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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.

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.

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]

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus is calling for the ouster of a federal judge in Florida. From Washington, Patricia Guadalupe has more.

Congressman Frank Tejeda, a Democrat from Texas, says Federal Judge Alexander Paskay made racist remarks in his Florida court. During a bankruptcy hearing in Tampa, Paskay reportedly referred to a South Texas Hispanic lawyer as "Speedy Gonzalez." He also asked if his clients were part of a Colombian cocaine cartel. Representative Tejeda successfully asked congressional Hispanic members to join in pushing for Judge Paskay's removal.

People go to court seeking justice and they expect the…the judge to be very honest and objective and neutral.

Under law, a federal judge can be removed by misconduct but only by his supervisor, the chief judge. For Latino USA, I'm Patricia Guadalupe in Washington.

You're listening to Latino USA.

You're listening to news from Latino USA. It may not be election time, but Democrats and Republicans are wooing Latinos. In a briefing held for the Hispanic Press in Washington, Democratic National Committee Chair, David Wilhelm announced a ‘Salud Para Todos’ campaign to win Hispanic support for the President's healthcare plan and also a major drive to increase Latino voter participation.

We are going to be very much involved in encouraging citizenship and encouraging participation among that new huge voting block.

Meanwhile, several recent press reports say it's the Republicans who are making inroads among traditionally Democratic Latino voters. Cited are results of exit polls done in November by the Southwest Voter Research Institute in San Antonio. But institute director Robert Brischetto says, the press reports misconstrue the data about Latino voter preferences.

There Certainly was a change in party identification among Latinos that showed up on our exit polls, both in California and Texas, but the shift was a decline in identification with either of the two major parties and an increase in independents. Independents more than doubled. Now about one in four Latino voters are independent.

Brischetto also says recent electoral victories by Republicans in Texas and California, Kay Bailey Hutchinson for the Senate and Richard Riordan for LA's Mayor had less to do with increased Latino support than with more Anglos coming out to vote and with greater polarization between Anglos and Latinos and other minorities along party lines.

Indeed, Latino politics is still pretty much controlled by the Democrats, but it certainly could change, and I think that it depends a lot on the extent to which the parties make an effort to run Latino candidates and address Latino Issues.

Robert Brischetto of the Southwest Voter Research Institute, I'm Maria Martin with news from Latino USA.

That's the deep right. It sends Gwynn to the wall. He leaps and can't get it. It's backed up by Bobby Kelly --

Baseball, it's the all-American pastime, and for Latinos as well. The CBS television broadcast of the All-Star game featured an all-Spanish television language commercial, which ran twice.

Setenta mediocampistas en baseball profesional son de la Republica Dominicana.

Called "La Tierra de los Mediocampistas," the Land of the Center Fielders, the ad for Nike featured images of Dominican kids playing baseball in makeshift diamonds in the Dominican Republic.

More than 70 Big League shortstops, including Tony Fernández and Manny Lee, have come from the Dominican Republic.

Ken Griffey Jr. en tercera base…

The broadcasting of baseball and other professional sports in Spanish is becoming more common in this country in places like California, Texas, and New York. But now even teams in less traditional Latino cities are discovering the profit of pitching their games to Hispanic listeners.

Ingrid Lobet reports that this season, for the first time, baseball fans in the state of Washington can listen to the Seattle Mariners games in Spanish.

[Sports Broadcast Recording] Larry se espera, le da cuarda, lanza, viene, contacto! Se va hacia el centro y Ken…se va escapar, se va escapar, se les escapa!

Perched in the cramped broadcast booth, Publio Castro handles the play by play.

[Sports Broadcast Recording] Muestra señal, la manda, viene, strike! [Spanish baseball report].

Castro has worked to establish a style that's his own. He always knew he wanted to work in broadcasting, even when he was a child doing farm work in California. Through their hard work, his parents made it possible for him to go to college.

I studied TV production, and I just wanted to know how they made movies, how they make cartoons, how they made commercials, how the cartoons moved, and those sound effects, and stuff like that.

Castro and his brother started a talk radio show in a small town in Oregon. And when a producer came looking for talent to host Portland Trailblazer basketball, he didn't have to look very far.

Finley presenta lanza bien, toquecito! Ken Griffey! ¡Sacrificio cuenta! ¡Es más, salvo! Blowers a pesar de que está cogiendo, le gana a Finley.

When Cliff Zahner heard Castro's show, he knew he had a place for him. Zahner makes a business of persuading teams to air games in Spanish. He then identifies stations that broadcast in Spanish and whose formats could benefit from the games. Then he provides them the games for free.

And then they get half of the airtime that they can sell to make their own money and we have half of the time that we can sell to pay for our expenses and the announcers. So it's added programming for them, and they'll generally do it if they feel it's a sport that's interesting to their audience. And baseball is particularly interesting because of the Hispanics that play the game.

The Mariners' team alone has Omar Vizquel, Edgar Martínez, and coach Lou Piniella. By giving Spanish-language interviews, these players are now able to reach another audience. And Randy Adamack, Vice President of Communications for the Seattle Mariners, says advertisers are slowly taking interest.

Even without it being a profit center, which it is not right now, it's obviously got value to us anyway, in speaking to a large group of important people.

If advertisers stick with the games and if the present trend continues, there will be few professional teams in the Northwest that aren't broadcasting in Spanish. It's tentative, but as football training camp begins, there are plans to make fall 1993 the first season for Seattle Seahawks games in Spanish.

[Sports Broadcast Recording] Se acaba esta entrada, donde el score dice, ahora los Angelitos de California con cuatro, Marineros con dos. Regresamos, esta es la cadena de los Marineros de Seattle.

For "Latino USA," I'm Ingrid Lobet in Seattle.

The simple fact is that we must not and we will not surrender our borders to those who wish to exploit our history of compassion and justice.

