The ELLA Leadership Institute launch event at Barnard College, May 16, 2013.

The ELLA Leadership Institute officially launched last Thursday, May 16, at an empowering event at Barnard College at Columbia University. The LATINAS THINK BIG event was attended by over 200 participants and was live streamed by Google.

ELLA Leadership Institute is a professional development center that offers strategic and tailored training, consulting, and mentoring programs to women seeking career and leadership success.

“Latinas are the fastest growing female population in this country,” said ELLA Leadership Institute Founder and CEO Dr. Angélica Pérez-Litwin, “and yet only 0.3% of Fortune 500 corporate executives are Latinas. Similar rates of invisibility are found in academia, in the political arena, and the non-profit sector. This is not acceptable.”

Dr. Angélica Pérez-Litwin, who earned her PhD. in clinical psychology from Fordham University, has devoted more than 20 years of her professional career to the empowerment, well-being, and success of Latinas. As the publisher of NEW LATINA, Dr. Pérez-Litwin has greatly contributed to a new digital conversation focusing on issues that matter to today’s career-driven and progressive Latinas.

“The reality is a large majority of professional Latinas are pioneers,” Dr. Pérez-Litwin said during her talk at the LATINAS THINK BIG event. “Many of them are first generation Latinas in corporate America, in academia, in politics, in the careers of science, technology, and engineering. As they enter these professional-themed arenas they are navigating new spaces and don’t have the necessary support and guidance to achieve career success.”

Dr. Pérez-Litwin has already inspired countless Latinas, including members of Mujeres, the Latina-based student organization at Barnard College. Tatiana Vera, who works at the Student Life Center at Barnard and is the president of Mujeres, is honored to have Dr. Pérez-Litwin as her personal mentor.

“When she called herself my mentor I was through the roof,” said Vera. “Everything that she’s done I completely respect. I want to be a clinical psychologist as well. She’s the CEO of her own company and has her own practice. How more boss can you be for a woman?”

Corina Velazquez, a spoken word artist and dancer who is also a member of Mujeres, thinks of herself as an important piece in changing the world mainly because of Dr. Pérez-Litwin.

“The first time I met Dr. Angélica Pérez I was blown away,” Velazquez said. “She changed my view about working and my own aspirations as well. She really instilled this idea of the Latina not only working for her family but also working for herself. She instilled the idea that we can have it all and be economically sound as well.”

Musician Ale Hop, from Lima, Peru, performs at the RBMA Nanobot Picket Line event in Brooklyn.  (Mon. May 6, 2013.)

Ale Hop, a quiet, shy, and soft-spoken young woman from Lima, Peru making her first trip to the United States, became an entirely different person during her performance. The confidence she expressed on stage was captivating and fused well with her amazing command of her electric guitar and electronic beats.

Ale Hop has been part of an indie pop group called Las Amigas de Nadie since 2008 but wanted to introduce people to another side of her personality.

“Las Amigas de Nadie is more happy, more pop,” described Ale Hop. “This other side of me expresses the energy I have and the need for me to make noise, to play a little louder.”

Ale Hop is enjoying her time in New York and is making a lot of contacts and definitely wants to come back.

“The music scene here is crazy and very different from Lima,” said Ale Hop. “There is a lot going on here.”

Astroboyz, from Barcelona, Spain, playing his music at the RBMA Nanobot event in NYC. (Mon. May 6, 2013.)

Similar to Ale Hop, Astroboyz from Barcelona, Spain, also made his first trip to the U.S to participate in this year’s Red Bull Music Academy (RBMA.) He knew he was going to be a musician when he was 15 years old and got his start as a guitarist in a punk-rock band and later a drummer in a different band. Then around 2007 he took a course in sound engineering and found electronic music fascinating. Soon after, Astroboyz was born.

“It’s very difficult to describe my music,” said Astroboyz. “Because I don’t create just one style, I work with multiple styles of music. Sometimes I know what the end will sound like and sometimes I feel comfortable not knowing what it will end up sounding like.”

Astroboyz plays the club scene in Barcelona and performs at many parties, galleries, and music festivals, which are very popular in Spain. He will be in New York City for the entire month of May and hopes to see more of the city after the middle of the month when his lectures at the RBMA end.

Astroboyz’s music reminded me of the deep house music the clubs in NYC used to play in the past. He told me he was influenced by house music but tries to put his own spin on that style of music.

Thanks to the RBMA, both Ale Hop and Astroboyz had an excellent opportunity to showcase their music in front of a New York audience. It was a pleasure making their acquaintance and experiencing their astounding talent.

This year’s five-week musical extravaganza consists of 37 events at 34 venues and includes over 230 artists from 35 countries. The annual international series brings together up and coming producers, singers, arrangers, DJs and musicians and provides them an opportunity to learn from top industry professionals. This series of events includes a conversation with Erykah Badu at the Brooklyn Museum and improvisations with jazz, rock and hip-hop figures like James Chance and Questlove of The Roots.

Tickets for events spanning genres from Afro/Latin/World to Techno are available online (act now because some events are already sold-out.)

A premier show at this year’s RBMA is Nanobot Picket Line, scheduled for Monday, May 6 from 9pm to 4am at the Cameo Gallery in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Tickets are $8 and participants must be 21 and over.

One of the few female artists to participate at the Nanobot Picket Line event is Latina artist Ale Hop. She is also known as Alejandra Cárdenas and is a member of the Peruvian group Las Amigas de Nadie. You can listen to her own music on SoundCloud. Ale Hop is excited about her upcoming New York City appearance, according to a Spanish-language Red Bull site in Peru.

To learn more about the RBMA, check out this article by the New York Times.

Image courtesy of votifi.com.

