From: The South Chicagoan

Torii Hunter, an all-star outfielder with the Los Angeles Angels, is getting some grief these days for comments he made to USA Today about the lack of African-American athletes playing professional baseball.

He told the newspaper that too many fans see all the dark-skinned ballplayers from the Dominican Republic or other parts of Latin America and just assume that the racial ratios are at an all-time high.

HUNTER IS BEING criticized by some for his comment that the dark-skinned Latin Americans are, “not us. They’re imposters.” Some say he’s slurring Latin American athletes. Others say he is trying to stir up an “issue” that does not exist.

Personally, I think he is merely speaking the truth. I wonder if many of the people who these days are posting nasty comments about Hunter all over the Internet are really just upset because he’s pointing out how flawed some people in our society are when it comes to perceiving race.

They want to think we have white people and other people. Hunter is saying that those “other” people have enough differences that it is wrong for the “white” people to lump them all together just because they’re not “like us” – as in the Anglos.

Hunter is coming at the issue from the African-American perspective – where some people wonder why a sport that once had about 25 percent black ballplayers back in the early 1970s is likely to have only 8 percent black ballplayers on major league rosters this season.

OF COURSE, THE force that fills that “void” is the growth of non-U.S.-born ballplayers – some 28 percent of people to be on major league rosters this year were born in other countries. While some of them are from Japan or South Korea, most are from Latin America.

And yes, those ballplayers tend to be proud of their own ethnic heritage, even though they come to work/play ball in the United States. They don’t want to be lumped in with “other.” Which is why I doubt that any Latin American athlete currently playing professional baseball is taking the least bit of offense to anything Hunter said.

They’d even acknowledge the reality of some of Hunter’s other comments, which is that the reason Major League Baseball teams have bolstered their scouting in places like the Dominican Republic or Venezuela is because they can get multiple ballplayers for the cost of one U.S.-born “bonus baby” who has attended college.

It is about economics, not any desire to do social good by expanding the talent pool or fan pool – after all, having all those non-U.S.-born ballplayers increases the interest level in the U.S. major leagues in Caracas or Tokyo, which means fans deciding they’d rather root for the New York Yankees instead of the La Guaira Tiburones or the Diablos Rojos de Mexico.

IT WASN’T ALWAYS like this. It used to be that the Latin American ballplayer was the rarity – there might be one, maybe two, per ballclub back when I was a kid in the 1970s (the time period when the black ballplayer reached its peak).

Although I wonder at times how much of that peak was because baseball people back then just lumped in Latin Americans or Latinos (who account for about 14 percent of major league ballplayers) with the black ballplayers as “other.”

I base that judgment in part on the “historic” significance given to the Pittsburgh Pirates, who on certain occasions in 1971 started an entire lineup of “black” ballplayers – even though three of them, catcher Manny Sanguillen, infielder Jackie Hernandez and Hall of Fame outfielder Roberto Clemente would now be thought of as Latin American.

Which makes me wonder how much that mid-1970s “black” ballplayer percentage is inflated, and how much better off we are now for taking reality into account when looking at the composition of the modern major league ballplayer.

I’M ANTICIPATING SOME dispute on this point by the fact that Clemente himself used to take pride in being a black Latin ballplayer. That is completely accurate, and Clemente was justified back in his day when he used to get upset with people who merely wanted to put him into a simplistic category – such as insisting on calling him “Bob” Clemente rather than by his proper name.

But it also goes a long way toward saying that it is overly simple-minded to try to think of people as being “white” and “other,” which means that in my book, Hunter is getting trashed by people who are upset that he’s calling out the flaws in their way of wanting to perceive the world.

Which means I’ll give him a few moments of respect. At least until the moment this season when he manages to make one of those over-the-fence catches that robs a ballplayer I’m rooting for of a home run.

Popularity: 1% [?]

From: Ponte Al Dia

It is quite ironic that the Department of Justice has to work hard at having to “restore respect for the law within the culture of the DHS (Department of Homeland Security)” that is, the federal government itself.

Immigration policy during the first year of the Obama administration changed very little and rather perpetuated some of the worst Civil Rights violations by the Bush administration, reported the Immigration Policy Center IPC in its study “The Challenge of Reform.

