2003 Legislative Agenda for Missouri Latina/os

A. Education

The needs in education are particularly pressing given the rapid enrollments of children who primarily speak English. As well, adults are in need of learning English. Becoming an English speaker is the fastest route to immigrants’ integration into local communities. The time has come for Missouri to take a more integrated approach to educating non-English-speaking residents. A new way of doing things is justified given the great numbers and the importance of education.

1. ESOL and bilingual education in elementary schools. Lack of resources for funding English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) and bilingual programs has been chronic. As reported by the state of Missouri, funding in 2000–2001 for ESOL and bilingual programs (not including migrant education) was only $200,000. Federal funding under the NO Child Left Behind Act in 2003 could provide an opportunity to restructure programs statewide. The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) has recognized that bilingual education is the most effective way of helping children acquire English skills and subsequently achieve their full potential in schools. English-Spanish bilingual programs and advanced ESL programs are justified in many Kansas City districts, and at least seven school districts in mid, southwest and southeast Missouri. DESE has the opportunity to provide leadership to ensure that federal monies are used most effectively to educate children who need to learn English. Input from the Latino community and organizations like LULAC-NESC Kansas City, should prove to be a productive collaboration but as of yet DESE has not indicated that it will hold a summit on these issues with the Latino community as it has done for the African American community.

2. Adult education. Missourians voted through the initiative process that English is the common language of all Missourians. Learning English quickly is the key to ensuring that new immigrants become acculturated to Missouri life, as Missouri law provides. Yet the state is not living up to this promise. Part of the problem is funding. On a per student basis, under $50 per student is being dedicated to those who wish to learn English. As well, there are also structural issues. The way in which the state delivers adult basic education services is so highly decentralized that areas with high level needs are not necessarily being funded. This suggests that the state should revisit how adult basic education is administered.

3. A Dream bill for Missouri. We promise kids that the American dream is theirs if they work hard, study, and stay out of trouble. For children of undocumented workers, this dream is foreclosed if they cannot qualify for in-state tuition and scholarships. Texas and California now extend the dream of a higher education to all students who have attended state public schools. Missouri should likewise consider a DREAM bill. The rationale that propelled reforms in these states — to ensure that children of undocumented workers have a productive future in the state where they will continue to make their homes — also applies in Missouri.

B. Health

Many Missourians need better health care. Money spent in public clinics seems a wise policy choice given that emergency care for the indigent is very costly. A health network without service gaps should be provided as feasible to every Missourian, including settled immigrants, who provide valuable services to Missouri employers.

1. Public clinics. The public clinics that provide assistance to Latinas/os and the poor all over the state are precariously financed and patched together. It is essential that during tight budget times that this frail system of minimum health support is not undermined by imprudent cuts. As various state governors have recognized, minimum health care is a service to which all Missourians should have access. Continued state support of public health clinics should be a long-term public enterprise, as these are cost-effective.

2. Information systems. The state should gather statistics that would allow it to determine whether and how the health needs of Latinas/os in Missouri are being met. This would more clearly identify what, if any, are the shortfalls and where public health assistance should be provided.

3. Translation services. Federal regulations now require that hospitals and other health care professionals provide translation services to ensure meaningful access by clients with limited English proficiency. Because language barriers can result in misdiagnoses, the state public health system should monitor the extent to which lack of translation services affects the delivery of heath care services. State and federal assistance in the training and funding of translators may now be required.

C. Housing

Lack of affordable housing is a pressing issue. However, this situation is exacerbated because of the locations of new Latina/o communities and vulnerability of this population. As well, the time has come to monitor accent discrimination and mandate disclosure in Spanish in mortgage and real estate contracts Action recommendations include:

1. More affordable housing. State agencies should focus on rural as well as urban areas. New partnerships, perhaps with the multibillion-dollar food processing companies that have located in Missouri, to increase affordable housing stocks in hypergrowth rural counties could be a potential win-win strategy.

2. Monitor discrimination. Kansas City’s HUD Office should undertake research initiatives, like that of the reported Greater Boston study, to determine the extent of discrimination in rental housing markets in Kansas City and hypergrowth rural areas in Missouri due to accent as well as race.

3. Disclosure in Spanish. To prevent the most blatant predatory practices, the state legislature and local jurisdictions should consider requiring translation of lease rules and home financing documents for tenants and home purchasers with limited English proficiency.

D. Civil rights

There are increasing signs that the relationship between law enforcement and Latina/o communities is not what it should be. This tension is being fostered in part by necessary concerns about compliance with immigration laws. However, this tension may also be racial. Propitious initiatives could diffuse the potential for any hardening of attitudes. Expenditures must be made so that local law enforcement agencies are in a position to communicate with the newest segment of the public they serve, Latino immigrants.

1. Driver’s licenses. Many of Missouri’s new residents do not qualify for drivers license because they must provide a social security number. However, because many Missouri rural areas lack adequate public transportation, many of these new immigrants are driving without a license. This threatens the public safety of all Missourians.

2. Translation support for law enforcement. In Missouri, bilingual law enforcement officers are few, and most departments, particularly in rural areas, do not have ready access to translation services. Federal regulations now require that law enforcement do a better job of ensuring that translation services are available.

3. Racial profiling. Missouri’s racial profiling law is by reputation among the best in the nation. However, the statute is primarily informational. Reports for 2000-01 show that Latinos were being stopped at high rates (from 12 percent to 20 times more often than whites) in the rural counties that experienced hypergrowth. Latinos are also more likely to be searched.

Are Latinos being racially profiled because they “look foreign”? Do they get searched at higher rates because too many do not know their rights or are afraid to say no? It is not possible to draw conclusions. Nevertheless, the statute contemplates greater communication between with local law enforcement and the communities they police. Hopefully, law enforcement associations and Latina/o groups will begin to talk about these difficult issues.

SOURCE: Sylvia R. Lazos Vargas, Legal and Policy Challenges as Latinas/os Make Their Homes in Missouri (MU Extension, University of Missouri-Columbia 2002).

Are Politicians Responsive to the Latino Community?: Questions to be Asked of Politicians Running for Office

Developed by Tracy Barnett and Sylvia R. Lazos Vargas

What are your views on the following issues? Please be as specific as possible.

Do you support the federal regulations that require all agencies receiving state funds provide "meaningful access" to Limited English Proficient (LEP) persons?

Do you support state funding for translation services in order to help agencies provide this access at the local level where it is needed (areas of concentrated Latino population include Kansas City, St. Louis, Marshall, Sedalia, California, Milan, Jefferson City and Columbia)?

Do you support broadening consumer protections to include translation of purchase contracts and lending documents for LEP persons?

Would you support a law that would allow people to obtain a drivers’ license with a tax ID number, matricula consular (issued by the consulate office based on an authentic birth certificate), or foreign passport, instead of exclusively a Social Security number?

Would you support a law that would allow undocumented high school graduates to pay in-state tuition in Missouri’s public colleges and universities (a Missouri DREAM bill)?

Do you believe local law enforcement officers should be involved in enforcing federal immigration laws?

Do you support continued funding of free public health clinics which could be accessed by citizens and noncitizens alike?

Do you support granting amnesty to immigrants who have been working for many years and settled long term in the United States, such as proposed in the FREEDOM Act?