From: Latino LA

It was when I first stood atop the Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacan,
Mexico in 1976 that I was finally able to grasp something my parents
first communicated to me when I was five years old; that my roots on
this continent are not simply Mexican, but both ancient and
Indigenous.

My red-brown face should have been enough to teach me this. However,
that was not the message I received in school at the time, nor is it
the message little red-brown kids receive today.

I experienced a similar kind of reaffirmation this past month when I
stood in front of the world-renowned, ancient Mayan observatory at
Chichen Itza, on Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula.

Upon my return to the United States, I received a message from a
colleague regarding the U.S. Census Bureau. My mouth soured; another
decade and another story about how the bureau paradoxically insists
that Mexicans are Caucasian. I will have to explain to them again that
Mexicans are the descendants of those who built the pyramids at
Teotihuacan and Chichen Itza – that it was not Caucasians who built
them.

The genesis of this nonsensical “misconception” goes back to the era
when the United States militarily took half of Mexico in 1848. At that
time, the Mexican government attempted to protect its former citizens
by insisting that the U.S. government treat them legally as “white,”
so they would not be enslaved or subjected to legal segregation. That
strategy only partially worked, because most Mexicans in this country
have never been treated as “white,” or as full human beings with full
human rights.

That era is long over, yet the fear, shame, denial, and semi-legal
fiction of being “white” remains, perpetrated primarily by government
bureaucrats.

Despite the bureau policy of racial categorization, the Indigenous
Cultures Institute in Texas, a Census 2010 partner, has advanced an
alternative: It asserts that Hispanics, Mexican Americans, and
Indigenous people of Mexico are native or American Indian. After
answering Question 8, regarding whether one is Hispanic or not, the
institute suggests: “If you are a descendant of native people, you can
identify yourself (in Question 9) as an American Indian in the 2010
Census… If you don’t know your tribe, enter “unknown” or “detribalized
native.” If tribe or identity is known, fill it in, i.e., Macehual,
Maya, Quechua, etc.

This may not be the best option, but the bureau has never made it easy
to recognize the indigenous roots of “Mexican Americans/Chicanos” or
“Latinos/Hispanics.” The long and sordid history of the census has
been to direct or redirect them into the white category, even–and
especially–when they have asserted their indigenous roots or when
they have checked the “other” race category. (Since 1980, about half
of Hispanics/Latinos have checked the “other” race category and are
virtually the only group that chooses this category.) This has been a
standard practice of the bureau since the second half of the twentieth
century. Coincidentally, this is also when government bureaucrats
imposed the term “Hispanic,” a tag that generally masks the existence
of indigenous and/or African roots in many peoples of the Americas.

In 2000, the Census Bureau finally recognized a Latin American Indian
category, but it did not create an educational campaign to go with it.
The bureau now recognizes peoples who are traditionally viewed (using
arbitrary criteria) as indigenous in Mexico, Central and South
America, but it does not recognize those who are considered “mestizo”
–- peoples who are at least part, if not primarily, native. The
mestizo category, borne of a dehumanizing racial caste system in the
Americas, is also a troublesome category, yet it is how most people of
Mexican and Central American descent identify, comprising
approximately 75 percent of all “Latinos/Hispanics.”

The Indigenous Institute promotes its idea as a means by which Mexican
Americans or Latinos/Hispanics can honor their indigenous ancestry. If
this option is widely embraced, it remains to be seen how the bureau
will count this information. The same question arises if people choose
the American Indian category and write in “mestizo.”

Traditionally, the bureau has taken a narrow view of who is
indigenous, because the “American Indian” category was designed not to
ascertain indigeneity, but to count “U.S. Indians.” If a more
expansive view is embraced widely –- as advocated by the institute -–
it would result in an increase from 5 million (the 2009 census
estimate) to perhaps 30 to 40 million people. (Not all of the nation’s
close to 50 million Hispanics/Latinos can or would claim indigenous
ancestry.)

