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Hundreds in Los Angeles attended the funeral service of a tireless champion for refugees and the poor. Father Luis Olivares fought church and government officials over his support of sanctuary. Olivares died of complications from, contracted from contaminated blood in El Salvador. Alberto Aguilar attended the service. He filed this report.

Hundreds in Los Angeles attended the funeral service of a tireless champion for refugees and the poor. Father Luis Olivares fought church and government officials over his support of sanctuary. Olivares died of complications from, contracted from contaminated blood in El Salvador. Alberto Aguilar attended the service. He filed this report.

[Transitional Music]

[Transitional Music]

Mariachi music punctuated a final farewell for the man who defied state in church by proclaiming his Lady Queen of Angels Parish as a safe sanctuary for the undocumented and the homeless. César Chávez who inspired the rebel priest to come to the defense of the poor said during the service that Father Olivares was simply committed to the poor and the weak. Olivares' defiance of authority sometimes even tested sympathetic views as county supervisor, Gloria Molina, recalls.

Mariachi music punctuated a final farewell for the man who defied state in church by proclaiming his Lady Queen of Angels Parish as a safe sanctuary for the undocumented and the homeless. César Chávez who inspired the rebel priest to come to the defense of the poor said during the service that Father Olivares was simply committed to the poor and the weak. Olivares' defiance of authority sometimes even tested sympathetic views as county supervisor, Gloria Molina, recalls.

Even though I couldn't fulfill what he wanted me to fulfill for him, for the most part, and with a lot of the immigrants, a lot of the undocumented in my community, I admired him so much. But he was very insistent in maintaining it all together because it wasn't complete for him to give in on one thing. He wanted the entire package, and rightly so.

Even though I couldn't fulfill what he wanted me to fulfill for him, for the most part, and with a lot of the immigrants, a lot of the undocumented in my community, I admired him so much. But he was very insistent in maintaining it all together because it wasn't complete for him to give in on one thing. He wanted the entire package, and rightly so.

Father Olivares left his post as pastor of our Lady Queen of Angels, shortly after he was diagnosed with AIDS and apparently fighting a losing battle to retain his job with Archbishop Cardinal Roger Mahoney and his own religious order. In Los Angeles for Latino US, this is Alberto Aguilar reporting.

Father Olivares left his post as pastor of our Lady Queen of Angels, shortly after he was diagnosed with AIDS and apparently fighting a losing battle to retain his job with Archbishop Cardinal Roger Mahoney and his own religious order. In Los Angeles for Latino US, this is Alberto Aguilar reporting.

We've gathered a group of Latino journalists to talk about the news of the week from their perspective. With us from Washington are Sandra Marquez, a reporter for Hispanic Link News Service; Zita Arocha, a freelance journalist and contributor to USA Today; and José Carreño, Washington Bureau chief of the Mexican Daily Newspaper El Universal. Thank you all for coming and welcome to Latino USA. I guess we should start off with this, Zita… the Clinton administration started off with a focus on multiculturalism. We saw Edward James Olmos at the inauguration along with Willy Colón and many other Latino artists and participants. Well, so far have the promises of Latino inclusion been met by President Clinton's appointments and hirings?

We've gathered a group of Latino journalists to talk about the news of the week from their perspective. With us from Washington are Sandra Marquez, a reporter for Hispanic Link News Service; Zita Arocha, a freelance journalist and contributor to USA Today; and José Carreño, Washington Bureau chief of the Mexican Daily Newspaper El Universal. Thank you all for coming and welcome to Latino USA. I guess we should start off with this, Zita… the Clinton administration started off with a focus on multiculturalism. We saw Edward James Olmos at the inauguration along with Willy Colón and many other Latino artists and participants. Well, so far have the promises of Latino inclusion been met by President Clinton's appointments and hirings?

He's taken a first step. I mean, we have Federico Peña as Secretary of the Department of Transportation, and we have Henry Cisneros who is the head of the Urban and Housing…and that's a good first step for him, but I would say that there's still really a long ways to go and also he hasn't really made most of the appointments he's supposed to make. All told we're waiting for about 1500 appointments. He's made about 150 or so, and just today the Associated Press came out with a little survey that they did saying that about 86% of the appointees so far, basically white males in their mid-forties. So we're looking at almost the same kind of configuration that existed when President Bush was president.

He's taken a first step. I mean, we have Federico Peña as Secretary of the Department of Transportation, and we have Henry Cisneros who is the head of the Urban and Housing…and that's a good first step for him, but I would say that there's still really a long ways to go and also he hasn't really made most of the appointments he's supposed to make. All told we're waiting for about 1500 appointments. He's made about 150 or so, and just today the Associated Press came out with a little survey that they did saying that about 86% of the appointees so far, basically white males in their mid-forties. So we're looking at almost the same kind of configuration that existed when President Bush was president.

So is there a lot of pressure coming down within the political circles of Latinos in Washington that possibly may make Clinton make some more appointments and hirings?

So is there a lot of pressure coming down within the political circles of Latinos in Washington that possibly may make Clinton make some more appointments and hirings?

Just last month, a group of Latinas, very powerful Latinas from across the country met here in Washington. They had the first ever national Latinas forum, and spontaneously what came out of that meeting was a real strong drive to push for Latina appointments to this government, and it was a very dramatic experience. Within 10 minutes, the women in the room decided to put their money where their mouths were, raising over $10,000 in less than 10 minutes to put an ad in the Washington Post. That ad has not materialized to this date because word got out to the White House. The women were invited back, and they've already had two meetings with personnel directors from the White House. They have been told to hold tight and to be very confident that they can see some very high-level Latina appointments to the new administration.

Just last month, a group of Latinas, very powerful Latinas from across the country met here in Washington. They had the first ever national Latinas forum, and spontaneously what came out of that meeting was a real strong drive to push for Latina appointments to this government, and it was a very dramatic experience. Within 10 minutes, the women in the room decided to put their money where their mouths were, raising over $10,000 in less than 10 minutes to put an ad in the Washington Post. That ad has not materialized to this date because word got out to the White House. The women were invited back, and they've already had two meetings with personnel directors from the White House. They have been told to hold tight and to be very confident that they can see some very high-level Latina appointments to the new administration.

Well, José, you covered the Bush administration during his tenure and what we've just heard is that, in terms of appointments and staff, the Clinton administration looks a lot like the Bush administration. So, what would you say is the most fundamental change you see from the Bush administration to the Clinton administration regarding the issues affecting Latinos?

Well, José, you covered the Bush administration during his tenure and what we've just heard is that, in terms of appointments and staff, the Clinton administration looks a lot like the Bush administration. So, what would you say is the most fundamental change you see from the Bush administration to the Clinton administration regarding the issues affecting Latinos?

Well, I could say that it is the willingness to do something about it. It's unfair, in a way, to say that the Clinton administration hasn't appointed too many Latinos… hasn't appointed too many of anything in terms of a comparison with the Bush administration. I think that mostly maybe the care that they're trying to go with, but at the same time it's nothing but projects at this point. It's nothing but words.

Well, I could say that it is the willingness to do something about it. It's unfair, in a way, to say that the Clinton administration hasn't appointed too many Latinos… hasn't appointed too many of anything in terms of a comparison with the Bush administration. I think that mostly maybe the care that they're trying to go with, but at the same time it's nothing but projects at this point. It's nothing but words.

Well, and in fact, regarding the words of President Clinton, we have his new economic plan on the table. Sandra, is the plan going to be a boom or a bust for Latinos? What areas do you think that Latinos will benefit most or be most hard hit from the Clinton economic plan?

Well, and in fact, regarding the words of President Clinton, we have his new economic plan on the table. Sandra, is the plan going to be a boom or a bust for Latinos? What areas do you think that Latinos will benefit most or be most hard hit from the Clinton economic plan?

Well, my concern about the economic plan is just that the majority of our community is comprised of the working poor, and so I wonder how much more they can give. So, I think Latinos, like the rest of this country, are ready for change and are really hoping to see a reduction in the deficit, and they've been giving disproportionately more than the rest of the society for the last 12 years. And so, I think that we're just watching closely to see what our role is going to be in this package.

Well, my concern about the economic plan is just that the majority of our community is comprised of the working poor, and so I wonder how much more they can give. So, I think Latinos, like the rest of this country, are ready for change and are really hoping to see a reduction in the deficit, and they've been giving disproportionately more than the rest of the society for the last 12 years. And so, I think that we're just watching closely to see what our role is going to be in this package.

Okay. Well, thank you very much Sandra Marquez, Zita Arocha and José Carreño for joining us here on Latino USA.

Okay. Well, thank you very much Sandra Marquez, Zita Arocha and José Carreño for joining us here on Latino USA.

In Los Angeles, the Latino community suffered heavily and has still not recovered from the effects of the disturbances of April of last year. Latinos are half of those who live in the areas most affected by the disturbances. A third of those who lost their lives in the violence were Latino. Hispanic men made up more than half of those arrested and 40% of the businesses damaged in the riots were Latino owned. Reporter Alberto Aguilar recently visited one of the hardest hit Latino neighborhoods in South Central Los Angeles. He prepared this report.

In Los Angeles, the Latino community suffered heavily and has still not recovered from the effects of the disturbances of April of last year. Latinos are half of those who live in the areas most affected by the disturbances. A third of those who lost their lives in the violence were Latino. Hispanic men made up more than half of those arrested and 40% of the businesses damaged in the riots were Latino owned. Reporter Alberto Aguilar recently visited one of the hardest hit Latino neighborhoods in South Central Los Angeles. He prepared this report.

[Faint voice in the background]

[Faint voice in the background]

Very little has changed in Pico-Union, west of downtown Los Angeles in the last year, since hundreds of small and large businesses were looted. Here at the swap meet, the radio may be playing happy rhythms, but to the residents of the mostly Latino neighborhood, the road to recovery has been anything but happy.

Very little has changed in Pico-Union, west of downtown Los Angeles in the last year, since hundreds of small and large businesses were looted. Here at the swap meet, the radio may be playing happy rhythms, but to the residents of the mostly Latino neighborhood, the road to recovery has been anything but happy.

Nosotros perdimos todos los negocios que teníamos. Teníamos tres negocios en la Union y todo fue perdido…[transition to English dub] We lost all our business. We have three little shops here and everything was lost, and we haven't really been able to recover anything.

Nosotros perdimos todos los negocios que teníamos. Teníamos tres negocios en la Union y todo fue perdido…[transition to English dub] We lost all our business. We have three little shops here and everything was lost, and we haven't really been able to recover anything.

María Elena Mejia sold children's clothes at the swap meet. The single mother of two teenage girls lost her life savings when the old theater, that housed dozens of swap meet stalls, was set on fire.

María Elena Mejia sold children's clothes at the swap meet. The single mother of two teenage girls lost her life savings when the old theater, that housed dozens of swap meet stalls, was set on fire.

Lo que a nosotros nos ayudaron de parte del gobierno de la ciudad solamente fueron tres meses de renta. Lo que nos quedó a nosotros de eso solo fueron como… [transition to English dub] What the city government helped out with was three months’ rent, and after that, all we had left of our investment of five years was something like 14 or 10 dollars. I don't even remember now. We suffered so much because you know, being without work in this country is hard, and we were left without work and without anything… [transition to original audio] trabajo, porque nos habíamos quedado sin trabajo y sin nada.

Lo que a nosotros nos ayudaron de parte del gobierno de la ciudad solamente fueron tres meses de renta. Lo que nos quedó a nosotros de eso solo fueron como… [transition to English dub] What the city government helped out with was three months’ rent, and after that, all we had left of our investment of five years was something like 14 or 10 dollars. I don't even remember now. We suffered so much because you know, being without work in this country is hard, and we were left without work and without anything… [transition to original audio] trabajo, porque nos habíamos quedado sin trabajo y sin nada.

This was a gift by a student, but it's called The Day that Los Angeles Cried, and you have an angel trying to turn off the fires and slow down the riots and above the Angel…

This was a gift by a student, but it's called The Day that Los Angeles Cried, and you have an angel trying to turn off the fires and slow down the riots and above the Angel…

Mike Hernandez is a member of the city council. His district includes Pico-Union, the area hardest hit by the riots of '92.

