Latinohoosier

Finally in April 1948, Thelma Porter, a psychology major at Brooklyn College, was selected as Miss Subways. Her picture was splashed across black newspapers and magazines nationwide as a point of pride. She was feted nationally, including a reception at the Royal Manor Ballroom. Among those who honored her: Thurgood Marshall.

A year later, Helen Lee became the first Asian-American Miss Subways.

By the 1970s, with a rise of feminism against beauty pageants, the symbolism of a Miss Subway was less portentous, but still notable. In 1974, Sonia Dominguez became the first Dominican to win Miss Subways, which stirred pride in the Latino community. And even then, “there was definitely a pride in the Miss Subways contest,” said Marcia Hocker, who was Miss Subways for several months in 1974 and 1975.

There She Is, From a Trailblazing Beauty Pageant – City Room Blog – NYTimes.com

When Jennifer 8. Lee was in seventh grade, she made a startling discovery — fortune cookies are not an authentic Chinese food. In her New York Times best-selling book, The Fortune Cookie Chronicles, Lee wrote about the experience, “It was like learning I was adopted while being told there was no Santa Claus.”

Born in the United States of Chinese immigrant parents, Lee confesses she is obsessed with Chinese food, in particular with the Chinese-American variety. The book is for anyone who wonders who General Tso is and why we eat his chicken, or where those white takeout boxes come from.

Author of ‘The Fortune Cookie Chronicles’ dishes on Chinese American food: IU News Room: Indiana University

Anyone who doubts that people can turn their lives around quickly should meet Jose Colon.

Over the past 10 weeks, the 33-year-old Colon, of Sixth Street near Indiana Avenue in North Philly’s Fairhill neighborhood, has morphed from a crepehanger whose depression and irritability threatened to cost him his family into an optimist with an infectious love of life.

“My self-esteem was so low,” Colon recalls of the days preceding his transformation, “that I just wanted to be by myself in a dark room. I didn’t want to deal with people. Now nothing bothers me. People can scream at me and I let it go. I’m like, ‘It’s okay. I’m doing right.’”

A Gym of Their Own | News and Opinion | Philadelphia Weekly

You might wonder why I allude to this topic on this blog. It’s because, just as diversity and discrimination issues, it is all about human rights and equal rights.

A 17 year old female from Boone County, Indiana, is suing her her high school, Lebanon High School, for forbidding her from wearing a tuxedo to prom. She is a lesbian and wants to wear a tuxedo instead of a dress because a dress reflects a sexual identity that she doesn’t identify with or embrace. School district attorney Kent Frandsen stated that the school district has had a long instated policy that only allows male students to wear tuxedos to prom, and that there is no need to change this policy because up until now it has not been challenged. The student was told to either wear a dress or not go to prom.

Indiana high school forbids a female student from wearing a tuxedo to prom « The Gender Blender Blog

Lebanon schools agree girl may wear prom tux

Here in Montana, and across the Rocky Mountain West, the election of Barack Obama represents the startling culmination of social, cultural and political changes that have been underway in this region for many years. You’ve heard a lot of this by now: the Mountain West, increasingly populated by amenity-seeking coastal migrants and Latino immigrants, and with an independent-minded electorate that’s resistant to Republican over-reaching on social issues, is no longer solid red, but rather “in play.”

The New President and the New West | Politics | New West Network

Similar battles are playing out in Georgia, Michigan, Missouri, Utah, and Indiana, which saw its ID law upheld by the US Supreme Court in April, despite evidence that up to 43,000 citizens lacked the necessary ID—including a dozen retired nuns turned away from the polls during primary season.

Beyond Diebold: 10 Ways to Steal This Election

Though Chryson belongs to a fringe political party, one that advocates the secession of Alaska from the Union, and that organizes with other like-minded secessionist movements from Canada to the Deep South, he is not without peculiar influence in state politics, especially the rise of Sarah Palin.

Sarah Palin’s radical right-wing mentors | Salon News

Barack Obama is beating John McCain because fear trumps fear. That is, the fear of many white voters for their jobs and their homes surpasses the fear some of them feel over electing a black man.

