On Tuesday, March 23, PBS will present “Lost Souls (Animas Perdidas)” as part of it’s Independent Lens series. This episode presents the story of the filmaker’s uncle, a U.S. Military veteran, deported to Mexico after he developed a drug addiction. Independent Lens' website describes the film:
Augie and Gino were living the American dream. Raised and educated in the United States since childhood, they were also proud veterans of the U.S. military. But in 1999, these two brothers were forced to leave the only country they’d ever known — and one they’d sworn to protect. Deported to Mexico by the U.S. government, they had to start over and forge new lives in an unfamiliar “homeland.”As always, I hope you find the referenced news articles informative.
Within two weeks, one of the brothers overdosed on heroin in a Tijuana hotel room. His body was left unclaimed for two months in a mass grave. In LOST SOULS(ANIMAS PERDIDAS), filmmaker Monika Navarro travels to Mexico and pieces together the tragic events of her uncles’s deportation, opening a Pandora’s box of family secrets.
Against the backdrop of increased attention to the U.S.-Mexican border, LOST SOULS draws on the Navarro family’s experience to explore national identity, migration, and what happens after deportees are sent to a homeland they don't even consider home. From idyllic Southern California — where the filmmaker’s Mexican American family has lived for more than four decades — to her uncles’s birthplace of Guadalajara, the film delves into the history that led to Augie and Gino’s deportations.
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/lost-souls/film.html
Best Wishes.
Prepared by
John Vasquez
Chair-Elect
Hispanic Issues Section, State Bar of Texas
johnvasq@gmail.com
NOTE: This News Summary is a service of the Hispanic Issues Section of the State Bar of Texas, Brian Hamner, Chair. If you would like to support HIS, visit
http://www.texasbar.com/Template.cfm?Section=Sections and click “MyBarPage” (near the bottom of the page) to join online. For further information, contact the Sections Department at 1-800-204-2222 or (512) 427-1463 ext. 1420.
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Top News
Officials Step Up Enforcement of Rights Laws in Education
Seeking to step up enforcement of civil rights laws, the federal Department of Education says it will be sending letters in coming weeks to thousands of school districts and colleges, outlining their responsibilities on issues of fairness and equal opportunity.
As part of that effort, the department intends to open investigations known as compliance reviews in about 32 school districts nationwide, seeking to verify that students of both sexes and all races are getting equal access to college preparatory curriculums and to advanced placement courses. The department plans to open similar civil rights investigations at half a dozen colleges.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/08/education/08educ.html
Odds now 50-50 an HPD officer will be a minority: But Anglos still are half the force and hold most of the leadership spots
Despite clear gains made during years of recruitment campaigns to diversify the Houston Police Department, the force still is not fully reflective of the ethnic makeup of the city.
Nonetheless, today there is roughly a 50-50 chance a Houston police officer responding to a call will be Hispanic, African-American or Asian.
Law enforcement experts, community activists and HPD commanders say a diversified police force is a powerful asset for reducing crime, noting that minority officers can more easily get cooperation in ethnic communities when crimes are committed there.
Hispanics now make up 42 percent of the city population, but comprise only 23 percent of the HPD's ranks. Blacks represent a little more than 25 percent of Houston's population, and 21 percent of the police department. Women make up 49 percent of Houston, but the 752 female officers fill only 14 percent of HPD slots. The only group whose HPD representation matches its Houston population is Asian, at 5 percent.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/hotstories/6913366.html
Five Silicon Valley companies fought release of employment data, and won
Google, the company that wants to make the world's information accessible, says the race and gender of its work force is a trade secret that cannot be released.
So do Apple, Yahoo, Oracle and Applied Materials. These five companies waged an 18-month Freedom of Information battle with the Mercury News, convincing federal regulators who collect the data that its release would cause "commercial harm" by potentially revealing the companies' business strategy to competitors. A sixth company, Hewlett-Packard, fought the release and lost.
But many of their industry peers see the issue differently. The Mercury News initially set out to obtain race and gender data on the valley's 15 largest companies, and nine — including Intel, Cisco Systems, eBay, AMD, Sanmina and Sun Microsystems — agreed to allow the U.S. Department of Labor to provide it.
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_14382477?source=most_emailed
Blacks, Latinos and women lose ground at Silicon Valley tech companies
The unique diversity of Silicon Valley is not reflected in the region's tech workplaces — and the disparity is only growing worse.
Hispanics and blacks made up a smaller share of the valley's computer workers in 2008 than they did in 2000, a Mercury News review of federal data shows, even as their share grew across the nation. Women in computer-related occupations saw declines around the country, but they are an even smaller proportion of the work force here.
The trend is striking in a region where Hispanics are nearly one-quarter of the working-age population — five times their percentage of the computer work force — and when dual-career couples and female MBAs are increasingly the norm.
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_14383730
De la Isla: Hispanic name on ballot may sway the vote
HOUSTON - Two candidates in the March 2 Republican primary in Texas suggested their defeats implicated "ethnic bias," "racial bias" and "ethnic angst."
"Micro aggression" might have better categorized their complaint.
After losing to little-known challenger David Porter, Republican incumbent Texas Railroad Commissioner Victor Carrillo scolded fellow Republicans in an e-mail. "Given the choice between "Porter" and "Carrillo," he said, "the Hispanic-surname was a serious setback" with a "built-in bias."
http://www.scrippsnews.com/node/52073
Texas ed board debates race in history classes
AUSTIN — An effort to require Texas students to learn about congressional Medal of Honor recipients turned into an emotional debate about race for the State Board of Education.
The board, in the second day of a three-day meeting Thursday, ultimately rejected the effort to list the names of two Hispanic and one black medal recipients in a world history class. But they agreed to revisit the amendment in an American history class. The board is updating social studies curriculum standards that will be in place for Texas students for the next decade.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6908494.html
Texas approves conservative social studies curriculum
AUSTIN, Texas -- After three days of turbulent meetings, the Texas Board of Education on Friday approved a social studies curriculum that will put a conservative stamp on history and economics textbooks. Among other things, the curriculum will stress the superiority of American capitalism, question the Founding Fathers' commitment to a purely secular government and present Republican political philosophies in a more positive light.
The vote was 10-5 along party lines, with all the Republicans on the board voting for it.
Efforts by Hispanic board members to include more Hispanic figures as role models for the state's large Hispanic population were consistently defeated, prompting one member, Mary Helen Berlanga, to storm out of a meeting late Thursday night, saying, "They can just pretend this is a white America and Hispanics don't exist."
"They are going overboard, they are not experts, they are not historians," she said. "They are rewriting history, not only of Texas but of the United States and the world."
http://www.cleveland.com/nation/index.ssf/2010/03/texas_approves_conservative_so.html
DUI Checkpoints Meet Rising Skepticism
California has ramped up the use of sobriety checkpoints to target intoxication and crack down on unlicensed drivers. But its policy of seizing vehicles is under fire both for targeting undocumented immigrants and for generating an estimated $40 million in revenues.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/transportation/jan-june10/dui_02-15.html
HNBA Unveils Hernandez v. Texas Educational Video
WASHINGTON, Feb. 17 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Hispanic National Bar Association (HNBA) is proud to unveil a two-part video and moot court re-enactment of Hernandez v. Texas, 347 U.S. 475 (1954), a landmark Supreme Court case. In this 1954 decision (decided a week before Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954)), Chief Justice Earl Warren held for a unanimous Supreme Court that Mexican Americans, including all Hispanics, and all other racial groups in the United States had equal protection under the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. This little-known case was the first case argued before the Supreme Court by the late Gus Garcia and Carlos Cadena, who led a team of five Mexican American lawyers to challenge Jim Crow-de facto discrimination against Mexicans and other Latinos that existed in the Southwestern U.S. states. The Hernandez case is still precedent and cited today in Supreme Court cases.
"Gus Garcia and Carlos Cadena are historic giants amongst Latino lawyers - they played a vital and instrumental role in the early development of civil rights law in the 1940s, 50s and 60s. It is important for us to remember where we have been as a community in order to continue to empower the Hispanic legal community today," said Mr. Donato Tapia, producer/director of the video and the Co-Chair of the HNBA History Committee. "It is important for us to remember the legal battles fought on behalf of our community because we have legal rights today that we did not always have but for the legal challenges led by a small group of lawyers at a pivotal moment in our Nation's history. As this important decision highlights, the civil rights movement had Latino lawyers at the forefront," said Roman D. Hernandez, HNBA National President.
