Latinos promote causes at rally at Statehouse
BOSTON---Jose Dobles, one of the few Hispanic students at the College of the Holy Cross, looked out at the packed Great Hall of the Statehouse and marveled. More than 300 Hispanic activists from across the state gathered yesterday for the first-ever Hispanic legislative and lobbying summit. In class, you hear about Latinos, but to see them as real people changing their own circumstances is a whole different thing,'' Mr. Dobles said. It's a proud circumstance.'' The Holy Cross senior was among a busload of people from Worcester who traveled here to join fellow activists from Springfield, Lawrence, New Bedford and Boston trying to make their voices heard in the Legislature. Several issues are galvanizing Hispanic leaders. They are concerned about a campaign to dismantle bilingual education, a redistricting process that many Hispanics felt left them out, and persistent lower test scores among Hispanic students. We want to be part of this community. We demand to be part of this community,'' Ismael Ramirez-Soto, a dean at the University of Massachusetts in Boston, told the crowd. We've got the numbers, we've got the will, and we're ready to claim what is rightfully ours.'' State Rep. Jarrett Barrios, D-Cambridge, one of three Hispanics in the Legislature, fired up the audience when he noted that the building is 100 percent Latino'' at night -- after most Statehouse workers go home and the largely Hispanic janitorial staff takes over. We have a majority after 5 p.m. when the cleaning crews come out, but the decisions are made during the day,'' Mr. Barrios said. A new statewide Hispanic group, Oiste, which means Have you heard?'' in Spanish, has formed to raise the stature of Hispanics in state electoral politics. Oiste, which organized yesterday's event, is considering suing the state for failing to create minority-dominated legislative districts in Chelsea, Lawrence and Worcester. In Worcester, the Hispanic population is concentrated in the Main South neighborhood. The recent House redistricting left the area in the hands of three white city legislators, though the Hispanic component of the district represented by Democratic Rep. Vincent A. Pedone was boosted to 36 percent. Voting rights activists, who have lobbied for districts where minorities are in the majority, call that fragmentation cracking.'' Worcester is one of the cities that is cracked. Shame on the Legislature for not remedying that,'' Giovanna Negretti, executive director of Oiste, said in an interview. Samuel Rosario of Worcester, a regional chairman for Oiste who has pushed for the city's first Hispanic House district, said he has not yet decided whether a lawsuit is the best route for Worcester Hispanics. While their own district would certainly be in their best interests, city Hispanics might be better served by negotiating other benefits, Mr. Rosario said. In the meantime, Mr. Pedone can be a capable representative for the more than 10,000 Hispanics in his district, he said. Pedone has always listened to the issues of the Latino community,'' Mr. Rosario, who was also at the Statehouse yesterday, said in an interview. He's a friend of the Latino community, but he also has his own issues, his own base.'' Oiste is also putting its weight behind the Clean Elections Law, calling for full funding of the public campaign financing measure, which Hispanic leaders see as crucial to Hispanic grass-roots campaigns. But perhaps the hottest issue affecting the state's 429,000 Hispanic residents, who make up 6.8 percent of the population, is a proposed ballot initiative to replace bilingual instruction with English immersion. California multimillionaire Ron Unz is bankrolling the controversial initiative campaign, which is opposed by most Hispanic leaders, who say it is anti-immigrant and would hurt Spanish-speaking students. An opponent of the initiative, Sergio Paez, director of bilingual education in the Leominster schools, said he found yesterday's gathering inspiring, though he is pessimistic about the chances of blocking the initiative. |