the Latino daily – Your Thursday morning brief

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Photo courtesy of USPS
It’s official. The United States Postal Service unveiled its Jaime Escalante commemorative stampWednesday at the League of United Latin American Citizens convention in Washington, D.C. NBC News’s Patricia Guadalupe writes: “Escalante, a teacher in his native Bolivia who arrived in the states in 1963, became known for using innovative methods to teach inner-city students in East Los Angeles that some considered “unteachable,” and many of whom went on to master calculus under his tutelage.” His work was the subject of the 1983 movie Stand and Deliver.
THURSDAY, July 14, 2016
Good morning!
I’m going to start this morning where I often end it, with a recommendation for a lunchtime read. It’s called Clinton’s Latino Firewall, written by Roberto Suro, published in Politico. It was suggested to me by Latino daily subscriber Ana Valdez (thanks for pointing me to it, Ana). Here’s why I think you should read it: it’s new, in the sense that it’s something I hadn’t read or considered concerning U.S. Latino voters and why they haven’t flocked to the disruptive Trump and Sanders campaigns. Here’s an excerpt:
“What’s emerging is a realization that the people least likely to want upheaval are those who have struggled to gain access to the status quo, and who have succeeded at least a bit. With fierce political storms on the horizon, many Americans are genuinely worried about the future of the republic. The onetime-outsiders who make up America’s minority vote may end up providing the ballast that keeps the nation steady: Americans who have experienced exclusion and feel they have something to lose.”
It’s a six-minute read. And it leads me to . . .
Thursday’s numbers
64 – The percentage of African-Americans who “strongly agree” that they fear the outcome of the presidential election.
53 – The percentage of Whites who “strongly agree” that they fear the outcome of the presidential election.
38 – The percentage of U.S. Latinos who “strongly agree” that they fear the outcome of the presidential election.
45 – The percentage of U.S.-born Latinos who “strongly agree” that they fear the outcome of the presidential election.
30 – The percentage of Latino immigrants who “strongly agree” that they fear the outcome of the presidential election.
87 – The percentage of U.S.-born Latinos who say they are registered to vote.
28 – The percentage of Latino immigrants who say they are registered to vote.
66 – The percentage of African-Americans who say they “strongly agree” that this election is more important than elections past.
63 – The percentage of Whites who say they “strongly agree” that this election is more important than elections past.
50 – The percentage of U.S. Latinos who say they “strongly agree” that this election is more important than elections past.
Source: Gallup
►Are the 2 Latino GOP governors going to the RNC?
50,000 people are expected to travel to Cleveland next week for the big GOP confab, but Nevada’sBrian Sandoval isn’t. According to KSNV News Sandoval has a previous engagement, he’ll be in Australia on a trade mission.
New Mexico’s Susana Martinez will probably be a no-show as well. I couldn’t find an official word on whether she’ll be there or not, but my bet is not. Donald Trump was especially harsh towards Martinez when he held a rally in her state, he accused her of being at fault for the state’s high unemployment: “It’s your governor’s fault. We have to get your governor and get going. She’s got to do a better job, O.K.? Your governor has got to do a better job.”
Neither Sandoval nor Martinez have endorsed Trump’s candidacy.
►Here’s something you probably didn’t know, the question is why?
Attn.com reports: “Between July 3 and July 9, five Latinos were shot and killed in the U.S. by police, according to TeleSUR, a public news outlet sponsored by various Latin American governments. The incidents happened during the same week as the high-profile deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, both black men.”
The five are:
Vinson Lee Ramos, 37, was shot and killed by police in Bell, California, while holding a knife, according to the Southgate-Lynwood Patch.
Melissa Ventura, 24, was shot and killed by cops in Yuma, Arizona. Reports say she was holding a knife. The Yuma Sun says she had a history of mental illness.
Pedro Villanueva, 19, died after undercover California Highway Patrol officers shot into his moving car, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Raul Saavedra-Vargas, was shot and killed in Reno, Nevada, after he allegedly tried to drive through the barricades at a festival to avoid a traffic stop.
Anthony Nuñez, 18, was killed by San Jose Police in California after they attempted to stop him from committing suicide.
According to The Guardian, Blacks are killed by police at a rate of 3.3 per-million; Latinos at 1.6; Whites at 1.4; and Native-Americans at 3.4. The problem, of course, is that Latinos also identify as White (my grandfather identified as White), Black (I have two Black nieces), Asian (my sister-in-law was Mexican-Korean) and Native-American (I’m sure there’s more than a drop of native blood in my veins, enough for Trump to call me Hiawatha, or something like that).
Quote of the day
“The idea of a border fence has been in our platform for many, many years and just changing the word from fence to wall is what they did and maybe it was a little hat tip to Donald Trump on that issue and that’s fine.”
-Republican National Committee head Reince Priebus, commenting to Fox News Channel on why the border wall was included in the Republican platform.
►The RNC isn’t listening to a top security guy
“Former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge says the GOP made a mistake in adopting Donald Trump’s plan to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border into its party platform.
“’It’s a bad idea,’ he said Wednesday on Fox Business Network’s ’Varney & Co.’ ‘It’s a bad idea short-term, and it’s a bad idea long-term. I just can’t believe my party has basically drawn a wall between us and our ability to attract Hispanic voters.’”
                              
►And they’re not listening to top economy policymakers either
“Two top U.S. central bankers [Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan and Minneapolis Fed PresidentNeel Kashkari] jumped into the debate over immigration this week with surprising candor, with one calling for engagement in what he said would be “a horribly difficult debate” so as to ensure better economic growth.
Federal Reserve policymakers typically try to keep a low profile on political issues. But this year immigration is a particularly hot-button topic, with presumptive Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton calling for immigration reform and presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump promising to build a wall on the Mexican border.
►And here’s another story the main stream media is missing
Vivala.com reports:
“According to Mexican census figures, 1.4 million Mexicans and about 300,000 Mexican-American children have moved to Mexico between 2005 and 2010, and that number isn’t decreasing whatsoever. Many of these immigrants have American-born children, which makes this mass exodus even more confusing.”
It’s a shock acculturation process for Mexican-American kids, opposite of what undocumented children go through when they’re brought to the U.S. My family moved from the U.S. to Mexico when I was 8, so I can relate, especially to this quote from a 2015 article in The Guardian:
“The Guardian interviewed a family that moved to Mexico in 2015. The two sons, both born in California, had never been to Mexico before. They told The Guardian that learning to speak the region’s indigenous Mixteco language is among the hardest things about their new life.
“These children are discriminated against because of their accents, the way they dress, and some of them reject the community’s culture and customs,’ Rufino Domínguez, director of the Institute of Migrant Attention (IAM) in Oaxaca told The Guardian.”
We’ll end with this.
Cada quien pone su granito de arena
Photo courtesy of BuzzFeed
BuzzFeed reports: “Orlando “El Fenómeno” Cruz, a Puerto Rican boxer who was the first professional fighter in the U.S. to come out as gay, helped launch a Latino voting awareness campaign in Florida on Wednesday.”
Cruz was in Orlando, Florida, to pay his respects to the victims of the June 12 Pulse nightclub massacre. He took time as well to announce the collaboration between All Star Boxing and Mi Familia Vota that will include voter registration advertisements on the corners of the fighting ring, as well as the clothes worn by boxers on Boxeo Telemundo.
Ganas is all you need. –Jaime Escalante
Have a great day.

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