Mike Hernandez is a member of the city council. His district includes Pico-Union, the area hardest hit by the riots of '92.

Pico and Alvarado, for example… it’s one corner where we had the four corners demolished by fire. And so, in terms of intensity, it was the hardest hit area in the city.

Pico and Alvarado, for example… it’s one corner where we had the four corners demolished by fire. And so, in terms of intensity, it was the hardest hit area in the city.

What has happened since then? And a lot of people are now saying that perhaps the City does not have the leadership to bring the city of Los Angeles to where most people want it to go?

What has happened since then? And a lot of people are now saying that perhaps the City does not have the leadership to bring the city of Los Angeles to where most people want it to go?

I think if you talk about community leaders, if you talk about the organization leadership, they very much want to bring the city together and start improving. If you talk about the political leadership, I think the political leadership hasn't displayed that well. They're out of touch with what's really going on in the city. See, the city of Los Angeles is not just the buildings. A lot of the buildings destroyed were empty. What the city of Los Angeles is, it's people from all over the world, and what we got away from is building people.

I think if you talk about community leaders, if you talk about the organization leadership, they very much want to bring the city together and start improving. If you talk about the political leadership, I think the political leadership hasn't displayed that well. They're out of touch with what's really going on in the city. See, the city of Los Angeles is not just the buildings. A lot of the buildings destroyed were empty. What the city of Los Angeles is, it's people from all over the world, and what we got away from is building people.

The building involves encouraging people to become citizens. Hernandez estimates this process can take as long as 10 to 15 years. He also says the City has to improve the educational level of city residents.

The building involves encouraging people to become citizens. Hernandez estimates this process can take as long as 10 to 15 years. He also says the City has to improve the educational level of city residents.

Over the age of 25, we have 2.1 million people. 900,000 cannot claim a high school diploma, and of the 900,000; 600,000 cannot claim a ninth-grade education. So that's 150% of the entire student body of the LA Unified School District. So, we have a tremendous amount of building of people to do.

Over the age of 25, we have 2.1 million people. 900,000 cannot claim a high school diploma, and of the 900,000; 600,000 cannot claim a ninth-grade education. So that's 150% of the entire student body of the LA Unified School District. So, we have a tremendous amount of building of people to do.

[Transitional sounds]

[Transitional sounds]

Those who work with the residents of Pico-Union agree with Hernandez about the work that remains undone.

Those who work with the residents of Pico-Union agree with Hernandez about the work that remains undone.

We're seeing families with multitude of problems… economic, social, relationship problems…

We're seeing families with multitude of problems… economic, social, relationship problems…

Sandra Cuevas works with battered Central American women in South Central Los Angeles. She has seen a decrease in the social services available to people in the area's hardest hit by the destruction. Despite all the publicized good intentions, little action and little resources are being allocated to the solution of the root causes of poverty and unemployment.

Sandra Cuevas works with battered Central American women in South Central Los Angeles. She has seen a decrease in the social services available to people in the area's hardest hit by the destruction. Despite all the publicized good intentions, little action and little resources are being allocated to the solution of the root causes of poverty and unemployment.

There seems to have been a lot of lip service. Little committees forming coalitions, but when you look at Rebuild LA, you have people that are coming from outside the community, very removed from the reality of Los Angeles and particularly of South Central and Pico-Union, that have excluded Latinos, by and large.

There seems to have been a lot of lip service. Little committees forming coalitions, but when you look at Rebuild LA, you have people that are coming from outside the community, very removed from the reality of Los Angeles and particularly of South Central and Pico-Union, that have excluded Latinos, by and large.

Cuevas is not the only Angelino critical of Mayor Tom Bradley's effort to bring back the city from massive destruction. His Rebuild LA has been described as a misguided effort to create job opportunities according to county supervisor Gloria Molina.

Cuevas is not the only Angelino critical of Mayor Tom Bradley's effort to bring back the city from massive destruction. His Rebuild LA has been described as a misguided effort to create job opportunities according to county supervisor Gloria Molina.

Very frankly, I don't want to be critical. I think they're doing their own thing, but I think that the mayor missed the boat in the beginning. I think he could have called many of us together to sort things out because it isn't just in South Central, it's throughout the community. And it isn't just a corporate effort and isn't about giving. It's about putting together a lot of institutions that have been unjust to minority segments of our community. And it isn't going to happen by a corporation coming together and putting together programs. It's about making the system much more responsive to the needs of people in this community.

Very frankly, I don't want to be critical. I think they're doing their own thing, but I think that the mayor missed the boat in the beginning. I think he could have called many of us together to sort things out because it isn't just in South Central, it's throughout the community. And it isn't just a corporate effort and isn't about giving. It's about putting together a lot of institutions that have been unjust to minority segments of our community. And it isn't going to happen by a corporation coming together and putting together programs. It's about making the system much more responsive to the needs of people in this community.

I’m a member of the board, but it's hard among 80 people. A lot of those are corporate people and I’m… I guess, the only immigrant, it's really hard sometimes.

I’m a member of the board, but it's hard among 80 people. A lot of those are corporate people and I’m… I guess, the only immigrant, it's really hard sometimes.

Carlos Vaquerano is one of a handful of Latinos on Rebuild LA's board.

Carlos Vaquerano is one of a handful of Latinos on Rebuild LA's board.

We need to not only to rebuild LA physically, but to rebuild the soul of the city, the soul of people here. We need to make changes in terms of our morality, political changes, because that's one of the main issues in the city. Not only the city, but in the country.

We need to not only to rebuild LA physically, but to rebuild the soul of the city, the soul of people here. We need to make changes in terms of our morality, political changes, because that's one of the main issues in the city. Not only the city, but in the country.

[Transitional sounds]

[Transitional sounds]

Police helicopters assist uniformed officers on the ground in the search for gang members in the Pico-Union district. Longtime resident, Raúl González has been in this blue-collar neighborhood for 20 years.

Police helicopters assist uniformed officers on the ground in the search for gang members in the Pico-Union district. Longtime resident, Raúl González has been in this blue-collar neighborhood for 20 years.

It's kind of scary going out lately. Plus what you hear on the news and people… after the rioters start getting guns and bigger guns and you know what's going to happen in the street. Now you have to carry your own gun for protection… and you have to be careful lately…you know. And it's terrible, it is terrible because we are not supposed to be like this.

It's kind of scary going out lately. Plus what you hear on the news and people… after the rioters start getting guns and bigger guns and you know what's going to happen in the street. Now you have to carry your own gun for protection… and you have to be careful lately…you know. And it's terrible, it is terrible because we are not supposed to be like this.

Um…but if everybody's armed and everybody's afraid…um…. what are you going to do?

Um…but if everybody's armed and everybody's afraid…um…. what are you going to do?

Well, you know…to tell you the truth, if you're carrying a weapon, you have to know how to use it and when to take it out.

Well, you know…to tell you the truth, if you're carrying a weapon, you have to know how to use it and when to take it out.

In Los Angeles, I'm Alberto Aguilar, reporting for Latino USA.

In Los Angeles, I'm Alberto Aguilar, reporting for Latino USA.

[Transitional Music]

[Transitional Music]

May I present Gloria Romero: She played a vital role in the police reform movement in Los Angeles in the wake of the Rodney King beating. The title of her talk is Todavia Ando Sangrando: A Chicana's Perspective on the Fires This Time…Gloria.

May I present Gloria Romero: She played a vital role in the police reform movement in Los Angeles in the wake of the Rodney King beating. The title of her talk is Todavia Ando Sangrando: A Chicana's Perspective on the Fires This Time…Gloria.

[Clapping sounds]

[Clapping sounds]

April 29th, 1992, less than three hours after the verdicts were released, I stood at the intersection of Adams and Hobart in South Central LA. In reality, I stood at much more than the intersection of Adams and Hobart. I stood at but one of many intersections of race, class, and gender in America. Breathing in all I saw, even as light dimmed on America, the reaction in my guts at the intersection of life in America in the shadow of lies of an afterlife as light faded out on America, felt like the full velocity of the bricks hurled through the pane of that liquor store, which on an hourly basis, markets pain to Black and brown men and women in south central LA. Addiction, alcoholism, unemployment, a 50% dropout rate, incarceration, but a chance to win the lotto.

April 29th, 1992, less than three hours after the verdicts were released, I stood at the intersection of Adams and Hobart in South Central LA. In reality, I stood at much more than the intersection of Adams and Hobart. I stood at but one of many intersections of race, class, and gender in America. Breathing in all I saw, even as light dimmed on America, the reaction in my guts at the intersection of life in America in the shadow of lies of an afterlife as light faded out on America, felt like the full velocity of the bricks hurled through the pane of that liquor store, which on an hourly basis, markets pain to Black and brown men and women in south central LA. Addiction, alcoholism, unemployment, a 50% dropout rate, incarceration, but a chance to win the lotto.

We stood at the intersection on April 29th in an America that has bled for too long, from too many unjust verdicts that Simi Valley merely symbolized, any one of which could have sparked fires at any intersection in America. And I believe a riot takes place on a day-to-day basis in LA, but nobody notices. Todavia ando sangrando, even as our trial continues.

We stood at the intersection on April 29th in an America that has bled for too long, from too many unjust verdicts that Simi Valley merely symbolized, any one of which could have sparked fires at any intersection in America. And I believe a riot takes place on a day-to-day basis in LA, but nobody notices. Todavia ando sangrando, even as our trial continues.

Long before the word “multicultural” came into popular usage, it was reflected on the public television's children's program, Sesame Street. Now the program is making an extra effort targeting minority children with special cultural curricula. This year, the Emmy award-winning show is placing an emphasis on Latino culture as Mandalit del Barco reports from New York.

Long before the word “multicultural” came into popular usage, it was reflected on the public television's children's program, Sesame Street. Now the program is making an extra effort targeting minority children with special cultural curricula. This year, the Emmy award-winning show is placing an emphasis on Latino culture as Mandalit del Barco reports from New York.

[Cheerful Sesame Street Music]

[Cheerful Sesame Street Music]

As Sesame Street becomes more bilingual, even the theme song incorporates Latino rhythms. With this season's emphasis on Latino cultures, viewers can watch Big Bird leading a Mariachi band, and Oscar the Grouch dancing the Mambo with Tito Puente. Sesame Street is visited by Chicano rock band Los Lobos and New York's Puerto Rican folk music group, Los Pleneros de la 21. The show goes on location to barrios in Los Angeles where kids paint a Mexican mural, and in New York where they make Puerto Rican masks and visit a community center known as a Casita. This year, the spotlight will also be on the new fluffy blue bilingual muppet, Rosita.

As Sesame Street becomes more bilingual, even the theme song incorporates Latino rhythms. With this season's emphasis on Latino cultures, viewers can watch Big Bird leading a Mariachi band, and Oscar the Grouch dancing the Mambo with Tito Puente. Sesame Street is visited by Chicano rock band Los Lobos and New York's Puerto Rican folk music group, Los Pleneros de la 21. The show goes on location to barrios in Los Angeles where kids paint a Mexican mural, and in New York where they make Puerto Rican masks and visit a community center known as a Casita. This year, the spotlight will also be on the new fluffy blue bilingual muppet, Rosita.

¡Hola Amigos! ¿Cómo están?

¡Hola Amigos! ¿Cómo están?

Muppet Rosita is played by Mexican puppeteer Carmen Osbahr.

Muppet Rosita is played by Mexican puppeteer Carmen Osbahr.

Sí, sí…yes, yeah I'm trying to help my friends to speak Spanish and all of my other friends that they're watching us. I'm trying to let them know that if they speak Spanish like me and English, they have to feel proud because they're very lucky to speak two languages.

Sí, sí…yes, yeah I'm trying to help my friends to speak Spanish and all of my other friends that they're watching us. I'm trying to let them know that if they speak Spanish like me and English, they have to feel proud because they're very lucky to speak two languages.

¿Abierto?

¿Abierto?

Yes, certainly! Abierto is the Spanish word for open! Abierto.

Yes, certainly! Abierto is the Spanish word for open! Abierto.

