María Josefa Canino-Arroyo
Former professor of social work and public policy at the University of Puerto Rico, Rutgers University, and Hunter College, CUNY.
This article was originally published in Centro Journal, vol. XV, number 1, Spring 2003, 176-195. It is republished here with permission. The research materials for this work reside at the New Jersey Research and Information Center at Newark Public Library. Maria Canino also donated a collection of her files to the Center for Puerto Rican Studies.
The LSRI hopes that the sort of socially grounded policy research that this article demonstrates will continue in New Jersey.
Introduction
Three primary research questions guided this exploratory investigation of Latino advocacy and welfare reform in New Jersey:
- How do the major actors assess the effectiveness of Latino nonprofit advocacy?
- What is the interface between Latino nonprofits and state policymakers on matters related to welfare reform (Work First NJ)?
- How do Latino nonprofits negotiate/decide/plan for matters related to advocacy?
National welfare reform was codified in The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA—P.L. 104–193) signed in August 1996. As a major piece of the devolution movement, the new legislation replaced Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) and provided a block grant to the states. Sharp cutbacks were made in some of the most basic assistance programs needed by indigent families, children, the elderly, the physically challenged, and documented immigrants.1 Under the new Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), states were to require work in exchange for cash assistance. Cash assistance was to be temporary, time limited, and linked to demonstrable evidence that adult recipients find work as soon as possible.
Latino social service organizations expected the new federal proposals and state counterparts to disproportionately affect their constituencies, especially families and children. In New Jersey, the Hispanic Association (HANJ)3 invited its twenty-six member agencies in May 1996 to “retreat” in order to conduct a collective and critical analysis of the state’s proposed plan for welfare reform, entitled Work First New Jersey.4 Established in 1991 as an umbrella organization, HANJ first assessed the potential impact of Work First on the state’s growing Latino/a population. Over three day-long sessions, they examined New Jersey’s proposed 5-year lifetime cap on welfare benefits, the new limits on eligibility requirements, the reduction of childcare and health services, and mandatory “workfare” as a condition for receiving public assistance. An examination of the mission statements of New Jersey’s Latino/a nonprofits reveals that these agencies have a uniformly overarching commitment to improving the conditions and future prospects of Latino/a state residents as well as constituent newcomers.
Hispanics comprise 13.3 percent of New Jersey’s total population and number nearly 1.1 million, in contrast to 9.6 percent and nearly 740,000 in 1990—a growth of 51 percent (Department of Commerce, 1990, 2000). Puerto Ricans remain the largest single ethnic group of all Latino/as in New Jersey and the largest constituency served by Hispanic community-based organizations (HCBOs). Cubans have declined in numbers over the last decade, while Mexican and other Central and South American immigrants have dramatically accounted for the overall increase. This diverse group of newcomers—a growing presence since the 1950s—is also disproportionately represented among the state’s poor. Many of these residents are low-wage earners and in need of state assistance. In 1996, Latino/as comprised 26 percent of participants in New Jersey’s Aid to Families with Dependent Children. Over two-thirds (60,816) of these recipients were children (NJ Department of Human Services, 1996), and a majority of these were Puerto Rican.
The Hispanic Association, in an unprecedented examination of the impact of Work First NJ on the Latino/a communities of the state, declared itself in opposition to any proposed measures that would limit the eligibility of services only to citizens and severely restrict the means for achieving self-sufficiency:
Latino/a nonprofits have a vested interest in assuring and contributing to a healthier, more productive and vibrant New Jersey work force—one that incorporates the contributions of all newcomers, including non-citizen legal immigrants.…We concur with the broad thrust of promoting self-sufficiency and freedom from dependency by providing opportunities to enter the economic mainstream. We find ourselves…in sharp disagreement with the framework proposed.… (1996:vi)
With this opening salvo, HANJ formally entered the immigration and welfare reform debate. The Hispanic Association assumed an advocacy stance in representation of Puerto Rican and other Latino/a citizens and Latino/a non-citizens directly affected by New Jersey’s plans to reform its approach to welfare and income security. HANJ supported systemic reform as overdue. But they questioned the viability and efficacy of the mandated “work-alternative” as a cure to chronic poverty; opposed both the time limits and the punitive nature of the intended sanctions; and doubted the readiness of the state’s human service infrastructure to implement the vast reform envisioned in the Governor’s proposal. Two documents were widely disseminated: Work First NJ: An examination by Latino/a community-based organizations (1996) and An Agenda for Latino/a civic and economic empowerment (1997). These position papers signaled the intent of Puerto Rican and other Latino/a nonprofit leadership to become involved in the formulation and implementation of social welfare policymaking. In this controversial arena, it was the most representative statewide voice heard on behalf of Latino/a concerns in New Jersey. Their analysis of Work First NJ addressed the role of Latino/as as stakeholders, the principles guiding their assessment of the proposed legislation, and offered general observations, specific concerns, and recommendations. In concluding that “New Jersey can do better” with welfare reform, the Hispanic Association articulated a collective policy position on the issues of the day.
In their analysis of the state’s welfare reform proposal, HANJ identified language and cultural differences as contributing factors to the divide between government and Latinos/as. But weightier reasons were offered: economic exploitation of newcomers, a generalized attitude of blaming the poor for their condition, and the general failure of remedial and residual policies, programs, and institutions. In New Jersey, like the rest of the United States, Latinos/as are marginalized, alienated, or excluded to a greater or lesser extent from political processes. This is evidenced by the almost nonexistent presence in state policy processes that impact on their very well-being. In the case of social welfare legislation in New Jersey, HANJ attempted to take on a re-energized advocacy role in order to represent these communities’ interests and concerns.
