Today most Latino families are celebrating a very special observance: Day of the Dead.

It is a celebration where families come together to remember their loved ones who have passed away with special homemade altars, traditional foods and family picnics at the family cemetery.

This year, one Texas border city wanted to show Homeland Security that no border wall will come between two sister cities who proclaim they will stand together — Forever.

(Source: The Forma Group)

By Mike Gravel

In Latina Lista’s second installment of special blog posts penned by candidates in the 2008 presidential election, we welcome Senator Mike Gravel (GraVELL).

Senator Gravel announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination in the 2008 presidential race on April 17, 2006.

I’m going to take the opportunity to tell you what no other politician has the guts to say.

Right now, Latino immigrants are America’s new scapegoats.

The March 6, 2007 immigration raid on the Bianco factory workers in New Bedford, MA was all the more heartbreaking when stories surfaced of mothers and fathers being taken into custody and leaving behind their children.

The common criticism is that if any of these undocumented parents love their children as they say they do, why wouldn't they tell the authorities about them so they could be reunited and sent back to their native countries as a family?

It's a valid question that doesn't have an easy answer.

Until there is an understanding that the lives these families would return to are nowhere near the level of prosperity their hard work garners for them here, no matter how humble, critics will never understand and will always shout for these people to go back.

Juana and Mauricio are left with an uncertain future.
(Source: SouthCoastToday.com)

In one case, the medical treatment of one family's young autistic child was enough reason to lead a couple to choose to stay in the US illegally and for the father to end up dying for the love of his son.

A UPI story published last week revealed that two weeks prior, the number of illegals detained nationwide surpassed 30,000.

(Source: NYTimes)

On the heels of this revelation is news that the Williamson County, Texas commissioners voted to extend the contract of the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and keep the "family" immigrant detention facility, T. Don Hutto, opened until Jan. 2009.

The agreement was reached after a series of demands from the commissioners were met by the CCA.

And though Homeland Security would like to eradicate undocumented workers from U.S. territory, the reality is it's everywhere — even at the very detention facilities meant to scare them from coming back to the US.

It seems that Governor Bill Richardson isn't the only presidential candidate with a Mexican-born parent.

Republican candidate, Mitt Romney, can technically claim Latino heritage as well. His father, George Romney, was born in Colonia Dublán, Galeana, in the Mexican state of Chihuahua.

George Romney, father of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

The elder Romney was born in a Mormon colony on Mexican soil that his parents had fled to, for lack of a better word — sanctuary.

What debate, strike that, bad word. What arguing on immigration reform has shown is that no one really cares about treating the cause of the exodus from Mexico and other Latin American countries but would rather talk only about the symptoms.

The symptoms being mass migration from south of the border with little regard for immigration law, borders, or personal safety.

Because this country has always only dealt with the symptoms of the problem, it's not surprising that we are faced yet again with what to do with a massive population that legally does not belong here but is emotionally rooted here.

It's time to realistically look at the cause and apply a collective effort to remedy it, or there will be no getting off the Immigration Merry-Go-Round.

The following letter was sent to Latina Lista from Romney's campaign headquarters.

November 8, 2007

Dear Ms. Rosabal:

Thank you for inviting me to take part in Univision’s Republican Presidential Forum scheduled for December 9 in Miami. I very much appreciate the invitation and look forward to participating in this historic event.

Members of the Hispanic community have made many truly significant contributions to our nation through their patriotism, hard work, entrepreneurship, faith in God, love of family and respect for human life. Their talents and ambition have helped make the United States a great nation.

I look forward to addressing Univision’s audience and discussing my ideas to strengthen America through stronger families, a stronger economy and a stronger military. These are the values that have attracted millions of Hispanics to the Republican Party, and I believe they will continue to do so in the future.

Sincerely,

Mitt Romney

By Sen. Chris Dodd

In our continuing series of guest posts from the candidates running for nomination in the 2008 election for President of the United States, we welcome Senator Chris Dodd.

Senator Dodd announced his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination on January 11, 2007 on the “Imus in the Morning” radio show.

I'd like to thank Marisa Treviño for inviting me to come talk to the readers of Latina Lista. One thing I've learned quite clearly on my campaign for the presidency is that blogs like Latina Lista are creating new points of contacts between politicians and different communities with different interests.

I’m glad to be here today to talk about why I’m running for President.

In the blogosphere he is known as Duke1676. Among bloggers, he's better known as the analytical author of Migra Matters.

Duke has written and posted at Daily Kos one of the most insightful, certainly most thorough and step-by-step approach into fully understanding the immigration issue.

It's titled: A progressive plan for immigration reform.

For all who are serious about finding a solution to the problem, we owe it to ourselves to read Duke's explanation, analysis and recommendations for how to pull ourselves out of this hole that is getting bigger every day — deportations notwithstanding.

