Dear Urban Jibaro,

I work in the toy department of a major retailer in a pretty diverse part of Pennsylvania. I see a lot of Latino families and I am curious about something. Whenever a kid throw a tantrum in my department, I hear their mothers threaten them with "John Kletter" and they immediately start behaving in most cases.

I have 3 kids myself and I would love to know how John Kletter can help me when they act up.

My question is "Who is John Kletter, and why are Latino children so afraid of him?

"Gracias" (thats all the Spanish I know)

Misty (Lancaster PA)

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Ok...so being that fact that I am completely new at this, I honestly did not know what the hell Misty was talking about. I googled "John Kletter" and did not find much...and was about to move on to our next submission...that is until I mentioned the question to one of my friends (she made me swear not to reveal her name) who has a thick accent and she said "que eso de jon kleta?"and then it hit me me like a ton of bricks...we had a phonetic translation issue here....John Kletter doesn't exist...at least not in the Latino universe what Misty actually witnessed was the power of the almighty "CHANCLETA".

This whole ASK A LATINO thing is gonna be fun...

So now that we got that squared away...Click below to read my official response to the first "ASK A LATINO" question.

On YouAre, throughout the day you can share what you are doing and what interests using text, video, and images in a fast and concise way using 140 characters. You can control which updates you receive to include just real life friends, online friends, acquaintances, co-workers, colleagues, and family. You can also place and promote your professional profile, network, get to know more people in your hometown and import content from your YouTube, Flickr, and Del.icio.us accounts.

YouAre is still in private beta, but you can be one of the first to test-drive it by signing up for an invite on YouAre.com.

I also want to publicly state that I am disgusted by some of the comments left here concerning Elvira's case, particularly those comments attacking her as a mother. As a madre and as a latina, we all do our best for our children and ourselves based on our circumstances. To label Elvira criminal without a larger analysis of the immigration/race issue is ignorant and reactionary. To attack her as a mother is to show little understanding of the history of Latina mami activism.

Via / American Taino

We're sure that Paz's recent work (and her looks don't hurt either) in U.S. films will allow her to work with anyone in the film industry. Suerte Paz.

What is CSS?

Well, it´s short for Cascading Style Sheet, and what you see here on the site is done using it. Basically it is: a simple mechanism for adding style (eg fonts, colors, spacing) to Web documents.

Why a CSS site?

Our founders explain: "We wanted to show that a small, Spanish-speaking company has the know-how and the ability to contribute to and compete in a large genre such as that of CSS Showcases. And at the same time, help this area evolve."

VivirLatino (VL) is written by 3 very different chicas from across the U.S.

This being our inaugural post, we’d like to give you a tour of the site. VivirLatino (VL) is written by 3 very different chicas from across the U.S. (San Francisco, New York and Miami). VivirLatino is the debut blog for Blogs Media, a new company specializing in nanopublications, blog services and blog consulting.

Here at VL, we give our opinions, and we hope that you'll give us yours. Please leave comments on posts so that we can hear all sides of the story. In addition, if you’d like to send us a news tip, or contact us for anything, you can reach us via our contact form.

Now don’t think that since this is the "inaugural post" the site is empty! We’ve been writing posts for 2 months so that our new readers will have lots of good reading to do right from the beginning. So, in order to kick this party off right, we’ve highlighted 15 posts below that we think you shouldn’t miss.

Enjoy, and again, bienvenidos a VivirLatino!:

• All Aboard America Pero Not Latin America
• Are We in the Midst of a Latino Health Epidemic?
• Daddy Yankee in Good with the Big Guys
• From the College Trenches: Latino Recruitment
• GLAAD Honors Gay-Friendly Spanish Language Media
• It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, No, It’s a Super Latino
• Mexicans in US Can Vote by Mail in 2006 Presidential Election
• Mornings After in Mexico
• MTV Caribbean Sin Puerto Rico
• Must Read: La Nueva Orleans
• Soraya to Bring Awareness to Breast Cancer Early Detection
• Tertuliando
• Two Musical Artists Create 'Unsung Hero' for Katrina Victims
• What’s in Your Jeans?
• Yo Hablo Coreano