Grass roots institution-building in New Jersey is part of a community organization continuum provoked by the 20th-century migration of Puerto Ricans and other Latin Americans to New York. These organizations formed to foster cultural bonds in their newly transplanted communities, maintain ties with their nations of origin, but also to combat social discrimination and isolation, economic and political inequalities, and racial hostilities.5 The explosive growth and expansion of these institutions can be traced to the social tumult of the 1960s and the ensuing federal support for “poverty programs,” as well as to the tremendous growth of Caribbean and Latin American newcomers over the last three decades.
The Role of Nonprofits in Service Delivery and Advocacy
In addition to their mediating and buffering function between government and the market, community-based nonprofit organizations in the current age of privatization that includes contracting, also serve as more proactive links, bargaining, and vigorously brokering between political representatives, administrative decision-makers, and citizens (Smith 1993; Smith and Lipsky 1993). Service-delivery community institutions have historically brought individual citizens and representatives of groups together by discovering and defining local needs, developing preventive strategies, mobilizing human and social service resources to address changing needs, contributing to a progressively efficient balance between social resources and needs, and helping communities attain unity of purpose and action (Harris 1971; Milofsky 1988). Local nonprofits work for the community in which they are embedded, often assuming functions not fulfilled by informal processes and when a purposive task-oriented focus is required (Milofsky 1999). Identity-based nonprofit organizations, “rooted in and organized for their communities” (Ospina et al.
2002:11), are important components of these local networks, on which government increasingly relies for the delivery of human services to newcomer populations, and serve a “safety net” function (Diaz 1999). But they are also community instruments of political participation for underrepresented groups and interests (Diaz 1999; Offe and Heinze 1992; Ospina 2002) joining issue networks (Heclo 1978), and participating in policymaking through pressure groups (Moe 1980; Olson 1965). Salamon (1992) concluded that as “empowering institutions,” American nonprofits, especially those formed by communities on the margins of political activity, function as vital vehicles of civic action, ensuring a free and open civil society. These nonprofits are seen as “providing a mechanism for joint action on behalf of even the least well-represented groups or views” (102–103).
As collective expressions, community-based organizations (CBOs) also function as safety valves that ease social and political pressures, contributing substantively to democratic debate and dissent but to social stability as well (Eisenberg 1997; O’Neill 1989). Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith (1993) employ the advocacy coalition approach to understanding policy change over time. As such, nonprofits have served as part of the “loyal opposition” providing critiques of government, the market and proposing innovative policy approaches (Salamon, 1992). For example, González Baker (1993) reports on the impact and unanticipated but very positive outcomes of community- based advocacy coalitions and policy actors on the implementation of the Immigration Reform and Control act of 1986 (IRCA). Often overlooked is the educational aspect of participating in CBOs. González (1991) cites the training ground and apprenticeship potential of Hispanic nonprofit organizations: “Hispanic nonprofits in many ways are the schools where Hispanics learn and grow” (125). Voluntary associations have often been viewed as “schools in democracy”—vehicles of socialization in which participants gain skills and competencies.
Like previous generations of immigrant and minority groups, Latinos/as have created nonprofit organizations (NPOs) to help themselves and to make their claims heard in the political process. NPOs have historically played significant roles in the articulation and defense of Latino/a interests in statewide and local arenas. Cortes (1999) found 4,068 tax-exempt organizations led by Latinos/as and serving Latinos/as in the United States. Camarillo (1991) documents the self-help mid-19th century Mexican-American mutual assistance associations as responses to their persecution in the southwestern United States. Rodríguez-Fraticelli et al. (1991) detail the formation of Puerto Rican cultural and other voluntary associations in New York in the early part of the 20th century as cultural defense mechanisms. Over the past four decades in particular, indigenous organizations have sought to reinforce ethnic values while serving as vehicles for access to needed services, but also as agents of social change (Diaz 1999; Hutcheson and Domínguez 1986).
Jenkins (1987) noted that “advocacy focuses on changing policies and securing collective goods, whereas service delivery creates divisible or individual benefits and may be provided without actual changes in policies” (109). The present study follows Jenkins’ broader conception of policy advocacy as “any attempt to influence the decisions of any institutional elite on behalf of a collective interest” (297). But the advocacy function of nonprofits in the modern context of the blurred role of the “hollow state”—that is, the “increasing separation of government from its output and the increasing role of nonprofit organizations in the delivery of public services” (Milward 1994:73)—has been negatively affected. The political vulnerability of nonprofit agencies to exogenous forces is additionally heightened by efforts to limit the range of action of nonprofits, including IRS regulations curtailing the advocacy role of the voluntary sector, and the decentralization of social policy resulting in the merger of agencies, competition from for-profit organizations for service delivery dollars, elimination of programs, and the tightening of eligibility standards (Smith 1993). Salamon (1996) observes that the recent role of partnering is giving way to a greater integration of nonprofits into the market economy.
