The Institute for Justice has just issued a Press Release that references a valuable tool for Spanish speaking property owners. Research on eminent domain “takings” have confirmed that those most likely to become victims are the poor and minorities. See the attached PRESS RELEASE for additional information.
Larry Gilbert, Member, Castle Coalition, the “grass roots” partner of the Institute for Justice.
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New Guide to Help Spanish Speakers Save Their Homes and Businesses
Date: 8/23/2007 9:14:27 AM Pacific Daylight Time
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
August 23, 2007
New Guide to Help Spanish Speakers
Save Their Homes and Businesses
Arlington, Va. – Spanish-speaking communities across the country now have access to the most effective strategies to fight eminent domain abuse – the forcible acquisition of property by the government for private development. The Castle Coalition’s new Spanish language version of its popular – and award-winning – Eminent Domain Abuse Survival Guide, the Manual de Supervivencia contra el Uso Abusivo del Dominio Eminente, provides Spanish speakers with the same strategies and tactics that home and small business owners nationwide have used for years with great success to keep what they own. The Manual de Supervivencia is especially useful in explaining the concept of eminent domain abuse, which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled was constitutional two years ago in Kelo v. City of New London. This translation helps navigate threatened property owners through the eminent domain process, giving readers to tools they need to fight back. In addition, it provides Spanish speakers with the English vocabulary they will encounter as they defend their property. The Manual de Supervivencia is available at www.castlecoalition.org/Espanol.
“In the past, the Spanish-speaking population has had limited access to the vital information necessary to save their homes and small businesses from eminent domain abuse,” said Steven Anderson, director of the Institute for Justice’s Castle Coalition. “With the Manual de Supervivencia, those days are now over.”
This publication is particularly timely because many of the states that received low or failing grades in the Castle Coalition’s 50 State Report Card have large Spanish-speaking populations, like New York, New Jersey and California. Additionally, as Justice O’Connor predicted in the Kelo decision and as the Institute for Justice’s Victimizing the Vulnerable: The Demographics of Eminent Domain has proved, minorities remain the most likely victims for eminent domain abuse. The Manual de Supervivencia is yet another tool to empower the politically weak against the strength of local governments.
“With this translation, we are not only providing a new tool for home and small business owners facing the abuse of eminent domain, we are moving ever closer to ending the practice altogether,” Anderson concluded.
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Christina Walsh, Castle Coalition Coordinator
Institute for Justice
901 N. Glebe Road, Suite 900, Arlington, VA 22203
(703) 682-9320
www.ij.org www.castlecoalition.org
Gracias! Ahora puedo protejer mi propiadad de los malos en el gobierno de la ciudad de Santa Ana!!
This is a great idea and a long time coming. Now we need to translate Norby’s booklet on the subject into Spanish as well!!
Hey man – is there an english version too?
This systematic assault on the American culture is perhaps the best weapon the Minute Men have.
Keep going and there will never be any amnesty and Mexicans will become a permanent underclass in USA.
The Gypsies of the north America.
The untouchable.
Anonymous #2 4:50 p.m.
“NUEVO DESARROLLO: EL GOBIERNO DESCONCIDO. Publicardo por Oficiales Municipales para la Reforma de Nuevo Desarrollo.”
When I addressed a club meeting on property rights in Gardena a few years ago they handed out the RUG in Spanish dated April 2000 along with the English version.
Therefore, to answer your thread, the Redevelopment the Unknown Government Booklet was translated into Spanish prior to the Institute for Justice report mentioned herein.
Flowerszzz.
I am surprised that you do not have an English version of the RUG. Send me your address and I will gladly send you a copy. In fact, the next edition is almost ready for the printer and hopefully will be off the presses in the next 60 days. To date MORR/CURE has published eight Editions and distributed 67,000 copies around the country.
Larry G. Orange County Co-Director CURE email lgpwr@aol.com
Anonymous 5:47 pm
Feel free to shoot the messenger. I had no idea that this document was being produced. However,having met victims of eminent domain abuses from Florida and Texas to the New England states and the Midwest, there is no doubt that minorities are the most vulnerable to these government takings.
While I feel that every American should be fluent in the English language regardless of where they came from, this tool is for property owners to supplement other English text documents for their protection. There are legal immigrants who may have purchased their homes decades ago and failed to master the English language. My sense is that this group is whom this information is to assist.
Within 10 years most Californians will speak both Spanish and English. Those who resist will have a hard time finding work here. I believe it’s good. We should all learn a second language in here in California that language should be Spanish.
8# that all sounds good except people should learn english first. and those who resist will have a hard time finding work here .at what pay . english is what is spoken here not spanish . if you want to get a GOOD PAYING job you got to speak ENGLISH.. now knowing spanish will help . but the problem that is going on here is that no one speaks english anymore
Anonymous 8:49 p.m. and
anonymous 7:57 a.m.
You will often see my references to our personal travel. I only do that to illustrate a point and not to boast.
We have made several trips to Europe where I feel awkward whenever we interact with the local residents who speak “multiple” languages. While we try to learn a few phrases before leaving CA such as good morning and hello to where’s the toilet, the ability to communicate, using more than one language, is beneficial. Americans can justify only speaking English by saying that these European nations have their own identities which includes their own language. Many of them are smaller than states in the U.S. Further, many Americans never leave our shores so why learn another language. Well, the world as we knew it has changed. We are no longer isolated from the rest of the world. Everyone who follows Wal-Mart can attest to that fact.
When I attended college a billion years ago learning a foreign language was mandatory. It is in your best interest to learn, if not master, a language other than English. When we covered Mexican born, former, U.S. Treasurer Rosario Marin a few years ago when she was promoting the No Child Left Behind initiative she told the Huntington Park Hispanic audience that they had better comprehend English if they ever hope to become successful. She was a living example for all Spanish speaking people in this country.
PS: The foreign language that I took in high school was Spanish. As we lived in Union City NJ for a period, a major haven for Cuban exiles and Puerto Ricans, I did learn many other expressions from them at work that were not taught in our public schools.
I will not share that period of my roots.