Timbo Gonzalez (foreground), Geo Vasquez (background.)

Timbo Gonzalez, one of the top ranked handball players in the world, won the 2013 Red Bull Slaps this past weekend at the legendary Coney Island handball courts on Surf Avenue and West 5th Street in New York City. Gonzalez, who won the first annual Red Bull Slaps three years ago, defeated defending champion Geo Vasquez in the big blue division.

Red Bull Slaps is a one-on-one street handball tournament that brings together New York City’s best handball players to compete for prizes and bragging rights in the small ball, big blue and pump ball divisions. The invite-only tournament brings 96 of handball’s top players from across the five boroughs to compete for cash prizes and ultimate NYC bragging rights.

Hosted by New York handball legend John “Rookie” Wright, the one-day event was held Saturday, June 8.  The tournament is a single elimination format with no player rankings. All players are put into a random draw to determine brackets and match-ups.

2013 Red Bull Slaps, Coney Island, NY. June 8, 2013.

Gonzalez, a Puerto Rican who was born in the East New York section of Brooklyn and raised in the Kingsbridge section of the Bronx, was excited at the opportunity to regain the Red Bull Slaps title. He started playing handball when he was 8 years old and began to take the sport seriously when he became 15. Gonzalez was attracted to the competitiveness of the sport, which his parents also played.

“My parents would bring me along on tournaments,” said Timbo. “It wasn’t just a game that was played in the park, it was bigger than that.”

Gonzalez, who is 21 years-old and presently lives in Bushwick, Brooklyn, learned about the Red Bull handball tournament through word-of-mouth. He’s passionate about the game and should continue to be a strong advocate for the sport for many years to come.

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.