La Prensa San Diego

Commentary: By Raoul Lowery Contreras The U.S. Marines carefully worked their way through the Iraqi village on foot towards their vehicles outside the village. On both sides of the road shops with metal corrugated roll-up doors faced the road. Iraqis stood outside their shops sullenly watching the Marines walk by; obviously disliking these invaders of [...]

Commentary: By Humberto Caspa “I want to quit smoking,” pleaded Paul Wells of 23 years of age. He was five when he, his brother and sister arrived in the United States from Poland after a long adoption process. He had it all, a wonderful adoptive mother, the nation safest city to live in, an excellent [...]

By Rodolfo F. Acuña I recently relented to pressure of a former student to go on Facebook. He persuaded on its usefulness as an organizing tool. Once I got on FB I could see that I could not break my classroom habits and I feared that I would come across as too peachy. The more [...]

Editorial: Four years ago we endorsed Pamela Bensoussan for Chula Vista City Council. Over the years we have grown to regret that endorsement. The person we met before the election, the candidate we endorsed, was not the person that became a council person! We believed that Bensoussan cared about the community only later to find [...]

Commentary: By Sheldon Richman The partisan squabbling over the killing of Osama bin Laden is a typical election-year distraction, effectively squelching discussion of more important matters one year after the execution of the al-Qaeda chief executive. Aided by cable-TV talking heads, Americans are spending too much time speculating over whether presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt [...]

Commentary: By Maribel Hastings As frenzied political junkies begin to chatter about the fight for the Latino vote in November, another fight is brewing in Washington this spring. Last week, the highest court in the land heard oral arguments on the constitutionality of Arizona’s anti-immigrant law SB 1070. The Court has the potential to officially [...]

Democratic Party’s Abandonment of the Core Commentary: By Rodolfo F. Acuña The fitness exercise pilates, from my limited understanding of the exercise method, works on the principle of developing “a strong core or center (tones abdominals while strengthening the back), and improving coordination and balance.” The principle fascinates me because it can be applied to [...]

Commentary: By Arturo Vargas Imagine that you are standing on a track, about to run toward a distant finish line. Suddenly, a wall appears between you and the finish line, and then another, and yet another after that. Over the course of the past decade, states have raced each other to construct more and higher [...]

The U.S. Supreme Court, and La Mordida Commentary: By Rodolfo F. Acuña Direct forms of political control are easy to figure out. For a time, laws and police agencies can keep things together. However, most institutions and societies depend on social control to deceive people into thinking that they live in a democracy. They use [...]

Commentary: By Bill Flores While there appears to be plenty of support in the white community for continuing the program of DUI checkpoints by the Escondido Police, there should be a clarification of facts regarding these suspicionless stops by police in search of drunk and/or unlicensed drivers. First, there is no evidence that checkpoints do [...]

Commentary: By Susan Shaer As budget chair for the House of Representatives, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) is “The Man.” President Obama presented his budget, and Ryan has announced his. Dueling budgets. Under the Ryan budget, even if you’re part of the infamous 1%, your local services will be cut. That road expansion to bring in [...]

Commentary: By Marian Wright Edelman This last week has been a devastating one for children and the poor. It began with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops urging members of the House of Representatives Agriculture Committee for “moral and human reasons” to “protect programs that serve poor and hungry people over subsidies that assist large [...]

Commentary By Jonah Minkoff-Zern Public Citizen Vermont became the third state to call for a constitutional amendment to overturn the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision. Which state will be next? It could very well be California. If the state approves AJR 22, introduced in January by Assemblymembers Bob Wieckowski and [...]

The seventeen year old only brought Skittles and tea to that gunfight … an attorney’s perspective Commentary: By Guadalupe Gonzalez On February 26, 2012, the seventeen-year-old Trayvon Martin walked along a common area in the complex where his dad’s girlfriend lived. He carried tea and candy. He wore a hoodie. Mr. Martin was apparently spotted [...]

Commentary: By Juan Blanco Prada Latin American countries are rightfully fed up with fighting Washington’s war on drugs. In the four decades since President Nixon declared the war on drugs, its battles have been fought predominantly in Latin American nations — leaving behind a trail of death and corruption while failing to achieve any of [...]

Commentary: By Chuck Rocha The only way for Latinos to directly influence public policy is to elect politicians who will represent the needs, dreams and desires of our community. There are currently 21 million voting-age Latinos in the United States. Unfortunately, only 52% of these Latinos are registered to vote and, in 2010, only 31% [...]

Commentary: By Rodolfo F. Acuña Aside from the injustices in Arizona, i.e., the scraping of a highly successful education program, the evident war against Mexicans, and the nullification of the U.S Constitution, I was seduced to the struggle by David A. Morales’ “Three Sonoran” blogs in the Tucson Citizen. His crusade against the white business [...]