There is broad agreement that in its privatization of public services and contracting with third parties, government has critically impacted the nonprofit sector. The qualitative shift from the advocacy role to service-provision signals a major change. Under these conditions, the advocacy role will experience particular strain, and many organizational missions will surely be threatened. Smith (1993) underscores the muting effect of contracting on the political role of nonprofits as a result of divided loyalties between their organizational mission and dependence on government funding.7 The politics and pressures of social service delivery appear to open the way for political activism to be negatively shaped as contracting enlists voluntary organizations in the attainment of public social objectives (Smith and Lipsky 1993; Ospina et al. 2002). Smith (1993) concludes that this evolution will compromise social rights, particularly in the area of entitlements, and weaken citizenship as the mediating function of nonprofits erodes. Because of the very instability of contracting in a dynamic social, economic, and political environment, it can be anticipated that many of the more financially and politically vulnerable organizations will be encouraged to narrow their agendas to be more in tune with evolving government program strategies, or face disappearance altogether. Jenkins (1987) concurs with Saltman (1971) that high levels of foundation, corporate, or government grants without support from local constituencies encourage a professionalized service approach that weakens advocacy efforts. Helfgot’s study (1974) of Mobilization for Youth (MFY) in New York City and Gittel’s survey (1980) of citizen organizations confirm that service delivery grants generally compromised militancy and internal democracy. Yet other scholars focus on the necessity of enhancing citizen participation in the context of new types of government-private sector cooperation (Milward and Provan 1994). Walker (1983) states unequivocally that nonprofit advocacy is “largely… determined by the composition and accessibility of the system’s major patrons of political action.” (404) This case reflects the dilemmas and tension inherent in combining organizational advocacy and direct service, between responsiveness to mission and constituents and responsiveness to funders, a particularly grave quandary for Hispanic community- based organizations dependent largely on government contracts.
Summary of Findings
The overarching goal of this study was to explore the political and social dimensions of Latino/a community-based advocacy by addressing three broad arenas: (1) the actors’ assessment of their effectiveness in mounting a Latino/a effort to influence the formulation, adoption, and initial implementation stages of Work First NJ; (2) the linkages between the Hispanic Association and state policymakers; and (3) negotiation and decision-making in matters related to community advocacy.
Jenkins (1987) makes explicit that the end goal of policy change is to secure collective goods as opposed to individual benefits. A former president of the Hispanic Association placed the significance of their contribution in historical context:
…The Irish—look at what they did for local government, the Italians for labor unions. I think Hispanics are still looking for where they have a major contribution…. At this point in time, we are raising some important issues about how people work their way [up] this famous ladder, you know…‘the American dream’. We’re talking about the whole gap between rich and poor and whether or not the country is going to go toward a more stratified society. (Personal communication, 1997)
Impact of Advocacy on the Hispanic Association of New Jersey
Three groupings of executive directors and their organizations emerged during the interviews.6 These included a leadership group of core activists; a second and large group of organizational leaders who played support roles; and a third category, formed by a significant number of agency directors not at all engaged in the statewide planning, strategy, or subsequent stages of the effort.
In the maelstrom of policy debate and the political processes swirling at the local, state, and national levels of government, HANJ achieved its immediate objective of preparing a position paper as a necessary first step in a larger advocacy effort to influence Governor Whitman administration’s final Work First proposal and later its implementation. But interviews evinced a broader and quite diverse range of informational, educational, and presentational collective gains that evolved as the various stages of welfare reform unfolded. These can best be characterized as having had impact on the organization itself. All core actors ascribed positive process outcomes: (1) maintaining themselves abreast of policy and program initiatives; (2) informing their clients and staff of these changes; (3) meeting their obligation to educate the general public while generating visibility for Latino concerns; and (4) analyzing and projecting the impact of the proposed legislation on Latinos/as.
These leaders observed process and other internal organizational impacts, especially in the organizing phase of their advocacy on Work First, that are critical to the realization of future long-term policy influence and capacity building.
These were clearly unanticipated outcomes:
- The process and the document provided a needed unifying statement of principles and agreement on controversial issues in a policy area of vital consequence to Latinos: “It brought us together, reinforced our togetherness in HANJ… There’s ‘una unión moral más fuerte’ [a sense of a stronger moral unity].”
- Drafting and approving a final group product was an affirmation of competence: “There is a sense of .. that we have been able to at least… put in writing… what we have been saying for the past 25 years. We are maybe reaching the point where we will be able to have a more structured platform from where we can actually aim our guns.”
- There was an enhanced sense of ownership and commitment of the members towards HANJ: “We see ourselves as active players with an ability to accomplish things…. There’s a renewed passion and commitment to these issues and we feel now that we can make a difference.”
- A fresh crop of executive directors pressed the organization’s executive committee for a new approach to advocacy focused on policy analysis instead of solely confrontation. These younger leaders generally viewed one another and were seen by the more senior members as full of fresh ideas, with high energy levels, backgrounds in organizing and administration, and with better technical skills to complement the experience and savvy of the older leadership. The emergence of new leadership also brought forth a different model for organizational decision-making.
- The consensus model was a critical contribution to the unifying process that infused the retreat on Work First and its aftermath: “Before this point whenever there was disagreement, the inability to tolerate dissent would stifle discussion and debate.”
- The position paper provided an opportunity to gain access to the media as a vital means of generating visibility for the issues raised on the impact of Work First on Latino/a constituents.
Indeed, these respondents experienced the cohesion and incarnational aspects of community that appear when individuals, particularly entrepreneurial leaders, with all of their personal concerns and special interests, “suddenly discover the power of being and working together” (Milofsky 1999:12).
Influencing Work First Legislation and Implementation
This study frames advocacy as an attempt to serve collective interests by influencing the decisions of any institutional elite (Jenkins 1987). Work First NJ: An examination by Latino community-based organizations established a clear set of issues, concerns, and recommended changes to New Jersey’s proposed legislation. Their policy goals encompassed: (1) extending time-caps for recipients engaged in English as Second Language (ESL) activities related to job readiness; (2) exempting caretakers of infants, the elderly, and the chronically ill from the work mandate; (3) increasing the number of bilingual administrators, support staff, and professionals sensitive to cultural issues in establishing paternity, obtaining support orders, and case management; and (4) expanding the quality and availability of ESL and adult literacy classes.
