By Justin Sink, The Hill

Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) issued an apology Thursday after using the term “wetbacks” to describe Latino workers on his family farm.

“During a sit down interview with Ketchikan Public Radio this week, I used a term that was commonly used during my days growing up on a farm in Central California. I know that this term is not used in the same way nowadays and I meant no disrespect,” Young said in a statement to the Alaska Dispatch.

Young made the comment during an interview with KRDB-FM radio in Alaska about the current immigration reform legislation being debated in Congress.

Click on picture top read full story.

[Photo courtesy donyoung.house.gov]

Related stories:

Republican Rep. Don Young refers to Latinos using racial slur, Washington Post

By Al Dia Editorial Staff

A deeply troubling piece of journalism and an equally troubling publishing decision by Philadelphia Magazine is garnering lots of attention. From all of us.

The cover story of Philadelphia Magazine’s latest issue is garnering a lot of attention. It’s been the subject of an official four-page letter by the mayor, calling it out for its negative portrayal of race relations in the City of Brotherly Love. The article even prompted a summit of sorts at the National Constitution Center, bringing together the magazine’s editor and the writer of the incendiary piece with members of the African American and Latino communities. Add to it that both Philadelphia Weekly and we —a member of Philadelphia’s ethnic media — have tweaked Philly mag’s cover for our own.

“Being White in Philly” is a deeply troubling piece, and an equally troubling publishing decision.

It’s possible that the author of “Being White in Philly,” Robert Huber, believes his piece has achieved something new by focusing the article about race relations on this: “white people have become afraid to say anything at all about race.” His editor, Tom McGrath, certainly makes the case that the article breaks new ground with this approach. He also implies there is journalistic bravery in this, given that the magazine has no people of color as full time editorial staff.

New ground? Bravery? Let’s call it what it is: fear of “the other” and journalistic arrogance.

To begin with, there is nothing at all novel or groundbreaking about white people’s take on race relations. The mainstream media is a very white place, particularly when you look at the ranks of editors, executive editors and publishers. Unless you are reading or getting your news from an ethnic media source, chances are what you are seeing and reading is being vetted, assigned or okayed, and filtered through white journalists. This is nothing to celebrate or crow about. When Philadelphia Magazine specifies that they are an all white newsroom running a story about how bad race relations are in the city, and in which only white people are quoted … it begins to resemble those court dramas where it’s clear the defendant won’t get a fair trial because neither jury nor judge consider him/her a peer.

Further, it is disingenuous for anyone with internet access to claim that whites — in Philadelphia or anywhere else — don’t make known how they think, or what they believe, about race relations. The blogosphere and twitterverse are alive with white people who write about race specifically in a way to counter what they call “P.C. policing” as well as those with more considered takes. Talk radio and TV are full of white commentators who are not the least bit shy in talking about race usually, it has to be said, to the detriment of people of color and the president we overwhelmingly supported for reelection.

Plenty of people have posited that the decision to run the incendiary story was made with an eye to putting the somnolent and increasingly irrelevant magazine in the spotlight again. We couldn’t care less about whether the choice was a brilliant marketing move or not, the magazine has consciously inserted itself into the news. Worse, the article has encouraged an outpouring of unabashedly racist comments on the web site. It’s impossible to believe McGrath and Huber are so innocent they couldn’t have predicted that.

Now, about the article itself…

It conflates race and criminality, which is bog standard racist and xenophobic fare. Horror stories of escalation of crime as white neighborhoods “change” has long been code for the “more-people-of-color-more-crime” mindset, and the efforts and desire to keep “the other” out. In an article about race from a white point of view, the focus on criminality serves only one purpose. It insulates the interviewees of charges of bias — because they’re reacting to crime, not race. Except, of course, that only white people in the neighborhood are interviewed. Because the article is about race not about crime. Got that?

The Gordian Knot Huber ties himself into when writing this piece just gets tighter and tighter as the piece progresses.

Even the most sympathetic of voices Huber allows in his piece ends up offering insult. A young mother asserts that getting to know your neighbors and your community is the most crucial aspect of building good relationships between races. In that, she echoes what community organizers of all races say. But then this: she is quoted as recalling a moment when she really connected with the neighborhood’s children at the swimming pool. Seeing her teaching her young child to swim makes the other young people in the pool engage with her, and later, model their actions to hers. Huber is so tone deaf he doesn’t recognize that he’s written this anecdote very much as a “white savior” moment — essentially when all the “motherless” children see what it is to have a mother in the pool with them and then model themselves on the nice white lady.

