Obama at the NALEO conference in 2008. He has skipped the last three annual NALEO conferences.

“We applaud the President for expressing his strong commitment to building a 21st century immigration system and providing young people with the chance to earn their citizenship in his address to the American public tonight. While these words ring true to our community and the mission of our organization, we know they must be followed by concrete and swift action. We call on the President and Congress to work together in the coming year to pass bipartisan legislation that will provide millions of Americans with the opportunity to become full members of this great nation.

“During his address, the President also emphasized the importance of job creation and policies that will help the nation fulfill ‘the basic American promise that if you work hard, you can do well enough to raise a family, own a home, and put a little away for retirement’. Like all Americans, Latinos want the opportunity to pursue the American dream. In recent years, our community has been one of those hit hardest by the economic crisis, experiencing job loss and foreclosure rates higher than most Americans. With Latinos now numbering more than 50 million or 1 out of every 6 Americans today, our community’s economic progress will play a critical role in determining the future of this country. We urge the President and Congress to implement policies that will foster economic opportunity for Latinos and all Americans.

“In addition, we were encouraged by the President’s call for a return to American values built around ‘fairness for all’. As the nation’s second largest population group, this theme is fundamental to many of the pressing issues facing our community today, including the Latino electorate’s ability to participate in the political process and elect the representatives of their choice this year. We ask the nation’s leadership to carefully monitor all efforts to weaken the electoral voice of Latino and minority voters, including implementation of unfair voting requirements and illegal redistricting plans across the country. We also call on the President and the Department of Justice to vigorously enforce the Voting Rights Act (VRA) so that all U.S. citizens, regardless of race or linguistic ability, can fully and fairly participate in the American electoral process.

“In the coming year, we urge the President and Congress to honor the American people by working together to ensure that our country’s journey ‘moves forward’ and that ‘our future is hopeful’. Our nation’s more than 6,000 Latino elected officials are ready to do their part, working with the President, Administration and Congress to promote policies that will foster the economic and political progress of the Latino community and all Americans.”

NALEO is the leadership organization of the nation’s more than 6,000 Latino elected and appointed officials.

During the very first week of the new year of 2012 came news of the loss of Robert Carter and Gordon Hirabayashi, two giants in this country’s civil rights movement and two beacons of light for the Latino community. They died only one day apart.

Gordon Hirabayashi is one of three fearless Japanese American leaders who used the courts to resist the nation’s misguided and racist round up and detention of citizens of Japanese ancestry during World War II. In separate prosecutions, Hirabayashi, along with Fred Koretmatsu and Minoru Yasui, stood up to a federal executive apparatus that used the threat of national security to deliberately engage in the purposeful detention of persons because of their race with no individualized determination of disloyalty. In short time, persons of Japanese descent, citizens or residents, were corralled, forced to sell or abandon their belongings, and transported to detention centers.

Hirabayahsi, an American born citizen, was studying in Washington State. He refused to register with the federal authorities, refused to obey the curfews imposed upon the Japanese, and was eventually jailed and convicted. In effect, he engaged in that quintessential American act: he dissented. Decades later, his conviction was overruled and the country paid him and other Japanese Americans reparations for the country’s acts during war time.

Latinos also know firsthand the direct effects of being corralled in the name of national interests. During the Great Depression of 1929, half a million people of Mexican descent, from Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit and Denver, nearly half of them citizens of the U.S., were detained and deported to Mexico as a way to increase jobs for other Americans.

In 1954 another one million persons of Mexican heritage were detained as part of a quasi-military offensive called Operation Wetback aimed at ridding the country of undocumented immigrants. Regardless of citizenship, these Texas residents were then bused, flown and shipped deep into Mexico to make their return even more difficult. Only a lack of funding for this INS initiative stopped the forced deportation of even more Mexicans.

Today’s profiling of Latino immigrants by untrained local police forces in many states echoes these round ups of yesteryear. “My citizenship didn’t protect me one bit. Our Constitution was reduced to a scrap of paper,” Hirabayashi noted. And yet, in Hirabayashi Latinos have a model to follow; a principled person who refused to accept this abuse, and used the law to right a historical wrong.

Robert Carter is a giant in the world of civil rights, one of the masterminds of the strategy that led to the desegregation of our nation’s public schools and the dismantling of separate-but-equal doctrine. At that time, Robert Carter was part of the team of attorneys at the NAACP and one of the advocates for presenting social scientific evidence to the courts to document the psychic harm of racism and Jim Crow on the nation’s black children.

