On March 24, the House Judiciary Committee will hold a subcommittee hearing on the impact of guest-worker proposals on the economy. Among the topics to be discussed is the Agricultural Jobs, Opportunity, Benefits, and Security Act of 2003 (AgJobs), which includes a legalization plan for immigrant farmworkers.
Maria Echaveste is at the front lines of the debate, as she has been for years. As director of public liaison and then deputy chief of staff, she negotiated the concerns of advocacy groups and persuaded the reluctant to come aboard. Latin American disaster relief, the President's Initiative on Race, the campaign against domestic sweatshops -- she was directly involved in these and many other Clinton-era successes.
Since leaving office, the 49-year-old Echaveste has founded a public-policy consulting firm, Nueva Vista Group, and works on immigration issues, global poverty, and Hispanic American politics. She spoke to the Prospect about AgJobs and the state of race relations in America.
You've worked extensively on immigration policy. How does your personal history connect to this issue?
My father was a bracero -- a temporary farmworker allowed into America under a program notorious for leaving its members unprotected. I grew up with stories of how you couldn't rely on either the Mexican government or the U.S. government to enforce the contracts that you entered into. One of his employers helped him become a permanent resident, but he was the only one of his brothers who chose to live in the United States. The rest returned to Mexico. He saw it as an opportunity for his family, and all I have to do is go back to his village to see the difference it made in what I would have been. My cousins had nothing like what I had: an opportunity to be educated in public schools in California, to go to Stanford, and ultimately to work in the White House. I had six brothers and sisters; out of the seven of us, six earned college educations. That just wouldn't have been possible for us in Mexico.
The question is whether that dream is still possible in this country for those who aren't born to it -- that's where I see this fight. Are we enacting policies that help that dream become possible? No one has to mandate anything, but we should provide that chance for those willing to work hard.
Tell me a bit about the AgJobs bill that you're working on with the United Farm Workers.
The problem is the majority of farmworkers in this country -- almost 2 million -- are undocumented. We have an industry that is almost entirely dependent on an illegal workforce. AgJobs was negotiated originally in 1999 and 2000, while I was in the White House. The growers and the farmworkers, with the assistance of [then-Democratic Representative Howard] Berman [of California], had negotiated this compromise that would allow undocumented farmworkers to earn their residence and give the growers certain changes to the H-2A visa program for temporary farmworkers. It was a very productive compromise, and it led to where we are now: We've got 50 co-sponsors in the Senate, half of whom are Republican. And we've got 80 co-sponsors in the House, again half Republican. Our hope is to get it passed by March 31, Cesar Chavez's birthday
Where should the focus be when we discuss race relations in America?
The question of race isn't just about affirmative action, no matter how people try to frame it. It is about recognizing that we have a changing demography. Look at the statistics: There will soon be no majority ethnicity. The fastest-growing religion in the United States is Islam. Almost one in nine Americans are foreign-born. Our demography is changing, so we need to at least create a space where people can talk about race and ethnicity. How do we define ourselves as Americans? It's a hard conversation, because many people don't know how to start dealing with it.
How do the policies of the current White House compare with the work of your administration?
One of the things that we did was really highlight that there are racial disparities in health. People have done a number of studies and are seeing some troubling disparities in outcomes, particularly between African American and white populations, and also among Latinos. But the Bush administration whitewashed a Health and Human Services report reflecting these disparities so that it could try to conclude that there are no disparities. It's disingenuous; it's inaccurate; it's a lie. And we're talking about people's health.
Have the president's policies alienated minority groups?
It varies with each group. The administration is trying to soften the Republican image vis-à-vis African Americans, but the policies are such that it really can't. I mean, just look at the racial disparities in public health. Politically we need to use this to say, 'These guys talk nice, but on issues of life and death, they're willing to pretend otherwise.' And that's just abominable.
I'll give the president a little credit on his immigration proposal. He's from Texas and he understands this issue better than others in his party. But when he unveiled his proposal on January 7, he gave two different speeches. He gave a terrific speech on the value of immigrants, and for the first time said these people are working and they need to be allowed to come out of the shadows. Then, in the second speech, he said, 'Let's make them all temporary workers.' And he thinks that he can just highlight the first speech and Latino workers will be on his side.
You've been working with Hispanic groups to help make their presence felt in this election. What are you hoping to see in November?
Estimates are that between 10 million and 11 million Hispanic people are eligible to vote. In the 2000 election we had 6 million of them actually vote. Given how close these elections are, and that Latinos are moving to nontraditional places, not just California and Texas, there are real shifts and a real opportunity for expansion of the electorate. But there are some problems. As a whole, the Hispanic community shares a lot of the general apathy that the public has toward elections. The jury's still out as to whether the Latino electorate will engage in a substantial, significant way to become the influential voice that other portions of the electorate are.
The Hispanic community is very diverse, but there's a large percentage that is immigrant. They're coming from places where they're not a minority, where they're not racialized, and when they get to America they're lumped into this big category "Hispanic" -- and they say, "Excuse me, I'm Dominican," or, "I'm Puerto Rican, and what is this Hispanic thing?" This is a problem that the Asian American population faces -- and they don't even have the same language. The best analysis I've heard is this: "Culturally and ethnically I'm Korean American but politically I'm Asian American." And I think that's how Hispanics need to look at it: 'Culturally, ethnically I'm Mexican American but politically I'm Hispanic or Latin American.'
I think it's important to have a pan-minority progressive coalition. If we care about progressive politics in this country, we have got to make an effort to inculcate and develop the progressive inclination of groups like Latinos and other minorities. And we have to do it in ways that don't set one group against another. I resent bitterly much of the media exaggeration of Latino and African American tensions. They run headlines that say "Latinos overtake blacks as largest minority," and then Latino leaders stand up and say, "We're now the largest." And I say think about how some folks will hear that. If you're black, you're saying, "Don't we count anymore?" If you're white, you're saying, "Where do I fit in?"
And remember: Soon, no one group is going to be a majority. That means no one group is going to have control. So we have to find a coalition. Blacks and Hispanics make up the majority of students in many school districts. They ought to be able to put together clout for the changes that need to be made in our schools, but people spend time fighting over whether they'll have a black superintendent or a Latino superintendent. And that's divisive, and it diverts energy from the real issues -- we still need five elementary schools, now where are we going to get the money to do it?
Jeff Dubner is a Prospect editorial intern.
