Letters to the Editor

Los Angeles is being flooded with homeless children because of families losing their homes in the mortgage crisis.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the Los Angeles City Council must do something about this.

These kids are victims and they have no other resources. Adults have to help.

Sky Anderson

Downtown

Editor:

I want to nominate Tom Gilmore as a Local Hero (see home page) in the Garment & Citizen.

Gilmore threw an incredibly generous party for the Old Bank District neighborhood around 4th and Main streets on election night. He outfitted the lobby of the Farmers and Merchants Bank building with three big video screens, lots of tables and chairs, and red-white-and-blue bunting gracefully draped along the expanse of the walls. Cocktail waitresses roamed throughout the evening to take orders for drinks and pizzas from Rocket Pizza next door. Most of all, Gilmore’s own happy, bouncing spirit throughout the evening was infectious for everyone present.

I got there early to stake out a table, and had a chance to talk to Glimore. He told me that he really wanted to do this for the community itself, not for the politicians, who were gathered in Century City.

As the evening moved toward 8 p.m. and the closing of the local polls, the room filled up with familiar faces and friends—and when Barack Obama was announced president-elect, we all went wild.

It was a great way to usher in this new era—and who would have thought it would have been brought to us all by the local landlord?

Lesley Taplin

Los Angeles

Ed’s Note: You said it quite well, so we’ll let your letter speak on the subject.

Editor:

Congratulations on your recent California Newspaper Publishers Association award [“Statewide Honors for Garment & Citizen,” issue of October 31].

Your column really deserves this feather in its cap. The weekly Commentary (see this week’s, home page) always gives me something to think about, whether or not I agree with your opinion.

Susan Borden

Echo Park

Editor:

Thank you so much for the coverage in the Community Calendar of the recent “Soldiers of Conscience” discussion at the Japanese American National Museum [“Stories of Those Who Wouldn’t Go to War,” issue of October 31].

It was a great success!

Peace,

Benjamin Parke

Los Angeles Area Program

American Friends Service Committee

Downtown

By Freddy Balsera

Three weeks before the November election, the Obama campaign’s Hispanic media team bucked the trend of negative campaigning and took the bold move of making its entire paid Spanish-language message completely positive. Gone were the criticisms of John McCain or the attacks on his policies. They were replaced instead with uplifting messages on how Obama would help Hispanic families achieve the American dream through lower taxes, access to healthcare, and college assistance.

Having the discipline to resist counter-punching while the other side is spewing venom at you is easier said than done. McCain and the Republicans were painting Obama as responsible for everything wrong in the lives of Latinos: The defeat of the immigration bill, abortions among teenage girls, and inner-city crime. In Miami, where I live, it went a step further. McCain and his surrogates appeared more like McCarthy, unabashedly portraying Obama as a communist in dramatic Cold War fashion.

The Obama Hispanic media team took a deep breath and realized that McCain was missing the boat with Latino voters. Latinos didn’t want to hear insults and attacks. They wanted solutions to their problems.

The pundits who said during the primary process that Hispanics would not support an African American candidate clearly didn’t understand how our community thinks and acts. They completely misread why Hillary Clinton received a disproportionate amount of Hispanic support during the primaries. It wasn’t about rejecting a black candidate; it was about supporting someone they believed in and felt they had a relationship with. So Obama’s challenge in the general election was to develop his own relationship and level of comfort with Hispanics.

The McCain campaign rode into the general election with blinders on, feeling almost arrogantly confident about McCain's popularity among Hispanics because of his role on immigration reform. Granted, that is an important issue to Hispanic voters, and he showed tremendous leadership on it, but what they failed to recognize is that immigration isn’t the only issue that mattered to Hispanics in this election. Unemployment, lack of healthcare coverage, the war, and gas prices are affecting Hispanics the same as everyone else.

Hispanics wanted someone to vote for, not against. And McCain never told Hispanics what he stood for and why we should vote for him; he only told us why not to vote for Obama. Meanwhile, Obama dedicated himself to telling Hispanic voters who he was and how he would lift us up through better paying jobs, greater access to healthcare and college assistance for our kids.

This election is the greatest example of the evolution of the Hispanic electorate. Our community played a critical role in battleground states like Colorado, Florida, North Carolina, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Virginia. Moreover, Hispanics showed that even though we strive to preserve our culture and traditions, we are also very proud of being new Americans, and take the future of this country very seriously.

Obama made Hispanics feel respected by talking about issues in a way that inspired us. He invested in our community and made a historic effort to communicate his vision in terms that were meaningful and effective to Spanish speaking voters. In the end, he showed Hispanics that he understood us.

Balsera is the managing partner of Balsera Communications in Miami, Florida. He helped develop Obama campaign’s media strategy for Latinos, and also actively campaigned for the candidate.