|
CIVIC AND COMMUNITY
Program Mission:
The CLP was established to increase the political and civic participation and provide leadership opportunities for Central Americans and other Latinos in California. The CLP brings together talented young Central Americans and other Latinos from throughout California and trains them to be new leaders so that they may have an effective role in expanding the civic and political participation of the Latino community. Participants attend an educational and leadership development workshop to gain knowledge about issues pertinent to the Latino community. Participants also partake in a legislative tour of Sacramento to discuss in part water issues, including water conservation water reliability issues. Each year, ten CLP participants are chosen to participate as Interns in government, non-profit sector, business, and media. Finally, all participants undertake a community service project to assist Pico-Union residents.
Program Participants:
SALEF was formed by and for a community in transition, Salvadoran and Central American immigrants. The twelve-year Salvadoran civil war, which began in the early 1980's and took the lives of over 70,000 Salvadorans, sent a massive influx of refugees to the United States. Indeed, the turbulence of civil wars engulfed most Central American countries, and the Salvadoran refugee stream was joined by Guatemalans, Nicaraguans, and Hondurans. During the 1980's, the majority of these individuals were undocumented, and occupied a highly tenuous and vulnerable position in US society
|
After more than a decade of hard work and lobbying for inclusion in the political and economic life of this country, these Central Americans have begun to experience a series of legal and social transformations. While each national group has been affected somewhat differently by the changing laws, it is now fair to say that a significant sector of the Central American community is taking their first steps to securing fuller membership in US society. Many now enjoy permanent legal residence, and have become or are in the process of becoming US citizens, they are active voters, professionals, business people, hold leadership position in private companies and government agencies. In California, for instance, the Salvadoran community represents the second largest Latino immigrant community opting to become naturalized citizens after the Mexicans.
These New Americans now constitute an important emergent Latino group at the local, regional and national levels. For instance, according to the 1990 census, there are approximately one million Salvadorans living in the United States, approximately 400,000 of who reside in Los Angeles County. Indeed, Los Angeles has the second largest concentration of Salvadorans in the world, surpassed only by San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador. Salvadorans now constitute the second largest Latino community in California; they are the fourth largest Latino community in the United States, the largest Latino community in Washington, DC. There are also large concentrations of Salvadorans and Central Americans in New York, San Francisco, Boston, Houston and Miami.
For more information please contact
Phone: (213) 480-1052
E-mail: info@salef.org
|
