The Presumed Alliance: The Unspoken Conflict Between Latinos and Blacks and What It Means for America

258 Pages·2004·1.09 MB·English

by  Nicolas C. Vaca

T H E

P R E S U M E D

A L L I A N C E

The Unspoken Conflict Between
L A T I N O S B L A C K S
and

and What It Means for America
NICOLÁS C. VACA
To my wife, Kris, without whom this work could not have
been completed. To my children, Nicolás, Kristjan,
and Melinda, who understood and accepted that time
devoted to this endeavor meant time taken away from
being with them.
CONTENTS

Preface v(cid:10)
Introduction 1
1 The Latino Tsunami: The Browning of America 17
2 Somewhere over the Rainbow Coalition:
The Zero-Sum Game and Black-Latino Conflict 48
3 Who’s the Leader of the Civil Rights Band?
Latinos’ Role in Brown v. Board of Education 62
4 The Folly of Presumption:
Black Voters and the Los Angeles 2001 Mayoral Election 85
5 Passed By and Shut Out:
Blacks Trapped in Miami’s Latino Vortex 108
6 When Blacks Rule:
Lessons from Compton 127
7 Houston, We Have a Problem:
Latinos Abandon Party Loyalty to Vote for One of Their Own 146
iv C O N T E N T S
8 The Big Manzana:
The Troubled Road to a Latino-Black Coalition and the
Latino Mosaic of New York City 169
9 Visions of the Future 185
Notes 203
Index 229
About the Author
Praise
Credits
Cover
Copyright
About the Publisher
PREFACE

