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Boxing

Friday, April 3 — at Primm, NV (Showtime)

  • Yuriorkis Gamboa vs. TBA.
  • Breidis Prescott vs. TBA.

Saturday, April 4 — at TBA, USA (Showtime)

  • ­WBC/WBO light welterweight title: Timothy Bradley vs. Kendall Holt.

Saturday, April 4 — at San Antonio, TX (HBO-PPV)

  • Interim WBC lightweight title: Edwin Valero vs. Antonio Pitalua
  • Joel Casamayor vs. Julio Díaz.
  • Jorge Barrios vs. Carlos Hernandez.
  • Jesus Chávez vs. Michael Katsidis

Saturday, April 4 — at Montreal, Canada (Showtime)

  • WBC/WBO light welterweight title: Timothy Bradley vs. Kendall Holt.
  • Librado Andrade vs. Vitali Tsypko.

Saturday, April 4 — at Düsseldorf, Germany

  • Alexander Povetkin vs. Jason Estrada.
  • Francesco Pianeta vs. Michael Sprott.

Saturday, April 11 — at Las Vegas, NV (HBO)

  • Paul Williams vs. Ronald ‘Winky’ Wright.
  • Chris Arreola vs. Jameel McCline.

Sunday, April 19 — at Quezon City, Philippines

  • IBF flyweight title: Nonito Donaire vs. Raul Martinez.
  • IBF light flyweight title: Ulises Solis vs. Brian Viloria.

San Francisco kicks off national donate life month

by the El Reportero’s staff

In recognition of National Donate Life Month, the month of April 2009 is being proclaimed “DMV/Donate Life California Month” in the City of San Francisco.

A proclamation encouraging all Californians to check “YES!” when applying for or renewing their driver’s license or I.D. card, or by signing up at www.donateLIFEcalifornia.org or www.doneVIDAcalifornia.org will be presented to Donate Life California.

To kick off April’s National Donate Life Month, Asian American Donor Program, Blood Centers of the Pacific and California Transplant Donor Network will host a blood drive, bone marrow and organ/tissue donation registration event scheduled from 10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. at City Hall in San Francisco.

Tues., March 31, 11:00 a.m. at San Francisco City Hall, Goodlet/Polk Street Steps, San Francisco, California. Contact: Cathy Olmo (925) 324-7043, colmo@ctdn.org.

Walk through the story of time and life open house

Come to celebrate the launch of the new “Walk Through The Story of Time and Life” four floor walking tour of exhibit items on long term loan from the California Academy of Sciences.

Open house and ribbon cutting ceremony for the new walk through the story of time and life exhibit.

Friday, April 3, 2009 at 3 p.m. at the Science Hall basement, Earth Sciences room 43-45, Ocean Campus, City College of San Francisco, 50 Phelan Avenue, San Francisco, California.

César Chávez Holiday Parade & Festival 2009

Join the celebration commemorating the life and work of labor and civil rights leader César Chávez. We will be having the 9th Annual César Chávez Parade and Festival.

This year’s parade will start at Dolores Park/19th Street and end on 24th Street with a Street Fair between Harrison and Bryant Street, in San Francisco. Sat., April 4 2009.

At 11 a.m. – Assemble for Parade, and 12 noon start Parade at Dolores Park -19th St./Dolores, at 1 p.m. – 24th Street Fair 24th Street/Harrison-Bryant.

Accessible to people with disabilities. Take BART – 24th Street station

For more information, call (415) 621-2665; fax (415) 621-5518 or email: CECparade@yahoo.com; w ebsite: www.cesarchavezday.org.

VOLUNTEERS ARE NEEDED! We need help phonebanking/ office and outreach. Please call (415) 621-2665.

SAVE THE DATE! Join us at the our Annual Cesar Chavez Breakfast on Tuesday, March 31st, 8am-10am at Mission Language Vocational School (MLVS).

