Category: Hispanic Business Magazine

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Hispanic Business Magazine Shifting Paradigms

NBA stars Carmelo Anthony, Charlie Villanueva a part of league’s growing Latino demographic

NBA stars Carmelo Anthony, Charlie Villanueva a part of league’s growing Latino demographic — Hispanic Business Magazine

Originally published on April 13, 2009

Believe it or not, basketball wasn’t the first love of Denver Nuggets star Carmelo Anthony, now one of the best players in the NBA.

Nor was it for Charlie Villanueva, a starting forward for the Milwaukee Bucks.

Milwaukee Bucks v Dallas Mavericks

For both players, that distinction belonged to baseball.

But it makes a little more sense when you learn about their heritage. Anthony’s father was Puerto Rican, and Villanueva’s parents emigrated from the Dominican Republic.

In fact, Anthony, whose mother is black, started playing basketball only when he no longer had the option to play baseball.

“Once I got to high school, the school I went to didn’t have a baseball team,” he told HispanicBusiness.com.

Now, they are two of just six U.S.-born Hispanics in the NBA.

If the NBA has anything to say about it, Hispanic kids participating in athletics will rank basketball first. Perhaps more importantly, the league hopes, so will Hispanic sports fans.

Of course, the league isn’t simply crossing its fingers. It’s throwing resources at the problem — flooding the zone, so to speak. And it appears to be working.

The Hispanic viewership of this year’s All-Star Game in February surged by 13 percent over last year, with 472,000 Hispanic households tuning in, according to Nielsen ratings. Particularly pronounced was the one-year jump in male Hispanic viewers between 18 and 34: from 166,000 last year to 249,000 this year — a rise of nearly 40 percent.

The NBA isn’t the first American mega-business to recently gain full appreciation of the golden opportunity presented by the burgeoning Hispanic market.

This year, Wal-Mart announced that it will open two stores that cater expressly to Hispanic customers, and Coca-Cola released a new nationwide ad in Spanish.

According to the U.S. Census, from 2000 to 2007, the Hispanic share of the U.S. population grew from 12.5 percent to 15 percent. In raw numbers, that translates into 10 million more people.

The NBA has been working hard to reach them.

From inviting Hispanic entertainers to sing the National Anthem to broadcasting more and more radio and TV games in Spanish, to trotting out its small-but-growing number of Hispanic players at public-outreach events, the campaign officially launched in 2000, but has ramped up recently.

Three years ago, the NBA launched Noche Latina, a kind of “Hispanic awareness month” for the NBA that occurs every March.

As part of the program — which doubled in size this year to include eight major Hispanic markets — the players don uniforms emblazoned with the Spanish version of their team names.

“The Miami Heat” becomes “El Heat;” the San Antonio Spurs, “Los Spurs.”

The league is also tapping more international Latin players.

Since 2000, the number of Spanish, Hispanic or Latino players from outside the United States has grown to 17 from five. (One player — Eduardo Nájera of the Denver Nuggets — is from Mexico.)

To get Latin American countries stoked on basketball, the league stages pre-season games in those countries. Thus far, it has played 25 such games since 1992.

The league also enlists the Hispanic players themselves to spread the word.

Villanueva last summer personally delivered 10,000 pairs of shoes to indigent kids in the Dominican Republic, from where his parents emigrated. Some were so poor they couldn’t afford shoes, he told HispanicBusiness.com.

“Seeing people out there walking barefoot; that’s unacceptable to me,” he said. But the reception, he said, was fantastic. “People are just so excited to see one of their own doing something positive for the Dominican Republic.”

Of course, in the high-profile world of professional sports, a star can be a liability as well as an asset.

Anthony, for all his talent, has had his share of PR troubles, not least of which included a 15-game suspension for cold-cocking Knicks player Mardy Collins in the face as a brawl between the two teams was winding down.

To his credit, Anthony — who recently tied the league’s record for points scored in a single quarter (that’s 33) — also has donated millions of dollars to charities, including an education center for inner-city children and a new practice gym at Syracuse, his alma mater.

Like Anthony, Villanueva got started on baseball, due, he said, to being raised by Domincan Republican parents. Villanueva said he started playing basketball only because he idolized his older brother, whom he described as a rebel.

“My brother always wanted to be different, and I always wanted to be like my brother,” he told HispanicBusiness.com on Friday.

