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A forthcoming study on Hispanic children’s cognitive skills underlines the challenges the country faces in aspiring to close the achievement gap between these children and their white and Asian counterparts. Hispanic “children fall behind their peers in mental development by the time they reach grade school, and the gap tends to widen as they get older,” reports the New York Times. “The drop-off in the cognitive scores of Hispanic toddlers, especially those from Mexican backgrounds, was steeper than for other [low-income] groups and could not be explained by economic status alone. . . . From 24 to 36 months, the...

The children of Hispanic immigrants tend to be born healthy and start life on an intellectual par with other American children, but by the age of 2 they begin to lag in linguistic and cognitive skills, a new study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, shows. The study highlights a paradox that has bedeviled educators and Hispanic families for some time. By and large, mothers from Latin American countries take care of their health during their pregnancies and give birth to robust children, but those children fall behind their peers in mental development by the time they reach...

Angered by President Obama's lack of success in legalizing illegal immigrants, some Hispanic activists are urging all Hispanics to boycott the 2010 census as a sign of displeasure. Other groups have asked the federal government to suspend immigration raids while census takers are in the field, hoping that will make illegal immigrants more likely to respond to questions. It's just the latest trouble in what's turning into a rocky run-up to the census next year. During a congressional hearing last week, a Democratic senator told Census Bureau Director Robert M. Groves that the American Community Survey - a yearly survey...

One question: WHY is it that in America you are now seeing Mexican this, and Mexican that, every where you turn? Hey, I enjoy a good Mexican meal and Margarita just like the next person, however,there seems to be all this IN-YOUR-FACE PANDERING to Mexicans 24/7. Now the NFL is honoring Hispanic Heritage Month, WHAT? What about HONORING ALL THE OTHER PEOPLE OF THE WORLD who call America home also? Anyone else FED UP with this BS? Hmmmmmmmm?

The D.C. Council voted Tuesday to block Ximena Hartsock from becoming the next director of the Department of Parks and Recreation, aggravating the tension between the council and the mayor and casting fresh doubt on the future of the troubled agency. After a long debate, the council voted 7 to 5 to reject Hartsock and remove her as the head of an agency that has had seven permanent or interim directors in the past decade. It was the first time since Fenty took office in 2007 that the council had rejected one of his nominees ...The vote followed a contentious...

September 15th -October 15th is Hispanic History Month.

A school district in Arizona has come under fire after a newspaper columnist highlighted the district's newly adopted racial policy and called it a "two-tiered form of student discipline: one for black and Hispanic students; one for everyone else." "TUSD principals and disciplinarians (assuming such creatures still exist) are being asked to set two standards of behavior for their students," MacEachern commented. "Some behavior will be met with strict penalties; some will not. It all depends on the color of the student's skin."

It has all the hallmarks of the beloved telenovela: Heart-wrenching dialogue. Doors slamming amid tears. Over-the-top theatrics. But the titillating story lines are laced with medical advice. An expecting but bickering couple is encouraged to seek prenatal care. The uncle of a boy injured in a car wreck caused by a drunk teenager learns about state-funded health insurance. A character who doesn't like her figure gets some advice from a health care adviser: Stop eating so many tamales. --snip-- "It's a soap opera. So it's got the teenager who has some substance abuse issues. We have a family who is...

Here is video of a man being booed when he asked a question in Spanish at a town hall meeting. (Watch Video)

California's financial unraveling has prompted a long-overdue debate about taxes, regulation, and government spending, but the state's media and government continue to ignore what could be an even greater problem: the irreparable damage to California's human capital that nearly 30 years of unrestrained illegal immigration has achieved. This is not an immigration problem, or even an illegal-immigration problem, per se. A strong case could be made that, in terms of educational achievement, industriousness, and entrepreneurial acumen, Asian immigrants to California have proven superior to white natives of the state. Therefore, if California were to experience a wave of mass immigration...

A federal warning to beware of campers in national forests who eat tortillas, drink Tecate beer and play Spanish music because they could be armed marijuana growers is racial profiling, an advocate for Hispanic rights said Friday. The warnings were issued Wednesday by the U.S. Forest Service, which is investigating how much marijuana is being illegally cultivated in Colorado's national forests following the recent discovery of more than 14,000 plants in Pike National Forest. "That's discriminatory, and it puts Hispanic campers in danger," said Polly Baca, co-chairwoman of the Colorado Latino Forum. A spokesman for the U.S. Forest Service had...