If done correctly, the institute’s suggestion need not negatively
affect the allocation of resources to specific tribes. Neither should
the way people identify be subject to government approval. Yet, the
ramifications of exercising such an option should indeed be studied.

Popularity: 3% [?]

From: PE.com

When Phil Velez was growing up in Pico Rivera, his school was overwhelmingly Latino, but almost every Cub Scout and Boy Scout was white.

“We just thought it wasn’t for us,” Velez said. “There’s still an image of the scouts as a middle-class, white organization.”

Velez, 33, now an Inland scouting official, is part of a new effort by the Boy Scouts of America to change that perception. The organization has created a Hispanic Initiatives program that aims to double the number of Latino Scouts by the end of 2010, the 100th anniversary of the Boy Scouts of America.

Only 130,000 — or 4 percent — of the 2.9 million Scouts are Latino, said Marcos Nava, national director of Hispanic Initiatives. That’s up from 100,000 since early 2008, when the program began. The goal is 200,000 by the end of the year, Nava said.

For regions like the Inland area, the Latino outreach is a matter of survival. Nearly 60 percent of public school students are Latino, and that number is expected to rise. About 20 percent of Inland Scout parents who responded to a question on ethnicity identified their children as Hispanic.

The program faces challenges, including language barriers, the resemblance of Boy Scout uniforms to those of the Border Patrol’s, a shortage of Latino Scout employees and a lack of knowledge about Scouting.

Although the Scouts are an iconic institution in many suburban white, middle-class communities, the Boy Scouts are virtually unknown among some Latinos, especially immigrants.

“We have to do a better job of telling our story and telling people what Scouting is all about,” said Joseph Daniszewski, CEO of the California Inland Empire Council of the Boy Scouts. “We can’t assume that everyone knows what scouting is.”

Yolanda Bocanegra, 43, immigrated from Mexico a quarter century ago, but the Colton woman never knew about scouting until a few years ago, when she heard a police officer mention it on Spanish-language radio as a good way to keep kids out of trouble. Bocanegra later enrolled son Daniel, now 9, in Cub Scouts.

“I like it because they teach them good things, and they learn discipline,” Bocanegra said in Spanish.

Daniel said he enjoys Scouting because it’s fun.

“It’s really good,” Daniel said. “We’ve done all these activities: camping, archery, fishing, BB guns, rock-climbing, swimming, horseback riding.”

Bocanegra often accompanies her son to Scout meetings. She said she’d be lost if Leno Moreno, the leader of her son’s scout pack, didn’t translate parts of the meetings into Spanish.

Moreno, 40, is the type of scoutmaster whom the organization desperately needs: Latino, bilingual and well-respected in his community. Moreno persuaded friend Tammy Tabera to enroll her son Thomas, 7, in the Scouts, despite initial reservations. She said Scout leaders in the West Texas town where she grew up didn’t want Latino kids.

“To me, it was geared toward rich, white kids,” said Tabera, 32, of Colton. “They were the only ones they went after.”

Tabera wondered whether Scouting would be too expensive. Moreno tries to reduce costs by requiring the purchase only of a Scout shirt, rather than a full uniform, and not mandating hiking shoes, vests, hats and other items that can quickly add up to a few hundred dollars.

“If they can’t afford the shirt and the (Boy Scout) book, we’ll buy it for them,” he said.

The money comes from local fundraisers and from the ScoutReach program, which aims to recruit scouts from groups that have traditionally not been involved with Scouting in large numbers, including the Latino, black, Asian and low-income communities.

Velez heads ScoutReach for the Inland council. He said previous efforts to recruit Hispanic Scouts faltered in part because few of those doing the outreach were Latino.

“There’s an instant rapport between the individual delivering the message and the individual receiving the message,” said Velez, who, like other Scout officials, works closely with trusted Hispanic community organizations and churches to spread the Scouts’ message. “It’s all about relationship-building.”

Yet many Latino parents speak little or no English, and few Scout employees speak Spanish. In the Inland council, four of 19 employees speak Spanish, Daniszewski said. Nationally, only about 180 of 3,000 employees are Spanish-speakers, Nava said. Increasing that number is a key component of the Scouts’ Latino-outreach effort, he said.