Breaking the silence of my hands

An original creation by the Teatro de la Colectiva de Mujeres. A theater company of Latin American immigrant women day laborers, based on real life stories.

In Spanish, with simultaneous English translation, Quebrando el Silencio de mis manos reveals the abuses and dangers immigrant sisters confront doing domestic work, and how these could be solved, by demanding the rights that protect them.

Presented by El Teatro Jornalero, La Colectiva de Mujeres, and the San Francisco Day Labor Program.

Directed by Violeta Luna, dramaturgy by Roberto Varea, visual art by Víctor Cartagena, music by Ricardo Torres. With special musical guests Coro Jornalero and Amnesia.

On Friday April 3rd & Saturday April 4th, 8 p.m. $5 -$10 sliding scale At the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts Theater, 2868 Mission St., San Francisco. For more info call (415) 821 1155.

Noches Bohemias presents: INVOCATION: A Collective Art Opening

Join us for an evening of friends and art show featuring the works of eight Latino artists of the San Francisco Bay Area.

­ARTISTS: Alexandra Blum, Calixto Robles, Julien Lallemand, Miguel Angel Martín del Campo, Miguel Pérez, Nino Magaña, Luis Pinedo, Víctor Martín del Campo.

Reception for the artists is Saturday, April 4, from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. At Hot Mango Pickle Gallery, 539 Bryant Street, Palo Alto, California, or call at 650-324-2577 for more info.

Salsa music in mourning: Ralph Mercado leave us

by Antonio Mejías-Rentas

Ralph MercadoRalph Mercado

SALSA VISIONARY: Ralph Mercado, a top promoter and manager who represented some of Latin music’s best ~known acts and helped solidify a New York-born genre, died following a two-year battle with cancer. He was 67.

Mercado died March 9 at a New Jersey Hospital. He had been ailing since undergoing brain surgery last year.

As the top salsa manager, he represented such genre superstars as Eddie Palmieri, Ray Barreto, Celia Cruz and Tito Puente. With his own label, RMM Records, he helped launch the careers of the likes of Marc Anthony, Domingo Quiñones and Tito Nieves.

Born in Brooklyn to Puerto Rican and Dominican parents, he began organizing dances as a teenager. Soon after, he was booking top Latin acts at a local club. He formed his first management, booking and promotions company, Showstoppers, representing such R&B acts as Gladys Knight and the Pips and Aretha Franklin.

He moved to Manhattan at the time of a salsa explosion led by a group of artists signed to the Fania label He booked the Fania A11 Stars at the legendary Cheetah club, the venue of the collective’s landmark live album of the70s.

In 1972 he formed Ralph Mercado Management and continued holding a weekly dance at New York’s Palladium through 1992. That year he formed the record company, signing many of the artists of the then-defunct Fania label.

He was able to book his artists in Europe, Asia and Africa, helping to make dejasalsa a truly international phenomenon. At the height of his career, he also owned two publishing companies and created Yo soy.. . del son a la salsa, a documentary that chronicled the creation of the genre.

Emilio NavairaEmilio Navaira

Mercado is survived by his wife and five children. A public viewing was held March 12 in New York prior to a private funeral

TEJANO STAR SENTENCED: Emilio Navaira will spend three days in jail and serve two years on probation after pleading guilty last week to driving while intoxicated. In 2008 he wrecked his tour bus in a freeway accident outside Houston.

The Grammy-winning singer wore a protective helmet for his head injuries at the March 13 court hearing in Houston. “In (pleading guilty) I hope to begin the process of restoring my life. I accept full responsibility for my actions and the consequences of those actions from the accident,” he said in a statement.

Known to fans as Emilio, the musician will have to serve a compulsory 30 days under custody, including the three behind bars and the remainder under house arrest. He will have surgery to insert a plate to replace missing portions of his skull in the coming weeks. Hispanic Link.­

Assemblyman calles for feds to respect states with medical marihuana laws

Compiled by the El Reportero’s staff

Tom AmmianoTom Ammiano

In a written statement this week, Assemblymember Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) rejected the federal raid of a medical marijuana dispensary in San Francisco this week.

