Political References in I Like it Like That

 

By Jessie Rabinowitz and Leslie Allen

  

Throughout the film, I Like it Like That there were political references that related to political situations going on at the time. For example, certain government officials were responsible for creating legislation that greatly affected the lives of those living in the area, like welfare and unemployment rates. The viewers of the film gain a sense of the political hardships faced by Latinos through the hardships the characters face.

In the early 1990’s, two important political figures were prevalent in the everyday lives of Latinos. David Dinkins, a Democrat, took office in 1990 and ran for reelection in 1994, but was defeated by Rudolph Giuliani, a Republican. Throughout this election, there were allegations of ballot tampering by each opposing party, but no concrete evidence was found. While Dinkins was in office, he had the support of many Latinos and other minority populations, mainly due to the large number of Latinos in the City Council. There are 23 blacks and Latinos in the Council who have the power to challenge the Mayor. Four weeks before the election of 1994, Maria Hinojosa conducted a radio broadcast between the two candidates, and claims that:

But the impact of those appointed commissioners and deputy mayors has barely been felt in many Latino barrios that have been hard hit by city budget cuts, the recession, crime, and drugs. And there's a growing impatience - In a recent Hispanic Federation survey of Latinos, a majority says city hall is still overwhelmingly insensitive to Latino needs. But political analyst Louis Miranda, who runs the Hispanic Federation, says Dinkins' problems with the Latino community began almost the day he was sworn in as mayor in 1990(1).

 

Dinkins was well known for being an excellent speaker and for his many good ideas, but he was never able to put all of them into action. Some of the issues he had to deal with were welfare and unwed mothers. For instance, one-third of the Puerto Rican families were on welfare and three-fifth of all Puerto Rican mothers were unmarried(2). To show his support and willingness to create a solution, Dinkins took a trip to Puerto Rico, but this trip was seen as a futile attempt to gain support from Latinos. Puerto Ricans became skeptical of whether or not the Democratic Party would deliver on the issues he promised in his campaign.

Rudolph Giuliani began his mayoral campaign with the knowledge that the Latino community was losing faith in Dinkins. He used this knowledge to manipulate the Latinos into thinking that he could resolve the issues that Dinkins did not. Giuliani brought the Latino community together, and began to butter up the community by claiming ways in which he was going to solve problems such as welfare, unemployment, crime, and drugs. Two years into his term, his approval began to slide. According to a Daily News poll, his support among whites remained strong although those among blacks and Latinos were decreasing.

Giuliani's slumping popularity with Latinos is one of the major changes the poll uncovered. After winning 35% of the Latino vote in 1993, he enjoyed a 46% favorable rating among Latinos in November 1994. But the approval numbers fell to 35% in September and 20% in the new survey…Luis Miranda, a Latino community leader who headed the Health and Hospitals Corp. for Giuliani before resigning this year, attributed the mayor's slide among Latinos to cuts in programs important to the minority community(3).

 

Giuliani cut jobs that could have been used by Latinos, increased the privatization of hospitals, and he cut other proposals that would have been a benefit to the Latino community.

These two mayors were unsuccessful in their overall approval by the Latino community. They used manipulation techniques in order to gain votes from the minority groups and in most cases never intended on following through on any of the issues they claimed would be resolved.

For those families in need, a system of Welfare was created. This system serves the purpose of giving aid and assistance to those who are unable to support themselves. Since the middle of the Twentieth Century, there have been many different forms of welfare available. Whether it was through food stamps, federal housing aid, or employment opportunities, the health and well being of many families and children was improved. For more information about welfare click here. In 1989, approximately 41% of Hispanic persons in the Bronx County of New York were below poverty level(4). In comparison, 19% of white persons and 29% of black persons who were also below poverty level. According to these statistics, it is obvious to conclude that minority populations in the Bronx are in need of welfare more so than the white population. At the start of Giuliani’s term:

The Giuliani administration began planning sharp reductions in health and welfare benefit programs for the poor as a key part of its strategy for handling next year's $2 billion budget gap…[Giuliani asked] the Social Services Department alone to draft proposals for reducing Medicaid payments for health care by $900 million and public assistance payments by $300 million. In all, the cuts would amount to reductions of 25 percent in health and welfare programs for the poor(5).

 

For a Mayor who claimed he was going to help those in need, it is apparent that he was untruthful in his campaigns.

