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Who Will Be the Latino Driving Force?
Next stop: Winning statewide and citywide

By Carla Zanoni

Growing up, Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrión’s (D) parents held close to their culture. His house was filled with the sounds of Puerto Rican music and the scent of Puerto Rican food. But even deeper than his family’s love of the island, Carrión said, was the love of their new home.

“To be American is really a philosophical passion,” Carrión said, one that hinges so importantly on the idea of personal freedom that the commitment to the adopted country “supersedes everything, including your love for a motherland.”

In slightly more than one quarter of a century, the Latino community has gone from inaugurating the first elected mayor of a large American city—Henry Cisneros in San Antonio—to being represented by approximately 5,000 Latino elected officials across the country.

Back in 2005, when former Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer (D) was running as the Democratic nominee against Michael Bloomberg (R) and Mexican-American candidate Antonio Villaraigosa was running for mayor of Los Angeles, the Latino political landscape in America seemed hopeful.

Villaraigosa won. Ferrer did not.

Nonetheless, Latino politicians throughout New York look at Ferrer’s run as a stepping stone for future generations. Now many look toward the current Bronx borough president as the next Latino hopeful.

Though Carrión said he identifies with his Puerto Rican roots—he was born in New York to parents who had immigrated to the United States when they were in their late teens—he said he never gave his ethnic identity any thought until he was older. He and his friends spent their childhoods playing on the streets of the Baychester section of the Bronx, where he arrived in fourth grade after spending his early years on the Lower East Side. They became blood brothers, pricking their fingers with a needle, pressing the tips together and vowing to always be family.

“Growing up on my block, my best friends were Italian, African American, Jewish and of course, me, a Puerto Rican kid,” Carrión said. “We never had a perception of race. It was later imposed on us.”

To Carrión, the tendency to lump together and define people by race, color or language ultimately limits the potential of the community being lumped.

“When people speak of Hispanics, they speak of many groups,” he said. “But if growing up, your reality was Puerto Rico, you grew up in a colony. If it was Dominican Republic, you grew up in an older, more established country. It’s that experience that really defines your reality.”

Carrión said heritage and home inform a later reality for Latinos, “but it stands apart, which is a delicate balance.”

City Council Member Hiram Monserrate (D), who became the first Latino elected to public office in Queens, in 2001, said that “Latinos have a shared experience here in New York City, as well as a somewhat shared culture.”

Monserrate added that in addition to that shared experience, Latinos overwhelmingly have a common faith in Christianity.

But whereas the church has become a cornerstone of sorts for the black political community, the Latino political community has not been able to parlay common religion into a uniting force.

Vito Lopez, Latino Leader?
Assembly Member Vito Lopez (D-Brooklyn) represents one of the largest Latino districts in New York. Since he was first elected in 1984, he has distinguished himself as a Latino leader. While in office, Lopez founded Brooklyn Unidos, a leading Latino advocacy group headed by a coalition of Latino leaders. He also co-chairs the Assembly’s Puerto Rican/Hispanic Task Force.

But Lopez’s Latino heritage has been occasionally questioned. Rumors that he changed his last name from Lopesiano or Lopesino to a more Spanish sounding last name are widespread. That he identifies with one-quarter of his heritage—his family is primarily Italian; his paternal grandfather was from Barcelona, Spain—has also been used by some to try to disqualify him from being identified as a Latino leader.

As Henry Stern, former Parks Commissioner and current head of New York Civic, explained, “It’s a way to criticize him as an imposter.”

But Stern said that does not exempt Lopez from public fallout.

“Just as he had a right to identify himself with whatever ethnic group that holds a majority in his district,” he said, “the caucus has a right to not accept him.”

Lopez dismissed all such talk.

“This is propaganda from a long time ago because I am a half-breed type,” Lopez said, claiming that other prominent local political figures have chosen to identify primarily with one portion of their ethnic heritage. “Denny Farrell is 70 percent Irish. Dennis Rivera took his mother’s maiden name. He’s 50 percent Irish, but nobody makes these distinctions. Names don’t get people elected for office.”

Rumors of the name change appear unfounded. According to a copy of his birth certificate, reissued on Jan. 3 of this year, he was born Vito Lopez to Yolanda DeVito and Eric Lopez.

Lopez, who chairs the Housing Committee and is the Brooklyn Democratic leader, believes “what you do is also as important as who you are.”

Nonetheless, he thinks his Latino credential are secure.

“Over a hundred years, the name Lopez has been in my family. That’s my history and that’s my roots. I am proud of those roots,” he said. “If the people had a problem with who I am, they wouldn’t vote for me.” — Carla Zanoni

Eldin Villafane, a former communications aide and advisor to Carrión currently working as a media relations consultant, said that whereas the civil rights movement has close ties to the black church, the Latino community is more disparate in nature.

“We don’t have the equivalent of the Al Sharptons who have the pulse of the street,” he said. “We have many ministers, but they vary from devout Catholic to Pentecostal ministers. There is no one organizing force.”

State Senator Ruben Diaz, Sr. (D-Bronx)—who is also a Pentecostal Christian minister—agreed. He said that the African-American church “has always been socially and politically educated,” and gave Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., Rev. Jesse Jackson and Sharpton as examples. Diaz said that unlike the black church, the Latino church has overwhelmingly been against mixing religion and politics.

