A Year-End Review: Tying Up Some of the Loose Ends From ’84 : Business Is Still Good

The Mexican-American Opportunities Foundation had been around for 21 years, one of the original minority-oriented self-help and job training organizations of the 1960s and one of the few to survive cutbacks and government spending and escape the scandals that had killed off so many similar organizations. And as 1984 ended, business was pretty much as usual, as it was in September when View reported on it.

Except, of course, for what founder-executive director Dionicio Morales dismissed as a “few new little things.” Like the extra $100,000 from the U.S. Dept. of Labor (added to MAOF’s already existing $5.48 million budget) making it possible to provide part-time jobs for at least 100 senior citizens.

And what else? Morales had to think. Oh yes, “you’ve heard of headhunters? Well, we’ve got a Hispanic headhunters going. You know, people think Hispanics should at best try for entry-level jobs. Well, we’ve got Hispanics out there who’ve graduated from Harvard. We’ve just got to produce them for these companies.” Working just in Southern California since September, MAOF’s headhunters have placed 40 Latinos in middle-level ($35,000 to 40,000 per year) positions. What about the East Los Angeles food bank that Morales was trying to pull together? That’s the one project that’s moving slowly, he sighed. they’ve got food contacts, they’ve even got a delivery truck. But what with the standards and regulations, they’ve not found a building.

But this is the man who back in 1963 when bureaucratic delays kept MAOF from even being born, actually phoned the White House to see if then-President Kennedy could pull some strings. Kennedy wasn’t available, so Morales settled for his vice president, Lyndon Johnson, and got the action he wanted--fast.