Latest news with #DominicanAmerican
Korea Herald
07-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Korea Herald
Jeonju film fest announces 2025 award winners
Dominican American family drama 'Mad Bills to Pay' claims top prize, as 'Winter Light' wins Korean competition Director Joel Alfonso Vargas' "Mad Bills to Pay" took home the grand prize in the international competition at the 26th Jeonju International Film Festival, while Cho Hyun-suh's "Winter Light" received the same prize for the Korean competition on Tuesday, at an awards ceremony held at Jeonbuk National University's Samsung Cultural Center in Jeonju, North Jeolla Province. Winners across the festival's international, Korean and short film competitions were crowned at the awards ceremony, with 50 films having screened in competition. "Mad Bills to Pay," a family drama, offers an intimate portrait of working-class Dominican American life in the Bronx, New York, through a series of fly-on-the-wall observations. Vargas, himself a Bronx native, could not contain his excitement during his acceptance speech: "I feel like I'm walking on the moon right now. I've never seen audiences like at Jeonju anywhere else — the way they connect with films is truly something special." Chen Deming's "Always" earned the NH Nonghyup-sponsored best picture prize, while Spanish-Portuguese documentary "Resistance Reels" by Alejandro Alvarado Jodar and Concha Barquero Artes received the special jury prize. The Korean competition saw Cho Hyun-suh's "Winter Light" win the top prize. Cho's feature debut follows a high school student struggling with money problems while caring for his sister with a hearing disability. Cho thanked lead actor Seong Yu-bin "for honestly responding to my requests for restraint" and credited her production team for sticking with her vision. Park Joon-ho's "3670," a story about a gay North Korean defector, emerged as the ceremony's big winner with four awards: the distribution support prize, CGV Award, Watcha's Award and best actor prize for Kim Hyeon-mok. The sweep highlighted the festival's ongoing recognition of LGBTQ+ narratives, which festival programmers noted as a key trend in this year's Korean submissions. The newly established Nongshim Shinramyun Award for a director in the Korean competition who demonstrated exceptional promise went to Divine Sung for "Summer's Camera." "I feel like I'm contributing, however slightly, to creating a safer world for queer people," Sung said. "I'll take this as encouragement to keep making films." In the Korean competition for short films, which received a record 1,510 submissions, Hwang Hyeon-jee's "Mistletoe" won the grand prize. Other special awards included the NETPAC Award for Tsuta Tetsuichiro's "Black Ox" and the documentary award for Kim Il-rhan's "Edhi Alice: Reverse." The 10-day festival, which opened April 30th with Romanian director Radu Jude's smartphone-shot "Kontinental '25," concludes Friday with Kim Ok-young's documentary "In the Land of Machines," which follows Nepali migrant workers in South Korea.
CBS News
14-04-2025
- Politics
- CBS News
NYC Mayor Adams in Dominican Republic to mourn roof collapse victims, calls them "my family"
New York City Mayor Eric Adams is visiting the Dominican Republic to pledge his support after last week's deadly nightclub roof collapse . Adams traveled to the Dominican Republic with New York City Department of Transportation Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez, who was born and raised there, along with Deputy Mayor for Strategic Initiatives Ana Almanzar, the first Dominican American to hold the role. More than 220 people were killed when the cement roof of the Jet Set nightclub collapsed last Tuesday during a concert . "We immediately reached out to governmental officials to offer our assistance in search and rescue and recovery," Adams said at a Monday news conference. "And on behalf of the police commissioner, whatever experience we can offer with our investigations from the Department of Buildings to the New York City Police Department or council advisors during this crisis, we are willing to help and offer." New York City is home to the largest Dominican community in the world outside of the island. "New York City is a place of many communities, people come from all over the globe to live in New York City, and my role as mayor is to look over the entire city," Adams said, going on to say members of the Dominican community "are not merely my residents, I've considered them my family." "Over 200 members of my family lost their lives last week... And what do family members do during a time of mourning? They mourn with you," he continued. "So I'm not here merely as the mayor, I'm here as a brother... As a son, as a nephew, as an uncle. I'm here to mourn with my family." New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is also scheduled to join leaders in the Bronx for a vigil Monday night at Lou Gehrig Plaza.
