Rise to a Higher Standard

El Diario/La Prensa
New York Monday, August 17, 2009

As the confetti settles around the appointment of now Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Latinos should take a look at how the leadership and mobilization bar has been raised in our community.

The Sotomayor appointment was not merely an individual success—it was a political achievement. Latinos pushed this deserved appointment. We closed ranks around Sotomayor’s nomination. National and local leaders brilliantly advocated for her and mounted sharp campaigns against vicious attacks.

We were excited about the caliber of Sotomayor, the prospect of a Latina serving on the nation’s highest court and the model that she, and the organizing behind her, provide.

We have seen what we as a community have the power to accomplish. This is our point of comparison—which is why the state of affairs among local elected officials leaves so much to be desired.

In New York, and on the other side of the Hudson as well, too many of our elected leaders have acted like unwise Latinos. Scandals and corruption are certainly not exclusive to our community. But that is little consolation to districts that are in urgent need of principled and aggressive representatives.

To be fair, there are a number of elected officials who put the well-being of the communities they represent first. They deserve more of our attention. But they should not be waging lonely and individual fights.

It is high time to put this house in order. Here are some of the urgent steps that need to be taken:

--We need a convener. One of our senior Latino elected leaders should call New York colleagues into a private session with the aim of building a strategic agenda based on community needs.

--We need a cohesive effort by community leaders and grassroots organizations to monitor and tug the collars of elected representatives. They must also work with politicians to move policies forward.

--The family dynasties clogging the leadership pipeline must end. And those dissatisfied with these political monopolies must not remain passive—challengers must step up to plate.

Elected leaders who cannot provide the quality representation our community needs must move aside or be shown the way out.

Exclusive: NY Senators push for a Hispanic on the Supreme Court

April 2, 2009

In a letter sent to the White House, New York Senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, both Democrats, called on President Obama to appoint a Latino to the United States Supreme Court should a vacancy arise.

The senators emphasize that not one Latino has been appointed to the Supreme Court in the history of the nation. They recommend that Obama focus on Judge Sonia Sotomayor, of New York, and Ken Salazar, currently the secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior. A copy of the letter was made available to El Diario/La Prensa.

Schumer told El Diario/La Prensa that Sotomayor would make an excellent selection. “We are blessed in the New York area to have someone who is supremely qualified to serve on the Supreme Court,” the senator said.

Gillibrand said she plans to follow up on the letter by meeting with Obama's Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and with the president himself. "I will be a very strong advocate for Sotomayor with the administration directly," Gillibrand said.

While there are no vacancies on the Court at this time, Schumer said he wanted to make his position clear to the president before there were any deliberations on nominations.

The health and age of a few of the current justices has sparked discussion over potential nominations. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the only woman on the Court, recently underwent surgery for pancreatic cancer and Justice John Paul Stevens is 88 years old.

Schumer, who sits on the Senate’s judiciary committee, said Obama understands the important of diversity. “It would be one of the great achievements of his presidency to appoint one of the first Latinos to the Supreme Court,” he said.

Schumer also believes Sotomayor would successfully wade through tough confirmation hearings because he said she has an excellent record and is a political moderate.

Sotomayor is the first Hispanic federal judge in New York State. She received appointments to the judiciary by both President George H.W. Bush and President William J. Clinton. Salazar is a lawyer who served as a senator from Colorado. He also served as that state's attorney general.

A Hispanic for the Supreme Court

El Diario/La Prensa Editorial
April 02, 2009

Senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York are urging President Obama to appoint a Latino to the United States Supreme Court. EL DIARIO/LA PRENSA joins their call.

Recognizing that the president is likely to have the opportunity to nominate a justice, Schumer and Gillibrand have asked him to consider two high caliber candidates-Judge Sonia Sotomayor and U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar.

Latinos are 15 percent of the U.S. population. But you would never know that from looking at the federal judiciary, where only seven percent of judges are Hispanic. That gross underrepresentation must come to an end-at the highest levels.

