National City, CA –The Taste of National City is back, marking its 21st year in National City. The Annual Taste of National City will be held on Thursday, May 17th, 2012 from 4pm- 7pm at Heritage Square (“A” Ave. and 9th Street).

At the “Taste,” local restaurants offer samplings from an array of multicultural food set to the tune of live bands including Afro Mestizo (Latin Band), Culture Shock dance troupe, Bailet Folkloriko, and the renowned Mariachi Garibaldi. Entertainment will include art exhibits, attractive raffle prizes, FREE open houses held at Brick Row and the Kimball House Museum by the National City Historical Society. Local Artist will display their art and photography exhibits reflecting the culture of the South Bay and Latin America.

You can expect to delight in authentic tastes from Mexico, the Philippines, American cuisine, Café style, barbeque, local bakeries, and more. “This event is a fun way to promote our local restaurants, engage the community in cultural activities, and share National City’s rich diversity” Jacqueline Reynoso, President/ CEO.

Participating restaurants include: 2009 Best of National City Award Winner Birrias Chivos and Cheves and 2009and 2010 Best Décor Buster’s Beach House, 2010 Winners Casa Del taco, 2011 Winner Olivewood Gardens, as well as Apple Bee’s, Rodeo’s Taquiza, the newly opened Coronado’s Café, Mediterranean delight Ethnic Deli, Peter Piper Pizza, Tierra Costa, 2011 Business of the Year Wrigley’s Supermarket and Catering, and the world famous San Diego Pretzel Company.

Tickets on Sale Now at the National City Chamber of Commerce & Visitor Information Center located at 901 National City Blvd., Monday –Friday (9am-5pm)

• Early Bird $20
• Tasteful Bundle – 10 Tickets for $100
• Senior Citizens/ City Staff/ Students/ Military $10
• Kids 42 ” tall and under FREE
• Tickets day of event $25

 Tickets grant you full access to all event festivities and sampling from all participating restaurants. 

Magu, Our Family Car

The personalized automobiles known as “Lowriders,” are part of a subculture whose aesthetic tendencies cross over into the world of fine art. Lowrider describes a car that is typically customized with a hydraulic setup to be low to the ground, with an elaborate paint job, striking chrome features and uniquely designed upholstery. But this term reaches beyond cars, and has become a cultural phenomenon and way of life for many people.

Today Lowrider culture can be seen not only in cars and motorcycles, but also in sculptures, photography and paintings as a way for people to express their individuality and cultural pride. This exhibition will feature a display of full-size cars, motorcycles and bicycles that have been created in the Lowrider style.

Accompanying the vehicles will be paintings and sculptures made by the vehicle designers and owners and other prominent artists influenced by Lowrider culture in their artwork. Featured artists include Teen Angel, Mister Cartoon, Mike Pickel, Gilbert “Magu” Lujan, Jae Bueno, David Avalos, Bobby Ruiz, El Moises, D. A. Garcia, Estevan Oriol, Eriberto Oriol, Victor Cordero, Eddie “Swoopy” Galindo, Aztek, Howard Gribble, Pedro “Rooster” Rayos, Salvador Gonzalez, Ulises Vasquez, El Moises and Armando Flores, among others.

The exhibition opens with a preview reception on Saturday, May 12 from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. The reception is complimentary for OMA members and $10 for non-members. Cruisin’ Califas: The Art of Lowriding is guest curated by Carlos C. de Baca and David C. de Baca. This exhibition is made possible by the generous support from Rudy and Elizabeth Van Hunnick, and David and Jan Arnold.

El Moises, La Catrina y Su Vida Loca

Join the guest curators a walk and talk through the exhibition on July 14 at 2:00 p.m. Hear Lowrider stories, watch hydraulic demonstrations and learn more about the artists and artwork in the exhibition. The talk is free with museum admission and complimentary for OMA members, students and military.

Learn about the art of pin-striping during Manuel Cisneros’s demonstration at Artists@Work on June 14 from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. Tickets are $15 for OMA members and $20 for nonmembers and include an open bar with wine and Lagunitas beer and appetizers by Harney Sushi and Bull Taco.

The title of the exhibition, Cruisin’ Califas, refers to Lowrider culture in California and the favorite pastime of the Lowrider – cruising! Califas is a slang term that refers to California amongst the Latino culture with roots that going back to the mythological land of Calafia that inspired the naming of California. Largely associated with the rise of the automobile industry and the post WWII manufacturing boom, Lowriders became a popular way for people, mostly without the means to purchase a brand new car, to express their individuality and cultural pride. Lowrider describes a car that is customized with a hydraulic setup to be low to the ground, with an elaborate paint job that often includes pin striping and lettering, with striking chrome features, and uniquely designed upholstery. Classic cars such as Chevrolet Impalas and Master Deluxes are often associated with this culture, but today, any type of vehicle can be transformed into a Lowrider, from motorcycles to bicycles, SUV’s and tricycles. Reaching farther then cars; this phenomenon has become a way of life for many people, influencing the style of the artists involved in this exhibition.

The exhibition will featuring a 1950 Chevrolet and artwork from the late Gilbert “Magu” Lujan, the 1938 Chevy Master Delux, the pin-striping and airbrush artwork of Victor Cordero, the El Revolucionario motorcycle of Rick Alvarez, the hubcap sculptures of David Avalos, pen and ink drawings from Eddie Galindo, a motorcycle and paintings by Salvador Gonzalez, the art of Teen Angel, model cars, memorabilia, cruising music compiled by well-known radio DJ and Lowrider ‘Xavier the X-Man’ and much more.

San Diegans Carlos and David C. de Baca have been involved in the Southern California car culture for more than 25 years. They have developed many local automotive-oriented shows, including the “Bajitos y Suavecitos” Lowrider exhibition featured at the San Diego Automotive Museum in Balboa Park. The exhibit is touted by the museum as the most successful in terms of the number of visitors and admissions. Based on the success of the show, Carlos was recruited by that museum’s Board of Directors where he is currently an active board member. David has been featured and interviewed on many local and national television shows to discuss Lowrider history, style and culture.

Opened in 1995, Oceanside Museum of Art educates and inspires through a unique range of diverse engaging exhibitions and programs that connect people with regional, national and global artists and art forms. The museum is open Tuesday-Saturday 10 am to 4 pm and Sunday 1 to 4 pm. Free admission every Tuesday, general admission is $8, $5 for seniors and free for students and military. For more information call 760.435.3720 or visit www.oma-online.org. The museum is located at 704 Pier View Way in downtown Oceanside, California within walking distance from the Oceanside transit center with Amtrak, Coaster, Sprinter and Metrolink stops.

Two years after the death of San Diego resident Anastasio Hernandez Rojas, his family and supporters continue demanding justice and answers from the Obama administration.

Hernandez Rojas died in May 2010, a few days after being beaten and tased by Border Patrol agents near the San Ysidro pedestrian exit. The case was well-documented with video taken by passer-bys.

Since then, his family and supporters have been demanding that the federal government releases information of the investigation. On Thursday, May 3, a vigil and march was held at Balboa Park in support of his widow Maria Puga and the family of Hernandez. Eight cities across the country participated in a National Day of Action demanding justice from the Obama Administration in the case of Hernandez.

“We want to see where in the training manual it says it’s okay to kill border residents like Sergio Adrian who are not posing threats to agents,” said Christian Ramirez, director of the Southern Border Communities Coalition. “This is a pattern of abuse that repeatedly ends in homicide.”

Ramirez said that there has been no information released on Hernandez’s case.

“Anastasio was a proud father of five, a hard-worker, we want to make sure justice is made for him,” he said.
During the vigil, people hold signs asking “Who killed Anastasio?” Others read, “We are all Anastasio! Todos somos Anastasio!” Still others demanded, “We demand justice!”

Hernandez was 44 years old when he died. His mother and other family members came from the Mexican state of San Luis Potosi to participate in the vigil.

“Today we take to the streets again to remember Anastasio,” Ramirez said. “We want the government to clarify this case.”

Hernandez had been a San Diego resident before being detained by the Border Patrol. His children and wife lived here with him.

“We’re not talking about a stranger, about an outsider,” Ramirez said. “Anastasio was a San Diegan, he was our neighbor!”
San Diego Councilmember David Alvarez was present at the vigil, wearing a San Diego baseball cap, Hernandez’s trademark.

“I’m here to demand a clarification of what happened two years ago,” said Alvarez, who represents District 8, which includes Barrio Logan and San Ysidro. “It’s inconceivable that in plain 21st century these kinds of injustice are taking place. This has nothing to do with immigration, it is about human rights and dignity.”

San Diego activist Estela de los Rios said that “we need to stop the brutal killings at the border.”

Maria de la Luz Rojas, Hernandez’s mother, thanked all the participants during the vigil. “Thank you to everyone who have helped us,” she said in Spanish.

In the last 2 weeks, more than 32,000 people have signed a petition demanding that Attorney General Holder and the Obama Administration conduct an open and thorough investigation into the incident.

On Mexican Mother’s Day, May 10, those petitions were delivered outside the Department of Justice building in Washington D.C. Congress members, including Rep. Bob Filner, are circulating letters demanding Holder to release information about the status of the investigations of eight Border Patrol-related deaths.

