CLA: ¡La Voz de Minnesota!

Student organizations like La Raza Student Cultural Center at the University of Minnesota help students gain leadership and organizational skills. Organizations like La Raza are more than just organizations; they create a home away from home for Latino and even non-Latino students. As a current board member I have concentrated on keeping La Raza as an alternative home for students.

We have created events that celebrate the Latino culture like Dance Lessons and the monthly Cultural Events that feature different countries every time. These fun events have helped us increase the number of our members. However, because we have been so heavily concentrated on recruiting new members and celebrating our culture, it seems that we have forgotten our roots as an organization and let down our community by not holding events that discuss current issues and politics concerning the Latino community.

La Raza was founded after a few Chicano students fought for not only a Chicano Studies department but also an organization for Chicano/Latino students. Thanks to those few students the University of Minnesota now has over 500 Latino students. Although this is not a large number it is an improvement from a couple of Latino students. This organization was built with a mission of educating the entire community of the struggles Latino face as well as celebrating the culture.

Today we have strayed from La Raza SCC’s goals. As one of the largest, if not the largest, Latino student organization we must set the example of an activist organization fighting for the betterment of our community. We must continue to celebrate our culture but we must also discuss all the struggles and barriers against our community. As a board member next year I plan to make fun events and recruit new members while raising the political awareness of our members and community.

Posted by Beatriz Carrillo at 9:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The United States has a long history of discrimination against people of color, and it continues to this day. The communities of color are economically and politically unequal and underrepresented. The two largest communities of color, Latinos and African Americans, are represented as outsiders and the interests of these communities are most often portrayed as opposites and incompatible. In reality, however, both communities have much in common and can benefit from working together. Both communities have a long history of discrimination against them and towards each other, and although animosity still exists between the groups, unity is still possible.

After Latinos became the largest minority group, blacks were afraid Latinos would take black people’s power and influence. Latinos being portrayed as undocumented workers who steal American’s jobs and bring down wages creates even more animosity between both groups. At first glance it may seem that the black and Latino community cannot work together; however, these communities have more in common than it appears.
For example, both communities have been disenfranchised in the past. African Americans have been held in slavery, and Mexicans have been exploited for land and labor. Although racism does not exist at such an extreme level, it still exists and it is a serious problem. Neighborhoods with a high percentage of people of color are poorly funded, crime rates are high and schools are inadequate and crowded. These inadequate structures are then used to perpetuate the stereotypes of Latinos and African Americans. Both groups suffer from poverty and stereotypes; however, instead of focusing on what they have in common these groups often attack each other.

The stereotype that these groups cannot unite is creating animosity, and if any group of color wants to create equality it must be done in collaboration with other groups. Blacks and Latinos must use their frustration and power to come together to fight against injustices. Both of these communities are increasingly frustrated and angry at the police brutality against men of color, poor schools and housing, yet the media ignores these issues. Instead of attacking each other, blacks and Latinos should focus on the real, important issues.

Two communities that seemingly have nothing in common are actually each other’s biggest and best ally. These communities must begin working together more and stop perpetuating conflict between these groups and begin embracing a united front that confronts racism.

Posted by Beatriz Carrillo at 7:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The media frames immigration around the economy and innocent white U.S. citizens. The media forgets the other side of the story; immigrants are also humans. Often, immigrants and Latinos in general, are portrayed as a burden on the American way of life. They fail to discuss all the positive things immigrants and Latinos have contributed to the United States. They ignore the damage that all the negative portrayal of our community has on all of us. Our negative portrayal leads to discrimination against Latinos and immigrants, lack of recognition of our contributions and no portrayal of the real problems of the Latino community.

The media portrays Latinos as undocumented, criminal immigrants. As a result the general stereotype is exactly that. Latinos, even those who were born here, are stereotyped as immigrants and treated like criminals. Stories that perpetuate this stereotype are covered while stories that go against the stereotype are not even discussed.
The media does not recognize the contributions Latinos have made to the United States. The media ignores the fact that Latinos have lived in the United States since the U.S.-Mexico War. There are many Latinos who can trace their ancestors in the United States further than many white people can. However, instead of addressing these contradictions the media continues to stereotype Latinos.

