Saturday, Jan. 19 – at New York, NY (PPV)
- Roy Jones Jr. vs. Felix Trinidad
Saturday, Jan. 26 – at Berlin, Germany (HBO)
- Alexander Povetkin v Eddie Chambers
Feb 2, 2008 – at MSG, New York
- Samuel Peter vs Oleg Maskaev
Boxing
Kings Day Concert
by Juliet Blalack
Coro Hispano presents their 21st annual concert in honor of Epiphany, with a special free show for children on January 5th.
The concert will feature traditional Latin American aguinaldos, music from many countries, Baroque villancicos, and Medieval chants. The children’s concert will be performed at the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts at 2868 Mission Street.
Roccapulco New Year’s Party
Roccapulco will host a New Year’s Party with dinner, a champagne toast, party favors, and music.
Two live bands are scheduled to play salsa, cumbia, merenge, and bachata. The upstairs room will feature a DJ playing club hits, disco, and reggaeton. Dinner includes an appetizer, a choice of three entrees, and an ice cream dessert. The tickets are $35 for just the party, $50 with dinner, and $95 for couples. To make a reservation call 415-821-3563.
Multicultural classes for the spring semester
City College is offering over 20 different multicultural classes for the spring semester, which starts January 14th.
Classes include “Diversity: Heterosexism,” “Introduction to Islam,” “From Funk to Hip Hop,” and “Racial and Ethnic Groups in the U.S.”
The cost is $20 per unit, and financial aid is available. Administrators encourage students to enroll by attending the first day of class. To view the class schedule go to http://www.ccsf.edu/Schedule/, or call 415-239-3000.
Lawyer who represented rainforest people wins CNN Hero Award
Pablo Fajardo, who was the lead lawyer in a case against Chevron’s toxic dumping in Ecuador rainforest, won a “Fighting for Justice” hero award from CNN.
“Our work in Ecuador is an example of the good things that can happen when thousands of people, most without money or power, can come together in a common effort to better themselves and the planet,” said Fajardo.
A total of 30,000 plaintiffs brought a class-action suit against Chevron (formerly Texaco). The corporation dumped 18 billion gallons of toxic wastewater into the rainforest during three decades of oil drilling. Afterwards, local people suffered a slew of birth defects, stillbirths, and cancers.
Fajardo, who comes from an impoverished background and worked in the oil fi elds while earning his law degree, represented his community against well-paid and experienced Chevron lawyers. He and his people won.
Both his brother and his friend who helped him pay for law school were killed during Fajardo’s fi ght. Fajardo said his award represents the work of the plaintiffs and their supporters.
Third world women’s activism movie
The Shape of Water is a film that shows women from Senegal, Palestine, Brazil and India fighting for causes ranging from Palestinian self-determination to ending female genital mutilation.
The Bay Model will show the film at 6 p.m. on January 10th at 2100 Bridgeway in Sausalito. To learn more call 415-332-3871.
Multicultural NYE benefit party
Bissap Baobab, the Little Baobab, and Bollyhood Café are collaborating on a New Year’s with a buffet, champagne, live music, DJ’s, and drinks. One passport gets you into all three parties, and proceeds go to Dia de los Ninos, Ecole des Enfants, and Good Samaritan. The pass is $42 and can be ordered by visiting www.bollyhoodcafe.com or calling (415) 970-0362.
Oscar bound
by Antonio Mejías-Rentas
Jorge Drexler
OSCAR BOUND: Three Latino filmmakers nominated last week for a Golden Globe award are likely contender’s for next year’s Academy Awards.
Nominees in the acting categories include Spanish actor Javier Bardem, who is up for a possible Golden Globe for his supporting role in No Country For Old Men. Bardem is a past Oscar nominee who is considered a frontrunner in the same category for the industry’s major award, whose nominees are to be announced Jan, 22.
Bardem has already picked up acting awards from the New York Film Critics Circle and the National Board of Review.
The other two Latino fi lm nominees are in musical categories. Last year’s Academy Award-nominated composer Alberto Iglesias is up for the score of The Kite Runner and Colombian singer Shakira grabbed a nomination for Despedida, a song she composed for the fi lm Love in the Time of Cholera.
Last week, Shakira’s song was included in a list released by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, with songs that qualify for the Oscar nomination. It is the only Spanish-language song to qualify this year; Jorge Drexler’s Al otro lado del río, from Diarios de motocicleta, won the Oscar in 2005.
A fourth Latino nominee was listed among Tv categories. América Ferrera is again nominated for best actress in a comedy, the award she won earlier this year for Ugly 13etty.
Shakira
Given by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the Golden Globes will be handed out in Los Angeles on Jan. 13 in a ceremony to be broadcast by NBC.