Nava visited the Inland area in December to advise the local council and to share the experiences of a Fresno-based council that is one of six Hispanic Initiatives pilot sites for Latino outreach strategies.

That council has increased its percentage of Latino Scouts from 20 to 30 percent since early 2008 through intensive outreach that includes participation in Hispanic festivals, close collaboration with the area’s Catholic diocese, and Spanish-language billboard, radio and television ads, said John Richers, the council CEO.

The Inland council is planning to air Spanish-language radio ads later this year. It will soon receive the new, recently unveiled Spanish-language Boy Scout handbook. The Cub Scouts have had a Spanish-language handbook for a decade.

The Scouts do not require that parents or children are legal U.S. residents. But parents who want to volunteer as Scout leaders must fill out application forms that include a request for a Social Security number.

Nava said that requirement can be waived under a longtime national policy that allows background checks without the numbers. But some councils — including the California Inland Empire — maintain the requirement to ensure children’s safety, Daniszewski said.

Scout outreach workers sometimes learn as they go along what works and what doesn’t work in approaching undocumented immigrants.

Marcell Vargas, a district executive for the Scouts in the Coachella Valley, recalled his first attempt to tell immigrant migrant-worker parents about the Boy Scouts.

When he got out of his car in his tan Scout outfit, which looks a lot like a Border Patrol uniform, some panicked workers jumped in their cars and screeched off.

“I never saw so many cars get of a camp so quickly,” Vargas said with a laugh, recalling the incident 14 years ago at a migrant-worker site in Washington state. “It was an educational process for me. The next time I came back to the camp, I was not in uniform.”

Popularity: 4% [?]

From: Hispanic News

Despite the long history of Hispanic residents in the United States, there was no systematic effort to count this group separately in the Census until the late 20th century. An analysis of changes in Census question wording over recent decades reveals the challenges in trying to count and describe this fast-growing population.

An estimated 48 million Hispanics are now living in the U.S., or almost 16% of the population. Hispanics are the nation’s largest minority group, having surpassed African Americans in number in 2001. The growth of the Hispanic population this century is due mainly to births in the United States, not immigration from abroad, a reversal of the pattern over the previous four decades.

There was a one-time inclusion of a “Mexican” race category in the 1930 Census, when forms were filled out by census-takers who went door to door. The first major attempt to estimate the size of the Hispanic population for the entire nation was in the 1970 Census, in which forms were completed by residents themselves. The question appeared on one of the two long-form questionnaires sent to a sample of the population, not the short form that everybody answered. The question asked: “Is this person’s origin or descent—“ and the response categories were: “Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Central or South American, Other Spanish,” and “No, none of these.”

This question did not work very well. The total count of 9.1 million reported in that census was about 500,000 less than other estimates for the Hispanic population. Further, even this 9.1 million count was about 1 million higher than responses to the question by people of Hispanic origin. According to later research, a major problem was that hundreds of thousands of people living in the south or central regions of the U.S. mistakenly were included in the “Central or South American” category. As is its usual policy, Census reports on the Hispanic population in 1970 use the originally reported figures.

Hispanic Question on the Short Form

In 1980, the question was moved to the short form that went to all households, and specified that it pertained to Hispanics: “Is this person of Spanish/Hispanic origin or descent?” The possible responses were: “No (not Spanish/Hispanic); Yes, Mexican, Mexican-Amer., Chicano; Yes, Puerto Rican; Yes, Cuban; Yes, other Spanish/Hispanic.” The Hispanic origin question followed the race, age, and marital status questions. (The previously problematic “Central or South American” category did not appear.)

