SoCal Latinos Criticize Obama At White House Summit

Over the weekend the White House held a Latino policy summit at the University of California at Riverside. Apparently, residents took White House Hispanic Community Action Summit as a chance to air their grievances about the economy and discontent with President Barack Obama’s policies, rather than to listen to his staff at the summit. The Los Angeles Times reported:

The economic wounds from the recession remain raw in a region where fortunes plummeted with the crash of the housing market and construction industry. Once a haven for Latino immigrants looking for housing construction jobs, unemployment now hovers around 14% in San Bernardino County and 13% in Riverside County…

Nationwide, the Latino unemployment rate is just over 13%, compared with the national average of about 9%. Nearly a quarter of the 51 million Latinos in the U.S. live in poverty, compared with 15% for the nation as a whole.

Some at the summit were openly critical of the president’s policies where others seemed to want him to do more to stave off the harshness of the economy. These events have been held in Denver, Las Cruces, NM, New York City, Las Vegas and Orlando, with more to come in the future. White House officials pointed out that the president did pass health care reform, and said the point of the event was to receive feedback from the Latino community.