Intersting article .


The Masters of Hispanic Destiny '

Do we want to be the next victimized minority group, or do we want to be the next successful immigrant group?'.

By DAVID FEITH

Fourteen months out, it's a safe bet that Election 2012 won't hinge on immigration. But with no major federal action on the issue since 1986, and Hispanics poised to be a much larger portion of America's population by mid-century, immigration may decide Election 2016 or 2020. When that happens, look out for Juan Rangel.

Mr. Rangel, 45, probably won't be atop a ticket, but his standing—and that of his ideas—will reveal much about the nature of Hispanic politics in America. In particular, they'll signal whether this vibrant and growing demographic favors the sectarian identity politics of its highest-profile advocacy groups—or the alternative approach that Mr. Rangel has been cultivating quietly for 15 years.

According to Mr. Rangel—CEO of Chicago's United Neighborhood Organization (UNO) and co-chair of Mayor Rahm Emanuel's recent election campaign—the central question for Hispanics to answer as they grow in number and potential political influence is: "Do we want to be the next victimized minority group in America, or do we want to be the next successful immigrant group?"

This is a weighty question, especially given Mr. Rangel's observation that for three decades the most powerful Hispanic organizations in the country—such as the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (Maldef) and the National Council of La Raza ("The Race")—have, with the cooperation of the political class, empowered and enriched themselves by stressing the victimhood of Hispanics in American society. "I think we're living in a very politically correct society that almost values victimization," Mr. Rangel laments.

What's more, he explains, the leaders who built these Hispanic organizations modeled them on the 1960s civil-rights movement of African-Americans. This was understandable, Mr. Rangel argues, but gravely mistaken.

"Hispanics haven't endured the same suffering and struggles of the African-American community," he says. Hispanics' "struggles are different. Their struggles come from a desire to get ahead and leaving their nation and coming to a new land. And those are tough things, but there's no way that you can compare that struggle to the struggles of slavery and Jim Crow and Reconstruction. There's just no comparison."

No matter to politicos—they've bought into this narrative in legions. "Democrats are so intent on making Hispanics the next victimized minority seeking entitlement programs and all that, that the Republicans are starting to believe it!" exclaims Mr. Rangel. "And they're wrong on both ends. This is a great community that's poised to do great things—but you gotta challenge it. Don't pander to it."

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.That's the essence of Mr. Rangel's message, and answering the call is the mission of UNO, which he has led since 1996. Inspired by the community organizing philosophy of left-wing theorist Saul Alinsky, UNO got its start tapping the latent power in the small Hispanic-Catholic churches of 1980s Chicago. Its premise today is that Hispanics in the U.S. are masters of their own destinies, responsible for their affairs good and bad, and duty-bound to invest in American civic life.

"The nation's largest dropout rate, gang violence, and teenage pregnancy, among other problems, have for decades created a rift between Hispanic potential and accomplishment," says its mission statement, adding that these pathologies can't be excused by "politically-expedient and media-driven agendas . . . portraying Hispanics as a victimized community in need of social justice." Instead, UNO insists that "Hispanics must be challenged to take full advantage of American possibilities through civic participation and deep investments in family, neighborhoods, and education."

UNO's main operation is an 11-school charter network serving 5,500 students, 98% of whom are Hispanic (mostly immigrant families from Mexico) and 93% of whom are at or below the poverty line. The schools—which the Chicago Tribune says outperform city averages—include many staples of effective charters: strict uniforms, an extended school day and year, and a contract laying out parents' and teachers' responsibilities to students and vice versa, which may soon be the model for a contract distributed city-wide.


At UNO's schools there's no controversy over reciting the Pledge of Allegiance daily or singing the Star-Spangled Banner before every public event. On Flag Day every June, roughly 100 immigrants swear oaths of citizenship at a naturalization ceremony held in an UNO gymnasium.

On Election Day, schools aren't in session but the buildings remain open and students are invited to come cast mock ballots. Mr. Rangel is quick to note that they get no extra credit for doing so, since adults "don't get any other reward for voting other than the satisfaction of doing their civic duty, and we want these kids to understand and appreciate free will." For this year's mayoral election, says Mr. Rangel, every member of the junior class turned out to vote.