On Friday, March 8, at the SXSW 2013 in Austin, TX., a panel discussion will bring together several experts from all areas to explore the impact of the Hispanic voice on technology. During the presentation entitled “Latinos y Mobile: A Silver Bullet?” the community of new media leaders will also release the results from the second annual Latino Voice survey.

South by Southwest (SXSW) is a set of film, interactive, and music festivals and conferences that have taken place every spring (usually in March) since 1987 in Austin, Texas. The Latinos y Mobile panelists bring experience in politics, caused based organization, commercial campaigns and mobile in order to uncover trends in issue identification and activation around the Latino community.

In order to provide the most accurate and up-to-date Hispanic perspective, panelists are seeking nationwide Latino feedback. So take a moment to submit your answers to the Latino Voice survey now.

Feel free to also forward along this info to other Latinos to ensure the survey results are a huge hit at this year’s SXSW.

Under the attentive guidance of a volunteer manager passionate about baseball, a group of boys assembled as the “B” team to play travel baseball for their town team. In Shortstop … or Bust!, author Linda Padilla-Diaz shares a compilation of stories covering the journey through the five years her two sons played competitive traveling youth baseball—from her perspective as both a mother and the manager’s wife.

Shortstop … or Bust! describes Padilla-Diaz’s love of the game and delves into parents’ fixation for their children’s extracurricular activities, seeking the glorified shortstop position. The humorous, touching chronicle of lefty Derek and manager Harry provides firsthand insight into the growing revolution and competitiveness of youth travel baseball. The story begins with the modest commencement of the team with overzealous coaches and dads and describes their winning transformation through several seasons. Padilla-Diaz offers an entertaining play-by-play account of events and provides an up-close view of the games the team played.

Linda Padilla-Diaz is a working mother, law school graduate, baseball fanatic, coach, and softball director. She and her husband have two boys and live in northern New Jersey.

Congratulations on the new book, Linda!

(Image courtesy of KnowledgeofToday.org.)

Some say the ancient Mayan civilization predicted the end of the world will occur this Friday, December 21, 2012. However, this is not a literal prediction of the physical end of the world, but hopefully the beginning of a new one.

According to a Wikipedia page, the 2012 phenomenon, a New Age interpretation of this transition is that the date marks the start of time in which Earth and its inhabitants may undergo a positive physical or spiritual transformation. Therefore, December 21, 2012, may mark the beginning of a new era.

The page notes that professional Mayanist scholars state that predictions of impending doom are not found in any of the classic Mayan accounts, and that the idea that the calendar “ends” in 2012 misrepresents Mayan history and culture.

Evo Morales, the president of Bolivia since 2006, looks at December 21st not as the ‘Mayan Apocalypse,’ but as a New Beginning. Morales, Bolivia’s first indigenous president, speaking at the United Nations in September, said the date marks an end to individualism and capitalism and a turn toward the collective good.

Morales believes December 21, 2012 signifies, among other things, “the end of selfishness and the beginning of brotherhood.”

“It is the end of hatred and the beginning of love, the end of lies and beginning of truth,” Morales said. “It is the end of sadness and the beginning of happiness, it is the end of division and the beginning of unity, and this is a theme to be developed.”

So there’s no need to fear the end of the world this Friday. Let’s all put some really good energy out there to help create a whole new world.

You can view and listen to President Morales’ complete 37 minute translated speech at the United Nations on UN Web TV.

(Image Courtesy of Watchdog.org.)

The political future of Puerto Rico remains unclear more than two weeks after residents cast their votes in high numbers. Close to 80 percent of Puerto Ricans voted in a referendum on Nov. 6th that aimed to re-evaluate Puerto Rico’s status with the United States.

Many media outlets announced the results of the recent vote now show that 61 percent of Puerto Ricans favor statehood, however that 61 percent is being questioned. The results of the two part vote may be more confusing than the island’s political status.

The first part of the vote consisted of a Yes/No question: Do you agree to maintain the current political territorial status? Here “No” won by nearly 54 percent. For the first time since the first of four plebiscites were held in 1967, a clear, simple majority voted against the current status and for some form of decolonization.

Even for those who voted yes, three options followed in the second part of the ballot: statehood, independence or a sovereign free associated state.

According to the Associated Press, 900,000 Puerto Rican voters or 54 percent said they were not happy with the current status. In the follow-up question, nearly 800,000 or 61 percent chose statehood as their preferred option, 437,000 picked sovereign free association and 72,560 selected independence. Close to 500,000 people left the question blank.

Angelo Falcón, president of the National Institute for Latino Policy, told CUNY-TV he believes there will be no immediate movement on the statehood issue in the U.S. Congress. Falcón notes if you factor in the almost 500,000 people who skipped the second question, the 61 statehood rate would go down to about 45 percent.

Rosa Clemente, the 2008 Green Party vice-presidential candidate and a supporter of Puerto Rican independence, believes the people of Puerto Rico truly want independence but are afraid of what a Puerto Rico without the support of the United States would look like.

Many also question if statehood is the general consensus on the island, why was pro-statehood Governor Luis Fortuño ousted in favor of pro-commonwealth Governor-elect Alejandro Garcia Padilla?

Both Falcón and Clemente believe Puerto Ricans on the U.S. mainland should have an opportunity to vote on the issue of Puerto Rico’s political status. According to the Pew Research Center, more people of Puerto Rican origin live in the United States than on the island.

The Associated Press stated that Puerto Rican Governor-elect Garcia plans to have a constitutional assembly in 2014 to address the island’s status and to raise another referendum with the support of Congress.

“I genuinely hope that Congress will listen to the will of the Puerto Rican people and to the citizens of that island,” he said.

[Below is Falcón and Cemente on CUNY-TV (interview within the first 10 minutes of the show.)]