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Latinos: Immigration Debate is Increasing Discrimination

A new survey out from the Pew Hispanic center gauges the effect on Latinos of the immigration debate. More than half say it has increased discrimination, and three-quarters that it will push many more Latinos to vote in the November mid-terms. Almost two-thirds think the pro-immigrant marches mark the beginning of a significant new social movement.

The survey shows that Latinos "to some extent" blame the GOP for "negative consequences" of the immigration debate, but that doesn't automatically translate to support for Democrats, who register "no significant gains" among Hispanic registered voters, and who by some measures have lost support. "If anything," says Pew, "the survey shows that a growing number of Latinos are dissatisfied with both of the major parties." (Survey here.)

Posted by Julian Brookes on 07/14/06 at 11:28 AM | E-mail | Print

The First Meeting

Chuck Armsbury remembers a public meeting at which an oppressed woman, ready to battle for justice, rose to speak one evening.

"Excuse me," she said. "I've been coming to these meetings, and I have been listening, tried to talk to you all once or twice, too. But I'm going home now. You folks give me a call when you want to start doing something. I'm ready. Goodnight."

Don't worry; you do not want to lead and endure endless meetings that wear you out to plan, and end up boring all who attend.

Avoid the trap that many newly forming groups fall into -- spending excess time and resources on the meetings alone, while the group's unity slowly withers from intense, complicated planning and endless discussions. If this happens, your group won't grow, won't attract the right people, and will stagnate quickly.

You want to unite the group in order to work more effectively in your community. Don't rob people of valuable time to have a meeting with little purpose. These instructions will help you lead the first meeting and enable everyone involved to get the most out of it.

If your group is meeting to plan an event, download a Checklist - you'll have an agenda for your meeting and tasks that each person can be involved with.

Expect to be the leader of your group and to do most of the work, even if by now you have collected scores of names and loose commitments from a dozen people. In time, the work will shift, priorities surface, and volunteers will help you expand and shape the group. Until responsibilities are shared, you can expect to do most of the work.

We hope to make that job easier for you.

Goals for your first meeting

Defining goals for your first meeting will help you set its agenda.

• You will have at least basic contact information for everyone present, with full questionnaires filled out by some.
• Each person leaves the meeting with something to do. Be very aware that people feel useless and drop out if they don't feel needed. They came to a meeting to get involved. To get ideas, review our current Basics for Grassroots' Activism and projects found online.
• You will have discovered who has access to a copy machine, who in your group has a computer, who doesn't. You will know if you have an artistic person, or someone who knows how to design a flyer or posters on a computer, and another person who may enjoy distributing printed information at events, public places or local businesses, or has experience in public speaking.
• You know when and where the next meeting will be held, and how often your group will want them. Your first meeting needs to solidly lay a plan for the future of your group - a plan that will be adjusted and become clearer as you begin to work together today.

The Ministry of National Education of Colombia is working with the National Education Programme  2004-2019, which includes new standars in communicative competence in a foreign language: English.

This programme takes into account the Common European Framework as the national and international referent in order to improve communicative competence in English throughout the whole of the educational system.

In my opinion, we english teachers play a very crucial role in the whole proccess of teaching-learning so we do need a lot of opportunities to enhance our english level and a great access to new technologies so our classes become a great and valuable experience for both teachers and students.