For many years now, Sesame Street has been teaching kids a few words in Spanish, like “hola” and “adios”, but what's different is that with its new Latino curriculum, preschool viewers will also be taught an appreciation of the diversity of Latino cultures.

For many years now, Sesame Street has been teaching kids a few words in Spanish, like “hola” and “adios”, but what's different is that with its new Latino curriculum, preschool viewers will also be taught an appreciation of the diversity of Latino cultures.

El mundo.

El mundo.

That's the world all right, and we are moving into...

That's the world all right, and we are moving into...

Puerto Rico!

Puerto Rico!

Puerto Rico it is! But look...

Puerto Rico it is! But look...

¡Cotorra!

¡Cotorra!

In studies of preschoolers, researchers for Sesame Street found Puerto Rican children have poorer self-images than white or African-American children. The Latino kids had negative feelings about their hair and skin color, and the majority of white and African-American children in this study said their mothers would be angry or sad if they were friends with a Puerto Rican child. Actress Sonia Manzano, who plays the character María on the show says that's why the Sesame Street producers decided to devote the season to addressing issues of self-esteem and pride among Latinos.

In studies of preschoolers, researchers for Sesame Street found Puerto Rican children have poorer self-images than white or African-American children. The Latino kids had negative feelings about their hair and skin color, and the majority of white and African-American children in this study said their mothers would be angry or sad if they were friends with a Puerto Rican child. Actress Sonia Manzano, who plays the character María on the show says that's why the Sesame Street producers decided to devote the season to addressing issues of self-esteem and pride among Latinos.

I had the opportunity to write a show where María's family comes to visit, and I wanted everyone in María's family to be a different skin color because that occurs in a lot of Hispanic families. Puerto Ricans especially, is that, there are people of different skin colors in the same family so…and actually have a puppet say, "Wow! But he's darker than you. How could he be related?" or "She's lighter than you. How could she be related to you?"

I had the opportunity to write a show where María's family comes to visit, and I wanted everyone in María's family to be a different skin color because that occurs in a lot of Hispanic families. Puerto Ricans especially, is that, there are people of different skin colors in the same family so…and actually have a puppet say, "Wow! But he's darker than you. How could he be related?" or "She's lighter than you. How could she be related to you?"

For the last 20 years, María and Luis have been two of the human characters on the show. In that time, they got married, had a child, and are partners in Sesame Street's Fix It Shop.

For the last 20 years, María and Luis have been two of the human characters on the show. In that time, they got married, had a child, and are partners in Sesame Street's Fix It Shop.

Here, Luis and María, who are both Latinos, are regular people. I mean… they own a business; they have a family. You know… they're just regular people. They work like everybody else… you know. They brush their teeth, they comb their hair, you know…. whatever. The role model is, "Hey, they're just like everybody else.” You know… and that's important to show.

Here, Luis and María, who are both Latinos, are regular people. I mean… they own a business; they have a family. You know… they're just regular people. They work like everybody else… you know. They brush their teeth, they comb their hair, you know…. whatever. The role model is, "Hey, they're just like everybody else.” You know… and that's important to show.

Actor Emilio Delgado, who plays Luis, says, since its beginning, Sesame Street was way ahead of most US television shows in realistically portraying Latinos.

Actor Emilio Delgado, who plays Luis, says, since its beginning, Sesame Street was way ahead of most US television shows in realistically portraying Latinos.

20 years ago when we first started doing this, I don't remember any Latinos on a regular basis on television. As a matter of fact, I can't think of any right now either.

20 years ago when we first started doing this, I don't remember any Latinos on a regular basis on television. As a matter of fact, I can't think of any right now either.

[Kid singing about his cultural roots]

[Kid singing about his cultural roots]

Sesame Street is now in its 24th season. For Latino USA, I'm Mandalit del Barco in New York.

Sesame Street is now in its 24th season. For Latino USA, I'm Mandalit del Barco in New York.

Oh, that was great! Well, this is Big Bird leaving you with one final word: "¡Viva!"

Oh, that was great! Well, this is Big Bird leaving you with one final word: "¡Viva!"

Every culture has its special days, Diaz de Fiesta. Most often, they're related to a special date in history: Fiestas Patrias, Puertorriqueños celebrate El Grito de Lares on September 23rd. Dominicanos celebrate on February 27th, the Dominican Republic's independence from Haiti. In Mexico and among Mexican Americans, Cinco de Mayo is one such day of celebration, not an Independence Day, but in memory of a battle which took place in 1862. However, as producers Laura Valera and Arthur Duncan found, the historical significance of the holiday is often lost in the midst of cultural festivities. Here's their Cinco de Mayo audio essay.

Every culture has its special days, Diaz de Fiesta. Most often, they're related to a special date in history: Fiestas Patrias, Puertorriqueños celebrate El Grito de Lares on September 23rd. Dominicanos celebrate on February 27th, the Dominican Republic's independence from Haiti. In Mexico and among Mexican Americans, Cinco de Mayo is one such day of celebration, not an Independence Day, but in memory of a battle which took place in 1862. However, as producers Laura Valera and Arthur Duncan found, the historical significance of the holiday is often lost in the midst of cultural festivities. Here's their Cinco de Mayo audio essay.

You bet. There's a battle of somewhere… I forget now.

You bet. There's a battle of somewhere… I forget now.

[Transitional Drum Music]

[Transitional Drum Music]

Cinco de Mayo has to do with the French forces attempting to occupy Mexico. Essentially what it deals with is the defeat of the French forces by the liberal forces of Benito Juarez in the city of Puebla, in the state of Puebla.

Cinco de Mayo has to do with the French forces attempting to occupy Mexico. Essentially what it deals with is the defeat of the French forces by the liberal forces of Benito Juarez in the city of Puebla, in the state of Puebla.

Do you know why we celebrate Cinco de Mayo?

Do you know why we celebrate Cinco de Mayo?

All I know is it's a Mexican holiday. I don't really know what the reason is.

All I know is it's a Mexican holiday. I don't really know what the reason is.

I don't know, is it somebody's birthday?

I don't know, is it somebody's birthday?

Ah…for me, Cinco de Mayo is a pretty good… good day.

Ah…for me, Cinco de Mayo is a pretty good… good day.

A big event?

A big event?

A big Fiesta.

A big Fiesta.

That's when the Mexicans took over. They kicked the French out of Mexico!

That's when the Mexicans took over. They kicked the French out of Mexico!

Y ganamos los mexicanos.

Y ganamos los mexicanos.

The independence of Mexico.

The independence of Mexico.

From?

From?

Spain.

Spain.

And one last thing. Do you know why we celebrate Cinco de Mayo?

And one last thing. Do you know why we celebrate Cinco de Mayo?

[Transitional Music in Spanish]

[Transitional Music in Spanish]

Cinco de Mayo did not lead to the ouster of the French. It would represent a significant victory for the Mexicans because it taught them that they could create a real sense of nationalism for them, that they could defeat invading forces and the like. It was significant on the basis of… you know, sort of a moral strength that gave the Mexicanos.

Cinco de Mayo did not lead to the ouster of the French. It would represent a significant victory for the Mexicans because it taught them that they could create a real sense of nationalism for them, that they could defeat invading forces and the like. It was significant on the basis of… you know, sort of a moral strength that gave the Mexicanos.

[Transitional Mariachi Music]

[Transitional Mariachi Music]

We just know it as a celebration, as a fiesta. Aside from it being a festival event, it's an educational event because it is the time of the year that, for some reason, many of our people put our political agendas, our turf agendas aside, and realize that we are all one of a large majority of people in this hemisphere.

We just know it as a celebration, as a fiesta. Aside from it being a festival event, it's an educational event because it is the time of the year that, for some reason, many of our people put our political agendas, our turf agendas aside, and realize that we are all one of a large majority of people in this hemisphere.

Do you celebrate Cinco de Mayo?

Do you celebrate Cinco de Mayo?

Well, doesn't every Hispanic?

Well, doesn't every Hispanic?

Bueno, cuando celebramos el Cinco de Mayo vamos aquí a las fiestas que tienen en el Fiesta Garden.

Bueno, cuando celebramos el Cinco de Mayo vamos aquí a las fiestas que tienen en el Fiesta Garden.

Yes, a big party.

Yes, a big party.

Con Mariachi, es una fiesta mexicana.

Con Mariachi, es una fiesta mexicana.

Bueno… el parque.

Bueno… el parque.

The typical barbecue con unas cervecitas aquí y allá. I just have a good time with the friends and family.

The typical barbecue con unas cervecitas aquí y allá. I just have a good time with the friends and family.

The most things that I do is dance.

The most things that I do is dance.

[Corrido Music]

[Corrido Music]

During these festivals, we also realize that there are no borders.

During these festivals, we also realize that there are no borders.

[Corrido Music]

[Corrido Music]

This is news from Latino USA. I'm María Martin. He truly was a legend in his own time, the man who organized farm workers in California and throughout the Southwest beginning in the '60s, whose tireless efforts on their behalf inspired a whole generation to political activism and who, more than 25 years ago, gave then oppressed Mexican Americans a hero and a cause.

[Corrido music]

César Estrada Chávez was born in 1927 on a ranch outside Yuma, Arizona. At age 10, he was working in the fields. 20 some years later, he was organizing Mexican and Filipino farm laborers in California in the first ever successful effort to unionize US agricultural workers.

[Corrido music]

César Chávez died at his home in Arizona, not far from where he was born, but the journey he traveled in those 66 years as a symbol of the Chicano movement, as a unique labor leader, was one of struggle and faith. Not long ago, Father Virgil Elizondo of San Antonio, Texas mused on how far Chávez had come, often fighting a David and Goliath battle against powerful economic interests, but driven by a strong belief in the justice of his cause on behalf of migrant workers.

When Caesar Chávez took on the greatest powers in this country, people said he was crazy…couldn't do it. He has not totally succeeded, but he's come a long way.

Rebecca Flores Harrington works with the United Farm Workers in Texas.

He never forgot where he came from as a farm worker himself, as a migrant farm worker… and he always remembered those experiences. And he inspired others who were different from himself to do the same, to go back into their communities and do something to better the lives of those people in their own communities.

In 30 years as an organizer, Chávez saw his small union grow to a high-tech organization with a pension plan and retirement benefits, but Chávez's union had lost membership and some say moral authority in its later years due to a hostile political environment in California and infighting within the union itself. Osvaldo Jaurechi worked with the UFW until 1990. He says even those people who had had severe fallings out with the UFW founder were in shock on hearing of the passing of César Chávez.

They feel really shocked, really moved, and they think they should go and pay their tribute to the leader for what he was and most for what he still represents as a symbol of the campesino struggle.

I'm María Hinojosa. Trade talks are now underway regarding the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico. NAFTA perhaps, as no other US economic initiative, will have a significant impact on US Latinos. With us to speak about the future of the controversial free trade agreement are three journalists who cover Washington DC politics: Sandra Marquez of the Hispanic Link News Service; freelance journalist, Zita Arocha; and José Carreño, DC Bureau chief for the Mexican daily, El Universal.

The biggest misperception in this whole thing is that even if NAFTA is a new document, in a way, it is something that is already happening at the border, as well, the people who's in Texas and California can say. Now what is going to happen? I think that there will be a lot of pressures on Mexico and the United States mostly in the environment and labor problems. Congressman Gephardt and a number of other Democratic freshmen went to Tijuana to take a look at the ecological situation there. They came out saying, "No way that way. At least the actual treaty has to be upgraded." We'll see a lot of the arguments in the next few months about it.

In fact, we've seen a lot of arguments already. Sandra, how much has the debate over NAFTA divided the Latino community in particular?

I think there's tremendous division among US Latinos on the issue of NAFTA because primarily, the jobs that are expected to be lost as a result of this agreement are the low-skilled, low-paying jobs that so many Latinos in this country hold. So, there is concern that the jobs that Latinos have are going to be exported to Mexico, but at the same time, Latinos realize that they have this intrinsic link with their Mexican kin across the border. And so, they realize there's tremendous potential that because of Latinos' bicultural skills that they can really tap into this and benefit more so than other Americans in this country.

