Confab

Setting an agenda

by Laura A. Siegel

JARRETT BARRIOS: hoping for a spark.

There should be 12 Latinos in the State House, if you go by demographics. But Massachusetts's growing Latino population is happy that it finally has three. Now the community has some clout and can get its concerns addressed -- if only it can figure out what those concerns are.

This Friday, March 24, Latino community leaders from all over the state will converge in Worcester to forge a consensus on policy priorities -- and to create a new Latino political organization.

"It's my hope that this conference will be a spark plug, a catalyst toward the end of gaining increased clout on Beacon Hill," says Representative Jarrett Barrios of Cambridge. He and the other two Latino representatives will all be speaking at the conference, which is organized by the Mauricio Gastón Institute for Latino Community Development and Public Policy.

"We hope that we'll be able to lay the groundwork for a comprehensive and united Latino agenda for Massachusetts," adds Mary Jo Marion, the institute's associate director.

Beyond Friday's conference, leaders hope to establish a permanent organization that will push for Latino issues. A core group has already met, and Friday will be a prime opportunity to recruit more members. "When the day is over, hopefully we'll come out with a group that will organize to bring the voice of Latinos out to the State House," says Umberto Baquerizo of Univision. Baquerizo is helping to coordinate the group, which is provisionally called Latinos Organizing for Political Action.

Such unification is badly needed, Latino leaders say. "The last time we were organized was the Latino Democratic Committee, about 15 years ago," says Rick Quiroga, who runs Casa Esperanza, a substance-abuse program targeted to Latinos. He attributes the fragmentation of the Latino community to the different cultural patterns within it.

Ironically, one of the major issues the community faces is "the lack of agreement as to what are the major issues," says Carlos Matos, until recently a legislative aide to Representative Jose Santiago.

But when conference organizers met with local Latino leaders around the state, they found common concerns: education, housing, child welfare, and discrimination. "We are all essentially dealing with the same things in our individual neighborhoods," explains David Cortiella, head of the community agency Inquilinos Boricuas en Accion. "We need to begin pulling together a coordinated strategy."

Education tops everyone's list. "How will the new MCAS graduation requirements affect the Latino community?" reads a description of one conference panel. "How should the state improve and strengthen bilingual education in order to enhance the educational achievement of Latino students?" The high-school dropout rate among Latinos is consistently high, and just 11 percent of Latinos in Massachusetts have bachelor's degrees -- a rate that's only a third of the statewide average.

And although the housing crisis affects everybody, it has hit Latinos particularly hard. "We're not property owners," explains Cortiella, who describes Latinos' situation as "a constant migration away from urban centers that are becoming more and more gentrified."

Though no panel explicitly addresses discrimination against Latinos, that issue will be discussed throughout the conference. Police profiling of minorities is one hot issue. Benito Martinez, who hosts a local radio show, isn't on any official panel. But for him, the conference will be a way to raise the profile of profiling, just by bringing it up. "I'm hoping to make the Hispanic nation aware that this plague is out there," says Martinez, who believes he was a victim of profiling when he was pulled over last September in Chelsea.

The conference will center on workshops that address these major issues, with panelists representing such diverse groups as health centers, CDCs, schools, and unions. From this work, participants hope that a single "Latino agenda," and a new group to bring it to prominence, will emerge.

The Statewide Latino Policy Conference 2000, sponsored by the Mauricio Gastón Institute for Latino Community Development and Public Policy at UMass Boston, will take place on March 24 at the Worcester Centrum. Registration and breakfast are at 7:45 a.m., and the first session begins at 9 a.m. The registration fee for the conference is $30. For more information or a registration form, call the Gastón Institute at (617) 287-5790 or visit its Web site at www.gaston.umb.edu. Walk-ins are welcome.