FCC Commissioner Gloria Tristani

FCC Hispanic Heritage Celebration

September 16, 1999

When I was asked to give the FCC's Hispanic Heritage remarks, I thought
I'd give the usual speech loaded with numbers and statistics about
Hispanics in our country today. Or I'd talk about the future and how
Hispanics will be this country's largest minority in a number of years.
Or I'd talk about what we as Hispanics need to work and strive for in
order that our familias, and for that matter all our American familias,
succeed in the 21^st^ Century.

Instead, I decided, that this being a celebration of our Hispanic
Heritage, I would like to look back to a role model that has shaped my
life and the lives of many in our country. I'd like to spend a little
time talking to you about mi abuelo, my grandfather, the late United
States Senator Dennis Chavez, a democrat who represented the State of
New Mexico in Congress for 32 years. I'd like to tell you about his life
and his enduring legacy.

There is a statue of my grandfather in the Capitol here in Washington.
The statue is located next to the Old Senate Chamber. I have to tell you
I visit the statue and rub my grandfather's shoes anytime I'm on Capitol
Hill. His statue has an inscription in English, Spanish and Navajo. The
Spanish portion reads "Dejo este Señor una vereda trazada que nunca se
olvidara. Lo hizo con la esperanza que otros la sigan." Loosely
translated it means "he left a mark that will never be forgotten in the
hopes that others would follow." I'd like to tell you about the mark of
this extraordinary Hispanic American and about the relevance of his life
to our lives today.

Senator Chavez was born in 1888 in the village of Los Chavez in the
lower Rio Grande Valley in the territory of New Mexico. His parents,
David and Paz Chavez, were poor but hardworking farmers, who in 1895,
moved their family to Albuquerque in search of better jobs and schools
for their family. At the age of 13 and after finishing 7^th^ grade, he
quit school to go work and help support his family. He didn't go to high
school or college, but educated himself by reading at the public library
in Albuquerque. He particularly liked to read American history and
Thomas Jefferson. He taught himself how to be a surveyor and worked as
an assistant engineer for the City of Albuquerque. In 1916, by then
married to Imelda Espinosa, he moved his family to Washington D.C.,
where he worked for Senator A. A. Jones. While in Washington, he passed
a special entrance examination to Georgetown Law School and received his
law degree in 1920.

He then moved back to Albuquerque, where he practiced law successfully
and was elected to the State Legislature in 1923. Chavez introduced the
first bill to provide free textbooks to the school children of New
Mexico. In 1930 he was elected, and in 1932 he was reelected to the
United States House of Representatives. In 1934 he tried to defeat the
Republican U.S. Senator Bronson Cutting, but was unsuccessful; he was
appointed to the seat after Cutting died in a plane crash in 1935. He
was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1936 and reelected in 1940, 1946, 1952
and 1958. He was the first native born Hispanic to serve, and one of
only three Hispanics ever to serve, in the U.S. Senate. He died in
office on November 19, 1962.

At the time of this death, Chavez was 4^th^ in seniority and was
chairman of the most powerful subcommittee of the U.S. Senate -- the one
that set the appropriations for the national defense. During his tenure
as a Senator, he supported New Deal Programs, introduced bills to
protect Indian lands, and promoted Indian self-sufficiency, citizenship
and voting rights. He was an advocate for national education measures
and equal rights for women. He was a tireless champion for tolerance,
human rights, civil rights and racial equality. From 1945 to 1948, he
tried unsuccessfully to pass the Fair Employment Practices Bill, the
precursor to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

I can't give you a detailed description of all of my grandfather's
accomplishments but I would like to give you a sense of what drove this
humble Hispanic-American from the Rio Grande Valley to the halls of
power of the United States Senate -- and more importantly --how he used
that power. If there was one characteristic that drove Chavez, it was
courage. It took tremendous courage to aspire to public office coming
from a humble background, lacking a formal education, and as a Hispanic
in a political world dominated by the majority. It took tremendous
courage, once elected to the House, to run against a rich and powerful
incumbent in the Senate. It took tremendous courage, once a powerful
member of the U.S. Senate, to strive again and again for equality for
all Americans, starting with equal opportunity in the workplace.

But those kinds of battles were a natural for Dennis Chavez. Because he
believed fundamentally in the principles of decency, fairness, and
equality for all Americans, including for Hispanic Americans. I'd like
to read from a speech he gave almost 50 years ago appealing to his
colleagues to support the Fair Practices Employment Bill:

> It \[FEPC\] is not being offered in the interest of the Democratic
> Party or in the interest of the Republican Party. It is being offered
> in the interest of America, and in the interest of fairness and
> decency. If the Constitution is worth anything, if the Declaration of
> Independence is worth anything, if the boys who died on the field of
> battle did not die in vain, fair employment practices are correct and
> necessary.
>
> Sometime ago the Congressional Medal of Honor was awarded to a boy
> from my section of the country who died at Attu. His name was Joe
> Martinez. The Congressional Medal of Honor is not awarded
> indiscriminately . . . . That boy died in Attu. We should examine the
> records of the War Department. Some boys who were told to go would not
> go. But this so-called Mexican from Colorado did go . . . .
> Nevertheless, his brother or his uncles or some other relative of his
> could not get a job . . . because his name is Martinez. We give
> Martinez a medal for dying, but we refuse a job to his relative or to
> his friend. Then we complain, and we wish to cut out an appropriation,
> because a committee selected by the President is attempting to rectify
> such an un-American condition.
>
> So, Mr. President, what is wrong with the fair employment practice
> bill? The bill does not provide that because a man's name is Levine or
> Petachelli, he is entitled to a job. However, the bill does provide
> that a man cannot be kept from having a job because his name is
> Petachelli, or Garcia, or something else. It is most regrettable that
> some persons think that it was all well and good to use such men and
> call upon them to make the supreme sacrifice in foreign fields, to
> land on a deadly beach at Okinawa or Guam or elsewhere, but that they
> are not good enough to receive equal treatment in our country . . . .
> These boys did not die in vain . . . . The Democratic Party owes them
> too much, the Congress owes them too much, ever to permit that to be
> said. Believe me, Mr. President, the American people are fair and
> just, and they wish to act fairly and justly.