LABEL SUED: Last week’s announcement of nominations for the Premios lo Nuestro, organized by the Univisi6n network, coincided with published reports that its affiliated record label was facing three lawsuits, including two related to payola.
The Miami Herald reported that the president of Univision Music Group has sued Untvist6n Communications, claiming the parent company hurt the label’s revenues to lessen the value of his equity stake in the company.
The suit was filed by José Behar last month in Los Angeles Superior Court. His company, Diara, owns 10 percent of Univision Music. It claims damages of $33 million.
Univision is in the fi nal stages of an auction of the music division, which it put up for sale in July.
The other two lawsuits allege Univision Music bribed radio stations to play its songs and retaliated against executives who complained about the practice.
Hispanic Link.
Deported man reunited with wife and child on Christmas
by Juliet Blalack
Juan and Tanya Cruz (photo by Marvin J. Ramirez)
Deported man reunited with wife and child on Christmas
After four months of forced separation from his wife and newborn child, Juan Cruz returned home on Christmas Day.
Since he had to leave the country when his wife was eight months pregnant, Christmas was the first time Cruz met his child.
Although his wife is a citizen, Cruz’s citizenship applications failed, partly due to faulty legal advice. Cruz was brought to the United States by his parents when he was four.
Finally, this month, the US Consulate in Ciudad Juarez granted Cruz a green card.
Awards presented to 14 San Francisco schools
The state department of education awarded the Title I Academic Achievement Award to 14 public San Francisco schools.
To qualify, schools must receive Title I fundingfunding to serve students from low-income homes, and meet twice the state’s targeted academic improvement for two years in a row. To see a complete Christmaslist of California schools that received the award go to http://www.cde.ca.gov/nr/ne/yr07/yr07rel163.asp.
Activists boycott Western Union nationwide
San Francisco immigrant and community organizations, along with the Transnational Institute for Grassroots Research and Action, are boycotting Western Union money transfer company.
Activists are pressuring Western Union to reinvest in the community, lower its fees, and make their exchange rates fair.
“They only reinvest $0.41 for every $100 of profit, even Wal-Mart does better with $2.30,” said Miguel Robles from Alianza Latinoamericana por los Derechos de los Inmigrantes.
In 2007, Western Union transfered $300 billion, a significant portion of it from immigrants. Many immigrants need money transfers to sponsor their families abroad. For more information, visit www.boycottwesternunion.net.
Berkeley police department drug thefts still under investigation
Berkeley police are likely shielding officers who stole confiscated drugs, according to a report from Berkeley’s Police Review Commission.
The department only investigated one of the fi ve offi cers who had access to a drug vault where 286 drug envelopes were tampered with last year. Senior offi cers did not enforce policies designed to keep the drugs secure, according to the report. Chief Hambleton still has not revealed exactly what is missing from the locker, according to Berkeley Copwatch.
Furthermore, the report said offi cers who suspected one of their colleagues was on drugs while on the job and armed did not take any action.
The nation takes inspiration from San Francisco homeless program
Project Homeless Connect, a program started in San Francisco by Mayor Newsom, has spawned similar programs in 130 American cities and a national Project Homeless Connect week.
“Project Homeless Connect offers us the opportunity to look our homeless neighbors in the eye and engage them,” said Philip Mangano, Executive Director of the federal United States Interagency Council on Homelessness.
According to PHC, the program has distributed about 152,000 lbs of food and provided shelter to 1,997 clients. At one of the recent PHC events in the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, 217 people were seen for medical treatment, 68 for dental treatments, 380 people received vision care, and 253 clients were screened for employment.
Assimilation – what happened in the colonies?
by Cecilio Morales
Cecilio Morales
With the new year arrives a perfect moment to reconsider the anti-immigrant demand that newcomers assimilate.
In linguistics, it refers to altering a sound, as happens when a language adopts foreign words (for example, the Spanish lazo, which became the English lasso).The fifth meaning, also figurative, is what people have in mind in the immigration debate: to absorb immigrants, or any culturally distinct group, into the prevailing culture. Yet in all the meanings of “assimilate,” something is consumed, absorbed, incorporated (literally, to become part of a body) after some process of digestion and alteration.All of this means that “B” becomes somehow enmeshed in “A.”
In the case of the United States, what is that “A” and why does it deserve pre-eminence?
The answer is more complicated than it sounds.History tells us that the first so-called New World inhabitants were the Indians. The European colonists did not assimilate into Indian society.
Are anti-immigrant advocates suggesting that we at last show some respect for the native inhabitants?
