Immigration
April 20, 2007 -
On April 9, the tied and beaten body of Santiago Rafael Cruz -- a leader of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee -- was found dead in the union's Mexico-based office in Monterrey. Few leads have turned up, but FLOC President Baldamar Velasquez is convinced Cruz's torture and murder were "a pure political attack" to intimidate workers.
April 18, 2007 -
Migrant farmworkers are responsible for putting food on most of our tables, but they remain among our country's most vulnerable groups. Farm laborers endure low pay and dangerous job conditions, while serving as an easy target in times of anti-immigrant backlash.
January 4, 2007 -
As if New Orleans didn't have enough problems to contend with, deadly violence is on the rise in the city, which has long suffered from a high crime rate.
January 3, 2007 -
A national civil rights group worries that a recent New York Times story about New Orleans' post-Katrina baby boom among Latinos-and the stress it's placing on the city's storm-devastated health care system-promotes prejudice against the people doing reconstruction's dirty work.
December 20, 2006 -
When representative-elect Keith Ellison (D-MN) became the first Muslim elected to Congress last November, it was celebrated by many as a step forward for inclusion. But not by all: CNN's Glenn Beck, for example, famously insisted that Ellison "prove ... that you are not working with our enemies."
December 11, 2006 -
The Charleston (West Virginia) Gazette reports on a disturbing case involving two employees of Iranian descent at the National Institute for Occupational Safety Health, whose lives were destroyed two years ago in what critics say is a blatant case
November 28, 2006 -
Despite the claims of a handful of pundits that the 2006 elections show the South isn't competitive for Democrats, evidence continues to roll in that all the trends in the South point to a region that will only become more competitive in the future.