These events come just days after the Department of Justice (DOJ) decided not to prosecute the Border Patrol agent who shot and killed 15 year-old Sergio Adrián Hernandez Hüereca. The deadly incident occurred days after Anastasio was killed near the international bridge that unites Ciudad Juarez and El Paso. The DOJ asserted that the agent acted in accordance with Border Patrol guidance on use of force when they shot Sergio across the international boundary.

Community members in Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Miami, San Diego, Calexico, South Texas and other U.S. cities, organized actions denouncing the lack of accountability and oversight over U.S. border agents that has resulted into repeated cases of brutality.

Mothers of women and men missing in Mexico embarked May 8 on a national march/caravan that will culminate in protests and meetings in the nation’s capital this week. Like last year’s caravans organized by poet Javier Sicilia and other relatives of violence victims, the mobilizations will remind Mexicans of the deep emotional wounds and unhealed psychological scars that devour families of forcibly disappeared persons.

Named the “March of National Dignity: Mothers Looking for their Sons and Daughters and Searching for Justice,” the protest is led by 300 women demanding clarification of the fates of between 600 and 700 relatives who went missing during the administration of outgoing President Felipe Calderon.

“For some it has been years, for others months or days, of walking alone, of clamoring in the desert of the hallways of indolent and irresponsible authorities, many of them directly responsible for (disappearances) or complicit with those who took (loved ones) away,” the mothers’ group said in a communiqué.

Among the many organizations supporting and/or endorsing the march are the Network of Human Rights Defenders and Families of the Disappeared, Women’s Human Rights Center, Justice for Our Daughters, Paso del Norte Human Rights Center, United Forces for Our Disappeared in Coahuila, and the Catholic Archdiocese of Saltillo. Solidarity actions, including protests at Mexican embassies, are planned this week in the United States, Canada, Honduras and El Salvador.

March contingents will depart from the northern border states of Chihuahua, Coahuila and Nuevo Leon, wind their way through the Mexican heartland of the Bajio and arrive in Mexico City as Mother’s Day celebrations get underway. The Mexico City activities include a May 10 march to the Angel of Independence monument, where the names and stories of the disappeared will be made public.

Senator Rosario Ibarra de Piedra, a pioneering human rights activist who organized Mexican mothers into the Eureka Committee to demand the return of children forcibly disappeared by government forces during the Dirty War of the 1970s, has been invited to address the Mexico City protest.

On Mother’s Day 2012, many Mexican mothers have “nothing to celebrate,” stressed Norma Ledezma, co-founder of Justice for Our Daughters in Chihuahua City. “As families, we want to take this occasion to tell society not to forget that in Mexico there is home with a plate and a seat empty…”

Chihuahua, Coahuila and Nuevo Leon have been among the hardest-hit places in the violence that has steadily gnawed away at the fabric of Mexican society. In all three states, so-called narco-violence, femicides and threats and attacks against Central American immigrants passing through Mexico to the United States have registered extremely high volumes. Recent headlines include the discovery of at least 12 murdered young women outside Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, and the revelation that nearly 800 skeletal remains collected in the state of Chihuahua since 2007, mostly of men, remain unidentified by authorities.

The Chihuahua state prosecutor’s office lists 213 women missing in the state since 1993, with about 123 cases in Ciudad Juarez alone. But non-governmental organizations estimate a higher number. A review of the official list reveals a spike in cases after 2008, the year when widespread narco-violence broke out and thousands of army troops and federal police were deployed in Joint Operation Chihuahua and its successors.

While the international press usually homes in on stories about Ciudad Juarez, which borders the United States, alarming episodes of violence have increased in the state capital of Chihuahua City in recent weeks. In addition to a familiar pattern of disappearances, women’s murders and constant homicides, violence has erupted in very public places, even in broad daylight. Recent incidents include shoot-outs and/or mass slayings outside a Wal-Mart, inside an Applebee’s restaurant and at the Colorado Bar, where 15 people were gunned down on the evening of April 20. A suspect, Javier Arturo Hernandez Najera, is reportedly in custody for a crime committed by multiple shooters.

Three members of a ‘60s-style rock combo that regularly performed at the Colorado Bar were among the victims of the massacre. Relatives of the ill-fated members of “Freddy’s Friends” described the musicians as hard-working men who held day jobs, were devoted husbands and fathers and uninvolved with the intrigues of organized crime.

“It isn’t easy to deal with how this came down,” the son and daughter of guitarist Juan Luis Vazquez were quoted. “You get used to hearing about the violence, four dead over there, 13 over here, and you get used to it even though it touches you. It’s ugly but you get used to it. Now we ask ourselves: Why them?”

Across Mexico, thousands and thousands of people are asking the same question.

Alma Garcia, representative of United Forces for Our Disappeared in Coahuila, told the press that the mother’s march will insist on getting answers to pressing questions. Garcia said the caravan will demand that Mexican government officials comply with United Nations recommendations on forced disappearance, create a “program of internal attention” and, above all, undertake “immediate searches for the disappeared.” Garcia’s movement also demands the creation of a national data base of disappeared persons, the formulation of investigative protocols and the appointment of a special prosecutor for disappeared persons.

Since the 1970s, mothers and their supporters have launched distinct movements related to forced disappearance in various parts of Mexico- with minimal results.

In Ciudad Juarez /El Paso, the International Association of Relatives and Friends of Disappeared Persons pressured the Zedillo and Fox administrations into successively naming several special prosecutors charged with uncovering the truth about nearly 200 disappeared people, mainly men, who vanished in the Mexican border city during the 1990s. On another front, the Fox administration created a special office within the federal attorney generals’ office to investigate and prosecute Dirty War disappearances.

A central player in both the Dirty War and narco-war chapters who was widely said to have first-hand knowledge of the whereabouts of victims of forced disappearance, retired army General Mario Arturo Acosta Chaparro, was shot dead in Mexico City last month. The former military official was assassinated as a truth commission assembled by the Guerrero state government began forming to investigate the Dirty War disappearances.

After 1997, victims’ relatives and women’s activists succeeded in getting first the Chihuahua state government and then the Mexican federal government to establish special law enforcement divisions officially dedicated to probing femicides and women’s disappearances in Ciudad Juarez. Fifteen years later, the cases have passed through the hands of almost as many prosecutors.

In 2009, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights handed down a judgment ordering Mexico to thoroughly investigate the disappearances of young women. As a signatory to the Court, the Mexican government is obliged to follow the verdict.

Despite a slew of measures arising from civil society pressure over the decades, few cases of forced disappearance have been cleared up and no credible prosecutions have ensued.

As old cases piled up, Mex-ico’s National Human Rights Commission documented 5,400 new cases of disappeared persons- both men and women-from 2006 to 2011, though non-governmental organizations speak of 10,000 or more people forcibly disappeared during the same time frame.

A recent report from the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances contended that not all the latest cases could be attributed to organized crime operating alone. “On the contrary, state participation in forced disappearances is also present in the country,” the report stated.

Last year, Javier Zuniga of Amnesty International compared forced disappearance in Mexico with the situation that prevailed under the military dictatorships of South America during the 1970s.

“We have walked alone in the middle of stares and stigmatizing commentaries, and we have been treated like lepers, marginalized and condemned to the worst pain a human being could live: not knowing the whereabouts of our sons and daughters,” the new mother’s movement declared. “But now we are not alone. We have found hundreds of mothers and we unite our clamor and our love to recover our loved ones and bring them home.”

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

Lucas Benitez es el co-fundador de la Coalición de Trabajadores de Immokalee (CIW).

Los “Premios de Cultivos Verdes” o “Growing Green Awards” del Consejo para la Defensa de Recursos Naturales (NRDC) este año por primera vez incluyen la categoría de Comida Justa y uno de los nominados es Lucas Benitez, co-fundador de la Coalición de Trabajadores de Immokalee.

Este año tenemos el gran honor de reconocer el trabajo de la Coalición de Trabajadores de Immokalee y de su líder hispano, Lucas Benitez.

Lucas Benitez es el co-fundador de la Coalición de Trabajadores de Immokalee (CIW). La CIW es una organización basada en la participación de los trabajadores agrícolas migrantes radicados en la Florida y busca la justicia para una serie de abusos contra los derechos humanos y el medio ambiente. Está compuesto por más de 4.000 trabajadores, que son en su mayoría inmigrantes latinos, haitianos y de la India.

El Sr. Benítez ha sido reconocido como “uno de los líderes más visibles de los trabajadores agrícolas en los EE.UU.” (Los Angeles Times), y el “César Chávez del nuevo milenio” (El Diario, de Nueva York). Ha ganado numerosos premios nacionales e internacionales por su ejemplar liderazgo, que incluyen: el Premio de la Revista Rolling Stone por ser el “Mejor Líder de la Comunidad Joven de Estados Unidos”, Premio al Nuevo Liderazgo de los Obispos Católicos de EE.UU. de la Conferencia del Cardenal Bernardin, y el Premio de Derechos Humanos Robert F. Kennedy, por su trabajo innovador en la lucha contra la esclavitud moderna.