The offense in this Philadelphia Magazine piece was mostly directed at African Americans, but we stand beside them in condemning it for reinforcing notions of people of color as the scary “other.” As journalists we call out Huber for shoddy journalism, and McGrath for his unadulterated hubris in thinking of opening up this discussion with only white voices.

This article was first published in Al Dia.

[Image by Al Dia]

By Dr. Herny Flores, NewsTaco

I’ve been watching the discussions over immigration reform and the civil rights movement for a number of years.  I began reading about racism while I was still in the Army.  I remember getting into trouble as a young Second Lieutenant for having a copy of Eldridge Cleaver’s “Soul on Ice.”  Cleaver was a Black Panther who had written a collection of essays on race and racism while in prison and military officials did not want these sorts of ideas to infect the troops.  I was reading it because it was the New York Times  bestseller lists and my family used to send me some of these titles every now and then because they knew I loved to read.

I guess I was “infected” by some of Cleaver’s thoughts because I concluded that I had been a victim of racism for years and had not realized it.  My family had tried everything to protect me against it during the early stages of my life.  They sacrificed to get me the best education they could afford, made me go through Catholic parochial schools (there was supposed to be less discrimination there) for two reasons.  One, I was going to get a decent foundational education and I was going to learn how to live with white people.  I accomplished both goals.  Yet looking back I now see how I had been “raced” several times by the nuns, teaching brothers and priests, and my fellow white students and never noticed.

Something similar is occurring these days.  Latinos are being “raced” and not paying too much attention to it.  The main reason we are never aware of the racism or the act of being “raced” is because of the manner in which it’s carried out.

In our parent’s days and before, racism was very overt.  Mexican children were sent to Mexican schools regardless of status, Mexicans were served either at the back door of restaurants or denied service altogether, Mexican men had separate public restrooms (never could determine where the mujeres went), and certain occupations were deemed Mexican.

My parents and grandparents, when they went to school, were never given any idea that there was anything beyond high school other than hard work and living and raising a family in the neighborhoods where they lived.  Some were aware that they were being discriminated against but it took the GI Generation Latinos fresh from World War II to begin making a difference.  Those guys, veteranos, returned to their neighborhoods expecting more having lived under a much different set of social rules.  They went to school, not all of them of course, bought homes, got civil service work and sent the first generational wave of children to college, my generation.

The racial rhetoric we faced changed.  We were still Mexicans behind our backs.  I actually heard a white banker, now deceased, say that about Henry Cisneros behind his back at a social function.   I know some say the same thing about Julian and Joaquin Castro but these cowards would never say something like that in public.

When in public, however, the rhetoric changes; racism becomes invisible because the rhetoric changes.  Additionally, the public of today is not our parent’s public, there are too many of us Latinos in public places and in different social places.  A good, dear Mexican American friend of mine, prominent in our society once took me to lunch at a fancy private dinner club and he told me that the reason he goes to lunch there is so “they” can see that we are here.  Essentially, we are in social places and occupations that our parents would never have dreamed of.  We are very public and we are taking responsible and important social roles now.  Our children are even doing better than we as they should.  Where Spanish used to be banned in schools it is now being spoken among professionals and spoken well.  We travel, we invent, we invest, we give, we are here!

And, that is the crux of the problem for the greater society.  Latinos have penetrated too far into American society and culture and “they” don’t know what to do about it but “they“ do know they have to stop it; thus, the arrival, through a long evolutionary process of invisible racism.

They no longer refer to us publicly as Mexican nor do they use derogatory terminology unless there is a heated moment.  No, racial terminology has changed.  I have seen it change from Mexican to Spanish Surnamed, to Spanish Speaking, to Hispanic, to Latino, to immigrant, to illegal immigrant, to less competent, to changing demographic.  In some cases we are simply referred to as “they” or “them” or “those people.”

These new terminologies are finding their way into legislation designed to control us and keep us in the social places where our parents were forced to live.  The rhetorical shields that have been constructed by “them” need to be stripped away and the essence of racism uncovered in the worlds of immigration, voting, housing, income, education and health policies.  Times are changing, demographics are changing and cultural fear and xenophobia are driving public policy in this country and we cannot let this happen for the future of our children and our country.