In that vein, Mr. Carter also played a significant role in the arguments presented in the seminal Mendez v. Westminster case by coauthoring an amicus curiae brief to support the Mexican plaintiffs in California. The decision in Mendez resulted in the first court opinion to recognize that segregation of schoolchildren – in that case, Mexican and Latino children — creates an irreparable sense of inferiority among minority children. And these very same arguments were presented successfully in Brown v. Board of Education, years later.

Robert Carter also had a direct connection to the LatinoJustice PRLDEF (then known as the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund) when he became a federal district court judge in New York City. Judge Carter presided over Guardians Association v. Civil Service Commission where our attorneys successfully proved that the City’s civil service examinations for police officers discriminated against Black and Latino police candidates. Judge Carter’s decision in our favor was eventually upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1983 and paved the way for the increased diversity of the city’s police force.

Judge Carter also presided over the trial of housing discrimination claims by Puerto Rican and Latino residents seeking entry into the exclusive Grand Street cooperative apartments in the Lower East Side in the 1980s, in Huertas v. East River Housing Corp. Judge Carter ruled in favor of the Latino community’s claims that they were systematically prevented from applying to these units, opening up the opportunity to integrate these 4,500 moderate income cooperative apartments.

During the trial, the defendants sought to impress the court with the argument that cooperative apartments were unique housing units that were unbeknown to the Puerto Ricans in the Lower East Side, hence their low representation in the applicant pool. The judge would have none of that once he heard the testimony that cooperative apartments were part of the housing mix in Puerto Rico for decades.

LatinoJustice PRLDEF Special Counsel, Richard Bellman, noted that “Bob Carter represented the best of the civil rights bar. He was a dedicated and innovative advocate who never wavered from insisting on true equality for all. Indicative of his passion was his consistent position on the evils of de facto segregation, even when the courts stood idly by and allowed it”. Robert Carter had an incredible reputation as a no-nonsense civil rights attorney and advocate and as a person who constantly pushed the envelope to expose American racism.

Gordon Hirabayashi was similarly unimpressed with his peers who sought to take a safe, accommodating stance in the face of blatant government sponsored racism.

They both stand as models for the growing Latino community today. And they both have contributed greatly to the platform that allows LatinoJustice PRLDEF and other Latino civil rights advocates to protect the rights of Latinos throughout the country.

By: Juan Cartagena

Juan Cartagena is President & General Counsel of LatinoJustice PRLDEF. He can be reached at jcartagena@latinojustice.org.

El olvido de la niñez

Golosinas. Diversión. Caricaturas mañaneras. Tres cosas indispensables para la vida de un crío. Quién iba a decir que ese infante que aparecía en esas fotos llenas de color y vida se convertiría en ese joven que lo tachan de rebelde y ambicioso. “Mira que bonito chaval, ¿qué le paso?” son las palabras inmediatas de las personas que ven las fotos de cuando solo tenías 6 años de edad.

El “¿qué le paso?” es una pregunta común de una persona que acaba de ver fotos de cuando cumpliste tus 6 primaveras.
Pero adentrémonos al mundo del pensamiento infantil. ¿Qué pensábamos? Yo jamás llegué a saber sobre los conflictos mundiales o corrupción política. La preocupación de un niño es el que se termine su bolsa de caramelos o que su caricatura llegue a su final.

Inocencia, es otra de las cosas que conforman a un chiquillo, cuando en lo único que piensas es en la diversión. Cuando contaba con solo 6 años de edad jamás me preocupe por lo que sucediera en el mundo. ¿Qué esperanzas de preocuparse por los diversos conflictos que el ser humano ha creado durante su existencia?

¿Cuándo empezamos a dejar de vivir en ese mundo lleno de color y vida? Esa es la pregunta que me hago día y noche. ¿Cuando cambió de dirección mi preocupación? Mi preocupación cambió. Las preocupaciones de un niño son el que esa bolsa de dulces de colores llegue al punto del vacío, que tu caricatura favorita termine o que tu mama te regañe por haber roto su florero mas preciado.
Hoy nuestras preocupaciones son distintas. No tener dinero, deudas, pagar tus estudios, mujeres en hombres y hombres en mujeres, problemas familiares y amistades, empleo o desempleo, y muchas otras más.

¿Por qué deja uno de ser un pequeño infante? La respuesta mas simple y sin originalidad sería por que uno madura. Pero, ¿cuál es el punto de madurez?

Para dejárselas en corto, la madurez no tiene edad, ya que en esta vida los jóvenes recordamos e intentamos revivir con melancolía lo que disfrutábamos hacer de chicos.

