In Spanish: Protests in Atlanta

La Opinion - Los Angeles

Reclamo migrante masivo en Atlanta  3 25 2011

ATLANTA, Georgia (EFE).— Miles de personas se manifestaron ayer frente al Capitolio de Georgia para protestar contra los proyectos antiinmigrantes, similares a la controvertida ley SB1070 deArizona, que impulsa la mayoría republicana en el Legislativo estatal.

La multitudinaria movilización, denominada "Rally por la Verdad", busca poner freno a las leyes HB87 y SB40 que han sido aprobadas por la Cámara de Representantes y el Senadorespectivamente y ahora aguardan por ser conciliadas.

"Esta es una lucha que continúa, es un proceso que apenas empieza y tenemos que prepararnos para lograr el objetivo final que es la reforma migratoria", declaró a medios locales Adelina Nicholls, directora ejecutiva de la Alianza Latina Pro Derechos Humanos de Georgia (GLAHR), una de las agrupaciones que organizó la marcha...mas

Obama on the DREAMers and Deportation

From United We DREAM President Obama Sends A Message to DREAM Youth: My Administration Will Continue to Deport You United We DREAM Network Response   FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE     Contact: Carlos Saavedra National Coordinator  United We Dream  617-459-1935 media@unitedwedream.org  Washington, DC - On Monday night, on Univision network's Latino youth town hall, President Obama said that it wasn't his responsibility to stop the deportation of DREAM Act youth. Just the week before,  on the same television network, he said his administration was not deporting those youth at all. Last Wednesday, Jorge Ramos, of Univision asked the President about his record of deporting more immigrants than President Bush.  The President said,"we have refocused our efforts on those who have engaged in criminal activity." Furthermore, he said, "We aren't going around rounding up students," the President told Ramos last Wednesday, "that is completely false." Then on Monday, Karen Maldonado, a United We Dream (UWD), Education Not Deportation Campaign eligible DREAMer, told the President her story about being rounded up by federal immigration agents, put into prison and then given an order to leave of the country she calls home.  Holding up her deportation order, she asked, "My question for the President is, why (is he) saying that deportations have stopped, or the detention of many students like me? If so, why is it that we are still receiving deportation letters like this one?" Karen is not alone, countless young people who have grown up in America and set to succeed with a college degree or military career are being forced out to the country by the Department of Homeland Security.  Faced by a young person who disproved his claim about his Administration's treatment of these young people, the President now seemed to concede that students and young people eligible for the DREAM Actare being deported and says that it's not his responsibility to change that: "America is a nation of laws, which means I, as the President, am obligated to enforce the law.  I don't have a choice about that.  That's part of my job," he said. When Ramos asked a follow-up question about granting formal administrative relief to undocumented youth, Obama was even more forceful: "There are enough laws on the books by Congress that are very clear in terms of how we have to enforce our immigration system that for me to simply, through executive order, ignore those congressional mandates would not conform with my appropriate role as President." After the program, Ms. Maldonado reacted to the President's response by saying, "I think he wants to help" but "the president kept going in circles. It looks like he did not want to answer my question. I wonder if he is just making this up. He gives us hope but is not doing anything about it". And that is exactly what undocumented youth all over the country have been looking for; ever since the President first spoke in favor of the DREAM Act, hey have been waiting for him to act on his words. It is no longer enough to hear his support, and immigrant youth are prepared to hold the President accountable.  "A week ago, the President assured young immigrants and anchor Jorge Ramos, that students and young immigrants eligible for the DREAM Act were safe," said Maricela Aguilar, an undocumented leader that works with high school youth in Wisconsin and is part of the National Coordinating Committee (NCC) of UWD. But on Monday night, the President acknowledged that his Administration was, in fact, arresting and deporting these young people and shockingly told a high school honors student facing deportation that if she had a problem with it, she could call her Congressman. This was an opportunity for leadership, not a time to play hot potato." "We can only hope that in the months ahead,  the President finds his way and steps up for these young people who all of America agree, deserve an opportunity." said Felipe Matos, another UWD NCC member. "He will be held accountable by our community if we lose (to deportation) even one more of our talented and hard-working youth."

