One day after Pres. Barack Obama’s inauguration, demonstrations were held across the country to remind the president of his promise to address immigration reform in the first year of his administration. Protesters in Washington D.C. and several other cities also called for an immediate end to government raids aimed a rounding up undocumented immigrants.

Demonstrators in San Antonio (Photo: Express-News)

“Immigrants who lent President Barack Obama their support at the ballot box joined those who cannot vote in marches and prayers, writing letters and raising banners from Miami to Los Angeles to push the issue to the top of Obama’s long to-do list,” The Associated Press‘ Juliana Barbassa reported.

The demonstrations were more of a friendly reminder to the new president from activists who don’t want the issue to be forgotten in the din of the economic crisis. “He was the one who told us that you can dream big,” Altagracia Garcia, 25, told Barbassa at a pre-dawn vigil in front of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Los Angeles, where demonstrators lit candles and called for and end to immigration enforcement raids.

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*Note: This post includes an update after the march, at the end.

Today is a day for celebration across the land. Tomorrow the real task of governing begins for some, and for others the work of lobbying and pushing for reform starts. Before the dust of the inauguration has time to settle a group of pro-immigrant organizations will hold a march in Washington D.C. for “just and humane” immigration reform. (See more below.)

Latino civil leaders and lobbying organizations intend to keep the issue in the front burner despite a new nationwide poll showing the economy, not immigration, is Latinos’ top concern.

Latino leaders reminded the incoming administration just that Monday during the Latino State of the Union gathering, organized by the National Council of La Raza, the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund and the League of United Latin American Citizens.

FIRM banner displayed on D.C. cabs this month. (Photo: anewdayforimmigration.org)

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By Eduardo A. de Oliveira, EthnicNEWz.org

Michael Fondacaro and his wife, over Noticias y Notas. (Photo: Courtesy Fondacaro/EthnicNEWz.org)

There’s no question: Web sites and blogs are a part of American life for sharing information.

For Latinos in New England and New York, Michael Fondacaro is bringing news-sharing to another level. The former National Public Radio reporter in Albany, NY, compiles news about their communities, which he distributes weekly by e-mail.

The idea started in 2000 as a directory about Latino groups for New York state Senator Olga A. Mendez. Back then, Fondacaro worked in communications for Democrats in the New York Senate. Around the same time, he also was e-mailing 200 friends electronic links to stories about Latinos communities in cities like Pittsfield, Mass., and Hartford, Conn.

Soon enough, he thought, why not check out Vermont and its Latino festival?

In July of 2004, Noticias y Notas (“News and Notes”) was born, which now reaches 1,150 community leaders and ethnic journalists all over New York and New England, according to Fondacaro.

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By Diego Graglia, FI2W web editor

As the much-anticipated presidential inauguration of Barack Obama approaches, one group of immigrant activists in particular is feverishly pushing for their cause to be heard by the incoming president. They are young undocumented immigrant students who grew up in the U.S. and their supporters, who are hoping that the new administration will push for passage of the DREAM Act, a law that would allow the students to become U.S. citizens provided they meet certain conditions.

Hoping to come out of the shadows. (Video capture: ADreamDeferred.org)

Their cause got an extra bit of support through an online contest organized by Change.org, a social action network (not to be confused with the president-elect’s website Change.gov.)

For the last few weeks, the site hosted an online vote to select “the best ten ideas for change,” which will be announced today at an event at the National Press Club.

The contest was born as a response to Obama’s call to Americans to get involved in their government. “We started the Ideas for Change in America initiative in the hope that we could translate the energy behind the Obama election into a citizen-led movement for change around the major issues we face,” the organizers said.

Thousands of ideas were submitted and over 600,000 votes were cast. Activists for causes as varied as marijuana legalization, gay marriage, and green energy mobilized to make their voices heard and to gather votes for their ideas. As of 5pm EST Thursday, when the vote closed, passage of the DREAM Act stood in eighth place, making it one of the ten winners. (Marijuana legalization was first.)

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By Martina Guzman, FI2W reporter

For decades Latino immigrants have achieved the American dream through the U.S. auto industry. Manufacturing plants provided a way for first-generation Latinos to acquire wealth, stability, and the means to send their children to college through good salaries, health benefits, and union protection. Now all of that is in jeopardy with General Motors, Chrysler and Ford near collapse.

