Friday, January 29, 1999
Farmer Education Building Room #ED 200
10:40 a.m.-12:00 noon
This presentation will deal with the increase in the number of Latinos
(men and women) recently becoming naturalized citizens of the U.S.
It will draw on demographic data that identifies the large numbers of Latinas/os
becoming U.S. citizens, registering to vote, and selecting a political
affiliation. Some important qualifiers will be provided, such as
who is eligible to vote, why some Latino groups cannot vote, and the movements
and levels, and what this may mean for the development of regional and
national policy making. Two important examples will be the way Latinos
in Texas used the legislative route to ameliorate the anti-affirmative
action decision in the Hopwood case, and efforts in California to continue
affirmative action after the passage of Proposition 209. A key issue
in this discussion will be the appointment of Latino men and women to policy
making boards and commissions in the five Southwestern states.
While Latino voter registration is very significant, it is equally important
for Latino men and women to understand what strategies need to be considered
to make long term changes that will affect their lives positively.
The discussion will outline two or three strategies that need to be considered.
Roberto Haro is a Mexican American scholar-activist with extensive service
in different capacities in American higher education. Haro is a graduate
of the University of California at Berkeley. His doctorate is in policy
studies, and research specialist, then moved into management, rising to
become an Assistant Chancellor at U.C. Berkeley. He has worked and
taught at several campuses of the University of California, at State University
of New York, at the University of Maryland, and at the University of Southern
California. He was director of research for the U.S. President’s
Cabinet Committee on Opportunities for the Spanish Speaking during the
Johnson and early Nixon administrations. Haro was an American Council
on Education Fellow in 1987-88, completed the Harvard University Institute
for Educational Management in 1988, the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce
Leadership Program in 1997, and was a Senior Fellow with the Mexican and
American Solidarity Foundation in 1998. He led the team that developed
the new California State University campus at Monterey Bay. Haro
is a Professor at San Francisco State University, and Interim Director
of the Cesar E. Chavez Institute for Public Policy. His most recent
publication on challenges to affirmative action in education appeared in
the Spring 1998 journal On Target. Haro’s research focuses on Latinos
and executive selection in colleges and universities, and the public policy
process in higher education.
For more information contact HBLI, Farmer
404, 727-6364
