Tamales no substitute for a place on podium

By Cindy Rodriguez, Globe Staff, 8/18/2000

OS ANGELES - They ate tamales at a downtown street festival, grooved to a free concert by salsa queen Celia Cruz, and chanted, ''Justicia Para Todos!'' (''Justice For All''), at a slew of rallies.

But when it came down to speaking to a national, prime-time audience, Latinos here say they felt relatively ignored.

Reporters didn't attend, in meaningful numbers, the daily Latino caucuses. They didn't write about the daily events sponsored by the nonpartisan Latino Committee 2000. And when one of the highest-ranking Latinos in Congress spoke on the convention floor, he was preempted by a commercial.

Los Angelenos didn't hear Representative Robert Menendez of New Jersey declare in Spanish Wednesday evening: ''My Latino brothers, we're not in need of Republican compassion. What we need is opportunity.''

Said Gloria Molina, vice chairwoman of the Democratic National Convention Committee: ''No one is listening to us. We've been here all week talking about who we are and what we want, and those stories aren't being covered.''

She points to articles about labor unions or what demonstrating teachers seek. But few papers have elected to write about what Latinos want, she said. Other observers say the news media, by and large, have written only about the parties courting the Latino vote, but rarely do they write about it from the perspective of ordinary Latinos.

Here in Los Angeles, reporters and networks had their chance, and they blew it, Latinos say.

Los Angeles has a huge Latino population. And it seems to Latino activists incredible that their voices were not better heard at a convention held in California, a state that is home to a third of the nation's registered Latino voters.

''We're getting the fringe stories,'' said Maria Veloz, director of Latino Committee 2000. ''Crime, gangs. These are important issues, but it's not everything that Latinos are about. We can't even get coverage from our local paper; how can we expect to get it from papers outside the state?''

Yet from the convention floor came a carefully orchestrated though subtle pitch to Latinos.

Los Lobos, a Mexican-American band from Los Angeles, played to a cheering audience Tuesday night. A sprinkling of Latino politicians spoke during the four-day convention, most of them speaking before prime time. And the Democrats had more than 400 Latino delegates on the floor, compared to 73 at the Republicans' convention.

Latinos are the fastest-growing ethnic group in the United States. According to US Census estimates, one out of every five Americans will be Latino by the year 2025. But though they tend to vote Democratic, they are, on average, more politically conservative than most Democrats.

The Latino vote may be crucial in several key states, including Florida, New Jersey, Texas, Illinois, and New Mexico, said Antonio Gonzalez, president of the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project. ''These are going to be nail-biters. The reach-out begins now. The conventions are basically infomercials.''

Along the campaign trail, both Al Gore and George W. Bush have used more Spanish during speeches in heavily Latino cities. Bush loves to say in his Texan-accented Spanish ''Mi corazon es Hispana'' (''My heart is Hispanic''). Gore has been known to say, ''Llamame Alberto'' (''Call me Alberto'').

''The DNC, for the most part, has always enjoyed that most Latinos are Democrats,'' Molina said. ''Most of us have, at some point, felt that they haven't made enough of an investment in us. At the same time, it's interesting to see what's happening with the Republican Party. They're realizing how important we are, and now they're working very hard to catch up.''