News, Views & Information
on Latino Communities
Nationwide
on Latino Communities
Nationwide
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of Massachusetts Latino Chamber of Commerce and the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce
Natalia Muñoz is a member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists
of Massachusetts Latino Chamber of Commerce and the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce
Natalia Muñoz is a member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists
OUR STORIES. AT LAST.
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What are some of the issues that Latinos face in your community?
Rep. Ellen Story:They are basically very similar to the issues that other people face, it’s very expensive. Amherst and Granby are my district, and it’s very expensive to live in Amherst; it’s expensive to live in Granby, but much more so in Amherst. So the issues are: how do you find a place to live that you can afford, and a lot of people move here for the schools. It seems that Amherst is known to have a strong school system, and so sometimes there are Latino families from Holyoke and from Springfield who move to Amherst because they think that the school system is better here than in those cities. And they have a hard time being able to survive, because it costs a lot of money.
Have you been involved on some type of level with these issues?
Yes, people call me for help with housing, for help with legal assistance. One of the things that people don’t tend to call me about is for helping with translation. I think in the Amherst school system there is, and must be, an adequate system of English for people who speak English as a second language, because I get very little complaints about that and very little requests for help (to) people, in terms of having language difficulties.
Currently, are you working with any particular projects or certain programs regarding Latino issues in the community?
I’m not working on anything that is specifically designed for the Latino community, but I’m working on a number of things that the Latino community can benefit from, as would everybody else. One is, the difficulty of people who are on Mass Health being able to get dental care. There are very few dentists in the western part of the state that would take Mass health, which is what low income people use, its Medicaid basically. So I’m trying to figure out if there are some bureaucratic changes, in the state, that could be made so that it would be easier for dentists to accept people on Mass health, and that would help everybody.
What are some obstacles that you’ve encountered in your work with or around the Latino community?
Um, I’m not sure I’ve encountered any obstacles. We need more Latinos in the legislature. We have 1, I think right now 2 Latino members out of 200, and that’s not nearly enough. The legislature is overwhelmingly white, overwhelmingly male, and we need some more diversity, and that includes people who are from the Latino community, that’s a great lack that we have. And we also only have a handful of African Americans.
What has been your experience in working with Latino politicians?
Extremely positive, I’ve known Carlos Vega for years and years and years. Natalia Muñoz is a hero of mine, and she does wonderful work, I am so pleased with what she has done with this newspaper. I went to Cuba 2 different times a few years ago, I think for about 8 or 9 days 2 consecutive Januaries, and there were a number of people; it was legislators and educators, and most of them from Boston. So I now have 2 friends in Boston, from Cuba trips, that I see and go out to eat at some good Cuban restaurant in Boston. So that has been a terrific moment.
What do you think can be done about the issues or problems faced by and which affect the Latino community?
Tell me what you have in mind when you say problems that are specifically faced by the Latino community?
A lot of times it can be information, getting and passing on information to the community, maybe working with bilingual ballots.
So some of it can be boiled down to language. I am not someone that thinks everybody who lives in this country must speak English. Years ago, long before I was elected, I got an advanced Spanish class at the high school, I tried to get the driver’s manual printed in Spanish so people could take the test in Spanish but the driver’s manual that you’re supposed to study for the test was not printed in Spanish. So I got this class of about 5 or 6 advanced students to translate the driver’s manual, and they of course loved to do it because this was real work and when you’re in high school you mostly do make work but this was real work. And then we presented that to the Registry of Motor Vehicles and suggested they do it in Spanish. They were saying, oh we can’t do this because then we’d have to translate it into Russian and Khmer and Hungarian and everything else and we said, so we’ll just do it for you and we did. That was probably about 20 years ago.
What are some of the roles that you see of Latinos in your environment of politics and also outside in the community?
Well, Giovanna Negretti who is the head of Oiste, which is an activist group in the Boston area trying to get people more involved getting people to register to vote and to actually vote and to even run for office, was on one of my Cuba trips. So I got to know her and she is doing just absolute wonderful things and is very high profile. And you might even consider for your class thinking about getting her to come out and speak because if she had the time to do it I think she certainly would. But there just need to be more Latinos in the political community, in the business, we just need there to be a higher profile. There are some communities in the state that ought to have a Latino rep or senator. And I’m always interested when I hear of, and especially when it’s a young woman or an older woman, who is interested in running for office. Because it seems fairly obvious to me that it would make sense to have a Latina or Latino representing Holyoke, and maybe at some point we will be able to achieve that.
I went to the University of Texas in Austin, and I majored in English Literature but I minored in Spanish. So I took Spanish courses every semester that I was there, I absolutely loved it and it was tremendous fun. I went to Mexico one time. Mexico is not that far from Austin Texas; one Christmas, my parents, my brother and I went to Mexico, but that was for a few days and when I was in Cuba 2 times that’s the only time I had been in a Spanish speaking country for any length of time at all and it was absolutely fabulous. One of the things I hope to do before I get too old is to become really bilingual in Spanish, that’s a major goal. And I think it makes sense, as people are taking foreign languages now, unless there is some specific reason that you’d want to take German or take French, the obvious foreign language to take for us in this country is Spanish, and it’s so beautiful. Muchas gracias.