The criminalizing of immigrants continues under the Obama administration, “in fact federal immigration prosecutions rose to record levels in FY 2009” asserts the IPC, revealing that “under this administration, the federal government is continuing to spend billions of dollars prosecuting non-violent immigration violators while more serious criminals involved in drugs, weapons, and organized crime face a lower probability of prosecution.”

Immigration prosecutions now account for 54% of all federal criminal filings, and will increase 14% for FY 2009, per Syracuse University’s TRAC (Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse).

Much of this prosecution fever is based on the scheme of calling any undocumented immigrant a “criminal alien”. This scheme while in parallel with the vitriol of white supremacist groups is perpetrated by unconstitutionally forcing personal data such as fingerprints into a federal database named with the euphemism “Secure Communities”.

This is how it works according to the IPC : “A closer examination of ICE’s statistics reveals that the use of the term “criminal alien” is misleading and that those identified by “Secure Communities” include large numbers of individuals with no criminal history, individuals charged with (but not convicted of) crimes, and persons “identified” but not found to be deportable. Fingerprint submission and identification is conducted at time of arrest, rather than conviction, thereby presenting the risk of racial profiling and pretextual arrests of those suspected of being unauthorized in order to determine an arrestee’s immigration status.”

Despite these flagrant abuses DHS boasts the fact that now “Secure Communities” expanded from 14 locations to 107 in 2009 and that in its first year 111,000 supposed “criminal aliens” in local custody were purportedly identified.

In reality the “Secure Communities” program is literally contributing to allow extremely violent and organized crime remain unpunished.

Taking away two thirds of our federal resources from combating violent, powerful and well-organized drug, weapon, and human traffickers to solely persecute immigrants is a testament to where our values truly rest.

Popularity: 1% [?]

From: LA Times

Community leaders and celebrities announced a new multimedia campaign in Los Angeles on Wednesday aimed at getting young Latinos to participate in the U.S. Census.

During the news conference at Miguel Contreras Learning Complex, speakers invited students to download an interactive mobile application, to participate in a texting campaign (text “LA” to 738674) and to spread the word to family and friends about the importance of the census.

“Your voice literally does matter,” actress Rosario Dawson told students in the campus library. “You have the right to live with dignity in your communities. This is the opportunity to fight for that.”

Dawson and actor Wilmer Valderrama joined leaders of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Voto Latino and the California Community Foundation to show public service announcements and hand out census-themed I-tunes cards to students.

Throughout the month, the community groups will visit schools in hard-to-count neighborhoods of the county to talk about the census and the multimedia campaign.

Los Angeles County stands to lose more than $11,000 per uncounted person, California Community Foundation President Antonia Hernandez said. She urged the students to use Facebook, Twitter and other social media to start a conversation about the census and how the federal funds will affect their neighborhoods.

“Your task as youth is to use your fingers and start texting your friends,” she said.

One student, Kevin Menendez, 17, who immigrated to the U.S. in 2007, said he learned about the census in his government class. Then he got the letter from the U.S. Census Bureau this week.

“I told my aunt that we had to do it,” Menendez said. “I really want my family to be counted.”

Popularity: 1% [?]

From: The Buffalo Puerto Rican Press

Well, it doesn’t improve my life any to know the richest man on the planet earth is a Latino from Mexico–Carlos Slim Helu. But if I married him, I would be the richest woman in the world. I thought it’s perhaps time for me to start looking for a suitable mate but the idea of an extremely wealthy one didn’t cross my mind of course every girl thinks about it. Here is your chance ladies. But wait, he has a BA in Arts and Science and is a self-made man. Oh, I have just a little bit more college credentials than he does maybe I’ll be attractive to him because rich men sometimes like well-rounded women of the “mind” as they are so wealthy money buys everything for them and there is no challenge in that.

