The New Caciques

In: caciquism|economics|immigrants

15 Apr 2009

A good friend of mine participated in a scheme that robbed four families of the equity in their homes.  Shockingly, my friend, let’s call him Alfredo, had no idea that he had done this.  Alfredo is certainly no Bernie Madoff.  In fact, he his someone I could trust with the keys to my home or even the password to my bank account. So how did this happen?


Alfredo got a mortgage from a prominent Latino mortgage company in Chicago.  This mortgage company has a CEO that is a very hands-on kind of guy, providing direct customer service to many of his clients.  One day, he showed up at Alfredo’s door to talk to him about a program his company had started to help his paisanos (countrymen) stay in homes that were in danger of foreclosure. This millionaire CEO talked up the program as a way to help la raza (our people) get back on their feet after having missed a few mortgage payments.  But for the program to be successful, the CEO continued, people like Alfredo needed to help out.  Alfredo tenia que prestar su credito (he had to lend his credit) to those people so they could get a new mortgage and resume payments.  What a slickster!  Alfredo trusted this guy, after all he had secured the mortage for his own home.   And how could a good person like Alfredo refuse to lend his credit to a paisano in need?  Of course, the CEO’s novel concept existed only in his head.  Through what can only be described as magical math, the CEO ended up getting Alfredo to be an owner of 4 different mortgages, notwithstanding Alfredo’s status as a part-time maintenance man.  The actual homeowners lost their homes but remained physically in them as they made payments to the CEO’s mortgage company which then forwarded payments to the banks.  The mortgage company took all the equity and in return gave Alfredo $2,000 for each mortgage.  the company made a killing, but all the risk had been transferred to Alfredo!

As someone who grew up in the States, the idea of “lending my credit” to someone seems absurd on a gut level.  How could Alfredo be fooled into this?  But remember, Alfredo was a hardworking immigrant who had not gone to college and who had never lived in a community where credit was so abundant.  The millionaire CEO knew how the system worked and as a result had done very well for himself.  Alfredo trusted that the CEO was doing the right thing to help these people.  If he received a couple of bucks in return for lending his credit, then that was great.
Of course, all those people lost their homes and Alfredo is now in bankruptcy.  The mortgage company seems to have insulated itself from any of the fallout.

A lot of us who focus on community organizing and politics often take for granted that the system is rife with racism and anti-Latino schemes to keep us down.  But what about these slick Latino professionals in our community that our exploiting our people in ways that no white guy could ever think of?  Most of the victims of these schemes are immigrants who are afraid to speak out. In fact, Alfredo started a complaint with the Attorney General, but became scared that his family might be outed to immigration authorities so he backed off.  We organizers have to be willing to take on caciquism in our neighborhoods. Caciques are not just the political bosses like Al Sanchez in Chicago or José Rivera in New York, but also some members of the Latino professional class the create traps like the one that ensnared Alfredo.  I wrote earlier that Alfredo was no Bernie Madoff, but we do have our Bernie Madoffs.  If you don’t believe me, read this article from the LA Times about a major Latino-run ponzi scheme targeting other Latinos across the country.

The Aztecs used to execute their leaders for immoral public behavior (e.g. public drunkeness).  I’m not saying “off with their heads,” but some accountability would be nice.
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5 Responses to The New Caciques

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Caciques Part Two » Cockroach People

June 29th, 2009 at 6:25 am

[...] to the majority of Latinos. The sub-machine has generated cacique leaders (see my entry about The New Caciques) that have been embroiled in corruption scandal after corruption scandal. Latinos who do not expose [...]

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Big Insurance Casts its Shadow - Cockroach People

July 30th, 2009 at 11:24 am

[...] pointing out that this guy , Alfonso Cantu, meets the definition of cacique that I blogged about in The New Caciques.  Here’s the New York Times article about [...]

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Esteban Ortiz

August 5th, 2009 at 8:20 am

I’ve got to say that this article has inspired me to write about my own experiences because of what I see in my community involvement in a certain midwest state..

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Mortgage Fraud, Latino Style: Meet Eliseo Carrillo Jr. - Cockroach People

May 4th, 2010 at 11:58 am

[...] regular readers may remember a post about a year ago called The New Caciques.  I told the story of an immigrant who had been duped into becoming a straw-buyer investor for an [...]

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City of Bell’s Public Officials Live High on the Hog!

July 15th, 2010 at 9:41 pm

[...] at the expense of the working class that they serve. This reminds me of the cacique mentality that Cockroach People so eloquently writes about in the Latino community in Chicago. What kind of message does this send to youngsters in Bell [...]

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About this blog

While some people look at cockroaches as disgusting pests, I view them as resilient organisms that predate humans and will likely outlive us as well. People of color, the poor, the downtrodden, and the oppressed, much like cockroaches, are often despised, feared and in some cases have been the objects of extermination.

I started this blog as an attempt to understand the complicated world we live in. Things have changed since the old days of conquest, colonization, and slavery. Anonymous living, consumerism, and mass media have made it difficult to identify the forces that make modern-day oppression possible. Thus, posts here tend to focus on corruption, media, bureaucracy, ethics, economics, law, human rights, etc...in short, I try to take a second-order inquiry into assumptions and systems that some of us take for granted. I also take time to challenge stereotypes that function to place us in a box. Occasionally, I just rant.

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