Prodigal son

Angel Taveras, an appealing candidate in his own right, reflects growing political activity by Hispanics in Rhode Island

by Ian Donnis

Providence City Councilman Luis Aponte was recently having coffee in a Broad Street restaurant when he overheard diners debating Angel Taveras' uphill campaign for Congress. One side argued that Taveras, a 29-year-old lawyer making his first bid for public office, should have started instead by running for the General Assembly. Others insisted that the Harvard-educated candidate, who became an associate at a downtown firm after growing up poor in South Providence, is the right person to go to Washington. But regardless of which view is correct, says Aponte, "Just the fact that those discussions are happening in a restaurant on Broad Street is pretty telling."

Aponte should know. After getting elected during his second campaign, becoming the first Hispanic city councilor in Providence, he's well aware of the difficulty of getting people enthused about politics. And even though the consequences of a lack of clout are most evident around Broad Street, South Providence and other impoverished neighborhoods, it's that much harder to makes voters out of people, like recent immigrants and poor residents, whose lives are consumed by working and paying the bills.

Coming from this background, Taveras convincingly offers himself as a personification of the American dream. It's a personal story with widespread appeal and one with particular resonance for the state's burgeoning Hispanic community. Although some 65,000 Rhode Islanders, or almost 7 percent of the state's population (and many observers believe the actual number is higher) trace their heritage to Latin America, up from 45,000 in 1990, Hispanics remain seriously underrepresented in state and local politics. Of 150 state legislators, only one, state Representative Anastasia Williams (D-Providence), is a Latino. And, as noted by Aponte -- who with the Panamanian-born Williams is the most visible Hispanic elected official in the state -- there's a direct link between political representation and the way in which public resources are distributed.

Like Kate Coyne-McCoy and Kevin McAllister, Taveras faces a tough fight in challenging Secretary of State James Langevin for the Democratic nomination to succeed US Representative Robert Weygand in the 2nd Congressional District. As an affluent two-term incumbent from Warwick, Langevin enjoys a strong advantage in name recognition and he's happy to pour his own wealth into his campaign. Langevin, a pro-life social conservative, will also benefit from Taveras and Coyne-McCoy's overlapping appeal to liberals.

Still, the candidacy of someone as credible as Taveras represents an important step not just for his own prospective political career, but the civic development of Rhode Island's Hispanic community.

"I think it shows that we are coming of age politically," says Victor Capellan, executive director of the Center for Hispanic Policy and Advocacy (CHISPA) in Providence, who has twice run unsuccessfully for state representative. Besides reflecting the presence of other Hispanics who can capably represent a variety of constituents, "it empowers the community to come out and vote for one of their own," Capellan says. "You will see the number of Latino voters go up because of this race. People are enthused to see a young man with the education that Angel has, the good intentions that Angel has, and a plan. People are excited and they're hopeful."

NOT FAR from Superior Court and the attorney general's office, the Providence Washington Building on South Main Street is part of the landscape of downtown power. After graduating from Georgetown Law School in 1996, Taveras joined this rarefied world when he became a litigator at Brown, Rudnick, Freed and Gesmer. "Sometimes, I still can't believe I'm here," says Taveras, whose respected alma mater, Classical High School, and the hardscrabble streets that surround it, are visible from law firm's eleventh-floor office. "It's a short distance in terms of miles, but it's a long ways away. It's not something I envisioned when I was growing up."

As a third-grader at the Mary E. Fogarty School in South Providence, Taveras was precocious enough, however, to declare that he wanted to be a lawyer when he grew up. The statement from the boy, one of three children of Dominican immigrants who came to Rhode Island to New York, made such an impression on Taveras' teacher that she brought him to share it with other teachers. It didn't cross his mind until years later, he says, that he had never seen a Latino lawyer as a child.

Nor has Taveras seen a congressman of Dominican heritage -- because there hasn't been one. When he sounded out his colleague George Caruolo, a partner at Brown, Rudnick, Freed and Gesmer, the former House majority leader "really expressed how difficult it is to do what I'm trying to do," Taveras says. But despite the long odds of getting elected, the first-time candidate wasn't dissuaded from running for Congress.

Unveiling his campaign before an auditorium of Classical students in November, Taveras mined his own experience in saying, "I'm here to say that no one has the right or the ability to tell you how far you can go -- only you can choose your destination, and reaching it will be a function of your willpower. I'm here to assure you that the future -- your own and that of our society -- is not pre-determined by anyone or any force, but is waiting for you to shape it with compassion and intelligence and vision."

