Sunday, May 10, 2009

Concern over Latino evangelical leader's call to boycott U.S. census + Comment

http://www.pe.com/localnews/immigration/stories/PE_News_Local_S_census10.23eebb7.html
Concern over Latino evangelical leader's call to boycott U.S. census


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0:00 PM PDT on Saturday, May 9, 2009

By DAVID OLSON
The Press-Enterprise

As immigrant and Latino organizations gear up to urge illegal immigrants to participate in the 2010 census, a Latino evangelical leader is telling them to boycott the count unless comprehensive immigration reform is enacted.

The Rev. Miguel Rivera, chairman of the Washington-based National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders, appears to be alone among national Latino leaders in promoting a boycott.

But his call worries immigration-rights advocates, who say it could lead to fewer services in immigrant communities and hurt efforts to increase Latino political influence. Census population counts are used to shape congressional districts and help determine where federal funding goes.

Local immigration activists are planning outreach campaigns to encourage census participation. The Census Bureau is working with community groups across the country to promote the benefits of filling out the census.

"Unfortunately the comments and posture taken by (the coalition) may very well have a negative impact and cause more trepidation in a community that was already naturally hesitant to participate in the census," said the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, president of the Sacramento-based National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, an evangelical group that supports a full census count.

Rodriguez said even if a few hundred thousand of the nation's estimated 12 million illegal immigrants do not participate, it could mean millions of dollars in lost funding.

The U.S. Census Bureau will begin mailing forms in March 2010. The U.S. Constitution requires the census to count everyone, whether they are legal residents or not. The census does not ask immigration status.

Many illegal immigrants fear answering an official government survey like the census or talking with a government employee, believing it could lead to deportation, said Laura Barrera, deputy director for the Census for the Los Angeles-based National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. The boycott taps into those fears, she said.

The 2000 census undercounted the Hispanic population by about 3 percent, Barrera said. The Census Bureau estimates the 2000 Hispanic undercount was less than 1 percent, down from an undercount of about 5 percent in 1990, said Raul Cisneros, a census spokesman.

Barrera's group is launching a Spanish-language media campaign in October to reassure immigrants and others that census answers are not shared with other government agencies. Census employees face fines or jail for disclosing information.

The group is also setting up a hotline to address census concerns, said Barrera, who called Rivera "irresponsible" for threatening a boycott.

Rivera said he is not convinced the census information will remain confidential, despite the law. And he believes that population data from the census can be combined with voter statistics to determine which areas have the largest illegal-immigrant populations, which could lead to harsh anti-illegal-immigrant laws and Immigration and Customs Enforcement crackdowns.

Rivera said he hopes the boycott threat helps lead to a push for legalization of millions of illegal immigrants.

"If governors want to have that funding in their states, and if mayors want to have that funding in their cities, they need to stop looking the other way and roll up their sleeves and put pressure on Congress to bring about comprehensive immigration reform," he said.

Population data from the census help determine how about $300 billion in federal funding each year is distributed. A smaller population for a city, county or state leads to less funding.

Census data also is used to form congressional districts, which are created based upon total population, including illegal immigrants.

For the first time this year, census forms will be mailed to about 13 million households -- about half of all Latino homes -- in English and Spanish, Cisneros said.

Armando Navarro, a professor of ethnic studies at UC Riverside and coordinator of the Riverside-based National Alliance for Human Rights, said an undercount of illegal immigrants would lead to less political power for immigrants and Latinos by underestimating their numerical clout.

Navarro said he and other activists are planning Inland town-hall meetings to encourage immigrants to participate in the census. The Roman Catholic Diocese of San Bernardino is planning its own outreach campaign, said diocesan spokesman John Andrews.

Emilio Amaya, executive director of the San Bernardino Community Service Center, which will distribute pro-census leaflets in immigrant communities, predicted Rivera's boycott call will be outweighed by campaigns by local community groups to encourage participation in the census.

Navarro said illegal immigrants, who cannot vote, do not have the political leverage to force immigration reform through a boycott threat. Instead, the boycott call may backfire, causing more anti-immigrant sentiment, he said.

