A Cinco de Mayo divide

No one seemed terribly interested in a low-rider car show 10 years ago. When Roberto Nerey, a former gangbanger turned gang intervention activist, started A Day in the Barrio Car Show to coincide with sparse Cinco de Mayo festival offerings in the Reno/Sparks area, he couldn’t find many sponsors. Even some in the Latino community snubbed the idea, he says.

“A Day in the Barrio was something they didn’t want to touch,” Nerey says. “They weren’t interested because of the negative stereotypes. They were more worried about what the larger community thought.”

Even this year, when Nerey’s group joined with Nevada Hispanic Services in February to begin working on Reno’s first-ever downtown Cinco de Mayo event, the low-rider car show met with some criticism.

“While we were still on board, [event organizers] did not want to let us use the term ‘low-rider’ because it would cause ‘negative energy’ with city government,” Nerey says in disgust. “I find it hard to believe these people are of Hispanic descent.”

Yes, some were originally concerned about the use of the term “low-rider,” says Jesse Gutierrez of Nevada Hispanic Services, the organizers of this year’s downtown event. But then, when the group changed the name to a “classic” car show, the folks at the National Automobile Museum were miffed, Gutierrez recalls, chuckling.

“They said, ‘We wanted a low-rider show. I thought we were going to have a low-rider show.’ “

The hypocrisy stung Nerey.

“It’s a big deal when Unlimited Intervention wants to display low-riders, but not when the National Automobile Museum does?” he asks. “I’m wondering if the fake lovers of the sport are not real about what they say and do. … We did the work, got the event far enough to get it promoted and liked. Now they take it over.”

The episode was just one of several that left Nerey and his team feeling left out in the cold. About a month ago, the co-sponsorship was clearly not working. Unlimited Intervention left the team and decided to hold its events—the low-rider show and a Miss Latina Nevada beauty pageant—on its own. But downtown events organizers had already lined up a show and low-rider car display at the Automobile Museum. And NHS-sponsored beauty pageants, Miss Latina Look and Miss Teen Latina Look, were already in the works. Nerey felt his events had been co-opted by a savvy marketing machine.

“We’ve invested a lot of work in all of this,” Nerey says. “I don’t want to be negative. But we don’t want to lose what we worked hard to get.”

In the past, much smaller Cinco de Mayo celebrations in Reno have been held in downtown Sparks and in the parking lot of the Peppermill Hotel and Casino. So this year, some local Latinos were awed by the generosity of six casinos and the city of Reno’s contribution of $50,000 in services for a large downtown event with three stages for entertainment and a Julio Iglesias concert. The city support is similar to that given to Hot August Nights.

Sure, the casinos may be feeling altruistic, but it doesn’t hurt that “Reno Hispanics control over $1.3 billion in buying power,” according to demographic information on the Cinco de Mayo Reno Web site, www.cincodemayoreno.com. Hispanics are dubbed a “youthful market” with “high brand loyalty.”

Talking about Latinos in terms of consumer demographics, though, doesn’t appeal to everyone.

“Cinco de Mayo is being turned into a marketing tool for business,” Nerey says. “It will lose its meaning. Next it’ll be like Christmas, which the majority of people celebrate for presents and to make money and for all the business it gives the stores—not for the true meaning.”

Nerey chalks the problem up to ignorance, a misconception of what Latin Americans are about.

“Cinco de Mayo is not [Mexican] Independence Day, but it reflects our community. We’d like to make a bigger impact and educate the masses … not just use it as a reason to party and get drunk. It’s more than cheap beer and a Julio Iglesias concert.”

Others argue that these concerns over the purity of the event mask a more pragmatic concern—that Nerey’s organization won’t get a share of the profits expected at the event’s close. Nerey’s complaints are driven by “sour grapes, envy and greed,” Gutierrez says.