I
t was changed circumstances that inspired this book—my own and
that of the Latino population. In the 1960s, relations between Blacks
and Latinos were viewed through rose-colored lenses. It was the
“brothers under the skin,” “a house divided will fall,” Latinos and Blacks
united against the “white oppressor” perspective that expressly swept
any differences between minorities under the rug. I recall standing in
front of Dwinelle Hall at the University of California, Berkeley, circa
1963, listening to Malcolm X express his hatred for the “blue-eyed
devil” while the handful of African Americans, Latinos, and Asian
Americans in the audience clapped wildly in approval. And while not
all minorities may have viewed whites as “blue-eyed devils,” they held
kindred views that allowed them to overlook any differences among
themselves. And woe to those who questioned such a stance. In this
day and age it is hard to recall how fervently such beliefs were held and
how hot the criticism was that rained on those who dared to voice an
objection to such a viewpoint. But it was there. After all, it was the ulti-
mate refuge—people of color united against the “white establishment.”
Minorities, oppressed and disenfranchised—a kind of latter-day Rain-
bow Musketeers against the evil White Empire. And there were reasons
to justify such a viewpoint: in the 1960s, Blacks were being denied the
right to vote in the South, and only some 15 years earlier Mexican
Americans were being segregated in schools throughout the South-
west. The emotions created by these facts blinded minority leaders,
who likened their plight to that of the impoverished third-world coun-
tries, to the frictions that existed or could exist in the future between
the coalesced minorities.
vi P R E F A C E
In this united ideological march for enfranchisement, Blacks took
the lead, and the rest of the minorities supported them. The civil rights
agenda was set by African Americans, and the rest acquiesced. There
was reason for doing this. It was generally accepted that African Amer-
icans had suffered more than any minority group—more than the Chi-
nese who had been barred from immigrating to the United States
beginning in the latter part of the nineteenth century and extending
into the first decades of the twentieth; more than the Japanese, who
were also barred from immigrating to the United States as a result of
the so-called Gentlemen’s Agreement of 1908 and who were later in-
terned in prison camps during World War II; more than the Mexican
Americans, who had experienced harsh discrimination throughout the
Southwest and even been “repatriated” to Mexico during the 1930s in
an effort to reduce unemployment in the Great Depression; more than
the Native Americans, who had lost their land and whose peoples’
ranks had been decimated by the European invasion (including Spain).
Indeed, in some sectors, African Americans were viewed as the only
valid beneficiaries of any civil rights rewards.
In the late 1960s I appeared before the U.S. Commission on Civil
Rights at a regional meeting held in San Francisco to complain that
very little attention was being paid to the condition of Mexican Ameri-
cans. My complaint was based in part on the fact that the summer
before I had worked at the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights in Wash-
ington, D.C., as an intern. Before arriving in Washington I expected
to encounter other Mexican Americans at the commission, but I dis-
covered that I, a summer intern, was the highest-ranking Mexican
American there. My statements before the commission invoked a
strong negative reaction from Erwin Griswold, then dean of the Har-
vard Law School and chair of the hearing, who was visibly angry with
me for raising this issue. I got the distinct impression that for Dean
Griswold the only minority in the United States was the African Amer-
ican.
There was another reason why minorities were willing to let
African Americans set the civil rights agenda. It had to do with num-
P R E F A C E vii
bers. From the very beginning, African Americans outnumbered all
other minorities, and their numbers granted them an additional rea-
son for assuming the leadership role. Without their numbers, any mi-
nority coalition would be weakened, and consequently not taken
seriously.
However, things have changed—not intentionally, but naturally. In-
creased immigration, both legal and illegal, and exploding birthrates
have swelled the ranks of both Asian Americans and Latinos. And as
their numbers have grown in urban areas where Latinos and Asian
Americans exist shoulder to shoulder with African Americans,
conflicts have developed. There have been significant struggles over
educational resources. Latinos and Asian Americans have fought to
appropriate funds in order to respond to their unique linguistic needs,
while Blacks have, in certain instances, opposed such actions. Strug-
gles have also occurred in the workplace. African Americans have
charged Latino immigrants who are fleeing abject poverty in third-
world countries with taking any job under any circumstance at lower
wages than Black workers. African Americans also complain that
white employers prefer Latino immigrants as workers, not only be-
cause they are willing to perform the work in worse conditions and for
lower wages but also because they are a preferred labor pool. White
employers, it has been written, feel comfortable around Latino employ-
ees but threatened by Black employees.
Of all the arenas of struggle, certainly the fight for political power is
in the heavyweight division. Political success brings access to the corri-
dors of power, and access to power leads to economic opportunities.
For this reason a significant part of the book is devoted to an analysis of
various political struggles between Blacks and Latinos: the Los Angeles
2001 mayoral race, where Blacks voted for a white candidate over a
Latino candidate; the refusal of Blacks to share power in Compton, Cal-
ifornia; the 2001 mayoral election in Houston, Texas, where Latinos left
their normal party affiliation to vote for “one of their own”; and the
troubled Black-Latino coalition that frustrated a Puerto Rican mayoral
candidate in New York City.
viii P R E F A C E
For years I discussed these issues with close friends and fellow at-
torneys—Anglo, Latino, and Black—as I waited for a book to appear
that would address the conflict or at least go beyond pat analyses like
“Interethnic conflict can exist, but it is believed that there is more of a
basis for cooperation than there is for conflict”—and then drop the
subject. I finally concluded that the likelihood of such a book was re-
mote. A frank discussion of Black-Latino conflict could cause some
people to misinterpret the intent of the author, and if the author’s in-
tent was misperceived, life could become very difficult for that person.
I know this because before becoming a practicing attorney I spent a
significant amount of time in academia. I received an M.A. and a Ph.D.
from U.C. Berkeley and I taught at the University of California at Santa
Cruz. After that I spent four years back at Berkeley conducting re-
search funded by the Ford Foundation. Over time I came to understand
and accept that even in such an open forum intellectual constraints
exist.
My inspiration for writing this book came from several sources.
Principal among them was Ernesto Galarza, a legendary figure in Chi-
cano academics. In my senior year at Berkeley, I was fortunate enough
to be selected by him to assist him on research he was conducting on
the economic development of Mexican Americans in Oakland. Ernesto
would appear two nights a week in Berkeley and call me and his two
other research assistants to meet with him in the motel room where he
stayed. It was in the small, darkened room that we first discussed the
nature of his project and where we would receive our assigned tasks.
One evening I asked him why he was not a professor at some university.
I told him that I thought that his numerous publications and reputa-
tion in the academic community would certainly provide him with the
opportunity for such a position. Ernesto responded that he felt “freer”
working outside of the institutional setting, though those were not his
exact words. That comment stayed with me because over the several
months that I worked with him, I was impressed with his drive and his
creativity, all of it emanating from that small room in a run-down motel.
I was also inspired by Octavio I. Romano, one of my mentors when I