Thursday, October 23, 2003

[A]ny topic can be taboo if there is a potential threat to someone's dignity, no matter how innocuous the issue seems to an outsider. Sometimes a translator will gently tell an inquisitive American, "You can't ask that question here," although the more common technique is for a translator to spare the American's feelings as well by simply asking a different question in Arabic.

A recent Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll found that 80 percent of Americans have a great deal or a fair amount of concern that "relying on testing for English and math only to judge a school's performance will mean less emphasis on arts, music, history, and other subjects."

Wednesday, October 22, 2003

Parents for Public Schools of Houston and the League of Women Voters provided headsets and a Spanish translator, but everyone in the audience, which included school board member Karla Cisneros, was fluent in English.

The translation didn't work for everybody. Christine Ho, 61, of San Jose said the translation didn't seem thorough enough. She said she would probably return but instead sit in the hearing room next door, where she expects she would understand about 70 percent of the English.

Tuesday, October 21, 2003

Wednesday, October 15, 2003

Tuesday, October 14, 2003

Myth 6: Hispanics are conservative. The perception of Hispanics as conservative is misshapen by the political behavior of Florida's Cubans, who are indeed overwhelmingly Republican. But on the question of gay marriage, for instance, Hispanics were at the national average (54 percent opposed). Professor Green has found a big difference between Hispanic Catholics and Hispanic Protestants, with the latter group more conservative than the former. American Hispanic Catholics, it turns out, aren't that religious. Professors Louis Bolce and Gerald De Maio put voters into three groups according to religious intensity—"traditionalists," "moderates," and "secularists." Only 10 percent of Hispanics turned out to be traditionalists—this fraction in the African-American community was much larger.

Monday, October 13, 2003

Sunday, October 12, 2003

[O]bviously, not all Hispanics voted by race. Just over half of the Hispanic vote, 52 percent, went to Bustamante in the recall election. Schwarzenegger netted 30 percent. ... [Political Science professor Larry] Giventer said the reason Hispanics did not all vote the same way is simple: Hispanics are not a homogenous group.