In retrospect, key actors viewed HANJ’s assertive participation as having broader and more long-term implications as they became stakeholders in a larger, more powerful alliance than they alone could mobilize to influence Work First formulation, adoption, and implementation. This experience with coalition work at the state level combined similar concerns and the strengths of many organizations and individuals representing Latino/a interests but also a wider range of issues. As such, informants seemed divided on the amount of credit that could be taken by HANJ alone for tangible results emanating from the coalition efforts. There was general agreement among the core actors, however, that the combined efforts of human service organizations resulted in a positive movement towards the short-term outcome goal of a more responsive, more humane state policy and greater state responsiveness from decision-makers.
I wouldn’t say it was solely HANJ. I can only judge by the meetings we had. I think we were able to raise awareness. ESL [English as a Second Language programs] has always been there… if nothing else we were able to raise an awareness that there have to be [higher] standards…I think we also had an impact on the time frame [for expected results of reform]. I don’t think that there is going to be anything in the final product that says this is the result of HANJ. That we could say this was solely us [sic]. (Personal communication, 1998)
In spite of the small gains claimed by some core Latino/a leaders and uncertainty about policy outcomes for others, there were particular areas in which all thought that they had influenced the thinking of decision makers drafting the legislative proposal and administrators later implementing its provisions. Although few instances of clear evidence could be cited to support their perceptions, most respondents in the core group concurred on positive movement toward their “platform” issues. They agreed HANJ had provided a formerly absent Latino/a perspective to the statewide discussions on continuation of health care support after employment and contributed to tempering requirements that teen mothers return to abusive families; moreover, HANJ had been influential in extending child-care; helping Latinos/as develop greater flexibility in job training and placement, taking into account English language proficiency; easing the requirements for compliance and allowing for exemptions from the initially proposed time frame; determining job creation strategies, partnerships with Latino CBOs, and bilingual-bicultural staffing standards for non-Latino/a providers; and recognizing the need for affordable housing and immigration education campaigns and citizenship services.
Respondents in the core group concurred that opportunities for influencing decision-makers were opened at the executive level with state administrators and county leaders, rather than in the legislature, where contacts were few and experience limited. The following comments speak to the perspective of core actors:
- We had and are having a major impact in terms of continuing to advocate before the state that more child-care is needed for welfare reform to
- We got the Department of Health and the Department of Human Services to issue a policy statement that responses to Requests for Proposals need to specify language and cultural capability of staff to carry out services to specific populations.
- We have had opportunities to meet with legislators and commissioners, to sit on taskforces, on review committees of translated materials (e.g., the Spanish language brochure sent out by Department of Human Services).
- New Jersey was one of the first states to set up citizenship services and pick up the pieces that the federal level left behind with respect to resident legal immigrants.
- About 3300 [Hispanics] by mid-1998 will have been helped to start the citizenship process at no cost to them.
The interviewees hoped that raising awareness at the state levels and achieving new levels of government responsiveness, as reflected in minor revisions in the legislation and regulations, would hold favorable consequences for Latino/a clients. But real concerns about unrealized goals and having their input actually taken into account still obtained:
“The five-year lifetime cap on benefits—losing that was a big disappointment [as were]…the two years of benefits and [the requirement that] you must be employed regardless of the conditions of the recipient.”
“Regarding basic skills and literacy, much more has yet to be achieved. A client receives only three months of ESL and after 6 months is expected to be working. That is not realistic for finding a livable wage and viable employment for the long term.”
“I don’t think that we were able to get much [in our goal to have] New Jersey reaffirm its commitment to non-resident legal immigrants. But we were able to have the state affirm its commitment to resident legal immigrants. It’s a real problem for undocumented persons to receive any services. We need to learn how to be able to work with this clientele.”
“We didn’t do a good enough job of pushing at the governor’s office to get them at that level to respond more directly to our critique.”
“I don’t think that we did a good enough job of getting the Latino/a community to understand and support the document…we have to get Latino/a professionals to become much more involved. For example, attorneys, or our organizations, various professions…”
“…Few specific concessions in implementation… took into account the cultural and language needs of non-English speaking population, mostly immigrants.”
“Little influence on getting specific funding allocations or recognition for specific resources to address Latino/a needs regarding welfare reform.”
“…The yardstick I use is how many people statewide backed our position and tried to influence some changes? I think that the people who were important were not contacted and sat down with.”
“Hispanic agencies are still a very underutilized resource [by decision makers].”
According to one knowledgeable state administrator, some significant progress was very evident by the fall of 1997 in the relationship between the organization and New Jersey leaders:
Major entities have incorporated [the] Latino/a agenda and come to the Latino/a CBOs before there is a finished product. For example, DHS relied on them in the translation of materials. Bill Waldman [Commissioner of Department of Human Services] and Karen Highsmith [policy adviser to the Governor] called on them to obtain feedback instead of as an afterthought or consultation after the fact. This statewide leadership sends the message that the Latino/a CBO expertise is important, even essential to the policy process. If not done at the point of having state policy makers do this as a routine with HANJ, HANJ is certainly close to this point. That is,… the product is considered incomplete if key individuals representing broader Latino/a groups, are not engaged, reached out to. The consortium mechanism makes it much easier politically as well for policymakers since they run less risk of politically antagonizing individual organizations. (Personal communication, 1998)
Influencing county and state resource allocations (also referred to by respondents as “deliverables” and “the tangibles”) to Latino/a agencies was the last of the unanticipated consequences of advocacy. In contrast to the uncertainty with regard to achieving the major policy changes originally proposed by HANJ, all respondents viewed achievement of tangible goods in the form of new programs as the clearly quantifiable indicators of successful advocacy, despite this not being a stated objective of the campaign. They enthusiastically supported enhanced services and additional funds. While the advocacy effort for some core actors may have had limited concrete results in the formulation and adoption stages of welfare reform, for most of these leaders the advocacy activity produced definite “deliverables” in the implementation phase.
