Nuevo obispo coadjunto de San Diego, el Obispo Cirilo Floresde origen mexicano.

 Como nuevo obispo coadjunto de San Diego, el Obispo Cirilo Flores estará un paso más cercano de hacer historia.

Como obispo coadjunto, el Obispo Flores está automáticamente en línea para reemplazar al Obispo Robert Brom cuando se jubile en el 2013, convirtiéndolo en el quinto obispo de San Diego y el primer obispo diocesano de origen mexicano en la Diócesis de San Diego. (En el pasado el Obispo Gilbert Chávez, quien también es de origen mexicano, fue obispo auxiliar.)

Flores fue asignado por el Papa Benedicto XVI el 4 de enero y será recibido oficialmente en la Diócesis de San Diego con una misa el lunes, 13 de febrero.

“Estoy aquí para escuchar y aprender”, fue citado el Obispo Flores en The Southern Cross, el periódico oficial de la diócesis. “El Obispo Brom es el obispo de San Diego hasta el día que se jubile. Tengo mucho que aprender de él acerca de los dones y los retos, de los recursos y administraciones de esta diócesis”.

El Obispo Flores dijo que se siente muy bienvenido en San Diego.

“Le doy las gracias a nuestro Santo Padre, Papa Benedicto XVI, por esta maravillosa y retadora asignatura y extiendo mi gratitud al Obispo Robert Brom, quien me ha dado su apoyo y bienvenida”, dijo el Obispo Flores en un comunicado de la Diócesis de Orange. “Estoy entusiasmado de trabajar con el Obispo Brom y de ayudarle durante este momento de transición, el cual será un momento para que yo aprenda acerca de la iglesia local de los condado de San Diego e Imperial”.

El Obispo Flores, de 63 años, nació el 20 de junio de 1948, en Corona, cuando Corona era todavía parte de la Diócesis de San Diego y pasó sus primeros 30 años de vida en esta diócesis. Su padre se mudó del estado de Sinaloa con su familia y llegó primero a Arizona para trasladarse a Corona, donde el mayor Flores fue barbero por 40 años.

El Obispo Flores recibió su licenciatura de Loyola Marymount University, un doctorado de Stanford University y una maestría en divinidad del St. John Seminary en Camarillo.

Fue ordenado sacerdote en la Diócesis de Orange en 1991. Después sirvió en diferentes parroquias en esa misma diócesis.

En el 2009, el Papa Benedicto lo nombró obispo auxiliar de Orange.

Aunque el Obispo Flores dijo que está emocionado de servir a la gente de San Diego, dijo que extrañará la Diócesis de Orange, donde “pasé todo mi sacerdocio. Ahí aprendí como servir a la gente a través del ejemplo de los sacerdotes que conocí en Orange”.

As the new coadjutor bishop of San Diego, Bishop Cirilo Flores will be a step closer to making history.

As coadjutor bishop, Bishop Flores is automatically in line to succeed Bishop Robert Brom upon his retirement in 2013, making him the fifth bishop of San Diego and the first diocesan bishop of Mexican origin in the Diocese of San Diego. (In the past Bishop Gilbert Chavez, who is also of Mexican origin, was auxiliary bishop.)

Flores was appointed by Pope Benedict XVI on Jan. 4, and he will be formally received in the Diocese of San Diego with a Mass on Monday, Feb. 13.

“I am here to listen and learn,” Bishop Flores was quoted in The Southern Cross, the diocese’s official newspaper. “Bishop Brom is the bishop of San Diego until the day he retires. I have much to learn from him regarding the gifts and challenges, resources and stewardship of this diocese.”

Bishop Flores said that he feels very welcomed in San Diego.

“I thank our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, for this wonderful and challenging assignment and I extend my gratitude to Bishop Robert Brom, who has been most supportive and welcoming,” Bishop Flores said in a prepared statement by the Diocese of Orange. “I look forward to working with Bishop Brom and assisting him during this time of transition, which will be a time for me to learn about the local church of San Diego and Imperial counties.”

Bishop Flores, 63, was born June 20, 1948, in Corona, when Corona was still a part of the Diocese of San Diego, and he spent the first 30 years of his life in this diocese. His father was from the northern Mexican state of Sinaloa with his family. The elder Flores lived in Arizona, before becoming a barber in Corona, where the bishop was born.

Bishop Flores attended Corona Unified School District, St. Edward School and Notre Dame High School in Riverside, California.

He received a bachelor’s degree from Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, a doctorate from Stanford University Law School, Palo Alto, California, and a master of divinity from St. John Seminary in Camarillo, California.

He was ordained a priest of the Diocese of Orange on June 8, 1991. After ordination, he served as parochial vicar at St. Barbara Parish in Santa Ana, St. Joachim Parish in Costa Mesa, Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Parish in Newport Beach, and Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish in La Habra.

He served as pastor of St. Anne Parish in Santa Ana and was a member of the diocesan finance council and the editorial board of the Orange County Catholic diocesan newspaper.

On January 5, 2009, Pope Benedict appointed him auxiliary bishop of Orange. He was ordained a bishop on March 19, 2009.

Although Bishop Flores said he’s looking forward to serving the people of San Diego, he also said he would miss the Orange Diocese, where he had spent “my entire priesthood. I was formed as a priest by the parishioners I was privileged to serve for 18 years; I learned how to serve by the example of the priests I have known in Orange,” he said.

When I was 16, a health educator came to my high-school gym class, corralled the girls in the locker room and talked about breast health.

My experience that day proved fateful for me, and those memories came back this week with the unsettling news that the Susan G. Komen Foundation would end its support of Planned Parenthood clinics. The foundation then recanted that decision on Friday, a victory for thousands of women who rely on Planned Parenthood for breast cancer screenings.

The news of the Komen Foundation’s reversal draws attention to the underlying issue—the need for widespread access to breast cancer screening, especially by low-income women. 

“My Heart Sank”

That day in school, we learned how to do a breast self-exam, and the health educator made us practice on the spot. When I asked about a hard knot I found in my right breast, she examined it briefly and said, “You should see a doctor.” My heart sank—could this be breast cancer? I am too young!

As a young Latina whose mother was a secretary with union benefits at a New York City hospital, I had access to premier health care. I quickly saw a doctor who was alarmed by the size of the lump, and before I knew it, I was laying on an operating table.

The surgeon removed a fibrocystic nodule from my right breast and, after a biopsy, I was relieved to learn it was benign. Thanks to very early detection, my breasts are healthy, and I am cancer-free.

As I look down on the scar on my right breast every day, I am thankful I had the education and the access to health care to remove the lump before it was too late. However, this is not the reality for most Latinas.

Latinas face some of the most serious challenges to accessing preventative health care, with potentially deadly results. Research conducted at the University of Louisville revealed that they are 20 percent more likely to die from breast cancer than white women, illustrating the dismaying health disparities that continue to plague Latinas.

Breast exams are therefore a particularly important aspect of preventative care for Latina women.

That’s why we at the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health (NLIRH) were so alarmed to learn early this week that the Susan G. Komen Foundation had succumbed to anti-choice pressure and halted funding of Planned Parenthood’s breast-cancer prevention programs.

Free or low-cost clinical breast exams offered by providers such as Planned Parenthood are often the only health care services available to Latinas, and to low-income and ethnic women in general.

 Latinas Twice as Likely to Die

Not only are Latinas more likely to die from breast cancer, but they are also twice as likely to be without health insurance. Nearly 40 percent of Latinas have no health insurance, while nearly 17 percent of white women are uninsured.

Breast-cancer screening rates for Hispanic women are also lower than for whites—69.7 percent compared to 72.7 percent—according to a recent study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That difference may seem small, but each percentage point represents many lives.

On Friday, the Komen Foundation rightly reversed course and announced it would continue to provide funds to Planned Parenthood health centers.

With Komen funds, those centers have provided more than 170,000 breast-cancer screenings in the past five years. These funds will continue to support preventative care for thousands of the most vulnerable women across the United States, offered through the health centers they trust.

While the rate of breast cancer among Latinas is alarming, we are not sitting idly by. NLIRH recently launched its “¡Soy Poderosa!/I am Powerful!” campaign, which provides opportunities for the Latina community to organize and amplify our voices through nationwide civic engagement in 2012.

All women deserve access to breast-cancer screening services, and collectively we must be proactive in tearing down the barriers to care.

NLIRH continues to encourage Latinas to be powerful, as well as to seek preventative care and regular cancer screenings at Planned Parenthood or other health centers. Taking those steps could be lifesaving—I can personally attest to that.

Jessica González-Rojas is the executive director of the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, based in New York City, the only national organization working on behalf of the reproductive health and justice of the 20 million Latinas, their families and communities in the United States.

There is someone very important missing from the lives of tens of thousands of Latino children in San Diego County: their father. Although Latinos are not the majority in San Diego County, our men are disproportionately jailed and imprisoned, so they make up the majority of the incarcerated population. Latino children make up the largest ethnic group of children removed from the homes and placed in foster care, often with families of a different culture. Drug use, which includes alcoholism, and violence, both of which lead to legal problems, divorce and homelessness, also plague our community. What has happened to us?

Latinos are by far the largest minority group in San Diego County. In the interest of brevity the term “Latino” will be used throughout this article. It is understood that the vast majority of Latinos in California are of Mexican origin. Whether we call ourselves “mexicanos,” “Mexican-Americans” or “Chicanos,” there is wide acceptance of the concept of one “Raza,” which does not exclude our Puerto Rican, Cuban, or Central and South American brethren. Although many us are proud that our physical appearance and mestizo culture evokes the heritage of the original nations of this hemisphere, we are also heirs to the conservative Catholic culture of Spain. For centuries, Spanish-speaking people have lived in powerfully-connected family groups, and fathers were the central figures in each “familia.” The Hispanic tradition of using both fathers’ and mothers’ surnames demonstrates the deep respect which Latino men and women have historically felt and demonstrated toward one another. Latino men were judged, in the eyes of their communities, not by how much money they made, but by how they treated their loved ones. Latino men have a long history of being devoted to their children, and it is only in the past few decades that the fabric of that devotion appears to have started to unravel.

For centuries, the vast majority of Latino men and women have married for life. Today, the Latino divorce rate is only slightly lower than the 50% cited for the general American population. Recent changes in our society have not always been beneficial for Latino men. Thousands of them lost their jobs in the recession and economic pressures are considered the number one cause of problems that lead to divorce. In addition, for many Latinos, anti-immigrant hysteria has created even more problems. Those members of our community who do not have the proper work or residency papers are being hounded by an increasingly racist climate. Even those of us who were born here, or have been “naturalized” (as if that were necessary for a human being) are being subjected to undue scrutiny and pressure these days. These social ills, which contribute to high rates of addiction, violence, divorce and homelessness, are also behind one of the great social tragedies of our time; millions of Latino children growing up without knowing their fathers. In San Diego County alone, tens of thousands of Latino children do not live with their natural fathers. Many do not know their fathers at all. Thousand of Latino children have been removed from both their parents and are languishing in foster care. There are not enough foster care homes licensed to Latinos. Amiable co-parenting by divorced parents is uncommon among Latinos.

So, again, the rhetorical question: “¿Que nos ha sucedido?” (What has happened to us?) There are social theories, of course, but what is clear is that many Latino family lives have been disrupted and dismembered. Perhaps the most important thing is not to lament the passing of the traditional strong Latino family, but the active intention to seek a solution to our contemporary reality. Does anyone seriously suggest that Latino men have stopped loving their children? The reason many of our men make the sacrifice of leaving the old country and coming to work very hard in a hostile, racist society is to provide a better life for their children. Tens of thousands of Latino men right here in San Diego, including those who are divorced, get up with the sun every weekday morning to provide for their children. Even among the most die-hard Chi-cano “vatos” we see the names of their “morritos” tattooed on their bodies. Fathers are absent from Latino families, but it is not for lack of love or concern.

