Harry Pachon Quotations

Los Angeles is Los Angeles, and it's very easy for someone to come here not knowing English and be able to get a toehold on American society.

Legal or illegal, advertisers still think they have to buy toothpaste in the morning,

Simple demographics. There's going to be more than five and a half million Latino voters voting in November.

One out of every nine Americans is now Latino. In certain states, Latinos, in the next 20 years, will outnumber the traditional white non-Hispanic population.

Politics, for most Americans, is not an everyday-life issue. It is not something that affects you personally. That is why these demonstrations are so interesting, because what it shows is that immigration is not an academic issue; it is a genuine issue on the Hispanic immigrant side. You are talking about your friends, relatives, neighbors.

He was a quiet ground-breaker, ... Many of his accomplishments go unrecognized because he did things in a quiet way.

He voted his conscience, even when people made fun of him,

That doesn't surprise me. These are businesses catering to the new ethnic enclaves.

Look at the Chicago area. Cook County, Illinois, now has more Latinos than Arizona, New Mexico or Colorado.

There is a lot of overacting on Spanish TV, too, ... Maybe that will make the transition easier.

What the marches have done is give a human face to the immigration issue in the United States today.

an unprecedented outreach into the Mexican immigrant community.

This is a symbolic closing of the gap that had developed for the last six years under the previous administration.

It might give some companies pause about the potential power that exists there. It does show you a market out there.

For many years, these undocumented immigrants, as well as individuals who sympathize with the plight of this community, have been very quiet and passive. When you have 100,000 people out in the street, that gives reality to potential political power.

For every 100 Latinos you see walking down the street today, 34 of those 100 are under the age of 18, so they're not qualified to vote. That leaves 66. Of those 66, in certain states, 33 aren't U.S. citizens yet, so that leaves 33 Latinos. Of those 33, something like 16 don't register to vote. That leaves 17. Of the 17 Latinos who are left, about 11 to 12 actually vote.

It makes sense for them to do this. It's a demographic imperative that's happening in the nation. It's showing that the Hispanic population is developing into a national presence. If it was still regionalised I don't know if they'd go through the trouble.

Oh my goodness, we've heard such horribly accented Spanish in the past six months, I can't tell you. You kind of wince and you say, 'OK, let's get through the Spanish,' because you know the candidate is really trying to say something to Latinos.

These are micro-entrepreneurs. . . . With the economy slowing down, when regular jobs shrink, people turn to starting their own business. I'm not trying to rain on anyone's parade, but you can't accept these uncritically.

A lot of Latinos are first-generation new citizens, or second-generation children of immigrants, who don't have those deep roots of partisan attachment.