Cuánto deseaba ser adulto cuando era niño. Hoy en día puedo decir que esos deseos estaban llenos de inmadurez y estupidez. Ya que por ser infante no sabia lo que decía. Hoy siendo un joven puedo decir que quisiera estar disfrutando de una bolsa de golosinas, disfrutando de mis caricaturas favoritas…sin remordimiento alguno.

Muchas veces me cuestiono ¿cuándo se terminara el mundo? Tanto lo han anunciado que hasta parece burla.
Hace unos días me encontraba en un funeral (algo típico de un ser humano). Como todos lo saben tenemos años de vida y después llegamos al descanso eterno (la muerte). Mi mirada se encontraba fija al cuerpo sin vida de aquella persona que yo siempre lo vi con una sonrisa en su rostro, ahora sólo era un cuerpo sin vida. En ese instante pensé: “Increíble que todos tenemos solo unos años de vida”.

Créanme que no estoy en depresión o escribo esto con la intención de que tengan miedo de morir. Esta pequeña columna es con el fin de hacerlos ver que el cuerpo al que habitamos en estos momentos lo estamos alquilando y que no siempre tendremos para pagar el valor de este organismo. En el instante que mis ojos hacen contacto con una persona que ya no tiene vida, me hace recordar todos los momentos que llegué a convivir con esa persona. Pero además pude reflexionar que el mundo nunca se acabará. El que se acaba es uno.

La teoría que el fin del mundo ocurrirá en el 2012 suele ser atribuida

Cuando perdemos a alguien especial, la tristeza y el dolor nos invaden, es algo demasiado normal. Pero algo que hay que tener muy en claro es que por mucho tiempo el fin del mundo “ya nos lo han cantado” demasiadas veces (perdonen mis expresiones mexicanas). Primero que en el 2000 y luego que en el 2012, que porque dijeron los mayas o aztecas (ya ni recuerdo del coraje). Según esto, en diciembre de este año el mundo llegará a su fin. Pero hoy les quiero dejar con un nuevo horizonte: no te preocupes por el fin del mundo, ya que el fin nos llega a cada uno por separado, en otras palabras, cuando no existamos en este planeta. Así que mientras estemos “vivitos y coleando” en este planeta tierra, disfruta cada milésima de segundo que la vida nos regala. Los dejo con una frase de Gregorio Marañón, “vivir no es solo existir, sino existir y crear, saber gozar y sufrir, y no dormir sin soñar. Descansar, es empezar a morir”.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. fought not just for the equality of minorities, but for the equality of all. Rather than just kick back and relax on Martin Luther King Day, let’s take some time to learn about the man himself.

Martin Luther King was born on January 15, 1929. His anniversary, a federal holiday, falls on the third Monday of every January. He is the first black civilian to have his own legal holiday, by Public Law 98-144 by the 98^th Congress in November 2^nd 1983, and signed into law by President Ronald Regan.

Martin Luther King Jr. was born in Atlanta, Georgia as Michael Luther King Jr. but later changed his name. King attended Morehouse College, Crozer Theological Seminary, and Boston University from which both his father and grandfather graduated and went on to become a Baptist co-pastor from 1960 until his death at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.

He received his doctorate in 1955 from Boston University. While studying in Boston, King met Coretta Scott and they were married in 1953. They became the parents of four children – Yolanda, Martin Luther III, Dexter, and Bernice. Throughout his life, King was a fierce advocate for civil rights and became a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and accepted the leadership post for the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

The boycott lasted over a year and led to the Supreme Court declaring on December 21^st 1956 that segregation on busses was unconstitutional. The victory of the Montgomery Bus Boycott was just a spark in King’s Civil Rights achievements. He would go on to change the United States of American forever.

Quick Facts about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

1957 – MLK form the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to fight segregation and speaks to a crowd of 15, 000 on May 17^th.

1958 – MLK’s first book, Stride Towards Freedom, is published. He is later stabbed in Harlem but also meets President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

1959 – MLK visits India to study Gandhi’s nonviolence philosophy. He moves to Atlanta to direct to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and dedicates his time to civil rights.

1963 – MLK spends 11 days in jail and writes ‘Letter From Birmingham Jail.’ On June 23, he leads 125,000 people on a freedom walk in Detroit. On August 28^th, with 250,000 people in attendance, he gives the famous ‘I Have a Dream’ speech in Washington.

July 2^nd 1964 – MLK attends the signing ceremony of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 at the White House.