In our work with the POPS organization and the San Diego Fatherhood Network, we have seen Latino men struggle with all their might just to be allowed to see their children. Some have taken on the ultimate commitment and become single fathers, stepping up when things go wrong for mothers, and keeping their children out of foster care. Case examples include men who have been attacked and battered by the mothers of their children, yet have full custody of the children given to those same violent women by the courts. Men, especially Latinos and other men of color, are generally considered too unstable and untrustworthy to be responsible for children unless they are part of a married couple. In many cases, children are removed from mothers who are drug addicts or have abused the children, yet their fathers are not even contacted, since they are not considered a viable placement option.

Not only do children suffer serious consequences from missing their fathers, men pay a heavy price for being excluded from the joy of fatherhood. It is well-documented that children of all ethnic groups do better in school, have fewer behavioral and discipline problems, are less likely to use drugs, bully, act out sexually or run away, if their fathers are in the home or maintain a relationship with them. Similarly, men who have no contact with their children are the most likely to engage in crime, active addiction, gang activity and violence. It should be obvious but it bears saying: Children need their fathers and fathers need their children. For the past two or three generations, children have increasingly been treated as property, usually of the mother, but sometimes of the county or the state. It is our contention as men who work with fathers that children are not property at all, but persons, with rights. Among these is the right to be known and loved by their fathers. Without it children can grow up feeling abandoned and unworthy. Little boys need to be taught how to act like decent men (and fathers) and little girls need to know how to be treated with love and respect by a man. No one can do this like Papa’.

Adam Gettinger-Brizuela is the Director of Paternal Opportunities, Programs & Services, (POPS) and Co-Chair of the San Diego Fatherhood Network.

Now in year 18, Nations brings traditional dancers from over 15 cultures together in a state-of-the-art theater for a weekend of magical performances rarely seen together in one setting. Over 150 dancers and musicians from every continent share dance traditions that transport audiences to exotic lands for a taste of authentic art forms. Also be prepared for spontaneous eruptions of dance during intermission and after the show when cross-cultural free styling often takes place.

The mission of Nations is to present the ethnic dance traditions alive in the community. This year the festival will showcase Chinese dance to celebrate the commitment of San Diego’s Chinese community to cultural tradition. Dance groups include Blue Ming Chinese Dancers of San Diego, Moonlight Chinese Dance Group, San Diego Chinese Folk Dance Ensemble and SilkRoad Dancers. Each group represents a different region in China and a thriving local cultural community. These dancers may be the parents, doctors, lawyers, scientists, or teachers that make up our community by profession, but they also commit hours of practice to perfecting and passing on the dance traditions of their heritage. Audiences will be transfixed by the costumes, narrative and beauty of these varied dances representing China.

Weekend “travelers” will also experience dance traditions from Brazil, India, Ireland, Mexico, the Middle East, the Philippines, Spain, and more! Dancers representing Scotland and New Zealand also return this year. Nations promises a full passport of international music and movement.

Attendees desiring a memento of the weekend may browse the internationally flavored bazaar featuring art, sculpture and clothing from faraway lands presented by “Explore Inspiration.” “Beads for Life” will also be on hand with beautiful beaded jewelry made out of recycled paper created by Ugandan women. Proceeds from the jewelry translate into income, food, medicine, school fees and hope for the Ugandan communities where these artisans live.

Nations is produced by the Coronado School of the Arts Foundation and proudly sponsored by the Coronado Tourism Improvement District.

For tickets and more information about Nations, visit www.nationsdancefestival.com .

There are many kinds of war. The classic image of a uniformed soldier kissing mom good-bye to risk his life on the battlefield has changed dramatically. In today’s wars, it’s more likely that mom will be the one killed.

UNIFEM states that by the mid-1990s, 90% of war casualties were civilians– mostly women and children.
Mexico’s drug war is a good example of the new wars on civilian populations that blur the lines between combatants and place entire societies in the line of fire. Of the more than 50,000 people killed in drug war-related violence, the vast majority are civilians. President Felipe Calderón claims that 90% of the victims were linked to drug cartels. But how does he know? In a country where only 2% of crimes are investigated, tried, and sentenced, the government pulled this figure out of its sleeve.

There is no official information on why these thousands were killed. When their bodies are found in unmarked mass graves, no one even knows who they were. With violence the norm, executions can —and do— target grassroots leaders, human rights defenders, indigenous peoples, and rebellious youth under the cloak of the drug war.

Not Just Homicide

There are also war tolls beyond the body counts. The homicide number misses the disappeared, the thousands whose bodies–dead or alive–are never found, never counted. And it hides the mutilation of lives caused by “collateral damage”: the loss of loved ones, families forced from their homes, permanent injury, orphans and widows, sexual abuse, lives lived in fear.

These costs fall primarily on the shoulders of women–the mothers, daughters, and sisters who are left with the nearly impossible task of seeking answers and redress in a justice system outpaced by violence and overrun by corruption. They are often re-victimized by government agencies that ignore, reject, or stifle their pleas for justice.

“Families that demand that our children be found face all kinds of threats… the loss of our property, isolation, rejection by our own families,” said Araceli Rodríguez, a mother whose son, a young policeman, was disappeared on the job. His police unit refuses to give information on his disappearance. “I wake up and find that it’s not a nightmare, that his absence is real and the impunity is also real.”

It’s rare to hear the voices of the women who bear the brunt of the drug war. Their pain doesn’t make headlines. Some need anonymity to remain alive. Many have been granted protective measures by the government or international human rights organizations because of the extreme threats they face.

Telling Stories

Despite all these difficulties, some 70 women told their stories amid tears and despite fear for their lives in Mexico City on January 22. The meeting called by the Nobel Women’s Initiative brought an international delegation led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Jody Williams together with Mexican women victims of the violence and women human rights defenders.

From the sketchy statistics available, women make up a relatively small proportion of the murdered in Mexico, but they are the majority of citizens who denounce disappearances, murders, and human rights violations in the drug war. They work on the front lines of defending communities and human rights. For their efforts, they become targets themselves. In Mexico, six prominent women human rights defenders have been murdered in the past two years.

The last report by the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders recognized that threats and especially “explicit death threats against women human rights defenders are one of the main forms of violence in the region, with more than half coming from Latin America, most of those (27) from Mexico.”

Sometimes it’s the drug cartels that seek to silence women activists. But a recent survey of Mexican women human rights defenders revealed that they cite the government (national, state, and local) and its security forces as responsible in 55% of cases of violence and threats of violence to women defenders. Among government officials charged with public safety and justice, they encounter at best indifference and at worst death threats and attacks. A human rights defender from the state of Coahuila explained that searching for a disappeared loved one implies “always having to be in the hell of the institutions, which are often infiltrated by crime.”

Gender-based violence including femicide has skyrocketed in the context of the overall violence. The number of femicides in Chihuahua since sending the army in has risen to 837 for the period of 2008- June 2011 —nearly double the total femicides in 1993-2007. Women rights defenders report that the vast majority of threats and acts of violence against them include gender-based violence.

Silent No More

Olga Esparza, whose daughter Monica disappeared in Ciudad Juarez in 2009, explains through her tears that the government simply doesn’t care. “We’re the ones who have to carry out the investigations, with our own resources.” She adds that government officials often add insult to injury, “They say she’s probably just gone off with her boyfriend or she’s a prostitute or drug addict.” In her case, as with so many others, there’s no investigation, no results, no justice.

Another woman described how her work with indigenous communities led to her rape and torture by police agents. She continues to live in terror due to threats against her life and her family.

Alma Gomez of the Center for the Human Rights of Women in Chihuahua summed up what she sees in the center, “Women are the invisible victims, we are always at risk in this military and police occupation. We know of gang rapes by security forces that the women don’t even report; arbitrary arrests; women who make the rounds between army barracks and city morgues searching for their sons, fathers, or husbands. We are the spoils of war in a war we didn’t ask for and we don’t want.”

“Victim” is really the wrong word for these women. The mother whose son disappeared more than two years ago said, “In the struggle to find my son, I joined the peace movement. I learned that I can transform my pain into a collective force and together we can help more people to have a voice and to now be empowered to defend their rights.”

Valentina Rosendo, a Me’phaa indigenous woman from the State of Guerrero, was raped by soldiers and took her case all the way up to the Interamerican Court of Human Rights. She sums up the reason for participating in the Nobel Women’s forum, “It’s really hard to speak out, but it’s more painful to keep quiet.”

Laura Carlsen is the Director of the Americas Program and is currently corresponding from the Nobel Women’s Delegation as it tours Mexico, Honduras, and Guatemala.

Colorblind racism is the new normal in American conservative political thought. Well after the election of the nation’s first African-American president, in 2012 Republican candidates are using egregious signals and dog whistles to incite racial divisiveness as an effective tool for political gain. But when confronted about the nature of their offensive rhetoric, the answer is either an innocuous denial or dismissive retort.

It is curious that people bold enough to make outlandish racial claims never admit guilt or receive a proverbial trial and conviction by the greater populace. Paul Rosenberg, a political contributor to Al-Jazeera, recently explained that this curious phenomenon of “racism without racists” has become de facto in today’s political discourse and is best described as “colorblind racism.”

First explored in the book Racism Without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, a professor of sociology at Duke University, the concept explains much of the Republican strategy to defeat Barack Obama, using race as a wedge issue. Bonilla-Silva defined colorblind racism as a racial ideology that expresses itself in seemingly nonracial terms. As such, it is most practiced by people who never see themselves outside their own myopic worldview.

Last week’s Fox News debate prior to the South Carolina Republican primary was an excellent example of the hubris inherent in today’s racially charged, conservative environment.

All the more offensive was the fact that this debate took place on the national holiday celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. As Michael Keegan explained in the Huffington Post, “What could have been an opportunity for the candidates to express their support for the myriad advances of the civil rights movement and to address the real challenges that remain, instead turned into a mess of racially charged attacks on African Americans, immigrants and the poor.”

Newt Gingrich — the worst offender — doubled down on his prior attacks. When asked by Juan Williams, the lone African-American Fox News moderator, about calling Barack Obama the greatest “food stamp president” and his insistence that he would “talk about why the African-American community should demand paychecks and not be satis-

fied with food stamps,” Gingrich played to the bloodthirsty audience.

“Can’t you see that this is viewed, at a minimum, as insulting to all Americans, but particularly to black Americans?” Williams asked.

“No,” Gingrich replied. “No, I don’t see that at all.”

The response? Roaring applause and a standing ovation.

Now confident, with the wind at his back, Gingrich went on to repeat his misguided call for poor, inner-city children to be forced to work as janitors.

But this is only the least of offenses. The former House speaker has been using blatantly racist rhetoric to attack President Obama for the past two years. Starting with the suggestion that Obama could only be understood through a Kenyan, anti-colonialist mindset — an idea he borrowed from the equally problematic Dinesh D’Souza — to his oft-repeated correlation of the president with food stamps and welfare dependency, Gingrich refuses to accept responsibility and is quick to accuse liberal media of bias.

Mitt Romney, the candidate most likely to receive the nomination, was not immune. In response to a question from Rick Santorum, Romney declared his opposition to extending voting rights to convicted felons, an issue that disproportionately affects African-American and Hispanic males and is a direct result of the vast disparity created by the drug wars implemented during the Reagan administration.

Romney also promised to veto the Dream Act, a law supported by Obama’s White House, which would allow the children of long-term, illegal immigrants to gain citizenship while proving themselves through military service or higher education. All these statements reflect a post-Tea Party conservative climate, which is fueled by xenophobia and racial animus.

Perhaps if these instances had not become so commonplace, they could be disregarded as gaffes, but following Santorum’s remark in Iowa that he did not want “to make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money” and the unearthing of a new set of newsletters from Ron Paul’s past framing African Americans as ravenous criminals, the racism is too obvious to be dismissed as subtle subtext.