Tan notable como estos logros son, son aún más extraordinarios si se conoce el Sr. Benítez a fondo. Proviene de una familia pobre de trabajadores agrícolas mexicanos, y trabajó durante 9 años en todo el sureste de los EE.UU. cosechando tomates, naranjas, y otros cultivos a lo largo de la Florida hasta Carolina del Norte. Los abusos de que fue testigo y se vivió el mismo como un trabajador del campo le llevó a participar en los esfuerzos organizados en Immokalee.

La CIW comenzó como un pequeño grupo de trabajadores que se reunieron después del trabajo para reflexionar sobre la pobreza extrema y el brutal maltrato que los trabajadores sufrían. En esos primeros años, el Sr. Benítez fue uno de los líderes de la comunidad cuyas acciones se concentraron en Immokalee, que incluyeron 3 paros en toda la comunidad, una huelga de hambre de 30 días, una campaña contra la violencia en los campos y una marcha de 230 millas a través del estado de Florida.

El Sr. Benítez también ha sido central en la campaña contra la esclavitud moderna de la CIW, descubriendo e investigando: 1) multiples casos de trabajadores afectados; 2) operaciones en varios estados de trabajo forzado; y, 3) ayudando a los fiscales federales en procesos legales, como EE.UU. vs Cuello, EE.UU. vs. Ramos, entre otros. En el curso de esa labor, el Sr. Benítez ayudó a los trabajadores para escapar de un campo de trabajo donde se encontraban retenidos contra su voluntad, a conseguir testigos claves, y ayudar a las víctimas que se recuperaran de aquellas condiciones de esclavitud.

Hoy en día, el Sr. Benítez se reconoce como una voz líder en lo que se ha convertido en un movimiento nacional y se conoce como la campaña de la CIW por Comida Justa. La campaña es una alianza de trabajadores y consumidores, y hace un llamado a los compradores corporativos de comestibles para que sean parte de poner fin a los abusos laborales en sus cadenas de suministro.

The Middle Class Scholarship Act will cover students whose family income is under $150,000, but over the amount allowed to qualify for financial aid. CSU students will save about $4,000 per year or $16,000 over a four-year period, UC students will save about $8,200 per year or nearly $33,000 over a four-year period, and Community Colleges would also receive $150 million to reduce costs for students.

This measure is part of a two bill package called the Middle Class Scholarship Act, and the companion measure—AB 1500—will be heard by the Committee on Revenue & Taxation at its next hearing next week.

AB 1501 establishes the Middle Class Scholarship, which seeks to make higher education accessible and affordable again for middle class families. And it does this two ways:

First, the bill allocates 150 million dollars to the Community College System to provide relief on textbooks and other costs for community college students;

Secondly, the measure creates the Middle Class Scholarship, which will provide a two-thirds reduction in student fees for any student in the UC or CSU whose family earns 150 thousand dollars a year or less.

Since 2003-04, state budget challenges, new corporate tax breaks, and the inability to find consensus to increase revenues, these have conspired to cause significant, and unsustainable, increases on student fees at our institutions of higher learning.

At the community colleges we’ve seen our fees triple. At CSU we’ve seen 191-percent increase. At UC, a 145-percent increase from the 2003-2004 academic year.

Despite enormous budget problems we’ve faced in the past couple of years, the Legislature has worked to safeguard state financial aid programs to ensure that low-income Californians still have a viable pathway to higher education.

But for middle income families who earn too much to qualify for our traditional financial aid programs, the fee increases at CSU and UC and Community Colleges means that higher education is becoming, uh, the cost of higher education is becoming too great a burden to bear—a fact that was borne out by a recent study showing that in many cases Harvard University is actually less expensive in real terms than a CSU education.

As a result, middle class students, and their parents, are faced with very difficult tradeoffs.

Either the student takes on a level of debt that severely curtails their post-college opportunities, or their parents must make difficult sacrifices, like forgoing home repairs or paying down credit card debt, that takes money out of our economy.

This ultimately hurts our economic recovery, and is inconsistent with California’s historic commitment to an accessible and affordable college education for every student who is willing to work hard and succeed in school.

Now, how do we pay for this? We pay for this investment in California’s middle class by closing a tax loophole that exclusively benefits out-of-state corporations, and then using that money we save—approximately one billion dollars a year—to establish the Middle Class Scholarship Fund. That provision is contained in AB 1500, the companion measure to this, AB 1501.

Under this bill, the Middle Class Scholarship Fund will then pay out a scholarship to any student at UC or CSU whose family, as we’ve said earlier earns less than $150-thousand a year.

Under this proposal, students at the CSU will see their fees lowered by 4,000 dollars a year; and students at the UC will see their fees lowered by 8,200 dollars a year.

We also dedicate the first 150 million dollars that we save from closing the loophole for the Community College System, to provide assistance on college affordability, including textbooks, which we know to be the single greatest expense for community college students. Community college students will also benefit from the Middle Class Scholarship if they continue their education at a four-year public institution.

This is a dramatic reinvestment in opportunity for every California student, and is in keeping with the vision set forth by the Master Plan for Higher Education.

And quite frankly, this measure is vital to ensuring that the next generation of Californians have the same kind of opportunities to make the most of their potential that our generation had.

The Middle Class Scholarship Act represents a smart investment in Middle Class Families; it significantly lowers student fees on families who have been hit hard by the Recession; and ensures that opportunities associated with higher education remain open to every single person in our state.

El congresista Luis Gutiérrez volvió al Sur del país para apersonarse de la situación de Gabino Sánchez, el indocumentado mexicano al que salvó de la deportación en un tribunal de Charleston, Carolina del Sur, y al que acompañó a su primera presentación ante a la Corte de Inmigración de Charlotte, Carolina del Norte.

Aquí, en la ciudad donde yo vivo, a donde fue transferido su caso, un juez y los funcionarios judiciales de ICE, determinarán el próximo martes 15 de mayo, cuál será el destino del albañil, que llegó a Estados Unidos siendo un adolescente.

Por eso, Gutiérrez vino a Charlotte, para preparar el terreno de lo que según, el propio legislador federal, será un martes histórico.

Ese día se sabrá si el memorando de John Morton, jefe del Servicio de Inmigración y Aduanas (ICE), que plantea priorizar las expulsiones de los indocumentados criminales en lugar de enfocarse en personas inofensivas como Gabino, tiene algún peso.

Eso fue lo que le dijo Gutiérrez a los medios de comunicación en español, teniendo a su lado a Gabino, a Laura, la esposa del inmigrante y al hijo mayor de los dos, Roger, que bordea los 7 años.

El representante a la Cámara por Illinois fue extremadamente claro: lo que está en juego es ver si la acción más osada que ha tomado la administración Obama para aliviar la separación de familias, que es la discreción administrativa, se cumple.

Cuando se dio conocer el memorando de Morton, en junio de 2011, fue percibido como la primera acción tangible del gobierno del actual presidente, de quemarse las barbas, por los hispanos en el asunto migratorio.

El Departamento de Seguridad Nacional (DHS) y los funcionarios de la agencia dedicada a la expulsión de inmigrantes sin estatus, estaban marcando un rumbo diferente, al de las deportaciones insensibles e incondicionales que alcanzaron números sin precedentes.

Hubo quienes agudamente interpretaron las nuevas directrices, como una jugada electoral del presidente para congraciarse con los votantes latinos, tras su fracaso en impulsar y aprobar la reforma migratoria y tampoco lograr pasar el Dream Act, como el estertor final de su mayoría demócrata, en ambas cámaras.

Pero el mensaje de la administración de Obama fue aún más contundente, cuando ratificó que la nueva política era una orden para todos los funcionarios de ICE y que incluso se revisarían 300 mil casos pendientes en la cortes, para evidenciar que su prioridad era la de sacar a los inmigrantes criminales del país y no a los buenos.

Desafortunadamente, la distancia entre las buenas intenciones de algunos funcionarios del gobierno actual se estrella contra la cruda y dura realidad.

Conversando informalmente con gente allegada a la corte de inmigración de Charlotte, fue claro que no se les había informado del memorando de Morton.

En el caso de Gabino la solución debería ser simple: que los fiscales adscritos a ICE retiraran el caso contra el indocumentado que terminó enredado en este lío por carecer de licencia de conducir y manejar sin el documento. ¿Posible? No lo sé. El problema es que el caso de Gabino subió a un tribunal de inmigración y los jueces son autónomos y no tienen porque seguir una directriz del ejecutivo.

Los que saben me han dicho que el caso de Gabino ha debido quedarse en la Oficina Ejecutiva de Revisión de Inmigración (EOIR), que si deben seguir las directrices del presidente, de Janet Napolitano, la secretaria del Departamento de Seguridad Nacional (DHS) y de Morton.

Ahora, el reto de los oficiales de ICE es desempantanar casos como el de Gabino para que la credibilidad del presidente entre los latinos no termine mancillada, “en la punta del cerro”.

Gutierrez ha pedido que la comunidad charlotense se presente en masa en las afueras de la corte, el día de la audiencia de Gabino.

Amanecerá y veremos, si Edward, el chiquitín de los Sánchez, de un añito, puede ser criado en este país —donde nació— por sus padres.

