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✔️ The Senate confirmed Robert Santos as the first Latino director of the Census Bureau on Thursday, two days after Virginia elected its first Hispanic attorney general.
1 topic to highlight: The fight for renewable investments in Latin America
Billions of dollars in
green
investments
are at stake,
and the president of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Mauricio Claver-Carone, said in an interview that he is fighting to secure a large part of the pie for Latin America and the Caribbean.
Why it matters
: Climate change is causing droughts and extreme weather conditions across the region, which in turn drive migration and threaten the food supply in the
planet's
barn
, Claver-Carone told Axios reporter Dave Lawler.
Photo illustration: Allie Carl / Axios.
Photograph: Patrick T. Fallon / Getty Images
The region needs actions against the climate emergency and part of the billions of dollars promised to finance it, the expert indicates.
Claver-Carone is convinced that going big on renewable energy and environmental protection will pay both immediate and long-term dividends for the environment and the economies of the region.
"It is a creator of employment and economic growth, and an incentive for foreign investment," he explains.
Yes, but
: Some countries in the region, like Costa Rica and Chile, are transitioning to renewables, while others see it as a zero-sum game thinking that phasing out fossil fuels will mean slower economic growth.
Some, like Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, are even increasing their bet on fossil fuels.
In addition, he has been critical of green energy.
By the numbers
: A coalition of financial institutions announced Wednesday at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, that they will mobilize up to $ 100 trillion in investment by 2050 to help countries achieve net zero emissions (i.e. no aggregating more to those already existing in the atmosphere).
Claver-Carone also indicated that there are expected to be 53 trillion dollars in assets for the so-called ESG criteria (investment factors in favor of the environment, society and corporate governance) by 2025.
"If I get 10%, it's $ 5.3 trillion, the size of Japan's GDP: with that we transform the region from an investment perspective," says the IDB president.
2. The rise of Latino 'influencers' in technology
A handful of
Latino tech
influencers
on YouTube and other social media are helping Hispanics navigate the ever-changing world of smartphones, games, and other devices.
Krystal Lora, center, poses with her sister Gabriella Lora and Brian Tong in Los Angeles.JC Olivera / Getty Images
Overview
: The Dominican American Krystal Lora with 323,000 subscribers, is among the most popular technology commentators analyzing the latest products from Apple and Google as growing Latino audience YouTube.
When Lora does smartphone reviews she includes data like how well they take photos of darker skinned people.
He has also spoken of urgent social issues, such as his reaction to the Black Lives Matter movement among the Latino community and the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic.
Omar González, a Puerto Rican photographer from New Jersey, also reviews the latest high-tech cameras and gives his YouTube audience tips on how to take photos.
Notable
:
Spanish-speaking Latino
youtubers
have also established themselves globally.
For example, Colombian tech critics TP Resurrection (real name, Juan Pablo Amaya) and Mexican Carlos Vassan have a following across the continent.
The Salvadoran Luis Flores, alias Fernanfloo, and the Mexican Ari Gameplays, who comment on video games and broadcast their game sessions on Twitch and YouTube, have followed in the footsteps of ElRubius, the mega-popular
Spanish
streamer
, by gaining followers beyond their own countries.
3. This city with a Hispanic majority votes to keep English as the only official language
Residents of Allentown, Pennsylvania, voted
Tuesday to keep English the only official language of this mostly Latino city.
A woman casts her early vote in Allentown, Pennsylvania, in October 2020.Angela Weiss / AFP via Getty Images
Why It Matters
: About 43% of Allentown residents speak a language other than English at home;
the majority, Spanish.
54% of its population identifies as Hispanic: Allentown has the third highest number of Latinos of any major Pennsylvania city.
Several elected officials are also Latino, including the police chief and the fire chief.
Proponents of repealing the law hoped that doing so would be an acknowledgment that Allentown "is not exclusively English."
