Hispanic voters turned out in droves last fall to elect Barack Obama and his Democratic allies on Capitol Hill.
Those allies get their first chance to return the favor on Wednesday when the House takes up a children’s health care measure that would grant Medicaid coverage to children of new immigrants whose families came to the U.S. legally.
The immigration status of Treasury nominee Timothy Geithner’s former housekeeper might dominate the headlines, but this House vote has a much deeper impac
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The Latino presence in the suburban political arena will take an important role in this spring’s Municipal Elections. Eira Corral, a seventeen year resident of the Village of Hanover Park, IL and community organizer is running for the Village’s open seat for Village Clerk. With over thirty percent of Latino residents, the municipality has the tenth largest Latino community outside of the City of Chicago and has the youngest demographic composition in the Northwest suburbs.
"Hanover Park is a y
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During the presidential election, Latino voters provided strong support to then-candidate Barack Obama as he promised immigration reform. But the nation's economic crisis has now taken center stage, with many Latinos wondering if he can deliver on his campaign promise. READ FULL STORY & HEAR AUDIORead more…
Robert Rose remembers when he first pitched advertisers the idea of an English language show about Latino culture.
"They were not receptive at all," says the founder and executive producer of LATV Networks, which produces the "American Latino TV" and "LatiNation TV" shows.
Advertisers "were loyal to the Univision model, which was that to reach Latinos, you had to do it in Spanish. Everyone had been saying the same thing for 25 years."
This was more than seven years ago, when Univision was st
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Ricardo Montalban, the Mexican-born actor who made only three Broadway appearances, earning a Best Actor Tony nomination for Jamaica, but who landed big on film and TV, died Jan. 14 at his Los Angeles home, according to published reports.
He was 88, and widely known for playing the charming, godlike Mr. Roarke, whose magical machinations fulfilled wishes on TV's "Fantasy Island." READ FULL STORYRead more…
The latest New Yorker of the Week has been a health advocate in the Latino community for the past 40 years and is not stopping anytime soon. NY1's Michael Scotto filed the following report.
Six months ago, Stephanie Edwards says she was acting out, doing poorly in school and trying to commit suicide. She says she has changed her life, thanks to "Life Is Precious," a program in East Tremont, Bronx created by Dr. Rosa Gil to combat the alarming rate of suicide amongst Latina teenagers. READ FULLRead more…
Victoria Vergara possesses a third-grade education and the confident voice of a natural leader.
She makes beds and cleans bathrooms for a living but tells her daughters that the U.S.A. is a country "where you can fly if you want to." After listening to her tell her story in her humble home in West Adams, I was inclined to agree. READ FULL STORYRead more…
Several minority internship programs targeting African Americans, Hispanics, Asians, and Native Americans are now welcoming applications for 2009. The internships will take place in various cities across the country during the spring, summer, fall, and winter seasons.
The programs are being administered by a combination of major corporations, non-profit organizations, and government agencies. Many of the opportunities offer compensation for students, and some will even pay for a student's trave
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The selection, and seeming consideration, of nothing but white males for three high-profile political positions has prompted substantial backlash from Colorado's Latino political and business leaders who feel left out and ignored at a time of nearly unprecedented state and local political change.
"This will have legs down the road, I swear to God it will," said former Democratic state Sen. Paul Sandoval. READ FULL STORYRead more…
A gay farmworker in Salinas was tired of fellow employees teasing him. A UC Santa Cruz student needed help paying his bills because relatives opposed his sexual orientation and would not help him out.
Abel Murillo, director of the Diversity Center's new Latino Outreach Program, talked to the Salinas man's boss to quell the intimidation and is working to solve the student's financial problems. READ FULL STORYRead more…
Amalia Dominguez was 18 and desperate and knew exactly what to ask for at the small, family-run pharmacy in the heart of Washington Heights, the thriving Dominican enclave in northern Manhattan. "I need to bring down my period," she recalled saying in Spanish, using a euphemism that the pharmacist understood instantly.
It was 12 years ago, but the memory remains vivid: She was handed a packet of pills. They were small and white, $30 for 12. Dominguez, two or three months pregnant, went to a fr
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Bill Richardson's withdrawal from his commerce secretary nomination Sunday didn't just leave a major gap in the new administration, but it also sorely disappointed Latinos who view the New Mexico governor as their most prominent representative.
"We are hugely disappointed. It's a stunned community out there," said Janet Murguía, president and CEO of the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), the largest national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States. READ FULL STORYRead more…
After the withdrawal of Bill Richardson's name as an Obama administration Cabinet nominee, Hispanic leaders say they expect the president-elect to name another Latino to head the Commerce Department.
An Obama transition team source said a veteran California congressman, Xavier Becerra, has emerged as the leading congressional candidate to replace Richardson, the Hispanic governor of New Mexico, as President-elect Barack Obama's choice for a job that will include overseeing the 2010 U.S. Census
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Sonia Espinoza crowded among a group of parents yesterday, darted across a room and raced to retrieve her shoe to get a gift for her son from the three wise men.
"It reminded me of when I was little," Espinoza said of a game she played as a girl in Puerto Rico when her family celebrated the day the trio is said to have visited the baby Jesus with gifts. READ FULL STORYRead more…
Two mortgage brokerage companies must compensate 445 black and Hispanic borrowers who were systematically charged higher fees than white clients.
HCI Mortgage and Consumer One Mortgage must pay $665,000 in restitution, according to a settlement between the companies and the state Attorney General.
The state sued the mortgage firms after an investigation of GreenPoint Mortgage Funding, a unit of Capital One Financial, uncovered the discriminatory practices. READ FULL STORYRead more…
Singers Marc Anthony and Paulina Rubio are among entertainers slated to perform at the upcoming Latino Inaugural Gala in Washington, organizers said.
Also confirmed to participate in the Jan. 18 festivities at Union Station are Rosario Dawson, Tony Plana, War, Cucu Diamantes & Yerba Buena, Elida Reyna and Mariachi Los Camperos de Nati Cano. READ FULL STORYRead more…
An Arkansas rice mill has agreed to pay $350,000 after the federal government found the company discriminated against hundreds of women and non-Hispanic job applicants.
The U.S. Labor Department announced that Producers Rice Mill Inc., based in Stuttgart, discriminated against 246 females and 363 non-Hispanics who were seeking work as machine operators or laborers with the farmer-owned cooperative. The Labor Department alleged the cooperative engaged in hiring discrimination over 2004 and 2005.
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California Rep. Joe Baca has long pushed legislation he said would "open the doors to the American Dream" for first-time home buyers in his largely Hispanic district. For many of them, those doors have slammed shut, quickly and painfully.
Mortgage lenders flooded Mr. Baca's San Bernardino, Calif., district with loans that often didn't require down payments, solid credit ratings or documentation of employment. Now, many of the Hispanics who became homeowners find themselves mired in the nationa
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New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson is withdrawing his nomination to be commerce secretary, citing the distraction of a federal investigation into ties to a company that has done business with his state.
Two Democratic officials told CNN the investigation involves a California company that won municipal bond business in New Mexico after contributing money to various Richardson causes.
In a statement Sunday, Richardson said he asked Obama "not to move forward" with his nomination now. READ FULL STRead more…
Being an illegal immigrant doesn’t make someone a criminal—that’s a distinction Elizabeth Young hopes to hammer home to Arkansas residents.
“It’s not a crime to be here undocumented,” Young says. “It’s a civil issue.”
As director of the University of Arkansas’ new immigration law clinic, she’ll lead students helping clients through the dense web of regulations governing those coming to the United States. The new clinic, which opens in early January, comes after Arkansas became home to one of t
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