DIY History | Transcribe | Campus Culture | Sister Irene Munoz papers, 1973-2006 | Los Desarriagados Article: ""Chicana Returns From China"" Page 2

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Sister Irene Munoz papers, 1973-2006

Los Desarriagados Article: ""Chicana Returns From China"" Page 2

History of Grants to Spanish Speaking People.

The Federal assistance grants to the Spanish speaking community started in 1965 as a result of President Johnson's war on poverty. Prior to the war on poverty no federal programs of any kind had been specifically designed to assist the Spanish speaking of this nation. There were a number of programs and laws designed to make us second class and colonialism type citizens. For example, the exclusion of farm workers from every decent piece of legislation for workers, the immigration laws and executive understandings with Mexico poured and cut off alien workers like a water faucet depending on our need for cheap labor and the inability of the Spanish speaking citizen and Chicano to organize for his own protection, and the list could take us all day to relate. The penalties for marijuana probably place more Mexican Americans in jail than the school system retained or placed in jobs. Imagine the millions of manpower lost and income wasted as a result of these culturally discriminatory laws. Today we are told that marijuana should probably be legalized and penalties reduced. Compare the present trend with the life sentences meted out to thousands of our people by some of the same people who now say marijuana smoking is really nothing.
In early 1960 there were a number of Kennedy administration programs that appealed to us, but didn't assist us even though we were and are great supporters of the Kennedy hope for a just nation and a just people. The Peace Corps, the moon program, and the Alliance of Progress were Kennedy programs that moved the imagination of our people. But two of these programs involved foreign assistance and did not include us in the planning or implementation and the other, the moon program did nothing to resolve our problems of unemployment, education, migrancy, housing, or justice. Of the thousands of people employed by the space agencies, private and public, only a handful of Spanish speaking were involved. NASA had and probably still has the worst record of employment for Spanish speaking of any government agency. That is saying quite a lot because the rest of the government agencies had no program for hiring the Spanish speaking even as late as 1965. Between 1967 and 1969 as a result of the Cabinet Committee programs we added a net 5,000 Spanish speaking to the Federal government rolls, Since 1969 we have dropped off the net increase until today I estimate that there is an actual net loss and the end is not yet in sight.
In 1965 OEO became operational. I helped Sargent Shriver set up the various programs throughout the nation. I advanced the first trip Shriver made to observe programs in New York City. From that experience in early 1965, I began to understand how it was that we had been left out of every government program prior to OEO. The OEO program was designed and formulated and pushed through Congress by mostly liberal whites and some blacks from the East. The face is that the wheels were greased again in such a way that we were about to be left out again. President Johnson, Sargent Shriver, and myself insisted on the implementation of the program to include all other minorities. In early 1965 when the OEO office in Washington was being set up, I found few Spanish speaking and no input on the plans for implementation of the programs. Local boards had been negotiated and few raza were on them. I started, with Shriver's encouragement and approval, the process of turning down requests for OEO funds if the boards, staff, and program content did not have raza included.
By 1967 it was apparent that we were still not getting a fair share of the war on poverty programs in education, health, manpower, employment, housing and equal opportunity. This time President Johnson created the Cabinet Committee on Mexican American Affairs. he created this high level committee by executive memorandum to resolve a bureaucratic problem. The bureaucrats were not implementing the President's policy in regard to the Spanish speaking. The President had made it clear in his address to a joint session of Congress that in all his political life he had received the support of the Mexican American and then he said, now that I am President I'll let you in on a secret, I mean to help them. When he called me to his office to discuss my appointments, the President said, "Vicente, I can announce a policy, but someone else must implement it." He then said, "I want you to move the bureaucrats. Hold your cabinet committee meetings in the Fish Room next to my office and tell Cabinet members the President wants to in now and then to see how things are going." I can report to you now that I did hold the meetings next to the Presidents's office and the attendance of Cabinet members was always near perfect.
