Thread: Group hopes to break down barriers, lift up fellow immigrant

There's no financial interest in promoting immigration when you own an interpreting service now is there?
Hispanics find their voice
Professional group hopes to break down barriers, lift up fellow immigrants


Tica Lema of Raleigh dances with Esteban Echeverria of Durham at a gala by the N.C. Society of Hispanic Professionals at the Embassy Suites in Cary. The group is also holding a fundraising campaign.
Staff Photos by Robert Willett


Kristin Collins, Staff Writer
Jackie Metivier emigrated from Mexico nearly two decades ago and is now a U.S. citizen who owns a successful interpreting service in Cary.
When most people think about Hispanic immigrants, she said, they are not thinking about her.

"In North Carolina, people think that all immigrants are illegal and cannot vote," Metivier said. "That's not the case."

On Friday night, Metivier was one of more than 200 people who gathered at the Embassy Suites in Cary for a gala sponsored by the N.C. Society of Hispanic Professionals. The gala is one of several efforts that Triangle Hispanics hope will send a message: Latino immigrants in North Carolina have political clout.

The society -- formed five years ago by six Triangle residents of Hispanic descent who worried about lagging student achievement -- is holding its first fundraising campaign, hoping to raise $200,000 to allow it to hire staff and heighten its profile. In addition, some of its members are helping lead a voter registration push and talking of forming a political action committee.

Marco Zárate, who helped found the Society of Hispanic Professionals in 1999, said he has been pushing people for years to help fight steep dropout rates among Hispanic teens. At 9 percent for the 2005-2006 school year, the Hispanic dropout rate is the highest in the state and is double that of non-Hispanic whites.

But with only one paid employee and limited donors, he said, the group can run only a few programs such as tutoring, inspirational speakers and a yearly summit for Hispanic students.

Zárate, a Raleigh engineer, said a more serious effort is needed. He said Hispanics must counter the voices of those who say illegal immigrants should be denied access to higher education.

He said the gala is part fundraiser and part smoke signal.

"I think of it as our hidden message to the mainstream public that there are educated people, there are professional people, that there are people who are concerned for the education of our people."

Betsy Clark of Willow Spring, who emigrated from Colombia more than 20 years ago and now runs a construction company, said political activism is foreign to many immigrants. She said that after struggling to learn English and assimilate, most don't want to draw attention to themselves as political rabble-rousers.

But now, with anti-immigrant sentiment rising, she said, many are realizing that they need to start advocating for Hispanics as a group, rather than focusing on their personal success.

"We need to be more informed, more involved, more a part," Clark said. "We need to say, 'Look at us. We have voting power, too.' "

She said discussions are moving forward on the formation of a political action committee. The idea was first proposed at a society meeting in early February. Willy Stewart, president of the Raleigh firm Stewart Engineering, pitched the idea as the only way to make progress on critical issues, such as pressing to allow illegal immigrants to attend community colleges and pay in-state tuition at universities.

Society member Matty Lazo-Chadderton said Hispanics also need to show their voting clout in hard numbers. Lazo-Chadderton, who is Hispanic and Latino affairs director for state Sen. Marc Basnight, is helping lead a push to get Hispanics to change their voter registration to reflect their ethnicity. She said she wants state leaders to know the true number of Hispanic voters in North Carolina.

She said that before 2002, the State Board of Elections didn't list Hispanic or Asian as choices for voters designating their race. That means that many Hispanics and Asians are registered under the category "other," and state rolls show fewer than 50,000 Hispanic voters. Lazo-Chadderton said she thinks there are at least three times that many.

Lazo-Chadderton said she plans to volunteer at several voter registration drives at Triangle businesses this month.

"Wouldn't it be wonderful if the State Board of Elections could be like a mirror of the growing diversity in our state?" Lazo-Chadderton said. "I think it's very important."


kristin.collins@newsobserver.com or (919) 829-4881
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/975385.html

"I think of it as our hidden message to the mainstream public that there are educated people, there are professional people, that there are people who are concerned for the education of our people." (Emphasis added.)

Yet another example of people who have attained American citizenship but still cling to their old countries. There shoule be no Mexican-Americans, African-Americans, Irish- Americans. Only Americans - period. This country is a melting pot, not a storage bin with separately labeled compartments for each ethnic group. If you are an American, act like one and stop agitating yourpeople.

Why is it that these people always see to put more importance on being hispanic first rather than being an American

"Why is it that these people always see to put more importance on being hispanic first rather than being an American."

Absolutely correct. I don't see a Representative O'Brien screaming bloody murder and asking for his ethnic group to be granted rights. I read an article the other day that mentioned that many of the Hispanic legilsators in our country now are the children of those who came here illegally. Their love and their allegiance is to Mexcico and other Latin countries. Why the heck can't the other pols see this insidious plan to take over America??? Why do they not only tolerate but aid and abet in our destruction?
I said it before . I say it again, no elected official should be allowed to belong to a racial or ethnic caucus. They give their loyalty to their nationality not to America.

Lazo-Chadderton, who is Hispanic and Latino affairs director for state Sen. Marc Basnight, is helping lead a push to get Hispanics to change their voter registration to reflect their ethnicity. She said she wants state leaders to know the true number of Hispanic voters in North Carolina.

I find that offensive and racist. She seems to believe that hispanics are sheeple? That they will do whatever she tells them to do? Sorry honey, this latina is saying helll no!

Why is it that hispanic activists are always insisting that illegal aliens are all hispanic? I'm not and I don't want any illegal aliens here.