Somehow, I think not.What is today the United States, history also tells us became the colonial territory of three European powers: England, France and Spain. Which one of their cultures deserves to be first? On what grounds?Let’s try history again.In 13 of the North American English colonies, a civil war broke out in the 1770s. The population was so divided that an estimated 100,000 loyalists fled abroad at the end of the conflict. At that time, cultural roots among whites were about evenly divided between England and Germany to the point that choosing a national language for the new nation was deferred as too divisive.We might be singing “O, sagt, könnt ihr sehen” on the Fourth of July had the Deutsch, or “Dutch” prevailed, but then we’re forgetting the “other Persons” of the Constitution, who were African and spoke multiple languages.
Then there’s the purchase of land from France (the Louisiana territory) and Spain (Florida).
By the 1840s and ‘50s, what was to become the third major European group of the early United States arrived: the Irish.
They were certainly not English.So remind me, again, in this mix of Africans, English, French, Germans, Irish and Spanish, by what reason was the culture and language of the English to be accorded legal supremacy, when even the English dared not debate it for fear they would lose a vote?But wait. There’s the entire Southwest and West, stolen outright by war and conquest. Its predominant language and culture was not English.
Why should the territory from Texas to California have to assimilate the culture and language of the last and most unlawful newcomers, the Anglos?
Much the same question could be raised about almost any corner of the Earth.
People have the inalienable right to their own language and culture. Asserting that right is in the best tradition of the United States (even though in many chapters of the nation’s history it was not observed), as it is of the United Nations and of Lady Liberty, whose powerful gaze watches over both from her island.
(Cecilio Morales is executive editor of the weekly Employment & Training Reporter in Washington, D.C. Reach him at Cecilio@miipublications.com). ©2007
What to say about 2007 vs. 2008
by Marvin J Ramirez
Marvin Ramirez
What can I say about 2007 vs. 2008?
The year 2007 left, without a doubt, left pain and uncertainty to many of us Latinos.
The Hispanic community received heavy punching like never before. Entire Latino families in many cities were devastated, as ICE (Immigration and Citizenship Enforcement) indiscriminately conducted raids, terrorizing and arresting thousands who lacked proper documentation to live and work in the U.S. to support their families. And it happened despite that most of those deported were honest and hardworking people. Thousands of children and spouses were painfully separated.
This wave of terror against undocumented people will probably continue in the year 2008, while the country is in shambles – regardless of what the biased, owned-by-a few media shows in its controlled networks that things are panacea or not so bad, “that the worse has passed.” The fraud committed against North Americans, regardless of their ethnic background, by the banks, in all this sub-prime lending, and artificially inflated real estate, will be felt even worse for years to come.
“Just over half of all Hispanic adults in the U.S. worry that they, a family member or a close friend could be deported,” a new nationwide survey of Latinos by the Pew Hispanic Center has found. Nearly two-thirds say the failure of Congress to enact an immigration reform bill has made life more difficult for Latinos.
Some are returning to their country of origin, as life is becoming more difficult in the U.S, for many, not just for undocumented immigrants but for permanent residents and U.S. citizens as well.
Low salaries and overwhelming taxes every way we turn, just don’t let people succeed, turning them into commercial chattels or slaves.
The fiat dollar is in decadence worldwide, losing its value day by day, making those who save their ‘blessed’ fiat dollar (not backed by gold or silver) see their saving disappear slowly , thanks to the banks-created inflation. You see, if people were paid in solid, backed by gold dollars, there wouldn’t be inflation or lost of your money you earned with blood and sweat.
The year 2008 could be much more promising if you start buying – not jewelry – but 24k gold or silver as saving. Because, there won’t be an announcement about it. When the fi nancial crash hits the economy, it will be right at your doorsteps: knocking at your do. Your salary or savings won’t buy you the essentials to live, because the dollar won’t have value, or the value you expected.
All I can say is that we should start thinking about the land that we upon a time left in search of better opportunities. Perhaps, just as we have enriched and continue enriching this nation with our hard work and brains, we could, in the same way, help develop our motherlands and make them greater so never to have to migrate. Happy New Year to all of you!
Lawsuit against ‘No Match’ rule put on hold until March 2008
by Alex Meneses Miyashita
A lawsuit against a federal rule that would hold employers accountable for hiring undocumented workers will be on hold until March 2008 following a request from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
The DHS made the request in order to revise its “No Match” regulation, that has been challenged by labor’ immigrant and civil rights groups and blocked from being implemented through a preliminary injunction issued by a federal judge in October.
The proposal would have required employers receiving No Match letters about employees whose Social Security numbers did not match those of the Social.
Coro Hispano brings celestial music to the Bay Area
by María Siraguen Martínez
A concert with Latino blood and spirit Coro Hispano of San Francisco playing at Mission Basilica Dolores, will offer a series of performances around the Bay Area in January. (photo by Mark Kitaoka)
When we say chorus, we hardly think that this word would be part of the Latino world. But think again.
A group of very professional singers and musicians, some of them voice and music professors, continuously have kept Coro Hispano and Grupo Nuevo Mundo resounding like a heaven’s fell celestial musical ensemble.
