Specials DIVERSITY EMPLOYERS MAGAZINE Spring 2011 - Anniversary Commemorative Issue Hispanic American Village Jobs Center Featured bilingual and other opportunities for all levels   Alliances Meet more IMDiversity Employment Opportunity Network allies

Hispanic Heritage Month, 2009—looking back at a tough year with a glimmer of optimism for the future

With September 15 upon us to usher in the 21st annual Hispanic Heritage Month, clearly the high point for Latinos this past year has been the appointment of Justice Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court.  The Bronx-born, projects-raised boriqua is the first Latino--indeed, the first Latina--to have achieved a seat on the highest court in the nation.  Sotomayor’s accomplishment is made that much more impressive by the ease by which she was confirmed—the handful of mean-spirited and cynical senators in whose hands Sotomayor’s fate lay determined to discredit her, but her record and composure disarmed them handily.

The confirmation proceedings, the loudest buzz on the wires and wireless for weeks,  marginalized the grand and gnawing question of Latino identity, rallying Latinos across this country and across motherland borders and inspiring across the board Latino pride.  (For an insightful perspective on identity, read the Pew Hispanic Center report, “Who’s Hispanic?”.)

Unfortunately, the glow of Sotomayor’s appointment and her likely positive impact on our diverse communities and women’s rights dims when we consider the overall imbalance of setbacks versus progress for Latinos over the past year as issues of moving up and ahead have largely been quashed by our burst economy.

Our first African-American president repaid the overwhelming number of Latinos who delivered his victory votes by selecting Latinos for top-rung positions, including 2 to cabinet posts: Ken Salazar was named Secretary of the Interior and Hilda Solis Secretary of Labor.  On the other hand, Barack Obama’s naming former Arizona governor, Janet Napolitano, to head the Department of Homeland Security raised a red flag that the administration would not humanize the government’s policy towards out of status immigrants.  Napolitano maintained a hard line on immigrants as governor.  In addition, Napolitano’s office has taken some anti-immigrant measures outlined recently by The Washington Independent as hearkening back to the Draconian Bush years: Full story.

Immigration reform has now been back burnered until 2010, leaving many Latino immigrants and their families in limbo if not peril.  (The Hispanic American Village is fully aware that Latinos’ position on immigration, especially the undocumented, is in no way monolithic, but we feel it fair to assume that most Latinos would agree that no Latino workers should be singled out for heavy-handed treatment, including harsh and underpaid working conditions, deportations that sever family ties, peremptory incarcerations, etc., and that vigorous measures must be taken by government authorities to stem the rising tide of hate crimes against Latino immigrants.) 

Obama broke a campaign promise and did not seek to overhaul NAFTA at a recent meeting among U.S., Canadian and Mexican heads of state.  NAFTA, comprised of the three North American countries, since its inception, in 1994, has contributed considerably to the further impoverishment of campesinos and low-skilled working Mexicans, and, as a consequence, until our own economy imploded, drove many of them north to work as “illegals.”

The recession has hit Latinos really hard.  In August, Hispanic unemployment reached 13%, over 3% higher than the national average.  The Pew Hispanic Center reports that 1 in 10 Latinos has missed at least 1 mortgage payment within the past few months.  At the same time, in a glimmer of optimism, while Latinos have seen their overall gains in home ownership erased by the flood of foreclosures, the rate of home ownership among foreign born Latinos has not yet dipped.

Also on the plus side, Latino buying power continues to surge.  The Florida Sun Sentinel reports predictions that Latino consumer purchases will reach 10% of the U.S. total by 2013.

Perhaps more than others, but still as a thickening thread in the fiber of this “American” community, Latinos’ fate rests with the rate and success of full economic recovery, especially in those industries where Latino job losses have been greatest—construction, hotels and restaurants. 

But in the meanwhile let’s use the month to commemorate with pride the struggle against discrimination and for equal rights of La Raza, of Nuyoricans; at the organizing  victories and political muscle of MALDEF, PRLDEF (now Latino Justice) and the United Farmworkers Union, and at the waves of immigrants, not just from Mexico, but  Colombians, Salvadorans, Cubans, Guatemalans, and so many more--many of them fleeing horrific situations in their home countries--who have made new, successful lives for themselves and educated their children while contributing to that ill-defined but powerfully palpable Latino identity.