April 4^th 1968 – MLK is shot and killed in Memphis, Tennessee while on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel.

January 20^th 1986 – The first MLK Day is celebrated.

2000 – MLK Day is officially celebrated by all 50 states.

            ‘Free at last! Free at last!

                Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!’

            -The end of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech

Romney won the Iowa Republican Caucus by eight votes.

 
Let’s view the political road to DC in 2012 as a fictional narrative based on real-life scenarios, empirical evidence and actual policy positions by present-day Presidential candidates. It begins on a one-way road historically designed to fit only two vehicles. The road is filled with potholes and obstacles, some necessary and potentially transformative (Occupy Wall Street), others reactionary and obstructive (tea party).

One car, let’s say a hybrid, holds key members of the Democratic Party. It currently rides on the right side of the ideological road, with its conservative members driving, moderates hanging out the back window, and progressives muzzled in the backseat with the same duct tape given to them by the Bush administration.

The other vehicle, a gas-guzzling SUV driven by wealthy Republicans, rides on the extreme right edges of the road. They occasionally wave at the Dems when riding alongside them, smiling cunningly with no intention of sharing the grass-fed, organic beef burger “semi-hip” members of both parties want for lunch. As they drive, they pay little mind that their car rides so radically to the right, its wheels hugging the sidewalk in ways that clips the economic lives of even the onlookers who came out to support them.

As the road reaches Iowa, one of the most demographically homogenous states in the union (yet with a growing Latino immigrant population), the Democrats’ vehicle pulls into a corporate chain hotel parking lot to rest and take notes on what is about to happen over the next several weeks. The hotel’s workers are unionized, and its owners gave to the DNC, so the choice feels comfortable. Republicans pull into a different hotel across the street, but its workers are non-union, its owners committed RNC donors. They check into their hotel room, turn the television to FOX News, but they can’t relax to news told from their ideological perspectives, rest is needed for “caucus time!”

In the early morning, a knock comes at the door. It’s a caramel-skinned woman named Esperanza, an immigrant from Guatemala, who waits to clean the mess they leave behind. The Republicans smile, some even give a patronizing “gracias,” but Esperanza answers with “you’re welcome, have a nice day” to prove that she understands the dominant language, not to mention that her supervisor has threatened the largely-immigrant cleaning crew to “speak English dammit!” or risk losing their jobs. The Republicans march out with platform in hand, ready to win the hearts of voters. “No tip?” she mumbles quietly to herself as she looks around the littered room, “sinverguenzas.”

At political rallies held throughout the day in Iowa, the candidates are asked their views on myriad topics: health care, foreign policy, education, the economy, veterans’ affairs and other matters. In one instance comes the question, the one that often comes last during debates: “What is your general view on immigration?” It is asked by a local farmer hand-picked by Republican strategists, one who belongs to an association that carries the slogan “time to get government off our backs.” At one point, his fields were nearly destroyed by some guy named Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner) hoping to play baseball with dead people. Thankfully, the farmer’s land was saved by a government subsidy that requires him to specifically grow corn, and only corn, along with a group of Mexican migrants willing to work for low wages so he can expedite his crops.

In fact, some of his corn is eventually sold to some company called McDonalds and another called Coca-Cola. It’s eventually processed into “high fructose corn syrup,” a fantastic alternative to sugar that nutritionists and scientists have associated with a series of health issues, not to mention one of the many factors driving up health care costs.

Anyhow, one Republican candidate, the darling of religious conservatives (and the son of Italian immigrants), conflates “illegal” with “Latino” when answering the question, even though the majority of Latinos were born in the United States, including many whose descendants’ lands were violently colonized by the US in the mid-then-late 1800s (Mexicans, Puerto Ricans). He also fails to mention that a majority of immigrants are and arrived here authorized, some who have overstayed their visas while awaiting their immigration hearings, and this includes folks from Ireland, Canada, former Soviet states and parts of Asia and Africa.

He notes, like other candidates, that we should deny undocumented immigrants pathways toward “amnesty” and brags about his previous votes against such measures in Congress. Other candidates agree, but question the provision of economic and legal rights to children of undocumented immigrants born in the United States, while others suggest this is why they come here in the first place.

Voters cheer, applause is heard, heads nod in agreement, except for the guy named Arturo who came with a professional degree from Venezuela but can’t find an skill-equivalent job in present economy, resorting to selling hot dogs to make ends meet. He knows that the crowd is being lied to, given that the law says immigrants must wait 5 years before gaining eligibility for forms of public assistance after receiving green cards, and like other immigrants he knows, he has no plans to do so because he feels it would hurt his case for eventual citizenship.

