Re: How do you represent Hispanic Americans?

Description: The Latino community, Menendez says, is a sleeping giant.

Hispanic Americans

Transcript: I think I’m best known for trying to give Hispanic Americans a place at the table, particularly as it relates to being part of the political space in our country; empowering . . . seeking to empower Latinos which I’ve done from my home state of New Jersey.  I’ve been involved with nationally.  And also riveting attention within the fastest part of America’s population growth in the largest single minority; that there is a great potential not just for that community itself, but for the broader American community.  This is a community that is younger by a decade than the rest of the population.  And so as the nation grays and grows older, it will increasingly look to members of this community within the American family for the quality of their lives.  Some of us will be washing a surgeon’s . . . a kitchen knife in a restaurant, and another one of us will be holding a surgeon’s knife in an operating room.  And how well-educated and trained that individual will be will be increasingly important to those who are going to be his or her patients.  And so if we are younger by a decade, and going to be about 25% of all of the nation’s school children within the next 20 years, it means the educational future of the nation is also at stake in large part to this community.  And so how well educated that part of American society is is going to be important for the nation’s competitive future.  So having Hispanic Americans play a significant role in having policy issues that affect the quality of their lives, and in return therefore, the quality of opportunity in America is something that I think that not only have I been doing, but that I am known for in terms of part of my work.

 Question: What advice do you have for the Latino community?

 Transcript: It would be that it is a sleeping giant that I think is about to awaken and needs to wake up.  It needs to wake up by using its electoral power in a way that can decide the course of events immediately in our country, and for the long term.  I think the community has a transformational opportunity to change and impact not only, for example, who the next President of the United States will be – which in and of itself would be significant – but where public policy will head.  When you have 17 million Latinos in the country who are eligible to vote, and when you see where they’re located in the states that are critical for an electoral victory for the next President of the United States, you have an opportunity to have transformational change by the use of your power.  Our challenge . . .  My message to the community would be you’ve got to use that power, because that power ultimately comes back in the things that you care about for the future of your family, for the future of the community that you live in, and in the nation that you call your own. 

And now in Spanish?

Recorded on: 9/12/07