    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George W. Bush (2004, Book II)]
    [September 15, 2004]
    [Pages 2061-2064]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at the Hispanic Heritage Month Reception
    September 15, 2004

        Thank you all for coming. Bienvenidos a la Casa Blanca. [Laughter]
    Thanks for coming. Laura and I are thrilled to have you here. We welcome
    you to the--to observe Hispanic Heritage Month. What a performance.
    Thank you all very much. It was spectacular.
        This is the month we celebrate great contributions of Latinos to our
    country. It's a special month. It really echoes our diversity and the
    strength of our great democracy. I spend a lot of time talking about the
    transformational power of liberty, reminding people that liberty has got
    an incredible way of taking diverse people and uniting them into one
    common purpose--pais, a great land. That's why we believe democracy has
    a place in our own neighborhood. We believe that liberty is important in
    countries throughout our hemisphere. We believe in human dignity and
    human rights, the nonnegotiable demands of human dignity. And that's
    best achieved through liberty.
        That's why we're working to advance liberty in the greater Middle
    East. We believe all people desire to be free. We believe that
    inherently in the soul of men and women is this desire to live in free
    societies. It's worked here in America. It can work everywhere. Think
    about our country. We're such a diverse land with different cultures all
    bound together in this great country because of freedom.
        You know, recently I talked to President Putin of Russia. I told him this country mourns the loss
    of life as a result of the terrorist attacks, the terrorist attack on
    the school. I told him we stand shoulder to shoulder with them in
    fighting terror, that we abhor men who kill innocent children to try to
    achieve a dark vision. I'm also concerned about the decisions that are
    being made in Russia that could undermine democracy in Russia, that
    great countries, great democracies have a balance of power between
    central government and local governments, a balance of power within
    central governments between the executive branch and the legislative
    branch and the judicial branch. As governments fight the enemies of
    democracy, they must uphold the principles of democracy.
        I also want to say something, as we gather, about Hurricane Ivan. I
    talked to the Governors of Mississippi and
    Alabama and Louisiana, tambien mi hermano, el Gobernador de Florida. I
    told him the people of this country--I told all
    four Governors the people of this country are praying for their safety.
    We pray that the storm passes as quickly as possible without any loss of
    life or loss of property, and that--I told them that the Government is
    ready to help.
        I appreciate Hector. I want to
    thank you for your service. I appreciate Secretary Evans and Secretary Chao, members of
    my Cabinet who have joined us today. I'm proud of your work.
        We've got Ambassadors here. This is an important month, by the way,
    and we're tracking a lot of big shots. [Laughter] Hans Hertell is with us. Hans, thanks for coming. He's the
    Ambassador to the Dominican Republic, mi amigo.
        Gaddi Vasquez, who's the Director of
    the Peace Corps. Roger Noriega is Assistant
    Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs. Eduardo
    Aguirre is the Director of the U.S.
    Citizenship and Immigration Services. Al Gonzales is my lawyer. [Laughter] He is the White House Counsel to
    the President. Ruben Barrales is the Director
    of Intergovernmental Affairs. I'm naming people that work in my
    administration. I think it's important to promote a diverse
    administration, to welcome all cultures, and we're better for it here in
    Washington. And I want to thank them for their service.

    [[Page 2062]]

