Education is the answer to racism, and courage to confront the issue of racism and have difficult conversations are the first steps that should be taken in the Latino community.
The statement comes from Los Angeles City Councilmember Imelda Padilla (District 6), who participated for the first time in the Latino Media Collaborative’s “Dialogue” series, a group of Latino panelists who spoke on the topic “Confronting Racism: A Dialogue to Overcome Hate and Build Solidarity.”
Padilla said that she was now “a little more” prepared to talk about the scandal that rocked the city council in October 2022, with the racist comments of the former president of the Council, Nury Martínez, who resigned from her position.
“The scandal that my election caused shows that [el racismo] “Yes, it does exist and that is why it is important to talk about it and do things so that we ourselves can help change things,” Padilla told La Opinión. “What I want is for us to focus more on the positive things that unite us, than on the things that make us different.”
In June 2023, Padilla won the at-large special election in Los Angeles City Council District 6, a seat Martinez previously represented.
At the start of the session, Brenda Verano, a CALÓ News reporter, presented data on hate crimes against Latinos committed in 2002 and published this year by the Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission.
After increasing 10% in 2021, reported crimes against Latinos in Los Angeles County rose another 3% in 2022, from 117 to 121. Those numbers accounted for 28% of the 929 racially motivated crimes committed in that period.
“Given that Latinos make up roughly half of Los Angeles County residents, that is a surprisingly low percentage, especially in light of the current volatile public debate over immigration policy that has resulted in increased xenophobia,” the report describes.
The document details that large cities such as Los Angeles, Houston, Denver and Philadelphia documented significant decreases in the number of crimes reported by Latino victims since the beginning of Donald Trump’s presidency. [2016-2020]
The data also showed that a greater number of Latino victims are increasingly reluctant to contact authorities because they fear being detected by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
“There is still fear of the police,” Andy Ruiz told Michelle Zacarias, a journalism fellow at UC Berkeley and moderator of the panel, regarding the main barrier that Latinos face in not reporting hate incidents and crimes.
Ruiz, a service provider at Stop the Hate at St. John’s Community Health, said that during his first year at the free and low-cost health care organization in Los Angeles, he spent a lot of time going with people to file a police report “because officers refused to do the right thing.”
“There are certain protocols they have to follow for hate crimes that they don’t follow at all,” he said.
She also found that the translations from English to Spanish and vice versa were incorrect and told a “very distorted” story that did not appear in the police report.
“Another very sad thing is that I’ve been seeing a lot of Latino officers, who will tell people, ‘Oh, I’ve been through worse,’” Ruiz said.
Education is the answer
Esperanza Guevara, managing director of the Latino Media Collaborative, said the so-called “Dialogues” to end racism are relevant because in the Latino community “we all have the experience of having family members or friends with whom we want to talk honestly about difficult issues like racism.”
Guevara says that sometimes Latinos don’t know how to approach difficult topics, and through the “Dialogues,” the goal is to help attack misconceptions.
One guest asked the panelists how to respond to someone who says something racist, whether it’s a family member or a friend.
“Educating them is the answer,” Guevara said. “Or, as Councilwoman Imelda Padilla said, having the courage to confront the issue and have difficult conversations. That’s the first step.”
She added that a second step is to take the initiative to seek information on how these issues affect the community.
Guevara said the process of learning and talking about racism will take time, so that racist ideas, attitudes and vocabulary can be eradicated.
Hispanic or Latino, a new census standard
Benjamin Torres, president and CEO of the Community Development Technology Center, known as CD Tech, acknowledged that in the Latino community there is little talk about who we are.
“We have families mixed with other cultures; now we have the idea that we all speak or use the same language. [idioma] Spanish, but no one knows which indigenous group he comes from.”
According to studies by Indigenous Communities in Leadership (CIELO), there are 17 linguistic families in Los Angeles, including Yucatec Mayan, Zapotec, Mixtec, Mixe, Garifuna and Quiché.
Torres, who has worked for the past 26 years to increase social capital and economic opportunities in minority neighborhoods, said there is currently an identity crisis among Latinos.
Under new standards adopted by the Biden administration, “Hispanic or Latino” will appear in a box as a racial/ethnic category on U.S. census forms.
“We are mixed as Caribbean people, Latinos, Portuguese, Spanish, Afro-Latinos, indigenous people,” Torres said. “And I have heard many people telling others, ‘I am going to call Trump to have you deported,’ or ‘I am going to tell immigration where you work… That is also very common among Latinos.”
Given this situation, the panelist of “Diálogo” stressed that, in different regions of Los Angeles, one has the privilege of living in a community where there are African Americans and Latinos, and where there is a legacy of social activism created by the African American community, from which Latinos have learned a lot.
He therefore celebrated that, in the learning process, Latinos are leaving their mark and policies are changing to make the city of Los Angeles more progressive and dynamic, in response to the social, economic and political problems that exist.
“Working together, developing ideas, using the history of the past, but also bringing the new stories and movements of the Central American community, of southern Mexico, and united with the people who have suffered and fought, that is, creating multiracial, multiethnic and multilingual communities,” he said.
“We are not only launching campaigns against racism, but to change the conditions in schools, the lack of housing for low-income people, to change the conditions so that tenants have rights or changes against violence that sometimes comes from the police themselves… All these movements are coming out of South Los Angeles, because people are uniting in the understanding of the struggle. [social]”.
Demonizing Latinos
Dr. Adrián Pantoja, researcher and professor of Political Studies and Chicano Studies at Pitzer College, highlighted the importance of forming coalitions against racism in his presentation.
“There is a desire and a recognition that unity is strength,” he told La Opinión. “Latinos cannot do it alone; they need to form coalitions with African Americans and Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.”
Building a community with other communities to advance empowerment and a common political agenda is vital, said the expert pollster and data analyst of the Latin sector.
“These communities have a lot in common,” she said. “Their issues are similar when it comes to educational opportunities, economic mobility, political empowerment — there are a lot of overlapping issues, but we’re not always aware of them.”
What these communities are aware of is the racism that prevails in the United States and that has polarized the country.
“In the 2020 election, stopping racism was one of the big battles. That was something we hadn’t seen before,” he said. “It was a contentious election and it’s likely to be that way again.”
“If Trump attacks and persecutes Latino immigrants again, they will react and think about hate crimes and defamation of our community,” the professor added.
“These problems are going to come up on top of important issues that are being discussed. It’s going to be worse, probably worse… and that’s unfortunate, because the Trump campaign is going to demonize the Latino community.”
This publication is supported by funds provided by the State of California, administered by the California State Library in partnership with the California Department of Social Services and the California Commission on Asian American and Pacific Islander Affairs as part of the Stop Hate program. To report an incident of hate, hate or a crime of hate and get support, visit https://www.cavshate.org/.