Ohio

Representatives of the American Civil Liberties Union and the state’s Latino Affairs Commission urged lawmakers to quash legislation that would require public agencies to conduct business and keep records in English.

The bill, they said, is unnecessary, threatens civil and human rights of non-English-speaking citizens and would deter residents from learning other languages.

“The denial of services to American citizens with limited English proficiency is already happening,” said Ezra C. Escudero, director of the Ohio Latino Affairs Commission, which advises the governor and lawmakers on issues facing Hispanic residents. “… There is no need for English only legislation like House Bill 477. State agencies are already in compliance with its proposals, and the vast majority of Ohioans only speak English.”"*

More than 700 students from northwest Ohio and southeast Michigan are expected to attend the University of Toledo’s Latino Youth Summit tomorrow.”*

He is one of about 8,000 immigrants of Hispanic or Latino origin who reside in Butler County. The group is one of the largest growing minorities here. At Van Buren, nearly 90 of the 425 students are Hispanic or Latino.

Public schools across the county are employing English as a Second Language tutors to help students like Roberto, who enroll with limited English skills. Their ability to speak, read and write English may not be at their grade level.

The ESL program, which serves 498 students in the Hamilton School District, costs the school district $650,000 a year, with $410,000 of that coming from its general fund.”*

According to 2006 U.S. Census estimates, there were 8,756 Hispanic residents in Montgomery County and only 2,107 in the city of Dayton.

From April 2000 to July 2007, the Hispanic population increased by 66,632 in Ohio. Hispanics still only count for 2.5 percent of the state population.

“Stores like Meijer, they don’t stock the stuff Spanish people want,” said Jesus Sotelo, who runs La Favorita Supermercado with his wife Adrianna. “Plus we speak Spanish here; our customers feel more comfortable with that.”"*

It was the annual Cinco de Mayo Celebration, returning to downtown Dayton inside the Top of the Market this year after rain plagued an outdoor event in Miamisburg last year.

“This is just the beginning of the party,” Julio Gonzalez, president of Puerto Rican and Caribbean Organization (PACO), which organizes the event, told the crowd as Latin band Conjunto Jibaro finished playing. “Fiesta time begins now.”

“This is our heart. This is our culture,” said Elizabeth Jimenez-Pages, who also works for the all-volunteer PACO. “We want to share it.”"*

The 13th Annual Hispanic Leadership Conference kicked off Friday night at the Holiday Inn in Elyria and continues today at Lorain County Community College. The most important issue of the year in Lorain — where 21 percent of the population is Hispanic — is foreclosure, said Mike Ferrer, coalition spokesman.

“Our conference is for the line worker who every day goes to work and tries to better their lives and their families’ lives,” Ferrer said. “We’re all family. We all need to work together to touch each others’ lives. If we can do that, our county will survive. We’ve got to break this trend, where everywhere you go there are empty houses.””*

Cinema, multiculturalism, music, dance, food, workshop, stand-up comedy - and saving families from foreclosure. It’s part of the vast spectrum of topics and events at the 13th Annual Hispanic Leadership Conference.

The organizers of the organization called C.H.I.P. (Coalition of Hispanic/Latino Issues and Progress) will be covering all the bases this weekend at Lorain County Community College.”*

We are a nation of immigrants, a fact too often ignored in the modern debate over undocumented workers and what impact they do, or do not, have on the fabric of our communities.

As documented in reporter Dan Horn’s detailed story that begins on the cover of this section, the perceptions and realities of what an influx of immigrants means to a particular community do not always coincide. Horn looked at Butler County, a fast-growing and generally prosperous part of Greater Cincinnati, where such an influx has been much discussed.

Because it is growing and prosperous, Butler County has attracted more Hispanic immigrants in the past decade than any other county in the region. Currently the Hispanic population of the county is estimated at about 8,200 people - about 2.3 percent of the total population of 355,000. That’s an increase of 72 percent since 2000.”*

*From: http://news.enquirer.com
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Juanita Serrano and other single moms staged demonstrations at government buildings in Cleveland, Columbus and Washington, D.C., in the late 1960s and early ’70s to get more financial and practical aid to raise their children.