Rafael Prieto Zartha es el director editorial del semanario Qué Pasa-Mi Gente, en Charlotte, Carolina del Norte.

Festival Otaku, joven participante caracterizada al estilo japonés.

En la Explanada del Centro Cultural Tijuana el pasado sábado 5 de mayo se realizó la Tercera Edición de la Convención Otaku Tijuana 2012. Este es un encuentro esperado por los seguidores de Otaku, es el término japonés con que se designan a los fans con fuerte interés en el animé y el manga.

Cientos de seguidores del manga lucieron personajes de fantasía, coloridas vestimentas, accesorios originales, artículos complementarios y una actitud digna de un buen actor, lucieron jóvenes y niños caracterizados como personajes de comic.

Una fiesta nipona en Tijuana, en la que hubieron muchas actividades vinculadas con esta afición, en uno de los stands que se establecieron estuvieron trabajando las jovencitas Tarita Myrnaiz Zavala Rodríguez, su hermanita Mirna Vianey, y sus compañeras y amigas Eva, Allyson, Jennifer, Marianita y Ashley; hubieron muchos stands en los que se expendían y vendían diversos artículos y servicios.

Notas complementarias: El Centro Cultural Tijuana fue objeto de una publicación en el periódico de circulación nacional Milenio, en la que se destaca el papel preponderante que ha desarrollado esta institución por medio de la ejecución de programas vinculados con la cultura y las artes, cuyos resultados han contribuido a reducir la delincuencia y la violencia en Tijuana, ciudad que había sido calificada como una de las más violentas y peligrosas del mundo.

Como parte de su gira mundial “Cantos y cuentos urbanos 2012”, el cantautor y salsero panameño , uno de los máximos exponentes de la música salsa en el mundo, se presentará este viernes 11 de mayo, a partir de las 8:00 pm., en un extraordinario concierto en la Explanada del Centro Cultural Tijuana, en el marco calendarizado de los festejos del XXX Aniversario de la misma institución.

El Instituto Municipal de Arte y Cultura y la Unión de libreros de Tijuana invitan a la XXX Edición dela Feria del Libro de Tijuana 2012, en la que estarán presentes: escritores, conferencistas, habrá también espectáculos, pabellones infantil y juvenil y miles de libros de las diferentes editoras que existen en la actualidad en México, dicho evento se llevará a cabo a partir del 25 de mayo al 3 de junio en Plaza Río Tijuana.

El Museo Interactivo El Trompo y la Fundación Nacional de Artistas Independientes, están girando una cordial invitación para asistir a la inauguración de la exposición “El PRINCIPITO en mi mundo de colores”, trátase de una exposición itinerante de la obra del maestro Enrique Chiu, en un evento que se realizará el próximo viernes 11 de mayo a las 16:00 pm. en el mismo Museo El trompo.

My mother Victoria Puentes Bareno was born in 1910 in either Hurley or Silver City, New Mexico, not quite sure which, I assume since Hurley because it was a bigger mining area at the time. She was proud of being from New Mexico, even though, by 1919, she had already come to San Diego.

The New Mexico “Manito Spirit,” was always a part of her being and personality. Bishop Gilbert Chavez of San Diego, in an eulogy captured the words that best describes mothers from New Mexico. He said, “while all mothers are wonderful, the mothers from New Mexico have a special light that guides them, as they give unconditional love to their children and a profound courage and strength, to do whatever is necessary, to help their family and friends.”

Once you’re in their circle you don’t leave it and they care for you forever, even when you don’t care for yourself.

Hurt them, or their family, and you provoke an anger hotter than the hottest New Mexico Chile. My mother grew up doing things that back then women weren’t supposed to do: she kept the books for my grandfathers’ businesses, she would fight with the Board of Equalization, over things, I’m sure my grandfather did wrong, but she would defend him nonetheless. She worked the 1935 California Pacific International Exposition in Balboa Park, at the Japanese Tea Garden, operated by Motto Asakawa, whose family would later operate Presidio Nursery of San Diego.

She earned her own money, as well contributing to the family, which by then included three kids.

She was no stranger to money and how it was made. During the depression she worked at the Neighborhood House, in Logan Heights exchanging work for small pay and food and other forms of support. Later she worked at the Cannery and at a restaurant that my grandfather had on 27th and National Ave, Logan Heights.

By the time I was born in the late 40s, my mother and father had developed a language, that only they understood and it was called Money.

Their daily battle over money was something we grew up understanding and expecting as part of a new day. Everyday as the sun was rising, in our kitchen my mother and father would have this argument, no, I mean discussion, about how much money my mother needed for that day to take care of the house and kids or make payments to Corona Furniture, Fares Mkt or Pragers Department Store. It would last about a half hour, each side jabbing and throwing verbal lefts and rights; then, after this, they would start to negotiate a daily figure, mom would start high and my dad would lowball, then they would meet in the middle and that would be the daily figure.

By todays standards, that kind of stuff would get them on the Jerry Springer Show. But for my parents, this was just the way things were. Their arguments were not so much about money, though it was important, it was their way of communicating and connecting with each other.

It also meant that they and their children, family, friends and neighbors were together one more day. Secretly, we always knew and expected my mom to win, because my dad knew all too well, how hot a New Mexico Chile can really be.
My father has long since passed and I remember him as a strong and natively inteligent man who could do anything from building a house to discussing foreign policy with the best of them. He never had the benefit of a formal education, but his life was full with honor, values, and most of all, hope for his children and grandchildren.

My mother lived until her late 80s, her circle of loved ones lasted until the end.

I often think about my mother when I see the Oprah show, it reminds me that my mother was Oprah before Oprah was Oprah. She was always helping somebody, she was a great listener, you could always count on her, she liked trying new things to solve problems and she could soothe the hardest pain, with a story about her childhood in New Mexico.

Para miles y miles de ciudadanos nacidos en EE.UU. probablemente el Día de la Madre llegará ante un futuro incierto y familias separadas.  Según un reporte del ICE en marzo, 46,486 padres de ciudadanos nacidos en EE.UU. fueron deportados durante la primera mitad de 2011. Comparativamente, el New York Times reporta que durante la década entre 1998 y 2007, casi 100,000 padres de familia fueron deportados. Se estima que 4 millones de niños nacidos en EE.UU. cuentan con un papá o mamá que es indocumentado.

“Estamos recogiendo el fruto de un sistema impugnable y está podrido. Se está haciendo daño a familias con vínculos en la comunidad, a trabajadores dignos, y a toda una comunidad, sólo por avanzar el trabajo de una maquinaria ciega a la que esta Administración no ha podido dete-ner. A pesar de que se nos ha asegurado que medidas más humanas llegarán, las familias siguen siendo separadas”, agregó Angelica Salas, directo-ra ejecutiva de la Coalición pro Derechos Humanos del Inmigrante en Los Angeles (CHI-RLA por sus siglas en inglés).

Rosemary Allegra es nacida en EE.UU. de descendencia italiana.  Romary es amiga de Carmen y recientemente descubrió que porta un grillete en el tobillo.  ”Me da rabia saber que la han tratado así. Esto sólo se lo hacen a gente mala, y Dios sabe que esta mujer es buena. Su familia es cariñosa, trabajadora, y han criado a sus hijos correctamente, haciendo honor a la sociedad Americana”, dijo.

Por su parte, la Sra. Salas agregó: “Nuestra petición de que se apliquen y se respeten las medidas migratorias humanitarias no tiene nada que ver con política electorera.  Tenemos que preocuparnos más por la vida humana y la unidad familiar, no en sobrevivir políticamente o tener armonía en el partido”.

Arturo Chong

Por: Arturo Gudiño Chong

Se dice que las mujeres son frágiles y delicadas, y sin embargo son ejemplo continuo de valor, sabiduría, fuerza y protección. Estos seres no sólo son admirados por su belleza, sino también por su paz interior y sus cualidades plenas de ternura que hacen sentir el reino de los cielos aquí en la tierra.

Una vez al año se celebra el día de las madres. Todo un acontecimiento lleno de devoción y cariño que me gusta mucho admirar por las expre-siones de amor que conlleva. Me refiero a todo tipo de regalos, incluida la cascada de abrazos, besos y atenciones —esos obsequios que son gratis y que se pueden dar todos los días.

Hace dos años falleció mi madre. Qué sensación tan triste la de sentirme solo, desamparado, pensando todo aquello que pude hacer y no hice. Al mismo tiempo, agradecido por todo lo que recibí. En esos momentos tan difíciles la Biblia fue mi refugio.

I Juan 4:16 dice: “Dios es amor”. Cuando pienso en esta cita me puedo imaginar a un Padre bondadoso enseñando a sus hijos y también puedo evocar a una Madre llena de cariño, alimentando y protegiendo a los mismos. La idea de ver a Dios como Padre y Madre a la vez fue presentada en el año de 1866 por Mary Baker Eddy. Esta autora y pensadora estadounidense, a pesar de las restricciones de su época, se llenó de valor e inspiró a muchas personas con su libro “Ciencia y Salud con la llave de las Escrituras”.

