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“El
Grupo Atotonilco” closed the first night of
the Cambio de Colores conference with an array of
Mexican folklore dances. (Sara
Fajardo/Adelante)
De
colores conference spurs action
By
Jessie Turner
Adelante
Staff Writer
Thundering
through Memorial Union Wednesday, March 13, was the
sound of folkloric dancers kicking off the Cambio
de Colores in Missouri conference. The Mexican
folkloric dance troupe, out of Kansas City, came to
Columbia to entertain the almost 200 participants
in the conference geared toward networking and
discussion of basic issues facing Hispanics and
their communities.
A diverse
crowd of social workers, health care providers,
resear-chers and advocates heard from
State
Auditor Claire
McCaskill,
who challenged the group to make themselves heard
on the political scene.
“You
need to think about how you take (these
discussions) be-yond this conference,” she
said.
“There
is an awful lot of talk about embracing diversity;
it is very cheap.... What is not cheap is what you
are doing.”
Being
undocumented affects every aspect of a
person’s life, from earning a living to
driving a car, said immigration attorney Suzanne
Gladney. Some are victimized by scams and afraid to
report them. And undocumented students — even
those who grow up in the United States and go to
school here — find it extremely difficult to
go on to college, she said.
Anne
Dannerbeck,
with the MU
School of Social
Work,
said Hispanic immigrants can pave the way for the
second generation. Dannerbeck suggested that when
children assimilate to mainstream American culture
and parents do not, the differences eventually come
between them. “How closely parents and
children learn together determines how close they
remain with family and culture
ties.”
While
many presentations focused on a more positive
outlook, co-chair Sylvia
Lazos,
an associate professor at the MU
Law School,
felt it was necessary to address the negative, as
well. “There are signals out there that
indicate to me, and I hope indicate to you, that we
need to pay attention to discrimination,”
Lazos said.
Racial
profiling was one thing Lazos mentioned as a
concern. Missouri leads in the number of hate
crimes in a four-state region, according to
U.S.
Department of Justice
statistics,
Lazos said.
Participants
explored learning opportunities through workshops
and roundtable discussions, learning from each
other and building valuable resource bases.
Eduardo
González-Viaña,
winner of the 2001 Award for Latino Literature and
author of Los Sueños de
América (Dreams of America) inspired the
crowd with his keynote speech. “I ask you to
keep this light that I have seen at this
conference, that I have seen here in Missouri. Keep
this light forever in your hearts.”
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