[Photo by jkarsh]

Why in gods name is ESPN in Spanish?! Turn that stupid shit off #spics #LearnEnglish

March 10, 2013 7:48 pm via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@Schulte_Sean

Sean Schulte

By Al Dia Editorial Staff

As a Latino, how you answer that question may depend on your age

A long batch of tweets excoriating ESPN for broadcasting the World Baseball Classic in Spanish (though the preferred term was actually “Mexican”) and Justin Timberlake’s Hugo Chavez skit on Saturday Night Live prompted a newsroom discussion about whether we — Latinos — are too sensitive about the way we are depicted, or referred to, by non-Latino Americans.

It is not a new conversation. We’ve discussed it before in pop culture terms when we’ve discussed Sofia Vergara’s role in the television show “Modern Family,” Will Ferrell’s turn as a telenovela star in the comedic “Casa de mi Padre” or Jack Black’s interpretation of a luchador in “Nacho Libre.”

We’ve discussed it as well in terms of more serious stories — the immigration discourse, Arizona’s SB 1070 and copycat bills that rely on profiling, and, of course, the pieces we’ve been running about ex Lt. Jonathan Josey being found not guilty of the assault of Aida Guzman by a judge with a lot of disparaging things to say about Philadelphia’s Puerto Rican neighborhood and celebration during which the videotaped incident took place.

Here is the gist of the contrasting arguments you might have heard if you were a fly on the wall of Al Día’s newsroom day before yesterday (when the aforementioned tweets came to light):

Older journalist: If we see but don’t call out derogatory language, stereotyped portrayals or victimization predicated on ethnicity, we fail, both as human beings and as newspaper people.

Younger journalist: We all know this type of behavior (speech, portrayal, etc.) exists, and certainly not only toward us. Why must we continually focus on it? It’s too much, let’s just get on with other things.

The same sort of discussion has taken place online, on Latino-centered social media venues, with much the same generational divide: the older journalists feeling compelled to focus on stories about challenges and injustices, the younger wanting to focus on attainments and advancements.

Is this the Latino generational divide?

We thought so.

But in digging around for studies about Latino studies about discrimination (and there are a lot of them out there) we came upon this: a 2012 secondary analysis of the 2007 National Survey of Latinos by an associate professor at Rutgers found that a whopping 63 percent of Latinos felt that they were discriminated against. One of that report’s findings was that 30-39 year old Latinos perceived the discrimination most acutely.

Then, we happened upon a 2010 NCLR study about Latino youths 15-17. It revealed that almost 83 percent of them reported experiencing discrimination, particularly with regard to stereotypes.

Wow.

So the real difference, then, is how we, as individuals and as journalists, respond to perceived instances of discrimination.

We’d like to ask you, our reader, to weigh in. We’ve put a poll on our web site (www.pontealdia.com) with the same title of this editorial, and a simple yes or no option.  Or, leave us your response and why you think what you do in the comment section of the editorial (it appears in English online as well). If you think you need even more room to respond, please consider sending us a longer response via e-mail.

Let’s keep this conversation going.

This article was first published in Al Dia.

By Associated Press/ New York Daily News

WASHINGTON — Welcome to the new off-white America.

A historic decline in the number of U.S. whites and the fast growth of Latinos are blurring traditional black-white color lines, testing the limits of civil rights laws and reshaping political alliances as “whiteness” begins to lose its numerical dominance.

Long in coming, the demographic shift was most vividly illustrated in last November’s re-election of President Barack Obama, the first black president, despite a historically low percentage of white supporters.

Click on picture to read full story.

[Photo by Campanero Rumbero]

By Jacquellena Carrero, NBCLatino

Students at public universities in Texas may no longer be able to take courses focusing on racial, ethnic or gender history to fulfill their core requirements for an undergraduate degree under new proposed legislation. Measures filed in the Texas Senate and House would change a 1955 state law to stipulate that only courses that give a “comprehensive survey” of American history or Texas history would count toward the six history credit requirement. The original Texas law simply states that students at public institutions must take two courses in American history.

The bill was proposed by State Representative Giovanni Capriglione and State Senator Dan Patrick in response to a study on the state of higher education in Texas. The study Recasting History, which was conducted by the National Association of Scholars, concludes that “all too often the course readings gave strong emphasis to race, class or gender” and therefore diminished the attention given to other important subjects in American history like military, diplomatic and intellectual history. The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin) and Texas A&M University at College Station were the schools studied in the report.

UT Austin issued a statement back in January when the report that the legislation was based upon was initially released, saying that it “paints a narrowly defined and largely inaccurate picture of the quality, depth and  breadth of history teaching and research.”