When the fear for jobs beats the fear of race

This time, the Republicans have added another group to strip from the rolls. James Carabelli, a Republican Party chairman in Michigan, says: “We have a list of foreclosed homes and will make sure people aren’t voting from those addresses.” These voters are supposed to register from their new addresses – but many are out of time, or too stressed to do it. So the Republicans have launched a national “voter challenge campaign” against honest people who have lost their homes. They know that 60 per cent of sub-prime mortgages went to black voters, and virtually everyone who lost their home is angry with the Republicans.

Johann Hari: Barack beware… they’re out to get you – Johann Hari, Commentators – The Independent

Now those young immigrants have begun to tell investigators about their jobs. Some said they worked shifts of 12 hours or more, wielding razor-edged knives and saws to slice freshly killed beef. Some worked through the night, sometimes six nights a week.One, a Guatemalan named Elmer L. who said he was 16 when he started working on the plant’s killing floors, said he worked 17-hour shifts, six days a week. In an affidavit, he said he was constantly tired and did not have time to do anything but work and sleep. “I was very sad,” he said, “and I felt like I was a slave.”

After Iowa Raid, Immigrants Fuel Labor Inquiries – NYTimes.com

It might come as a shock to narrow-minded folks who devalue the richness of the English language by sending thinly veiled vile attacking Hispanics and immigrants – legal and otherwise as if the two are interchangeable – but this state’s heritage, culture and economy has strong Latin overtures.Three emails – of which one came from Southern California and the other from the Midwest – sent in response to a story that stated 3,000 foreign immigrants move to San Joaquin County every year blamed much of this nation’s ills on Hispanic immigrants

The Latino Journal: A 4TH OF JULY TRIBUTE TO LATINOS

But in America, at least, we have narrowed the choices down to “Latino” or “Hispanic.” Each comes loaded with political baggage. Say “Latino” to a brown-skinned person, and you might receive a snappish “I don’t speak Latin!” in response. Refer to someone as “Hispanic” and you could hear that the word refers to Spain, the country that “raped my ancestors” or “subjugated the Aztecs” or some other historical atrocity that constitutes a fresh wound to people who have taken too many poli-sci classes.

Daniel Cubias: Defining My Terms – Living on The Huffington Post

national polls show McCain-Obama a close race, and the electoral map points to critical problems for Barack.He seeks, for example, to target Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico. But in all three the Hispanic vote may be decisive. And Barack was beaten by Hillary two to one among Hispanics, and between these two largest of America’s minorities, rivalry and tension are real and rising.

VDARE.com: 06/09/08 – How Obama Won—and May Win

Tags: obama, win, hispanics

If Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee, every analysis HillBuzz reads says the Latino vote will go to McCain in the fall.Here is one such analysis HillBuzz read this weekend, from a Latino activist in the Democratic Party, who sees defeat to McCain with Obama as the nominee:Since the mainstream media is feeding the public perspectives about the Latino vote from an outsiders viewpoint, let me share some keyaspects from the Latino viewpoint.

Obama Will Lose to McCain Because Latinos Will Not Support Obama

Tags: Hillary, Latino, Obama

I am not sure what bible they preach out of up there in those big mansions in Carmel, but last time I checked disobeying the law was what got Jesus strung up on the cross in the first place.

What would Jesus Do?

When Puerto Rican officials in New York City honor Indiana this summer, they are going to expose what has always been the state’s paradox.In theory, Indiana’s primary city is also its capital city – Indianapolis ought to be the mecca of that rare breed of human being that willingly calls itself, “Hoosiers.” Yet the engine that in some ways provides what little significance Indiana offers comes from the northwest counties.

CHICAGO ARGUS: “Hispanic Hoosiers” who will visit New York are also representing Chicago Latinos

Tags: hispanic, hoosiers

The Latino baby boomers’ movimiento focused on civil rights, and it spread through the Southwest where Latinos were most concentrated, and later, through the small Latino settlements that dotted virtually every state.

