politics (148)

Latino business leaders recognizes a New York congressman for his work in breaking down trade barriers between the United States and Latin American countries at a dinner featuring embassy representatives from 13 countries.

Washington, D.C. - infoZine - Scripps Howard Foundation Wire - Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., received an award from Hispanic entrepreneurs for supporting laws dealing with trade agreements with Latin American countries and drug policies affecting the region.

The Greater Washington Hispanic Chamber of Commerce hosted a dinner Friday to honor Engel's work as chairman of the House Foreign Affairs' subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere. Diplomatic delegations from 13 countries, mostly from Latin America, attended the dinner held at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center.

"We are giving this award for first time to honor people who help Latinos' businesses to grow, and we chose Congressman Engel for his work in facilitating trade between Latin American countries and United Sates," Angela Franco, president of GWHCC, said.

Engel's initiatives have been aimed at promoting trade preferences with some Andean countries, allocating funds for Haiti's reconstruction and convening an independent commission to evaluate U.S. programs and policies to reduce the drug supply and demand in the Western Hemisphere. READ MORE

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Not all of the key players in the 2012 election were politicians. Here’s a list, that by no means is comprehensive, that gives us a look into the Latinos and Latinas that were instrumental in the 2012 election.

Latino volunteers – Those who basically made campaigning across the country possible, from registering voters to fundraising, phone banking, getting out the vote, and organizing for local and national candidates.
Latino voters – Accounting for 1 in 10 votes this cycle, Latino voters took to the polls to potently remind politicos across the spectrum that they cannot ignore this constituency when it comes to policy and campaigning.
Katherine Archuleta – The first Latina to ever hold the title National Political Director of any presidential campaign. Archuleta served as the National Political Director for Obama for America 2012. READ MORE

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8602365086?profile=originalFor the first time in thirty-five years a sitting U.S. President will step foot in Puerto Rico. President Barack Obama has accepted an invitation to visit Puerto Rico next month, a trip that would make him the first sitting president to come to the U.S. Commonwealth in decades, the island's governor said Tuesday.

The president, who campaigned in Puerto Rico for the Democratic primary, will visit the island June 14, Gov. Luis Fortuño said, without disclosing details of his itinerary.

"With his visit, the president makes good on the promise he made during the presidential primaries in 2008 that he would return to Puerto Rico as president," Fortuno said in a statement.

The governor's office described the Obama trip as the "the first official presidential visit" since December 1961, when President John F. Kennedy stopped on the island to a formal welcome on his way to Venezuela. But that was not the last time a U.S. president set foot in the territory: President Gerald Ford hosted an economic summit in Puerto Rico in June 1976.


Pedro Pierluisi, the island's nonvoting representative in Congress, said he expects Obama will discuss a recent White House report on the options for changing Puerto Rico's formal relationship to the U.S. mainland. The president may also visit projects that have benefited from the administration's stimulus spending to aid the economy.

Puerto Rico is home to nearly 4 million U.S. citizens but its residents cannot vote in the general presidential election, only in the primaries.

Andres W. López, a member of the Democratic National Committee from the island, said the president's visit may also help him with Puerto Ricans on the mainland, particularly in South Florida, which is home to some 725,000 people of Puerto Rican descent and an important battleground state in the 2012 election. READ MORE

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The Hispanic Century?

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A comprehensive look at voter behavior and demographics reveals a momentous prospect: A Hispanic electorate that votes en masse, allies itself with one political party and changes America’s political balance for decades.

The rapid growth in the U.S. Hispanic population over the last 40 years — both in terms of raw numbers and percentage of the population — is probably the most important emergent force in American politics today. The evidence is around us: In 2008, each party conducted an entire presidential primary debate in Spanish. In 2009, the first Hispanic judge, Sonia Sotomayor, was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court. And in 2010, for the first time ever in a single election, three Hispanic candidates won top statewide offices: Republican Brian Sandoval became Nevada’s first Hispanic governor; Republican Susana Martinez won in New Mexico to become the nation’s first Hispanic woman elected governor; and Republican Marco Rubio was elected to represent Florida in the U.S. Senate.

