UNO, at 10, Enjoys Key Role in Region’s Decision-Making

It is hard, nowadays, to think of a major public issue being dealt with on Los Angeles’ Eastside without participation by the United Neighborhoods Organization, the biggest and most respected grass-roots community group in the area. But it is even harder to believe that when UNO first came onto the scene 10 years ago many Latino activists were resentful of the new group.

That was because they did not understand the subtle but effective organizing theory behind UNO and the other important Latino community group that preceded it, Communities Organized for Public Service (COPS) in San Antonio, Tex. A few probably also felt uneasy because UNO had tapped into a segment of the Latino community rarely heard from before--the conservative, church-going people of the barrio.

There has always been activism on the Eastside, of course, but it focused on specific crises like the urban-renewal battles of the 1950s or the zoot-suit riots in the 1940s. By the 1960s, most Latino activists were from a new generation. They called themselves Chicanos and were inspired by the black civil-rights movement, the anti-war movement and Cesar Chavez’s driveto unionize field workers. For a brief, dramatic period, the Chicano movement shook up the Eastside and the rest of the nation. But by 1977 it was, for all intents and purposes, dead.

It died of impatience and impetuousness. The young men and women deeply involved in it had energy that was good for organizing street protests but not for building institutions to last. They were aggressive, too, which drew the attention of the FBI and other police agencies, which coldly and efficiently suppressed outbursts by the most hot-headed activists.

Within a few years after el Movimiento began, most of the activists who had demonstrated against the barrio’s many problems--police brutality, high unemployment, poor education and so on--were exhausted and frustrated. The handful of activists still waving Viva la Raza banners worked in community-action programs spawned by the Johnson Administration’s War on Poverty. As they tried to deal with the community’s problems, they also hadto struggle against constant cuts in the government funding that supported anti-poverty programs. Meanwhile, some of the brighter young Chicanos of the 1960s had been co-opted by more powerful forces. They were becoming part of the Establishment that they had once protested against--working their way up in politics and government, major corporations and the professions.

That is when the UNO came along and carried Latino community activism to a new level of discipline and sophistication. UNO, COPS and other organizations established with the help of the Industrial Areas Foundation apply the teaching and organizing methods developed by the late radical Saul Alinsky, refined and updated by IAF’s professional staff. IAF organizers create community groups using local churches as a basic organizing unit. They take the family and neighborhood networks already there, and train their leaders, whether clergy or laity, in how to deal with public issues. It is a slow process that does not attract frenetic activists. The Chicanos who misunderstood UNO when it started up were so used to protesting on behalf of “the people” that they forgot that the people can do a lot for themselves, given a chance.

One need only think back on the roster of issues that UNO has raised in the last 10 years to realize that its leaders have done remarkably well in identifying and attacking issues of importance to barrio residents:

They helped lower auto-insurance rates on the Eastside, pressured supermarket chains to clean up stores in ghetto areas, closed down a toxic dump in Boyle Heights, fought for better police deployment in inner-city neighborhoods and helped create an innovative project to help reduce violence by the city’s youth gangs. Now they seek to help immigrant families that may be torn apart by the nation’s new immigration law.

With a track record like that, it should come as no surprise that UNO has expanded from the Eastside into the small cities southeast of Los Angeles and spawned two sister organizations--the South-Central Organizing Committee in South Los Angeles and Compton and the East Valleys Organization covering the San Gabriel and Pomona valleys.

The three groups came together Sunday to celebrate UNO’s decade of success in teaching poor and working-class people (and not just Latinos) how to organize themselves. It was an impressive show--7,000 people who were cheering tributes from city leaders and a keynote address by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), who promised to join UNO and its sister organizations in their campaigns to liberalize the new immigration law and raise the minimum wage. San Antonio Mayor Henry Cisneros praised the IAF affiliates for having trained a new cadre of Latino leadership.

The turnout of political, religious and business leaders was proof that, after 10 years of methodical work, UNO is accepted as a key player in this region’s decision-making process. No longer do a handful of Latino elected officials or power-brokers speak for “the people” of the barrios. The people speak for themselves.

And, lest anybody think that UNO is resting on its laurels, the final announcement made Sunday was that UNO and its sister organizations are looking to build a fourth community organization in the San Fernando Valley. I grew up in Pacoima, and know how cautious and even conservative barrio leaders in the Valley can be. But I have little doubt that when UNO celebrates another decade of work in 1997 there will be a fourth organization in my old neighborhood--and maybe in a few other places as well.