Latinos

Crowds lined Benjamin Franklin Parkway and Chestnut Street yesterday to watch the Puerto Rican Week Festival parade. The parade, which started at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and proceeded to Independence Hall, wrapped up the festival.

For the year 2000 Census, here's a radical idea: U.S. residents of Mexican or Central American-origin, as well as most other Latinos, should declare themselves "Native American" on the Census questionnaire. The way it is now, most Latinos are virtually obliged to put themselves in the "white" racial category, even though they are the descendants of indigenous people who have lived in the Americas for thousands of years. In Mexico and Central America, the people there do not consider themselves white, but rather indigenous or indigenous mestizos, people of mixed Indian, African and European lineage.

Testimony describing the low percentage of Latino employees in the Health, Recreation and Human Services Departments was heard yesterday at a hearing of the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations, along with statements by city department heads that they were doing everything they could to hire Latinos. Depending on the estimate, Latinos make up 6 to 10 percent of the city's population. Just 1.5 percent of the city Health Department's 1,749 employees are Puerto Rican or Latino, said Health Commissioner Maurice Clifford.

LANCASTER, Pa. - Lancaster's rolling hills are steeped in the traditions of the Amish, whose plain dress and humility are as much a tourist lure as their quilts and pies. But, as an iconic symbol, this Lancaster image could need a revision. Instead of Zerbe's potato chips, think chicharrones. Egg casserole? How about chilaquiles ? Pulled pork? Did someone say lechón asado ? Increasingly, the flavors of this south-central Pennsylvania region - famous for its mud sales and outlets - bear a marked Latin accent that goes beyond language and cuisine.

The headlines about the selection of the next member of the state Supreme Court may be fading, but the repercussions of that decision are just beginning. It's essential we move forward and create a working foundation using the hard lessons learned in recent weeks. But to ensure this occurs, we must recognize that the issue surrounding Zulima Farber, one of the most respected people in this state, was not a fight between Latinos and African Americans seeking the same piece of the pie. That categorization simply serves to deflect attention from the issues and obstacles both groups face in New Jersey.

ONE person's Great American Success Story is another's irrelevant footnote. All depends on who's telling the tale. Example: Child of Latino immigrants overcomes adversity, works hard, makes it to the Ivy League, then the law review and rises to the highest echelons of the legal profession. Child-turned-accomplished adult gets tapped for a prestigious federal judgeship. And Democrats wage a bitter battle against the nomination, up to and including the rarely used filibuster.

Angel Perez says it's important his children know that jail is a dreadful and dangerous place, not one he wants them to see - not even on a visit. Perez, 42, was separated from his five children for a year while he served time for drug possession. "I don't think kids should go to see their fathers in jail," said Perez, a custodian at a private school in North Philadelphia. "They might think, 'It's OK for me to go to jail.' " A resident of the city's Kensington section, Perez, who has a son in jail, said he wanted to keep his four other children out of the grips of the criminal justice system and prison.

Nereida Silva, a cousin of James "Bebe" Martinez, was of two emotions when a Common Pleas jury returned a sentence of life in prison for her cousin and four other defendants convicted of first-degree murder in the death of Sean Daily. (Two other defendants were found guilty of third-degree murder.) "I am relieved because they gave them life, but I'm not happy," said Silva, 24. "It's racist and we're getting tired of being treated like we're nobody. " If Latinos had sat on the jury of seven men and five women - six whites and six African-Americans - the six defendants who were Latino might have been treated differently, she said.

Frustrated by a lack of political clout in Philadelphia, local and national Hispanic leaders are preparing a redistricting plan that could give Latinos control of a City Council district for the first time. The plan, which could lead to a political battle winding up in federal court, would redraw the city's 10 Council district lines so that one would include the bulk of Philadelphia's 100,000 or so Hispanics. The coalition of political and civic activists also is seeking a legislative district that would increase the likelihood of a second Latino in the state House.

A surge of voter registrations among Camden County's Latino population is seen by some activists as a boost for Jose Delgado, the only Hispanic among the three candidates in next week's Camden mayoral election. Although officials at the Board of Elections said a majority of the 4,065 new voters registered since May are Latinos, Delgado and campaign workers for interim Mayor Aaron Thompson downplayed the significance of those numbers. That is because even with the new registrations, Hispanics remain a minority, accounting for about 30 percent of the city's 32,780 voters, according to Freddy Feliciano, an inspector for the county's Board of Elections.

