Why Latinos are
optimistic about the faith initiative
by Rodolpho
Carrasco
August 16, 2001
in the Pasadena
Star News
Rodolpho Carrasco is associate director of Harambee Christian Family Center in Pasadena, Calif., and a columnist for the San Gabriel Valley Newspaper Group. E-mail him at rudy@qvo.cc
Last month the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Community Solutions Act, President Bush's plan to expand the role of religious groups in delivering social services, with a 233-198 vote. The vigorously debated bill now heads to the Senate, where Majority Leader Tom Daschle has hinted that a vote may be delayed until next year, ensuring that the issue of public funding for faith-based groups remains on the national agenda for some time.
Among the voices heard during this debate where those of Latino religious leaders. Groups like the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) and the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) are typically turned to for a Latino perspective on political issues. But as MALDEF and NCLR expressed caution as they "examined" the faith-based bill, Latino religious leaders claimed to represent the overwhelming Latino support for the initiative.
Dr. Jesse Miranda of Hacienda Heights is president of the Alianza de Ministerios Evangelicos Nacionales (AMEN), an association representing the estimated 7.7 million Latino Protestants in the United States. In May he joined Armando Contreras of the National Catholic Council on Hispanic Ministry in standing with President Bush to support the initiative in front of the nation's press. They pointed out that a recent PEW Forum study reveals that 81% of all Latinos show interest in and/or favor toward the President's faith initiative.
In the final days before the House vote, representatives vexed themselves on whether the bill would allow government-funded discrimination - this despite the fact that the bill changes no existing civil rights law and affirms legislation signed by then-President Clinton in 1996, 1998 and 2000. In getting hung up over phantom civil rights violations, the legislative debate glossed over an important fact: The faith-based initiative creates genuine opportunities for grassroots empowerment of Latino faith groups that are often the principal safety net in low-income communities.
The role of faith groups in holding together the lives of the poor was anecdotal in the public square until the 1992 Los Angeles riots. In the wake of the riots, a landmark USC religion department study found that there were more churches, temples, synagogues and mosques in the city than gas stations and fast food outlets combined.
"After the riots, government, foundations and the business community began to think more seriously about faith communities as important partners in transforming the city," said Don Miller, director of USC's Center for Religion and Civic Culture.
"They saw that churches are distributed all over the city, they have buildings, leadership and volunteers in place, and they have a vision rooted in the Judeo-Christian tradition that the city is to be transformed as the city of God," said Miller. "The faith community has been in place for a long time, but they have been to some extent invisible to the media and therefore to the general public."
My Friend's House Church in Whittier is one example of a Latino faith group actively providing community services.
According to associate pastor Victor Mendez, from 1986 to 1992, My Friend's House provided amnesty and ESL programs that were partly funded by government dollars and that brought hope to hundreds of immigrants.
"People gained the power that comes with being a voting citizen. They gained better jobs. Young people went to college because they became legal. It was a beautiful picture of what the Church can do without having to preach and prosyletize," Mendez says.
This year, Jim Ortiz, senior pastor of My Friend's House, organized an innovative, Spanish-language conference on economic development that drew more than 300 Latino clergy. Workshops with titles like "Business: The other side of ministry" combined with rousing songs to imbue the event with the spirit of a revival.
The desire of groups like My Friend's House to serve their communities answers a question posed to me recently by a major news media executive. The question: "Why would Latinos trust Bush?"
Mr. Executive, it's not a matter of trusting Bush or the Republican Party. For many Latinos, the issue is equal access to tax dollars for groups motivated by faith. Of course Republicans would hope to make political gain from championing an issue close to the hearts of Latinos. The same could be said of a recent White House proposal to offer amnesty to three million undocumented Mexicans.
But the political gain theory does not explain the support of Democratic Senator Joseph Lieberman, who chided his colleagues at a party convention last week. Lieberman said, "We have too often dismissed and disparaged the importance of faith in American life and made the faithful feel unwelcome in our party, particularly if they are open and outspoken about their religion."
Nor does it explain former Democratic congressman Andrew Young's spirited defense of the faith initiative in a Wall Street Journal opinion this week. Young expressed concern that "Democrats in Congress, especially those who opposed the initiative even though they supported previous versions of it, now risk the perception that they are practicing partisan politics at the expense of the needy."
The needy - they are why 81% of Latinos support the faith initiative. We are talking about a people group so zealous to help the weak in their midst that 74% favor assisting illegal immigrants even when such help is illegal.
The faith initiative offers so much hope that it doesn't matter that Republicans are the driving force behind it. But it might matter that Democrats are leading the opposition.
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