Villanueva, too, is something of a rebel. Not unlike Shaquille O’Neill or Dennis Rodman, he openly talks about someday pursuing interests outside of basketball.

For instance, Villanueva has always wanted to become a detective, and said may one day pursue that dream.

“One thing about me is I love solving things,” he said. “I think I’ve got a good feel for people — interrogating them and whatnot.”

Another thing about Villanueva is he is technologically savvy — so much so that it recently landed him in some hot water. His crime: Twittering to his fans from the locker-room during halftime.

(Twitter, too, was introduced to Villanueva by his brother, who works as a highlights editor for ESPN.)

After the half-time Twitter, the 24-year-old was chewed out by Bucks coach Scott Skiles, who said the hi-tech shout-out — which took Villanueva 10 seconds to perform from his cell phone — made him seem unfocused. But when it comes to reaching out to fans, Villanueva might also be ahead of the curve.

A day or so after Twitter-gate hit the papers, the number of subscribers exploded, from about 900 to 7,300. Now, just three weeks later, his virtual audience has swelled to more than 19,000, which could very well make him the most Twittered-up player in the league. (Click here to see his Twitter page.)

With recent studies showing that Hispanic youth take to Internet technologies faster than non-Hispanics, there’s a good chance that Villanueva is unwittingly doing double-duty in his efforts to help the NBA’s reach out to Hispanics.

As for the coach’s order, Villanueva demurred, but also openly pondered the difference between signing autographs at halftime – which is allowed — and Twittering.

In any case, Villanueva said his halftime Twitter was an innocent occurrence, not a calculated attempt to market himself.

“It was all over the TV; everybody was talking about it,” he said. “The reason why is it was something new that nobody had done before.” He added, with good-natured resignation: “I will always be remembered as the guy who Twittered during halftime.”

It might not be the same as setting the NBA record for points scored in a single quarter. But when it comes to the business of basketball, it might be just as valuable.

Maybe instead of detective work, Villanueva’s second calling is marketing. In 10 or 15 years, the NBA might do well to recruit him a second time.

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Hispanic Business Magazine Shifting Paradigms

Healthcare Reform May Leave Illegal Immigrants Worse Off

Healthcare Reform May Leave Illegal Immigrants Worse Off
May 13, 2010
By Rob Kuznia, Staff Writer

Weeks after passage of a historic health bill, Hispanic advocacy groups say the sweeping new law will generally bring much-needed benefits to Hispanics and businesses across America.

Those same groups, however, are raising concerns about how the health care reform bill will affect illegal immigrants who currently have coverage.

While it’s been widely reported that illegal immigrants are left out of the newly signed health law, less talked about is how the new law could actually make things worse for insured illegal immigrants — as opposed to merely maintaining the status quo.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will bring coverage to 32 million of the current 45 million uninsured Americans and cost roughly $850 billion over 10 years. But it could also cause many illegal immigrants to lose the coverage they have. And the number of illegal immigrants with coverage is surprisingly large.

The Pew Hispanic Center estimates that roughly 40 percent of the 11 million or so illegal immigrants residing in this country are insured, either because they purchased health coverage themselves or received it through their employers. The U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce puts the estimate even higher.

“I don’t think many people know that approximately 50 percent purchase coverage,” Javier Palomarez, president and CEO of the chamber, told Hispanic Business magazine. “These folks are in jeopardy of losing what little coverage they have.”

The bill that was signed into law March 30 not only prohibits illegal immigrants from receiving federal subsidies, it also — to the chagrin of immigration-rights advocates — bars them from purchasing insurance with their own money on the soon-to-be created statewide exchanges that will pool ratepayers to lower premiums.

To be sure, under the new law, illegal immigrants still will be able to purchase coverage out of pocket. It’s just that, because their plans will be excluded from the exchanges, they could see the cost of their premiums skyrocket out of reach.

This is because the creation of the new exchanges could have the effect of draining current risk pools of almost everyone except the illegal immigrants, said Jennifer Ng’andu, deputy director for health policy project with the National Council of La Raza.

“I think you could say on some level that undocumented immigrants (with coverage) are the ones who will be worse off than before,” she told Hispanic Business magazine.

Thus far, nobody knows exactly how the market is going to react, as the exchanges won’t take effect until 2014.

“But many people are starting to anticipate drastic increases in health insurance costs,” Ms. Ng’andu said.

