Too much alcohol on NCLR's breath

Not content to take sponsorship money from beer companies to run its upcoming annual convention, the National Council of La Raza has gone further in taking $250,000 from a big-time liquor business.

Hispanic PR Wire reports: The donation to NCLR is a culmination of the We are United with a Purpose(TM) campaign, now in its third year, which assisted hundreds of Latinos to access financial education resources within their local community.

After this year, the campaign, supported by Diageo brands including Buchanan's(R) De Luxe Scotch whisky, Crown Royal(R) Canadian whisky, Johnnie Walker(R) Scotch whisky, Jose Cuervo(R) Tradicional tequila, and Tequila Don Julio(R), has invested nearly three-quarters of a million dollars to helping improve the lives of Latinos throughout the United States.

One of this year's campaign beneficiaries is Clara Rinaldi, 36, who immigrated from Ecuador and lives in Union City, New Jersey with her husband and two children. "She learned about the campaign and local seminars through her sister-in-law and decided to attend since she had little knowledge about how to budget, save, or establish credit," (Janet) Murguia continued. (She is president of NCLR.)

Would the NAACP take sponsorships from gun manufacturers? Of course not. There have been too many shooting deaths in African-American communities. Then why is NCLR so oblivious in its thinking in taking liquor and beer money.

Come with me to Nashville, Music City. The tune being played here is a sorrowful one for more than 3,000 Latinos deported under the heinous 287(g) deportation program during the past year. Families are being devastated. Children live in fear of parents being taken. The local sheriff was able to get the political support to bring local enforcement of federal immigrations laws to Nashville because of DUI accidents in which Latinos killed native Tennesseans on the road.

What were these undocumented workers drinking? Was it Corona, which is peddling a new ad campaign to Latinos nationally that touts its product as a source of Hispanic pride? Was it beers from Miller Brewing Co. and Coors, both contributors to NCLR's national convention next month? Or was it one of liquors distributed by the company that just gave $250,000 to NCLR?

It's not enough that such businesses have marginal marketing programs encouraging Latinos not to drink too much. They know the statistics of sorrow from their products in Hispanic communities such as Houston.

While the money given NCLR is helping hundreds financially, it is hurting thousands personally just in Nashville. Wait until Sen. Elizabeth Dole gets her wish of 287(g) for all of North Carolina. The inhumanity will be multiplied.

Meanwhile, NCLR is licking its fingers as it counts all the damning dollars from the beer and liquor companies. The immorality of it all is sickening, cheap and dirty. It's past time for NCLR to stop taking alcohol-related money made from encouraging reckless conduct in Hispanic communities across this nation.

Or it's time for Hispanic advocates to stop supporting NCLR.