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/hnba-unveils-hernandez-v-texas-educational-video-84598922.html
Irving ISD names superintendent
The Irving school board hired Dana T. Bedden as the district's next superintendent Friday night.
Bedden, 43, will earn a base salary of $244,400. He signed a contract committing to a term of three years.
Some Hispanic activists had questioned whether Hispanic bilingual candidates were seriously considered for the job – especially after community forums showed a preference for a leader who spoke Spanish.
They also questioned Bedden's experience with Hispanic students because the Augusta district is 2 percent Hispanic, and Irving, 69 percent.
Bedden said he had worked in previous districts with larger Hispanic populations.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/city/irving/stories/031310dnmetirvsuper.4237203.html
Proposal would count undocumented students
PHOENIX — State lawmakers have voted to force public schools to count how many students are in this country illegally, the first step toward challenging federal law which requires schools to educate all, legal and otherwise.
Officially, Sen. Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, said SB 1097, approved on a 5-2 margin by the Senate Committee on Education Accountability and Reform, is simply a fact-finding mission. He said there are lots of guesses but no actual data on how many of the approximately one million students in Arizona schools are neither U.S. citizens nor legal residents.
http://www.yumasun.com/news/ban-56634-phoenix-proposal.html
Boerne voting plan gets qualified OK
BOERNE — The shift this May to begin electing city council representatives from five single- member districts survived a legal challenge Tuesday, largely on jurisdictional grounds.
State District Judge Keith Williams declined to intercede in a lawsuit settlement approved Dec. 10 by a federal judge that changed the method of electing council members, even though the city charter, state codes and the Texas Constitutional say such decisions should be made by the affected voters.
“I'm happy that the judge considered the case fully and ruled in our favor so we can get on with our election,” said Mayor Dan Heckler, one of several city leaders at the four-hour hearing on the suit filed Feb. 25 by resident Mike Morton.
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/politics/Boerne_voting_plan_gets_qualified_OK.html
Study figures odds of killer getting death: Victim’s race and marital status seem to play role in cases
The death penalty is more likely to be imposed on convicted murderers who kill whites or Hispanics who have college degrees, are married and have no criminal records, according to a new study that examines 504 Harris County capital murder cases that occurred between 1992 and 1999.
Convicted capital murderers also were more likely to get the death penalty in Harris County when defended by court-appointed lawyers, while those who hired attorneys to represent them for the entire case were never sentenced to death, according to a separate brief written by the same professor.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6897968.html
Sharp-Tongued Judges Get a Scolding
Two New Jersey trial judges have been reprimanded for making derogatory comments touching on the alienage, ethnicity, race and honesty of physical ailments of litigants and lawyers appearing before them.
Among a litany of incidents laid out in court papers, James Citta of Ocean County, N.J., compared a criminal defendant to O.J. Simpson and ridiculed another for being an immigrant, and James Convery of Essex County, N.J., asked a Hispanic lawyer if she was an illegal alien.
Convery's "illegal alien" remark, captured on a courtroom camera, was made to Ivette Alvarez, a former Hispanic Bar Association president.
On Jan. 4, 2008, Convery expressed disbelief that Alvarez's client could not produce his Social Security earnings statements, and asked others in the courtroom whether they had theirs. When Alvarez said she had not received hers for years, Convery asked "Well, when did you become an illegal alien?"
Alvarez told him his words were "totally inappropriate" and walked out of the courtroom. Convery apologized on her return about 10 minutes later. Alvarez filed a grievance, and the Hispanic Bar lodged a formal protest with Chief Justice Stuart Rabner.
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202446001425&SharpTongued_Judges_Get_a_Scolding
Texas Supreme Court tosses $15.8 million verdict in case involving illegal immigrant: Immigration status should not have been an issue at trial, justices rule
The Texas Supreme Court threw out a $15.8 million verdict Friday, ruling unanimously that lawyers improperly introduced evidence that a gravel truck driver involved in a 2002 accident that killed four members of a Wise County family was an illegal immigrant.
By repeatedly mentioning the truck driver's immigration status, lawyers for the Hughes family clearly sought to inflame jurors' passions against the driver and his employer, TXI Transportation Co., the court ruled.
"Such appeals to racial and ethnic prejudices, whether 'explicit and brazen' or 'veiled and subtle,' cannot be tolerated because they undermine the very basis of our judicial process," the 8-0 opinion written by Justice David Medina said.
http://www.statesman.com/news/local/texas-supreme-court-tosses-15-8-million-verdict-348194.html
Recall Effort Against NJ Senator Menendez Can Proceed, Court Decides
The Tea Party movement wants to recall the election of U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., and a state appellate court today gave them clearance to go forward.
RoseAnn Salanitri, the founder of the Sussex County Tea Party -- as well as the co-founder of the newsletter Creation Science Alive -- said the group is targeting Menendez because of his stance on health care and recent votes to increase government spending.
Salanitri, who says she is the granddaughter of immigrants, said she is not targeting Menendez because he is Hispanic.
"This is a question that is presented to me time and time again," she told Jumping in Pools. "As the granddaughter of immigrants, I find it baffling. All I can say is that the only one that seems concerned about Senator Menendez's nationality is Senator Menendez."
http://www.hispanicbusiness.com/news/2010/3/16/recall_effort_against_nj_senator_menendez.htm
Hispanics decry House bill: The proposal would require schools to verify and report all students' immigration status.
Oklahoma - A bill that would require Oklahoma public schools to verify the immigration status of all students and report it to the state Department of Education drew fire from Tulsa Hispanic leaders Monday as well as criticism from Tulsa Public Schools Superintendent Keith Ballard.
"I don't think it's wise to make schools responsible for gathering that kind of information," Ballard said. "It would be a huge undertaking and detract from our mission, which is to teach kids."
Earlier in the day, representatives of the Tulsa Hispanic Chamber of Commerce said the measure, House Bill 3384, by Rep. Randy Terrill, R-Moore, would create an unfunded mandate for already-strapped schools and is a step toward shutting illegal immigrants out of public education.
In 1982, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment prevented Texas public schools from barring illegal immigrants. The court said the law imposed a penalty against children who had little or no control over their immigration status.
The majority opinion also stated that barring illegal immigrants from public schools likely would lead to "the creation and perpetuation of a subclass of illiterates."
Terrill said he has no firm plans for using the data that would be collected by the schools. He did say, however, that he expects the data to show the cost of educating illegal immigrants to be "stunningly high."
Such figures could be helpful in a challenge of the 1982 decision, which was based in part on the court's finding that Texas had not proved that a "substantial interest" would be served by excluding illegal immigrant children from public schools.
http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=16&articleid=20100316_16_A9_TulsaH677493
Racial disparities in sentencing rise: DiversityStudy says Black, Hispanic men are likely to get more prison time
The study by the U.S. Sentencing Commission reignited a long-running debate about whether federal judges need to be held to mandatory guidelines in order to stamp out what might appear to be inherent biases and dramatically disparate sentences.
The report analyzed sentences meted out since the January 2005 U.S. v. Booker decision gave federal judges much more sentencing discretion.
http://newsok.com/racial-disparities-in-sentencing-rise/article/3446367
To read the report by the U.S. Sentencing Commission, go to:
http://www.ussc.gov/general/Multivariate_Regression_Analysis_Report_1.pdf
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Texas
Long run ends: DeLeon ending political career after 24 years
Lubbock - Councilwoman Linda DeLeon will end a 24-year political career this spring by not seeking re-election to the District 1 post she has held since 2004.
It was time to encourage new, younger candidates to bring their own vision for the predominantly Hispanic and industrial city district, she said in a short emotional address in council chambers Monday morning.
http://lubbockonline.com/stories/020910/loc_560323422.shtml
Prosecutor, defense attorney vying to replace district judge
The debate in the Republican primary for Criminal District Court No. 3 appears to be over who's more qualified.
Robb Catalano, 39, a Tarrant County assistant district attorney, said his experience as both a federal and state prosecutor make him the best choice to replace Judge Elizabeth Berry, who is not seeking re-election.
His opponent, longtime defense attorney Santiago Salinas, 62, said his lengthy career has given him the wisdom and the temperament to be a judge.
http://www.star-telegram.com/local/story/1955356.html
Former McAllen mayor's DWI case filed
EDINBURG — Prosecutors said they filed the driving while intoxicated case of former McAllen mayor Leo Montalvo on Monday, seven months after his arrest.
Meanwhile, the DWI case of Jesse Contreras, presiding judge of the 449th state District Court in Hidalgo County, has yet to be filed in Cameron County — and prosecutors did not offer an update on its status.