Another candidate shies from this viewpoint by saying, “let’s be humane in enforcing the law, without giving them citizenship but by finding a way of creating legality so that they are not separated from their families.” But even in taking this less draconian approach, he doesn’t challenge his opponents by making mention that he helped push through the monumental piece of legislation back in 1996 (PROWRA) that greatly reduced the provision of federal, state and local public services toward undocumented immigrants.

Even a 2006 study by the RAND Corporation (a research group that came out of the military-industrial complex, those darn bleeding-heart liberals) found that nation-wide, undocumented immigrants account for less than 2% of uncompensated care the government provides. But never mind, contrary facts don’t matter to politicians seeking votes, especially if they helped created those now-inconvenient “facts” in the first place.

In a campaign stop at a family restaurant, the current front-runner, a wealthy businessman who personally benefitted off the labor of undocumented immigrants yet believes we should deport all 12 million, stated that “the answer is yes” to whether or not he would veto the DREAM act. This is the largely conservative bill, authored by both Republicans and Democrats that would create pathways toward permanent residency for the millions of undocumented immigrants who arrived here as minors, insofar as they’ve lived here for five years and complete two years in the military and/or of college-level course-work in a 4-year institution.

Ironically, this comes from the same man whose father was born in Mexico, a member of a family that migrated there in the 1800s so they can practice their religion and its then-supporting lifestyle: polygamy. When the area became unsafe during the 1910 Mexican revolution, his father’s family crossed back into the United States, no papers or permission, to eventually settle in Michigan. Needless to say, it’s a celebratory narrative when white folks migrate to new lands for myriad reasons, whether religious, economic or due to famine or war. It’s their manifest destiny! When brown folks attempt to do the same, it’s an occupation, a reconquista, protect the porous borders!

As crowds assemble in gyms and auditoriums, votes are cast in caucus format while the candidates make last ditch speeches, smirking into the camera with deep thoughts of victory. Back at the Democrats’ hotel, a call comes to the front desk. It’s placed on speaker phone for the group of Democrats hanging in the lobby, some drinking over-processed, watery coffee hand-picked by a peasant from some place called Colombia. “You hear all that?” states the voice on the other end, an advisor sitting at a diner in New Hampshire collecting data for one of the next stops on the road to the White House. “The Republicans are taking extremist positions on immigration, just to rally the white, older, religious conservative voter, this is great, we’re gonna seal the national Latino vote!”

A few feet away, a hotel receptionist named David overhears the conversation, a part-time worker who attends college full-time at the University of Iowa. He turns to the nearest Democrat, one still giddy from the phone call, and says calmly: “your administration deported my mother after a raid at the meat-packing plant she worked at for $9 an hour. She came here to give me this life, who paid taxes and received no services, was kept in a detention center in atrocious conditions and couldn’t afford a good attorney to help her make her legal case.” The Democrat, acting genuinely sorry to hear this, then says, “but wait, you see, we increased enforcement to show the Republicans that we’re tough on immigration. And in doing so, we thought they might come to the table to discuss and pass immigration reform.”

Young David, befuddled by the insensitive response, turns to the Democrat and says, “but it’s 2012, and where is immigration reform? And what about the Dream Act? And what about my mom? Plus, immigration isn’t our only concern. What about people who do have citizenship and are denied rights supposedly guaranteed with such a status?”

His query echoes across the room, where another Democrat, a representative from a largely minority district, nods in agreement. She notes that many Puerto Ricans and Chicanos, along with African Americans and other minority groups with long histories in the US, are still treated like second-class members of society. David nods in agreement, “and what about education, mass incarceration and disproportionate sentencing, poor access to the health care, and where on earth is Obama’s war on poverty?”

The Democrat who answered the phone, taken aback by the well-informed Latino voter and his disgruntled Congressional colleague, thinks about the recent Pew Research Center study he had recently been informed about via his blackberry. It illustrates that while most Latinos polled hold strong reservations about Obama’s handling of deportations of unauthorized immigrants, they still prefer President Obama and the Democrats over their Republican rivals for the 2012 elections. This leads the Democrat to say, “don’t worry, as I’ve told my colleagues, President Obama promised we’d tackle those issues next term after our victory, you’ll see!”

David, now livid yet patient, knows full well that polls measure attitudes at a specific point in time, and that they don’t necessarily predict future outcomes. Collecting his cool, he smiles with that masked underpaid and overworked corporate employee look and says, “If you want to guarantee the so-called Latino vote, my vote, then you better get back on the road, head back to DC, and get your priorities straight. We may have no desire to vote Republican, but if you don’t give us better reason, then we may not come out to vote at all.”