One of the highest rated shows on Lifetime TV is the series Army Wives.

The show, produced by the same guy who produces Grey's Anatomy, is about military wives who don't just juggle the kids and home as a single parent but have to mesh their lives with military protocol. As the tagline for the show says: "The army has its code. The wives have their own."

So, it's not coincidental that Lifetime TV today released a poll asking women which presidential candidate would do the best job of addressing the needs of military families.

A new NPR-Pew Research survey, Blacks See Widening Values Gap Between Poor and Middle Class, has a lot of interesting findings.

Yet, the one that deserves further study is a section on how Whites, Blacks and Hispanics view problems in local communities.

White, Black and Hispanic "Survivor" Players
(Source: CBS)

It's no wonder that some think life is perfect for everyone.

In an effort to pull away from the pack, Tom Tancredo, launched a new television advertisement and radio spot in Iowa highlighting the terrorist threat of illegal immigration.

Already, the ad has critics condemning it for how it attempts to stir up fear among viewers.

Rep. Tom Tancredo
(Source: msnbc)

Yet, in a new Pew Research survey released yesterday, the question needs to be asked: Do the majority of Americans buy into the Tancredo Terror Theory or is Tancredo, and others like him, relying on old data to create a new threat?

It can never be said enough that politics is dirty business.

Map of Dirty Politics - (Source: greatdreams.com)

Whether it's the recent state or local elections or the on-going start of the presidential campaigns, all are evidence that politicians look out for themselves first — everything, and everyone, else is secondary.

But it's one thing for politicians to stick it to each other but to stick it to the voters — well, that's crossing a line that demands penalties for any campaign that is associated with such tactics.

Unfortunately, sticking it to Latino and African American voters has been standard practice in too many parts of the country for too long. By the time the damage is done, the culprit doesn't worry because complaints fade away or penalties are mild slaps and it's time for a new campaign to begin.

Yet, with the blogosphere, such unethical and immoral practices, can live on and evolve into almost an urban legend until the mystery of who perpetuated the evil deed is solved.

So, in the spirit of ensuring that the story of how certain Latinos were targeted in a recent Fort Worth election, we retell it in the hopes that practices like these cease to be recognized as a part of "normal" politics.

Tucson television station KOLD News 13 had a scoop that couldn't be ignored — but then again, maybe it should have been.

Or at the least, reported in a style more becoming of a news organization and less like paparazzi salivating over a celebrity.

The story was about a security alert in Southern Arizona issued by the FBI and outlining a possible threat directed at Fort Huachuca.

The only trouble is the news report is based on a document that was 6 months old and by the FBI's own admission was something that was never "completely evaluated."

So, what is a news organization doing disseminating information when they don't have all the facts?

When the term indigenous is used, first thoughts travel to foreign countries. For some reason, indigenous is equated to people who are of low education, speak in their own tongue, dress differently from the mainstream, live in poverty — far away.

Rarely does the average person think of an indigenous person as someone who has a spiritual link with their lands or has a college degree or lives right here in the United States.

Native Americans are the United States' indigenous people. Their reverential ties to Mother Earth are well known. Their place in US history as victims of documented government abuse is legendary.

That's why a recent plea for help from a daughter of a Lipan Apache that is making the rounds of the blogosphere is not only interesting for its content but for the historical record for which it will enter.

It is the 21st century version of Washington ignoring yet again the rights of the indigenous of this nation.

In a rare move that made international headlines, the Mexican Consulate issued a travel warning to its citizens to avoid Irving, Texas.

The Consul noted that an excessive amount of Mexican nationals were being picked up and referred to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

(Source: myfoxdfw.com)

The Consul felt that the Irving police department was guilty of racial profiling.

Come to find out that was only part of the problem. The other part was that the local law officers were abusing the partnership program ICE created to work with local law enforcement to help identify criminal unauthorized immigrants. The program is called the "Criminal Alien Program" (CAP).

In fact, Irving officials have abused the program to the point where even ICE has said enough is enough.

It's a chapter in history that historians have known about since 1965 but nobody likes to rock the boat — especially when that boat is the esteemed Mayflower.

In 1965, historian Michael Gannon revealed that 56 years before the Pilgrim's Thanksgiving at Plymouth Rock, there was one held at St. Augustine, Florida between a group of Spanish conquistadores and the Timucua Indians.

The Spaniards were led by a conquistador named Pedro Menéndez de Avilés.

Pedro Menéndez de Avilés

At that true first Thanksgiving, it wasn't turkey that was main dish of the meal but something near and dear in all Latino diets — frijoles! Actually, bean soup to be more exact.

Yet, if this bit of history has been known since 1965, why hasn't it been taught in schools and to new generations of U.S. citizens?

