Remarks at Our Lady Help of Christians School in Los Angeles - Pres. Clinton; Los Angeles, California - Transcript

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Nov 29, 1993

And you may have seen that I had the leaders of 14 Asian-Pacific nations together in Washington State for the last 2 days. One of them, the President of the Philippines, came to Los Angeles today to go to church with Filipino-Americans in this county. We know that that is the fastest growing part of the world, and they, too, will be our partners in providing jobs for our people. But in the end, we must take care of our own better.

The reason so many working people, the reason so many Hispanic-Americans oppose the North American Free Trade Agreement is that they had seen too many times when the working people of this country worked harder and harder for less and less security. And so I say to yuo, we have to have good, decent education not just for these children but for adults throughout their lives so they can always get new jobs. We have to have health care not just for those who can afford it or who are lucky enough to have jobs where it's covered but health care that can never be taken away. Every other advanced country has it. And we must have it here, too.

And we have to have an investment strategy that will help our people everywhere, everywhere, to find the jobs that they deserve. Since I became President, the Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown, who is here with me today, has made over a dozen trips to California. I have been here seven times. We are working hard to turn this economy around, not because of some abstract unemployment number but because the faces in this crowd are willing to make America a model of what every society in the world ought to be in the 21st century, where diversity is strength, where diversity is richness and laughter and fullness and hope. Because everybody who works hard, everybody who learns well, everyone who lives by the values that are cherished in this parish has a chance to be rewarded. That, I believe, is God's will for all of us on this Earth, and we must work for it.

Thank you all, and God bless you.

NOTE: The President spoke at 1:38 p.m. on the school playground. In his remarks, he referred to Roger Cardinal Mahony, Archbishop of Los Angeles; Father Juan Santillan, parish priest; and Gloria Molina, Los Angeles County commissioner.