Because the charges against the two officials are misdemeanors, prosecutors have two years after their arrests to decide whether there's enough evidence to prosecute them.
http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/articles/-108443--.html
Lawsuit claims Irving voting district violates equal protection
Eleven Irving residents on Thursday filed a federal lawsuit against the city, claiming the new single-member City Council District 1 violates the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution.
The suit argues that citizenship of each single-member district's population was not taken into account when Irving's new election system was devised and that only overall population was considered. The lawsuit says such a system violates the "one person, one vote" provision of the 14th Amendment because the number of eligible voters in each district varies widely.
The suit does not seek to prevent the city from using the new system in the May 8 elections. The suit also argues that District 1, whose voters are believed to be majority Hispanic, has fewer citizens who have reached voting age compared with the populations of the other five single-member districts.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/021210dnmetirvdistricts.42bd309.html
The Trials of Felipe Reyna
Two former Texas Supreme Court justices and a Goliath of the state judicial lobby have lined up to drive Felipe Reyna from the Waco courthouse where he once worked as a janitor. The 10th Court of Appeals judge is undeterred.
The scuffle bears the markings of an age-old clash between tort reformers and trial lawyers for the jugular of the Texas judiciary — a still-brewing antagonism that surfaced in the “Justice for Sale” scandal of the late 1980s and once again came to a head during the 1995 legislative session, after Gov. George W. Bush was elected on an anti-frivolous-lawsuit platform.
http://www.texastribune.org/stories/2010/feb/08/justice-denied/
Austin school district dual language proposal raises concerns for some
Proposed reforms to the Austin school district's bilingual education program have threatened what some say is a tenuous relationship between new Superintendent Meria Carstarphen and some members of Austin's Hispanic community.
Unless 90 percent of lessons are taught in Spanish, Carstarphen's dual language proposal might dismantle some of the strongest aspects of the current bilingual education program, said Cynthia Valadez, a member of MADRES, which stands for Mothers Against Discrimination and Racism in Education and Society.
"She is effectively eliminating a strong and successful program and implementing in its place a model that sets up our English-language learners for failure," Valadez said. She said she supports dual language but doesn't trust district leaders understand Hispanics well enough to do it right.
http://www.statesman.com/news/local/austin-school-district-dual-language-proposal-raises-concerns-230249.html?imw=Y
EMILIO JIMENEZ: Step forward, be counted
SAN ANGELO, Texas — For more than a year the National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders, or Conlamic, has been pushing the idea that Latinos should boycott the 2010 census.
Led by the Rev. Miguel Rivera of Puerto Rico, Conlamic presents itself as a conservative Latino Christian advocacy organization representing 16,000 churches in 73 cities across 32 states. Conlamic Informa is the organization’s live Spanish language radio talk show broadcast in 11 major Latino markets across the nation where more than 1,000 radio ads have called for a Latino boycott.
http://www.gosanangelo.com/news/2010/mar/03/step-forward-be-counted-boycott-of-census-would/
LULAC honors contributors at Amigo Awards
HUNTSVILLE — Huntsville’s League of United Latin American Citizens celebrated another successful year of improving the futures of Hispanic American young people during its Seventh Annual Community Amigo Awards Banquet on Saturday at the Goree Recreation Center.
The banquet, led by LULAC Council No. 446 President John Escobedo, served not only as a time to honor local citizens, businesses and educators who contributed to the organization, but as a fundraiser for the group’s scholarship fund.
http://itemonline.com/local/x1834674881/LULAC-honors-contributors-at-Amigo-Awards
Texas Supreme Court Oral Arguments Featured at "Pursuing Justice through Legal Innovation" Symposium
AUSTIN, Texas — The Thurgood Marshall Legal Society, Chicano/Hispanic Law Students' Association, Texas Hispanic Journal of Law & Policy and The University of Texas at Austin chapter of the National Black Law Journal will host a symposium, "Pursuing Justice through Legal Innovation," on Thursday, Feb. 18, at The University of Texas School of Law.
The Supreme Court of Texas will open the symposium at 9 a.m. with oral arguments held in the School of Law's Eidman Courtroom. A luncheon will follow at noon with a keynote speech by Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Edward C. Prado, a 1972 University of Texas law graduate. The afternoon session features panels covering civil, criminal and ethical topics, for which attendees can receive up to 3.5 hours of CLE credit.
http://www.utexas.edu/news/2010/02/17/law_symposium_supreme_court/
Reports: No signs of local racial profiling
SEGUIN — Local law enforcement agencies made more than 14,000 traffic stops in 2009 — and the summaries of reports by the Guadalupe County Sheriff’s Office and the Seguin Police Department not only show no evidence of racial profiling — but that neither agency received a complaint about the practice.
Seguin police officers made a total of just more than 8,000 traffic stops in 2009. Sheriff’s deputies had more than 6,000 “customer contacts” over the same period, reports reveal.
Zwicke told commissioners that of 6,624 traffic stops conducted by his officers in 2009, 3,492 or 52 percent involved drivers who were of Caucasian descent, while 2,552 or 39 percent were Hispanic. African Americans constituted 7 percent of the total at 490, while Asians and those listed as “other” came in at about 1 percent each. Only one Native American was pulled over in the county in 2009, Zwicke said.
http://www.seguingazette.com/story.lasso?ewcd=515905eebf0382e6
Opinion: Spanish names do carry clout
Political prognosticators and demographers alike figure that Hispanics are the growth industry in Texas politics.
The rapidly expanding Hispanic population tends to vote for Democrats. And there’s also substantial evidence that Hispanics often vote for Hispanics.
Judith Zaffirini, the longtime Democratic state senator from Laredo, has said that if voters know something about the candidates, they vote based on qualifications and issues.
http://www.caller.com/news/2010/feb/25/spanish-names-do-carry-clout/
CHARLES XAVIER HOWARD, Appellant, v. THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee.
Appellant, along with his friend Justin Richards and a prostitute named Rocy Williams, decided to target random Hispanic men and rob them of cash to use to buy drugs. After two unsuccessful attempted robberies of other Hispanic men, Williams lured complainant Juan Jimenez to pull his car over and she got in his front passenger seat. Appellant and Richards, posing as Williams's security, got in the back seat and Jimenez began driving. According to Richards and Williams, appellant unexpectedly pulled out his gun a few minutes later and shot Jimenez once in the right side of the head from the back right passenger seat, after which the group dumped Jimenez's body in a remote area and burned his car and clothes. Appellant was interviewed by police and admitted to the robbery but claimed that Richards shot Jimenez. Appellant did not testify at his trial, but his defensive theory, developed during cross-examination and closing argument, was apparently that Richards acted independently and that appellant did not participate in or assist with the murder and could not have foreseen that the intended robbery would result in murder.
After the close of the evidence, the trial court instructed the jury that it could convict appellant of capital murder on any of three alternative bases: (1) as the shooter, (2) as a party to the offense, or (3) under conspirator liability. The jury returned a general verdict finding appellant guilty of capital murder and the trial court assessed punishment as an automatic life sentence without the possibility of parole.
http://www.leagle.com/unsecure/page.htm?shortname=intxco20100226625
Editorial: So much for the anti-incumbent sentiment
So much for the "throw the incumbents out" sentiment. Every congressional incumbent -- Republican or Democrat -- who drew a challenger in Tuesday's Texas primary was headed to victory last night.
In a development that Republican Party leaders will have to confront, Perry appointees with Hispanic surnames continued to struggle when defending their seats at the polls. Railroad Commissioner Victor Carrillo and Judge Ruben Gonzalez Jr. of Tarrant County's 432nd District Court tasted the same kind of defeat that former Texas Supreme Court Justice Xavier Rodriguez experienced in the 2002 Republican primary.
This is not a promising sign for the Texas GOP, which likes to talk a good game about extending its reach into the fastest-growing segment of the state's population but doesn't support those candidates at the polls when it counts most.
http://www.star-telegram.com/2010/03/02/2009942/so-much-for-the-anti-incumbent.html
Five House members appear to have lost
Good morning. Several members of the House lost their primaries, Rick Green could be headed to the Texas Supreme Court and a statewide incumbent was soundly defeated in the Republican primary.
Let’s start with Railroad Commissioner Victor Carrillo, who lost soundly to David Porter, who raised less than $30,000. This appears to once again prove, as Xavier Rodriguez did in 2002, that it’s tough to win a down-ballot race in the Republican primary with a Hispanic last name. Carrillo was clearly the more established candidate and had much more money to spend.
http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/firstreading/entries/2010/03/03/five_house_members_appear_to_h.html
Incumbent Texas Railroad Commission chair blames loss on voter bias
The chairman of the state Railroad Commission is blaming his overwhelming loss to an unknown challenger in Tuesday's Republican primary on GOP voters' bias against his Hispanic surname.
