tavis: good evening. from los angeles, i am tavis smiley.tonight, we begin a three-part conversation about contributions of this country's fastest-growing ethnic group, latinos. in chicago, i had the pleasure of convening a symposium called "latino nation, beyond the numbers." latinos are at 50 million strong in this country, and their collective voice was heard loud and clear in the last presidential election, as it will be, i suspect, in many elections to come. , cuba, come from mexico central america, south america, the caribbean, and beyond. every month, some 50,000 latinos turn 18. it is no exaggeration to say

that as the latino community goes, so goes america. we will begin a wide-ranging conversation that will challenge stereotypes and provide a deeper understanding of this increasingly powerful ethnic group. he starts by our outstanding panelists. mary rose wilcox, supervisor for maricopa county. navarro, ao, -- ana republican political strategist. , hector barreto, senioriana quintero, attorney for the national resources defense council fifth latino advocacy program. we are glad you joined us. a conversation about latinos, coming up right now. >> there is a saying that dr. king had that said there is always the right time to do the

right thing. i try to live my life every day by doing the right thing. we know that we are only halfway to completely eliminating hunger and we have work to do. walmart committed $2 billion to fighting hunger in the u.s. as we work together, we can stamp hunger out. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. [applause]tavis: my name is tavissmiley, and i am honored to be the monitor of this conversation, called latino

nation, behind the numbers. the numbers are clear. his community is growing exponentially in america. 25% of our students in school identify as latinos. this is the new america. we are going to have to come to terms with what it means, what these numbers mean for the future of this great nation. i want to start with my friend tom saenz. the place to start, while we will get to immigration reform, is not with immigration. there is another issue that impacts, concerns, and frankly is causing all of us to be a bit fearful. that is these new unemployment numbers. everybody is in trouble. i do not clear if you are black, red, brown, white, yellow. everybody seems to be in trouble in this economy, but it had a particular impact on the latino community. a full 2/3 of the wealth in

this community was lost due to the so-called great recession. give me some sense of what the impact of this recession has been, economically, on the latino community. >> the numbers you have given illustrate the devastating impact of an economic downturn. it is going to hit communities like the latino community, where the extent of wealth development is not as mature as it is in the white community, for example, where the extent of ability to bounce back from employment challenges is not as deep tom a because of some of the long-standing issues we will talk about today, including the continuing education gap for the latino and african-american community, each is a problem for the entire nation. tavis: how would you juxtapose the notion that in the last presidential election cycle, the latino community flexed its muscle like we have never seen before? the political muscle is growing.

and yet this economic downturn is sucking the lifeblood out of many families. >> i think you reconcile that by recognizing that as important as all the attention on immigration that came out of the pundits' analysis of that election -- it was about multiple issues, starting with eliminating discrimination issues. it includes immigration reform, because all this is tied together. so much of the negative stereotyping tied to a lot of the anti-immigrant lawmaking and rhetoric that we have seen too much in this country has economic impacts on the entire latino community, a cause so much of that stereotyping bleeds into how people make everyday decisions like who they want to hire, who they are interested in helping to promote, their future education and skills development. it is clear that we need to have laws that are modernized to

really address the impacts we see today. you do not yet know the immediate and longer term impacts of some of that demonization of the entire latino community. the economy is such that lots of folks are afraid of losing the job they have, the benefits that come with that job, if those benefits come. there are too many employers -- the vast majority are following the law. too many of them may conclude the economic situation means they can get away with violations they otherwise would not take the chance of engaging in. lex i think i am going to link to my left and go to hector b arreto, at one point administrator for the small business administration, now with the latino commission. thomas said a lot of things about business. dr. me about the impact of this recession specifically on small business. >> asked tom said, it has been significant. some people in our communities

would say that when times are going well, there are pockets of latino communities in recession. and we are in a recession, there are pockets in depression. at sba, the fastest-growing sector of small business in the united states was hispanic-owned businesses, and i believe it still is. that represents about 3 million companies in the united states. those companies are generating about $500 billion in revenue. and those numbers could double every five years. they are the engine of america. a lot of those small businesses are not thriving right now. those 3 million hispanic businesses employ millions of latinos. sometimes, small businesses feel that their government does not really understand what they do every day. they do not feel like they have a strong advocate or partner for them. sometimes, they feel on the defensive by their own government. i am not talking about just federal government.