Nerey joined up with NHS earlier this year to gain co-sponsorship of the low-rider car show and beauty pageant. The plan was to cross-market these events along with the music, Cuban cigar rolling, ballet and other events from a variety of Latin cultures. But the groups disagreed over sponsorships, control of the events, logo placements and the split of any proceeds.

Nerey ended the partnership with NHS and decided to hold the car show at the Ramada Inn and the beauty pageant at the Masonic Lodge. To him, it seemed that Nevada Hispanic Services wanted to take over his events, get a cut of his profits and smack its slick Cinco de Mayo logo on everything.

Gutierrez sees things differently.

“Roberto is a young man with a lot of passion,” Gutierrez says. “We wanted to help them out, to take their car show out of a parking lot and down to the National Automobile Museum, to have them hold their pageant in the Siena. … But they wanted more than we could give.”

Gutierrez contends that Unlimited Intervention was making unreasonable demands—wanting a cut of profits from events other than the pageant and the car show and wanting its logo on everything right beside that of Nevada Hispanic Services. That’s not fair, he says, because NHS put up $10,000 of its own money to hire DM Productions to handle the event and the marketing efforts. Unlimited Intervention brought nothing to the table other than the two events.

“They wanted a piece of the sponsorship and dual billing on everything,” Gutierrez says. “We said, ‘No way. We’re giving you a hand. You’re taking our arm and pulling our whole body down.’ “

But having two car shows and three pageants—a Miss Cinco de Mayo pageant is being held this year by the International Bilingual Agency—is far from ideal.

“That’s so ridiculous,” Gutierrez says. “That’s not going to help at all.”

Nerey says having competing events is damaging to his organization’s credibility. Contestants are confused. Sponsors are being hit up from all sides. Unity among Latinos has taken a hit.

“We wouldn’t have pulled out if they had treated us professionally and with respect,” Nerey says. “We had hope of getting the community together, not fragmenting it. Fragmentation brings fear, and fear brings violence.”

Gutierrez says he also feels distressed over the break.

“Unlimited Intervention needs an office, needs a telephone. We were trying to help out. … It’s too bad we can’t get our Latino community together, that we can’t have unity in this celebration of culture.”

Nerey points out his truck across the parking lot.

“It’s the blue one,” he says with a warm smile. “Blue is my favorite color, and that has nothing to do with the gangs I used to be a part of.”

Nerey is a big, bearish guy dressed casually in khakis, with an early-growth beard. When he starts the truck, the radio comes on—Radio Tricolor 101.7, named for the three colors of the Mexican flag. Then Nerey takes me to work with him. Unlimited Intervention can’t afford an office—can barely pay the phone bill, Nerey says. So he works out of his home and out of his blue truck.

As we drive to our first stop on a tour of the barrio, the Boys and Girls Club, he tells me of coming to the United States as a boy in November 1976. His home in Mexicali was the kind of place that reached temperatures of 130 degrees. Reno was cold and snow-covered. The family of seven lived in a two-bedroom apartment.

“I had the worst stomachache,” Nerey says. “It was such a culture shock.”

We don’t talk much about Nerey’s gang involvement, his incarceration or his reformation as a gang intervention activist. Those stories have been told.

We park on the street while Nerey explains to me how important it is for society to consider its Chicano segment, those individuals who come from Mexican ancestry and are raised in the United States.

“That’s a huge Latino market that agencies and producers want to tap into,” he says. “As a group of individuals, it’s very important to be considered—though we speak different, dress different and talk different. We have the right to vote and a huge power. If people don’t start to listen to our cry, our concerns and our solutions, we will start feeling neglected and oppressed. Then, rather than communicating, we will rebel.”

Some individuals representing the Latino community aren’t dealing with Chicano concerns well, Nerey contends.

“These people representing us are born of Latin descent, but they have never related to our issues. They don’t really feel our pain, and they start misrepresenting us.”

There are about 1,800 gang members in Reno, Nerey says. Under the Unlimited Intervention banner, Nerey goes out and talks to youths of all races. He offers rides to kids who feel in danger and counsels others to stay out of gangs.

