[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 40, Number 38 (Monday, September 20, 2004)]
[Pages 1995-1998]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
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.
    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.

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    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, 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.

[[Page 1997]]

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 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

[[Page 1998]]

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 
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.