KTLA News: "Walter Mondale campaigns at East Los Angeles College"

[Walter Mondale:] We have tripled funding for the education of the handicapped. We have increased, I think by double, the amount of money for Indian education. And we have over doubled the funding for student assistance. [Mondale:] ...and all the team that I came to know over the years of that effort. ...this nation has ever done, and this administration will and I want to pledge today, continue to build and build on that bilingual educational program until the... [audience applause] [traditional Mexican music] I appreciate him coming to visit us. You know, a community college instead of a big university like USC or UCLA. That, you know, that in my heart stands out. You know, that he could have visited somewhere else, but he decided to come here to a community college. [traditional Mexican music] Thanks! [audience applause] Thank you. [audience applause] [Cesar Chavez:] Thank you very much. [audience applause:] Thank you very much. [Chavez:] Walter Mondale. [audience applause] [applause] [Mondale:] Thank you. Thank you very much. [Dixie Whatley:] Do you think that he appeals to the Hispanic community? [Student:]Yeah, oh yeah. Yes. That was pretty good. Mondale's all-out appeal to the Hispanic community was apparently time well-spent, solidifying one of the few strongholds that Carter does have in California. Dixie Whatley reporting, for News at 10. [traditional Mexican music] [off-screen speaker:] I'm delighted to welcome Vice President Mondale to Los Angeles. [traditional Mexican music] [Chavez:] East LA College, where it's been, as you know... [Mondale:] ...very much. Thank you. [applause] Thank you very much. For this... [traditional Mexican music and crowd noise] [Mondale:] We have added more jobs to the workforce than any administration in American history ...straight [laughter] [Mondale:] I'm one of the great educators of our time. I've always liked ancient history. He said this, "I think... the President is an educational fanatic," and I pledge to you, we're going to do everything we have - can and keep it up. And learn to participate in politics. Get registered. Get your friends to register. Get on out and vote and let's keep this nation on a sound and a solid course. [audience applause] Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. [audience applause] [Mondale:] There's an escalation of nuclear armaments in this world. There are so many issues. And this I say to the young people here today. This is your world. You're going to live in it longer than we do. And you've got a bigger stake for that reason than any of us. And if you want a nation and a world that is socially just, where our kids have a chance, where the Cesar Chavezes of our day are honored and respected, where kids have a chance to go on to college... [crowd noise and light music] [crowd noise] [Man:] Hey smile, you're on "Candid Camera"! [Man #2:] He's a pretty good guy. [applause] As a matter of fact, when we came into office there was only one Hispanic judge on the Federal bench in America. We have appointed 16, and we've just begun. And we put the one who was there on the Circuit Judge, just to make certain everybody keeps going up. And I think we oughtta just keep going up to those higher courts until we have Hispanics everywhere. [applause] We eliminated the cash down payment on food stamps which had kept many poor families and older Americans from having a minimum decent diet. We tripled funding for the Legal Services Program, something that I feel very very deeply about. We doubled - we have someone here with the Legal Services Program, I can tell. We doubled programs for the migrant workers and the rest. And this is where I want to stop a minute. I chaired the Subcommittee on Migratory Labor for about four and a half years. And it was in that capacity that I came and worked with the farm workers... ...nation of ours and I can't think of any honor that I value more, than to come to East LA college, and be... [audience applause] and to be introduced by someone who stands, in our time, as one of the great giants of social justice on Earth, our friend Cesar Chavez. [audience applause] Thank you... the endorsement of the United... Together we'll make the most important decision we ever make together as Americans. And that - who should be the next president of the United States. When we elect a president, we entrust in him or her our future, our systems of law and justice, our values, and peace and even life itself. Do not trifle with that decision and don't remain neutral. I have, and I'll be frank about it, no sympathy for people who don't participate and vote as citizens. This nation gives so much to all of us. There's so much that needs to be done. We need the help of every single American and that begins with registering and voting and being heard on Election Day. Please, please do that if you do nothing else. [audience applause] [Mondale:] ...difficulties when I chaired a committee on equal... I believe in it. Elementary schools of our country... particularly students in America wishing to go on to college, wishing to go on to vocational school, had no form of federal assistance whatsoever, permitting them to do so. A terrible loss to this nation. One of the greatest sources of justice, engines for social justice is the best possible educational system that America can possibly bring to bear to give every child a chance to learn, to develop the skills, to feel good about himself or herself. And then when the time goes on to go to college, make certain that every youngster, every person who wants to go on to college, regardless of the wealth or the background of their parents has a free and unlimited chance to go and to achieve, and to graduate, and to participate in this country. [applause] His [...] of nations around the world. We have strengthened this nation in terms of defense and we will continue to do so. But we've tried to use that strength to serve the cause of social justice, and let me give you just one example. One of the biggest burdens that this country had to carry, one of the biggest costs we paid day in and day out for nearly 70 years, was the last vestige of colonialism which permitted the United States to own a strip of land right through the center of another nation called the Panama