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SL City Weekly: Filling His Shoes: The death of Salt Lake City activist John Renteria leaves a void |
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Wednesday, 02 July 2008 |
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Here's a copy of the best article written about John by the folks at SL City Weekly. Ted McDonough accurately captured John's spirit while not shying away from his controversies. Even Rocky has something nice to say about him ....now! Rest in peace, 'mano!
By Ted McDonough
The last time City Weekly
caught up with John Renteria, it was late spring in a near-empty,
cockroach-infested house on 900 West. Both doors of the home had been
forced. The back door hung off its hinges after a SWAT-style police
raid a few months earlier. A still-broken window looked into a basement
room where a 15-year old and her little sister said they had looked
down the barrel of a police rifle.
The family of Spanish speakers told City Weekly that
masked police had held six children, including a 10 month old, at
gunpoint while their father was arrested on allegations of drug
dealing. In a complaint that Renteria was helping the family file with
a police review board, the 15-year old claimed she was injured by a
blow to the head from a rifle butt.
The alleged assault outraged Renteria. The
15-year-old had told him of her hopes to study criminology and work in
law enforcement. Renteria thought those dreams were likely dashed after
watching her father’s head slammed on the side of the kitchen counter.
Renteria, a longtime activist for Salt Lake City’s
west side, was convinced the family’s story would have played out
differently had the suspected drug dealer been white and lived on the
east side of town. “This family is demanding justice so this doesn’t
happen to anyone else,” he said.
There's more . . .
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 02 July 2008 )
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Hispanic voters gaining strength in key states |
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Wednesday, 02 July 2008 |
---By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER, Associated Press Writer
 WASHINGTON - Voting by Hispanics
surged in the last congressional elections, showing strength that could
swing this year's presidential vote in closely contested states like
Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico.
Democratic presidential candidate
Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., center left, with Rep. Joe Baca, D-Calif.,
right, and other members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus speak
after a meeting at Democratic National Committee headquarters in
Washington, Tuesday, June 17, 2008. (AP Photo/Lawrence Jackson)
A
government report released Tuesday shows that 5.6 million Hispanics
voted in the 2006 general election, an increase of 18 percent over
2002, the previous year for a federal election without a presidential
race on the ballot. That compares to a 7 percent increase among white
voters and a 5 percent increase for black voters.
"For years they called the Latinos
the sleeping giant. Well, they woke us up," said Luis Vera, general
counsel for the League of United Latin American Citizens, or LULAC.
Vera said the debate over illegal immigration has energized Hispanic voters, a trend he expects to continue this year.
The presidential candidates are taking notice. Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama
both addressed the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed
Officials last week and both are scheduled to speak at the LULAC
national convention next week.
There's more . . .
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 02 July 2008 )
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Activist was a 'unique voice' for SLC's west-siders |
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Tuesday, 01 July 2008 |
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Here's another article from a professional writer, SL Tribune reporter, Jenn Sanchez. They had a better pic than I had but damn Tribune folks make it impossible for me to use theirs. Poor John always said he disliked the one I had from a previous City Weekly article. He always laughed kind of embarrassedly when I posted it. (*Imagine that, Johh? Embarrassed?) He always said he would get me a better one and never did, so I went with the one I had. Check out the online picture of John. It's pretty good. We'll miss you, John!
Be sure to hug your friends and loved ones and tell them how much they mean to you. We never know when the next one gets called "off the island" as we continue to survive.
Latino advocate was known for his strong, often controversial views
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People
knew Latino advocate John Renteria for his feisty activism for Salt
Lake City's west side, but friends and colleagues describe him as
"fun-loving" and a "defender for injustices."
Renteria collapsed and died in his Salt Lake City home Sunday as he was getting ready for church. He was 56.
The longtime community activist, known for voicing strong and
often controversial opinions on a variety of issues, was unsuccessful
in two mayoral races and one for the state Senate.
Close friend Lee Martinez met Renteria in the late 1970s at
the University of Utah, and said he admired his passion as both became
community activists. Martinez remembered when Renteria organized the
community to save a Central City tree that had become a shrine when a
passer-by saw a likeness of the Virgin Mary on it.
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 01 July 2008 )
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Funeral services for our good friend, John Renteria |
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Tuesday, 01 July 2008 |
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 UPDATE:
Funeral services for our good friend, John Renteria, will be:
* Viewing: Wednesday, 6 p.m.; rosary, 7:30 p.m. at Neil O'Donnell & Sons Mortuary, 372 E. 100 South, Salt Lake City.
* Memorial service: Thursday, 11 a.m., Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, 715 W. 300 North, Salt Lake City.
