sql using characters like é and ã

[tjerk at br10.com.br]

Hello, I am switching from VB to python.
I managed to crank my files into a sqlite
dbase, converting the original names to
unicode with s=unicode(s,"latin-1").
Everything is working fine, but when
I query the dbase with dbapi2 and want
to retrieve names this way:
'Select * from table where name like "José%"´
The ´José's don´t appear in my list.
Other names lets say "Maria%" works fine.
Also "João%" doesn´t work. 
Anybody knows a trick?

Herdsman in Brazil