Yahoo
13-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
‘World's coolest dictator' gets a White House visit. What it means for Bukele, Trump and U.S.
Last Tuesday, the State Department upgraded El Salvador's travel rating to a coveted Level 1, a long-sought goal of President Nayib Bukele that designates the country as one of the safest places to travel on the globe. On Monday, Bukele will receive another cherished American gold star: an Oval Office visit with President Donald Trump that will showcase El Salvador on the world stage and solidify his burgeoning alliance with the most powerful leader in the free world. The White House visit is a significant achievement for Bukele, whose authoritarian tactics to remain in power were condemned by the Biden administration just a few years ago. For Trump, the kinship is politically useful: Bukele is key to helping him carry out the mass deportations of migrants he relentlessly promised voters on the campaign trail. 'For Bukele it is a validation from the United States. The picture will show to the world that he is not in [the] same club with [Daniel] Ortega and [Nicolás] Maduro,' said Edwin Segura, a journalist and university professor in San Salvador, referencing Latin American leaders long viewed as pariahs. 'For Trump, I think, it's showing the type of political leader he expects: someone willing to collaborate with his plans.' The White House said the focus of the meeting will be on the U.S. partnership with El Salvador to use its super-max prison to house alleged Tren de Aragua and MS-13 gang members. The mid-March flights of hundreds of Venezuelans to the notorious CECOT terrorism center sparked a multi-week court battle over the cursory process the Trump administration used to move them there. The Supreme Court ruled unanimously last week that the Trump administration must facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man who was accidentally deported to El Salvador due to an administrative error. But the administration has given little public indication that it would pressure Bukele to release Garcia. On Friday, Leavitt noted the court asked the government to 'facilitate the return, not to effectuate the return.' On Saturday, a State Department official declared Garcia 'alive and secure' but 'detained pursuant to the sovereign domestic authority of El Salvador' in a court filing. The Congressional Hispanic Caucus sent a letter to Bukele calling Garcia's detention 'neither legal, ethical or beneficial to the interests of the peoples of the U.S. and El Salvador.' New York Rep. Adriano Espaillat, the first Dominican American to serve in the U.S. House, requested a visit to check on Garcia's health. 'The meeting debunks the U.S. government's claim that it has no say over Abrego's fate now that he is in Salvadoran custody,' said Elisabeth Malkin, deputy program director for Latin America and Caribbean at the International Crisis Group. READ MORE: El Salvador President Nayib Bukele to visit White House Monday The outcry from Democrats around Garcia's case is unlikely to deter Trump from highlighting the pair's hardline measures to crack down on illegal immigration and crime. Bukele, who has billed himself as 'the world's coolest dictator,' sees his 'iron fist' approach to gang violence as critical to luring investment and tourism to the tiny country of 6 million people. 'Because of the dramatic improvement in public safety in the Central American country,' said Gustavo A. Flores-Macías, a professor of government and public policy at Cornell University, 'investment opportunities are increasingly attractive for Americans.' Just as he boasts about receiving deportees from other countries, Bukele may also use the meeting to receive more clarity about how Salvadorans in the U.S. will be impacted by Trump's mercurial immigration policies. Whereas the Trump administration has removed temporary protected status for several Latin American countries, he has kept the program in place for El Salvador, even as the State Department has classified it as among the world's safest countries. Still, with nearly 2.6 million living in the U.S., Salvadorans are the third-largest Hispanic group in the country and portions of the population may be vulnerable to mass-deportation efforts. According to the World Bank, U.S. remittances account for nearly a quarter of El Salvador's gross domestic product. Left unclear is whether Bukele will use the exclusive setting to attempt to request relief on Trump's 10% across-the-board tariff, which could push up El Salvador's historically low inflation rate, a data point Bukele has been trumpeting on social media. 'Trump likes it when other leaders seek him out to make deals, whereas Bukele is interested in the meeting to protect his own and his country's interests. Bukele will want to address the tariffs,' predicted Sonja Wolf, research professor at the School of Government and Economics at Panamerican University in Mexico City, who has written extensively about Bukele. Bukele, who landed at Joint Base Andrews on Saturday, has a personal performative flair that aligns with Trump's taste for pageantry. The visiting president released a nearly 2-minute video chronicling his arrival that included shots of the two countries' flags, U.S. military color guard, and of course, Bukele himself, exiting his plane and into a black SUV, dressed in all black and dark sunglasses. The visual is meant to underline Bukele's feat of achieving a top-level U.S. alliance for a country suddenly punching significantly above its weight in global affairs. Critics worry that other anti-democratic actors will be taking cues from Bukele to curry favor with this particular president. 'It does send a signal to world leaders around the globe, whether they're democratically elected or not, that this sort of behavior — the flouting of the rule of law, the undermining of democracy — that transactional nature of statecraft, it's now open season for all of that,' said Ned Price, a State Department spokesman during the Biden administration.
