News (Noticias) for Blogante News

Viva la Familia! Event will Launch Unprecedented National Coalition of Catholic and Evangelical Leaders
National Catholic and Evangelical leaders from Colorado, California, and Arizona will stand together to honor marriage and family in Denver this weekend.
The Alliance for Marriage Foundation (AFM), the national group who drafted the Marriage Protection Amendment in Congress, is organizing the non-partisan celebration called Viva la Familia!, which will feature prominent Latino leaders and entertainers in celebration of marriage and family.
“Marriage and family are central to Hispanic Americans,” said Rev. Sam Rodriguez, Jr., an AFM Advisory Board Member and President of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, who will be speaking at the event. “It is the driving engine of our growth and success as a community.”
The celebration, being held at the Ninth Street Park at the University of Colorado Denver on Sunday afternoon will break new ground by launching an unprecedented national coalition of Catholic and Evangelical Latino leaders in support of marriage and family.
Featured speakers include Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, Jr., President of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, Alejandro Bermudez, Director of the Catholic News Agency and the Catholic Information Agency ACI-Prensa, the most read Spanish Catholic web site in the world, Rev. Eve Nunez, President of the Arizona Latino Commission, and Luis Soto, Executive Director of the Denver-based Centro San Juan Diego, Archdiocese of Denver.
“Viva la Familia! Event, wants to remind us all that the most important social institution is the family,” said Luis Soto, Executive Director of Centro San Juan Diego, Archdiocese of Denver. “The family formed when a man and woman marry for their common good and for the procreation and education of their children. It is this spirit of celebrating and growing as Hispanic families that we will gather.”
Mexican actor, Eduardo Verastegui will also deliver an important message on marriage and family to attendees at the Viva la Familia! Event via remote from Mexico City.
Entertainment will be provided by the renowned Mexican clown Cepillin, who was for many years a great TV star in more than 18 countries. The event will also feature the Catholic recording artist Ge’La.
The emerging importance of the Latino community to America’s political landscape has long been documented by demographic experts. In fact, the population of Latinos in America “will triple in size” in the next four decades, according to the Pew Research Center.
In light of this, political operatives in both parties are working harder than ever to cultivate Latino voters. But while Latinos do have the political power to determine elections, many in American politics have ignored the deep attachment to marriage and family that is woven into the very fabric of the Latino community nationwide.
The Alliance for Marriage is a multicultural coalition whose Board of Advisors includes Rev. Walter Fauntroy — the D.C. Coordinator of the March on Washington for Martin Luther King Jr. — as well as other civil rights and religious leaders, and national legal experts. www.afmusa.org“

LATINA Style, the premier magazine addressing the needs of professional Latinas in the U.S., will host the 5th annual National LATINA Symposium on September 5, 2008 at the Capital Hilton in Washington D.C. The Symposium provides a national platform for Latina entrepreneurs and professional working women to address the status of the Hispanic woman in the United States.

The Honorable Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen [R-FL] is the chair for this year’s symposium. Open to the public and attended by Latina leaders from corporate America, the government and military, the Symposium will feature panels and workshops designed to unite and empower Latinas. This year LATINA Style will further expand the Symposium by producing a groundbreaking panel designed to address issues unique to Latinas in the military.

The Symposium will conclude with the Distinguished Service Awards Luncheon, which LATINA Style co-hosts with the Department of Defense. At the luncheon 14 award recipients, representing all branches of the Armed Forces, will be honored for their excellence in service.

The evening of the National LATINA Symposium, LATINA Style will host the Anna Maria Arias Memorial Business Fund Gala. This program, created in memory of LATINA Style Founder Anna Maria Arias, will award grants to 10 Latina entrepreneurs from across the nation, who have demonstrated excellence in entrepreneurship and commitment to their community.

The 2008 National LATINA Symposium sponsors are: State Farm, the Department of Defense, the Hershey Company, the United States Navy, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., Sam’s Club and United Healthcare/AARP.

For more information and to register visit www.nls.latinastyle.com or call 703-312-0904. “

A delegation of high-ranking representatives from civil rights, minority, consumer and worker rights’ advocacy groups including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) were joined today by several dozen activists carrying signs calling for an end to a predatory lending scheme by Daimler/Mercedes Benz and the Port of Long Beach. Noisy protests at the German Embassy in Washington, DC and Mercedes-Benz’ parent company in the Detroit-area culminated with
the simultaneous delivery of a report to company and diplomatic officials entitled “Foreclosure on Wheels: Long Beach’s Truck Program Puts Drivers at High Risk for Default.”

In a written statement by NAACP Chairman Julian Bond read at the German Embassy, Bond emphasized that Daimler/Mercedes’ participation in the Long Beach financing scheme may have widereaching effects in communities of color that are already struggling economically: “The current subprime mortgage debacle illustrates how many institutions profit by enticing minority and low-income borrowers with schemes using too-easy credit to finance purchases with loans they are unable to repay…. We ask Daimler’s corporate officials to show their commitment to socially responsible business practices by abandoning this risky, dangerous venture – if not for the sake of Daimler shareholders and their company’s image, then for the sake of the truck drivers and their communities.”

The report analyzes the financial risk and details concerns that the Port of Long Beach, in partnership with Daimler, has wrongfully placed the burden for cleaner commerce on Latino-American and immigrant port drivers by targeting the workers – not their companies – to sign up for risky loans to replace a fleet of 16,000 aging vehicles. Under the terms of the lease-to-own scheme, Daimler will
financially back low-emissions trucks (costing $100,000-$200,000 after volume discounts) to any driver whose dirty diesel rig was recently banned by the port, regardless of his/her credit worthiness and ability to pay. Port drivers, before the cost of fuel skyrocketed, netted an average of $11 an hour. The monthly payment for the trucks is between $500-1,000 for seven years, with a balloon payment of
$7,000-$15,000 at the end of the lease term.

“Instead of trying to help residents and workers, a public, government entity has outrageously teamed up with Daimler/Mercedes to hoodwink the hard-working drivers who haul cargo from our shores to America’s stores” said LULAC President Rosa Rosales, whose organization helped lead the German Embassy protest and delegation.

A Daimler official told Long Beach officials in a public forum on June 30 that the company expects “over 40%” of port drivers to have “high difficulty meeting the payments,” a staggering acknowledgement overridden by Daimler’s strength in “managing collections,” i.e., repossessing trucks.

Before a crowd in Michigan outside of Daimler’s corporate home, Patricia Castellanos of the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy urged the Long Beach Port and the German luxury giant to avoid the same discriminatory practices that provoked domino-effect defaults in the mortgage market, and to instead focus lending efforts on capitalized trucking companies to avoid scarring communities. “We believe that there is an undeniable link between clean air, efficient port operations, and fairly-paid employee drivers. Achieving the environmental goals requires shifting the responsibility to where it rightfully belongs: to a stable, accountable and asset-based trucking industry.”

Richard Holober, executive director of the Consumer Federation of California added: “These kinds of discriminatory loans won’t just affect the thousands of California’s port drivers as individual borrowers, but entire families and their futures as well. The companies that profit from global trade are in a financially more stable position to invest in the new clean technology we need to keep our communities healthy – low-wage workers aren’t.”

“Foreclosure on Wheels: Long Beach’s Truck Program Puts Drivers at High Risk for Default,” was issued jointly by the Consumer Federation of California , the NAACP, the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), and the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy. Southern California port drivers and their advocates are submitting the report to Daimler/Mercedes-Benz officials at the Port of Long Beach this week.”