At a time when polls show many Americans favoring curbs on illegal immigration President Clinton is calling for tighter controls on who can come to this country and stay legally. The President says his plan will reduce the number of undocumented immigrants and also smugglers and terrorists who take advantage of present laws and enforcement capabilities. From Washington, Patricia Guadalupe has more on the President's new immigration plan.

President Clinton's immigration initiative seek to prevent illegal entry into the United States, remove those with criminal records immediately and increase criminal penalties particularly for those who smuggle undocumented workers.

We will treat organizing a crime syndicate to smuggle aliens as a serious crime and we will increase the number of border patrol equipping and training them to be first class law enforcement officer.

To accomplish this, President Clinton is requesting an additional 172 million dollars. 32 million dollars will be directed to the immigration and naturalization service to implement a program that seeks to crack down on fraud by promptly removing those who arrive in the country without legal documents. Democratic Senator Diane Feinstein of California supports President Clinton's initiatives. Feinstein says California spends more than 300 million dollars a year on keeping foreigners in prison. She believes Clinton's new immigration initiatives address her concerns.

You've got to remove the option inmates have of doing time when they're here illegally and they're convicted of a felony, they can opt to serve in a state prison. I think they ought to go back, serve the time in their own prison of their own country.

Democratic representative Ed Pastor’s Arizona district includes 200 miles of the US Mexico border. He believes Clinton's proposals to hire and train 600 new border patrol agents will pump needed money and personnel into the border patrol department and cut down on abuse.

President Clinton said that there would be reviews of allegations when there would be abuse of civil rights, so if the president follows through with that and we have enough officers, hopefully then we won't have as many allegations of violation of civil rights.

But aside from acknowledging the need for increasing the number of border patrol agents, support from most Hispanic members of Congress for President Clinton's immigration plan was lukewarm at best. Although President Clinton publicly thanked them for their help, none were present at the plan's announcement. Hispanic Caucus Chair Democrat, José Serrano of New York said he worried expediting asylum claims at the airport would discriminate against those who arrived with legitimate claims of persecution, but for obvious reasons have no legal papers. But Republican representative Henry Bonilla of Texas with over 600 miles of the border in his district says the United States does not pay enough attention to its own people.

Illegal aliens in this country tax our local communities in a way that's really choking them. Hospitals, schools, economy- and we need to do something about it and I'm glad that he's paying attention to this problem.

Representative Bonilla's concern, along with many in Congress is about how to pay for these immigration initiatives, and Democrats are on the same wavelength. Clinton's immigration plan will be taken up after Congress returns from the month long recess in September. For Latino USA, I'm Patricia Guadalupe in Washington.

With us on the phone to discuss the implications of these proposals are from Washington, Warren Leiden, executive director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association and from Los Angeles, Attorney Viviana Andrade, the National Director of the Immigration Rights Project of Maldive, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund. First of all, let me ask both of you, your general impressions of the President's new immigration plan.

Well, I think that it's quite a mixed bag. I think that there are a number of proposals that have been supported and called for for some time. I like the rhetoric with which it was introduced, respect for legal immigration and New Americans, but I think in its details, some of the proposals and especially the expedited exclusion proposal will have a negative impact unless it's amended.

We are deeply troubled by the summary exclusion proceedings as well as with the increase in the number of border patrol agents unless there are improvements in civilian oversight in training of the agency and perhaps in restructuring the agency. I don't think that the president's plan really honestly addressed that. And obviously, our concern is that given this time of very precious federal resources that we ought not to be throwing good money after bad.

Let's talk a little bit more about the changes that this policy as announced by the president would make in the political asylum process.

Unfortunately, they have set a high legal standard that will return legitimate refugees to the country they came from. They employ a what's called a safe country standard. There'll be a list of countries, mostly western European countries that have some kind of refugee processing system. If your plane or ship touched at one of those countries, you can be sent back to that country without regard to whether in fact you would have a hearing or protection there. And so kind of washing our hands of you.

From my perspective and after having handled and participated in some litigation against the INS, I think that what I find the most troubling, and again, no one is going to disagree that the process needs to happen as quickly as possible. But the thing that I find most troubling as a civil rights attorney is the fact that the administration's proposal would make it impossible for us to sue them if they chose to adopt policies that completely violated their own laws. And it is the lack of those kinds of checks that I find particularly disturbing.

As you said, president Clinton's tone was very positive. He was careful to repeat several times during his presentation that he did not want to send an anti-immigrant message. However, could some of his proposals play into a larger scenario that could augment the backlash against immigrants in this country? Do you have any fears about that?

Well, I'm constantly in fear of that when the opportunist and people who are misguided target people instead of targeting laws, instead of targeting legal procedures, I become very fearful of that.

Particularly, here in California, the backlash against immigrants is extremely strong. It comes from cities that are banning day laborers who are clearly immigrant workers. It comes in the form of an increase in abuses against immigrants in the southern border in San Diego, and it's a real concern that we have here; that we ought to keep focusing on policy honestly and not on as Warren talks about, on people and on the individuals, and oftentimes it's a very daunting task.

Well, thank you very much for speaking with us, Warren Leiden of the American Immigration Lawyers Association and Viviana Andrade of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund here on Latino USA. Thank you.

The highest ranking Latina in the Clinton administration, White House aide Regina Montoya is leaving her position. From Washington, Franc Contreras has more.

Since January when Montoya was selected as White House liaison for intergovernmental affairs and made responsible for communications with state and local governments, she has made a regular commute between Washington and her home, Dallas. Just before Montoya announced her decision to leave, the Clinton administration named her husband Paul Coggins, US attorney for Northern Texas that Montoya said, helped finalize her decision to return to her home state and resume work as a private sector lawyer. During her time in Washington, Montoya's office had come under criticism and in May there were speculations she would be replaced, but White House officials corrected that and since then she's been praised for her role in flood relief efforts. I'm Franc Contreras in Washington.

