HispanicLatinos are living through a nationally decisive moment.  The pressure is building on HispanicLatino leaders – elected, appointed, self-proclaimed and otherwise – to step up to a point in history as important as any since the mid-1960’s.  In but a few months, the Supreme Court could waylay the progress HispanicLatinos have made over five decades to achieve social, economic a political parity with mainstream society – and in the process the Court could jeopardize America’s very future.

More than whether they can attend colleges and institutions at the same rate as everyone else, more than whether their votes count, more than whether their neighbors who are in the country illegally are treated humanely – more than all of this is at stake.  At stake is the fate of the country.  Like African Americans who in standing up for themselves after centuries of oppression did more for America than they did for themselves, HispanicLatinos are being called upon to recreate themselves so that they can help safeguard the country’s destiny and its national security.

Unless HispanicLatinos accelerate their economic, social and political position within society, they will not be able to help the country survive when it needs them the most and when the world might need America the most as well.  And laws that strike at any progress HispanicLatinos make today is a strike at America.  When state troopers with their night sticks pummeled African American protesters in Alabama starting in the mid-1950’s, they were striking at the Constitution itself.  Now, when state legislators enact laws that seek to restrain the progress that HispanicLatinos make, they similarly are striking at America’s security.  African Americans saved the country’s soul; HispanicLatinos must help vouchsafe its fiscal future.

Without a vibrant, economically successful HispanicLatino population, the country will fail. The numbers do not lie: An expanding but economically weak HispanicLatino population cannot support the country’s expanding financial demands.  It is that simple.  A growing HispanicLatino population cannot pay the bills that are already due and will only get bigger as the nation ages and as it has to raise many more billions to defend itself in a world that has changed and grown dangerous – and dangerously competitive.

Any law, any decision that minimizes the voice of HispanicLatinos in Congress strikes at America, yet Republican-dominated legislatures across the country through transparently unfair redistricting plans hinder HispanicLatino representation.  Any law, any decision that curtails HispanicLatino admission into the country’s colleges and universities undercuts the financial base America must have to continue to function, yet unaware organizations that allegedly seek to protect the country’s basic constitutional framework instead are working to set America up for failure.  Any law, any decision that strikes at the very source of the nation – the constant inflow of younger, new immigrant blood – cuts off the very lifeline of the country, yet state legislatures across the land are taking it upon themselves to destroy the building-blocks of the future.

HispanicLatino leadership at the national level always has had a hard time finding its footing and its mooring.  The ability of past HispanicLatino leaders rested on a population in the minority, half of which could not vote.  And past HispanicLatino leaders hardly could find steadfast moorings among a population made up of disparate groups derived from the many nations of the hemisphere.  Consequently, they were unable to forge a HispanicLatino political identity that is so vital now, and no one has been able to pivot the size of the population and its culture in any significant way and convert them into the national voice so needed today.

Why effective HispanicLatino leaders are absent from the national scene and why an effective HispanicLatino organization does not already exist are no great mysteries.  Most of the current HispanicLatino organizations are timid phantoms, limited by their non-profit status – and silly infighting and in some cases blatant self-interest of their leaders – that restricts their ability to press forward.  They have been lacking the same effective leadership the rest of the community needs.  The new demographic power of the HispanicLatino population is meaningless when diluted by lack of organization and direction.

Even if the Supreme Court rejects Arizona’s punitive immigration laws (and by extension hundreds of other anti-immigrant laws in cities and towns across the nation), even if the Court allows the affirmative action policies of The University of Texas (and by extension those of schools nationwide), even if the Court vouchsafes the one-person, one-vote principle implicit in the Constitution and rejects unfair redistricting plans in Texas (and throughout the country) – the need for strong, unyielding HispanicLatino leadership has never been more evident.

And more than the interests of the HispanicLatino population is at stake.

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