He is son of Lebanese immigrants to Mexico. According to Forbes Magazine, he is a “Telecom tycoon who pounced on privatization of Mexico’s national telephone company in the 1990s becomes world’s richest person for first time after coming in third place last year. Net worth up $18.5 billion in a year. Recently received regulatory approval to merge his fixed-line assets into American Movil, Latin America’s biggest mobile phone company. His construction conglomerate, Impulsora del Desarrollo y el Empleo, builds roads and energy infrastructure. Son of a Lebanese immigrant also owns stakes in financial group Inbursa, Bronco Drilling, Independent News & Media, Saks and New York Times Co. Newspaper outfit’s stock popped in early March on talk he might buy a controlling stake; he denies the rumor. Donating $65 million to fund a research project in genomic medicine with American billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad.”

Popularity: 1% [?]

From: Chicanisima

For some reason, when conservatives protest they grab bigger headlines then when liberals protest.

Case in point, the Tea Party protesters have garnered all sorts of national attention.

So what do supporters of immigration reform have to do to grab headlines?

There will be a march in Chicago this Wednesday where some undocumented youth will come out of the shadows. Also Chicagoans will join others from across the nation for a coordinated national rally in Washington, D.C. on March 21.

If the media can pay attention to the Tea Party supporters, some of them gun-toting radicals, then they should pay equal attention to the human stories behind the need for Congress to pass immigration reform this year.

“There’s a feeling that if not this year, then when? We can’t wait any longer,” said Tania Unzueta, one of the organizers of the Chicago march coordinated by the Immigrant Youth Justice League.

One of their goals is to renew pressure on Congress to pass the DREAM Act that would create a path to legalization for undocumented youth brought here by their parents.

Unzueta, 26, is one of these students, and I first wrote about her case nine years ago for the Chicago Tribune. Originally from Mexico, her parents brought her here at the age of 10 years old. She excelled in college and high school and has become a leader in the community. But she is still undocumented since Congress has failed to pass a law to help young people like her.

Eight other young people like Tania will come out of the shadows for tomorrow’s protest.
There are as many as a million young people in the United States who could qualify for the DREAM Act. These are students who have done well in school, are culturally American and have so much to contribute to this country.

This Chicago march precedes a national march that organizers hope will bring more than 100,000 people to Washington, D.C. in a “March for America.”

They want to send a message to Congress and President Obama, who during the campaign promised to work on immigration reform in his first year in office.

“It’s time to deliver,” said Flavia Jimenez with the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR.)

ICIRR is working with community groups to mobilize 10,000 people from Illinois to ride a bus caravan to the rally.

“Immigration affects all of us. It’s not just a Latino problem,” said Alie Kabba, executive director of the United African Organization and a vice president on the ICIRR board.

Jimenez and Kabba are right. They need to show the American public that people from all ethnicities and classes would benefit from immigration reform.

“Every single day you are helped in one way by a person who is illegally in the United States,” Jimenez said.

And undocumented immigrants also pay sales tax and many pay income tax that they never reclaim.

The question is how can immigrant supporters shape the message to convince not just Congress but the general public that we need immigration reform?

They are starting to use social media like Twitter and Facebook to spread the word. Their voices need to be louder than those who are against immigration reform.

The Wednesday march starts at 11 a.m. at Union Park at Lake Street and Ashland Avenue and starting at 1 p.m. they will march to the Federal Plaza at downtown.

Popularity: 4% [?]

From: The South Chicagoan

It has been years since I personally set foot in Mexico. But my impression has always been that those border towns directly across from the United States were always so kitschy that no self-respecting individual wanting to see Mexico would seriously go there.

So when I learned that Texas state officials had issued an advisory telling people to avoid the area when they make spring-break trips later this month, my honest reaction was two-fold.

IT IS NO loss, AND how many idiots are going to want to believe this refers to the whole country.

Specifically, the Texas Department of Public Safety issued an advisory in recent days saying that U.S. citizens should avoid visiting the cities along the international border.

Anyone paying attention to news reports from the region in recent years knows about the violence in Ciudad Juarez, where the drug lords whose power has reached such heights that local police and government are unable to restrain them has created a situation of violence that has left innocent bystanders dead.

The situation is so tense that Mexico had to send the Army in to try to regain control of the city. Texas state officials say the situation is bad in other border towns, including Tijuana and Nogales.

THE NATIVISTS OF our nation want to believe this is somehow reflective of the Mexican society as a whole, when it really is merely reflective of the fact that the drug situation afflicting both nations reaches a particularly tense situation at the point where the two nations meet up.