In his article, Rosenberg notes that one of the central frames at the core of colorblind racism is “minimization of racism, [which] suggests discrimination is no longer a central factor affecting minorities’ life chances (‘It’s better now than in the past’ or ‘There is discrimination, but there are plenty of jobs out there’). It remembers the past with a highly selective intent, to excuse the evil that remains.”

Gingrich, Paul and Santorum convey textbook definitions of the minimization of racism. Paul “can’t remember” who wrote what and thinks “it’s not important anyway.” Gingrich doesn’t see anything wrong with any of his comments about the poor and blacks. Santorum’s excuse is “blah.” They each adopt a cavalier attitude toward the feelings of minorities and suggest that the fuss is much ado about nothing.

Why do they do it?

Just a quick look at Gingrich’s rise in the polls and his recent win in South Carolina explains why it’s a winning strategy among white GOP primary voters. The latest Gallup poll shows the race in a dead heat nationally, with Gingrich at 28 percent to Romney’s 29 percent. Romney has essentially lost any advantage he had before the South Carolina primary.

Yet the American public and media have developed an acute sense of political correctness, which allows conservative politicians like Gingrich to lie and bait so outrageously without being called to task. And when confronted, Republicans are always quick to deny any malicious intent.

As I expressed in a previous article, poor whites have been encouraged to vote against their own economic interests; more broadly, middle-class whites are encouraged to vote against their better judgment. They are manipulated by race-baiting tactics that lead them to believe that the social ills of the nation are caused by the black and brown poor — or, as Gingrich would have you believe, the black “elite” currently residing in the White House.

The political rhetoric being espoused from the far right has become inundated with corrupt language born of a racist past that still plagues the American consciousness. An informed electorate can no longer excuse blatant racism as a casual, social faux pas.

Voters in the upcoming primaries across the nation must demand that Republicans take responsibility for wallowing in a cesspool of race-baiting for political advantage, ever hiding behind a veil of colorblind ignorance and innuendo.

Edward Wyckoff Williams is an author, columnist, political analyst for MSNBC and a former investment banker. Reprinted from The Root (http://www.theroot.com/)

Perspective:
By Herman Baca

It would be truly unbelievable if someone in our community in 2012 could honestly state that, “something is not fundamentally or systemically wrong politically in our ever growing community.” The recent Sweetwater Water District indictments by District Attorney, Bonnie Dumanis made that politically clear.

In politics there is an old saying, “sometimes what you see is not what you see, sometimes what you hear is not what you hear, and sometimes what is, isn’t!

When one views the large political picture, the facts are that something is fundamentally and systemically politically wrong in our communities. One only has to witness the increase of repressive official government legislation, and illegal hate groups that has led to vicious attacks on our peoples’ civil, constitutional and human rights. Many in our community question if the attacks are isolated, or well-planned concerted political attacks being initiated by a rapidly depopulating white controlled political system? A political system both at the national and local level that fully understands time is not on their side, and fears losing their economic and political control. Many persons in our communities have given up believing that President Obama, the Democratic and Republican Party, or His/Her Panics politicians are not going to do anything to stop the attacks.

The increased attacks at the national level have emanated mainly from Arizona (Nazizona) with its draconian SB 1070, legislation to destroy Chicano Studies (our history) and banning (Nazi style) of Native American and Chicano books. Former slave states such as South Carolina, Georgia, and Texas have legislated “Jim Crow” immigrations laws against persons of Mexicans ancestry. Adding insult to injury, New Mexico’s malinche Governor, Susana Martinez has desgraciamente lead white supremacist and Tea Party political lynching parties against her own people? The hate rhetoric, and legislation in those states have resulted in the murder by racist thugs in Pennsylvania of Mexican undocumented Luis Ramirez, and the hideous murder of 9 year old Brisenia Flores in Arizona by Minuteman.

In CA the political situation is no better. For starters the small city of Bell; 90 percent Mexican, median income $29,946, robbed by politicians/administrators with the full acquiescence of His/Her Panics politicians. The “legal” robbery included Bell’s city manager (Anglo) earning $787,637 per year, assistant manager (Anglo) $376,288 and Police Chief (Anglo) $457,000!

In SD County one would have to be deaf, blind and dumb (which most of the news media is) to deny the striking similarities between Bell, and National City, CA. NC like Bell is a poor city (the poorest in SD County), population 70% Mexican ancestry, household median income $39,000, NC city employees (non-safety) earn $55,000, while police and firemen earn $86,000?

Like Bell’s robbery, NC residents continue to be fleeced with the so-called 1 cent sales tax. One of the highest in CA, levied on the backs of SD County’s poorest residents; that adds up to 80-90 million dollars over a 10 year period!

In NC as in Bell, the fleecing/robbery has been …spearheaded by its white mayor with the unanimous acquiescence of its (4) elected His/Her Panics politicians! 

Another example where things are even worse is North County, population close to 50% persons of Mexican ancestry. Five undocumented and unarmed persons have been killed by law enforcement officers. Escondido a segregated-apartheid city for Mexicans has a Sheriff Joe Apario, Texas Ranger style police force, and mayor and council that would have made Hitler proud in Nazi Germany. The city has approved ordinances against renting to Mexicans; illegal police check points, and permitting Ice Migra agents to ride along with its police officers, etc?

So why is this happening politically to our community?

History can only answer that question. Let’s not forget that in the late 60 our people did not even exist to U.S. political, social, and economic institutions. Our people were referred to as the silent, invisible, and forgotten minority. Politically we were represented in the entire California Legislature by one person of Mexican ancestry Assemblyman, Alex Garcia and in SD County, by National City Councilman, Louie Camacho.

Those dismal political facts finally began to change in 1959 when Bert Corona, Ed Roybal and Eduardo Quevedo organized (MAPA) the Mexican American Political Association. Ironically the first community based political victories in San Diego County were won in the South Bay School Boards Trustees elections. Individuals such as Ernie Azchoar, Ben Moreno, Oscar Canedo and others opened the political doors to those that followed, Peter Chacon (CA 2nd Assemblyman), City Councilman, Jess Haro, etc.

What are the historical political reasons for the above happening?

1. It’s apparent that the thousands of His/Her Panics politicians, along with most funded organizations such as the National Council of La Raza, etc. have provided no political solutions and failed our people. However the primary reason is; demographics, the only politically tangible that has changed in our community in the last 43 years?” I bet, “in those 43 years our population has increased 10 fold,” but unfortunately, “our political stupidity has increased 50 fold!”

2. La faulta of a political infrastructure to protect, advance our interests, and make politicians (especially our own) accountable. For that to be done, “If you are going to be in politics, you have to know how to count, either people or money, because that is the basis of all political power.” However, “they have to be organized people and organized money, because politics is not a game of individuals but one of competing interests.” The question for our community is…where are our organized people and money? 

3. Our exploding population that will soon make us the majority in CA and other Southwestern States. However, if the process to educate our people (not only in schools, but with knowledge of their history, language, and culture), politicize them, and organize them fails; our fundamental and systemic issues/problems will only get worse. And if fail to historically address the above…we, our children and future generations will surely live under an apartheid system like the world witnessed in South Africa!

Baca is president of the Committee on Chicano Rights in National City. Part I of this perspective was published Jan 20. You can find this article on our website at: http://laprensa-sandiego.org/?p=16147

¿Es usted uno de los 18.8 millones de adultos y niños en los Estados Unidos a quien le han diagnosticado diabetes, o tal vez uno de los 7 millones que aún no se diagnostica?

Ya considerada una epidemia nacional, la diabetes es una enfermedad que afecta la capacidad del cuerpo para producir o utilizar insulina, una hormona que produce el páncreas que ayuda a transportar la glucosa (azúcar en la sangre) a las células del cuerpo para que pueda aprovecharse como energía. Sin suficiente insulina, el cuerpo no puede aprovechar el azúcar apropiadamente. Debido a que el azúcar no puede entrar en las células, se acumula en el torrente sanguíneo y altera las funciones normales del cuerpo. Cuando el azúcar en la sangre se mantiene en niveles altos durante períodos prolongados, puede causar daño a los órganos tales como los ojos, riñones, corazón y a las extremidades, incluso si no se presentan síntomas.

Las personas con diabetes o no pueden producir suficiente insulina para procesar el azúcar, o no pueden utilizar correctamente la insulina que generan. Se desconoce la causa exacta de la diabetes, aunque los factores genéticos y ambientales como lo son comer en exceso que puede conducir a la obesidad y la falta de ejercicio, pueden ser factores. Existen una serie de factores que puede afectar su riesgo de diabetes. El riesgo puede ser mayor si usted es afro americano, latino, nativo americano, asiático americano o isleño del Pacífico, tiene antecedentes familiares de diabetes, sobrepeso, lleva una vida sedentaria o desarrolla diabetes durante el embarazo.

Existen dos tipos principales de diabetes. La diabetes tipo 1 es más frecuente en niños y adultos jóvenes. Es una enfermedad autoinmune, lo que significa que el sistema inmunológico del cuerpo ataca por error y destruye sus propias células (beta) productoras de insulina. Por esto, el páncreas deja de producir insulina, o produce sólo una pequeña cantidad. Las personas con diabetes tipo 1 deben ponerse insulina todos los días para mantener su cuerpo funcionando correctamente. Alrededor del 5 al 10 por ciento de la población de Estados Unidos tiene un diagnóstico de diabetes tipo 1.

La diabetes tipo 2 es la forma más común de diabetes y afecta al 90 por ciento de la población estadounidense con diagnóstico de diabetes. Mientras que la diabetes tipo 2 generalmente ocurre en adultos, está aumentando a un ritmo alarmante en los adultos jóvenes y niños. La tipo 2 se desarrolla con el tiempo a consecuencia de los factores de estilo de vida, como la obesidad y la falta de ejercicio; a menudo comienza como una afección conocida como prediabetes, en la que los niveles de glucosa en sangre de la persona son más altos que lo normal, pero aún no lo suficiente elevados como para calificar como diabetes. Es probable que la prediabetes conduzca a la diabetes tipo 2 en un lapso de 10 años; mientras tanto, muchas personas con prediabetes desarrollarán problemas de salud asociados con frecuencia a la misma diabetes.

Si no se trata, la diabetes puede llevar a complicaciones serias, entre ellas, a enfermedades cardíacas, accidentes cerebrovasculares, presión arterial alta, enfermedades renales, ceguera, infección en las extremidades inferiores que puede llevar a la amputación y daño al sistema nervioso periférico.

Por fortuna, una vez que la diabetes se diagnostica se puede tratar. Aunque no hay cura hasta la fecha, los investigadores de la diabetes han hecho avances significativos para entender y tratar la enfermedad. A través del control adecuado de la diabetes, incluyendo medicamentos y cambios en el estilo de vida, las personas con diabetes pueden llevar una vida plena y saludable.

La detección temprana de la diabetes es vital para disminuir las probabilidades de complicaciones futuras. Entre los síntomas más comunes de la diabetes están la micción frecuente, sed o hambre excesiva, pérdida inusual de peso, aumento de fatiga, visión borrosa, heridas que no sanan e infecciones frecuentes. Si usted tiene alguno de estos síntomas, consulte a su médico de inmediato.

Las pruebas de detección de la diabetes, tales como los exámenes de laboratorio que miden el nivel de glucosa en la sangre, pueden identificar la diabetes y determinar el mejor tratamiento. Hay varios tipos de pruebas. Dos requieren ayunar al menos ocho horas antes de la prueba para asegurar que no consumirá nada de lo que puede afectar los resultados del examen, ya que comer o beber puede elevar sus niveles de glucosa en la sangre. La prueba de glucosa en plasma en ayuno mide los niveles de glucosa a primera hora de la mañana después de haber ayunado durante la noche. La prueba de tolerancia oral a la glucosa mide la glucosa en sangre una vez después de haber ayunado. Después, se le da una bebida especial con alto contenido de glucosa para que se la tome; dos horas después de habérsela terminado, se mide de nuevo su nivel de glucosa en sangre. Una prueba más novedosa que no requiere ayunar, la HbA1c, se ha utilizado para medir qué tan bien ha sido controlada su glucosa en sangre durante un período de dos a tres meses. Esta prueba mide el porcentaje de hemoglobina glicosilada, o HbA1c, en la sangre.