A central example of the new and unanticipated program resulting from the initial Work First advocacy around immigrant rights was the more than one million state dollars received in 1997 by an HANJ consortium of seven member agencies to design citizenship services for legal immigrants. Other directors gave examples of smaller but no less meaningful levels of funding received by member agencies. Significantly, for the first time in its history this focus on proactive resource development also culminated in HANJ’s purposefully seeking funds not only for member agency programs but, in effect, competing with them for grants from the Center for Hispanic Policy and Research Development (CHPRD). A $55,000 grant was awarded to HANJ at the end of 1997 to establish a communications office with the purpose of increasing the technological capacity of its member agencies, and improving communication among its members. Among other tangible benefits resulting from the activities launched between 1996 and 1998, a $500,000 increase in the budget of the CHPRD was achieved largely through HANJ advocacy, which also helped in creating appointments to state and county task forces and commissions.
Resource development according to core leaders was a necessary but not sufficient condition for HANJ’s “doing business” over the long term. Core actors identified four long-range organizational and community goals important to future development, and toward which some progress had been made through the welfare reform advocacy. These were: (1) enhancing HANJ’s capacity for effective participation in public policy advocacy; (2) building a nonpartisan political constituency: (3) gaining statewide respect as representatives of the most vulnerable members of the Latino/a community; and (4) taking on a partnering role with government and other related organizations.
Over the long term, enhancing capacity as effective policy advocates will require the building of a nonpartisan political constituency. The 1997 gubernatorial elections gave particular impetus to this front. After the success of the Work First critique, HANJ prepared The Latino/a Civic and Economic Empowerment Agenda (1997). The latter developed a long-range agenda of policy issues and recommendations related to increased access to health care, affordable housing, a thorough and efficient education, expanded employment and training opportunities, and immigrants’ rights and other areas related to but not limited by social welfare reform. While an assessment of the latter document and the subsequent advocacy is not part of the current study, it was a significant and related consequence of the Work First policy advocacy initiative, and a continuation of the concerted effort to create both a policy advocacy capacity for HANJ and a nonpartisan political vehicle. Publication of the Agenda in October of 1997 represented a second stage of policy advocacy for HANJ and unleashed a series of events. Interestingly, one year after the Work First critique had been issued, the Latino/a Agenda for Civic and Economic Empowerment policy objectives were now phrased much more specifically, lending themselves to easier operationalization and therefore assessment—a lesson learned from the initial Work First foray into policy advocacy, in which the goals were more wide-ranging.
One of the perceived successes of the HANJ sessions with commissioners in 1997 was the sense of the Association’s access to the highest levels of policy implementation. Organizations whose executive directors had been most visible and active in the HANJ follow-up with commissioners appeared to have particularly benefited from this access. Core actors’ responses affirmed the HANJ president’s assessment that “between January 1996 and March 1997 we achieved small influences in the legislation, but more importantly was the recognition that we were a force to be reckoned with…meetings with commissioners, high-level policy makers and political figures, and taskforce invitations” (Personal communication, 1997).
This period of intense activity with welfare reform and the Latino Agenda was viewed as an accelerator of HANJ’s growing political presence as a nonpartisan advocate. In response to the 25 years of Puerto Rican and other Latino/a institution- building history, individual agencies and the Hispanic Association, as a collective organizational body, greatly enhanced their credibility at the state and county levels. Core leaders also all agreed that considerable progress had been made toward a partnering role with other nonprofits, but especially with government. Although it was not a universally accepted view by all of this study’s respondents, core interviewees expressed satisfaction that HANJ had consolidated itself internally as an organization and sharpened its focus. An unanticipated result of the primarily Puerto Rican-led mobilization was that HANJ became a stronger advocate for the needs and rights of both Latino/a citizens and non-citizens, obtaining funding for extensive citizenship campaigns. In addition, in the course of their Work First advocacy, alliances had been established and other related advocacy issues had been identified affecting all poor people, around which benefits to Latino/a poor might accrue in the form of additional programs or services and funding of Latino/a community-based agencies.
The attachment of program funding as an outcome goal of future policy advocacy on Latino/a concerns appears to have taken hold in HANJ. This leap of associating a policy advocacy function with program development and service delivery seems to have evolved quickly once access to decision-makers had been gained, the concept of partnership taken seriously by core leaders and state and county administrators, and the prospect of new contracts opened.
Yet, in spite of the greater leverage exerted in being heard and taken into account, there remained a sense that the welfare reform process had only brought HANJ and the Latino/a community to a threshold still to be crossed. The idea of being on the “threshold,” in addition to the generalized uncertainty among core actors about the legislative impact of advocacy, combined with the sense of having gained some ground, contributed to a collage of uneven success.