Ultimately, fewer illegal immigrants getting coverage would translate into more people using emergency rooms or community health clinics for their health-care needs. These costs tend to ultimately be borne by ratepayers and taxpayers.

Elena Rios, M.D., president and CEO of the National Hispanic Medical Association, said the issue underscores the need for comprehensive immigration reform.

“I think this country needs immigration reform to allow unauthorized immigrants who live here and work here and pay taxes to be able to have certain services,” she told Hispanic Business magazine.
Broadly Many Benefit

On a broad scale, though, many Hispanic groups are generally pleased with the new law.

With one in three of all U.S. Hispanics uninsured — and at least 20 percent of Hispanic-American citizens and legal residents uninsured — the population has more to gain than any other, Dr. Rios said. (About 15 percent of the entire U.S. population is uninsured.)
“It’s a phenomenal step forward for the Hispanic community,” she said.

Small Business Fares Well

Hispanic-owned businesses also stand to benefit.

With 98 percent of Hispanic-owned businesses employing fewer than 50 people, the legislation’s effect on small business is of primary importance to many Hispanics.

Over the past decade, the meteoric rise of health care costs has significantly hampered the ability of small businesses to offer health benefits to their employees.

Since 2000, the proportion of small businesses offering health benefits has dropped more than 20 percent, from two-thirds to less than half. The bulk of that drop has occurred over the past three years.

The new law benefits small businesses in several ways, Mr. Palomarez of the chamber said. First, it allows them to purchase insurance through the exchange. Also, small businesses that opt out still stand to benefit, as most of their employees will qualify to purchase individual plans on the exchange, improving the ability of those businesses to stay competitive with larger companies.

Finally, and most immediately, all small businesses offering health benefits to their employees will qualify for tax breaks.

“They can avail themselves this year of essentially free money,” David Ferreira, the chamber’s vice president for government affairs, told Hispanic Business magazine.

Mr. Ferreira said one disappointment to the chamber is how the law requires businesses with more than 50 employees to provide coverage. The chamber had hoped that the threshold would be set at 100 employees — or, better yet, dropped altogether.

But in terms of how the bill affects Hispanic-owned businesses, the difference between 50 employees and 100 employees is relatively slight, he added. While about 99 percent of all Hispanic-owned companies employ fewer than 100 people, about 98 percent employ fewer than 50.

“We’re fighting over inches at this point,” he said.

Other Benefits

The new law stands to benefit U.S. Hispanics in many ways, advocacy groups said. It comes with a huge prevention component, meaning, for instance, that doctors will have financial incentives to discuss healthy lifestyles with patients.

This is particularly beneficial for Hispanics, who suffer disproportionately from obesity, diabetes and heart disease, Dr. Rios said.

The new law also means doctors and nurses in many areas of the country will have to undergo cultural competency training, which could include taking Spanish classes or hiring translators.

“It exists now, but not like with the court system,” Dr. Rios said. “The health care system has been light years behind. This is going to bring the system into the 21st Century.”

As it is, she added, just 5 percent of the nation’s doctors and nurses are Hispanic — a percentage that the National Hispanic Medical Association would like to see grow.

The new law also increases to 26 the age in which young people can stay on their parents’ plans. The current age varies from state to state, but in general coincides with the college years of middle-class families, which generally end around age 22, Dr. Rios said.

Also experiencing some improvements are the citizens of the U.S. commonwealth of Puerto Rico, which received about $1 billion to establish an exchange and provide more affordable care.

“In the end, we think there are key gains that give us a foundation to be able to extend affordable insurance to many Latinos and immigrants across the country,” Ms. Ng’andu said. “The bill was by no means what we hoped to have, but it’s something we believe sort of lays the foundation for a better health care system

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Hispanic Business Magazine Shifting Paradigms

For Hilda Solis, a Chance Encounter with Former Teacher Changed Everything

For Hilda Solis, a Chance Encounter with Former Teacher Changed Everything

When Hilda Solis was a senior in high school, just a few weeks away from graduation, she wasn’t thinking about college.

Instead, the daughter of immigrant parents who met in citizenship class wanted to be a receptionist, or — if she was really lucky — a county clerk, like her older sister.

hilda-solis-2_lrg

But one day, a chance encounter changed everything. Walking through the halls at La Puente High School in her native Los Angeles County, the teenage Solis bumped into her former seventh-grade history teacher.

The teacher, whom she remembers as Mr. Sanchez, had since become a high school guidance counselor. He asked about her future plans.

