| To a month of the elections |
| Obama is the Personage of the Year 2008th |
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| As candidate of the Democratic Party, Barack Obama knocked down numerous racial and political barriers to gain in an overwhelming way the presidency of the United States. Obama is the “Personage of the Year 2008” of the Washington Hispanic. AP |
Washington Hispanic
aP
This year the publishing team of Washington Hispanic did not have to discuss too much whom the Personage of the Year would be named. Barack Obama gained himself this denomination on having been chosen like the first African American president of the United States and to turn into the hope symbol for a country that is in search of the change.
Barack Obama shook the American politics with a victory in the partisan assemblies of Iowa. And immediately the question arose: Will this man of African American origin be able, with a rich personal history and limited political trajectory, to come to the presidency?
Yes, it could.
Obama knocked down numerous racial and political barriers with his overwhelming victory in the presidential elections. His message of change and hope, reflected in the motto “Yes, one can”, it had echo in million voters tired of eight years of government of George W. Bush.
All the elections are historical, but this one was more than any. For the racial aspect. Therefore there was in game. For the fascinating personalities of the candidates. For the enormous quantities of collected money. For the interest, sometimes excessive, that generated the campaign.
“ It was late in coming, but this night, for what we did today, in this election, in this moment definitorio, the change has come”, affirmed Obama in the Park Grant de Chicago, the night of the elections.
It was a memorable year.
Less than four years behind, Obama, a legislator of slightly well-known Illinois, had caused sensation with an unforgettable speech in the Democratic National Convention. Now, after the victory in Iowa, he was surprisingly the leader of the primary contest. But this newly was starting.
Hillary Rodham Clinton gained in New Hampshire, helped by the compassion that there generated a few tears that he spilled during a presentation there.
What it continued was a pitched battle of six months, in which Obama and Clinton disputed every state.
New Hampshire, on the other hand, almost decided the republican contest. John McCain very well seen by the enormous block of voters independent from this state, took the victory after restating everything in a campaign that seemed adrift. Without a dollar and with scarce personnel, McCain rolled up the shirt and went forward.
Five months later, after a formula partner selected, McCain needed to cause stir and satisfy the conservative base of his party. It was played by the governor of Alaska, who one day took part in beauty contests.
| “Miss Sinaloa” was found by weapon |
| They involve queen with bands |
Arturo Pérez
Guadalajara, Mexico / AP
A queen of beauty of the state of Sinaloa was arrested while he was traveling with members of a band in a truck full of weapon.
The chief of the police of Straw hat, Francisco Alejandro Solorio, affirmed that Laura Zúñiga and seven men were detained shortly before the midnight of Monday, the 22nd in a military control in Zapopán, to the outskirts of the colonial city of Guadalajara.
Solorio indicated that Zúñiga was going in one of two trucks in which soldiers found rifles of assault AR-15, guns, ammunitions and 53.300 dollars.
Zúñiga said to the police that it was planning to travel to Bolivia and Colombia with the group.
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| The good thing |
| Three Hispanics in the Office |
Víctor Caycho
Washington Hispanic
Last month of the year 2008 it marked history for the Hispanic community. In a fact without precedents, the elect president Barack Obama designated three recognized leaders as members of the next ministerial office that will enter functions on January 20.
The president Barack Obama announced first the nomination of Bill Richardson, governor of New Mexico, like Secretary of Commerce. Then that of Ken Salazar, like Secretary of the Interior, equivalent to the minister of natural resources.
But undoubtedly the appointment of Hilda Solís like next Secretary of Work untied the biggest applauses and praises of the Hispanic labor and community organizations the length and breadth of the whole nation.
Many people remembered that 51-year-old Solís and daughter of Mexican and Nicaraguan immigrants, was the first woman of Latin origin chosen to the state Senate of California. Later it came to the federal Congress, where this year was chosen for fifth consecutive time. At the moment of his designation as Secretary of Work it was redeeming the Vice-president's charge of Caucus Hispano of the Congress.
She has a vast trajectory in labor topics, of health, of immigration and of the environment. \
The president of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, praised his designation on having pointed out that “conferee Solís has been a tireless advocate of the Hispanic families and of all the hard-working families and she will be an excellent Secretary of Work”.
Big labor and managerial organizations coincided in applauding Solís's nomination. Janet Murguía, the executive president of the National Council of The Race, affirmed that “she will drive to a revitalized Department of Work to develop his transcendental mission to protect and to train the American workpeople, in new areas like the green works, and also to produce a more competent workforce for the care of the health”.
David Lizárraga, president of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of the United States – that groups 3 million Latin business owners - showed his enthusiasm for keeping on working together with Hilda Solís “to increase opportunities directed to the Hispanic community in his set”.
