“PEORIA — George Washington Carver Community Center, an iconic institution with roots stretching back to the 1920s, is closing indefinitely Sept. 2.

“Board members say the closing is temporary to allow time to reorganize and restructure operations. But Carver supporters already are worrying about the possibility of the temporary shutdown becoming permanent.”

For the entire article, click here.

State Farm’s Hispanic push reaches into B-N

NORMAL — New State Farm agent Axel Jimenez likes to show off his Smart board, an electronic dry erase board he uses to help customers plot their long-term goals in a visually engaging — and less intimidating — way.

Jimenez has something else most agents don’t: “Se habla Espanol” (or “Spanish spoken here”) posted on his Normal office’s front window. Jimenez is State Farm’s first Spanish-speaking agent in downstate Illinois… to read the full article click here.

As of March 2010, 11.2 million unauthorized immigrants were living in the United States, virtually unchanged from a year earlier, according to new estimates from the Pew Hispanic Center, a project of the Pew Research Center. This stability in 2010 follows a two-year decline from the peak of 12 million in 2007 to 11.1 million in 2009 that was the first significant reversal in a two-decade pattern of growth. Unauthorized immigrants were 3.7% of the nation’s population in 2010.

The number of unauthorized immigrants in the nation’s workforce, 8 million in March 2010, also did not differ from the Pew Hispanic Center estimate for 2009. As with the population total, the number of unauthorized immigrants in the labor force had decreased in 2009 from its peak of 8.4 million in 2007. They made up 5.2% of the labor force.

The number of children born to at least one unauthorized-immigrant parent in 2009 was 350,000 and they made up 8% of all U.S. births, essentially the same as a year earlier. An analysis of the year of entry of unauthorized immigrants who became parents in 2009 indicates that 61% arrived in the U.S. before 2004, 30% arrived from 2004 to 2007, and 9% arrived from 2008 to 2010.

Other key points from the new report include:

• The decline in the population of unauthorized immigrants from its peak in 2007 appears due mainly to a decrease in the number from Mexico, which went down to 6.5 million in 2010 from 7 million in 2007. Mexicans remain the largest group of unauthorized immigrants, accounting for 58% of the total.
• The number of unauthorized immigrants decreased from 2007 to 2010 in Colorado, Florida, New York and Virginia. The combined population in three contiguous Mountain West states-Arizona, Nevada and Utah-also declined.
• In contrast to the national trend, the combined unauthorized immigrant population in three contiguous West South Central states-Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas-grew from 2007 to 2010.
• Although the number of unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. is below 2007 levels, it has tripled since 1990, when it was 3.5 million and grown by a third since 2000, when it was 8.4 million.

Click here for the full article, Press Release: Unauthorized Immigrant Population: National and State Trends

Click here for the full report: Unauthorized Immigrant Population: National and State Trends

EAST HAVEN, Conn. — Santiago Malave has worked law enforcement jobs in Connecticut for more than four decades, but as a Puerto Rican, he says he cannot drive through his own town without worrying about police harassing him.

Malave, a probation officer who works in New Haven, says the racial abuse is so bad that he only crosses the town line into East Haven to go home. He and his wife are now preparing to sell their house and move, joining an exodus of Hispanics who say police have hassled them with traffic stops, false arrests and even jailhouse beatings.

The Justice Department has started a civil rights investigation, and the FBI recently opened a criminal probe. But that has not changed things on Main Street, where restaurants and stores that cater to Hispanics are going out of business.

If the goal of police was to ruin East Haven’s Hispanic community, some grudgingly say they have succeeded….

By Michael Melia – for full article click here: http://www.pantagraph.com/news/national/article_e07f281e-114d-11e0-b2cd-001cc4c03286.html

By Michele Steinbacher | msteinbacher@pantagraph.com

BLOOMINGTON — Illinois Wesleyan University will host a forum on immigration reform Thursday as part of Hispanic Heritage Month.

A range of events — from academic explorations to community celebrations — are planned in the Twin Cities for the month, which officially runs Sept. 15 to Oct. 15.

Some of those are a Mexican celebration at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Bloomington, salsa dancing lessons and a Puerto Rican dinner at IWU and a festival celebrating Latino culture at Illinois State University.

Full Article

Hispanics are eager to blend into American society while still maintaining their cultural identity, a paradox that reflects the complex beliefs of the nation’s fastest-growing minority. Yet there are limits to assimilation _ most don’t expect the United States to elect a Latino president in the next 20 years. Read More