By Andrew W. Griffin

Red Dirt Report, editor

Posted: November 15, 2012

reddirtreporter@gmail.com

OKLAHOMA CITY – Two leading speakers in America’s Hispanic community will be visiting Oklahoma City today and tomorrow – they are Dr. Juan Andrade, with the U.S. Hispanic Leadership Institute and Cesar Moreno, Director of the Department of Human Rights for the American Federation of Teachers.

Jose Solis, who works for the American Federation of Teachers’ Oklahoma City Federation of Classified Employees Local 4574, where the round table event will be held, told Red Dirt Report that Dr. Juan Andrade “is perhaps the biggest and most influential Hispanic person to ever visit Oklahoma.”

Added Solis on the importance of Andrade come and speak: Having Andrade in town for a visit is like “bringing President Obama or the the vice-president or the Mexican president to come and visit.”

Coming a little more than a week after Hispanic Americans helped re-elect President Obama, Andrade’s non-partisan organization, which he founded, is noted for its voter registration efforts, efforts that helped get voters to the polls. Andrade is a well-regarded organizer and activist in America’s Latino community.

And now that the 2016 election is already being discussed, speculation is saying that Hillary Clinton will be the leading Democratic presidential candidate. Andrade has already said in the media this week that if Hillary Clinton jumps in the race in ’16, “(S)he’ll be the favorite among Latino voters. The Clintons, they go back to 1972 in the Latino community,” Andrade told Voxxi.com. “No one goes back that far in the Latino community.”

So, when Solis tells us that Andrade is offering suggestions and ideas to the local AFT office, methods to improve “outreach to the Hispanic community” in Oklahoma City, we suspect it will be very successful, particularly when looking at ways teachers can better interact with the local Hispanic community.

Moreno, the other speaker, meanwhile, will share his expertise at AFT dealing with public policy issues affecting working families, which includes education, immigration, civil, human and women’s rights, gender, LGBT, ELL instruction, achievement gap issues, and faith-based initiatives, among other issues.

For more information go to www. http://045740.ok.aft.org/

Copyright 2012 Red Dirt Report