From July 1967 to Feb. 1969, I chaired the Cabinet Committee and also held the position of EEOC Commissioner as well. Within three months after creation of the Cabinet Committee we organized the historic El Paso Conference. For the first time in the history of this nation the President, the Vice-President, five Cabinet members, the Chairman of the Civil Service and the President of Mexico met outside of Washington to hear the voice of La Raza. In comparison the Cabinet Committee under the new administration in the last 4 and 1/2 years hasn't convened a meeting of any consequence, not even in the back yard of the White House. We followed the El Paso Conference with a Mid-West Conference in which many of you were present and helped make it a success.
In 1968 after Humphrey lost the election we saved the Cabinet Committee from extinction by passing a law that gave Congressional approval and appropriations to the Cabinet Committee. The Cabinet Committee Law was the last act we performed in the Johnson Administration. Again it was President Johnson who gave me the go ahead and then put money into the last budget he submitted to the Congress. As I look back now at the performance of the Cabinet Committee since 1969, I wonder if it might not have been best to have allowed it to die as was done in the case of the Border Commission. Raymond Telles was chairman of the Border Commission and since no action was taken during his tenure there the Commission was eliminated by the Nixon Administration. Then Raymond Telles was named to replace me on the EEOC Commission. Phil Sanches was replaced as OEO director and left with a fight to save the agency. The one agency that had a Mexicano in charge and designed to help the Spanish speaking and then Sanchez accepts the dismantling of the agency. His reward was an Ambassadorship at the expense of millions of Chicanos. If I sound critical its because we worked for 20 years to build up to the point of being able to be a part of this society and then a Mexicano presides over the dismantling of those efforts.
I fought to give EEOC cease and desist powers in the three years that remained of my appointment to the Commission. I did not submit to the recommendation of watering down the Commission. Because of that fight I lost my position, but I did not sell out one single honest and sincere Spanish speaking person who fought to assist us in our objective of first-class citizenship. Nor was I ever unfair to a company, union, or organization be they white, black, Indian, Puerto Rican, or Oriental.
Today the EEOC Commission is occupied by people who do not want to move the issue of the Spanish speaking to the front and center stage.
The main point I want to make is that we've come to the end of an era. It was an exciting and fruitful era for all of us. Now we must re-organize and brace ourselves for the years ahead. We cannot look back and point only to our accomplishments even though they were many. Some of those accomplishments are now institutionalized and no matter who is in power the idea cannot be stopped, as for example equal employment, bi-lingual education, farm worker organization, cultural pluralism, and Spanish speaking census taking. Now that we have the experience we must learn from it.
The experience we've gained politically, economically, and socially must now be injected into what we do in the present. From my experience three major ideas stand out:
1. General goals must be formulated by the Spanish speaking as we did in the El Paso and Mid-Western conference. These general goals must be written and disseminated to the media, organizations, government, business, church and labor organizations. Do not send or disseminate only to Spanish speaking interest groups only. We must not isolate ourselves. If the goals are worthy they can be and should be expounded from any rostrum in the land.
2. The goals must express the real needs, hopes and aspirations of the Spanish speaking people.
3. A Spanish speaking leader who does not understand our objectives is no leader at all. The persons asked to present our case to the public must have a thorough understanding of the objectives to be carried out. Therefore it is necesdary to have orientation sessions after we have agreed on goals and objectives. The past years have shown us what it means to have people in leadership positions who really have no credibility with the Spanish speaking or anyone else. I admit I made some serious mistakes on some people asked to come to Washington only to learn that they were vendidos and could not help us or our country. They were good individual wheeler dealers and manipulators, but they never understood or cared for the goals of the Spanish speaking.
There are of course many other subjects we might discuss in terms of the past and the present, but the above three factors are essential to any undertaking and if not attended to we can forget the rest and save ourselves time, money and energy.
I've attempted to summarize the past Federal government programs as they were brought to bear on the needs of the Spanish speaking and then suddenly pulled out by the Nixon administration with the help or at least quiet consent of Spanish speaking persons placed in positions of trust. Yes, we have come full circle now. In the end it is finally up to us at the local level to bail out those who have done so little for so few. We must start again the long trek back to where more than 20 years ago we had so clearly seen our goals and objectives. We must repair the wreckage and adjust to a new situation. For most groups it will be a matter of adjustment, but for us it is not only a change in course, but a time to lick our wounds before we can move on to the issues such as revenue sharing.