Since all the focus on the stereotypical Latinos, the media misses all of the real problems facing not only Latinos but the United States as well. Latino schools are poorly funded and teachers are scarce, this is also a problem with many schools across the country with different demographics. Latinos are racially profiled and convicted at higher proportions than whites. However, none of these issues ever make it to the news. The only stories about Latinos are the ones that perpetuate their stereotypes.

There are many problems facing the Latino community and the media does not do a good job of reporting it. Our problems are ignored and Latino stereotypes dominate the news. We are nearly invisible and in order to begin moving forward we must first change our portrayal in the media. We must overcome the stereotypes so people can see the challenges of our community.

Posted by Beatriz Carrillo at 2:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I spent eight years of my life in a small, predominantly white neighborhood in the middle of nowhere Minnesota. I came to the University of Minnesota because it is the biggest school around and in a very diverse city. However, once here I was once again in culture shock. There were not as many Latinos as I had originally thought there would be. I was fortunate enough that I had signed up for Casa Sol a Latino Living and Learning community where I met about 12 Latinos. Through Casa Sol I also learned about other Latino organizations and departments. I was especially excited to learn about La Raza Student Cultural Center. La Raza is a Latino student organization on campus and now it is where I spend a lot of my time. It is a great organization that celebrates the Latino culture and educates about prominent issues affecting the Latino community. These student centers and communities have a positive effect on the Latino students on campus and are vital to diversity.

Many people have negative perception of multi-cultural student centers. They believe that we are not welcoming. This, however, is the furthest thing from the truth. All the organizations are very welcoming to all people, La Raza welcomes all the members from other organizations like the Black Student Union or Al-Madinah and vice-versa. There are not many people of color and we all try and unite all our members because we all have something in common.

These centers allow us to make friends not only from a similar background but also build connections. These organizations organize events and bring in leaders from the community. All this helps to create a great environment for people of color to flourish.

The University of Minnesota is a better school because of the student centers, it builds leadership and connections within the community. People need to visit these centers before they assume that they are mean people who are isolating themselves. I am extremely glad to be part of La Raza and I hope to continue to create relationships within the school and in the community.

Posted by Beatriz Carrillo at 5:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Police brutality against people of color has existed for a long time and although we are supposed to be in a color-blind society, police still target Latinos. There is a stereotype that Latinos are criminals, lazy and drug users and the police perpetuate this stereotype by specifically targeting Latinos.

I used to live in a small town where the population was predominantly white. Since the town was so small the police knows everyone and tend to go easier on the kids. However, this was never implemented on my brother. As one of the only young Latinos in the neighborhood my brother was always suspected of criminal activity. My brother is actually a very good student but he was not even allowed to wear certain colors. The principals, teachers and police were always weary of all his actions even though he never did anything to give them reasons to believe he was a drug dealer or anything.

With these kinds of experiences it is no wonder that Latinos are incarcerated at higher rates than white people. Latinos are always being watched and sooner or later they are imprisoned for something. Latinos are about 1/6 of the population but they along with black people make up over half the population in prisons. It is these kinds of injustices that as Latinos we must try and fight against. Racism still exits and the prison system is perpetuating it and is a way of keeping Latinos from advancing economically and politically.

Posted by Beatriz Carrillo at 4:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 6, 2008
San Francisco Reaches Out to Immigrants
By JESSE McKINLEY

SAN FRANCISCO — The city of San Francisco has started an advertising push with a very specific target market: illegal immigrants. And while the advertisements will come in a bundle of languages — English, Spanish, Chinese, Russian, Vietnamese — they all carry the same message: you are safe here.

In what may be the first such campaign of its kind, the city plans to publish multilanguage brochures and fill the airwaves with advertisements relaying assurance that San Francisco will not report them to federal immigration authorities.

Mayor Gavin Newsom said the campaign was simply an amplification of a longstanding position of not cooperating with immigration raids or other enforcement. The city passed a so-called sanctuary ordinance in 1989.

Still, Mr. Newsom said, it never hurts to advertise. “It’s one thing to have a policy on paper,� he said. “It’s another to communicate it directly to people who could be impacted.�

The television and radio campaign will tell immigrants they have “safe access� to public services, including schools, health clinics and — perhaps most importantly — the police, something that local law enforcement officials say is a chronic problem in émigré communities.

“It is a trademark of a criminal predator to convince victims that because of the victims’ immigration status that they — not the predator — will be treated as the criminal,� said Kamala Harris, the city’s district attorney. “We want to remove that tool from the criminal’s tool belt.�

Ms. Harris said particular problems in immigrant communities include human trafficking, fraud and elder abuse, which she said was widely underreported.