“We were arrested a few times,” said Iris Cuevas, a fellow member of the now-defunct National Welfare Rights Organization. “They kept us there [in Cleveland] for hours and hours until they decided to let us go and then, I guess, no charges. We went to Columbus to the governor’s mansion to demonstrate. He turned on the sprinkler. We all got wet!”

Serrano, a Puerto Rican native, who died of complications from cancer March 5 at age 77, instructed Hispanic women whose husbands had abandoned them about welfare benefits and the importance of getting an education and a job.”*

*From: http://www.cleveland.com
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As general manager for Sears Optical, Denise Santiago-Sorino has the distinction of being the only Hispanic employee there.

Santiago-Sorino manages the sales representatives and sales supervisor. As a licensed optician, she also takes measurements, reads prescriptions, dispenses eyeglasses and provides customer service. Santiago-Sorino knows how to use about 30 tools to adjust eyeglass frames. She takes care to prevent eyeglasses from breaking from everyday wear and tear.

Being bilingual was a big advantage when she applied for the job. She translates for Spanish-speaking clients, and sometimes employees ask her to help translate.”*

*From: http://www.chroniclet.com
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With the merengue and other dance music blaring, the Puerto Rican Cultural Society of Dayton put its vitality on display this weekend in marking its 30th anniversary at the Dayton Woman’s Club.

Jenny Honingford, one of the club’s founding members, said 10 couples started the society in 1978 to pass on customs to the next generation and raise public awareness of Puerto Rican culture. In those early days, the close-knit group would gather to fix traditional dishes such as empanadillas — pastry turnovers filled with meat — and fried and mashed plantains.”*

*From: http://www.daytondailynews.com
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For more than a half-century, she was known as the madrina - the godmother.

Ruth Garcia, now 87, fulfilled the custom by overseeing the baptisms of hundreds of newborns at the former Our Lady of Guadalupe Mission Church. But she also became the godmother of hundreds more: immigrants who came from Texas and Mexico in the 1940s, speaking little English and knowing little about the city.

“I felt it was my duty to help them,” Mrs. Garcia said.”*

*From: http://toledoblade.com
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Even in a parking lot, Chulo the Clown can create magic.

With a few dance moves, twists of balloons and a merry monologue, he entranced a group of children huddled on a West Side bench on a recent chilly day.

But Chulo — whose real name is Carlo Corral — has another weapon at his disposal, as he demonstrated at a recent birthday party for 7-year-old Mauro Sanchez-Hernandez.”*

*From: http://www.columbusdispatch.com
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Last night, during Los Lobos’ performance in the Palace Theatre, the image of the young and hungry Latino-roots band playing for the first time in Columbus in Stache’s more than 25 years ago was hard to shake. Grayed veterans, the band’s five principals have slowed over the years but nonetheless not strayed from their mission of exploring the essence of American music.

Last night, that vision included longer, more-languid stylings more akin to the Grateful Dead than Richie Valens — the sound of the slow burn rather than the Saturday-night house party.”*

*From: http://dispatch.com
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American audiences love the sensuous, Latin-infused writing of Argentine composer Osvaldo Golijov. Crowds at Carnegie Hall this winter reportedly went crazy when they heard the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela.

Then there’s the Bolivar Orchestra’s young conductor, Gustavo Dudamel, wild-haired and grinning in his photos. This unbuttoned new star has generated enthusiastic buzz before even beginning his appointment as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.”*

*From: http://www.ohio.com
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Carla Soto was delivering the latest issue of Ohio’s largest Spanish-language newspaper to a bustling mercado one recent afternoon when a shopper asked a question on the lips of many Latinos ahead of Tuesday’s critical primary.

“What’s being done about crimes against us?” asked Donna Juarez, referring to such incidents as an arson near Columbus that left 10 Hispanics dead in 2004, a spate of robberies targeting Latino workers a year later, and the killing of four Mexican immigrants in December.

