Daily News Washington Bureau
September 9, 2009
WASHINGTON - Justice Sonia Sotomayor debuted her new black robe at a special Supreme Court induction on Tuesday, with President Obama and pop singer Ricky Martin looking on.
A legal and political who's who saw the nation's first Hispanic justice take her seat for the first time at the far left of the bench, the slot reserved for the court's most junior member.
Wearing a robe given by her old law clerks in New York and a white lace jabot from Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Bronx-raised justice sat in a 19th century mahogany chair once used by Chief Justice John Marshall.
Obama grinned proudly - as did Sotomayor's Puerto Rican-born mother, Celina, and retired Justice David Souter, whom she replaced - when the court's newest member was introduced by Attorney General Eric Holder.
Sotomayor, 55, was sworn in by Chief Justice John Roberts and finally took her own seat.
Roberts wished her "a long and happy career in our honorable calling."
The time-honored ritual was ceremonial since Sotomayor had been officially sworn in last month at a private ceremony.
The chief soon joined her in a stroll down the front steps of the Supreme Court, where she joined her family.
"You tell me when you've had enough," she joked to eager photographers.
All the pomp may fade fast, however.
Sotomayor joins her new colleagues hearing her first case today, which involves campaign finance laws.
Source: Daily News Washinton Bureau
My Latino News
September 9, 2009
This Wednesday, President Obama is scheduled to give a major speech on health care reform before a joint session of Congress. The speech comes after weeks of controversy over various proposals and their real or imagined effects on the country. Some groups have focused not on the details of how to cover more people, lower the cost of care, or improve the health of Americans, but on how immigrants fit into the equation.
When a Congressional Research Office report surfaced recently analyzing the treatment of immigrants (documented and not) under one of the pending health care reform bills, some took it to mean… well, the exact opposite of what the CRO found.
The Federation of American Immigration Reform (FAIR), a Washington lobbyist group with an immigration restriction agenda, claimed it confirmed their worst fears: that illegal aliens would get health care coverage on the government’s dime.
“Congressional Research Agency Confirms Illegal Aliens Will Get Health Benefits Under House Bill,” claimed the headline, still at the top of FAIR’s website on Monday.
There is just one problem with that assertion: if you read the CRO report, it says the complete opposite.
In fact, the CRO report says that the bill in question (H.R. 3200) does not include any language that changes the status quo on what unauthorized immigrants and recently legalized foreigners can get from the government: very few services.
The CRO found that undocumented immigrants will not be able to get the credits available to those who will buy coverage through the so-called health care exchange — a market of insurance companies, and potentially the government, that would be available only to those who are not otherwise insured.
“In order to have access to the credits under section 242 of H.R. 3200, individuals must be legally present in the United States and not in the country temporarily,” the report says.
Keep in mind the insurance exchange would be a place where one could buy subsidized insurance. But under this plan, the undocumented get no subsidy.
FAIR argues that there are no verification mechanisms in the bill and that this proves that the undocumented would benefit from the plan.
The administration of President Barack Obama has said time and again that including the undocumented would create “a lot of resistance.”
The “resistance” became clear a couple of weeks ago in New Hampshire, when a group of health care reform opponents of at one of the famous “town halls” expressed the sentiment more openly: “We do not need illegal immigrants. Deport them to their countries.”
At the same time, activists are struggling to expand coverage for another particularly vulnerable group that does not qualify for public assistance: legal immigrants in their first five years of residence in the United States.
“Under the proposals, they are still excluded from public programs like Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) in the first years of their residency,” said Jennifer Ng’andu of the National Council of La Raza, a pro-immigrant organization in Washington, D.C. “In addition, they will be required to buy insurance like everyone else, but it’s not as easy to get coverage if they are poor.”
The proposals stipulate that legal residents in their first five years be excluded from other public programs if they have access to subsidized insurance in the so-called insurance exchange, where competition should lower insurance premiums.
Part of the problem with inconsistencies in Latino health care coverage, activists say, is that the Latino leadership has failed to show courage in defense of their community.
Dr. Jane Delgado, president of the National Alliance for Hispanic Health Care, said that groups like hers “have been part of the discussion since the first day.”
But Ng’andu said that she is “worried that our national leadership is silent on these issues. In both parties,” she said. “Latinos have not had a loud voice.”
Rosalío Muñoz, a Los Angeles activist and founder of Latinos for Health Reform, explains that Latinos in Congress have been active, but she says more must be done to strengthen their voices in the debate.
“The Latino caucus was involved with the black and Asian caucuses to present the necessary reforms to their communities. Congressman Raul Grijalva of Arizona has been a leader on this,” Muñoz said. “What we have not had until now, and this is a mistake, is a bilingual town hall or public meeting in Latino communities.”
According to figures from the Pew Hispanic Center, 59 percent of undocumented immigrants, 29 percent of Latino documented residents, and 14 percent of Latino U.S. citizens are uninsured.
José Calderón, a sociologist at Pitzer College, says health care is providing a preview of what will happen when Congress debates comprehensive immigration reform.
“Some people are using the immigration issue to build opposition to (health care) reform, like they are using other issues to scare people,” Calderón said. “This is part of the immigration debate and it gives us a taste of what we can expect with immigration reform.”
Source: My Latino News
Article from CNN.com
September 9th, 2009
By John Blake
CNN
(CNN) -- Perez Hilton is a celebrity blogger who dishes out the latest Hollywood gossip, but there's something about his personal life you may not know.