En esta su obra principal, Eddy presenta un sistema de curación basado en la oración y muestra la importancia de establecer una relación con Dios. De hecho así fue como encontré consuelo: sabiendo que Dios estaba presente ahí mismo, abrazándome. En esos duros momentos pude sentir su presencia, comunicando y amando como lo hace una verdadera madre.

Otra cita que me ayudó mucho está en las palabras de Jesús a su madre María y a su discípulo Juan cuando dijo: “Mujer, ahí tienes a tu hijo; hijo, he ahí tu madre” (Juan 19:26-27). ¡Qué forma tan hermosa de sanar la pérdida y traer consuelo y paz!

Y hablando de paz, pienso que una forma de ayuda radica en que una madre pueda ver a sus hijos felices. A esas mujeres que han creído perdido a su hijo —porque está hundido en los vicios o ha sido víctima de un acto ilícito— quitemos de su rostro el dolor que produce la impotencia y la desesperanza.

Volvamos a los brazos que nos enseñaron a hacer buenas obras.

Sin importar nuestras creencias religiosas, oremos también continuamente por una comunidad libre de vicios donde haya seguridad. Por un lugar en donde todos podamos disfrutar como niños que se saben amados profundamente por una Madre, y enseñados y guiados por un Padre. Aprovechemos todos los días para honrar a nuestras madres y hacerlo de verdad, porque el lugar que ocupan en nuestro corazón sólo puede llenarse con amor.

A su vez, reconozcamos el importante papel que desempeñamos como hijos esforzándonos por hacer una buena obra cada día. Actuemos con amor los unos con los otros. Demos a nuestras Madres y a Dios el regalo que se merecen, ayudando a crear un mundo mejor con nuestra devoción y dedicación incondicional.

¡El trabajo y respeto diario hacia nuestros valores com-partidos nos hace dignos del amor que recibimos!

Arturo Gudiño Chong es portavoz de la Ciencia Cristiana en México. www.blogcienciacristiana.com Twitter: @artsist

Tuve el privilegio de acompañar a los obispos de Estados Unidos y centenares de peregrinos a la isla de Cuba, para la visita del Papa Benedicto XVI. Los recuerdos de esta experiencia todavía están latentes. Visitamos Santiago y La Habana.

El calor de Santiago reflejaba la calidez de su gente. Pudimos visitar también el Santuario del Cobre, antes de que la estatua de Virgen de la Caridad, Patrona de Cuba, fuera llevada a la ciudad para la misa papal. Cuando llegamos al santuario, ya habían bajado la imagen de su nicho a un pedestal temporal junto al altar mayor. Era como si la Madre de todos los cubanos hubiese bajado a dar la bienvenida a sus hijos e hijas llegados del extranjero. En nuestro grupo habían muchos cubano-americanos, algunos retornando a la isla ¡por primera vez en cincuenta años! Algunos de ellos eran demasiado jóvenes cuando se fueron y apenas tenían recuerdos. Algunos hicieron el viaje pese a la oposición de algunos miembros de su familia.

Al celebrarse los 400 años de su descubrimiento, Nuestra Señora de la Caridad, Cachita, había conseguido reunir a sus hijos isleños con los de la diáspora, haciendo realidad el antiguo dicho “La Caridad nos Une”. Ella está tendiendo puentes, sanando heridas, ayudando a salvar barreras ideológicas, señalando que la reconciliación y el perdón son posibles de corazón a corazón.

Caminando por las estrechas calles y las anchas avenidas de La Habana, uno todavía puede imaginar la ciudad en sus días de esplendor. Sin embargo, viendo las mansiones ruinosas y los edificios en completo abandono, uno no puede evitar el pensar “qué pasaría si…” ¿Qué pasaría si en lugar de aislamiento y confrontación, la colaboración fuera posible entre Estados Unidos y Cuba?

El día de la misa en la Plaza de la Revolución, un sacerdote mexicano de nuestro grupo comenzó a entonar canciones religiosas mientras empujaba la silla de ruedas de una anciana. Nos unimos a su canto mientras caminábamos: “Vienen con alegría…”, “Si tuvieras fe como un granito de mostaza…” Nuestro canto no pasó desapercibido. Algunos nos miraban divertidos. Otros nos miraban sorprendidos y luego miraban a su alrededor, tal vez esperando que alguien viniera a callarnos. Nadie lo hizo, así que seguimos adelante. Algunas señoras empezaron a aplaudir al ritmo.

Cuando llegamos a la icónica plaza capitalina el grupo se deshizo. Cuatro de nosotros fuimos a parar justo en el medio de la Plaza de la Revolución. Dos días antes habíamos participado discretamente en la misa en Santiago. Para cuando llegamos a La Habana, habíamos perdido el “miedo a acercarnos” y entablamos conversación con perfectos extraños, mientras esperábamos que comenzara la misa.

El beisbol y el fútbol español ayudan a abrir conversación en cualquier nación caribeña. Luego pasamos al por qué la gente estaba allí. Un grupo de jóvenes adultos condujo durante seis horas desde Cienfuegos. No eran “creyentes”, dijeron, pero vinieron por curiosidad y respeto. “Es un evento histórico. No queríamos perderlo.” Un joven de La Habana dijo que le habían obligado a asistir si es quería recibir su salario ese día. Otros grupos sostenían afiches del Papa y de la Virgen del Cobre o con el nombre de sus parroquias o diócesis. La misa comenzó. El bello canto del numeroso coro incluyó himnos tradicionales en español y latín con algún que otro ritmo habanero. Sorprendentemente, la mayoría de la gente alrededor nuestro parecía conocer las respuestas litúrgicas.

Después de la misa, una joven pareja se nos acercó. “¿Qué piensan de lo que dijo el Papa?” preguntamos. La palabra “cambio” fue lo que más les impactó. “Tiene que haber cambios. La revolución ha logrado algunas cosas buenas; pero se necesita más libertad”, dijo el hombre. “Personas como nosotros, teniendo una buena educación, no podemos llegar lejos”. A lo que ella añadió: “nada garantiza que trabajando duro y ahorrando un poco de dinero uno pueda visitar lugares que le gustaría conocer”. ¡Ah, el ansia humana de libertad! Lo más impresionante era que este tipo de conversación abierta era inimaginable hace un par de décadas.

Al día siguiente, de camino al aeropuerto, un alegre taxista me preguntó sobre mi experiencia en Cuba. A todo comentario positivo que hice sobre la buena organización del evento, o lo bien que nos trataron, respondía con orgullo “muchas gracias”. Era claro que se sentía personalmente responsable. Ciertamente, el gobierno cubano se aseguró de que los visitantes se fueran con una buena impresión; pero no hubo forma de enmascarar los efectos que la pobreza, las necesidades materiales, la falta de empleo y la falta de ciertas libertades tienen en la población.

Dejé Cuba exhausta, tanto por la apretada agenda como por el calor, pero también agradecida y con esperanza. Agradecida por el privilegio de haber estado allí. Agradecida por la hospitalidad y la oportunidad de establecer contacto. Y esperanzada porque los cubanos, especialmente los jóvenes cubanos, tanto dentro como fuera de Cuba, parecen ver las cosas bajo una nueva luz y están buscando oportunidades para diálogo y el compromiso. Ellos son los llamados a construir los puentes de la reconciliación. Tanto los obispos cubanos como los estadounidenses han dicho en ocasiones anteriores que el acercamiento, no el aislamiento, es la única vía hacia adelante para Cuba. El 17 de abril, Mons. Richard Pates, presidente del Comité de Justicia y Paz Internacional de la Conferencia de obispos estadounidenses, escribió una carta a la Secretaria de Estado Hillary Clinton pidiendo el fin del embargo económico y el resta-blecimiento de relaciones diplomáticas con Cuba. Después de lo visto y oído, invito a los hermanos y hermanas católicos en los Estados Unidos a ponerse de pie y decir “Amén”.

Mar Muñoz-Visoso es directora ejecutiva del Secretariado de Diversidad Cultural en la Iglesia en la Conferencia de Obispos Católicos de Estados Unidos.

I suspect that the whole cue ball hard-boiled egg look began as a reaction to Michael Jordans iconic success and quickly spread to gangbangers and the police who wanted to lose their indiviaul look for the sake of tribal conformity. This, “We all look alike, so you can’t positivley identify me” crimila deamor, works for both sides of the law and or lawlessness.

Some women find the look virile; others spend a fortune buying their husbands and boyfriends sun block head wraps and hats. There is no real way to tell if you look good as a bullet head unless you do it. After that it is immediately too late.

Although the clean head look started with the African American community, guys of all races and several women from Berkeley have since jumped on the bandwagon so they could look fly like Mike. I have news for you: They don’t, because not all heads are shaped exactly the same, and due to lifestyle many heads are not necessarily round and coming in various sizes from 6 to 9, pin head to melon head, many youngsters have the hat thing twisted.

Realisaticall and without predijucie, Some Blacks look like Junior Mints, some Latinos look like potatoes, Asians look like lemons, White guys look like garbanzo beans.

Mr. Clean or baby booty bald look is synchronistically a good thing for aging baby boomers like me, as many of us are destined by genetics, teenagers, and liberal arts degrees to lose our hair anyway.

