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OBAMA SAYS “NO” IS NOT AN OPTION FOR THE DREAM ACT: THE DREAM OF OPPORTUNITY IS STILL ALIVE IN OUR TIME

May 4, 2012 by Leave a Comment

THE HISPANIC BLOG IS THE LATEST HISPANIC NEWS BY JESSICA MARIE GUTIERREZ

(AFP OUT) U.S. President Barack Obama greets guests during a Cinco de Mayo reception in the Rose Garden at the White House on May 3, 2012 in Washington, D.C. Cinco de Mayo celebrates the Battle of Puebla between Mexico and France in 1862.
(May 2, 2012 – Source: Pool/Getty Images North America)

THE DREAM OF OPPORTUNITY IS STILL ALIVE IN OUR TIME – LOOKING BACK AT MAY 4, 2009

“While geography has made us neighbors, tradition has made us friends, economics has made us partners and necessity has made us allies, two great and independent nations united by hope instead of fear. Visiting Mexico, I was greeted by children on both our nations waving flags. A powerful reminder that everything we do is to secure a better future for our children and for our grandchildren. And while I was there, I found it impossible not to be touched by the warmth and vigor and the forceful vitality of the Mexican people. The love of life I’ve seen in Mexican American communities throughout this nation, and that’s what we’ll celebrate tomorrow, that’s what we’ll celebrate tonight, and that’s what we’ll celebrate in the future. Feliz Cinco de Mayo.” -President Obama

President Obama told a largely Hispanic audience today that he is ready to sign the DREAM Act and blamed Republicans for the failure of the legislation that would grant illegal immigrant students a path to citizenship.

photo source: AP

“We’re going to keep fighting for this common-sense reform — not just because hundreds of thousands of talented young students depend on it, but because ultimately America depends on it,” the president said at the annual Cinco de Mayo reception at the White House. “‘No’ is not an option. I want to sign the DREAM Act into law. I’ve got the pens all ready. I’m willing to work with anybody who is serious to get this done, and to achieve bipartisan, comprehensive immigration reform that solves this challenge once and for all.”

Dancers from Ballet Folklorico Mexicano de Georgetown perform at a Cinco de Mayo reception at the White House in Washington, May 3, 2012. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas
Read more: IB Times

Today’s election-year celebration comes as the president courts Latino voters in the run-up to November.

(AFP OUT) Guests take pictures during a Cinco de Mayo reception in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington, DC, on May 3, 2012.. Photo by Olivier Douliery/ABACAUSA.com
(May 2, 2012 – Source: Pool/Getty Images North America)

“We know that securing our future depends on making sure that all Americans have the opportunity to reach their potential. And that’s why we’ve worked hard over the last three and a half years to create jobs; to make sure you get the care you need when you get sick; to make college affordable for everybody; to ensure that no matter where you are, where you come from, what you look like, what your last name is — even if it’s Obama– you can make it if you try,” the president said to applause.

(AFP OUT) The Ballet Folklorico Mexicano performs during a Cinco de Mayo reception in the Rose Garden at the White House on May 3, 2012 in Washington, D.C. Cinco de Mayo celebrates the Battle of Puebla between Mexico and France in 1862.
(May 2, 2012 – Source: Pool/Getty Images North America)

In his brief remarks, Obama welcomed everyone to celebrate the “tres de Mayo” at this year’s party. The president will spend the real Cinco de Mayo this Saturday campaigning in Ohio and Virginia. “We just like to get the fiesta started early around here,” he joked. This year’s “fiesta” included dance performances by Georgetown University’s Ballet Folklórico and traditional Mexican music. Guests mingled in the Rose Garden, sipping champagne and, of course, margaritas.

Read More: ABC News

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DO YOU KNOW WHY WE CELEBRATE PRESIDENT’S DAY, HOW IT HAPPENED OR WHO INVENTED IT?

February 20, 2012 by 5 Comments

THE HISPANIC BLOG BY JESSICA MARIE GUTIERREZ

Happy President’s Day: Do You Know Why We Celebrate President’s Day, How it Happened or Who Invented It?

