What the community needs

In 2014, Latinos became the largest population group in California. With this column, The Sun continues to provide readers a variety of perspectives from members of this ‘new majority.’

Everyone is talking about conservative businessman Donald Trump’s recent and continuing comments tinged with racism toward the Mexican community. And it should be noted that many other personalities in politics, as well as radio and television, have made negative comments against the immigrant community at times. And although I certainly refute these attacks, I don’t think they need to be perceived as simply negative.

We have to recognize that they are showing us something. That despite the fact that we live in a country that is relatively progressive and “humane,” we still have a long way to go until the Latino community receives the respect that it deserves.

It is common to encounter a double moral standard, despite efforts to dress up such injustice so as to conceal the underlying politics of disparity and social inequity. And we do not have to go far. All we need to do is walk around our local neighborhoods to recognize the economic disparity that exists right here in our own community of Sonoma.

Here you can see a Latino community that is constantly growing, and that every day is contributing in all possible aspects of living, whether in education, in culture or, above all, in the field of work.

It’s the “campesinos” who are working every day with the grapes that will be made into the very expensive wines that the tourists are enjoying all around our beautiful plaza or in elegant wineries.

It’s the mother who must abandon her own children before sun-up to go take care of a rich family’s home up in the hills.

It’s the aunt, the neighbor, the sister, who cleans with great care the luxury hotel for the rich people, and then returns home to sleep in a dirty apartment in a neglected building infested with cockroaches, to try to live on a wage so low it barely suffices for a half-existence.

Right here in our Sonoma Valley, no one would dare to articulate what Donald Trump has spoken, but actions speak louder than words. And if in our community we do not dare call things for what they are; or worse, we don’t do anything to eliminate the injustice, then we are complicit.

When a worker isn’t recognized for his or her work, and doesn’t get a fair wage to live on, what are we saying with our actions?

When we let big hotel corporations, wineries and management companies abuse our neighbors, our friends and community members, and we don’t speak up, what is the message that we are giving?

To talk about building One Community in the Sonoma Valley, we would have to begin by admitting that there are various communities fragmented within the community itself.

We would have to start by admitting that those who call themselves leaders in both the community and the political arena could do a better job. It seems to me that we live in a community too focused on creating distractions from what should be truly important.

On the whole the Latino community barely manages, doing everything they possibly can, to eke out a half-living; without having a moment of clarity to take a look around and observe how the society for which they work makes it difficult or impossible to advance.

For a long time I have felt that the Latino community is living in fear, feeling ourselves watched, alienated by our work, threatened by unemployment, in anguished over an uncertain future.

I believe it of great urgency to create those spaces that would give the Latino community moments of “freedom” to be able to find ourselves again, and to recognize ourselves as members together in a community, with the opportunity to have an intimate personal dialogue among ourselves.

I would dare to say that comments from someone ignorant and ill-intentioned like Donald Trump really shouldn’t have any importance for the Latino community here in the Valley. More pressing issues demand our attention and our action.

Mario Castillo is a family engagement coordinator at a local school. He has lived and worked in the Springs for 28 years, and has always been interested in community engagement.

— Translated from Spanish by Anna Pier