The Democrat nods his head, says “thank you,” and walks away sipping on his crappy coffee, pretending it tastes good. “And by the way,” says a disillusioned, disenfranchised David. “Tell your administration to bring back my mom, our moms!”

By Alan A. Aja

Opinions expressed in these articles are not intended to represent The Venture editorial policy and do not necessarily reflect the views of our staff, board of directors or supporters.

Commentary from National Institute for Latino Policy

Alan A. Aja is an Assistant Professor of Puerto Rican & Latino Studies at Brooklyn College (CUNY), where he has taught as an instructor and adjunct lecturer since 2005. He is currently writing a book on black/white Cuban relations in south Florida.He can be contacted at aaja@brooklyn.cuny.edu.

“Do what it TAKES! You must accomplish your goals and stay focused on your priorities.”

This is just one of the many encouraging arguments we hear as we move on during our school years.

We have been trained to work hard to reach far. We have been told to have good grades, but we have never been told how to face the worst. We have been told how to eat, even how to respond but never how to carry the load.

Life is all about moments, about emotions, about accomplishments, but mostly, about transitions.

“When we were children, we only worried about food and play, then school started for some and so did the homework. Every year was a new experience, and every experience left a new mark.”

Puberty was such a hard time to pass. It was a moment of encounter and discovery. It lead us through several moments of oddness and disgust, but it also left us with memorable circumstances where we found our inner self.

As we grew older, we became fond of our surroundings and our identity. We began to develop different habits that coped with our lives.

But, just as anything else, some moments were exciting, others monotonous and others empty. Remember?

Many say that our early years of education are some of the most pivotal times of our lives because it is through them that we acquire unique familial moral values that will shape the route of our lives. During our early years, a school project was something exciting to start; we had our parents to help us. Getting things done was an easy task to accomplish because we knew we were not alone. But as time progressed we grew and so did the responsibilities.

We started to become a part of a cycle where life started to shift in a new direction, a new perspective.

Everything started to change. It finally came, the time of our lives where we make the most critical choices that will forever construct or destroy our lives – adulthood. Our values make us unique in shape and in form, but circumstances of anxiety and incomprehension can drive us into the zone of distress and discomfort.

“ I am overwhelmed with the many things around my life: family, school, work, responsibilities and timing.”

Dealing with everyday responsibilities includes managing our time and effort into putting every detail in motion, every circumstance in its place and every task on its track.

On the other hand, dealing with emotions and unexpected issues such as financial distress or personal relationships becomes problematic. In these strenuous circumstances, many of us tend to block ourselves from the rest. We think that we can solve our problems by isolating and thus, start engaging into a road with a heavier load that seems to have no ending.

“I hear constant noises about the different experiences which surround me, but I can’t sense them. I see myself dancing around the possibilities but I keep nothing. I try to capture the best, still I capture nothing. I know about the constant pressures that come and go, but I just can’t ignore all the arguments that revolve around me. I have to visualize myself in constant relief, but sometimes it’s just too hard to get over the arguments at hand.”

The transition to adulthood is an impacting moment because we fall into the trap of idealizing a solution to our problems versus purposely acting upon their resolution. It’s when we are measured by our capabilities as problem solvers.

As human beings we must never stop listening or learning; we must never keep shut or ignorant, but most importantly we must never give up. It is up to us to continue the path we chose regardless of the difficulties we face through our enforced family-ethical background.

Miguel Torres poses with a fan at Houston’s UFC fan expo. The diversity of fighters has helped the UFC penetrate foreign markets in Latin America and Europe. Photo by: Katy Umaña

Being labeled a “blood sport” or “mindlessly violent” would bring any sport down to its knees, any sport but mixed martial arts. From Pride to the UFC to Strikeforce, the MMA world has grown tremendously in the last 15 years.

When the sport first emerged on the scene, it was looked at as a joke. Viewers saw the bare knuckles, no weight classes, “no rules,” octagon cage fighting, and they didn’t see a real sport. After all, who could look at Royce Gracie vs. Art Jimmerson at UFC 1 and not laugh?

The fight saw an inexperienced Jimmerson, a light heavyweight boxer, refuse to take one of his boxing gloves off and eventually get submitted by the legendary Gracie. On the other hand, it was Gracie, whose masterful performances over much bigger opponents that first caught people’s eye.

