Transcript: Mayor de Blasio Delivers Remarks at Lulac National Convention Opening Reception

July 8, 2014

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Thank you so much.

[Applause]

Thank you so much, everyone. It’s such a pleasure to be with you this evening. I want to thank Ralina Cardona for her very warm introduction. Ralina – if you’re looking for someone who understands what it is to be a Puerto Rican Bermudian Spaniard American, Ralina is your gal.

[Applause]

That is one of the most interesting combinations I’ve heard in a long time. But we deeply appreciate her work as the LULAC vice president for the northeast. You heard the passion she brings to her work and we appreciate particularly the focus she does on supporting and empowering our youth. Let’s give Ralina a great round of applause.

[Applause]

Well, this is something I have looked forward to saying now ever since I became mayor – I want to say, LULAC, welcome to New York City.

[Applause]

Now, we in New York City are very proud of all of the peoples that make up this city. But now I’m going to have a point of a little bit of New York pride – Tish James, what word am I looking for? Braggadocio, chutzpah.

Crowd: [inaudible]

Mayor: Salsa. Thank you.

[Laughter]

There are over 2 million Latinos in New York City.

[Applause]

We’re very proud of that fact. So, LULAC, what took you so long? It’s been 85 years we’ve been waiting for you to show up! But it was worth the wait. For the first time in 85 years, this gathering happening in New York City – this is a sign of good things to come in our city, because clearly we are one of the hearts and souls of Latino America and we are proud of that fact. And Latinos of every kind gathered here in New York City are part of what makes us so strong – and we see it in the emergence of leadership all over the city. We have elected – long overdue – our first Latino citywide elected official in the speaker of the city council, Melissa Mark-Viverito, who’s doing an amazing job.

[Applause]

I also want to acknowledge a tremendous progressive leader in this city, honorary Latina, Tish James, our public advocate.

[Applause]

As the host mayor I get to name one honorary Latina. Don’t you that’s fair?

[Laughter]

Tish I think deserved it. I want to thank the fabulous leadership of LULAC – Margaret Moran, your national president; Brent Wilkes, your national executive director.

[Applause]

I want to thank all of the wonderful sponsors tonight, all of the people you’re honoring – an extraordinary gathering of people – and tonight’s featured speaker, Katherine Archuleta, for her extraordinary work and the federal government – helping to empower, helping to create a federal government that looks like America, if I could borrow a phrase from Bill Clinton. And that’s what we have strived to do everyday here in New York City.

It’s something – I just want to note – that we should make the common understanding in the United States of America, in every state of the union, in every city, in every county. Government should look like the people we serve. Nothing more, nothing less – just a simple idea.

[Applause]

So, you find yourself this evening in the biggest city in the country – I would argue, the most economically vibrant, the most diverse, the most culturally rich, but also absolutely the place synonymous with diversity, synonymous with immigration and all that is good about immigration, all that makes us strong about immigration.

[Applause]

You know, you think of New York City and today’s mix of people in New York, and you think about the Statue of Liberty, the ultimate beacon welcoming immigrants, but really, it’s something that’s been a part of our heart and soul as New Yorkers literally from the beginning. And when this city, once upon a time, happened to be run by the Dutch, it was known as a place, a crossroads, for people from all around the world to come. It was an open city, an inclusive city. We’ve never been perfect. We have a lot of work to do in terms of inclusion and economic fairness and social justice, but one thing that’s been true literally for the entire sweep of New York history is this is has been a place that everyone could find some access to opportunity in – and that is part of what makes us, I think, special and also devoted to a certain way of life, a certain vision of a city for everyone.

Now, I want to talk about the challenges we’re facing in this city, in cities all around the country, across this nation, as this growing inequality has undercut that possibility of opportunity for all. But here we feel it especially strongly. New York City has some of the very poorest communities in the country and some of the literally very richest communities in the country side by side. And so we feel that juxtaposition and that challenge deeply. And we know that for the first time, just these last couple of decades, for the first time, that notion of being an open and inclusive city, economically speaking, a place where there was opportunity for all, a place everyone could afford to be, that notion is under siege, because we’ve had the bad economy followed by an affordability crisis and so many other challenges that make it harder for us to maintain that open city we believe in.

I always say, what I think is true for New York City, I believe is true for the United States of America – that openness, that inclusion made us vibrant, made us the creative capital, the entrepreneurial capital. It was no accident that if you bring everyone from around the world and give them a chance, extraordinary things happen. But as we’ve battled economic inequality, we risk loosing some of that spark, some of that creativity and energy that came with being an open place. And we in this administration, with partners like Public Advocate James, are devoted to reversing that trend, to making sure that the movement towards inequality and lack of affordability is reversed, so this really is a city for everyone. And this is a challenge we’re facing all over the country – and we have to look it in the eye. Because, you know, it is so easy to invoke the American dream, but there is no American dream if people can’t afford a place to live. Right?

[Applause]

And there is no American dream if all you can get is a minimum wage job. That’s not what history was about. History was about you got a chance to build up farther and farther. History was about the establishment of the middle class over decades. If we can’t make that work for today’s generation, then the American dream isn’t working the way it needs to – and it’s incumbent upon all of us to change the trends.