Limitations of the Advocacy Effort as Perceived by Core Actors
A great deal more work is clearly ahead for HANJ, particularly in the terrain of assuring broader member participation, engaging community involvement, addressing leadership turnover and development, generating public education campaigns, gaining access to and communicating with the media, wielding greater influence in the counties, and building coalitions at all levels. In response to the researcher’s question as to what was not accomplished during the advocacy effort, the nature of community involvement in policy advocacy was sharply brought to the fore by one of the core actors:
I don’t think we did a good enough [job] to get the Latino/a community to understand and support the document [as it] should have been…. Second of all, you have to understand that when you design something like this, unfortunately, it’s a small group of individuals who are very much getting involved.… (Personal Communication, 1998)
Others in the study echoed this sentiment of policy analysis and advocacy as an elite or selective type of activity engaged in largely by those “in the know” or those educated in the ways of policy and politics (Moe 1980). While cognizant of the weight that a select few have in organizational advocacy, there is also recognition of the importance of broadening and educating their base. Core actors readily admitted that not enough was done to counter the “elite” tendency by maintaining close contact and communication with other organizations in the community, and by keeping these well informed and therefore fully behind the HANJ effort. But as troublesome are the additional sources of tension, identified by eleven Latino/a organizations from the south and central regions that were not at all engaged with HANJ during the 1996 to 1998 welfare reform advocacy. Mentioned were possible hidden agendas, the use of the collective body to garner individual and/or agency rewards; and partisanship among individual core actors and the negative impact this might have on representing Latino/a interests. Also voiced were differences on ideological grounds about the perceived melding of advocacy and service delivery. The fact that three of the eleven unengaged executive directors had had no contact with HANJ and were not at all informed of the Work First efforts, and thus could not comment on advocacy effectiveness, is also reflective of internal difficulties in communications, participation, relationship building, and engagement of the wide spectrum of Latino/a community-based organizations. There appeared to be at least the seed of serious distrust in the motives and/or interests being represented by the leading executive directors in the name of HANJ, and a weakness in establishing communication and mobilization networks with their base.
But core leaders were generally hopeful about addressing such weaknesses and developing their future capabilities for representing Latino/a interests in the State. Most emphasized the need for strategic planning and accountability accompanied by building grass-roots community support in order to legitimate and buttress any advocacy role assumed in the years to come.
Conclusions
Policy advocacy is a very long and tortured process under the most favorable of circumstances. Underlying the present study are fundamental questions of power relations in New Jersey and the associated racialized exclusionary forces and structures that affect the direct involvement of Latino/a community-based organizations in policymaking. Issues of representation of and responsiveness to the opinion, needs, interests, and concerns of this growing if marginalized segment of the New Jersey population, through local and statewide organizational mobilization, are inextricably engaged in this discussion.
The Hispanic Association worked tirelessly from 1996 to 1998 on communicating the message that New Jersey’s government institutions were insufficient to the task of attending and addressing problems of the Latino poor. With notable exceptions, shaping policy change proved to be an elusive standard for the core actors asked to assess desired policy outcomes against the specifics of the operational impact of their analysis of Work First NJ and of their subsequent advocacy activities.
Instead, their assessment of HANJ’s strategic use of the position paper in influencing provisions in the final legislation elicited observations that ranged from the impact HANJ had on New Jersey welfare reform to more concrete examples of the impact that the policy advocacy experience had on the organization. With this study of Latino community-based advocacy in a policy debate of complex and controversial national dimensions, perceptual, procedural and organizational development issues became much more salient than expected and the research literature documents. It has brought to the fore other aspects that enrich conventional ideas about the effectiveness of advocacy as primarily associated with shaping policy change and securing collective gains. The insights gained by interviewing executive directors and leaders of the two-year activity launched by the umbrella group of Latino agencies— The Hispanic Association—offer additional criteria for assessing success. The HANJ advocacy experience is a case in point of success being measured by small community advances—in influencing policy implementation in lieu of exacting policy change at the formulation stage and of achieving intangible as well as concrete deliverables for individual member agencies of an ethnic collective association (in contrast to broader societal gains). There was a consensus among the organizational members—the core actors particularly—that important if incremental gains were obtained by the coalitions in which they were involved. In addition, HANJ played a leading role in the alliance that succeeded in moderating the state’s position on assistance to documented immigrants, and had participated in the national movement to modify the impact of federal legislation on non-citizen immigrants.
Other gains cited were in the intangible areas of less punitive measures adopted, relationships established with other organizations and with administrators at state and county levels, and greater access to and responsiveness from policymakers than had been the case in the past. Core leaders speculated that some of these unanticipated outcomes had everything to do with the development of nonpartisan political power—a long-term goal itself buttressed by entry into new networks and the strengthening of old alliances, openness to emerging issues and flexibility as interest group representatives, the receptiveness of the political environment, the support of sympathetic insiders, and the focused coordination of relationships with influential individuals and organizations. This was perhaps the period of most accelerated organizational maturation of the Hispanic Association as a collective body. It seems that HANJ core leadership grew from conceiving of policy advocacy as either a confrontational event enmeshed in raw threats, or at the other extreme, a rational process debated on an even playing field, to a more sophisticated notion that placed this activity squarely in the political arena of negotiating agreements, managing conflict and arriving at compromises within the vagaries attached to the incremental nature of social change. Central to this newly emerging understanding of policy advocacy was the awareness of the significance of team building, consensus, broad participation, and partnerships as contributing elements in the long-sought Latino organizational unity and cohesion. The data collected does not, however, permit exploration of the issues and tensions related to actual or potential conflicts among subgroups of the rapidly growing Dominican, Mexican, and Central American, New Jersey-based Latinos/as that the umbrella organization strategy might ameliorate or aggravate. It is clear, nonetheless, that in this instance of welfare reform, Puerto Ricans and the broader Latino/a communities represented by the Association could not have afforded to go it alone.