Despite these notable top-of-the-ticket wins by Hispanic Republicans in 2010, most political observers continue to assume there is significant and stable support for Democrats among Hispanics, similar to the support that African Americans have shown in recent decades. Indeed, new Hispanic voters have entered the electorate more often as Democrats than as Republicans in recent elections.

But the current degree of Hispanic attachment to the Democratic Party is by no means a future certainty. READ MORE

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State's Latino population surges – political power, too

California's Latino population grew nearly three times as much as the state as a whole in the past decade, making it home to more than a quarter of the nation's Latinos, according to a new Census Bureau report.

While the Golden State's population grew by 10 percent in the past decade, the Latino growth was 27.6 percent, accounting for more than 90 percent of the state's population gain overall.

Latinos now are 37.6 percent of all Californians, up more than five percentage points since 2000, according to the census. READ MORE

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When Fernando Molina left central Mexico to move to Illinois, he was searching for affordable housing, job opportunities and established Hispanic neighborhoods with grocery stores, bakeries and clothing shops.

He didn't head for Chicago, a well-known magnet for Mexicans pondering the journey north. Instead, he settled in Aurora, about 40 miles to the west.

"It's like Mexico inside the United States," said Molina, 37, a social worker who has lived in the U.S. for more than a decade and now assists other immigrant families. "You can find everything in the stores."

Over the last decade, tens of thousands of others have followed his path to Aurora — more than 35,000 of about 55,000 new residents between 2000 and 2010 were Hispanic. The city, which is now 40 percent Hispanic, has surpassed Rockford to become Illinois' second-largest city.

The trend of immigrants heading directly to American suburbs instead of starting in a major city intensified from 2000 to 2010 — and was one factor in Illinois' 32.5 percent increase in Hispanic population in that period, according to recently released U.S. Census data.

Demographers say they aren't just seeing it around Chicago. The same thing is happening around other major cities that have long been entry points for immigrants, such as New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Even as the steep growth of the Hispanic population in Chicago tapered off, the arrival of Hispanics helped make Kendall County west of Aurora the fastest growing county in the U.S. for several years during the decade.

For many Hispanics in northern Illinois, Aurora supplanted Chicago as a cultural hub, and the growth has transformed smaller and smaller towns. READ MORE

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Chicago's Emanuel names Latinos to key posts

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Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel proposed Tuesday reorganizing the Chicago City Council to reflect the city's diversity by incorporating Latinos into its principal committees.

Emanuel, who takes office next Monday, said in a communique that the changes are a result of meetings he held with the 50 members of the council.

He said the new leadership of the committees will reflect the diversity that exists in Chicago and will help implement the reforms needed for the city to progress.

The alderman of Puerto Rican origin Ray Suarez will have the post of vice-mayor and will remain chairman of the Housing Committee.

Mexican-born Ald. George Cardenas will preside over the Health and Environment Protection Committee, while Puerto Rican Roberto Maldonado is to be deputy chairman of the Human Relations Committee.

Mexican-American Ald. Daniel Solis, who was one of the most influential Latino councilors during the mandate of outgoing Mayor Richard M. Daley, will continue to head the Zoning Committee. READ MORE

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Latinos make good Republicans

8602378657?profile=originalWhile attending the Republican National Convention, I received several emails and messages asking why, as Hispanic, I am a Republican. This question puzzles me a bit, because there is some implied assumption that if you’re Hispanic, by default you are expected to be a Democrat.

However, it seems to me that because of the values in the Hispanic community, it would seem only logical that Hispanics should actually be more aligned with the Republican Party than they would with the Democratic Party. President Ronald Reagan would say, "Hispanics are Republicans, they just don’t realize it yet."

I am a Republican because I believe in conservative values and principles — values such as faith, family and country; principles such as fiscal discipline, limited government and personal responsibility.

I believe most Hispanics also believe in these values. Hispanics overwhelming support the right to life, traditional marriage and parents’ choice in education. They have the highest enlistment rate in the military among ethnic groups.

Hispanics also believe in the principles of hard work and self-sufficiency, not wanting a handout, but a hand up, hoping that their children can realize the American dream. For the most part, Hispanics are not waiting for government to do for them what they can do for themselves. Hispanic entrepreneurs are the fastest-growing segment of small business ownership.