Questions and comments made by several justices during last week's oral arguments suggested the Supreme Court might validate that portion of a controversial Arizona law that would allow local police to question persons suspected of other crimes about their immigration status. The court wouldn't consider the likelihood that such questioning might violate the questioned person's civil rights because that is the subject of separate litigation. The justices are limited to ruling on the constitutionality of specific issues brought before the high court, so they also didn't comment on the morality of the Arizona law and others like it either proposed or enacted in other states.

By Lewis Diuguid Because of this country's racist past, the future for people of color, and for the United States overall, doesn't look too promising. That was the conclusion of a report by the group United for a Fair Economy. Consider that in 1980, the U.S. population was 80 percent white. By 2010, the white portion had dropped to 65 percent. The Census Bureau now projects that by 2042, eight years sooner than once predicted, the United States will become a majority-minority nation.

HARRISBURG - Fearful that the rights of the state's fastest-growing minority group are being violated, a coalition of Latino groups is urging legislators to delay the Pennsylvania primary election to ensure that the state's 700,000 Latinos are properly represented. Latino activists, speaking at a news conference in the Capitol Rotunda, said allowing the primary to be held April 24 using 2001 maps that do not account for recent growth in the state's Latino population would be unconstitutional and discriminatory.

HARRISBURG - Fearful that the rights of the state's fastest-growing minority group are being violated, a coalition of Latino groups is urging legislators to delay the Pennsylvania primary election to ensure that the state's 700,000 Latinos are properly represented. Latino activists, speaking at a news conference in the Capitol Rotunda, said allowing the primary to be held April 24 using 2001 maps that do not account for recent growth in the state's Latino population would be unconstitutional and discriminatory.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Maria Medina's life is littered with the destruction of diabetes. Her neighbor had a foot amputated because of the disease. Her mother went blind from it. Her sister died of it. Damage that pervasive is a common experience in the Mexican-American community, which has some of the highest rates in a surge of diabetes nationwide. The disease can provoke heart attacks, high blood pressure, kidney failure and blindness, and is the seventh-leading cause of death nationwide.

AS SOMEONE who has participated in the redistricting process in 1991 as a Council staffer, in 2001 as a member of the Latino Voting Rights Committee and this year as a member of the City Council redistricting committee, I totally agree with the Pennsylvania State Supreme Court that we should not violate the state Constitution or the federal Voting Rights Act. We should protect the principles of one person-one vote, communities of interest (not divide...

UNFORTUNATELY, for the three boys shot and killed, many factors came into play in this tragedy. The blame game is easy after the fact; however, at the end of the day, this tragedy has affected so many. Children lost their lives; parents lost their children; friends lost friends. The ones who survived, as well as the brothers who lived at the home, will forever be scarred and the shooter will spend the rest of his life in jail. I believe that we as parents, as a community, need to step up our parenting game and change the cycle of poverty, hate, abuse, drug addiction, bad parenting and, most importantly, not placing enough importance on having an education.

LOS ANGELES - Television's highest-earning actress and a San Francisco art museum chief are two of the key figures in the bid to establish a new museum on the National Mall in Washington devoted to the history and culture of American Latinos. But Eva Longoria, who will rally public support for a bill in Congress to create the museum, and Jonathan Yorba, chairman of the museum-lobbying group that picked her, also played key roles in the creation of a problem-plagued Los Angeles museum and cultural center focused on the contributions of Mexican Americans in Southern California.

By Ed Morales In a strange way, the ascension of Newt Gingrich in the race for the Republican nomination for president began with a comment he made about immigration at the CNN-sponsored debate last month. "I don't see how the party that says it's the party of the family is going to adopt an immigration policy which destroys families that have been here a quarter-century," he said. "And I'm prepared to take the heat for saying, 'Let's be humane in enforcing the law without giving them citizenship but by finding a way to create legality.'" Just weeks after then-candidate Herman Cain had been "joking" about installing electrified fences along the border of Mexico, and in stark contrast to most of his Republican peers' staunch opposition to "amnesty" for undocumented immigrants, Gingrich came across as someone who seemed to have a moral conscience about the issue.

WASHINGTON - Sheriff Joe Arpaio's Phoenix-based department repeatedly arrested Latinos illegally, abused them in county jails, and failed to investigate hundreds of sexual assaults, the Justice Department charged Thursday after a three-year civil rights investigation. Justice officials are expected to file suit in federal court in Arizona asking that changes be ordered in the department run by Arpaio, who bills himself as "America's toughest sheriff" for his stance on illegal immigration.