“I am extremely disappointed with the Drug Enforcement Agency’s decision to raid the medical marijuana dispensary in San Francisco earlier this week,” Ammiano said. “The clinic is in compliance with all local laws and currently holds a permit from the Department of Public Health.

Ammiano responded a statement Attorney General Eric Holder a week ago, announcing that the Obama administration would not prosecute medicinal pot clubs. Unfortunately, the Assemblymember said, “Wednesday’s DEA raid was a clear step backward. With the increasing violence along the Mexican border, the DEA should be focusing their efforts on fi ghting these dangerous cartels rather than sick people seeking compassionate care.”

He mentioned that to date, 13 states across the country have passed medical marijuana laws and several more have laws under consideration. The medicinal value of marijuana has been proven without a doubt and public opinion polls show broad support. It is now time for the federal government to respect those states which support the use of medical marijuana.

He said he will be writing to President Obama outlining his concerns and will respectfully urge Attorney General Eric Holder to clarify his new policy with the DEA.

Hotel workers fight healthcare cuts

Workers and supporters at the Holiday Inn in Concord, CA, demonstrate and march outside the hotel. Their union, UNITE HERE Local 2850, has been trying to negotiate a new contract for a year with new owner Kevin Akash, who is demanding that workers increase their payments for health insurance from $40 to $700 per month.

The average wage for a roomcleaner at the hotel is $9.35 per hour, or about $1590 per month, before taxes. A month ago workers voted to reject the company demand. They are now calling for a boycott of the hotel.

Religious leaders hand roses to workers to encourage them while they demonstrate and march. Concord Mayor Laura Hoffmeister is one of many public officials and union leaders who sign a pledge to boycott the Holiday Inn to support hotel workers.

DREAM Act introduction shows political muscle for immigration reform

Legalizing young immigrants would boost the U.S. economy – This week, Senators Richard Durbin (D-IL) and Richard Lugar (R-IN) introduced the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act; while Representatives ­Howard Berman (D-CA), Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA), and Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-FL) introduced a House version of the bill called the “American Dream Act.”

Both pieces of bipartisan legislation would permit a limited number of undocumented students to become permanent residents if they came here as children, are long-term U.S. residents, have good moral character, and attend college or enlist in the military for at least two years. The following is a statement by Angela Kelley, Director of the Immigration Policy Center (IPC) in Washington, DC.

“With yesterday’s bipartisan introduction of the DREAM Act, the House and Senate delivered yet another signal that the political tide for immigration reform is getting stronger. The bill seeks to remedy the predicament of a specifi c group of undocumented children who are blocked from realizing their full potential. By providing a path to U.S. citizenship, the DREAM Act would allow these children to pursue a higher education and contribute fully to our economy.

Hispanic feeling the brunt of U.S. recesión

by Jacqueline Baylón

The economic crisis in the United States is making life hard on everybody, but Hispanics seem to be struggling the most.

Hispanics make up 15 percent of the nation’s population, and more than three quarters of Hispanics (78 percent) say it is difficult to find a job where they live, according to a recent Pew Hispanic Center study.

Unemployment rates are flying off the charts: 10.9 percent for Hispanics vs. 8.1 percent for the whole population.

Half of adult Hispanicsare homeowners, and of that group nearly 9 percent have missed a mortgage payment in the past year and 3 percent have received a foreclosure notice, the study reveals.

Hispanic Link News Service spoke to several organization leaders and economic experts in key “Latino” states about the how Hispanics in their regions are being affected.

There was near-consensus on three points: Hispanics are disproportionately losing their jobs, they are facing foreclosures, and their educational opportunities are being shut off.

California and Florida have been particularly hard-hit by foreclosures and the lack of construction jobs.

