As a young teenager in the 1980s, Maggie Burgos was depressed and cutting herself. Burgos, of Rochester, now 36, survived her suicide attempts, but several years later when her oldest daughter, Soraya Lopez, hit her teenage years, Lopez was plagued by the same feelings of depression and loneliness.
Lopez, now 19, said she would isolate herself in her room. "She (Burgos) didn't know how to deal with me being isolated," recalled Lopez.
The two Latina women are now helping lead a local anti-suici
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Eva Guzman made history by becoming the first Latina to be sworn in to the state's high court Monday.
"For this day I have prayed, I have dreamed, and I have worked," Justice Guzman said. "Texas is a great state. America is a wonderful country. Anything is possible. Never give up, set your goals high, dream big."
Prior to her appointment to the Texas Supreme Court, Guzman was an associate justice on the 14th Court of Appeals. She was also recognized by the Hispanic National Bar Association as
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They met 30 years ago, when he was a junior lawyer in the US Justice Department in Washington and she was a George Washington University Law School student with a summer internship in his unit.
Yesterday, Eric H. Holder Jr., the nation’s first black attorney general, swore in Carmen Milagros Ortiz as the first woman and Hispanic US attorney in Massachusetts. The ceremony was held at the John Joseph Moakley Courthouse before hundreds of judges, dignitaries, lawyers, and supporters of Ortiz.
“H
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Posted by HispanicPro on January 14, 2010 at 2:08pm
A new study of state flagship universities says that while the University of Texas has increased minority and low-income student enrollment, it still has a long way to go to reflect the state's changing demographics.
The study by The Education Trust, a nonprofit group based in Washington, D.C., examined the most prestigious public universities because those schools are often the wealthiest, have higher research contributions and train future state leaders.
"Enrollments at flagship state univer
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Posted by HispanicPro on January 14, 2010 at 1:58pm
Conducted by the Pew Research Center between the end of October and the end of November a poll covering several different aspects of race and race relations has shown that while the majority of African-Americans believe that more still needs to be done to address racial discrimination in the U.S., 81 percent to be precise, increasing numbers are optimistic about the future, 53 percent believing the future will be better for them, 44 percent having felt that way in 2007.
Furthermore 39 percent
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Posted by HispanicPro on January 14, 2010 at 1:49pm
MIT must do a better job recruiting and retaining black and Hispanic faculty, who have a significantly more difficult time getting promoted than white and Asian colleagues, according to a frank internal study released today by the university.
In some departments, such as chemistry, mathematics, and nuclear science and engineering, no minorities have been hired in the last two decades, according to the report, which was more than two years in the making.
MIT's first comprehensive study of facul
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A $300,000 federal grant will allow a Forest Grove nonprofit to expand its organic agriculture project and train Latino farmers from throughout Washington and Yamhill counties.
Adelante Mujeres will use the money from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to lease 12 acres from a Forest Grove landowner, mentor farmers and expand sales of produce to area farmers markets.
Adelante Mujeres is the sole Oregon recipient of the grant, which is to be distributed over three years.
"Many Latinos grew up
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Once a month, Rosa Lopez lined up with her youngest child in tow for free food at a San Jose charity. Cheerful volunteers gave them grocery bags with bread, soup cans, rice, peanut butter and a few vegetables. Gracias, goodbye, see you next time.
But this dreary hunger routine changed for the better when she met a stocky, middle-age Latino professional who lived nearby. He had come to the charity with novel idea: In a city blessed with sunshine, he wanted to teach poor families like hers how to
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Technology is now in all existing fields of life. The immigration phenomena for long considered as an issue tossed to the back burner of the U.S. political agenda, is no exception. Curiously, now that there is a more tangible effort to advance towards an immigration system overhaul, is when more devices and applications are being used in aid of undocumented immigrants.
From a cell phone that includes a GPS system that guides those sneaking into the U.S. to water reservoirs, so they don’t die de
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The middle is what holds Los Angeles together.
Not too rich, not too poor. Right in the middle of the curve -- a place that doesn't inspire much passion.
But without the middle class, what is Los Angeles?
Imagine a metropolis where all the homes have either iron bars on the windows or walls and guards to keep away the riffraff. A city of castes. Gated communities and gangland, with nothing in between.
