Ethnic Groups

"Race the Sun," clearly meant for the same audience that supported "Cool Runnings," tells the story of Hawaiian high school students who enter an international solar car race. The team comprises a group of the neglected, underachieving students at Kona Pali High who coalesce when a new science teacher (Halle Berry) starts convincing them to believe in themselves. Most of the students - representing a wide spectrum of sometimes quarreling ethnic groups - are from poor households and are accustomed to living down to the school's low expectations (represented by James Belushi's cynical shop teacher)

Experience the cultural richness - the foods, the crafts, the songs and dances - of the Garden State on Saturday at the sixth annual Southern New Jersey Ethnic Festival. Rain or shine, the festival will be held from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. in the Student Center at Glassboro State College. Official opening ceremonies, with a ribbon cutting, will be at noon. Representatives of at least 40 ethnic groups have been invited to this year's celebration, said Rich Gannon, a spokesman for the governor's office, which is supporting the event.

There are "startling" disparities in the health of the nation's major racial and ethnic groups, Health and Human Services Secretary Louis W. Sullivan said yesterday. In its annual compilation of statistics on the population's well-being, the department said that while life expectancy among the nation as a whole rose to a record 75.2 years last year, for blacks it fell to 69.2 years. Sullivan, releasing a report that compared the health status of Asian Americans, Hispanics and American Indians as well as blacks and whites, said, "We have a significant segment of our population impaired because of poor health.

Demanding parity with black cultural organizations, the leaders of seven ethnic groups yesterday requested an additional $525,000 in city grants to enhance their participation in the Constitution bicentennial celebration. The request came during a City Hall ceremony in which Councilwoman Joan L. Krajewski presented the groups with checks totaling $200,000 - allocations that were approved by Council earlier this year. Krajewski told the ethnic leaders she would do her best to get them each $75,000 more.

The Supreme Court, significantly expanding the coverage of a basic civil rights law, ruled unanimously yesterday that Hispanics, Jews, Arabs and other ethnic groups are protected against racial discrimination even though they are considered to be part of the white race. When Congress enacted the Civil Rights Act of 1866, it meant to protect not only blacks, but also all "identifiable classes of persons subjected to intentional discrimination solely because of their ancestry or ethnic characteristics," Justice Byron R. White wrote for the court.

The following three remarks may or may not offend you. Test your threshold of indignation: 1. "The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approves Norplant, a contraceptive that can keep a woman from getting pregnant for five years. A black research organization reports that nearly half the nation's black children are living in poverty . . . Dare we mention (those two stories) in the same breath? . . . To do so, (raises) the specter of eugenics. " 2. "There are a lot of people - Jews and other people - who want to take over our city, and we cannot allow that.

When we moved to the Northeast in 1968, I thought we'd found Utopia: a pizza parlor on every corner. It was a culinary coup that only an 8-year-old should enjoy. I was thinking about this recently while sampling the tastes of the Northeast. I sat in what used to be a pizza parlor on Bustleton Avenue and sipped a papaya juice while a cabdriver next to me slurped down a dinner of fried goat with a side order of plantains. The restaurant is called the Haitian Corner, run by Haitian emigres.

A flagpole at 21st Street and Benjamin Franklin Parkway is marked "Ukraine" - but the yellow-and-blue flag of once-free Ukraine doesn't fly there anymore. A sign for "Armenia" marks another empty flagpole at 20th and the Parkway. The city of Philadelphia took both flags down as part of its new foreign policy. But the policy, which has the city's Ukrainian- and Armenian-Americans furious, is "definitely under review," City Representative Gerri Walker said last night. Perhaps you didn't know the city had a foreign policy.

History books tell the story of Squato, whose real name is Squatum, an American Indian who taught the Pilgrims how to grow corn when they first arrived in America. But what the books don't explain is: How did Squatum know how to communicate in English with the Pilgrims? Nancy Omaha Boy, who teaches American Indian anthropology at Rutgers University's Camden campus, raised the point yesterday as an example of the information she and others hope to include in a new supplemental curriculum that will be taught in schools statewide this fall.

One of the most disturbing voices in the chorus of American opinions about war in the Persian Gulf belongs to a spokeswoman for an anti-war group. In a televised news conference I stumbled upon she urged "minorities" to refuse to fight. Blacks and Hispanics, she said, should not die for a racist country. Now, everyone agrees that individuals who oppose war in all forms may decline to fight. It can even be justifiable for people to refuse to go to battle because of a moral disagreement with the aims of a particular conflict.