This is Latino USA. Recent polls show Americans are split on support for President Clinton's budget plan, but some analysts believe the bill's provisions may benefit many in the Latino community. Patricia Guadalupe attended the bill signing ceremony and she prepared this report.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

At the bills signing, the president declared the budget passage, a mandate from the people. Although the plan barely squeaked by in both the house and the Senate, many in Congress voted against it, citing constituent resentment towards the package. But presidential pollster, Stan Greenberg says his studies indicate many Americans, including most Latinos, widely supported the President's plan.

They're much more supportive, broadly supportive of the plan. Though the Hispanic community is very diverse, as you know and national samples aren't quite large enough to represent all of the diversity, but overall supportive of the plan and in general more supportive of the plan than other voters.

Analysts that the National Council of La Raza say the plan will greatly benefit the Hispanic community, particularly the earned income tax credit, which is designed to help lower income families. Democratic representative Henry B. Gonzalez of Texas says this provision will help Latinos in his district who disproportionately hold jobs that pay poorly.

This program will mean that there are over 58,000 families that qualify there. They're sub marginally employed. They're earning on that level less than 27,000, but still trying to maintain a family. And this targeted tax assistance program they call it, will be of immense help.

President Clinton's plan increases the earned income credit salary cap from $21,000 to $27,000 a year. Other parts of the plan, which enjoyed wide support in the Hispanic community and which were signed into law as part of the package were increased monies for urban development and vaccinations for children. For Latino USA I'm Patricia Guadalupe in Washington.

You're listening to Latino USA.

A drama has been unfolding for more than two weeks now in the border town of Laredo, Texas. On July 29th, a group known as Pastors for Peace defied the US trade embargo against Cuba by taking dozens of vehicles carrying food, clothing, medicines, and other aid to Cuba across the US border. But one of those vehicles, a yellow school bus, was stopped by the customs service. Today that bus sits in a federal compound in Laredo. It's occupants refusing to leave the bus and now starting their third week of a hunger strike. From Laredo, Latino USA's Maria Martin reports.

I see a whole bunch of semis waiting in line to go to Mexico, and in the middle of all that mess, there's this little school bus and I feel sorry.

Retired Laredo social worker, Manuel Ramirez sits on a sidewalk near the border wearing binoculars. He's trying to get a better glimpse of the scene across the street, there off to the side of the Lincoln Juarez Bridge. in an enclosed lot where semi-trucks wait to be inspected by the custom service sits a yellow school bus with a sign which reads ‘End The Embargo Against Cuba’. Inside the bus, 12 people ages 22 to 86 wait out the blazing hot August days. They've refused to leave the vehicle and to take any solid food, since the bus was seized by the customs service on July 29th. Among them is Pastors for Peace leader, the Reverend Lucius Walker of Brooklyn.

We see a nation that is threatened, a nation that is not our enemy, with which we are not at war. We were asked by the churches in Cuba to take this mission on and having responded affirmatively to their request, we have come to see for ourselves the importance of what we are doing.

What the Reverend Walker and Pastors for Peace hope to accomplish by their hunger strike and their attempt to take aid materials to Cuba is to call into question this country's 32-year old prohibition against trade and travel to that island. Pamela Previt of the Customs Service says her agency tried to help the aid caravan get through the border smoothly, but that this bus clearly violated US Law.

Customs detained 29 boxes of prescription medication, four computers, and five electric typewriters, which are prohibited items according to the embargo. The group specifically claimed that it was the vehicle itself that was to be exported. And because of that customs seized the bus.

The Reverend Walker says he was actually surprised when the bus he was driving was seized. Even though the group stated they were making the trip to challenge the embargo against Cuba.

They simply were not able to stop it because this was a human wave and a vehicular wave of people who were determined that this is a law that can no longer be enforced.

The law Walker refers to is the Trading with the Enemy Act enforced by the Treasury Department. So far that government agency has not responded to a proposal from the Pastors for Peace to allow someone from the World Council of Churches to escort the yellow school bus to Havana. On the 10th day of the hunger strike, there was a rally, in Laredo to support the hunger strikers and an end to the embargo against Cuba. A microphone was passed across the fence and the strikers told the crowd they were prepared to stay indefinitely.

We are all determined to stay on the school bus until the school bus goes to Cuba.

Cuba is not perfect, the government's not perfect, but it's way better than what they have in Latin America. And I realize that…

That among the 12 people on hunger strike is 32 year old Camilo Garcia who left Cuba four years ago.

And I decided that I will do everything I can to help the revolution to survive, and I will stay in here as long as it take no matter what it take, even if it take my life. So what?

The 100 degree heat, the exhaust fumes and the liquid only fast are taking their toll on the health of the hunger strikers. Doctors brought in by the Customs Service and by Pastors for Peace are monitoring the group's health condition regularly. For Latino USA, I'm Maria Martin reporting.

We're here today as a coalition of Latinos, leaders in our community, leaders in business, and leaders in the political arena to hold Governor Wilson accountable for his recent proposals to President Clinton.

As politicians throughout the nation from Washington to Texas come up with proposals to curb illegal immigration. A coalition of Latino organizations in California warned that immigrants are fast becoming the scapegoats of bad economic times. From Los Angeles, Alberto Aguilar reports.

In just 12 hours, this week, US attorney Janet Reno, two US Senators, Governor Pete Wilson, the state Senate, and the assembly put aside other issues to promote laws against illegal immigration. The rush to legislate and castigate illegal immigration has created a great deal of concern in the Latino community, which responded with its own open letter decrying Governor Wilson's recent initiatives to strip immigrants of access to health, education, and constitutional protection.

We know well in our community that this is a historical cycle. During the depression in 1931, immigrants were made scapegoats. In 1954, immigrants were made scapegoats. During the inflationary periods of the seventies, immigrants were made scapegoats. And the 1990s, in today's recession, guess what? Immigrants are being made scapegoats.

Arturo Vargas is the vice president of the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund. MALDEF is part of the coalition who responded to what they feel is an anti-immigrant hysteria. Representing the Latino Business Association, Ed Vasquez disputes that immigrants are a public charge.

