BIENVENIDOS A EL 2010!

¡Bienvenidos a el 2010! As I was watching Dick Clark's "Rockin' Eve" with Ryan Seacrest on ABC-TV, it was startling and sad to see how 80-year old Dick Clark was no longer "America's Oldest Teenager" and had finally aged following his 2004 stroke. This contrasted sharply with Jennifer Lopez' exuberant and shapely performance in the middle of a rain-drenched Times Square last night. It made me think that it was like seeing a deeper transition in American society. But then the Black Eyed Peas came on and I blacked out to "Boom Boom Pow."

Here goes:

1. It's The Economy, ¡Estupido! Over a year ago, 2008, Latinos had double the unemployment rate (8 percent) of Whites (4 percent). The poverty rate for Latinos in 2007 was 22 percent, compared to 8 percent among Whites. Within the Latino demographic, the highest poverty rate was 29 percent for those under 18, compared to 10 percent for Whites in this same age category. Among those 65 and older, 17 percent of Latinos lived in poverty, compared to 7 percent of Whites. I shudder to think what these figures will look like as a result of the economic crisis of late 2008! As people were going berserk when the unemployment rate went over 10 percent in the US in late 2009, it was already there for stateside Puerto Ricans the year before (and in Puerto Rico it was already 12 percent)! Is anybody seriously paying attention to these disturbing numbers?
 
2. Immigration Reform Redux? At the very end of 2009, Congressman Luis Gutierrez took the intuitive and proposed a comprehensive immigration reform bill. Gutierrez who, by the way, is Puerto Rican, got the ball rolling to make sure that President Obama made good on his promise to Latino leaders to address this issue early in his first term. But this was also a year that saw the continuing rise in hate speech and crimes against Latinos, as well as the Obama Administration's continuation of tough immigration enforcement. But, to be fair, we are also seeing the Administration begin to tackle hate crimes more seriously and, hey, Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor starting to refer to "undocumented workers" in her opinions in contrast to the high court's usual reference to "illegal aliens" is kinda cool.

3. Health Deform? As the health insurance reform debate raged on, Latinos appeared to be one of the biggest losers. Although the legislative process on this issue has not yet come to a conclusion, along with other poor and working class people, Latinos may not be finding as much relief as was originally promised by the Obama Administration. Large segments of the Latino population continued to be excluded to different degrees, from the almost complete exclusion of the undocumented, the 5-year waiting period before being able to apply for Medicaid imposed on legal permanent residents, and the exclusion of Puerto Rico from the exchanges (or exchange) and its continued shortchanging in Medicare funding. The negotiations on this bill are not yet done, but it is not at all clear that any of these negatives for Latinos will be turned into positives.

4. Will the 2010 Census Count? "Hagase Contar," "Hazte Contar," "¡Cuéntate...Porque Tú Vales!" "Making Latinos Count," "¡Porque tú vales, déjate contar!" "Be counted. Represent," and even "Antes de contar, nos tienen que legalizar" are just some of the calls for the Latino community to fully (or partially) participate in the 2010 Census that emerged in 2009 by leading Latino civic organizations. A lot of work has been undertaken to raise community awareness about the importance of the 2010 Census, including strateguies to overcome the problem posed by the call for a Census boycott by some and the no doubt heated debate over comprehensive immigration reform that is already starting. And there continues to be a problem with the Census Bureau's practice of not including the 4 million US citizens who live in Puerto Rico as part of their national Hispanic population counts --- they continue to say there are 46 million Latinos in the US when the actual figure is more than 50 million. But now planning has to begin early this coming year for political redistricting and getting ready for the debate about the role of Latinos in the US that will come from the release of the results of the 2010 Census. The importance of these numbers? Did you see that New York Times article that found that Latinos and other people of color in New York City are now, for the first time, the majority of the city's voters?

5. Media Diversity? George Lopez came back and made some history with a vengeance late in 2009 with his own well-received late night show (the first Latino to have one on English-language TV), stations like CNN, NBC and PBS produced special series on the Latino experience, two Latinas starred in the megahit movie "Avatar", and our good friend Jimmy Smits got befriended and then murdered by Dexter on Showtime. We were also able to get anti-immigrant ideologue Lou Dobbs off of CNN. But the National Latino Media Council issued their annual report card on the television networks' track record of diversity and, while there has been some progress, there still appears to be much to be done to make sure that Latinos are fairly represent in front and behind the cameras. But on the positive side (is it?) our friends at Pew came up with another report that found that Latino internet usage increased from 54 to 63 percent between 2006 and 2008, closing but not eliminating the gap with Whites from 18 to 13 points in this period. Now, as to Hispanic Magazine's choice of Hilton Perez as "Hispanic of the Year," well, you figure that one out.

