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Fear of deportation makes immigrants spend less

7:34 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · houston|Immigration|Money|Texas · Comments Off

24 May 2006

The Houston Chronicle has a very interesting piece today about the economic impact of recent raids against undocumented immigrants in the Latino goods and services sector in Houston. Apparently people are leaving their houses less, some have left their jobs and others are stashing away cash out of fear of they’ll be the among the next group of rounded-up immigrants. The impact is being felt mostly by businesses that cater to the Latino immigrant population in Houston:

Although temperatures are rising, sales of paletas are not.

Carlos Gonzalez said his sales are half of what they should be during this peak season when his mostly Hispanic customers traditionally try to stave off the heat with the fruit-flavored frozen treats.

“It has gone down a lot,” said Gonzalez at an international bus station on Harrisburg Boulevard where he stopped his paleta cart to sell to passengers. “People are afraid to go to work.”

Across Houston, some small businesses that cater to the Hispanic immigrant community are reporting a sales slump that began last month after federal agents swept through pallet company IFCO Systems, detaining undocumented immigrants.

Read the whole article at Chron.com.

Via / The Houston Chronicle

Sesame Street’s “Maria” to host Latina event

5:37 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Celebrities|children|Events|houston · 1 Comment

25 Apr 2006

Remember “Maria” from Sesame Street? Well her name is Sonia Manzano and she’s back on the scene to promote Catalina, a new magazine for Latinas and an event called “Essence of Latinas”:

Known by millions of children and adults as “Maria” on Sesame Street, Sonia Manzano will join Catalina, the only national lifestyle magazine for “the mind, body, and soul of today’s Latina,” for two days of events celebrating Latinas. One event is open to the public, and the other is invite-only.

On May 7, Sonia will join the Catalina book club event at the Houston Latino Book & Family Festival. The Latina star will address a crowd of more than 600 and read from her highly acclaimed children’s book, NO DOGS ALLOWED. The reading, which is open to the public and includes an introduction by Cathy Areu, Catalina’s publisher and the author of the new book Latino Wisdom, will be held at 2:30 p.m. in the Auditorium of the Houston Community College Central.

More on Hispanic PRWire (Photo Hispanic PRWire)

Keeping it real back in the motherland

2:16 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · El Salvador|houston|Immigration · Comments Off

7 Mar 2006

El%20Salvador%202.jpg The story is a common one: a person immigrates to the United States out of necessity, but vows to return for the rest of his or her family. The promise is kept and the family also leaves for the States. The new vow is to return home one day, when things get better. This doesn’t usually happen. Sucked up by the daily strife of just making it in a country as daunting as the U.S., that dream is easily erased for some.

Fortunately, that isn’t the case of a group of Salvadoreños from Houston. Not only are they helping their pueblo, Olomega, solve some very basic infrastructure issues such as the building of bridges and roads, they are taking it one step further: they plan to make their pueblo a destination, and hopes that tourists begin to see it for the beauty it as for them:

Standing on the shore of the serene Lake Olomega, Nora Pineda envisions passenger boats cruising its surface, amateur fishermen lining its edges and musicians serenading tourists along a boardwalk.

She said hundreds of tourists could visit Olomega on weekends if restaurants, hostels and fishing spots are built near the water.

6 Cities Have Corazon

20 Feb 2006

The National Latina Health Network is hosting a Healthy Heart Day on February 25th in 6 different cities across the country to celebrate National Heart Month. The day will include free blood pressure and cholesterol screenings, an opportunity for participants to speak briefly with a bi-lingual health counselor, receive educational materials about cardiovascular risk factors and leave with personal information to take to their doctors. All materials will be available in English and Spanish. One in four U.S. Hispanic adults has elevated cholesterol.In addition, heart disease is the leading cause of death among Hispanics in the U.S., according to the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute. Hispanics are twice as likely to have diabetes, a contributor to heart disease, than non-Hispanics.

Government pushes Houston to crack down on illegal immigration

6:02 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Cities|houston|Immigration · 3 Comments

7 Dec 2005

I never thought of my hometown as a “haven” for the undocumented (much less its suburb Katy, or Austin), but apparently the U.S. government thinks so, and is pressuring Houston officials to change this:

City Councilman Mark Ellis is trying to force a vote on a plan directing police to enforce immigration law and requiring proof of citizenship for people receiving social services. The local effort coincides with a push by President George W. Bush and bills in Congress to crack down on illegal immigration.

“The federal government, they’re not going to be able to get their arms around this issue alone,” Ellis said in a telephone interview. “They’re going to have to have assistance from the local government and state government.”

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