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Publishers of editorial content for the discussion of events, issues and ideas without prejudice to political affiliations or diversity of opinion that impact American Hispanics |
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Weekly
Digest:
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| The Hannity-Syndrome | |
Sean Hannity, TV’s Fox News ultra conservative Republican commentator, was guest hosting the Rush Limbaugh radio show. A caller, most apparently not of the same political color as Hannity, wanted to discuss the darker side of US foreign policy. The poor chap never had a chance. Almost immediately Hannity struck him down asking – “In the balance has the United States been a world force for good over evil – yes or no?” Gasping and trying desperately to skirt the question the caller hummed and hawed trying to get in his comment. Hannity was adamant, “Yes or no? Has the US been a greater force of good or not?” |
México, if you remember from previous columns, has a huge tax collection problem for the needed funds to run the government. The tax collection rate in México is only 11% of the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) and this even includes 60% of the sales of our national oil company (PEMEX) right off the top. While PEMEX accounts for 1/3 of the federal tax revenue for México, it also leaves PEMEX, now $43 billion dollars in debt, technically broke. |
| Teaching English as a Second Language in The Bronx: A Discovery | Ramon Anibal Ramos y sus 25 años de entrega al oficio, a entretener y comunicar |
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Por Miriam Ventura Woodlawn,NY.-La vida es una tómbola con sus “variantes de pista” donde reconocernos en el otro/a es parte del ejercicio. Hoy mi memoria está de fiesta, también tambalea entre lo hecho y dicho, lo desmontable de la gramática callejera de mi adolecencia. Esa con la cual la familia inauguraba sus sábados en el Hipodromo Perla Antillana. Después de las jornadas de militancia en Lucuan y el son de Cesar Nanún, el transfer pequeño-burgués-progresista, era Olguita y Enrique Chao de “35 milimetros”, el “poco loco”, y ...los aires del rock, al calor de un Macorís en la casa de un amigo al que llamaban el “matatan” de la musica norteamericana . |
Josefina Lema is the first member of Ecuador’s indigenous Utabalo people I’ve ever met. The rowdy lobby of the Caracas Hilton, with radical political protests barricading down the streets outside, is not the place I expect to encounter her. But here she is. I listen intently to the five-foot tall Indian woman in the colorful skirt as she describes why she came to the 6th annual World Social Forum here in Caracas, which began today. |
I´m trying to make things connect -- and failing. In front of a computer terminal beneath the tent housing the World Social Forum (Foro) press and tech office on an air force base, I’m attempting to write, to explain, to document what I learned from dozens of activists and thinkers who are probing deeply into the nexus between militarism and migration in the Americas. I’m failing. |
| Wall Street and López Obrador | |
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By Ramon Ruiz The drama of April 2005 was overwhelming. It seemed the whole world was holding its breath as thousands of protesters across Mexico amassed on the twenty fourth of April. The crowds were diverse. Lower- and middle-class citizens stood shoulder to shoulder protesting the government´s legal challenge against Mexico City Mayor Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
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| Using the term "Latino" | Migrants in our midst, on both sides of our scarred border |
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By Kelly Arthur Garrett One of the first things Ana said when we finally firmed up the decision to move ourselves and the kids back home to beautiful downtown Naucalpan after an ill-advised three-year stint stateside was the following: "It'll be nice to be a Mexican again instead of a 'Lah-teen-uh,' whatever that is." I've never been either, as far as I know, but I understood her frustration. Being assigned to an ethnic category not of your choosing (Latina) at the expense of your natural self-identity (Mexican) must cloy by degrees of magnitude progressing over the years from mildly disconcerting to beyond-grating. |
By Dan Lund From the historical perspective of Mexico, the line between Mexico and the United States is not just a border; it is a scar that has never quite healed over. This frustrates many in the United States who think Mexico is stuck in the past. But, the reality is that policy makers in both countries know full well the problems are in the present and the future; it is just that the levels of mutual misunderstanding continue to be sky high. No progress is being made these days as politicians in both countries posture with being tough. |
| "Don't Fence Me In" say Mexicans | Bush Immigration Plan Is Way Off the Mark |
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By Kenneth Edmond
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By Angela Junck & Christopher Punongbayan President Bush's promise to overhaul the U.S. immigration system is a disaster in the making. The two major components of his program are increased enforcement of immigration laws and a new low-wage "guest worker" program. History proves that neither of these approaches will bring us closer to a comprehensive fix.
