News

This one comes from HuffPost Politics. The following video clip shows Frank Luntz closing up a May 9 focus group at the South Carolina Freedom Summit. The last person Luntz approaches is the mother-in-law of David Bossie, who heads up Citizens United, the group that organized the Freedom Summit. Bossie’s mother-in-law has some advice for […]

Please click here for Part 1 of this article, where the background of these potential consequences is laid out. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a free trade agreement being negotiated in secret. And yet, of its 29 known provisions, only five deal with trade. Ostensibly, the TPP is a U.S. response to the potential of being […]

Cuando leí sobre el esfuerzo del Departamento de Educación en eliminar las clases de estudios sociales quede consternado en creer que tal cosa fuera posible. El Secretario de Educación Rafael Román Meléndez y subsecretario de Asuntos Académicos Harry Valentín Gonzales incoherentemente aprobaron una carta circular para integrar las clases de español y estudios sociales de […]

You may have heard the abbreviation TPP in some background noise, or seen it on a screen at one point. Maybe you even heard a brief discussion about it in what passes for news coverage on TV. But even if you know that TPP means Trans-Pacific Partnership, you may not know what it really means. […]

Most people don’t care about Honduras: even historically-conscious Latinos and keen observers of Latin American happenings. Big-name countries like Mexico, Brazil and Cuba hog all the limelight, because they either have substantial economies, a storied relationship with the United States or a strong emigrant presence in America. (In the case of Mexico, it’s all three.) […]

“They’re no better than the Republicans,” says Ramón, my 92-year-old Salvadoran immigrant father, while watching another local news report featuring a family sad and angry at the deportation of the male head of the household. “If this continues, I’m not going to have a reason to go vote next year.” Such refrains from Latino voters […]

EDITOR’S NOTE: The following piece first appeared at Latin America Is a Country. Both the site and the author have given us permission to repost the piece here. This past March, the murder rate in El Salvador soared to levels not seen in a decade. In just one month, some 481 people were murdered across the […]

The following video comes from our friends at Narco News. As Narco News tells us: The idea for the latest NNTV video was born at the 2014 School of Authentic Journalism, a laboratory where new ideas are created at the intersection of journalism and social movements and where participants share experiences from movement leaders and […]

As you read this, please note that I’m not condemning Toya Graham, the woman seen in a viral video smacking her 16-year old son after she spotted him rioting in Baltimore. Instead, I’m condemning a system of oppression that colonizes us to the point that we will brutalize our children to keep them safe from […]

Over the weekend in Jupiter, Florida, an 18-year-old Guatemalan teen was killed by three other teens who were going “Guat hunting.” The murder of Onésimo López-Ramos has been formally called a hate crime by Jupiter’s police chief, who also told local news that the targeting of Guatemalans has been an ongoing problem. What follows is […]

Cristela, the little show that could, just ended its first season. However, it is not certain if the recent season finale will in fact be a series finale, and I was inspired to write this article after reading creator and star Cristela Alonzo’s heartbreaking, thoughtful and important blog post about her show and what it […]

Editor’s Note: All photos from the author. The deserted island rose above the sands of the waterless Kern River. Gone were the days when its inhabitants waded to the shores. The island was now a wasteland. Among the trash of a destroyed homeless encampment lay a page ripped from a bible, half-covered in dirt and […]

Editor’s Note: A previous version of this piece appeared on the author’s blog. Harry has since expanded on it, given recent news pieces. In addition, all photos listed here are part of the public domain. According to the latest articles on Puerto Rico making the rounds in the U.S. mainstream media in the last months, Puerto […]

This weekend we heard a story discussing the systematic “exporting” of drug addicts from many Puerto Rican municipalities to Chicago. We were disturbed both by the policy and by the way in which the story was framed in the pieces we heard. The stories we heard emphasized a corruption scheme in which Puerto Rican municipal […]

The recent news about the shooting death of Walter Scott in North Charleston, South Carolina, has Latino leaders in Pasco, Washington, wondering why the Pasco Police Department has yet to act on the February shooting of Antonio Zambrano Montes, whose death at the hands of officers was also caught on video. In a release to […]

I know I’m still a young man, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen or heard of a debate moderator personally attacking a candidate. If Phil Ponce’s questions were to come from anyone, you’d think they would be Mayor Rahm Emanuel or one of his supporters—and it still would’ve crossed the line. It was arguably […]

César Chávez, the biopic of the Chicano labor leader and civil rights activist directed by Mexican director/actor Diego Luna, hit theaters nationwide last year to a mixed reception of acclaim and criticism. While some critics pointed out the historical inaccuracies that exist throughout the film, most focused on Luna’s near-omission of Filipino farmworkers, and the peripheral […]

Editor’s Note: You can read Part I here and Part II here. JM: What are your thoughts on the immigration issue in the United States and how it pertains to Latinos? ND: The immigration debate is important, and it must be continued until everyone —Latinos and other groups— receive the same consideration that was extended […]

Editor’s Note: You can read Part I of the intreview with Nelson Denis here. Part III is here. JM: Do you feel the close ties between the Puerto Rican independence movement and Castro has hurt the cause? ND: Anything that enabled J. Edgar Hoover and Gov. Muñoz Marín to characterize the Nationalist movement as part of […]

Recently, I had the great pleasure of speaking with Nelson Denis, author of War Against All Puerto Ricans. I have long had an interest in the subject of Puerto Rico’s 1950 Revolution and whether you are familiar with this largely suppressed moment in our history or not, Denis offers sharp and exciting insights on mid-century […]

Here is a release shared this week by the Washington State Commission on Hispanic Affairs: The Listening Session comes at a time where questions continue about the February shooting death of Antonio Zambrano-Montes. Today an opinion piece by Raúl Reyes in USA Today said the following: The Pasco killing is worthy of further scrutiny by the […]