Si usted tiene cualquiera de los factores de riesgo para la diabetes, incluyendo antecedentes familiares de diabetes, presión arterial alta, colesterol HDL bajo, triglicéridos altos, o antecedentes de diabetes gestacional, pregunte a su médico si hacerse pruebas es indicado para usted.

La doctora Athena Philis-Tsimikas es especialista en endocrinología con Scripps Health y es vicepresidente corporativo del Scripps Whittier Diabetes Institute. Scripps Mercy Hospital será el anfitrión de un evento gratuito para personas que viven con diabetes y para aquéllos con riesgo de padecer diabetes el próximo 4 de febrero de 2012, de 9 a.m. a 2 p.m. A todos los asistentes se les ofrecerán pruebas de detección, información y la oportunidad de platicar con profesionales de la salud. Para más información, llame al 1-800-SCRIPPS.

Eleven Arizonians fighting to bring back Ethnic Studies to their schools. From left to right: Alexandro Escamilla, Sean Arce, Maria Federico Brummer, Curtis Acosta, Norma Gonzalez, Yolanda Sotelo, Jose Gonzalez, Dolores Carrion, Lorenzo Lopez, Sally Rusk, Rene Martinez..

Saving Ethnic Studies is my latest enterprise because my home state, Arizona, just can’t shed itself of Jim Crow kind of thinking, going back to long before I was born and all through my growing up in Tucson in the 40’s and 50’s. Then the 60’s came along and the state had to sing a different song. But Jim Crowness doesn’t go away easily.

Someone came up with the idea of honoring Martin Luther King and His Dream with a holiday and Arizonans screamed “No way!” Yet it happened and I thought that signaled that my beloved state had begun to see the way.

But along came SB1070, a law that basically gives cops of every stripe and kind the authority to profile Latinos. And before I could go “What?” Ethnic Studies, via HB2281, were banned in the Grand Canyon State.

To me what has happened is particularly sad because the central target of this injustice is the Mexican American Studies Program at Tucson High, my alma mater. A place I love dearly. Their curriculum is one of the best of its kind in the land. It’s like Arizona can summon Jim Crow mentality on command.

What an abuse of power, an attempt to get brown citizens to toe the line, to be American but by “The Man’s” definition of what that means. They talk of the academic gap between Blacks and Browns and students of other ethnic backgrounds and then ignore facts like: how MAS students are making measurable differences compared to other like groups; how juniors taking the courses are more likely than their peers to pass reading and writing tests if they had previously failed those tests in their sophomore year, and how seniors are more likely to graduate than their peers. The dropout rate in the program is 2.5 percent as opposed to 56 percent nationally.

Such accomplishments mean nothing to the powers that be. Tom Horne, now the attorney general, vowed when he was the Arizona superintendent of public instruction to eliminate the Tucson School Districts’ Mexican American Program and his successor, John Huppenthal, ran on a platform of eliminating “Raza Studies” in Arizona and Jan Brewer signed their sinister wishes into law.

I’ve been in close contact with my high school over the years, a proud member of its Hall of Fame, a speaker at the Class of 2000 graduation, one who drops by every now and then when I’m in town to get a feel for what’s going on and I know from all I’ve heard and seen just how dynamic a learning environment Mexican American Studies students have enjoyed. The lessons, so relevant to their very lives, have excited them and turned them on to higher learning.

They’ve learned to embrace the diversity inherent in their society; they’ve learned about who they are, where they’ve been, how they fit in and the haters deride their lessons as “promoting resentment of other races.” They’ve learned how to better serve their communities, their towns and their state and their country, their world. But Arizona politicians see this as “promoting the overthrow of the government.”

The school district offers them no support and the students with no recourse took over a a school board meeting a while back. At the next meeting they were met with massive police force. So good luck on overthrowing the government and we can only hope that resentment of other races doesn’t rise up in their impressionable souls as a result of how they’ve been treated by the “system.”

What it comes down to is there is a significant number of so called representatives of “the people” who don’t want Latino kids to understand that knowledge is truly power and start feeling “uppity” and equal to THEM.

But I’m working with eleven Tucson Unified School District teachers administrators and students who are suing Arizona to bring back Ethnic Studies. And I’m asking people who care for justice to come together for the rights of all children to enjoy learning experiences that help them to learn about their heritage along with the histories of others. Join us when we show PRECIOUS KNOWLEDGE, a powerful documentary that tells the story of how Mexican American Studies are changing students’ lives on:

Saturday, February 25, 2012 at 2:00 PM
at the Lincoln High School Theater, 4777 Imperial Avenue

Bring friends, a $10 donation, a checkbook and a commitment to spread the story and support the cause!

Presente.org Rallies Support For Tucson, AZ Students Affected By School Board Decision Banning Books, Cancelling Mexican American Studies Program

Last week, the Tucson school board outraged America when they cancelled its high schools’ Mexican American Studies program and forcibly banned a series of books dealing with race. The reason? Apparently teaching respect for other cultures amounts to “racial hatred” and is in violation of Arizona’s statewide ban against ethnic studies – passed in conjunction with SB1070.

“Arizona has been ground zero for attacks against immigrant and Latino families, creating a hateful environment where it’s acceptable to attack Latino youth in a place where they need affirmation – their classrooms,” said Arturo Car-mona, executive director of Presente.org. “Tucson’s Mexican American Studies program gave Latino students a sense of dignity and connection to their own history and other students were offered an insight to a community that is a huge part of the local culture but all too often demonized.”

Continued Carmona: “Latino students in Tucson making up more than half of the student population – educators, parents, and students are fighting back. Over 20,000 people across America have joined together in signing a petition demanding that Tucson Superintendent John Pedicone & the Tucson School Board reverse their decision banning those books & reinstate the Mexican American Studies program. Students in Arizona are fighting to keep these programs in spite of the wave of anti-immigrant hysteria in the state. They need our help in keeping up the fight.”

The petition can be seen here: http://act.presente.org/sign/ethnicstudies

BERKELEY— As President Obama delivered his third State of the Union Address, the 11 sentences he dedicated to addressing my current immigration status did little to instill in me any more optimism than did similar statements from the last State of the Union… or the one before that.

“Let’s at least agree to stop expelling responsible young people who want to staff our labs, start new businesses, defend this country,” Obama stated. “Send me a law that gives them the chance to earn their citizenship. I will sign it right away.”

With that, Obama put the Development, Relief and Education of Alien Minors (DREAM) Act – which would provide a path to citizenship for undocumented students like me – back on the table.

But I wasn’t completely convinced. That’s because the optimistic picture Obama painted of the future of America doesn’t seem to include me.

As my graduation looms, the reality of being undocumented becomes increasingly stark. Unlike my U.S.-citizen classmates, I won’t be able to do basic things, not the least of which is working legally.

As the president spoke, among the coterie sitting next to the president’s wife was Juan Rose Redín, a former DREAM student who attended UCLA and is now a practicing attorney and U.S. citizen. His case demonstrates how an undocumented student can become an integral part of reinvigorating the American work force.

There are thousands of us.

Yet listening to the president lay out his “blueprint” for building “an economy that’s built to last,” I couldn’t help but think of friends with degrees in civil engineering or education, recent graduates and fellow DREAMers with the skills needed to energize domestic manufacturing and bolster the creation of green jobs.

But because of their immigration status, they remain in the shadows.

Of course the DREAM Act alone wouldn’t solve the problem.

If approved, the DREAM Act would provide a path to citizenship for only a select group of undocumented high school graduates who have enrolled in college or the military, and meet certain requirements. For example, they must have come to the United States before the age of 16, lived here for at least five years, be within a certain age group, and have “good moral character.”

But more undocumented students would be excluded from this than would actually benefit under the legislation. A Migration Policy Institute report found that although 2.1 million young people could potentially be eligible to benefit from the DREAM Act, in reality only about 825,000 would likely gain legal status under the bill.

With the niche population the federal DREAM Act targets, it would seem more of a moderate compromise capable of attaining bipartisan support, yet not even Democrats were able to gather the needed votes to pass the bill during the lame duck session in 2010.

Left with little sign of a possible vote this year, combined with a record number of deportations under the Obama administration (including DREAM Act students), the pres-ident’s speech seemed more aimed at garnering campaign support than enacting substantive change.

I am a supporter of our current president. However, the continuous stream of political rhetoric without clear action has slowly begun to eat away at me.

“The opponents of action are out of excuses,” he said. “We should be working on comprehensive immigration reform right now.”

Agreed. But Republican lawmakers continue to throw up what Obama termed “excuses,” and the possibility of any real reform seems out of reach.

For me, as for thousands of other undocumented students who are looking ahead toward graduation, the future has never seemed more uncertain.

WASHINGTON— While achievement levels have improved considerably for minority elementary and middle school students, studies show academic performance among high school age African Americans and Hispanics has fallen to levels not seen in thirty years.

How prevalent is the achievement gap at the high school level?

On average, math and reading skills for African-American and Latino high school seniors are at roughly the same level as 13-year-old white students, according to a November study put out by the Washington-based advocacy group Education Trust.

“We take kids that start [high school] a little behind and by the time they finish high school, they’re way behind,” says Amy Wilkins, vice president for government affairs and communications at Education Trust.

“Education is supposed to level the playing field,” adds Wilkins. “And it does the opposite…While many people are celebrating our postracial society . . . there is still a significant hangover in our schools.”

African-American and Latino students have made little to no progress in 12th-grade reading scores since 1994, according to the study, continuing to lag behind white students. Math achievement has also remained flat, with the gap between white students and those of color widening.

Causes for the disparity include: lowered expectations for students of color, income inequality and a lack of resources in low-income school districts, unequal access to experienced teachers, an increase in “out of field” teachers, and an “unconscious bias” among teachers and administrators.

These factors, experts say, produce an opportunity gap for students of color.

“A 12th-grade education in a more affluent neighborhood is not the same as the education in a less affluent neighborhood,” says Dominique Apollon, research director with the non-profit Applied Research Center. “Top students in low-income schools don’t have the opportunity to be pushed further and further.”

School advocates say students of color, regardless of class, are frequently confronted with lowered expectations and requirements from teachers and administrators. Students in low-income schools are more likely to be given an “A” for work that would receive a “C” in a more affluent school, the Education Trust study showed.

They are also less likely to be given advanced-level coursework, an issue John Capozzi, principal of Elmont (N.Y.) Memorial Junior-Senior High School, where a majority of students are African American and Latino, sees as a civil rights issue.

“They have preconceived notions about minority kids,” says Capozzi of his fellow educators and accreditation officials. “A large part of my job . . . [is] dispelling the stereotypes of our kids. It’s long been embedded in society.”

“African Americans and Hispanics have been denied access to the more rigorous courses,” Capozzi says. All students, he adds, “should be thrown into vigorous classes” and be given proper academic support to ensure their success in college and work.

According to Education Trust, more white high school graduates were enrolled in college prep courses than were their African-American, Latino and Native American counterparts. Often, schools with large minority populations do not offer advanced classes.

Pedro Noguera, professor of education at New York University, notes, “Where there’s tracking, [you have] obstacles to getting into the more rigorous classes, and the teachers aren’t that committed to teaching. Those are all signs of a dysfunctional culture.”

Even a middle-class background is no guarantee that minority students won’t experience such obstacles. Wilkins says middle-class black teens are more likely to be placed in less competitive classes than their white peers, and a black child with high fifth-grade math scores is less likely to be enrolled in algebra in eighth grade, the study shows.

“A lot of the time, those [middle-class black] kids are in schools where they are in the minority,” Noguera says. “If they don’t have teachers that are encouraging them, they feel alienated.”