This interview was conducted by the Spanish Media class under the direction of Mari Castañeda, Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Massachusetts/Amherst
Rep. Ellen Story:They are basically very similar to the issues that other people face, it’s very expensive. Amherst and Granby are my district, and it’s very expensive to live in Amherst; it’s expensive to live in Granby, but much more so in Amherst. So the issues are: how do you find a place to live that you can afford, and a lot of people move here for the schools. It seems that Amherst is known to have a strong school system, and so sometimes there are Latino families from Holyoke and from Springfield who move to Amherst because they think that the school system is better here than in those cities. And they have a hard time being able to survive, because it costs a lot of money.
Have you been involved on some type of level with these issues?
Yes, people call me for help with housing, for help with legal assistance. One of the things that people don’t tend to call me about is for helping with translation. I think in the Amherst school system there is, and must be, an adequate system of English for people who speak English as a second language, because I get very little complaints about that and very little requests for help (to) people, in terms of having language difficulties.
Currently, are you working with any particular projects or certain programs regarding Latino issues in the community?
I’m not working on anything that is specifically designed for the Latino community, but I’m working on a number of things that the Latino community can benefit from, as would everybody else. One is, the difficulty of people who are on Mass Health being able to get dental care. There are very few dentists in the western part of the state that would take Mass health, which is what low income people use, its Medicaid basically. So I’m trying to figure out if there are some bureaucratic changes, in the state, that could be made so that it would be easier for dentists to accept people on Mass health, and that would help everybody.
What are some obstacles that you’ve encountered in your work with or around the Latino community?
Um, I’m not sure I’ve encountered any obstacles. We need more Latinos in the legislature. We have 1, I think right now 2 Latino members out of 200, and that’s not nearly enough. The legislature is overwhelmingly white, overwhelmingly male, and we need some more diversity, and that includes people who are from the Latino community, that’s a great lack that we have. And we also only have a handful of African Americans.
What has been your experience in working with Latino politicians?
Extremely positive, I’ve known Carlos Vega for years and years and years. Natalia Muñoz is a hero of mine, and she does wonderful work, I am so pleased with what she has done with this newspaper. I went to Cuba 2 different times a few years ago, I think for about 8 or 9 days 2 consecutive Januaries, and there were a number of people; it was legislators and educators, and most of them from Boston. So I now have 2 friends in Boston, from Cuba trips, that I see and go out to eat at some good Cuban restaurant in Boston. So that has been a terrific moment.
What do you think can be done about the issues or problems faced by and which affect the Latino community?
Tell me what you have in mind when you say problems that are specifically faced by the Latino community?
A lot of times it can be information, getting and passing on information to the community, maybe working with bilingual ballots.
So some of it can be boiled down to language. I am not someone that thinks everybody who lives in this country must speak English. Years ago, long before I was elected, I got an advanced Spanish class at the high school, I tried to get the driver’s manual printed in Spanish so people could take the test in Spanish but the driver’s manual that you’re supposed to study for the test was not printed in Spanish. So I got this class of about 5 or 6 advanced students to translate the driver’s manual, and they of course loved to do it because this was real work and when you’re in high school you mostly do make work but this was real work. And then we presented that to the Registry of Motor Vehicles and suggested they do it in Spanish. They were saying, oh we can’t do this because then we’d have to translate it into Russian and Khmer and Hungarian and everything else and we said, so we’ll just do it for you and we did. That was probably about 20 years ago.
What are some of the roles that you see of Latinos in your environment of politics and also outside in the community?
Well, Giovanna Negretti who is the head of Oiste, which is an activist group in the Boston area trying to get people more involved getting people to register to vote and to actually vote and to even run for office, was on one of my Cuba trips. So I got to know her and she is doing just absolute wonderful things and is very high profile. And you might even consider for your class thinking about getting her to come out and speak because if she had the time to do it I think she certainly would. But there just need to be more Latinos in the political community, in the business, we just need there to be a higher profile. There are some communities in the state that ought to have a Latino rep or senator. And I’m always interested when I hear of, and especially when it’s a young woman or an older woman, who is interested in running for office. Because it seems fairly obvious to me that it would make sense to have a Latina or Latino representing Holyoke, and maybe at some point we will be able to achieve that.
I went to the University of Texas in Austin, and I majored in English Literature but I minored in Spanish. So I took Spanish courses every semester that I was there, I absolutely loved it and it was tremendous fun. I went to Mexico one time. Mexico is not that far from Austin Texas; one Christmas, my parents, my brother and I went to Mexico, but that was for a few days and when I was in Cuba 2 times that’s the only time I had been in a Spanish speaking country for any length of time at all and it was absolutely fabulous. One of the things I hope to do before I get too old is to become really bilingual in Spanish, that’s a major goal. And I think it makes sense, as people are taking foreign languages now, unless there is some specific reason that you’d want to take German or take French, the obvious foreign language to take for us in this country is Spanish, and it’s so beautiful. Muchas gracias.
This interview was conducted by the Spanish Media class under the direction of Mari Castañeda, Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Massachusetts/Amherst
State Rep. Ellen Story, D-Amherst