        I want to thank the Embajador
    de Colombia y tambien de Mexico y el nuevo Embajador de Espana.
    Welcome today to the White House
    for the credentialing ceremony. I want to thank the three Ambassadors
    for coming. Welcome. Bienvenidos.
        I want to thank the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee for
    the United States Senate, Chairman Lugar--great man--Senator
    Lugar from the great State of Indiana. I
    also appreciate Congressmen Weller, Diaz-Balart
    de Florida, y tambien Steve Pearce from New
    Mexico. Thank you all for coming. Proud you're here.
        Brian Sandoval, donde esta? Anyway, he's
    here somewhere. He got a lousy seat--[laughter]--or no seat at all.
    [Laughter]
        Marcos, thanks for your prayer. It was
    beautiful. Welcome. Tell everybody at home hello. That would be Houston,
    is where he lives. And Laura and I are Tejanos.
        I want to thank Joaquin. Thank you very
    much. It was a spectacular performance. What a great athlete and an
    artist. Thank you guys. Your buddies brought out the best in you. It was
    really great. Thanks. Myrka--thanks for coming, Myrka. Gracias.
        I want to thank Emilio. Appreciate you
    coming. El amigo de mi familia, Gustavo Cisneros. Esta aqui. Gracias, Gustavo, welcome. Jimmy, thanks for coming--Jimmy Smits, proud you're here.
    Elizabeth Vargas is with us. I'm proud she
    is here. I want to thank Alex Wallau from ABC
    Television for coming with us.
        Eliseo--we've got some soccer stars? Where are they? Donde esta los
    soccer stars? Well, they're somewhere. Oh, there they are, yes. The
    three stars, Eliseo, Marco, y Amado. Thank you for
    coming. So how is the team this year, pretty good? Yes? No hablas
    Ingles. [Laughter] Eliseo is from El Salvador. Marco, que pais? Bolivia.
    Amado is from Honduras. Bienvenidos. Good luck in the season.
        I want to thank members of the Hispanic Organization who are here
    today.
        I do want to make special mention of the fact that Judge Reynaldo
    Garza of Brownsville, Texas, passed away this week. He was 89 years old.
    In 1961, President Kennedy appointed Judge Garza to the district court
    in Texas. Judge Garza was one of the first
    Hispanic Federal judges in America. He's a great Texan. Those of us who
    are from Texas were proud to say, ``We're both Texans.'' He was the son
    of Mexican immigrants. He was a shining example of the American Dream.
    He was a good man, and he made this country a better place, and we honor
    his memory today.
        People often talk about the Latino culture. Here's how I'd like to
    describe it: faith in God, commitment to family, and love of country. In
    this moment in our history, America is defending--depending on the
    unselfish dedication of patriots. Today, there are almost 200,000
    Hispanic Americans serving in the Armed Forces. Eight of these
    incredibly brave men and women are with us today. I want to thank you
    all for coming. Thank you for wearing the uniform.
        Latinos have contributed to the defense of freedom abroad and to the
    advance of freedom inside our own country. This afternoon, Laura and I were honored to meet members of an Hispanic
    American family who struggled against discrimination and won a victory
    for all in this country. We welcome Sylvia and
    Gonzalo and Jerome
    and Sandra Mendez with us. Bienvenidos. Let me
    tell you their story. I think you'll find it so incredibly American and
    so uplifting.
        Sixty years ago, their parents, Gonzalo y Felicitas Mendez, tried to
    enroll their children as students in a mostly white elementary school
    closest to their house in Westminister, California. That was 60 years
    ago. Unfortunately, in those days, America had a--our vision wasn't as
    clear as it should be. They were turned away from that school, and they
    went to an older barrio school. I'm told it was a rickety,

    [[Page 2063]]

    wooden building bordered by an electric cattle fence. The mom and dad
    didn't like it. They didn't like their children being treated that way.
    They loved their children. And so they--and so the dad saved his money,
    1945, and he went into a Federal court to sue with four other families
    for equality and fairness. That's 1945.
        He said, ``I'm just doing this for my children.'' What he really
    meant to say was, ``I'm just doing this for every child.'' He was
    fighting so that everyone in this country has a chance to realize the
    American Dream.
        A lawyer named Thurgood Marshall filed a friend of the court brief
    in the lawsuit, and the Mendez family won their case. Their effects
    reached far beyond a single neighborhood school. Inspired by the Mendez
    decision, Governor Earl Warren signed an order desegregating all the
    schools of California. Five years later, Thurgood Marshall would use the
    same arguments against segregation when he argued Brown versus Board of
    Education. And Earl Warren, who had become Chief Justice, would write
    the Supreme Court opinion that ended segregation in schools across
    America.
        Today we honor your family and your mom and dad.
        When Laura and I were taking our picture, one
    of the beautiful girls said--women said the No Child Left Behind Act is
    great. It's in the spirit of the Mendez family that the No Child Left
    Behind Act is flourishing, because we're fighting against another kind
    of discrimination in that act. It's called the soft bigotry of low
    expectations. We should never allow a system to exist in where they walk
    into a classroom and say, ``This child can't read because of the color
    of their skin.'' You can't condemn somebody to failure because their
    parents don't speak English as a first language. That's not what we
    stand for here in America.
        And so the laws we passed with Republican and Democrat help are
    challenging that soft bigotry of low expectation. We believe every child
    can learn. We want to know if every child can read and write and add and
    subtract early, before it's too late. We're going to stop this business
    about just shuffling children through the school, year after year,
    without learning the basics. We'll correct problems now. We're raising
    the bar. No dejamos a ningun nino atras. No child will be left behind in
    America.
        Recently, I talked about a school in Georgia, northeast Georgia,
    called Gainesville Elementary School. It's mostly Hispanic, mostly poor.
    It's the kind of school where people just say, ``Well, gosh, these kids
    can't learn. Give up. Move them through.'' This year, 90 percent of the
    students passed the State tests in reading and math. That's a fantastic
    statistic, isn't it?
        We wouldn't know if we didn't measure. We wouldn't know if we didn't
    ask the questions about whether a child can read and write and add and
    subtract. We wouldn't know if we didn't correct problems early, before
    they're too late. And fortunately, the school has got a
    principal that has challenged the soft
    bigotry of low expectations. Here's what he said: ``We don't focus on
    what we can't do at this school. We focus on what we can do. We do
    whatever it takes to get the kids across the finish line.''
        That's what we're going to do here in this country. As we celebrate
    this important month, our mission, our goal, our deepest desire is for
    every child--every child--including those whose parents don't speak
    English as a first language, to be able to realize the promise of this
    country by making sure the public schools have high standards in
    excellence in every classroom. And that's what we're going to do.
        As we celebrate this important month, we also need to celebrate
    ownership, because that's part of the American experience. We want more
    people owning their own home. I think there's nothing better than people
    opening up the door where they live and saying, ``Welcome to my