The Latino population is also divided in terms of convenience. For instance, in Texas, there is a lot of people who's in favor of NAFTA because most of the import-export businesses are going through Texas and of course, they're getting a boost out of it. But in California, for instance, where there is a lot of Latinos in this low end of the industry, they're having a lot of problems, a lot of hesitations about it. So, I think that it is also related a lot with where are the jobs.

I think the Mexican government has realized that US Latinos can be very good promoters of this plan. And they have started a NAFIN fund, a $20 million fund for US Latino business leaders to create joint ventures with business partners in Mexico. And US Hispanic chambers of commerce here in this country have also been leading in terms of creating these trade partnerships and expose and taking people from the United States to Mexico and really helping to create these links.

There's another benefit to Latinos and I think Latinos are beginning to see this, that if the agreement leads in less immigration from Mexico to the United States…from Latin America in general to the United States, then those low-end jobs will not be taken away as easily as they would be if we continue to see hundreds of thousands of people coming across the border every year. There is some resistance on the part of some Latinos for fear that a lot of the low-end jobs will go to Mexico, but at the same time, there is also a realization that there will be benefits long term that will come from fewer immigrants coming over and you know, taking US jobs at the low end.

Thank you very much, Sandra Marquez, Zita Arocha, and José Carreño for joining us here on Latino USA.

It's been two years since disturbances broke out in Washington DC's Mount Pleasant neighborhood, where most of the city's Latino population lives. At the time, Latino leaders blamed the violent outburst on neglect by the local city government of Hispanic residents. In the past 10 years, Washington DC's Latino community, mostly Central American, has grown rapidly. Since the violence of two years ago, the DC government has taken action to address community concerns, but Latino leaders say there's still much more to be done. From Washington, William Troop prepared this report.

[Transitional music]

A music vendor sets up shop at the corner of Mount Pleasant and Lamont Street, the heart of Washington's Latino community. He's one of at least a dozen Latino merchants doing business near Parque de las Palomas, a small triangular park at the end of a city bus line.

[Transitional music]

[Helicopter sounds]

Just two years ago, the worst riots the nation's capital had seen in over 20 years started right here. On May 4th, 1991, Daniel Gómez, a Salvadoran immigrant, was stopped by an African American police officer for drinking in public. There are differing accounts about what happened next. Police say Gómez launched at the rookie officer who shot him in self-defense, but many Latinos heard a different version, one that said Gómez was shot after being harassed and handcuffed by the officer. Gómez was seriously wounded and as news of the incident spread, outrage poured from the community.

…sangre fría frente a demasiados latinos. Eso no lo llevan todos porque en realidad esta es una comunidad latina. ¿Me entienden? y la discriminación ha ido tan lejos de que si alguien…

During the riots, these men looted a 7-Eleven store because they were angry at police for mistreating Latinos. The looting and burning in Mount Pleasant lasted three days. To calm people down, DC Mayor Sharon Pratt Kelly arrived on the scene and promised to address Latino concerns as soon as the violence ended. It was a victory of sorts. Latino leaders had long complained that city officials ignored charges of discrimination and police brutality. The riots changed that.

To a certain degree, we had the best disturbance that we could have ever had. Although you had the destruction of public property, you had the destruction of private property, you had some injuries, nobody was killed. And overnight…Latinos were an issue in Washington DC.

Juan Milanés was a law student at the time. Today, he is legal counsel for the Latino Civil Rights Task Force, an organization created after the disturbances in Mount Pleasant.

Prior to May 5th, 1991, the Latino population of Washington DC, although it was 10% of the population, was unrecognized…just invisible…just a bunch of people who get on the bus in the evening to go clean buildings, but you know... There are just a few people here and there. Most of them are illegal anyway. Suddenly, we're there and there was now this group of people that were demanding that they be there.

A few months after the riots, the Latino Civil Rights Task Force issued a blueprint for action, detailing 200 specific steps the city could take to address Latino concerns. Task Force executive director Pedro Aviles says the city has not done enough to stop discrimination and police insensitivity.

The problems have not been solved yet. The police brutality cases, they continue. Certainly, the fact that we've been complaining, and we've been shaking the tree kind of thing…it's brought about little change, but I would say that it's a lot of stuff that needs to be done.

What has been done has been done slowly according to task force officials. One example, the city hired bilingual 911 operators a year and a half after the task force recommended it and only after a Latina who had been raped had to wait two hours for assistance in Spanish. Carmen Ramírez, director of the Mayor's Office on Latino Affairs, says the city has taken significant steps to address community concerns.

The recommendations, in many instances, are not recommendations that can just be met by one concrete action, although some of them are, but rather, it's a matter of putting into place policies and in many instances, mechanisms by which problems can continue to be addressed.

To do that, the city has created bilingual positions in almost all departments of DC government. Ramírez adds that DC's police department has hired more bilingual personnel and sent hundreds of police officers to Spanish classes and sensitivity training. But last year, Latino leaders complained they were excluded from developing the initial sensitivity training program and they say there are still plenty of police brutality cases. In January, the US Commission on Civil Rights agreed when it issued its report on the Mount Pleasant disturbances. Commission Chair Arthur Fletcher called the plight of Latinos in DC appalling.

Many Latinos in the third district have been subjected to arbitrary harassments, unwarranted arrests, and even physical abuse by DC police officers.

The commission also found that the District of Columbia still shuts off Latinos from basic services because it lacks bilingual personnel. Many DC Latinos feel that in a city dominated by African Americans, it's often hard to get a fair distribution of resources. BB Otero is chair of the Latino Civil Rights Task Force.

There is a prevalent feeling among the African American community, not just the leadership but the community at large that says, “we've struggled hard to get where we are, to have control of some resources in the city to begin to play a powerful role in the community.” And its um…“if we open it up to someone else, we may be giving something up.”

They still wanted them to be citizens of their own country and not registered to vote in the United States and still have the same measure of power and the same measure of participation as somebody who was a citizen. That, in my view, is a naive expectation and certainly is not something that the civil rights movement ever talked about.

African American council member Frank Smith represents Ward 1, the area where most DC Latinos live. He says, the struggle for civil rights is about citizenship and voting.

I think that the Hispanic community has got to work harder at getting their people registered to vote. If they want to win elections, they're going to have to get people registered to vote and get them out to the ballot boxes on election day in order to win. Nobody's going to roll over and give up one of these seats.

Civic activity comes once you have gained some sense of security of where you are or where you live. You still have a community that doesn't have that sense of security.

Over half of Washington's estimated 60,000 Latinos are undocumented, many of whom have fled war and unrest in El Salvador and most recently, Guatemala. BB Otero who ran unsuccessfully for a school board seat last fall says she's hopeful a Latino political base will develop as time goes by and as the community matures.

If they can survive the struggle that it is to be able to fight the odds basically and build that political base, then we will see, I think by '96, some other candidates in other areas beyond myself.

[Transitional music]

Change, however slow some may consider it, seems to be happening at Parque de las Palomas, where the disturbances erupted two years ago. There are now more Latino officers walking the beat. Merchant José Valdezar says, even those stopped for drinking in public are now treated with respect by police.

First, they say hello to you, and I start to speak and they explain to you what's going on. Sometime, the person who own any store around here say, you know, they don't like drunk people around here. You know, that's why they say no. Just keep walking and everything will be okay.

[Transitional music]

Daniel Gómez, whose shooting sparked the disturbances in Mount Pleasant two years ago, recovered from his wounds and was later acquitted of assaulting the police officer who shot him. For Latino USA. I'm William Troop reporting from Washington DC.

[Change in transitional music]

The roots of Latin jazz go back at least five decades to such artists as Machito, Chano Pozo, and Dizzy Gillespie. Latin jazz has lost many of its originators in recent years, but one of them, 81-year-old Mario Bauzá keeps going strong. From Miami, Emilio San Pedro prepared this profile of the legendary co-founder of the band Machito and his Afro-Cubans.

Mario Bauzá left his native Havana for New York in 1930. When he got to this country, Bauzá became one of those responsible for making Afro-Cuban music popular in the United States and around the world.

Had to happen outside of Cuba before the Cuban people convince themself what they had themself over there. When they got big in United States, Cuba begin to move into that line of music.

[Afro-Cuban jazz music]

Bauzá remembers his days at the Apollo Theater in Harlem where he helped to launch the career of Ella Fitzgerald. He recalls his days with the Cab Calloway Orchestra and the time that he and his friends, Dizzy Gillespie and Cozy Cole, played around with Afro-Cuban rhythm and jazz arrangements and created something new: Afro-Cuban Jazz.

[Afro-Cuban jazz music]

In the early 1940s, Bauzá formed the legendary band Machito and his Afro-Cubans, along with his brother-in-law, Frank Grillo, who was called Machito. Bauzá was the musical director of the band and he composed some of the group's most memorable songs.

[Afro-Cuban jazz music]

The sensation caused by Machito and his Afro-Cubans and by other Latin musicians in the '40s made New York the focal point of a vibrant Latin music scene.

[Afro-Cuban jazz music]

It's the scene of The Mambo Kings, you know, and that's why a lot of people will say Mambo is not Cuban music or is not Mexican music. Mambo is New York music.

Enrique Fernández writes about Latin music for the Village Voice. He's also the editor of the New York-based Más Magazine.

It was here that this kind of music became very hot…that it really galvanized a lot of people…that really attracted a lot of musicians from different genres that wanted to jam with it, and that created those great, you know, those great encounters between Latin music practitioners and the jazz practitioners, particularly Black American jazz practitioners. For that, you need to recognize that New York has been, since then, probably before then, but certainly since then, one of the great centers of Latin music.

Mario Bauzá takes great pride in the current popularity of Latin and Caribbean music, but he says people are wrong to call his music Latin jazz. He says that label doesn't give proper recognition to its musical roots.

Merengue, merengue from Santo Domingo. Cumbia is cumbia from Colombia. Afro-Cuban is Cuban. That's why I got to keep [unintelligible] Afro-Cuban rhythms, and Afro-Cuban rhythm…Danzón es cubano…la Danza es cubano…Bolero es cubano…el Cha-cha-cha es cubano…el Mambo es cubano…el Guaguancó es cubano y la Columbia es cubana. So, I got to call it Afro-Cuban Jazz.

[Afro-Cuban jazz music]

After seven decades in the music business, Mario Bauzá has come out of the shadows of the group Machito and his Afro-Cubans and is being recognized for his accomplishments as one of the creators of Afro-Cuban Jazz. This year, Bauzá plans to tour with his Afro-Cuban jazz orchestra featuring Graciela on vocals. The group also plans to release another album of Afro-Cuban jazz: Explosión 93. For Latino USA, I'm Emilio San Pedro.

[Afro-Cuban jazz music]

Yo crecí en Chicago. I grew up in Chicago, but every summer, my family would pack up an overloaded station wagon and drive across the border to visit my homeland, México. I have many wonderful memories of those trips to less urban settings. That was where I came into contact with nature, driving across the mountains and deserts of México. I often think that, like me, many Latinos who return to the land of their birth or where their parents or grandparents came from do so for the joy of going back to where the simple things of life are still valued. A few years ago, Texas artist Luis Guerra moved to a village in the state of San Luis Potosí in northern México. He says he was recently reminded of why he made the move as he took a long hike in the mountains in La Sierra.

La subida es dura. It's a steep climb, but after a few hours, the walking gets easier. The valleys and peaks of this beautiful, rocky Sierra spread out before you like a solid ocean suspended in time. This is a dry land, almost a desert, yet sometimes I'll find a tiny spring in a niche of a canyon wall. Or I'll happen upon a small shrine in a lonely valley. Almost every day, I'll come across a shepherd tending his flock or I'll hear the sounds of children and discover they are gathering wild herbs like oregano or rosa de castillo. Often, early in the morning, I'll see a woman or a man driving two or three burros loaded with mountain produce heading for a nearby town or city. I make it a point not to camp close to someone's home just out of respect and so as not to use up firewood that doesn't belong to me. Firewood is scarce around here. This day as I crested a hill, I spotted a ranchito, just a little two-room house, adobe walls with a flat roof.