United We Dream: Vision & Mission As a national immigrant youth-led organization, the mission of the United We Dream Network is to achieve equal access to higher education for all people, regardless of immigration status. We aim to address the inequities and obstacles faced by immigrant youth and to develop a sustainable, grassroots movement, led by immigrant youth, documented and undocumented, and children of immigrants. We use leadership development, organizing, policy advocacy, alliance building, training and capacity building to pursue our mission at the local, state and national levels. We believe that all individuals and organizations that wish to be a part of our collective effort can contribute,and can do so in their own way. By acting and leading collectively we can build a movement toward the mission we wish to accomplish. Visit us at www.unitedwedream.org

In Spanish: Wikileaks, Mexico & the U.S.

Dimite el embajador de EE UU en México tras su ruptura con Calderón por los papeles de Wikileaks

Carlos Pascual había dudado en los documentos secretos publicados por EL PAÍS de la capacidad del Ejército mexicano para luchar contra el narcotráfico por su "lentitud y aversión al riesgo"

El Pais/ PABLO ORDAZ | México 20/03/2011

El embajador de Estados Unidos en México, Carlos Pascual, renunció ayer después de intentar sin éxito restablecer las relaciones con el presidente de la República, Felipe Calderón, rotas desde la publicación por EL PAÍS, el 2 de diciembre pasado, de una serie de despachos filtrados por Wikileaks. En ellos, Pascual ponía en duda la capacidad del Ejército mexicano para luchar contra el narcotráfico por su "lentitud y aversión al riesgo". Ayer por la tarde, primeras horas de la madrugada en España, la oficina de la secretaria de Estado estadounidense, Hillary Clinton, emitió un documento en el que señala que, "con gran pesar", el presidente Barack Obama aceptó la renuncia de su embajador en México...mas


El Pais - Consulta el ESPECIAL sobre los papeles del Departamento de Estado de EE UU | Los documentos sobre México y el narcotráfico

"If we lost all our Mexicans, we'd be in big trouble"

Published: March 25, 2011

by Jose Guadalupe Posada (1852-1913)

Mexicans Fill Pews, Even as Church Is Slow to Adapt

By KIRK SEMPLE ---- New York Times

This is the fifth in a series of articles examining the lives and impact of New York City’s fast-growing Mexican population.

 Slide Show

Two years ago, St. Joseph’s Church in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, seemed to be headed for extinction. Attendance at Sunday Masses had fallen below 100. The 159-year-old parish’s buildings were crumbling and its coffers were empty.        

Today, the scaffolding outside bustles with workers. Sundays draw more than 300 worshipers, many of them families with small children. And where the prevailing language heard in the pews was once English, it is now overwhelmingly Spanish, with a Mexican accent.      


As the Roman Catholic Church in the United States struggles with an exodus of American-born faithful, its ranks have been replenished by recent Latino immigrants — most of them Mexicans, who have brought an intense faith and a youthful energy. That buoying effect is especially evident in New York City, where the Mexican population has grown more than 25-fold since 1980...more

More articles on this NYT series:

Mexican New Yorkers Are Steady Force in Workplace

In an Italian Enclave in the Bronx, Signs of Mexico Begin to Show

Immigrant in Run for Mayor, Back Home in Mexico

To Hear Mexican Ballads, Take the D Train

In Spanish: The Popularity of the Narcocorrido - part I

Es un mundo fascinante para mucha gente.  Pero muchos periodistas y autores no se atrevan a escribir sobre este fenómeno. 

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Fascinación por el narco y su vida

Los corridos, con dos siglos de vida, se transformaron en la década del 80 en cantos a la violencia, droga y ‘narcocultura’

• Lucero Amador-Miranda/Lucero.amador@laopinion.com |
• 2011-03-28
• | La Opinión

Primera de una serie de seis partes
Sus hazañas son veneradas. Los han convertido en héroes y su estilo de vida es una provocación a la imitación.