Victor Carrillo, the Texas GOP's highest-ranking Hispanic officeholder, lost by a margin of more than 20 points to opponent David Porter.
"Given the choice between 'Porter' and 'Carrillo' – unfortunately, the Hispanic surname was a serious setback from which I could never recover, although I did all in my power to overcome this built-in bias," Carrillo wrote.
Carrillo spent more than $600,000 on mailers, radio spots, newspaper ads and other materials, records show. Porter spent nearly $30,000, including $15,000 from his own pocket.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/texassouthwest/stories/DN-gopmin_04met.ART.State.Edition1.4bdd15c.html
Opinion: Non-Hispanic judges caught in crosshairs
After Railroad Commissioner Victor Carrillo lost Tuesday's Republican primary to a little-known challenger namedDavid Porter, he blistered his party in an e-mail for holding his Hispanic surname against him. He called it “the built-in bias.”
He might get an “Amen, brother” from three county court-at-law judges in San Antonio.
Granted, these are three Democrats — Karen Crouch, Michael Mery and Linda Penn — and their races were local, not statewide like Carrillo's. And, obviously, there's not a Hispanic surname among them.
But just as Carrillo's last name played into his defeat, their surnames factored into theirs. Each judge fell to youngish Hispanic attorneys: Liza Rodriguez beat Crouch, Richard Garcia beat Mery, and Ina Marie Castillo beat Penn.
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/columnists/greg_jefferson/86693122.html
County makes progress in aiding colonias
Clean drinking water is one of the basics of American life. The assumption of what it means to have an American home includes access to a sanitary sewer system and paved roads. That hasn’t been the case, however, for the thousands of Nueces County residents who live in colonias, the rural neighborhoods that lack basic services.
There is progress, however, in alleviating the conditions in those communities. In the next few months, residents in three of these colonias will have running water and sewer services, according to an update heard this week by the Nueces County Commissioners Court. The connection of those services will go a long way toward removing a blight on the county and a burden from the thousands of who live in the communities.
http://www.caller.com/news/2010/mar/06/county-makes-progress-in-aiding-colonias/
Opinion: Rick Casey: We aren't Colbert: Voters here see color
When interviewing black guests on his show, comedian Stephen Colbert is fond of saying, “I don’t see color.” It's a joke.
But it wasn't a joke when Victor Carrillo, head of the Texas Railroad Commission, last week charged in a letter to friends and supporters that he had been defeated by a little-known opponent in the Texas Republican primary because he is Hispanic.
“Early polling showed that the typical GOP primary voter has very little info about the position of Rail Road Commissioner,” Carrillo wrote, adding that “the Hispanic surname was a serious setback from which I could never recover although I did all in my power to overcome this built-in bias.”
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/casey/6905178.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A%20houstonchronicle%2Fmetrocasey%20(HoustonChronicle.com%20-%20Rick%20Casey)
Texas education board refuses to require religious-freedom lesson
AUSTIN – Republicans on the State Board of Education soundly rejected a Democratic-backed proposal Thursday that would have required Texas students to be taught the reasons behind the prohibition of a state religion in the Bill of Rights.
The contentious decision in curriculum standards for U.S. government classes appeared to signal the unhappiness of several board members with court rulings that have affirmed the separation of church and state – including a longtime ban on school-sponsored prayer.
Board members defeated an amendment by member Mavis Knight, D-Dallas, that would have required students to examine the reasons the Founding Fathers "protected religious freedom in America by barring government from promoting or disfavoring any particular religion over all others."
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/texassouthwest/stories/DN-sboe_12met.ART.State.Edition2.4bcac76.html
STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION
AUSTIN – A divided State Board of Education decided Friday that history students must remember the Alamo but not the names of Hispanics who fought for Texas' independence.
In a decision split along party and ethnic lines, Republicans rejected a move by the panel's five Democrats – all minorities – to require that history standards include by name the Tejanos who died in the fall of the Alamo, 174 years ago this month.
The skirmish came as the board wrapped up three fractious days of work on new curriculum standards that put a more conservative slant on U.S. history, government and other social studies subjects taught in Texas schools.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/DN-alamo_13tex.ART.State.Edition2.4b8029e.html
Number of illegal immigrants getting in-state tuition for Texas colleges rises
The number of illegal immigrant college students paying in-state tuition and receiving financial aid at Texas' public colleges and universities continues to climb, according to state higher education records.
During the fall semester, 12,138 students – about 1 percent of all Texas college students – benefited from the state law granting in-state tuition, according to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. Most of the immigrants among those students are illegal, and some others are not legal permanent residents or U.S. citizens.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/0315dnmetimmigcount.3d35b14.html
_______________________________________
USA
Former CMS Employee Files Lawsuit After Being Fired
Charlotte, NC - The lawsuit against Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools is now in federal court because a former employee said the CMS violated her civil rights because she spoke Spanish to parents even though she was hired to be the school’s bilingual secretary.
Ana Mateo used to work at Devonshire Elementary School and has filed the lawsuit.
She claims in September of 2008, when a new principal came to the school, a new rule was given to all staff members to not speak Spanish to parents.
http://www.wsoctv.com/news/22501917/detail.html
Pocono-area police accused of racial bias in arrests of five men after false gang rape allegations
New York - Some of Monroe County's top law enforcement officials are being accused in a lawsuit of conspiring due to racial prejudice to wrongfully prosecute two men and three juveniles for a violent gang rape in 2008. A federal civil lawsuit filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Scranton demands unspecified damages from a list of 16 defendants, including the district attorney's office and the Pocono Mountain Regional Police Department.
The plaintiffs, the five young men arrested, were vindicated in February 2009 when their teenage female accusers admitted to lying, and the charges were dropped before a trial.
All but Mr. Spiess are either black or Hispanic, and the lawsuit claims their prosecution was racially motivated. County authorities wanted to look tough on crime, and the detectives filed false reports saying the young men were street gang members, according to the lawsuit.
http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/pocono-area-police-accused-of-racial-bias-in-arrests-of-five-men-after-false-gang-rape-allegations-1.606198
Sandoval ramps up Nevada governor campaign
Republican gubernatorial candidate Brian Sandoval, a former U.S. judge, stressed an upbringing focused on hard work and his experience as the first Hispanic to win statewide office in Nevada in a speech Thursday to the Latino Lions Club.
Seeking support from an important voting bloc, Sandoval said he was brought up to believe one can achieve anything if willing to work for it.
If he wins this year, he would become the first Hispanic Nevada governor.
http://www.rgj.com/article/20100212/NEWS/2120401/1321/Sandoval-ramps-up-Nevada-governor-campaign
AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION: Reid criticizes lawyers group: Democratic leader praises judicial nominee's 'real world' qualifications
WASHINGTON -- Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., criticized the American Bar Association on Thursday, saying it should "get a new life" in how it rates prospective federal judges, after one of his choices got a mixed review.
In remarks to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Reid said the bar association's ratings board puts too much weight on whether judicial nominees have prior bench experience and overlooks "real world" qualifications.
Reid was set off by the ABA's rating of Las Vegas attorney Gloria Navarro, who also appeared before the Senate committee as his choice and Obama's nominee to become a U.S. district judge in Nevada.
http://www.lvrj.com/news/reid-blasts-bar-association-over-judicial-ratings-84133752.html
Federal Judge Faults Discount Store For Latino-On-Black Discrimination
In a rare federal case of minority-on-minority discrimination, a U.S. district court judge on Thursday approved a consent decree involving Big Lots discount stores in which Latino workers were found to have discriminated against and harassed some African-American employees.
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed suit against the company in 2008 on behalf of a black mechanic and other African-American workers at the Big Lots distribution center in Rancho Cucamonga.
The suit alleged that Latino workers, including a supervisor, hurdled racial epithets at the black workers, and that the company did nothing to stop the behavior. The consent decree settles the suit.
http://blogs.laweekly.com/ladaily/community/latino-black-discrimination/
Hispanic and female workers at MBTA file discrimination complaint
A group of MBTA employees filed a complaint against the agency today with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination.
