Progress made but fears race on

Timothy Pratt, Las Vegas Sun

Sunday, Oct. 8, 2006 | 7:44 a.m.

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Waiting for work, day laborers leaned against a wall Monday on Eastern Avenue in Henderson and tried to make sense of a recent string of crimes against Hispanics, two of which ended up as homicides.

"Maybe it's a hate thing," said Jose Garcia. "They think, 'We're going to get rid of them.' " He was describing how he believes some blacks view Hispanics here. Footage from a convenience store camera identified suspects in one of the homicides as black.

El Mundo, the valley's oldest Spanish-language newspaper, framed the news of the most recent killing with this headline: "Another Hispanic Assassinated by Thieves of the Black Race."

Together, Garcia and the newspaper were reflecting beliefs that concern community leaders, who often are not willing to talk about the problem head-on. Relations between the Las Vegas Valley's two largest minority groups are often strained, and sometimes absent.

Yet, even as Hispanic readers picked up copies of the newspaper, two political groups - one black, one Hispanic - jointly hosted a debate between sheriff candidates.

Tony Sanchez, one of the event's organizers, said the debate was a sign of how blacks and Hispanics are drawing together in the valley.

"Never before have the two communities worked together on so many issues," he says.

So which is it?

Do several high-profile crimes highlight existing tension between blacks and Hispanics, or are those crimes a statistical oddity in a time of unprecedented cooperation? According to some valley leaders of both communities and national experts in political and race relations, it may be both.

One thing is clear, however: Las Vegas is not alone.

Experts who have studied the two minority communities in other cities said that conflict follows wherever both groups live together, and that a fast-growing urban area such as the Las Vegas Valley will see ongoing tensions.

State Sen. Steven Horsford, D-North Las Vegas, said that he has seen the conflict between the two communities in the valley's high schools, where he has spoken several times in the last two years to students about black-Hispanic tensions.

"I think there's a lack of cultural understanding between the two groups," he said. "This is real and needs to be addressed."

Fernando Romero, president of Hispanics in Politics, called the issue a "very touchy subject." He took a deep breath, then continued: "I really feel that efforts have been made to unify and empower both communities. (But) the reality is, the situation is different for each group."

Romero and others describe how some Hispanics who can't vote - either because they're in the country illegally or have yet to obtain citizenship - resent blacks because of their own lack of political power.

And some blacks resent Hispanics, the experts said, because they have become the nation's largest minority group and thus have a different kind of power, including a perceived monopoly on certain jobs.

Cordell Stokes, spokesman for the Caucus of African American Nevadans, which also organized the sheriff debate, said the relationship between the two groups is "a big subject across the nation, and immigration hasn't helped.

"It's out there - black-Hispanic relations at a certain level have conflict."

El Mundo's Sept. 23 edition also included an editorial, titled, "Stop Violence Against Hispanics."

After summarizing the string of robberies in recent months, in which criminals targeted workers who have just cashed paychecks and are carrying cash, the editorial concludes:

"In several cases, people of African-American origin have committed the crimes. In other words, subjects of the black race are damaging, robbing, hurting and killing Hispanics in certain areas of Las Vegas."

Valdemar Gonzalez, the editorial's author, said, "There is a situation of tension, of concern (in the Hispanic community). It's something people talk about across the dinner table."

He didn't choose the editorial's words with malice, he said, but in an "attempt to reflect what is happening."

What is known about the recent crimes - apart from the two homicides - is that Hispanics are disproportionately victimized by robberies. Between Jan. 1 and Sept. 15 , Hispanics were victims in one of every three robberies in Metro's jurisdiction, according to Ignacio Pulido of Metro's Hispanic-American Resource Team. Just over 25 percent of the valley's population is Hispanic and 9 percent is black, according to 2004 Census estimates.

Pulido hasn't compiled data about the racial or ethnic identity of the suspects in those robberies.

