“No one ever warned us about the dangers of breathing in the white powder,” said Piedad Castillo, an Ecuadorian undocumented immigrant who assisted in the cleanup around Ground Zero five years ago. "But now that we are ill, no one wants to give us a hand.” more>

Latinos are questioning the candidates’ silence on other issues important to Latinos, including immigrant issues, affirmative action programs, and Puerto Rico’s political future. It appears the Democrats are focused on one thing: to get George W. Bush out of the White House. more>

Although the city is paying $28.6 million to the minority officers challenging discrimination in the police department, the written settlement states the NYPD did not violate the officers’ rights. more>

Mexican nationals ask: “Why should we ask for the right to vote, didn’t we flee the country? Shouldn’t we be trying to construct another Mexico? A Mexican activist responds: To vote is to reclaim the knowledge and conscience of who we are and where we are going. more>

Will the Department of Education privatize counselor services for all 139 schools in a Queens district? more>

The Los Angeles daily La Opinion, the Lozano family and the Canadian consortium CPK Media—which last year purchased El Diario/LA PRENSA—announced yesterday that they would become partners in order to form the “largest national Spanish-language newspaper company.” more>

For the first time ever, Telemundo and Univision, the two major Spanish-language television networks in the United States, are airing primetime soap operas that focus on the plight of Latino immigrants here. This revolutionary trend is breaking viewership records. more>

A group of immigrants—members of the Asbestos, Lead and Hazardous Waste Laborers Local 78, which has a membership of 3,000—accused their local union leadership of electoral fraud. The group, mainly Ecuadorian nationals, visited Ecuador News’ editorial offices to denounce them publicly. more>

. “Long live the Massachusetts Supreme Court!” wrote my father from Colombia, when he found out that it had declared unconstitutional to deny permission for same-sex marriage. more>

Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced yesterday that his administration will deposit a total of $100 million into banks that set up branches in neighborhoods where there are few or no banking services. more>

One of the biggest problems facing immigrant families is that there is very little understanding on the part of social services agencies of who they are dealing with. The language barrier is just the most obvious one. Little is known of how the families feel about disciplining their kids, how they go about parenting, what they feel is important, who makes the decisions in the household, what experience they had back in their own country with the government intervening in their families’ lives. more>