The complaint against the nation's fifth-largest transit agency claims that women and Hispanics are disproportionately represented in entry-level jobs, compared with their white male counterparts, who are disproportionately holding higher-level jobs. It also said Hispanics are paid less than others with similar job titles.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2010/02/latino_workers.html
MALDEF Joins Employment Discrimination Lawsuit Against AARP
SACRAMENTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Today, MALDEF announced that it has joined as co-counsel in a lawsuit against AARP, the United States’ largest membership organization of older Americans, for racial discrimination, national origin discrimination, retaliation and wrongful termination. The case, Moreno v. AARP, was filed in California Superior Court in Sacramento County, on behalf of plaintiff Michael Moreno, former Associate State Director for Advocacy for AARP California, Interim State Director of AARP Mississippi and the Southwestern Associate Regional Director.
Thomas A. Saenz, president and general counsel, MALDEF stated, “With our nation’s significant and fast-growing Latino population over 50, it is critical that an organization as important as AARP include and incorporate Latinos at all levels of leadership. This legal action seeks to ensure that AARP takes the necessary steps to achieve that imperative."
MALDEF and attorneys from Dickson Levy Vinick Burrell Hyams, LLP are alleging that AARP has a pattern or practice of failing and refusing to promote Latinos and Native Americans. The complaint details numerous incidents of race and national origin discrimination including subjecting Mr. Moreno to differential treatment such as denying him promotional opportunities and eliminating his position and then refusing to hire him for any of the new positions created. In addition, after assisting other AARP employees to file sexual harassment complaints and filing his own discrimination complaint against AARP, Mr. Moreno alleges that he was wrongfully terminated and a victim of retaliation by AARP.
http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/permalink/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20100217006839&newsLang=en
To read the Complaint filed in California Superior Court, go to:
http://maldef.org/assets/pdf/complaint_amended_moreno_aarp.pdf
Minority leaders call for response to racial disparity in unemployment rate
The high rate of unemployment among minorities is prompting calls for more action in Washington and focusing attention on a long-standing and intractable problem. The jobless rate for blacks is twice that of whites — both nationally and in Colorado — and it continued to rise in January. Latinos also suffer from higher unemployment.
In Colorado, 14.7 percent of blacks were unemployed last year and 10.5 percent of Latinos were jobless, compared with 6.9 percent of whites, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Nationally, the unemployment rate among blacks climbed in January to 16.5 percent, while it declined for other groups. Unemployment is 12.6 percent for Latinos and 8.7 percent for whites.
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_14446104
Discrimination Case Raises Old Issues
WASHINGTON — When the Supreme Court took up a race discrimination case on Monday brought by black firefighters from Chicago, the justices were alert to the precedential shadows cast by two of their recent decisions.
One of them, Ricci v. DeStefano, also involved firefighters claiming race discrimination. The other, Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, concerned the core issue in the new case: how soon must plaintiffs file discrimination claims before the courthouse door slams shut?
The plaintiffs in the new case said the way Chicago had used a written examination administered to some 26,000 people applying for jobs as firefighters in 1995 had a disproportionately negative impact on blacks. That claim was in some ways the opposite of the one endorsed in Ricci, the 5-to-4 decision last June saying that New Haven should not have thrown out a test on which white and Hispanic firefighters had done well.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/23/us/23scotus.html
Consent-to-search bill takes aim at racial profiling
DENVER– Backed by a coalition of citizens’ rights groups, Democratic lawmakers Rep. Karen Middleton of Aurora and Sen. Pat Steadman of Denver introduced a bill that would require police to inform citizens of their right to refuse voluntary searches. The groups backing the bill believe it would limit traffic stops and searches that stem from discrimination.
Supporters of House Bill 1021packed the House Judiciary committee meeting Tuesday, where the bill passed on a party line vote after lengthy testimony. Witnesses took turns relating stories of intimidation and unlawful search procedures.
Law enforcement representatives said the legislation would hamper the ability to prevent crime.
http://coloradoindependent.com/47988/consent-to-search-bill-takes-aim-at-racial-profiling
Obama nominates Denver lawyer William J. Martinez for trial judge
William J. Martinez, a Denver lawyer who emigrated from Mexico as a child with his parents, has been nominated by President Barack Obama to serve as a trial judge in the U.S. District Court of Colorado.
Sens. Mark Udall and Michael Bennet originally recommended Martinez in July as one of six lawyers to fill two positions on the federal bench. Obama chose Martinez on Thursday morning. His nomination now goes to the full U.S. Senate for confirmation, which can take several months.
Constrained by the White House about making public statements before his confirmation hearing, Martinez could only say Thursday, "I am deeply honored that the president has decided to nominate me for this position."
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_14474167
Group mobilizes to fight ban on affirmative action
A coalition of Utah community groups is mobilizing to stop a proposed amendment to Utah's constitution that would bar any affirmative-action policy in schools, workplaces or government services.
HJR24 passed out of a Utah House committee Feb. 11, one day after it was introduced, and awaits action by the full House. If passed by a two-thirds majority in both houses and signed by Gov. Gary Herbert, it could appear on the ballot as soon as November.
Speakers at an educational forum organized Saturday at Salt Lake City's Horizonte Instructional Center told an audience of about 60 that they must spread the word that affirmative action is not "reverse racism" -- as labeled by those backing HJR24 -- but a tool to foster equality that benefits everyone.
http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_14484512
Officer Wins Discrimination Case Against the LAPD
A Los Angeles police officer who received the state's highest public safety award for helping rescue a man from a burning car has been awarded $125,000 in a discrimination and retaliation lawsuit.
The jury returned the verdict Friday, awarding Officer Paul Waymire damages for pain and suffering but no money for lost income.
Waymire sued the police department, claiming a Latino supervisor treated him differently because he was white. He says he filed a discrimination complaint with the state and was denied promotions in retaliation, even though he was more qualified than other applicants.
http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local-beat/LAPD-Officer-Wins-Discrimination-Case-86751282.html
Federal agency to investigate L.A. schools
The federal government has singled out the Los Angeles Unified School District for its first major investigation under a reinvigorated Office for Civil Rights, officials said Tuesday. The focus of the probe, by an arm of the U.S. Department of Education, will be whether the nation's second-largest district provides adequate services to students learning English.
Officials turned their attention to L.A. Unified because so many English learners fare poorly and because they make up about a third of district enrollment, more than 220,000 students.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lausd10-2010mar10,0,5349677.story
Civil rights activists seek federal probe of Torrance Police Department
Civil rights activists Sunday called for a federal investigation into allegations of harassment and racial profiling by the Torrance Police Department, following the traffic stop of an African American pastor in early March.
"What we want is a full federal Justice Department probe of Torrance and its treatment of African Americans and Latinos," said Earl Ofari Hutchinson, president of the Los Angeles Urban Policy Roundtable, during a small but sometimes tense protest in the neighborhood where Pastor Robert Taylor was pulled over while driving with his 15-year-old daughter, and subsequently searched.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-bias-torrance15-2010mar15,0,3697704.story
Officer wins discrimination case
SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- A community service officer is awarded thousands of dollars after a judge determines the Syracuse Police Department failed to protect her from an unsafe work environment.
In 2003, Sonia Dotson filed a lawsuit against the department, claiming male co-workers were bringing pornographic movies and magazines to work. She also said she was being discriminated against because she is a woman and Hispanic.
http://centralny.ynn.com/content/top_stories/496069/officer-wins-discrimination-case
Sweeping Immigration Bill Passes Senate
PHOENIX -- A bill at the state Capitol is stirring up the immigration debate. It's a big one, and some are even calling it extreme. It's already passed the Senate and could be up for debate in the house in just a couple weeks.
The bill would allow police officers to ask about anyone's immigration status, even if they're not suspected of a crime. It would also make it a state crime to be in Arizona illegally, and make it a crime to transport or conceal an illegal immigrant. The bill would make it a crime for an illegal immigrant to solicit work in a public place, or for anyone to hire someone from a vehicle.
Those opposed said it's racial profiling, while those in favor said it protects police and citizens statewide.
http://www.kpho.com/politics/22585166/detail.html
U.S.: Hispanic Farmers Seek Redress for Years of Bias
ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico, Feb 23, 2010 (IPS) - When the Barack Obama administration urged Congress to settle a protracted anti-discrimination lawsuit for 1.25 billion dollars on behalf of African American farmers last week, Lupe Garcia of Las Cruces, New Mexico was paying close attention.
Garcia is the lead plaintiff in a similar suit, now 10 years old, filed on behalf of Hispanic farmers.
Lupe, his brother and his father lost 626 acres to foreclosure in 1999, a direct result of what he claims were the discriminatory practices of his local farm agency, then known as the Farmers Home Association (FHA), under the auspices of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).
