The NCLR bills itself as the largest national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization in the U.S. Yet some on the right would have you believe the NCLR are a bunch of hoodless clan members.
Since NCLR was founded in 1968, the body of NCLR’s Affiliate Network has grown to nearly 300 community-based organizations. Their services are diverse and include charter schools, after-school programs, job readiness and training, English language preparation, homeownership counseling, health centers, and community activities centers, to name a few. In total, these organizations provide services to approximately 4 million Hispanic Americans.
These organizations deal on a day-to-day basis with all aspects of serving the Latino population. They are familiar with the practical concerns and the policy issues affecting their constituencies and are actively engaged in developing and implementing innovative solutions to the problems they face.
NCLR Affiliate Network
NCLR’s active and productive relationships with its community-based affiliate organizations are at the heart of NCLR’s work and key to its ability to fulfill its mission. In providing capacity-building assistance, policy analysis, advocacy, and special initiatives that complement the work of their affiliates, NCLR is able to work "on the front lines" to improve life opportunities for Hispanic Americans throughout the country.
NCLR has even invited some of Washington's non-hispanic political figures to speak at their conferences, but who would have thought it would be the likes of Karl Rove.
Karl Rove made remarks at the NCLR 2006 conference.
Rove's remarks:
"You know, it s unique about Americans that when we gather in the name of our national, or ethnic, heritage we end up celebrating that which makes America so special, you know. And even De Tocqueville remarked upon this in the 1830s when Americans got together to discuss their, or celebrate their, heritage and roots that they ended up
celebrating their Americanism. And that's because Americans are united by a commitment to the shared values of the American dream."
Gag me with a spoon! He continues....
I want to thank the members of La Raza who represent those kinds of community and faith-based organizations involved in bettering the lives of your communities and your neighbors, because it is an expression of what it means to be an American.
Sen. Sam Brownback was honored by the NCLR in 2002
"This honor is especially meaningful to me because the Latino community represents the best parts of America - a community proud of its immigrant heritage - a community that is family-oriented, religious, and hard-working," Brownback said.
"It is wonderful to see the increasing number of Latinos working in government, industry, and public service.
"After the events of September 11th, it would have been natural to close our door to the world. It would have been easy to scapegoat immigrants and abandon refugees. Yet, I am so pleased to say, our great nation has remained open and true to our values.
"And through it all, we will remember: For every brick torn down by the hands of terrorists, there are a million bricks built up by the hands of immigrants.
The same right-wing extremists who drove the country into the ground continue to attack the NCLR and SCOTUS nominee Sonia Sotomayor with blatant and ugly stereotypes yet when they're asked to speak or be honored at one of these "radical" events they choose their words carefully so as not to alienate the latino vote. I would call it "lying through their teeth."
The only agenda is to say anything, and do anything to get the hispanic vote come election time. I for one, won't soon forget these piercing words "bigot", "racist", "socialist", "reverse racist", "marxist",
"domineering", "bully" and "anti-constitutionalist" to intensify the scrutiny given to a world-class nominee to the Superior Court.
President Obama says the efforts by the GOP to undermine Sotomayor will fail. I hope so but damage has been done to her character and her illustrous career. Isn't this worthy of a slander suit?
With such a stellar resume that Sotomayor has earned one can only surmise that all the hatred being spewed at her is because she's a non-white, top of her class hispanic female. There are hundreds of thousands more Sotomayor's out there and she's opened the door welcoming them to the 21st century.
How ya like them manzanas?