Annotations for Subject-headings: Social Conditions

This is news from "Latino USA." I'm Maria Martin. The U.S. Census Bureau has released a new report on the country's Latino population. Reporter Barrie Lynn Tapia has more.

Over the last 10 years, the number of Latinos in this country grew seven times faster than any other group. They had more children and less elderly than non-Latinos. They were also less likely to be covered by health insurance. Julio Moran, a reporter for the "LA Times," says the findings are more than just statistics.

When we talk about urban agendas, we're really talking about a Latino agenda. We're finding that Latinos becoming more segregated and more concentrated in precisely the same areas that need, I think, more attention into what's happening to our society at this moment.

The Census Bureau also says Latino unemployment rates are consistently higher and median family income lower than the population at large. Although more Latinos are graduating from high school than a decade ago, Latinos still lag behind the rest of the nation in education. For "Latino USA," I'm Barrie Lynn Tapia in Washington.

Esperanza, or hope. It's said, that's one thing young people living in this day and age, often lack. But in San Antonio, Texas, a group of teenagers is creating theater that expresses a measure of hope for the future. Even amidst a reality of drugs, gangs, identity questions, and homelessness. Along with Lucy Edwards Latino USA's, Maria Martin prepared this report.

[Natural sounds, theater] Grupo Animo

It's the Friday afternoon at Fox Technical High School in San Antonio. The young members of the acting troupe El Grupo Animo, ages 13 to 18, have come together to start rehearsing their new production. The group's name derives from the Spanish word meaning spirit, energy, and a desire to inspire and the drama they're preparing is written and performed by the kids themselves.

[Natural sounds, theater] All the young women in the piece, over here.

Identity. [Natural sounds, theater]

The drama in production is called, "I Have Hopes, Hopes I Keep Sacred in My Soul." It's a series of vignettes, tales of young people, much like the members of El Grupo Animo, facing life's challenges and learning to cope.

It's about a young girl who gets pregnant and she has to tell her parents because both of us know so many girls who have already gotten pregnant and it's not looking better or anything.

I'm 17 years old, and I wrote about the homeless. So much we can learn from our people. They've gone through rough times, and by that, a lot of them are on the streets, and we don't even care about them.

I decided to bring up the issue of teenage homosexuality, because Hispanic, Mexican American families, it's harder for them to deal with it. There's a lot of tradition, and a lot of the tradition is built around the male role model and female role model, you know?

14-year-old Michaela Diaz, along with Guadalupe Covera and Victoria Rivera, are among the nine playwrights who make up El Grupo Animo. 16 year old Priscilla Valle wrote about a young gang member.

He's dealing with the pressures of being tied to his gang, but then wanting to get out and be free and lead the life that he wants to lead, that the gang doesn't allow him to.

You don't understand, what if they come after me? Babe, they know where I live.

They're tearing you apart. They mess around with people's lives like it's nothing. You can't be afraid to be who you are. Don't keep it down forever. I hate them!

It's really a lot of what's going on in their minds and in their lives, but they never have a place to talk about it.

Director George Emilio Sanchez of New York is working with the young playwrights and actors of El Grupo Animo.

It takes a lot of courage to be a young person. It takes a hell of a lot of courage to say, "Yeah, I'm young. I don't know everything, and I want to be alive." Boom. That to me is like heroic. I think individually, if you read the things they write, no, I don't think they have a lot of hope.

But still, say the kids, their stories do express hope as the title of their collective work indicates.

Even though we are, we're sad and depressed about it. I think there's always that bright side and that hope that we have, and that's just what the whole play is about.

That's why I think that the name of it, "I Have Hopes, Hopes I Keep Sacred in My Soul", is what we're using. They're not all happy plays with happy endings, but we're not trying to say that the whole world is terrible. You know, that everything's terrible, that there's no hope for anything. Even though we know what reality is, we still feel that there can be a change, that there will be a change, and if anybody, we'll be the ones who will do that. And that's our message, basically.

El Grupo Animo’s production of "I Have Hopes, Hopes I Keep Sacred in My Soul," runs through July 17th at San Antonio's Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center. The Center's theater director, Jorge Pina, calls the troupe the next generation of Chicano Teatristas.For Latino USA with Lucy Edwards in San Antonio, I'm Maria Martin.

