| POLITICS IS A FAMILY AFFAIR |
| Written by Maria Elena Salinas |
| Thursday, November 14 2002 |
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| Maria Macias and Rafael Diaz-Balart will have every right in the world to be bursting with pride when the 108th Congress convenes next January. These two Hispanic immigrants from opposite coasts of the United States will each have not one, but two children, serving at the highest levels of the U.S. government.
Macias, a Mexican-American from Southern California, is the mother of California Democratic Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez and her newly elected sister Linda Sanchez. Diaz-Balart, a Cuban-American from Miami, is the father of Florida Republican Congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Mario Diaz-Balart, who will represent a new congressional district in Florida.
Macias and Diaz-Balart are the driving forces behind the Election Night victories of their sons and daughters. Against tremendous obstacles, they raised successful children in a new country and through their hard work, inspiration and motivation created two powerful political families.
When Maria Macias arrived in the United States from Mexico as a little girl, she was poor and spoke no English. Maria had dropped out of school in the second grade to help raise her siblings while her widowed mother worked. "My education cost me tears", Macias told me in a telephone interview. She cried and begged her mother to let her finish her schooling.
As a mother herself she wanted to make sure her kids didn't suffer the same misery she endured. Through hard work and perseverance, Maria saw to it that all of her seven children graduated from college. Disturbed by what she viewed as unfair treatment of immigrant children in her Southern California school district, Maria returned to college at age 40 to get her degree and work as a bilingual teacher. At 65, she is working on her masters.
Rafael Diaz-Balart, a lawyer and politician in his native Cuba, fled his homeland shortly before the Cuban Revolution in 1959. He settled in Florida, where he devoted his life to three things: his family, politics and denouncing Fidel Castro. So intense is his hatred of Castro, that Diaz-Balart seldom refers to the Cuban leader by his name. Instead, he calls him el loco endemoniado, which translates to "The diabolical lunatic."
Incredibly, Rafael Diaz-Balart is Fidel Castro's former brother in law. His sister Mirta Diaz-Balart, was married to Castro from 1948 until their divorce in 1955 and is the mother of Castro's first son, Fidel Castro Diaz-Balart. But those family ties were severed long ago and Diaz-Balart has never missed a chance to denounce Castro's dismal record of human rights abuse. He has passed on that passion to his sons. On Election Night, Mario Diaz-Balart dedicated his victory to Cuba's political prisoners.
The Sanchez sisters credit their mother with raising them with a social conscience. During the United Farm Worker's boycotts of the 70's and 80's, grapes were forbidden in the Sanchez home. When a teacher told her to speak English to her children at home instead of Spanish, Maria set the teacher straight, informing her she was raising her daughters to be bilingual. During the immigration amnesty program of the 80's, Maria volunteered her time to help families fill out the lengthy and complicated INS forms to obtain legal residency.
Linda and Loretta are a reflection of their hard-driven mother, the same way Mario and Lincoln carry on the political values and traditions of their father. Just like their mother, Linda and Loretta are committed to fighting for the rights of the underprivileged and have refused to give up in the face of adversity. Just like their father, Lincoln and Mario have fought tirelessly to represent their Miami constituents and denounce human rights abuses in Cuba. These characteristics are not surprising for two sets of siblings who inherited in their own way the strong passions and convictions of their unwavering and devoted parents. |
