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Introducing her book
"I am my father's daughter"
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| Written by Maria Elena Salinas |
| Monday, November 26 2001 |
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| Perez, Garcia, Diaz and Garza. Remember these names. They are the up-and-coming stars of Latino politics in the United States. These men were recently elected mayors of major U.S. cities. In some cases, the elections made history. In all cases, they showed the growing importance of the Hispanic vote.
Eddie Perez became the first Hispanic mayor of Hartford, Conn. A whopping 75 percent of the voters picked him over his opponent, Robert Ludgin, in this capital city with a 40 percent Hispanic population. The 44-year-old community activist is a onetime gang member who moved to Hartford with his family from Corozal, Puerto Rico, when he was 12 years old. He didn't speak a word of English and grew up in some of Hartford's toughest neighborhoods.
Gustavo Luis Garcia, better known as "Gus," also became the first Hispanic mayor of a state capital. Voters in Austin, Texas, chose Garcia from a field of eight mayoral candidates with such an overwhelming majority that a runoff was not necessary. Garcia, a former city councilman and school-board president, is a veteran of Austin politics. A native Texan, his parents were Mexican immigrants from the state of Tamaulipas. His great-great-grandfather was the first mayor of Ciudad Guerrero after the Mexican revolution.
Manny Diaz, on the other hand, is a political newcomer. Few people thought he had a realistic chance of becoming Miami's mayor. After all, he faced tough competition from other Hispanic candidates. But Diaz was able to make it to a runoff election in which he easily beat veteran politician and former mayor Maurice Ferre. Diaz, like Eddie Perez in Hartford, had never run for elected office. His claim to fame was being the lawyer for the Miami family of Elian Gonzalez, the Cuban boy at the center of a bitter custody battle that made worldwide headlines. While Diaz, who arrived from Cuba as a child himself, was unable to convince the Clinton administration not to send Elian back to Cuba, he convinced Miami voters to send him to the mayor's office.
In a special election last May, Ed Garza became San Antonio's second Hispanic mayor, capturing almost 97 percent of the Latino vote. Garza, a 32-year-old Democrat who does not speak Spanish, has been involved in politics since childhood.
What is most significant about these elections is that even though they took place in cities with large Hispanic populations, the winners did not rely solely on the Hispanic vote - with the exception of Miami. According to pollster Sergio Bendixen, the power of the Hispanic vote is growing, but so is the sophistication of Latino candidates who are able to build coalitions. Such was the case of Fernando Ferrer in New York and of Antonio Villaraigosa in Los Angeles. Even though they lost their mayoral bids, no Hispanic candidate had ever come so close to victory. Bendixen believes they paved the way for a Hispanic to be elected in those cities in the next decade. In Houston, Cuban-born Republican Orlando Sanchez is hoping to become that city's first Hispanic mayor in a runoff election Dec. 1. This means that three of the four largest cities in the country have had viable Hispanic mayoral candidates.
Now comes the next step. Almost 35 million Hispanics live in the United States, but the number of Latino elected officials does not reflect the population. Hopefully, the number of Hispanics in politics will one day catch up with those Census figures. And, if we are lucky, among them will be that much-sought-after national political figure who will lead the Hispanic community. Who knows, maybe one day that leader will be a Garza or a Garcia, a Perez or a Diaz. After all, it's been said that all politics is local, and political power begins at the grass-roots level. |
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