CANDIDATE: A Hispanic voice rises in 74th District

If Cristina Vazquez of Winston-Salem prevails in her uphill battle to unseat Rep. Dale Folwell, she'd become one of only three Hispanic-Americans in the state legislature -- and the only Democratic one.

"The legislature has to represent the diversity of the people, and right now, I don't think it does," Vazquez, 52, said last week. "The way you vote and the type of issues you bring up are influenced by your experiences in life. The fact that the population is changing, you're going to see a more diverse legislature, that's the future."

She doesn't stand much of a chance in District 74 against Folwell, a popular Republican who has worked with Democrats during his three terms to get common-sense laws passed, among them a measure that has greatly increased the rate of organ donation. But the race might dispel some stereotypes about the more than 670,000 Hispanics in North Carolina, including more than 37,000 in Forsyth County.

"Let me explain to you," Vazquez told me. "People think all Hispanics are the same. They're not. They all came here with different experiences and they came here for different reasons."

The two Hispanic-Americans in the legislature are Republican Rep. Danny McComas, a native of Puerto Rico who represents New Hanover County, and Republican Sen. Tom Apodaca of Hendersonville, whose father's family immigrated from Mexico six or seven generations ago. His mother is Scotch-Irish.

Vazquez, a former English-as-a-second-language teacher in the local schools, stresses that she is running first and foremost as a conservationist who wants her state to do a better job of preserving its natural beauty and quality of life in the face of rapid growth.

She was born in Cuba. Her father, an accountant, met her mother, an Italian-American and American citizen, when she was vacationing in Havana during its heyday in the 1950s. The family fled to America in 1960 as Fidel Castro took power. Vazquez said her father gained U.S. citizenship because he was married to an American citizen.

Vazquez grew up in Miami in an American neighborhood, speaking a little Spanish, but mainly English. Her father, busy with rebuilding his career in America, didn't talk much about Cuba.

Many Florida Cubans are Republican, drawn to that party's firm stance against Castro and communism. "Those Cubans who came here identified with that concern," Vazquez said. "But not all of them. My father was Cuban but he voted Democratic."

McComas and Apodaca support their fellow Republican over Vazquez. They agree with her that there should be more Hispanic-Americans in the state legislature. But McComas doesn't agree with her on at least one key issue affecting Hispanics. He, along with Folwell, signed on to a House resolution earlier this year for North Carolina to have an immigration law similar to Arizona's new one, which gave law-enforcement officers the right to demand documentation from suspected illegal immigrants they stopped for other charges. The House resolution fizzled.

A judicial ruling last week weakened the Arizona law.

"I think that's a prudent thing to do because the law should be reviewed," Vazquez said. "Republicans have always used fear mongering as a way of getting votes. These issues with immigration are ways of distracting from the larger issue, which is the struggling economy."

Folwell said: "I'm for any law that promotes legal immigration. … It's not about them being Hispanic or speaking Spanish."

Our state legislature can't fix the broken immigration system. That's the job of the federal government. But the legislature does have to tackle the side issues the problems in the system raise, such as whether illegal immigrants should be admitted to the state community-college system. Legislators voted last year to admit them if they pay out-of-state tuition. They had been banned. Folwell said he voted against the measure because the numbers of illegal immigrants attending community colleges, and their financial impact on college budgets, is uncertain.

Vazquez said that illegal immigrants should be allowed to attend community colleges on in-state tuition, as long as that wouldn't overburden the state budget.

Folwell has unsuccessfully pushed a bill that would require parents to state the immigration status of their children in public schools. The purpose would be for fiscal analysis and not to deny admission, the bill states. Federal law forbids public-school officials from denying admission on the basis of immigration status. Theo Helm, a spokesman for Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools, said their attorney has advised the system not to ask for immigration status, based on U.S. Supreme Court rulings.

Vazquez said that, if that's the ruling of the Supreme Court, it should be followed.

Win or lose, she just could become a voice for the growing number of Hispanics in Forsyth County.

jrailey@wsjournal.com


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