[Guitar music, transition] I'm Maria Hinojosa. 75,000 people descended on the nation's capital on a train August Saturday to commemorate a historic civil rights march, which took place on another hot August day 30 years ago.

[Archival sound] Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee. Let freedom ring from every hill and all hill of Mississippi.

Although some things have changed for the better in the three decades since Dr. King articulated his vision for equality and justice, this year's march found many people, including many Latinos, seeking to improve their situation in this country. Latino USA's Patricia Guadalupe was at the march and filed this report.

When Martin Luther King Jr. stood on these steps 30 years ago today, he challenged people of goodwill across our nation to rise up and live out the true meaning of his creed.

Coretta Scott King, widow of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., addressed a much smaller crowd in that which heard her husband 30 years ago. She spoke of the same things he did, the need for more jobs and into prejudice and a more peaceful world. Many at the recent march acknowledged that progress had been made in those areas, but they said much remains to be done, especially in improving the lives of Latinos. Carmen Gonzalez of New York City said she came to the march to fight for more jobs.

Things are not going too well for many people. There are too many unemployed. They're not jobs. There's nothing out there really. There's a lot of college grads who are looking for jobs. They can't find anything.

Do you think that this march is going to change things?

We're trying. We're trying to enforce something by being united. We're trying to see, we're trying to foresee if the President will do something for us.

According to the Joint Center for Political Studies in Washington, living conditions have gotten worse for Hispanics in the last 30 years. Since 1963, there has been a 10% increase in Hispanic poverty levels, particularly in urban areas where figures show 60% unemployment among Hispanics.

Almost 10% more Hispanics and Asians live in poverty today than did in 1963. More poor whites drop out before high school graduations.

Young people were strong presence at the march, and while most of them marched for the same things as their older counterparts, a young Latina from Rhode Island took it one step further. Ana Rodriguez said she came to make a statement about Puerto Rico.

Since the plebiscite is going on in Puerto Rico now and they're going to decide the statehood of Commonwealth. And Puerto Rico has been oppressed for 500 years, first by the Spaniards and now by the Americans and everybody else. And the Puerto Ricans here in the United States see the worst part of it.

[Natural sounds of march] Even though a majority of the marchers declared that little has changed in the 30 years since the first march, there was a feeling of optimism for the future in the air. Henry Cisneros, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, said his optimism comes from faith that this administration will help out those who have been in need for so long.

For children who grow up in a development where they have no prospects or jobs or hope, for young people who get drawn to the only life around them which is drugs, you could only say that things were worse. But what we have to do is capture the momentum of what is possible and luckily, we have a president. We have an administration that is willing to go out on a limb and I think today is an important reminder of the job ahead.

Most Latinos at the march were as hopeful for the future as Secretary Cisneros, but some expressed disappointment that President Clinton was not there and that Latino participation in the march was relatively small. For Latino USA, I'm Patricia Guadalupe in Washington.

I'm Maria Hinojosa. In New York City's, East Harlem, the Puerto Rican Barrio. A neighborhood marketplace known as La Marqueta has long been a symbol of the area's economic development or lack of it. The one's thriving market is now run down and in need of renovation, but as the political climate heats up in New York City for local elections, La Marqueta is beginning to become an issue. From New York Mandalit del Barco reports.

Beuno, aqui tengo platano maduro, platano verdes. Tengo Yucca, [inaudible], agua—aguacate.

The Banana King, Jose Luis Santiago sells fruit from a stand at La Marqueta. A warehouse under the old, elevated subway tracks in the heart of El barrio, Santiago has been here for 42 years in the business he took over from his father in that time, he says he is seen many changes.

Oh! Aqui la luna han cambiado.

[Inaudible.]

Como te dije al principio que la marqueta se cayeron, caer no, no limpieza toda via ven la marca.

La Marqueta fell into disrepair over the years. He says, leaving the place dirty and neglected. Luis the Banana King's just one of eight or nine vendors left at La Marqueta, along with a couple of butchers, fabric vendor, egg seller and botanica merchants. He's watched the once thriving marketplace deteriorate before his eyes.