Head south of the U.S./Mexico border and the situation becomes drastically less violent. When one gets significantly south of those Mexican states along the border (places like Sonora or Tamaulipas), you start to find cities whose cultural amenities make them seriously worth seeing.

In short, anybody who thinks they’re seeing Mexico and enjoying the full cultural experience by visiting Tijuana deserves to get ripped off, or pay way too much money for those tacky, cheap knick-knacks sold as souvenirs to tourists who don’t know any better.

So while I understand there are people whose economic livelihood depends on a certain flow of tourists passing through the border area, I don’t think there’s any real loss to those of us in the United States if we stay away from Matamoros.

IF IT SEEMS like I’m pushing places like Guadalajara (where my maternal grandfather was born) or Cancun, if not Mexico City itself, I’d say they are more what the country is about than the kitchiness on the border.

I don’t consider that to be disrespectful to the nation where my ethnic origins lie. Any place has its parts that are more relevant for outsiders to see than others. Take the United States. Would anyone suggest that an international tourist get the quality U.S. experience by visiting a place such as Truth or Consequences, N.M. (I don’t want to hear about the local spas) or Brownsville, Texas?

There are other places they would want to see in limited time. Anyone wanting to see Mexico on equally limited time shouldn’t be wasting too much time in Tijuana (a place I was in only once, for about two hours, some 36 years ago. My main memory is of peddlers on the streets selling sticks of chewing gum.)

So as long as people keep in mind that this latest advisory from Texas officials is directed specifically to the border region, it is about as sensible a warning as could be issued to parents whose college-age kids are contemplating a trip toTijuana or Rosarito Beach to act stupid for a few days.

BY THE WAY, Mexico tourism officials point out that the murder rate in and near that beach is actually lower than that of New Orleans. Quite a selling point.

The State Department, which issues its warnings of regions around the world that U.S. citizens should avoid, says that Mexico is no more dangerous than any other place on Planet Earth, with the exception of the border towns where people are advised to use “extreme caution” if they happen to be traveling through the area.

So what should we think, other than that those people who want to see this warning as an indictment on all of Mexico are nothing more than nitwits? For the sarcastic streak in me wants to quip that the reason those border cities appear so absurd is because of their proximity to all those Texans and Arizonans.

It seems like the “Wild West” atmosphere that Texans like to think was so colorful on their side of the border is now insanity in Mexico. Perhaps it was never all that cute or colorful in Texas either.

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From: Guanabee

This morning we were amused to read a headline in the New York Times that said, “Tacos in the Morning? That’s the Routine in Austin“. As any of you who are Mexican-American probably know, tortillas are basically bread to Mexicans, so of course they are present at breakfast. They are present at every meal. It’s like saying, “Bread at breakfast?” Well, yeah. It’s called toast. We’re used to that kind of ignorance from Americans, but what really got us all wound up was this line:

When it comes to breakfast tacos, however, Austin trumps all other American cities.

Oh. No. They. Didn’t. Look, America. We love Austin. Some of us choose to make it our homes, we love it so much. But, we’re sorry. Austin did not invent the concept of serving breakfast tacos, nor does it own the title of Best Tasting Breakfast Tacos. Nor does it even own the title of Good Tasting Breakfast Tacos. It may own the title of Creative Breakfast Tacos. Like any modern, progressive American city, Austin took the idea of the breakfast taco, (which, by the way, is owned by the Rio Grande Valley and done very, very well in San Antonio, too.), and figured out how to gringofy it (cover it in cheddar cheese), produce it more efficiently (store-bought tortillas) and re-interpret it five ways to Sunday (our favorite is filled with Texas BBQ). Of course, the SXSW hungover crowd will not know the difference when they dig into some eggs and bacon on a store-bought flour tortilla buried alive in orange cheese. But just know, gringo hipster, that you are eating the McDonald’s version of the breakfast taco.

