Tomás’ thoughts on the 2nd National Congreso Latino: Summary – Passion: Hope & Frustration + Action & Words

I attended the 2nd National Congreso Latino held in downtown Los Angeles in the bowels of the Sheraton this past weekend (October 5th-9th, 2007). I didn’t know what to expect as this was truly a new level of Hispanic-ness/Latino-icity in my adventure known as HispanicTips.com but I ended up spending a full 4 days at this 5 day event. In short, I was pleasantly surprised.

I will not list the resolutions passed or workshops held, you can read all about that at their website www.latinocongreso.org. Instead, I want to convey my overall impressions from this saturating experience.

First, I am passionate about what I am doing with HispanicTips. It was a great pleasure to be among others who shared a similar level of passion for their endeavors whether it was immigration, the environment, politics, education or art. Almost everyone there was there because of their passion.

I saw evidence of passion in the people I got to know, the staff and the speakers. At times it was tempered by frustration but almost always it was fueled by hope.

People were frustrated by a myriad of things from lack of power, media coverage, respect, information, money and apathy but one couldn’t help but notice that most were hopeful. They knew the numbers. They knew that if enough Hispanic voted or if enough Hispanics marched or if enough Hispanics cared things could change. People weren’t sitting around lamenting the fact that nothing could be done. No, instead they were creatively looking for and collaborating on ways to effect change through actions and words.

Activism at times seems to have a negative connotation in society today. I am not sure why. I am an activist concerning Hispanic news in English and I am proud of myself because I am seeking to rectify a problem. The same may be said of the other attendees. Problems need fixing. They are looking for ways to fix the problems. If you don’t happen to agree with them or what they think are the problems, that is fine. We are all entitled to our opinions. But I personally think that we should all applaud their efforts to try and effect change in nation that was born out of change. How can we evolve as a nation, as a species if we only accept what is?

I want to also point out the while this was the largest and most diverse congregation of Hispanics from around the country. I saw a notably lack of interest from English mainstream media and politicians namely Presidential candidates.

I am especially sensitive to how Hispanics are portrayed in the English media because of what I do. So I wasn’t surprised that the Congreso received very little English press and what little it did get was all west coast based. Last year I could find almost nothing about the the event in the press and this year was little better. I haven’t seen a single AP, Reuters, New York Times or Washington Post article about the Congreso. Sure there was more Spanish press but like the conference itself anything in Spanish media is basically preaching to the choir.

I attended the Congreso’s second day press conference. It was held mostly in English (90%) and the only TV station there was Telemundo. How can such event not be noteworthy? I totally understand this type of frustration and it is why I do what I do.

There were journalists there, don’t get me wrong. I even sat next to one but by the end of lunch on that first day most had left. In fact, the funniest moment of the day came when the California house speaker Fabian Nunez left the podium at lunch and the media were literally chased and fought over the chance to speak with him.

After that, I saw very little media. In fact the only other media type that I saw on a regular basis was a pretty young Vietnamese woman who dutifully took notes and photos most days.

Then there was politics. Everyone knows that the Hispanic vote is going to be very important come next November and this was the perfect time to get your message out to about as diverse a Latino crowd as you will ever find under one roof and all none of the front runners or anyone from their campaigns were present that I saw. The only presidential hopefuls that deigned to come where Kucinich and Gravel and for that I applaud both.

I had to chance to meet many people from around the country and this was the strength of the Congress. We activists, we people are the ones who seek change and I am proud to be one of them for most were only seeking to help humanity and I can’t wait to see if the synergies result in huge changes.

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