La Plaza Central

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court.  My man, Jeffrey Toobin, will have to update his book, The Nine.  Cindy Gonzalez from the Omaha World-Herald had some local reaction in today’s newspaper.  As you would expect many local Latinos are very proud of Sotomayor’s nomination, and her story from humble beginnings in the housing projects in the Bronx to Yale Law School is inspiring to many.  More national reaction here and here’s a video with a little background on Sotomayor…

The ever-reliable Pew Hispanic Center released a report a few weeks ago about the state of minority and immigrant home ownership in the United States.  The report states that starting in 1995 the booms and busts of the housing market have reduced the gap in home ownership between whites and different minority groups.  Though reduced, the gap persists, as the report states, “As of 2008, 74.9% of whites owned homes, compared with 59.1% of Asians, 48.9% of Hispanics and 47.5% of blacks.”

Also noteworthy is that African Americans and Latinos are more likely than whites to have the now infamous subprime mortgage loans.  Much more likely… “In 2007, 27.6% of home purchase loans to Hispanics and 33.5% to blacks were higher-priced [subprime] loans, compared with just 10.5% of home purchase loans to whites that year.”

Here is something else from the report that seems counterintuitive to what we hear every day on the news… “Among other things, the typical immigrant in 2008 had spent more years in the U.S. and was more likely to be a U.S. citizen than was the typical immigrant in 1995.”

Hispanic Business released their list of the top 25 Latino non-profit organizations in the United States in this month’s issue.  The first thing that stood out to me was the size of the organizations on the list.  Their number one Latino non-profit in America was Altamed Health Services Corp. which had a budget last year of $94 million.  Many others on the list were similarly as large.  The Aspira Association in D.C. had a budget of about $65 million.  The Mexican American Opportunity Foundation in Montebello, California spent $63 million last year.  Incidentally, the rankings went pretty much from largest budget to smallest, so I’d be interested in hearing a little more about Hispanic Business’ criteria.

The other thing I noticed was that as you’d expect the organizations were concentrated in California, the Southwest states like Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, and larger cities like New York, Chicago and Washington D.C.  Since those are the areas in the States with the highest Latino populations, it makes sense they would have some of the largest Latino non-profits.

HB says they conducted their research of non-profits from online databases.  The best I could find was that about 1.6 million non-profits exist in the United States today.  But I could find no breakdown into categories (health, education, economic growth, etc.) or populations served (Latino, African American, Native American, etc.)  That would afford someone some interesting research.

On the way to an interpretation in Crete this morning I was cranking NPR ‘Morning Edition’ to distract from having forgone breakfast and, more critically, coffee. Guatemala and Colombia had the top stories for world news, and not exactly news you’d expect. In the former, the president has been accused of murder. A few minutes later I was with the client, a Guatemalan himself, who told me it was yesterday’s papers, con tanta corrupción allá. Still, it was a good listen and a nice coincidence to have him in the car with me. I brought up the Colombia bit, which was actually good news for once. This opened up some more conversation on travel, family and the like. Then the doctor saw him, ran a few electro-conductivity tests and we were off. On the way back to Crete I spotted a school chair—the kind with the writing surface bolted on—at the edge of someone’s parkway next to the trash bin. We nabbed it since he said it was perfect for his daughter, soon to enter first grade.  It was a morning quite agradable—it’s not every interp appt you get that some advocacy and familiar conversation come into play.

I learn something new almost every day about organizations in the area that serve the Latino community.  And today thanks to a blurb in the Journal Star, I learned of the Midlands Latino Community Development Corporation.  They are, according to their website,

“…a non-profit organization dedicated to providing Latinos with opportunities to stimulate economic growth and to develop a healthy and sustainable future for themselves within the Greater Omaha community.”

As far as I gathered from their website, they are dedicated to economic growth in the Latino community in and around Omaha.  Small business development and access to credit were my primary focus in Peace Corps, and I particularly like their first goal/objective, again from their website…

“Goal 1: Supporting the creation of new Latino businesses, maintaining stability of the established Latino businesses, and, increasing by 20% the number of small businesses in the Greater Omaha area.

1.1 Objective: By 2012, the MLCDC will add $1 million in capital available for small business in the Greater Omaha area.
1.2 Objective: By 2012, 250 business owners will be transitioned into traditional lending sources.”

MLCDC is in the news because they recently debuted a database of bilingual service providers in the area.   I love the idea, and I think it could be very useful for the non-profit community.  My only qualm would be that there are only five institutions from Lincoln in the database, and El Centro is missing.  I wish either that Lincoln had something similar to this or that information from both cities could be included in the database..

We usually highlight something positive on Friday’s but I read this article this morning and wanted to comment.  I don’t think the recession has hit the Lincoln area, and Nebraska in general, as much as other areas of the country.  This article from Charlotte, North Carolina highlights the effects that the economic downturn have had on the Latino population there.

The article discusses a Latino entrepreneur, Celestino Hernandez, who just one year ago owned four grocery stores and three bakeries, and today is left with one grocery store.  He says that people who used spend considerable money on groceries and meat now buy rice and beans and instant soup.  There is also a Mexican/Honduran restaurant that has lost nearly all of its customers.

Considering that more than half of North Carolina’s Latino population works in construction and manufacturing, it’s easy to see why economic downturns like this one can affect them disproportionately.  According to the article, the Pew Hispanic Center reported that median annual income for non-citizen immigrant households fell 7.3% from 2006-2007, while it was simultaneously growing 1.3% for all U.S. households.  This affects not only Latino-owned businesses, but all businesses where they would be spending money.

Sad story.  Hopefully it turns around soon.

Here‘s a story you don’t see every day.  Theresa Barrientos of south Omaha received her citizenship after 87 years.  She has been a permanent U.S. resident for 50 years.  She raised 15 children and has helped raise more than 200 grandchildren.  I can see why she was a little too busy to fill out the paperwork.

Barrientos recently had a stroke, and wanted to become a U.S. citizen so she could be buried here in Nebraska with her family.  So her granddaughter filed the paper work, Barrientos aced the civics test, and yesterday she took the pledge as a U.S. citizen.  It’s nice to see the matriarch of a prominent Latino family in Omaha finally accomplish her dream.

This article is my last word on Cinco de Mayo.  I thought I’d include it, because it mentions several interesting facts.  The article talks about Mexican culture’s dominance in the Latino community in the United States.  Holidays like yesterday have no significance for nearly half of all Hispanics living in the States.  Yet many Latinos must combat the stereotype that because they’re Latino, they’re Mexican.

On one hand, there’s some reason behind the perception.  There are an estimated 11 million Mexican-born immigrants in the states, which is nearly as many as all other immigrants from Latin American countries.  The next highest total is El Salvador with around 1 million.  But at the same time, every country has their respective customs, traditions, histories, national identities and even their own version of Spanish.  (Be careful where you say bicho (bug) in Central America.)  Could Radio Lobo please just once play something besides música durangense?

And despite these differences, issues like immigration reform and social injustice bring the whole Latino together as a single community, with alliances across the board.  Interesting dynamics going on there.

The President jokingly referred to today’s holiday as “Cinco de Cuatro” yesterday as he welcomed guests to the White House for a Cinco de Mayo celebración.  I’m guessing that he meant to say “Cuatro de Mayo”, yesterday’s date.  We’ll work on that bilingual thing when there’s more time…

The Journal Star recently covered our collaborative effort with the Haydon Art Center and artist, Claudia Alvarez , previously mentioned in this blog post.  It’s a very nice article.