There's a hundred thousand, 100,000 Latino owned businesses in Los Angeles alone generating six and a half billion dollars in revenues every single year. For the politicians to blame the economic problems on immigrants it sends out a dangerous message. Immigrants did not take away the jobs in the defense industry. Immigrants are not taking away jobs from corporate America, bad economic policies are.

California leaders aware of the upcoming state elections strongly decry what they call scapegoating of Latinos for the sorry state of California's economy by both Republicans and Democrats. For Latinos USA, I'm Alberto Aguilar in Los Angeles.

On August 24th of last year, Hurricane Andrew ripped through South Florida, wreaking devastation. When the rains and winds had died down, 150,000 people were left homeless. One year later, many communities hard hit by Andrew have generally recovered, but that's not the case in the mostly agricultural region of South Dade County, where construction and repairs are still in progress. Many farms remain closed or are operating at half capacity. Reporter Emilio San Pedro was in the Florida City homestead area of South Florida on the anniversary of Hurricane Andrew. He reports that life is only very slowly returning to normal in this primarily farmworker community.

The Centro Campesino in Florida City is a farm worker support organization that serves as the unofficial town center for many of South Dade's migrant and year-round farm workers. Housing counselor Leslie Guerra says that every day, the staff at the Centro sees indications that the damages caused by Hurricane Andrew are still affecting the area's farmworkers.

In the long run, or the long term, the farmworker was affected because now there aren’t any- there's not as much work. There used to be a lot of farm laboring work done on lime groves, in plant nurseries, and stuff like that. And, as you know, everybody lost their trees in their backyard or their front yard, so you can imagine how the plant nursery industry did. And the farmworker, especially the farmworker who's here year-round, does lots of work in that particular industry, and that was almost completely wiped out.

One year after the eye of Hurricane Andrew passed over the agricultural region of South Dade, many farms remain closed or are operating at half capacity. The cost of housing has risen sharply, due to the destruction of many of the trailer parks, apartments and homes that house agricultural workers.

Last night I was watching a special program about the hurricane, and it was sad. It made me sad because I'm thinking-

Terry Adellano is a dance teacher at the Centro Campesino. She has seen her life, and the lives of the farmworkers she works with, transformed.

Our spirits really were blown away with the hurricane because our school was completely torn. I mean, our costumes flew away, our shoes. Along with a lot of our students that had to relocate to West Palm Beach, some to Texas, some stayed here, but most of them had to relocate because they didn't have nowhere else to live.

One of her students is Raul. His family stayed, even though their house was damaged, and his parents lost their business.

I learned not to give up by helping my parents after the hurricane, going out, making a little money by cleaning up other people's yards after I cleaned up my yard. My parents were just starting to pick up on a restaurant, and on the same day that the hurricane hit, the insurance man was supposed to come and approve it. But Hurricane Andrew beat him to it.

I'm going to ask Governor Chiles to say a few-

Today, on the eve of the anniversary of Hurricane Andrew, Terry Adellano and others at the Centro Campesino are hosting Florida's governor, Lawton Chiles, and other dignitaries who are paying visits to many of South Dade's hardest-hit regions.

I want to say how surprised I was when I came in here to see not only repairs being made to the homes that were here, but to see all the new homes being constructed. By golly, I'm delighted to see that the tent city is no longer there.

This is one of the houses that was rebuilt. This house was here during the hurricane. In fact, this house was used for-

Outside the office of the Centro Campesino is a housing development called Centro Villas. The more than 60 homes are owned by farmworkers that have participated in the Centro's sweat equity program. Antonia Torres lives in one of the houses and is the president of the Centro Villas Homeowners Association.

No, me falta terminar la cocina…[transition to English dub] I still need to redo the kitchen, and the kitchen cabinets haven't been replaced. Also, the tool shed was destroyed, and my fence has not been repaired [transition to original audio]…todavía.

Today, Antonia brought her husband and two boys to the Centro Campesino to hear what the governor had to say.

Que bueno que nos visitó el gobernador, que bueno…[transition to English dub] It's great that the governor came here, and hopefully it won't be just a visit. Hopefully it will result in assistance for all that need it. Sometimes it happens that way. They visit, look around, say they're going to help, and in the end, they don't do nothing [transition to original audio]…ojalá que esta vez sí ayuden.

Housing Counselor Leslie Guerra points out that houses like those in Centro Campesino are the exception for farmworkers, and that the majority of farmworkers are finding it difficult to make ends meet after Andrew, due to the shortage of affordable housing. She adds that the post-hurricane assistance offered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, was in many cases inadequate.

I think that FEMA has helped with maybe their personal property and personal belongings and things like that, but that is not long-term help. When someone replaces their furniture, it doesn't really get them back into the shape that they were in before. Helping them get a better job, helping them get better housing, that's what FEMA really should have done instead of giving them $8,000 or $9,000 and say, "Hey, buy new furniture with it." Is that really helping somebody put them back to where they were, or even helping them put their life back together psychologically and emotionally?

Hurricane Andrew caused over $1 billion in damages to South Dade's agriculture industry, and left thousands of acres of farmland barren. But today, many of the businesses on US 1 are back in operation, and some of the larger agricultural companies are in full swing. But many farmworkers have not yet fully recovered from the loss of housing and employment opportunities. For Latino USA, I'm Emilio San Pedro In Florida City.

You're listening to Latino USA. Government officials from states along the US-Mexico border came together for a border summit in El Paso, Texas. On the agenda, how to pay for improving infrastructure projects. Luis Saenz of station KTEP reports.

Texas Congressman Ron Coleman, who convened the border summit, says, "It is unfair for border residents to pick up the tab in preparation of a North American free trade agreement." Coleman specifically opposes a proposal by house majority leader Richard Gephardt to levy a special tax on border businesses. Coleman says, "No one has asked people along the Mississippi to pay for flood damage, so why should the border be any different?"