Miami Herald
13-04-2025
- Politics
- Miami Herald
‘World's coolest dictator' gets a White House visit. What it means for Bukele, Trump and U.S.
Last Tuesday, the State Department upgraded El Salvador's travel rating to a coveted Level 1, a long-sought goal of President Nayib Bukele that designates the country as one of the safest places to travel on the globe. On Monday, Bukele will receive another cherished American gold star: an Oval Office visit with President Donald Trump that will showcase El Salvador on the world stage and solidify his burgeoning alliance with the most powerful leader in the free world. The White House visit is a significant achievement for Bukele, whose authoritarian tactics to remain in power were condemned by the Biden administration just a few years ago. For Trump, the kinship is politically useful: Bukele is key to helping him carry out the mass deportations of migrants he relentlessly promised voters on the campaign trail. 'For Bukele it is a validation from the United States. The picture will show to the world that he is not in [the] same club with [Daniel] Ortega and [Nicolás] Maduro,' said Edwin Segura, a journalist and university professor in San Salvador, referencing Latin American leaders long viewed as pariahs. 'For Trump, I think, it's showing the type of political leader he expects: someone willing to collaborate with his plans.' The White House said the focus of the meeting will be on the U.S. partnership with El Salvador to use its super-max prison to house alleged Tren de Aragua and MS-13 gang members. The mid-March flights of hundreds of Venezuelans to the notorious CECOT terrorism center sparked a multi-week court battle over the cursory process the Trump administration used to move them there. The Supreme Court ruled unanimously last week that the Trump administration must facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man who was accidentally deported to El Salvador due to an administrative error. But the administration has given little public indication that it would pressure Bukele to release Garcia. On Friday, Leavitt noted the court asked the government to 'facilitate the return, not to effectuate the return.' On Saturday, a State Department official declared Garcia 'alive and secure' but 'detained pursuant to the sovereign domestic authority of El Salvador' in a court filing. The Congressional Hispanic Caucus sent a letter to Bukele calling Garcia's detention 'neither legal, ethical or beneficial to the interests of the peoples of the U.S. and El Salvador.' New York Rep. Adriano Espaillat, the first Dominican American to serve in the U.S. House, requested a visit to check on Garcia's health. 'The meeting debunks the U.S. government's claim that it has no say over Abrego's fate now that he is in Salvadoran custody,' said Elisabeth Malkin, deputy program director for Latin America and Caribbean at the International Crisis Group. READ MORE: El Salvador President Nayib Bukele to visit White House Monday The stakes for El Salvador The outcry from Democrats around Garcia's case is unlikely to deter Trump from highlighting the pair's hardline measures to crack down on illegal immigration and crime. Bukele, who has billed himself as 'the world's coolest dictator,' sees his 'iron fist' approach to gang violence as critical to luring investment and tourism to the tiny country of 6 million people. 'Because of the dramatic improvement in public safety in the Central American country,' said Gustavo A. Flores-Macías, a professor of government and public policy at Cornell University, 'investment opportunities are increasingly attractive for Americans.' Just as he boasts about receiving deportees from other countries, Bukele may also use the meeting to receive more clarity about how Salvadorans in the U.S. will be impacted by Trump's mercurial immigration policies. Whereas the Trump administration has removed temporary protected status for several Latin American countries, he has kept the program in place for El Salvador, even as the State Department has classified it as among the world's safest countries. Still, with nearly 2.6 million living in the U.S., Salvadorans are the third-largest Hispanic group in the country and portions of the population may be vulnerable to mass-deportation efforts. According to the World Bank, U.S. remittances account for nearly a quarter of El Salvador's gross domestic product. Left unclear is whether Bukele will use the exclusive setting to attempt to request relief on Trump's 10% across-the-board tariff, which could push up El Salvador's historically low inflation rate, a data point Bukele has been trumpeting on social media. 