Next Sunday, January 17, The North American International Auto Show opens to the public at Detroit’s Cobo Center. Close to seven thousand journalists from 60 countries will watch as automakers unveil 60 new production vehicles and concept cars, and discuss green machines that will help shape the future of hybrid and battery-operated vehicles.

Six degrees from Detroit. (Photo: MichiganMoves)

While some of Metro Detroit’s most established socialites will be pulling out tuxedos and designer evening gowns for the show’s gala charity events, Hispanic autoworkers, one of the groups directly affected by the downfall of the Big Three, are pondering their fate in this economic recession.

Assembly worker Cindy Garcia is a second-generation autoworker. Garcia attended Wayne State University but opted to work at Ford because, like her father, she saw it as a secure way to achieve a better standard of living.

Her father, Jose Ramos, immigrated to the United States from Tamaulipas, Mexico in the 1970s. Drawn by the auto industry’s solid wages and excellent health care benefits, Ramos worked in auto manufacturing for 30-years, made his way into the middle class, and was able to send his children to college.

“He came here, got the American dream like the rest of the immigrants who came back in the day when they were trying to form the union,” Garcia said. “They did as much as they could but now the whole dream has fallen apart.”

Garcia’s sense of economic insecurity is shared by many Latinos. According to a new report by the Pew Hispanic Center, “Latinos hold a more negative view of their own current personal financial situation than does the general U.S. population.” The report goes on to say:

More than three-in-four (76%) Latinos, and 84% of foreign-born Latinos, say their current personal finances are in either fair or poor shape, while 63% of the general U.S. population says the same.”

Garcia has nine years seniority at Ford Motor Company. A relatively short time compared to many Latino assembly workers who have built cars for more than 20 years. A wife and a mother of two, Garcia is already thinking the coming year will be worse than this one.

“Unless things shape up, the next few Christmases we’ll probably be in another house or living with family, and having smaller meals and sharing clothes and passing food cans around within the family… it’s going to be very rough,” Garcia said.

“When I wake up every morning I wonder if I’m going to have a job, if I’m going to be able to feed my kids, be able to put them through school, if I’m going to be able to keep this house that I have, am I going to be able to keep the car, am I going to be able to keep up with the bills?” (more…)

By Diego Graglia, FI2W web editor

Fides news service criticized U.S. immigration enforcement in a recent dossier. ("Frontera", by Daquella Manera/Flickr.)

Catholic leaders in the U.S. have been raising their voices in support of reform of the nation’s immigration laws, as Feet In 2 Worlds has reported in recent weeks. Now, a Vatican news service has issued a report that praises American Catholic bishops for their opposition to “the ineffectiveness and violence” of United States’ immigration measures.

“For many years,”  Fides news agency said, “the Catholic Bishops of America have strenuously fought for migrants and against systems of repression, (and have been) actively involved in promoting immigration reforms which encourage legality and respect for human rights.”

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To begin the New Year, Feet in Two Worlds invited ethnic media journalists to write about the most significant challenges they see facing the communities they cover, and their expectations for the Obama administration and the new Congress. The following article was written by Sharon Toomer, Managing Editor of BlackandBrownNews.com (BBN).

The Black and Latino communities share the same challenges as the greater society – the economy, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, healthcare, and so on. But these communities also face some unique challenges.

BBN is concerned – deeply so – about the education achievement gap, immigration, and the incessant violence in the Black and Latino communities. That 48% of Black males (Latinos are not too far behind) don’t graduate high school on time is a civil rights failure. Poorly educated or uneducated citizens cannot progress economically, socially or politically.

We are equally concerned about the issue of immigration, in particular the nasty anti-Latino immigrant rhetoric that we believe has directly led immigrants of Mexico and Central America to be the target of vicious hate crimes and other forms of prejudice.

People in the Black and Latino communities endure an inordinate amount of violence that is unacceptable in a civil society. It is inconceivable that any human being can be expected to live a quality of life and progress when they are constantly either a victim of or witness to the degree of violence these two communities are subject to.

Generally, I believe an Obama administration will restore the country’s faith and confidence in our government. America has been profoundly wounded by the Bush administration’s disregard for laws and the Constitution by lying, misleading and irresponsible stewardship. This absence and abuse of leadership has damaged America and left us with a degree of distrust that is domestically and globally dangerous.

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