La vida de los narcotraficantes resulta para muchos una verdadera fascinación, y la música que habla de ellos goza de una amplia audiencia y difusión.


El corrido [forma musical y literaria popular] que es un recuento de la historia y sucesos del momento, se transformó de acuerdo con varios investigadores, con el término de narcocorrido. Los corridos de mujeres infieles, hombres valientes y caballos ganadores, quedó un tanto en el olvido.


El narcocorrido es la música de hoy. Cada vez son más los intérpretes de este género. Sus seguidores se suman por miles y las ganancias son millonarias.


Para muchos, el narcocorrido es más que un género musical. Es la crónica de lo que pasa a diario en México y que las autoridades no quieren decir."El narcocorrido es mucho más que la exposición de un género musical o un problema contemporáneo. Es en realidad un viaje, con todos sus matices, al mundo social y cultural de la historia de México", así describió el fenómeno Guillermo Hernández. Sus palabras fueron expuestas en el 2002 tras la publicación del libro ‘Narcocorrido: A Journey into the Music of Drugs, Guns, and Guerrillas’, escrito por Elijah Wald. Hernández, fallecido en el 2006, fue director del Centro de Investigación de Estudios Chicanos de la Universidad del Sur de California (UCLA).


Para el escritor y dramaturgo sinaloense Élmer Mendoza, autor de Balas perdidas [ novela que narra el tema de narcotráfico], esa vida suntuosa de los líderes del narcotráfico, se ha convertido en un atractivo para muchos, especialmente para los jóvenes, aunque no se dediquen o quieran ser narcotraficantes.


"Aunque hay muchos de ellos [jóvenes] que creen que es la manera más fácil de conseguir riqueza y poder", dijo....mas

Have Your Friends Found a Job?

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March 20, 2011 NEW YORK TIMES

Educated, Unemployed and Frustrated

By MATTHEW C. KLEIN

WE all enjoy speculating about which Arab regime will be toppled next, but maybe we should  be looking closer to home. High unemployment? Check. Out-of-touch elites? Check. Frustrated young people? As a 24-year-old American, I can testify that this rich democracy has plenty of those too.


About one-fourth of Egyptian workers under 25 are unemployed, a statistic that is often cited as a reason for the revolution there. In the United States, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in January an official unemployment rate of 21 percent for workers ages 16 to 24.


My generation was taught that all we needed to succeed was an education and hard work. Tell that to my friend from high school who studied Chinese and international relations at a top-tier college. He had the misfortune to graduate in the class of 2009, and could find paid work only as a lifeguard and a personal trainer.  Unpaid internships at research institutes led to nothing.  After more than a year he moved back in with his parents.


Millions of college graduates in rich nations could tell similar stories. In Italy, Portugal and Spain, about one-fourth of college graduates under the age of 25 are unemployed. In the United States, the official unemployment rate for this group is 11.2 percent, but for college graduates 25 and over it is only 4.5 percent.


The true unemployment rate for young graduates is most likely even higher because it fails to account for those who went to graduate school in an attempt to ride out the economic storm or fled the country to teach English overseas. It would be higher still if it accounted for all of those young graduates who have given up looking for full-time work, and are working part time for lack of any alternative.


The cost of youth unemployment is not only financial, but also emotional. Having a job is supposed to be the reward for hours of SAT prep, evenings spent on homework instead of with friends and countless all-nighters writing papers. The millions of young people who cannot get jobs or who take work that does not require a college education are in danger of losing their faith in the future. They are indefinitely postponing the life they wanted and prepared for; all that matters is finding rent money. Even if the job market becomes as robust as it was in 2007 — something economists say could take more than a decade — my generation will have lost years of career-building experience.


It was simple to blame Hosni Mubarak for the frustrations of Egypt’s young people — he had been in power longer than they had been alive. Barack Obama is not such an easy target; besides his democratic legitimacy, he is far from the only one responsible for the weakness of the recovery. In the absence of someone specific to blame, the frustration simply builds.


