistics – who wins?

It’s becoming an issue on the Internet – who gets to take credit for the significant percentage population increase experienced in southern and southwestern states.

The Census Bureau released its initial information from the population count done earlier this year, and it indicated that the bulk of states that will gain political representation in Congress are places where the Republican Party has established organizations in place to take advantage of the growth.

SO DOES THIS mean people are moving to places where the GOP is predominant? Could it be that this is the trend of the 21^st Century?

The conservative ideologues have been trying to flood our computer screens with that kind of logic – even though I am far from the only person to notice a common trend to many of the states that experienced gains.

Texas (20.6 percent more people, four more representatives). Arizona (24.6 percent more people, one more Congressman). Nevada (35.1 percent more, the largest percentage boost in the nation, but one more Congressman). New Mexico (13.2 percent more people). Florida (17.2 percent more people, two more Congressmen).

What I see are a lot of states that were once Spanish colonies. Some were even once part of Mexico. They all have significant Latino populations to this day, and those populations are growing.

COULD IT BE that the Latino population growth is what these states owe their increased political representation to – the same people whom the conservative ideologues like to demonize as being “illegal” by their very existence – even though in those particular states we’re talking about some individuals whose families have been “here” since before the Anglo explorers?

I almost wonder if they’re the 21^st Century equivalent of those Southern officials from the early years of the country – who counted African slaves for the population but didn’t give those individuals any of the rights of other residents.

I can say definitively that the Latino population of this nation isn’t about to accept being considered three-fifths of a person, no matter how much the rhetoric of the ideologues indicates that is the direction they’d like to move.

Which is sad, because I’m realistic enough to know the fact that the political establishments in those states will be able to reap certain benefits from this increased Latino population, and they probably will handle their once-a-decade redistricting process to create new political boundaries that try to hold in check for the 2010s all of this Latino growth.

SO FOR THE short-term, the ideologues will win. We’re probably going to see some hard-core politicking in the 2012 elections that extends beyond the racial gamesmanship that will be played in an effort to dump Barack Obama from the presidency.

In fact, I’m sure we’ll get more people like Sharron Angle – who tried to get herself elected in Nevada by portraying Latinos as criminals in her campaign commercials.

That is the problem for the Republican Party these days. All of their strategy is for the short-term, and it goes counter to the long-term trends of this nation. So unless we get a radical change in their approach to our society and the role that the growing Latino population will play in it, their gains will be for naught.

Now I know some people are screaming at their computer screens that none of this population growth matters. Because more Latinos means people who aren’t supposed to be in the United States, which means they can’t vote in elections.

THERE IS A nonsense level to that line of logic (the bulk of us are born in this country). If anything, when the ideologues start spouting this rhetoric, they show us how ignorant their thought process truly is.

So the reality I see from these limited Census stats (early next year, we’ll get the detailed account of where exactly people who answered “yes” to whether they were Hispanic/Latino actually live) is that change will come.

The growth of a significant Latino segment in our society is either going to force the establishment to change (make those GOP types more moderate on certain issues), or else their insistence on playing to the nativist segment of our society is going to drive them out of significance.

Either result is fine by me. A part of me thinks we’d be best off if Latinos were significant parts of all the major political parties. But if one absolutely insists on being stubborn, then they can shrivel up into irrelevance, for all I care.

  -30-

Obama going to have to try harder to keep support

In my wild-eyed imagination, President Barack Obama came out of his meeting Tuesday with Latino members of Congress with a few lumps to his head – the result of a few coscorrones he likely received during their private talk.



OBAMA: A painful meeting?



Yes, Obama met with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus to talk about immigration reform, more specifically the DREAM Act. My real guess is that the rhetoric became rather heated, and he had some serious explaining to do about the issue.

OF COURSE, TO be completely honest, what they really talked about is why, during these past few days when Congress took several actions that are being perceived as major political victories for Obama, was the one issue of great concern to the growing Latino population the one that didn’t pass.