Smoke was rising from the chimney. I was barely 300 yards from the ranchito and it would be dark soon. It was too late to move on. It was going to be a cold night and the only firewood I could find was already cut…tú sabes, for the rancho's wood stove. Ni modo. I used the firewood. I felt guilty, but warm that night. Anyway, I would make it up to them in the morning. After breakfast, as I was packing my things, the campesino from the ranchito showed up, a barrel-chested man with strong hands, a weathered face, and a scraggly beard. "Buenos días." I walked up to him and offered to pay for the wood. He brushed my words aside. "Mira, everything you see all around you is mine. Estás en tu casa. This is your home." To him, I was already his guest and my offer to pay was almost impolite. He reached into his bag and handed me a small bundle. "My wife packed this for you," he said. It was bread, goat cheese, and jamoncillo, a homemade candy made from fresh milk. We talked for a while.

I told him I was a painter who took inspiration from the Sierra. He told of his early life as a shepherd in these same mountains and of his many years as a minor in Zacatecas. "The mines are bad luck," he said. "Es muy duro, siempre en lo oscuro… always in the dark, digging with dynamite for God knows what or for whom. Here on top of the earth, we have everything a man can need. What more can one ask for? Dios provides the earth, the sun, wind, and rain. We provide the labor." He smiled. Somehow, my pack felt especially light that whole day.

[Crowd chanting]

Many Latinos from across the country were among the hundreds of thousands of gays and lesbians who recently converged on Washington, D.C. They gathered in the nation's capital to celebrate their identities and demand lesbian and gay rights. In the wake of that event, Mandalit del Barco in New York spoke with several gay and lesbian Latino activists, and she prepared this report.

It's very, very difficult just to be lesbian or gay and be Latino, but I guess that at the same time, it's very beautiful.

Gay activists like Hector Seda are becoming more politically active, out there proclaiming their identities and working on issues like AIDS and equal rights. Seda is a board member of LLEGO, a national organization of lesbian and gay Latinos. He sees in this country and in Latin America an emerging political force.

It's beginning. It's happening in Puerto Rico. It's happening in general, all…I mean, it's happening in this country right now. Everybody, us, general Latinos and gays in this country, we're fighting for basic human rights.

We also have to be ready for the backlash because with visibility, there comes a very strong backlash, and usually, it's very violent.

Juan Méndez is a gay Puerto Rican who documents cases of gay bashing for the New York City Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project. Méndez rejects the stereotype that Latinos traditionally have more difficulty acknowledging homosexuality than do other cultures.

Homophobia is not any more or any less than in any other community, and I think that when people start talking about the taboos and machismo, you know, and things that, really, we have a very…I would call it a racist slant or context, because, you know, I don't see any other culture that has it any different.

Many gay Latinos, like Méndez, believe that the issues important to them are not necessarily reflected in the agenda of the gay movement as a whole. For instance, he says, the issue of including gays in the military was declared an issue by white gay activists.

I, as a gay person, have no interest in being part of a military core that has invaded not only my country, but has also supported dictatorships, right-wing dictatorships in many Latin American countries, and no one in the gay and lesbian community has stopped to think about what this means for non-white lesbians and gays.

The emphasis on this issue also bothers Terry, a New York City lesbian who declined to give her last name for fear of alienating her Cuban abuelita, her grandmother. She says that when she was at the march in Washington, she was so offended that she found herself booing when they called out the names of gay military men.

Clearly, I see that the mainstream gay and lesbian movement has become more and more focused on their primary desire is to be regular Americans. That is what is happening in this gays and the military thing. They want the right to be regular Americans. Well, we're not regular Americans, no matter what we do, so I don't fit into that agenda, and I don't want to, and I never would, even if I tried.

These activists say that while some differences exist over so-called gay and lesbian issues, what is important is for lesbian and gay Latinos to develop their own unique political agendas, and not only within gay political circles, says Méndez.

We have to fight within the gay and lesbian community at large for our issues as Latinos, but we cannot forget to fight within our Latino community at large for our issues as gay and lesbian people.

For Latino USA, I'm Mandalit del Barco in New York.

By now, Dr. Loco's Rockin' Jalapeño Band has a reputation up and down the California coast. Their fun-loving style is broad in its range, from cumbias like this…to Dixieland, the blues, or a mix of gospel and soca, with a little bit of Afro-Cuban percussion for spice. The members of this nine-piece band like to think of their work as Chicano world music. The band leader is Dr. Loco, also known as Professor José Cuéllar, PhD and chairman of La Raza studies department at San Francisco State University. Dr. Loco says his music is an example of what Chicano culture is all about, mixing and blending unlikely elements to create something entirely new.

We see Afro-Cuban rhythms that have been a part of our culture since the '20s. We see Germanic elements that have been part of our music since the late 1800s. We see indigenous rhythms and indigenous instruments and the reintegration and the influence of nueva canción of the '60s, the cha-chas and mambos of the '40s and '50s, the doo-wop of the '50s, and the rhythm and blues, and, more recently, the rap influence as well as influences from rhythms around the world: songo, soca, and et cetera. So we decided to call it Chicano world because we think it's Chicano music and it also represents the influences of the world on our music.

You know, you've also done something that is really somewhat daring. You've taken a term, “pocho,” which if it's used by a Mexican towards a Mexican, it can be taken as an insult that you're too pocho. That means you're too Americanized, but you've in fact taken this term, and you've said that you pocho-sized something.

Absolutely! We're very proud of being not only bilingual, actually multilingual, and not only bicultural but multicultural. And for the longest time, we were put down on the one side for being too Mexican and on the other side for being too anglicized or too Africanized. And uhh...we decided to, you know, take a cultural position in saying, “we're pochos and proud of it.” You know, somos bilingües. So what? In fact, we see that being bilingual, even when changing the lyrics, we're speaking to two different, actually, three different groups: monolingual English speakers who fill in the blanks, monolingual Spanish speakers who fill in the blanks, and bilingual razas, who trip off on how we can do this.

You mean they're the lucky ones out of…they're the luckiest ones because they can understand everything that's going on?

Well, they appreciate… you know, we appreciate it at a deeper level.

You can really hear the pocho-sizing of your music when you take a song, like "I Feel Chingon" from your album "Con Safos" or "Chile Pie" also from "Con Safos," both of these are like '50s remakes of Black songs, que no?

Absolutely, absolutely…those…I feel "Chingon" is our Jalapeño version of James Brown's "I Feel Good," and "Chile Pie" is the classic…a remake of the classic. It's always reverberated in the Chicano community…resonated. It's the "Cherry Pie."

[Dr. Loco's Rockin' Jalapeño Band music]

Black music is a very important part of the Chicano experience from the West Coast.

It's been an integral experience throughout. I mean, whether we're Chicanos in Tejas, we had the influence of the Louis Armstrongs and the Dixielands way back. I mean, Ernie Cáceres, Emilio Cáceres, the jazz musicians, were tremendous in the '30s, were influenced by Afro-Americans a lot from New Orleans, and then throughout the '40s and '50s, the blues had been strong. Some of our greatest blues singers, Chicano blues singers, have been tremendously influenced by the blues. Freddy Fender, you know, wrote "Wasted Days," the first Chicano blues.

Well, one of the themes that runs through most of your music is the idea of Chicano pride, and it's really especially apparent on your most recent CD called "Movimiento Music," but at some point, Dr. Loco, don't you feel like, for example, let's take "El Picket Sign." I mean, it sounded kind of predictable, kind of a throwback to the '70s or '80s, real staid, predictable, even like rhetorical kind of political music. I mean, at what point do you continue to talk, let's say, in music that is considered panfletária, really propagandistic, and, on the other hand, really wanting to do something that is communicating something else on a cultural level?

Well, you know, the reason we included that song…in fact, that song was the reason …the rest of the album grew out of that song, conceptually, for me, and that song was a song that we performed because the farm workers are still boycotting grapes and because we're so close to really having more and more people understand the dilemma of pesticides, you know, on our food and our jobs and how many people in Earlimart and in other communities are really suffering from these pesticides, and there's other…there has to be other ways of dealing with our food so that we have safe food and safe jobs.

Well, what do you say to people who believe that political music like this is really passé, that it's something of the past and that it's really from an old school, an old trend that's already gone?

Well, you know, I say to them, you know, the lyrics of "The Picket Sign," you know?

El picket sign. El picket sign. Boycott the Jolly Green Giant. El picket sign. El picket sign. Let's stop, run away in the street. El picket sign. El picket sign. Support the displaced workers. El picket sign. El picket sign. [unintelligible]. From San Antonio to San Francisco.

We were encouraged to produce the music because of the movement, not because of the other way around. We were encouraged by what seems to be conditions all around us.

The last piece on your CD is an interesting remake and an interesting version of "We Shall Overcome."

Nosotros venceremos. We shall overcome. Nosotros venceremos. Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe we shall overcome someday. ¡Soca, Loco!

We believe that this is the essential song for the movement of social justice. I mean, it has been…it's the one that's sung all over the world, from Tiananmen Square to Berlin to South Africa to the fields of California. So we decided to do a remake, our own remake blending something that would kind of reflect both its historical essence…and its rooted in the South and southern spirituals and the African American experience, but that has gone around the world and back, and with different and interesting influences. So, that's why we decided to do it in a blending of spiritual soca with Chicano Jalapeño flavor.

Speaking with us from KQED studios in San Francisco, Professor José Cuéllar, leader of Dr. Loco's Rockin' Jalapeño Band.

[Dr. Loco's Rockin' Jalapeño Band music]

Bullets, guns, violence, and gangs are a fact of life for an ever-growing number of young people in this country…white, Black, Asian, and Latino. Many Latino kids know this reality only too well and too early in their lives. John Guardo, who came to New York City when he was 12 years old, was a member of a crew for most of his teenage life. Crews are what gangs are called in New York City. Now, Guardo is trying to leave that life behind, but as he tells us in this commentary, leaving his crew may be easier than escaping the violence of the streets.

Last night, I was speaking to my girl on the phone, telling her how bad things were getting around my block and that I decided to buy a gun. She got mad, raising her voice and asking me, "How could you be that ignorant? You know what would happen if you got caught with one?" I said to her, "Yo, I ain't going to be carrying it around and showing it off. Imma keep it at home in case someone tries to break in or mess with my family." She got quiet then.

I was searching for a better answer. I realized what a vicious cycle I was willingly getting into. You see, around my neighborhood, things ain't no joke. I'm a former gang member, so I know what dangers roam the streets. Drug dealers, stick-up kids, crackheads, the whole nine. A glance is reason enough to get jumped. Having outgrown that lifestyle, though, I'm trying to live a regular life, working and going to school. Unfortunately, that also means my family's been taken off the untouchables list. We have all become prey to these urban predators.

Now, under this new set of rules, what am I to do with this trouble? Call the cops? Ha! No one I know, including myself, would do that in case of an emergency. In my eyes, cops are more interested in filling their quota than in serving their community. Dialing 911 has simply become taboo. At this point, I am sandwiched between two problems. Number one, I don't trust the police. The only times they've been there for me was to ram flashlights into my skull while cursing me out. If not that, they've stopped me in front of my building to frisk me as my neighbors watch. Number two, if I remain vulnerable for too long, something bad may happen to my loved ones.

What can I do? I can't join a crew. I just renounced one, but I got to protect myself. So the only thing left for me is to get a gun. Or, is it? You see, I really believe if the cops got their act together, there wouldn't be so much static in the streets. What I mean is not that we lack police presence but that it doesn't matter if there's cops in every corner when they're going to be there to magnify the distrust we already have for them.

Policemen should figure out who the real criminals are, I know, and go after them instead of treating all of us like such. They're the ones who have to change since the problems of the street are always going to be there; there's always going to be crime, and we need protection. These issues may be the bigger picture, but I'm still unable to answer my girl. Every day, I have to deal with these problems, and although I may forget about them, what worries me is that it might be one of my friends who falls into the cycle and goes out to buy the nine. In street slang, that's a nine-millimeter handgun. I'm John Guardo, speaking for the street.