It seems to me illogical, then, that something that benefits the entire United States, meaning international world trade and commerce, people of America would ask people along the border to pay for.

Coleman says, instead of taxing border communities, the government should use the money collected from duties at the various ports of entries to pay for infrastructure projects. For Latino USA, I'm Luis Saenz in El Paso, Texas,

A majority of the business leaders assembled support the North American Free Trade Agreement between the United States, Mexico, and Canada. Many say that as Latinos, they can take advantage of the common language and cultural identification with Mexico. Gilbert Moreno, a senior partner for a telecommunications company in El Paso, Texas, says that even though he has problems with the enforcement powers of the labor and environmental site agreements to NAFTA, he feels those who are against the treaty don't realize it as beneficial overall.

I think there's a lot of issues, environmental, a lot of concerns that existed with or without the NAFTA environment here that I think are muddying the water relative to what's happening. And I think that we have no choice as American business people to use some provisions that are not to our liking as the excuse not to move forward. We have no choice, and what I'm afraid of is that most of the legislators who for political reasons may be making the decision not to vote for NAFTA are not taking a look at the big picture and the common ground that we can reach between the three nations.

Un río dos Riveras, one river two Riveras is the title of a book written by Dr. Guadalupe Rivera, a writer and historian. Dr. Rivera is the daughter of famed Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. Dr. Rivera is visiting this country, and she joins us now from Austin, Texas where an exhibition of her father's work is opening at the Mexic-Arte Museum. Welcome, Dra. Rivera.

Thank you, Maria Hinojosa. I am very pleased to meet you.

There are probably a lot of people who don't know all of the facts about your father, and they may have one question on their mind about you. And that question might be, are you the daughter of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo?

No, no, no. My father was married several times. And I am the daughter of Diego Rivera and Lupe Marin. She was the second wife that my father had.

Dr. Rivera, there is so much known about your father. I mean, his murals inspired a whole movement across the world. I mean, he's one of Mexico's most important artistic icons, but what is the one lasting memory that you have of your father that might tell us a little bit about who he was as a human being, as a person, as a father.

He was an extraordinary person because he allow my sister and I to become professionals and to go to university and to study and to learn how Mexico is and how revolution was and to be a real Mexican because he was very proud to be a real Mexican, and he teach us how to really appreciate who we are as member of a very important cultural movement.

One of the things, Dr. Rivera, about your father was that he really wasn't into... As far as I can tell and remember just from reading about him and seeing his work, which was very political, is that he really wasn't into the commercialization of art. I mean, he was really into art for communicating, what you've said, a history of the people of Mexico. But your father's work has now sold in this country and across the world for hundreds of thousands of dollars and really has an incredible market value. How do you think he would've reacted to this what is, I guess, the commercialization of his art in the art world?

Well, I think that he was not so proud of that as he was proud about the mural painting he realize in public buildings. He never want to commercialize his art. He painted paintings, let's say this small paintings, all canvas or all things like that or watercolors because he thought that he must have a way of life when he cannot paint murals. But in a way, his enormous desire was to paint murals much than everything in life.

Your father also of course loved Mexico, his country, and he was really quite radical in his politics and extremely nationalistic. What do you think your father, Diego Rivera, would've thought of NAFTA, the tratado de libre comercio- the free trade agreement?

I think that he was not very, very happy about it.

Why?

He always talk about that the necessity that each country keep his own identity. And maybe, he will realize that with NAFTA, the identity of Mexican people is going to be lost an enormous way.

And there's an interesting turn of events right now because on this celebration of el dies y seis de septiembre, or Mexican Independence Day, the 16th of September, you will be here in the United States. Your father's paintings will be on exhibit in Texas, and Governor Ann Richards of Texas will be in Mexico during the grito there. What does all of this say about Mexico y los estados unidors, the United States at this point in time?

Personally, I think it's a paradox, but at the same time, I am very pleased to be asking to come here as a guest to this exhibition because, in a way, my father is, again, a bridge between both countries as he was before in the '30s when he was asking to come to United States to paint the murals. It was in a special moment in the Mexican history in the '30s in which it was necessary for the Mexican government to establish a stronger contact with United States. And I consider that now, it's important to Mexico, to my country to establish a stronger contact with United States again.

Dr. Guadalupe Rivera is the daughter of Mexican muralist, Diego Rivera, the exhibit Diego Rivera and the Revolution in Mexico in Times of Change will be on view at Austin's Mexic-Arte museum through December 31st.

I'm not afraid to look in their eyes, me, the zippy Latina with the import car and the University of Michigan sticker. They, my Mexican hermanos breathless in the Texas sunrise, clinging to the back of a Ford Ranger, almost ashamed that they are the only ones riding like this on the open road of the LBJ carretera. Or maybe it's too obvious that they're on their way to make another garden out of Plano Prairie for a minimum wage. I smile. I am almost ashamed to not go with them. I love my Mexican people. On September 16th, my construction heroes, Plano gardeners, North Dallas maids, my café con leche waiters and I will come together to celebrate the 16th of September, el dies y seis de septiembre, which is the anniversary of Mexico's independence from almost 300 years of Spanish conquest. On the morning of September 16th in 1810, Father Miguel Hidalgo Y Costilla delivered his grito de dolores, his cry for independence in the city of Dolores, Mexico, the city of pain, to claim independence from Spanish rule.

Commentator Barbara Renaud Gonzalez writes and teaches in Dallas, Texas.

[transition music] And for this week, y por esta semana, this has been Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture. Latino USA is produced and edited by Maria Emelia Martin. The associate producer is Angelica Luevano. We had helped this week from Karyl Wheeler and the Hispanic Link News Service. Latino USA is produced at the studios of KUT in Austin, Texas. The technical producer is Walter Morgan. We really do want to hear from you, so ¿Por qué no nos llaman? Call us on our toll-free number. It's 1-800-535-5533. That's 1-800-535-5533. Major funding for Latino USA comes from the Ford Foundation, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and the University of Texas at Austin. Y hasta la próxima. Until next time, I'm Maria Hinojosa for Latino USA.