No hay mucho publico, muy pco lo que nadie aqui, no hay nada que buscar--

Luis the Banana King laments that nobody shops at the marketplace anymore and there's not much to shop for. It's a far cry from 1936 when it was created by Mayor Fiorello La Guardia as an indoor space to keep the push cart pedalers off the streets. What started as the Park Avenue market with Italian and Jewish merchants slowly shifted to becoming La Marqueta as Puerto Rican started flooding into East Harlem in the 1950s, there were five Marqueta buildings where there now is barely one. Butcher Alex Garcet, a Puerto Rican New Yorker remembers how La Marqueta used to be.

30 years was different, was crowded you couldn't even... We used to open at five in the morning by six o'clock was people waiting outside the N 20. The bus used to be crowded. Everything, it's nothing, was different. Everybody was concerned.

In the 1970s, tenants at La Marqueta organized to run the marketplace and later several developers took over all without success. La Marqueta became the site of building code violations and neglect as small vendors retired or moved elsewhere and there was no one left to take their place. A year and a half ago, the city finally took charge again. Through the Economic Development Corporation. [Natural sounds of neighborhood] The city is fixing the one remaining building hoping to welcome new tenants by October. There's now a task force working on choosing a new developer to boost La Marqueta to a new future. The city is committed $5 million to the project and the task force is hoping for state and federal money in addition. East Harlem City council member Adam Clayton Powell IV envisions La Marqueta as a tourist attraction and an affordable neighborhood shopping center.

I would like to see like a flea market where different vendors can have their push guards and where we can have fruits, vegetables, t-shirts, magic, trick stores that that sort of thing, and I think it can be done.

But others, including Powell's rival in the current city council election, William Del Toro wonder about the viability of such a dream becoming reality given the marketplace's history and the neighborhood's lack of buying power. Also, the wisdom of spending so much money to revive a place that might simply be outmoded.

The goal is to create 20 stalls at a cost of $2,000,000.00 Do you know what we're talking about? $100,000.00 a stall. And you know what a stall is? A couple of pieces of plasterboard and a gate that rolls down.

[Archival sound] Temperatura en la cuidad de Nueva York en los 84 grados.

Those working to revitalize La Marqueta disagree that the place is doomed. They see a future mixed east marketplace complete with food vendors, clothing stores, movie theaters, and a community space with the smells, feel, and mood of East Harlem. Across from the banana stand, Alex Garcet sells fresh meat, accepting food stamps and allowing his customers to buy food on credit. He even has a whole index card catalog filled with IOUs like many in the neighborhood, Garcet considers where he works a landmark. Not long ago, he had to lay off 11 employees from behind the meat counter, still he says he'll stay. Why do you stay?

Well, listen, the reason we stand, because we have hope. Okay? Everybody have hope and I have a hope that one day we might be able to make it and we doing it by ourself.

Until La Marqueta becomes a sensation that's promised, Alex Garcet says the vendors will continue to wait for customers to return. For Latino USA, Mandalit del Barco in New York.

Immigration rights groups in California have filed suit against the Immigration and Naturalization Service. They claim the 1986 immigration reform law have kept many families apart. They say INS regulations have put children of amnestied individuals in danger of being deported, in denial of the family unity protection clause of the immigration law. You're listening to Latino USA.

I never thought I'd be me, a California Chicana, turning 30 in New York.

The occasion of this momentous milestone, her 30th birthday, gave California-born Gloria Cabrera pause to meditate on her life, and to compare it to that of other women in her family. "Turning 30 for them," she says, "Was a very different story."

Turning 30 to my mom meant being alone, divorced, raising three children on welfare to pay the rent, while working as a housekeeper on the side to survive. My mother, denied a college education because in those days her brothers, my uncles, said women were meant for marriage and not for college degrees. Turning 30 to my sister meant being alone, raising four children in a subsidized apartment, juggling it all while trying to finish college. My sister at 30, willing to give it all she had for herself and her children.

So here I am, trying to understand how I fit into this familial paradigm. Turning 30 for me means being alone, by choice, single and childless by choice, living and working in New York City with two university degrees, a career-bound Chicana transplanted in this far off land miles away from friends who after graduation from college settled into comfortable lives, and to new jobs, new cars, new relationships in the same city. So with autumn's changing leaves, I'm thinking about the changes in my life, how after all my struggles, my tears, my triumphs, I am actually turning 30 in New York, the Big City, on my own.

What's even more exciting, even more significant to me? Turning 30 means redefining the paradigm, changing the future for my daughter one day.

Gloria Cabrera lives and writes in New York City.