Latinos Under the Influence and Tragic Consequences 


Latinos Under the Influence and Tragic Consequences 


By Gil Villagrán, MSW El Observador, San Jose, Dec. 26, 2008

As we begin the holiday period between Christmas and New Year's, celebrations often include drinking at home, restaurants or clubs, and driving from one to the other. There was a time when society accepted, cheered on, or overlooked those among us who drank to excess, joking about how "our beloved drunk" or "party animal" got home after a party. But drinking and driving is not a joke! Alcohol addiction is a disease! Alcohol-caused accidents are not unfortunate accidents, but crimes that kill the guilty and the innocent alike. Too many Latinos are perpetrators and victims of such crimes.



Yet alcohol is a legal drug available almost everywhere, and used at almost every celebration-- baptisms, birthdays, weddings, graduations, funerals, holidays, sporting events, or just weekends. In Latino culture-famous for our cerveza, tequila, rum, even our ancient pulque--we proudly toast with ancestral celebratory fermented creations. Under proper and safe conditions, there is no harm in such celebrations.

However, when alcohol is consumed anytime and anywhere, it can cause great harm. 
There are so many ways that alcohol can kill: There is the eventual painful death due to long term alcohol addiction, causing cirrhosis of the liver. There are the perennial stories of college students drinking to such excess, often at fraternity initiations, where alcohol poisoning tragically kills a youth just entering adulthood with so much promise.

Already noted are drunk driver accidents such as last Friday when a mother crossing at the cross walk on Taylor Street with her 14-year old son was killed by Gilberto Vasquez Reyes, who ran a red light. His victim left a grieving husband and four children. 
The driver, charged with vehicular manslaughter, had been drinking and driving. Accidents do happen, but drinking and driving is not an accident, it is a choice, a brutally stupid choice, with tragic consequences.

The ethnicity of the driver does not make any difference to the family who lost a wife and mother. But the fact that the driver is Latino is important to note for this editorial focused on Latino drinking. Too many in our community drink to excess or drink and drive. We must stop this dysfunctional, criminal, sometimes tragic behavior among our family and friends. We must stop this behavior to prevent the need for the police, paramedics, emergency room doctors and coroners to deal with alcohol related injuries and deaths.


I have recently written about the seeming aggressive enforcement of walking (not driving) drunk in public arrests of Latinos and others in the downtown club zone. I have also written about the reluctance of two non-Latino San Jose Police Officers to arrest Sandra Woodall, a former San Jose Policewoman, and district attorney investigator, who stated she had been drinking when she hit two cars, causing injury to a child. The officers may have "cut her some slack" when they realized her father, with the same last name, is an officer in the force. And District Attorney Dolores Carr, married to a recently retired San Jose Police Officer, may also be "cutting her some slack," as Woodall has not been fired, but rather allowed to be on unpaid leave.


Although nine months late in arriving at her admittance, and working out a deal for a misdemeanor rather than a felony, Officer Woodall is to be commended for her honesty to plead guilty to drunk driving. In this case, no one died, but it could have been otherwise with a bit more speed, if the teen had not been wearing a seat belt, or had suffered a head or spinal injury. Officer Woodall is fortunate she did not cause a death. Gilberto Reyes is not so fortunate; he killed his victim.


It is imperative that police officers respond equally to all drunk driving arrests, while we prevent drunk driving by our family and friends. The life saved may be our own, our loved ones, our friends or neighbors-a human life! ∆