Cruz Bustamante Quotes


Just because we have exotic last names or darker faces, our politics are assumed to be radical. But that is simply not the case.


Citations

Cruz Bustamante, Lieutenant Governor of California (Democrat), Quoted in George, July 1999

Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations

Related Quotes

Lame was not opposed to civil rights as some who read this quotation sometimes conclude. He did think that much of the lack of success of minorities in America could be ameliorated by many self-improvement and individual efforts. His reference to destroying America, was an interesting rhetorical technique of assuming that what you advocate is not implemented and showing that it leads to disaster. Phrased this way, it gets and focuses the attention of an audience.


At the time Thomas was the Chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. In an informal discussion among some of the staff, a white employee was describing the difficulty he had encountered trying to get a bank loan. This quotation illustrates that Thomas has had an antipathy to affirmative action and racial programming or preferences well before he was appointed to the Appellate and later the Supreme Court.


The Congressman was a rabid foe of immigration in general and possible illegal immigration in particular (See {614687}). As his colleagues were trying to improve the methods of identifying illegal workers at the job hiring stage, they were very concerned that law enforcment and some employers would make judgments about the likely criminal status of a person based on his/her ethnicity, race or other general superficial characteristics.


The Turks had massacred the vast majority of their Armenian population, and treated the Greeks badly killing and them many of them from territories the Ottoman Turks had conquered. Jews fared better but were 2nd class citizens. Bristol was the American State Department’s senior official and was very “understanding” of the murders and ethnic cleansing despite the fact that President Wilson and most American politicians were very opposed to the Turkish massacres. See {620614} and {620599} . Two factors makes this quotation very significant. First, at the time the State Department was not really under the control of either the President or the Congress. It was not rare for the Department to have its own policies and implement them. This began to change in WWII and FDR exercised much more control than previous presidents since Theodore Roosevelt. The second factor is that there were many racists throughout the State Department—Bristol was only one. There was little concern for minorities’ welfare and the emphasis was on commerce. See {620600} Even in Truman’s administration, the President had massive opposition from the State Department for his policy of recognizing the State of Israel. Today, this kind of racism in the State Department is very rare, and human rights has been one of their major concerns. There were many changes in 75 years.


Explaining Mexican protests of U.S. Senate hearings on Mexican corruption that were perceived by Mexicans as insulting, patronizing and discriminatory.


Cruz Bustamante
Cruz Bustamante
  • Born: January 4, 1953
  • Nationality:
  • Profession:

Cruz Miguel Bustamante is an American politician. He was the 45th Lieutenant Governor of California from 1999 to 2007, serving under governors Gray Davis and Arnold Schwarzenegger. A member of the Democratic Party, Bustamante previously served as the Speaker of the California State Assembly from 1996 to 1998.