In the film, I Like it Like That, there were a few scenes in which the main character, Lisette was faced with issues of welfare. For instance, when her husband Chino was put in jail, she had to find a means of support for her and her family. She wished to get a job, but he would not allow it. He claimed that it would be more beneficial for them to go on welfare. For people who are unfamiliar with situation, it may appear that welfare would be an easy way out, but as we see in this film, it is a difficult decision. Lisette feels that she would be ridiculed for going on welfare and this proves to be true when she tries to buy cigarettes and diapers with her food stamps. It is also apparent that the welfare she was receiving was not enough when her son looked toward drug dealing as a way to earn more money for himself and for his family.

The fact that she did not want to go on welfare, and the fact that it was providing an insufficient amount of support, led to Lisette looking for a job. Unemployment rates in the Bronx were very high, and it was even more difficult to get a job without any experience. Unlike other Latinos and most minority groups, Lisette was very lucky in finding a job. The South Bronx was a place of high unemployment rates for adults and for teenagers, making the struggle of running a family even more difficult. Such organizations have been created in order to help those interested in finding places to work, one such organization is the South Bronx Overall Economic Development Corporation.

This 22-year-old organization aimed at bringing businesses back to the Bronx, and offered a pre-employment training program to teenagers between the ages of 16 and 19. They were trained about the importance of being on time, customer relations, and the conflict of having a job and schoolwork. At the end of these training sessions, many of the teenagers were offered employment. In 1993, the annual average rate of unemployment for teenagers in New York City was 36.4%(6). As for the Bronx, in March of 1997, the rate of unemployment was 11%. This came to approximately 50, 000 people searching for a job. In New York City, at the same time, the unemployment rate was 9% totaling about 305, 000 people jobless. Luckily over the past year, these rates have decreased. In March of 1997, the average unemployment rate for the Bronx was 12.8%, leaving 52,000 people without jobs(7).

Common among many Latinos was the inability to keep a steady job. We see this in the movie when Chino was fired from his job due to his criminal record. Disgruntled over his recent dismissal as a bike messenger, Chino claimed that he would be a faithful employee. He tried his hardest to get his job back because he knew that it would be his responsibility to support his family, unfortunately his pleading was unsuccessful. Lisette on the other hand, had landed a good job with her pushy attitude and being in the right place at the right time. She began work as an image consultant at a nearby record studio. Although she had none or little experience, Lisette could relate to the clients more because they shared the same ethnicity. Employment without proper education is possible but not plausible. In the film, education played a minor role; in fact, we only see one scene in which the children were getting ready to go to school. In 1994;

The past 10 years brought varied demographic changes to the growing U.S. Latino population, as education levels rose and unemployment rates dropped while poverty rates stayed stubbornly high. Latinos now account for 9 percent of U.S. residents, the Census Bureau reported. The nation's Latino population has increased by 42 percent since 1983, to 22.8 million. Another striking change over the past 10 years is the improvement in education levels. In 1993, 53 percent of Latinos over the age of 25 had a high school diploma, up from 46 percent in 1983. The down side is that Latinos lag well behind the rest of the nation in educational attainment -- 82 percent of non-Latinos have at least a high school diploma(8).

 

Overall, the political aspects in this film were directly related to happenings that were going on in the Bronx at the time. Although they were subtle and not the focal point of the movie, they were definitely present. Unemployment, racial discrimination, welfare, and education were dominant factors in deciding the standard of living for most Latinos. In the movie these issues are brought to life, and as a member of the audience we learn what it is like to live within these limitations. We see how the actions of major political figures like Dinkins and Giuliani effect the population indirectly. These actions give the film a greater sense of realism that enables viewers to relate to it better.

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"New York Mayoral Candidates Race for Latino Votes." Robert Siegel. All

Things Considered. NPR. WAMC, New York City, NY. 7 October 1993.

(2)Jordan, Howard. "Latino Mayoral Vote: The Margin of Victory."

Newsday 24 October 1993: 29.

(3)Siegel, Joel. "Mayor's Support Split on Race Line." Daily News 3

December 1995: 4.

(4)"USA Counties-Bronx County, New York."

http://govinfo.library.orst.edu/cgi-bin/usaco-list?26-005.nyc (21 April 1998).

(5)Mitchell, Alison. "Mayor is Planning to Trim Programs that Assist the

Poor." New York Times 16 December 1994: A1.

(6)Enrico, Dottie. "A Long, Dry Summer for Job-Seekers." Newsday 31

May 1994: 33.

(7)"In the Nabes Deadline Job Program." Daily News 17 April 1998: 292.

(8)McLeod, Ramon G. "Education Levels Rise for U.S. Latinos." The San

Francisco Chronicle 22 June 1994: A5.


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