As governments across the developed world balance their budgets, I fear that the young will bear the brunt of the pain: taxes on workers will be raised and spending on education will be cut while mortgage subsidies and entitlements for the elderly are untouchable. At least the Saudis and Kuwaitis are trying to bribe their younger subjects.


The uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa are a warning for the developed world. Even if an Egyptian-style revolution breaking out in a rich democracy is unthinkable, it is easy to recognize the frustration of a generation that lacks opportunity. Indeed, the “desperate generation” in Portugal got tens of thousands of people to participate in nationwide protests on March 12. How much longer until the rest of the rich world follows their lead?

Matthew C. Klein is a research associate at the Council on Foreign Relations. link

Color my candy RED

Food dyes’ favor fades as possible links to hyperactivity emerge

By Lyndsey Layton, Friday, March 25, 9:47 PM - Washington Post

Push a cart down a supermarket aisle, and you’ll pass a kaleidoscope of color. The use of artificial dyes by foodmakers is up by half since 1990, and it’s not limited to candy. The list of foods made pretty by chemicals now includes pickles, bagels and port wine cheese balls.

“Americans are really turned on by a bright-red strawberry juice, and they think it’s natural,” said Kantha Shelke, co-president of the food research firm Corvus Blue. “Or cheese — cheese is naturally a pale color, but most young kids will not eat cheese unless it’s a bright, almost fluorescent orange.”


Foodmakers have used dyes since ancient times to make food more appealing to the eye. But the practice has so invaded the modern psyche that artificial dyes are being used even on some pet foods. Dogs see limited color, but apparently their owners don’t like buying dull, gray chow., federal regulators are reexamining artificial ingredients they have long deemed to be safe, prompted by scientific studies suggesting that color additives might be linked to hyperactivity in children and other health effects. On Wednesday, an advisory panel to the Food and Drug Administration will begin a two-day meeting to discuss the science behind artificial dyes and whether the government ought to restrict their use.


“There are sometimes nine different dyes in a food product,” said Laura Anderko of Georgetown University Medical Center, who serves on the Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee for the Environmental Protection Agency. “Moms and dads will say, ‘Here’s a fruit roll-up — that must be healthy.’ But it’s filled with dyes. And emerging science suggests it’s a harm to children.”


Two recent studies sponsored by the British government found that children given foods made with some artificial dyes and a food preservative, sodium benzoate, showed an increase in hyperactivity. The study sampled children in the general population, not just those known to show hyperactive behavior.


The studies remain controversial, with some scientists skeptical about the links that can be drawn.


“At first glance, a study may appear to show an association, but when you consider other important factors that could be responsible for the results, such as gender, maternal education level, pretrial diet and other factors, it becomes impossible to affirm that the change in behavior was due to food colors,” said Keith Ayoob, director of the nutrition clinic at the Rose F. Kennedy Children’s Evaluation and Rehabilitation Center at Albert Einstein College of Medicine...more 

Thanks to Ocean Spray Cranberry Juice

I bought a bottle of the juice and found they have taken out the High Fructose Corn Syrup!  --- Makes me think that protest by NOT BUYING certain products actually works...

Now we should think of other ways to influence our lives, since we seem to have such little control over what our Congress does....

Listen to the New Arab World

The New York Times has posted articles on number of young people from the Middle East.... Its worth reading

Bullets Stall Youthful Push for Arab Spring

By MICHAEL SLACKMAN New York Times

Published: March 17, 2011    

MANAMA, Bahrain — These days, Muhammad al-Maskati is a prisoner in his apartment, his BlackBerry shut off by the government, the streets outside his apartment filled with tanks, the hospitals around town packed with the wounded.

Mr. Maskati is a 24-year-old human rights activist who not long ago felt so close to achieving Egypt’s kind of peaceful revolution, through a dogged commitment to nonviolence. Then the Saudi tanks rolled into Bahrain, and protesters came under attack, the full might of the state hammering at unarmed civilians...more      

link to more photos

In Spanish: Peter King's Anti-Immigration Movement

Crece clima antiinmigrante en California

Peter King fomenta las llamas del odio contra migrantes y musulmantes, señaló la directora ejecutiva de la Coalición Pro Derechos Humanos del Inmigrante en Los Ángeles.

