Eye Openers

I don’t believe we should be compensating employees more just because they can speak Spanish,” he said. “This is America, and I believe people ought to be able to speak the English language.”*

“This is a miracle,” said Maria Arias, a 41-year-old home health aide from Corona, Queens, who got more than $6,700 back as a result of a three-year investigation by the state attorney general’s office. “*

“I understand the, you know, deep emotion and passion, absolutely. She’s my friend and I threw everything into her campaign that I could possibly throw into it,” Solis Doyle said during an interview in her office at Obama’s downtown Chicago headquarters. “But as heartbreaking as it was, she lost. And now it’s time, for the good of our country and for the good of my kids, to move on and get Barack Obama elected.”"*

Police in Mexico City are investigating online classified ads posted by people selling their services as assassins for as little as $6,000.”*

San Francisco’s political establishment has long prided itself on providing a haven for illegal immigrants. Mayor Gavin Newsom even launched a taxpayer-funded $83,000 “public awareness campaign” earlier this year assuring illegal immigrants that the “sanctuary city” by the bay was in their court.

And indeed it is. Under the city’s 1989 voter-approved sanctuary ordinance, police officers and other city employees are prohibited from inquiring into immigration status. In addition, the city will not direct municipal funds or employees towards assisting federal immigration enforcement, unless such assistance is required by federal or state law or a warrant. “*

The eight students walked into a room at Lincoln High School prepared to discuss an issue many people, including some of their teachers, considered taboo.

They were blunt. Carlos Garcia, 17, an A student with a knack for math, said, “My friends, most of them say, ‘You’re more Asian than Hispanic.’ “”*

Attorneys representing 16 Denver Hispanic police officers will hold a news conference this morning to announce the filing of a federal class-action discrimination lawsuit against the Denver Police Department and City and County of Denver.”*

Nearly two dozen minority state troopers have filed a race discrimination lawsuit against the New Jersey State Police.

The plaintiffs, 23 black and Hispanic troopers, accuse the state police of bias in promotions, training, special assignments and discipline. “*

This interview with Uprising Radio’s Sonali Kolhatkar touches upon the untouchable issues of the Latino politic: corporate and Pentagon underwriting of Latino events like the Presidential forums, the candidates’ silence on immigrant death and detention, the Pentagon’s desperate need to recruit Latino kids and other issues. Fellow guest, Nativo Lopez of MAPA and I dissect the many fictions that make up this idea of the “Latino vote” and do, I believe a decent, even good job. So, check it out here:

Uprising Radio Interview“*

Lawyers representing a Latino advocacy group told a federal judge on Tuesday that tens of thousands of people in and around New York City, most of them Latino, were at risk of being disenfranchised in the November elections because the federal government was taking so long to process their citizenship applications.

The lawyers asked the judge to compel federal immigration authorities to speed up the process to ensure that eligible applicants receive their citizenship before Oct. 10, the deadline in New York for registering to vote in November’s general election. “*

People in Oregon who are accused of immigration violations most often end up at the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Washington. A new report alleges serious human rights violations at that facility.

Seattle University law students who interviewed detainees and worked to confirm their stories heard about a wide range of problems, from overcrowding and lack of food and medical attention, to physical and verbal abuse by guards and federal marshals.”*

When it comes to immigration enforcement, outside of ICE or the Department of Homeland Security, only one other law enforcement department has become as synonymous with conducting hunts for undocumented immigrants — Arizona’s Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, or the one name that embodies the infamous department, Sheriff Joe Arpaio.”*

Pardon Patricia Nieto if she wasn’t swept up in the euphoria that lifted this nation after the recent rescue of 15 hostages held by leftist guerrillas.

The rebel group the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, which was tricked into giving up long-held hostages, including presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and three U.S. defense contractors, is still holding 700 people, including Nieto’s husband, Sigifredo Lopez.”*

Remnants of the bacterium that causes stomach ulcers, Helicobacter pylori, (H. pylori) have been discovered in gastric tissue from North American mummies. A study of human remains believed to predate Columbus’ discovery of the New World has shown for the first time that H. pylori infection occurred in native populations, according to research published in BioMed Central’s open access journal, BMC Microbiology.”*

Two videos of a torture-training session with the police force of León, Guanajuato shocked the Mexican public last week and raised serious questions about human rights under the Calderon offensive against organized crime. For readers with strong stomachs, the videos can be found here.

The videos leaked by the local paper El Heraldo de León hit the media just one day after President Bush signed into law a $400 million aid package to support President Felipe Calderon’s war on drugs and organized crime.”*

A Democratic state senator who is infuriated by his party’s views on gay marriage and abortion rights is running for re-election on the Republican Party line, and says he is considering switching his allegiance to the Republican majority leader, Dean Skelos.

Senator Ruben Diaz Sr., a Pentecostal minister who represents the 32nd district in the south-central Bronx, said he isn’t loyal to either party but is seeking to advance his conservative policy positions by taking advantage of the Republicans’ slim margin of control in the chamber and running as both a Democrat and a Republican.”*

Gerardo Guardiola looks beyond the material items newly available to Cubans – cellphones, DVD players, meals at restaurants once reserved for tourists – and keys in on a more fundamental change that has transformed his life.