Another obstacle for poor and minority students is that they are more likely than white students to have inexperienced and “out of field” teachers — for instance, a math instructor teaching English or a science instructor teaching history. That, education experts say, is a recipe for disaster.

So is the prevalence of inexperienced instructors.

“Some of the least experienced teachers are put in classrooms with our most needy kids,” says LaShawn Routé Chatmon, executive director of the National Equity Project based in Oakland. “This doesn’t mean that new teachers can’t serve needy students. But there is a trend of large numbers of teachers who aren’t fully prepared.”

The result? According to Chatmon, inexperienced teachers inadvertently perpetuate the achievement gap. Students performing below their grade must be taught at an accelerated level, she says. Teachers must be “warm demanders,” showing students respect, encouraging them to be partners in their learning and communicating clearly that they are expected to master the subject matter, Chatmon says.

This is particularly critical in the early years of high school when students learn groundwork for more advanced coursework.

“All the research shows that ninth grade is a pivotal year, for all students, but in particular minority students,” Capozzi says. “If you don’t catch them in ninth grade, the rise in dropouts increases dramatically.”

A longer version of this article appeared earlier on America’s Wire. America’s Wire is an independent, non-profit news service run by the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education. America’s Wire is made possible by a grant from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation. For more information, visit www.americaswire.org or contact Michael K. Frisby at mike@frisbyassociates.com.

By next month Congress must extend the 2012 payroll tax cut to help boost our nation’s economic recovery. In 2011 this tax cut resulted in 122 million American households boosting their take-home-pay worth to the total tune of $120 billion. The extension and expansion of the payroll tax holiday through 2012 would put an average of $1,426 in the pockets of U.S. households and could create more than 1 million new jobs.

Some members of Congress, however, are looking to offset the lost revenue in callous and counterproductive ways so that they don’t have to raise taxes on millionaires by a single penny. A disturbing number of conservatives are proposing that American-born children in low-income immigrant families should be the ones to foot the bill. Their proposal is economically self-defeating and smacks of the class warfare conservatives deride.

First the facts. Congress enacted the Child Tax Credit in 1998 to help keep America’s children from falling into poverty by allowing families with children to reduce the amount of federal taxes that they owe. Because the objective of the credit is to protect children in low-income families, Congress only requires the Internal Revenue Service to ensure that the child being claimed is a U.S. citizen or legal resident alien.

Immigrant parents of American-born children can claim the Child Tax Credit using an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number, which enables immigrants who are not eligible for Social Security numbers to file and pay federal taxes. In practice, this means that undocumented workers whose wages are taxed and who file federal income tax returns are eligible to claim the credit on behalf of their U.S.-citizen children.

Conservatives now want to help pay for the payroll tax holiday by stripping the ability of these Individual Taxpayer Identification Number tax filers to claim the credit. Rep. Sam Johnson (R-TX) has introduced a bill with 36 Republican co-sponsors titled the “Refundable Child Tax Credit Eligibility Verification Reform Act,” which would require taxpayers to provide their Social Security numbers in order to claim the portion of the Child Tax Credit that is refundable. In other words, it would disqualify low-income American children of undocumented parents from receiving this economic relief.

How the Child Tax Credit works

Low-income families often owe less in federal income taxes than the amount of child tax credits they can claim. In these cases they may be eligible for the Additional Child Tax Credit—the portion of the credit that is refundable. The refundable amount is designed to incentivize hard work by linking the credit to earnings: The more the parent earns from working, the larger the available credit. As of 2009 the value of the Additional Child Tax Credit refund is equal to 15 percent of earnings above $3,000 and cannot exceed $1,000 per child.

Imagine a single mother with two children, working full time for minimum wage with a yearly income of $15,000. Federal, state, and local payroll taxes are withheld from her paychecks, but her income is too low to owe federal income tax. (Filers who are not liable for federal income tax have usually paid other federal taxes such as Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes, as well as state and local taxes.) The Additional Child Tax Credit, however, makes her eligible for a $1,800 ($15,000 minus $3,000, times 0.15 = $1,800) refund to help defray the costs of raising her two children. A similar parent working in a higher-wage job who has sufficient federal income tax liability would be able to claim the full $1,000 per child.

If this woman were an undocumented worker whose children are U.S. citizens, when she filed her taxes using an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number, or ITIN, she would be eligible to receive this refund under current law. According to a report by the Treasury Department’s inspector general, in 2010 there were about 2.18 million taxpayers like this woman who filed with ITINs and claimed a refund. That means millions of American children rely on these parents’ refunds to put food on the table, buy school books and clothes, and shelter them.

Approximately $4.2 billion in refundable credits were issued in 2010 to ITIN filers, representing about 15 percent of the total Additional Child Tax Credit refunds paid. These same 2.18 million filers also contributed more than $7 billion in federal taxes toward Medicare and Social Security, programs from which they will never recoup benefits, meaning the U.S. Treasury still comes out ahead. 

Harsh and counterproductive consequences

The average household income for ITIN filers claiming Additional Child Tax Credit refunds in 2010 was about $21,240. This is less than half the 2010 median household income in the United States of $49,445, and would mean that a family of four with two children was living below the poverty line. Latino children are more likely to live in poverty than any other racial or ethnic group, and more than half of the 6.1 million Latino children in poverty are the U.S.-born children of immigrants.

These are the more than 2 million families threatened by this assault on the ACTC—hard-working families with children who are U.S. citizens. This tax increase could harm as many as 4 million of these American children already living on the economic margin. At a time when our nation has the largest number of people living in poverty since data were first collected 52 years ago after the deepest recession since the 1930s, tipping the scales against low-income children is not only immoral but also bad economic policy.

Federal assistance to lower-income families has a stimulating effect on our economy because these families are more likely to spend these funds on the necessities of daily life rather than saving them. Every dollar spent on a payroll tax cut generates $1.25 of economic growth. According to the Congressional Budget Office, refundable tax credits to low- and middle-income families have the second-highest positive impact on the economy out of all the current fiscal policy options. Only increased aid to the unemployed provides a bigger economic boost.

Tax refunds for lower-income families and payroll tax cuts are both important fiscal policy strategies. Terminating one policy to pay for the other is like robbing Peter to pay Paul and will cause more harm to our economy in the process. While Congress considers ways to offset the cost of extending the payroll tax cuts, denying tax credits to the parents of American children should not be among the options.

It makes zero economic sense to raise taxes on those who are already disproportionately likely to be living in poverty and who are certain to pour those additional resources back in to the economy.

An obvious alternative

The payroll tax cut extension is expected to cost $120 billion, while by his own admission Rep. Johnson’s “Refundable Child Tax Credit Eligibility Verification Reform Act” is expected to save at best only $24 billion over 10 years. What if, instead of singling out a subset of American children to take food out of their mouths, we asked millionaires to pay their fair share in taxes?

America’s millionaires currently pay an average tax rate that is significantly lower than what it was in the mid-1990s. Senate Democrats have proposed a 1.9 percent surtax on adjusted gross income more than $1 million, which would generate $155 billion over 10 years. A paltry 0.2 percent surtax on millionaires would result in the same savings as denying Additional Child Tax Credits to the citizen children of immigrant parents.

Congress should be asking themselves who benefits from keeping taxes low for millionaires (answer: no one but the millionaires in question), and who will benefit from the payroll tax cuts (answer: the entire economy through increased incomes and job creation). In spite of the political rhetoric, immigrants and their children contribute positively to the economy and will continue to do so in the future. Asking poor children to bear the brunt of these costs while millionaires continue to enjoy tax breaks is cruel and poor public policy.

Marshall Fitz is Director of Immigration Policy at the Center for American Progress. Sarah Jane Glynn is a Policy Analyst with the Economic Policy team at the Center.

(l-r) Ric Salinas, Herbert Siguenza and Richard Montoya, founders and members of Culture Clash.

For almost 30 years now, Richard Montoya, Ric Salinas and Herbert Sigüenza of Culture Clash have delivered on-stage history and civics lessons disguised as madcap anarchy.

Their particular brand of comedic social commentary has left audiences revolving from uproarious laughter to contemplation of pressing social problems.

The performance troupe draws its inspiration everywhere, from Shakespeare to Cantinflas, and everything is game for discussion: gender, race, politics, history.

Their unabashed approach is why Culture Clash will once again perform at La Jolla Playhouse. Culture Clash’s “American Night: The Ballad of Juan José” opens on Friday, Jan. 27. Montoya wrote and performs in the play and Jo Bonney directs.

“The Playhouse prides itself on being a safe haven for unsafe work,” said La Jolla Playhouse Artistic Director Christopher Ashley, “and few artists are as daring and dangerous as Culture Clash.”

“Their unique, take-no-prisoners style of theatre provokes both laughter in the theater and passionate debate on the car ride home,” he said.

“American Night,” which originally ran to rave reviews at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, takes the audience on a voyage through American history while tripping through the mind of its title character Juan José, played by René Millán.

Studying for his U.S. citizenship exam, Juan José stresses out and swoons. A surreal journey from sea to shining sea ensues, through battles and plagues, into a Japanese internment camp and a music festival. Along the way he encounters the likes of Bob Dylan, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, and Fidel Castro.

“American Night is a hilarious journey through American history and an up-close look at a good man who desperately wants to be a part of this country,” Millán said about his character.

“This play does not have an agenda. It’s not trying to convince anyone to have specific political views,” he added, “but in a time when immigrants are often demonized, Juan José takes a journey that will leave audiences enlightened and inspired.”

Millán grew up in Barrio Logan and reconnected to his childhood experiences while preparing to play Juan José, he said.

Juan José is a composite of the immigrants who passed through Millan’s neighborhood. Millan remembered their stories of perilous journeys and dreams that America would make life better for the families they’d left behind, he said.

“When I was in high school, I used to ride the city bus to school an hour each way, and I remember the Border Patrol would stop the bus and have all the brown people get off to have their papers checked,” he said. “As a full American citizen myself, it was an uneasy feeling I’ll never forget.”

In writing the play, Montoya wanted to “humanize the Mexican immigrant,” he said, “as we have done with the immigrant story from other shores — Irish, Italian, Jewish, Polish.” “All have their reverent stories of great journeys and triumph,” he said. “The Mexican or Central American journey is no less harrowing, just not as romantic. But why?” he asked.

“The play looks at this and asks us to consider Juan José, the title character, as a human being, wanting to better his family and find a legal path to citizenship and sing you a song along the way,” he said.

Montoya said that all Americans should see the play and anybody who respects history will love it. “The play asks us to consider the good charity in our collective hearts — America has been so generous, but suddenly that generosity is in short supply,” he said.

“The town hall is not a place where we discuss, but yell — border militias are armed, as well as Mexican drug cartels,” he explained. “Sounds like it’s time to send in the clowns, because we could do no worse than the politicians and military.”

Montoya was born in San Diego in 1959. His father, José Montoya, is considered to be one of the most influential Chicano poets. José is a Chicano Park muralist and played a key role in the development of the Chicano art movement The Royal Chicano Air Force.

“My dad painted his mural at Chicano Park in Barrio Logan, and so the story of the Montoyas is enmeshed in the story of San Diego,” Montoya said.

He dedicates “American Night” to the son of San Diego legend Chunky Sanchez. Fernando Sanchez lost his life in a traffic accident while with a crew battling fires in Los Angeles County.

“In many ways, you could say the people of San Diego — the Chicano community — have given their lives to better California,” Montoya said. “I’m just trying to do my part.”

With San Diego and Culture Clash indelibly connected, the Playhouse is a great fit. “San Diego County, nestled directly against the border with Mexico, is incredibly varied,” Ashley said. “It is essential that the Playhouse produce theater that speaks to and about our diverse community.

“As we head into another presidential election, American Night’s laser-sharp focus on citizenship and our shared cultural identity couldn’t be more timely,” he said. “And yet there’s no one else who sees the world like Culture Clash does.”