An early standout in school, Taveras was raised by his working mother after his parents divorced when he was 7, and he credits much of his success to the interest of relatives and teachers. After his freshman year at Classical, for example, he was encouraged by his guidance counselor, Mrs. Smith, to apply for a summer math and science enrichment program for minority students at Philips Andover Academy. "I didn't want to go to school during the summer," Taveras recalls. "I finally applied because I wanted to get her off my back." Looking back, he cites his three successive years of participation in the program as a big factor in his subsequent education at Harvard and Georgetown Law.

Clean-cut, amiable and articulate, Taveras lives in the Silver Lake section of Providence with his girlfriend, Agripina Garcia, and her two children. He says he's running to expand for others the kind of opportunities that he's had. Although the motifs of his campaign -- the motto of "Keeping America's promise," the virtual stars and stripes that flutters on his Web site -- would be trite for most candidates, they're more sincere coming from Taveras, who has been active in public service and could continue drawing a six-figure salary without taking on a long-shot campaign.

As a first-time candidate, Taveras contends he's qualified to serve in Congress because of his real-life experience in punching a time clock, living from paycheck to paycheck and experiencing anti-union sentiment during a summer job at a Florida supermarket. "You're going to hear a lot of candidates say, `I can imagine what it's like to be poor.' I can tell you what it's like," he says.

Although a little vague on some issues, Taveras cuts a progressive profile. He's pro-choice and describes himself as a strong supporter of gay rights, a greater commitment to early childhood education and steps to help the poor and working class, such as expanding the earned-income tax credit. Describing campaign finance reform as necessary, he doesn't have a specific plan in mind. Taveras, who has not signed on as a supporter of the Gore campaign, says he would not have supported the welfare reform deal that was embraced by President Clinton. He favors a robust foreign policy in which US influence is brought to bear in foreign crises, even if US interests aren't threatened.

State Senator David Igliozzi (D-Providence), who introduced Taveras during his campaign announcement at Classical High and has contributed to his campaign, says, "there's no doubt that he has the intellect for any job. He also has the desire and the character." The legislator calls Taveras a perfect role model, and adds, "He's going to succeed ultimately in whatever he does." But the difficulty faced by Taveras can be seen in how Igliozzi, like the vast bulk of Rhode Island's Democratic establishment, is supporting Jim Langevin, who won the state party's endorsement in an overwhelming vote in April.

LUIS APONTE was motivated to run for the city council because of his frustration with the prevalence of subpar conditions, like crumbling roads and sidewalks, in the poorer parts of Providence near his home in Washington Park. "I didn't think there was an equitable distribution of resources city-wide, and I thought I could do something about that," he says. And after losing the Ward 10 Democratic primary by six votes in 1994, Aponte got busy. "I think I would have been less angry if I lost by 100 votes," he says. After walking the ward to meet residents once during the 1994 campaign, Aponte repeated the ward-wide door-knocking almost three times when the council seat came up for grabs in 1998.

In doing so, he followed in the time-honored tradition of grassroots democracy. As put by Aponte, who was born in Puerto Rico and grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and Central Falls, "The theory of representative democracy is that everyone has to participate in order for it to work."

Although the council job requires more time and encompasses more responsibility than he imagined, Aponte welcomes his multi-faceted role as a neighborhood leader, city official and spokesman for Hispanics in Rhode Island. While the pace of making change can be frustrating, "you can see the fruits of your labor," says the 36-year-old councilman, who works as an investigator for the Rhode Island Commission on Human Rights. And although something like replacing a missing stop sign may not seem like a big thing, he says, it offers an enhanced sense of security -- and a sign of responsive government -- for the parents of a small child who live on a heavily trafficked city street.

Aponte's persistence in pursuing election reflects how, at a time when the percentage of Americans who vote has plummeted, more Hispanic candidates are running in Rhode Island, organizing politically and wearing out shoe leather while courting votes. The trend emerged in the early '90s and continued as the Latino community -- most of whose members trace their heritage to Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Colombia and Guatemala -- has grown and established stronger roots in the Ocean State.

A significant step came with the formation in 1998 of the Rhode Island Latino Political Action Committee -- a counterpoint to the historic division by nationality in the Hispanic community, which is often seen by outsiders as a monolith -- and the PAC's coming-out party at Roger Williams Park was attended by a spectrum of candidates and elected officials.