“Chicanos, whites, blacks—I see children as children, and I don’t just work with Latinos. People accuse me of that, but they don’t know the work I do.”

We’re driving again, but we stop on a side street where a woman, a teen girl and two small children come out to Nerey’s truck.

“You going to be in our Miss Latina pageant?”

“She says she’s gotta lose weight,” the woman says.

“No, she says that? Girl, you’re not big. Why are you wearing red?”

The girl shrugs and smiles.

“You stayin’ out of gangs?”

“I’m here all the time,” the girl says. “I never go out.”

Nerey turns back to the woman: “So I hear your nephew is a wannabe gangbanger.”

“He don’t know what gangs are about,” the woman says. “He’s 11.”

“I’ll talk to him,” Nerey promises. “I’ll tell him what gangs are about.”

As we drive away, Nerey tells me that he doesn’t enjoy “working for nothing.” But when he looks into a child’s eyes, he knows where that child’s heading.

“I look to the left and I look to the right for organizations that help,” he says. “But I don’t see anyone getting involved. And if I don’t get involved, I go home and can’t sleep at night.”

On May 5, 1862, a ragtag group of 4,000 Mexican soldiers under the command of a general born in Texas routed a brightly dressed army of French Dragoons that numbered about 8,000. The battle at Puebla, Mexico, 100 miles east of Mexico City, may have been pivotal for both Mexico and the United States, which was in the middle of its Civil War. The Mexican victory kept the French from supplying the Confederate rebels for another year, allowing the North to gain strength, according to a short history of Cinco de Mayo prepared by the League of United Latin American Citizens.

After the Civil War, some American soldiers kept their uniforms and rifles and joined the Mexican army in the continued fight against the French. In gratitude, thousands of Mexicans crossed the border after Pearl Harbor to join the U.S. Armed Forces.

“Mexicans, you see, never forget who their friends are, and neither do Americans,” reads content at the LULAC Web site. “Cinco de Mayo celebrates freedom and liberty, two ideals that Mexicans and Americans have fought shoulder to shoulder to protect since the Fifth of May, 1862.”

Taking Cinco de Mayo to downtown Reno, with world-class performances of many styles of Latin music, from salsa to jazz to soul, rock and pop on three stages, has long been a dream of Gutierrez’s. His goals are to unify the Hispanic population and to augment funding for Nevada Hispanic Services.

“We’ve worked hard to make sure everybody’s included and no one feels left out,” says Dianemarie Collins of DM Productions, the firm organizing the event.

“But you’re never going to get everyone happy all the time. Everyone’s going to want to do something a little different.”

When Gutierrez took the reins of Nevada Hispanic Services in 1998, the organization was practically on its last leg. Funding for the two offices—one in Reno and one in Carson City—was down to about $30,000 a year, he says. Now the organization operates on about $600,000 from grants and government funding. But the need for services has tripled along with the Hispanic population of Reno in the past decade. The budget’s constantly strained.

Gutierrez’s office is as simple and understated as the man’s conservative shirt and slacks and his neatly trimmed beard. Shelves are filled with binders from workshops like Drug Abuse Prevention. The wallpaper on his computer’s desktop is an overhead shot of a baseball player stepping up to the plate.

NHS gets, on average, about 90 calls a day from Latinos needing everything from a translator to legal aid to clothing vouchers, Medicaid orientation, job application assistance, immigration help, English classes or referrals to other helpful agencies.

About 20 to 50 young people are involved in NHS’ Hispanic Youth Image program, which teaches leadership skills, builds friendships and encourages youths to do community-friendly activities like neighborhood cleanups, nursing home visits and fund-raisers.

One cool new addition to the NHS office on Neil Road is a computer lab with about 10 workstations that cost around $400 to set up. Microsoft Licensing donated the software, and Nevada Bell provided a DSL Internet connection. The computers were donated through the Cybernauts program, and local network specialists volunteered their time to get the lab going.

