Mobilizing the Latino community. Ernesto J. Cortes, Jr

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Ernie Cortes isn't a business tycoon and he hasn't been elected to public office, but a Texas business magazine named him one of the five most powerful Texans, along with people like H. Ross Perot. Ernie Cortes' influence, though, reaches beyond Texas and he has been called "the most effective Latino grassroots organizer in the country today. He is a man who empowers, a member of the national staff of the Industrial Areas Foundation, a nonprofit organization that helps "ordinary" people organize to make positive changes in their communities. In his home state of Texas, he teaches citizens to take on issues that matter to them: water and sewer systems, roads, education, worker safety, and health care. In this program with Bill Moyers, Cortes discusses individual participation in American politics and highlights the importance of agitation, confrontation, and compromise in the discourse of democracy.