Latino Political Millennium Isn’t at Hand

Leaders of the League of United Latin American Citizens are beaming these days, with good cause. Their annual convention last weekend drew no fewer than eight presidential candidates wooing Latino support. That’s a big change from the days when a Latino gathering was judged a success if one member of Congress made an appearance--and those were the meetings held in Washington!

All seven declared Democratic candidates for President showed up in out-of-the-way Corpus Christi, Tex., for the meeting of LULAC, the oldest Latino civil-rights group in the nation and, with 100,000 members, also one of the biggest.

Not surprisingly, former Arizona Gov. Bruce Babbitt--a minor candidate in most other opinion polls--made a strong showing in a straw poll taken among LULAC delegates, tying Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis with 24% support, compared with 17% for the Rev. Jesse Jackson. A native of the Southwest, Babbitt is well versed on Chicano issues, which served him well with LULAC, whose membership is heavily Mexican-American. It is also worth noting that the only Republican candidate to attend the meeting, New York Rep. Jack F. Kemp, got enthusiastic applause with a speech acknowledging that the GOP must open itself up to more participation by Latinos.

But for all the success of the LULAC convention, Latino activists should be careful not to make too much of it. Latinos have not entered the political millennium just because presidential candidates show up at their meetings. This year is special, because the 1988 campaign began so early and is wide open--four possible candidates fighting it out on the Republican side; seven declared rivals on the Democratic side. They all will take whatever public exposure they can get.

Unfortunately, news reports indicate that some Latino leaders who should know better are getting a little carried away. One is San Antonio Mayor Henry Cisneros, normally a careful and astute politician.

In his speech to the LULAC delegates, Cisneros announced that he will join 50 other Latino political leaders this summer to draw up a unified political agenda. “The Hispanic community has never spoken with a unified voice across the country, and that will be the major contribution of this kind of effort,” he said.

Surely Cisneros knows that one reason there is no Latino political agenda in this country is because it is simply not possible to combine the political interests of Chicanos with those of Cuban-Americans, Puerto Ricans and the growing number of Latinos from Central America. Their views on policy issues are too divergent. What else would you expect among 17 million people living in different parts of the country, from different social classes and with different levels of acculturation to U.S. society?

Even LULAC itself, which has a long and honorable history of civil-rights activism, has been unable to avoid these differences. It has never been as attractive to Florida’s Cuban-Americans as among Chicanos in Texas, where it was founded. A few years ago many of the Cubanos in LULAC bolted from the organization when a handful of its leaders went to Cuba and met with Fidel Castro.

Several public-opinion polls have shown that Chicanos and Cuban-Americans also tend to differ on domestic policy issues. Mexican-Americans favor government programs to deal with unemployment; Cuban-Americans don’t. Cubanos favor more defense spending; Chicanos want it cut back.

I’m willing to bet, even this early in the game, that the same divisions will show up next March 8, when 14 Southern and border states hold presidential primaries--one high-stakes test for all the surviving aspirants.

What political pundits are calling “Super Tuesday” will get massive media coverage, which is why I’m glad that Texas decided to go along with its Southern neighbors and vote that day. A million Mexican-American voters in Texas might cast their ballots the same day a quarter of a million Cuban-American voters in Florida do. If Florida voted on a separate day, there would be the risk that the mostly conservative Cubanos would be featured in the national media as the “Hispanic vote.” The Texas Chicanos will show that term to be a cliche.

But the media did not create the myth of a “Hispanic vote” by itself. Latino leaders contributed, too. Cisneros continued that unfortunate pattern with his speech, and with his cockamamie idea that 50 Latinos, however well-intentioned, can draw up a unified political agenda. They would make better use of their time and clout by representing the areas and issues that they know best to the candidates most likely to respond. Lord knows, there are enough to go around.