“We have kids here every day,” Gutierrez says. “And their parents. These kids don’t have access to computers like some of their classmates in school. At-risk kids need somewhere to do homework and get help. This bridges the language barrier and the technology barrier.”

That’s the kind of help that can keep Hispanic kids in school. Gutierrez laments the loss of gang intervention programs in the area. He and Nerey worked together at the Fourth Street Youth Center, which is now closed. And the men have worked together in the Gang Alternative Project, also now defunct.

“I’ve tried to help Roberto, to mentor him,” Gutierrez tells me. He’s offered free participation in grant-writing workshops that cost about $300 a person to members of Unlimited Intervention who want to learn how to work the system.

A tour of the NHS offices ends with a look at the walls where many awards are proudly displayed, including a 2001 Silver Star award from Truckee Meadows Tomorrow, given for enhancing the quality of life in northern Nevada.

Gutierrez again reminds me that the unity of the Latino community is important to him. But keeping NHS going strong is equally important.

“We gotta go forward,” he says. “We can’t stop halfway. This is too big. There’s too much at stake. I’m going to quote from Star Trek: ‘The good of the many outweighs the good of one.’ “

“Knowledge is power.”

The slogan is painted on a wall of Glenn Duncan Elementary School. Nerey parks at the school, talking about his own childhood. Within a few minutes, a young man pulls into the parking lot and gets out to talk to Nerey. A former gang member, Gonzalo Ramirez, a 23-year-old father of five, tells Nerey about threats he’s received from the gang he left.

“They think I’m a punk because I walked away and I’m not rolling with them,” Ramirez says. “They think I’m a bitch.”

Ramirez suspects some members of his former gang were the ones who slashed his car’s tires, broke the windows and messed up the paint job.

“For leaving?” Nerey asks.

“Yeah.”

“And you know who did it?”

Ramirez nods.

“Are you going to retaliate, ese?”

“No, I let it go. If I had retaliated, then they would have come back at me, maybe after my family. What they did to me is just material.”

“Why didn’t you call the police?”

“I’d be digging myself in.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Say I did that and three or four of them went to jail. There’s still the rest of them to think about. I’d be a snitch. They’d come after me. So I let it go. Me growing up and teaching my kids, that’s more important than my car.”

By this time, another man has joined our parking lot jam session. Jaime Adame says he stopped by to ask Nerey what’s up with Cinco de Mayo this year. Nerey tells him that Unlimited Intervention is holding its events at the Ramada Inn. Adame offers help, saying he wishes that more individuals were getting involved in gang prevention efforts.

“We need more people like Roberto out on the streets to help these kids,” Adame says. “My brother was one of those kids.”

Adame’s brother, Estéban “Beaver” Adame, had been in and out of jail as an adolescent. By the time Beaver was 15, he’d been convicted of murder. While doing time in a Nevada correctional facility, he became part of a tough, thriving Hispanic prison gang. In 1997, Beaver’s body, riddled with bullets, was found in the river. He’d been tied up and tortured in a drug-related gang crime.

“You kill to get in, and you have to get killed to get out,” Adame says of the prison gangs. “These organizations go out and recruit, get bigger—and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop it.”

“That’s powerful,” Nerey says, quizzically. “Why do you say that?”

“These people offer you a dream,” Adame says. “But look at my brother. Where’s the dream?”

A difference in leadership styles between Nerey and Gutierrez seems evident. If both came upon a toddler stranded in the middle of a mine field, Gutierrez would be more likely to grab his cell phone and speed dial the proper authorities. Nerey, on the other hand, would probably rush recklessly into the field.

Whose method is more effective? That remains to be seen.

“Unlimited Intervention belongs in the barrio, where we continue to work at a grassroots level,” Nerey says. “All this drama is sinking us, and our agency could go under. Then who’s going to help that percentage of the community? If they blow us out of the picture, it will be hard for us to show that we’ve ever done anything good. …

“Many people tell me I have to play the game. But if kissing ass is part of it, I don’t want to play."