This is news from Latino USA. Hundreds of Border Patrol agents lined up along 20 miles of the El Paso Juarez international border line in around the clock operation being dubbed Operation Blockade. Luis Saenz reports.

Go ahead and move between the two cement bridges, see if we can cover both of those areas.

As helicopters fly over the Rio Grande, one can see Border Patrol units about every hundred yards. This is Operation Blockade. A strategy which Border Patrol Chief Sylvester Reyes says will cut down on the number of illegal entries into the US. Reyes says that the operation may also cut down on crimes committed along the US Mexico border.

First thing that people want to do, particularly in this community is blame undocumented workers, illegal aliens for all the troubles of the area. This will give us a good solid gauge to judge that.

Martin Sanchez is with the Border Rights Coalition, an umbrella group of immigration rights activists who are concerned about the increase of Border Patrol activity.

Blocking of the border has created an ambiance of terror, I think on some people's minds, particularly people who work on this side of the border.

About 50 yards from where agents are looking through binoculars, a group of women carrying children are wading across the Rio Grande from Mexico. One of the women says the blockade hasn't affected her personally.

Bueno mira, yo con mio yo no lo siento tanto como los hombres que pasan a trabajar, ¿verdad?

She says it is hard for the men who cross to work. She asks, are the Americans now going to do the work that is done by Mexicans? She says she has the patience to wait until the blockade is over, but not everyone is patient. Recently, Mexican workers staged a protest on the international bridges, halting traffic for several hours. But for the Border Patrol, Operation Blockade is doing what it's set out to do. Officials say the number of arrests of undocumented immigrants has dropped by 90%. For Latino USA I'm Luis Saenz in El Paso, Texas.

This year the Council for the Advancement and Supportive Education in Washington DC chose out of almost 400 nominations, Dr. Vicente Domingo Villa as the recipient of the National Professor of the Year Award. Dr. Villa is a professor of biology at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas. First of all, felicidades to Dr. Villa who now joins us on Latino USA. Dr. Villa, I understand that when you first started teaching at Southwestern University eight years ago that there were no Latino students there studying the sciences and now eight years later that almost 20% of those who graduate in the sciences from Southwestern are Hispanic students. So what happened and how can it happen in other places where it doesn't?

Thank you. Dr. Vicente Domingo Villa of Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas. Dr. Villa has been named the National Professor of the Year by the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education.

And for this week, por esta semana, this has been Latino USA, the Radio Journal of News and Culture. Latino USA is produced and edited by Maria Emilia Martin. The Associate Producer is Angelica Luévano. We had helped this week from Vidal Guzman. Latino USA is produced at the studios of KUT in Austin, Texas. The technical producer is Walter Morgan. The Executive Producer is Dr. Gilbert Garenas. Please call us with your comments or questions. Our number is 1-800-535-5533. That's 1-800-535-5533. Major funding for Latino USA comes from the Ford Foundation, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and the University of Texas at Austin. Contributors include the Estrada Communications Group, the Hispanic Link News Service, and Tesoros trading company. Maria Hinojosa will be back next week. Y hasta la próxima, until next time, I'm Maria Emilia Martin for Latino USA.

1,500 Cubans holding US federal prisons will be repatriated to Havana. The prisoners who came to this country as part of the Mariel Exodus of 1980 are being deported under an agreement between the Clinton administration and the government of Fidel Castro. But some Cuban Americans are concerned about what could await the prisoners and fear that disagreement might signal the start of broader concessions between the governments of the United States and Cuba. I'm Vidal Guzman. From Austin, Texas, you're listening to Latino USA.

And for this week, y por esta semana, this has been Latino USA, the Radio Journal of News and Culture. This week's edition of Latino USA was produced by Angelica Luevano and edited by Maria Emilia Martin. We had helped this week from Vidal Guzman and Karyl Wheeler. Latino USA is produced at the studios of KUT in Austin, Texas. The technical producer is Walter Morgan. The executive producer is Gilbert Garenas. Please call us with your comments or questions, deberas at 1-800-535-5533. That's 1-800-535-5533. Major funding for Latino USA comes from the Ford Foundation, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the University of Texas at Austin. Contributors include the Estrada Communications Group and the Hispanic Link News Service. Y hasta la próxima. Until next time, I'm Maria Hinojosa for Latino USA.

I'm Maria Hinojosa. In El Paso, Texas, the border patrol continues its increased presence on a 20 mile stretch of the US border with Mexico. The border patrol says its so-called "Operation Blockade" is cutting down on illegal entries into the United States, but some in the border cities of Juarez and El Paso say the operation is also deterring many people from coming into the United States legally, either from fear or because they're heeding the call for a boycott on US businesses. And as Luis Saenz reports, Operation Blockade is taking a heavy toll on El Paso's downtown merchants, many of whom depend heavily on shoppers from Mexico.

The music in this downtown storm might be festive, but for downtown merchants, the mood is anything but. They say their business is dropped by as much as 90% and they're blaming the blockade conducted by the border patrol.

It's a ghost town. It's a ghost town. It's very bad. We've been like this for almost what? Three weeks? Yeah. This is our third week, so it is affecting everybody in downtown. All the merchants here are very upset right now. I don't know what's going to happen.

¿Cómo está-(unintelligble 0:07:32) ¿Qué estilo busca? No se olvide que aquí le ponemos iniciales gratis. Tenemos especial de ‘blockade.’ (laughter)

Jaime Advice has been selling sunglasses in downtown El Paso for the last five years. He depends heavily on people from Juarez who come across to buy his glasses, but today even browsers are scarce. He says the government should take a closer look at what the blockade is doing to the border economy.

Pues debe haver un poquito más de calidad humana en estas cosas. Se pierde mucho la confianza de las dos cuidades hermanas que siempre se ha dicho es Cuidad Juarez y El Paso.