In other words, a Third World city.
With our economy in the dumps and public services and
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The back wall of the sanctuary of Iglesia Cristiana Pentecostal Church of Orlando in Pine Hills is lined with the flags of the Hispanic congregation: Puerto Rico, Brazil, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Venezuela, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Cuba, Haiti and Texas.
The flags speak to the spread of Pentecostalism throughout the world and, in particular, Latin nations. The Pentecostal faith, which holds that the miracles of the Bible are still happening today, is proliferating among Hispanics, many of w
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Less than a year after becoming the first Hispanic to reach the rank of captain in the Lake County Sheriff's Office, Gerry Montalvo has been promoted to major.
Montalvo rise to major was one of several promotions recognized in a sheriff's ceremony at Lake Tech's Institute of Public Safety this month.
Maj. Montalvo, 43, will now oversee the bureaus of criminal investigations, special investigations and uniform patrol.
"I'm very honored by the trust Sheriff Borders has put in me," said Montalvo
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Almost six out of 10 Texas public schoolchildren hail from low-income families, marking a troubling spike in poverty over the last decade, a new state report finds.
The increase coincides with a significant jump in the number of Hispanic students, while fewer Anglo students were enrolled last year than 10 years ago, according to the study by the Texas Education Agency. Schools also are educating many more children whose primary language is not English.
The rapidly changing makeup of the Texas
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Women cry, laugh and reminisce as they scribble their personal histories as immigrants onto loose-leaf paper in a Highland Park church basement during a writing workshop designed to help boost their creativity and self-esteem.
The participants – mostly Latinas from Highland Park and Highwood – spend hours discussing the stories in Spanish over cookies and coffee, then painstakingly edit and rewrite them. At the end of 10 weekly sessions, they’ll compile their favorite pieces.
Instructors hope
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Procter & Gamble has stepped up its efforts to reach Hispanic consumers in the US by creating versions of its top laundry detergent brands aimed specifically at recent Latin American immigrants in southern US states.
The initiative reflects a pledge by Bob McDonald, P&G's new chief executive, to increase the company's sales to Hispanic and African American consumers in the US as part of a global push to boost sales at the world's largest consumer goods company.
In recent months, P&G has begun
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President Barack Obama is on track to name more Hispanics to top posts than any of his predecessors, drawing appointees from a wide range of the nation's Latino communities, including Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans and Colombians.
That won't necessarily give the president a free pass on issues such as immigration, but it may ease Hispanics' worries about whether Obama will continue reaching out to a group that was key to his winning the White House.
Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor i
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While Facebook is under fire for disclosing more data about its users to the public, Facebook is also touting that data about its users shows that they are increasingly diverse, with a racial and ethnic breakdown that nearly mirrors the overall diversity of the U.S. population, according to a blog entry posted on the social networking site on Wednesday.
While Facebook users in the U.S. were primarily white and Asian in the beginning of 2006, blacks and Latinos are increasingly joining the sit
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Latinos believe education and hard work are key to a successful future, but they are more likely than other young people to drop out of school and live in poverty, according to a new Pew Hispanic Center study being released today.
The study, based on a survey of more than 1,200 Latinos ages 16 to 25 and an analysis of census data, presents a portrait of the assimilation of a rapidly growing segment of the U.S. population, one that will have a significant effect on the nation's politics and econ
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Promising change after eight George Bush and Republican dominated years, Barack Obama won the most sweeping non-incumbent victory in over 50 years along with congressional Democrats gaining large House and Senate majorities. In addition, at 56.8%, voter turnout was the highest since Richard Nixon's "secret plan" to end the Vietnam war and his "Southern" and "law and order" strategies beat Hubert Humphrey and independent George Wallace in 1968.
On election night, the mood celebrated hope for pro
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In rural, conservative Tulare County, Democratic Party activist Ruben Macareno has one wish after the recent skirmish to pick California's new Assembly speaker.
"I hope the struggle is over, and it was an amicable one," Macareno said.
He's worried that a bad aftertaste from the contest – which had a Latino vying against a Latino – could spoil his mission to galvanize Latino voters in a region where they're underrepresented politically.
"In Los Angeles, or other parts of the state that are b
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