The early years of the UFC was dominated by Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and submission practitioners such as Gracie and Ken Shamrock.

In 2011, it actually is “mixed” martial arts with fighters using BJJ, Judo, Tae Kwon Do, Muay Thai, Karate and wrestling that draw a broader fan base. Diversity has played a huge role in MMA’s growth.

With the UFC being the “top dog” of MMA in recent years it’s refreshing to see it come from having no weight classes to seven, heavyweight (265 pounds) to bantamweight (135 pounds).

Several champions have roots in foreign countries, including the Americans.

Bantamweight Champion Dominic Cruz and Heavyweight Champion Cain Velasquez, Lightweight Champion Frankie Edgar, and Light Heavyweight Champion Jon Jones, are Mexican, Italian and African-American, respectively. Featherweight Champion Jose Aldo and Middleweight Champion Anderson Silva are both from Brazil and Welterweight Champion George St. Pierre hails from Canada.

This is a testament to the exponential growth and popularity of MMA among athletes and fans globally.

The UFC has made MMA a mainstay these days as evidenced by its recent deal with Fox. The pay-per-view juggernaut has also capitalized on merchandise and ticket sales.

While many of the PPV events are held in Las Vegas, they have reached major cities such as Vancouver, Toronto, Minneapolis and most recently Houston with UFC 136.

According to mmajunkie.com, the PPV had a paid attendance of 16,164 and brought in an estimated $2.23 million, while selling out a three day fan expo at the George R. Brown Convention Center weeks before hand, which held 25,000 people.

Host cities are strategically chosen to expose the sport to the masses while maximizing revenue.

According to bleacherreport.com, the largest PPV buy in UFC’s history was UCF 100: Lesnar vs. Mir 2 purchased by an estimated 1,600,000+, coming a close second to Lennox Lewis vs. Mike Tyson (1,970,000) and surpassing the sales of any other PPV in recent memory.

According to mmajunkie.com, the record for paid attendance is held by UFC 129: St. Pierre vs. Shields, which was held in Canada, selling out all 55,000 tickets and bringing in a record $12,075,000 million.

Whether you’re an MMA fanatic, casual fan or one of the viewers who still looks at as mindlessly violent, there’s no denying that MMA is growing and becoming a powerhouse in the world of sports and entertainment.

Other sports take notice. Whether they’re pulling in new fans from America, other countries or bored WWE fans, the support of MMA is growing at an alarming rate.

Hoy entiendo el significado de “el tiempo se pasa volando”. Un dicho que para mí se me figuraba de la tercera edad, algo que mi abuelo de 82 años de edad diría. Este proverbio se me hacía difícil de entender, era tan complicado el buscar la importancia de este famoso dicho.
Pero hoy me di cuenta de algo demasiado meritorio. El tiempo si se pasa volando y nunca nos damos cuenta de lo tan valioso que es, hasta que ya lo vemos perdido.

A mis 23 años de edad (si la cuenta no me falla y si mi madre no me mintió al nacer), me doy cuenta de que el tiempo ya ha pasado. Aquel personaje que solía jugar a los video juegos con tanta adicción y gozo ha dejado de existir. Qué más hubiera querido que tener una consola nueva como esas que se anuncian en la televisión en donde uno se tiene que mover con el fin de poder pasar la misión.

Muchos dirán: “bueno, si sólo tienes 23 años de edad”. Sí, tal vez sólo tenga esa edad, pero para mí ya es suficiente para entender que las estaciones pasan y uno sólo es esclavo del tiempo. ¿Cuándo fue la última vez que disfrute de un paquete completo de caramelos y sin dolor? Hoy en día si me como tan solo una cuarta parte de esa bolsa de golosinas me darían unas agruras que ni el más valiente aguantaría. ¿Cuándo fue la última vez que no me preocupaba por lo que consumía? En esta edad eres esclavo del que si no te cuidas puedes sobre pasar el peso indicado, es decir el no engordar. Cuando eras niño lo que menos pensabas eran las calorías o el efecto que tendría esa enorme hamburguesa en tu sistema.

Dentro de mí se encuentra el alma de un joven que quiere ser el mejor en todo. Pero si nos adentramos en las entrañas de un joven que casi llega a los 24, nos encontramos con el alma de un niño. Ese niño que no se dio cuenta de cuando dejó de existir.