Canal Zone, just as though we were an occupying colonial power. It was a treaty that was entered into under very suspicious circumstances early in this century, and everything we tried to do in Latin America and around the world, sooner or later they'd bring that treaty up and remind us that while we talked about justice, about national independence and dignity, we ourselves were practicing, through an old and archaic treaty a system that undermined - ...then get into that in just a minute now. [laughter] We don't want to ignore him. This is what he said about bilingual education. Every time I quote him, they always just say, "that's a vicious attack." Oh, so I'll stick very carefully to his words here now. "Bilingual education has failed to do anything toward the ability of students speaking a foreign tongue to master English. It teaches the foreign born quote 'how to be different' and remain apart from the mainstream of American living." So that's, that's one issue. If you want an administration who believes in a program that teaches children many things, including how to understand English and math and America faster, and yet does it quickly through the language the child brings to the class, and enhances the self-worth of that child on the one hand, or somebody who says this about bilingual education. There shouldn't be an Hispanic American who will vote for a person who would say that about bilingual education. [audience applause] As governor he fought collective bargaining rights for farm workers and today, he is the last American politician who wants to revive the old bracero program in this country. That would be the end of the farm workers. That would be the end of any chance for social justice throughout this country, and that's the program. For many years, I was fighting - Allen helped me - but I led the fight for eight years when you had another president from this state who was trying to kill the California Rural Legal Assistance program which Cruz Reynoso and many were heading here. The, the problem with the program... ...to ratify the treaty. He reached in his old shoe box, read some old clippings and he pointed out a reason that had escaped me for being against the Panama Canal treaty. And I want to read you his words. He said, "plans are being formulated at Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow for the establishment of a subversive network in the United States using illegal immigrants from Mexico. This is linked to developments throughout the Central American area. The US border with Mexico has left..." A campaign in which the divisions were more profound. Just yesterday... [...] sane and ever right, where people have decent health care, where senior citizens can retire in dignity knowing that their Social Security and Medicare are going to be at hand, where the nation is led by people who believe in human rights around the world, and who've kept this nation at peace for some four years now, who believe in restraints on armaments, control of nuclear armaments, control of nuclear proliferation and weapons-grade material around the world, and that's what I worry about for my kids, that sometimes, somehow, for some reason that doesn't - wouldn't matter afterwards, some insane idiot will get control of nuclear power and bring the world to its knees and commit some final act of madness. Nothing is more important than to have leaders that know what really counts today and down the long road of history. Because that's the road you're gonna travel. Please help us. See the difference. ...including the Islamic faith, namely diplomatic immunity, and whatever may be the historical grievances, we do not think it is proper or valid for these hostages to be held for any reason whatsoever. And we think one moment was too long, and we're doing everything we can, consistent with their safety and have from the beginning, to urge their immediate return. Those efforts are underway at this time. I cannot say that I have any reason to be unduly optimistic or for that matter unduly pessimistic. It is a heartbreaking situation, of course for the families and the hostages, but for all of us. We're dealing with a situation which the students of history in this room who've studied the French Revolution and the rest, I think can understand. The breakdown of authority and attempt to slowly put together a new civil authority. The differences, the problem of power and the rest, and unfortunately our hostages have been the innocent victims of all of that. And there - it does not seem to me that this is or should be a political issue, because I'm unaware of anyone who's had an idea to do something that we haven't done, or has suggested something we've done we shouldn't have done, which would have any reasonable hope of a different alternative than the unfortunate one that we now are living through. Now - here we go. [Announcer:] Ladies and gents. [street noise] [Whatley:] Too late? Yeah. Am I... Mondale's all-out appeal to the Hispanic community was apparently time well-spent, solidifying one of the few strongholds that President Carter has in California. [car noise] Dixie Whatley reporting, for News at 10. [car noise] Mondale's all-out appeal to the Hispanic community here was apparently time well-spent, solidifying one of the few strong holds that President Carter has in California. Dixie Whatley reporting for News at 10. Well, I was just listening to some of his issues, but I don't think you had someone today that I want to hear, like, he said something about the economic, you know, but I don't know, I just... Some of it was pretty good, I thought, you know, on the, on the Iranians. [Whatley:] So you think that he has the support, as supposed to [...] Reagan? [Student:] For us, yeah. Yeah. [Whatley:] Carlos, what did you think of the Vice President? [Carlos:] I think it was very interesting. I think he made his point to the public here. [Whatley:] You think so? [Carlos:] Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I think so. [Whatley:] Do you think Hispanics were already pretty much for Carter? [Carlos:] Yeah, I guess so. Yeah, probably. I, you know, I haven't made up my mind about that. But after - I haven't made up my mind who to vote for, but after this, I think I'm gonna vote for Carter/Mondale. [Whatley:] Okay, great. [background chatter]