• Notimex |
• 2011-03-10
• | La Opinión

• Arizona apunta contra los inmigrantes
• Denuncian programa antiinmigrante

México, 10 Mar. (Notimex).- En California se observa un creciente clima antiinmigrante, lo mismo que antimusulmán, que deben ser combatidos para evitar actos de intolerancia y por el bien de la convivencia social, señaló Angélica Salas.
La directora ejecutiva de la Coalición Pro Derechos Humanos del Inmigrante en Los Ángeles (CHIRLA, por sus siglas en inglés) se dijo preocupada por la consulta que realizará el representante republicano Peter King.
Explicó en entrevista que el representante, en su calidad de presidente del Comité de Seguridad Interna, convocó a una audiencia en la Cámara de Representantes para analizar lo que él llama la “radicalización” de la comunidad musulmana.
El representante King fomenta las llamas del odio, señaló Salas, al recordar que él mismo ha propuesto y apoyado varias medidas antiinmigrantes, incluyendo el muro eléctrico en la frontera.
Otras medidas similares se han fomentado contra otros grupos minoritarios en temas como las redadas en lugares de empleo, el sistema E-Verify y ahora se intenta acosar por razones de fe, cosa que resulta intolerable.
La xenofobia contra los musulmanes va en aumento en California, lo mismo que contra los inmigrantes. Someter a juicio a estudiantes musulmanes por mostrar públicamente su fe es un fenómeno parecido a cuando se somete a manifestantes en apoyo al Dream Act, apuntó.
Estas audiencias promovidas por un representantes que antes ha propiciado acciones contra inmigrantes indocumentados no proponen soluciones justas, humanitarias y prácticas, sino que buscan sembrar el miedo, agregó.
La audiencia de este jueves busca solamente lograr una falsa uniformidad en la sociedad, en lugar de proponer un diálogo entre culturas que enriquezca a Estados Unidos y lo haga avanzar de verdad.
Es vergonzoso, añadió Salas, que el representante King “tenga que montar este teatrito” y no haga el mínimo esfuerzo por “agregar una pizca de civismo al diálogo” en lugar de fomentar la xenofobia que ya afecta a los inmigrantes latinos y ahora a los musulmanes.

México, 10 Mar. (Notimex).- En California se observa un creciente clima antiinmigrante, lo mismo que antimusulmán, que deben ser combatidos para evitar actos de intolerancia y por el bien de la convivencia social, señaló Angélica Salas.


La directora ejecutiva de la Coalición Pro Derechos Humanos del Inmigrante en Los Ángeles (CHIRLA, por sus siglas en inglés) se dijo preocupada por la consulta que realizará el representante republicano Peter King...mas

No More Arizonas - For Now

State Legislatures Slow on Immigration Measures

By JULIA PRESTON - New York Times

Published: March 13, 2011

Under newly fortified Republican control, many state governments started the year pledging forceful action to crack down on illegal immigration, saying they would fill a void left by the stalemate in Washington over the issue.

Gov. Susana Martinez of New Mexico says she will continue to push for a repeal of a state law that grants driver’s li- censes to illegal immigrants. The State Senate de- feated a bill she supported.

Related

• Times Topics: Immigration and Emigration | Arizona Immigration Law (SB 1070)

Now, with some legislatures winding down their sessions, the lack of consensus that has immobilized Congress has shown up in the legislatures as well, and has slowed — but not stopped — the advance of bills to penalize illegal immigrants.