This question counted 14.6 million Hispanics and worked reasonably well. A few hundred thousand non-Hispanics apparently misinterpreted the question and attempted to identify as “American” by marking the “Yes, Mexican, Mexican-Amer., Chicano” category. Many actually circled the abbreviation “Amer.” to so indicate on the form. There also were several hundred thousand people whose place of birth, language, origin or descent suggested that they were Hispanic but who failed to indicate that they were of Hispanic origin. (This and other apparent errors were documented by researchers after the census was completed; as has generally been the case with decennial censuses, the uncorrected numbers appear in official census reports.)

In 1990, the Hispanic-origin question was virtually identical to the 1980 question and counted more than 22 million Hispanics. This census form included a new write-in line to specify a group for “other Spanish/Hispanic” origins. The form also shortened the category name “Mexican-Amer.” to “Mexican-Am.,” which helped to eliminate the problem of a decade earlier in which respondents tried to identify as “American” by circling “Mexican-Am.”

The 2000 Census, which counted more than 35 million Hispanics, saw some significant changes in the Hispanic origin item. The term “Latino” was added, so the question read, “Is this person Spanish/Hispanic/Latino?” There were major changes in instructions to respondents and question placement. The Hispanic-origin question preceded the race question, rather than following it, and respondents were instructed to answer both questions. Immediately after the question was the instruction to “Mark the “No” box if not Spanish/Hispanic/Latino.” The Mexican category remained the same but both the “No” and “other” categories added the term “Latino.” The examples given in 1990 for the “other Spanish/Hispanic/Latino” category were eliminated.

A major purpose of the new placement and instructions was to persuade Hispanic respondents to specify a category in response to the race question and not mark “some other race” with a Hispanic write-in (e.g. “Mexican” race). This attempt was largely unsuccessful, as about 43% of Hispanics did not specify a race. Moreover, a new issue arose: The proportion of Hispanics who specified that they were some “other” Hispanic origin, without specifying a country, was much higher than in other surveys and sources.

For the 2005-2007 American Community Survey (ACS), the Hispanic origin question was identical to the one in the 2000 Census.

Changes for the 2010 Census

The question that is being used in the 2010 Census (and in the American Community Survey, beginning in 2008) had two changes in wording. The order of the terms is different (“Spanish” is the third option, not the first) and the word “origin” has been added. The question asks whether the person is “of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin.” The wording of response categories has been changed to reflect the question wording. The last response category also has been reworded to say: “Yes, another Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin,” and a list of examples is provided (“Argentinean, Colombian, Dominican, Nicaraguan, Salvadoran, Spaniard and so on”) in an attempt to elicit a specific response.

In the lead-in, respondents are instructed to answer both the Hispanic origin and race items (with the items named, not just numbered as they had been in 2000). The instruction specifically says that “Hispanic origins are not races.” Additionally, the instruction to “Mark No if not Hispanic” was eliminated.

These changes apparently had a significant impact on responses in the 2008 ACS, so it seems likely that 2010 Census responses also will be affected. The share of Hispanics who gave a specific race, rather than marking “some other race,” dropped by about 10 percentage points. The pattern of “other” Hispanic responses changed markedly. The new question wording also may have induced more U.S. natives to identify as Hispanic than had been the case in earlier years of the American Community Survey.

Popularity: 6% [?]