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| How the Left Came to Be Center | Letters to Editor |
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By Fred Rosen Chile’s newly elected president, Michelle Bachelet, represents the “extreme center” of Latin America’s new generation of elected leftist leaders. A socialist, she came to power as the candidate of the center-left coalition, the Concertación, on a platform committed to maintaining Chile’s policies of macro economic balance, encouragement of foreign and domestic private investment, and free trade (that’s the center). |
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New Book Offers Fresh,
Peacemaking Approach to the Global Abortion Debate |
I am grateful for the opportunity to talk with you about the state of our union on the day of the president’s address to our country. While it is discouraging for all of us to see our country moving in the wrong direction, we need to take this opportunity to offer ideas for how to get the nation back on track. |
Taking his oath of office in La Paz, the flamboyant new president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, railed against the exploiters of his country. In his fiery campaign he had said that the government had done nothing for Bolivia "in the last 50 years." The country itself is 500 years old, and "we are here to change history." |
ETHICS REFORMS are breaking out like hives in the nation's centers of money and power. |
On Immigration Issue, Big
Evangelical Groups Conspicuously Mum Advocates at World Relief, the humanitarian arm of the National Association of Evangelicals, can usually expect a warm greeting from large evangelical groups wielding clout in the halls of Congress. |
The Statue of Liberty gives the wrong impression. Its fabled inscription -- "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free" -- is a collection of beautiful, empty words, a kind of trick welcome mat. When the tired, poor, etc. have the temerity to show up, the first thing we do is try to yank that welcome mat out from under them. |
A traditional definition of the Yiddish word "chutzpah" is a child who murders his parents then begs for mercy because he's an orphan… Diplomats from Mexico and Central America recently provided another definition when they criticized efforts to secure the U.S.-Mexico border and demanded that the United States establish guest worker programs and a process for the legalization of undocumented immigrants. |
It's unusual for a controversial economic issue to be fought on moral grounds. But ACORN, a public advocacy group, has been winning a higher "living wage" for workers in state after state, city after city, by appealing to voters' sense of justice. "It's probably the best [argument] we have," says Jen Kern, director of ACORN's Living Wage Resource Center. A decent income is a moral matter of "fairness," she says. |
Herndon, Va. could be Anytown, USA. Day laborers, many of them illegal immigrants, often clogged a 7-Eleven parking lot, creating unsanitary conditions and disorder. After heated debate, the town last month opened a work center for the jobbers. Order now reigns, but the debate rages on as illegal-immigration opponents seek to shut the center. Herndon's actions reflect a national phenomenon about day laborers: |
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Hispanic Americans Find
Entertainment Online
Forrester surveyed over 3,000 Hispanic Americans as part of a three-times-a-year study of their use of technology. Overall, the researcher finds that Hispanics Internet users are more… |
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The first nationwide study on day laborers has found that such workers are a nationwide phenomenon, with 117,600 people gathering at more than 500 hiring sites to look for work on a typical day. |
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Coretta Scott King Dies at 78 in
Rosarito Beach, Baja California, Mexico
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Los Angeles County gets barely passing grades in providing quality-of-life services - including health care, housing, education and economic development - for the region's large Latino population, according to a review released Wednesday by United Way of Greater Los Angeles. |
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Ventura County's billion dollar agriculture industry has added thousands of new jobs to the county since the 1980s, but the farmworkers' average salary has fallen, something economic analysts see as an alarming trend because it shows growth in jobs that pay below the poverty level. |
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Garza’s second note in week much
milder than first one |
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Hispanics Twice As Likely To Be Victims Of Consumer Fraud Scam artists bilk Americans out of billions of dollars each year, and statistics show that Hispanics are the most likely victims of these scams. That's why federal officials are announcing this week the launch of a new initiative aimed at fighting this trend, reported 5 On Your Side consumer specialist Angie Lau. |
History links Mexico, Philippines BY Therese Margolis /The Herald Mexico-El Universal Ask Philippines Ambassador to Mexico Justo O. Orros about the current trend to develop international free trade blocs, and he´ll tell you that the whole idea started back in 1565, when the Nao galleons plowed the Pacific carrying goods between the ports of Manila and Acapulco. |
Twenty years after coming to the U.S. with only the clothes on his back, Salvadoran immigrant Mario Matute will return this spring to his war-torn country as a candidate for political office. |
Mexican Supreme Court removes another impediment to extraditions Mexico's Supreme Court removed on Tuesday another potential stumbling block to extraditing criminals to the United States, ruling that a U.S.-Mexico treaty supersedes domestic law on procedural points. |
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Mexico’s Banorte buys Texas bank Banorte, the nation´s fifth-largest bank, announced Thursday that it was acquiring 70 percent of U.S.-based Inter National Bank, the latest in a slew of cross-border acquisitions designed to capitalize on Mexico´s growing remittance market. |
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No maps for illegal border crossers A government commission said Thursday it has suspended plans to distribute border maps to migrants planning to cross the border illegally, but denied the decision was a response to U.S. criticism. |
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OK, what were they? Mexican or US disguised as military? The foreign relations secretary suggested Thursday that uniformed men using a military-style Humvee to help drug traffickers on the border could have been U.S. soldiers or criminals disguised as Mexican troops.
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Nearly one-half of Americans now live in states that require wages higher than the $5.15 an hour set by Congress nine years ago. And the trend of states raising their minimum wages in the face of federal inaction shows no sign of fading. |
Frustrated by slow action in Congress, state legislatures are debating whether to increase border enforcement at their own expense, fine employers who use undocumented workers and get local police involved in deporting them. |
Federal authorities have launched a national effort to curtail human smuggling by fining American drivers caught bringing in illegal migrants inside vehicles, but the program is coming under criticism for not going far enough. |
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By Patrick Osio,
Jr./HispanicVista.com
By
Richard N. Baldwin T. /HispanicVista.com
By Manuel Hernandez