Thread: TX: 4 Latinos vie for school board, council seats in Irving

4 Latinos vie for school board, council seats in Irving

Deportations, lack of Hispanics on panels motivate them


02:41 PM CDT on Saturday, March 22, 2008
By KATHERINE LEAL UNMUTH / The Dallas Morning News

Four Latino candidates are running for seats on the all-white school board and City Council in Irving, whose population is mostly minority.

The candidates say they are not a slate and want to focus on issues and not on their ethnicity. But they acknowledge that the lack of Hispanics or other minorities on city and school governing boards also motivated them to run.

Controversy over the deportation of about 2,000 illegal immigrants arrested by police also was a catalyst.

The candidates are young. They are bilingual Spanish speakers. And they are the children and grandchildren of immigrants from Mexico and El Salvador.

"This is historic," said Alberto Ruiz, co-founder of the group Irving Forward and director of social justice for Domingo Garcia's law office. "Most of the Irving Hispanic community hasn't been there for generations. We're looking at the first generation."

This month, the candidates introduced themselves at a regular chorizo and menudo breakfast hosted by the League of United Latin American Citizens in Oak Cliff.

The Irving Forward group, mostly a coalition of Hispanic pastors and activists, formed to raise concerns about the deportations.

The group has conducted voter and citizen registration drives and has the goal of getting Latinos into elected office. Mr. Ruiz said he is working to support the candidates.

Older Hispanics with longstanding community involvement have run for office before in Irving. But they've rarely been successful.

Rene Castilla, a dean at North Lake College, ran twice unsuccessfully for the City Council. He is a former Dallas school board president.

The four young Hispanic candidates "are not going to the old guard and seeking permission to run," he said. "They're just telling the old guard they're going to run. All we're saying is 'God bless' and go for it."

The candidates face an uphill battle. They lack a history of serving on city and school committees and the backing of established leaders.

Rigo Reza, 37, a North Lake instructor, is challenging Mayor Herbert Gears, 45, and Roland Jeter, 54, a lawyer.

Nancy Rivera, 21, a college student and administrative assistant, filed against City Council incumbent Allan Meagher, 45.

Hugo I. Sanchez, 24, a college student, failed to get on the City Council election ballot because he fell two short of the required 48 verified signatures of voters. He is considering appealing the decision. He would have faced incumbent Rose Cannaday, 63, and Sue Richardson, 66.

Stacey Ponce, 23, a Department of Labor human resources specialist, and Jorge Alfonso Chac II, 28, a legal assistant, are each running for open school board seats. They face opponents with records of civic involvement and considerable community backing.

Mr. Chac is running against A.D. Jenkins, a computer engineer who started the after-school Big Dogs youth program.

Ms. Ponce faces Gina Bates, 45, a substitute teacher, and Nancy Jones, 48, a student services supervisor at DeVry University who is active in the PTA.

If elected, Mr. Jenkins and Ms. Jones would become the only African-Americans serving in elected office in Irving.

Latinos make up 67 percent of students in Irving public schools and 42 percent of the city's residents, according to 2006 Census Bureau estimates.

About 15 percent of registered voters in Irving have Spanish surnames, according to the Dallas County election office. The Hispanic community tends to be younger and includes many immigrants who are not able to vote because they aren't U.S. citizens.

The city is the target of a voting rights lawsuit that charges the current at-large voting system ensures no Hispanic will be elected. The suit mirrors the 1988 lawsuit that ultimately led to the creation of single-member districts for Dallas City Council and the election of more minorities.

Manuel Benavidez, a Latino resident who ran unsuccessfully for the Irving school board twice, is the named plaintiff in the Irving lawsuit. He is represented by the influential Bickel & Brewer law firm, which has successfully fought immigration ordinances in Farmers Branch.

"If they fail, it only shows that Latinos cannot get elected, period," Mr. Benavidez said. "They haven't been involved, they don't have name recognition, they don't have a lot of financing, but they're making an effort."

The Irving Forward group began seeking candidates in February. Co-founder Angel Cruz, an immigration attorney, sent an e-mail out to members, looking for candidates.

"The time has come to nominate our own candidates," he said. "We need a slate of Latino or minority candidates to serve as an example of the unfairness of the current way of electing City Council. We also need to galvanize our community to get out and vote."