Si llegaste hasta este punto de la lectura, te lo agradezco porque el único fin de esta humilde columna es el darte a entender que el tiempo se pasa de volada mi chavo(a) (perdonen mi español mexicano). Hoy es el momento para darte cuenta que hay que disfrutar el día como si fuera el último. Hoy quiero que te quedes con este aprendizaje que yo, tu amigo, te quiero dar. Hay que exprimir cada minuto para poder disfrutar de ese jugo que solo el tiempo nos ofrece.

Each year, the celebration that begins with Thanksgiving Day and runs through New Year’s Day is a time for counting our blessings, demonstrating our love and humanity towards one another, praying for world peace, and putting an end to the inhumanities visited upon our fellow human beings. These are times for reflection and the search for spiritual peace.

However, in recent years immigration has reflected less than positive sentiments among many of our fellow U.S. Americans. There are those who cite the growing negative influence Latinos are having on “their” society, “their” economy and “their” culture. These attitudes prompt me to share the many contributions Latinos are making to our nation’s economic, social and cultural evolution.

The cuetlaxochitl plant, known as a poinsettias in the U.S., can grow up to 10 feet tall and was used by pre-Colombian Aztecs. One legend says the poinsettia symbolizes the blood of those sacrificed to the sun to renew its strength.
Photo Courtesy: bakirita.blog.com

This icon of the holiday season was once part of the botanical gardens that existed throughout the pre-Colombian Aztec Empire. In that era, flowers and plants were cultivated for their beauty, as well as for medicinal and aesthetic purposes. The Mechicas (whose culture is the foundation of the Aztec civilization) used the cuetlaxochitl to cure fevers and to dye clothing and artifacts.

Today, as a result of Spanish influence and Christian teachings, most Latinos know the plant as the flor de la nochebuena (flower of the Holy Night). This is because it leaves turn into a flame-red color during the Christmas season.

In the United States, this Mexican native has a different history and name; here its history began with Joel Robert Poinsett, the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico in the 1820s. He reportedly visited a church while in Mexico in which the parishioners had adorned the Nativity scene with local exotic red plants that produced a very elegant and uncommon appearance. The Ambassador was so impressed with its foliage that he had cuttings of the plant transported across the border to his South Carolina hothouses, from which he commercially introduced the Mexican transplant to U.S. retailers and consumers.

The poinsettia has become one of the most recognized icons of the holiday season in the USA. Yet, the cuetlaxochitl is still associated with Christmas throughout Mexico and Latin America – as well as in a substantial number of Latino homes throughout the United States. Who could have imagined that a shrubby, pre-Colombian plant with reddish leaves (that really aren’t flowers) would someday become the second most popular colorful plant sold in the entire country, trailing only the rose?

The avocado (aguacate), chile pepper (chile), chocolate (chocolate), corn (maíze), peanut (cacahuate), potato (papa), tomato (tomate), along with the ubiquitous taco, tequila and tortilla – are among the many other imports from Latin America that have been readily adopted by a substantial number of U.S. households as a way of enriching the quality of their lives. If such indigenous transplants can be so easily welcomed and adopted by U.S. Americans, why are we (as several recently enacted state laws clearly demonstrate) so adamantly opposed to allowing the people who discovered, cultivated and refined many of these valued resources to contribute to our nation’s bounty?

As we begin to countdown the shopping days left before Christmas, let’s think about the real meaning of the holiday season and what it is we should be celebrating. When you look at the assortment of poinsettias with which you decorate your homes during the holidays, remember they are one of many transplants that are enhancing the quality of our lives.

True, Latinos did not cross the Atlantic Ocean on seafaring vessels; their ancestors were residents of the modern North American continent long before the British set foot on it. True, they did not design the political and social systems of the USA, but they – like many of the natural transplants from their respective motherlands – have contributed to the health, wealth and cultural evolution of this great nation.

On behalf of the 44 million native-born and naturalized U.S. Latino citizens – and the estimated 10-to-12 million undocumented immigrants – we extend to you a ¡Feliz navidad y prospero año nuevo!

By: Jim Estrada

Commentary from National Institute for Latino Policy

Opinions expressed in these articles are not intended to represent The Venture editorial policy and do not necessarily reflect the views of our staff, board of directors or supporters.

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Jim Estrada is the founder of Estrada Communications Group of Austin, TX. The former TV journalist and corporate executive is an expert in marketing and public relations. He attended San Diego State University, Boston College, and The Harvard School of Business and currently serves on the board of the American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education, the Advisory Council of the University of Texas Libraries and co-chairs development efforts for the VOCES Oral History Project, a project of the UT School of Journalism. His complete collections of essays can be read at: http://jimestrada.posterous.com. He can be contacted at jim@estradausa.com.