Minority rule

Part 4

by Kristen Lombardi

As Latinos have settled and become involved in the city, Centro's staff and board members have shaped and expanded their services to improve Hispanic lifestyles -- responding to a constant demand by the community. Clients are no longer satisfied with food banks, clothing handouts, and housing services. Aspiring entrepreneurs want help securing bank loans. Newcomers insist on more English-as-second-language classes, more help in finding jobs, more cultural events, more opportunities for high-school dropouts. The list of needs, and a few desires, appears endless.

"The Latino community has increased tremendously, and Centro isn't growing at the same pace," says José Garcia, a former Centro board chairman. In 1991, Garcia recalls, Centro was an organization stuck in social services, focused on helping families in crisis.

Increases in funding have allowed Centro to concentrate on services that would have the greatest effect. After surveying the community, says Garcia, Centro opted to funnel resources in three directions -- economic development, education, and culture. As Centro's economic-development coordinator, Eubanks garnered $130,000 in funds in 1994 from Massachusetts Office of Business Development to establish a program to uphold job placements and start-up businesses. The agency began offering English classes and sessions for high-school dropouts to earn Graduate Equivalency Diplomas. It also created the Institute for Latino Arts and Culture, which teaches 120 kids to paint, dance, and play the recorder, for example.

Centro's efforts have not been in vain. Nowadays, in Main South, about 20 Hispanic businesses line Main Street from Chandler Street to Webster Square. Eubanks estimates Centro initiatives established 32 outfits in all, helped 14 start-ups collect more than $650,000 in financing from local banks, and counseled 168 aspiring entrepreneurs. Additionally, Centro found employment for 113 residents. And the organization played a major role in creating the 45-member Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

"We're in the ballgame now, in terms of purchasing power and political muscle. The home runs will come," says Garcia. It seems logical that Latinos will score points now that doors to Worcester's community-at-large have opened up. "I have seen success in the perception [of Latinos and Centro] in the total community. A lot of doors are open that were once closed. People see Latinos are credible members of the whole community."

Currently, says McCullough, the organization receives as much as 12 percent of its $810,000 in revenues from corporations and grants. OPCD designated Centro a Main South "neighborhood center," making it eligible to receive federal Housing and Urban Development grants. (In fiscal 1997, Centro received $69,000 from OPCD. This year, the agency is also applying for a $39,000 federal grant for economic development.) The city's Cultural Commission increased its $1000 grant for the Latin Festival to $4500 this year in part to "provide name recognition" so that corporate sponsors will become regular backers of the Centro event, says chairman Erwin Miller. And foundations and non-profits are turning to Centro whenever they see a need to connect with Latinos.

"We saw Centro as the best way to reach out to the Latino community," says James Welu, executive director of Worcester Art Museum. The museum received $8000 from the Greater Worcester Community Foundation to continue its Art Smart collaboration with Centro, a program that brings Latino children and their parents to the museum for classes. "The collaboration has been a way of breaking down barriers, psychological or otherwise, that were keeping Latinos from visiting the museum."

Rosalie Velazquez of United Way of Central Massachusetts echoes this sentiment. "Centro is the largest organization solely identified as Latino," she says. United Way began funding Centro in 1992 because it wanted to support educational programs for Latino youth. (Centro then established a mentoring program and homework collaborative with the money.) Now a United Way's "participating agency," Centro receives money annually for its community services; this year, United Way granted Centro $18,626. "Centro is a vital, critical part of the Latino community. Any effort we make to assist [Centro] benefits the community overall."

Still, as with many small agencies, Centro could use more money just to maintain current programs let alone develop new ones. More money would allow Centro to broaden its ESL program, so that 3000 Latinos could learn English as opposed to the 50 now enrolled. It would permit Centro to hire an employment coordinator to effectively help Latinos find jobs. Money would also allow the agency to build a long sought after autonomous business center designed to bolster start-up companies.

Centro's individual donor base makes up only two percent of its budget -- a percentage many believe reflects ignorance, primarily on the part of non-Hispanics, of the agency's role in the community it serves. "The difficulty will be in increasing that [donor] base," says McCullough. "Unlike some, Centro doesn't have people to go to who can write the $5000 checks."

But Centro's credibility within the majority population has come at a price within its own population. Insiders say many Worcester-based foundations ignored the agency, believing that as a grassroots organization it cannot manage budgets properly, provide effective services, or behave professionally. Foundations started responding to Centro more favorably only after its partnership with You Inc. After Centro hired a crew of social workers, appointed a number of non-Hispanics to its board and, in the words of a longtime supporter, "learned to play the system."

"People don't understand how subtle racism can be," says one Centro observer who didn't want to be named. Centro went so far as to name its parking lot after a prominent white man, who had no connection to the Latino community, in order to get the city to repave the lot. "Latinos resented [this type of behavior]. But Centro was playing the system."

Centro has learned to work the system well. Indeed, the agency reported more than $45,200 in "direct public support" to the state's Public Charities Office for fiscal 1996. (The most recent figures available.) Some Latinos, however, are asking whether Centro has gone too far in its efforts to become assimilated in Worcester's establishment. After all, with any minority organization, there is a fine line between working with the majority and just selling out. The fact that Centro appointed so many non-Hispanics to its board gives its constituency the appearance of being disconnected from Latino problems and concerns, activists say.

"There have been disagreements [among Latinos in the past] over who leads the community," explains candidate Perez. The former executive director of the defunct ALPA, Perez says, Latinos fought more over who should lead them when ALPA was still around (should it be ALPA or Centro?). But, he adds, "a growing community needs people in front of it, and [many Latinos] believe a community needs to be run by its own [people]."

This is exactly what prompted Coprocla to push for Latino control of Centro's board less than a year ago. Coprocla argued that non-Hispanic board control fostered a certain distrust within the agency's constituency, says Gomez. Centro clients complained about the agency's no-nonsense, pragmatic responses to their problems and needs. Justified or not, say activists, Latinos drew connections between non-Hispanic ownership of the board and Centro's inability to meet needs, through its programs and by not visibly advocating for its constituents.

Disgruntled Latinos believed Centro was on the verge of selling out. Coprocla stepped in to ease mounting tension. Ultimately, say activists, such inferences can irreparably strain relationships between an organization and the community. And says Rodriguez-Parker, "without the heart and soul behind you, an agency might as well fold."

Part 5

Kristen Lombardi can be reached at klombardi[a]phx.com.