National Hispanic groups taking notice of Nevada

By Timothy Pratt

Friday, June 22, 2001 | 3:55 a.m.

Claudia Monterrosa spontaneously slipped into Spanish as she remembered what caused her to first take notice of Las Vegas and Nevada.

It was the summer of 1999 when the Los Angeles-based, 33-year-old Hispanic civil rights organization she works for began its third national census drive -- Hagase Contar! or "Make yourself count!"

"We would send vans full of outreach workers to Las Vegas," she said. "They would come back with these reports that just shocked us -- 'Mucha raza!' they told us," using the Spanish term many Hispanics use to describe themselves.

In fact, Census 2000 confirmed what many already suspected: Nevada's Hispanic population, already at 10.4 percent as of the 1990 Census, had nearly doubled to 19.7 percent, making it one of the top 10 states in Hispanic population, percentagewise, in the nation.

"We knew from then on we had to get involved here," she said.

Two years later she and her organization are doing just that. And they're not the only ones.

Monterrosa works for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, or MALDEF. Founded in 1968, the group began as an organization dedicated to defending the civil rights of Mexican-Americans. When Vicente Fox was elected president of Mexico in November, his first U.S. appearance was at MALDEF's annual awards dinner in Los Angeles.

Like many organizations founded to help immigrants from this country's closest Latin American neighbor, MALDEF also has expanded its sights in recent years to help Hispanics from other countries.

It is now one of what local activist Andres Ramirez called "the big three" Hispanic organizations, along with the National Council of La Raza and the League of United Latin American Citizens, both based in Washington.

The three groups, in relation to sphere of influence among the 35 million Hispanics in the United States, are comparable to the American Civil Liberties Union, the Urban League or the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Monterrosa said.

The groups are taking note of Nevada more than ever in a significant turn of events that observers agree will greatly affect the political and social future of the state's fastest-growing minority group, and by extension Nevada in general.

Monterrosa is MALDEF's National Parent/School Partnership director, and last week she led a workshop that trains Hispanic parents to foster their involvement in their children's education, and to train others to do the same.

The workshop has been tried on a pilot basis twice in other cities in the past year, and it has been conducted in Los Angeles for 11 years. But Monterrosa's arrival in Las Vegas marks the organization's attempt to kick off the workshop's national expansion, "which is targeted especially at recent immigrants," she said.

"The idea is to help Hispanic parents who have just arrived here overcome what is not only a linguistic barrier, but also a cultural one,"said Aldo Aguirre, Education Department cultural diversity consultant and one of the people who urged MALDEF to come to Las Vegas.

"Many of these people come from countries where it is thought that teachers and principals always know best, and there's no need to get involved or question their children's schooling. So they have to learn that here in the United States things are different," he said.

Aguirre is working with Leticia Acevedo, president of East Las Vegas Community Development Corp., which sponsored the workshop.

Acevedo first spoke with MALDEF in March, and she said other organizations have recently shown interest in working with her, including the National Council of La Raza.

"Census 2000 figures really opened the door for us," she said. "These national groups see organizations like mine as bridges to the community, and their interest is strong in crossing that bridge," she said.

But things weren't always this way. Other members of Nevada's Hispanic community in past years have had less than warm experiences with these organizations -- before the census, that is.

Emma Sepulveda, a University of Nevada, Reno, literature professor and founder of Latinos for Political Education, tried to contact MALDEF seven years ago. She sought advice about a class-action lawsuit to defend Hispanic high school students who she and others felt were being treated unfairly.

"I called Los Angeles several times, and basically, they (the group's leaders) never got back to me," she said.

Sepulveda was the first Latina to run for the state Legislature -- she lost her Senate race in 1994. Frustrated by the lack of Hispanic voter turnout, she looked for help with voter registration in 1995.

She called the Los Angeles, Texas and Arizona offices of the Southwest Border Registration and Education Project.

"They didn't have the personnel or resources to give us a hand," she said.

"I felt like we were being ignored by both sides -- the dominant culture and the national Hispanic organizations," she said.

Ironically, the same organization recently invited Sepulveda to participate in a "Latino Academy" for political leaders, in Los Angeles. Then, for the first time in November, together with the organization, Sepulveda helped set up a project for voter registration and education in Northern Nevada.

The National Council of La Raza also contacted her in recent months, after telling her in 1996 that it had to dedicate its resources to bigger organizations. It sent Latinos for Political Education information on grants, and the La Raza leadership has shown an interest lately in working with the groups in the state.

Charles Kamasaki, National Council of La Raza senior vice president, said during a telephone interview from Washington that he has observed the changes in Nevada's Hispanic community with keen interest.

"As of Census 2000, it's now clear that there are significant Hispanic populations in 'nontraditional' places -- including the Southeast, certain areas of the Midwest where immigrants are working in the meat packing industry, and Nevada," he said.