From: San Francisco Examiner

A San Francisco woman and her children will be deported to Australia on Friday after her teenage son was arrested on suspicion of punching a classmate and stealing 46 cents during an after-school program.
The case spotlights the politically charged battle about how to enforce The City’s sanctuary policy, and whether officials should shield undocumented youths from deportation when they are suspected of a felony crime.
The undocumented 13-year-old boy, who only has been identified as part of the Washington family, was reported to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in January after he punched another youth and stole his money, according to Angela Chan, staff attorney with the Asian Law Caucus, which is providing immigration legal services to the family.
Chan said the teenager has been charged with robbery, assault and extortion. She said the charges include a felony.
The teen had been living in San Francisco with his undocumented mother, 5-year-old brother and stepfather, who is a U.S. citizen, for more than a year. The family’s deportation will bar them from coming back to the United States for at least three to 10 years, Chan said.
According to Mayor Gavin Newsom’s office, the deportation remains consistent with federal law.
“We are implementing The City’s sanctuary city policy, which, according to the city attorney, is in compliance with state and federal law,” Newsom spokesman Tony Winnicker said Sunday. “We don’t want to put at risk law-abiding San Francisco residents, including the undocumented, by shielding criminal behavior.”
In November, the Board of Supervisors passed a sanctuary ordinance — sponsored by Supervisor David Campos — that prohibits probation officers from reporting undocumented youths unless they are convicted of a felony.
But the mayor and City Attorney Dennis Herrera advised Juvenile Probation Department chief William Siffermann that he would be violating federal and state law if his department shielded undocumented youths until they were convicted of a felony.
Campos pushed the change in response to Newsom’s 2008 policy that stated all illegal immigrant youths who are arrested on suspicion of a felony are released to federal authorities.
Siffermann could not be reached for comment Sunday, but he issued a statement last month saying he had no intention of complying with the recently passed sanctuary ordinance, saying he believed he would be violating federal law.
Frustrated by the noncompliance, Campos is threatening to pursue a legal challenge and propose withholding city funding from the Juvenile Probation Department as long as it ignores the law, he said.
Campos called for a public hearing Thursday, where he hopes to get some answers from Siffermann.
“This is the point we have been trying to make,” Campos said. “This is yet another example of families being torn apart over something that the great majority of people would say doesn’t warrant deportation.”

Popularity: 6% [?]

This could turn into a very big story. According to this Associated Press story written by Suzanne Gamboa Saturday, every person with a Puerto Rican birth certificate will need to get a new one this year. A law passed in December invalidates all birth certificates issued by the Commonwealth as of July 1 of this year.

About a third of the 4.1 million Americans of Puerto Rican descent could be affected, AP reports.

The odd thing is, despite the fact that Puerto Ricans are born U.S. citizens, the reason for the new law relates to immigration. Documents, especially identity documents that have Spanish-sounding names and confer automatic citizenship, are a hot property on the black market.

Puerto Ricans on average get about 20 copies of their birth certificates over their lifetimes, said Kenneth McClintock Hernandez, the commonwealth’s secretary of state.

This is because they are regularly asked to produce them for such events as enrolling children in school or joining sports leagues. Schools and other institutions have typically kept copies, a practice prohibited under the new law since January, McClintock said.

As much as 40 percent of the identity fraud in the U.S. involves birth certificates from Puerto Rico, McClintock said he was told by the State Department.

“It’s a problem that’s been growing and as the need in the black market for birth certificates with Hispanic-sounding names grew, the black market value of Puerto Rican birth certificates has gone into the $5,000 to $10,000 range,” McClintock said.

Puerto Ricans are already getting greater scrutiny because of America’s vexing and often hysterical immigration debate. As motor vehicle departments have gotten into the business of checking people’s immigration status – especially people with Spanish surnames and/or accents – Puerto Ricans are often asked for “green cards” they, of course, don’t have.

With GOP political strategists thinking up new ways each year to erect barriers to voting – especially for people they think may vote against them – the deadline for resolving this identity issue could have electoral implications in important states with large populations of citizens born in Puerto Rico.

But so far, AP reports, the word has not spread widely:

Rep. Jose Serrano, D-N.Y., has been getting a steady stream of calls about the law at his district office. Serrano — who must replace his birth certificate, too — said he is trying to provide answers without triggering a panic.

“No one has thought about what effect this could have, if any, on those of us born in Puerto Rico who now reside in the 50 states,” Serrano said.

Here’s an idea: What if the United States had a functioning legal immigration system that allowed people to come to the U.S. with visas within reasonable limits and within reasonable time frames? What if that were combined with a tightly regulated system to get the millions of immigrants in the U.S. illegally into the system and legal? Maybe then we wouldn’t have such a huge black market for false documents and wouldn’t have to twist ourselves in knots with workarounds like invalidating millions of birth certificates. That’s what immigration reform is for, but the President and Congress don’t seem to be moving forward very quickly.

