Word: laredos
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Earlier this month, James Cox, regional director of VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America), announced in Austin that two of Laredo's 20 VISTA volunteers have been dismissed for "immaturity and irresponsiblity." Neither Cox nor his field representative, William Hale, would give any further explanation. Neal Birnbaum and Douglass Ruhe, both from Chicago and both 22 years old, believe they were released because of their associations with a Mexican-American activist group called VIDA (Voices in Democratic Action...
According to Birnbaum and Ruhe, Hale had said they could help VIDA in its efforts to organize restaurant and cafeteria workers in the Laredo area, but warned that the work "would involve certain risks." In other words, they were given to understand that, as representatives of the poverty program, VISTA volunteers should avoid too intimate an association with a group such as VIDA, which has militant overtones and which, therefore, is basically unfriendly to the Laredo powers-that...
...series of events occurred this month which brought about a minor crisis in the shaky relationship between the Laredo poverty program, VIDA, and the local power structure, leaving Birnbaum and Ruhe stranded in the middle...
First, the poverty program's central neighborhood council, composed of representatives, of the poor from Laredo neighborhoods, voted to support VIDA in any of its efforts, as long as VIDA's work remained non-violent. Ted Delapass, Sr., president of the council, said that a group "so clearly intended to help Laredo's poor" should certainly have the poverty program's support...
...VIDA's first moves was to organize a march on city hall to protest the lack of bus service in one of Laredo's outlying barrios. Local people from the neighborhood were enthusiastic about the project, but apparently poverty program officials feared it might disturb their delicate relationship with City Hall. VIDA members report that, when the march was about to begin, rumors were circulated that the mayor would not receive the marchers, that some of the VIDA's were planning to make the demonstration violent, and that the neighborhood might lose a planned government housing project if the march...