"People are recognizing we can be a key player," says CHISPA's Capellan, a 29-year-old native of the Dominican Republic, who plans to run for public office again in the future. "I'm very hopeful that we can build some strong alliances."

Maureen F. Moakley, a political science professor at the University of Rhode Island, cites Taveras' campaign for Congress as "a natural expression of the mobilization of the Hispanic community. They're well-represented and they're on the move. The next big step in the process is elective office. Over the next few elections, one would expect to see a couple of Hispanic representatives, at least, in the legislature." At the same time, Moakley says, Taveras is "a long-shot, and I think he knows that. I think he's out for next time."

Meanwhile, troubling social conditions, as evidenced by the recent Rhode Island Kids Count finding that 43 percent of Latino children in the state are living below the poverty line, remain an obstacle to increased political activity. And the hurdles facing Hispanic candidates can be seen in how voters in Central Falls, where close to 50 percent of the city's residents are thought to be Latino, have never elected a Hispanic city councilor. "We don't have the idea that your vote counts," says Ricardo Patino, a Colombian native who was defeated, 344-225, in running for a Ward 3 council seat last year.

Patino, a construction specialist for Rhode Island Housing, links the absence of Hispanic elected officials with the lack of any Hispanic police officers or firefighters in Central Falls (a cadet who is a native of Colombia has started police academy training). But Mayor Lee Matthews says Hispanics residents are reluctant to apply for police and fire department jobs, despite outreach and advertising in Spanish-language media. "I just think it takes a little bit of time for each ethnic group" to get assimilated, says Matthews, a view echoed by some Hispanic political observers.

Along Elmwood Avenue in Providence, notes Taveras, it's more common to see bumper stickers for candidates in the Dominican Republic than in Rhode Island. "We've got to change the mindset," he says. "I think what we've got to do is convince people that what you do here makes a very big difference."

TAVERAS DISMISSES questions about future campaigns, saying he's focused on this one. The candidate relates well to people and he doesn't lack for confidence. "I believe if I met every person in this district, I would win this election in a landslide," Taveras says. "Rhode Island is a small enough state, so you can get around the district." True enough, but Taveras faces a tight window of opportunity in which to introduce himself, raise money and share his message with voters.

Langevin, probably best known for championing the cause of open government in Rhode Island, remains the front-runner to succeed Weygand, who, with Richard Licht and Lincoln Chafee, is running for US Senate. Among other factors, Langevin benefits from his status as a resident of Warwick, the second-largest city in the district, which stretches from Providence, south of Route 44, to Westerly. And although legislative leaders were angered when Langevin issued a report that showed how the General Assembly was violating the Open Meeting Law, the state Democratic party, which is largely controlled by the legislative leadership, has since embraced him.

Kate Coyne-McCoy, executive director of the state chapter of the National Association of Social Workers, has proven herself an adept fund-raiser in challenging Langevin. She raised $394,000, about $30,000 more than Langevin through the March 31 federal reporting period, although Langevin swelled his war chest by adding $200,000 of his own money, according to the Center for Responsive Politics in Washington, D.C. Langevin was paralyzed below the waist when he was accidentally shot by a Warwick police officer in 1980, and the resulting lawsuit is thought to be the source of the fortune that has fueled his success as a candidate.

In contrast, Taveras, who recently hired Jane Asselta, a former fund-raiser for Myrth York, raised $65,000 through the March 31 period, although he hopes to bring in a total closer to $500,000 to run his campaign. Lawyer Kevin McAllister, president of the Cranston City Council, is running a deliberate low-cost campaign and came up with almost $27,000 during the same period.

Labor support was vital for Weygand in 1996 when a number of the state's most powerful Democrats supported his unsuccessful rival, former Providence Mayor Joseph Paolino. The Rhode Island AFL-CIO, the state's largest labor group, didn't endorse a candidate this time around since none of the four Democrats were able to muster support from two-thirds of 94 board members. A cluster of smaller unions have rallied behind Coyne-McCoy, whose father worked as a union plumber.

Within the next decade, Hispanics are due to supplant blacks as the nation's largest minority group. And regardless of what happens in the 2nd Congressional District race, the influence of Hispanics in Rhode Island politics will continue to grow in the years to come. With that in mind, Angel Taveras' Congressional campaign may well be remembered as a turning point.

Ian Donnis can be reached at idonnis[a]phx.com.