Democrats talk about immigration as though it were the only, or the most important issue, for Hispanic families, when poll after poll shows that immigrations ranks consistently fifth or sixth in level importance behind such issues as jobs, the economy, education and health care. Hispanic issues are not much different than the issues that concern other Americans.

It was the Republican Reagan who brought about the last substantial immigration reform. It was also President George W. Bush and Sen. John McCain, both Republicans, who proposed the last major effort to address this issue.

President Obama talks a good talk and promised to submit an immigration bill in his first 90 days in office, yet it has been over 900 days and he has done nothing to address this issue, despite having two years of overwhelming Democratic majorities in the Congress. In his first three and a half years in office, he was responsible for more deportations than any other president. READ MORE

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A bent to conservatism and family makes Hispanics a promising pool of votes for Republicans, but the party's targeting of illegal immigrants has withered its attraction.

Regardless, Gov. Rick Perry has fared relatively well, perhaps because of his anti-Washington rhetoric and his careful immigration stance, a recent poll indicates.

It shows more than half of Texas Hispanics call themselves conservative, and a surprising 23 percent say they
might participate in Tuesday's GOP primary. Among those, Perry leads Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison by 2 to 1, according to the poll, commissioned by an Austin consultant for a national group of Hispanic legislative leaders.

Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, said the poll hints at a little-noticed facet of Perry's political
persona: He doesn't frighten Hispanics because he often visits their communities, and he distances himself from immigration hard-liners in the GOP.

"He thought the border wall was a little ridiculous and didn't think it was going to help," said Van de Putte, Democrats' leader in the Senate and a co-chairwoman of the Democratic National Convention in Denver two years ago. "What he wanted to keep out were those people that are smuggling drugs and people.

"Van de Putte said Perry tilts more to the right than his predecessor, George W. Bush, and can't match Bush's high level of support among Hispanics. But she said many Hispanics remember that Perry signed a 2001 bill that let illegal immigrants pay in-state tuition at public colleges. He has defended the bill, saying affected students have studied hard in Texas schools and will be good citizens. READ FULL STORY
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Latinos Who Backed Obama Losing Patience


As one of the first Latinos in the nation to endorse Barack Obama, Democratic state Sen. Gilbert Cedillo of Los Angeles campaigned hard for the president, but he's disappointed now.

The reason: Obama failed to act on a comprehensive overhaul of immigration laws in his first year in office, as he promised to do when he ran for president."I think he's in danger of breaking the spirit of solidarity and hope," Cedillo said. "More than a broken promise, it's the danger of breaking people's sense of hope in the Latino community."

Immigration has taken a back seat to a host of tough issues for Obama, including two wars, a struggling economy and a yearlong effort to get Congress to pass a health care overhaul. The president's defenders say it would be politically impossible to add the volatile issue of immigration to the mix right now.Cedillo doesn't buy that argument.

He said the president knew he would be dealing with other big issues when he made promises to the Latino community during the campaign. READ FULL STORY
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The state superintendent of public instruction is in hot water with the Latino community over a comment he made.

Tom Horne implied Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta, who were close allies when the late labor rights leader founded the United Farm Workers of America (UFW) were romantically involved.

Horne made the comment last week when he testified before a House committee on a bill that would outlaw ethnic studies in public schools.

He said, “The real outrage is that Dolores Huerta told a mandatory high school assembly that republicans hate Latinos.” READ FULL STORY
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Sen. Menendez wants more Eva Longoria

For Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., there's one Hollywood type that embodies the Hispanic outreach he's looking for.

"Eva Longoria. Eva, Eva. Eva really has used ... her stardom in a very positive way for the community ... on a whole host of critical issues. And she has not been afraid to do that," Menendez told Yeas & Nays at the Ibarra Strategy Group debut event Tuesday.
Longoria's most recent appearance on Capitol Hill was in November 2009, lobbying with the National Museum of the American Latino Commission. She has worked with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and was named Philanthropist of the Year in 2009 by the Hollywood Reporter for her work promoting Latino causes.