6. Political Crimes and Misdemeanors. While in general, the ethics of the American political class were horrendous, it appeared to be more with Latinos this year. I don't know if this is, in fact, the case, but 2009 seemed to break some sort of record of the number of Latino appointed and elected officials who were being investigated or going to jail for crimes ranging from embezzlement, misuse of government employees, having their homes illegally remodeled by government contractors, domestic violence, setting up phony nonprofits, and so on. And this included the Democratic governor of a state who was almost an Obama Cabinet member, a former Republican US Surgeon General, and a whole bunch of lower officials. But, on the other hand, it looks like at least our Latinos in the US Congress are beginning to flourish.

7. Latino Youth and the Future? The Pew Hispanic Center and Pew Research Center produced a thought-provoking and impressively comprehensive report on Latino youth at the end of 2009 that got many of us to think about the future of the Latino community. When Puerto Rican and other Latino youth aggressively challenged MTV for the stereotypical portrayal of their community in the "I'm Nuyorican" episode of one of their programs, this resulted in an unprecedented and constructive dialogue that we hope portends a new leadership role for our youth.

8. Latino Leadership and Obama. The new Obama Administration and Democratic majority in the Congress gave a real boost to the influence and visibility of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus under their new Chair, Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez. Obama's nomination of 48 Latinos to high level posts (13 of whom are still awaiting confirmation) is a record for either a Democratic or Republican Administration. But many of these appointments also represented a loss for the Latino advocacy community, with leaders like John Trasviña of MALDEF, Gabriela Lemus of LCLAA, and Raul Yzaguirre of ASU joining the Administration. On the other hand, the Administration's last minute dropping of Tom Saenz's nomination to DOJ because he was too "immigrant-friendly" and thus controversial resulted in MALDEF hiring him as their new leader.

9. Corporate Irresponsibility? The Hispanic Association for Corporate Responsibility (HACR) issued a year-end report on corporate inclusiveness of Latinos and found a generally dismal record. This report also illustrated the poor participation of major corporations in a survey of their responsiveness to the Latino community. It also documented the terrible Latino inclusiveness records of General Electric and Comcast, which have entered into negotiations over the sale of NBC and Telemundo, something that still has to be approved by the FCC. Another issue that came up had to do with the net neutrality issue and whether or not major Latino civil rights organizations like LULAC and the NCLR were pulling their punches here because of telecom corporate influence. And when Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor recently visited Puerto Rico and publicly stated her distaste for the commercialization of her "Wide Latino" comment, was she signaling a new "post-materialist" thinking among Latinos?

10. Things Puerto Rican. In 2009, the Supreme Court appointment of Sonia Sotomayor was in and of itself historic for Latinos in general, but it also put the spotlight on Puerto Ricans as a group both from The Bronx and Puerto Rico. This new attention also brought a rediscovery of the high poverty rate of this community when a piece on WNYC public radio station brought up the subject and it became a story nationally. Among Latinos, the poverty rate was highest among Puerto Ricans (25 percent) and Mexicans (23 percent) and, among those Latinos under 18 years of age, the highest poverty rate was again among Puerto Ricans (34 percent) along with Mexicans (30 percent) (it was only 10 percent for Whites in this age group.) Then there was the revival of the, until now, moribund National Congress for Puerto Rican Rights in their Philadelphia convention. And then, of course, there was the campaign for statehood for Puerto Rico by the New Progressive Party that now holds the Island's Governorship, which has begun to be debated in the US Congress and is the subject of a newly resuscitated White House task force. Many in the Puerto Rican community have also noticed this campaign has ominously resulted in Puerto Rico's statehood party "capturing" the agendas of such stateside organizations as the National Puerto Rican Coalition and the National Hispanic Caucus of State Legislators to the detriment of stateside Puerto Rican community issues (who now outnumber the number of Puerto Ricans living in Puerto Rico).