Several history professors from UT Austin and Texas A&M largely condemned the proposed legislation, saying that it would isolate race, class and gender as something separate from American history rather than incorporate them.

Anne Martinez, an Assistant Professor at UT Austin, teaches courses on Mexican American history, history of Mexican women, and Borderlands history among other subjects. She calls the proposed legislation “misguided.”

“One of the ideas is the presumption that students aren’t going to learn US history when in fact they are. It is an opportunity for students who have taken general US history throughout Kindergarten to 12th grade to explore something more specialized,” Martinez says. “That’s what college is about.”

One of Martinez’s biggest fears is that the legislation would send a message that U.S. history does not encompass all people.

“It says that Mexican American history somehow isn’t as valuable another history,” she says.

One issue of broad concern to history professors was the foundation upon which the legislation was based. Several history professors called the study methodology flawed because researchers solely looked at syllabi and course reading materials and did not visit classrooms on site.

“None of them visited my classroom. When I lecture in class, I give students a broad context to the specific things they read. We talk about the Monroe Doctrine, also known as part of diplomatic history, because it’s important for setting the stage for US Mexican relations,” Martinez says.

Carlos Blanton, a history professor at Texas A&M who teaches a course on Latino history, agreed with Martinez’s concerns and called the legislation a shallow way to think about history.

“If you’re not in my class you’re not going to know how it was presented. Judging a course by the syllabi is like judging a book by the cover and saying oh I see that there’s a woman on the cover, this must be about gender,” Blanton says.

Representative Capriglione and Senator Patrick did not immediately return requests for comment. However, Director of the National Association of Scholars Peter Wood, defended the legislation.

“I do support the bills that have been introduced in the House and the Senate. They are small clarifications of the original legislation and it’s quite clear that what was intended was comprehensive, but the universities were substituting other kinds of courses,” Wood says.

Wood also stood by the methodology of the study. He called the decision not to attend classes an explicit methodological decision since visiting the 85 classes that the universities offer would have been an unfeasible task. Wood also argued that looking at course syllabi provided for a more meaningful study because different topics could have been discussed on days that researchers were present.

“Our findings would have been treated as anecdotal. While we do not believe that syllabi show everything, it is one piece of data that we took seriously. We went out and purchased all readings assigned and read all 635 readings,” Wood says.

History professors are not the only ones upset about the proposed legislation. Librotraficantes, a group of writers, professors, school board members, and students in Mexican American Studies programs have planned to travel to Austin Texas to protest the proposed change to Texas history requirement law.

Tony Diaz, leader of Librotraficantes, said that the impact of the law would be wide ranging.

“What people don’t understand is that this bill would make Mexican American and African American history courses not count toward the degree,” Diaz says. “It would impact community colleges that would have courses that don’t transfer over or count for advanced credit, and it might discourage students.”

Diaz says he has gotten broad support for his protest of the law, with conservatives coming out to support the cause as well because they don’t want to hurt their standing with the Latino community.

“It blows my mind that in the age of a global economy, Dan Patrick would want to build a border wall around history,” Diaz says.

The proposed legislation comes as a conservative state legislator in New Mexico made headlines for saying that Hispanic culture books should be banned from schools. State representative Nora Espinoza slammed a resolution calling for schools to embrace  diversity in the state’s curriculum.

The proposed legislation changing to Texas public university history requirements is scheduled to be discussed in the Texas House on May 23.

This article was first published in NBCLatino.

Jacquellena Carrero is a multimedia journalist with a passion for writing and working behind the camera. Jacquellena is proud of her Puerto Rican roots and hopes to get more stories on Latinos into the mainstream news media. She is graduating from Columbia University with a degree in Political Science in Spring 2013. Jacquellena has interned with NBC News for over a year. Most recently she interned with MSNBC Dayside, where she researched, gathered elements and occasionally wrote and produced short segments. Prior to MSNBC she interned with NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, and assisted producers in all areas of production for the daily broadcast.

[Photo by alamosbasement]

By Victor Landa, NewsTaco

We’re big fans of Tony Diaz, AKA el Librotraficante, and the work he’s doing to shed light on the issue of banned Latino books.

When the books were banned in Arizona, he became a book trafficker to take (smuggle?) them in…

That’s the kind of thinking that make you take notice, stand, cheer, and ask what you can do to help. So any time we see that Tony is making some waves we try to lend a hand.

He recently did an interview on One Voice Radio. Check it out HERE, or click on the picture to go to the site.