The observance of Washington’s Birthday began as an act of Congress in 1879. However, it was simply a holiday celebrated in Washington D.C. Then, in 1885 President Chester Allen Arthur signed off on the bill that implemented the federal holiday. This was the country’s first federal holiday that honored an American citizen, and thus the date chosen was of the great hero, warrior and president, Mr. George Washington.

According to the Julian calendar that was in effect during Washington’s life time meant back then his birthday was February 11, 1732. However, in 1752 the Gregorian calendar was adopted and translated Washington’s Birthday into February 22nd and was celebrated that very day.

Furthermore, in 1951, the President’s Day National Committee was formed and they tried to create President’s Day as a day that honored Presidents on March 4th. Please keep in mind that back then Washington’s birthday was celebrated the third Monday, Lincoln’s birthday was celebrated on February 12th and so three back to back holidays would be too much of a burden. Unfortunately, the Governors of a majority of the individual states issued proclamations declaring March 4 to be Presidents’ Day in their respective jurisdictions.

In 1968, the Uniform Monday Holiday Act was created. What they did was took Washington’s Day, Memorial Day, Veteran’s Day and additionally would include Columbus Day which went from fixed calendar days to designated Mondays, so federal employees could enjoy three day weekends. This act took effect in 1971, making Washington’s Birthday to be celebrated the third Monday of every February. Later, there was legislation enacted that established the observance of Veteran’s Day would be on November 11th.

By the mid-1980s, with a push from advertisers, the term “Presidents’ Day” began its public debut. Keep in mind, Lincoln’s birthday was never a federal holiday, so a dozen state governments officially renamed their Washington’s Birthday observances as “Presidents’ Day”, “Washington and Lincoln Day“, or other such designations. However, “Presidents’ Day” is not always an all-inclusive term.

  • Alabama calls it “Washington and Jefferson Day,” even though Thomas Jefferson’s birthday is in April.
  • In Connecticut, Missouri and Illinois, while Washington’s Birthday is the federal holiday, Abraham Lincoln’s birthday is still a state holiday, and thus falls on February 12 regardless of what day of the week it is.
  • In Washington’s home state of Virginia, the holiday is legally known as “George Washington Day.”

Moreover, there is a mid-winter long weekend that six Canadian provinces instituted as a holiday which coincides with Washington’s Birthday: In Alberta, British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Ontario, it is Family Day; in Manitoba, Louis Riel Day; and Prince Edward Island it is Islander Day. The holidays do not honor anniversaries, and the date was selected, in part, to coincide with the U.S. holiday, since the economic and social lives of both countries are tightly intertwined.

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Filed Under: MISCELLANEOUS Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

WHAT IS THE LATEST AND GREATEST DOCUMENTARY ON IMMIGRATION??

February 16, 2012 by Leave a Comment

THE HISPANIC BLOG BY JESSICA MARIE GUTIERREZ

Backstage Pass: Q&A with Makers of Acclaimed, Fascinating Documentary on

US Immigration Debate

Filmmakers Shari Robertson and Michael Camerini photo credits not stated

More than a decade ago, award-winning filmmakers Shari Robertson and Michael Camerini sat down with me and passionately outlined their vision for a documentary that would illustrate how democracy works, at least in Washington, DC, by capturing the inner workings of Congress in cinéma vérité style as legislators debated and passed a sweeping immigration overhaul. Little did they — or the rest of us — realize that the momentum in the fall of 2001 that foretold of swift passage for the first major overhaul of the US immigration system since 1965 would come to an abrupt halt with the terrorist attacks that pierced America’s sense of invulnerability.

What was to have been a one-year project, using the immigration debate as the lens through which to explore the legislative process, stretched into six years as Congress, in fits and starts, debated and shelved major immigration legislation. Though the country is the poorer for the lack of action to fix what is near universally decried as a broken immigration system, the films that Shari and Michael have created after more than 1,400 hours of filming and thousands of hours in the editing room tell an endlessly fascinating — if frustrating — tale about modern politics, the powerful constituencies assembled for and against immigration reform, and the forces that keep Washington stalemated on so many complex and contentious policy questions vital to our nation’s future.