Menendez said he hopes other Latinos in Hollywood will follow Longoria's lead, but added that he sees some resistance. "One of the challenges is that many Latino artists think that staying away from politics is better for their career," Menendez said. READ FULL STORY
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8602372292?profile=originalThe self-described American patriot leaps into the ring amid blaring music and loud boos from an overwhelmingly Latino audience, who hold aloft signs in Spanish supporting his masked Mexican opponents.

"My name is RJ Brewer and I'm from Phoenix, Arizona," the wrestler proclaims, in a video of a recent match provided by the promoter. Taunts inside the arena get louder.

The wrestler proceeds to rail against Mexican beer and to demand that people speak English. Then he points to the message painted on the backside of his red trunks: "SB1070" — a reference to Arizona's controversial immigration law. The crowd, some wearing masks of their favorite Mexican wrestlers, shrieks even louder.

When his masked opponent in a red cape appears, the crowd erupts into cheers.

Lucha libre — or "free wrestling" in Spanish — is a brand of Mexican wrestling that dates to the 1930s. The sport came north to the United States along with Mexican immigrants, and over the years it has spawned clubs in U.S. cities with large Latino communities.

As promoters target growing Mexican immigrant and Mexican-American markets, they and their wrestlers' fictional personas have begun to adopt a more overtly political storyline revolving around immigration. It's akin to what U.S. wrestling promoters did in the 1980s and 1990s, when they took on race and the Cold War, but with one key twist — now the American is the bad guy.

"It's something that we've been building in our TV shows and we've gotten a lot of positive reaction to it," said Steve Ship, CEO of Lucha Libre USA, which this week is launching a "Masked Warriors" tour. "So we are bringing it right to our audience."

Arizona's immigration law requires all immigrants in the state to obtain or carry immigration registration papers and requires police, while enforcing other laws, to question people's immigration status if there is a reasonable suspicion they're in the country illegally. The law is being challenged by the federal government and has sparked protests by Latino advocates around the country. READ MORE

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The Republicans are committing political suicide by catering to the xenophobic vote. Assuming that Latinos will vote for the candidate promising the most free taxpayer money shows how out-of-touch the mainstream media and a lot of American politicians from both parties are with voters in the Hispanic community.

If the Republicans would talk about social issues and economic issues and drop the endless ranting about immigration I would almost guarantee they'd receive 60+ percent of votes from Latinos. That said, those advising them apparently don't get it because the message remains more of the same, and those GOP candidates and office-holders who do attempt to be the voice of reason are lambasted by conservatives in the media for being too lax on immigration.

The Democrats appeal is that they don't care about the immigration issue and don't come across as xenophobic --- at least not on the surface. Not that I'm in the country illegally. I was born in America. My father and maternal grandfather were not, but both are now citizens.

I know I for one am not the least bit motivated by the idea that I might get some money that someone else earned. I wouldn't even take it if they tried to give it to me. If I cannot earn it, I do not deserve it.

All that said, I find the Democrats' contention that Latinos are somehow too stupid to get a driver's license or some other form of photo ID to be both racist and extremely offensive.

So how will I vote in the upcoming Presidential election and the congressional races slated for the ballot in November? I've not yet decided, and may or may not reveal the decision publicly when I do arrive at a conclusion.

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Minorities, youth showed some gains in 2008 vote