Mike Fishman, president of the trade union 32BJ SEIU, supported that “the commitment of Hilda Solís in strengthening the work of the trade unions, gives today hope to million Americans who work hard and who look for a just opportunity to reach the American dream”.
Terence M. O'Sullivan, executive president of Laborer's Internacional Union of North America (LIUNA), qualified Solís like “part of a new generation of voices that there defend to the hard-working people … LIUNA and the men and women who construct America they applaud his selection as Secretary of Work and it offers to be employed cercanamente with her at the struggle for good, sure and just works”.
| The bad thing |
| The economic crisis sharpens |
Martin Crutsinger
AP
The American economy shrank during the third trimester and the profit businesswomen even already were falling down by that time, before the financial crisis it will strike them directly.
The analysts foresee that both slopes, relatively small, will be continued by much bigger falls in the fourth trimester, while retrieval forces the biggest recession in a quarter of century.
The Department of Commerce informed on Tuesday, the 23rd of December that the Gross Internal Product, the most general measurement of the economic health of a country, decreased in an annual valuation of 0,5 % in the period from July until September, opposite to the second trimester, while the corporate profit fell down 1,2 %.
The final number in the quarterly fall of the GDP was the same that a made estimation one month ago. The slope in the corporate profit was lightly bigger than that of 0,9 % estimated one month ago.
The analysts believe that the GDP, the entire production of goods and services of an economy, is falling down to a rhythm even more pronounced in the current trimester, reflecting the worst financial crisis that it was flogging to the country from the Big Depression.
The elect president Barack Obama supports the second bundle of massive stimuli of about 850.000 million dollars. Obama is pressing to the Congress so that it approves it to beginnings of next year to limit the severity of the phase of contraction.
Sale of houses falls down again
On the other hand, the Department of Commerce informed that the sale of new houses fell down in November at his level lowest in 18 months, meanwhile his prices fell down for the highest number in eight months.
The sale of new houses fell down 2,9 % to an annual valuation of 407.000 units, after seasonal adjustments. The number was lower than the predicted and the lowest from January, 1991.
The average price of a new housing sold in November was 220.000 dollars, 11,5 % less than one year ago. It was the biggest fall from 12,7 % registered in March.
On the other hand the European Union approved on Tuesday, the 23rd of December the actions of bank rescue of most of the potency of the block, opening the way to him for the capital injection and credit guarantees for that one waits help the lenders during the financial crisis.
| The ugly thing |
| Raids mark in 2008 |
Mitzi Mace
Washington Hispanic
Undoubtedly 2008 was marked by the massive raids in charge of the federal authorities that on behalf of the national safety and of catching those employers who have been missing to the law on having hired undocumented persons left separated families and hearths destroy you.
In 2008 there was no month that the news about a raid was not listened somewhere of the country. Without going very far only in the metropolitan area the pursuit started in March in Manassas when they took control even with helicopter of the company of construction CMC Limit and they stopped 34 undocumented persons who were preparing to begin a work day.
Then in April personnel of the luxurious tourist complex Lansdowne Resort, in the Loudoun county, also was surprised and in whole they stopped 59 workers, of seven nationalities, against whom the deportation process began.
In May the attention centred on Richmond when the Service of Immigration and Customs (I HOISTED, for his initials in English) realized a raid in collaboration with the state police of Virginia in the head office of what was going to be the Federal Court of Richmond. Also in this opportunity this group integrated by 33 undocumented immigrants they were employed at the branch of the construction for the company Tompkins Builder Inc.
In June it was in Annapolis, the capital of Maryland, when the ICE leveled 16 housings where it were living immigrant that were working for a company of painting property of Robert Bontempo Jr.
According to the testimonies of the workpeople at all times the authorities were coming from surprise and were treating the immigrants as if they were "criminal" and even were making use of firearms to "control" the arrested who immediately were tied of hands and moved to centers of detention, often in areas removed from his domiciles where they had no contact with his relatives, not with a lawyer.
In August it was really without precedents because not only there was a raid where they stopped more than 1.150 persons in California but also tens workpeople were detained in the International Airport Dulles for lacking papers that credits his legal status in the United States.
Although the ICE officially announced that in this year 2008 that goes away they fulfilled all his intentions and they point out that they were aprehendidos more than one million individuals who violated the immigration law, between that 200 of them had a serious criminal record, the true thing is that hundreds of families were dismantled and this Christmas many children will be without his parents, many mothers without his husbands and the reality keeps on being the same: more than 12 million undocumented persons who are in expectation of an integral migratory reform for humanity and recognition in the immigrants' families and for moral quality of authorities and leaders of this big nation.
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