In the Rio Grande Valley, and in particular Brownsville, where your editor’s experience mostly lies, breakfast tacos are listed alongside oatmeal and eggs and bacon on the menus at Mexican diners that are only open for breakfast and lunch. These have been operating since Tejanos put food to mouth. The tortillas consumed are primarily flour, are always homemade and usually twice the size of your head. There is never, REPEAT NEVER, any cheese involved. The beans, sigh, are cooked in salt pork. You will never taste beans this good again in your life. In the Rio Grande Valley (and most of South Texas including San Antonio) they eat them filled with things like machacado (dried beef), chorizo con huevo (mexican sausage scrambled with eggs–our circle calls it “The Orange” for the orange grease that drips down from it as you lift your taco to your mouth), carne guisada (stewed beef) and papas con huevo (eggs scrambled with potatoes). They melt in your frikkin mouth.

So when you go to Austin, the best thing to do is eat what Austin does best which is innovative Mexican. Like at Bouldin Creek Coffee House where they make this VEGGIE chorizo to die for. We are not vegetarian and we actually used to make special trips from New York just to eat this stuff. They serve it in tortillas with cheese. We get them on corn without cheese and a side of cantaloupe. Mmm.

We have found a place in Austin that makes their beans with salt pork! It’s a little off the beaten path but it’s called Casa Maria and it’s on South First below Ben White. This joint also serves menudo–the breakfast of champions. They also have a panaderia, or Mexican bakery next door.

One of the restaurants listed in the New York Times story, El Chilito, does make good tacos de barbacoa. Barbacoa is a Mexican barbecue that is traditionally eaten on Sunday mornings. Of course, los americanos have made it available every day of the week. Don’t ask what’s in it, but it’s goooood.

Popularity: 5% [?]

From: Latinovations

As the highest-ranking female member on the House Armed Services Committee, I have the opportunity to see first-hand the significant contributions of our women in uniform. Women of all races and ages have served in every military conflict since the Revolutionary War, including our current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But despite their many accomplishments, female servicemembers are not always recognized for their role on the battlefield. Nor do they always receive the tools they need to serve safely and effectively in combat.
I recently had the opportunity to lead an all-female Congressional Delegation to Afghanistan. The primary purpose of our trip was two-fold: to see how women in combat are adapting to their increasing role, and to view the situation in Afghanistan from a woman’s perspective. In addition to meeting with top military officials, including General McChrystal, my colleagues and I were able to visit with female servicemembers to learn about some the unique challenges still facing women in combat.
There are currently over 29,000 women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, yet they continue to encounter barriers not experienced by their male counterparts. Female servicemembers are less likely to be promoted to leadership positions, less likely to receive vital combat training (even though they de facto serve on the front lines), and less likely to have access to women doctors or female-oriented care. But one thing they are more likely to experience is sexual assault or abuse while serving in the Armed Forces.
Last year, the Department of Defense reported a 7.6% increase in the number of sexual assault cases involving military personnel. Part of this increase is accounted for by an increase in the number of victims willing to report their assaults and greater transparency in military reporting procedures. But the underlying issue of sexual assault continues to exist, and female servicemembers continue to be the majority of victims.
When I spoke to women, including Latinas, on the ground in Afghanistan, they said the military has taken significant steps to prevent and prosecute assaults. This is, of course, encouraging. But the reality is that women continue to serve in a military environment that is not always welcoming and is, at times, outright misogynistic. That’s why counselors and rape kits are now common in war zones, and why there is still only one female four-star general in the entire military.
One of my top priorities in Congress has been working with our military leaders to create an inclusive environment for all our women in uniform. In 2005, I successfully revised the Uniform Code of Military Justice to include a meaningful sexual assault statute that better protects victims and empowers prosecutors. And more recently, in the 2009 National Defense Authorization Act, my HASC colleagues and I were able to include a provision to create a sexual assault database, which will document reported cases of assault across the services and encourage greater accountability in each military branch.
Moving forward, we have to continue to expand opportunities for female servicemembers of all races and combat discrimination in all its forms. Sexual abuse and other acts of misogyny violate the core principals of our Armed Forces. The challenges facing female servicemembers – obstacles to promotion, discrimination, and sexual assault – are challenges that affect the strength and integrity of our entire military. Congress and our military leaders must work harder, together, to create a military environment that encourages and supports the women soldiers who serve this country.

