Mayor in Jersey Feels at Home in Two Cultures

Energetic Robert Menendez, youthful though he is, is in his element at a birthday party at a senior citizens’ home across the street from City Hall. The 33-year-old mayor of Union City, N.J., moves easily among the half a dozen tables, chatting in English at one, Spanish at the next.

It is a metaphor for Menendez’s bicultural brand of politics. He walks easily in two worlds, one Anglo, the other Latino.

“I have tried never to forget where I came from,” he says. “While I always have taken the position that I represent all of the community, I try to balance out the lack of progress that has been made by Hispanics in this city and throughout the country in past years so that we can equalize things.

“I believe in assimilation,” says Menendez, the first Latino mayor of his city of 56,000, “if assimilation also means receiving benefits from being in the mainstream of American life. But if assimilation only means assuming the culture and values and not being part of the mainstream of American life, then I don’t think that’s a fair exchange.”

Menendez believes that he has received an unfair shake from the state government in Trenton, where he lays a large share of the blame for a $2.5-million municipal deficit that has forced the layoff of one-third of city employees.

His solution: to become a state legislator himself. He is campaigning now. If elected in November, he plans to serve as mayor and state legislator simultaneously.

“If I’m going to spend . . . my time as mayor in Trenton,” he says, “I might as well spend it as a lawmaker who will be able to do something about Union City’s problems.”