Making of Mission to Moscow : Youth Conference May Provide Leadership Training for Latinos

When glasnost was just a twinkle in Mikhail Gorbachev’s eye, Gil Cuevas, the Santa Paula-born son of Mexican immigrants, toured the Soviet Union with a group of fellow geography teachers.

Twenty years later, he is returning--both to see Russia again and to propel Latino youngsters into the kind of global youth forum to which they seldom have had access.

Now a guidance counselor at Hueneme High School in Oxnard, Cuevas and two young participants in a Latino leadership program he runs will be among 35 Americans discussing matters of war and peace with Gorbachev in Moscow. Before that, the group will meet in Finland with 35 Soviet high school and university students, and draw up a set of requests, assertions, demands, concerns--a wish list to be presented by one generation to their elders, by the possible leaders of tomorrow to the definite leaders of today.

Cuevas, Anthony Diaz of Santa Monica, and Rosalee Vasquez of Santa Ana will board a jet for Helsinki April 27. The conclave, sponsored by a Grass Valley group called Direct Connection, U.S.-U.S.S.R Youth Communications Initiative, is to start April 30. The Soviet and American youths are to travel together for about one month through Russia and the United States, with stops at the White House and finally, the United Nations.

Met Gorbachev Before

The trip will mark Cuevas’ second encounter with Gorbachev. Last December, Cuevas and three participants in his Future Leaders of America program were among 21 Americans--the only group of ordinary citizens--who got to speak with Gorbachev during his December meeting with President Reagan in Washington.

Whether such heady exercises will do any good for the cause of world peace can’t be predicted. But Cuevas, a longtime Latino rights activist, thinks the good it will do for Hispanic students is immeasurable.

“That’s one of the things that excites me,” he said. “This is the first time Latinos have been pulled in on something of this magnitude.”

That’s exactly what he’s been working toward. Cuevas has long been saddened by what he sees as a lack of Latino role models for youngsters in schools, businesses, communities and government.

He can reel off a string of depressing statistics he knows all too well. By 1990, he says, 45% of the state’s available labor pool will be Latino, and 80% of them will not have the minimum skills taught in high school. Now, only 50% of Latinos graduate from high school. In California, only 5% to 6% complete college.

Facts like these led Cuevas and his partner, George Wandrocke, a legislative analyst for the U.S. Navy in Port Hueneme, to start a nonprofit group aimed at convincing Hispanic students of their own abilities to rise to the top.

The effort has received financial aid from the James Irvine Foundation, Target Stores, the Atlantic Richfield Foundation, Chevron USA, the Oxnard Union High School District, and numerous businesses and individuals.

Since 1983, Future Leaders has put more than 700 of the brightest Latino youths from Southern California through four levels of what it calls “leadership training.” At weekend camps and weeklong conferences, students learn skills ranging from parliamentary procedure to public speaking--all, the founders say, designed to boost self-confidence and to give the newly confident some practical tools they can use to get ahead.

“What Future Leaders is able to do better than other groups is really understand some of the cultural factors that influence what opportunities young people take on,” said June Thompson, executive director of the California Assn. of Student Councils.

Agenda for 21st Century

At Helsinki, the American students will spend six days with their Soviet counterparts. The 70-member student congress intends to draw up a political agenda for the 21st Century, a proposal that will address such issues as a nuclear-free world, education and environmental protection.

From Finland, they begin their train trip to Leningrad for sightseeing and meetings. Then, they all fly to Moscow, Washington and, finally, New York.

Cuevas, who will act as a chaperon, plans to help the youths discuss their proposal with Finnish President Mauno Koivisto and with Gorbachev in Moscow. In Washington, the group will speak to congressional leaders and is to meet President Reagan at the White House. At the United Nations, they will present their views to the secretary general, the General Assembly and the Security Council.

“We hope to come out of this with something that will amaze or astound the leaders of the world,” said Andy Leman, 18, a senior at Del Oro High School in the San Joaquin Valley town of Luman and one of the student leaders going on the trip.

But even if world leaders do not deem the student proposals realistic, the trip will still be a success as long as students learn, make long-lasting friends and personal commitments for follow-up activities, Cuevas said.

“It’s not only excellent for the impact it will have,” Wandrocke said. “It reinforces the faith that we have that not all young people are bubble heads.”

Cuevas agreed. “I hope a real bond takes place. This could be the whole nucleus for the development of future plans,” he said, raising the possibility of a similar Pan-American conference mingling Hispanic students from the United States with students from Latin American countries.

Although the concept of bonding through American-Soviet youth cultural exchanges is not a new one, planners are calling this trip “unprecedented.”

“This is the first opportunity that I’ve ever been aware of where young people are able to speak out about world issues directly to world leaders,” said Thompson, of the California Assn. of Student Councils. “In some cases, they’ll want action. In other cases, they’ll want verbal commitments from these leaders.”

Visited Soviet Union in 1968

During his 1968 two-month trip to the Soviet Union under a National Defense Act grant, Cuevas met no world leaders. But he says he did establish a rapport with Soviet citizens, and he has no doubt his Latino students will forge a similar bond.

“I’m sure that is going to happen,” Cuevas said. “The students aren’t aware of this yet, but I know. I felt very comfortable in their midst.

“Many resemble Latinos,” he said, alluding to the darker skin of people from Soviet regions like Georgia and Armenia, as well as members of Eskimo-related tribes in the far North. “They considered me their long-lost cousin in Siberia.”

The idea for the 1988 Helsinki U.S.-Soviet Youth Conference was born last summer from a project of the Advanced Student Leadership Conference at Stanford University. The student leaders there broached the idea in a videotape they mailed to Gorbachev.

Soon after the Washington summit was announced, a delegation from Direct Connection flew to the Soviet Union to lay the groundwork for a meeting with Gorbachev during his four-day Washington stay. Their contact was senior Gorbachev adviser Yevgeni Velikhov.

At 4 p.m. on Dec. 10, Velikhov ushered Cuevas, three other organizers and 17 U.S. student leaders into the Soviet Embassy for their meeting with the Soviet leader. Gorbachev said he had seen the tape and was moved by it. He then gave them what they came for--his commitment of support for the Helsinki youth conference.

At a news conference later, Gorbachev called the students’ display of concern “a remarkable phenomenon.

“And it’s not something superficial, it’s not a rose-colored approach,” he said. “At age 15, 17, they already are giving very serious thought, not only to their personal problems, not only to what is of interest to their own selves--they are thinking about how we should live in this world.”

Once the group received the Soviet leader’s support, it set about getting a similar endorsement from President Reagan.

sh Meeting With Reagan

After months of scheduling problems, a delegation of U.S. students--including Diaz, one of Cuevas’ Future Leaders--was to meet with Reagan and Secretary of State George Shultz on Wednesday.

But such brushes with the powerful don’t pay the bills.

Cuevas and the others continue with fund-raising activities in their hometowns. Philanthropists like Armand Hammer, a pioneer in U.S.-Soviet relations, have been approached, but each student also has been asked to raise $3,500 from community groups, not from parents.

“That’s part of their leadership development,” Wandrocke said. “To go out on their own and make contacts.”

Whether new leaders will be molded in the process nobody can predict.

“The real signs of what we’re doing--like how many go on to college and how many get leadership positions out of school--will not come about for years,” Wandrocke said. “We’ll find out then if this kind of direct support is working.”