state government, local government, etc.. louise gutierrez, congressman from the great state of illinois. while we are talking about the , asomy, and the fact hector suggested, that so many small businesses feel like government is in the way, that increasing regulation is making it more difficult for them to advance their businesses and their entrepreneurial spirit and genius -- what do you say about his indictment that many people feel government is in the way? >> government can do more to stimulate job opportunities and job growth in our community. i alson i look at jobs, want the american public to know that when you think of latinos, the impact is not going to be the same throughout

the latino community. -- number one, i want you to know that most latinos in the united states are citizens of the united states, and here legally. some of us have been here for generations. more than generations -- centuries. others have arrived five years ago, 10 years ago. but we are a community of families. i want people to know that. at the same time, i want government to be there, he cause there one really sad fact. -- because there is one really sad fact. it is great to see that osha and the federal government, through its practices, is decreasing the number of people who get hurt when they go to work. that is good. people should put in a good day of work for a fair salary. and the deaths also are decreasing. but as that is happening overall within our workplace population, it is increasing

among latinos. that is, more latinos die every day working somewhere. and latinos tend to get hurt more. it is an increase. from a macro perspective, great -- the workforce is safer. on the perspective of latinos, it is not as safe. i want to follow up, starting with the notion that to hispanics per day -- 2 hispanics per day die in the workplace. it is a moral disgrace that this happens on this country on a daily basis. jumping straight to immigration, talk to me more about the way these workers are exploited, maltreated, and at times killed on the job. it is fact is that happening. the statistics bear it out. they do not get the training they should get. -- how not understand

would i say? they are not trained and inspired to dial 911, and call to protect their rights. depending on where you are -- if you are in a state like illinois, you probably do better, because you have a governor and a mayor and a political system that has a history of being they are on your side. if you are in mississippi, and i know latinos in mississippi, yes. some of the largest growth of latinos in the united states is in the south of the united states of america. i was talking to ana. i went 45 minutes outside of orlando, and there were 500 migrant workers. you know what they said to me? can you help us with the police? just want to be able to come and shop. here is what happens. i do not get paid, because they do not feel i have a recourse to demand payment for my work. part of it is -- and the other

part, just overall -- look. let us make sure that these 11 million people that are so important to us as a community of people, the 20% of latinos that are undocumented in the united states of america -- they are important, because as they salaries,s, so do the wages, and benefits of everybody else. now, you have employers that cannot take them choose one against the other. i think that is an important vote, that november thing. stop the picking of winners and losers, pitting one group against another. tavis: let me go to the other end of this stage, to mary rose wilcox. she is a supervisor out of the great state of arizona. arizona, as we all know, has been ground zero, as it were, for this conversation about immigration, which is now happening in washington.

we will see if in the coming weeks or months -- hopefully not years -- meaningful immigration reform is reached in washington. i thought i might come to you first, because the congressman went in this direction, to get a sense of what happened in arizona over the last few years. what is the state -- i cannot say state of the union. what is the state of arizona? what is happening? >> we feel very isolated at times. then you for having us here. arizona has gone through the last five years -- we are a state where it got turned around entirely. immigration became a prime issue. we had a thriving community. we have always had an ebb and flow across the border of workers. we are a large agricultural state, a large tourism state. workers are needed. the ebb and flow across the border has been a natural thing for arizona. many of us or our -- our third

and fourth generations with roots in mexico, and many families still have a relative there. when 9/11 occurred and the border shut down, people were trapped in our country. many started bringing families up illegally. people started to see the growth of the hispanic community. there became a very oppressive movement. people got worried. they got afraid that jobs were going to be taken by people that were not looking like other arizonans, what they thought they should look like. they started saying everybody could be a terrorist. the backlash in arizona was tremendous. you saw legislation coming up. nobody said anything, is everybody was very afraid. everybody was very afraid they would lose jobs, would lose political positions. the culture got created that bill started coming before legislatures that were very oppressive. we were doing either a five -- e-verify before the rest of the

nation. that set up a hard situation for jobs. if you had a latino last name, you were not called for the job. you were the one people hesitated, because there would be questions if they were undocumented. little by little, it got worse and worse. s now have a situation that b-170 was passed. the supreme court overturn part of it, thanks to the aclu and other entities. it is getting a little better now the supreme court has acted on parts of 1070. what the police department and police chief have stood up and said, this is enough. let us get immigration reform. we cannot get cooperation in many parts of our city that need police coverage. everybody is afraid to talk to them, because they have no idea what will happen. am glad you shared those stories. part of what is lost in these

conversations, particularly about immigration, is the humanity. we never seem to focus in on the humanity of the everyday people, and of these fellow citizens. my friend antonio gonzález is president of the william c velasquez institute. he is also the president of the southwest voter education project. just the other day, we were talking on the phone about the issue of immigration reform. we got into this fascinating conversation, paralleling the struggle of the african-american community and the latino community. for those of you who know your history, i will not take russia's time to go through this. for those who know your history , you know what happened in our community was not that there was one major piece of legislation passed at one time that was the end-all, be-all. but i sense that some believe

that one major piece of legislation on immigration is going to solve all the problems that now exist inside the latino community. i do not want to get into the weeds, so to speak, let us talk macro about how you see this playing out over not just the next few weeks, but over years, to level the playing field for the latino community. >> i am hopeful that luis leadership in washington, d.c. will give us a comprehensive reform that is beneficial to our community. but i am also mindful of the history of reform. the last immigration reform that we did that had a legalization component, 1986, also had a repressive component, employer sanctions, that drove immigrants further underground, and made them even more exploitable. i am concerned that this kind