You may notice that the older and hipper OGs shaving all the hair off once that horseshoe head thing starts to happen, this is when you look like you are wearing furry ear muffs, while your forehead looks like a landing strip for pigeons. Larry Fine of the Three Stooges had this look on lock.

This type of unfortunate hair arrangement inspires such insults as: His forehead is so big he doesnt have dreams. He sees movies.

Being pro-choice bald is the most dignified answer to the used car salesman televangelist comb over. News flash: Everybody notices a comb over. Hello! The light reflects off of the scalp landing strip when you start to sweat.

Thanks to my parents I have a full head of hair, albeit grey, yet I dont fear losing it as much as I used to now that being a chrome dome is a hard core fashion statement.

Unfortunately for me and my generation, we are seeing ominous signs of fools growing back Afros, homies sporting pony tails, and hipsters trying to look like Herman’s Hermits.

It’s my luck that once my hair starts falling out, big hair will come into fashion again and I will look played out. I am comforted by my kids not to worry. They assure me that I am played out already and hair has nothing to do with it.
Back in the day, the longer you hair, was the hipper you were. There is a part of me that still believes that is true, and if I had my way I would have a fat pony tail and a full beard looking like a sub-tropical biker Sancho Claus.

When I was coming up, the axiom was: The longer you hair the hipper you were. Long hair indicated that you were a rock star rebel without a job living outside the mainstream. Women found that look daring and exotic. Back then if you were bald, this meant that you were probably in a cult, wore robes and passed out flowers at the airport.

Nowadays how you wear your hair or not is irrelevant.

The bald looks works for men of all ages, especially babies, really old dudes and those who like to wake up the last minute before going to work. There is, however, head maintenance. I am sure that the process of head shaving, especially with a hangover which no doubt causes the head to feel fifteen times its normal size, can prove perilous.

There are many questions here: When is the right time to shave — or should I say mow? How bald is bald enough? How do you know if you missed a patch in back of your head that will look like Velcro to the casual observer?

Very few guys go for the bowling ball shine. Many have that five O’clock shadow thing and carefully line the fringe of the scalp like a coloring book outline.

I inadvertently received the bald look once by accident. My wife and her friend at her salon decided to give me a splash of color to mask some of my grey. They put some black tint on that they promised would wash out. It didn’t, and I looked like a cross between Shemp of the Three Stooges and Eddie Munster for several months.

When the hair started growing back I looked like a Mounds Candy Bar with white on the bottom and a chocolatety top. No one would look me in the eye. Rather, their eyes always veered to the candy display on my dome.

I shaved my hair off; happy to live in a time that defies convention. I have learned to leave well enough alone.
Now to quoute Ray Charles; “I just let it do what it do”.

Hace pocos días el monumento a Martin Luther King en Washington se llenó de flores. Un grupo de residentes de la capital se reunió allí atendiendo la invitación del Departamento de Vivienda y Servicios Humanos –HUD– para conmemorar al líder que 44 años después de su muerte sigue siendo determinante en la vida de miles de personas.

Al monumento, que hoy se alza en el mismo parque que alberga los monumentos a otros grandes como Thomas Jefferson y Abraham Lincoln acudieron vecinos de la capital, activistas y líderes comunitarios, pero, y eso me sorprendió, no había una sola alma hispana.

Y es esa la razón por la que escribo esta columna. Es cierto que hacemos parte de esta sociedad, es cierto que la enriquecemos con nuestra fuerza laboral y nuestra cultura y es cierto también que llevamos años luchando por la aprobación de una reforma migratoria integral que no deje por fuera a ninguno de los nuestros, para poder vivir a plenitud las ventajas de pertenecer al país que escogimos para vivir.

Pero también es cierto, que muchas veces nos distraemos. Si queremos ser parte real de esta sociedad y reclamar los derechos que ello conlleva, tenemos el deber moral de conocer este país, de indagar sobre su historia y de tratar de entenderla.

No es solo cuestión de acudir a las marchas y levantar banderas. Es cuestión de educarnos un poco y de educar a nuestras familias.

Después de los años de lucha por los derechos de los trabajadores del campo que lideró uno de los líderes hispanos más grandes que ha tenido este país, muchos de los que aun se cobijan bajo su sombra, ignoran hoy en día quien es César Chávez.

Ocurre lo mismo con Martin Luther King. Bien dicen los que saben que los pueblos que ignoran su historia están condenados a repetirla.

Durante el homenaje, el secretario adjunto de vivienda e igualdad del HUD, John Trasviña hizo un recuento para explicar por qué las acciones del activista siguen afectando vidas.

Cuando el reverendo Martín Luther King, jr., fue asesinado el 4 de abril de 1968, el presidente Lyndon Johnson uso la tragedia nacional para presionar al Congreso y lograr la aprobación de la Ley de Vivienda Justa, que se convirtió en ley el 11 de abril del mismo año, explicó Trasviña.

De no ser por esta ley, hoy en día no existirían recursos de vivienda para miles de inmigrantes hispanos que hoy son víctimas de discriminación en todo el país.

Trasviña recordó que Luther King luchó por los derechos civiles de las familias y en contra de la guerra y que fue parte de la lucha de Cesar Chávez por los derechos de los trabajadores del campo.

“Pero la acción principal interrumpida y que faltaba por terminar en el momento de su muerte fue la lucha por acabar con la discriminación de vivienda en Estados Unidos”, anotó Trasviña. Ese, dijo era el principio básico, aún inalcanzado, que todos en este país tengan derecho a vivir donde quieran.

Cada año, HUD y sus agencias del Programa de Asistencia de Vivienda Justa (FHAP) reciben cerca de 10,000 denuncias de algún tipo de discriminación en la vivienda. La discriminación por raza, que por supuesto afecta a miles de hispanos, es una constante.

Usted puede pelear por sus derechos. Si quiere saber más o cree que ha sido víctima de discriminación llame al HUD al (800) 669-9777.

Bob Filner, throughout his 19 years as Congressman of the 51st District, has served this diverse community of South San Diego with energy, enthusiasm, and dedication. It can never be said that Filner was an absentee representative. You call Bob Filner’s office, he responds and he is in the community. Filner has proven himself a tireless worker which is trait that he will bring to the office of Mayor for the City of San Diego.

Filner has represented the best interests of the Hispanic and ethnic community, and they have rewarded him by re-electing him over qualified Hispanic candidates. Filner was an early advocate of civil rights and he has fought for federal funding for border infrastructure. He has been an advocate of improved U.S./Mexico relations, quality education, protection of the environment, and universal health care.

Congressman Filner has served as Chairman of the House of Representatives Veterans’ Affairs Committee. He has achieved a national reputation for his work on behalf of our nation’s veterans, both current veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and more elderly veterans from the Vietnam and Korean wars and World War II. He has created bonds with the Filipino community with his fight to restore honor and benefits to the Filipino Veterans and Merchant Mariners of World War II.

But what sets Filner apart from the other candidates is his perspective on Pension Reform. While the three other candidates for Mayor agree and support Proposition B which would strip middle class workers of hard earned pensions, Filner, with the support of the Unions, is developing an alternative for Prop B.

Although Prop B is being decided in June by the voters of San Diego, Filner has proposed an alternative plan. However, neither Prop B nor Filner’s alternative is a fully restorative answer to the pension deficit problem. And they are radically different in perspective. The difference between the DeMaio plan and Filner’s falls more along the line of a philosophical difference. With Prop B, Councilman Carl DeMaio is hoping to fix a problem by placing the burden on the backs of the rank and file. Prop B would freeze their pay and switch new employees to a 401K retirement plan. Prob B is a plan to fix a problem that was not created by the middle class workers.

Filner’s proposed plan looks to fix the pension deficit but doesn’t ask the workers to carry the burden by reducing their pensions, their Union representation, or their wages. Instead it caps pensions at $100K per year and seeks more aggressive investment strategies for the management of the retirement fund.

The Pension deficit is a problem created by politicians, the business community, and Union leadership and that is where the fix is needed. We have yet to hear how the next Mayor of San Diego is going to fix the persistent problem of the San Diego City Employee’s Retirement Pension Fund which acts with impunity and without accountability. That was where these so-called leaders sold out the city and created the pension deficit.

Filner has been a tireless worker for the Hispanic community and as Mayor would work to support the working man of San Diego. For these reasons we support Bob Filner for Mayor of San Diego.

Four years ago we endorsed Pamela Bensoussan for Chula Vista City Council. Over the years we have grown to regret that endorsement. The person we met before the election, the candidate we endorsed, was not the person that became a council person!

We believed that Bensoussan cared about the community only later to find out that Bensoussan only cared about Bensoussan, her campaign debts, and re-election.

The enduring memory we have of Bensoussan is on the day of her swearing in she proposed a sales tax increase, at a time when her community members were suffering under the burden of an economic meltdown, home foreclosures, record unemployment, and higher costs across the board. Bensoussan was out of touch with the community. Chula Vistans responded negatively to her tax initiative and the proposition lost by 70% of the vote.