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 01 July 2008 )
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USA Today: Births fueling Hispanic growth |
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Tuesday, 01 July 2008 |
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--by Haya El Nasser
Births, not immigration, now account for most of the growth in the
nation's Hispanic population, a distinct reversal of trends of the past
30 years.
The Hispanic baby boom is transforming the demographics of
small-town America in a dramatic way. Some rural counties where the
population had been shrinking and aging are growing because of Hispanic
immigration and births and now must provide services for the young.
"In all of the uproar over immigration, this is getting missed,"
says Kenneth Johnson, demographer at the University of New Hampshire's
Carsey Institute. "All the focus is on immigration, immigration,
immigration. At some point, it's not. It's natural increase."
This natural increase — more births than deaths — is accelerating
among Hispanics in the USA because they are younger than the U.S.
population as a whole. Their median age is 27.4, compared with 37.9
overall, 40.8 for whites, 35.4 for Asians and 31.1 for blacks.
Because they are younger and likely to have more children, Hispanics
are having an impact that far outlasts their initial entry into the
country.
There's more . . .
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Long-time, SLC West-side voice is silenced |
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Monday, 30 June 2008 |
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 John Renteria, 56 years old, SLC west side advocate, 2 time candidate for SLC Mayor and once candidate for the Utah State legislature, will run no more.
John passed away Sunday morning while preparing to go to Catholic mass at Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church where he was a regular Sunday morning participant. John was always a good friend and one that will be missed. Like Pete Suazo before him, John always had the best interest of the Chicano/Mexicano community in mind and had long worked with and struggled with the Centro Civico Mexicano to do that. Though not everyone agreed with his ideas or his methods, one can't question his desire to improve the lives of west siders, of non-Mormons, and of the disenfranchised. John was a fighter and was always writing letters on others' behalf.
John was a graduate of the University of Utah in the 70's and of the J.Reuben Clark College of Law at Brigham Young University. We often razzed him about going to BYU but he was quick to respond, "If white people can graduate from there, so can I. So can we!"
While I didn't support John in his last bid for SLC Mayor and didn't concur with his view as being the most qualified, I can tell you this. As a Chicano, as a 'west sider", I know that if John were ever elected to the Mayor's office, I felt supremely confident that my life would have been in good hands. With John as our Mayor, I know John would have looked out for me and others like me. He would have made the city address issues of west side neglect and inequities. Was he the most qualified for the whole city? Probably not but he would have looked out for my interests more than any other who campaigned for the seat.
John was a fighter, no doubt. And there are many who owe John a great tribute for all of the countless pro bono cases he took on to assist people without charge. And John was also a lover. He loved his family and had a bevy of friends among whom I was fortunate to count myself. And for all his faults, for all his failings, John was a 'go to' guy, someone you called on when you needed muscle, energy, thoughts, ideas or opinions. He is the last of the 'good Catholic boys' and 'John the Barbarian' will be missed.
Please feel free to leave your comments about John and your memories of him, good or bad, but please be respectful.
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 01 July 2008 )
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Navarrette: Parents of pampered, self-absorbed kids contribute to illegal immigration problem |
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Sunday, 29 June 2008 |
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SAN
DIEGO - When you grab hold of the thorny topic of immigration,
sometimes you can't tell what part of the discussion will prick your
finger.
I recently addressed the subject as part of a panel. Given the
questions - one person suggested opening the U.S.-Mexico border - I'd
say the audience was fairly liberal.
When I called for punishing employers, insisted that racism
was part of the debate and asserted that much of the ruckus was based
on the fear of a changing America, I didn't get much reaction. But then
there was the comment that hit close to home.
''You know,'' I said. ''It's worth mentioning that not only do
illegal immigrants do jobs that Americans won't do, but many of the
jobs they're doing were once done by young people in their teens and
20s - your sons and daughters - who, as a generation, have shown
themselves to have a terrible work ethic.''
My point was that besides better immigration laws and better
enforcement, we also need better parenting - the sort that produces
young people who know how to work and aren't afraid to break a sweat.
Then, the employers I've heard from - apple growers in Washington,
restaurant owners in North Carolina, etc. - who claim they can't find
young Americans who want to work wouldn't feel as if they had to hire
illegal immigrants to pick up the slack. There's more . . .
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ACLU Sues Department of Homeland Security For Information on Deaths in Immigration Detention Centers |
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Thursday, 26 June 2008 |
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Lawsuit Comes After Repeated Refusals by DHS to Provide Expedient Access to Public Information
WASHINGTON - June 25 - The American Civil Liberties Union today sued
the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) and the DHS Office of the Inspector General (OIG) for
refusing to turn over thousands of public documents in their possession
detailing the deaths of immigration detainees held in U.S. custody.