“The housing market has just disappeared — fallen off the map,” says Filiberto González, chief development officer for the Southern California-based Mexican American Opportunity Foundation. “There are no homes being built right now. The workforce of the home builders has been almost exclusively Latino males, so that entire job stream has been wiped out.”

Cuban American National Council president Guarioné Díaz says the same thing about the situation in Miami: “We have been severely impacted by the foreclosures and construction, a major industry here that hires lots of Hispanics.”

Díaz and González express cautious optimism that the $787 billion stimulus package approved Feb. 13 by Congress will mean additional dollars for Hispanic communities throughout the country.

In Chicago, communications consultant and columnist Esther Cepeda, a member of the Illinois Student Assistance Commission, notes that for English-as-a-second-language classes, “The funding is evaporating because the state is not funding things and the federal government is pulling back, along with private donors.”

Many after- and before-school programs that serve the Latino community specifically do not know where their funding is going to be coming from, she says.

Andy Hernández, executive director of Wesley Center for Family and Neighborhood Development in Austin, Texas, observes that young adults, many of them with college educations, are struggling the most to find jobs.

Eduardo Giraldo, of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Queens, recounts that most businesses in New York City started closing down in the fall, noting that the immigration issue has brought a lot of uncertainty to the community and the marketplace. “If you look at the major metropolitan areas, a lot of business is done by immigrants, especially in big cities like New York and Los Angeles.”

He adds that Hispanic enterprises are at the bottom of the “green” eco-business ladder and lack essential funding. Immigration reform will be an “intricate” part of recovery from recession, he predicts.

Global reports show that the pain felt by Latino immigrants to the United States is considerably less than is being experienced in their home countries.

Those most vulnerable here are the undocumented, who presently contribute to fathe U.S. economy but have no safety nets to fall back on, states Brent Wilkes, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based League of United Latin American Citizens.

“They are getting the brunt of this. If we had immigration reform, they could stay in the employment force and support their families, whether here or back home.”

(Jacqueline Baylón is a reporter with Hispanic Link News Service in Washington, D.C. Email: Jacqueline.Baylon@gmail.com). ©2009

No goldfish on Arizona’s desert

by José de la Isla

José de la IslaJosé de la Isla

It’s said that goldfish have a memory that lasts three seconds. They live in the present all the time.

Human beings, on the other hand, have long-term as well as short-term memories. Our brains are perfect instruments for self-instruction.

We learn from the past and the errors of our ways.

That’s why I can’t get Diego out of my mind.

We met up four years ago when photographer Wilhelm Scholz and I were on assignment in the Arizona desert, south of Tucson, in the Mexican town of Agua Prieta. There my new-found friend Diego told me of his travels north from the highlands of Guatemala to his apprehension when he attempted to cross the line into the United States without papers. Without work or resources, he told me he was trying to find his way back home.

The man cried intermittently throughout the day. “The whole village left their farm plots when the death squads came,” he said as he spilled his odyssey.

Some 2,000 refugees from his area fled across the border into the Mexican state of Chiápas. He and his wife resettled on a plot of land to do the subsistence farming they had known all their lives. His wife bore a daughter. Shortly thereafter, she died.

He was told that a farm worker in the United States could earn up to $60 a day, 663 pesos back then. Able to borrow $1,200 for travel and expenses, he reached the border and paid a smuggler who promised to deliver him to a U.S. job. But he was caught. Stranded in the desert, Diego shared his experience and fears with me. He isn’t a goldfish.

He had no way to pay back the loan or reclaim his land in Chiápas, nor to feed and educate his daughter — not even the price of a bus ticket. Mexican officials told me they feared that Diego didn’t have the street smarts to keep from getting waylaid as he headed south again.

I have heard hundreds of stories from people trapped by similar circumstances.

I’ve also received streams of comments from elements among my countrymen who fervently believe people like Diego brought it on themselves.

They ought not to export their personal problems to the United States.