“American Night” runs from Jan. 27 to Feb. 26. It was written by Richard Montoya, developed by Culture Clash and Jo Bonney, who also directs, and co-produced with Center Theatre Group. The play was originally produced by Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Tickets and information are available at www.lajollaplayhouse.org.

In Mexico they call it what it is, “Corruption, La Mordida.” In the U.S. especially in San Diego County they call it, “Campaign Contributions.” District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis the most anti-Mexican District Attorney in SD County’s history, a Republican with a political agenda, running for Mayor of San Diego. Dumanis has a long history of criminalizing, profiling, and defaming persons of Mexican ancestry (i.e. CV Councilman Steve Castaneda), and entire Mexican communities such as Old Town National City.

“Old Town National City (OTNC) gangs, which has prowled National City streets since World War II and whose members, in some cases go back four generations in the same family, etc.”

Dumanis is also known for her political grandstanding news conferences and recently announced that criminal charges had been filed against three Sweetwater Union District Trustees, a former District Superintendant and one South Bay contractor. All were accused of being involved in “pay-for-play,” with businesses that had been awarded hundreds of millions of dollars of voter-approved bond projects. 

So no one misunderstands, this analysis is not a defense of the indicted politicians…the indefensible, cannot be defended, and the courts will determine innocence or guilt!

According to Dumanis, “This case is an excellent example of our office’s commitment to prosecuting public integrity cases.”

Dumanis’s indictments have raised anger and questions in the Chicano community against the indicted politicians and herself. The main questions being, what is Pay-for-Play, are the indictments selective, were the indictments political motivated by white politicians, and why has this happened politically to our community?

What is Pay-for-Play? It is a euphemism for political corruption, but in political practice it’s as American as apple pie. Part and parcel of the U.S. political system from the President right down to the elected dog catcher. Ex-speaker of the California State Assembly (1969), Jess Unruh described it in terms of, “Money is the mother’s milk of politics,” and on lobbyists, “If you can’t eat their food, drink their booze, screw their women and then vote against them, you have no business being up here.”

Politically, Democratic President Obama has raised 220 million dollars, and Republican candidate Mitt Romney 56 million? SD Mayor Jerry Sanders received thousands for his 2008 re-election campaign, $45,000 plus for his failed half-cent sales-tax hike, etc. Dumanis herself received large contributions from law enforcement.

The question begs, can anyone be so naïve as to believe that politicians don’t owe those contributors something in return? The reality is that Pay-for-Play permeates the entire political system; while most Anglos believe that it only exists with so-called minority politicians!

Are D.A. Dumanis” indictments selective? The history of the white run “just-us” prosecution sentencing and court system is one of being historically selective. In the past, prosecutors and local courts sentenced young Chicanos for up to 15 years in prison for possessing one-marijuana joint, today young Anglos are sentenced to drug treatment centers. On the other hand, the Federal Court system sentence thousands of Mexicans for immigration violations in assembly line fashion for the sole benefit of the prison industrial complex.

Blatant examples of selective enforcement, indictments, and prosecution of Mexicans, and other minorities compared to white politicians are right before our eyes. Ex-councilman Ralph Inzunza (Mexican) was indicted along with Charles Lewis (Afro-American) and Michael Zucchet (White). All three were charged with the same crimes. Inzunza was convicted and most likely will go to prison, Charles Lewis passed away, and Michael Zucchet was found innocent, and now has a high paying job as General Manager of the SD Municipal Employees Association? As one friend wittily stated, “The white man was found innocent, the black man is dead, and the Mexican is going to jail, guess nothing ever changes, eh?”

In the past ex SD councilpersons Jess Haro, Uvaldo Martinez, Ralph Inzunza and CV’s City Councilman Steve Castaneda (found innocent) were all selectively indicted for doing the same thing that most politicians at city hall were, and are still doing.

Case in point: concerning the dual standard and preferential application of the law is…San Diego’s Mayor Jerry Sanders case. Sanders allowed; despite City Attorney Jan Goldsmith legal advice that the move wasn’t legally permissible … Qualcomm Stadium to temporarily rename Snapdragon Stadium to promote the wireless chip giant’s smart phone processor during three nationally televised football games. Sanders decision is nothing less than a quid pro quo, Pay-for-Play. The proof, news reports that Qualcomm co-founder Irwin Jacobs contributed thousands to Sanders re-election campaign, and $45,000 into the mayor’s failed push for a half-cent sales-tax hike, etc.

Until D.A. Dumanis answers why she has not enforced the law, investigated or indicted Mayor Sanders’ for his Pay-for-Play case, not indicted others (Anglos?) in the Sweetwater District case, that questions and betrayal of the publics trust shown by the community now being directed at the indicted politicians, will soon be directed at her.

Rest assured if D.A. Dumanis fails to address the above, many in our community will continue to believe what my witty friend so succulently stated, “The white man was found innocent, the black man is dead, and the Mexican is going to jail, guess nothing ever changes, eh?”

Part 2 next week: – Why has this happens politically to our community? Baca is president of the Committee on Chicano Rights

En Mexico se le llama tal cual es, “Corrupción, La Mordida”. En los Estados Unidos y especialmente en el Condado de San Diego se le llama, “Contribuciones de Campaña”. La fiscal del Distrito Bonnie Dumani, la Fiscal más anti-Mexicana en la historia del Condado de S.D., con una agenda política, compitiendo por la Alcaldia de San Diego. Dumanis tiene un largo historial en criminalizar, mal aspectar y difamar personas de ascendencia Mexicana (i.e. C.V. Concejal Steve Casta-neda) y la totalidad de las comunidades Mexicanas tales como Old Town National City.

“Pandillas de Old Town National City (OTNC) que han merodeado las calles de National City desde la Segunda Guerra Mundial y que algunos de sus miembros, en algunos casos se remon-tan a 4 generaciones en la misma familia, etc.”.

A Dumanis también se le conoce por sus conferencias de prensa de grandilocuencia y recientemente anunció que se han presentado cargos criminales en contra de 3 miembros de la Junta de Concejo del Sweetwater District Union, un anterior Superintendente y un contratista del Sur de la Bahía. Todos ellos fueron acusados de estar envueltos en un “Trafique de Influencias” con negocios a los cuales se les han otorgado cientos de millones de dólares en proyectos de bonos aprobados por los votantes.

De acuerdo a Dumanis, “Este es un excelente ejemplo de la dedicación de nuestra oficina para enjuiciar casos de integridad publica”.

“Para que no se malentienda este analisis, no es una defensa de los politicos acusados…lo indefendible, no puede ser defendido, y los tribunales determinarán inocencia o culpabilidad”.

Las acusaciones de Dumanis han despertado enojo y preguntas en la comunidad Chicana en contra de los enjuiciados y hacia ella misma. Siendo la pregunta principal, ¿qué es “Trafique de Influencias?”, son los enjuiciados seleccionados, fueron ellos politicamente moti-vados por políticos blancos que controlan el sistema político, y ¿por qué le ha pasado políticamente esto a nuestra comunidad?

El “Trafique de Influencias,” es un eufemismo para corrupción politica, pero en la práctica política es tan Americano como el pay de manzana. Parte integrante de el sistema político de los Estados Unidos, desde el Presidente hasta abajo los caza perros elegidos. El Ex-Presidente de la Asamblea Estatal de California (1969) Jess Unruh los describió en estos términos “El dinero es la leche materna de los políticos” y entre los cabilderos, “si no te puedes comer sus comidas, tomarte sus bebidas, fornicar a sus mu-jeres y después votar en contra de ellos, no tienes nada que hacer aqui”.

Políticamente, el Democrático Presidente Obama ha recaudado 220 millones de dólares y el candidato Republicano Mitt Romney 56 millones. El Alcalde de S.D. Jerry Sanders recibio miles para su campaña de re-elección. Dumanis recibió grandes cantidades de dinero de parte de los agentes del orden. Y la pregunta en suplica dice: ¿puede alguien ser tan ingenuo para creer que estos políticos no le deben nada a cambio a los contribuidores? La realidad es que “Trafique de Influencias” cubre por completo todo el sistema político, mientras que la mayoría de los Anglos creen solo existe en los llamados políticos minoritarios!

¿Son las enjuiciaciones de D.A. Dumanis’ selectivas? La historia del funcionamiento blanco, “sólo nosotros” enjuiciamiento, sentenciamiento y sistema de tribunal es uno que ha sido historicamente selectivo. En el pasado, fiscales y tribunales locales sentenciaron a jóvenes Chicanos hasta 15 años de prisión por tener en su poder un cigarrillo de mariguana. Por otro lado, el sistema de Tribunales Federales sentencia a miles de Mexicanos por violación a inmigración en línea para el solo beneficio del complejo industrial de prisión.

Ejemplo descarado de sentencias selectivas y persecusión de Mexicanos y otras minorías comparados con políticos blancos están ante nuestros ojos. Ex-Concejal Ralph Inzunza (Mexicano), fue condenado junto con Charles Lewis (Afro-Americano) y Michael Zucchet (Blanco).

Los 3 tuvieron cargos por los mismos crimenes. Inzunza fue condenado y muy posiblemente vaya a la cárcel, Charles Lewis (falleció) y Michael Zucchet fue encontrado inocente. Como dijo un amigo, “Al hombre Blanco lo encuentran inocente, el Negro está muerto y el Mexicano va a la cárcel”, como que nada cambia ¿verdad?”

En el pasado, Ex-Concejal Jess Haro, Uvaldo Martinez, Ralph Inzunza y C.V. Concejal Steve Castaneda (encontrado inocente) fueron enjuiciados selectivamente por hacer lo mismo que los políticos de la alcaldía hacían y siguen ha-ciendo.

El punto es: en relación a la doble aplicación preferencial de la ley… el caso del Alcalde de San Diego, Jerry Sanders. Aún con el consejo legal del Abogado Municipal Jan Goldsmith de que la movida no era legalmente permitida… que dejó que el Qualcomm Stadium temporalmente cambiara de nombre a Snapdragon Stadium para promover el chip del procesor telefónico inalámbrico durante 3 juegos de fúbol televisados a nivel nacional. La decisión de Sanders no es más que, “Tráfico de Influencias”. La prueba, reportes de prensa reportando que el co-fundador de Qualcomm Irwin Jacobs contribuyó con miles a la campaña de re-elección de Sanders, y 45,000 al fallido empuje del alcalde al incremento del ½ centavo de impuesto sobre la venta, etc.

Hasta que la D.A. Dumanis responda el por qué no se implementó la ley, investigado o acusado al Alcalde Sanders por su caso de “Tráfico de Influencias,” no acusó a otros (Anglos?) en el caso del Distrito Sweetwater, cuestiona y traiciona la confianza pública mostrada por la comunidad que ahora es dirigida a los políticos acusados, seguramente será dirigida a ella.

Si por otro lado, D.A. Dumanis falla a atender estos asuntos, muchos en nuestra comunidad continuarán creyendo lo que mi gracioso amigo lo expresó tan suculentamente: “El hombre Blanco fue encontrado inocente , el Negro está muerto, y el Mexicano va a la cárcel”. Como que nada cambia ¿verdad?

Próxima semana parte 2 – ¿Por qué ha sucedido esto políticamente a nuestra comunidad? Baca es presidente del Comité Pro-Derecho Chicanos. (Gracias por la traducción al Sr. Hector Juárez)

Profesora Josie Hamada y su esposo decidieron emprender acción legal.

El jardín de la paz ubicado en la escuela elemental “Beyer” de San Ysidro es una creación que nació gracias a la iniciativa de la profesora Josie apoyada por su esposo Steve Hamada con ayuda de voluntarios de la comunidad con el fin de proporcionales a los pequeños estudiantes, la facilidad de contar con un espacio natural en donde el contacto con el medio ambiente además de recreativo fuera educativo.