There should be a little bit more human quality in these things, he says, "You lose a lot of confidence. Juarez and El Paso have always been sister cities. It doesn't appear that we're part of the same family."

As the blockade entered its third week, some community leaders on both sides of the border are realizing how much the two cities depend on each other and are calling for a meeting to talk things out. Adrian Gonzalez Chavez is the director of tourism in Juarez.

Estamos tratando de abrir el diágolo-

She says, "People should not say, 'Don't go to El Paso,' or, 'Don't go to Juarez,' but rather see what can be done to treat American and Mexican citizens justly."

Para dar un trato justo tanto para la cuidadana americana como al mexicana.

The director of the Juarez Chamber of Commerce says, "People need to recognize the interdependence both cities and jointly seek solutions to problems including that of illegal immigration and the border's economic viability."

Tenemos este librito con todas las especiales y tenemos cupones-

Meanwhile, merchants are doing what they can to attract customers, but even on a good day, some say businesses down about 70% from what it used to be. One Mexican shopper told us, "Many people are staying away because they think they may have their passports confiscated at the border crossing. If you have all your documents, you have nothing to worry about," She says.

Meanwhile, border patrol agents are continuing a massive show of force along a 20 mile stretch of the US Mexico border. Border Patrol Chiefs Sylvester Reyes says, "Operation Blockade is accomplishing what it's sent out to do: cut down on the number of arrests of undocumented immigrants." Since the blockade began, the arrest of illegal immigrants have fallen 80%. Chief Reyes says, "Operation Blockade will go on indefinitely." That's bad news for some merchants who say if business continues to drop, they can't go on indefinitely. For Latino USA, I'm Luis Saenz in El Paso, Texas.

As the Census Bureau issued new figures showing the Latino population growing at a faster rate than previously projected, dozens of Latino leaders from across the country met to focus on the issues which most affect this growing population. Among them, education, health, and how to make Latino communities viable. Organized by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, the three day meeting culminated with an electronic town hall meeting linking together San Juan, Miami, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Antonio. Latino USA's Maria Martin reports.

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute presents threads of diversity, the fabric of unity.

In New York, Congressman Robert Menendez of New Jersey and Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez, resident commissioner Carlos Romero Barcelo is in San Juan. We have Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Congressman Lincoln Diaz Ballard with an audience in Miami.

In their regional and national diversity, the Hispanic Congressional Caucus, its 20 members up from 14 since last November, mirrors this country's Latino community. Members don't always agree on issues, such as the embargo of Cuba and the North American Free trade Agreement. Yet at this conference, the congress members echoed the sentiment expressed by HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros.

Yes, we are different national origins and yes we are are different partisan roots, Republicans, and Democrats, and independents, and radicals, and conservatives, and every sort of breed of political roots. And yes, we live in different parts of the country and we've already talked about that, but the truth is we have much more in common than the things that separate us.

To address issues in common, a survey was taken among those invited to the seventh City Electronic Town Hall. The results indicated education is the issue of greatest concern among Latinos followed by health community viability, that is jobs, and the environment. From politicians to students to grassroots organizers, they all had questions for their congressional representatives.

My question is language minority preschool-aged children do not have to be provided with equal educational opportunities. How is this issue going to be addressed?

Responding is California Congressman Xavier Becerra.

Mrs. Maria, I can tell you one thing that in Congress you will not be satisfied by the answer because those of us in Hispanic caucus are not satisfied. We will be spending something over $200 million this coming year on bilingual education, about 20 or 30 million more if the president has his way than was spent in the past year. That 250 or $230 million provides us with the funds to reach about 10 to 15% of all the children in this country who are in need of bilingual services. The states aren't doing much better-

I would like to know how the Hispanic Congressional Caucus intends to deal with the current anti-immigrant backlash. In general, its impact on K-12 education. In particular, its impact on children enrolled in federally funded bilingual education programs.

Responding to this question from Los Angeles, LA Congressman Esteban Torres.

At this time in our history we're undergoing a tremendous onslaught by those who would wish to blame all the economic ills on this country on immigrants. The immigrants I might say, didn't have a lot to do with the SNL scandal. They didn't have a lot to do with the Cold War issue.

Those questions and responses having to do with the prevalent anti-immigrant climate seem to get the most response from those in the town hall audience, not only in the area of education but regarding the exclusion of the undocumented from the administration's healthcare plan. Illinois Congressman Luis Gutierrez.

In Chicago, in our discussions, we understand that healthcare needs to become. Given any package that we approve in the Congress of the United States, needs to be looked at as a basic and fundamental human right. A basic and fundamental human right that is guaranteed to every human being who lives in the United States regardless of the color of their skin or their economic status, regardless of whether they arrived yesterday or today or they're going to arrive tomorrow. Cancer and tuberculosis and illness does not ask for a MICA card as to whether it can visit your home or your children.

Just very briefly say that on this issue and on every other issue, it is a caucus policy to include the undocumented as part of our community.

Caucus chair, New York Congressman Jose Serrano.

We are not immigration agents. We don't get involved in how people get here. Once they're here, we feel that they have to be protected. Number two, this caucus, for the first time is also addressing the fact that people who live in American territories are part of our American community. There are questions yet to be settled about those territories, but as far as fair play from Washington, this caucus believes that the members who represent those areas and the people who live in those areas, for American citizens that they are, must get equal treatment and that's the kind of approach that the caucus has taken.

There are no easy answers to all the questions and issues facing the Latino community and addressed during the three days of sessions on Capitol Hill, but what was perceptible in Washington was a new attitude. The Hispanic caucus has been energized by new leadership and by the additional members elected in November, including its first Mexican-American and Puerto Rican congresswomen. There was serious talk of coalitions between Hispanics and African-Americans in Congress at one of the sessions, and at the same time the issues forum was taking place, the 20 members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus had an opportunity to show their new clout when they blocked a bill which would've extended unemployment insurance by cutting off benefits for blind and disabled legal immigrants. Congressman Xavier Becerra.

