Drunk-Driving Foes Launch Effort to Reach State’s Latinos

With drunk-driving accidents on the rise in California for the first time in 14 years, Mothers Against Drunk Driving is launching a new campaign to educate Latinos about the dangers of drinking and driving.

The campaign, dubbed “Pasa Las Llaves” (Pass the Keys), promotes the designated-driver concept in a community that suffers from a disproportionately high rate of problem drinking and fatal car accidents. It is also a community that is sensitive about stereotyping, particularly when it comes to alcohol.

The campaign launch comes as statistics released Friday show that crashes involving drunk drivers jumped nearly 5% in the state last year. In Los Angeles County, the increase was 7.6%, while the number rose by a less dramatic 2.8% in Orange County.

The California Highway Patrol says the increase is largely due to a demographic trend: The population of drivers 21 to 24, which is particularly prone to alcohol-involved accidents, is growing rapidly.

In response, the CHP and the state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control will step up enforcement during the holiday season, with more officers on the freeways and more surprise inspections of bars and liquor stores.

MADD’s Latino outreach campaign was announced in October, but the Spanish-language material--brochures, key chains and posters--will be distributed next week in Los Angeles, Dallas, Miami and Chicago, just in time for the holidays.

The campaign is part of a growing effort by the nation’s premier anti-drunk-driving organization to expand its message to the country’s growing ethnic minorities. MADD recently launched an effort to educate Native Americans about the risks of drunk driving, and is preparing a campaign aimed at African Americans.

“MADD has realized about two or three years ago it was a white folks’ organization that was not really reaching ethnic minority organizations,” said Raul Caetano, the former director of the Alcohol Research Group in Berkeley and a member of MADD’s national board.

Latinos, California’s fastest-growing ethnic group, represent nearly a third of the state’s population.

But Caetano and others concede that the campaign aimed at Latinos will be difficult because efforts to address alcohol problems in that community in the past have prompted concerns about ethnic stereotyping.

“We have to be sensitive as to how the issue is presented,” said Jeanette Noltenius, executive director of the National Latino Council on Alcohol and Tobacco.

Government and private studies have shown that Mexican American men, in particular, have a disproportionately higher rate of heavy alcohol consumption than any other ethnic group.

Among Mexican Americans, about 65% of all motor vehicle deaths were alcohol related, compared to 46% among whites, according to a study presented in 1999 to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Some Latino advocacy groups have argued that Latinos have higher rates of drunk-driving accidents and arrests because many are recent immigrants and are unfamiliar with the state’s drunk-driving laws.

In fact, a study last year of Mexican Americans arrested in Long Beach for drunk driving found that fewer than half of those interviewed knew that the legal limit for a driver’s blood alcohol in California is .08%. By comparison, 78% of white DUI suspects were familiar with that threshold.

A 1998 federal study found that Mexican American men have the highest rate of heavy, problem drinking among 11 groups surveyed, including Native Americans. The problem is exacerbated, say alcohol-abuse experts, because alcohol is often a big part of traditional Latino celebrations such as baptisms, quinceaneras and Cinco de Mayo festivities.

Some also blame the alcohol industry, accusing it of bombarding Latinos with advertising.

“We have an environment saturated with alcohol,” Noltenius said. “We have Latinos who can’t watch a soccer game without being saturated with advertisements.”

Lydia Becerra, a spokeswoman for Los Angeles County’s Alcohol and Drug Program, applauded MADD’s decision to tackle the problem.

“Linguistically, there are not enough programs in English, and certainly there are not enough in other languages,” she said.

But others wondered whether MADD is putting enough resources into the campaign to make a difference.

The campaign, funded by Mitsubishi Motors, has a budget of a little more than $200,000 to pay for staff and 100,000 brochures, key chains and posters emblazoned with a specially commissioned painting by Latina artist Irene Garranza.

The brochures point out that car accidents are the leading cause of death for Latinos under age 24. The pamphlets encourage Latinos to “celebrate your culture through sober driving.”

The material will be distributed at sobriety checkpoints beginning Friday and at the January meeting of the Los Angeles County Peace Officers Assn. They will also be handed out at local support group meetings of drunk-driving victims.

“I really salute them for initiating this, but it’s a bigger problem than all of this,” said Kristina Moreno, a longtime advocate for increased substance abuse programs and executive director of Latino Health Care, a private health plan.

Moreno said the MADD program should include initiatives to teach young Latinos in schools the dangers of excessive drinking.

“You need a comprehensive program,” she said.

MADD officials said the campaign is expected to expand to include outreach efforts at schools and health fairs, among other locations.

“This is the first step in a much bigger thing,” said Betty Swinners, MADD’s national diversity coordinator.