|
|
 |
|
Cecilia
Muñoz |
|
|
Whether fighting immigration legislation or
testifying before Congress, Cecilia Muñoz has
been an intense, prominent voice on behalf of
Hispanic American rights. As vice president for
the Office of Research, Advocacy and Legislation
at the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), a
nonprofit organization established to improve
opportunities for Hispanics, she oversees all
legislative activities that cover issues of
great importance to Hispanic Americans.
Colleagues call her "a ferocious advocate."
Cecilia Muñoz was born in Detroit, Michigan, on
July 27, 1962, the youngest of four children.
Her parents had moved to the United States from
La Paz, Bolivia, so that her father, an
automotive engineer, could go to the University
of Michigan. When she was three, the family
moved to Livonia, a growing, middle-class, white
Detroit suburb. Muñoz attended the University of
Michigan in Ann Arbor and completed her
undergraduate degrees in English and Latin
studies in 1984. Her time at the university
reminded her of her youth in Livonia, where
Hispanics were in the minority. But, as a side
job, she worked as a tutor to Hispanic American
inmates at the state prison in nearby Jackson,
an experience that helped her get closer to her
Hispanic culture. Following graduation, Muñoz
continued her education at the University of
California at Berkeley, where she obtained her
master's degree.
Muñoz moved from California to Chicago to work
for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago as
head of the Legalization Outreach Program for
Catholic Charities. Following the 1986 enactment
by President Ronald Reagan of the Immigration
Reform and Control Act—an amnesty program that
allowed undocumented immigrants who met certain
criteria (such as having lived continuously in
the United States) to become legal U.S.
residents—Muñoz helped more than five thousand
immigrants obtain legal citizenship in the
United States. Working double-digit hours, she
operated 12 field offices throughout
metropolitan Chicago, an intense experience. The
racism and sexism she confronted in her job gave
her greater empathy in working with immigrants.
National Council of La Raza
In
1988, Muñoz began her work at NCLR as the senior
immigration policy analyst. She had developed a
real interest in working for an institution that
focused on Hispanic Americans, and she picked a
prominent one. Formed in 1968, the National
Council of La Raza bills itself as "the largest
constituency-based national Hispanic
organization, serving all Hispanic nationality
groups in all regions of the country." Media
outlets have viewed the NCLR's Policy Analysis
Center as the pre-eminent Hispanic think tank, a
voice for all Hispanic Americans. It seeks to
reduce poverty and discrimination and to improve
opportunities for Hispanic Americans by
strengthening Hispanic community-based
organizations through assistance in such areas
as management and resource development; it also
gives its perspective on a variety of public
policy issues, to encourage the adoption of
programs that will better serve Hispanics. Muñoz
currently is in charge of all legislative
actions handled by the policy staff.
Controversy Over Welfare Reform
On
August 22, 1996, President Bill Clinton signed
into law the strictest federal welfare reform
law in years. It had major implications for
legal immigrants who were not citizens. They
became ineligible for food stamps and
Supplemental Security Income (SSI), the latter
of which assists aged, blind, and disabled
individuals. The cost savings from these
cutbacks was estimated to be between 20 and 30
billion dollars over six years.
Immigrant advocate groups and charitable
organizations, such as the NCLR, Northern
California Coalition for Immigrant Rights in San
Francisco, and Second Harvest, felt that the law
was too harsh and unfair. Immigrants who came to
the United States legally yet, who were not
citizens, would be cut off from immigrant public
assistance programs. This was especially
critical to refugees who come to the United
States with little money and few possessions,
and who typically need several years for an
adequate transition to their new surroundings.
Advocates claimed it was unfair to change the
rules and cut off benefits to those who had come
to the United States legally.
The NCLR demonstrated the suffering these
cutbacks created. The organization put a human
face on the misery by presenting individuals who
spoke at a press conference of the direct
personal impact of these cost-cutting measures.
Speaking on behalf of the NCLR, Muñoz stated,
"We have no other choice but to demonstrate the
human cost of these policies. And the human cost
is extraordinary." It was predicted that an
estimated one million immigrants would be
adversely affected by rescinding food stamps.
"Many of these immigrants are working men and
women who supplement their income with food
stamps in order to provide food for their
families," stated Muñoz in an article in The
Orange County Register.
The public lobbying ultimately proved
successful. In July of 1997, less than a year
after Clinton originally signed the bill,
lawmakers softened their legal mandates by
allowing some legal immigrants to continue their
SSI benefits. According to Muñoz, "The lesson of
the last year seems to be you can only make
policy change to undo terrible wrongs after
people have died or after people have entered
situations that are just excruciatingly painful
to watch." Muñoz believes that the decision to
withhold food stamps should also have been
reversed. She has spoken out for its
reinstatement: "It was unfair to deny SSI to
immigrants and apply this change in the law
retroactively. It's equally unfair to do the
same with food stamps." Some attributed the
tough immigration law to the fact that it was an
election year. Mark Krikorian of the Center for
Immigration Studies said, "The election year
having passed and the special-interest groups
concerned having mounted a very large and very
effective lobbying campaign, Congress pulled
back."
Fighting Against Discrimination
The height of irony—but an example of the kind
of issue on which Muñoz works the
hardest—occurred on March 21, 1997, when Muñoz
was twice asked on the telephone about her
citizenship, just prior to her attendance at a
White House briefing on immigration. Although
the White House claimed that, for security
reasons, a new policy required visitors to give
their date of birth, Social Security number, and
citizenship, Muñoz seemed to be singled out.
According to fellow attendees Frank Sharry,
executive director of the National Immigration
Forum, a Washington nonprofit advocacy group,
neither he nor Josh Bernstein, policy analyst at
the National Immigration Law Center, were
questioned. "There are laws against this stuff
in the workplace," asserted Sharry in a
Washington Post article. "This selective
questioning of people is based on what, the
number of vowels in their name?" An angry Muñoz
said "[I had] smoke coming out of my ears. I hit
the ceiling. This is exactly what we're fighting
against."
The negative image of immigrants is something
Muñoz battles every day. In 1997, a coalition of
immigration reform groups set out to reduce
legal immigration and eliminate illegal
immigration. The Federation for American
Immigration Reform (FAIR) claimed that "large
numbers of immigrants make all our problems
worse." Arizonans for Immigration Reform said in
a Arizona Republic article that
immigrants represent "an invasion that will
destroy our country's sovereignty if something
is not done about it." Muñoz countered these
claims in the same article by pointing out the
United States has largely "benefited from its
generous tradition of welcoming immigrants."
Indeed, an earlier report by the National
Research Council concluded "immigrants are a net
boost to the U.S. economy, adding up to ten
billion dollars each year." Muñoz theorizes that
anti-immigrant groups "try to find out what
people in a certain area are concerned about and
then try to link those concerns to immigration."
In California, she said, the depressed economy
was often blamed on immigrants; in Arizona, fast
growth was their fault. Muñoz feels these
criticisms stem from people worrying "about
Latinos being culturally different."
Acts as Tough Advocate
Muñoz greets her visitors graciously. Fellow
workers describe her as modest. In addition, she
speaks warmly of her family—husband Amit
Muñoz-Pandya, a human rights lawyer, and
daughters Cristina and Meera. But she fights
hard "doing the work I always wanted to do." As
colleague Sharry says, Muñoz is as "tough and
determined an advocate as you can find. She
doesn't back down an inch."
