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Hispanics not support war { February 19 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www2.ocregister.com/ocrweb/ocr/article.do?id=26169§ion=NEWS&subsection=FOCUS&year=2003&month=2&day=19http://www2.ocregister.com/ocrweb/ocr/article.do?id=26169§ion=NEWS&subsection=FOCUS&year=2003&month=2&day=19
Wednesday, February 19, 2003
Poll: U.S. Hispanics not as likely to back war with Iraq
The bilingual survey shows less support compared to the general population.
By DENA BUNIS and MINERVA CANTO
The Orange County Register
WASHINGTON – Hispanics living in the United States are not as supportive of going to war with Iraq as the overall population, according to a Pew Hispanic Center survey released Tuesday.
According to the poll, 48 percent of Hispanics support and 43 percent oppose the United States' going to war to disarm Saddam Hussein's regime. That compares with recent surveys of the overall population that put support at 60 percent to 70 percent. The Pew poll has a margin of error of 4.9 percentage points. "We see concerns over the level of international support, concerns over casualties, concerns over the economic impact, and concerns over the civil liberties context that a war would present," said Roberto Suro, director of the Pew Hispanic Center.
On other issues, such as whether the United States should give the United Nations weapons inspectors more time, Latino respondents tracked with the general U.S. population.
"I don't think we should go to war until we have exhausted all possibilities to resolve the situation diplomatically, but (President George W.) Bush has been clamoring for war for more than a year now," said Alma Cruz, 20, a U.S.-born resident of La Habra who reads two daily newspapers regularly. Pew's poll of 400 Hispanics, conducted Feb. 13-16 in English and Spanish, differs from a Gallup Organization compilation of six polls done in December and January. Those polls showed Hispanic opinions were identical to those of the overall population: 60 percent supported war.
Suro pointed out that the six Gallup polls combined surveyed 226 Latinos, about half the Pew sample size. And, he said bilingual polling is a key. "The Hispanic population is particularly difficult to poll," Suro said, because many Latino adults speak Spanish as their preferred language, "so they don't get polled" in an English-only poll. A bilingual poll of 800 Hispanics in California and New York last October by the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute showed 60 percent of Latinos opposed war with Iraq.
"We have to support our president in this awful fight against terrorism," said Rosalia Pereira, a Fountain Valley resident who immigrated from El Salvador 22 years ago.
In virtually every question in the Pew poll, attitudes were different among U.S.-born and foreign-born Latinos. Among U.S.-born Latinos, support for a potential war was 52 percent compared to 46 percent among foreign-born Latinos.
"You may have many different elements here that may not be weighing on the opinion of the general population," said Sergio Bendixen, president of Bendixen & Associates, a Florida-based survey group. "You have 50 percent of all Latinos saying they fear losing their jobs because of this; 53 percent saying they fear police harassment and problems with immigration authorities if we go to war." This was the case for Eleazar Garcia, 25, of Anaheim, who says he considers the ramifications in deciding whether he should favor war.
"Before I say, 'Yes, let's go to war,' I have to be willing to back my words with action because the time may come for me to have to go to battle," Garcia said. "But I also think about how our day-to-day lives would change. How would it affect my father, my sisters, my friends and neighbors? We have to think about these questions and be satisfied with the answers."
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