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By Christi Harlan American-Statesman
Washington Staff Published: July 21, 1998
PHILADELPHIA -- First lady Hillary Rodham Clinton pledged Monday to include Hispanic heroes and historic sites in her millennial project to preserve and promote U.S. landmarks. "I want to make clear that America's history includes every kind of American," Clinton told the audience of more than 2,000 people attending the opening luncheon of the annual convention of the National Council of La Raza.
The council, an umbrella organization of Hispanic advocacy groups, is celebrating its 30th anniversary, Clinton noted. "For 30 years, your voices for freedom and equality, for justice and inclusion, have resonated across this nation," she said. "Every single significant social crusade of the last half century -- from voting rights to the expansion of educational opportunity, to fair housing and immigration reform and civil rights and so much else -- has one thing in common: the stamp of La Raza. "Your values of family community, self reliance and responsibility -- those are not just La Raza's values," Clinton said. "Those are America's values, and I thank you for standing up for them year after year." For the most part, Clinton steered clear of hard political issues in her speech.
She urged support for the Hispanic judicial nominees who are awaiting Senate confirmation, and she noted that President Clinton had delivered on his promise to restore the food stamps and Social Security benefits for legal immigrants that he cut when he signed the welfare reform of 1996. Most of the first lady's speech focused on her newly assigned duty of preserving such national treasures as the original Star-Spangled Banner.
Her visits to historic sites, so far, have been limited to the Northeast, but she promised to look to the Southwest. Our history "is not only in the place I've been able to visit so far, but it is in the ancient adobe churches in New Mexico or the San Miguel mission in Santa Fe," she said. "Our history in the lives and and efforts and accomplishments of Hispanic Americans," she continued. "Just think of where this country would be, who would be shut out of the system, without the pioneering legal work of Mario Obledo, who helped pull down so many of the barriers of discrimination throughout the Southwest. Who could imagine America's struggle for human freedom and dignity without thinking about Cesar Chavez and his courageous crusade on behalf of the poor and dispossessed?"
Obledo, of San Antonio, was a co-founder of the Mexican-American Legal Defense Fund, which went to court to ensure equal educational opportunities for Hispanic children. He was awarded a presidential Medal of Freedom this year at the White House, but his name drew little recognition and no applause from the audience Monday. In contrast, the name of Chavez, who organized farm laborers, received hearty applause from the crowd. Clinton vowed to bring the names to national recognition: "As I continue my work on behalf of saving America's treasures, I look forward to bringing to public attention many of the treasures and many of the names from our Hispanic past that need to be included, front and center, for all Americans to know that they are part of America's past and its future."