Annotations for People: Hernandez-andrew

Without the [unintelligible], we would not see the progress we've seen in minority voter participation. What this would do if it were to prevail, it would be a major step backward. It would shut people out again.

And the question is how do you manage this process in a way that really leads to people's lives being better off?

So, I think the way we answer is this; you don't solve the job flight problem by taking down NAFTA. You can build a NAFTA with the side agreements to protect workers' rights on both sides of the border. And frankly, what the opponents of NAFTA have not been able to answer to us and where Chicano labor is not [unintelligible]. How do things get better if NAFTA's defeated? Are we going to have fewer jobs leaving or are we going to have more political will to clean up the environment? Are we going to have any focus at all upon our populations along the border?

I think it's easy to scare the American workers about jobs leaving to Mexico because we are in a recession. People need a scapegoat when they start losing their jobs, when they start facing economic hardships and the most convenient scapegoat right now are immigrants and Mexico.

As you know, the Latino consensus was not for NAFTA until the North American Development Bank was part of the proposal because we thought the mechanism wasn't there to address some of the problems that NAFTA would create. The point of this lobbying effort is to go back to our leadership and say, now we have a NAFTA worth fighting for.

The deciding edge on why NAFTA may go down may be that latent bigotry that exists in our country against all things Mexican or Latino.

We thought it was going to be a little bit closer, but no, we weren't surprised. I think that in the end a number of groups came around because they felt that what the provisions that the administration was providing, like North American Development Bank, made NAFTA worth fighting for. By the way, the division you saw in the whole is reflected in their own delegation. Nine Hispanic members went for NAFTA, eight opposed it.