RevenueSharing - The Concept
The concept for revenue sharing is not a Nixon administration idea. The concept was presented to President Johnson by Walter Heller, Chairman of the Economic Council in 1964. The idea was simple:
"to strengthen the fiscal capabilities of State and local governments by requiring the National Government to share with them a designated portion of the Federal personal income tax revenue on a no expenditure strings basis. In essence, revenue sharing would establish the principle that State and local governments should have a guaranteed, albeit limited, access to the nation's prime power source - the Federal personal income tax. Then and only then will they be able more effectively to carry out their assigned task of delivering the bulk of domestic public services."
Revenue sharing, it was argued, would redress the balance of power between the Federal and State and local authorities . That is to say that the Federal government had access to more revenues and and the States and local authorities were becoming weaker vis a vis the Federal government. It was called decentralization. Others called it power sharing.
The categorical aid Federal programs, it was said, caused a loss of State and local freedom of choice. Finally, the bureaucrats were really the policy makers of the categorical aid programs, since neither Congress nor the Executive could get a handle on the 500 or more grants in the form of carrots to local authorities.
The arguments were sound and the Congress in Oct. 1972 passed the Fiscal Assistance to State and Local Governments Act known as the revenue sharing bill. The Congress appropriated monies as follows: 
1972
1973 Jan to June
Fiscal 74
Fiscal 75
Fiscal 76
1976 July to Dec.
$5,300 million
2,987 million
6,050 million
6,200 million
6,350 million
3,325 million
Total $30,212 million
The States are to receive 1/3 of the total funds with no strings attached and the local authorities 2/3 for designated priority expenditures. The priority expenditures for local authorities are listed as follows:
1. Operating and maintenance expenditures for:
A. public safety
B. environmental protection
C. public transportation
D. health
E. recreation
F. libraries
G. social services for the poor and aged
H. financial administration
2. Ordinary and necessary capital expenditures authorized by law.
The amounts allocated to the States are determined by the application of a three factor formula or a five factor formula whichever is greater. The three factor formula includes the population of the State, the general tax effort and the relative income. The application of the formula merely means that each State winds up with a percentage of the tota

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History of Grants to Spanish Speaking People. The Federal assistance grants to the Spanish speaking community started in 1965 as a result of President Johnson's war on poverty. Prior to the war on poverty no federal programs of any kind had been specifically designed to assist the Spanish speaking of this nation. There were a number of programs and laws designed to make us second class and colonialism type citizens. For example, the exclusion of farm workers from every decent piece of legislation for workers, the immigration laws and executive understandings with Mexico poured and cut off alien workers like a water faucet depending on our need for cheap labor and the inability of the Spanish speaking citizen and Chicano to organize for his own protection, and the list could take us all day to relate. The penalties for marijuana probably place more Mexican Americans in jail than the school system retained or placed in jobs. Imagine the millions of manpower lost and income wasted as a result of these culturally discriminatory laws. Today we are told that marijuana should probably be legalized and penalties reduced. Compare the present trend with the life sentences meted out to thousands of our people by some of the same people who now say marijuana smoking is really nothing. In early 1960 there were a number of Kennedy administration programs that appealed to us, but didn't assist us even though we were and are great supporters of the Kennedy hope for a just nation and a just people. The Peace Corps, the moon program, and the Alliance of Progress were Kennedy programs that moved the imagination of our people. But two of these programs involved foreign assistance and did not include us in the planning or implementation and the other, the moon program did nothing to resolve our problems of unemployment, education, migrancy, housing, or justice. Of the thousands of people employed by the space agencies, private and public, only a handful of Spanish speaking were involved. NASA had and probably still has the worst record of employment for Spanish speaking of any government agency. That is saying quite a lot because the rest of the government agencies had no program for hiring the Spanish speaking even as late as 1965. Between 1967 and 1969 as a result of the Cabinet Committee programs we added a net 5,000 Spanish speaking to the Federal government rolls, Since 1969 we have dropped off the net increase until today I estimate that there is an actual net loss and the end is not yet in sight. In 1965 OEO became operational. I helped Sargent Shriver set up the