Bush Urges Opportunity for Latinos

In his first visit to Orange County since taking office, President Bush swept through Santa Ana on Friday to call for more education opportunities for Latino children before heading to a political fund-raiser at a posh Dana Point hotel.

The visit was part of a quick tour of California during which the president quietly campaigned for GOP gubernatorial candidate Bill Simon Jr. But in Santa Ana, the site of his only public appearance during the Orange County visit, the president met with community leaders before delivering a 30-minute speech to about 500 invited guests at the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art.

On a stage adorned with a banner declaring “Bienvenido Presidente Bush,” the president reached out to Latinos by touting education as the road to success for disadvantaged minorities.

In this most Latino of America’s large cities, where public school enrollment is more than 90% Latino, the president took the opportunity to tout the “No Child Left Behind Act,” a key component of his education agenda that became law this year.

“Some believe certain children can’t learn,” Bush said to a receptive crowd. “I don’t believe that.... I want to make sure we challenge a system that sometimes has got standards so low, it’s what I call the soft bigotry of low expectations.”

Immigrant children who come from non-English-speaking families, and urban African American children, are the victims of such low expectations, he said. To raise achievement, they must be held to high standards and be provided funds.

“We must recognize the facts,” he said. “Too many of our Latino children are not learning to read early enough.... I don’t care for the fact that a lot of the youngsters, the Latino youngsters, don’t go to college. It’s not a good statistic for America.”

The president also took the opportunity to promote his homeland security agenda as the nation approaches the first anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

“There are still cold-blooded killers out there that would like to hurt America,” Bush said. “The best way for us to secure our homeland

The crowd exploded into applause.

Although the president had not visited Orange County, heartland of California’s Republican Party, since his election, it is familiar territory for Bush. He spoke of education reform and took questions from Santa Ana High School students two years ago.

“When he came onto the stage, he recognized it wasn’t an all-Republican crowd,” said Edward Hernandez Jr., chancellor of the Rancho Santiago Community College District and one of two dozen activists granted private time with the president. “He said it’s about everyone working together to make the country a better place.”

There’s another reason Orange County’s de facto downtown was attractive for a presidential appearance, said Fred Smoller, a political scientist at Chapman University in Orange: The Latino business and community leaders chosen to attend Friday’s meet-and-greet are more likely to be sympathetic to Bush than their more liberal counterparts elsewhere in the state.

“Clearly, courting the Latino vote is something Bush does effectively, and he ultimately has dreams of doing better in California than the last time,” said Smoller.

Absent from the president’s speech was any reference to Simon. After the Santa Ana visit, the president headed to a $1,000-per-person fund-raiser for the gubernatorial candidate at the St. Regis Monarch Beach Resort and Spa in Dana Point.

Santa Ana police blocked portions of Main Street near the museum for several hours Friday, snarling downtown traffic. The appearance drew a small flock of demonstrators, some holding antiwar placards and others taking issue with the president’s support of Simon.

In keeping with the theme of education, some of the guests inside were parents, administrators and students from local schools.

“This is something I’ll be able to tell my grandchildren,” said Carly Menkine, 16, a junior at the Orange County High School of the Arts. With 17 of her schoolmates, Menkine sang the national anthem before the president’s entrance.

Also waiting for a glimpse of Bush was Cynthia Criollos and her family, including sons Trevor, 8, and Cole, 6, who are students at El Sol Science and Arts Academy of Santa Ana, a charter school. The two boys hoped to present the president with a placard and pen to thank him for his support of charter schools. They got their wish after the president delivered his speech.

“We were dumbfounded,” Criollos said after the event. “We didn’t know what to say. We were just so proud for the boys to see our kids conversing with the president of the United States. I still have goose bumps.”

Some of their schoolmates were not as lucky.

Because of last-minute safety concerns, a group of 100 El Sol students who were scheduled to greet the presidential motorcade as it entered Santa Ana were told they could not attend.

“The parents were understandably disappointed,” said Jenny Doh, an El Sol parent and the school’s spokeswoman. “A lot of our kids got all dressed up.... But they are still excited the president came to Santa Ana.”