Why haven't the history books been rewritten to include this important fact?

Why didn't more of us know about it?

On a day when families in this country are expressing thanks for being together, there are a number of families who are separated from one another because of a border.

The sad thing is that there are some who are so busy trying to protect their "piece of land" that they've forgotten that it wasn't their's in the first place — as this cartoon from Latina Lista friend Lalo Alcaraz reminds us:

By Luis J. Echarte

The Azteca America television network has a presence in 60 markets across the United States and currently ranks fourth among Spanish-language networks broadcasting in the country.

In a special response to Latina Lista, Luis J. Echarte, chairman of Fundación Azteca America and the Azteca America network, explains why the Spanish-language network feels English needs to be part of their programming.

Since Azteca America and Fundación Azteca America announced plans late last month to offer English-as-a-second-language (ESL) courses on our television network, the obvious question that arises is “Why?”

From a business perspective, a limited read would be that we are preparing viewers to migrate to Anglo networks.

However, we don’t see things that way.

By the time a reader brought the story of Jesus Manuel Cordova, a Mexican national who was crossing the Arizona border illegally and found and cared for a 9-year-old boy involved in a car accident that killed his mother on Thanksgiving Day, to my attention, there had already been over 250 news outlets from around the world that had picked up the miraculous report.

It's a story that exemplifies the most basic reason for why life exists on earth — to be there for one another, citizenship status notwithstanding.

That it happened on Thanksgiving Day means that there is a greater message in this simple act of kindness.

With news today that yet another high-profile Latino politician has endorsed Clinton, there is bound to be a new wave of attacks targeting the only female presidential candidate.

(Source:nyobserver)

Candidate attacks are part of the game but when those attacks target gender rather than issues, then that's going below the belt — so to speak.

In an op-ed written earlier this month for La Politica, I discuss this backlash against Clinton and how the men throwing the attacks are too many times backed up by women.

When it comes to waffling on the issue of security in this country, presidential candidates aren't the only ones doing it.

There is one particular Republican who seems to have multiple personalities when it comes to being in favor or against a fence in Texas' Rio Grande Valley.

This kind of indecision is to be expected from those politicians so insulated from the southwest that they see the Texas-Mexico border as much of a no man's land as Iraq and are content to stay safe on familiar turf while buying into Fox News and CNN's Lou Dobbs' version of "border terror" in Texas.

But for one Republican there's no excuse for him to believe the deliberate misinformation and exaggerated facts being spoonfed people — because he's from Texas.

Yet why does John Cornyn act like Rio Grande Valley constituents, and others who oppose a border wall, don't read?

Otherwise, why say one thing in Texas and do another in Washington?

Texas Senator Republican John Cornyn
(Source: washingtonpost.com)

A disturbing event happened at an elementary school in Phoenix, Arizona this month. A 9-year-old boy was suspended for committing a hate crime — he is accused of using the term "brown people."

Whether or not he actually used the term is questionable but what is verifiable is that the principal made a rather surprising remark to the boy.

She told him, as she recounted to the boy's mother later during a recorded conference:

"As we said to (the boy) when he was in here, in your heart you may have that (racist) feeling, and that is OK if that is your personal belief."

She went on to say that he should keep those feelings to himself.

It's one thing to respect differences of opinion but it's another to bypass a perfect opportunity to educate the young so that those kinds of personal beliefs are never formed.

As the presidential debate deepens, or gets more desperate, it won't be surprising to hear more and more candidates who are scared of the immigration issue spouting off just plain WRONG information.

What's sad is that they and their staff are relying on sources whose only intent is not to present the facts but drive public opinion against any facet of humanely resolving the plight of undocumented immigrants.

Whenever studies are released actually supporting the true facts, these same sources are quick to pounce on it and tear it apart like African lions devouring a kill. They accuse the study's authors of being biased or twisting the statistics in their favor.

So, it's more than gratifying when two different entities on two different coasts of the nation, independently release studies that say the same thing: "Undocumented immigrants are not a burden on society."

By Hilda Solis

Democratic Congresswoman Hilda Solis has represented the 32nd district of California in the House of Representatives in Washington since the year 2000. During that time, she has spearheaded Congressional inquiries into issues that especially impact Latinas.

In the following unsolicited post exclusively given to Latina Lista, Congresswoman Solis explains her support of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and their shared feelings on the future direction of preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS.

Throughout my career in public service, I have made reducing racial and ethnic health disparities, including HIV/AIDS, a priority. Preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS is a goal I share with Hillary.

Despite advances in treatments and knowledge, HIV/AIDS continues to claim the lives of millions of people every year. Today, poor communities of color and women are bearing a disproportionate burden of the disease.

Although Latinos represent 14% of the population, they account for one-fifth of AIDS cases.