Chairman Serrano came into the discussions and it was through the efforts of the caucus, the name of the caucus, that we were able to say that Congressman Pastor who also came in, we were able to say that we as members of the Hispanic caucus, could not support this particular bill even though we knew we had many people in our districts who were unemployed, but this was not the way to do it. You don't rob Peter to give to Paul and we would not let it happen, and fortunately we had a leadership with the foresight to know that they should not do it either.

We have shown great progress and the fact that this caucus is being held here today is proved that the Mexican-American, the Hispanic can go forward. My question to you-

This new visibility and increasing political power for Latinos on Capitol Hill led one elderly participant to ask what those outside of Congress could do to help the members of the caucus be more effective. The answer came from representative Becerra.

Three important words Vote, vote, vote.

Finding an agenda which can unite the many diverse and regionally scattered Latino communities is what brought together some 800 invited guests and the Hispanic members of Congress for an electronic town hall meeting joining together seven cities.

The town hall session of the Issues forum sponsored by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus was broadcast over public television stations in New York, Washington, San Antonio, Los Angeles, and Chicago. For Latino USA, I'm Maria Martin.

And for this week, y por esta semana, this has been Latino USA. The Radio Journal of News and Culture. Latino USA is produced and edited by Maria Emilia Martin. The associate producer is Angelica Luévano. We had help this week from Vidal Guzman and Karyl Wheeler. Latino USA is produced at the studios of KUT in Austin, Texas. The technical producer is Walter Morgan. Theme music by Ben Tavera King. Why don't you call us with your comments or questions? Our number is 1-800-535-5533. That's 1-800-535-5533. Major funding for Latino USA comes from the Ford Foundation, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and the University of Texas at Austin. Contributors include the Estrada Communications Group and the Hispanic Link News Service. Y hasta la próxima. Until next time, I'm Maria Hinojosa for Latino USA.

Now, the debate surrounding NAFTA brought out some pretty unpleasant images of Mexico. There was questions of poverty, corruption. Ross Perot was talking about our trucks, our camiones, that were going to ruin American roads. How do you see that aspect of the debate figuring into the long-term Mexico-US debate?

Politically that's going to be the next fight in the next election year. I think that you're going to have candidates running against immigrants and there's a very good chance that Latinos will become the Willie Hortons of the 1994 elections. I think we should anticipate that and we need to take the appropriate steps to -- not defend ourselves. I don't think we need a defense, but we need to take the appropriate steps to make sure that we don't allow these myths and these falsehoods to go unchallenged in the political arena.

Pues, muchas gracias, thank you very much for joining us on Latino USA, Andy Hernandez of the Southwest Voter Research Institute in San Antonio, Jose Nino, president and CEO of the US Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Washington. Sylvia Puente, research director for the Latino Institute in Chicago, and from New York, Jose La Luz, international affairs director for the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union. Muchas Gracias for Latino USA.

[Background--music--Chicano world] 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 Dixie Land, 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.

[Background--music--Chicano world] We see Afro-Cuban rhythms that have been a part of our culture since the twenties. We see Germanic elements that have been part of our music since the late 1800s. We see indigenous rhythms, indigenous instruments, and the reintegration in the influence of nueva canción of the sixties, the cha chas and mambos of the forties and fifties, the doo-wop of the fifties 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'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 pochosized 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 we decided to take a cultural position in saying we're pochos and proud of it. Somos bilingües, so what? And then 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 raza who trip [Laughter] off on how we can do this.

You mean they're the luckiest ones because they can understand everything that's going on.

Fine. Well, we appreciate it at a deeper level.

You can really hear the pochosizing of your music when you take a song like “I feel Chingon” from your album Con Safos or “Chile Pie,” also from Con Safos. [Background--music--Chicano world] Both of these are like fifties remakes of black songs, ¿que no?

[Background--music--Chicano world] Absolutely, absolutely. “I feel Chingon” is our jalapeno version of James Brown's “I Feel Good” and “Chile Pie” is a remake of the classic. It's always reverberating Chicano community, it resonated, it's the cherry pie.

[Highlight--music--Chicano world]

[Background--music--Chicano world] Black music is a very important part of the Chicano experience from the West Coast?

[Background--music--Chicano world] It's been an integral experience throughout. I mean whether we're Chicanos in Texas, we had the influence of the Louis Armstrongs and the Dixielands way back. I mean Ernie Caceres, Emilio Caceres, the jazz musicians, they're tremendous, in the thirties were influenced by Afro-Americans a lot from New Orleans. And then throughout the forties and fifties, the blues have been strong. It's one of our greatest blues singers that Chicano blue singers have been tremendously influenced by the blues. Freddy Fender 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 seventies or eighties, real stayed, 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 panfletaria, [Background--music--Chicano world] really propagandistic, and on the other hand really wanting to do something that is communicating something else on a cultural level?

[Background--music--Chicano world] Well, 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 on our food and our jobs and how many people in Ernie Mark and in other communities are really suffering from these pesticides, there has to be other ways of dealing with our food so that we have safe food and safe jobs.

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

Well, I say to them the lyrics of the picket sign.

[Background--music--Chicano world][El Picket Sign]

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.

[Background--music--Chicano world] [Nosotros Venceremos/We Shall Overcome] The last piece on your CD is an interesting remake and an interesting version of We Shall Overcome.

[Highlight--music--Chicano world] [Nosotros Venceremos/We Shall Overcome]

[Background--music--Chicano world] [Nosotros Venceremos/We Shall Overcome] We believe that this is the essential song for the movement of social justice. I mean, it has been someone that 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 it's rooted in the south and the 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 jalapeno flavor.

[Background--music--Chicano world] [Nosotros Venceremos/We Shall Overcome] Speaking with us from KQED studios in San Francisco, Professor José Cuéllar, leader of Dr. Loco's Rockin' Jalapeño Band.