A native New Yorker, Sotomayor has been supported by both Republicans and Democrats in her appointments to the federal bench. She served as District Court Judge for the Southern District of New York prior to her 1998 appointment to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

Salazar, a former senator and attorney general of Colorado, also has a distinguished record. But we must note another glaring imbalance on the Supreme Court: out of its nine justices, only one is a woman.

Should a vacancy emerge on the Court, Sotomayor should be at the top of Obama’s list. She is an experienced judge with excellent credentials. And she happens to be Hispanic.

The Supreme Court is a cornerstone of our democracy. Its decisions reverberate throughout the nation, affecting public and private spheres and everyday citizens. The individuals who uphold this institution must reflect the diversity from which our nation draws its strength.

Obama should seize the opportunity to build on his message of inclusion, fairness and diversity. The president can make more than a historic appointment-he can set the tone for our children and generations to come.

Time for New Leaders -- El Diario/La Prensa Publisher & CEO Rossana Rosado on Leadership

Time for New Leaders (Spanish version follows below).

What a great way start to the year. The recent storm over Kirsten Gillibrand’s appointment by Governor Paterson to the U.S. Senate has injected energy into our leadership.

I am proud of how both elected officials and community leaders have banded together to be heard on the issue of immigration and how Gillibrand’s record on that issue was not acceptable to us. I am especially proud of the way in which El Diario led the battle with its coverage and its sharp editorial from day one.

I could say that it has taken us two years to get good and angry about the immigration issue. It has been my opinion that we – the collective – we as in we Latinos and we in the media – let other media and other leaders define the debate on immigration. We allowed them to put us in defensive mode. We let them lead with the term “illegal”. And if we lacked cohesiveness, it was not exclusive to this issue.

But as they say in Spanish “no hay mal que por bien no venga” and the recent activity in regard to Gillibrand and the governor have served as a wake up call.

Indeed there has been much conversation recently about the direction and cohesiveness, or lack thereof, in our leadership. We published an editorial about the importance of “unclogging the pipeline” last December. (http://impremedia.newspaperdirect.com/epaper/showlink.aspx?bookmarkid=TTDJV8ECLJV4)

When we look at the state of affairs today, there is a lot of hope. I can say that because I have witnessed the evolution.

In 1982, I was sitting in the boardroom of El Diario when all of the New York Hispanic elected officials numbered 11 and they met with then candidate for governor Mario Cuomo. It was the summer campaign season and I was a volunteer in the re-election campaign of Armando Montano. The only other woman in the room was Senator Olga Mendez. I was a junior in college and no one knew me. The next day, the cover of El Diario proclaimed “Cuomo promete comisión hispana”.

Assemblyman Montano was running against democratic “machine” candidate Luis Nine. Both were incumbents forced to run against each other after reapportionment and from our offices on Southern Boulevard we would watch the competition marching in and out of their elegant offices next door to us.

Montano, who also died last year, liked to impart wisdom to us young people on the campaign staff. He called us to his office and said “do you know what power is?”

We looked at each other, knowing that an answer was not expected. He paused for effect and picked up the phone – punching the numbers into the touch tone phone and we sat and watched him as the phone rang and heard him say “this is Assemblyman Montano, can you put Mario Cuomo on the phone? He waited as he smiled at us and then we heard Mario, this is Monty”. Then he chatted a few minutes and then he hung up. “That is power boys and girls,” he said. “Power is nothing but getting the person you want to be on the other side of this phone to listen. That’s it”.

The ability to get someone to listen to you is the measure of your power. I would not grasp the wisdom of his statement for two decades. During that time I watched the same characters from that famous “machine” evolve, others who fought against machine politics evolved into the operators of that machine. The number of elected officials grew to 27 and while I am pleased to see more women, I believe there is widespread cynicism about the tendency to treat those positions like the jobs of longshoremen - being passed on from father to son.

Our editorial last December was titled “It’s tome to pass some torches” and it asked “Who supports and holds Latino leaders accountable? Part of the answer lies in unclogging a political pipeline cluttered with too many of the usual suspects. It’s time to pass some torches to the competent and visionary leaders in the wings”.

Inspired by that mission, I have developed a script. (see part II tomorrow, Tuesday)

Rossana Rosado is the Publisher and CEO of El Diario/La Prensa.