The cause for the difference is probably not genetic, health officials said. More likely, it's because blacks and Hispanics suffer disproportionately from asthma, diabetes and other health problems that make people more vulnerable to the flu.

ATLANTA - Swine flu was four times more likely to send blacks and Hispanics to the hospital than whites, according to a study in Chicago that offers one of the first looks at how the virus has affected different racial groups.

Primary schoolchildren are set to learn about Mexico up to the 1500s A row has erupted in Mexico after the government distributed a history textbook to primary schools which makes no mention of the Spanish conquest. The chronology of the text neatly avoids the issue by ending before the Spanish arrived in the early 1500s. Some opposition figures have seized on what they see as a calculated omission. The arrival of the conquistadors resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of indigenous people and the colonisation of Mexico. On Monday, as 25 million children started the new school term,...

California's financial unraveling has prompted a long-overdue debate about taxes, regulation, and government spending, but the state's media and government continue to ignore what could be an even greater problem: the irreparable damage to California's human capital that nearly 30 years of unrestrained illegal immigration has achieved. This is not an immigration problem, or even an illegal-immigration problem, per se. A strong case could be made that, in terms of educational achievement, industriousness, and entrepreneurial acumen, Asian immigrants to California have proven superior to white natives of the state. Therefore, if California were to experience a wave of mass immigration...

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Many Latinos say they know how Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates felt during a recent arrest because they believe police often racially profile Hispanics, too. Gates, a noted African-American scholar, has said he was arrested at his home in large part because of his race. Police say he became disorderly when asked for identification after a report of a possible break-in. "Professor Gates' case resonates with us because he is a prominent academic at a very prominent institution, but it is a reality that occurs on these streets every day," said Vicente Alba-Panama of the...

Via ICN, this isn’t the first time he’s spectacularly demagogued Fox. Your official progressive “national conversation on race” tweet of the day: "do u know how much money i’d make if i’d sold out as hispanic and worked at fox news, r u kidding, one problem, looking in mirror" Mind you, this is a guy who evidently has no problem looking in the mirror right now despite (a) having a hit-and-run DUI on his record and (b) sharing a network with Lou Dobbs, whom many amnesty shills would say is the most passionately anti-illegal-immigration — and therefore, per lefty racial...

UPDATE AT END OF POST: FNC's Julie Banderas responds. Did you know that if you're Hispanic and work for the Fox News Channel, you're a sellout? Well, that's what CNN's Rick Sanchez amazingly believes.

Via ICN, this isn’t the first time he’s spectacularly demagogued Fox. Your official progressive “national conversation on race” tweet of the day: do u know how much money i’d make if i’d sold out as hispanic and worked at fox news, r u kidding, one problem, looking in mirror

"if i didn't believe in doing right thing, i'd be rich anchoring at fox news." -- tweeted from the web 13 hours ago. "do u know how much money i’d make if i’d sold out as hispanic and worked at fox news, r u kidding, one problem, looking in mirror."

It's not posted on their website yet but it's been announced on the air that the suspended "Todd and Don Show" has now officially been cancelled by KLBJ-AM (Austin, TX). The short-lived one-hour morning show meant to bridge between their morning show and the Rush Limbaugh show featured African-American newsman Todd Jefferies and former talker Don Pryor (son of local icon Cactus Pryor). It featured a rapid-fire whimsical look at the day's news. Sometimes it was funny, sometimes it wasn't but it was local and it quickly developed its own following. I sometimes listened to it while waiting for Rush...

The New York Times Company has announced that it has sold Classical 96.3 WQXR New York for $45 Million as part of a three way deal with Univision and WNYC. The way the deal is structured, Univision will pay $33.5 Million for the 96.3 frequency while WNYC pays $11.5 Million for the 105.9 frequency from Univision and the WQXR intellectual property. Spanish Tropical “La Kalle” WCAA will shift to the stronger 96.3 allocation. 96.3 WQXR is a Class B broadcasting with 6kw at 1362′, while 105.9 is a Class B1 with 610 watts at 1365 feet. The Non-Commercial WNYC operates...

NEW YORK -- Cesar Perales has fought his share of critics over the years, in legal battles for minorities denied jobs, bilingual classes in schools and more Latino police officers. But none of those efforts compares with the tempest his Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund has stirred because of the dozen years that Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor served as one of its board members. Conservatives have called the group's stances against capital punishment and for abortion rights, as well as its advocacy of affirmative action in worker discrimination cases, "extreme" and "shocking." Some have suggested Sotomayor's longtime...