"This says one thing to me: That in the absence of any organized strategy, they come up with something so desperate that they don't think of the cost-benefit and the cause and effect," Navarro said.

Reach David Olson at 951-368-9462 or dolson@PE.com

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Comment: Rev. Rivera should stick to his pulpit and passing the basket as he shears the sheep. He is patently demented when it comes to connected realities of working with the upcoming 2010 Census. I can relate to his call for a new for real comprehension immigration reform, but the idea of non participating in the U.S. Census is counter-productive.

If it was up to the reactionary-racist right wing elements in society they would be glad if none of us Latinos-Chicanos-Raza people were counted!

I agree with Professor Navarro. We are always under-counted anyways. I have lived in Sacramento, California almost all my life ~ other than when I lived in Phoenix and myself participated in the U.S. Census as a census poller. I myself have never been contacted by the local U.S. Census Bureau. We need to find out where our local U.S. Census officials are at wnat what they are doing to GET OUT THE CENSUS COUNT! We already are routinely and systematically undercounted by the U.S. in the millions of us!!!

Education for Liberation!
Peter S. Lopez ~aka: Peta
Sacramento, California, Aztlan
Yahoo Email: peter.lopez51@yahoo.com

http://anhglobal.ning.com/group/humanerightsagenda
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Humane-Rights-Agenda/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NetworkAztlan_News/
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Friday, May 08, 2009

White House Cheat Sheet: Obama's Latino Courtship: Wash Post

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/cheat-sheet/050809white-house-cheat-sheet.html?wprss=thefix

White House Cheat Sheet: Obama's Latino Courtship

Labor Secretary Hilda Solis is one of the leaders of the Obama Administration's aggressive outreach to Hispanics. Photo by John Gress of Reuters.

Today's Spanish-language town hall meeting hosted by Labor Secretary Hilda Solis is the latest evidence of the White House's active courtship of Latinos -- the nation's largest minority group and a (still) sleeping giant in electoral politics.

The town hall, which will be anchored by Univision's Edna Schmidt and will focus on the swine flu outbreak, is being billed by the White House as "an unprecedented effort to engage our nation's largest minority group."

Luis Miranda, director of Hispanic media for the White House, said outreach to Latinos has been a "priority" for Obama.

The town hall comes several weeks after Obama traveled to Trinidad & Tobago to attend the Summit of the Americas -- a major geopolitical event in the Spanish speaking world -- and staged the first bilingual press briefing in White House history. Obama has also granted one-on-one interviews to Univision anchors Maria Elena Salinas and Jorge Ramos in the days since being elected president.

The biggest test of Obama's commitment to the Latino community, however, may well come over the next few months as he chooses the next Supreme Court justice and decides how hard to push a comprehensive immigration reform proposal -- both issues of critical importance to the Hispanic community.

"So far so good, said Gil Meneses, a Democratic consultant, of the Obama administration's effort at Latino outreach. "All eyes on immigration reform and of course, [Supreme Court] nominee. That will be a milestone for Latino community"

Already a number of Latino legal groups have been making the case for Obama to make history by naming the first Hispanic American to the Supreme Court, filling an opening caused by Justice David Souter's retirement from the bench.

"I can think of no better moment for him to nominate the Supreme Court's first Hispanic and someone who will uphold our Constitution's promise of equal justice and freedom for all," said Henry Solano, president and general counsel of the Mexican America Legal Defense & Education Fund (MALDEF).

Several Hispanics appear to be under active consideration including 2nd District Court of Appeals judge Sonia Sotomayor who isregarded by many as the current frontrunner for the nomination.

As for immigration reform, there are conflicting reports of how high a priority it is for the president.

The New York Times reported in April that Obama was ready to put his political capital behind efforts to overhaul the immigration system but White House aides cautioned that nothing had changed from the president's initial stance that immigration reform was one of a handful of priorities for the administration.