"As an organization, we need to be connected to what's happening demographically," Kamasaki said. "The rapid growth of the Hispanic community in Nevada has made us want to have a presence here."

Kamasaki also said that areas such as the South and Nevada differ from states with traditional, longstanding Hispanic communities in regard to what he called infrastructure.

"States like California and Texas have Latino community-based organizations, elected officials, government employees and the like," he said.

"In Nevada, on the other hand, the population has grown so rapidly that the infrastructure has not been able to catch up."

"As a national organization with political clout, policy expertise and community presence, we want to see how we can help establish this infrastructure," the Capitol Hill veteran said.

Specifically, he said Nevada's growing Hispanic community could use help with educational issues, such as afterschool tutoring; homeownership; work force skills; and political empowerment, including citizenship classes, voter registration and candidate training.

Kamasaki, along with several senior staff members, were in Nevada last week to shore up these commitments.

As for why his organization had not been prominent in Nevada in previous years, he said, "It wasn't so much a question of motivation, but rather of capacity and priority."

"We didn't always have the personnel and resources to help in states where the Latino population and organization were lesser. We, and they, have grown now," he said.

Andres Ramirez, chairman of the Nevada Hispanic Democratic Caucus, also has seen national Hispanic organizations turn increasingly to Nevada, working both locally and in Washington.

Ramirez was director of Latino outreach for Sen. Harry Reid's 1998 campaign; one of his goals was getting Hispanics in Nevada to the polls.

He contacted the National Association of Latino Elected Officials in Washington and Los Angeles, the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda in Washington, and the Southwest Voter Registration and Education Project, looking for help.

"Basically, they said, 'Nevada? Latinos in Nevada? You're crazy!' " Ramirez said.

Reid, D-Nev., went on to win by 486 votes. Ramirez and others mobilized about 8,000 Hispanics to vote, more than in past elections, and twice what they expected.

In January 1999 Ramirez went to Washington for the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda, an annual meeting of 40 organizations. Raul Yzaguirre, National Council of La Raza president, was the keynote speaker.

"Yzaguirre spoke about the importance of the Latino vote in the 1998 elections, and the way everybody had worked together across the nation," Ramirez said.

"Then he asked if there were any questions or comments. I raised my hand and told the story of my experience in Reid's campaign, of the close vote and all. And I asked, 'Where were you all when I needed you?' "

"Yzaguirre answered, 'I wasn't aware of this problem.' "

"After that, I sat down with leaders of all of the national organizations, and I think this was somewhat of a turning point," he said.

In late 1999 Mickey Ybarra, director of Intergovernmental Affairs and the one of the highest-ranking Hispanics in the Clinton administration, came to the annual Nevada Hispanic Leadership Summit, in Las Vegas. A month later Reid organized a meeting in Washington among 80 Latino leaders from Nevada and the capital's leading Hispanic groups.

"All of these events have helped put Nevada's Hispanic community on the map here in Washington," said Carl Meacham, who works with Reid regarding minority affairs.

"In fact, I think it's weird that the national Hispanic organizations haven't headquartered in the state yet," he said. "We want them to come, think there's a need for them and welcome them with open arms."

Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman displayed a similar attitude.

"I support these national organizations working with our Hispanic residents to make their life a better life, to help them be better citizens and a more intelligent electorate," Goodman said.

"Hopefully, the Hispanic voice in Nevada will be heard loud and clear in the years to come," he said.

The oldest Hispanic organization in the United States had its president based here long before the current show of interest by other national groups, and its story is a chapter apart.

The League of United Latin American Citizens, or LULAC, was founded in 1929 in Texas.

"They were huge here in the late '80s and early '90s," said Ramirez, the Hispanic Democratic Caucus chairman.

At that time, Jose Velez, head of the Nevada LULAC chapter and national president, was implicated in an immigration fraud scandal involving falsifying documents for undocumented workers. Velez was sentenced to 10 years in prison. He was recently released.

"Their reputation went down the drain after this, especially in Southern Nevada," Ramirez said.

In Northern Nevada, the organization died because of apathy and poor organization, Sepulveda said.

But both observers said the group has recently tried to make a comeback and is looking into re-establishing its presence in Las Vegas.

"We're in the process of building chapters here," Brent Wilkes, LULAC executive director, said.

"As an organization, we want to help Hispanics get involved in their communities and have an impact, and Nevada has one of the fastest-growing populations in the country," he said.

In any case national Hispanic groups are coming, and they will help shape the political and social destinies of Nevada's largest minority group for the foreseeable future, state leaders say.

"They'll be knocking on our doors, and we'll open them," Sepulveda said.

"They need us as much as we need them."