Congresswoman Sanchez serves as Vice Chair of the House Homeland Security Committee and is the ranking female member on the House Armed Services Committee. She is a recognized leader on national security, intelligence, and counterterrorism issues and is committed to preparing our Armed Forces for a new generation of security challenges. Rep. Sanchez is also a member of the Blue Dog Democrats, the New Democratic Coalition, and the Congressional Human Rights Caucus. In 2005, Congresswoman Sanchez was appointed by Speaker Pelosi to serve on the Joint Economic Committee (JEC), a bicameral Congressional Committee that continually monitors matters relating to the U.S. economy, including unemployment and foreclosures

Popularity: 7% [?]

From: Ponte Al Dia

They’re being sold on why the merger of the biggest cable TV and residential broadband company in our country with one of the largest television networks and programmers allegedly would be good for the Latino community and the public interest.

The merger would give Comcast unprecedented control over the commanding heights of our nation’s media system. If allowed to go forward, Comcast would own the broadcast networks of NBC and Telemundo, part of at least 30 cable networks, eight regional sports networks, more than two dozen local NBC and Telemundo TV stations and a movie studio.

If this takeover goes through, the control that Comcast would exert over our TV and Internet experiences will be considerable. We can expect cable rates - which already have increased three times the rate of inflation since 1996 - to spike even higher. We can be sure it will be even harder for independent and diverse programming to find a spot in the cable lineup. And we know mergers almost always mean job cuts.

And let’s not kid ourselves. If this merger is rubber-stamped, it won’t be long before we see another wave of mergers among companies like Verizon, AT&T, CBS and Disney. That’s what always happens, even though these deals historically have been disastrous for consumers - and especially for people of color.

Historically, that’s why leading Latino organizations have been very skeptical of runaway media consolidation. When NBC announced its plan to buy Telemundo in 2001, many of our nation’s leading Latino groups opposed the transaction. They urged the FCC to reject the deal, claiming it wouldn’t serve the public interest or promote diversity.

But now that Comcast wants to buy NBC - which includes the Telemundo network - it will make this deal one of the most consequential media mergers in our nation’s history. But Latino civil rights groups have been strangely silent.

A decade ago, NBC made all sorts of promises about how the Telemundo deal would benefit local communities - and then it reneged on them. For starters, it cut the local Telemundo newscast in 2006 in major cities like Dallas, Houston, San Jose and San Antonio after promising to compete against Univision.

It also stated that the deal would “benefit NBC’s English-only audience by creating new possibilities for the cross-fertilization of ideas and viewpoints.” But those benefits never materialized.

Comcast, too, has a long record of making promises it doesn’t keep. For example, after promising to respect collective bargaining deals, it has turned around and busted the unions of companies it has taken over. That’s cold comfort for the union workers at NBC and Telemundo.

And we can’t overlook the programming. During a congressional hearing on Feb. 24, Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) lambasted NBC for the misogynistic and homophobic programming that airs on Telemundo, and he criticized Comcast for not having a single Latino board member.

In that same hearing, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) ripped Comcast for only having one African-American on its board, and took NBC to task for having only one African American and no Latinos among its top executives. Maybe that’s why there’s no black- or Latino-oriented programming on the network.

Comcast wants Congress to believe its’ bad actions are all in the past. But even in sworn testimony to Congress, the company is talking out of both sides of its mouth.

Comcast Chairman and CEO Brian Roberts promised Congress his company would abide by a series of self-imposed “public interest” concessions. But the list of promises they’ve offered is just a bunch of things they’re already doing, things they were already planning to do, or things they’re required to do by law.

It should be noted that Comcast has given generously to support the work of many leading Latino groups. But this does not justify or rectify the damage this merger would cause for consumers, for the public and for our community.

Comcast wants help from Latino groups to push through this mega-deal. But before offering their stamp of approval, we hope Latino leaders will ask some important questions: Will the merger increase cable prices? Will Comcast try to reject labor agreements? Will the merger increase the representation of Latinos on network and cable programming? Will it result in greater Latino ownership of broadcast stations and cable networks? Or will it increase the barriers to ownership?

Will Comcast make sure the open Internet stays that way so that small business can prosper and independent voices can be heard, even though it is in court trying to strip the FCC of its authority to protect an open Internet? Will we be better able to speak for ourselves or will this deal just create an even bigger gatekeeper?