Nicolas C. Vaca, author of "The Presumed Alliance: The Unspoken Conflict Between Latinos and Blacks and What It Means for America," said that he has seen crime bring existing tensions to the surface in other communities nationwide - including the San Francisco area, where he resides and where there has been a recent spate of black-on-Hispanic crimes.

He noted that because Spanish-language media often exhibit "a lack of political correctness," they openly express "a resentment that's been building up" in their community.

Latino community leaders, meanwhile, often "have a real problem accepting that Latinos may have antipathy toward African-Americans," Vaca said, a reflection of the difficulty people in general have in speaking with frankness about race relations.

In an area such as Las Vegas, where much of the booming growth is fueled by Hispanics, the tension may "get worse before it gets better, as there is a readjustment of relations between the two groups," Vaca said.

Henry Thorns, founder of the Dogcatchers Youth Foundation, an organization that works with minority youth through sports, grew up on Las Vegas' west side and has seen the growth of the Hispanic community during the last three decades.

"All the homes that blacks lived in, now Hispanics are living there," said Thorns, known in the community as "Hen-Hen."

He said that he has often felt like "foreigners are getting ahead of blacks, and we're taking the second seat."

Assemblyman Harvey Munford, D-Las Vegas, represents a district that includes much of West Las Vegas, historically home to a high population of blacks.

"In the African-American community, you hear the blame game," Munford said. "People say, 'They're taking our jobs or encroaching on our turf.' "

Munford's district was about 40 percent black and 12 percent Hispanic when he took office in 2004. He has seen the Hispanic community grow since then, along with rumblings of resentment by some of his black constituents, he said:

"There's talk of, 'They're taking over the community.' "

Rev. Melvin Sanders, after leading a mostly black congregation for 42 years at the House of Holiness Church on H Street, has also seen changes.

He said that some of his parishioners and neighbors feel that Hispanics mistreat them in public life - like in a store or fast-food restaurant: "Say you go to a McDonald's and there's a Hispanic waiting on you - they act like they're doing you a favor. It seems like it's a Hispanic-black thing."

Sanders allowed there was irony in that perception, as both groups are minorities and have felt discrimination on a wider scale.

Though he has lived in the valley since 1955, Sanders grew up in El Paso, Texas, where he said the two groups "reached a happy medium."

"We were all trying to make a living. We played together as young boys," he recalled. "But you don't see that here. We basically avoid one another."

Thorns, from the same neighborhood, tried to be as inclusive as possible in response to the growth.

"I can't blame them - they're just trying to get ahead," he said. "How can we hate them (Hispanics) if we don't really know them?"

Tatcho Mindiola Jr., director of the Center for Mexican American Studies at the University of Houston, said that Mexican immigrants, in particular, know little about blacks when they come to the United States, because they have little direct contact with them in Mexico.

(Immigrants from many other Latin American countries don't have the same experience, as those countries include sizable black populations.)

Many impressions Mexican immigrants have of blacks come from U.S. television shows translated into Spanish, Mindiola noted.

That lack of familiarity is accompanied by fear, and the two add up to what Mindiola called "greater social distance," which can manifest itself in conflict.

Sheriff debate organizer Sanchez said that he's optimistic about such joint efforts, as well as about partnerships between the Latin and Urban chambers of commerce to train minorities for jobs.

"When you have scarce resources, you're put in a position of conflict," he said. "(But) I think we're on the upswing when it comes to cooperation."

And Ruben Kihuen, who is unopposed for Assembly District 11 in the general election and is poised to become the first modern-day, Hispanic immigrant in the Nevada Legislature, said he is looking forward to building a coalition between the seven black and four Hispanic legislators who will be in Carson City.

"We're both minorities and are interested in the same issues - education, health care, crime," he said.

On the street, however, the view may be somewhat different.

Day laborer Garcia said Monday that should a young black man drive up to offer him work, he probably wouldn't get in the car.

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