of something good and something bad formula will be combined again in this reform. i hope not. inspiration from the african-american example of the civil rights movement, in which -- and i think this is a little- known fact. civil rights did not come to america in one bill in 1964. literally, you had an 11 year wave of good bills that addressed the problem. , weoint is, this cycle should get the best deal possible, but it should be a good deal. if we do not, we should continue, given that they say we have all this political power -- 15 million registered voters. next cycle, 18 million. then, 20 million. given that we have all this political power, despite may go on. if we do not get a good bill,

we should continue to fight for a good bill. navarro,ter ana republican political strategist. give me your read as to whether or not there is going to be bipartisanship forthcoming on this issue. >> i do not think there is going to be bipartisanship. i think there is bipartisanship . we are seeing what we do not see in congress or in washington, in this white house. we have not seen it in many years. legislation is actually emanating out of the legislative branch. they are doing it on their own. they are doing it in a bipartisan fashion. we are talking about the president obama that just one an election with 71% of the latino vote. there is a debt, and we will not let him off the hook a second time. he better understand, and republicans also, that he is dealing with a much more

sophisticated, seasoned, scarred hispanic community, that understands when we are being played. [applause] i think both parties, at this point, understand that the cost of not doing it is far greater than the cost of doing it. congressman gutierrez, antonio gonzalez, and ana navarro have all talked about the history of this fight in this struggle for immigration concerns. hence my making sure a historian was on the panel today to help us properly contextualize this. ,is-à-vis the history, david what are your thoughts on what you have heard so far on immigration? >> i would like to weave together a couple of points i have heard over the last few minutes. i think the point about political leadership is critical. the political leadership of each state and the nation, obviously, not only sets the

policy agenda, but influences the political culture we live in. , forwe see in arizona example, the politics of paranoia or fear -- by the way, a classic southern gambit, by the way. this is well-practiced in southern politics, to create a bogeyman. if not race, your criminal element, or communist labor unions. what ever. that is essentially what is going on in arizona, where you have a number of, essentially, opportunistic politicians omelette using the politics of fear and parent nor yet in order -- and paranoia in order to help their own campaigns. to change this, we need courageous political leadership to take a firm stand and say, this is not what our country is about. tavis: earlier, hector barreto used the word environment three or four times, by my count,

talking about an environment that needed to be more friendly to small business in america. but the environment i now want to talk about is the environment that many of these persons that we are talking about -- giving a path to citizenship -- have to navigate every single day. in my research, i discovered, which did not surprise me, that not unlike the african-american community, this issue of environmental racism is real. i wanted to make sure that in this conversation that we had .driana quintero this is the work she does every single day at nrcdc. i wonder if you might give me some sense -- give us some sense of what the issues are vis-à-vis the environment. >> is really important. i am glad you tied it into what congressman gutierrez said.

it is the reason we have people dying daily. any of these people are in the shadows. they can go unaccounted for. they can be ignored. if a child lives in the chicago area, they have had to deal with walking outside and having some of the highest asthma rates in the country. the same thing happens in los angeles. one out of two latinos, similar to african-americans, is living in an area that does not meet air quality standards today. the reason it ties in so closely to immigration is because until we have a way to empower people to speak up for themselves, protect themselves, they are going to be continuously discriminated against environmentally as well. or simply is siting having to pay more for healthcare care, simply because you are subject to trucks running through your neighborhood constantly, and

this absolute disregard for these communities' needs and health -- you are going to have a disproportionate impact. that is what we have today. tavis: let me segue back to these undocumented workers, no matter where they live, and how we get them on a path to citizenship, so they have the rights, stature, and standing to push back ever more forcefully against these conditions. >> we need republicans and democrats -- the fact that there are 500,000 young people today who are free from deportation, undocumented youth, free from deportation because of the executive order on deferred action -- i am working with republicans. i am happy antonio said this is going to be complicated. in the end, i think that ana and antonio, all of us -- we are going to have to come and say,

we have to get the best proposal, the greatest good, for the greatest number of people, done. tavis: that is just the beginning of our dialogue. join me next time for part two of our critical conversation with our outstanding panel, as we take a closer look at latino nation, beyond the numbers. thank's for watching. as always, keep the faith. >> for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley at pbs.org. tavis: hi, i'm tavis smiley. moreme next time for a-- of our conversation with latino thought leaders about their influence in the making of america. that is next time. we will see you then. >> there is a saying that dr. king had that said there is always the right time to do the right thing. i try to live my life every day by doing the right thing. we know that we are only halfway to completely eliminating hunger and we have work to do. walmart committed $2 billion to fighting hunger in the u.s.

as we work together, we can stamp hunger out. >>.edu by american income life income life insurance companies, protecting working families. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioned by thenational captioning institute-- www.ncicap.org-- >> be more. pbs.