The California Civil Rights Initiative, the Riverside Sheriff s deputies beatings and the pending immigration bill all add up to a grim situation for Latinos right about now. Especially important to our younger generation, however, is the current attack on affirmative action in colleges. With a ban in place in some California and Texas colleges, our graduation numbers could take a sharp nose-dive in the next decade, meaning fewer Latino doctors, lawyers and teachers. Until now, the affirmative-action argument, one of the hottest debates of the decade, has been couched for the most part in terms of its effect on African Americans and whites. But now that the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has banned affirmative-action programs at the University of Texas Law School, and the UC regents have banned it on UC campuses, a large number of present and potential Latino college students are being caught under the rubble as the walls come tumbling down.
Affirmative action is important because it is about the future.
Without programs to provide assistance to students who might otherwise not find their way into higher education, our future will be sorely lacking in educated Latino leaders. In this issue, Ofelia Cuevas takes a look at what s at stake for the 27 million Latinos in the U.S. now. She paints a bleak picture that only proactive steps political participation, voter awareness drives, and a re-education of America on the educational inequalities many Latinos face in primary and secondary schools will help erase. Also in this issue, we bring you two columns reflecting on the beatings of Alicia Sotero, Enrique Funes and Jose Pedroza from two different but not necessarily divergent, points of view, because just as affirmative action is about more than just black and white, so too are the different perspectives on immigration more varied than simple pros and cons. Things fall apart.