When she answered that she hoped to work for the county, Mr. Sanchez surprised her by responding in the negative.

“He said, ‘Oh no, you’ve got to go to college,'” she said, speaking to HispanicBusiness.com during a recent sit-down interview. “I said, ‘What are you talking about? I can’t afford college.'”

It turns out Mr. Sanchez knew what he was talking about. He helped Solis navigate the paperwork maze of applying to Cal-Poly Pomona, where she was not only accepted, but also received a full Cal-grant scholarship and financial aid. She went on to earn a master’s in public administration from USC. This led to an internship in the White House Office of Hispanic Affairs in the Carter administration.

Today, Solis, 52, is the nation’s Secretary of Labor, making her the first Hispanic woman to serve as a regular U.S. cabinet secretary.

Hilda Solis’s story is surprisingly common, and shows how the booming U.S. Hispanic population, while making steady gains over the years in education and the workplace, remains a sea of untapped potential.

It also offers a telling illustration of how razor-thin the line between ordinary and extraordinary can be. Especially for the Hispanic population, which still suffers from disproportionately low high school and college graduation rates.

Many prominent Hispanics have stories that are eerily similar.

One of them is Thelma Melendez de Santa Ana, now one of the nation’s highest-ranking public education officials and this magazine’s recently named Woman of the Year.

But in Melendez’s version, the high school counselor told her she wouldn’t be able to hack it at the four-year college of her dreams, UCLA. It wasn’t until one of her instructors at a community college encouraged her to apply to UCLA that she did. For there on out, she thrived. Today she’s the U.S. Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education.

Another trailblazer with a similar story is Millie Garcia, president of California State Univerity’s Dominguez Hills campus, and California’s first female Hispanic president of a CSU school. Garcia grew up in a Brooklyn tenement neighborhood surrounded by factories, where her parents worked. Newly drawn boundary lines seeking to de-segregate the students meant she would attend an upper-middle-class public elementary school. Her five older siblings didn’t benefit from these boundary lines. To this day, Garcia, who holds a doctorate in higher education from Columbia University, is the only member of her family with a college degree.

“I’m not smarter than them; I just had more opportunities,” she told HispanicBusiness Magazine. “Anyone can do this if they work hard and have a good support network.”

Unfortunately, success stories like theirs are still the exception.

A education/18hispanic.html” target=”_blank”>study several years ago by the Pew Hispanic Center found that just 16 percent of Hispanic high school graduates earned a bachelor’s degree by age 29, compared to 37 percent of whites and 21 percent of African Americans. Also, in 2007, the dropout rate among Hispanic high school students was an alarming 21.4 percent, compared to 5.3 percent among whites and 8.4 percent among blacks, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

With low graduation numbers comes low expectations from teachers and career counselors. Such expectations can have a permanent effect on a person’s potential.

Conversely, the stories of Solis, Melendez and Garcia illustrate not only how student performance often rises to the level of heightened expectations, but also the profound difference one good educator can make.

In Solis’s case, the effect of the counselor’s encouraging words spread to the rest of her family.

Solis was the middle of seven children. After seeing Solis thrive in college, all three of her younger sisters followed suit. Today, one of her sisters has a doctorate in public health from UCLA. Two more have engineering degrees from the same school. In addition, her older sister — the county clerk on whom Solis modeled her own early ambitions — went back to school. She’s now in the process of earning her Bachelor of Science degree in business.

It could even be said that Mr. Sanchez’s intervention had a tangible effect on all Californians — whether they like it or not.

In 1994, Solis became the first Hispanic woman elected to the California State Senate. She served aggressively.

During her four terms, she successfully spearheaded legislation to raise the California’s minimum wage and protect poor neighborhoods from being the default locations for landfills. In 2000, her commitment to “environmental justice” made her the first woman ever to win the Profile in Courage Award by the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation.

The ripple effects of Ms. Melendez’s scholastic success also spread far and wide.

Before getting to where she is, Melendez was superintendent of the struggling Pomona Unified School District near Los Angeles. Under her tenure, the students’ test scores skyrocketed, so much so that Pomona witnessed record improvements for three consecutive years, and achieved the second-highest jump in California. In 2009, Melendez was named California’s Superintendent of the Year.

“It really is all about expectation,” she told HispanicBusiness Magazine in April. “I firmly believe that the interaction between the student and teacher is the most important that occurs on the school ground.”