Mr. Chac works in Mr. Cruz's law office, and Ms. Ponce helped with the Irving Forward group's voting drives. But all the candidates said they decided to run on their own.

Ms. Richardson, also running for City Council, said she respects the young people running but didn't appreciate the e-mails calling for candidates with "Spanish surnames."

"I don't have a problem with any kind of organized approach," she said. "I do have a problem with people just wanting to run someone because they have a name that denotes a culture without any kind of experience."

Mr. Gears said Hispanic candidates on the ballot are good for democracy. But he said he supports the current at-large voting system. If the Hispanic candidates lose this year, he said, it should not be taken as evidence that the at-large system is bad.

"It won't prove anything other than the best candidate won the race," he said. "In the end, it will be the issues that will drive the voter turnout, not the race of the candidates."

Immigration is a big issue in the City Council races.

Mr. Reza and Ms. Rivera favor focusing on deporting illegal immigrants who are felons, not those who commit minor misdemeanors.

Mr. Reza, a former Irving city building inspector, said the city needs more bilingual employees who can relate to a diverse population.

"We need a more diverse workforce that can have better communication with the different groups," he said.

Ms. Ponce and Mr. Chac, the school board candidates, both learned English as a second language as children. They say they can help address the district's changing population. About 39 percent of Irving schoolchildren are classified as limited English proficient.

Ms. Ponce, whose sister is a bilingual teacher, said she strongly supports the bilingual program. She is a graduate of Irving High School.

Mr. Chac, a single father who has an 8-year-old son in Irving ISD, said he wants multicultural sensitivity training for teachers so they can understand the diverse community.

He also wants the school district to implement a program to better inform immigrant parents that they have the right to refuse bilingual education classes and choose ESL classes conducted mostly in English instead.

"It may look like a Hispanic rising," he said. "But it's time for new candidates to arrive. I want to say, let's give our own perspective if we do win."

www.dallasnews.com

The candidates are young. They are bilingual Spanish speakers. And they are the children and grandchildren of immigrants from Mexico and El Salvador

In other words, they are probably anchor babies.

And this little gem from this ignorant Mr. Benavidez:

If they fail, it only shows that Latinos cannot get elected, period," Mr. Benavidez said. "They haven't been involved, they don't have name recognition, they don't have a lot of financing, but they're making an effort."

Yea, of course if they do not get elected it will because everyone is a racist and they are latino. However, the only qualifications they seem to be running on is their ethnicity. Cannot have it both ways!

All I have to say is that I hope these voters think long and hard before they cast their votes for these people. The only thing these candidates would seem to bring to the table is an their ethno-centric agendas, as they certainly have no experience whatsoever running for such a position, that is unless you count being latino, as Mr.Benavidez does as being some qualifying experience.

Their candidacies are not about public service. They have an agenda to represent the hispanic community and serve their interests. They will not be concerned with the rest of the community. It's shameful.

I would run from any candidate who uses his/her race as a platform in any election. No way will they be for the "greater good", unless it's for their ethnic tribe.

Everything they do should be for everyone in their community, not just the hispanics in their community. They must stop thinking of themselves as hyphenated Americans and think of themselves as CITIZENS of Irving and the US.

The deportations are legal and must continue, regardless of personal feelings.

This exact thing is going on in Bakersfield Calif. when all else failed they tried to get the city to redistrct so they would have a better chance but that failed also....seems some towns understand what this is about and when they get in office they don't care about anyone except their race. Just like LaRaza and all of the other groups who represent no one except their own race.

Hold your ground Irving if you want to keep control of your childrens education, remember you built those schools for your children and grandchildren.

You want to control your schools raise the money and build your own.

How typical.....once someone starts standing up for the rule of law and refuses to allow IAs to overrun a community, the solution, as far as the "raza" is concerned, is to take over and rule by latinos solely for latinos.

One good thing though....as proactive as Irving has been, we can bet that they will watching the voter rolls and election process like hawks.

To correct that clown Benavidez.....if the latinos don't win it will have nothing to do with the at large system but rather because they couldn't get away with resorting to fraud in order to seize control in Irving.