Dallas Morning News reporter Katherine Leal Unmuth wonders what happened to Elian Majano, the young son of immigrants from El Salvador who disappeared from Lively Park in Irving, Texas, three years ago. He was 2 years old when he went missing.
"From time to time, I find myself thinking about an Irving toddler who apparently disappeared while playing with his older brother in Irving's Lively Park on June 21, 2006 -- Elian Majano, then two years old. Today, close to the third anniversary of his disappearance, he should be five years old.
"His father handed the photo (pictured at the right) of brothers Alexis, then 4, and Elian to me when I visited the family's cramped apartment in South Irving -- an aging complex occupied by many immigrant families. (Elian's parents are from El Salvador). Now this little boy has joined a long list of other missing children from throughout the country, his case featured on America's Most Wanted online."
Read more about Elian Majano here.
Click here for more posts on immigration and migrant issues.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
Alex Sanchez, the nationally known anti-gang activist who was arrested last month on federal charges of racketeering and conspiracy, is gaining support from "clergy, professors, lawyers, community organizers and youths from Latino, black and Asian communities," writes Esmeralda Bermudez in the latest report on the controversial case.
"They hail the Salvadoran immigrant as a reformed gangster turned peacemaker and believe he is incapable of betraying the community's trust," she writes.
One of Sanchez's supporters, former state Sen. Tom Hayden, said outside court at Tuesday's bail hearing, during which Sanchez, head of the anti-gang group Homies Unidos, was denied bail: "If they wanted my house, they could have it."
You can read Hayden elaborating more about what he describes as a "weak case" from the prosecution in The Nation, and watch him speaking outside the courthouse on the video below.
Meanwhile, federal prosecutor Elizabeth Carpenter says that Sanchez's supporters have "been duped by his public face."
— Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
 Without blacks' sacrifice, Latinos would be 30 years behind in the fight for civil rights, writes Hector Tobar
Earlier this year, I attended one of those sedate conferences writers get invited to every so often. I talked for an hour or so very politely about books, until the audience rose up in rebellion and told me to stop.
I'd been invited by USC to be on a panel discussing the topic of blacks and Latinos in Los Angeles literature. But the mostly student audience didn't want a writerly chat. They wanted to talk about the reality of a divided, angry city.
"There's certain parts of Watts and Compton where blacks can't go," a young black man told us, rising up from his seat to describe Latino gang members' slurs and threats.
A high school teacher rose to his feet too, to talk about his Latino students' ignorance of African American history and the intolerance he often hears from the Spanish-speaking immigrants around him.
It hurts me deeply to hear of these things. I suppose, like a lot of people, I've been in a sort of denial about what's happening in my hometown.
You can read Tobar's full column here.
During some of America's 20th-century wars, the sight of Bob Hope rallying U.S. troops became practically as familiar a symbol of the military as Old Glory flapping in the breeze. Today, U.S. men and women of a new generation serving under arms, many of them Latinos, are being regaled by performers named Frankie J, Baby Bash and Paula DeAnda, some of whom are as likely to be singing and joking in Spanish as in English.
For the last few years, the growing presence of Latinos in the U.S. military has become a focus of Universal City-based mun2 (pronounced moon-dose), a lifestyle cable network targeted at bilingual Latinos ages 18 to 34. A mun2 news special, "For My Country: Latinos in the Military," which investigated the varied reasons why many young Latinos choose military service, won a Peabody Award in 2007.
This week, mun2 is continuing its examination of how Latinos are affecting U.S. military culture and vice versa with "Concert for the Troops," which airs at 6 p.m. today. The concert was staged live before an invited audience of U.S. Army troops, both Latinos and non-Latinos, a number of whom have done tours of combat duty, as well as some of their spouses and significant others.
Read the rest of this report by Reed Johnson through this link.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
Isaac Campos, an assistant professor of history at the University of Cincinnati and a visiting fellow at UC San Diego's Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, writes today in The Times' Opinion section about how Mexico's policy on marijuana could be contributing to its problem of drug-related violence.
Ironically, decades of being "tough" on drugs has produced a new link between marijuana and violence, but of a different kind. Indeed, the nation's "drug-related" violence today might more accurately be termed "drug-policy-related" violence.
— Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
Just as we here at the Mexico City office of the Los Angeles Times were thinking that all the excitement of Barack Obama's visit to Mexico was over, the cry went up last night that his motorcade was going to drive-by -- right outside our offices.
Read on »
Mexico City is on high alert this morning as it awaits the arrival of U.S. President Barack Obama, expected here today in his first official visit to Mexico.
Read on »
Rosa Jimenez, a 26-year-old Mexican woman currently serving a 99-year sentence in a Texas prison, might not have committed a crime, according to Lucía Gajá, 34, the Mexican director of the documentary “Mi Vida Dentro (My Life Inside).”
The film takes aim at the United States criminal-justice system and its treatment of Mexican undocumented female migrants. It is told through the case of Jimenez, who crossed illegally into the United States when she was 17 years old. Clearly on the side of the defendant, who was convicted in 2005, the film combines the words of Jimenez, her defense lawyers and the prosecution to lay out what ends up a chilling depiction.
Read on »
For those living down here in Mexico City, one couldn't help but be struck by the contrast between President Barack Obama's inauguration Tuesday in Washington and the inauguration here in 2006 of Mexico's President Felipe Calderon, as Jeremy Schwartz, Mexico correspondent for Cox Newspapers, points out. He recalls: "Back in 2006, Mexico’s Inauguration Day found the country in the midst of a broiling election controversy, the result of a super-tight election (Florida in 2000 anyone?) between conservative Felipe Calderon and leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. When Mexico’s top electoral court proclaimed Calderon the winner without ordering a full recount, Lopez Obrador’s supporters cried fraud and swore to never recognize Calderon."
Click here to read the full post and you can watch a TV broadcast of the chaos here. It's in Spanish, but for those of you who aren't Spanish-speakers, it's pretty clear what's going on.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
 When Brazil's annual Carnaval opens this year on Feb. 22, the new U.S. president, Barack Obama, is expected to be in attendance -- in the thousands.
The Associated Press reports that huge support for the African American president among Brazil's large black population is driving sales of Obama masks for the upcoming celebration.
Plastic masks of Obama are the top sellers, said Olga Gibert Valles, owner of one of Rio's oldest Carnaval costume producers. Valles' company has already made 7,000 masks, and Obama's face promises to be one of the most seen during the loud, colorful procession.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
Image: Masks depicting U.S. President Obama promise to be some of the most worn at this year's upcoming Carnaval in Brazil. Credit: Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times
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Chris Kraul
Mexico City:
Deborah Bonello
Ken Ellingwood
San Diego:
Richard Marosi
Washington:
Nicole Gaouette