The percentage of Hispanic Catholics in America has dropped, while the proportion of born-again Hispanics has increased, a new survey by the Barna Group found. Over the past 15 years, the proportion of Hispanics in America that is aligned with the Catholic Church has fallen by 25 percent. By comparison, the proportion of born-again Christians for this ethnic group has increased by 17 percent. “You cannot help but notice the changing relationship between Hispanics and the Catholic Church,” commented George Barna, whose company conducted the research. “While many Hispanic immigrants come to the United States with ties to Catholicism, the...

WASHINGTON - Sonia Sotomayor's controversial decision to oppose white firefighters in a reverse discrimination case overturned by the Supreme Court this week was not the first time the high court nominee was involved in a discrimination case involving public safety employees. A Puerto Rican legal advocacy organization that Sotomayor used to belong to helped a group of Hispanic police officers in the 1980s challenge the promotion exams for New York police officers, arguing they were discriminatory. On Tuesday, the organization, Latino Justice PRLDEF, sent the Judiciary Committee more than 350 pages of documents from the 12 years Sotomayor spent on...

Ex-employees, backed by SEIU, say working-class and immigrant clients are urged to sign up for multiple services that carry high interest rates and fees. BofA denies any wrongdoing. CHARLOTTE, N.C., June 30 (UPI) -- Nine former Bank of America employees accused the bank of over-selling services to Hispanic clients to create financial chaos that would result in bank fees. "We were coached every day to push multiple checking accounts, credit cards and debit cards even when the customer didn't understand how to use them," said former employee Gabby Ornelas of Landover Hills, Md. Ornelas, who speaks Spanish, said she was...

LAREDO, Tex. — When he was finally caught, Rosalio Reta told detectives here that he had felt a thrill each time he killed. It was like being Superman or James Bond, he said. “I like what I do,” he told the police in a videotaped confession. “I don’t deny it.” ... The young men all paid a heavy price. Jesus Gonzalez III was beaten and knifed to death in a Mexican jail at 23. Mr. Reta, now 19, and his boyhood friend, Gabriel Cardona, 22, are serving what amounts to life sentences in prisons in the United States. Other young...

... FRANCISCO arrived in Hempstead, a decaying inner-ring suburb in Nassau County, nine years after his mother. She had come ahead in the early 1990s, as the Salvadoran civil war was ending, leaving Francisco in the care of an aunt until she could save $5,000 to pay a smuggler to ferry him across the border to join her. Francisco was 12 when he crossed from Tijuana to San Diego in 2001, stuffed in the trunk of a Honda next to several strangers. The trip was terrifying, but later he would say it had toughened him for life on Long Island....

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama said Friday that he wants to push comprehensive immigration reform through Congress before he leaves office, but he didn't elaborate on a timeframe for the politically thorny endeavor. "I'm committed to passing comprehensive immigration reform as president of the United States," Mr. Obama said at the Esperanza National Hispanic Prayer Breakfast in Washington. "The American people believe in immigration." ... Mr. Obama said the U.S. needs to build on efforts to strengthen border security, and clarify the status of people who have put down roots illegally. "We can't tolerate a situation where people come to...

Texas has the top three areas with the highest minority populations in the nation, and Webb County comes in third on the list, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey. About 95 percent of Webb County residents belong to a minority group. Starr County had the highest minority population in the country, with 98 percent. Maverick County in Texas came in second, at 97. In all three counties, the majority of the population was Hispanic. "The biggest factor, of course, is the border towns," said Gabriel Perales, media specialist for the Dallas Division of the U.S. Census Department....

If undocumented immigrants are valuable enough to be counted in the Census, then they ought to be legalized. That’s the argument being made by a national group of Latino evangelical clergy, led by a Ridgefield Park pastor, that wants undocumented immigrants to boycott the 2010 Census unless immigration reform is passed this year. The group also plans to expand the call in December to Latinos who are U.S. citizens and legal residents if Congress does not pass reform legislation by then, said the Rev. Miguel Rivera of Ridgefield Park, president and founder of the National Coalition of Latino Clergy and...