Ya es hora para nuevos líderes
http://impremedia.newspaperdirect.com/epaper/showlink.aspx?bookmarkid=UA6SC8M3I8N1

¡Qué manera de comenzar el año! La reciente polémica sobre el nombramiento de Kirsten Gillibrand por el Gobernador David Paterson al Senado ha llenado al liderazgo hispano de energía.

Me enorgullece la manera en que tanto los oficiales electos como los líderes de organizaciones comunales se han unido para dar voz al tema de inmigración y dejarle saber a la nueva senadora que su récord sobre inmigración no es aceptable.

Me siento orgullosa sobre la manera cómo EL DIARIO lanzó y lideró la batalla con su cobertura con columnas y fuertes editoriales, desde el primer día del nombramiento.

Podría decir que nos hemos tardado dos años para reaccionar con vehemencia. Es mi opinión que nosotros – colectivamente – como latinos y como medios – hemos permitido que otros medios y otros líderes definan el debate sobre inmigración.

Les permitimos ponernos a la defensiva. Los dejamos enfocar el tema en “ilegal”.

Y si nos faltó la unidad, tampoco ésta se limita a este tema.

Pero como dicen, “no hay mal que por bien no venga” y la reciente actividad sobre Gillibrand sirve para despertarnos.

Por cierto, recientemente ha habido muchas conversaciones sobre la dirección y la unidad de nuestro liderazgo. Publicamos un editorial en diciembre sobre “unclogging the leadership pipeline”. (http://impremedia.newspaperdirect.com/epaper/showlink.aspx?bookmarkid=TTDJV8ECLJV4)

Cuando miramos el panorama político actual, creo que hay mucha esperanza. Yo lo puedo decir porque he sido testigo de la evolución.

En 1982 estaba yo sentada en el salón de conferencia de EL DIARIO cuando el número de oficiales electos hispanos era 11, y se reunieron con el candidato para gobernador Mario Cuomo. Era verano y yo era voluntaria en la campaña para la reelección de Armando Montano. La única otra mujer en el salón era la senadora Olga Méndez. Yo estaba en el tercer año de universidad y no conocía a nadie. Al día siguiente la portada de EL DIARIO declaraba, “Cuomo promete comisión hispana”.

El asambleísta Montano estaba en campaña contra del candidato de la “maquinaria” demócrata, Luis Nine. Debido al rediseño de los distritos, ambos titulares se vieron obligados a enfrentarse el uno al otro. Desde nuestras oficinas en Southern Boulevard observábamos por la ventana a la competencia desfilando desde sus oficinas más elegantes en el edificio de al lado. A Montano, quien murió el año pasado, le gustaba darnos discursos a los jóvenes en la campaña. Nos llamó a la oficina y nos preguntó, “¿Saben ustedes lo que es ‘poder’?”

Nos miramos uno al otro, sabiendo que él no esperaba respuesta. Levantó el teléfono marcó números y lo oímos decir, “Este es el asambleísta Montano, quiero hablar con Mario Cuomo”. Esperó, sonriendo y luego se oyó decir, “Mario, este es Monty”.

Cuando colgó nos dijo “eso es ‘poder’ mis hijos. El poder es simplemente la habilidad de lograr conectarte con la persona al otro lado del aparato. That’s it!”

Yo no llegaría a apreciar lo sabio de esa frase hasta dos décadas después.

Durante ese tiempo observé como evolucionaron personajes de esa famosa maquinaria, otros que lucharon en contra de la misma, se convirtieron en los jefes de la maquinaria.

La cantidad de hispanos oficiales electos creció a unos 27 y, si bien hay más mujeres, creo que hay un cinismo sobre la tendencia a pasar los puestos entre padres e hijos. El nepotismo vive.
Nuestro editorial en diciembre preguntaba, “¿Quién apoya y mantiene a los líderes responsables latinos? Parte de la respuesta está en destapar la cañería que está tapada con mucho de lo mismo de siempre. Es hora de pasar la batuta a líderes competentes y visionarios que esperan su turno”.

Inspirada en esa misión, diseñé un libreto. (ver mañana)

Rossana Rosado es gerente general de El Diario/La Prensa