WASHINGTON - To keep pace with rapidly changing notions of race, the Census Bureau wants to make broad changes to its surveys that would treat "Hispanic" as a distinct category regardless of race, end use of the term "Negro" and offer new ways to identify Middle Easterners. The recommendations released Wednesday stem from new government research on the best ways to count the nation's demographic groups. Still it could face stiff resistance from some racial and ethnic groups who worry that any kind of wording change in the high-stakes government count could yield a lower tally for them.

KATHMANDU, Nepal - Political discord has come to Shangri-La. Again. Kathmandu, which normally swarms with business, honking horns, and creaking rickshaws, found itself stuck in a tense quagmire last week as political leaders struggled to finish writing Nepal's new constitution by a May 27 deadline. Even though Nepal proclaimed itself a democratic republic in 2008, two years after a brutal decade of civil war, this mountainous country of almost 30 million is still operating with an interim government.

BAMAKO, Mali - Mali's new interim civilian president took office Thursday, vowing to keep the chaotic country intact even after rebels declared an independent state in the north following a military coup three weeks ago. Hours after handing over power to Dioncounda Traore, the junta also released about a dozen politicians who had been detained since the coup, including the country's foreign minister. Traore, who heads the country's national assembly, is to serve as Mali's president for 40 days following an agreement between West African regional mediators and the leader of the junta that seized power last month.

DO EX-CONS deserve a second chance? Yes. Should my perspective toward an ex-con change simply because he "paid his debt to society"? Absolutely not! Should ex-cons be treated as "second-class citizens"? Duh! First-class citizens don't break the law, let alone kill dogs. Just because Michael Vick paid his legal debt to society does not change the fact he is murderous, dog-killing scum. In my opinion, his only true regret is the fact that he got caught. Saying "I'm sorry" only makes the person saying it feel better, and does nothing for those affected by the crime (every dog lover in the world)

ATLANTA - Half of Americans drink a soda or sugary beverage each day - and some are downing a lot. One in 20 people drinks the equivalent of more than four cans of soda each day, even though health officials say such beverages should be limited to half a can or less. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released the figures Wednesday in a report said to be the government's first to offer national statistics for both adults and children. Sweetened drinks have been linked to the U.S. explosion in obesity and related medical problems, and health officials have been urging people to cut back for years.

Norway victims recalled in Oslo OSLO, Norway - Norway's prime minister urged his countrymen to look after one another and be vigilant for intolerance, as the nation concluded a monthlong mourning period with a candlelit memorial service Sunday in Oslo for the 77 people killed by a right-wing extremist. Anders Behring Breivik has admitted to carrying out the July 22 killings. Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, who received standing ovations from the 6,700 relatives, survivors, and officials in the audience during his speech, said "together we are an unbreakable chain of care, democracy, and safety - that is our protection against violence.

IN THE 1800s and early 1900s, immigrants poured into seaport cities like Philadelphia, and "they all would settle around where they arrived," including Jews, Italians, Irish and other groups, said Rabbi Fred Kazan. "In Philadelphia, they tended to be in South Philadelphia. Side by side were a synagogue, church, bar and bathhouses," said Kazan, who grew up around 5th and Federal and is rabbi at Kesher Israel, in Society Hill. "As the decades passed, those who were able tended to move south," he said.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender people would be added to the lengthy list of social and ethnic groups that public schools must include in social-studies lessons under a bill passed Thursday by the California Senate. California would become the first state to require the teaching of gay history if the bill is adopted by the Assembly and signed by Gov. Jerry Brown. Supporters said the move was needed to counter antigay stereotypes that make children in those groups vulnerable to bullying and suicide.

I'M A BLACK man and a lifelong resident of Philadelphia. I mentioned my ethnicity because I want to address what I perceive as unfair attention directed at black people by those uncertain about their own status, economically and socially. But first I need to let it be known that I don't deplore racism - if it's positive. Positive racism is the ethnic preference and pride that allows an individual to celebrate his or her ethnicity by associating with members of their own ilk. Annual parades, Irish, Puerto Rican, Chinese, among others, are a reflection of this.

RE "Kwanzaa a nice idea, but it won't catch on": This is the most insulting and politically incorrect letter I've ever read. It appears the writer needs to take his own advice about education. His letter was inaccurate and disingenuous. The fact is that, in 1966, Dr. Maulana Karenga, a male professor of black studies at California State University in Long Beach, Calif., created a nonpolitical and nonreligious celebration of African values. Kwanzaa is more than an idea, as the writer claims it is, about values and principles such as unity, community, self-sufficiency that need to be practiced all year round.