It gives the perception to some Latinos, particularly the ones who don’t follow all the nuances of political maneuvering, that we were the one group of supporters whom he didn’t care about.

To some of us, hearing all the rhetoric of recent days of Obama being a great progressive leader who advanced the cause of gay people in particular makes us want to blow a great big raspberry in response.

My guess (that’s all I have, since the meeting was a private one in the Oval Office) is that Obama had to engage in some quick-thinking rhetoric to try to keep his political allies from turning on him big-time.

NOT THAT OBAMA can promise to try again during the upcoming year. Because we will soon get a leadership in the House of Representatives that will be openly hostile toward anything related to immigration (there are those among the newly-important who think immigration “reform” consists of increased deportation).

We know better that this issue isn’t likely to go anywhere for the next couple of years, and that if we’re going to trust an Obama administration to do anything of significance when it comes to the issue of immigration reform, it is going to have to come during a second term as president.

I know that I personally could see voting for another term, although I also realize that some Latinos (particularly those aforementioned ones who don’t follow all the nuances of political maneuvering) are thinking in a knee-jerk, reactionary way toward dumping him.

Not that we’re looking toward the Republican Party in any way. We’re not stupid enough to reward our opposition (who provided the bulk of the negative votes for DREAM, along with all of the hostile rhetoric?) in any way. We’re looking for a way to tweak into action the guy we think isn’t doing enough on our behalf.

THAT IS WHAT such a meeting was about. Not so much strategy planning (because anything planned in the days before we all try to have a ¡Feliz Navidad! would get forgotten in the haze of too much egg-nog). More a sense of letting the president know that he has to do much better in 2011 than he did in 2012, unless he wants Latino apathy to be the reason that our nation gets stuck with Bristol Palin’s behavior being legitimized by her mother’s upcoming presidential administration.

About the only Latino benefit to that is I can’t think of a teenage Latina who doesn’t come off looking good and respectable by comparison.

But back to Obama, who had to answer to Latino elected officials on Tuesday – the ones who thought that his statement of the weekend calling the DREAM Act’s failure “a disappointment” just wasn’t tough enough.

Admittedly, that statement (in which Obama says that his administration will  continue to tout the DREAM and its possibility of eventual citizenship for those youthful non-citizens who show themselves to be capable of success in this country, either through continued education or military service) sounds nice. But it is like much of Obama’s rhetoric on the issue – he knows the right thing to do, but then lets himself get smacked about by the GOP bullies on this issue who seem determined to keep Latinos in the role of the oppressed.

“MOVING FORWARD, MY administration will continue to do everything we can to fix our nation’s broken immigration system,” Obama said during the weekend.

My expectation is that what was demanded of Obama was something specific in terms of what he meant by “everything.”

And if by chance our Latino elected leaders didn’t pressure the president to answer that question, then perhaps they’re the ones who deserve a coscorron or two from their constituents.

  -30-

It’s going to get ugly in Compton

We’re in for a political fight that is going to put the African-American political establishment of Compton, Calif., in the spotlight.

For it seems that they’re now technically the oppressor who are denying the civil rights of the majority population – which is no longer themselves.

AT LEAST THAT is what is indicated in the lawsuit filed earlier this month against the city government. Those lawsuits filed by Latino activists claim that the current government structure of council members elected at-large from around the city has the effect of  keeping Latinos off the council.

As recently as the 2000 Census, Compton had a 40 percent African-American population. But estimates since then indicate that next year’s Census count will show a population total of nearly two-thirds Latino.

So the activists, some of whom have repeatedly run for political office and lost, are now seeking a court-ordered change in government structure.

They want the city split up into specific wards, with each picking an alderman. Picking people at-large allows established political organizations to have undue influence, they’d argue.

OF COURSE, WHAT makes this ironic is that it is the same argument that has been used by black activists in other communities around the United States to bolster African-American political empowerment.

