• "Hispanics worry more than most Americans about losing jobs and paying bills. But they place a high importance on education and expect their children to go to college," according to a new AP-Univision poll. The survey of more than 1,500 Latinos showed them eager to blend into American society while still holding onto their cultural identity." - Yahoo! News, July 20, 2010
• Minority-owned businesses increased at a much higher rate than white-owned businesses from 2002 to 2007, according to Census data released this month. Minority-owned businesses saw a 46 percent jump in that time period compared to 14 percent for whites. Hispanic-owned businesses saw a 44 percent boost. - HispanicBusiness.com, July 19, 2010
• "The Obama Administration launched its long-expected legal attack on Arizona’s strict new immigration law (July 5), arguing that only Washington can set the nation’s rules for arresting illegal immigrants," the Chicago Tribune, reported July 6. The government said that its immigration enforcement policy targets "dangerous aliens," whereas "the Arizona law would force federal officials to cope with a flood of illegal immigrants who pose no danger."
• Immigration raids at farms and factories have been replaced with a quieter strategy by the Obama Administration, "sending federal agents to scour companies’ records for illegal immigrant workers," according to the July 10 edition of the New York Times. "Over the past year, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has conducted audits of employee files at more than 2,900 companies." Thousands of illegal workers have been fired.
• "President Obama, who vowed in his State of the Union address to double American exports over the next five years, said (July 7) that he would renew efforts to re-negotiate long-stalled free-trade agreements with Panama and Colombia and persuade Congress to adopt them." The two trade pacts were negotiated by the George W. Bush administration, but languished in Congress because of opposition from Democrats. - New York Times, July 8, 2010
• "Mexicans voiced their independence July 4 as they headed to the polls to elect governors and local leaders in the face of weeks of drug cartel-led intimidation," Time wrote in its July 19 edition. "Undeterred, they handed the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) nine of the 12 gubernatorial seats, though an alliance between Felipe Calderón’s National Action Party and a leftist faction picked up three states the PRI had held for eight decades."
• "Argentina (July 15) became the first nation in Latin America to legalize same-sex marriage, turning aside protests from the Roman Catholic Church to give gay couples the same rights as their heterosexual counterparts." - Chicago Tribune, July 16, 2010