The League of Iowa
Human & Civil Rights Agencies

MIAMI — Marie Violande Guerrier-Cavalier arrived in Florida from Haiti on Jan. 16, with little more than her feverish infant son, Marcley, his tiny legs in casts because of a birth defect. She left her husband and four other children behind, living in the yard outside their broken house. Because Marcley is a United States citizen, born here, his mother was allowed to evacuate with him after the earthquake, and can stay in the United States for six months. But Ms. Guerrier-Cavalier has f...

Hoping for a career in television sports news, the Bronx-born Dane Martinez did an about-face after 9/11. After graduating from Syracuse University, he came home and taught under the Teach for America program. Now 29, he is the program manager of school leadership development for the city’s Department of Education. Decoding the job title: It means that I do a lot of content and design of school leadership stuff to develop the principals, the assistant principals and the aspiring princip...

Ames, Ia. - Erika Bahamon, born to Colombian immigrants in southern Texas, had never seen so many white faces as when she showed up for classes at Iowa State University. "So many blond people - I didn't know it was so common," recalled a laughing Bahamon, now a 21-year-old senior majoring in pre-med. It probably won't always be that way. Latinos are the fastest growing minority group on the campuses of ISU, the University of Iowa and the University of Northern Iowa, as they are in Iowa and th...

FIRST came the anti-loitering decrees, then legislation to punish employers and landlords who hire or house immigrants. Now, this Nassau County town of 300,000 people has passed perhaps the most stringent of ordinances attempting to control immigrant day laborers: a law that makes even waving one’s hand punishable by a $250 fine. “The term ‘solicitation of employment’ includes, but is not limited to, shouting at cars, waving arms or signs, making hand signals, approach...

The Lucero de America Foundation has its origins in the community mourning and outrage that followed the ambush and death of an unarmed Ecuadorean immigrant, Marcelo Lucero, in Patchogue in November 2008. The seven Patchogue-Medford High School students accused of baiting, beating and dealing a fatal knife blow to Mr. Lucero are on trial, but unease among the immigrant population persists.

MIAMI — Fearing that millions of illegal immigrants may not be counted in the 2010 census, Latino leaders are mobilizing a nationwide drive to urge Hispanics to participate in the survey, including an intense push this week in evangelical Christian churches. Latino groups contend that there was an undercount of nearly one million Latinos in the 2000 census, affecting the drawing of Congressional districts and the distribution of federal money. Hispanic organizations are far better organ...

Two teenagers have pleaded not guilty in federal court to a hate crime in the death of an illegal immigrant from Mexico. The two — Brandon Piekarsky, 18, and Derrick Donchak, 19 — were arraigned in Wilkes-Barre on charges stemming from the July 2008 beating death of the immigrant, Luís Ramírez, 25, in Shenandoah. They were denied bail. A jury previously acquitted them of the most serious state charges in the case. Gov. Edward G. Rendell asked the Justice Department to pu...

AT&T* announced today the launch of three AT&T Latino channels on Facebook, MySpace and Youtube, as part of its commitment to give Spanish-speaking customers access to the content and services they want, whenever and wherever they want it. The new AT&T Latino social media platforms were designed to keep consumers up-to-speed on AT&T’s entertainment sponsorships, exclusive content, promotions and special offers, along with the latest in technology trends and tips for AT&a...

On his first day of work in 2005 at a beverage warehouse in west suburban Northlake, Germaine Benson said he immediately felt tension between black and Hispanic workers. But by 2007, conditions had grown much uglier as Hispanic supervisors repeatedly subjected black employees to racial insults such as "donkey," "monkey" and the n-word, said Benson, who is African-American. This week Benson and six other current or former employees of the Dr Pepper Snapple warehouse filed a federal lawsuit tha...

When he ran for a third term in the state legislature in 1998, Jesus Garcia found himself up against a legion of Chicago-election “door knockers” from far outside his district on the Southwest Side. Hundreds of patronage workers loyal to Mayor Richard M. Daley’s political organization came from across the city to Hispanic neighborhoods like Little Village, or La Villita, to campaign for Mr. Garcia’s challenger, Antonio Muñoz, a political neophyte. Mr. Garcia’...