Sen. Bob Menendez Pens Book On Latino Immigration

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MICHEL MARTIN, host:

I'm Michel Martin, and this is TELL ME MORE from NPR News.

Coming up, on our weekly Faith Matters conversation, we'll talk about how observant Muslim-Americans function in a credit driven economy like this one, buying houses and such while still observing Islamic law banning the charging or receiving of interest. Our guide is the co-author of "A Muslim's Guide to Investing and Personal Finance," and he will be with us in just a few minutes.

But first, a newsmaker interview with Democratic Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey. Earlier this week Senator Menendez voted along with all the other Democrats and one Republican member of the Senate Finance Committee to approve a sweeping health care overhaul plan. Now, the bill moves into the hands of negotiators who will try to iron out a final bill for the whole Senate to review.

Currently the only member of the Senate of Latino heritage, Senator Menendez has made health care a top priority. He also currently heads the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, and he is the author of a new book, "Growing American Roots: Why our Nation Will Thrive As Our Largest Minority Flourishes." And he joins us now from Capitol Hill. Welcome, thank you for joining us.

Senator ROBERT MENENDEZ (Democrat, New Jersey): Great to be with you, Michel.

MARTIN: Busy week?

Sen. MENENDEZ: Well, yes, busy week, a historic one as we move into the next stage of health care reform for the nation.

MARTIN: Well, you voted in favor of the bill, but you also expressed -well, how should we put it - the need for some improvement? I'm just going to play a short clip of what you said.

(Soundbite of audio clip)

Sen. MENENDEZ: I will vote for this bill because it goes a long way in the right direction. I'll vote to move it out of the Finance Committee with the hope we'll continue to improve it especially in making health care more affordable and providing choice with a strong public option.

MARTIN: How does that happen, given all the compromises that many on the Democratic side feel they've already made, you only got one Republican vote in the committee? How did that happen?

Sen. MENENDEZ: On those two issues on the clip that you played, affordability, that's pretty universal view. We did the best we could in the Senate Finance Committee. We are now melding the Health Committee Bill as well as the Finance Committee Bill, so that we can seek to make the insurance that we want to provide an opportunity for all Americans to have to be more affordable. And so, that's a critical goal.

As to the public option, I actually think we came very close in the committee. We were two votes short of passing. It's probably the most conservative committee to deal with the question of a public option. A very significant universe as we get to the (unintelligible) is looking for a public option. I think it's going to be a critical reality to try to get it through the House because proponents of a public option there are even more robust.

So, you know, I always tell all of the supporters of a public option that you've got to keep your eye on the destination, not the journey. But I am pretty confident, especially after what the insurance industry just did with what I think is a rather false report coming out of the final hour before the Finance Committee vote. This made the public option and the need for it all the more evident in terms of creating competition lowering costs. So, I think at the end of the day, at the end of the process, when we arrive at the destination, we'll have a public option.

MARTIN: You mentioned the insurance industry, there are, of course, critics of the process who will say that, you know, the issue is that the money interests have too much power in the process. So, let's set that aside and just talk about the philosophical differences.

I mean, you say that just about everybody believes that affordability is the goal as well as access for people who aren't currently insured, but there just seems to be a fundamental philosophical difference about how affordability is to be achieved. And people like yourself, a lot of Democrats on the House firmly believe that you can achieve affordability without a public option. How do you go about persuading people who just don't buy it?

Sen. MENENDEZ: Well, I think a couple of things. Number one is how do you increase your subsidies for those individuals who presently don't have insurance, who we now say you've got to seek insurance? We create an exchange of overwhelmingly private insurance companies, and then we say to families of certain income levels, we're going to give you a subsidy, so that there is great affordability.

The second parallel track, I think, that's important and that I think we will continue to gain currency as people understand what we mean by a public option. And they see the real competition that can be generated, which ultimately we want to ensure in terms of bringing down the costs for all of those people who are going to be entering the exchange making sure we don't have double digit premium growth as we have seen in the private sector with the health insurance company. And just permitting it to be one option working under the same terms and conditions as all of the other insurance companies that will be offered in the exchange, that people will come to understand this makes a lot of sense.

And lastly, it's interesting to know that in the CBO analysis the question that exists about coops. Basically, CBO said, well, it's not going to have much of an impact because it's not going to attract many people based on how it's structured. I think that actually added greater currency to the possibility of a public option, which clearly would attract a very significant universe of people and would create the competition we want to see to drive down prices in the private insurance market.

MARTIN: If you're just joining us, I'm Michel Martin and you're listening to TELL ME MORE from NPR News. I'm speaking with Democratic Senator of New Jersey, Robert Menendez. He's member of the Senate Finance Committee. He's also the chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, and he's the author of a new book, "Growing American Roots."

In your knew book, you write one of my goals is to guide all Americans toward a new understanding of Latinos in this country to assert, once and for all, that we are full participants in the dream, not some recently arrived crowd imposing a foreign culture on this land. Why do you feel that this is necessary to say right now?

Sen. MENENDEZ: Well, Michel, we have seen the voices in the public debate on several issues that raise questions about the Latino community as if we were all sudden newcomers. And the reality is is that in my book, "Growing American Roots," we talk about the fact that the Latino community in this country has been here since before the founding of the country.