By Fox News Latino

President Obama’s rumored choice for labor secretary could face difficulty in the confirmation process now that a new inspector general’s report says Thomas Perez gave incomplete information to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

The inspector general’s report, released Tuesday, said as a Justice Department official Thomas Perez did not provide a full account to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights when he said the department’s political leadership was not involved in the decision to dismiss three of the four defendants in a lawsuit against the New Black Panther Party.

The report also concluded, however, that Perez did not intentionally mislead the commission.

Click on picture to read full story.

[Photo by Center for American Progress]

Read more related stories here:

U.S. watchdog finds political divide in voting rights office, Thomson Reuters

By Michael Alison Chandler, Washington Post

Latinos, the largest minority group in Northern Virginia, are attending increasingly segregated schools, according to a report released Tuesday that examines enrollment patterns across the state during the past two decades.

Nearly four out of five Latino students were enrolled in predominantly minority schools in 2010, according to the Civil Rights Project, based at the University of California at Los Angeles. About 7 percent of those students went to “intensely segregated minority schools” — ones where less than 10 percent of students were white and a large majority of students lived in poverty.

Click on picture to read full story.

[Photo by Editor B]

By Julito, Latino Rebels

Yes, familia, even opinion writers in blue state Massachusetts show their cultural ignorance once in a while. Take the case of The Boston Globe’s Jeff Jacoby, a conservative columnist who today penned the following opinion piece, “Americans speak every language, but only English unites us.”

The column focuses on Gabriel Gómez, a second-generation Colombian American and former Navy SEAL who is running in the Massachusetts GOP primary for Senate. Apparently Jacoby had an issue with Gómez kicking off his campaign in Spanish, instead of English. Sure, Jacoby praises Gómez for his bilingual skills, it’s the whole Spanish part that bothers him. It just felt so unAmerican. Just like when Florida Senator Marco Rubio gave his response to the State of the Union in both English and Spanish. Gasp.

Jacoby’s main argument is this one (FYI: I wanted so badly to add an accent to the “o” in Gómez in the following excerpt, but I was afraid that Jacoby would report me to the authorities):

But if that’s the case, why didn’t Republicans arrange for a full-blown response to the State of the Union address in Chinese or French or Vietnamese? Why hasn’t Gomez made a point of introducing himself in Portuguese or Italian or Russian? Spanish may be the second-most common language spoken in the United States, but there are dozens of other languages used daily by millions of American voters. Don’t those voters also need to be reassured that we’re all “part of the same community”?

English has always been integral to the American identity. Without a common language, the miracle of E Pluribus Unum would never have been possible. Americans come from every corner of the globe; they represent a vast array of cultural, ethnic, and linguistic traditions. Yet they have been able, by and large, to form a single nation — to mold an American mainstream, despite such a hodgepodge of incompatible origins. They couldn’t have done it without a commitment to English as the national tongue.

After using the example of Doral, Florida, rejecting a measure to become an official bilingual city as his definitive “proof” that elevating Spanish to the same level as English is just wrong and bad for America, Jacoby closed with this: “Spanish is a beautiful language. But pandering to Hispanics by privileging Spanish in public life is a dangerous strategy for partisan success, and a reckless way to treat American unity.”

Now besides the irony that Jacoby used a Latin phrase to celebrate American unity, what is Jacoby so afraid of? Actual Spanish-speaking voters who might be more engaged in the political process because someone like Rubio or Gómez can communicate in another language besides English?

And what does he mean by “partisan success?” Is he really worried that the GOP will be too inclusive for him and that it might win a major election any time soon? Will that upset his apple cart and his perceived loss of American unity? He does know that the United States is the second-largest Spanish-speaking country in the world, sí? Did anyone inform Jacoby about the 2012 election and the U.S. Latino vote?

So there has to be something more. And I think I know: it is this whole notion that in Jacoby’s eyes, people who speak Spanish are seen as dividers. Spanish doesn’t reassure people that “we’re all ‘part of the same community’.” Don’t you know that there is a Reconquista going on and that Spanish speakers in the U.S. are just going to raid your homes, steal your jobs, and destroy America? (That was sarcasm.) Need I remind Jacoby that Spanish was the first European language spoken in North America?

Here is the deal: Rubio and Gómez represent a new type of Americano politician, one who is looking at the changing demographics and realizing that communicating in Spanish is no longer a novelty. It is a possible vote-getter. Having English be the main language of business and government is one thing, being able to connect and communicate with voters through a different language is an entirely different concept. Jacoby’s column muddies that distinction.