Solis says there are many, many more who could thrive if they had someone encouraging them to excel — like how Mr. Sanchez encouraged her.

“He motivated me, he believed in me,” she said. “And I think about if he didn’t do that, and how many other kids didn’t run into him, who could be doing the same thing I’m doing. There’s no magic to it; I wasn’t a 4.0 student. I was a decent student, but I also worked very hard.”

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Hispanic Business Magazine Shifting Paradigms

Mark Sanchez: Behind this Successful NY Jets Quarterback is a Hard-Working Family

Mark Sanchez: Behind this Successful NY Jets Quarterback is a Hard-Working Family

As New York Jets rookie quarterback Mark Sanchez gears up to play the biggest game of his life against the Colts on Sunday, you can bet his two older brothers are doing their best to minimize his myriad distractions — like an offensive line warding off a sack.

mark-sanchez----kid

After all, it’s what they’ve been doing all year.

Sanchez, 23, was drafted in April, putting him in the tiny pool of Hispanic NFL players that currently makes up just 1 percent of the league’s entire roster. It was a major triumph in itself, meaning Sanchez had gone from being a middle class son of a Southern California firefighter to an instant millionaire.

To ease the jarring transition, the two older brothers who used to knock him around in the backyard sprung into action to help manage what had suddenly become the Sanchez corporation.

“While he might not have to punch a clock or put a tie on like most of us, he still has a ton of work to do,” Sanchez’s eldest brother, Nick, told HispanicBusiness.com this week. “We wanted to maximize Mark’s potential to succeed.”

Nick, 37 — and himself a former quarterback for Yale — is a business litigator by trade, and now serves as his little brother’s agent. He worked long and hard, for example, on Mark’s $50.5 million, five-year contract.

The middle brother, 31-year-old Brandon, took time off from his job as a finance specialist in the precious metals industry in Southern California and moved into Mark’s new home in New York. There, Brandon helps his brother manage the surprising amount of day-to-day tasks that come with the high-profile job.

That can mean everything from handling charity calls, media interview requests and business queries to the more mundane duties of making sure bills get paid on time and the car’s oil gets changed.

And then, of course, there’s the 800-pound gorilla: how to deal with the sudden geyser of money.

“I liken somebody in Mark’s position to more of a lottery winner than a traditional business person,” Nick said.

Like a lottery winner — and unlike most people — Mark’s earning power will most likely taper off in his older adult years. And like lottery winners, pro athletes often find themselves unprepared for the onslaught of financial suitors angling for investments and partnerships. The brothers help Mark navigate that minefield, as well.

“If this is the only time he works to take care of himself, we want to make sure he’s not investing in speculative businesses,” Nick said. “Instead of trying to grow, it’s more trying to protect.”

If victory is a fair gauge, it’s safe to say Mark’s support network hasn’t hurt. This Sunday, on the heels of a roller-coaster season that began with three wins out of the chute and then endured a rocky middle, Sanchez’s Jets will face Peyton Manning, the league’s MVP, and the Indianapolis Colts for the NFC championship.

The brothers’ heavy involvement during Mark’s rookie year embodies the closeness that the Sanchez family has long held dear. To be sure, there have been rough patches: their father, Nick Sr., and mother, Olga Macias, divorced.

Yet, through football, the family has been able to reunite. Olga and Nick Sr., along with sons Nick and Brandon, have attended several games together this year.

So have scores of other relatives. Last Sunday, when the Jets upset the San Diego Chargers, 127 of Sanchez’s relatives sat in the stands. Many most likely had to break off old team alliances: Sanchez grew up in Orange County, about an hour north of San Diego.

If it isn’t common for most Mexican-American boys to get involved with football, it sure was for the Sanchez sons.

Nick Sr. was a quarterback for an inner-city school in Los Angeles, and then for East Los Angeles Junior College.

He passed his knowledge of the game first onto Nick, (who does not go by “junior”) and then Brandon. Nick Sr. also volunteered as a trainer for the football team at Mission Viejo High School. So by the time Mark came around, football was everywhere.

“Ever since he could walk, he was at our practices,” his brother Nick said. “Running around, chasing us, putting on pads, falling over because they were too heavy.”

During his elementary and junior high school years, Mark played in junior leagues — usually as a center or lineman, never as a quarterback. (He didn’t play QB until high school.) As a kid he served as the high school team’s ball boy. He and his father often worked long into the night on his passing game at a local park, with the aid of their pickup truck’s headlights.