The federal lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the
District of Columbia, comes after repeated rejections by DHS officials
of requests by the ACLU for critical information about the deaths of
dozens of people in immigration detention.
The lawsuit seeks a court order requiring DHS to expedite the
processing of the document request and conduct a reasonable search of
the records in its possession in an effort to fully comply with the
ACLU’s requests.
“We know that the medical care provided in many immigration
detention centers is grossly inadequate and has resulted in unnecessary
suffering and death,” said Elizabeth Alexander, Director of the ACLU
National Prison Project. “DHS must not be allowed to keep information
about in-custody deaths secret. It is imperative that ICE be held
publicly accountable when it fails to provide the health care mandated
by the U.S. Constitution.”
There's more . . .
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NCLR: New Video Shows Links Between Anti-Immigrant Groups & White Supremacists |
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Thursday, 26 June 2008 |
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Washington,
DC—“What if all the leading anti-immigration groups
were founded by the same man, funded by the same organization, and [had] ties to
White supremacy?” So begins Heidi Beirich’s narrative in “Behind the Veil”—a new
video being released today that details the common origins of many of the
country’s leading anti-immigration groups and their ties to White
supremacists. In the video, Beirich of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)—the nation’s premier monitor of hate groups—discusses SPLC’s research on
organizations such as the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), NumbersUSA, and the Social Contract
Press.
Beirich’s narrative, in particular, draws
connections between anti-immigrant forces and one of their founders/funders,
retired ophthalmologist John Tanton. Beirich shows how the more extreme groups
are designed to coexist with those that appear to the public and media as more
moderate.
“There is a debate to be had over immigration,”
says the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) President and CEO Janet Murguía,
“and we’re anxious to have it. But, so far, the rhetoric has not been about
policy, it has been about hate. No good policy has ever come from the
demonization of one group by another. The hate has got to stop.”
Produced by NCLR, “Behind the Veil” is the last
of three videos that are part of a campaign to divorce hate groups and hate
speech from the immigration debate. As with the organizations featured in the
other two videos, the Anti-Defamation League (“Code Words of Hate”) and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (“America’s Immigration Legacy”), the SPLC
has no public policy stake in the immigration debate. All three videos can be
found on NCLR’s website: www.WeCanStopTheHate.org.
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 26 June 2008 )
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PEW: Lagging Scores of ELL Partly Explained By Concentration in Low-Performing Schools |
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Thursday, 26 June 2008 |
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A Pew Hispanic report released today examines the role of
schools in the achievement gap of the nation's four million English language
learner public school students. Analyzing newly available standardized test
data, the report finds that students designated as English language learners
(ELL) tend to go to public schools with low standardized test
scores.
However, these low levels of assessed proficiency are not solely
attributable to poor achievement by ELL students. These same schools report poor
achievement by other major student groups as well, and have a set of
characteristics associated generally with poor standardized test
performance-such as high student-teacher ratios, high student enrollments and
high levels of students who live in poverty or near poverty. When ELL students
are not isolated in these low-achieving schools, their gap in test score results
is considerably narrower.
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 26 June 2008 )
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LL: Immigration court declares 13-yr-old to be separated from only parent & deported home alone |
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Wednesday, 25 June 2008 |
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—By Marisa Treviño
Today is World Refugee Day. (*this was a few days ago: June 20th)
When we think of refugees these days, it's usually the images in
Africa of the different tribes that have been displaced because of war
and famine, but we know that refugees exist all over the world — even
in the United States.
The dictionary defines refugee as : one that flees; especially : a person who flees to a foreign country or power to escape danger or persecution
Danger has come to mean not just physical danger but danger from
severe economic downturns, famine or family or community abuse or a
number of different reasons that puts the quality of life at an
inherent risk for these people.
In 2002, when Congress passed the Homeland Security Act, the Office
of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) was appointed the new custodians of what
the Department of Homeland Security labels "unaccompanied children."
Some analysts feel the more correct term is "separated children." Each
label refers to children who are under 18 and at the time of their
apprehension, by either the Border Patrol or DHS officials, are not
with a parent or legal guardian.
13-year-old Jose must return to his native El Salvador without his mother.
(Source: Loudoun Times)
That was the case
of Jose Andrade. Jose was left behind in El Salvador by his mother who
came to the US looking for work. When she arrived, she was granted a
visa to work legally in the country but five years passed and Jose
missed his mom.