Then there was her support of a developer to build apartment buildings on the historical section of 2nd Avenue, against community opposition. Once again Bensoussan was out of step with her neighbors. The 100 year centennial that Bensoussan spearheaded was a disappointment, stemming from poor leadership and her co-opting of the centennial book where she highlighted herself. Many described this as nothing more than political propaganda.

The final nail in the proverbial coffin was her backroom dealing with Republican David Malcolm and the negotiations regarding Chula Vista Bayfront and a possible city contract to clean up the South Bay power plant. This alignment with Malcolm, who is the Political Action Committee co-chair for the Lincoln Club, and the alignment with Mayor Cox earned her the endorsement of the partisan special interest Republican Lincoln Club.

It is for these reasons, and many more reasons that we did not list, that we support and endorse the candidacy of Robert Castañeda.

Robert Castañeda is the brother of Chula Vista City Councilman Steve Castañeda. The assumption would be that Robert is following in the footsteps of his brother, but nothing could further from the truth. Robert Castañeda has had a long time interest in politics. At one time he ran for San Diego City Council (he lost). He has also worked for 3 elected governors.

Robert has an extraordinary grasp on the ins and outs and political mechanizations, how to collaborate with fellow politicians, and how to move forward on issues. He learned to compromise as a staff member of three governors in California, two Republicans and one Democrat.

It is true that Robert just recently moved to Chula Vista, but he and his family are well known. He has been involved with the Chula Vista community and has worked on projects with Earl Jentz. He has also worked with his brother/business partner on Chula Vista issues.

Robert, as a small businessman, understands the issues of the business community. He understands budgets having worked for the State Lottery as the director of community & and legislative affairs and with the California Public Utilities Commission.

Robert Castañeda is the best choice to become the next City Council member for Seat # 3.

The partisan squabbling over the killing of Osama bin Laden is a typical election-year distraction, effectively squelching discussion of more important matters one year after the execution of the al-Qaeda chief executive.

Aided by cable-TV talking heads, Americans are spending too much time speculating over whether presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney would have given the order to get bin Laden, and also issuing paeans to President Obama’s “courage.”

While the commentators are engaged in trivialities, big foreign-policy questions are ignored.

For instance, although bin Laden is dead, his strategy of sucking the United States into bloody, expensive imperial wars in the Muslim world has worked like a charm. In a video released in 2004, bin Laden said, “We are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah.” He compared what was happening in Afghanistan then to the previous Soviet debacle there. “We, alongside the mujahideen, bled Russia for 10 years until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat.”

Ironically, President Jimmy Carter’s national-security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, has bragged that he helped draw the Soviet Union into Afghanistan in 1979 precisely to mire the Russians in their own “Vietnam.” That experience failed to deter President George W. Bush from blindly following in the Soviets’ footsteps; nor did it keep Obama from redoubling this futile effort, including a major expansion of drone attacks in Pakistan, which have killed at least 1,400 people since Obama took office. The U.S. government has been fighting the same people it helped fight the Soviets.

“All that we have to do is to send two mujahedeen to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al Qaeda, in order to make generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic and political losses without their achieving anything of note other than some benefits for their private corporations,” bin Laden said.

Right he was. The Obama administration ruthlessly drone-bombs Yemen and Somalia to eradicate the “threat” from real or potential al-Qaeda affiliates in those countries. Even American officials are aware that this policy creates anti-American militants. This is not rocket science. Bomb people, and they will dislike you — and perhaps seek revenge.

Bin Laden got his wish. America’s fiscal house couldn’t be more disorderly. The debt is over $15 trillion, larger than the GDP. The Congressional Research Service says that from 2001 to 2011 the Afghan war cost $443 billion. Tens of thousands of civilians have been killed, and many more maimed. American deaths total more than 1,800, with well over 15,000 wounded. The number of survivors whose lives have been effectively destroyed is uncountable. And that leaves the Iraq war out of the account. Al-Qaeda wasn’t even in that country until George W. Bush invaded in 2003.

The point is that we let bin Laden take our eyes off the ball. He and al-Qaeda were creatures of American policy, though not in the sense that U.S. agents funded him or set up his organization. Rather, he turned his wrath toward America (and away from U.S.-backed Middle Eastern oppressors) as it became apparent that so much of the misery inflicted on the Muslim world had its origins in Washington, D.C.

The sources of misery include the decade-long economic sanctions on Iraq, the stationing of U.S. troops near holy places in Saudi Arabia; and the continuing subjugation of Palestinians by U.S.-backed Israel. In the absence of those and related policies, bin Laden would have had no interest in seeing U.S. territory attacked.

To be sure, bin Laden is gone. But the abominable foreign policy goes on.

Sheldon Richman is senior fellow at The Future of Freedom Foundation (www.fff.org) and editor of The Freeman magazine.

As frenzied political junkies begin to chatter about the fight for the Latino vote in November, another fight is brewing in Washington this spring. Last week, the highest court in the land heard oral arguments on the constitutionality of Arizona’s anti-immigrant law SB 1070.

The Court has the potential to officially condone the use of racial profiling and discrimination against Hispanics and other minorities.

The law was enacted in the name of fighting undocumented immigration, but its victims may be legal residents or, ironically, citizens–the precious voters both parties are trying to attract.

The decision, which is expected to be handed down in June, will land with a splash in the middle of the presidential campaign. It has the potential to sharpen the contrasts between a president, Barack Obama, who supports comprehensive immigration reform while setting records for deportation, and an (almost-certain) Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, who is now doing the typical candidate dance to the center to appeal to independent and moderate voters in the general election.

Most important perhaps is attracting Latinos, whom he has isolated for the past several months with anti-immigrant positions.

The Supreme Court case marks another contrast: Obama’s Department of Justice is the plaintiff in the case, having sued Arizona for usurping the role of the federal government in setting immigration laws.

Romney, for his part, has said that if he were elected one of his first actions would be withdrawing the lawsuits against Arizona and other states that have passed their own immigration laws.

Furthermore, the mastermind behind SB 1070 and other anti-immigrant state laws (like Alabama’s HB 56), Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, “informal” advisor to Romney on immigration.

Gary Segura, a professor of political science at Stanford and a principal at the polling firm Latino Decisions, thinks that regardless of the outcome of the case, SB 1070 will have political implications in both the short-term and long-term. It could be of particular benefit, he says, to Democrats.

“If SB 1070 is upheld, Latinos will be inflamed, Republicans will embrace it and Latino turnout and enthusiasm for the election will go up. If SB 1070 is struck down, largely because the president authorized the Justice Department to sue, the president gets the benefit of all of that and you can expect Republicans to denounce the Court and to say predictably awful things about Latinos. So it’s kind of good for Obama either way,” Segura says.

While some consider Obama’s failure to pass comprehensive immigration reform-a promise he made during his 2008 campaign-to have opened the door for laws like SB 1070, Segura argues that while Latino voters will probably make that connection, “he has the perfect comeback, which is that there is not a single Republican legislator willing to sign on to comprehensive immigration reform.”

“If the other party was reasonably competing for Latino votes, he’d [Obama] be in a lot of trouble for his inaction [on immigration reform], and the deportations, and the whole inadequacy of his handling of the issue, but he benefits, as Democrats have for generations, from comparison to this sort of xenophobic, ethnocentric, social conservative Republicans.”

That’s exactly the type of Republican the Supreme Court case is putting in the spotlight. The law the Court’s considering is championed by anti-immigrant stalwarts like Kris Kobach, who’s linked to Romney’s presidential campaign-but it would permit discrimination against the same Latino voters Romney’s now trying to win over.

Maribel Hastings, a native of Puerto Rico, is America’s Voice Senior Advisor, political commentator and columnist. Reprinted from Latinovations “La Plaza”

Commentary:
By Rodolfo F. Acuña

The fitness exercise pilates, from my limited understanding of the exercise method, works on the principle of developing “a strong core or center (tones abdominals while strengthening the back), and improving coordination and balance.” The principle fascinates me because it can be applied to almost any endeavor.

For example, when San Jose State Chicano professors approached me in 1969 with a plan to start a Mexican American Studies program at the Master of Arts level, I responded that I did not believe that a MAS graduate program could grow without a solid undergraduate degree. My thinking was that “a strong core or center” had to be developed to allow for the coordination and balance of a large program.

The core’s abdominal muscles are the masses of students. The only programs that are subsidized in the higher education are those blessed by the institution. Logical persuasion would not develop a discipline or method to educate neglected sectors of society. You needed bodies to build the core.

I have applied this principle to politics. Unless you have bundles of money such as the case of Republicans and you can buy elections, Mexican Americans and Latinos are not going to bring about changes in the political arena. A strong core is essential for coordination and balance to leverage this outcome.

The building of the political core does not depend as much on individual political activism as it does on the core, which is not built by electing Latino elected officials. You can have progressive representatives such as Arizona Congressman Raul Grijalva but his power although concentrated at the core can easily be isolated by the system.

In many ways Grijalva is an aberration, elected in an island of Mexican American and white liberal constituents. Even so he has problems raising political capital and he has organized successful re-election campaigns despite the Democratic National Committee whose main purpose is keeping control of the White House.