The word mentor is derived from the ancient Greek from the name of the man who spent 10 years teaching the son of the poet Homer. In ancient Greece, young people often studied in apprenticeship programs. Today, some Latino students are learning a variety of skills, from chess to chemistry, in a mentorship program taking place in New Mexico. Debra Beagle prepared this report.

Here, I'm thinking of placing my knight on D5. It attacks his queen.

Now, had I scanned a little better, I would've seen that the knight would've come to that square…see, and I would not have put my queen where it is, because now I need to move that queen…

Thirteen-year-old Miguel Atencio of Chama, New Mexico, beats his father in chess almost every game. He began playing when he was nine. Two years later, he joined the high-school chess team. That's when someone from Celebrate Youth, a six-year-old mentorship program in New Mexico, spotted the talented youngster and invited him to work more seriously on his game. This year, Miguel won the state middle-school chess championship.

In math, it's helped me. I can like work out problems in my head and all that. It's helped me like to remember like what the things I read and all that, because you have to remember things. You have to remember positions and all that. So, I've been getting a little bit better at that.

Miguel Atencio is both highly motivated and very talented. These are the characteristics Celebrate Youth director, Paquita Hernández, looks for in students. She also pursues teenagers who are equally talented but living in what Hernández describes as economic and social poverty.

A child who is economically poor but is matched with a mentor who is an artist or is a physicist or is a chemist or is a great writer, offers challenging conversations, exciting questions, um…different opportunities to look…through which to experience the world…I think that they flourish in ways that are magnificent.

The adult mentor meets with the student once a week for six months. Each student develops a project, perhaps a dance, a piece of sculpture, a science or math project, an essay or poem, or a piece of music.

[Person playing the piano]

Okay, now do the last two lines, and make a difference between your…your forte in the top line and your fortissimo in your bottom line.

[Person playing the piano]

Ninth grader Alyssa Montoya works with Mary Agnes Anderson of Española as her mentor. Anderson has mentored three students so far.

It gives them courage to be different, a reason not to be like everyone else, to have faith in themself. Watching this happen is my basic reward on it.

Other mentors have seen more impressive changes as a result of the program. Paquita Hernández tells the story of one talented teenager who is likely to follow two older brothers into drugs and depression. After delving into a science research project for two years in the Celebrate Youth program, he entered college and now plans to become a doctor. Success stories like these, Hernández says, are less likely to happen within the current school system.

I think there's a vacuum in the schools, not only in New Mexico but in the whole nation. I think the schools need to change, and I think they need to change radically because they are not reaching the majority of young people. I think those kids who don't drop out of school physically actually drop out often, even though they're sitting in the classroom with the books in front of them.

Those involved in Celebrate Youth say the goal is to promote excellence over mediocrity. Achievement is measured against one's own abilities rather than in competition with others. This is the attitude Miguel Atencio takes.

All right, and here's the last move, and I'm going to checkmate in one move. I'm going to move Queen on E7 to B7. Checkmate.

That's the end of the game.

These days, Miguel is sharpening his chess skills to prepare for the annual Celebrate Youth Festival in June. Nearly 400 students, including 30 chess players like Miguel, will gather for three days at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, which co-sponsors the program. There, they'll perform their dances, hang their paintings, and display their research projects that demonstrate the skills they've worked so hard to develop.

[Person playing the piano]

The Wild Rider. The Wild Rider. Everyone has trouble with the Wild Rider. He's a hard-bucking horse.

For Latino USA, this is Debra Beagle in Tierra Amarilla, New Mexico.

President Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton have begun presenting their proposals to Congress about how to revamp the American healthcare system. The idea is that in the future, all Americans working or not will be covered by some kind of healthcare, but what about Latinos in this country, citizens or not? Wilma Montañez is a longtime national healthcare activist. She's currently the director of the Latina Round Table on Health and Reproductive Health in New York City. Wilma, what is the biggest healthcare problem facing Latinos, and will the Clinton plan help out?

There is a situation that in many of the Latino communities, we don't have access to healthcare, period. It's just not there. It's not in our communities. The infrastructure has not been put in place. The few community-based clinics that maybe were there may have been defunded through the years or have not really kept up with the needs of the community. So that's number one…is access to healthcare. And then, we are concerned about access for everyone…undocumented. Will it take care of the needs of specific reproductive health needs for women? Will it cover contraceptive services? Will it cover prevention? Will it cover abortion services?

Well, will it cover any of those things? Let's take, for example, the question of undocumented immigrants, many of whom are Latinos. Does the Clinton healthcare plan do anything to address their needs, or are they simply forgotten?

There is a lot of emphasis on connecting this healthcare reform to jobs, which is wonderful if it means that everybody in the United States is going to be working, but we know that, one: we do have a high percentage of people who are unemployed, in particular in the Latino communities of the country. Also that if it's related to a job, will all jobs feel this obligation to really provide healthcare insurance? Many of the jobs where you do find undocumented workers, they're the type of jobs that usually fall through the cracks. They're the kind of jobs that nobody ever thinks about and nobody ever wants to recognize, and we're concerned that then, the folks working in those types of jobs still will be uncovered.

How much, in fact, were Latino healthcare activists included in the process?

I think it has been minimal. I don't think it has been a concerted effort, using many people in the community, using a variety of people on different levels. I think when you're talking about providing healthcare, you can't just talk to the policymakers. You have to talk to some direct service providers, to policymakers, even folks in the medical schools that provide the folks who are going to be working in the communities. Because I think what's…what’s happening is that there is this healthcare reform that's being established, which is very much middle-class oriented. When you're working with folks who have not had access to quality care forever or if they ever had it in this country, then you're talking about people who may not know how to maneuver themselves through that type of healthcare system that’s been…you know, that they're talking about. So I think that's more the issue. And ignorance, I think there is ignorance. I think that people really don't understand how different it is when you have no access to healthcare, that it is difficult to make your way through appointments and through large clinics and just finding an [unintelligible] provider.

Thank you very much. Wilma Montañez is the director of the Latina Roundtable on Health and Reproductive Health in New York City.

They came by the thousands to the 40-acre ranch near Delano to pay their respects to the man who had fought an entire lifetime to give dignity and more opportunity to those who picked the food on America's tables. César Chávez, founder of the United Farm Workers Union, the first successful attempt to organize agricultural workers in this country, died April 23 at age 66. In Delano, the mass procession behind Chávez's simple pine coffin was at times over two miles long, as everyone, from farmworkers to the famous, came to pay their respects.

We shall miss…we shall miss César's powerful voice. His life and its example call each of us to a higher purpose, to greater resolve, to right the wrongs, to correct the injustices that continue to plague our communities, whether it's urban or rural, industrial or agricultural. It is an honor to remember his valiant life and to recommit myself and that of my colleagues as we go forward to try to bring for our children and our children's children the vision and the dream that we share. Entonces, con su permiso…hablo poquito en Español.

[Crowd cheering]

César Chávez es mi hermano, mi amigo, mi compañero. ¡Viva la raza! ¡Viva la causa! ¡Viva César Chávez!

[Crowd cheering]

A proclamation by the President of the United States of America upon the death of César Chávez. "César Chávez came from the humbled yet proud beginnings of a migrant worker to lead those same workers in a movement that irreversibly shaped our nation and brought justice and dignity to thousands. After the Depression ..."

In 1965, I believe, or '66, we marched with César here in Delano. On the efforts to do something about publicizing the boycott and the plight of farmworkers.

He moved us in a way that has come to be known as el movimiento y la causa.

Repeat after me. Boycott grapes! Boycott grapes! Boycott grapes!

In his loving…in his loving memory, please, boycott grapes. Make sure that our children do not have to suffer the pesticides anymore. What has happened to César will happen to all of us, and may we all be as lucky as César and be able to lay our heads down, close our eyes while reading a magazine on the Aztec nation and go to sleep and end our lives in that manner. We should all be that lucky.

¡Nosotros venceremos! ¡Nosotros venceremos ahora!

The life of César Chávez, his commitment to a cause, inspired many across the country, and as thousands gathered at the memorial service in Delano, California, Diana Martínez collected these thoughts from friends and supporters of César Chávez.

Nosotros venceremos.

Whether from a celebrity, politician, or average citizen, everyone who came to pay their respect seemed to have a story about how César Chávez touched their lives.

His life was an example to people, and millions of Hispanics and millions of Americans who will never live on a farm had their lives changed by him.

Mark Grossman first met Chávez in 1969 as a student. Grossman worked summers and vacations on the grape boycott from 40 Acres, United Farm headquarters in Delano. He learned firsthand how César was always able to get people to do a little more than what they first expected. Grossman wound up working for the union for 24 years and became his press secretary and personal aide. No one, he said, worked harder than the labor leader.

No one could tell César Chávez to slow down. The man was working 20-hour days, traveling constantly. I can't count the number of times that I'd meet him at his yard…you know, at 3 o’ clock in the morning, because…at La Paz near Bakersfield, because we had to be in Sacramento or San Francisco at 11:00, and we'd spend a full day of appearances and rallies and news conferences and protests or negotiations and be back dropping him off at 3 o’ clock the next morning.

Before becoming a politician, California State Senator Art Torres also worked for the UFW. As a young man, he was inspired by his unbending principles.

I remember, one time, we were driving from…Thermal, California in 1973 and the two dogs were in the back, Boycott and Huelga, and we stopped at a gas station…and we had just come from a rally. We had collected all this money, and I said, "Well, brother, we need to pay the gas bill." He says, "You're not going to touch that money until it's accounted for, back at La Paz." I said, "But we have no money to pay for the gas." "Then you go out there and you find the money from somebody else, but you're not going to touch that money because that has to be accounted for. It's the workers' money."

Senator Robert Kennedy, Jr., says his family became more aware of the power of the Latino vote because of Chávez.

I remember in the 1980 campaign when he came to Arizona, which he didn't have to do, during a primary, when Senator Kennedy was already in bad shape in the election, but he produced hundreds of lowriders who came with him because they were devoted to him to get out the vote for us on primary election day. He went into the field, sent organizers, had them register actually in the field, and we won the state of Arizona just because of César.

My first job that César gave me when we came to Delano was to go get the money from the workers at $3.50.

Dolores Huerta was with Chávez from the very beginning. She said he always knew gaining rights for farmworkers would mean tremendous sacrifice.

I went back to César, and I said, "César, they can't afford that much money." And he said, "If they don't give that $3.50, they will never get out of their poverty.”

Father William Wood, president of the National Catholic World Life Conference, and the Reverend Jesse Jackson, say Chávez will never be forgotten.

Because of our common faith, and especially with what I see here tonight, with the face of the people, I see that that it's really true when they say "Viva César Chávez." He really does live.

Chávez was a seed sower. He planted seeds of dignity, and those seeds will keep sprouting in the heart of people. As long as farmworkers fight for a decent wage, Chávez lives. As long as they fight against the horrors of the insecticides, Chávez lives. As long as they fight for the right to vote, Chávez lives. As long as they fight to build coalition, Chávez lives.

For Latino USA, I'm Diana Martínez.

When he died, César Chávez vacated the post he had held for over 20 years as president of the United Farm Workers. Towards the end of his tenure, though, the organization was faced with much criticism over the handling of the last grape boycott and a decreasing membership of farmworkers. In naming a new president, the UFW could have chosen Dolores Huerta, the co-founder of the organization. She said it would've been symbolic but, in fact, that the Farm Workers Union needed to move forward. So last week, the torch was passed to the younger generation. Arturo Rodríguez, Chávez's son-in-law is the new UFW president. The future of the UFW was on the minds of many who gathered at the memorial service for the longtime union leader. From Delano, Alberto Aguilar reports.

[Transitional corrido music]

This retired farmworker brought his accordion to Delano to remember César Chávez. Old-timers like him have been through a lot in the last 30 years, ever since César Chávez began organizing in the fields. The corridos tell the story of the struggle to improve the lot of the most impoverished of American workers. With the passing of their leader, unionized farmworkers now turn their heads to the future. While some may say these are unsettled times for the UFW, others see it as a rebirth. Organizer Humberto Gómez said Chávez's crusade won battles on the strength of our conviction of justice in the fields and that justice is still worth fighting for.