“I now think for myself,” said the 44-year-old tobacco factory worker and father of 10. “That’s truly revolutionary, knowing that you’re responsible for your own destiny.” “*

Listening to accounts by the U.S. news media and to the public postures taken by the Bush administration, one would think that there is no freedom of expression in Venezuela. The impression most U.S. citizens have is that the media is virtually under direct state control. Independent reporting, free from the government’s fiery rhetoric, has been noticeably absent. A careful and sober account of Venezuelan media that focuses on the most basic and uncontroversial facts of what constitutes the Venezuelan media today has been non-existent in mainstream U.S. media (and even in many independent sources as well). Such reporting could present a more accurate picture of the actual situation of freedom of expression in Venezuela.”*

A systematic literature review conducted by a team of researchers from the University of Connecticut, the Hispanic Health Council (Hartford), and the Connecticut Center for Eliminating Health Disparities among Latinos assessed the impact of peer education/counseling on nutrition and health outcomes among Latinos living in the United States. The results, published in the July/August issue of the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, provide evidence that peer nutrition education has a positive influence on diabetes self-management and breastfeeding outcomes, as well as on general nutrition knowledge and dietary intake behaviors, among Latinos in the US.”*

Staffers for Sen. John McCain at the annual convention for the Latino civil rights group La Raza have received mostly positive feedback on a picture of the senator praying at Our Lady of Guadalupe Shrine in Mexico City, but one teenager disliked the picture enough to steal it. “*

The secretary of state’s office counts more than 60,000 Hispanic voters in the state right now. It’s just 1.3 percent of the state’s active registered voters. But that’s more than double the 0.6 percent share of just four years ago. And voting rights groups keep registering more, in key counties.

“As of July 1, 2008, there are 12,219 Latino registered voters in Gwinnett County,” said Jerry Gonzalez of the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials.”*

Suffolk police on Tuesday asked the public’s help finding out who defaced a Bay Shore building with anti-Hispanic graffiti.

The phrases “Latinos Go Home” and “Get Out of the U.S.A.” were spray-painted on the side of Body Designs, a tattoo and body piercing shop, at 1746 Sunrise Highway in Bay Shore.”*

Hispanic patients with diabetes appear to have less frequent eye examinations than the national average for Hispanic individuals, and many are not aware of the potential ocular complications of diabetes, according to a report in the July issue of Archives of Ophthalmology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

One in five Hispanic individuals older than 40 years currently has diabetes, and almost half have diabetic retinopathy, a related eye disease, according to background information in the article. “The limited use of health care services in minority groups may make them more susceptible to the complications of uncontrolled diabetes,” the authors write. “In addition, a substantial proportion of those with diabetes are unaware of their condition, although already presenting signs of moderate to severe diabetic retinopathy. The importance of appropriate and timely care for diabetic retinopathy or macular edema [swelling in the retina] is paramount, as it is the leading cause of visual loss among working-age Hispanic individuals.”

Beatriz Muñoz, M.Sc., of the Wilmer Eye Institute, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, and colleagues interviewed 349 randomly selected Hispanic individuals without diabetes and a group of 204 Hispanic individuals with diabetes. Participants answered questions about demographic information, health care habits and knowledge of diabetes and diabetic retinopathy.

The researchers found that:

* Less than 10 percent of participants preferred reading in English

* 50 percent reported language barriers to health care

* Knowledge of eye disease as a consequence of diabetes was reported by 18 percent of non-diabetics with no family history of diabetes, 29 percent of non-diabetics with a family history of diabetes, 36 percent of those newly diagnosed with diabetes and 52 percent diagnosed with diabetes more than a year prior

* 16 percent of non-diabetics with no family history, 28 percent of non-diabetes with a family history, 13 percent of those newly diagnosed with diabetes and 34 percent diagnosed more than a year prior know that strict control of diabetes could prevent eye problems; 33 percent, 51 percent, 31 percent and 48 percent, respectively, knew dilated eye examinations were important

* Less than one-third (30 percent) of diabetic participants had had an eye examination in the previous year, compared with 70 to 75 percent in national samples of Hispanics

* Almost half of those with diabetes for more than one year and 79 percent of those diagnosed in the previous year had never had a dilated eye exam

“The lack of correct information about diabetes and diabetic eye disease in this population of Hispanic individuals should be of great concern,” the authors conclude. “The frequency of dilated eye examinations among people with diabetes was unacceptable, and places this population at risk of visual loss. These deficiencies need to be rectified with a culturally appropriate health education campaign, and with innovative ways to reduce barriers to health care.”

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(Arch Ophthalmol. 2008;126[7]:968-974. Available pre-embargo to the media at www.jamamedia.org.)

Editor’s Note: This project was supported by a grant from the National Eye Institute. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, financial disclosures, funding and support, etc.”*

During a recent heated meeting at the US Embassy in El Salvador, Ambassador Charles Glazer admitted to U.S. intervention in the 2004 Salvadoran Presidential Elections. The meeting on June 27 was requested by a group of 12 U.S. citizens, including professors, students, journalists and community activists who were taking part in a 10-day delegation organized by the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES).”*