On March 17 the National Security Archive, a Washington, D.C., institute, disclosed documents confi rming that our government knew all along that the Guatemalan officials we supported with arms and cash from 1960 to 1996 were behind the disappearances and assassinations that led to the fl ight of thousands of Diegos. It is no longer possible for the United States to claim we had no such knowledge — that we are goldfi sh when it comes to Guatemala.

That small nation’s U.S.-backed army battled guerrillas in its highlands.

More than 200,000 persons were killed or reported missing during those years. Most were Mayan Indians, forced to take sides or murdered if they wouldn’t. Death squads ruled. Sometimes vengeful people used the political calamity as a pretext to settle personal scores, leveraging opportunities out of the horrendous situation.

We have been told before about what was happening, but by partisans and ideologues. So have others tried telling us, like novelist Francisco Goldman in his book The Long Night of White Chickens, Sister Dianna Ortiz who wrote about being sequestered and tortured in The Blindfold’s Eyes, and Nobel-laureate Rigoberta Manchu in her autobiographical account about her family and village.

The decades of official denials that have come our way don’t stand up. These new declassifi ed disclosures of old documents simply verify what others have been telling us.

Unless we accept the truth and correct our course, we have missed the ­value of having a memory.

Migrants who opted to flee their homelands are collateral damage, the human consequence of a script we sanctioned, if not wrote.

If we don’t insist, even now, on full disclosure and appropriate remedy, we become three-second goldfish, endlessly swimming inside the bowl, reinventing reality at every turn, and going nowhere.

[José de la Isla’s latest book, Day Night Life Death Hope, is distributed by The Ford Foundation. He writes a weekly commentary for Hispanic Link News Service and is author of The Rise of Hispanic Political Power (2003). Contact him by e-mail at joseisla3@yahoo.com]. © 2009

More states join against federal mandate and protest with legislations

by Marvin J. Ramirez

Marvin J. RamirezMarvin J. R­amirez

It seems that legislators nowadays, because they don’t have any other ways to pay for an overweight government, or because they obey orders from their political supporters for political favors, are doing away with most of the safeguards that the Founder Fathers of this great nation created to assure, for the forthcoming generations, liberty and financial success that we the people can pass on to our children.

Have you noticed very recently, that some laws that have been passed in the states have been ignored by the federal government and not respected? Why? Because with the loan dollars from the Federal Reserve the feds can bribe states legislators and the devil himself.

But this is sending a chill alarm to the states that are creating legislations to remind the feds, that it was the states that created the federal government, and not the other way around. They are considering the feds actions, a very serious aggression.

Now a great number of states in the Union are drafting legislations to assert their states sovereignty over the continued federal expansionism which buys states’ liberty for Federal Reserve Notes (green money) that they borrow from the Federal Reserve, in the name of us and our children’s future.

Actually, constitutionally, the Federal government only has jurisdiction in Puerto Rico, Guam, the Virgen Islands, Washington, D.C., its territories, and the federal buildings. And, for your information, the Federal Government, which operation is funded by the Federal Reserve Bank, the privately-owned bank which prints the United States’ currency (the dollar), was created by the states to serve the states, not to control them.

In fact, it is subordinated to the states’ mandate. This has been changing over the years, thanks to corrupt legislators, who in their quest for money have been eroding the citizens’ state rights, giving more power to thefeds over their lives.

In an appealing headline on an internet site, Oklahoma was one of the fi rst of several states to say no to the feds’ expansionism.

They send the feds a declaration, which reads as follows: “Joint Resolution claiming sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States over certain powers; serving notice to the federalgovernment to cease and desist certain mandates; and directing distribution.

“The powers delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people… “Whereas the Tenth Amendment defi nes the total scope of federal power as being that specifically granted by the Constitution of the United States and no more.”

A growing number of states are in the process or passing, have passed, or are in the process to draft bills, that affirm 10th Amendment rights. Some affirm additional rights and/or give specifi c reasons. New Hampshire has written the most aggressive legislation. And all this is happening because of the federal government overreaching against states’ rights.