Despite all the training, Mark’s father says he never expected that one of his young boys would make the NFL.

“Never in a million years,” Nick Sr. told HispanicBusiness.com.

To him, sports are largely about character.

“I’ve always felt there’s more to be gained from athletics than running and jumping,” he said. “I was a big proponent of the mental strength it provided.”

Nick Sr. added that even though Mark is in the NFL, nobody in the family has forgotten that he’s still the little brother.

“His two older brothers have done a tremendous job of keeping him humble,” he said, with a laugh, adding, “he’s still the one they harass.”

It might be tough to remember when watching Mark on television, all suited up and revered. But at the end of the day, Nick Sr. said, he’s still 23.

“You take those guys playing on Sundays out of their helmets and out of that environment, and put them home on the couch, you see they’re the same as any other youngster that age,” he said. “He still likes to eat pizza and chicken wings, watch TV and play video games. I feel really good about that.”

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Hispanic Business Magazine Shifting Paradigms

The Hispanic Paradox: U.S. Hispanics Live Longer, Despite Socio-Economic Hurdles

The Hispanic Paradox: U.S. Hispanics Live Longer, Despite Socio-Economic Hurdles

When it comes to Hispanics and health care, the horror stories are well known. Less so is the mysterious phenomenon known as the “Hispanic Paradox.”

Again and again, we hear that the Hispanic population is disproportionately beset by the bugbears of poverty, obesity, Type 2 diabetes and lack of access to quality health coverage and insurance.

These unfortunate facts are indisputable. But what many people don’t realize is that, when it comes to the bottom line — that is, mortality — the news for Hispanics is good. Very good.

In the United States, Hispanics, despite their socio-economic hurdles, on average live longer than blacks by seven years, and whites by five years, says Dr. David Hayes-Bautista, a professor of medicine at UCLA.

“There’s something about being Latino that is good for their health,” Hayes-Bautista told HispanicBusiness.com, adding wryly: “Just think if we had access to health care.”

Widely known as the “Hispanic Paradox,” the phenomenon was discovered and coined by researchers decades ago.

At the time, many scientists were skeptical, speculating that the data must have been skewed. They hypothesized that immigrants who came to the United States were simply younger and healthier than the average American, or that a large share of older immigrants returned home to die.

But recent studies have refuted the doubting theories, and the science community today generally accepts the Hispanic Paradox as real.

Now, Hayes-Bautista is on the front lines trying to figure out why this is so.

“There’s something going on here,” he said. “Is it diet, is it family, is it spiritual, is it the Latino mind-body balance? I don’t know.”

Hopefully, Hayes-Bautista said, his extensive research on the topic will eventually shed some light.

The longer lifespan of Hispanics has been described in several ways by different studies, and to varying degrees.

In 2007, the Public Policy Institute of California found that the average lifespan of a Hispanic man in that state is 77.5 years, compared to 75.5 among white males and 68.6 among black males. The lifespan of Hispanic men was topped only by Asian men, whose average lifespan came in at 80.4.

In 2008, the National Center for Health Statistics released a study showing that the overall mortality rate for Hispanics in 2006 was 550 deaths per 100,000 people, compared to 778 for whites, and 1,001 for blacks.

Hayes-Bautista said that Hispanics in the United States are 35 percent less likely than whites to die of heart disease, and 40 percent less likely to develop cancer.

Immigration plays a factor, he said, albeit a small one.

For instance, the mortality rates of first-generation immigrants are consistently better than that of U.S.-born Hispanics. But he said the difference between these groups is seldom statistically significant.

More noteworthy, he said, are the behavioral differences between immigrants and the U.S.-born.

Immigrants, he said, are far less likely than U.S. born Hispanics to smoke, drink, do drugs and contract sexually transmitted diseases. Similarly, he said, U.S.-born Hispanics with high levels of education also tend to avoid these high-risk behaviors and their consequences.

Perhaps more surprisingly, another stark contrast between immigrant and the U.S.-born Hispanics is tied to infant mortality. Hayes-Bautista said that although both groups rate “extremely good” on this measure, the U.S.-born Hispanics have a 20 percent higher infant-mortality rate than that of the immigrants.

“U.S.-born Hispanics have higher income, higher education, are far more likely to have health insurance, yet their outcome (on infant mortality) isn’t quite a good as immigrant parents.”