HispanicTrending: Youthful wave of Latino activists tackling both past, present issues

Tags: latino, activist

Is anti-Americanism rampant in Latin America, or is it simply hyped by the international media? – I recently had the chance to attend a unique symposium at downtown Indianapolis’ historic Columbia Club, titled “Combating Anti-Americanism and Populism with Education in Latin America.” Speakers from more than half a dozen countries in North, Central and South America collaborated to present views germane to their homeland and the troubling infiltration of populism into said societies.

‘Anti-Americanism in Latin America

Tags: anti-americanism, america

The son of Latino rights activist and New York City Councilman Hector Rodriguez, young Nestor Rodriguez was an overachieving student in New York’s public school system who wanted to be just like his politically-active father. Dedicated to his neighborhood’s welfare, Nestor began working in soup kitchens and building housing for the homeless by age 13. When the crime rate skyrocketed within New York’s Latino community during the Cross Bronx Drug War, Nestor spearheaded the formation of the Street Angels, a controversial but effective watch group comprised of inner city youths whose popularity soared as the crime rate plummeted.

Santerians | The Art of Joe Quesada

Tags: santerians

The Mexican immigrant worker in New York is a perfect example of the hero who has gone unnoticed. It is common for a Mexican worker in New York to work extraordinary hours in extreme conditions for very low wages which are saved at great cost and sacrifice and sent to families and communities in Mexico who rely on them to survive.

Dulce Pinzón / Superheroes

Tags: dulce, pinzon, superhereos

It is a nouveau term cultivated from the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Prior to that, Mexican-Americans demanded to be listed as Caucasian on government applications, etc. When affirmative action started to kick in and “protected classes” began to formulate, their leadership abandoned the claim as Caucasian and demanded distinction as a protected class also. Thus, the broad term “minority” started to include Mexican-Americans and others who no longer saw the advantage in being separated from Blacks and Asians. Eventually, the term Hispanic began to be included among minority ethnicities.

Louisiana Weekly – Your Community. Your Newspaper.

Tags: What, means, hispanic

Although little noticed by the press, the 2005 Economic Report of the President – which was submitted to Congress on February 17, 2005 – prominently highlights the critical importance of immigration to the U.S. economy. The fact that the report devotes an entire chapter to the topic of immigration underscores both the extent to which immigration has become a driving force in the economy and the degree to which immigration policy affects the nation’s economic prospects.

ILW.COM – immigration news: The Economics Of Necessity: Economic Report Of The President Underscores The Importance Of Immigration

technorati tags:2005, Economic, Report, President

People who argue that immigrants are just taking jobs that Americans won’t accept are, after all, basically claiming that Americans don’t want those jobs at the rates industry is offering. If they paid higher wages, they’d attract American workers, and charge higher prices. Whether that’s an exchange that’s acceptable is worth discussing, though the debate is rarely put in those terms.

Thoughts from Kansas : Repealing Taft-Hartley to fix immigration

A gozaarrrrr!

As I climbed into my boyfriend’s car, I heard the familiar rhythmic pounding of a Reggaeton radio station eminating from his speakers. Born and raised in the Midwest, he had little contact with Latino culture prior to moving to Los Angeles for school. However with spending hours on the road commuting to school in a car that lacks a CD player, he has come to find new radio stations to entertain him while on the road. A white, middle-class, suburban, USC graduate and future doctor – he seems one of the least likely candidates to be a fan of the Puerto Rican and Cuban movement.

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The rare sighting in southern Indiana of a bird that’s indigenous to Mexico and Central America has left birdwatchers all atwitter.

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Mi nuevo héroe es el Cálico Electrónico!

technorati tags:New, Hero

No question, reading and speaking English are crucial skills when it comes to prospering in the United States. That is, in part, why we publish a Spanish edition. And it’s also why immigrant populations do assimilate. By the second or third generation, English is the primary, if not only, language spoken.

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There with Estrada was the dwarf from the show Jackass, Wee Man, and nearby was a very thin woman wearing a fur shawl. I didn’t know who she was until somebody told me it was La Toya Jackson.

The Hoosier Scoop

technorati tags:Estrada, Weeman, Jackson, Muncie