Remarks to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute dinner

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Sept 28, 1998

And we cannot rest until we do have an accurate census count. I just want to make sure everybody in this room understands the importance of that. Some in Congress would have us ignore the best scientific methods for ensuring the most accurate count. That is, methods that Republican, as well as Democratic, experts say is the best way to make sure everybody gets counted. I don't know why some people are afraid of having all Americans counted - counted in the drawing of congressional districts, counted in the delivery of Federal aid funds. In 1990, 5 percent of our Hispanic citizens were not counted. Nearly 70 - listen to this - nearly 70,000 Hispanic children in Los Angeles County alone were left out.

Now, we can do better than that. This is a fundamental issue. This is a civil rights issue. If you believe every American counts, don't you also believe we have to count every American?

And while we're at it, once again I call upon the Congress to give the 4 million people of Puerto Rico the right to choose their own status. It is important. Now, in December the Puerto Rican people go to the polls. The Republican leaders of the Senate say, and I quote, they will "consider" the results of the referendum. I say I will respect the results of the referendum.

Now, we cannot rest until we keep economic growth going throughout the world, until we contain all this trouble our friends in Russia and Asia are experiencing, until we do everything we can to keep it from spreading to Latin America, which has been threatened by global financial events that they had nothing to do with creating. This is in our interests. The Latin markets are our fastest growing ones. They are the people that are doing more every year to buy American products as we build closer ties.

I have spent a lot of time on Latin America. Hillary has gone to Latin America several times and is about to go again. We always believed that in the future of America, not only would Hispanic-Americans become our largest minority, but Latin America would become our closest partners for democracy as well as for prosperity.

Now, when you see all this debate in the paper about the IMF, that's really what that's about. The International Monetary Fund is a way that we work with other people to help countries that are doing the right thing get back on their feet and to try to stem and limit this economic turmoil. I ask your help in that. We need to do it for the benefit of our own people, as well as for our obligation.

Finally, let me say we cannot rest until we continue to work to bring America together across racial and ethnic lines. Last week, for the final time, I met with my Advisory Board on Race and received their report. Again, I say to you this is not a black/white issue, this is not even a black/white/brown issue. America is becoming ever more diverse. And it is our great, great asset as we move toward a new century in what is not only a global economy but, increasingly, a global society, where we face the same opportunities and the same dangers. We have got to learn to stop using our racial and ethnic differences as wedge issues in political campaigns and start lifting them up as money in the bank for 21st century America.