Govt Leaves Latino Farmers Hanging

The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently settled a discrimination lawsuit alleging that the government didn’t award loans and other federal benefits to minority farmers since the 1960s. The New York Times reports that the suit included Latino, black and Native American farmers and some Latino farmers feel “shortchanged.”

The New York Times reports:

“But the Agriculture and Justice Departments argue that the Hispanics’ suit is different from the one brought by blacks and Indians. Unlike the other minority farmer lawsuits, judges who presided over the Hispanic farmers’ case said the group did not share enough in common to file a class-action lawsuit.”

It’s always an interesting issue when institutions try to create in-fighting between minority groups, in this case, amongst Latinos, blacks and Native Americans. The fact of the matter is the government discriminated against all of these groups, but when it comes to making amends, Latinos apparently don’t deserve as good of an apology.