Read Gamboa’s AP story, but I suspect we’ll be hearing more about this…

Popularity: 12% [?]

From: Latina Lista

President Obama outlined a plan today to reduce the high school dropout rate. He deserves kudos for understanding that this educational crisis goes beyond local communities and state jurisdictions, and has serious national implications for the future.

According to the President’s statistics:

Every school day, about 7,000 students decide to drop out of school - a total of 1.2 million students each year - and only about 70% of entering high school freshman graduate every year.
Without a high school diploma, young people are less likely to succeed in the workforce. Each year, our nation loses $319 billion in potential earnings associated with the dropout crisis.
The bulk of the dropouts are low-income Latinos and African Americans.

The President and his team feel that the way to stem the flow of dropouts is:

For school districts to basically seize control of the underperforming schools and implement one of four options.
Personalize and individualize student instruction and support to keep them engaged and focused on success, provide alternative educational routes to keep students on track to graduate and have schools make better use of data and information to more easily identify high-risk students.
Promote a culture of college readiness.
In and of themselves, each of these areas provide a good start but there are three more components that any initiative to keep Latino students in school must address as well if significant progress is to be made.

1. Impress upon Latino parents that school is a necessity.

While all Latino parents want their children to succeed, not all of them think that a higher education is necessarily the ticket for doing that. Too many parents see education as a legal necessity — they’re children have to go to school or they will have to pay a fine otherwise.

The general concept of a career versus a job is not known in most lower-income Latino households, especially when it’s been the custom to live from paycheck to paycheck. A job has always been seen to be more valuable than an education because the benefits are immediate.

There should be the promotion of the concept of “careers and trades” among Latino families with the pay scale/benefits for them versus the pay scale/benefits of jobs that don’t need higher education or specialized training.

Until the mindset is changed that a career/trade is more desirable than a job then Latino families will always value the immediate benefit of a paycheck over any potential salary that comes as a result of a diploma/certificate.

2. Equalize the digital divide by providing Latino families with home computers and Internet service.

Low-income Latino families, because they live paycheck to paycheck, feel that computers are a luxury item. However, we know that the computer with Internet access is an invaluable tool for the whole family if instructed on how to use it.

Schools and organizations have been supplying families with free computers but there also should be a special deal worked out with local cable companies that provide Internet access services. Along with the computers, school districts should be able to negotiate a special service deal for those families who qualify for deeply discounted Internet service.

Bridging the digital divide in the home is one way to engage the whole family in education as they learn how to use the Internet and expand their base of knowledge.

3. Children need to know the adults in the school care about them.

Over the years when doing stories about Latino dropouts, the one complaint or observation all the kids had was that they felt no one cared if they showed up for school or not. They felt no adult — the teacher or the principal or the counselor — cared one bit about them.

From a cultural perspective where personal relationships are a priority, this omission within the school, especially if the school is overcrowded, is an extremely important one.

To meet this challenge, individual schools should set up times where kids can go and just talk to teachers who aren’t in a hurry or resent students taking away from their planning periods or to counselors who aren’t overworked trying to get seniors ready to graduate.

One-on-one face time isn’t needed by every student but those who are struggling with school are struggling with other things as well and all they need is the comfort of telling an adult who will listen to them without criticizing and judging them.

4. Pass the DREAM Act

Not sure if anyone knows the percentage of undocumented Latino students who are dropping out of high school because they feel they have no future since they can’t work or pay in-state tuition to afford to go to college, but there are reports that many of the Latino dropouts are undocumented students.

It makes sense that they would feel this way. They work hard, get good grades but knowing that it’s not going to do them any good many lose hope and the will to go on. So they drop out, join gangs, loiter.

The loss of potential is enormous. These kids deserve hope. They have the talent to finish school and go on to college or learn a trade and it’s a given their skills will be needed in the future.

Popularity: 9% [?]

From: Huffington Post

I have a racist in-law. But then again, who doesn’t?

I don’t see a lot of this guy, because my wife only begrudgingly let him back into her life after a decade of exile. She has not exactly done cartwheels over the decision, but we’re stuck with him now.

