I remember well how then-Gov. Jerry Brown seemed to embrace Latinos and our collective needs when he served as Governor of California from 1975 to 1983. He appointed Latinos to key positions in his administration. Latinos who came to have a great deal of respect such as Herman Sillas (Director of Motor Vehicles), Mario Obledo (Secretary of Health and Human Services), and Cruz Reynoso (California State Supreme Court). I had graduated from the University of the Pacific in 1975, went to Washington, D.C., for my Master's degree and worked for Congressman Pete Stark before coming back to Sacramento to work at the Office of the Legislative Analyst (LAO).
I remember Brown's appointment of Mario Obledo, who was from Texas. While Obledo's tenure had controversy, there is little doubt among many Latinos of that era that he and Brown brought in more Latinos to California state government than had ever been the case prior. Many consider this the beginning of state government actually behaving as an equal employment opportunity employer. You finally began to see access open up to Latinos; one began to see Latinos being hired to mid-level and management positions in state government. This had not been the case before Brown's tenure. His budgets were not about exclusion but about inclusion. He was far from perfect but his approach was not about spending for the sake of any political interests or ideology. He spoke about lowering our expectations of government; he did not have the attitude or policies about making government big but rather functional, practical and responsive within its means.
Brown had an attitude about Latinos back then, at least that was the feeling among many Latinos. That attitude was that Latinos were the future of the state, that this community would have to be reckoned with in the coming decades because of the anticipated growth and importance they would play in the state's future.
Brown made many feel that he understood the feelings of being ignored, of being poorly treated, of not being allowed to realize the "dream" that all had been told was theirs' to pursue. His father had left a great legacy among many California Latinos including my grandmother, grandfather and parents. They saw the Browns as elected officials that were speaking to them and the concerns and dreams they had as working Latino Californians.
This is how I and many other Latinos and non-Latinos remember Jerry Brown the Governor.
We fast forward to late August, early September 2010 and now candidate-for-Gov. Jerry Brown is having a press conferences in the state with Latino elected officials who are reminding Latino voters that "he (Jerry Brown) marched with César Chávez." It appears that the strategy here is to have Latino voters associate him with the farmworker advocate, which will lead them to vote for him.
Despite the many things he did with Latinos and the "attitude" that he pioneered in the mid-70s to early 80s about bringing us into society's mainstream, the best outreach that he can do for his gubernatorial campaign is to play word association games. You would have thought with the great accomplishments he made to include Latinos and to give us a place at the "decision-making" table of public policy and political institutions that he would be able to talk about where he had left off and how he intended to start again his relationship with Latinos.
However, his campaign isn't about continuing this journey with Latinos now that our population has grown significantly and many of the problems he saw and attempted to address have gotten worse. Brown isn't energizing Latino voters with a vision for the future. He doesn't speak about how things must change and how he intends to pursue that change with Latinos, not for Latinos. He provides no details about how his agenda for the state will benefit Latinos, how his years of experience have provided him with insight as to how to make a real difference for and with Latinos.
He and his Latino-elected officials/cheerleaders talk about the "old days" and not about how that experience will specifically help him address the myriad problems the Latino community confronts today. They are quick to criticize how bad Meg Whitman is to Latinos but never provide any specifics. There is no doubt that for many Latinos this will be enough to get them to vote against Whitman and for Brown. There is no doubt that the shortcomings of Whitman and her own lack of specifics and attack ads against Brown will make her an unlikely candidate for the Latino vote. But at the end of the day Brown wants us to vote for him not because of a vision and plan he has for the Latino community today, not because he speaks about developing a new and working relationship with the Latino community to be part of the solution and not because he is expecting the coming of a "political Virgen de Guadalupe." No, he wants our vote because he "marched with César Chávez."
What he wants us to remember is not and should not be good enough for a vote for governor in the year 2010. The problems for Latinos then have not gotten much better 36 years later. Does he not know this? Have his campaign strategists not pointed this out? Is this not an insult to the Latino voter?
That was then, this is now -- as they say in Spanish "a otro perro con ese hueso." Brown has done and can do better, much better. Will he? Does he see the importance of doing better? Will he listen to anyone who must have told him that this is not the best strategy to pursue in the Latino community? There are about five weeks left in the campaign to answer these questions.
Arnoldo S. Torres is a policy consultant based in Sacramento.