Las autoridades escolares de la escuela de San Ysidro han perdido el interés de mantener en óptimas condiciones el jardín que cuenta con un centenar de árboles de cereza japonesa, los cuales requieren cuidados especiales por no ser de la región. Durante más de una década han servido para diversas ceremonias y lecciones educativas sobre las ciencias naturales y el cuidado del medio ambiente. Fuera del mal cuidado y poco interés por el mantenimiento de los árboles, la molestia del matrimonio Hamada se acrecentó al descubrir las violaciones por parte del recinto escolar a los reglamentos de salud en cuanto a los pesticidas, impuestos por el distrito escolar en el año 2000; los pesticidas no solamente se habían estado aplicando fuera de las áreas verdes, sino también en los espacios públicos y aceras exteriores de la escuela sin previo aviso corres-pondiente a los padres de familia, empleados y alumnos de dicha institución para alertar sobre la afectación de la salud, aparición de alergias y daños en la piel.

Según los lineamientos establecidos por el Departamento de Pesticidas en California bajo la regulación de las normas de salud escolar AB2260, la aplicación de pesticidas, herbicidas y otras sustancias útiles para el combate de la maleza y hierbas en las áreas verdes de las escuelas debe realizarse con previo aviso por escrito a los padres de familia o tutores de los menores, empleados y personal docente 24 horas antes de la aplicación de dichas sustancias; así como exponer letreros a la vista de todos dentro del plantel para prevenir a los adultos sobre cualquier daño que los químicos pudiesen causar a los menores, al igual que colocar anuncios en las áreas donde fue rociado el pesticida 24 horas después. De tal forma que se comprenda un lapso de 72 horas en todo el proceso antes de que los infantes puedan estar en contacto con las sustancias químicas.

De acuerdo a las pruebas e investigaciones realizadas ante las denuncias al distrito, la institución educativa de San Ysidro no ha seguido con los estatutos impuestos. La situación es alarmante para la salud de los pequeños, ya que a raíz de estas fumigaciones los niños entran en contacto con los plaguicidas al permanecer y jugar en las áreas verdes.

Tal como la experiencia vivida por la entonces profesora Josie Hamada en Marzo del 2010 cuando entró en contacto con un líquido azul-verdoso —según sus palabras, muy difícil de quitar— mientras acompañaba a los estudiantes a dibujar su árbol favorito en el jardín como parte de la clase del día. Fue ahí cuando comenzó a interesarse y prestar mayor atención a este fenómeno recurrente durante los meses siguientes. Acudió a las autoridades escolares para hacer el reporte correspondiente sobre los hechos que fueron ignorados. En marzo del siguiente año se repitió la escena por ello, la ahora retirada profesora junto a su esposo deci-dieron emprender acción legal dando a conocer estos hechos al distrito escolar de San Ysidro; pues la aparición de los pesticidas era muy abundante.

Con estos acontecimientos, se llevó a la Corte el primer caso en su tipo en el que se peleaban los derechos de Steve y Josie por mantenerse en el caso y de esta forma poder demandar tres puntos básicos que se han convertido en su preocupación los últimos meses: Mantener y respetar las reglas implementadas por el control de Salud Escolar acerca de los pesticidas; ya que además de acabar con la vida de los árboles, es completamente dañino para la salud de los estudiantes. La segunda, que se les devuelva el dinero invertido en el jardín recaudado por los señores Hamada con ayuda de voluntarios de la comunidad y finalmente, que exista la educación por parte de la escuela en mantener la naturaleza y transmitirla al alumnado.

Los resultados en la corte para Steve y Josie no fueron favorables, el derecho para llevar a cabo la demanda se les fue negado, ya que no pertenecen más a la escuela; hoy, solamente son voluntarios. El siguiente paso para ganar la batalla únicamente se logrará con la ayuda de los padres de familia y la comunidad. Ellos, son los que pueden exigir sus derechos como tutores y proteger la salud de sus hijos; es necesario alzar la voz para hacer de San Ysidro una comunidad mejor.

It’s full-tilt political boogie in the US and Mexico. Media in both nations are saturated with interviews, profiles and satires of the candidates. Cable blasts virtually nonstop news of the Republican primaries and the ones for president and Mexico City mayor south of the border. In 2012 the neighboring countries will experience national, local and state elections in extraordinary times. In the year 2000, the last time major US and Mexican elections coincided, the results led to jarring and even unimaginable events in both countries.

For the US, the elections take place amid an uneven economic recovery, the historic erosion of the middle class, the clash between austerity and social safety net politics and the sharpening contradictions between the costs of projecting military power abroad while satisfying growing needs at home. Dramatized by foreign policy critic Ron Paul’s showing in early Republican primaries, some of these issues are even gaining traction on the right.

As in Mexico, a new year’s gush of gasoline price hikes and other rises in the cost of living greeted the populace. Welcome to the Cost of January.

Maybe the end of the Mayan calendar later this year augurs big surprises, after all.

Unforeseen just one year ago, growing grassroots movements inspired by, but not limited to Occupy Wall Street, are re-framing the political debate and shaping the political terrain.

Initially aimed at the nerve center of global capitalism, the Occupy-influenced movements are evolving in numerous ways, moving from national to local and back to national stages, as was evidenced by last week’s student protest in California against tuition hikes as well as demonstrations planned this month at state legislatures and court houses in New Mexico and elsewhere. The demands range from ending “corporate personhood” to passing legislation aimed at getting more tax revenue from the wealthy one percent of the population.

On countless fronts, citizens are back in the streets in the greatest sustained numbers since the early 1970s. Whether it’s Native Americans protesting the desecration of Arizona’s San Francisco Peaks, environmentalists and ranchers taking on the Keystone XL pipeline or civil rights and pro-migrant organizations uniting to resist the Alabama immigration law, independent citizen action is back in style.

Mexico likewise finds itself at a critical juncture. More than five years after President Felipe Calderon initiated his so-called drug war a Vietnam-like body count mounts daily, as do the official declarations of success, in a manner very reminiscent of bravado emanated from Washington about Southeast Asia several decades ago. Simultaneously, the wheels of the legal Mexican economy are spinning ever more slowly, and even the big engine of oil is no longer reliable, with easily recoverable supplies diminishing and vanishing into puffs of greenhouse gases.

More economists and analysts speak about how Mexico’s model of factory exports, migrant remittances and international tourism has long reached its zenith.

While widespread distrust of politicians and political parties marks Mexico’s political scene, a potentially huge youth vote cast by people with little or no historic memory of the events that led up to Mexico’s presumed democratic transition of 1997-2000 stands out as a big wild card in this year’s process. Hence, the emphasis of the former ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and allied Mexican Green Party on hooking the youth vote.

Women could be another decisive factor; in both the presidential and Mexico City mayoral races a woman could emerge as the victor and perhaps steer the country in new directions.

“A great part of the electorate wavers between fear of something worse and the ardent desire to put an end to the long deterioration to which the nation has been submitted,” recently wrote Mexican political analyst Enrique Semo. “It will be during the last moments when many voters decide to elect a candidate who assures the least painful continuity or rebel against this and look for, with bravery, a better future.”

After years of an almost single-minded focus on border security, outstanding matters of importance between Mexico and the US remain tucked away like a forgotten to-do list stuffed in a dusty drawer. The immigration question, dislocations from the North American Free Trade Agreement and the futures of the Rio Grande and Colorado River, two shared waterways jeopardized in an age of climate change, all cry out for solutions. In Mexico at least, such issues will get some airing this electoral year.

The stories of US presidential hopeful Mitt Romney’s Mexican roots-his family hails from the Mormon community of Chihuahua state- raised plenty of eyebrows in the ancestral land, especially given Romney’s pledge to veto the DREAM Act, a measure which would offer a pathway to legalization for some undocumented youth in the US, if he is elected president. Asked by a Mexican reporter his opinion on Rom-ney’s immigrant posture, Chihuahua Mormon community activist Julian LeBaron summed up the sentiments of many when he replied that it was “very offensive to me.”

In certain ways, the US elections are shaping up along the lines of the economically-polarized 2006 Mexican political exercise while the Mexican contests are acquiring characteristics of the 2008 US experience. Six years ago issues of economic class reverberated in Mexico, reviving historic left-right and liberal-conservative conflicts that had been submerged to some extent between 1988 and 2000, when opposition forces concentrated their firepower on ejecting the long-dominant PRI from power.

In 2012, however, the center-left candidate, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, is significantly modifying his political rhetoric from a “poor people first” line to a discourse- no doubt influenced by the raging violence in addition to the emergence of the independent Movement for Peace and Justice with Dignity (MPJD) launched by poet Javier Sicilia-that stresses a progressive, “Loving Republic” which cares for all its citizens as laid out in the Alternative Project of the Nation.

Indeed, Lopez Obrador invited MPJD leaders Sicilia and Julian LeBaron to register as Congressional candidates aligned with the two-time presidential contender’s campaign. Sicilia declined the proposal, arguing that conditions did not exist for the meaningful political participation of reform-minded individuals.

In a letter published in Proceso magazine, Sicilia contended that party corruption, elite impunity and criminally-driven political Balkanization have overwhelmed the nation’s political institutions.

“I insist, considering the conditions the country is experiencing, that the only way to save democracy is with an agenda of national unity in which everyone works together to save the nation and reestablish the state.” Sicilia wrote.

Still insisting that he was robbed of the presidency in 2006, Lopez Obrador has nevertheless also made overtures to his right. He’s reached out to old antagonists in the Tele-visa media empire and cultivated sectors of the business community, especially in violence-torn Monterrey, which are fed up with both the PRI and governing PAN. On Sunday, January 15, Lopez Obrador announced he would invite Monterrey businessman Fer-nando Turner to be the next economic minister in the event of electoral victory. Holding a master’s degree in public administration from Harvard, Turner has been associated with Altos Hornos of Mexico, Katcon Global and Grupo Alpha.

In short, Lopez Obrador is searching for the elusive independent voter and political center, not unlike Obama did in 2008.

The Mexican political leader’s new style could be paying off. Media monitoring of election coverage done for the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) revealed that Lopez Obrador had the most radio and television coverage from December 18 to January 1, when 481 informational pieces were detected. That’s 67 more than the second-most covered candidate, the PRI’s Enrique Pena Nieto.

Voter participation and campaign money are two other big areas where threads of commonality link the US and Mexican elections. Mexicans turned out in droves January 15 to meet a deadline for renewing voter identification cards; the last minute rush underscored how registration policies that knock voters off the rolls months before the July 1 election effectively disenfranchise huge numbers of people.

When the final registration numbers come in, as many as four million people could be disenfranchised this year, according to media reports.

In the US, meanwhile, a wave of new registration laws coupled with alleged curbs on voter participation in at least 14 states, mainly from the old Confederacy, prompted the NAACP to announce it would file a complaint with the United Nations over the disenfranchisement of minority populations. As many as five million people could become disenfranchised in the 2012 US elections, according to critics.

The money question hangs over the Mexican and US elections like a lead-or gold-weight. Although public financing of political campaigns is an institutional feature of the Mexican system, big doubts remain over the extent of narco-dollars and other outside resources pumped into the electoral competitions.

Wrote analyst Enrique Semo: “The election will take place at two levels: the public level for winning the vote, and the clandestine one in order to achieve the de-facto power arrangement.”

PAN presidential hopeful Josefina Vasquez proposed this past weekend that Mexico’s major electoral forces reach an agreement on preventing narco infiltration of the 2012 elections.

While drug money per se is not an immediate issue in the US elections, the lack of transparency and secretive cash flows sanctioned by the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision raise fundamental questions about the origin and ultimate purpose of such political donations. Does the money come from off-shore corporations? Foreign dictatorships? Money launderers?

In both the Mexican and US elections of 2012, big questions will surface about the part played by obscure forces standing behind the political curtain and choreographing the movements of the various actors, much to the ignorance of the audience watching the spectacle. With so many offices up for grabs this year, the potential for mischief on both sides of the border is quite enormous.

Frontera NorteSur: on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news Center for Latin American and Border Studies New Mexico State University Las Cruces, New Mexico.