'Trump likes it when other leaders seek him out to make deals, whereas Bukele is interested in the meeting to protect his own and his country's interests. Bukele will want to address the tariffs,' predicted Sonja Wolf, research professor at the School of Government and Economics at Panamerican University in Mexico City, who has written extensively about Bukele. Bukele, who landed at Joint Base Andrews on Saturday, has a personal performative flair that aligns with Trump's taste for pageantry. The visiting president released a nearly 2-minute video chronicling his arrival that included shots of the two countries' flags, U.S. military color guard, and of course, Bukele himself, exiting his plane and into a black SUV, dressed in all black and dark sunglasses. The visual is meant to underline Bukele's feat of achieving a top-level U.S. alliance for a country suddenly punching significantly above its weight in global affairs. Critics worry that other anti-democratic actors will be taking cues from Bukele to curry favor with this particular president. 'It does send a signal to world leaders around the globe, whether they're democratically elected or not, that this sort of behavior — the flouting of the rule of law, the undermining of democracy — that transactional nature of statecraft, it's now open season for all of that,' said Ned Price, a State Department spokesman during the Biden administration.
Yahoo
06-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Republican group falsely calls a Latino congressman an 'illegal immigrant'
WASHINGTON — The National Republican Congressional Committee is facing backlash after falsely referring to Rep. Adriano Espaillat, D-N.Y., as an "illegal immigrant." Espaillat, a Dominican American, has been open about his family having overstayed their visas in the U.S. when he was a child, before they obtained green cards and he later became a citizen. The New York lawmaker delivered Democrats' Spanish-language response to President Donald Trump's joint address on Tuesday night. "Democrats literally chose an illegal immigrant to give their response to President Trump's address," the NRCC wrote in a post to X on Wednesday with a clip of Espaillat's remarks. "Predictably, this radical called Trump's presidency a 'reign of terror.' Democrats couldn't be more disconnected from the American people." Espaillat responded to the NRCC's post, telling reporters on Thursday that the Republican Party was 'invaded by xenophobes that think that anybody that doesn't look like them is an illegal.' "This is tragic and unfortunate, and because of that, I think I got a lot of support from all over the country calling them out for being a bunch of xenophobes,' he added later. Espaillat said he had not heard from the NRCC or Republican lawmakers after the post to X. He recounted to reporters how he arrived in the U.S. as a child with his parents on a visitor's visa. "We overstayed our visa. We then adhered to the path that the law provided us, which was to go back to the Dominican Republic, get our green card, came back as a green card holder, became a U.S. citizen," he said. "And now, I'm a member of Congress. What a great American story." A spokesman for the NRCC defended its post, saying, 'Democrats caring more about policing words and fighting facts instead of policing our border and fighting crime shows just how out of touch they are.' Democrats criticized the NRCC's post, with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, of New York, saying in a post to X that "these people are disgusting." House Homeland Security Committee Democrats on X called the post "vile & disgusting," and Democratic National Committee chair Ken Martin said in a post to X that "the House GOP isn't even trying to hide its racism anymore." The X account for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee responded to the NRCC, slamming the post. "This is xenophobic, untrue, and denigrates every immigrant who came here lawfully to pursue the American dream," the post said. "Pretty disgusting stuff from the NRCC." Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., also weighed in on X, calling the NRCC's post "inappropriate." "He's been a good friend and a colleague — and more importantly a strong voice for his community and the Latino community, especially his beloved Dominican-American community," Lawler said of Espaillat. "This tweet is inappropriate."This article was originally published on