UNO's schools offer classes in Spanish and Mandarin, but the main curriculum is English immersion. There's none of the bilingual education that has been so frequently ineffective and yet so jealously guarded by the major Hispanic lobbies. (Twelve years after California outlawed bilingual education—quickly improving student outcomes and inspiring several other states to follow suit—Illinois last year began mandating bilingual education for Hispanic preschoolers.)

One of the UNO network's newest outposts is Veterans Memorial Campus, which has three schools, each named in honor of a Hispanic-American war hero. The campus is in the traditionally Polish Archer Heights neighborhood, and when Mr. Rangel initially proposed it, the neighbors were suspicious. Having met with the neighborhood association and earned its trust, Mr. Rangel invited the Poles to name one of the school buildings after a war hero of theirs. After several days of deliberation they responded, to Mr. Rangel's surprise, by naming Omar Torres, a Hispanic son of Archer Heights who had recently died in Iraq.

America has "lost sight of what the public schools were intended to do and what we need to do to help students feel that they're part of a whole," says Mr. Rangel, whose Mexican parents immigrated in the 1950s, his second-grade-educated mother never having heard of the United States until his father announced their impending emigration. "We need to get back to what the purpose of a public school was intended to be. That's to create not just educated and engaged citizens, but educated and engaged American citizens."

And why are American schools generally falling down on this responsibility? "Some people might say because there's an emphasis on reading and math. . . . But I think a bigger factor—and a more dangerous factor—is the political correctness around patriotism, around love of country. Somehow people view those things as kind of clichés," says Mr. Rangel. "That's more dangerous than any standardized testing that people complain about. We need to re-examine our values as a nation and re-examine whether we have the political will—or just the will—to engender a sense of love of country within our youth."

Mr. Rangel notes repeatedly that parents never push back against his schools' assimilation and Americanization efforts (or against their English-immersion curriculum). It's yet more proof, he suggests, of the silent majority that sees things his way, notwithstanding the multiculturalism of "community leaders" (air-quotes his).

"People in my community want this country to succeed because this is where their future's going to be and where their children's future's going to be," he notes. "We as leaders need to say that. We need to be able to say 'We live in a great country. The United States is a great country. That's why people came here.'"

Of course such assimilation doesn't require abandoning one's native culture. As Mr. Rangel puts it, "We live in a city where we're all Irish on St. Patrick's Day. You go downtown to the parade and you'll see every ethnicity there celebrating St. Patrick's Day. We celebrate it by dyeing the river green and we love that it's just a great thing." He adds: "And the next great American holiday will be Cinco de Mayo—which gets celebrated here more than it does in Mexico. That's part of the culture here in America—it's a Corona beer thing."

UNO is in the business of unapologetic patriotism not only because it instills positive values in its Hispanic constituency, Mr. Rangel adds, but because if Hispanics don't broadcast such sentiments widely, native-born Americans will understandably wonder "what Hispanic immigration means for the nation. . . . And I can understand a cause for concern unless we're committed to ensuring that [Hispanics] too will become successful Americans."

Mr. Rangel thinks the Hispanic community has room for improvement with regard to how it represents itself to the rest of the country. "The biggest example is the marches for immigration reform," he says. "I regret that I was part of that first march in Chicago in 2006. . . . The nationalist [Mexican] flag-waving, the youth being taken out of schools to protest—I think those are wrong tactics."

"Here in Chicago we have some high schools where we have 54% dropout rates within the Hispanic community. The easy answer for people seeing hundreds and thousands of kids out in the street protesting is [to think] that those kids should be in the classroom."


'Middle America loves the underdog and they will always cheer them on," Mr. Rangel says. But the marches squandered some goodwill. "Somehow we need to regain it and show the rest of the country that this is a good community, that we're gonna play by the rules, play hard, and get ahead, and it'll be good for the country and good for our community."

But Mr. Rangel isn't telling Hispanics to protest better next time. "My thing these days," he says pointedly, "is we don't need to protest, we don't need to march. Get registered to vote—and vote. There are enough Hispanics that would change the balance of power here, if they vote. If they don't do their civic duty, the marches will be for nothing. The greatest protest action in this country is your right to vote. . . . And [yet] we have a lot of individuals who are not registered to vote even though they can."

Mr. Feith, an assistant editorial features editor at the Journal, is editor of "Teaching America: The Case for Civic Education," out this week from Rowman & Littlefield.



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