Word: mexican-americans
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...Garza, 51, of Texas. Since the defeat of the late Joseph Montoya of New Mexico in 1976, there have been no Hispanic members of the Senate. There is only one Hispanic Governor: New Mexico's Jerry Apodaca, and he cannot succeed himself when his term expires in January. Mexican-American ballots nailed down Texas' 26 electoral votes for Jimmy Carter in 1976, and he reciprocated by appointing more Hispanics to federal positions than any of his predecessors. But, while they hold 112 of 1,201 presidentially assigned posts, none are at the Cabinet level. Hispanics hold only 3.4% of jobs...
Activists such as Vilma Martinez, president of the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), argue that chicanos have "a long way to go before we can use our collective muscle as a middle class." But, even with some 19% of chicano families below the poverty line, Martinez concedes that a middle class is "clearly emerging...
Brown has appointed 27 Mexican' American judges and named MALDEF 's Martinez to the board of regents of the University of California (she replaced Mrs. William Randolph Hearst). A chicano, Mario Obledo, 46, is Brown's secretary of health and welfare, the highest ranking Mexican-American official in the state government. But while Hispanics make up 15.8% of California's population, they hold only 2% of the state's 20,000 elective posts, including only six seats of 120 in the California legislature. With less than 8% of the state's population, blacks boast...
Part of the problem has been chicano political passivity, which includes a hesitancy on the part of many longtime Mexican-American residents to become U.S. citizens, often because, no matter how permanent their ties to the U.S., those to Mexico are even stronger. State Assemblyman Art Torres' own mother could not vote for him in 1974 because she did not become naturalized until the next year. But now, says Ignacio Lozano, publisher of Los Angeles' Spanish-language daily La Opinión, there is "very clearly a political awakening." In 1976 members of Cesar Chavez's United...
...admission to U.S. universities. Meanwhile, chicanos deeply resent the success of black colleges and universities in getting federal aid. Says Los Angeles School Board Member Julian Nava: "There are 120 black [U.S.] colleges and universities receiving multimillion-dollar subsidies from Congress, but there isn't a single, goddamned Mexican-American institution of higher education." Actually, there are five-all small, struggling colleges, and all receiving little or no federal aid. But the point is that Nava and other Mexican Americans resent the blacks' preponderance-and that resentment does not bode well for racial harmony on the West Coast...