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.

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

When Carlos Eire visits Bloomington on Thursday, it will be a homecoming of sorts for the National Book Award winner and Yale University professor.

Eire, a Cuban refugee whose boyhood memoir, “Waiting for Snow in Havana” won the prestigious award in 2003, was one of roughly 14,000 children secretly whisked out of Cuba in the early 1960s as part of Operation Peter Pan. The plan was organized by the U.S. government and Catholics in Miami to aid families opposed to the Cuban revolution.

Carlos, then 11, and his 14-year-old brother Tony arrived in Miami in 1962. They lived in a series of group homes and foster homes for a year.

In 1963 they relocated to Bloomington to live with Carlos’ paternal aunt and uncle, and his two cousins, the Amado Nieto family of 609 E. Front St….

On Thursday, Eire will speak about his books during two public events, a 2 p.m. question-and-answer session at Bloomington Public Library, and a 7 p.m. talk at Illinois State University’s Braden Auditorium in the Bone Student Center. Twin City libraries and Barnes and Noble Booksellers are sponsoring the author’s visit.

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To see other upcoming events for Hispanic Heritage Month in B-N.

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.

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BLOOMINGTON — Opening a new school, said Bloomington Mayor Steve Stockton, is “like opening a birthday gift.”

“Somebody put a lot of thought into the gift they gave you,” Stockton told the 500 students at Cedar Ridge Elementary, one of two new Unit 5 elementary schools to open this fall.

They also were applauded — for 12 minutes! — by more than 100 community members invited by the Cedar Ridge Promise Council, which helps with academic supplies, mentors and volunteers…The Promise Council helps schools get resources to children, said chairman George Galindo, a member of Unit 5’s diversity committee and a State Farm Insurance Cos. Hispanic resource group. The council works with the school parent-teacher group, the Rocket Boosters, on barriers caused by language, poverty and other obstacles.

About 70 percent of Cedar Ridge students come from low-income families and about 30 percent are Hispanic. Most previously attended Brigham Elementary School, which now houses the district’s early childhood education program…

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By Michele Steinbacher (msteinbacher@pantagraph.com)

NORMAL — Hundreds of children and their parents braved the heat Thursday, standing in line and waiting for the doors to open at the annual Back to School Party at Illinois State University.

Once inside, it still was warm, but nearly 150 Back To School Alliance volunteers helped give the school-supply giveaway event a party atmosphere. Children who qualify for free or reduced lunch programs received new backpacks filled with supplies.

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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