Unlike in the Black farmers' discrimination suit or a similar one filed on behalf of Native Americans, the Garcia case has not been granted class action status. Why the suit's 81 Hispanic farmers - who hail from Washington, California, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas and - don't meet the criteria for a class when African Americans and Natives with nearly identical discrimination claims do is unclear. But the Hispanic farmers' requests for this crucial legal status have been repeatedly denied.
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50435
IMMIGRANT BAKER AT THE WESTIN HOTEL IN TIMES SQUARE AWARDED $3 MILLION BY A FEDERAL JURY BECAUSE OF HIDDEN CAMERA INSTALLED IN RETALIATION FOR DISCRIMINATION COMPLAINTS WILL RETURN TO WORK TODAY
NEW YORK, March 11 /PRNewswire/ -- Yesterday afternoon, after a more than three-week trial in Manhattan Federal Court, a jury awarded $3 million dollars to baker Moises Mendez, a 46-year old immigrant from Ecuador and a resident of Washington Heights, who repeatedly filed complaints with the Human Resources Department at the Westin Hotel at Times Square (the "Westin Hotel") about alleged discrimination being committed against him at the hotel based on his race (Hispanic) and national origin (Ecuadorian).
A federal jury found that Starwood Hotels unlawfully retaliated against Mr. Mendez, a hardworking and dedicated employee, when it secretly installed a hidden camera near his workstation in the kitchen of the Westin Hotel shortly after he filed written complaints of unlawful discrimination with the Human Resources Department. The jury awarded Mr. Mendez $1 million for his emotional distress and pain and suffering, and $2 million in punitive damages to punish Starwood for its unlawful actions.
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/starwood-hotels-hit-with-3-million-verdict-for-unlawful-retaliation-87345852.html
New election system takes shape in Port Chester
PORT CHESTER — Attorneys are working out details of a new kind of ballot to be used in the June 15 village election, which will fill all six trustee seats under a court-ordered cumulative voting system.
The final design of the ballot, along with a provision for early voting, will be filed in federal court Thursday, said attorney Anthony Piscionere, representing Port Chester in the voting rights lawsuit brought by the Justice Department in December 2006. Trustee elections have been suspended since that year.
U.S. District Judge Stephen C. Robinson ordered that cumulative voting replace the standard at-large election for village trustees. He found that the old system denied Hispanics — estimated to be about 27 percent of eligible voters — a chance to elect their preferred candidates. Port Chester's population is nearly half Hispanic, but no Hispanic has been elected to the village board.
http://www.lohud.com/article/20100215/NEWS02/2150333/-1/newsfront/New-election-system-takes-shape-in-Port-Chester
Hispanic immigrants threaten boycott of Western Union
Chicago, Feb 16, 2010 (EFE via COMTEX News Network) -- An Illinois organization on Tuesday demanded that Western Union return to its customers $17 million in wire transfers "illegally" confiscated by the state of Arizona, threatening to mount a national boycott against the company.
The deadline for negotiating the return of the funds was set for March 21, the day of the March for America on Washington, which is expected to attract tens of thousands of people to demand immigration reform, the executive director for the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, Joshua Hoyt, told Efe.
In 2007, ICIRR filed a federal class-action law suit against Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard on behalf of Western Union customers who had their wire transfers seized by the state between October 2004 and September 2006.
http://www.stockhouse.com/News/USReleasesDetail.aspx?n=7631653
Abuse of powers alleged in Maricopa County
PHOENIX (AP) — A prosecutor testified in court Tuesday that Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas and Sheriff Joe Arpaio abused their powers in carrying out criminal investigations of county officials.
Yavapai County Attorney Sheila Polk also alleged that the sheriff wanted to use grand jury subpoenas to pry into the lives of county officials in hopes of charging them with crimes.
Polk handled those investigations last year after conflict of interest allegations were made against Thomas. She said tensions rose between her and Arpaio’s office after she agreed to only a few of the 10 subpoenas that the sheriff’s office wanted in an investigation of County Supervisor Don Stapley.
http://www.trivalleycentral.com/articles/2010/02/18/florence_reminder_blade_tribune/top_stories/doc4b7c6ed522f1f991820158.txt
2 lawsuits vs.Maricopa County Sheriff's Office allege racial profiling
The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office faces new accusations of racial profiling from suspects who landed in the sheriff's custody.
The complaints are contained in a pair of lawsuits alleging neglect and abuse. Both highlight the Sheriff's Office's anti-immigrant reputation and accuse Sheriff Joe Arpaio of failing to properly train deputies how to interact with minority suspects.
Both complaints request unspecified damages and attorneys' fees, and each accuses Arpaio of instituting unconstitutional practices that result in discrimination against Hispanics. The two cases were filed independently of each other.
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/2010/02/23/20100223mcso-racial-profiling-suits.html
Monitoring of elections comes to end
SPRINGFIELD - The city has complied with a federal court settlement to properly assist Hispanic voters, which ends more than four years of monitoring of the polls by the U.S. Department of Justice.
The Justice Department issued a "Notice of Expiration of Consent Decree" in U.S. District Court last week - ending its Voting Rights case filed against the city in 2006, City Solicitor Edward M. Pikula said Monday.
The city took steps, including actively recruiting more bilingual poll workers, to meet its obligations under the court agreement, Pikula said.
http://www.masslive.com/springfield/republican/index.ssf?/base/news-27/1266916940220360.xml&coll=1
Immigration court in TN can't keep up with caseload
Mario Ramos had heard stories. But last month, he finally saw for himself.
“It really looked like there were 1,000 people in that ICE line,” said Ramos, a Nashville immigration lawyer. “And those are just the people in Nashville who are on the wait list for an immigration court date to be set.”
The immigration court has such a heavy caseload that hundreds of people recommended for deportation haven’t even been given a court date yet. They line up monthly at local immigration offices, where suspected illegal immigrants are asked to check in until a court date can be set.
After three years of stepped-up immigration enforcement, the overloaded court system isn’t keeping pace — and observers say almost nowhere in the country is the problem worse than in Tennessee.
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20100224/NEWS03/100223128/2066
Juez mantiene cargos de odio racial en ataque a ecuatoriano
Nueva York/EFE — El juez Robert Doyle mantuvo esta semana como delitos de odio los dos cargos de intento de asalto que pesan sobre Jordan Dasch por el ataque al inmigrante ecuatoriano Angel Loja y otro hispano, tal y como había decidido un gran jurado.
Loja acompañaba al también ecuatoriano Marcelo Lucero en noviembre de 2008 en Long Island cuando fueron atacados por un grupo de siete adolescentes —entre éstos Dasch— de 16 y 17 años, uno de los cuales apuñaló a Lucero en el pecho, causándole la muerte.
Tras el arresto de los jóvenes, varios residentes latinos del área, entre éstos Héctor Sierra, reconocieron a algunos de los adolescentes y los acusaron de haberlos agredido y asaltado, por lo que la fiscalía les presentó nuevos cargos.
http://www.impre.com/eldiariony/noticias/locales/2010/2/24/juez-mantiene-cargos-de-odio-r-174839-1.html
Lawsuit targets useless licenses: State action seeks halt to exploiting immigrants
Tennessee has filed a civil lawsuit against a Nashville business for allegedly selling sham identification documents called international driver's licenses to Hispanic immigrants.
The suit filed in Davidson County Circuit Court marks the first time that the state has brought action against sellers of such documents.
International driver's licenses are official-looking cards and booklets sold openly in storefront businesses around the region and advertised in Hispanic media.
The documents don't give the bearers the right to drive, but some Memphis-area auto insurance agents and car dealerships have advertised in recent years that they accept them as identification.
http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2010/feb/26/lawsuit-targets-useless-licenses/
Jury Selection in L.I. Killing Raises Larger Issues
Jury selection in the case involving the killing of Marcelo Lucero, a 37-year-old Ecuadorean immigrant stabbed to death in November 2008 in Patchogue on Long Island, has brought up issues larger than the usual excuses to avoid jury duty. Prospective jurors have repeatedly pointed to their views on Latino immigration to be dismissed from the case.
Mr. Lucero was attacked by seven teenagers who, the police said, had made a sport out of assaulting Hispanic men, calling it “beaner hopping.” Mr. Lucero’s death prompted widespread outrage and exposed racial tensions in Patchogue, where a number of Latinos came forward after the attack to describe muggings and assaults that had them living in fear.
Now, as Jeffrey Conroy, 19, becomes the first defendant to go on trial in the case, jury selection has proven difficult, in part because of the views on Latino immigration held by some prospective jurors in Suffolk County.