Founded in 1975, under the direction of Juan Pedro Gaffney, the Coro Hispano de San Francisco is a chorus of the Spanish-speaking communities of the San Francisco Bay Area dedicated to exploring and performing the choral literature of the peoples of Latin America, Spain and Portugal. Ranging from the 12th through the 20th century, this repertory embraces both classical and folk music from all parts of the Hispanic world, as well as ethnic music in Amerindian tongues.
Conjunto Nuevo Mundo is an ensemble of professional vocalists and instrumentalists dedicated to the parallel repertory of vocal chamber music and solo literature of Iberian and Latin American composers.
Medieval chants, Renaissance motets, Baroque villancicos, and lively aguinaldos from Latin American folk traditions is part of the Coro Hispano.
This Spanish speaking chorus fi lls the hearts and souls of whoever presences it’s lively music. With the New Year hitting in the corner, this upcoming year won’t be the exception, as the Coro Hispano prepares it’s 21st annual concert celebration of Día de los Reyes.
Every January since 1987, Coro Hispano has brought the Bay Area spectacular concerts from the children’s concert at the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts in San Francisco’s Mission District to its mass concerts at the Basilica of Mission Dolores. Coro transports its listeners a magical sound and love through their music, an instrument that is universal around the world. If your interested in joining the celebration of Día de los Reyes, please visit http://corohispano.org/tickets.
Cds of their music will be sold and signed onsite. Don’t miss it! (For more schedule details, read our calendar of event on page 4.)
Chávez alleges multifaceted U.S. plot to destabilize Venezuela and its allies
by the El Reportero news services
César Chávez
Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez claimed this week that the US is plotting to destabilise his government and ostracise it within Latin America. It is not the first time that Chávez has made such claims but both of the alleged plots this time involve firm developments rather than idle speculation. The first involves a case being heard by the US judiciary against four men arrested in Miami last week accused of involvement in a conspiracy to conceal an illegal campaign payment meant for Argentina’s President Cristina Fernández. The second was a long investigative report by the Spanish daily El País portraying Venezuela as a narcosanctuary for the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc).
Hugo Chávez in Havana Petrocaribe Summit: “Free Trade Doesn’t exist”
Raúl Castro: “At a time when the oil prices have broken every record, creating an extremely complex situation to most of the oil importing third world nations, the member countries of Petrocaribe are in a privileged position,” he said.
Hugo Chavez said Petrocaribe members’ collective debt for Venezuelan crude is currently near $1.2 billion and is expected to grow to $4.5 billion by 2010. He is promoting Petrocaribe as part of a larger effort to create a regional confederation from Argentina to Cuba that will help the region counter U.S. influence.
Presidents Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, Rene Preval of Haiti and Leonel Fernandez of the Dominican Republic, Belize’s Prime Minister Said Musa, Antigua and Barbuda’s Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer, Dominica’s Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit, Guyana’s Prime Minister Samuel Hinds, Jamaica’s Prime Minister Bruce Golding and St. Vincent and the Grenadines’ Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves, were attending the summit.
Other Leaders attending, Honduras’ Defense Minister Aristides Mejia, St. Kitts and Nevis’ Energy Minister Earl Asim Martin, Grenada’s Energy Minister Gregory Bowen, St. Lucia’s Industry Minister Guy Mayers, Suriname’s Oil Companies Managing Director Mark Waaldijk, Len Ishmael, Director General of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean, and representative from Trinidad and Tobago, and Barbados.
CIENFUEGOS, Cuba – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez presided Friday at a regional petroleum summit in Cuba, pressing his efforts to counter U.S. infl uence in Latin America and the Caribbean by suggesting more of his neighbors could pay for cheap oil with goods or services in lieu of cash.
In his opening speech to the Petrocaribe summit in Cienfuegos, a southern coastal city about 155 miles from Havana, Chavez said his plan to provide low-cost oil to the region should go beyond financing mechanisms. He offered other countries the option of following the model of Cuba, which repays by sending doctors who offer free services to the poor in Venezuela.
Providing fuel in return for locally produced goods or services has been an option for some time under Venezuela’s current Petrocaribe pact, which supplies oil to the region through long-term, low interest financing. But it is unclear how many countries other than Cuba have taken up the offer.
Chavez also called for creating an international fund to promote solar, wind, geothermal and other alternative energy sources.
Boxing
Saturday, Dec. 8 – at Las Vegas, NV (HBO-PPV)
- Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Ricky Hatton Jeff Lacy vs Peter Manfredo.
Saturday, Dec. 8 – at Basel, Switzerland
- Arthur Abraham vs. Wayne Elcock.
Saturday, Dec. 8 – at Bolton, United Kingdom
- Amir Khan vs. Graham Earl.