Annotations for People: Carreno-jose

It's unfair in a way to say that the Clinton administration hasn't appointed too many Latinos, hasn't appointed too many of anything.

Well, I could say that it is the willingness to do something about it. It's unfair, in a way, to say that the Clinton administration hasn't appointed too many Latinos… hasn't appointed too many of anything in terms of a comparison with the Bush administration. I think that mostly maybe the care that they're trying to go with, but at the same time it's nothing but projects at this point. It's nothing but words.

The biggest misperception in this whole thing is that even if NAFTA is a new document, in a way, it is something that is already happening at the border, as well, the people who's in Texas and California can say. Now what is going to happen? I think that there will be a lot of pressures on Mexico and the United States mostly in the environment and labor problems. Congressman Gephardt and a number of other Democratic freshmen went to Tijuana to take a look at the ecological situation there. They came out saying, "No way that way. At least the actual treaty has to be upgraded." We'll see a lot of the arguments in the next few months about it.

The Latino population is also divided in terms of convenience. For instance, in Texas, there is a lot of people who's in favor of NAFTA because most of the import-export businesses are going through Texas and of course, they're getting a boost out of it. But in California, for instance, where there is a lot of Latinos in this low end of the industry, they're having a lot of problems, a lot of hesitations about it. So, I think that it is also related a lot with where are the jobs.

God, that is a great question because it is a completely untried territory, this kind of agreements that has never been done before. So as Richard say, if you believe in those, you think that they will, you hope that they will work. If you do not believe in them, you think that they won't work, but it's completely unchartered territory. There is nothing like this as far I know anywhere else.

I think that's a very hard question because you really don't know how much it'll benefit the population in general or not, or how much will it harm it. The truth though is that at this point there is this sort of political haggling going around and, "Okay, if you want my support, you will have to give me something."

Look, up to now I might say, I think that has been basically inside the beltway issue.

The population in general has heard only slogans both in favor or against and has sort of decided its position in base of slogans, but the population hasn't heard hard facts, not as well. The Congress itself is, I could bet that most of some of the people who are in favor and some of the people who are against doesn't even have an idea of what they're talking about.