That many Christian faiths veer toward the Religious Right may result in a further division within the Latino community.

Herman Badillo, the former congressman and Bronx borough president who was a Democratic mayoral candidate in 1977 and Republican mayoral candidate in 2001, said it is inevitable that more and more Latinos will follow his ideological transition in the future.

Badillo, who described himself at the outset of his career as “probably the most liberal of them all,” said that in making the transition to more conservative politics, “I am again a trailblazer in that sense.”

There is a growing sense in the Latino community that an issue or major event is needed to unify its political power. Some point to the collaborations protesting immigration reform proposals across the country during 2006 as providing a taste of Latino political potential.

Whether Latino politicians can use the cause as cohesive glue remains unclear, but, some argue, it has already yielded benefits in New York.

Assembly Member Adriano Espaillat, who was born in the Dominican Republic, (D-Manhattan) said there is a growing connection between the Asian and Latino immigrant communities in New York City.

“There is a sense that as a new majority in the city that we must come together in order to move forward,” he said.

Still, one of the greatest obstacles Latinos face is getting out their vote. There has yet to be a Latino elected statewide or citywide in New York.

Although Latinos now make up nearly 30 percent of New York’s population, the number of voting citizens still lags behind other voting blocs, in part because less than half of the population is of voting age or has citizen status. In 2005, 80 percent of Latino voters voted for Ferrer, but less than 40 percent of all those eligible actually voted.

Council Member Miguel Martinez (D-Manhattan) said that harnessing the power of the Latino vote is vital to getting Latino representation into areas heavily populated with Latinos.

“All politics is local,” he said. “Unfortunately, in my district, if we didn’t have a large Hispanic population, I wouldn’t be a Council member.

Martinez is banking on the idea that if Latinos get more involved in their home communities, they will begin to get more involved on a larger level.

“If our people don’t come out and vote, we won’t get elected to higher office,” he said.

Some see the dynamics at work in last year’s election of Melissa Mark Viverito to the City Council as a possible harbinger of things to come. In the Democratic primary for her East Harlem/South Bronx Council seat, Viverito won the backing of Sharpton and Rep. Charles Rangel (D-Manhattan) despite the presence of a black candidate in the field. She is the first Latino to represent an area that has seen its Latino population expand enormously in recent years.

Badillo took the idea one step further. He said that Latino politicians cannot only rely on other minority groups. He emphasized that Latinos must build stronger coalitions with white voters and white politicians as well.

“You can only be elected if you have a coalition behind you, and that can’t be with just one group,” Badillo said. “Anglos reach out to the Latino community by speaking Spanish. We have to reach out to the Anglo community by addressing the needs of their community as well.”

Marcelo Gaete is the senior director of programs for the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO). Reflecting on the differences between the 2005 mayoral races in Los Angeles and New York, he agreed that Villaraigosa won because his support crossed racial lines, garnering votes from 75 percent of African American, 60 percent of Caucasian, 50 percent of Asian and 80 percent of Latino voters.

“He wasn’t a Hispanic candidate,” Gaete said. “He was the Los Angeles candidate.”

In New York, where none of the three current citywide officials had ever before been elected to office before starting their first terms in 2002, and several recently elected local candidates came from the private sector, many expect that those without political experience will fare better in the 2008 state Legislature races and 2009 citywide and Council races.

But finding candidates from outside clubs and community groups may erect new obstacles, since Latinos have also had trouble gaining rank in the private sector.

“What does it say if we only look there?” said Villafane, the former Carrión aide. “Now they have to find their way through corporate America and political America?”

And that is not the only problem. If rich political outsiders follow Bloomberg’s example and run by dumping money into their races, simply finding the right Latino candidate will not be enough.

“What we need is a millionaire or billionaire Latino politician,” Diaz said, considering his colleagues in the State Senate and in other offices. “Give any Hispanic $100 million and that Hispanic will be able to run for president of the United States, not only mayor or governor.”

The senator’s son, Assembly Member Ruben Diaz, Jr. (D-Bronx) said that while there are an increasing number of wealthy, financially successful Latinos, there is a resistance among the group to go into public office because it means taking a pay cut.

“Many are now reaping the benefits of their hard labor,” he said. “They love that they now have lifestyles that were, during their humble beginnings, not even in the realm of their dreams.” The Diazes agree that a system needs to be in place for candidates of ordinary means to campaign aggressively against a potential wave of wealthy, independent political suitors.

With such a system, career politicians and political hopefuls might have a chance at entering office. And political dynasties, such as the Diaz family, may continue their legacies within the Latino political community.

State Sen. Jose M. Serrano (D-Manhattan/Bronx), whose father represents parts of the Bronx in Congress, said that if Latinos remain true to both their ethnic heritage and American culture, the tiles will fall into place.

Achieving that fusion is the key to more common electoral success in the future, Serrano said.

“Ultimately, what will put people over the top are ideas that are appealing,” he said. “If we slowly stop building coalitions based on ethnicity and start building them on strong ideas, then we will see more Latinos elected to higher office.”