Decidedly, the “retreat” activity in June 1996, which saw HANJ members work, think, discuss, and debate welfare reform issues, as well as the final product—the published formal examination of Work First—served as unifying, landmark events. Preparation of the document and the use of consensus and collaboration to reach agreements on the main lines of the argumentation provided individual directors’ with a sense of policy competence and organizational cohesiveness. The process, the substantive character of the document, and the positive feedback from constituents, other organizations, and from decision-makers rebuilt the organization’s level of confidence and considerably extended its visibility. Each active director appears to have felt prideful ownership of these results. Core respondents did not claim that their positive attitude and the collective advocacy positions on social welfare and related policy issues resulted in concrete legislative changes or revised directives for Work First implementation as a direct result of, solely, HANJ’s intervention. Instead, claim was laid to a heightened responsiveness, participation in broad-based coalitions that did influence policy outcomes in the state, a more educated judgment about Latino concerns on the part of policymakers, and the beginnings of consultation and engagement of Latino input by state and county administrators. Overall, HANJ’s members viewed their role as that of assertive participant and stakeholder in a larger advocacy effort that combined similar concerns and the strengths of other organizations and individuals that represented the interests of poor constituencies. In the end, this story may be less about the impact of their intervention on Work First legislation, and more about what occurred in the evolution of Latino advocacy in the state and organizational development of HANJ as a result of its engagement with this particular change in social policy.
But the Latino case in New Jersey also confirms the research literature in a number of ways. It is clear that community-based organizations in these communities, while maintaining the mediating role that characterized the relationship between traditional nonprofits and government at the turn of the century, have added a local advocacy component that had flagged considerably in the latter decades but which was to be the main role of its umbrella organization founded in 1991. In the two-year period from 1996 to 1998, HANJ assumed the mantle as advocate in the welfare reform debate and rapidly took on the broker role between specifically Latino constituents and the state political decision-making process. As such it both was representative of the concerns and interests of the low-income Hispanic communities largely on the margins of political participation, and served as an instrument for policy influence, but also functioned as broker of services and programs.
Community institution building by ethnic and poor communities has proceeded steadily throughout the course of immigrant history in the United States. The building of successive institutions is also reflective of the fact that people’s energy, talent, and creativity, while not being tapped at the societal level, are nonetheless being channeled at the level closest to these marginalized groups. These resultant instrumental and expressive organizations possess talent, capture and develop organizational skills, and above all marshal the motivation and will to act on behalf of their constituents. The Latino organizations assume in part the oppositional role of nonprofits in a democratic society and of the opportunities for leadership development for those with limited access to such roles in business and government organizations (Eisenberg 1997; O’Neill 1989).
It seems clear that these third-sector organizations have provided such training grounds for Latino/as as they have for previous generations of immigrants and minorities. Yet it needs to be remembered that the Hispanic Association is an umbrella grouping of the full-time chief administrators of the member community- based organizations, most of which are almost totally reliant on state and local government and compete for funding. The voluntary nature of the policy activism of the directors with the Association is above and beyond their salaried positions and primary obligations to their respective boards of directors, staff, and local constituents. The amount of time and energy required of executive directors, staff, and board members for advocacy is considerable. No doubt this reality has impinged on the viability of the advocacy role, particularly if it does not result in immediate, concrete payoffs to their agencies.
The study thus notes a worrisome trend toward a diminishing advocacy role, especially in the era of state contracting of nonprofits for delivery of previously public services. The predominance of the broker role and its association with organizational survival in the perception of most respondents brings up several critical issues with regard to dependence on state funding, the resulting potential for cooptation of the HANJ leaders and of its member Latino/a community-based nonprofits, and Congressional restrictions placed on advocacy. As the HANJ engages in brokering additional funding for member agencies to conduct needed program and service delivery, it runs the danger of becoming a provider of services or a “vendor,” as William Waldman, Commissioner of Human Services, cautioned. Entering into becoming a “provider” or “vendor” supported by state funds and still maintaining an advocacy function may be difficult.
Were precious leadership energies and limited HANJ resources to be focused on divisible or individual agency benefits, then HANJ advocacy focused on influencing policy and securing collective goods will indeed be compromised—especially if, as has been evidenced in the interviews, resource development is used by member agencies and executive committee members as a yardstick of successful advocacy. This dilemma also increases the odds for cooptation of advocacy leadership with the almost complete dependence of Latino/a agencies for 75 percent of their revenues from state and local government funding. This is particularly troublesome because the third sector has also functioned as a safety valve to ease the pressures of public concerns, and as a mechanism for channeling public action and attention on matters of public importance.
We are reminded of the fragility of advocacy as the “quintessential function of the voluntary sector,” the source of criticism of government and the private sector, and one of the handmaidens of policy innovation. This is especially important in light of Salamon’s (1992) second paradigm or the role of partner in providing social welfare services. This cooperative and collaborative stance has made it possible for administrators to call upon HANJ leadership as advisors, consultants, and participants at various levels of policy decision-making. Access to the upper echelons of decision- making and the open and more responsive attitude on the part of New Jersey state and county officials were hard-won and long in coming, and are among the collective benefits cited by respondents as directly connected to the Work First and later the Latino Agenda advocacy efforts. But this very same access can dramatically blunt the cutting edge of advocacy.