Hilton is a Latino pioneer. He is one of the first Latino public figures in the U.S. to be openly gay. While Latinos have broken ground on the U.S. Supreme Court, in Hollywood and in professional sports, gay Latinos in the nation's public arena remain largely invisible.
Hilton says deep-seated homophobia within the Latino community has forced many gay Latinos to go underground, but attitudes are shifting.
"At the beginning, when I came out to my mom, she reacted with a sigh and said, 'You're my son and I have to love you,' " Hilton says. "But now she says, 'You're the best son in the world, and we need to find you a man.' "
Some gay Latino leaders are starting to share Hilton's optimism. The Latino community has long had a reputation for being notoriously homophobic. But some surprising developments within the Latino world -- in the United States and abroad -- suggest that may be changing, gay scholars and activists say.
'Walls are starting to crumble'
"A lot of walls are starting to crumble," says Charlie Vazquez, a New York-based author whose fiction has appeared in books such as "Best Gay Love Stories: NYC."
"We're at a crossroads," he says. "A new generation of better-educated Latinos is coming of age."
Gay Latino activists point to several signs of this transformation:
El Diario La Prensa, one of the oldest and largest Spanish-language newspapers in the U.S., recently endorsed the rights of same-sex couples to marry.
Within the past three years, lawmakers in countries as diverse as Uruguay, Colombia and Mexico have passed laws granting rights and protections to gays and lesbians.
Christian Chavez, lead singer of the popular pop Mexican band RBD, recently announced that he was gay.
"He wasn't rejected by any of his band mates or fans," Hilton says of Chavez. "That's a huge step for gay visibility in the Latino media world."
And far away from the stage, even some of the most vulnerable gay Latinos -- ordinary students in public high schools -- are finding more support, one group says.
While many gay Latino students still face physical and verbal harassment from classmates and teachers, more are becoming bolder about affirming their sexual identity, a recent survey found.
A 2007 survey conducted by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network discovered that at schools where a Gay Student Alliance club existed, 59 percent of gay Latino students participated in the club, says Elizabeth Diaz, a senior researcher at the network. The survey defined gay youths as those who were lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.
The network also says that since 1999, at least 4,000 Gay Student Alliances have formed groups at public and private schools in the United States.
"While harassment in schools for Latino gay students remained high, we also know that these students have more support than in past generations," Diaz says.
At least one Latina scholar is now even questioning a fundamental assumption about homophobia in the Latino community.
Lourdes Torres, president of Amigas Latinas, a lesbian and bisexual support group, says the notion that Latino people are more homophobic and its men more macho is not only false, but tinged with racism.
Men from all sorts of ethnic groups have long acted in a patriarchal manner, but only Latino men have the term "machismo" attached to their behavior, she says.
"People tend to think that somehow, we're more repressed and living in the Dark Ages," says Torres, a professor at DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois.
"They forget that just as things are changing in the U.S., they're also changing in Latin America," she says.
The walls that still stand
Yet Torres and others also say that being gay and Latino presents special challenges.
Like other gay people of color, Latino gays face a double bind: discrimination from mainstream culture and from their own community, Torres says.
This double bind presents an obstacle to Latinos who consider coming out, Torres says. Their challenge: risking rejection from their family when they need their family as a refuge from racism, she says.
"The family is the unit that provides the support and the one place that people can feel free and protected," Torres says. "It becomes doubly difficult for people to come out."
Those who take that risk may pay a price.
Emanuel Xavier, a gay poet and spoken word artist, says he almost destroyed himself because he couldn't find acceptance within the Latino community.
The New York-based poet says he grew up knowing that his sexual identity infuriated other Latinos. He once saw kids pelt a gay Latino hairdresser with stones. He routinely heard Roman Catholic priests condemn homosexuals.
His own mother called him names when she discovered he was gay, says Xavier, editor of "Mariposas: A Modern Anthology of Queer Latino Poetry."
Xavier says he was so filled with self-loathing that he once sold drugs and engaged in risky sexual behavior.
"I became all those things society expected me to become," he says. "I thought that was the only thing I could be."
Xavier says he decided to ditch his reckless lifestyle and become a poet. He reconciled with his mother and took on a new mission. He wanted to show others that one could be Latino, gay and proud.
"Fortunately, I walked away unscathed," he says of his earlier days. "I thought that God had given me a second chance, and I felt like I had to do something with that."
Gay Latinos like Xavier who decide to become activists, though, may run into an unexpected problem. How do you organize a community that is so fragmented?
People often talk about the Latino community in the U.S. as if it is one community. Yet Latino leaders often point out that there is not one Latino community in the U.S., but many.
A U.S. citizen from Guatemala, for example, may not appreciate being called a Mexican. Politics, food, history -- they all differ among various Latino groups in the U.S.
Andres Duque, a gay Latino activist and journalist, says those differences can make it difficult to mobilize support for Latino gay issues.
"It's difficult to get united around a single issue," says Duque, whose blogging name is "Blabbeando."
"When people are trying to form a Latino voice, it's difficult because you have different cultures with different visions and goals," Duque says.
For now, Hilton, the Hollywood blogger, may seem like a coalition of one -- a Latino public figure who is proud of being gay. But he says he doesn't feel isolated.
"I really don't think I'm alone," he says. "I don't feel alone."
He says that gay Latinos who decide to stop living undercover will become more commonplace in the future.
"It's tough -- I'm not saying it's not there," Hilton says of homophobia in the Latino community. "But as time goes
Source: Cnn.com
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