This might lead one to ask whether this means that Mexicans live healthier than Americans. Not so, according to the CIA World Factbook of 2008.

On that index, the life expectancy of Americans in 2008 reached 78 (a national record). For Mexicans, it was about 76.

However, Hayes-Bautista said the lifestyle in rural Mexico is much healthier than that of urban Mexico. What’s more, he says, the bulk of Hispanic immigrants in America hail from the rural pockets of Mexico.

Elena Rios, President and CEO of the National Hispanic Medical Association, said overall, the immigrant Hispanics are younger, and abide by healthier habits, than U.S. born Hispanics.

“With the immigrants, the first generation has healthier habits: less driving, less smoking, less fast foods, more walking,” she told HispanicBusiness.com. “As the second-generation Hispanic families happen, they pick up the Western — the American — lifestyle.”

As a result, Rios said she wants any healthcare reform package to include an educational component urging Hispanics to get back to their basics, such as traditional foods.

“It is important to have more prevention and education when they are younger, before they get into bad habits,” she said.

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Hispanic Business Magazine Shifting Paradigms

Hispanics Praise Selection of Sotomayor for Supreme Court; Republicans Wary

Hispanics Praise Selection of Sotomayor for Supreme Court; Republicans Wary

Originally published on May 26, 2009
Rob Kuznia–HispanicBusiness.com

President Barack Obama today nominated Sonia Sotomayor to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court, drawing praise from Hispanic lawmakers and advocacy groups, and rebukes from some Republican leaders.

Official White House photo by Pete Souza, courtesy White House
Official White House photo by Pete Souza, courtesy White House

If confirmed, Sotomayor, who has served on the federal bench for 17 years, would be the first Hispanic justice to serve on the nation’s high court. If approved by Senate, she would bring more federal judicial experience to the Supreme Court than any justice confirmed since 1932, when Justice Benjamin Cardozo was appointed after 18 years on the federal bench.

The nomination comes four months before the start of the Supreme Court’s fall term, and President Obama said he hopes the Senate will confirm her appointment by August. But Republicans warn that it might take longer than that to thoroughly vet her record.

“Our Democratic colleagues have often remarked that the Senate is not a ‘rubber stamp,'” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said in a statement today. “Accordingly, we trust they will ensure there is adequate time to prepare for this nomination, and a full and fair opportunity to question the nominee and debate her qualifications.”

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus today released a statement praising the selection of Sotomayor, a 54-year-old woman of Puerto Rican descent who rose to prominence despite being raised poor in the Bronx.

“The nomination of such an overwhelmingly qualified judge to serve on the Supreme Court should be celebrated by all Americans,” said Congressman Charles A. Gonzalez (D-TX), and the CHC’s first Vice Chair. “The additional fact that the President Obama’s nominee will be the first Hispanic on our nation’s highest court is significant and is tangible proof of the strength derived by the diversity represented in American society.”

But in a sign of a potential fight to come, some Republicans have already launched an assault.

Former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee blasted her as a “far left” candidate, but got her first name wrong in the process.

“The appointment of Maria Sotomayor for the Supreme Court is the clearest indication yet that President Obama’s campaign promises to be a centrist and think in a bipartisan way were mere rhetoric,” he said today in a statement. “Sotomayor comes from the far left and will likely leave us with something akin to the ‘Extreme Court’ that could mark a major shift. … If she is confirmed, then we need to take the blindfold off Lady Justice.”

Republicans have tapped a former Justice Department lawyer who worked under President George W. Bush to help the GOP pore over Sotomayor’s record. Elisebeth Cook served as Bush’s assistant attorney general for legal policy.

Meanwhile, not everyone on the left is sold. The New Republic, a left-of-center American Magazine, published a piece in early May called “The Case Against Sotomayor.” The story quoted legal professionals who were critical of her abilities. One unnamed former Second Circuit clerk for another judge said Sotomayor is “not that smart and was a bully on the bench.” The article, written by Jeffrey Rosen, maintained that her decisions sometimes missed the forest for the trees. But it also quoted unnamed sources who praised her. One former clerk for a judge said, “She’s an incredibly impressive person, she’s not shy or apologetic about who she is.”

For his part, President Obama said he selected Sotomayor largely for her “rigorous intellect” and “mastery of the law.”

