Obama keeps naming Hispanics for top posts

MIAMI — AP - President Barack Obama is on track to name more Hispanics to top posts than any of his predecessors, drawing appointees from a wide range of the nation's Latino communities, including Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans and Colombians.

Besides Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Obama has tapped at least 48 Hispanics to positions senior enough to require Senate confirmation in his first year — not including judges or ambassadors.
 
This won't necessarily give the president a free pass on issues such as immigration, but it may ease Hispanics' worries about whether Obama will continue reaching out to a group that was key to his winning the White House.
 
About half of Obama's picks trace their roots to Mexico and the former Spanish holdings in the Southwest, not surprising since two-thirds of Hispanics in the U.S. identify themselves as Mexican-American. But the administration also includes about half a dozen people of South American descent and nearly a dozen Hispanics from the Caribbean