Comcast and NBC Universal will undoubtedly make all sorts of promises about how Latinos would benefit from this massive merger. But they don’t have a believable answer for how this merger will actually benefit our community.

That’s because it won’t.

Felix Sanchez is the chairman of the National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts and Chief Executive Officer of TerraCom, a government and public relations firm. Sanchez does not represent nor is receiving direct or indirect compensation to take a position on the merger.

Joseph Torres is the government relations manager for Free Press and former deputy director of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. Free Press is a nonpartisan, nonprofit group that does not accept money from businesses, the government or political parties.

Popularity: 4% [?]

From: Latina Lista

In 2008, it seemed an odd coincidence that there should be two murders, later deemed hate crimes, of Latino immigrants so close together.

In July 2008, Luis Ramirez was beaten to death in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania. Eventually six people were indicted for his death — four of them police officers.

Four months later in November in Long Island, New York, Marcelo Lucero was stabbed to death by a group of teens on the lookout for “Hispanics.”

Both these high-profile cases aroused an uneasiness, not only in law enforcement, but in advocates for immigrant rights. Could this anti-immigrant sentiment at such a local level be indicative of something bigger?

Now, a new report by the Southern Poverty Law Center titled Rage on the Right: The Year in Hate and Extremism validates those feelings.

According to the report, the number of racist hate groups rose from 926 in 2008 to 932 in 2009.

The increase caps a decade in which the number of hate groups surged by 55 percent.
There also has been a surge in “nativist extremist” groups - vigilante organizations that go beyond advocating strict immigration policy and actually confront or harass suspected immigrants.

These groups grew from 173 groups in 2008 to 309 in 2009, a rise of nearly 80 percent.

That’s not just bad news for immigrant rights groups, law enforcement or immigrant communities, but it’s bad news for every American citizen, especially Latino citizens who fit what these groups think Latinos should look like.

They haven’t figured out that Latinos come in all colors, sizes and accents.

The Southern Poverty Law Center’s report mirrors the findings of the FBI’s annual Hate Crime Statistics survey.

In 2007, the FBI reported that of the 1,347 victims of hate crimes motivated by the offender’s bias towards a particular ethnicity/national origin, 62 percent were Latinos. In 2008, the percentage rose to 65 percent though the overall victim rate fell to 1226.

Statistics for 2009 won’t be published until the fall of 2010.

Yet, people are not waiting around for federal reports to sound the alarm that everyone needs to be aware of the rise of these groups which seem intent to spread fear, mistrust and outright misleading information when it comes to Hispanic immigrants.

Last week at an appearance in Seattle, Washington, Tom Perez, assistant attorney general for the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, stated in an interview that hate crimes against Latinos were on the rise.

Yet, one writer disputed Perez’ claims.

“Robert F. protectionist” writes that Perez got his facts wrong in a piece under the headline “False Picture of Hate Crimes Drawn by Obama Civil Rights Chief.”

According to “Robert,” the 2009 FBI hate crime data doesn’t show an increase at all but a reduction of crimes against Hispanics. He never links to the report but continues to cite a series of itemized areas.

In digging around the report, I found, that in fairness, the figures “Robert” cites do show a slight decrease but don’t dispute the findings in the same report that Latino victimization of hate crimes rose to 65% in 2008 from 62% in 2007.

Yr. Incidents Offenses Victims Offenders

2007 595 775 830 758

2008 561 735 792 711

Also, a comparison of the two years show that the so-called reduction has a long way to go to be considered an improvement of any kind.

“Robert” ends the piece by saying that more “factual details” can be found at the FAIR website. FAIR stands for Federation for American Immigration Reform.

Ironically, FAIR has been identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as being a hate group.

Historically, hate groups have relied on violence to get their convoluted message out to the masses but nowadays, they have learned that words carry just as much weight as a flaming torch and are just as incendiary when facts are distorted enough to get people justifiably mad to speak out.

Recently, in response to a Chicago Sun-Times three-day series on young Latinos in the Chicago area where the web editors had to shut down the comments section because of a flood of racist comments, an op-ed columnist at the paper declared the country had a new pasttime:

“America’s most popular sport is not baseball or football, but immigrant bashing.”

Popularity: 6% [?]