Politics + Quotes Hispanic y Latino News & Info (Noticias)

August 26, 2009

Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., said in a statement this morning Kennedy “will always have a place of honor in the Latino community as someone who stood up and fought for the rights of immigrants and the issues that affected the community at a time when few others would.”

June 23, 2009

Fort Worth is the largest city in Texas without a Hispanic representing a House seat

November 7, 2008

In 1964, President Johnson’s top adviser, Jack Valenti, cut down a group of Latinos seeking presidential appointments. “You have one percent of the vote, so you have one percent of my attention,” Raul Yzaguirre recalled Valenti saying.

September 27, 2008

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson said he thought his state was slipping out of McCain’s grasp. “Republicans have damaged McCain’s prospects with Hispanic voters, even though McCain has a good record on immigration,” he said, predicting that McCain would slip to a dangerous 35 percent of the Hispanic vote, which is a key constituency in the West.

September 22, 2008

“The truth is that Hispanics came here as conquerors. African-Americans came here as slaves. … Hispanics consider themselves above blacks. They won’t vote for a black president.” – Fernando C’ de Baca, who heads the GOP in Bernalillo County, New Mexico

September 21, 2008

Ex-congressman questions Dems’ presumptions of Latino votes – Former Texas Rep. Henry Bonilla – “Don’t you think it’s insulting that they assume they have your support if your skin is a few shades darker?”

September 15, 2008

“In Puerto Rico where you all come from over 85 percent of the people turn out to vote in every single election, and somehow when we move to the mainland we try to keep our language, we try to keep out lechon asado (roast pork) we certainly keep our music, but sometimes we forget the one of the important things about being Puerto Rican is that we register to vote and you turn out to vote in huge numbers. And unfortunately up here on the mainland only twenty or thirty percent of Puerto Ricans register and vote in the elections and that’s like giving away part of being Puerto Rican.” said McClintock.

July 28, 2008

“McCain’s problem is the problem of his party demonizing Hispanic people,” Luis Cortes (one of Time Magazine’s 25 most influential evangelicals in America & 2x Bush backer) said. “His party demonized us. You can’t switch off the immigration rhetoric and think it will work. In the context of the immigration issue, Hispanics define the enemy as the Republican Party and you don’t erase that overnight.

Regardless of whom Hispanics wind up supporting come November, Harley Shaiken, chairman of the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of California Berkeley, says there’s clearly a cautionary tale in all this. “Tension is nothing new between races and ethnicities in this country,” he says. “But it can be overstated … racial and ethnic relations are very complex to interpret. Plausible and correct are two different things.”

July 14, 2008

“Only about 500 Latino voters in Miami decided that George Bush, and not Al Gore, should be the next president,” points out Jorge Ramos, an anchor for the Spanish-language network Univision . “In the year 2004, if only 67,000 Latinos in Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico would have voted for John Kerry instead of George Bush, John Kerry would have been president of the United States.”

May 29, 2008

“A certain segment has basically been feeding a kind of xenophobia. There’s a reason why hate crimes against Hispanic people doubled last year,” Obama said. “If you have people like Lou Dobbs and Rush Limbaugh ginning things up, it’s not surprising that would happen.”

April 28, 2008

“Being in this country without proper documentation is not a crime,” New Jersey’s U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie told more than 60 residents and town officials. “The whole phrase of ‘illegal immigrant’ connotes that the person, by just being here, is committing a crime.”

March 24, 2008

“I resent the fact that the Clinton people are now saying that my endorsement is too late because I only can help with Texans — with Texas and Hispanics, implying that that’s my only value,” Gov. Bill Richardson told CNN’s John King

March 11, 2008

Recently, CNN’s Bill Schneider explained Texas’ ”two-step” voting process by using the metaphor of a Mexican combination plate and quipped that both ”give you heartburn.”

February 11, 2008

”There’s so much anti-immigrant and anti-Hispanic sentiment out there, and this just feeds into it even more,” said Millie Herrera, president of the state Democratic Hispanic Caucus. “We are giving her a week and then we will escalate. We’re not going to drop this.” – about U.S. Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite Puerto Rican ‘foreigner’ comment

February 7, 2008

”It was huge, and it will be huge in November,” says pollster John Zogby, referring to the Hispanic voter turnout. “The issue of illegal immigration is really energizing Latino voters.”

“I mean 30 percent, about 30 percent (and) numbers may be higher and that is unprecedented for Latinos in any state,” said Albert Camarillo of Stanford University, about how many Latinos came out to vote. “So what does that say? Bottom line, Latinos are a major political force in the state of California.”

February 4, 2008

“There’s been a tremendous impact in Oklahoma City,” said David Castillo, the executive director of the Greater Oklahoma City Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. “We’ve had several companies close shop and leave the state. Banks have called us and say they’re closing 30 accounts per week.” – Due to Oklahoma’s new law

January 29, 2008

“If I do endorse, it’s going to be a gut feeling. It’s not going to be about statistics, about past ties,” Richardson said. “I’ve been on the campaign trail with both of them. I feel that I know them. I feel I know the issues. I feel I know what makes them both tick.”

November 19, 2007

‘To hear the debate on immigration in 2007 in which members of the United States Senate would use the words that I’ve fought all my 22 years of public service — `Those people’, I would never have believed it,” said Sen. Robert Menendez. ‘When they say those words it’s not about the undocumented [immigrants] alone. I understand very clearly what ‘those people’ means. ‘Those people’ is all of us.”

September 30, 2007

QUOTE: “I don’t think it’s really registered with people just how influential the Latino vote can be in some of these state primaries,” said NALEO’s executive director, Arturo Varga

September 26, 2007

QUOTE: “I’m disappointed for thousands of young people whose lives are just in limbo,” Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill. added. “They want to move on with their lives and do good things, and unfortunately we haven’t been able to pass the laws to make that happen.” – in reference to the Dream Act

QUOTE: “In the Latino areas where candidates advocated a variant of ‘enforcement only,’” said Nadler, “support for Republicans dropped by more than 21 percentage points over a single cycle, and support for Democrats rose by an equivalent amount. But where Republican candidates supported comprehensive immigration reform – some combination of border control and guest-worker programs or earned legalization – the situation was quite different. There, Republicans lost roughly 4 percentage points, and Democrats gained 4 – a shift in line with national trends.”

September 25, 2007

QUOTE: “They no longer need to hide and pretend they are not here,” Gov. Eliot Spitzer said. “We will not become part of what is propagated on the federal level _ that if we don’t admit they are here, then we can somehow not provide services. That is bad policy.” regarding New York’s plan to provide driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants

September 13, 2007

QUOTE: “While Republicans have been the ones actively proposing legislation that’s more punitive, Democrats have not stood up anywhere close enough to ask for the fair policy that we feel needs to be considered.” – Alex Orozco

QUOTE: “Patti (Solis) has been a close advisor and friend for almost 16 years,” said Hillary Clinton. “I am proud to see that her hard work and commitment to help bring change to our country is being recognized.”

September 12, 2007

QUOTE: “I’m very proud, first of all to be the first Latino ”” major Latino candidate to run for President,” said Bill Richardson, “I’m disappointed today that 43 million Latinos in this country, for them not to hear one of their own speak Spanish.”