He was staying with an aunt but that family took the money Jose's
mother sent him from her job in the U.S. and pulled him out of school
to do errands for the family. When Jose's mother found out, she knew
she had to bring him to the US but there was no way to do it legally.
So, at 11-years-old, Jose and two cousins set out from El Salvador
through Guatemala and Mexico for the U.S. At the Texas-Mexico border,
Jose was caught by border officials and housed in a youth detention
center for 9 days until his mother traveled from Virginia to pick him
up.
From the moment she picked him up, Jose was classified as a refugee.
In the three years since he's arrived, in between attending
immigration hearings to clarify his status, Jose has thrived in school,
is popular with his teachers and became a Boy Scout. Now 13-years-old,
Jose knows English and wants to be a policeman, but it's a dream that
is highly unlikely.
Jose's privileged refugee status has come to an end and DHS says
it's time to treat him like any other undocumented immigrant — deport
him back to where he came from — all by himself. Continue
reading "U.S. immigration courts declare 13-year-old must be separated
from his only parent and deported back to El Salvador alone"
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 25 June 2008 )
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LL: Abandoned two-year-old is the poster child for immigration debate |
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Wednesday, 25 June 2008 |
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-- By Marisa Treviño
What
the immigration debate has lacked thus far is a "poster child" that
brings home the issue and exposes how it impacts the most vulnerable.
Well, the wait is finally over.
 Martin was found alone at an Indiana Wal-Mart store.
(Source: indystar.com)
Two-year-old Martin, a young Guatemalan, was found abandoned in an Frankfort, Indiana Wal-Mart store on Friday, June 13.
In the note found with Martin, his mother states that the young
family arrived a year ago from Guatemala. It wasn't long afterwards
that her husband left her. According to the letter written in Spanish,
the mother doesn't have the means to buy her son food or provide a roof
over his head.
So, she did what has been done by millions of women around the world
since the beginning of time, or at least as far back as Moses, she left
him at a place she knew to be relatively safe. Where there were people,
fellow mothers, who would find him, protect him and help him.
She was right because that's exactly what happened — plus more.
Continue reading "Abandoned two-year-old is the poster child for immigration debate" »
And then you juxtapose a situation like this with all of the heartfelt support for the children of the FLDS criminals and something just doesn't quite set right with me. Someone, please... help me understand how we can see the inhumanity of one group and not the other?
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 25 June 2008 )
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C&L: Another notch in Bush’s legacy belt |
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Wednesday, 25 June 2008 |
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We all know that Utah is a red state, indeed, the reddest state for its strong support of President (and war criminal) George W. Bush. (Remember when 'red' used to be something negative in American politics?) Well, here's one more reason why American ethnic minorities should love him. He's been so good for housing our folks... and not only in prisons. Go, go, go, President Bush... go someplace else but here! (oh, I guess he can't go too far, as he will likely be arrested in any other country for all of his war crimes.)
By: SilentPatriot @ Crooks and Liars
 Remember when President Bush made homeownership the centerpiece of his domestic policy? How’s that working out for America…
Krugman:
“Owning a home lies at the heart of the American
dream.” So declared President Bush in 2002, introducing his
“Homeownership Challenge” — a set of policy initiatives that were
supposed to sharply increase homeownership, especially for minority
groups.
Oops. While homeownership rose as the housing bubble inflated,
temporarily giving Mr. Bush something to boast about, it plunged —
especially for African-Americans — when the bubble popped. Today,
the percentage of American families owning their own homes is no higher
than it was six years ago, and it’s a good bet that by the time Mr.
Bush leaves the White House homeownership will be lower than it was
when he moved in.
Exit question: Can you name one positive legacy of George W. Bush’s presidency?
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 25 June 2008 )
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With apologies but Dad came first! |
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Monday, 23 June 2008 |
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I forgot to mention that I would be out of town for a few days but hadn't realized I would be out of communication as well. I was in Spokane, Washington for a few days to help celebrate my father's 80th birthday. He continues to look great and continues to work daily as a volunteer with the Spokane community policing force.
Poor guy over exerted himself showing everyone how "young" and in good shape he still is that at the end of the formal social gather, rather than going to my sister's home for the real family party - you know, the way WE know how to do it! - he stayed home and went to bed so he could take me and a nephew to the airport the following day.
Wow! 80 years old!! Here's to you dad, here's to the man who's had a significant place in my heart and in my life. Here's to my dear dad! Mi papa, my pops! Here's hoping for as many more years as we can squeeze out of this lifetime, though I fear there won't be too many more. I love you, Dad!
 
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