Immigration reform is a dicey political issue as it is of tremendous importance to the Latino community but is viewed far more skeptically by non-Hispanic voters -- particularly those living in Rust Belt states where the loss of blue-collar jobs is blamed -- broadly -- on America's immigration policies. (The Post's E.J. Dionne wrote a terrific column on the political perils of immigration reform earlier this week.)

What is beyond dispute is that the Latino vote is a critical piece of both parties' electoral math in future national elections.

In 2004 then President George W. Bush stunned the political world by winning 44 percent of the Hispanic vote, repeating the successes he had demonstrated in courting this community as the governor of Texas.

Four years later, however, President Obama crushed Sen. John McCain among Hispanics -- 67 percent to 31 percent -- despite the fact that Obama had struggled to win over Latino voters during his prolonged primary fight against then Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Obama is working to consolidate his demonstrated strength in the Hispanic community in advance of his 2012 reelection race. But, how he handles his Supreme Court nominee and immigration reform will do much to inform how he -- and Democrats more generally -- are perceived in Latino circles in coming years......

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Education for Liberation!
Peter S. Lopez ~aka: Peta
Sacramento, California, Aztlan
Yahoo Email: peter.lopez51@yahoo.com
http://anhglobal.ning.com/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Humane-Rights-Agenda/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NetworkAztlan_News/
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Monday, May 04, 2009

About "Very Little" evidence for American Indian genes among African-Americans

Gracias My Precious Brother Harvey ~ Times are so tough right for so many people that we need to be, think and do what we can to unite together, to work together, to pray together and to learn together. We should not be divided by sterile notions of race, nation, tribe or bloodline. We literally cannot afford the luxury of superficial divisions. We are all of the same blood ~ human blood ~ and we need to raise our consciousness to a deeper and wider understanding of what unites us, not what 'isms divide us.

Thanks to the Power of the Internet and all we can Google just about what we want to find one thing or another about what we want. We need to utilize our own spirits, search deep within our own souls and let our souls educate our minds as to the very truth that will free
us free from false illusions, free us from historical lies and free us from meaningless shallow mythology.

I know many African-Americans {aka: Black} who claim to have American native blood and do have facial features common to many so-called Native Americans. I am still not totally comfortable to that whole term 'American', since I know it origins.

The pertinent question is: Why is Leonard Peltier still being caged as an animal when he is such a beautiful humane being? We need to raise a mass cosmic consciousness about his long standing case and scores of others. We need to mobilize the masses together in order to win true liberty, justice and democracy for all of us! This takes a true working together unity among all of us of whatever blood origin. We are all natives of Mother Earth!

Main Entry: in·dig·e·nous
Pronunciation:\in-ˈdi-jə-nəs\
Function: adjective
Etymology:Late Latin indigenus, from Latin indigena, noun, native, from Old Latin indu, endo in, within + Latin gignere to beget — more at end-, kin
Date:1646

1 : having originated in and being produced, growing, living, or occurring naturally in a particular region or environment <indigenous plants> <the indigenous culture> 2 : innate, inborn

synonyms see native

— in·dig·e·nous·ly adverb

— in·dig·e·nous·ness noun

We whose ancestors were indigenous to these lands called the Americas and I call Aztlan in relation to the U.S. Southwest need to come togehter based upon our common dreams and our common survival needs HERE NOW!

From: Harvey Arden <harveyarden@starpower.net>
To: indigenousfirstpersons@yahoo.com
Sent: Monday, May 4, 2009 6:21:09 PM
Subject: FW: "Very Little" evidence for American Indian genes among African-Americans

Here's a heart-warmer! /Harvey http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=2539741

From: Harvey Arden [mailto:harveyarden@starpower.net]
Sent: Monday, May 04, 2009 9:07 PM
To: 'elizabeth louise'
Cc: 'anahuy59@msn.com'; 'anahuy59@msn.com'
Subject: RE: "Very Little" evidence for American Indian genes among African-Americans

