White privilege? La Raza has received more than $30 million (tax dollars) from the federal government since 1996.
If a group of United States citizens trekked to another country, formedan organization called “The Race,” which demanded open borders,unfettered immigration and citizenship, billions of dollars forbilingual education, health care, housing, job and wage guarantees, andanti-discrimination protection, they would likely soon be jailed ordeported in a display of righteous sovereign indignation. But theNational Council of La Raza engages in all these activities in theUnited States, and it receives taxpayer dollars to help promote itsradical views.
Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor is amember of La Raza. That membership and her own statements have led tomany challenges to her suitability for the High Court. Critics of theorganization and its goals have frequently been labeled as racists, butthat didn’t stop former Rep. Tom Tancredo (R.-Colo.) from calling LaRaza a leftist radical group “a Latino KKK without the hoods or thenooses.” La Raza, founded in 1968 by Raul Yzaguirre, takes its name from “LaRaza Cosmica,” a phrase coined by Mexican scholar Jose Vasconcelos. TheEnglish translation, and the first definition found in Spanish/Englishdictionaries, for “la raza” is “the race.” Contrary to LaRaza’s contention that the phrase means “the people,” or “thecommunity,” the Spanish for those phrases are “la gente,” and “la comunidad.”