Matt Shae, a Washington state representative, is one of those brave state legislators

who have introduced its own legislation intended to stop the feds.

Speaking in a telephone conference at a news internet TV show, Shae said: “We’re trying to send a message to Barack Obama, the President of the United States that we are a sovereign state and we want to be treated as such,” while citing the so infamous federal mandate, “No Child Left Behind,” which comes with a lot of requirements, and orders the states to implement it – without any funding sources for its implementation.

And it adds by citing the recently Newsweek cover, which indicates that now we (the United States) all are socialists. We know the feds are currently nationalizing banks and key industries.

“ We think that this type of federal intervention and overreaching is exactly why states governments are starting to fight back… and I think we need to reclaim our sovereignty, particularly over these massive areas with unfunded mandates expecting the states governments to foot the bill,” Shae said.

Oklahoma and New Hampshire for example, have bills telling the feds that they are not going to allow guns confiscation, after the feds wrote bills banning semi-automatic guns and to require Americans to submit to psychological testing.

“I think right now we’re in a crisis as state legislators throughout the country… and it’s incumbent upon us to take the message of what’s happening in our states and our local governments and take it to the President of the United States and say, “Enough is enough. We’re not gonna take this anymore,” Shae said.

He cited that Washington State came under the same compact that Montana did when it became a state back in the late 1800s.

“And as part of that 3compact, we have in our state constitution that we have the right to bear arms in defense of ourselves. And it’s a lot more specific than the federal constitution is.

­There’s been, as most concerned citizens know, runs on ammunition and guns in sporting goods stores all over the country but especially in Washington as well.

“So, I think this is one of those times in American history where people are starting to wake up and one of the other reasons for my bill was to help wake people up to this issue,” he said.

Oklahoma, have passed these resolutions saying, “No” to the New World Order, “No” to tyranny, “No” to the FEMA camps, “No” to the gun confiscation.

I, personally, am afraid that California is in danger of becoming a puppet of the federal government with legislators like Fiona Ma, who seems to be in the business of ceding more powers to the feds. She is struggling to get the U.S. Arms Forces to recruit our youth for their dirty wars abroad and possibly to crash civil protest within the U.S. with her AB 223 legislation that will require the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) to reinstate Junior ROTC in San Francisco public schools.

Health choices predict cancer survival

by the University of Michigan

ANN ARBOR, (Michigan) — Head and neck cancer patients who smoked, drank, didn’t exercise or didn’t eat enough fruit when they were diagnosed had worse survival outcomes than those with better health habits, according to a new study from the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center.

“While there has been a recent emphasis on biomarkers and genes that might be linked to cancer survival, the health habits a person has at diagnosis play a major role in his or her survival,” says study author Sonia Duffy, Ph.D., R.N., associate professor of nursing at the U-M School of Nursing, research assistant professor of otolaryngology at the U-M Medical School, and research scientist at the VA Ann Arbor Health care System.

Each of the factors was independently associated with survival. Results of the study appear online in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

The researchers surveyed 504 head and neck cancer patients about five health behaviors: smoking, alcohol use, diet, exercise and sleep. Patients were surveyed every three months for two years then yearly after that.

Smoking was the biggest predictor of survival, with current smokers having the shortest survival. Problem drinking and low fruit intake were also associated with worse survival, although vegetable intake was not. Lack of exercise also appears to decrease survival.

“Health behaviors are only sporadically addressed in busy oncology clinics where the major focus is on surgery, chemotherapy or radiation. Addressing health behaviors may enhance the survival advantage offered by these treatments,” says Duffy, a U-M Cancer Center investigator.

Complicating matters is that many of these health behaviors are inter-related. For example, smokers might also be heavy drinkers, making it more difficult to quit. It’s not enough, Duffy points out, to refer someone to a smoking cessation program if alcohol is a major underlying problem.

