KOCE Explores Latino Role : Producer Hopes Special Will Show That Community Is No Threat

What does its burgeoning Latino population mean to Orange County? And what does the future hold for Latinos, who constitute 26% of the county’s residents?

These questions are explored by four Latino community leaders on KOCE-TV’s latest public-affairs special.

“Latinos: Visions for the Future,” will air tonight at 8 p.m. on KOCE Channel 50. It will be rebroadcast at 5:30 p.m. on Sunday, Cinco de Mayo.

Veteran newsman Jim Cooper is executive producer, host and moderator. “I think there are people who feel threatened by the Latino population,” Cooper said, speaking at KOCE’s studio after the show was taped last week. “Hopefully, a show like ours will show that cultural differences can be bridged and that the Latino community is a vast resource--not a threat.” Among the examples cited by Cooper in the broadcast: the buying power of the 2 million Latinos in Orange and Los Angeles counties reportedly amounts to $10 million a day.

Cooper’s hopes for bridging differences were reiterated during the broadcast--and afterward--by the show’s panel, which includes Gaddi H. Vasquez, Orange County Board of Supervisors chairman; Frances Munoz, Orange County Harbor Court judge; Msgr. Jaime Soto, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange’s vicar for the Latino community, and Judith Valles, Golden West College president.

Throughout the exchange, the panel reiterated the word education and stressed its importance to the Latino community.

Indeed, the program opens with footage of youngsters at play during recess at Roosevelt Elementary in Santa Ana, where Latinos make up 98% of the enrollment. As the program goes on to point out, 83% of the 47,000 students in Santa Ana schools have Latino surnames.

There are also scenes of a Roosevelt Elementary “career meeting,” where assembled youngsters are told by Santa Ana Unified School District Supt. Rudy Castruita that if they wind up without an education, they may wind up pushing a neighborhood ice-cream cart--or homeless.

And there are glimpses of the popular and innovative “Expanded Education for Excellence”--a weekly program held at Santa Ana’s Madison Elementary (where, viewers are told, Latinos account for 85% of the student body). The after-hours program involves volunteer adult tutors (including panelist Munoz), and 60 pupils--many of whom attend with their families. One youngster, fifth-grader Juan Perez, tells the cameras he is there because “I want to be somebody.”

Along with education, the program takes a look at efforts to incorporate Latinos into the business community and developing their presence as community leaders.

If all that seems like a lot to squeeze into a 30-minute time slot, well, at least it’s a step. As Vasquez noted, following the taping, “Programs like this help to raise public awareness and to dispel myths.”

At the taping’s end, Valles approached Cooper with the idea to do another show on that very topic: myths about Latinos. As Valles noted, this wouldn’t be a show aimed at Latinos--but at the rest of the viewing public. Said Valles, “After all, we know who we are--and we know what our problems are.”

* “Latinos: Visions for the Future” airs tonight at 8 p.m. and again on Sunday at 5:30 p.m. on KOCE Channel 50.