Clearly, this man is not particularly close to his relative, my wife, or else he would have noticed that she disgraced the master race by marrying a Latino. My guess is that he thinks I just spend a lot of time in the tanning booth.

It’s important to note that my in-law is not overt about his bigotry. He either isn’t as virulent as, say, 1950s Strom Thurmond, or more likely, he doesn’t have the cojones to be upfront about it.

Of course, this brings up the uncomfortable truth that we now have degrees of racism. In the old days, a person was either a hate-filled redneck with a noose in one hand, or he was a progressive, love-thy-neighbor type who was incapable of seeing race, much less discriminating against someone.

But a more nuanced view has come into play in recent years. This viewpoint holds that everyone has some level of unconscious prejudice. At its lowest level, it may be the white woman who grips her purse a little tighter when a black man passes her on the street. From there, we ratchet up the intensity until we reach Klan level.

My in-law is somewhere between those poles. His dancing around the issue makes his prejudice less obnoxious in person and, on occasion, even unintentionally hilarious.

Recently, he sent us a forwarded email that slammed Obama’s immigration-reform plan. Perhaps I should have pointed out to him that there is no Obama immigration-reform plan, per se, but that would have prevented me from savoring the deeply astute political viewpoints that the email expressed.

There was a lot about English being under attack.
There was something about immigrants breeding out of control.
There were a few lines about Mexicans stealing our jobs.
Yes, I learned a lot from my quick glance at the missive. Most interestingly, the email detoured into how Anglo Saxon culture was the only basis for American values. The email gave white people credit for ending slavery in America (neglecting the obvious fact that white people were responsible for slavery in the first place). I must admit that this was an interpretation of history that I had never considered.

The forward ended, rather ominously, with the declaration that white people can, at any point, take back everything they have generously given the rest of America.

I wasn’t sure what response my in-law wanted. Like I said, I barely know the guy.

Is it more proper to call him on his bullshit? Or would that just be a waste of time that does nothing but jack up everyone’s blood pressure? Is it standing up for oneself and La Raza to go on the counteroffensive? Or is it more dignified to dismiss idiocy with the split-second contempt that it deserves? Like many things in life, dealing with racists offers valid arguments for contradictory courses of action.

In the end, I just deleted the man’s rant and made a mental note to do the same whenever he sends us another email.

He’s since forwarded numerous other manifestos, but I’ve deleted them automatically, declining the opportunity to learn how Obama is a socialist who wasn’t even born in this country and wants to give all my money to gay, flag-burning immigrants.

That can wait until my next face-to-face discussion with my in-law, whenever that is. I’m sure he’ll start the conversation with “I’m not racist, but…”

Yes, good times are coming.

Popularity: 4% [?]

From: Washington Post

As any good cook knows, each ingredient in a fine meal enhances its taste. Don’t include one element, and the meal loses its flavor.

The same is true in making laws. If certain components aren’t included in the congressional process, then legislation won’t adequately reflect the American people.

And that gets to a beef a coalition of congressional staff members has with Congress: There are too few staff members of color who help write legislation and perform many other duties that allow the legislative branch to function.

The Congressional Hispanic Staff Association, the Congressional Black Associates, the Congressional Asian Pacific American Staff Association and the Congressional Muslim Staffers Association confronted that issue Thursday with what they billed as the first “State of Diversity on the Hill Address.”

It really was a panel discussion, rather than anything akin to a major address, as the title of the event implied. And the main attraction wasn’t a speaker, but a report issued by the Hispanic organization.

“Unrepresented: A Blueprint for Solving the Diversity Crisis on Capitol Hill” focuses on the paucity of Latino staff members, but similar reports undoubtedly could be done for the other associations. One important point the report makes at the beginning is that lack of diversity is more than a Latino problem. It affects the way the government does business.