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/09/jury-selection-in-l-i-killing-raises-larger-issues/
Appeals court upholds most of gang injunction against West Sacramento's Broderick Boys
California - Siding with a Yolo County judge and its district attorney, a state appeals court has declared the Broderick Boys "a criminal street gang whose activities have created a public nuisance" in a designated area of West Sacramento.
The appeals court left intact all but two provisions of a sweeping preliminary injunction issued by the lower court that imposes severe restrictions on the Broderick Boys' activities.
The rulings clear the way for a trial on whether there should be a permanent injunction. A trial could begin as soon as the summer, according to Mark Merin, one of 11 attorneys representing without compensation 23 people in the civil lawsuit giving rise to the injunction.
"It's an imagined situation and mischaracterization of a neighborhood unfairly tarred by a broad brush," Merin said in an interview. "It's a community of poor and moderate income people, mostly Hispanic, who lived peacefully in a pastoral setting long before it was part of West Sacramento.
The residents of the Broderick neighborhood believe the suit is part of a campaign by developers to buy up their property at cheap prices and turn the area into "elegant river living," Merin said.
The injunction effectively "draws a line around the community and formally declares it gang-infested," he said.
http://www.sacbee.com/2010/03/14/2605555/appeals-court-upholds-most-of.html
Group sues for Spanish ballots: Suit cites voting rights of U.S. Hispanics
Florida - A federal trial this month will decide whether Volusia County must provide Spanish language ballots after some Puerto Rican residents sued, saying they were denied their right to vote.
The Volusia County Hispanic Association and four Puerto Rican residents -- Crimilda Perez-Santiago, Carmen Fortis, Edwin Fortis and Madelyn Perez -- are suing Volusia County demanding that Supervisor of Elections Ann McFall provide ballots in Spanish.
But McFall counters that the county does everything but provide Spanish ballots, which it is not required to do. The county elections office has two Hispanic bilingual coordinators and translates the "majority" of election information into Spanish, county officials said in court papers in response to the federal lawsuit filed in November 2008.
http://www.news-journalonline.com/news/local/west-volusia/2010/03/14/group-sues-for-spanish-ballots.html
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General Interest
Chandler considers revision of immigration policy
Eddie Encinas considers the immigration policy that soon will go to Chandler City Council for approval to be reasonable.
Like many others, Encinas, a 77-year-old Chandler native, was dismayed by the immigration controversy that shook the city 11 years ago when a police roundup targeted Hispanics in July 1997.
The 1999 immigration policy took effect after Chandler drew widespread criticism for a five-day roundup of suspected illegal immigrants. For fourdays in late July 1997, police and federal agents set out to arrest undocumented immigrants in downtown neighborhoods. They made 340 arrests. But some of those taken into custody were legal residents, and Hispanic community leaders were outraged. The city was sued and it paid more than $500,000 in out-of-court settlements.
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2010/02/12/20100212-chandler-immigration-policy.html
Racial profiling, or not?
Indiana - When Lafayette's Aaron Montgomery gets behind the wheel of his car, he sometimes worries about getting pulled over by the police because of the color of his skin.
"You never want to have the attitude that the police are stopping you just because you're black, but it's something that stays in the back of my mind," he said. "You don't know every cop's personal history, and they may hold a certain view of another race just because of how they came up.
Of 80,901 traffic stops in which race was recorded from 2006 through 2008, 8.8 percent of the time the motorist was black. That's more than twice the percentage of black residents in the Tippecanoe County population.
The data is far from perfect. For instance, the data does not show the percentage of motorists stopped who are Hispanic.
http://www.jconline.com/article/20100214/NEWS03/2140348/Racial-profiling-or-not
Are Latino Teens Sexual Risk Takers? It's Complicated, Researcher Says
ScienceDaily (Feb. 22, 2010) — A University of Illinois researcher advises caution when trying to characterize gender roles and sexual behavior among this country's Latino adolescents and young adults.
"When a recent documentary about U.S. Latinos featured two teen mothers in a 90-minute program, the Latino students in my classes thought it was an unbalanced portrayal of their community -- and they were right!" said Marcela Raffaelli, a U of I professor of human and community development and co-author of a recently published chapter on Latino teen sexuality.
When you adjust for socioeconomic status and other demographic factors, the difference in adolescent sexual behavior between Latinos and other groups largely disappears.
Attempts to understand sexuality among Latino teens are also complicated in that researchers don't have the data to draw conclusions about how cultural factors influence sexuality. "People talk a lot about Latino culture and sexuality, but they typically don't measure cultural variables, such as adherence to cultural norms and attitudes, in their studies," she said.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100222121628.htm
Race gap seen in restaurant hiring
Kitchen worker Carlos Garcia envies the waiters who make more money and suffer fewer aches than those like him in the "back of the house." The very term, common in restaurants, speaks to a divide that is conspicuous yet often overlooked by diners.
The division of labor plays out in Loop steakhouses and Wrigleyville sports pubs: Taking the order or seating the clients is the girl next door, most likely white, while a cadre of young Mexican men construct the meal behind the scenes.
In a first-of-its-kind survey released this month, a Chicago labor advocacy group detailed the segregation of restaurants and the unequal pay and working conditions that exist between the front and back of the house. It found that nearly 80 percent of whites work in the front, nearly two-thirds of Hispanics in the back.
http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2010/02/race-gap-seen-in-restaurant-hiring.html
To read the report “Behind the Kitchen Door: Pervasive Inequality in Chicagoland’s Thriving Restaurant Industry”, go to:
http://www.rocunited.org/files/Chicago_BKD_lores_edit0119.pdf
Obama administration: more civil rights enforcement in schools
Education Secretary Arne Duncan signaled Monday the Obama administration’s intention to step up enforcement of civil rights laws that apply to schools and colleges, many of which are often ignored.
In remarks delivered in Selma, Ala, timed to commemorate the 45th anniversary of the marches in which civil rights protesters were brutally attacked by police, Secretary Duncan said, “The truth is that, in the last decade, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has not been as vigilant as it should have been in combating gender and racial discrimination and protecting the rights of individuals with disabilities. But that is about to change.... We are going to reinvigorate civil rights enforcement.”
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Education/2010/0308/Obama-administration-more-civil-rights-enforcement-in-schools
Racial Gap in Medical Care Remains a Concern
NEW HAVEN -- The gap in medical treatment between whites and minority groups may be based partly on which hospitals and doctors they go to when they need surgery, according to a Yale University study.
The study, led by professor Andrew J. Epstein of the School of Public Health, found white patients were more likely than blacks, Hispanics and Asians to go to hospitals where the highest number of procedures was performed.
http://www.hispanicbusiness.com/editors_picks/2010/2/16/racial_gap_in_medical_care_remains.htm
Chicago area Hispanics: Living in two worlds
For Rene Herrera, identifying himself as a ‘‘Mexican’’ pays homage to how incredibly hard his relatives, including his father — a Near West Side mechanic — worked to succeed after immigrating to the United States.
The 22-year-old Edgewater resident said he, too, has worked hard throughout his life and now is pursuing a graduate degree in counseling, with an emphasis on Latino mental health.
“That seems to be something that is common among Latinos," said Herrera. “They work hard because they want to get a better life for themselves.’’
Though he thinks of himself as Mexican, Herrera was born in Chicago and speaks fluent English without an accent. He, like many young Latinos, identifies strongly with his parents’ home country even while growing up in the United States.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/2060425,nuevo-chicago-hispanics-022010.article
Jewish, Latino leaders forge alliances to fight bigotry in U.S.
When six teenagers allegedly beat a Guatemalan immigrant into a coma last July in a Boston suburb, a Jewish and Latino coalition called the attack hateful.
In October, when a Cape Cod Jewish center was trashed and Nazi images were downloaded onto a rabbi's computer, Boston Latino leaders came to a rally to denounce the vandalism as a hate crime.
The responses in the two cases, advocates say, are examples of recent efforts by Jewish and Latino leaders to forge alliances.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1156096.html
Racial profiling, or not?
Indiana - When Lafayette's Aaron Montgomery gets behind the wheel of his car, he sometimes worries about getting pulled over by the police because of the color of his skin.
"You never want to have the attitude that the police are stopping you just because you're black, but it's something that stays in the back of my mind," he said. "You don't know every cop's personal history, and they may hold a certain view of another race just because of how they came up.