See, what happened is, like César used to say, the UFW is not only a union; it's a social movement. We belong to the community, and the community belongs to us. So we are part of the community, and that way, we will never die. You know, it is like me…you know, I start when I was 15 years old. I got my family here marching with me, and then more farmworker kids are going to be coming, and they're going to be getting involved in this. So we will never be shrinking, we will never die because this is a good movement. This is the best movement.

Another UFW organizer says he's not concerned at the passing of Chávez or the death of the union. Bobby de la Cruz, whose father was killed in an early union-organizing drive, said Chávez prepared them for his departure.

When I went and seen his coffin, you could see his face. I mean, he died peacefully, but you could tell that the work that he wants us to do is there. And he knows that, and we know, that the commitment is even stronger now. And I think this summer, you'll see the fruit of his labor really producing because it has inspired us to say that the union is alive, the leadership that it has. I mean, we come from that school. We've been at it for 20…25 years, and we're young, we're moving ahead and moving the movement forward to where he wants us.

For a time in the '70s, farmworkers had political clout in California. They even got the governor Jerry Brown, Jr., to sign a landmark legislation establishing the Agricultural Labor Relations Board. But through two successive Republican administrations, the tide started to turn against the farmworkers. California political consultant, Richie Ross.

I think César came to conclusion, and I think the correct one, that this movement has to win on the strength of average people and not be dependent on politicians.

Was that evident to you, and how?

He hasn't had any serious communication with any politicians in a long time. They haven't done anything. I mean, he tried everything. He supported them. He did it with money, he did it with people. He's done it every way you're supposed to play. He played the game the way everyone says you're supposed to play the game. He played the game. He got the law passed. He continued to support them all. And when push came to shove, all that he could do was no match for the money of the agricultural interests in the state. And uhh…I think he came to the conclusion when he started the grape boycott the second time several years ago that they're going to have to do it the old-fashioned way.

The union has also been weakened by internal strife and dissension within the ranks. But in the wake of César Chávez's death, the disaffected and the estranged have come back. Like California Senator Art Torres, many are talking about a renewal of the UFW.

It's a healing process for all of us. And now we realize that we still have a lot of work to do, and I think his death gives us all a rebirth of where we have to recommit ourselves even stronger now to erase some of these injustices which continue in one of the richest states in the world.

Welcome this evening, César Chávez of the United Farm Workers of America.

[Clapping]

Very early in our struggle, we found that…we really couldn't beat the growers at their own game…in their own turf. And taking a page from…Gandhi and Dr. King and others, we came to the conclusion that we had to involve half of the world to beat the growers and that we could not do it through public policy. Workers are not covered by any protective laws for collective bargaining. And…those local courts will issue out injunctions like…they were going out of style. We were going to strike. But we also found out that they couldn’t really…although they're very powerful, that they really couldn't reach out to Chicago or Boston or even San Francisco or [unintelligible] or other places…across the border to Canada or Mexico. And that there, we could begin to have a more level playing field.

I'm talking now of public action or the boycott. It is a boycott… public action…that saved this union. It is the only way we've ever made any progress, is through the boycott. We've never won anything without the boycott. The boycott or a threat of the boycott. It's a terrible irony that in our day and our age, our country produces more food than what it really needs…yet the men, women, and children whose labor harvests this food often go to bed hungry. That's a terrible irony, and that's why we're here, and we ask you to join us, to join us to put a stop to that. Thank you very much.

[Clapping]

[Corrido music about César Chávez]

The newly appointed successor to César Chávez, Arturo Rodríguez, started as a union organizer in the '70s. The Chávez lieutenant will have to deal with difficult issues like the grape boycott, the legal challenges by the growers, and the ban on toxic pesticides in the fields. Rodríguez will need the determination and daring Chávez taught his organizers. For Latino USA, this is Alberto Aguilar, reporting from Delano, California.

This is news from Latino USA. I am Maria Martin. Several congressional house members led by Democratic representative Xavier Becerra of California are calling for legislation to investigate human rights abuses by federal agencies along the US-Mexico border. From Washington, Franc Contreras reports.

Widespread allegations of abuses by the US Border Patrol, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and Customs have prompted this legislation. It would create a commission with the power to recommend, not mandate disciplinary actions against those three agencies. Currently, people with complaints must either go through the agency they're complaining against or go through the Inspector General's office. The problem is that most complainants are not familiar enough with the system to use it. This proposed bill would address those problems, say congressional supporters. The panel would have seven members appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. This legislation has support from Representative Jose Serrano, chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and representative John Conyers, chairman of the Government Operations Committee. Since the commission would have no enforcement powers, the legislation is expected to pass easily. For Latino USA, I'm Franc Contreras in Washington.

Everybody out here keep the strength going because we need all the support for all of our brothers and sisters. There's about 90 of them in jail.

Mexican-American students at the University of California at Los Angeles continue to demand a Chicano Studies department, one demonstration protesting budget cuts for the Chicano Resource Center. And UCLA Chancellor Charles Young's opposition to an independent Chicano Studies department resulted in over 90 arrests as students occupied the campus faculty center and allegedly caused over $50,000 in damages. UCLA student Benny Madera was among those joining the protests. He spoke with Latino USA's Alberto Aguillar.

It's been too long that they've kept our history from us. It's 1993 and they're still trying to keep our history from us. They don't want to give us a Chicano Studies program. We've been asking for it for years.

What does it do for you, Chicano Studies?

First of all, it tells me who I am, where I came from. It gets rid of that low self-esteem that the gabacho puts us through. You know that gabacho grinder system were put through growing up in this society, but without finding out who we are, where we came from, we don't have that amor proprio.

UCLA Chancellor Young has said keeping Chicano Studies an interdisciplinary program gives it intellectual vitality. Young was in Japan and unavailable for comment, but Vice Chancellor Andrea Rich says the protest would not make the chancellor change his mind.

You're listening to Latino USA.

This is Maria Hinojosa. In February of 1991, a hard-hitting newspaper reporter and radio commentator was assassinated in New York City. Many theories have since surfaced as to who had reasons to kill Manuel de Dios Unanue. The combative journalist had written about corruption in Puerto Rico and angered anti-Castro groups by advocating better relations between the US and Cuba. Now, as Mandalit del Barco reports from New York, law authorities are linking the De Dios's murder to a Colombian cocaine cartel.

A special investigative team called Redrum, that's murder spelled backwards, is looking into reports that notorious drug lord, Joses Santacruz Londaño put out a $20,000 bounty on Manuelo De Dios Unanue. US attorney Mary Jo White announced the indictments of two Colombian men in the killing of the journalist known as an anti-drug crusader.

It is believed that the order for this murder came from the highest levels of the Cali cartel in Columbia. It is believed that De Dios was killed because of his vigorous reporting on the activities of the Cali cartel.

For years, De Dios worked to investigate and expose international reports of drugs and crime, first as editor of New York's largest Spanish language newspaper El Diario, and later as the publisher of two crime magazines. In 1991, he was shot point-blank while sitting in his favorite restaurant in Queens. Richard Brown is the district attorney from Queens who worked with federal agents on the case.

The same tactics repeatedly used by Colombian cocaine traffickers in South America to silence their critics, were used here. He was killed because he had the courage to speak out. Because he exercised his first amendment rights as a journalist.

After De Dios was killed, there was some concern that law enforcers had not moved enough to solve his murder. Some said that, had De Dios been an English language journalist, the investigation would've moved faster. Many journalists like Juan Gonzalez pressed for more action by the investigators.

If the people who they've arrested are the right people and are the guilty parties, then I think it's going to be, it's going to send a message, obviously, that you're not going to be able to get away with this kind of stuff in the United States. Hopefully that will have a deterrent effect on any kind of a drug syndicates in the future.

While killings of journalists in this country are rare, that's not the case in many Latin American countries. Blanca Rosa Vilchez reports out of New York for Univision Television, which broadcasts throughout the Americas.

When I left Peru in 1983, I thought that by leaving Peru and leaving Latin America, just the idea of getting killed in a mission was going to be gone and I was going to leave that feeling in the international airport in Lima, and actually I left, but the feeling still remains. And every time that a journalist gets killed, like in this situation, the feeling of being in a country like Peru or Colombia comes back to me and it's kind of difficult to say it, but the more they kill journalists, the more we fight back because we know that it has to be said. And even though it involves a great personal risk, this is what we are here for and we keep on doing it.

Some reporters and editors at De Dios's old newspapers say they're very much relieved by the investigation and the message this sends to would-be assassins. El Diario editor-in-chief Fernando Moreno says that the death of Manuel De Dios has actually inspired other reporters to follow his journalistic lead.

Because he was killed, many people who'd never dream of reporting on these issues are reporting now these issues. I mean, I think that's solidarity of the press show in this country and internationally with his killing has given new ideas and new investigators are coming out because they killed Manuel De Dios. So I think that instead of stopping the reporting on the issue has done completely the opposite.

Law enforcers are now trying to extradite the Colombians who allegedly ordered the killing of journalist Manuel De Dios Unanue. For Latino USA, I am Mandelita Delbarco in New York.

This year, the Mexican cinema is enjoying a revival with such films as "El Danson" and "Como Agua para Chocolate", "Like Water for Chocolate". "Like Water for Chocolate" is a saying, un dico, meaning that something is near the boiling point. And in her film and the haunted narrative of her novel, screenwriter and author Laura Esquivel, finds the boiling point in the kitchen and in relationships between men and women. From Boulder, Colorado, Betto Archos prepared this report.

Tal parecía que en un extraño fenómeno de alquimia su ser se había disuelto en la salsa de las rosas, en el cuerpo de las codornices, en el vino y en cada uno de los olores...

It's the essence of love, femininity, and the affirmation of human nature that Laura Esquivel conveys through a novel which evolved when the author was cooking in her home in Mexico.

Bueno, me vino mientras cocinaba. Porque a mi me encanta cocinar... [transition to English dub] And it came to me when I was cooking my family's recipes. I would always go back to the past and clearly remember my grandmother's kitchen and the smells and the chats. And I always thought that it would be very interesting to adapt this natural human mechanism to literature. And in the same way that one describes how to make a recipe, be able to narrate a love story.

Set in a border ranch during the Mexican Revolution, "Like Water for Chocolate" is the story of Tita, the youngest of three daughters born to Mama Elena. It is a family tradition that the youngest daughter not marry, but stay at home to care for her mother. Soon, however, Tita falls in love, but her tyrannical mother makes no exception and arranges for Tita's older sister, Rosaura to marry Tita's love, Pedro. Tita's sister is played by actress Yareli Arizmendi.

Creo que tenemos pendiente una conversacion, no crees? Creo que fue desde que te casaste con mi novio. Empecemos por ahí si quieres... In this scene from the film "Like Water for Chocolate", the two sisters confront each other about the family tradition Tita refuses to uphold. Ya no hablemos del pasado, Pedro se caso conmigo y punto. Y no voy a permitir que ustedes dos se burlen de mí... But most of the action in "Like Water for Chocolate" centers around the kitchen. After the family cook dies, Tita takes over the kitchen responsibilities, and in her hands every meal and dessert becomes the agent of change. Anyone who eats her food is transformed by it, and sometimes in very surprising ways, according to Laura Esquivel.

Yo tengo una teoría que atraves de la comida se... I have a theory that through food, gender roles are interchanged and the man becomes the passive one and the woman the active one.

What drew my interest more in terms of this use of recipes and cooking and all of this, this presence of it, is really the issue that's been dealt with quite a bit by the feminists, which is female space.

Raymond Williams, professor of Latin American literature and coordinator of the novel of the America Symposium at the University of Colorado in Boulder says that "Like Water for Chocolate" is a novel that goes against a traditional literary point of view.

Departing from the female space of a kitchen rather than departing from, say, the great Western adventure stories that were typically kind of the male stories of the traditional novel. And I think that's that female space is one what really drew my attention in my first reading of the novel and my first viewing of the film.

The recipes in "Like Water for Chocolate", which range from turkey mole with almonds and sesame seeds to chilis in walnut sauce, are far removed from fast food and frozen dinners. They require a lot of dedication and can take days or weeks to prepare. And in the age of microwave ovens and technology, Esquivel says, people have moved away from that which is naturally human.