“There is a crisis afflicting Capitol Hill,” the report says. “While policy decisions affecting all of America are debated in the halls of Congress, Latinos are almost completely absent in top-level staff positions. Thus, on issues like education, the economy, health care, and decisions of war and peace, Members of Congress are largely without the perspective of a community” that is a major and growing segment of the American people.

The lack of Latinos on the Hill is striking.

In the Senate, there is one Latino chief of staff and one committee staff director. These are key behind-the-scenes operatives who make their elected bosses look good. But more than that, these top staff members strongly influence the direction of Senate hearings, the content of legislation and the very words senators speak. There are no Hispanic deputy chiefs of staff or legislative directors in the Senate, people who also play critical roles in Congress.

“Unfortunately, the Latino community is not currently represented in a meaningful way among Congressional staff,” the report says.

On the House side, the numbers at first don’t seem quite as stark, but that’s only because there are so many more people serving the greater number of representatives. You need not go too deep into the data, however, to learn that the 12 Latino House chiefs of staff are a mere 2.7 percent of the 440 positions, according to association extrapolations of 2009 House Employment Survey data.

At 9 percent, Latinos were best represented in the scheduler position in House offices, but as the report notes, “These positions are generally not considered to be instrumental to policy formulation, nor are they generally considered by conventional wisdom to be positions from which to advance to more senior-level positions.”

One thing giving hope to diversity advocates is the rate at which ambitious staff members leave jobs working for sometimes temperamental elected officials, often to find a job with another one. “In fact, the high staff turnover and potential for relatively quick advancement on the Hill is one of the reasons” the Hispanic association said it is optimistic that the diversity problem can be tackled over the next decade.

The association urged congressional leaders to make stronger efforts to increase diversity by creating a House and a Senate Republican Office for Diversity, which Senate Democrats have and the office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is considering. Another recommendation calls for including ethnicity data in future Senate and House employment surveys, information the report says “would be useful in highlighting the progress made in increasing diversity.”

And the association wants Congress to take a page from the National Football League’s playbook, by adopting something similar to the NFL’s Rooney Rule, which says teams must interview at least one person of color for head coaching and top front-office positions.

The association doesn’t put all the onus on congressional leaders. During the past years, it said, it has distributed job lists and openings, connected Latinos with offices that are hiring, mentored potential staffers and targeted new members of Congress, who must hire entire office staffs.

“Unfortunately,” the report says, “these efforts have not been enough.

Popularity: 5% [?]

From: Ponte Al Dia

“Gerrymandering” is a word that Latinos should learn, specially in census time and considering that it is anticipated that this minority will have a significant increase.

The Census 2010 will be this year; the results will be disclosed the next one, and Hispanics will be a tasty catch for some, or a rock stuck in the shoe for others.

Along with the new data from the Census 2010, comes a big fight in the redistribution of all electoral districts across the country, and among officials in Congress, Councils and assemblies.

For the rookies, “Gerrymandering” may constitute a keyword to attempt to understand the redistricting process. In practice, it is an outburst since districts are divided by electoral political interests.

Although this practice was suppressed by the Supreme Court, redistricting in some regions and cities, like Philadelphia is far from transparent.

“Gerrymandering” or “political manipulation” doesn’t care that the resulting districts end up disperse and will and cause administrative stumbles.

District Seven in Philadelphia is a bad national example. Ex-Councilman Angel Ortiz refers to it as “The Snake” because of its long and disperse shape. This District, which is casually hispanic, gets the golden medal as the “most gerrymandered” in the country, while its neighbor, District Five, gets bronze.

Redistricting in Philadelphia is not exactly a public process. Latinos will have to be more active when participating in commissions which will hopefully be created for that purpose. Hispanics will have to prevent “racial gerrymandering”, which more than a snake looks like a tapeworm, from devouring their aspirations for political representation according to its growing number.

Popularity: 5% [?]

From: Science Daily

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.
National surveys do show that Latino young people as a group are less likely than their non-Latino peers to use condoms and birth control and are more likely to become pregnant and have a child. But these statistics hide a much more complicated picture, she said.

Popularity: 4% [?]