To suggest that politicians speaking Spanish will only divide the country reeks of neo-nativism. If Jacoby really wants unity, he could start by getting over his fears and understand that making political parties more diverse is really what America is all about.

Hit it, Gollum.

This article was first published in Latino Rebels.

Julio (Julito) Ricardo Varela (@julito77 on Twitter) founded LatinoRebels.com (part of Latino Rebels, LLC) in May, 2011 and proceeded to open it up to about 20 like-minded Rebeldes. His personal blog, juliorvarela.com, has been active since 2008 and is widely read in Puerto Rico and beyond. He pens columns on LR regularly. In the last 12 months, Julito represented the Rebeldes on CBS’ Face the Nation, NPR,  Univision, Forbes, and The New York Times.

[Image by templarioart]

By Axel Caballero, Cuéntame

Agreed, the window of opportunity is wide open for the passage of substantial immigration reform. Immigration reform is, after all, the next big ticket item. It’s the coveted prize that allegedly holds the key to millions of Latinos nationwide who will soon fall in line with whatever the powers that be decide to pass as “immigration reform”. No matter what it is, just slap the word “reform” to it and you will keep the community happy. After all, would anyone in their right mind would want to anger the same community that just proved to be a deciding factor in the last election? No, of course not. So then call it “reform”, enlist the help of Latino-sounding names and sell, sell, sell as much as you can- no matter what it includes. The details don’t matter. Slap the word “reform” and everyone will fall in place.

Who cares about the details? If you call it “reform” then “reform” it will be. After all, the main goal is not really to reform the system and strengthen the rights of 11 million people. Of course not, that would mean going against the nativist, anti-immigrant, supremacist powers who have done such an incredible job of convincing people that they should be very, very afraid of immigrants. Nope, all you need to do is to call it “reform”, lock the Latino vote, and blame the other guy for any mistakes or exclusions along the way.

Immigrant rights? That’s the least of your worries. This is really not about immigrants; this is really about politicians. Who will be at the winning end of “reform”? Who will look good? Who will win the golden ticket while not really changing much? Immigrant rights? Ha, that’s not what immigration reform is about. It’s not like you really want to put an end to raiding immigrants’ homes, separating families, locking-up their children, shooting them at border, monitoring them with drones, persecuting, alienating, discriminating, kicking out their youth, and creating a whole infrastructure of second-class humans to abuse, exploit, profit off of or discard whenever and however it’s needed? Of course not. That’s not how this is done.

First you have to ease the fears. Yes, the fears that have been engrained so deep in our social fabric by groups whose whole purpose is to instill a phobia of the different and the unknown. Groups that use the word “immigration” in their names to legitimize their hard anti-immigrant beliefs – all the while brewing anxiety with a powerful nativist and well-funded hate agenda (ahem Center for Immigration Studies, Federations of Americans For Immigration Reform, Californians Coalition for Immigration reform.) They have done such an incredible job of driving the immigration narrative that they have pocketed several fringe and not-so-fringe politicians to carry their hatred to the halls of Congress. If you listen closely, you’ll hear the same exact words that come out of their fake studies, spokespeople, and talking points, in the speeches of public officials at the highest level, local legislators and in the actual text of legislative bills and proposals. Words such as “Enforce”, “Secure”, ”Verify”, “Punish”, “Terrorize”, “Steal”, “Invade.” – Be scared, be very scared. The immigrants are coming to get you!

Exhibit A (Rest of the series at http://ifyoudonttheywill.com)

These groups have done their job. They have spoken. Forget the reasons and root causes of what brings folks to this country in the first place. Forget how we have incentivized their migration. Forget that immigration is indeed how this country was built. Forget that immigration is as patriotic as the flag and the Statue of Liberty. This time it’s different. These are not the type of immigrants you want. They don’t really look like you, do they? They are different. This time you should be very, very afraid.

After all, immigration reform is not about immigrant rights is it? It’s about fear.
Disagree? Well too bad because this has already been put into place. There is already widespread support for this approach. It has been sold well enough. Co-opted, stamped and Latino approved – or so they say. Fear first, rights later. Abuse first, rights later. Security (or secure borders?) first, rights later. Deport first, rights later. Exploit first, rights later. It’s all in motion, compromised, fired up and ready to go. All you need is to fall in line. Don’t worry, they will make sure to appear to fight for some – they will throw a bone and talk about a pathway for the most deserving and the most skilled,not the ones who need it the most. They are not deserving of any “reform.” It’s all calculated. You don’t have to do anything. The anti-immigrant bunch will have done it all for you. There will be a bill soon and they will speak up to make sure absurd fear trumps human rights. So don’t worry – If You Don’t Speak Up, They Will Speak For You.

