I was invited and attended this great community event, to my disgust there was virtually no media coverage of this. It was a wonderful evening with excellent food and fun. Thanks to the orginizers for inviting me.

The Spanish Partition !

Hispanic Heritage Month began on September 15, the anniversary of independence for five Latin American Countries : Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. In addition, Mexico declared its independence on September 16, and Chile on September 18.

The term Hispanic, as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau, refers to Spanish-speaking people in the United States of any race. On the 2000 Census form, people of Spanish/ Latino/Hispanic origin could identify themselves as Puerto Rican, Cuban, Mexican, or “other Spanish/ Latino/Hispanic.” More that 35 million people identified themselves as Latino or Hispanic on the 2000 Census.

While the citizens of these countries mentioned above have self representation in the affairs of their governments (except for Cuba), the citizens of Buffalo New York do not!

If you attended the Puerto Rican Parade on the Second Saturday of September in recent years, you know that it starts at City Hall and marches down Niagara Street until it turns onto Porter Avenue and continues to LaSalle Park. While marching down Porter Avenue you wouldn’t notice much of a difference between the East and West sides of the Street, but this is where even on the Sunniest of Days, City Hall still casts a Dark Shadow.

City Hall has drawn a dividing line down the center of this street to ensure that Buffalo’s Latin Community will not have a representative on the Common Council. This dividing line puts Buffalo’s Latin Community, known as “BORICUA” (bow-reek-wa) into two different Council Districts and that minimizes its voting power! The Community has only one elected official (School Board Member : Ralph Hernandez) in Erie County, and Erie County has 341 elected officials.

This same injustice happens again in the New York State Senate. The Senate dilutes the Latin Vote by dividing the Community down the center of Hampshire Street. This puts 14,000 members in the 58th Senate District, and 12,000 Members in the 60th Senate District. These divisions by local politicians violate the very sense of “Fair Play.” Every Ethnic Group feels that cheating the Spanish or any other group for that matter, just isn’t right, and it’s definitely Un-American.

That being said, hope is still alive. Saturday night, I attended the “Hispanic Heritage Month Awards,” held at the Convention Center. They began with welcoming remarks from Dr. David Caban and then the Benediction by Pastor Miguel Martinez. Lourdes T. Iglesias-Sidhu, Hispanics United of Buffalo Executive Director and Cesar Cabrera, Acting President of Hispanics United of Buffalo, served as Mistress & Master of Ceremony. After a Tango Performance by the Neglia Ballet, the Hispanic Heritage Awards were given to the following:

EDUCATION: Ralph Hernandez, COMMUNITY SERVICE: Delia Pena, COMMUNITY SERVICE: Nylsa Pineiro, YOUTH ACHIEVER: Carlina DeJesus, PROFESSIONAL ACHIEVEMENT: Gustavo Lima, ARTS: Sergio Neglia, presented by Dr. Olga Karman (author of: “Scatter My Ashes Over Havana”), and the HISPANIC of the YEAR AWARD: Dr. Raul Vazquez MD.

(It should be noted that Dr. Vazquez’s Family Medical Practice has over Eighty-one Hundred patients, and it is unimaginable what would happen to Buffalo’s medical facilities without the efforts of this good Doctor).

After the awards, I was told by Abi Echevarria of San Juan de Buffalo that, “you’ll notice that while a majority of the many Doctors that are here tonight are Latino’s, most of the politicians are not. Many of the politicians claim to be our friends, and next year we’re going to find out which ones actually are.

Next year will be the year that we’ll be able to correct what I hope are only mistakes, and we’ll be able to speak for ourselves.” Just then Mayor Brown came over to us. He was in a really good mood and you could sense it. He had given a good speech after dinner, (The food was very Good) and then sat quietly while listening to the ho-hum speeches of some of the other politicians. But now Wendell Rivera & The Latin Jazz Ensemble began to play, and Mayor Brown joined in on the Dance Floor. I then asked Abi “what about him, what do you think about the Mayor?” After commenting that he thought that the Mayor was a really good dancer, to which I agreed, he replied “we believe in this Mayor and for the first time ever, we think we have a Mayor we can trust. We’re not going to be able to correct 30 years of damage that’s been done to Buffalo over night and neither is he. He likes our music and we like him, maybe we’re off to a good start?”

For more information on

Hispanic Heritage Month please write to

Hispanics United of Buffalo

254 Virginia Street

Buffalo, N.Y. 14201

or call: 716-856-7110

“Scatter My Ashes Over Havana”

A Memoir by Olga Karman

can be found in all the better book stores.