various programs throughout the nation. I advanced the first trip Shriver made to observe programs in New York City. From that experience in early 1965, I began to understand how it was that we had been left out of every government program prior to OEO. The OEO program was designed and formulated and pushed through Congress by mostly liberal whites and some blacks from the East. The face is that the wheels were greased again in such a way that we were about to be left out again. President Johnson, Sargent Shriver, and myself insisted on the implementation of the program to include all other minorities. In early 1965 when the OEO office in Washington was being set up, I found few Spanish speaking and no input on the plans for implementation of the programs. Local boards had been negotiated and few raza were on them. I started, with Shriver's encouragement and approval, the process of turning down requests for OEO funds if the boards, staff, and program content did not have raza included. By 1967 it was apparent that we were still not getting a fair share of the war on poverty programs in education, health, manpower, employment, housing and equal opportunity. This time President Johnson created the Cabinet Committee on Mexican American Affairs. he created this high level committee by executive memorandum to resolve a bureaucratic problem. The bureaucrats were not implementing the President's policy in regard to the Spanish speaking. The President had made it clear in his address to a joint session of Congress that in all his political life he had received the support of the Mexican American and then he said, now that I am President I'll let you in on a secret, I mean to help them. When he called me to his office to discuss my appointments, the President said, "Vicente, I can announce a policy, but someone else must implement it." He then said, "I want you to move the bureaucrats. Hold your cabinet committee meetings in the Fish Room next to my office and tell Cabinet members the President wants to in now and then to see how things are going." I can report to you now that I did hold the meetings next to the Presidents's office and the attendance of Cabinet members was always near perfect. From July 1967 to Feb. 1969, I chaired the Cabinet Committee and also held the position of EEOC Commissioner as well. Within three months after creation of the Cabinet Committee we organized the historic El Paso Conference. For the first time in the history of this nation the President, the Vice-President, five Cabinet members, the Chairman of the Civil Service and the President of Mexico met outside of Washington to hear the voice of La Raza. In comparison the Cabinet Committee under the new administration in the last 4 and 1/2 years hasn't convened a meeting of any consequence, not even in the back yard of the White House. We followed the El Paso Conference with a Mid-West Conference in which many of you were present and helped make it a success. In 1968 after Humphrey lost the election we saved the Cabinet Committee from extinction by passing a law that gave Congressional approval and appropriations to the Cabinet Committee. The Cabinet Committee Law was the last act we performed in the Johnson Administration. Again it was President Johnson who gave me the go ahead and then put money into the last budget he submitted to the Congress. As I look back now at the performance of the Cabinet Committee since 1969, I wonder if it might not have been best to have allowed it to die as was done in the case of the Border Commission. Raymond Telles was chairman of the Border Commission and since no action was taken during his tenure there the Commission was eliminated by the Nixon Administration. Then Raymond Telles was named to replace me on the EEOC Commission. Phil Sanches was replaced as OEO director and left with a fight to save the agency. The one agency that had a Mexicano in charge and designed to help the Spanish speaking and then Sanchez accepts the dismantling of the agency. His reward was an Ambassadorship at the expense of millions of Chicanos. If I sound critical its because we worked for 20 years to build up to the point of being able to be a part of this society and then a Mexicano presides over the dismantling of those efforts. I fought to give EEOC cease and desist powers in the three years that remained of my appointment to the Commission. I did not submit to the recommendation of watering down the Commission. Because of that fight I lost my position, but I did not sell out one single honest and sincere Spanish speaking person who fought to assist us in our objective of first-class citizenship. Nor was I ever unfair to a company, union, or organization be they white, black, Indian, Puerto Rican, or Oriental. Today the EEOC Commission is occupied by people who do not want to move the issue of the Spanish speaking to the front and center stage. The main point I want to make is that we've come to the end of an era. It was an exciting and fruitful era for all of us. Now we must re-organize and brace ourselves for the years ahead. We cannot look back and point only to our accomplishments even though they were many. Some of those accomplishments are now institutionalized and no matter who is in power the idea cannot be stopped, as for example equal employment, bi-lingual