In addition, previous research has associated many of these health behaviors with preventing cancer. In the current study, a third of the patients reported eating fewer than four servings of fruit per month. Nutrition experts recommend two servings of fruit per day.

“Eating fruits and vegetables, not smoking and drinking in moderation can have a big impact on a person’s risk of getting cancer in the first place. Now it appears that these factors also impact survival after diagnosis,” Duffy says.

The next step for the researchers is to look at behavior changes over­time to determine if changing health habits when a person is diagnosed can impact survival. That will help determine what types of interventions or services should be offered to patients in the clinic.

Head and neck cancer statistics: 35,310 Americans will be diagnosed with head and neck cancers this year and 7,590 will die from the disease, according to the American Cancer Society.

The U.S. Supreme Court narrows authorities of Voting Rights Act

by Gast6n Kuperschmit

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled March 9 by the narrowest of margins, 5-4, to limit the protections afforded by Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, saying that state legislatures are not required to draw electoral districts to the benefit of non-white candidates in districts where they encompass less than half of the population. Writing for the majority in Bartlett v. Strickland, Justice Anthony Kennedy stated race must be considered only in redistricting where “a geographically compact group of minority voters” comprise 50 percent or more of a single-member district.

The case before the Court concerned District 13 in North Carolina where the African-North American population prior to the redistricting after the 2000 Census was 39 percent. Afterwards, it was reduced to 35 percent. Plaintiffs unsuccessfully argued that state officials engaged in vote dilution.

The dissent through Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, agreed with plaintiffs that the ruling was “difficult to fathom and severely undermines the [Voting Rights Act’s] estimable aim.”

Following the ruling, Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund released a statement expressing disappointment with the Court’s conclusion: “Bartlett v. Strickland closed the courthouse doors to many Latinos and other minority communities who face discrimination with regard to voting.”

The timing of this decision is critical as the federal government prepares to conduct the 2010 Census, which is the precursor to congressional redistricting. MALDEF stressed that with the meteoric increase in Hispanic population since 2000Mhe protections afforded by the Voting Rights Act are of utmost concern to the community.

The Court is scheduled to hear a case involving the constitutionality of Section 5 of the Act this term. It requires that states with a history of racial discrimination receive federal consent before amending voting laws.

­Several groups are expected to look at the implications that Bartlett will have on voting districts with significant Hispanic populations that do not meet the requirement of 50 percent.

Alan Clayton, Director of Equal Employment Opportunity at Los Angeles Chicano Employees Association, who filed a complaint with the Department of Justice in 2003 regarding the redistricting of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, states that this decision will not impact that case.

However, he says, there are districts within California that may be affected and he is reviewing any potential impact in that state.

For more information contact Alan Clayton at (626) 979-4902. Hispanic Link.

Merchants unite

by Marvin Ramírez

Members of the Latin Business Network during their six monthly reunion at La Corneta Restaurant.: (photo by Marvin Ramírez)Members of the Latin Business Network during their six monthly reunion at La Corneta Restaurant.(photo by Marvin Ramírez)

While business is down for most merchants nationwide and the city looks for ways to finance for most social services that serve the poor, a group of merchants are uniting as a block to find ways to survive a predictable financial collapse that many experts call, will be worse that the Great Depression in the 1920s.

­“What can we do?,” asks Mission merchant Jorge Luis García Linares, who worries about the taxes the might increase. He and several other merchants, have organized a group that meet once a month to brainstorm and come up with ideas in how to approach the decrease in sales vs. an increase in taxes.

The group, called Latin Business Network, created on December 2008, had their sixth reunion on March 26, which attracted approximately ­72 business owners and other guests, most of them business owners, and professionals.

San Francisco’s District 9 Supervisor David Campos recognized to El Reportero, that although is trying to help businesses, tax increases are contemplated “Our agenda is to protect business,” Campos said, but was admitted that taxes are imminent.