Are those words relevant today? Well, you may recall that not too long
ago three young American soldiers were captured in Macedonia and held in
captivity in Yugoslavia for 32 days. You may recall their names were:
Christopher Stone, Andrew Ramirez and Steven Gonzales. You will recall
their faces on television. You will recall our collective relief when
they were released from captivity. We hailed and hail them as our
heroes. We honored them with Purple Hearts and five other medals.

But, while we still give medals to our young Hispanics for their heroism
and valor, some say we don't have to worry about equal opportunity and
fairness because Hispanics and other minorities have arrived. The
numbers simply don't bear that out. In many fields, Hispanics are
woefully absent or insignificant. And, as we know much too well at the
FCC, few Hispanics are employed in the upper levels of the broadcasting
industry and even fewer are owners of broadcasting properties.

Chavez was not afraid to use his position or his power to fight
discrimination. The story goes that during World War II, the city of
Roswell, a small city in the Southeastern part of New Mexico, would not
allow a young Mexican girl into the Municipal Swimming Pool. Chavez
heard about it and he called the Mayor. And he told him "Open the
swimming pools and all the public facilities to everybody in Roswell or
Walker Air Force will not be funded." And guess what? The swimming pools
were opened to all. The golf course was opened to all.

Chavez, was also never afraid to speak out, even on unpopular issues. In
1950 he was one of the first Senators to speak out against Senator Joe
McCarthy's witch-hunt. It was not a popular thing to do. The McCarthy
era was a period described as one where "demagogues with no regard for
truth or constitutional principles were indulging in widespread
character assassination." I'd like to quote from my grandfather's
remarks on the Senate floor on May 12^th^, 1950:

> I should like to be remembered as the man who raised a voice -- and I
> devoutly hope not a voice in the wilderness -- at a time in the
> history of this body when we seem bent upon placing limitations on the
> freedom of the individual. I would consider all of the legislation
> which I have supported meaningless if I were to sit idly by, silent,
> during a period which may go down in history as an era when we
> permitted the curtailment of our liberties, a period when we quietly
> shackled the growth of men's minds.
>
> It matters little if the Congress appropriates hundreds of millions of
> dollars to check the erosion of the soil if we permit the erosion of
> our civil liberties, free institutions, and the untrammeled pursuit of
> truth.
>
> Mr. President, I am referring to the current attempt to establish
> tests and criteria for the patriotism of U.S. citizens, the attempt to
> evaluate Americans by the political beliefs they hold. And I am deeply
> concerned lest the consequences of these attempts lead to the control
> of our acts and of our thoughts, and ultimately to the destruction of
> our entire democratic way of life.

Chavez's speech encouraged others to speak out as well and it was the
beginning of the end of the witch-hunt. In analyzing why Chavez decided
to speak out when so many had been silent, Paul Porter said in part, and
I quote, that "Senator Chavez cared deeply about his country and its
basic charter -- our Constitution . . . . Injustice and abuse of
individual rights were too repugnant to his philosophy for him to stand
mute in its presence."

So Senator Chavez was a man of tremendous courage, who spoke for
equality and fairness and against discrimination and bigotry. And he had
the courage to speak out even when his voice was the lone one, because
it was the right thing to do. What lessons can we learn from such a life
and what relevance does it have to our world today?

I can tell you how its guided my actions as a public servant and a human
being. I've learned that there can be no greater goals than a commitment
to equality -- equal treatment, equal opportunity, equal education --
for all Americans no matter their race, their sex, their origin. I'd
like to be able to tell you that America has come far enough, at the
close of this century, that we don't need to be concerned about equality
and fairness for all Americans. I'd like to tell you that discrimination
and bigotry are things of the past. But if I told you that, I wouldn't
be talking about America in 1999.

I wouldn't be talking about the America where hate/racist radio seems to
thrive. I wouldn't be talking about the America where a nationally
syndicated radio programming show ran this past August that was
demeaning to Hispanic Americans. This twelve minute segment had the show
hosts (two males) telephoning a Hispanic American female and subjecting
her to about 10 minutes of hateful, racist, bigoted, demeaning verbal
abuse.

Now you might suggest, and rightfully so, that our First Amendment
protects speech -- even when its hateful, racist, bigoted or demeaning.
But I would argue that we need to exercise [our]{.underline} First
Amendment right to speak out against speech that is hateful, racist,
bigoted or demeaning to Hispanics. We need to exercise [our]{.underline}
First Amendment right and speak out against speech that is hateful,
racist, bigoted or demeaning to African-Americans. We need to exercise
[our]{.underline} First Amendment right to speak out against speech that
is hateful, racist, bigoted or demeaning to anyone.

Dennis Chavez's mark, his commitment to fairness and equality, and his
courage to speak up should continue to guide us all. I am told the
Navajo inscription on the Chavez statue means "We have lost our voice --
our voice is gone forever." We need to make sure our voice -- nuestra
voz -- lives on.