From jjpena@uswest.net Wed Mar 22 16:42:51 2000
From jjpena@uswest.net Wed Mar 22 16:42:51 2000
Estimada Raza y Amigos:
Larry Calloway's column "Republicans Must Woo Hispanics to Retake
Legislature" touches the sore spot that the new generation of Republicans
after Dave Cargo's governorship have demonstrated not only a disregarded,
but in many cases a marked disdain, from New Mexico's indigenous
Indohispano population together with a concerted effort to remove us and
our leaders from the political and governmental positions we have attained
after decades of efforts and sacrifice. The conditions Don Octaviano
Larrazolo (Governor of New Mexico from 1918 to 1920 and later U.S.
Senator) cited in his letter of resignation to W.C. McDonald relative to
the racist character of the Democrat Party in the early 1900's is
applicable to the present day Republican Party under the leadership of
John Dendahl and Gary Johnson. Larrazolo soon found that the party's
Anglo minority was just as racist as the Anglo majority in the Democrat
party of the time when he was blocked from a second term at the
governorship, which he surely would have won, by 26 Anglo convention
delegates who in 48 votes thwarted the will of the majority 74 Hispano
delegates to re-nominate Larrazolo.
The modern day Republicans and the Anglo bureaucrats and administrators in
the public institutions seem to be trying to reinstall their version of
Colonization 1998 since Colonization 1898 did not take and Hispanos were
represented close to parity in many if not most of the governmental
positions in the state of New Mexico. The administrations of Governors
Carruthers and Johnson have kept many Hispanos from attaining parity of
Hispano representation in the public institutions of the state of New
Mexico and many Hispanos in boards, commissions, and departments of the
state were summarily removed after long and arduous efforts to advance
their careers and serve our people spanning many decades of effort and
sacrifice. The examples are legion, Highlands University which is located
in an area which is 85% Hispano has only 1 Hispano Regent; Hispano
represent 1/2 of the population of New Mexico, yet we do not have 1/2 of
the members of any of the boards and commissions, most of whom are not
willing to go to the mat for our people to be equally represented in the
institutions that they serve.
Now we have no Hispanos in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S.
Senate which has hurt us relative to appointments to federal judgeships,
U.S. Attorneys, and to high federal offices in Washington and New Mexico.
We are under represented in the House and Senate of the New Mexico
Legislature, and we have been fortunate to have this somewhat offset by
the fact that we have two socially conscious, conscientious, well educated
and issue oriented Hispano legislative leaders in the nativos
Nuevomexicanos Manuel Aragón and Reymundo Sánchez who have fought for
programs which have assisted the poor barrios and Hispano rural areas as
well as the state in general. These efforts together with those of
Democrat governors have generally been able to provide services to these
areas which have been cut off by Gary Johnson's vetoes; this has put the
skids to our people and our state and have dropped us from 45th t o 50th
place in poverty in the United States. True representation has been
replaced by tokenism.
The University of New Mexico, New Mexico State University and Eastern New
Mexico University have still not had an Hispano President, and we are
losing ground in Hispano President's cabinet members, college deans ,
department heads and professors as well as staff division heads and
members in the universities. Many of the programs that we set in place in
the 1970's to assist Hispano and other minorities such as Chicano Student
Services, Chicano Studies, and recruitment and tutoring programs have been
eliminated in many of the state's universities. Likewise, we are losing
ground in the state departments and divisions which are headed by
appointees of the governor and we are again being marginalized. The net
effect of this trend is that the New Mexican Hispanos who have
distinguished themselves both inside and outside of our state are not
being hired in the state institutions which we have been paying for
generations in our own ancestral homelands, and the "Spanish State" is
becoming a hostile environment in many of its public institutions for its
own native sons and daughters.
The University of New Mexico, for example, has gone down from 5 Hispano
cabinet members, 94 Hispano faculty and several deans and department heads
to 2 Hispano cabinet members, 1 Hispano dean, no department chairs
(Gabriel Meléndez is only acting chair of American Studies) and 92
faculty. Our best and brightest New Mexican Hispano administrators have
been denied the presidency of the University of New Mexico and other
universities around the state. We are 0 for 6 in the selections where
highly qualified Hispanos for the administrative positions of the
University of New Mexico applied, most specifically, the rejections of Leo
Moya , Leo Romero and the Hispano candidate from San Antonio who was head
and shoulders above Judy Jones in qualifications to be the Vice for
Institutional Advancement yet was not selected. This type of blatant
discrimination is the reason why highly qualified Hispanos no longer apply
to the University of New Mexico. The word is out among Hispanos and
especially among nativos Nuevomexicanos that "Mexicans need not apply."
In many ways, our status as Hispanos in new Mexico at the beginning of the
new century and millenium in public institutions is worse than it was at
the latter part of the 1800's and the first half of the 20th century.
This is not what my ancestral relative Manuel de la Peña y Peña, our last
Mexicano President, envisioned when he signed the Treaty of Guadalupe
Hidalgo under duress and the Protocol of Querétaro. I am sure that my
great grandfather Teodoro Peña, who was active in the Movimiento de la
Gente in the 1890's, and my grandfather Federico Peña and his brother
Eisabel, who were active in the Liga Obrera de Habla Española of the
1930's and 1940's, expected that we would be much better off than we are.
We are again being relegated to second class ( or third class, because
Anglo women are over represented relative to Hispano men and women
combined) in the public institutions of our ancestral homelands, where we
have lived for centuries from our Indian and Spanish ancestors, to what
Rodolfo Gonzales so aptly called "Token leadership in society's own
name."
WE as Hispanos Neomexicanos need to again become politically active at the
ward, precinct, county, state and national level just as our ancestors
were to reclaim our political heritage and legacy and to bring ourselves
to parity equal to our numbers and percentages in the population of the
State of New Mexico in all of our institutions, public and private. We
are doing better in the private sector, but we are slipping badly in the
public sector, and we have to put forth Hispano candidates at all level
and vote for Hispano, Native American and Anglo candidates who are going
to fight for parity and equality for New Mexico's nativos.
We can see from the exclusion and regression of our rights and
participation which the Republican Party has wrought on Hispanos in New
Mexico, California, Texas and Florida that the Republican Party is no the
way to go. The Democrat Party selects its delegates equal to our numbers
and percentages in the state, and in New Mexico, where we Hispanos are the
majority, this is the only way to go unless and until we are similarly
represented in the Republican Party by people who are going to fight for
the equality of our people like Octaviano Larrazolo did, and not just "get
along and go along." I left the Republican Party in 1970 after 7 years of
being an active member and official because of the racism I saw taking
over the party, and it has only gone from bad to worse since then, as we
can see from the current state of the Hispano population in New Mexico.
1115 9th Street, SW
Alburquerque, New Mexico 87103
Member of the Alianza Federal de Mercedes since 1964
Past Precinct Vice Chairman and Head Election Judge,
Republican Party San Miguel County
Past Coordinator of Ethnic Studies, Director of Chicano
Studies, Professor of Spanish, Chicano Studies and Bilingual
Education at New Mexico Highlands University
Founding Member, National Association for Chicano Studies
Past State President, New Mexico Association for Chicano
Studies
Past National President, Partido de la Raza Unida Nacional
Past State President, Partido de la Raza Unida de Nuevo
México
Past County President, Partido de la Raza Unida de Nuevo
México
State Commander, American GI Forum de Nuevo México
Past Chairman, Current Vice-Chairman, Hispano Round Table de
Nuevo México
Past President, Barelas Neighborhood Association
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