This article was first published in Cuéntame.

Axel Cabellero is founder and director of Cuéntame.

By Latino Rebels

Ok, by now everyone online knows about the controversy surrounding the Bloomberg Businessweek magazine cover that brought us all back to a time in America where racist caricatures were all the rage.

And by now, you all know that Bloomberg issues the standard and lame public relations apology, when editor Josh Tyrangiel said this in a statement:

“Our cover illustration last week got strong reactions, which we regret. Our intention was not to incite or offend. If we had to do it over again we’d do it differently.”

You also should know by now that basically almost everyone in media is slamming Bloomberg Business for printing the cover in the first place. But did you know that the artist who was commissioned to produce the cover was from Perú? That is what Fox News Latino reported today, confirming that Andrés Guzmán was the artist. His Tumblr page shows the cover with the following comment below it: “Did a cover for Businessweek about the current housing market boom. I was asked to make an excited family with large quantities of money. I slipped in my lovely cat, Boo which was my favorite part. Too bad I wasn’t asked to draw large quantities of cats. Drawing dollars was a drag.”

Here is what the top of Guzmán’s Tumblr page looks. The Bloomberg cover is on the left.

The original Tumblr post has over 43 likes. It was posted yesterday. Most of the likes are marked as favorites, although some commenters made note of the controversy. One person posted: “Bloomberg Businessweek is catching heat for publishing…advocates see as stereotypical,…” while another posted this “Sigh….seriously, Businessweek? Nobody saw this as…problem? I’m sorry, let me re-phrase…”

According to Guzmán’s Tumblr, it says that he was born in 1986 in Lima, Peru and that he now lives in Minneapolis. He confirms that all the work on his Tumblr site is his. We did send a email to Guzmán to see if he would want to address the latest news about his piece, and we have yet to hear from him as of this posting. If he does respond to us, we will share.

This article was first published in Latino Rebels.

The Latino Rebels are a collective of social media influentials, bloggers, marketers, journalists, poets, writers, producers, photographers, and marketers. We use humor, commentary, opinions, independent stories, cross-links to others blogs, and our social media platforms to share our universe. 

By Adrian Carrasquillo, NBCLatino

Bloomberg Businessweek has sparked a torrent of criticism after its cover depicted exaggerated cartoon versions of Latinos and blacks greedily grabbing for money for a story about a housing rebound across the country.

“Oh wow, oh wow, that is very offensive,” said Aracely Panemeno, the director of Latino affairs for the Center for Responsible Lending, as she first opened up a photo of the cover on her computer. “It is highly offensive and inaccurate with an intent to promote and perpetuate the myth that communities of color were undeserving of the credit and housing they received and are to blame for the housing crisis, when in reality the opposite is true. They were targeted with predatory loans.”

Bloomberg Businessweek tells NBC Latino it regrets the cover, dated February 25.

“Our cover illustration last week got strong reactions, which we regret,” said editor, Josh Tyrangiel in a statement. “Our intention was not to incite or offend. If we had to do it over again we’d do it differently.”

A Pew research study found that Hispanic household wealth fell by 66 percent from 2005 to 2009 and African-American wealth fell by 53 percent, identifying the principal cause as plummeting house values, which led to the erosion in wealth among all groups. Janis Bowdler, the director of economic policy at The National Council of La Raza (NCLR) says this information along with the fact that by 2020 half of all first-time home buyers will be Hispanic, makes the Bloomberg Businessweek cover even more offensive.

“I found the cover shocking and incredibly insulting,” Bowdler says. “Not only does the covernot relate to the article, it’s incredibly ironic given the changing demographics of this country and somehow insinuates that by trying to have a small slice of American dream they’re money grabbers.”

Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) also took the magazine to task for their cover.

“The cover stands out for its cast of black and Hispanic caricatures with exaggerated features reminiscent of early 20th century race cartoons,” wrote Ryan Chittum, deputy editor of CJR’s business section. ”Also, because there are only people of color in it, grabbing greedily for cash. It’s hard to imagine how this one made it through the editorial process. Compounding the first-glance problem with the image is the fact that race has been a key backdrop to the subprime crisis. The narrative of the crash on the right has been the blame-minority-borrowers line, sometimes via dog whistle, often via bullhorn.”

