04.30.06
Posted in News at 1:08 am by Paloma Cruz
I haven’t decided yet. But it looks like the boycott is reaching even consumers of American goods in Mexico.
A Day Without Americans: Mexicans May Boycott
Move Meant To Pressure U.S. Congress
– reported by Click2Houston.com
MEXICO CITY — The call is moving quickly through Mexican cyberspace: Boycott the endless array of U.S. companies and restaurant chains in Mexico to pressure the U.S. Congress to legalize undocumented migrants in El Norte.
But American executives say the attack is misguided: As the largest private-sector employer in Mexico, the U.S. business community is doing more than anyone to provide much-needed jobs - and is also among the strongest supporters of immigration reform.
[snip]
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04.27.06
Posted in News at 1:19 am by Paloma Cruz
Pasadena High students form council
– reported by the Pasadena Citizen
The League of United Latin American Citizens in Pasadena has decided to form the first youth council at Pasadena High School and held its first meeting Tuesday after school in the cafeteria.
Youth Director of the Pasadena LULAC Council Maria Patino decided to form this group at PHS after the recent walkouts last month because of the bill that the U.S. Congress wanted to pass that would make it a felony for illegal immigrants to be in the United States.
Out of the many schools in the Houston area, Lamar High School was the only one that did not have an issue with the walkout due to having the LULAC council present there. Some members of the council heard rumors around school that a walkout was being planned so they notified the principal and blocked the doors to stop the students but still talked about their concerns that they had.
[snip]
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04.24.06
Posted in News at 1:17 am by Paloma Cruz
‘CHAIN MIGRATION’
Change in laws could divide families
Proposals would limit the ability of legal immigrants to send for kin
– reported by the Houston Chronicle
While the debate about illegal immigration roils the nation, legal immigration from Mexico continues to outpace that of all other countries, U.S. officials say.
More than 1.5 million Mexicans have entered the U.S. legally in the past decade as part of a less visible but significant wave. Most were admitted thanks to a 1965 law and subsequent measures aimed at reuniting families split by immigration.
But family reunification laws are controversial. Immigrant advocates — and some of the Mexican-American leaders marching in recent street protests around the country — say they’re not liberal enough. Some critics, however, say the laws encourage what they describe as “chain migration,” in which immigrants send for not only their children and spouses, but also their brothers, sisters and parents. And they, in turn, send for more relatives — and the number of new immigrant arrivals careens out of control.
[snip]
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04.15.06
Posted in News at 12:28 pm by Paloma Cruz
Fast Talk: What’s the Biggest Change Facing Business In the Next 10 Years?
– found at FastCompany.com
Malcolm Gladwell
Writer, The New Yorker magazine
New York, New York
Gladwell, 42, is author of the best-sellers The Tipping Point and Blink. His books and his articles in The New Yorker consistently offer fresh perspectives on issues businesspeople care about.
[snip]
I also think it’s time that business stood up and joined the immigration debate. I think it has been–with the exception of some high-tech firms–shamefully silent on this, which should be one of its top competitiveness issues. Congress should not be shutting down the borders at a time when we’re 10 or 15 years away from some very serious workplace shortages, skilled-labor shortages. We’ve shut the spigot off, and we’re keeping out the very people who would drive our economy 10 years out when our workforce retires en masse.
[snip]
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04.14.06
Posted in News at 12:25 pm by Paloma Cruz
Post office caters to Hispanics
It’s Memphis’ first bilingual mail center
– reported by CommercialAppeal.com
U.S. Postal officials are hoping a new bilingual post office here will make life easier for Spanish-speaking residents and speed up waits.
Memphis’ first bilingual post office — a contract unit with Nationwide Insurance — opened Monday in Hickory Hill.
The post office, at 3546 Hickory Hill, shares a building with a Nationwide insurance agency and a Spanish-speaking consulting service.
The office is staffed with nine Hispanic agents, some of who’ve recently gone through U.S. Post Office training, said Nationwide agent and owner Larry Crum Sr.
Crum said postal officials saw a need for a bilingual office in that community, which has many Hispanic residents. Communication problems between workers and Hispanic customers were causing long waits.
This is the first bilingual contract post office in the Southern region of the country, Crum said.
