A FORUM FOR COMMUNITY ISSUES : Community Essay : Latinos: Officials have to balance society’s needs with those of their own community.

California Latinos, principally Mexican-Americans, will cast more votes tomorrow (about 1 million) than in any election in the history of any state. After generations of exclusion, Latinos are securing a place in the halls of power. It’s the culmination of more than a decade of an often silent empowerment that has tripled the number of Latino elected officials in California.

But exercising power demands even more vision and acumen than the fight to gain it. The Los Angeles riot/rebellion, rising Latino/African-American tensions, rampant gang violence and a rapidly growing urban immigrant underclass are examples of the public policy headaches that Latino political leaders are obligated to address.

The late voting-rights activist Willie Velasquez argued that since Latinos were acquiring increasing political power, they also had to equip themselves with a set of standards and values to guide their exercise of power. Velasquez believed that values like courage, compassion, humility and fairness were indispensable attributes for Latinos in elected office. Standards like accountability to community and defense of the interests of workers and families should be paramount. And active support for community organizations that could check ineffective or corrupt politicians while constantly developing new leaders should be a hallmark.

Applying these values and standards is, of course, complex. After all, most politicians, Latino or otherwise, would say that they are courageous and compassionate. We offer the following interpretations of current public policy issues:

* Latino/African-American tensions: Serious differences have erupted between Latinos and blacks, for example, over who should succeed L.A. Unified School District Superintendent Bill Anton. African-Americans have supported interim Superintendent Sidney Thompson, an African-American. Latino groups have protested, calling for the promotion of Deputy Superintendent Ruben Zacarias. We must have the courage to reject a fight over who presides over the decline in Los Angeles public education.

If Latinos scuffle with blacks over the crumbs, we divert our collective attention from, among other issues, disgraceful shortages in education funding, drugs in school and the fact that only one Latina and one black are on the seven-member school board that controls a district where 87% of the kids are minorities.

We should get on with selecting a suitable permanent replacement for Anton. With a good-faith, inclusive process, we are confident that a highly qualified, multiculturally adept candidate will emerge--hopefully a Latino, but perhaps not.

* Immigrant-bashing: Latinos, especially Mexican-Americans, must have the compassion to reach out to the newest Latinos, the Central American refugees and Mexican immigrants, and reject the growing anti-immigrant backlash. The opposite tendency, expressed by groups like NEWS for America, sees established Mexican-American interests as hostile to those of immigrant Mexicans and Central Americans and other ethnic groups. This is fundamentally reactionary and can only feed the anti-immigrant backlash. Anti-immigrant sentiment quickly becomes anti-Latino sentiment--for example, the English-only movement.

Instead, we must use the political power that we have achieved to defend and empower Latino immigrants. Only we can make the case that today’s immigrants are tomorrow’s tax-paying, home-owning, voting Americans. We must make the case that whatever the hue and cry over immigrants “stealing American jobs,” they remain a net benefit to California’s economy by filling spaces in the labor market that the aging Anglo labor force cannot or will not occupy.

* Poverty and unemployment: Despite Latino achievements in political empowerment, we have only begun to address fundamental issues of economic empowerment. We must realize that responding to the crisis of Latino poverty and unemployment cannot be addressed independent of the national economic crisis.

Thus Latino economic empowerment strategies must cast a wide net, seeking creative remedies that function for the working and middle classes. Much of the tension between Latinos and blacks and against immigrants is due to acute unemployment and poverty. Relieving economic stresses will reduce social tensions.

After generations of struggle for justice and fairness, Latinos have crossed an important threshold into political power.

The challenge for Latino politics in the 1990s will be to seek creative solutions that benefit the whole society as well as the Latino community.