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MCC Daily Tribune Archive

Regional Latino Conference


The following article published in the Democrat and Chronicle highlights an upcoming Latino conference which Emeterio M. Otero, executive dean, Damon City Campus, will attend. The conference focuses on the importance of Latinos staying in and graduating from college.

Upstate Latinos seek to gain leverage through unity

(September 14, 2007) — A group of local Latino activists and community organizers are taking their concerns on the road. To Buffalo, to be exact.

That's where Latinos from five upstate communities will be meeting next week in what they believe is the first regional conference of its kind.

They're hoping to build muscle while pushing an agenda they say has largely been overshadowed by their big-city amigos downstate. As a native upstate Latina, I've seen talk fests like these come and go, with mixed results. Yet I'm hopeful that this one could make a difference.

Lourdes Iglesias of Buffalo, who was in Rochester on Thursday to meet with fellow organizers here, came up with the idea after attending a statewide conference a few years ago on Latino issues that was dominated by New York City folks.

As head of her community's only Latino nonprofit service agency, Hispanics United of Buffalo, Iglesias says she then wanted to bring together her upstate neighbors to talk about common problems and share solutions that may have worked in their respective areas.

Start with funding services that support our neighborhoods, Iglesias says. Hers is not the only Latino community-based organization that has dealt with shrinking budgets even as Latino populations have grown.

In fact, Latinos are not the only ones to complain about equity in resources. Local politicians have long lamented that Rochester is short-changed in the state's annual budget in everything from education to economic development.

Conference organizers have an eye on that, too. They hope to end the two-day session with the makings of a report for elected officials on issues particular to Latinos in upstate New York. They want to get the report to state politicians by the end of this year, before budget talks begin.

"We're not looking for handouts," says organizer Mildred Vazquez, head of the local Puerto Rican Youth Development and Resource Center. "We want to do the right thing. But we want to educate the people in power."

In many ways, upstate Latinos in need of human services seek out the same kinds of help as those downstate. Affordable housing, gang violence, high school drop-out rates are all issues they grapple with daily.

Vazquez, whose own agency has struggled over the years to stay afloat, says the difference is that downstate communities have more options and resources to draw on, mainly because those areas have more Latinos.

There are differences in needs, to be sure. Migrant issues, for one, don't often resonate downstate because most migrant farmworkers are upstate.

Emeterio Otero of Monroe Community College says he's planning to attend the conference and will be interested in taking on student retention among Latino college students.

"The key for higher education is keeping our students and having them graduate," Otero says.

Talking to the conference organizers, I get the sense that at the core of what they're looking for is respect from the outside world and mutual support from within.

"This year will be the test year for the conference," says Roberto Burgos, a longtime activist and a community program planner for the city of Rochester. The conference was put together in a few months, he says. "I don't expect this is going to be the most successful conference, but the key is that this is the first time that this is being attempted."

For information on the 2007 annual Latino Upstate Summit, Sept. 21-22, call (716) 856-7110.

Dianne E McConkey
Public Affairs
09/18/2007