Through Boom and Bust:
Minorities, Immigrants and Homeownership

The Pew Hispanic Center released a report that analyzes trends in homeownership from 1995 to 2008; higher-priced lending to Hispanics and blacks in 2006 and 2007; and factors related to differences in foreclosure rates across the nation's 3,141 counties. The condition of the local economy, house prices and higher priced lending to minorities are among other key factors related with county foreclosure rates.

The report,authored by Rakesh Kochhar, Associate Director for Research, Pew Hispanic Center, Ana Gonzalez-Barrera, Research Analyst, Pew Hispanic Center, and Daniel Dockterman, Research Assistant, Pew Hispanic Center, is available at the Pew Hispanic Center's website, www.pewhispanic.org. Just follow the headline's link.

Hispanics and the Criminal Justice System

This new report by Mark Hugo Lopez, Associate Director, and Gretchen Livingston, Senior Researcher, Pew Hispanic Center is based on two different studies the Center conducted nationwide.

Not surprinsingly, Hispanics show less confidence in police effectiveness than whites and close to what Blacks believe. I say it does not come as a surprise when the "correctional" system is mainly crowded with Blacks and Hispanics.

Also read the interesting study about prisons in the US on the same page:
Pew Center on the States, "One in 31: The Long Reach of American Corrections," March 2, 2009.

U.S. Hispanic Population Surpasses 45 Million
Now 15 Percent of Total

RELEASED: THURSDAY, MAY 1, 2008
The nation’s Hispanic population increased 1.4 million to reach 45.5 million on July 1, 2007, or 15.1 percent of the estimated total U.S. population of 301.6 million.

Hispanics remained the largest minority group, with blacks (single race or multiracial) second at 40.7 million in 2007. The black population exceeded 500,000 in 20 states. Blacks were the largest minority group in 24 states, compared with 20 states in which Hispanics were the largest minority group.

Cancer Disparities Research Partnership (CDRP) Program: Limited Competition (U54)

This funding opportunity announcement (FOA) issued by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) is designed to extend the Cancer Disparities Research Partnership (CDRP) program into its second (and final) implementation stage. This limited competition FOA solicits applications for NIH U54 cooperative agreement awards from the five current recipients of the CDRP Cooperative Agreement Planning Grants (U56). The CDRP U56 awardees represent community-based institutions serving a larger fraction of generally medically underserved, low-income, ethnic and minority populations than most other healthcare institutions. Please follow link.

"A Forgotten Injustice" A film by Vicente Serrano

“A Forgotten Injustice” is Vicente Serrano’s opera prima, and the first documentary that tells the story of almost two million Mexican Americans and U.S. citizens, who were forced out of the Unites States during the Great Depression in the 1930s. The documentary premieres Wednesday October 1 at 6:30 P.M, at the Instituto Cervantes of Chicago located at 31 W Ohio between State and Dearborn in Downtown Chicago. Additional screenings are scheduled for Thursday October 2 until Wednesday October 8 at 6:30 P.M..

The Interaction of HIV, Drug Use, and the Criminal Justice System (R01) Grant

African-Americans and other racial/ethnic minorities disproportionately high rate of incarceration has affected the social environment of many minorities communities in ways that have increased HIV risks to other community members, particularly women. Because detection of HIV infection usually occurs later among ethnic/racial minority groups, who also bear a greater burden of disease, criminal justice settings (including community correctional programs) have the potential to address health disparities by providing individual and community-based prevention programming, including HIV testing. Funding for $1.5 million to be awarded.

Every Woman Is a World
Interviews with Women of Chiapas

By Gayle Walker and Kiki Suárez
Edited by Carol Karasik
Prologue/preface by Elena Poniatowska

Older Chiapas women telling their stories and reflecting on major historical events as far as the Mexican Revolution and the 1918 Spanish influenza epidemic. In the personal dramas of daily life, these women tell tragic stories of deprivation, hunger, and family violence, and their view of marriage, work, religion, and their own mortality.

Immigrant Crackdown May Spur Disease

On August 19, 2008, the Chicago Sun-Times reported the growing concern of doctors over illegal immigrants creating a public health threat. The concern is related to a case in Alamance County, NC, where medical records may have been used to prosecute a library worker who was in the country illegally. Consequently, now also her family is under deportation procedures. Read about the concern related to this case the president of the North Carolina Academy of Family Physicians expressed, that could extend to the community at large.