LATINOS TO HOLD CONGRESS IN L.A. NATIONWIDE GATHERING SET FOR SEPTEMBER.

Byline: RACHEL URANGA Staff Writer

Inspired by the millions of immigrants who took to the streets to demand legal residency, Latino advocacy groups and politicians have called for a national Latino congress to keep the issue in the political spotlight.

Organizers are inviting leaders from across the political spectrum to Los Angeles -- the country's Latino epicenter -- to draft an agenda for strengthening immigrant rights, health care and education.

``These mobilizations have shown that the immigrant community and the Latino community have political potential in impacting public policy,'' said Angela Sanbrano, president of the National Alliance of Latin American and Caribbean Communities.

``But we cannot assume that we are unified.''

In fact, a number of groups favoring tighter controls on illegal immigration from Mexico and Central America count Latino residents among their members.

Joe Turner, founder of Save Our State, a group that has been picketing against undocumented workers at day-labor sites in Glendale and around the region, said efforts like forming the Latino congress help to strengthen groups like his.

``Any call for amnesty this supports is only going to create a backlash,'' he said.

More than half a dozen immigrant-rights advocacy groups, including the League of United Latin American Cities and the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project, will sponsor the four-day conference Sept. 6-10 to set a long-term agenda and action plan to improve the lives of immigrants.

But observers say organizers need to be careful not to further divide Americans on the red-hot issue of immigration.

``While you want to mobilize, you don't want to create a countermobilization, and that is very difficult not to do,'' said Fernando Guerra, director of the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University.

Still, he said a Latino congress, modeled after similar ethnic and civil- rights conventions held during the 1970s, would be a turning point in Latino politics.

``Latinos have done a tremendous job in electoral politics, but I think you are, in 2006, seeing a watershed moment for nonelectoral political organizing in the United States.''

Organizers are inviting Latino leaders -- now about 5,000 -- from government and chambers of commerce, as well as from the National Council of La Raza.

Its success and impact will depend, in part, on who turns up. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has been invited but his office did not return calls to say whether he planned to attend.

Organizers aim to have the country's largest gathering of Latino power assembled.

``We are inviting the whole family,'' joked Antonio Gonzalez, president of the William C. Velasquez Institute, a nonprofit Latino voter research group.

``(Latinos) control cities, we have people in the Senate and we are going to only get more prominent, but on the other hand (Latinos) are not giving the policy benefits to the community we should.''

Latinos have achieved political clout in Los Angeles, but they have less access to health care and are poorer than the general population. Nearly half of Latino students drop out of high school.

rachel.uranga(at)dailynews.com

[phone]