Though 2008 voter turnout remained "statistically unchanged" from 2004, 5 million more people voted that year than in 2004, with large increases among minorities, according to U.S. Census Bureau data released yesterday. The bureau's survey found that about 131 million people reported voting in the 2008 presidential election - a turnout of 64 percent, the same percentage as 2004. Of the 5 million additional voters in 2008, 2 million were black, 2 million Hispanic and 600,000 Asian. The bureau said its Current Population Survey revealed that voting rates for blacks, Asians and Hispanics "each increased by about 4 percentage points," while the rate for non-Hispanic whites decreased by 1 percentage point. READ FULL STORY
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The Senate this week confirmed Robert Groves, a former census official and sociology professor at the University of Michigan, to run the Census Bureau. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke pronounced him ''a respected social scientist who will run the Census Bureau with integrity and independence.'' The appointment will hardly still controversy over the 2010 census. To guarantee the most accurate count of the 300 million or so Americans, federal officials promise confidentiality. But now a group of Latino clergymen is charging that widely published census data is being used to crack down on illegal immigrants. And they're calling on people in the country illegally not to answer the census. "Law enforcement has been very effective in areas where the data of census 2000 has been used," said Rev. Miguel Rivera, head of the National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders, a Washington-D.C.-based group of 20,000 churches, many of them storefronts serving undocumented workers. READ FULL STORY
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The two-month-old Berkeley liberal online hub called Presente -- which wants to be the Latino MoveOn -- has scored the progressive daily double: It has ticked off both Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly. How: It is airing a radio ad this week in on Spanish-language stations in St. Pete and Orlando, Fla. calling out El Rushbo for referring to Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor as a "racist" and a "bigot." It called on local GOP Rep. John Mica to rebuke Rush's comments. Uh, not a high chance of that happening. Even if Mica did, he'd probably be on his knees apologizing by sunset....or the start of Rush's program. It's the GOP way. Here's Rush's react to all this. "Republicans have been speaking out of both sides of their mouth to Latinos," Presente co-founder Favianna Rodriguez told The Politcs Blog. While the GOP is trying to woo them politically, they're also backing policies on immigration that "most Latinos are against" Rodriguez said, and using hateful rhetoric. READ FULL STORY
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Martinez departure part of GOP schism

Florida Sen. Mel Martinez's resignation closes the latest chapter in the Republican Party's tumultuous, decade-long effort to woo the nation's Hispanic voters. The Cuban-American's impending departure could leave no Hispanic Republicans in the Senate and three in the House — compared to 21 Democrats in Congress — and a sense that the national GOP is at a major crossroads with the nation's fastest-growing demographic group. Although most Hispanics outside of Florida have long leaned Democratic, the Republican Party earned the trust of many at the beginning of the decade by tapping into socially conservative, religious and pro-business sentiment. Martinez both rode and propelled that wave. "He symbolized trying to reach out to Latinos and being more moderate," said Marisa A. Abrajano, a University of California, San Diego professor and co-author of an upcoming book on Hispanic political behavior in the U.S. But the heated rhetoric over illegal immigration in 2006, followed by the loss of many Republican moderates, and most recently the GOP's failed opposition to Justice Sonia Sotomayor's Supreme Court nomination have helped drive away many Hispanic voters. Martinez, as senator and briefly as head of the party, tried to temper the anti-immigrant language, and he bucked his party by voting for Sotomayor, who is of Puerto Rican descent. Yet, in the end, few in Washington followed his lead. READ FULL STORY
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'Wise Latinas' say Sotomayor need not apologize

hey are Latinas, women of accomplishment, experience — and what might even be called wisdom. And they say there is no reason for Sonia Sotomayor to apologize for suggesting that they might bring special insight to the pursuit of justice. "Her background will only strengthen the court," said Teresa Puente, an assistant journalism professor at Columbia College in Chicago and the editor and founder of Latina Voices. "She's had to apologize for her statements, and I don't think she should have to." Puente and other Hispanic women interviewed around the country said they were troubled by the underlying themes of the questions from white, male senators at hearings on Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court. READ FULL STORY
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Mexico Eases Ban on Drug Possession

Mexico decriminalized small amounts of marijuana, cocaine and heroin on Friday, in a move that creates one of the world's most permissive narcotics markets and that opponents say could complicate President Felipe Calderón's war against illegal drug cartels. The law goes beyond what is allowed in many other countries by making it legal to possess small amounts of a wide array of drugs. For instance, the new law allows the equivalent of about five joints of marijuana or four lines of cocaine. The softened approach to small-scale drug possession comes as Mexico fights drug gangs that account for a large part of the marijuana and cocaine sold on U.S. streets. In Mexico, more than 12,000 people have died in the past three years in the cartels' battles for turf and clashes with law enforcement. The gangs are also selling more and more drugs domestically, fueling drug addiction. A 2008 government survey found that the number of drug addicts in Mexico had almost doubled in the past six years to 307,000, while the number of those who had tried drugs rose to 4.5 million from 3.5 million. Mexican prosecutors say the law will help the war on drug gangs by letting federal prosecutors focus their attention on traffickers rather than small-time users. READ FULL STORY
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