c. 2003 Religion News Service

(Samuel K. Atchison is an ordained minister and has worked as a policy analyst and social worker to the homeless. He currently is a prison chaplain in Trenton, N.J., and a fellow of the George H. Gallup International Institute in Princeton, N.J.)

(UNDATED) In his book, “The Other Face of America” (HarperCollins), award-winning journalist Jorge Ramos notes that Hispanics now comprise the largest minority in the country and are thus transforming the nation, both economically and culturally.

Yet, he argues, Latinos still face enormous barriers that range from xenophobia to racism. “The real challenge for the Hispanic community, then, is to transform its astonishing growth in numbers, its importance to the economy, and its cultural influence into political power.”

Thus, the situation in the Hispanic community parallels that of the black community a generation ago and it signals permanent change in the nation’s racial and political landscape.

For better or worse, African-Americans have traditionally served as the poster children for racial inequity in this country, the result of the dual legacies of chattel slavery _ often referred to as America’s original sin _ and legal segregation.

Indeed, the black-white race dynamic has become so deeply ingrained in our cultural psyche that before Sept. 11, 2001, most Americans were only vaguely aware that other racial and ethnic groups were emerging.

But without question they are emerging.

According to the President’s Initiative on Race, established by President Bill Clinton in 1998, “the face of America is 72.7 percent white, 11 percent Hispanic, 12.1 percent black, 3.6 percent Asian/Pacific Islander, and 0.7 percent American Indian.”

At that time, the members of the initiative’s advisory board estimated that in 2050, the population in the United States will be approximately 53 percent white, 25 percent Hispanic, 14 percent black, 8 percent Asian/Pacific Islander, and 1 percent American Indian.”

In fact, however, the 2000 census found the population was shifting at a rate faster than that projected by the government. The Census Bureau found, due largely to immigration, there were now more than 35 million Hispanics in the country, some 12.5 percent of the overall population. By contrast, African-Americans totaled some 34.6 million persons, or 12.3 percent of the population.

What this suggests is that while population growth among African-Americans is more or less keeping pace with the overall growth of the nation, Latinos are experiencing a population surge well ahead of the nation’s growth rate.

Consider as well, Ramos writes, that the Hispanic community is becoming increasingly mobile, with remarkable growth in states like North Carolina, Iowa and Arkansas; Spanish-language media _ newspapers, radio and television _ are emerging as a major power in a number of American cities; and that, according to estimates, “the purchasing power of Hispanics will reach $1 trillion by 2010.”

The net effect is that even as Latinos wrestle with the myriad problems facing their community _ the treatment of undocumented workers, racism, poverty in the lower classes, unfavorable American policies toward Latin America _ they are poised to address these issues in ways designed to get results.

They possess the cultural, economic and technological means necessary to obtain the political power needed to affect change.

By contrast, the African-American community is in danger of having the world pass it by. Thirty years after the civil rights and black power movements, many blacks are still chanting the same mantra of reparations and set-asides of a generation ago.

Moreover, as Khallid al-Mansour notes in his book, “Betrayal By Any Other Name,” some black leaders played a deceptive shell game by enriching themselves and their cronies in the name of the poor. In so doing, they compromised their moral authority, offending those they purported to represent.

Today, as Hispanic leaders give voice to the hopes of a diverse and needy people, they would do well to learn from the failures of some of their black counterparts: Never forget where you came from, and don’t forget where you’re going.

DEA END ATCHISON