El Centro de La Raza - Mission and Vision

Mission and Vision

El Centro de la Raza's mission statement has evolved over the years to include a commitment to serve and empower all whom we reach to learn from people seeking basic social change. El Centro de la Raza believes that the provision of a wide range of survival services alone is only a temporary relief for deep societal wounds; it does not address the roots of poverty, discrimination, alienation and despair. The organization seeks long-term solutions to problems that provoke racism, poverty, and war.

El Centro’s “Foreign Policy”

During the early 1980s, when the Reagan Administration was supporting the Nicaraguan “Contras,” El Centro played a major role in convincing the Seattle City Council to adopt Managua as a sister city, an extraordinary achievement considering opposition by local media and a White House occupied by Ronald Reagan. El Centro’s bond with Nicaragua was forged before the Sandinistas took power in 1979. The same fall that the Beacon Hill School was occupied, a devastating earthquake leveled much of Managua. El Centro coordinated relief efforts in the Seattle area. Over the years, dozens of writers, poets, and musical troupes exchanged visits as part of the Managua-Seattle Sister City Association.

The Nicaraguan initiative was one of many international ties that El Centro fostered. Some people there said, only half in jest, that it is one of very few community-based organizations with a foreign policy. El Centro has sponsored a continuing cultural exchange with Cuba, including, during June, 2003, "Una Rosa Blanca,” a celebration of the cultural and educational exchanges occurring between the Seattle community and Cuba, with live music, a short documentary presentation and panel discussion. Drinks and appetizers served. Proceeds benefit the "Learning Across Borders" project of El Centro de la Raza.

El Centro and Immigrants’ Rights

Having originated from immigrants’ roots, El Centro has long been a steadfast defender of the many people who have arrived in Seattle legally or not, seeking work. The Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services estimated in 2000 that about 136,000 undocumented immigrants were living in Washington State — about 2.3 percent of the state's population. That number was up more than 249 percent from 10 years earlier. Current estimates as of early 2004 put that figure near 200,000 (Turnbull, January 30, 2004). "Regardless of how bad the economy here gets, people will continue to come," said Maestas. "For some, it's better to be jailed, to take a chance crossing the desert, than to die of hunger…where they live." "Living in the shadows is a euphemism for a minute-to-minute nightmare for many of these folks," Maestas said (Turnbull, January 30, 2004).

Source: Turnbull, Lornet. “Illegal Immigrants Prefer to Live in Shadows.” Seattle Times, January 30, 2004.

Martin Luther King County

El Centro strongly supported the renaming of King County, Washington (which includes Seattle) for Martin Luther King, Jr. In 1986, the King County Council voted, by a narrow majority, to rename King County for Dr. King. Originally, the name “King County” was adopted in the nineteenth century after the 13th vice president of the United States, William Rufus DeVane King, who (ironically) had been a slaveholder.

The vote stirred some controversy, but because the county retained its crown-shaped symbol, many residents remained unaware of the decision. Many (to be fair) also didn’t know why the county had been named “King” to begin with. In 2000, petitions were delivered to the Metropolitan King County Council urging its members to add Dr. King's profile to the county's logo—on stationery and the shoulder patches of law-enforcement officers, for example.

Organizing Labor

For those who disagreed with El Centro de la Raza’s far-left politics and savored historical irony, it didn’t get better than this: an organization that staunchly supported workers’ rights, the AFL-CIO (OPEIU Local 8), accused El Centro of violating the labor rights of its own staff. During a 10-month confrontation in 1997 and 1998, accusations arose that El Centro had initiated an anti-union campaign at its own workplace. The King County Labor Council placed El Centro on its “Do Not Patronize” list for a time, advising financial donors to keep away. Former Washington Governor Mike Lowry was called in to mediate the dispute, but failed to reach an accord. "The depth of arrogance in believing you know what is best for us and who our leaders should be is unfathomable and profoundly insulting," El Centro's Board of Directors said in a letter to Ron Judd, executive secretary of the labor council. Maestas said that he was "amazed at the extraordinary, mean-spirited attack on the organization, and me in particular" (Gorlick, 1998, B-2). Maestas was even more sorely disappointed because El Centro had helped Local 8 organize workers at the Seattle Housing Authority, organizing rallies, gathering signatures for petitions, and other things. Others counter El Centro also benefited politically and financially keeping labor alliances in union-town Seattle. During the labor dispute, the National Labor Relations Board accused El Centro’s management of firing three workers who had advocated union organizing. The NLRB placed 26 counts before an administrative law judge for a hearing in July, 1998 on charges that management had violated of workers rights, by firing and harassing people for union activity, illegal surveillance and spying on pro-union workers, and punishing pro-union workers by withholding wage increases” (NLRB, 1998).

Labor icon Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the UFW with Cesar Chavez, called on El Centro to be "more pro-union and more pro-workers". The year-long grudge-match was covered with a vigorous sense of irony by local media as the avidly pro-worker leadership of El Centro and Local 8 slugged it out. Maestas said that at one point the struggle became so bitter that leaders of Local 8 pledged to change El Centro’s leadership or destroy the organization if the union was not recognized within its walls (Maestas, 2005, n.p.). According to another account, a union delegation seeking to negotiate with El Centro was thrown out of Maestas' office and called "big labor pigs" and "racists". Maestas told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, "I have nothing more to prove. I have a strong pull to go home .".

In the end, the NLRB dropped all 21 (of the 26) charges. In turn, El Centro claimed no culpability and settled out of court. The organization agreed to offer employees five days of sick leave a year and post signs informing workers of their union-organizing rights.

Ramon Soliz, President of El Centro’s Board of Directors, said: “We support the employees’ right to vote if they want union representation” (NLRB, 1998). El Centro did unionize for a year after the fracas, with the United Farmworkers, but workers decertified the union after about a year after that. Carmen Miranda, who has been involved at El Centro as a worker for most of its 40-year history recalled that “The workers decided that it wasn’t working for us, there was nothing to benefit or do any better because we were already receiving health and other benefits from El Centro” (Miranda, 2012). Today, El Centro de la Raza offers workers a variety of benefits including health, dental, vision, life insurance, paid holidays, vacation, sick leave and a retirement plan.

Sources:

REFERENCES

Gorlick, Arthur G. "Union, El Centro de la Raza Clash over Worker-organizing Drive." Seattle Post-Intelligencer, February 2, 1998, 12.

Maestas, Roberto. Preamble of Contract Between United Farmworkers of America and El Centro de la Raza, Rough Draft. June 15, 2005. Unpaginated. In papers of Roberto Maestas, El Centro de la Raza.

Miranda, Carmen. Interview at El Centro de la Raza, September 4, 2012.

“NLRB Investigates: A Champion of Workers Is Charged with Violating the Rights of Its Own Employees.” Seattle Press On-line. No date. Accessed June 15, 2009.