When Bernardo de Galvez, then the governor of Louisiana helped stop the British advance on George Washington's troops in the Revolutionary War or to the 65th Infantry Division during the Korean War, an all Puerto-Rican division that was the most highly decorated in U.S. military history. Of course, you could go to the Vietnam Memorial and see the wall so many names of Hispanic descent. And the first person, on behalf of the United States, to die in Iraq was a Latino, who actually wasn't even a U.S. citizen yet. So, our goal there, our goal in terms of talking about our economic impact on the country, we are a $1 trillion domestic marketplace as a community within the United States. You cannot turn on television without seeing Eva Longoria in "Desperate Housewives."

(Soundbite of laughter)

Sen. MENENDEZ: …You can't feel the Major League…

MARTIN: Well, I can.

Sen. MENENDEZ: … Baseball (unintelligible). Well, for those who might watch that program, but people like her throughout the TV.

MARTIN: American.

Sen. MENENDEZ: You can't feel the Major League Baseball team without having a fair amount of its roster being Hispanic…

MARTIN: I was wondering how long it's going to be before we are going to get to baseball. But well…

Sen. MENENDEZ: Yeah, I mean, well, it's the national pastime and yet we are there. We (unintelligible) within the national pastime.

MARTIN: And you are a huge fan.

Sen. MENENDEZ: Our goal is to try to say we've been here a long time.

MARTIN: Okay. And you yourself, your parents came from Cuba together along with your older brother and sister. And you were born in New York and grew up in New Jersey, the third child in the family. You tell a wonderful story about how you are in this honors program, you took the public speaking class, but you actually were afraid to get up in front of an audience. Hard to believe now, but why?

(Soundbite of laughter)

MARTIN: Why is that…

(Soundbite of laughter)

MARTIN: …if I may say, but why is that?

Sen. MENENDEZ: I wish I hadn't…

(Soundbite of laughter)

Sen. MENENDEZ: Well, I was incredibly introverted at the time. I was a pretty good student, but fearful to get up in public. There's a section in the book that talks about the importance of education and good teachers. And I had a great teacher who changed my life by helping me in that class, which I didn't even want to take but was a mandated class, to help me break that fear and to be able to share with others and speak in public. And it was really a transformational moment in the personal context. So, good teachers, good educators, and a good education can make all the difference in the world in a person's life.

MARTIN: Well, you've certainly come out of your shell. I'm just going to play a short clip from one of your campaign ads in 2006. Here it is.

(Soundbite of campaign advertisement)

Unidentified Woman: (Spanish spoken)

Unidentified Man: (Spanish spoken)

MARTIN: (Spanish spoken) which is nobody dances better. And I must say, you are busting quite a move in this ad. For those who…

(Soundbite of laughter)

MARTIN: …have not seen it, we will have a link on our Web site so people can judge the truth of what I say for themselves. But I do want to ask though…

Sen. MENENDEZ: You never know what happens when you agree to an interview.

(Soundbite of laughter)

MARTIN: So true. But I do want to ask you, you know, you talk a little bit about some of the language and some of the sentiment that you feel a need to counteract. But I wondered if you have, you know, you represent as a senator, you represent the entire state. I wonder do you have any sympathy at all for people who do feel that the pace of change of their particular communities has been so great that they don't really understand it. They do feel as if something in their country has changed in a way that they don't really understand. Do you have any sympathy for that at all?

Sen. MENENDEZ: Well, look, I fully understand as coming from a community where I grew up in Union City, New Jersey that the pace of change is always something that sometimes can be alarming to people, sometimes can be unsettling, but it's a big part of our history. You know, in the community that I grew up in, was the mayor of, you know, one day someone at a city commission meeting - which is a form of government of the town came up - and he was having real struggles in the public section asking a question in English. And I could see that they spoke Spanish. And I just asked in Spanish, well, what is the issue? And there was an uproar by other people who were sitting in the audience.

And they made such an issue of it that I adjourned the commission meeting and brought them down to the city clerk's records and brought out the official minutes, the first minutes of the city of Union City. And I had them open up the ledgers and I asked those who had objected to read the minutes. And they couldn't because they were in German. You know, it's the change of the moment that people find unsettling. But those changes have existed at different times with different groups through massive European immigrations and others along the way.

MARTIN: Finally, in your book, you dedicate a whole chapter to baseball, so senator I have to put you on the spot. Mets or Yankees?

Sen. MENENDEZ: I am a Yankees fan, through good and bad times. It's good times now and, you know, but what I talk about…

MARTIN: I'm sorry. I'm from Brooklyn. It's just taking me a minute. I'm just trying to collect myself.

(Soundbite of laughter)

MARTIN: Just trying to be objective and to maintain the decorum that you expect, but okay.

Sen. MENENDEZ: But the ultimate goal of what I wanted to talk about baseball is that something as American as baseball, the national pastime is permeated with Latino ballplayers going back a long time. Now, they're big parts of just about any major league team's roster.

And if Americans come to read the book, see what we're trying to say is that we love America. We have been part of its history since before the founding. We have fought and died for it. We have contributed to its economy. We are part of its social fabric in every form. And so, that's something that we will all benefit from from understanding.

MARTIN: Senator Robert Menendez, a Democrat of New Jersey is the author of "Growing American Roots: Why Our Nation Will Thrive as Our Largest Minority Flourishes." He joined us from Capitol Hill. Senator, thank you so much.

Sen. MENENDEZ: Thank you so much, Michel.

(Soundbite of music)

MARTIN: Just ahead, President Obama travels to New Orleans.

President BARACK OBAMA: Together we will rebuild this region and we will rebuild it stronger than before.

MARTIN: We talk to a New Orleans resident about the reaction to the president's visit. That's coming up on TELL ME MORE from NPR News. I'm Michel Martin.

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