Martin High will focus on teaching English Painfully aware that Martin High School likely will fail federal standards for the sixth year in a row, LISD officials say they will redouble their efforts to teach English to a hard-core group of students who are not learning the language of their adopted country. "We need to speak as much English as possible," said Severita Sanchez, Laredo Independent School District's executive director of compliance and accountability. "(Freshmen) are coming in with a very weak English foundation. The comprehension is not there." According to LISD, the federally mandated restructuring plan at Martin High...

Sonia Sotomayor says the death penalty disproportionately impacts minorities. A question for her: Death sentences are meted out most often to (a) blacks, (b) whites, (c) Hispanics or (d) the guilty. A recently unearthed memo not disclosed on the questionnaire filed with the Senate Judiciary Committee shows that the empathy that the Supreme Court nominee feels is more for the predators among us than their victims. It also shows that some of the reasons this self-proclaimed "wise Latina" has for opposing capital punishment are bogus and flawed.

As a Republican who voted for John McCain after defecting to vote for Kerry in 2004, and as a Puerto Rican Yale graduate who lived in the Bronx, I got a triple blessing this year. The Republicans nominated their first female vice presidential candidate, the Republicans elected their first African American party chairman, and Barack Obama unveiled Sonia Sotomayor. I saw historic firsts being bestowed on intelligent, exceptional individuals who rose from humble origins. I've worn a proud grin for much of the last nine months. Alas, however, the conservative objections to Sotomayor are substantial and real. President Obama has...

The long-rumored e-book boom at last has arrived. But publishers still wait, and wait, for another supposed surge: Spanish-language titles. Thousands of booksellers, publishers and authors gathered for BookExpo America, the industry's annual national convention, which ended Sunday. Along with much discussion about rapidly growing digital sales, there was disappointment, and some confusion, about the relative slowness of Spanish sales in any format. Publishers have looked for years to the Hispanic market, which back in 2000 was spotlighted at BookExpo as one of great promise. The Hispanic population is at least 45 million, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and...

Republican senators are starting to figure out how they will navigate the racial aspects of Judge Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court, showing Sunday that they won't be tongue-tied when it comes to the politically tricky subject. Sotomayor would be the first Hispanic on the high court if confirmed, and just the third woman, and Republicans don't want to appear insensitive to this historic significance during summer hearings. Guarding against any criticism of racial insensitivity, Republican senators on Sunday tried to turn the table on Democrats. They repeatedly invoked the case of Miguel Estrada, President George W. Bush's 2001...

Old white guys can be funny bunch, can’t they? The same anti-same-sex marriage, anti-affirmative action cadre can flower into the biggest supporters of “equality” the minute they get a whiff of minority empowerment. To that end, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is accusing Supreme Court Nominee Sonia Sotomayor of being a “new racist” because of a line she delivered in a speech back in 2001. Sotomayor is quoted as saying: ”I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived...

Adesperate — and ridiculous — claim that Sonia Sotomayor would not be the first Hispanic justice to take the U.S. Supreme Court bench is very revealing. There are actually people claiming with a straight face that Benjamin Cardozo, appointed to the court by Herbert Hoover in 1932, was the first Hispanic justice.

Unless something entirely unforeseen happens, confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor will be a lovefest for the Democrats who run the Senate Judiciary Committee. There will be much talk about Sotomayor's historic opportunity to become the first Hispanic on the Court, about her inspiring background, and about the sterling qualifications she would bring to the job. Sotomayor will have the majority party strongly on her side, and odds are things will end happily for her.

Credit Kimberly Strassel of the Wall Street Journal for knocking the wind out of Barack Obama and his cohort of empathetic Democrats. In probably the most damaging essay to appear regarding the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the high court, Strassel reminds Americans that Obama and the Democrats opposed Bush judicial appointments for the same reasons they are now supporting Sotomayor. For example, Democrats like Chuck Schumer recently warned that Republicans opposing the Hispanic Sotomayor would do it “at their peril.” Chuck Schumer, however, vilified Miguel Estrada, President Bush’s 2002 nomination to the D.C. Circuit court, and called him "a...

In picking Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama has confirmed that identity politics matter to him more than merit. While Judge Sotomayor exemplifies the American Dream, she would not have even been on the short list if she were not Hispanic. She is not one of the leading lights of the federal judiciary, and far less qualified for a seat on the Supreme Court than Judges Diane Wood and Merrick Garland or Solicitor General Elena Kagan. To be sure, Sotomayor has a compelling story: a daughter of working-class Puerto Ricans raised in Bronx public housing projects, diagnosed with diabetes at 8, losing...