More details
: More than 6,000 people voted to keep English as the only official language, roughly double the number who came out against it, according to Lehigh County.
Julio Guridy, president of the City Council and sponsor of the referendum, blamed the lack of participation: "Being a majority does not mean anything if Latinos do not go out, educate themselves and vote."
Some claim, however, that the ballot question was too vague, asking only if “Section 101 Paragraph B” should be removed from the bylaws.
The background
: Emma Tropiano, a former member of the City Council, introduced the provision to use only English in official documents in 1992. Before that, Tropiano had falsely claimed that the Latino population caused 99% of crime increases in Allentown, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.
The provision was approved two years later, amid several legislative measures against immigrants in the United States.
Arizona passed a similar measure in 1988, making English the language "of all government functions and actions."
However, the state Supreme Court found the law unconstitutional, according to The New York Times.
4. A step towards equity in health
The multinational laboratory Abbott
this week
launched
a plan to diversify its clinical trials, which includes giving five million dollars in scholarships to medical schools for non-white students and to Hispanic and black nursing associations.
The idea is to better support future generations of clinical researchers.
Eniola Odetunde / Axios
Why it matters
: There has been a historically very low number of diverse people conducting clinical trials, while there is a chronic underreporting of non-white participants in processes that test whether treatments are safe and effective for everyone.
That has contributed to a huge trust problem that Latinos often have towards institutions and drug manufacturers.
That mistrust, in turn, influences health decisions, such as the decision whether to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.
The lack of diversity in trials lags the medical community in how side effects and certain diseases affect Latino communities in greater proportion than non-Hispanic whites.
In clinical trials of drugs approved last year, only 18% of the participants were Latino, according to an FDA report.
Important note
: Research has shown the degree of underrepresentation of minorities in medical schools, finding that having a diversity of professors correlates with having more diverse students.
Only 6% of the students and 5% of the teachers in medical schools were Hispanic / Latino / of Spanish origin.
"Diversity in medicine improves patient outcomes and decreases health disparities," the authors of that research stressed.
5. Summary of key news from Latin America and the Caribbean
A cuban
died
and at least four other people were injured this weekend when the Mexican National Guard fired on a truck carrying migrants that failed to stop at a checkpoint.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador called on Wednesday to suspend the guards, after the UN demanded an independent investigation into the incident.
The National Guard has recently been accused of excessive use of force against migrant caravans, and faces around 600 complaints of human rights violations so far this year.
Dengue cases and alleged attacks: what the migrant caravan faces on their way through Mexico
Nov. 2, 202101: 37
Four of the seven Chilean presidential candidates
temporarily suspended their campaign events on Wednesday, after leftist Gabriel Boric tested positive for COVID-19 after a joint event.
Boric, a former student leader in the mass protests of 2011, ranks second in polls for the November 21 elections, behind conservative Antonio Kast.
The two candidates receiving the most votes on Election Day will move on to a second round in December if neither gets more than 50%.
6.
🎨 Farewell smile: A new muralist tradition
A Mexican muralist reinvents himself during the pandemic and now his work has a waiting list
Oct. 27, 202104: 26
Denver garages now house art,
courtesy of Mexican Charlo GarcĂa and his garigoleados murals.
More details
: GarcĂa launched the
Make Alleys Great Again
project
last year as a way of making art and getting to know his community, as he moved to Colorado just before the pandemic started.
For his first piece, he asked in a neighborhood contact app for someone to donate a door that he could paint on.
After that mural became a hit, residents began looking for it.
He has now painted more than 30 garage murals and has a waiting list.
Garcia personalizes each design by including specific words or icons, such as drawings inspired by the pets in the house.
Until Tuesday, thanks for reading us.
Do you want to see any of the most recent previous editions?
A tradition in transition
Real violence at the border
The brake on Latino education
A Hispanic paradox
The right to die
A neglected danger
In search of future politicians
The 'perfect' business for drug trafficking
