BOISE -- With all the obstacles to success facing the Hispanic community, leaders agree one of the most imposing is its own reluctance to flex the political muscle that comes with a growing population.
Manuel Romero, executive director of the Washington Commission on Hispanic Affairs, said that in his state, both blacks and Asians -- including Gov. Gary Locke -- are better represented in government than the larger Hispanic population. In many state meetings, he and his staff are "the only brown faces in the room.""I am the highest-ranking Latino official in the state. I think there's a problem there," Romero said. "We need to take a lesson from Jesse Jackson, and the message is, if you don't run, you can't win."
He spoke recently during a meeting with his counterparts from Idaho, Oregon and Utah to exchange strategies for being more effective advocates for their Hispanic communities.
The nation's fastest-growing minority has yet to claim political positions in proportion to its numbers in the Northwest, and the state agency leader said discrimination is not the only reason. Many qualified Hispanics are reluctant to get involved in government or the political process, either because of a cultural preference for privacy or because they lack individual courage.
Lydia Guerra, a former director of the Idaho Commission on Hispanic Affairs who now coordinates development of tougher high school graduation standards for Idaho, said she has had trouble getting fellow Hispanics to participate, despite the potential benefits.
"We have other priorities, and we have to set our priorities straight," Guerra said.
Jose Fernandez, a retired Mountain Home farmer, was more blunt.
"You have to fight," he said. "You can't be on the defensive all the time."
Dan Ramirez, the current Idaho Commission on Hispanic Affairs director, said he would be more aggressive both in recruiting Hispanics to government service and lobbying Gov.-elect Dirk Kempthorne to give the community a larger role in his administration.
Christopher Santiago Williams, director of Oregon's Hispanic affairs agency, said he and his colleagues must reach out to local Hispanics to encourage their participation at every level of government. But he agreed with Romero that the efforts of leaders alone will not be enough.
"As the demographics change, the support for our office needs to increase from the community," Romero said.
He also urged cooperation because every state in the region already is or eventually will have to deal with issues such as housing for migrant workers, bilingual education and assaults on affirmative action programs.
"Latino issues do not have borders. They just have different priorities in different states," Romero said.
The most pressing concern in Washington, he said, is implementation of Initiative 200, a voter-approved measure that rolls back government affirmative action programs. The law, which takes effect Thursday, makes Washington the only state besides California to ban racial or gender preferences in government hiring and contracting and in college admissions.
Romero said the initiative was part of an alarming trend eroding advances that Hispanics and other minorities have made over the years.
He acknowledged affirmative action programs have some flaws, but said he agreed with President Clinton's position that they "should be mended, not ended."