Category Archives: news

Free Oscar López Rivera: One of The Longest Held Political Prisoners in the World

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Image courtesy of hispanicallyspeakingnews.com

A unity march to free Oscar López Rivera is scheduled for this Saturday, November 23 in New York City. López Rivera is a Puerto Rican independence fighter that has been jailed for 32 years. He is said to be “among the longest held political prisoners in the history of Puerto Rico and in the world.”

In 1981, López Rivera was charged with “seditious conspiracy” in connection with his involvement in the Armed Forces of National Liberation (or FALN), a Puerto Rican separatist group that claimed responsibility for a series of bombings. He was sentenced to 55 years in prison.

According to former U.S. President Bill Clinton, the sentences received by López Rivera and the other Nationalists were judged to be “out of proportion to the nationalists’ offenses.”

López Rivera’s imprisonment has been protested this year in Puerto Rico and U.S. Congressman Luis Gutierrez recently told WNPR News that it’s time to release López Rivera.

This Saturday’s march begins at 11AM  at the Clemente Soto Velez Cultural Center in the Lower East Side and will end at the Continental Army Plaza in Brooklyn. The march is being organized by the Community Coalition for the Freedom of Oscar López Rivera. For more information email virtualboricua(at) gmail.com.

Feel free to share this blog post widely and “Like” the Free Oscar López Rivera Now Facebook Page.

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Timbo Gonzalez Wins 2013 Reb Bull Slaps Handball Tournament

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

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.

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.


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LATINAS THINK BIG – The Official Launch of the ELLA Leadership Institute

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

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.”

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Bronx Community Pride Center Closes After Former Director’s Arrest

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Logo of the Bronx Community Pride Center, New York.

About two days after news that the former director of the Bronx Community Pride Center was charged and arrested for possibly embezzling $338,000, the board of directors of the LGBT non-profit organization today announced the closing of its doors effective June 30th.

“The board of directors of the Bronx Community Pride Center (BCPC), the borough’s largest LGBTQ service organization, has unanimously voted to cease operations of the center on June 30, 2012 and to begin making arrangements for current services to be provided by partner organizations within the Bronx,” noted a press release issued this evening.

The former director of the Bronx Community Pride Center, Lisa Winters, has been arrested and accused of stealing over $338K for personal expenses—including a vacation for her and her future wife to South Africa, according to an article published late this afternoon in the Gothamist.

According to the BCPC press release, because of the “current economic difficulties, past debt and inability to raise sufficient unrestricted funding, the organization can no longer implement its current programs. The organization has debts which exceed revenues at this time and without significant cash infusions from major donors they (the board of directors) are unable to continue operations financially.”

Winters, 47, and her wife Scroggins, who have been together for 14 years, were married at the City Clerk’s office in Manhattan on the first day of legal gay marriage last year, today’s article noted.

“As BCPC closes I ask that all Bronx LGBTQ organizations come together and fill the void that would be left behind,” said Antonio Centeno Jr., BCPC Board Chairperson. “The Board of Directors is committed to assisting in any way to make sure that our clients continue to be served, especially since this population is traditionally under served in the Bronx.”

The Bronx Community Pride Center was a not-for-profit organization which was incorporated in 1997 as the Bronx Lesbian and Gay Health Resource Consortium. Around 2005/2006 the name and mission was changed and the agency then became a community center.

“We’re a group of caring individuals and this decision has been difficult for us to make, but we will never give up for our mission of health equality,” said Centeno.

(For an updated version of this article check out the Examiner.com. )

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Colombian Adoptees Connect in NYC to Share Their Life Stories

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Colombian adoptees from across the US met in Jackson Heights, Queens to share an incredible personal experience and a wonderfully social time. June, 2012.

I had an incredible opportunity earlier this month to meet and interview a phenomenal group of people who were adopted from Colombia and raised by American parents. Thanks to a Facebook Group they met in New York City during the second weekend in June for a momentous occasion. They decided to have dinner at Bogota Latin Bistro in Park Slope, Brooklyn, where I work. I wrote a blog post for the restaurant that I wanted to cross post here. Below are some excerpts:

Being adopted and choosing to share your life story is a very personal and sometimes painful decision for many adoptees. For some, learning about one’s birth culture can be a lifelong process. For others the desire to connect with people with similar experiences is profound yet not always easy.

When an adoptee learns of his/her birth culture some totally immerse themselves in the culture, while others take their time digesting information. Some just like to keep things the way they are, not learning much about their ethnicity at all. It’s a very personal choice and some adoptees go through different phases of feelings throughout their lives.

Some adoptees may feel they are slighting their adoptive parents if they show interest in learning about their birth culture, but others eventually need to know more to fully understand who they are, a process most people go through, whether adopted or not, to truly know themselves.

To read the full Bogota Latin Bistro blog post visit Colombian Adoptees Connect in NYC to Share Their Life Stories.

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