Louise--I personally have met scores, even hundreds of 'blacks' with lots of Indian blood...whole 'black' Indian tribes like the Shinnecock of Long Island; many Virginia tribes (Mataponi, Pamunkey etc). Same with many Cherokee, etc etc--including our dear friend John Copage (I know he refuses to 'rest in peace' but haunts Mother Earth today in search of justice). This study I don't trust one bit! It's a corporate hack job pretending to be 'science', preserving white supremacist doctrine. For centuries Indian tribes offered blacks refuge from white oppression, even tribal membership. Any books on that subject--'Blacks & Indians'? Blessings, /Harvey

From: elizabeth louise [mailto:indigenousfirstpersons@yahoo.com]
Sent: Sunday, May 03, 2009 3:51 AM
To: Harvey Arden
Cc: NdnzGonWild@yahoo.com; Teresa Kurtzhall
Subject: "Very Little" evidence for American Indian genes among African-Americans

I don't know about this study. I know of too many African Americans who know of a grand or great-grand parent that is Native and it conflicts with what William Katz talks about in his Black Indian book. What do you think of this study? Jahkia

30 April 2009

By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, AP Science Writer Randolph E. Schmid, Ap Science Writer – 1 hr 1 min ago

WASHINGTON – Africans have more genetic variation than anyone else on Earth, according to a new study that helps narrow the location where humans first evolved, probably near the South Africa-Namibia border.

The largest study of African genetics ever undertaken also found that nearly three-fourths of African-Americans can trace their ancestry to West Africa. The new analysis published Thursday in the online edition of the journal Science.

"Given the fact that modern humans arose in Africa, they have had time to accumulate dramatic changes" in their genes, explained lead researcher Sarah Tishkoff, a geneticist at the University of Pennsylvania.

People have been adapting to very diverse environmental niches in Africa, she explained in a briefing.

Over 10 years, Tishkoff and an international team of researchers trekked across Africa collecting samples to compare the genes of various peoples. Often working in primitive conditions, the researchers sometimes had to resort to using a car battery to power their equipment, Tishkoff explained.

The reason for their work? Very little was known about the genetic variation in Africans, knowledge that is vital to understanding why diseases have a greater impact in some groups than others and in designing ways to counter those illnesses.

Scott M. Williams of Vanderbilt University noted that constructing patterns of disease variations can help determine which genes predispose a group to a particular illness.

This study "provides a critical piece in the puzzle," he said. For example, there are clear differences in prevalence of diseases such as hypertension and prostate cancer across populations, Williams said.

Overall, the researchers were able to study and compare the genetics of 121 African groups, 60 non-African populations and four African-American groups.

The study also found that about 71 percent of African-Americans can trace their ancestry to western African origins. They also have between 13 percent and 15 percent European ancestry and a smaller amount of other African origins. There was "very little" evidence for American Indian genes among African-Americans, Tishkoff said.

Ehret added that only about 20 percent of the Africans brought to North America made the trip directly, while most of the rest went first to the West Indies.

And, he added, some local African-American populations, such as the residents of the sea islands off Georgia and South Carolina, can trace their origins to specific regions such as Sierra Leone and Guinea.

The study was funded by the National Cancer Institute, the National Institutes of Health, the Advanced Computing Center for Research and Education at Vanderbilt University, the L.S.B. Leakey and Wenner Gren Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard and Burroughs Wellcome foundations.