No state has passed a law that replicates the one adopted last April in Arizona, which greatly expanded the powers of police officers ...more

In Spanish: Japan Earthquake March 2011

Japón lucha para controlar los daños en la central de Fukushima

FERRAN BALSELLS/ AGENCIAS - El Pais

El riesgo de una fuga obliga a evacuar a 45.000 personas y crear un perímetro de seguridad de 20 km alrededor de las dos plantas afectadas.- La agencia de seguridad nuclear japonesa descarta daños en el reactor.-El Gobierno admite una "mínima cantidad" de radiación..mas

"Lo peor que puede pasar es que se funda el núcleo"

Manuel Fernández Ordóñez, doctor en Física Nuclear, analiza la explosión en la central nuclear de Fukushima

RAFAEL MÉNDEZ - Madrid - 12/03/2011 - El Pais

Sigue en Eskup el minuto a minuto de la situación en Japón

Manuel Fernández Ordóñez lleva 24 horas siguiendo la confusa información sobre la central nuclear de Fukushima. "No sabemos exactamente qué está pasando, hay mucha información confusa", explica Fernández Ordóñez. Pero aún así ya se puede hacer una recapitulación de lo que ha pasado y de lo que puede llegar a pasar...mas

Houston When Will You Remember?

About a year ago there was an article in the Houston paper talking about how downtown Market Square was going to be renovated.  Part of this project was to highlight Houston's Nineteenth Century history.  One thing it seems the planners forgot was that Market Square was also the location of a slave market.  The same for downtown Galveston...

Even our famous Sugar Land, where before the Civil War there were more slaves than almost anywhere else in Texas...at City Hall there is a yellow brick road leading from a fountain that symbolizes the Brazos River to the steps of the city's main administrative building.  Very little is mentioned of the 150 slaves that build up the sugar refinery in the Terry Plantation that was in its zenith in 1861.

Thank goodness somebody is thinking about these things - in Charleston, South Carolina....

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Emancipating History

 CHARLESTON, S.C. — Here, in this lovely town, once one of the most prosperous in the American colonies, there is no escape.

 Click for Photos

In the Old Slave Mart Museum that opened in 2007, you read: “You’re standing in the actual showroom, the place where traders sold — and buyers bought — American blacks who were born into slavery.”


Or go to Drayton Hall, a local plantation hewn out of the Low Country landscape by hundreds of slaves, who also made its rice fields so profitable. At a clearing in the woods near the entrance, you see an information panel and a memorial arch: this was a “burying ground,” used at least as early as the 1790s, where the plantation’s slaves buried their dead.


Or drive to Boone Hall, another local plantation, which you approach through an avenue of moss-draped ancient oaks that leads visitors to the main house: you see a row of rare brick slave dwellings, placed so no visitor could have missed the immense wealth in human chattel. At one time, these one-room homes were joined by others on each side of the road, creating corridors of the enslaved, ushering guests to the master’s domain.


Or walk into the almost Italianate backyard of the Aiken-Rhett House in town, in which William Aiken Jr., who served as South Carolina’s governor, lived in the mid-19th century. Listen to the audio tour explaining that this was a work yard, and that such yards “were part of every town house in Charleston in the first half of the 19th century and were the domain of slaves.”


The house, together with the yards, we learn, “is referred to as an urban plantation.” And though Aiken was, by all accounts, an enlightened master (and an opponent of South Carolina’s secession), he was also the third-largest slaveholder in South Carolina.

Slavery and its heritage are everywhere here. Charleston was one of the main colonial ports of the 18th century, dealing in rice, indigo and slaves. In 1860 South Carolina held as many slaves as Georgia and Virginia, which were at least twice its size. The genteel grace and European travels of its wealthy citizens were made possible by the enslavement of about half the population...more       

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Bringing back McCarthy?

Rep. Keith Ellison

Link to Video - Rep Ellison's response to Rep Peter King

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On Religion - NY Times

Muslims on Capitol Hill Find Hearings Dispiriting

By SAMUEL G. FREEDMAN

Published: March 11, 2011    

One otherwise innocuous day of his childhood, Suhail A. Khan clicked the family television onto an episode of “Schoolhouse Rock.” The screen filled with a drawing of the Capitol Building in Washington, the American flag flapping above the portico. On the steps hunched a rolled-up piece of paper that, in cartoon style, had limbs, a face and a voice...more