    [[Page 2064]]

    home.'' ``Bienvenidos a mi casa.'' [Laughter] ``Thanks for coming to my
    piece of property.'' And we must be dedicated to the proposition that
    ownership ought to extend to every neighborhood and every group.
        I set a goal to have 5.5 million new minority homeowners by the end
    of this decade. And we're on track to meet the goal--1.6 million new
    minority homeowners bought homes in the last 2 years. It's a fantastic
    statistic, I think. I think it's part of helping bring hope into
    people's families.
        Also I'd like to talk about entrepreneurship. I mean, the Latino
    community is entrepreneurial. I mean, you talk about small-business
    owners who have got vision and drive and desire, sit down with Latino
    businessowners. They have a great sense of business and balance sheet
    and, as importantly, a great desire to own their own business. And one
    of the most hopeful aspects of our society today is the number of
    Hispanic-owned businesses that thrive throughout America. I love it when
    I meet an Hispanic entrepreneur, particularly somebody who came up with
    an idea at their kitchen table and said, ``I want to own something. I
    want to own my business.'' And now they're employing people. Seventy
    percent of new jobs in America are created by small businesses. Think
    about that. And the role of Government is to encourage the expansion of
    small-business opportunity and entrepreneurship through every society,
    every part of our society. And we're doing just that in America, and our
    country is better for it.
        Listen, we're a diverse nation, but there are things that bind us,
    our love of freedom, our belief in God, our understanding of the
    importance of family, our desire to realize dreams, the deep desire for
    people to live in a free society. I'm proud of your heritage. I'm proud
    of the ancestry. I'm proud to call Latinos Americans, and I'm proud to
    be your President.
        God bless, and welcome to the White House.

    Note: The President spoke at 3:37 p.m. in the East Room at the White
    House. In his remarks, he referred to President Vladimir Putin of
    Russia; Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi; Gov. Bob Riley of Alabama;
    Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco of Louisiana; Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida;
    Hector V. Barreto, Administrator, Small Business Administration; Luis
    Alberto Moreno Mejia, Colombia's Ambassador to the United States; Carlos
    Alberto De Icaza, Mexico's Ambassador to the United States; Carlos
    Westendorp y Cabeza, Spain's Ambassador to the United States; Nevada
    State Attorney General Brian Sandoval; entertainers Marcos Witt, Joaquin
    Cortes, and Emilio Estefan; actor Jimmy Smits; television personality
    Myrka Dellanos; Elizabeth Vargas, reporter, and Alex Wallau, president,
    ABC Television Network; professional soccer players Eliseo Quintanilla,
    Marco Etcheverry, and Amado Guevara; and Shawn McCollough, principal,
    Gainesville Elementary School. The Office of the Press Secretary also
    released a Spanish language transcript of these remarks. The National
    Hispanic Heritage Month proclamation of September 17 is listed in
    Appendix D at the end of this volume.