Latino Group Calls for End to Inequality : Civil rights: National Council of La Raza issues a ‘State of Hispanic America’ report seeking better efforts to narrow economic and social gaps.

Issuing its first “State of Hispanic America” report, a leading Latino rights group called Thursday for more aggressive federal and private efforts to narrow the economic and social gaps between Latinos and other Americans.

Following the lead of other minority rights organizations--like the National Urban League, which issues an annual “State of Black America” report--the National Council of La Raza said the report is intended to “broaden our public agenda” and “begin setting the record straight about who Hispanics are and what they are not.”

“Clearly, Hispanic Americans will play an ever-growing part in the future of the U.S.; therefore, reducing inequality between Hispanics and the rest of U.S. society is not simply a moral preference, it is a social and economic imperative,” said Raul Yzaguirre, the group’s president.

The National Council of La Raza is a private, nonprofit organization representing 142 community-based organizations that provide housing, education, employment, immigration and social services to more than 2 million Latinos annually.

Yzaguirre said the report would become an annual document that provides a “snapshot” of Latino life, with emphasis on demographics, education, poverty, health and civil rights.

He said part of its purpose also is to encourage the nation’s 22.4 million Latinos to do more themselves to combat poverty and discrimination.

Citing findings from the report, Yzaguirre said popular perceptions of Latinos, the fastest-growing minority group in the nation, are usually negative. Specifically, he said, most Americans think of Latinos as “recent immigrants” and believe them to be lazy and unpatriotic.

But Yzaguirre said two-thirds of all Latinos actually are native-born. And, as for their patriotism, he said Mexican-Americans have received proportionately more Medals of Honor than any other ethnic group.

Among the report’s other findings:

--Latinos fail to advance as far in schools as other students and fail to participate in preschool and other programs to assist youths who are at risk of dropping out.

“Only about half of Hispanic adults are high school graduates, compared to nearly two-thirds of blacks and four-fifths of whites,” the report states.

--Latino males are more likely to have jobs or to seek work than other Americans, yet employed Latinos are more likely to be among the nation’s working poor.

--Latinos are disproportionately more likely to suffer from diabetes, tuberculosis, certain cancers and AIDS than other Americans, but less likely to have access to regular health care.

--Civil rights laws are less likely to be enforced to protect Latinos than to protect other minority groups, especially black Americans.