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02/19/2007
Hazleton's Hispanic community seeks voice
BY WADE MALCOLM
STAFF WRITER


HAZLETON — If all things must start small, that was evident inside the glass conference room of a downtown Hazleton office building Friday night.


A table with 2007 primary nomination petitions — and another with refreshments neatly arranged between bowls of crackers and cheese puffs — flanked enough seating for 30 people.

But only enough people to fill six chairs actually showed.

“I am a little disappointed,” said Amilcar Arroyo, the man who organized the meeting to discuss the need for Hispanics to engage in local government.

Figuring the poor road conditions kept many away, he vowed to schedule another meeting for the following Friday.

After feeling marginalized and voiceless in the face of the city’s immigration policies, Arroyo and others believe now is the time for Hazleton’s Hispanic community to plunge into local politics.

By becoming part of the process, Latinos hope to reverse the ill will they believe many residents directed toward them in the last year, said Arroyo, who is also the publisher of a monthly Spanish-language newspaper, El Mensajero.

Aside from Agapito Lopez, a retired eye doctor running for a Hazleton Area School Board seat, no other Hispanic has officially announced candidacy.

“What is official is that the Hispanic people of Hazleton want to be part of the government,” Arroyo said. “We don’t want to be known only as illegals and drug dealers. We are professionals; we are business owners.”

Though the specifics remain unclear, a Hispanic ticket will assuredly form in time for the May municipal primary, said Arroyo, an active leader within the city’s Latino population who is organizing the effort.During the coming weeks, he said, community leaders will discuss potential candidates for school board, city council and mayor.

Arroyo said about a dozen educated, professional people in the Hazleton area have expressed interest in seeking office, and he, too, might run for school board.

A growing minority group in Hazleton for the last five or six years, the Hispanic community suddenly reached a new level of political awareness last summer when Mayor Lou Barletta proposed — and council passed — an ordinance that aimed to punish those who rent to or hire illegal immigrants and made English the official language.

Several hundred Hispanics blanketed the steps of city hall the night the ordinance passed into law, most holding candles in protest. In council chambers, Lopez and local resident Anna Arias — both members of the governor’s Advisory Commission on Latino Affairs — vocally opposed the ordinance, with Arias saying it would make Hazleton a “Nazi city.”

But Latinos mostly existed on the political fringes in this way, speaking out at meetings and organizing protests, and not in the role of government decision-makers.

The Latino community’s desire to gain political influence is part of the natural progression of any immigrant group, said Thomas J. Baldino, a Wilkes University political science professor.

“Throughout history, you can look at the same thing in other cities,” he said. “A minority population takes root, and they try to get their people elected.”

Hispanics represent a sizable portion of the Hazleton area community — as much as 30 percent of the population by some estimates — but it could take years before they gain much political clout. Likewise for most Latinos throughout the country, according to studies by the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research group.

The Hispanic population has grown considerably this decade. But the Latinos’ numbers don’t translate proportionately to voting power.

About a third of the population growth since 2000 is adult immigrants, many not yet U.S. citizens and therefore unable to vote. Another third is children, many of whom are native-born citizens, but 80 percent will not reach voting age by 2008, according to the studies.

In Hazleton, many Latino leaders have vehemently opposed Barletta’s stance on illegal immigration, believing it has fostered an atmosphere of bigotry.

But Barletta, who will seek a third term, said he welcomes Hispanic participation in government, adding he recommended Lopez for his position on the city water authority board and Arias for her spot on the state advisory commission.

“I’m not afraid to debate the issues with people in the Hispanic community,” he said “I was disappointed in the tone of their debate at times. I’ve been called names…I’ve never called anyone names, and I’ve discussed my position professionally.”

Several members of the city’s Latino community are plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit challenging the illegal immigration ordinance, with the trial scheduled to begin March 12 in Scranton.

Rudy Espinal is one of those plaintiffs. The real estate company owner also happens to be considering a run for city council.

Espinal became a U.S. citizen in the fall, voting for the first time in the 2006 mid-term elections.

“I will have to learn government quick,” he joked. “I’d go from voting to in the middle of everything.”

Arroyo said he isn’t sure whether members of the Latino community will run as Republicans, Democrats or both. School board candidates often cross file. Barletta and two of the ordinance’s staunchest supporters on council, President Joseph Yanuzzi and Councilwoman Evelyn Graham, are Republicans up for re-election, perhaps making a Democratic run more likely.

Regardless of who runs for what office, voter registration drives will be a key part of the Latino population’s effort to gain representation. Many Hazleton Hispanics arrived by way of New York or New Jersey within the last few years and may not be registered in Pennsylvania, Arroyo said. Community leaders plan to hold special events and work with the churches to get residents registered.

With the deadline to file nomination petitions less than a month away, Arroyo knows winning could be a long shot this time around.

“But we have to start somewhere,” he said.