Matthew Yglesias, Slate’s business and economics correspondent, condemned the cover. ”The idea is that we can know things are really getting out of hand since even non-white people can get loans these days!” Ygelsias said. “They ought to be ashamed.”

The Center for Responsible Lending’s Panemeno says her job is to look at data objectively but that she can’t ignore the realities of the families that live in her neighborhood and have been among those hit hardest in the country.

“For me this is also personal,” she says. “I live in Prince William County, Virginia, where 12,000 pre-dominantly Latino families lost their homes because of predatory lending, the subprime boom and over-development.”

Panemeno also questions the accuracy of the story’s claim of a housing rebound.

“If you concentrate on the hardest hit neighborhoods, they’re predominantly minority neighborhoods,” she says.

“If there is a rebound it’s escaping communities of color.”

This article was first published in NBClatino.

A multimedia journalist with a love for (read: obsession with) social media and how it interacts with news. He is of Puerto Rican/Ecuadorian descent and went to Stuyvesant High School before graduating from Stony Brook University’s School of Journalism. He worked at MyFoxNY.com and Fox News Latino before joining NBC Latino. Adrian sought to continue his work in Latino news because he believes there are stories out there asking to be told and a community that deserves a news site that reflects the nuance, richness and depth of the U.S. Latino experience.

By Latino Rebels

A report out of Philadelphia revealed today that Judge Patrick Dugan, who believed a viral video showing former city police lieutenant Jonathan Josey punching Aida Guzmán last fall after the city’s Puerto Rican Parade was sensationalized by the media and who this week presided over Josey’s not guilty verdict for simple assault against Guzmán, is married to a Philadelphia police officer. According to Philly.com, “a chorus of criticism swelled Wednesday after word spread that Dugan is married to Philadelphia Police Officer Nancy Farrell Dugan, who has been on the force since 1997, city payroll records show.”

The story published reaction from the city’s Puerto Rican community:

Some members of the city’s Puerto Rican community who denounced Dugan’s acquittal of Josey were bristling over the revelation about his wife.

“It’s ridiculous. His wife is a police officer, and I understand he was endorsed by the FOP [Fraternal Order of Police],” said Quetcy Lozada, president of the Philadelphia chapter of the National Conference of Puerto Rican Women.

“We’re all human beings,” Lozada said. “There is no possible way that a judge put in a situation like that will be able to make an unbiased decision.”

Guzman’s attorney, Enrique Latoison, said he learned Tuesday that the judge is married to a cop.

“When it was brought to my attention that his wife was a police officer, it was very surprising and I consider it to be a conflict of interest,” said Latoison, who has asked the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the case and intends to file a civil suit against Josey on behalf of Guzman.

When asked about whether this was a conflict of interest, the Philly.com story said that Dugan “appeared pained Wednesday and paused in a courthouse hallway only long enough to say that the Code of Judicial Conduct constrained him from answering questions.”

The story also included opinions from local legal experts, who all agree that Dugan should have recused himself.

Frank M. McClellan, professor of law emeritus at Temple University’s Beasley School of Law, said the standard for a judge to recuse himself is if he has a personal interest in a case that would prevent him from being impartial, or if his presiding would create an appearance of impropriety.

“It certainly would have been appropriate, even if not required,” for Dugan to recuse himself, said McClellan, who teaches legal ethics and malpractice law. “We want to give the public confidence that there has been a fair and impartial decision made.”

Lynn A. Marks, executive director of Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts, a nonpartisan reform organization, said that although Dugan was not required to recuse himself, maybe he should have.

“Given the fact that this had the potential of being a high-profile case, it would have been wise to [step aside] so that people would not question his decision,” she said.

Marks, a lawyer, said that “at the least he should have disclosed to the attorneys that his wife is a police officer so they could decide if they wanted to bring a motion to recuse.”

According to the story, the city’s District Attorney did not know that Dugan was married to a cop and the spokesperson did not want to answer whether the DA would have asked Dugan to step down from the case. The story also said that it tried to reach Josey’s attorney on Wednesday, but that they could not reach him for comment.

This article was first published in Latino Rebels.

The Latino Rebels are a collective of social media influentials, bloggers, marketers, journalists, poets, writers, producers, photographers, and marketers. We use humor, commentary, opinions, independent stories, cross-links to others blogs, and our social media platforms to share our universe.

[Phot by Latino Rebels]