The Latino Agenda for the 2008 Election

By Roberto Lovato, The Nation
Posted on October 15, 2007, Printed on October 15, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/65195/

Karen Linares's face contorted as she stared at the thick, rusted pipe and the bottle of brown water before her. The reddish-brown props used by an environmental panelist speaking about water politics at the second annual National Latino Congreso reminded Linares of water she's seen in the numerous places she's called home.

"The LA river water running by my house is full of filth," said the 22-year-old Salvadoran-Chicana delegate to the five-day convergence of left-leaning Latinos held this past week in her hometown. "I saw the same brown water in El Salvador. In Tijuana you see the sewage trickling down the dirt roads," she said. Asked what, if any, connection existed between the water she saw in her neighborhood and the water in her parents' homelands, Linares answered, "Clear water runs upward where the money runs. Brown water runs down where poor brown people are."