In a presidential video released this morning, Obama also praised her ability to make decisions “without any particular ideology or agenda, but rather, a fidelity to the Constitution.”

“A judge’s job is to interpret, not make law,” he said.

Sotomayor is a graduate of Yale Law School. Described as a centrist by some and a liberal by others, Sotomayor’s high-profile decisions include the go-ahead for The Wall Street Journal to publish the suicide note of White House attorney Vince Foster. She also sided with labor in the Major League Baseball strike of 1995.

Although widely supported by Democrats, she has enjoyed broad bipartisan support in the past.

In 1992, President George H.W. Bush appointed her to a seat on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. In 1998, she was elevated by President Clinton to the seat she currently holds on the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

On Tuesday morning, the Hispanic Bar Association of DC called Sotomayor “one of the most accomplished jurors of her generation.”

“Sotomayor does not shy away from tough decisions,” association officials said in a statement today, citing her 1995 decision that ended the 232-day Major League Baseball players’ strike.

The association also credited her for being “tough on crime.”

“Judge Sotomayor has consistently given police wide leeway to conduct searches and effect arrests … particularly where there are terrorism or public safety concerns involved,” the statement said.

Republicans, meanwhile, are expected to scrutinize her recent decision in an affirmative action case. In Ricci v. DeStefano, Sotomayor sided with two other judges in a ruling against white firefighters in New Haven, Conn. who were denied a promotion after the city tossed the results of an exam that failed to boost the standing of any black candidates. The firefighters appealed, and case will be heard by the Supreme Court.

Sotomayor was diagnosed with diabetes at age 8. Her father, a tool-and-die worker with a third-grade education, died a year later. She and her younger brother were raised by her single mother, who worked as a nurse and sent her children to Catholic school.

Sotomayor was the class valedictorian of Cardinal Spellman High School in the Bronx, and was awarded a full scholarship to Princeton University. There, she graduated summa cum laude. She attended Yale Law School, and served as editor or the Yale Law Journal. She obtained her law degree in 1979.

After graduation Sotomayor joined the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office as a criminal prosecutor, and worked on murder, police brutality and child pornography cases. She worked under District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, who still holds the office, and who described her as a “fearless and effective prosecutor.”

She served the District Attorneys office for four-and-a-half years before entering private practice, where she focused on intellectual property, international law and arbitration.

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Hispanic Business Magazine

Small Business Group Claims Victory Over Feds On Contracting Suit

A small-business advocacy group is claiming victory over the federal government in a yearlong case in which the feds have allegedly cheated small businesses out of billions of dollars worth of government contracts.

The advocacy group, called the American Small Business League, says the feds –which were appealing an August ruling in favor of the league — have “capitulated” by failing to deliver an appellate brief by the Wednesday deadline.

“It is time for President Obama to make good on his campaign promise
to stop the diversion of federal small business contracts to corporate
giants,” the league’s president, Lloyd Chapman, said in a statement. “The abuses in these economic stimulus programs for small businesses are at least a contributing factor to our country’s current economic catastrophe.”

The league believes that since 2003, hundreds of billions of dollars in federal grants meant for small businesses actually went to large entities such as Fortune 500 companies and their subsidiaries.

The recipients include Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Rolls Royce, Microsoft, Wall-Mart, L-3 Communications, British Aerospace Engineering (BAE) and Buhrmann NV, a Dutch firm with 17,000 employees in 26 countries, according to the league.

The league’s announcement on Thursday came a day after President Obama
vowed to clean upa “broken” system of government contracting.

In 2007, the league sued the federal government for its failure to adhere to a Freedom of Information Act request to reveal the names of all the firms that received federal small-business contracts during 2005 and 2006. During the proceedings, the federal government’s Small Business Administration division tried to argue that it does not have any information on the actual recipients of federal small-business contracts.

In August 2008, the court ruled in favor of the league.

“The court finds curious the (federal government’s) argument that it does not ‘control’ the very information it needs to carry out its duties and functions,” wrote U.S. District Judge Marilyn H. Patel in her opinion.

As a result of the league’s victory, the Federal Small Business Administration will be forced to hand over the documents.

Kevin Baron, the league’s director of government affairs, told HispanicBusiness.com that the league has defeated the federal government in all six of the lawsuits it has filed since 2003. Five of the cases have been against the federal Small Business Administration.

“Under the Bush administration, they would just completely stonewall us,” he said. “I’m hoping that will change under the Obama administration.”