[snip]
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Posted in News at 2:14 am by Paloma Cruz
Demand High for Bilingual Workers
– reported by HispanicBusiness.com
In a city nearly 36 percent Hispanic, and which receives 4 million Mexican visitors annually, having a bilingual staff is more a necessity than an option for Tucson’s small- and mid-sized businesses.
Some business owners, however, are finding that recruiting qualified bilingual applicants is easier said than done.
[snip]
So why the dearth of bilingual applicants?
One reason may be that people who can speak Spanish at a conversational level do not have the same competency at a higher level typically required in the workplace, said Mary Gruensfelder-Cox, executive director of the nonprofit
Microbusiness Advancement Center, an organization that aids minority- and women-owned businesses.
“Just like any high-demand, low-supply commodity, these folks are few and far between,” she said. “It’s even worse when you’re talking about having certain job skills beyond the language capability.”
[snip]
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04.13.06
Posted in News at 12:23 pm by Paloma Cruz
Bergen handbook bridges language gap for Latinos
– reported by NorthJersey.com
n a nod to the mushrooming population of Latino immigrants, Bergen County on Monday unveiled its first bilingual handbook of government and non-profit agencies.
County Executive Dennis McNerney said the handbook was a response to the communication gap between county government and “our fastest-growing population.”
Most of my clients are still debating whether or not they need to offer promotional materials in Spanish… in Houston… in Texas, where Spanish is so prevalent. It’s interesting to see what other places are doing.
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Posted in News at 12:30 am by Paloma Cruz
What we have known all along
– reported by HispanicAd.com
As 500,000 Latino demonstrators swept through the streets of downtown Los Angeles last week to protest immigration legislation winding its way through Congress, most of the nation was stunned, shocked and surprised. The demonstration seemed to come from nowhere, without warning. Suddenly, there it was, a massive sea of flag-waving marchers 26 blocks long; so many that it took six hours for the procession to make its way through the city.
What happened, though, was no surprise. It was a testament to the power of Spanish in this country - not just Spanish-language media, but Spanish itself. For weeks before the hordes of Hispanics poured into the streets, the rally had been publicized, and in some cases promoted, on Spanish-language radio and television stations, and in Spanish-language newspapers, across the country. Wear white, they were told. Take your children. Bring plenty of water. Let’s be civil. They came, of course, to show their opposition to an immigration bill, to show their solidarity. But in the process, they succeeded in showing what we’ve known all along: you reach Hispanics in this country in Spanish.
[snip]
Study after study shows that 79 percent of second-generation Latinos speak Spanish and, in a stunning reversal of patterns among earlier immigrant groups, more than a third of the third-generation Hispanics do. The result: an exclusive Hispanic U.S.A. Inc study shows that the number of Spanish-dominant and bilingual Latinos in the United States will actually increase by 45 percent over the next two decades, adding 12.5 million more Spanish-speakers by 2025.But even those numbers miss an even more important reality of Hispanics in the U.S.A.: You motivate us by speaking to us in the language of our music. We like to be courted in the language we make love in, for some that is in English, for most of us, it’s in Espanol.
[snip]
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04.12.06
Posted in News at 12:20 pm by Paloma Cruz
Free credit reports not in Spanish
– reported by the Miami Herald
You can do your banking in Spanish, talk to the IRS or ask a counselor to help you with your debts. But if you want to get a free copy of your credit report, it’s no habla Espanol.
All consumers are entitled to a free credit report once a year under a recent federal law. Checking that report closely for signs of fraud has become one of the best methods for fighting identity theft, which hits Hispanics more than any other ethnic group, according to a major study on the crime.
But those who speak only Spanish or very little English face language barriers when trying to get their free report.
The system that the major credit bureaus set up for ordering free reports, which is a Web site and a toll free phone line, operate only in English. There are no other languages available for placing your order.
What’s more, two of the three major credit bureaus don’t make credit reports available in Spanish.
[snip]
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Posted in News at 1:51 am by Paloma Cruz
Group seeks more books in Spanish
– reported by the Des Moines Register
Latinos Unidos of Iowa will hold a benefit dinner Saturday to raise money to add Spanish books and materials to Des Moines’ public libraries.
The libraries now have fewer than 1,000 Spanish-language titles, and the group hopes to add 250 to meet a growing demand for Spanish books, CDs and other materials.
[snip]
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