But another PBH activist insists adamantly that protest is not the way to go. "People who organize protests have really good intentions, but they haven't seen that many results, at least not at Harvard," asserts Remigio Cruz '86, who spends several afternoons a week and lives summers in a predominantly Puerto Rican neighborhood in Boston's South End.

Cruz's philosophy is an outgrowth of his experiences as director of PBH's Keylatch program in the Villa Victoria housing project, where he says he "learned how politics works...how to get along with people to get money and to get things done."

In order to reach kids and affect real change, Cruz says, ideology sometimes has to be compromised. "I hope to be some sort of leader, one who gets things done, whether it's with the Republicans or the Democrats."

Cruz tells of meeting with Boston city councilor James Kelley to get funding for Keylatch. "This man was [pictured] in the Boston Herald throwing bricks at Black kids during the busing controversy, and I went to him and said, 'I'm not political, [but] helping me will improve your image in the Hispanic community.' He gave me money."

Cruz is forthright in saying to others that "in the long run, what I'm doing is political: helping kids from poor neighborhoods use education as a tool..to become leaders."

Every time Cruz takes the T to West Newton St., he says, he is making a political statement. Moreover, that's often more effective politics than a campus sit-in or rally, he adds: "Sometimes protests build animosity. It's more effective to be diplomatic, to organize a debate."

This is especially true, Cruz asserts, when you are dealing with Harvard. "The administration is very powerful. You can't move them with emotional ploys...What people need to do is have an irrefutable argument for divestment, and until that comes about, the University won't change its policy [which all but precludes divesting]."

For Dixon, it comes down to choosing where she will spend her limited time and energy. Dixon says she finds it ironic that campus liberals focus on international civil rights issues like apartheid in South Africa while ignoring civil rights issues in the United States. "People have been lulled into believing that things have changed a lot [in the U.S.]. On the surface it is that way, but I don't think that's necessarily true. Here are people fighting about a cause 50,000 miles away when there are problems next door."