Gov. Brown presented his budget last week that would adversely affect minorities.

By Zaineb Mohammed
New America Media

Advocates for both ethnic communities and children reacted with alarm to the state budget that Gov. Jerry Brown proposed last week.

The proposal aims to reduce the budget deficit from the $26.2 billion budget hole of one year ago to $9.2 billion through budget cuts and revenue generators amounting to $10.3 billion.

However, the cuts come mostly at the expense of low-income ethnic communities and children in particular.

Cuts Would Impact Access to Care

Chad Silva, policy director of the Latino Coalition for a Healthy California, commented, “The programs that impact the lowest income folks are getting cut and are going to hurt them in very significant ways because they impact access to care.”

People from ethnic and racial groups make up about 60 percent of those benefiting from the state’s Healthy Family program and 70 percent of people on Medi-Cal, California’s Medicaid program. Regions, such as Los Angeles and the Central Valley, which have high percentages of Latino populations enrolled in those programs, would be hit particularly hard by the reductions if they are passed by the State Legislature.

The governor’s proposal recommends a $1.1 billion cut to the CalWORKS program, which would affect nearly 600,000 low-income families and over 1 million children living in poverty, including many in deep poverty, below 50 percent of the federal poverty line.

The governor proposes reducing eligibility for employment services, such as training opportunities and employment assistance, from 48 months to 24 months.

For children whose parents would no longer be eligible for aid under the reduced and restructured Cal-WORKS program, Brown recommends creating a new Child Maintenance program staring with the new fiscal year in October 2012. However, although income and resource eligibility criteria for the new program would be the same as it has been under CalWORKS, the average monthly grant for child-only cases would decrease from $463 to $392.

Additionally, programmatic changes the governor is calling for in Medi-Cal are troubling, say advocates for children and families, because their consequences remain unclear.

Brown proposes to transfer 875,000 Healthy Families beneficiaries to Medi-Cal and also to reduce the rates the state pays managed care providers by about 25 percent, beginning in October. Patient advocates worry that the sharply lower payments will lead to fewer providers willing to take on Healthy Families recipients. 

Changes Called “Alarming”

Mike Odeh, the health policy associate for Children Now, stated, “It’s alarming because it’s a big change in a short period of time. Our concern is to make sure kids don’t lose coverage in the transition.”

Advocates also question whether Medi-Cal can handle the extra children due to the significant cuts to that program last year.

The governor’s proposal declares further that it will reform the payment model for federally qualified health centers and rural health clinics in order to trim $28 million in state health spending in the 2012-13 fiscal year.

However, Brown’s plan contained few specifics on how the state could achieve those savings. “The devil’s in the details, it could be a good thing or a bad thing, we’re not really sure. Considering they’re taking money out of the system, that seems like it will have an impact on access,” said Odeh.

Equally concerning to advocates are the proposed budget cuts to education.

If Brown’s tax initiative passes in November, K-12 schools and community colleges will be provided with nearly $4.8 million more than they received this fiscal year; however, without the passage of his plan, schools will face further deep cuts.

Within his proposal, Brown eliminates the requirement that schools provide transitional kindergarten instruction. Effectively barring 125,000 kindergarten students from California’s public school system, this change would mark the largest removal of students from public school classrooms in national history.

Silva of Latino Coalition for a Healthy California commented that those who would feel the biggest effect from the cuts need to understand the linkage between health outcomes and educational opportunity. “Further cuts to education are only going to affect the upward mobility and prospective health outcomes for communities of color,” he asserted.

Odeh of Children Now somberly concluded, “There are a lot of unknowns right now, and it’s not looking very pretty.”

As noted below, this guide has been updated. This guide was originally published on Jan. 9, 2012.

On Monday, the Supreme Court heard arguments in a Texas redistricting case that could have major implications for minority voters — as well as determine which party is likely to control Congress after the 2012 elections.

Here’s our guide to why the case matters, why it could pose a challenge to part of the Voting Rights Act [1], and what impact the Court’s ruling could have on voters across the country.

Our update on Monday2019s oral arguments is here [2].

How did this case end up in front of the Supreme Court?

At its most basic, the case is contesting which district maps Texas will use in the 2012 elections.

This seems like a dry question, but it’s not. Thanks to population growth, Texas is gaining four seats in Congress, and how the district lines are drawn is likely to determine whether those additional seats will be won by Democrats or Republicans — and how big an impact minority voters will have in deciding who the new representatives will be.

Because those four seats could help determine which party controls the House of Representatives, the Texas case is being closely watched across the country.

As it has done before [3], the Republican-dominated state legislature drew maps that heavily favor Republicans [4].

At least three of the four [5] new congressional districts were drawn in a way that seemed likely to favor Anglo Republican candidates — even though Latinos and African-Americans accounted for most of the state’s population growth [6].

The legislature’s maps immediately faced legal challenges from minority groups who argued that the lines were drawn to purposefully weaken the ballot power of Latino voters — as well as from the Department of Justice, which argued that Texas’ state house and congressional map plans [7] are illegal because they diminish the ability of minority voters to elect the candidate of their choice [8].

Because the ongoing legal battle over the legislature’s maps was interfering with the state’s election schedule [9], the federal district court in San Antonio drew an alternate set of maps for the state to use [10].

These maps are seen as being more favorable to minority voters [11] — as well as much friendlier to Democrats [12].

Rather than use these court-drawn maps, the state of Texas appealed the case to the Supreme Court [13], arguing that the state court overstepped its bounds, and that, because of the time-crunch, the legislature’s original plans should be used for the 2012 elections [14] — even though the federal government has yet to give the plans “preclearance.”

The Problem with ‘Preclearance’

This is where the case bumps up against the Voting Rights Act. Section 5 of the 1965 act [15] requires that certain states with a history of racial discrimination — including Texas — get federal “preclearance,” or approval [16], before implementing any laws that affect voting.

The Texas legislature’s original plans haven’t received preclearance yet — and it’s unlikely that they will before this year’s elections.

While most states simply ask for preclearance from the Department of Justice, Texas has taken the less-common, more-expensive route of asking for approval from a panel of federal judges in Washington.

In denying summary judgment on the case, those judges have already concluded that “the State of Texas used an improper standard [17] to determine which districts afford minority voters the ability to elect their preferred candidate of choice.”

But the final ruling on preclearance is unlikely to come soon enough to get Texas’ already delayed election season [18] underway.

By asking the Supreme Court to use the state legislature’s maps before they have received federal preclearance, Texas is essentially trying to perform a temporary end-run around the Voting Rights Act’s “preclearance” requirement.

Texas is arguing that this move is perfectly legal [14], and would not affect the state’s “undisputed obligation” to get federal preclearance before using its new maps “on a permanent basis.”

Nina Perales, the director of litigation for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund [19], told the Washington Post [20] that this move “flips Section 5 completely on its head,” and argued the state was trying to squeeze in one more election cycle before having to reckon with the growing power of Latino voters.

Updated 1/10/2012: How is the Court likely to rule?

The fact that the Supreme Court decided to hear the case at all makes it seem unlikely [21] that the justices will simply endorse the maps drawn by the federal court in San Antonio.

During oral arguments yesterday [22], several members of the Court suggested that the San Antonio court may have overstepped its bounds in the way it drew its interim maps — particularly in its creation of new minority districts.

But the Court also made it fairly clear that it was not interested in overturning Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act — at least, not at the moment.

“The constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act is not at issue here, right?” Chief Justice John Roberts, Jr. asked at one point.

Only Justice Antonin Scalia said that the San Antonio court should temporarily implement the Texas legislature’s plan.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan emphasized that Section 5 banned the use of a plan that had not received federal approval, and Chief Justice Roberts seemed to agree, noting, “You cannot assume that the legislature’s plan should be treated as if it were precleared.”

But the consensus of the court seemed to be that it was just as problematic for the San Antonio court to assume that the legislature’s map was an illegal gerrymander, and then redraw the map on the assumption that all of the minority groups concerns were legitimate.

Justice Samuel Alito suggested that the judicial branch had no business getting involved in making policy via map lines. “To say they are going to apply neutral districting principles is a subterfuge,” he said. “There is no such thing.”

Justice Alito suggested that the best solution might simply be to wait for the Washington, D.C., court to either grant or deny preclearance on the Texas legislative maps — and to delay Texas’ primary schedule again in the meantime.

Justice Kagan suggested a compromise plan, in which Texas’ court-drawn interim maps would more closely resemble the maps drawn by the legislature.

Attorneys for both sides said this plan would be preferable to simply implementing their opponents’ maps.

As the Washington Post’s Aaron Blake noted last month, such a compromise would still set a new precedent [23]. “Currently, court-drawn maps are drawn with deference to the last constitutionally-approved map available (i.e. the existing map). Changing the standard would give state legislatures greater power over the final product, even in the event that their maps are invalidated,” he wrote.

Updated 1/10/12: Earlier Speculation on the Court and the Voting Rights Act

At minimum, the Supreme Court will have to rule on what maps Texas should use in its upcoming election.

As Lyle Denniston of SCOTUSblog put it [21], “The Court must either draft maps of its own, accept — even grudgingly — something that already exists, or find a streamlined way to get the District Court in San Antonio to craft a plan that minimally alters the state’s maps.”

But there’s been speculation that the Court could also use the case as an opportunity to address the constitutionality of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, the part that requires certain states to obtain preclearance of plans that affect minority voters.

The Washington Post’s Aaron Blake called this “the Nuclear Option [23].” One of the key elements of preclearance is that it places the burden of proof on the state governments to prove that their plans are not discriminatory, rather than requiring minority groups to organize and pay for expensive legal challenges. By invalidating the Section 5 preclearance requirement, the Supreme Court “would allow these states greater freedom to draw their maps and increase the burden on minority groups and others who may fight the maps in court,” Blake wrote.

The Supreme Court seemed to come close to overturning Section 5 two years ago [24], in another case from Texas [25]. That decision made it clear that the Court had serious reservations about the limits the Voting Rights Act places on a state’s sovereignty.

In that ruling, Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. wrote [25] that “the Act now raises serious constitutional concerns,” and that it “differentiates between the States in ways that may no longer be justified.”

This time around, the conservative Cato Institute [26] has submitted an amicus brief to the Texas case asking the Court to review the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act, arguing that the statute “no longer serves its original purpose [27].”

But some experts doubt that the Supreme Court will tackle Section 5′s constitutionality in the Texas case.

Richard Pildes [28], a New York University law professor, told MSNBC [29], “The court recognizes that it must act more quickly than usual, given the time pressures involved with primary elections looming shortly down the road. For all those reasons, the court is likely to focus on the narrowest issues needed to resolve the particular legal issues presented.”

Cato isn’t alone in its opposition of the Voting Rights Act. Georgia Congressman Lynn Westmoreland, the Republicans’ point man for congressional redistricting, has long opposed the act [30], calling it “outdated, unfair and unconstitutional.” In a speech opposing [30] the extension of the act in 2006, Westmoreland argued that Georgia’s record of voter equality “can stand up to any other state in the nation” and that the Voting Rights Act’s renewal would “keep my state in the penalty box for 25 more years based on the actions of people who are now dead.”

But the Voting Rights Act also has strong, bipartisan support. President George W. Bush gave it high praise [31]. Executives from Wal-Mart, AT&T, Pfizer, Coca-Cola, Disney [32] and other large corporations wrote to Bush urging him to reauthorize the law and describing it as a cornerstone of American society. The Senate ultimately approved the 2006 extension of the act 98-0, and the House 390-33 [33].

Although the Supreme Court may have decided not to tackle the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act in the Texas case, it may soon have other opportunities to address the issue.

A case in which a county in Alabama is challenging the constitutionality [34] of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act is scheduled for oral arguments in the U.S. Court of Appeals on January 19.

The Department of Justice2019s move to strike down South Carolina2019s Voter ID law [35]under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act may also spark a case that could make its way to the Supreme Court.