Annotations for People: Gonzalez-manuel J

This is news from Latino USA. FBI Director Louis Free has named agent Manuel Gonzalez to the high ranking post of assistant director of personnel at the FBI. Still a Latino coalition claims the Clinton administration has a poor record of appointing Hispanics. They're giving that record a grade of D, as Patricia Guadalupe reports.

Five months ago, the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda, a coalition of 28 Latino organizations gave President Clinton a C-minus for the lack of high-ranking Latinos in his administration. Frank Newton, the coalition's executive director says the president's record on Hispanic appointments continues to be unsatisfactory.

Since May, the administration has filled well over a hundred Senate confirmation slots. So even though they've added all kinds of people to the administration through their appointments, Latinos are moving backwards instead of moving forward. It's very discouraging and we get a lot of lip service. We get promises that trust us, it'll work out, you'll be happy with the results. And we've been waiting and we're not seeing any results, so.[Background, people speaking]

Newton hopes that the new report card will grab the attention of Latino leaders, many who say they are still unsatisfied with the numbers. One of them is Democratic Congressman Solomon Ortiz of Texas.

Before long, we're going to be the largest growing minority in the United States, and if we are to integrate into this government system of ours, into the different services' agencies, we need more Hispanic appointees and I think that we're dragging behind. The administration is dragging behind.[Background, music]

A spokesman for the Clinton administration said that although the President realizes the importance of the Hispanic community, he had to fulfill promises made to those he knew from his days as an Oxford student and as governor of Arkansas. The entire appointment process he added, takes a very long time, but some key Hispanic nominations would be made shortly. For Latino USA, I'm Patricia Guadalupe from Washington.