Tancredo: La Raza is "Latino KKK" Anti-immigration crusader and former Colorado Republican Rep. Tom Tancredo was on CNN this afternoon whacking Sonia Sotomayor for her association with the National Council of La Raza, which was listed in a 2000 American Bar Association bio of the judge. "If you belong to an organization called La Raza, in this case... which is from my point of of view any way... nothing more than a ... Latino KKK without the hoods or the nooses. If you belong to something like that in a way that's going to convince me and a lot of...

Hispanics now make up 22% of all children under the age of 18 in the United States--up from 9% in 1980--and as their numbers have grown, their demographic profile has changed. A majority (52%) of the nation's 16 million Hispanic children are now "second generation," meaning they are the U.S.-born sons or daughters of at least one foreign-born parent, typically someone who came to this country in the immigration wave from Mexico, Central America and South America that began around 1980. Some 11% of Latino children are "first generation"--meaning they themselves are foreign-born. And 37% are "third generation or higher"--meaning...

Sonia Sotomayor NOT the first Hispanic for US Supreme Court B"H I guess that if you are Jewish you don't count as "Hispanic"? Because, as Shelomo Alfassa so correctly points out in his article, "Benjamin Nathan Cardozo (1870-1938) was the first Hispanic Justice in the US Supreme Court." Uh, I guess that Obama's PR team isn't capable of looking back in Supreme Court history 70 years? I know the drive-by media can't possibly do any research--that's nothing new. If Obama told them he was going to put the first person on the moon, they would probably just report it without...

At Daily Kos, there is a blog today on how to repeal Prop 8 in the future. LINK BELOW. Keep black and Hispanic turnout low, and counter Mormon Money... The title of the blog is "To Repeal Prop 8, Keep Black and Hispanic Turnout Low, And Counter Mormon Money." Does this sound to you like libs/Dems cherish black and hispanic votes? Does this sound to you like libs/Dems are against suppressing the minority vote? Don't libs/Dems want every vote to count? Could it be that libs/Dems only care about advancing liberalism and socialism and really don't care what they have...

<p>President Obama's radical new nominee to replace Associate Justice David Souter on the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor, used to serve on the board of LatinoJustice PRLDEF (White House backgrounder), one of the racial grievance groups that helped to sink the judicial nomination of Honduran-born Miguel Estrada in 2003.</p>

Judge Sonia Sotomayor is a self-described “Newyorkrican,” the daughter of parents who moved from Puerto Rico to the Bronx. In speeches to Latino groups, she has echoed some of the same themes as President Obama about growing up as a minority, and feeling she never completely fit in anywhere. “I am always looking over my shoulder, wondering if I measure up,” she’s said. Sotomayor, 54, was nominated by Obama Tuesday to replace retiring Justice David Souter. If confirmed, she would be the first Hispanic justice — and third woman — to serve on the nation’s highest court. As a judge,...

"Oscar Arias saw in the real estate boom an opportunity to retire home to Nicaragua a wealthy man after fleeing the Sandinistas with nothing to his name in the 1980s. He spent years in the United States toiling as a dishwasher, a chef and a construction worker. In 2001, he founded a residential and commercial renovation company, Potomac Restoration, out of his Woodbridge home. He bought two additional houses during the boom and planned to sell them and return to Nicaragua with a nice cushion, he said. But the housing bust has left the 54-year-old on the brink of ruin....

... Next month, after 17 years of litigation, the United States Supreme Court will rule on the Flores case, deciding whether Arizona is complying with federal laws requiring public schools to teach children to speak English. The case has been long and tangled, splitting state officials along party lines. In 2000, a district court ruled that the state’s financing for English language learners was not “reasonably calculated” to cover the extra costs of educating them, and ordered the district to come up with a better plan. Last year, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld the...

According to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, more than half -- 53 percent -- of Latinas get pregnant by their 20th birthday, nearly twice the national average. "There's a big disconnect between pregnancy rates and what Latina families want and value," said Ruthie Flores, senior manager of the National Campaign's Latino Initiative. Of the 759 Latino teens surveyed, 49 percent said their parents most influenced their decisions about sex, compared with 14 percent who cited friends. Three percent cited religious leaders, 2 percent teachers and 2 percent the media.