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Show party-goers would be leaving the Deer Valley shindig after drinking wine and hard liquor all night long, get in their Range Rovers and Expeditions and find their way over Park City streets in the dark back to their respectable homes. There you have it. It’s acceptable versus unacceptable, the great double standard at the base of an ugly Utah reality - ours is a very institutionally racist state. Unacceptable is loud music in an apart- ment full of “drunken Mexicans.” Acceptable is 10 or 20 people operating motor dark mountain roads after drinking expensive night long, navigating through vehicles on narrow, booze all neighbor- hoods loaded with school-age children their own children - who might be on their way home from visiting friends. Take your pick. Because, that’s what Park City, Summit County and Utah citizens are doing, they are taking their pick. They are choosing sides in an ugly war of exclusion, ignorance, intolerance and hypocritical judgment based on how fat a person’s wallet is coupled with the tone of their skin and their speaking accent. NOTHING Ski slopes are being prepared for another busy and profitable season in Park City. NEW “Its nothing new,” says Salt Lake City Councilman Lee Martinez, who has spent his life battling Utah racism, particularly that leveled against people of Latin American origin. “It’s been going on for years, for genera- tions, actually. The fact it’s so recognizable in Park City is because of the obvious gap in wealth up there.” Martinez’ comments echoed those of numerous Hispanic residents, workers and leaders interviewed in the wake of Park City’s recent public race-related display. What Martinez sees when he looks around Utah is an egregious double standard where “people who don’t look like pioneer stock, who speak with an accent, who have. darker skin, black hair, are painted with the same big, broad brush.” From the meat packing plants of Logan and Hyrum in the north, to the turkey farms near Manti, in resorts like Park City and Deer Valley and in the neighborhoods of Salt Lake City, Martinez says Utah is awash in racism and it’s getting worse. “People don't really understand how big the problem is,” he said. Yet, the examples, particularly glaring in Park City, are everywhere. Utah’s economy has created thousands of low-wage service and manual labor jobs that cant be filled with willing applicants from among the state's “pioneer stock” pool of workers, who don’t want the jobs. “Yet,” Martinez said, “when Hispanics come to work (at those unwanted jobs) as the vast majority do, they are singled out, watched, held to a great double standard. The big cliché within the Hispanic circle is that we have to work extra hard, dress extra clean, put in the extra hours to b@recognized as just being equal. It’s much the same thing as women face in this society.” _. But, when a Latino puts in the unfairly required “extra effort,” if they become a success, “then, they must be making money by dealing narcotics or burglarizing neighbortacitly es eee ce hood homes,” Martinez said. Park City crime statistics bear out Martinez claim that rampant Utah Hispanic crime is a myth when compared to the over- all crime figures. Z NO CRIME THREAT According to Park City Police Detective Rod Ludlow, Hispanics account for just nine percent of Park City’s arrest figures. If you remove motor vehicle and driver's license infractions from the statistics, the figure hoyers around one or two percent. “As far as Hispanics being involved in crime in Park City, we're not seeing i Ludlow said. “What we're seeing is good, hard workers - quality workers - a lot with families, who are the lifeblood of our labor sector.” Ludlow said the Park City Police Department is “in full support” of the town’s growing Latino population. “We are fortunate they have found housing up here. In a labor market with less than two percent unemployment, you need them.” Ludlow said the brooding racial sentiment that has driven Park City into the spotlight has been stewing in town for several years. He said the divide is fueled by fulltime residents who “enjoy the amenities of living in a resort town but don't understand (how the town works.) “The full-time city residents are creating most of the noise about the Latinos. These are the same people who send their kids off on foreign school exchange to get diversity when they have diversity sitting next to them in school,” Ludlow said. The resort-town syndrome continues unchecked in Park City and the surrounding area, creating an insatiable job market for positions local whites won't fill. According to Utah labor statistics, jobs that used to be filled by “seasonal” workers you knew as “ski bums” are noSo dones filled by young whites , : 1S SECS CONEFi COST ete O Se Ve ing the way the young whites want to live. Instead, the making of beds and the cleaning of hotel rooms and condos, the washing of dishes, the clearing of tables and other jobs that once sustained kids skipping a year of college to ski, have become fulltime positions that need a stable workforce. The Latino workforce. “And these people show up every day. In the old days, when it snowed, everybody ran off to ski the powder,” Ludlow said, “or they partied all night, drinking, and they wouldn't show up the next day.” As a result of the shift, word of $10-an- hour kitchen-service jobs has spread among the Latin community Mexico, Honduras, and reached back to Guatemala and El Salvador, along with dollars earned in those jobs that are sent home to families who desperately need the cash to survive and improve their lives. So, as the Park City service jobs grow, they are being filled by an expanding Latino workforce that is coming from across the West above and below the border. The color of the changing societal landscape is readily noticeable. Sultry mountain summer evenings when the city park used to be used solely by well-off whites playing softball, tennis and practicing rugby, now feature the Latin culture's festive habit of public congregation as a form of network socialization. What for the Latinos is nothing different than the centuries-old custom of getting together in the town plaza to chat, play ball and relax is now a “threat” to some whites, who have complained to the Park City Police about “gangs” in the park making people nervous. Women, according to the police, have said they fear they will be “sexually assaulted” in the park if they go there. “Right now,” Ludlow said, “the big push (against the Latino culture) is negative. But, the crime figures just don’t bear it out. So, it’s a lack of understanding or bigotry, and who is to say how many bigots we have in town?” BETTER THAN SALT LAKE? Not everybody is a bigot, however. Park City activist Shelly Weiss has used the Connection Amigo organization as an effective advocacy group to get additional English as a Second Language resources in Park City schools. Catholic Parishioners at St. Mary’s Church have embraced the cause of the Hispanic population, appalled at Park City’s perceived racist atmosphere. Wellheeled organizations, like the Eccles Foundation, have offered to help. The Utah continued page I 0 Office of Hispanic Affairs has completed a “Park City Assessment” that identifies areas where immediate adjustments, like having a Spanish-speaking employee to help with vehicle registrations and drivers’ licenses, THE CAR LOAN >PARRANGING SPECIALISTS Credit Problems? Need a Car Loan? Our specialities are No Credit, Bankruptcies, eee Ask for Call 7-900-935-1942 Barer perce jt st NO 1 DEAL a Too HHARDIN | Pi | gtails e Y eae WARNER ALTTO GY @ : *@ 29Vd ° SAWLL NIVINNOW is “ya naa That’s how it happens. Meanwhile, a house full of wealthy, “respectable” Pete eesi se |