In this city, we had an election last year. And I talked very bluntly about the fact that more and more we were becoming a tale of two cities. And, again, you could say this all over the country, you could say this about the nation as a whole. The income inequality and the disparities have grown. They just don’t fit who we are. They have to be stopped dead in their tracks, and reversed. That is the struggle of our times. That’s the mission of our times – to take on inequality head-on.

Let me just give you one statistic that will confirm, I think, so much of what you know as leaders and see from your constituents in the communities you serve. The fact is that for so many Americans their earning power just isn’t what they need. In 2012 – let’s give you this comparison – in 2012, the top 1 percent, in terms of income, received nearly 24 percent of all the pre-tax income in the entire United States of America – the top 1 percent – and the bottom 90 percent received less than 50 percent of all income. And that is the first time in decades that the bottom 90 percent received less than 50 percent of all total income. That should make us wonder about the path we’re on and take immediate and aggressive steps to pull back from something that just will not work for this country or any city in it for the long term.

Let me give you examples of the kinds of things we’ve done here, because in our view in New York City, we’re not going to accept this status quo. We’re not going to assume it is inevitable. We’re going to use every tool we have to turn it around.

So look at the kinds of things we’re doing. We’re creating 200,000 units of affordable housing over the next ten years – enough for half a million people in this city.

[Applause]

Because if you want to address income inequality, one of the best of ways of doing it is addressing the number one expense in peoples’ lives, which is housing.

We’re taking a series of steps to increase wages and benefits for people in our city. We’re fighting for an increase in the minimum wage at the state level and for the right of cities around our state to increase it further according to their local needs. We’ve created paid sick days for millions of New Yorkers who needed them.

[Applause]

Because if you get sick and you lose a day’s pay or two days pay or a week’s pay – we all know what that means for so many of the people we serve – it dislocates them and it’s not fair that they should go through that if they’re sick or a loved one’s sick.

So these things, one after another, if you look at these particular pieces and add them all together, you start to get somewhere. If you create affordable housing on a large scale, if you push up wages and benefits—and then let’s talk about education, because we all know that more than at any point in human history, education determines economic destiny. So if we’re going to create an inclusive and fair – economically fair – America, if we’re going to create a society where Latinos and all people really have opportunity, it runs through education. If we’re going to do that, it means reaching our young people earlier, and giving them more educational opportunity, not less. So in this city, we are committed over the next two years to providing full-day, high-quality pre-k for every single child at that age in this city.

[Applause]

And we’re committed to making sure that our middle school kids, who are at a very vulnerable time in life, that any middle school kid who needs afterschool gets it for free, so they’re safe and secure and are learning more each day.

[Applause]

We, in all of these actions, have not made the mistake of assuming that Washington – in particular, our Congress – would be there every step of the way with us. You go back a few decades, and cities used to assume we had a friend and ally in Washington in all branches of government. I know we have a friend in the White House, but I know that so often in the Congress, things that need to be done to support cities, to support education, to support affordable housing and infrastructure and mass transit, it’s not there, or it’s not there anywhere near the level we deserve.

So we have to create locally. We have to do it for our people with every tool we have and we have to do it to show Washington what it looks like to actually address inequality, to actually create opportunity again. It’s not being done in Washington, but it can be done in our cities and we can show them what it looks like, and help push for it to finally change in Washington as well.

[Applause]

And I’ll just say one or two more things. You know, if there’s ever an example of Washington not getting it, particularly, again, the Congress, it’s on the question of immigration reform. This is one of the more obvious things I’ve seen in my public life. It is simply and fundamentally time for comprehensive immigration reform in this country, period. There’s no debating. There’s no nuance. I think if we flew in from another planet or from another time in history, and I said, look, there’s almost 12 million people – here’s one, here’s another one, they’re all among us, they’re part of our lives, they’re part of our communities, but we’re not going to acknowledge their existence. If I was describing that to someone who had never heard this situation before, they would think I was crazy. That’s how out of whack it’s become. We have to address it.

Now, I think we have made clear to us by the House republicans that they simply will not move on immigration reform. And I think, in light of that, the president is absolutely right to try and find any executive order he can to move immigration reform now.

[Applause]

But I think localities need to do more too. Localities can do so much more to serve all of our immigrant brothers and sisters, regardless of documentation status and we’re very proud of the fact that this week we will sign here in New York City a Municipal ID Card Law to make sure that anyone, regardless of documentation status, can be treated like our fellow New Yorkers.

[Applause]

We think it’s our job to help our neighbors if they need to get a lease, if they need to get a bank account, or a library card, or anything else that’s part of the fullness of life for them and their families. We want to improve their relationship with our police, and our police understand that they’re here to serve all of us. But having an ID helps you in every interaction you have with police – and the absence of it hurts. So we’re going to take care of it ourselves.

We’re going to create here on the municipal level something that will make peoples’ lives better, that will help make them more fully a part of what happens here in New York City. And if other cities do that – and some have already taken the lead and we’re deeply inspired by them and their experience – but if cities do it all over the country, it’s another way of saying the trains already leaving the station. Reform has to happen, because Washington is so far behind the people. We have to show them that by our actions locally, and I know LULAC is in a crucial position to help inspire localities all over the country to take actions in the spirit of immigration reform. Again, if Washington won’t act, show them what it looks like, show them what fairness and equality looks like. Do it yourself.

[Applause]

We’re in the most diverse and multilingual of cities, so I’d like to conclude en Español.

[Speaks Spanish]

[Applause]