Hispanics learn of state services
By MICHELLE SAHN, Home News Tribune from the Web, June 11, 2004
PISCATAWAY: The state Attorney General's Office wants to make sure New Jersey's Hispanic residents know it has staffers who hablan espanol and are on hand to help.
Yesterday, the Attorney General's Office and its Division on Civil Rights held the state's first Hispanic Leadership Summit Conference, reaching out to Latino leaders to let them know about the services available to the more than 1.1 million Hispanics who live in New Jersey.
"Part of what we're doing is trying to encourage Latino citizens and non-citizens to take advantage of the programs and services offered through the Attorney General's Office, Division on Civil Rights," said Attorney General Peter C. Harvey.
"This is the beginning of a dialogue to make government more accessible, particularly to those who may be a little intimidated."
Last year, the state Division on Civil Rights set up a team of investigators whose sole duty is to investigate housing discrimination.
Their work includes undercover tests to search for bias practices, and the unit is very busy, according to J. Frank Vespa-Papaleo, the director of the division.
His agency is also looking into the possibility of manning a desk -- possibly once a week at a local church -- in Freehold to handle discrimination complaints from Latino day laborers there.
And state civil rights officials may provide training on discrimination laws to local officials and police in Bound Brook, he said.
That training is required by the consent decree the borough signed in March with the federal government to settle claims of discrimination against Hispanics in the community.
Harvey said Vespa-Papaleo deserves credit for setting up yesterday's summit.
The division held a similar program for the Asian community last year in Somerset County, said Vespa-Papaleo.
"We have to speak the language of the community that needs our help, as much as we can, with the resources we have," said Vespa-Papaleo, a native of Venezuela who became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1988.
Of the 1,277 discrimination complaints that his office received last year, 6.1 percent were filed by Hispanics.
Among those in attendance at yesterday's day-long event were Mahonrry Hidalgo and Virginia McGlone, both members of the Freehold-based Day Laborer and Immigrant Support Committee; Martin Perez, a New Brunswick attorney who is the president of the Latino Leadership Alliance of New Jersey, and Wendy Giron, the director of Human Services at the Puerto Rican Action Board (PRAB) in New Brunswick.
Perez said the conference was important because leaders must let the community know how to take advantage of available programs.
Giron said she recently joined PRAB and wanted to learn as much as possible about the state services available to local residents.
Anna "Cuqui" Rivera of the Middlesex County Human Relations Commission said there is a communications gap between people working on human relations and those working on civil rights, even though they have the same goals.
"Hopefully things like this will reduce it a little bit," she said.
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