Soto, 21, who doubles as La Prensa’s associate editor, answered: “We have to turn out on Tuesday to get their attention.”"*

*From: http://www.chicagotribune.com
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A Hamilton County judge wants to keep better tabs on illegal immigrants.

Judge Norbert Nadel says illegal immigrants are burdening the court’s budget because judges have to bring in interpreters.”*

*From: http://www.wcpo.com
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They’re tweaking the growth engine at TSJ News Inc.

The Blue Ash-based newspaper company, parent of The Spanish Journal in Cincinnati and Dayton, crossed the $1 million revenue mark in 2007 by starting new publications in Atlanta and Detroit. The process took longer and cost more than officials had projected. So, the company started 2008 with a resolution to buy - not build - its way into its next expansion markets.”*

*From: http://www.bizjournals.com
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A Green Township Republican introduced a bill Tuesday to make English the state’s official language.

Rep. Bob Mecklenborg, who was appointed to the Ohio House in October, is being challenged in the March 4 primary election by Dick Hammersmith, a conservative political consultant.

The bill, which has the support of House Speaker Jon Husted, would ensure that in order for Ohio’s actions and laws to be considered authoritative and legal, they must be communicated in English, its backers say.”*

*From: http://news.cincinnati.com
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Robert Torres has been named the city’s director of development, a Cabinet-level position for Mayor William J. Healy II.

Torres, 45, is leaving his position as a development specialist with the city of Toledo. He’s also stepping down as a member of the Toledo Board of Education.

Torres is expected to start the job by March 1. His salary will be roughly $71,000 a year, similar to that of other Cabinet positions. “*

*From: http://www.cantonrep.com
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A panel of area leaders will discuss services their respective agencies have to offer the growing Latino population in Clark and Champaign counties in a forum on Thursday.

The Latino Migrant Coalition of Clark and Champaign County will host the first-of-its-kind panel at 11:30 a.m. in the City Hall Forum, 76 E. High St.”*

*From: http://www.springfieldnewssun.com
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Christian singer Ana Garcia curls over the morning paper at a coffee shop not far from her Mentor home. The lights in the parking lot are shrouded in a murky fog. Being up to see the sun rise is not new to Garcia. For two years in the late ’90s, she ran the overnight assignment desk and reported for the morning show at WEWS Channel 5.

At the time, the Chicago native thought she had reached the pinnacle of life. Then she reported a segment about La Sagrada Familia, the Cleveland Catholic Diocese’s Hispanic congregation on the West Side. She found herself drawn to the church, and its choir, especially its songs of compassion and forgiveness.”*

*From: http://www.cleveland.com
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It began as a tip to America’s Most Wanted: An anonymous caller said the No. 1 fugitive was holed up in a South Side house.

With the TV show’s cameras in tow, deputy U.S. marshals raided 788 Stambaugh Ave. on Jan. 7 looking for Manuel Penaloza, who was wanted in two killings and a carjacking in Pasadena, Calif.

Instead, they found five undocumented immigrants in the tiny bungalow. The immigrants were deported; there was no evidence that Penaloza had ever been there.

“Something’s fishy,” said Tom Genz, who supervises the Marshals Service office in Columbus. “As time goes by, I’m skeptical with that tip.”"*

*From: http://dispatch.com
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The Ohio Department of Insurance is targeting Hispanic-owned small businesses with the launch of a new online public education effort, “Insure U En Espanol.”

Located as a section of the department’s Web site, the information is intended to provide Hispanic small businesses with information to help them understand business risks and insurance options.”*

*From: http://www.bizjournals.com
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Building a successful small business is more than understanding supply-and-demand and other basic economic principles.

“You have to really want it,” said Carlos Garcia, founder and president of RCS Corporation, during the Rotary Club of Aiken’s weekly meeting Monday at the Aiken Municipal Center.

For Garcia, creating an enterprise that now boasts annual revenue of more than $15 million was the true realization of the American Dream. A native of Cuba, Garcia came to the United States when he was 12, after his family escaped poverty and the iron fist of Communist rule on the Caribbean island.”*

*From: http://www.aikenstandard.com
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