San Francisco is not alone in its sanctuary status; New York, Detroit and Washington have policies that discourage the police from enforcing immigration law. Nevertheless, the campaign’s announcement prompted a round of eye-rolling among anti-immigration forces in California and Washington, many of whom are still galled by the city’s 2007 decision to grant identification cards to anyone who could prove residence, regardless of legal status.

“I guess it’s what you expect from San Francisco,� said Ira Mehlman of the Federation for American Immigration Reform in Washington, which lobbies for stronger immigration enforcement. “But now, not only are they helping people break the law of the federal government, they are advertising it. I don’t know of any other city actually looking for illegal immigrants.�

Rick Oltman, national media director for Californians for Population Stabilization in Santa Barbara, said the campaign could actually be a boon for other Bay Area cities if it drew illegal immigrants out of those communities and into San Francisco.

“The only people who are the losers here are the people of San Francisco who are going to hate the way the city looks in two or five years, when the illegal immigrant population grows massively,� said Mr. Oltman, who said such populations had a negative effect on crime, education, health and the environment.

But Mr. Newsom said his advertising campaign was less a hard sell than a hard look at the reality of immigration policy.

“We’re not arguing against common-sense reforms,� he said. “We’re not arguing against reforms at all. But in lieu of that, we’re doing the best we can to say if they see a crime report it, and if they have a child educate them.�

Posted by rende007 at 5:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Although Latinos are now the largest non-white ethnic group in the United States, the media does not represent us this way. Media hardly ever covers news that pertains to Latinos; however, when we are in the media it will usually be negative and stereotypical. Young Latinos in the United States do not have the opportunity to see the great things Latinos are capable of. Instead, these young people are shown frames where Latinos are only undocumented, criminal, immigrants who cannot amount to anything.

The media portrays Latinos as Spanish speaking immigrants who are freeloading off of the American system. In reality, although there are millions of Latino immigrants there are also many Latinos who were born in the United States. These Latinos especially the immigrants, contribute greatly to the American economy. Many Latinos, especially second and third generations, tend to be bilingual with a preference for English. But of course, the media never portray these images of Latinos.

These negative portrayals of Latinos in the media have an effect in the Latino population, that as a community we cannot overlook. The media a very influential in the forming our perceptions of the world and if Latinos are portrayed so negatively, what can young Latinos aspire to be? Although there are many Latinos who have risen above the stereotypes and are great professionals, the media ignores them Too many Latinos get stuck in the stereotype that the media has created for them. As a community we need to demand better representation of the Latino community is order to aspire for a better future.

Posted by Beatriz Carrillo at 4:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Latinos come in all the different shades of color from negro to moreno and even blanco, and unlike in the United States race is not a black-white phenomenon; there are other colors in between. It is in this sense that Latinos are for more understanding and liberal about race and color. However, we are not free from discriminating against our own Latino people.

In the Latino culture it is common for families to encourage their children to marry somebody lighter to “avanzar la raza.� When a baby is born and if he/she is light then it is always “ay pero que bonito colorcito tiene!� The Latino community is still under the old European notions of race inferiority. It is something in our community that usually goes undetected but it is important and wrong.

Like I mentioned earlier, in Latin America the racism and discrimination against darker skinned peoples is not as obvious but it exists. An article by Mirta Ojito, a New York Times writer, discussed how a black and white friend from Cuba now living in the United States thought of race. They recalled that even back in Cuba, although it was not as bad as in the United States, discrimination against dark skinned people existed. As has been shown in films like City of God, even Brazil, which is supposed to be a racial utopia, has racial conflicts. Darker skinned Brazilians are incarcerated in larger numbers and are living in poverty in disproportionate numbers compared to their lighter skinned counterparts.

If Latinos are to gain equal rights and economic standing in the United States, the issues of race that we face in our communities must first be resolved in order to be able to have Latinos united instead of divided.

Posted by Beatriz Carrillo at 11:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Here is an editorial published in the New York times about the state of social security today. The report mentioned in the editorial was released by the Social Security Trustees and notes that since a lot of undocumented immigrants pay taxes on social security which they never reap the benefits, our program is doing better than expected in terms of revenue. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/02/opinion/02wed3.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

Posted by rende007 at 4:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)