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Posted on Sun, Sep. 04, 2005



Mexican hometown groups flex their muscles
Associations could become major political force in California
By PETER HECHT
Sacramento Bee

LOS ANGELES - People used to wander into Sebastian Dominguez's auto body shop in Bell Gardens to marvel at his quixotic quest: restoring glory to primer-gray hulls of classic cars.

These days, Dominguez's body shop is attracting a grander pilgrimage. He's set up tables and chairs to host fellow presidents of Mexican hometown associations, which are a powerful political and economic force in Mexico and a potentially potent social movement in California.

Twice this month, Dominguez, president of the Federacion de Baja California, greeted leaders of the Consejo de Federaciones Mexicanas en Norte America -- a coalition of community groups of immigrants who are representing the Mexican states -- such as Jalisco, Michoacan, Guanajuato, Durango, Zacatecas, Puebla and Oaxaca -- they lived in before coming to the United States.

With 250,000 to 500,000 active members in California, the hometown associations have extensive reach in Spanish-speaking neighborhoods north of the border and hundreds of Mexican communities that have sent millions of immigrants, legal and illegal, to the United States.

Today, hometown association leaders from California are feted at the presidential palace in Mexico City. Their immigrant clubs in the United States are conduits for directing millions of dollars in contributions for community projects in Mexican hometowns.

Now the organizations are planning an active role in California, hoping to influence public policy on immigration, education and health care, while lobbying state officials for projects benefiting immigrant neighborhoods here.

Recently, representatives for the Mexican hometown associations met in seminars in San Francisco and Los Angeles with members of the California Latino Legislative Caucus and state Senate and Assembly committees dealing with cross-border issues.

Their message to the politicians, including some U.S. native Mexican Americans who speak limited Spanish, is that the Mexican hometown associations can provide a crucial connection to the changing immigrant communities of California.

About 4.7 million Latinos in California -- 43 percent of the state's total Latino population -- were born outside the United States. A third are believed to be illegal immigrants, but nearly two-thirds are naturalized U.S. citizens or legal residents. More than 1 million are eligible to vote, according to data compiled by the National Association of Latino Elected Officials Educational Fund, a Los Angeles policy group promoting integration of Latino immigrants into U.S. society.

Though Latinos make up only 17 percent of registered voters statewide, the foreign-born residents account for an uptick in participation. In Los Angeles, where Mexican hometown associations are most active, 18.8 percent of foreign-born Latinos voted in all four city elections between 1999 and 2005, compared with 12.7 percent for U.S.-born Latinos.

''They are a force to be reckoned with if they make up their minds to engage themselves politically in the United States,'' said state Sen. Martha Escutia, D-Whittier, leader of the California Latino Legislative Caucus. ''We as policymakers need to make sure they become engaged civically in this state.''

The community associations sprang up over the past 20 years in Mexican immigrant neighborhoods from East Los Angeles to Salinas to San Francisco to promote cultural traditions and shared hometown connections.

Money sent by U.S. Latino immigrants to families back home now accounts for a $16 billion annual boost to the Mexican economy, according to Mexican government officials, giving the hometown groups major clout -- in some cases, virtual veto power -- over many public works projects in Mexico.

So far in 2005, Mexican hometown associations in the United States have raised $5 million in direct contributions toward $20 million in community projects in Mexico -- ranging from rural health clinics in Zacatecas to public plazas and roads in Jalisco.

Under a ''3 for 1'' program approved by Mexican President Vicente Fox, municipal, state and federal governments in Mexico match the contributions from the immigrant groups in the United States.

In Mexico, Fox appointed a government advisory panel that includes 100 representatives from hometown associations in the United States. But Ruben Beltran, the Mexican consul general in Los Angeles, said the groups also are ''looking to register their presence'' and ''integrate into the society'' of the United States.

Recently, the Consejo de Federaciones Mexicanas en Norte America, an umbrella group for more than 400 Mexican hometown associations in the United States, received $100,000 in seed money -- including a $75,000 grant from SBC Communications Inc. -- to launch initiatives promoting community projects in California.

''Our goal has been to help our communities in Mexico. Now it is time to help our communities here,'' said Salvador Garcia, the owner of a Los Angeles-area demolition company who serves as president of the Consejo group as well as the hometown Federacion de Jalisco.

Recently, Garcia was chairman of a meeting -- conducted in Spanish -- at Dominguez's auto body shop with leaders representing collective hometown associations from eight Mexican states. They talked about raising money to pay for college scholarships for immigrant children and for soccer fields in Spanish-speaking communities in Los Angeles.

A few weeks ago, Mexican politicians from the states of Michoacan and Oaxaca stopped by the auto body shop for the hometown associations' support in encouraging Los Angeles residents to vote in the 2006 Mexican presidential election.

On this night, the featured visitor was Ann Marie Tallman, national president and general counsel for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund.

Tallman proposed a partnership, offering the Consejo presidents use of office space at MALDEF's Los Angeles headquarters, business leadership classes and media training. She pledged to work with the hometown groups on legal and policy issues affecting immigrant communities.

''We really need to reconnect with our roots,'' Tallman said later. ''They (hometown associations) are the eyes and ears of the community. This is a bona fide movement.''

The hometown associations have yet to agree on a political strategy in California. But various leaders support programs to provide low-cost health insurance for Mexican immigrants, possibly in a partnership between the Mexican government and U.S. insurers.

Others back new amnesty laws to allow more illegal residents to become citizens. The proposals include federal legislation -- known as the Dream Act -- that would allow illegal immigrants who graduate from U.S. high schools to apply for citizenship and receive in-state tuition rates to attend college.

The emergence of the Mexican hometown movement worries anti-immigration advocates.

''At some point, a society needs to be concerned about the sheer size of a group that still has allegiances to its home country,'' said Ira Mehlman, a Los Angeles spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform. ''It is such a large population with one foot here and one foot there.

''Are they now lobbying here as Americans of Mexican descent or as Mexicans living in the United States? It is a very indistinct line.''

Given the emotional passions of immigration issues, the Mexican hometown groups are hesitant over how far to press their political activism. When a former president of Federacion Zacatecana, a hometown association with 15,000 members and a community hall in East Los Angeles, emerged as an outspoken advocate for granting California driver's licenses to illegal immigrants, he was chastised by association members.

''That brings controversy onto the federations, and we decided it was best to lower the volume,'' said Jose Angel Gonzalez, a federation member and owner of a Montebello company that makes boxes for pharmaceuticals.

The hometown associations refrain from political endorsements or contributions. But they encourage members to become citizens, register to vote in California and have a voice -- on both sides of the border.

Gonzalez, who has dual citizenship in Mexico and the United States, is a registered Republican who recruited community members to attend a 2004 campaign rally for President Bush in San Bernardino. He also supported Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a Democrat.

And once a month, Gonzalez, a resident of California for 29 years, boards a flight for important duties in Mexico. He's a city council member in his hometown of Fresnillo, Zacatecas.