education, farm worker organization, cultural pluralism, and Spanish speaking census taking. Now that we have the experience we must learn from it. The experience we've gained politically, economically, and socially must now be injected into what we do in the present. From my experience three major ideas stand out: 1. General goals must be formulated by the Spanish speaking as we did in the El Paso and Mid-Western conference. These general goals must be written and disseminated to the media, organizations, government, business, church and labor organizations. Do not send or disseminate only to Spanish speaking interest groups only. We must not isolate ourselves. If the goals are worthy they can be and should be expounded from any rostrum in the land. 2. The goals must express the real needs, hopes and aspirations of the Spanish speaking people. 3. A Spanish speaking leader who does not understand our objectives is no leader at all. The persons asked to present our case to the public must have a thorough understanding of the objectives to be carried out. Therefore it is necesdary to have orientation sessions after we have agreed on goals and objectives. The past years have shown us what it means to have people in leadership positions who really have no credibility with the Spanish speaking or anyone else. I admit I made some serious mistakes on some people asked to come to Washington only to learn that they were vendidos and could not help us or our country. They were good individual wheeler dealers and manipulators, but they never understood or cared for the goals of the Spanish speaking. There are of course many other subjects we might discuss in terms of the past and the present, but the above three factors are essential to any undertaking and if not attended to we can forget the rest and save ourselves time, money and energy. I've attempted to summarize the past Federal government programs as they were brought to bear on the needs of the Spanish speaking and then suddenly pulled out by the Nixon administration with the help or at least quiet consent of Spanish speaking persons placed in positions of trust. Yes, we have come full circle now. In the end it is finally up to us at the local level to bail out those who have done so little for so few. We must start again the long trek back to where more than 20 years ago we had so clearly seen our goals and objectives. We must repair the wreckage and adjust to a new situation. For most groups it will be a matter of adjustment, but for us it is not only a change in course, but a time to lick our wounds before we can move on to the issues such as revenue sharing. RevenueSharing - The Concept The concept for revenue sharing is not a Nixon administration idea. The concept was presented to President Johnson by Walter Heller, Chairman of the Economic Council in 1964. The idea was simple: "to strengthen the fiscal capabilities of State and local governments by requiring the National Government to share with them a designated portion of the Federal personal income tax revenue on a no expenditure strings basis. In essence, revenue sharing would establish the principle that State and local governments should have a guaranteed, albeit limited, access to the nation's prime power source - the Federal personal income tax. Then and only then will they be able more effectively to carry out their assigned task of delivering the bulk of domestic public services." Revenue sharing, it was argued, would redress the balance of power between the Federal and State and local authorities . That is to say that the Federal government had access to more revenues and and the States and local authorities were becoming weaker vis a vis the Federal government. It was called decentralization. Others called it power sharing. The categorical aid Federal programs, it was said, caused a loss of State and local freedom of choice. Finally, the bureaucrats were really the policy makers of the categorical aid programs, since neither Congress nor the Executive could get a handle on the 500 or more grants in the form of carrots to local authorities. The arguments were sound and the Congress in Oct. 1972 passed the Fiscal Assistance to State and Local Governments Act known as the revenue sharing bill. The Congress appropriated monies as follows: 1972 1973 Jan to June Fiscal 74 Fiscal 75 Fiscal 76 1976 July to Dec. $5,300 million 2,987 million 6,050 million 6,200 million 6,350 million 3,325 million Total $30,212 million The States are to receive 1/3 of the total funds with no strings attached and the local authorities 2/3 for designated priority expenditures. The priority expenditures for local authorities are listed as follows: 1. Operating and maintenance expenditures for: A. public safety B. environmental protection C. public transportation D. health E. recreation F. libraries G. social services for the poor and aged H. financial administration 2. Ordinary and necessary capital expenditures authorized by law. The amounts allocated to the States are determined by the application of a three factor formula or a five factor formula whichever is greater. The three factor formula includes the population of the State, the general tax effort and the relative income. The application of the formula merely means that each State winds up with a percentage of the tota