The data is far from perfect. For instance, the data does not show the percentage of motorists stopped who are Hispanic.
http://www.jconline.com/article/20100214/NEWS03/2140348/Racial-profiling-or-not
REALITY OF RACE: South Carolina has nation’s fastest growing Latino population
Their grocery stores and restaurants seem to concentrate around Stall and Ashley Phosphate Roads in North Charleston. Latinos make up an ever-growing and often isolated community in the Lowcountry.
“You’re going to find that the Hispanic community they pretty much keep to themselves. The Hispanic family member goes to work and goes home,“ says officer David Watson of the North Charleston Police Department.
According to the PEW Hispanic Center South Carolina’s Hispanic population increased 8.37 percent from 2007 to 2008, the fastest rate in the U-S. During 2000-2007 some counties have seen Hispanic populations increase by more than 150 percent. Charleston County was about 70 percent.
http://www2.counton2.com/cbd/news/local/article/reality_of_race_south_carolina_has_nations_fastest_growing_latino_populatio/113361/
Few take advantage of court amnesty period
Russellville - Midway through its second amnesty period offering residents the chance to pay misdemeanor warrants without being arrested, only 14 defendants have taken court officials up on the offer.
Court officials face several challenges in getting the nearly $325,000 owed to them from 2,491 outstanding warrants that range from unpaid traffic tickets to DUIs. Some offences date back to the 1980s, a majority of defendants come from the Spanish-speaking community and some residents are convinced the amnesty is a ruse for arrests.
"Rumors are out that it's a trick. That's not true: It didn't happen last time, it's not going to happen this time," said LaDonna Hitt, Russellville municipal court clerk, who is heading the amnesty program.
http://www.timesdaily.com/article/20100220/ARTICLES/2205023/1011/NEWS?Title=Few-take-advantage-of-court-amnesty-period
Latino conference explores role in higher education
Many people inaccurately believe that Hispanic students are new to public schools and higher education, state Secretary of Education Gerard Robinson said yesterday.
In 1931, he pointed out, Mexican-American parents in Southern California fought a court battle to end separate-but-equal education for their children -- two decades before the landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision banning segregation in public schools.
He made his remarks at the fourth annual Virginia Latino Higher Education Network's Encuentro at Virginia State University, which drew about 60 people, mostly Hispanic college faculty and administrators from across the state.
http://www2.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/local/article/VALH13_20100312-223209/330151/
Comcast, NBCU meet with Hispanic advocacy groups
Hispanic civil rights and advocacy groups met in Philadelphia yesterday with top executives at Comcast Corp. and NBC Universal Inc. to discuss Hispanic media issues related to the proposed $30 billion merger of the cable company and the entertainment giant.
The meeting was part of the full-court press by Comcast and NBC to court favor with special-interest groups that might oppose the merger in Congress and at the Federal Communications Commission.
D'Arcy Rudnay, senior vice president of communications at Comcast, said the meeting was private and was one of many Comcast was holding. "The meetings have been constructive," she said, noting they began about two weeks ago and are being held in several cities.
Hispanic media issues typically involve complaints about a lack of Hispanic TV station owners, insufficient news and entertainment programming choices, and TV shows that reinforce negative Hispanic stereotypes, Hispanic officials said.
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/business/20100302_Comcast__NBCU_meet_with_Hispanic_advocacy_groups.html
Opinion: It's time for a national Hispanic museum
Hispanics were the first to settle in the United States. Half a millennium later, we are the largest minority. And if there were a time machine, we would see that by the middle of this century we will be almost one-third of the U.S. population.
Today, a U.S. Supreme Court judge is Latina. So are two secretaries of President Obama's Cabinet. We have 27 representatives and one senator in Congress. We have stood out at NASA, in the Army and at the CIA.
What does not exist, ironically, is a national museum that untangles and exalts our legacy in the development of the United States since 1565, when Pedro Menéndez de Avilés founded the nation's oldest city, St. Augustine.
With that dream, a federal commission met last week under the auspices of Miami Dade College to study the viability of a National Museum of the American Latino. The museum is a must. Not only so Latinos may see themselves properly represented in Washington, but also so that all Americans can come to know an unexplored component of U.S. history.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/03/02/1507442/its-time-for-a-national-hispanic.html
Opinion: Finally Doing Something about Specialized High School Admissions
The woefully small percentages of black and Hispanic students at the city’s specialized high schools is not a new development, but that doesn’t mean we can’t do something to change it. Here’s my suggestion: The Department of Education should adopt a proportional admissions plan for the exam schools that would offer admission to the highest-scoring students from each of the neighborhoods of the city.
In 1995, then-Chancellor Ramon Cortines lamented the declining percentages of black and Hispanic students at the city’s specialized high schools. At the time, the numbers were actually better than they are now: Bronx Science’s enrollment was 10.7% black and 9.2% Hispanic; Stuyvesant’s was 4.8% black and 4.3% Hispanic.
http://gothamschools.org/2010/03/10/finally-doing-something-about-specialized-high-school-admissions/
Election system may slight minorities
SEMINOLE COUNTY - If advocacy groups and some members of the local Democratic party had their way, the system of elections in Seminole County would be changing.
As it stands right now, voters in 90 percent white and 49 percent Republican Lake Mary vote for the county commissioner who represents Sanford, a town that is nearly 30 percent black and 49 percent Democrat.
That's because Seminole County holds at-large elections - every voter can vote for all five county commission seats.
But in neighboring Orange County and in nearby Osceola County, elections are single-member districts, meaning you can only vote for the candidate who represents your district (unless it's for a county mayor position, which is at-large).
http://www.seminolechronicle.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2010/03/10/4b96beb9d75d2
Torrington students discuss troubling issues in wake of fights
TORRINGTON, Conn. — Two dozen teens, chairs in a circle, spoke of prejudice, intimidation and fear.
They spoke of stereotypes: Dominicans are loud, obnoxious, unclean thieves — and excellent baseball players, they said.
Friday night, a group of Torrington teens met to discuss a topic not often publicly raised in this city of about 35,000: Racism, particularly against a growing Hispanic population.
It's an issue being aired in light of a series of fights involving local teens last week that carried racial overtones. Hispanic leaders, taking an opportunity to keep the conversation going, have called a meeting Monday to discuss race relations in the context of local schools. Parents and school administrators are invited.
http://www.rep-am.com/articles/2010/03/13/news/local/472114.txt
Torrington parents demand action on race relations
TORRINGTON, Conn. -- Parents on Monday demanded action from school officials whom they said have long ignored deep-rooted racial tensions in the school system and community at the expense of Hispanic students.
The issues were raised during a town hall-style event at Workman Memorial AME Zion Church attended by about 70 people, most of them Hispanic. The dialogue was at times impassioned as parents criticized the school system for being out of touch with an increasingly diverse community and for ignoring students' discrimination complaints.
The meeting came in response to the revelation last week that undercurrents of gang activity had colored an ongoing conflict between groups of Hispanic students and white city residents, which culminated into gang threats March 7. Police have found no gang connections among city residents or in the school system, but officials Monday acknowledged the threats and fighting have been a wake-up call to more closely probe racial friction.
http://www.rep-am.com/articles/2010/03/16/news/local/472488.txt
Landlords discriminating against Hispanic residents, says council
DAYTON — Some of the city’s Hispanic residents are victims of landlords who refuse to make basic repairs or return security deposits, according to a preliminary investigation by Dayton’s Human Relations Council.
“This is a social justice issue. We shouldn’t be denying basic human rights to people just because they are immigrants,” Vernellia Randall, a member of the council, said.
The Rev. Francisco J. Pelaez-Diaz, the Hispanic missionary pastor at College Hill Community Church and a member of the council, said the study into housing discrimination began more than a year ago with a focus group of Hispanic residents and agencies that provide services to them.
http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/crime/landlords-discriminating-against-hispanic-residents-says-council-601728.html?imw=Y
St. Charles man charged in scam targeting Hispanics
HILLSIDE, Illinois -- A "Help Wanted" ad in various newspapers promising a job with big profits turned out to be a scam with complaints leading to the arrest of a St. Charles man this week.
Rob Nowak, 54, was arrested at 3:47 p.m. March 9 at his business office at 4414 Roosevelt Road in Hillside. He was charged with theft.
Hillside police were alerted to Nowak after several complaints from people about the business. Police said Nowak placed in Hispanic newspapers and promised training and the ability to make between $2,200 and $2,500 a month selling various products.
Police said those who were interested had to pay a $40 application fee and would be contacted later, but the victims never heard from anyone. Phone calls made to Nowak were not returned, police said.
http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/beaconnews/news/2099561,St-Charles-man-charged-scam_AU031210.article
