Judge Sonia Sotomayor: defending our first Latin to the United States Supreme Cour

US. - The United States Supreme Court is the highest court of the land. It is composed of nine judges. Despite the fact that half of the states of the United States have Spanish cultural heritage and influence since the 1500's - no Hispanic or Latino has ever served as a Supreme Court Justice - although Latinos are now the largest so-called minority, and growing.

However a big controversy arose when Bronx Puerto Rican nominee Sonia Sotomayor said in a 2001 speech that "a wise Latino woman with the richness of her experience would more often that not reach a better conclusion than a white male that hasn't lived that life". Many of us agree. So let's "drill down" to the South Bronx with that statement. I for one do not remember too many "white Anglo males" living and struggling in the South Bronx in recent years. I should know.

I had the the distinct honor and privilege of serving as President of School Board District #7 , which is located in the heart of the South Bronx, and is also the neighborhood where Judge Sonia Sotomayor was born and raised.

Hey, the South Bronx is a tough, hard, tempting place with many a good people, just plenty of bad Press.

For one, Sonia's mother worked two jobs after her father died to send her to private schools. Young Sonia subsequently graduated Summa Cum Laude from Princeton University. As an Ivy-parent that fact alone impressed me. Princeton was traditionally known as a "Southern Plantation" principally because it was the last "Ivy University" to accept African-Americans after years of resistance. And once had a President who was a member of the Ku Klux Klan. Wow !!! , can you believe that ?

Jude Sotomayor writes how she felt she was in a strange planet while at Princeton. Better still for you to have a better taste the place, just read Otis Graham's book "Member of the Club" and learn his experience at Princeton.

When I see her limping around on Television with a big smile with crutches on her broken ankle persuading Senators - really makes one think "Pobrecita", the things a "Poor little girl form the South Bronx has to do to be approved to the Supreme Court. The President's nomination not withstanding.

However my beef also with conservatives is their amnesia of the famous Puerto Rican 65th Infantry and how Puerto Ricans earned their place in the "American Sun" by proudly serving and contributing their youth's "Blood Tax" to two American conflicts - WW II and the Korean War - while enduring discrimination similar to Mexican-American soldiers along the way.

In closing I learned from South Bronx parents - to be a plain speaker. To be sincere, to speak honestly with no "bull".

So to those narrow-minded folks who oppose the appointment of Judge Sotomayor I ask them to read the words of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, the Italian-American who said upon his nomination to the Supreme Court the following words -" when I get a case about discrimination I have to think how my own family suffered discrimination". Judge Sonia Sotomayor can easily identify with these words.

Our time has arrived, let's support the first Latina to the Supreme Court of the United States.


De José del C. Paulino

Fernandez admits falling behind Millennium Objectives

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC. President Leonel Fernandez admitted that there is a shortfall in the application of the Millennium Objectives in the province of El Seibo, taken as the model for the fulfillment of this development project at the end of 2000 by the United Nations.

As he headed up the fourth Popular Dialogue that took place in this province yesterday afternoon, and after hearing the clamor of the people, the Chief Executive talked about the benefits of the plan but he pointed out that he recognized that in "the execution of this plan there has been a certain shortcoming."

He attributed this to "the difficulties that we have had to face in different places around the country in the middle of economic limitations." Nevertheless, he indicated that his government still has time to fulfill the goals of the Millennium Objectives.

El Seibo, taken as the pilot project for the implementation of this program in 2004, is the province with the second highest poverty index, after Elias Piña.

To change the poverty

President Fernandez said that the development of El Seibo is based on tourism, and he called upon the government officials that accompanied him to "change the image of poverty" in this province and for this he prioritized, among the dozens of proposals made by the people, the pavement of the streets, the repair of the highway, and the construction of a waste water treatment plant.

Among the immediate promises he announced the start of a plan to asphalt and repair of the highway between El Seibo and Miches as well as the completion of the Jina aqueduct whose cost is said to be between RD$7 or RD$8 million.

But the promise that drew the most applause from the crowd that gathered in the streets of the Ginandiana section of the city was the completion of the indoor sports facility, the Polideportivo of El Seibo, which-according to what the President said-will be inaugurated next July.

Nonetheless, the petitions, made by six spokespersons from dozens of community organizations, also asked for bridges, a sewer system that included three waste treatment plants as well as the repair of schools and several highways.

The magic realism of necessity

Is anything characterized this Popular Dialogue it was the dignified magic realism of the petitions. "We want to stop being a city of corn, because when it is rains, we are corn pudding, and when it is sunny, we are roasted corn meal," said Maria Isabel Rua to the President, as a way of painting a graphic image of the deplorable situation of the streets of Miches.

Meanwhile, a lady, standing on a chair, shouted in a very loud voice asking the President, "if you remember what you promised," to which he answered "we'll talk later." One group of country folk did not have the same luck, for no matter how much they waved their arms they could not get a word in.

Diario Libre

Let it rain, in here, within my expatriation
where everything is the same and different.
What is the usage of your signals
if, with subtle juggling, you leave me?
Maybe I can believe the unbelievable,
but I use to get lost in the impulse,
when I say joy is part of my dermis,
when a drop of your light
ignites my bonfires.


AUTHOR: © Victoria Asís