Change “black” to “Latino” and “white” to “black” and there is very little new about this particular case. It merely is one where the population of Compton, a community that some people think of as being part of inner-city Los Angeles proper, has changed – and the political structure isn’t moving fast enough to reflect that change.

There may well be a change in the structure of local government. That might not even be a bad thing, since I have always thought that too many small governments were structured in ways to allow an individual or two sole control over everything that is happening.

Change could be good, here.

I JUST DON’T know what to think of the fact that these activists, in their lawsuit pending in California courts, are seeking a delay in the elections themselves.

They say that holding a primary election in April and a general election in June would be premature if there are changes that will have to be made. That may be true, but I don’t think the solution includes giving the current government officials indefinite extensions on their terms while this matter works its way through the courts.

Although that might very well be something the incumbents would like.

Because as reported by the Los Angeles Times, the local political establishment seems to think there’s nothing wrong  with the fact that their own town has a political structure that hasn’t seen a Latino make it past the primary – even though there are 43 percent of registered voters who are Latino.

MANY OF THESE officials tell that newspaper that surrounding towns have Latino officials, which ought to be considered sufficient – even though that is irrelevant to the Latino residents of Compton.

I may be presenting this as a simple legal fight. Keep in mind that I realize it isn’t.

Because the fact remains that we’d be talking about taking political representation from African-American officials, who in many cases had to go through their own legal battles to obtain it in the first place.

So I can see where a court might be reluctant to rule in the Latino favor.

IT ALMOST REMINDS me of a situation in my own hometown, where the Latino population has grown sufficiently that there should probably be two congressional districts with majority Latino populations – rather than the one district currently represented by Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill.

His is the district that consists of two big balls of population connected by a thin strip on one end, with the area in the middle being a separate district. The easy way to make this one district into two would be to do away with that separate district in the middle.

Yet that would also mean doing away with an African-American congressional district, which I’m sure will never happen.

I’m sure this fight in Compton is going to get equally as complicated as officials try to figure out how to benefit the residents who actually live there, without creating the grounds for a future lawsuit accusing officials of taking away African-American civil rights at the voting booth.

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¿What now?

I’d like to think that the segment of the Latino population that persists in sticking with the Republican party (the minority within the minority-majority?) will start smacking about their politically partisan brethren to make them realize how damaging long-term their nativist rants are whenever immigration comes up.

Not that I expect they will.

IN FACT, THE initial statement I saw from Somos Republicanos (the official group within the GOP structure that tries to promote Latino involvement) went out of its way to attack Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama and the five Democratic members of the Senate who insisted on voting with the overwhelming majority of Republicans.

Anybody who wants to read more about this line of attack ought to check out this weblog’s sister site, the Chicago Argus.

Regardless, this vote is a victory in the sense that I think there will be those who get ticked off at their politicos and hold it against them in the future. And no matter how much the conservative ideologue spin tries to tell us that it will be Obama to pay, the reality is that the GOP has turned itself too much into the political party for white people with ethnic/racial/cultural hang-ups.

It will be interesting to see which officials have managed to ensure their electoral losses in 2012 because of something they did in the waning days of the Congressional term that occurred before the one they were just elected to serve.

IT ALSO WILL be harder and harder for those political people to hide. Too many of these officials seem to think there just aren’t enough Latinos, or people of any non-Anglo ethnicity, to hurt them,.

But a story published in the Intelligencer Journal newspaper of Lancaster County, Pa., shows that while there still are parts of their area that have 99 percent white people, they are on the decline, and that that number of places with increasing ethnic populations are becoming more and more numerous.

I found that story particularly interesting because it cites as one of the factors that helps maintain the white, rural character of those communities the presence of an Amish population that buys up just about every plot of land in the area they can get their hands onto.

I respect the Amish in that they want to live their lives a certain way and don’t want the influence of the outside world in their society.