I learned this lesson in 1996. Two years before the presidential election, we organized a highly successful anti-187, the anti-immigrant proposition, march. This was the first time that over a hundred thousand Latinos took the streets of L.A. It gave us a feeling of power and many activists wanted to replicate it in 1996 in opposition to Proposition 227, the anti-affirmative action ballot measure.

Word came down that what was important was to get Bill Clinton re-elected to the White House. The California Democratic Party then proceeded to dry up funds for the march, badly dividing community activists and Latino politicos.

We never recovered and it carried over to 1998 in the fight against 227, the proposition to eliminate bilingual education. The gigantic marches were not revived until the second half of the next decade when the core was re-energized by youth and immigrants that had been politicized by 187 and by sporadic school walkouts throughout the L.A. basin. Youth could not be channeled like community organizations and labor that looked to Latino politicos for leadership and funds.

Thus, the core never developed muscle or balance and it remained dependent of the political establishment and the media.

Based on my experience I have found the core in Arizona worse off than California. The state has been kidnapped by the Republican Party with the Democratic Party leaders concentrating on keeping the White House. The rationale is “things could really get bad if Romney gets in the White House,” which is true unless you figure that things are already bad and the White House is not doing anything about it.

The Arizona experience is a valuable case study. It explains why in Mississippi where the black population numbers over a million and makes up 37 percent of the state has only one black congressman out of four.

If the Democratic National Committee would have channeled funds into Mississippi and other southern state with sizeable black populations undoubtedly the core would be stronger.

In Arizona where almost a third of the state is Latino, only two of eight congressmen are Mexican American. The Tucson Unified School District is upwards of 60 percent Latino but has two of five board members (really one).

You would think that there would be concern on the part National Democratic Party and that it would spearhead a restructuring of the Arizona Democratic Party to reflect its presumed progressive agenda versus that of Tea Party Republicans.

But it ain’t so. The strategy of the DNC has been to support Blue Dog Democrats who have sold out on the issues of the economy, immigration and the struggle to save Mexican American Studies in Tucson. In the process, racism has become constitutional in Arizona.

The wrongheaded strategy of the past is repeated. Everything is justified if Barack Obama is re-elected. It doesn’t matter that he has been mute on the Minutemen assassination of nine year old Bresenia Flores and that his Justice Department has been mute about enforcing the U.S. Constitution vis-à-vis enforcement of desegregation orders. This, according to the DNC strategy, will be rectified by making the Arizona Democratic Party more conservative and even vote with Republicans.

According to this wrongheaded strategy, it will make Obama look more palatable to right wingers.

Consequently, the Democratic Party core in Arizona is so flabby that it stands for nothing. The failure to develop the political core of the Arizona Mexican American is glaring.

Presently, a well-qualified and intelligent candidate is running for Arizona’s First Congressional District. Wenona Baldenegro is a Harvard trained attorney. A Navajo with strong ties to the Native American and Mexican American communities, she represents the best in those groups. Instead of supporting Wenona, the national party is supporting a reactionary Blue Dog Democrat with Tea Party ties and is actively working to sabotage her candidacy by pressuring donors not to fund her campaign. Another example of the weakening of the core is the federal courts appointment of special master Willis D. Hawley to oversee the controversy over HB 2281 and the elimination of the highly successful Mexican American Studies Program. Without a core Mexican Americans have been unable to check the coopting of Hawley who knows absolutely nothing about the education of Mexican American children.

I make this criticism only after of months of patient waiting. I did not want my biases toward multi-culturists to in anyway affect the outcome. Blame my Catholic school training and its belief in redemption.

However, my fifty years in academe have hardened my opinion toward multiculturalists who range from friendly touchy feely people to arrogant academics.

Some are good scholars. They want a better society. But, many think that they know more about what is good for minorities than minorities themselves.

I have had to fight them in committees because they failed to see the necessity for Chicanos to determine their own pedagogies. Consequently, they have undermined Chicana/o and African American Studies programs because they see no need for them to build their cores.

If you want a Chicano, African American or an Asian American center, their solution is, let’s save money and throw you all into a multi-cultural center.

Self-determination is not a nationalist demand; it is the aspiration of every living person. Communities should determine their futures and the role of political parties is not to manipulate them but to strengthen them.

Perhaps if our political cores were stronger, the Democratic Party would not sell us out as in Arizona and other states.
With this said, like in the days of the Romans, we don’t have to worry. Our cores will get fat and flabby as we get free bread and circuses during Cinco de Mayo. People will celebrate it without knowing its historical message which was that Mexico was not open to foreign colonialism and that the separation of church and state was the law of the land.

But, this is too much exercise. Too much to think about. Let’s bring on the beer; enjoy the jarabe tapatio; and let the mariachis blare. Enjoy the smiling politicos and the Obamas talk about how Americans are exceptional.

El nuevo “talking point” de los republicanos hispanos al hablar de inmigración es decir que el presidente Barack Obama no cumplió su promesa de impulsar una reforma de inmigración durante el primer año de su gestión cuando los demócratas controlaban ambas cámaras del Congreso. Y lo sazonan agregando que bajo la administración Obama se han deportado más indocumentados que bajo la presidencia del republicano George W. Bush.

Siempre he criticado que el presidente Barack Obama no impulsara con más ahínco esa esquiva reforma de inmigración y que todo el capital político de los primeros dos años de su gestión, cuando realmente pueden conseguirse cosas porque los otros dos años son dedicados a la reelección, fuera absorbido por la reforma de salud que privó de oxígeno a toda una suerte de asuntos. Siempre he criticado que se use el tema de inmigración a última hora y en año electoral para dar la impresión de que se está haciendo algo aunque realmente no esté haciéndose nada. Siempre he dicho que los demócratas pudieron hacer más en ese tema, no sólo ahora con Obama sino antes en previas administraciones con la diferencia de que las anteriores, léase Bill Clinton, no hicieron ninguna promesa al respecto. He criticado también el alcance de los programas federales que han contribuido a la cifra récord de deportaciones porque mayormente han afectado no a criminales como se supone que sea, sino a padres y madres de familia. Y critico que aún bajo los nuevos lineamientos sobre deportaciones, jóvenes indocumentados que se beneficiarían del DREAM Act tengan que pelear con uñas y dientes sus potenciales deportaciones.

Pero el cinismo de algunos republicanos de criticar a Obama por no haber cumplido esa promesa de reforma no parece conocer límites.

Manipulando el comprensible descontento entre un sector de los votantes hispanos por la falta de reforma y por la alta tasa de deportaciones, estas figuras republicanas todo lo resuelven con la clásica línea de “el presidente Barack Obama rompió su promesa de reforma de inmigración” que daría risa si sus consecuencias no fueran tan serias y en muchos casos devastadoras.

Lo que no dicen es que los republicanos contribuyeron enormemente a que esa promesa no se concretara porque a la mera mención de reforma saltaban como fieras para desechar cualquier viso de movimiento. Tampoco dicen que bloquearon medidas más limitadas como el DREAM Act y que durante el debate de la medida en la Cámara Baja en diciembre de 2010, el presidente del Comité Judicial, Lamar Smith, llegó a comparar a estos jóvenes indocumentados con criminales. Es cierto que cuando la medida llegó al Senado cinco demócratas que habrían hecho la diferencia votaron en contra, pero también lo habrían hecho cinco de los 36 republicanos que se opusieron al proyecto, varios de ellos coautores de la medida original.

La pregunta para estas figuras republicanas es simple: Si Obama hubiese impulsado el proyecto de reforma migratoria, ¿los republicanos lo habrían apoyado? ¿Lo apoyan ahora? ¿Lo apoya el casi nominado presidencial republicano, Mitt Romney? La respuesta también es simple y es un rotundo no. Ni lo habrían apoyado entonces ni lo hacen ahora y Romney, quien incluso se ha atrevido a emplear el argumento de vez en cuando, no sólo no apoya esa reforma, sino que cree en el concepto de la autodeportación, que los inmigrantes, así lleven décadas viviendo en Estados Unidos, decidirán autodeportarse en algún momento antes de que ICE lo haga.

Bueno, al menos eso parece ser lo que piensa porque Bettina Inclán, la directora de alcance hispano del Comité Nacional Republicano (RNC), dijo que Romney “todavía está decidiendo cuál es su postura en inmigración”. Dios Mío. Quizá Inclán se estaba refiriendo al DREAM Act porque Romney pasó de prometer vetarlo si el proyecto se concretara y él fuera presidente, a considerar una versión republicana ahora que quiere apelar a los votantes latinos.

Ni qué decir de la cifra de deportaciones. Cada vez que escucho a un republicano hispano decir que Obama ha deportado más indocumentados que Bush, se me crispa la piel porque al final de la oración tendrían que añadir “y nos parece que no son suficientes”.

La desfachatez de criticar a alguien por no hacer algo que de todos modos usted no apoya es el colmo de la hipocresía.

Desconozco si la estrategia rendirá frutos entre algunos hispanos realmente desafectos con Obama por el tema migratorio. Pero de lo que no cabe duda es de que el barato argumento republicano equivale a predicar la moral en calzoncillos.

Maribel Hastings es asesora ejecutiva de America’s Voice.