The documentary series grants viewers a rare “fly-on-the-wall” perspective as legislators such as Senators Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and Sam Brownback (R-KS) negotiate; advocates press their case; and constituencies align, come apart, and reconfigure themselves. With equal vividness, the films also portray how the failure of action on immigration reform at the federal level allowed the states — several of which have since enacted tough and what many call unreasonable immigration enforcement laws — to become immigration policy and political battlegrounds. As such, How Democracy Works Now offers a valuable civics lesson and insight into the political world and, in particular, the immigration policymaking process.

Because we believe these films represent a rare and important education, we are offering readers of the Migration Information Source a Q&A this week with Shari and Michael, who may be known to some of our audience as the creators of the influential Well-Founded Fear documentary on the US asylum system. Later this month, we’ll publish an essay in which they recount their initiation into official Washington’s tribal-like customs, explain how they secured behind-the-scenes access denied to the media and others, and offer some hard-earned observations about immigration policy and the ability to effect change.

Demetrios G. Papademetriou

TO READ THE Q&A TO MAKERS CLICK ON THE “READ MORE” LINK

Read More: http://www.migrationinformation.org/Feature/display.cfm?id=880

“The How Democracy Works Nowfilms take a remarkably candid, insightful, and thorough look at how the American legislative process has treated the issue of immigration policy reform, and provide a valuable tool for anyone teaching or studying the politics of policy formation or immigration policy.”
— John Mollenkopf, Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Sociology and Director, Center for Urban Research, The Graduate Center, CUNY
“Anyone who watches How Democracy Works Now is immediately drawn into the mysteries, strategies, frustrations, and possible rewards of the contemporary legislative process. You won’t find a better documentary introduction into the world of American politics and policymaking — and into the particular opportunities and minefields that characterize today’s immigration politics.”
— David A. Martin, Warner-Booker Distinguished Professor of International Law, University of Virginia School of Law

Read More: http://www.migrationinformation.org/Feature/display.cfm?id=880

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CAN SOMEONE EXPLAIN THE THE SCOTUS RULING ON TX REDISTRICTING?

January 20, 2012 by 4 Comments

THE HISPANIC BLOG IS THE LATEST HISPANIC NEWS BY JESSICA MARIE GUTIERREZ

Basically, the Supreme Court sent the case back to the three-judge court in Texas to redraw congressional and legislative lines using Texas’s own plans as a starting point. The Court held that the three-judge court should deviate from Texas’s maps only if it is likely that parts of the maps violate the Voting Rights Act.

“On the contrary,” the opinion continued, “the state plan serves as a starting point for the district court. It provides important guidance that helps ensure that the district court appropriately confines itself to drawing interim maps that comply with the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act, without displacing legitimate state policy judgments with the court’s own preferences.”

SCOTUS — cited its 1996 decision in Lopez v. Monterey County — said that a District Court may not adopt “as its own” a state plan that needs Washington clearance but does not yet have it. However, the precedents “say nothing about whether a district court may take guidance from the lawful policies incorporated in such a plan for aid in drawing an interim map.” Turning then to its 1982 decision in Upham v. Seamon, the Court said that a district court has a duty to “defer to the unobjectionable aspects of a state’s plan” even in a situation where clearance was sought but had been denied.

The Justices flatly rejected the declaration of the San Antonio court that it was “not required to give any deference” to what the legislature had crafted. The lower court was wrong, the Court added, “to the extent” it “exceeded its mission to draw interim maps that do not violate the Constitution or the Voting Rights Act, and substituted its own concept of ‘the collective public good’ for the Texas legislature’s determination of which policies serve ‘the interests of the citizens of Texas.’ ”Further, the Court wrote, “because the District Court here had the benefit of a recently enacted plan to assist it, the court had neither the need nor the license to cast aside that vital aid.”

As far as Section 5, requiring some states and local governments to get Washington legal approval before they may put into effect any change in their election laws; Justice Thomas spoke for himself citing his belief that it is unconstitutional.

What does this mean? The opinion favors the state’s maps. This decision only affects the interim maps and this is not necessarily a defeat for the redistricting plaintiffs.

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God Bless and may you have a fabulous day!

powered by Influential Access – “Transforming the Ordinary to EXTRAordinary!” – CEO – Jessica Marie Gutierrez – Creator of The Hispanic Blog #thehispanicblog

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