My observations

Here is where you can find this Scott M. Williams of Vanderbilt University scott m. williams@vanderbilt.edu.
You know what, I am not comfortable with anyone telling my story. William Lorenz Katz brought a subject that our ancestors knew existed, with the advent of "black pride" & the desire to find ones identity in what is african, there became this big issue of being a "black indian" First of all, to my mind & to what I know of our people there is not such animal, you are Native/Firstpersons, with whatever mixture you might have. It is only because the european has done all he can to divide the Native community according to race, that we have this big issue..
Actually what this has unfortunately led its way to is a third identity which I want no part of. I am indigenous/aboriginal to this hemisphere,the candian alaska border,.africa & the carribean. I am a total idigenous package.
I have never felt the dichotomy so many seem to be running around with in their heads that they are somehow on the periphery of the Native community. I know too much about history to fall for what has become a european trick & that is of divide & conquer.
Whethere we became mixed in the Southeast/the Plains,Canda/Alaska, or wherever indigenous people lived, since all this country is Indian country, this world is indigenous country first & always, We were given the responsibility to care for this land, we heard the land sing in our ears from birth, it is in our spirit & in the spirit of our young.
So the issue appears to be, how wedded are you or anyone else to the telling our your story from someone else's standpoint?
William Lorenz Katz tapped people on the shoulders, but remember he is an author who really expects to be paid large sums of money to tell your story & mine. Do we really need that to be the "authority" on us, or is the fact that you & I live & breathe this enough?
It is for me, which is why I have pretty much divorced myself from the most victrolic of this conversation, the africans are always going to try to claim ownership over us & that they are not allowed to do in my book, I am not for sale & I do not wish to belong to their club of sometimey ness.
My people were native to this hemisphere,indigenous to what is called the yukon, indigenous to west africa & indigenous to the carribean. & a little scot irish is thrown in.
So I prefer to define myself.
The ancestors are waiting for us to complete what they could not,. why allow ourselves to be thrown off course by this whole issue? We need to learn what correct balance is for indigenous people, we need to be relearning our traditions & languages.
Then working with whom we wish to save this planet the euros messed up. That is my prioirty.

Sunday, May 03, 2009

A Shift on Immigration: NY Times Editorial

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/03/opinion/03sun1.html

May 3, 2009

Editorial

A Shift on Immigration

Last week, immigration enforcement policy shifted a little. The administration issued guidelines for Immigration and Customs Enforcement that place a new emphasis on prosecuting employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants.

That is a good idea, and a break from the Bush administration method — mass raids to net immigrant workers while leaving their bosses alone. The raids were tuned to the theatrics of the poisoned immigration debate, using heavy weapons, dogs and helicopters to spread the illusion that something was getting fixed.

But as policy, they were worse than useless. They netted about 6,000 undocumented immigrants, out of 12 million, and 135 employers or supervisors. They destroyed families, tearing parents and grandparents from children, many of them citizens. The fear they caused went viral in immigrant communities, driving workers further into the arms of abusive employers while bringing us no closer to a working immigration system.

So the new guidelines are smarter than cruel idiocy, but raids are still not a solution. They keep the country trying to arrest, prosecute and deport its way toward a working immigration system. Enforcement alone will never get us there. Workplace raids, no matter how sensibly or tactfully redesigned, will never fix immigration by themselves. Indeed, they make things worse.

Raids do not uphold or reinforce workers' rights, a non sequitur in the world of off-the-books labor, where employers erode conditions for Americans by hiring workers at deplorable conditions and pay. They do not fix long backlogs in legal immigration, lines that extend years or decades, forcing people who want to follow the rules to make an agonizing choice between intolerable separations from their families or lawbreaking.

They do not protect illegal immigrants from the arbitrary cruelties of the detention and deportation system, in which due process is limited and detainees face unacceptable risk of sickness, injury and death in prison.

And the new enforcement regime, like the old, might lead employers to purge their payrolls of people they merely suspect are here illegally, to avoid the hassle and expense of a raid. When raids are coupled with electronic hiring-verification schemes like E-Verify, which the government has been inching toward, the likelihood of mass firings becomes greater. Without a path to earned legalization, undocumented workers who lose their jobs will have nowhere to go — except to endure ever-lower wages and worse abuse from bottom-feeding employers. The cycle of illegality will not have been broken.

The administration has promised to tackle comprehensive immigration reform this year. President Obama has consistently said the right things, defending a path to assimilation and citizenship for illegal immigrants rather than the futility of mass expulsion.

The decision to adjust the policy on raids seems sensibly motivated. But we agree with immigration and labor experts like Professor Jennifer Gordon of Fordham Law School, who sees the new guidelines as a smarter version of a bad idea. Far better, she says, for the government to redouble enforcement of laws like the minimum wage, the right to organize, and health and safety protections. This would reduce the incentive to hire the undocumented, and raise standards for all workers. It would not end up devastating immigrant families, as raids do. In times like these, that would be a step toward immigration reform that all workers could support.

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