Advocacy organizations like HANJ function as natural and practical self-help responses to address the needs of the Latino/a poor. Yet, as a community-authorized and -legitimated agent, HANJ can also be seen as part of a broader participatory process. The process can be further viewed in the larger negotiation in which cultural resistance and defense play a part. More empirical data are needed to affirm that community-based organizational advocacy is one concrete form of active participatory activity that can both speed the social and political integration of Latinos/as, and influence the landscape of American social policy if Latinos/as are engaged as actors and partners in the policy formulation and implementation process. But the very same insertion in the political process can render powerless or neutralize rightful claims to equity as these are co-opted by status decision-makers.
Yet, ultimately, going beyond “participation” to “attempting influence” in the policy arena is about negotiating social and political incorporation into the decision- making processes as respected partners. It is quite a challenge, then, for the representatives of community-based organizations to maintain political leverage and self-conscious management of the advocacy role as constant parts of the equation, when working on improving the quality of life of their constituents while becoming enmeshed as partners in the workings of government bureaucracies. But herein lie the compromises involved in political activism. The examination and articulation of their own interests in the Work First advocacy and the Latino Agenda for Civic and Economic Empowerment provided mechanisms for action by these least represented of constituent groups and views. This case study opens up, on the one hand,
the necessity of improving the nature, scope, and quality of policy participation by Latino/a marginalized groups, while on the other, guarding against trading advocacy for program dollars or token representation. The historically low levels of civic participation of the organized voices of community-based nonprofits in the policy formulation, implementation, and evaluation stages continue to reveal an array of structural inequities around which these organizations can mobilize and educate constituents to advocate for greater inclusion. It is toward the real possibility of consistent and principled interventions in decisions impacting on Latino/as, not only as beneficiaries but also as respected actors in the formulation of political choices, that advocacy serves as a vehicle of social change and social justice.
Acknowledgments
The author is grateful to the Aspen Institute Nonprofit Sector Research Fund for support of the research on which this article is based. I am indebted to Graduate Assistants Manuel Aliaga and Eugenia Echols for their contributions to the data collection phase, Frank Bonilla and James Jennings for their feedback on earlier drafts, José Cruz for his support as consultant, and the executive directors and leadership of the Association for sharing their valuable time and energy with me.
Notes
1 Cuts were restored in SSI disability benefits for documented immigrants in the U.S. as of August 22, 1996, or disabled after that date. The same federal budget bill also restored Medicaid to children losing SSI disability benefits, and created additional job slots for single adults to mitigate the food stamp cuts.
2 Hispanic and Latino/a refer to birth or ancestry in Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, or Central and South America. Hispanic is a federal designation. It is widely used in national and state reporting systems as a racial/ethnic identifier. Latino/a has emerged as a self-designated umbrella term. Both are used interchangeably here with preference for the term Latino/a.
3 The name of the organization has been changed in keeping with human subjects protocol. Please contact author for in text references for the Hispanic Association.
4 This proposal was first published January 26, 1996 as Work First NJ, A “Working” Approach to Welfare: New Jersey’s 1115 Welfare Reform Proposal. Trenton, NJ: Author. Governor Whitman signed Work First NJ into law on March 24, 1997.
5 See Lawrence Chenault (1938). The Puerto Rican Migrant in New York City. Reprinted, New York: Russell and Russell, 1970; C. Wright Mills et al. (1950). The Puerto Rican Journey: New York’s Newest Migrants. Reprinted, New York: Russell and Russell, 1967; Oscar Handlin (1959). The Newcomers: Negroes and Puerto Ricans in a Changing Metropolis. Cambridge: Harvard University Press; Jesus Colon (1961). A Puerto Rican in New York. Mainstream Publishers: New York; Joseph P. Fitzpatrick (1971). The Puerto Rican Americans: The Meaning of Migration to the Mainland. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall; Wagenheim, Kal, and Olga Jimenez de Wagenheim, Eds. (1994). The Puerto Ricans: A Documentary History. Markus Wiener: Princeton.
6 The study is exploratory and cross-sectional in design. It relies on qualitative, descriptive methods of data collection, including analysis of organizational documents and communications; direct participant observations, and individual face-to-face and telephone interviews. The universe of twenty-six community-based HANJ organizations was grouped according to geographic location in the northern, central, or southern regions of New Jersey. The twenty-two organizations listed as bona fide, dues-paying members in 1996 were identified. First contacted were the executive directors most involved in leading the welfare reform advocacy effort—those listed as sponsors in the published position paper (HANJ, 1996). They were invited to participate in intensive interviews. Subsequently, in each of the regions a convenience sample was established, of directors willing to be interviewed during the period of the study. Interviews also averaged two and one-half hours. Last, a gap in the demographic representation among the organizational leaders who were not active in the advocacy activities was filled with a telephone interview of 30 minutes. At its conclusion, study respondents numbered fourteen executive directors, one board member, and two staff persons, for a total representation of sixteen community-based agencies, and three decision makers; 73 percent of the directors were interviewed out of a potential respondent group of twenty-two dues-paying members during the period of the study. A personal profile of the executive directors and their agencies was also prepared. Characteristics culled from this profile included age, ethnicity, years and type of nonprofit experience, academic background, place of birth, and gender. Sources outside of HANJ included interviews with three administrative decision-makers, with whom HANJ members interfaced during the welfare reform period marked by the January 1996 publication of the state proposal and the spring of 1998—the period of adoption and the first year of its implementation. One interview was held in person and two by telephone. A recognized community development consultant who has tracked the historical development of Latino/a community-based organizations in New Jersey provided a fourth, outside perspective.
7 In contrast, during the same period government support accounted for only 36 percent of all U.S. nonprofit income.
8 By social and political integration are meant access and representation by Latino/a group and individual members in the universe of social, political, and economic institutions of American society.
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