***NOTE FROM LULAC147INFONET***
Why.....why do they hate us so much......is it because we are Latinos???
I bring your attention to the following excerpt from one of our
friends........This is in addition to Jack Hood Vaughn's comment, (he
testified in opposition to Gaddi) that Gaddi had no international
relations experience and had not even ever been out of the country, "save
one drunken in Tijuana." direct quote.

I am forwarding the following message which we received, in addition to
two of the quick responses from Manny Marroquin and Rusty Kennedy. We are
awaiting word on the specific individuals, Senate committees where your
responses and support should be directed to.

I ask for your help in providing a collective answer to these uncalled
for words of hate.

-Zeke Hernandez - LULAC147InfoNet
President, Santa Ana, CA LULAC #147
-------------------------------------

From: Frank Quevedo

PLEA FOR COMMUNITY UNITED RESPONSE ........SUPPORT FOR GADDI VASQUEZ.

Let's do what we can to help...what this individual has said, written is
outrageous....I have known and worked with Gaddi Vasquez for almost
thirty years, from his days in law enforcement, to his stewardship of the
Hispanic Educational Endowment Fund to make real the dreams of Latino
students in Orange County, to his service and tenure as an appointed and
elected official; he has never turned his back on those in need, or shied
away from difficult issues that confront society.

We serve today as colleagues in the private sector.....I can vouch for
his ability, work ethic, integrity, business and political acumen, and
judgement in various venues and his engagement and travels outside of
this country whether on trade missions, as an US government election
observer, or on other official government, civic and business sponsored
visits.

I am a Democrat, he is not; this has never prevented us from working
together in leadership roles, be it on opening-up access in education
for Latinos, increased contracting opportunities for minority and female
small businesses, or to making sure that local and state governmental
bodies, and agencies were responsive to the needs of all of its stake
holders, from everyday citizens to those who come here to seek a better
life. To allow these comments in the article to go without comment is not
right.

Gaddi has had and continues to have my full and unqualified support. and
endorsement.; he is honorable, fiercely independent, earned our respect,
deserving of our support....
our community's support.

----- Forwarded by Frank J Quevedo

(This Op-Ed piece that appeared in "The Hill", the newspaper for and
about the U.S. Congress on December 5, 2001.)

A flawed choice to head the Peace Corps
By John Coyne

The Peace Corps is about to be sacrificed for the first time in 41 years
on the altar of ethnic
politics. For an organization whose mission should raise it above the
political commonplace, what we have here is a process rich in grim irony.


This sadly bipartisan spectacle, reflecting the ugly underside of how
political appointments are made by the executive branch and confirmed by
the Senate, centers on President Bush's nomination of Gaddi Vasquez of
Orange County, Calif., to serve as Peace Corps director. He is
unqualified, and worse.

Normally, the appointment to head this small, independent federal agency,
with a budget of $275 million and a staff of about 2,000 in the United
States and overseas, is not the subject of great debate. Since President
Kennedy chose Sargent Shriver to head the Peace Corps in 1961, every
nominee has brought some record of either distinction or discernible
promise to the post, and all were easily confirmed by the Senate. No
nominee has been tainted by scandal, until Vasquez was plucked out of
nowhere by the Bush administration.

In an embarrassing confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee, the nominee had to answer questions as to how, as an
Orange County supervisor in the mid-1990s, he allowed the county to go
bankrupt, costing taxpayers $1.7 billion.


Severely chastised by the Securities and Exchange Commission, Vasquez
resigned his public post just ahead of a recall campaign and went on to
serve as a public affairs official at a California public utility that is
also facing bankruptcy. Abandoning his last public office left him in a
position to dump $100,000 of leftover campaign funds into the Bush
presidential campaign.


Not surprisingly, during the hearing Vasquez displayed a remarkable lack
of understanding of the Peace Corps, its mission, its history, and how he
would lead it. It was clear to me, as a former Peace Corps recruiting
official, that Vasquez would not even make the first cut to serve as a
volunteer.

The only possible explanation for such a disgraceful nomination has to be
Vasquez's membership in a powerful ethnic voting bloc in the
country's most populous state. To be sure, George W. Bush is not the
first president to make an ethnically based appointment. But to inflict
an unfit candidate on the Peace Corps simply because he is a conservative
Hispanic-American political activist insults the 7,000 volunteers living
and working in 70 developing countries.


Perhaps the cruelest slap at the Peace Corps comes not from President
Bush, but from his Senate Democratic allies in the struggle for the
Vasquez nomination, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer of California
and, incredibly, Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, the only former Peace
Corps volunteer in the Senate and chairman of the subcommittee that
oversees Peace Corps affairs.

One might reasonably expect that the senators from California, which has
produced more Peace Corps volunteers than any other state, would fight to
stop this poor nomination. Yet Boxer introduced Vasquez at the hearing
and, straining hard, listed what they said were his qualifications for
the job. This transparent political gesture may well backfire;
Republicans could use the Peace Corps directorship to rehabilitate
Vasquez politically and then enlist him to run against a Democrat in
California.

To the dismay of many of us who served in the Peace Corps, Dodd also
seems to be playing the ethnic card. Having torpedoed the nomination of
Reagan-era conservative Otto Reich, a Cuban-American, to serve as
assistant secretary of state for Latin American
affairs, Dodd apparently has calculated that he cannot alienate an
important Democratic constituency, even if it comes at the
Peace Corps' expense.

With any luck, someone in the Senate, perhaps Sen. Paul Sarbanes (D-Md.),
who for years has fought against giving foreign affairs jobs to
unqualified, big-contributor nominees from both parties, will step in to
prevent Vasquez from assuming a job for which he is so spectacularly
ill-suited.

Perhaps President Bush will then nominate an experienced director who
reflects the Peace Corps' great legacy of service, and who will be a
source of pride to volunteers around the world.

(John Coyne is the editor of www.peacecorpswriters.org and until
recently was manager of the New York Peace Corps Office. He served as a
Peace Corps volunteer and associate
Peace Corps director in Ethiopia during the 1960s.)

~~~END~~~








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