THEN AGAIN, THE Amish don’t expect to have much in the way of influence in the ways of that outside world the way that these conservative ideologues are determined to have their shrinking perspective be the prevalent one in our society as a whole.

If the ideologues want to become the political equivalent of the Amish, it is their right to do so.

They just shouldn’t be surprised when the majority of us (DREAM did get 55 of 100 votes) turn around and treat them as some sort of cute (although I myself don’t find them all that entertaining) abstraction for our amusement, rather than anything that should be considered relevant to our daily lives.

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EXTRA: 55-41

I woke up from a sound, lengthy sleep Saturday morning just in time to see the start of the actual vote for cloture on the DREAM Act.

So that 55-41 tally was how I got to start my day. Had this been one round later in the political process, we’d now be celebrating the great victory for our nation’s young people and how we managed to overcome the nonsense rhetoric of the nativists whom too many of our political people give credence to these days.

BUT THIS WASN'T the “final” vote on the issue itself. It was the step before, in which officials decide whether to close off debate and take the final vote.

Which is why 55 out of 100 is not good enough. It is part of the process by which the tyranny of the majority is not allowed to prevail (unless there’s a really big majority).

I’m not surprised by the vote in any way. The political observer in me knows these things happen. It came down largely along politically partisan lines.

My initial glance tells me that Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., is now in deep trouble with party leadership, being the only GOPer who voted for it.

MEANWHILE, SENS. MAX Baucus, D-Mont., Kay Hagan, D-N.C., Ben Nelson, D-Neb., Mark Pryor, D-Ark., and Jon Tester, D-Mont., all had better hope their states don’t need favors from the president. Because their refusal to back their political party on this issue could get tossed into their face.

What they all have in common is that they come from states where the old-line establishment probably thinks they don’t have Latinos, or anything much in the way of ethnicity. So where’s the harm in bucking the party on this trend.

The thing is, however, that the Latino population that will take this as a personal slight (even the individuals whose families have been here for a few generations). The Latino population is growing, as well.

It’s not always going to be only3.1 percent Latinos (as was the case in 2009 in Montana).

I WILL GIVE Lugar one bit of credit. He’s not hiding (compared to Nelson, whose website’s most recent addition is a release programmed in advance to spit out on Dec. 23 to wish people a happy Holiday season).

Within minutes of the negative procedural vote (it’s not accurate to say that the Senate rejected the DREAM, only that some outspoken critics have stalled it for who knows how long), the senior Hoosier senator said he still believes the concept has significant support.

“I appreciate the support I’ve received from educators, churches and young people around Indiana, and pledge to work to pass this legislation in the next Congress,” he said.

But while Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., may well be able to pull together some sort of vote on the issue again in the next session, the fact remains that the House of Representatives will have new leadership, including Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, who has openly said he intends to use his chairmanship of the House Judiciary Committee to focus on bills related to border security.

IN SHORT, MORE walls; instead of trying to focus on policies that might actually advance our society (despite commentator Pat Buchanan’s hysteria Saturday morning that DREAM encouraged “bankrupt” people to come to our country and take).

Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., one of the “nea” votes from an official who once was nominally willing to consider immigration reform, made one comment Saturday – accusing those who voted for the DREAM of trying to, “advance your situation politically.”

Then, with all the indignation he could dredge up, he said, “it is not appreciated.”

I’d argue it is the hard-core element that got the bulk of the GOP to unify in their opposition that is behaving in a manner they think will gain them votes in future elections. It may work for an election or two. But any belief that the DREAM Act isn’t the direction of our society’s future is absolutely ridiculous.

SO MY “HOLIDAY present” this year may well turn out to be the knowledge that the conservative ideologues have managed show us once more just how perfectly in-touch they are with our society – as it existed some 115 years ago.

As we enter the second decade of the 21^st Century, we have some people who are barely entering the 20^th.

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