Para nosotros, el elaborar la cena, es el carácter de una ceremonia... For us, cooking is like a ceremony and has nothing to do with a commercial. It really is a ritual, a ritual in which the family participates, and by doing so, one heightens his human quality.

Last year, the film "Like Water for Chocolate" received over 10 international awards, including one for best actress at the Tokyo Film Festival, and for Best Picture, Mexico's Ariel Award. The film is a collaboration between Esquivel and director Alfonso Arau, one of Mexico's leading filmmakers and Esquivel's husband. The novel has been published in English by Doubleday. The film is currently playing in major theaters across the country. For Latino USA, this is Beto Arkos in Boulder, Colorado.

Singer, songwriter, Hollywood actor, Harvard Law School graduate. These are just a few of the personas of Panamanian-born Ruben Blades. A Renaissance man, if there ever was one. Blades and his group, Seis del Solar, have just completed what may be their last tour for a good while because Blades is looking to begin a new career. As he told reporters in San Antonio recently, he'll be returning to his native Panama to head up a new political party.

The group is already together. It's called Papa Egoró, which means 'Mother Land' in the Emberá language. I wanted to use an indigenous, a palliative to the movement, so we don't end up calling ourselves one of those slogan-ish pamphlet-sounding, demagogic-sounding names of party for the democracy of the people, and then they turn out to be anything but.

Blades' new party was recognized earlier this year by Panama's National Electoral Tribunal. Still, Blades says he is not currently a candidate for president, but that his move into politics will give the Panamanian people an option.

It's the first time you have a political party that has been created because the people are sick and tired of being abused by left and by right. So we have now a scenario here where we may create the kind of infrastructure that really addresses the issues of the nation and not the issues of special interest groups, and I'm very hopeful about that.

Blades says that given the breakdown of Panama's economy and infrastructure, it's going to take honesty, organization and a lot of education to turn things around for the country. When asked whether he'd like to see US troops leave Panama, Blades replies that he wants his native land to take care of itself. As to charges that his campaign is one of demagoguery that is far removed from the lives of everyday Panamanians, Blades said this:

The scenario in Panama will be determined by the Panamanian people, by its will and its desire to carry out a specific position. And if you try to become a Messiah, and if you try to become a demagogue, you're going to end up with pie all over your face because people are going to determine whether what you're spouting or defending is going to work or not. What good is it for you to say, "Oh, do this," and then have 60, 70% of the country say, "That's not what we're going to do." Well then, what do you do? What do you do?

And finally, Blades says, for him, there is no contradiction between his career as an artist and musician and a future as a politician.

I don't find that there is a scenario of antinomy or any kind of contradiction. On the contrary, I think that the fact that I was involved in the arts is giving me the kind of credibility amongst the majority of Panamanians who are sick and tired of business as usual in politics.

From Arizona, from Lansing, Michigan, all the friends from Lansing, from New York City. Ooh, what a day.

It was that time of year in San Antonio, again. Time for fans of the TexMex accordion to make the pilgrimage to Rosedale Park for the 12th-Annual Tejano Conjunto Festival.

[Transitional Music]

It's not only a part of the Tejano Chicano culture, but it's an art form, and people from all over the world come to experience it. That's what's special about it.

I didn't know a damn thing about Conjunto music till a few days ago. Now I'm a real fan.

It just brings out the spirit and the heart that has brought to you that you're raised with it, your parents loved it, and you continue to love it as well. It's just there.

See, I grew up listening to Conjunto music when my parents would take us to the dance hall as little kids. So it's not just what we're listening to now, but it's also a way of passing on culture.

The beat. The beat, it just, I mean, it just keeps your body going. You don't have to understand it to enjoy. But if you are fortunate enough to understand the language, pues esta mejor. Que viva conjunto.

This year's festival featured traditional Conjunto as well as its more modern musical cousin, Tejano music. As Elena Quezada reports from Austin, in the last few years, Tejano music is enjoying an unprecedented boom in popularity.

It's past midnight at Dance Across Texas, a popular dance club in Austin where nearly 2000 bodies are pressed up against the stage in anticipation of tonight's show.

This is not just any performance, this is a Tejano show. The very name means Texan in Spanish. The term Tejano has come to define regional TexMex music, and tonight it's Emilio Nevida and his group Rio from San Antonio, Texas. With hits like "Naciste Para Mi", they have become one of the most popular bands in Tejano music. The popularity of Emilio Nevida and other interpreters of Tejano music is selling out concerts and packing glitzy new nightclubs throughout the Southwest.

And now, another 40 minutes of continuum, on San Antonio's Numero Uno, Number One Tejano 107FM.

Another sign of Tejano music's popularity is that, in the last two years, radio stations across the Southwest, California and in Mexico are changing to a Tejano music format, dropping their contemporary pop or salsa formats and switching to a Tejano style.

I see the rise of Tejana music as being parallel to the popularity or the rise of Hispanics in this country, economically, politically, culturally. They said the eighties was the decade of the Hispanics, and then they quickly said, "Nope, this is going to go on for a while."

Ramiro Burr is an entertainment reporter who covers at the Tejano music scene for the San Antonio Express-News. He says that Tejano music, which was once thought of as the traditional music of older generations, now has legions of younger fans.

I see that when I go to Tejano shows and I see kids from five, six years old, eight years old, singing the lyrics to these people. Now I go back to '80 and I can't remember a time when they were teens or pre-teens that considered Tejano artists heroes. But now they do. Now they buy their t-shirts, their coffee cups, their caps. That shows me that there's a future for this.

With its sounds of the accordion, the bass and the guitar, Tejano music came out of the Norteno style, developed along the Texas-Mexico border. This style, also called Conjunto, was born when Mexican and Mexican-American musicians borrowed the accordion from their German and Czech neighbors in Texas. Tejano roots can also be traced to the early orchestra sounds of Little Jo and La Familia and others like Sonny Ozuna from the late fifties and sixties. Tejano music of the nineties consists of rancheras, polkas, ballads, and cumbias. With influences of pop, rap country and rock.

21-year-old Selena Quintanilla from Corpus Christi, Texas has been number one on the regional Mexican charts of Billboard Magazine for the past seven months. Selena and other young artists have added their own touches to the music.

We consider Tejano music like a folk music. It's always been here. It's never changed. It's like country music. But we feel that it's getting stronger now because it's more progressive. Now there's keyboard synthesizers and it's a lot more modern. And I think it's great now because now the young people are turning back to TexMex music and wanting to get more closer to their roots.

$33.39—put the guarantee on here. We have a 30-day guarantee on our cassettes.

In the past year alone, Tejano music sales have exploded from 3 million in 1980 to an estimated 16 million dollars in 1992. Artists like La Mafia, Selena and Moz can now sell more than 1 million records.

[Transitional Music]

Major record companies like Capitol, EMI, Sony, and Warner Brothers have noticed that Tejano music's enormous market potential. They've signed on artists who previously recorded for small regional labels. Now their sales have escalated. This year, the 13th annual Tejano Music Awards were broadcast live for the first time via satellite to 32 markets, many of them outside of Texas. Another sign that Tejano music is reaching out beyond traditional borders is that this year the band which was recognized as the most promising in Tejano music is fronted by an African-American. Dee Burleson, lead singer of a group called Culturas, believes that this boom in Tejano music has only just begun.

It used to be like almost a mom-and-pop operation. Dad would go out and promote son and daughter for their band or whatever. Now they've got big sponsors and they've got huge industry behind them, and it's a great thing. It's a great, it's a building process and right now it's reaching all around the world. It's a rave thing in Germany right now, and Great Britain. So, Tejano music is finally getting the recognition it deserves.

Major corporations are also recognizing this music's potential. Coca-Cola, Miller Light and GMC Trucks are just a few of the many investors in this musical style. For Latino USA en Austin, I'm Elena Quesada.

[Transitional Music]

This audio essay with music by The Latin Alliance was produced by Beto Argos in Boulder, Colorado, along with Guillermo Gomez-Pena, Yareli Arizmendi, and Sergio Arau.

This is news from Latino USA. I'm Maria Martin. An association of Latino attorneys is lobbying the President to name a Hispanic to the nation's highest court. From Miami, Emilio San Pedro reports.

The Latino community is the second largest and fastest-growing minority group in the United States, but a Latino has never served on the United States Supreme Court. That's the premise on which the Hispanic National Bar Association, the HNBA, based its campaign to President Bill Clinton to appoint a Latino to the Supreme Court. HNBA National President Carlos Ortiz says that not only is it important to have a Latino on the Supreme Court for the sake of equal representation, but also, he says a qualified Latino Justice could bring a unique perspective to the court.

We feel that with a new perspective on that court, that the arguments that could be made by and between the judges that have to make them in order to arrive at a decision that will impact upon the 250 million Americans that have to follow the Supreme Court's law, that Hispanics can greatly contribute to the development of that new law, and then the administration of justice.

The short list of seven potential nominees was presented to President Clinton on March 21st. They include Joseph Baca, a Justice on the New Mexico Supreme Court, Texas Attorney General Don Morales, and Wilmer Martinez, former President and General Counsel of MALDAEF, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund. For Latino USA, I'm Emilio San Pedro.

13 years of English-only in increasingly Spanish-speaking Dade County, Florida have come to an end. An amendment prohibiting the use of Spanish in county government was repealed after a noisy five-hour hearing that had opposing sides singing "God Bless America" and the Cuban National Anthem. With the repeal of the English-only amendment, information about AIDS, child abuse, and transportation will be available in Spanish, and Dade County can hire Spanish language interpreters.

A Hispanic coalition has issued a report card grading President Clinton's appointment of high-level Latinos to his administration. As Patricia Guadalupe reports from Washington, the President earned high marks in some departments, low marks in others.

The National Hispanic Leadership Agenda, a coalition of 28 Latino agencies, examined President Clinton's first 100 days. They found that only 16 Hispanics have been appointed to top White House and Cabinet posts. That is less than 5% of all positions available. Four departments; Agriculture, Labor, State, and Veteran Affairs, received an F for having no Hispanics in positions requiring Senate confirmation. The National Hispanic Leadership Agenda applauded the appointments of cabinet secretaries Henry Cisneros and Federico Pena. Still, coalition Director Frank Newton said the overall picture for Hispanics was disappointing. For it's high-level Hispanic appointments, the coalition gave the Clinton Administration an overall grade of C-. For Latino USA, I'm Patricia Guadalupe in Washington.

The debate over healthcare reform continues. In a full page ad in the New York Times, three California Latino organizations urged President Clinton to include everyone, even the undocumented, in his upcoming healthcare plan. From Sacramento, Armando Botello reports.

The Latino issues for a Mexican American political association and American GI forum based their petition on the assumption that preventive healthcare is a good investment. John Gamboa is President of the Latino Issues Forum.

There's no real good reason why these people should not be counted. First, it's un-American. Second, it doesn't save money. Third, if we don't cover them, the health of everybody else is in jeopardy because a communicable disease that could be prevented may spread to other people and increase the cost, and get other people sick simply because we won't cover them.

According to Gamboa, the only criticism to their petition has come from anti-immigrant groups. However, Arnoldo Torres, former National Director of the League of Latin American Citizens, says the plan is not feasible because of an anti-immigrant climate, a shortage of funds, lack of Latino health professionals, and a lack of consensus among the Latino community to back the proposal. Torres however offers an alternative which would be linked to the Free Trade Agreement.

Some of the revenue and benefit that Mexico will receive from this, and as well as the US, ought to be providing... It should be put into some reserve/trust fund to cover some of the healthcare costs of undocumented people in this country.

So far, the only response to the proposal has come from the California Congressional Delegation, which has asked the President to look into it. In Sacramento, California, I'm Armando Botello reporting for Latino USA.

Seasonal farm workers have been left out of Washington State's newly-enacted healthcare law, considered the most sweeping in the nation. Farm worker health advocates call the exclusion "unwise and unconstitutional", and plant a core challenge. I'm Maria Martin. You're listening to Latino USA.