By Mariana Llamas-Cendon
Latinalista.net

MEXICO CITY — Surgical masks and respirators have become a popular shield against the swine flu or H1N1 virus pandemic but they are not almighty. According to a story published on Esmas.com, the news website from Noticieros Televisa — one of the two main broadcasting companies in Mexico — experts at Mexico’s Autonomous National University (UNAM) said the masks prevent the transmission of swine flu by inhibiting the discharge of saliva drops when sneezing, coughing or even talking. Also, the masks help avoid direct contact between hands and mouth, which seems to be the most common form of infection with the H1N1 virus.

Mexican family sports surgical masks to ward off the H1N1 virus.
(Source: Esmas.com)

Surgical masks, although useful, also have a dark side. The most common type – one that usually comes in a blue color — offers protection for only about two to six hours, depending on the level of exposure to the virus.

“Masks should not be used longer than that (six hours) because they get moist and therefore, will not be able to protect as intended,” said Dr. Ricardo C. Armendariz, a renowned Mexican oncologist. “The virus (H1N1) is transmitted through microscopic particles known as fomite, which are present every time we breathe, and greater when we sneeze or cough.”

For Dr. Jaime Morales, vice director of the Department of Pulmonary Circulation in Latin America and a pneumologist for the National Institute of Medical Sciences and Nutrition Salvador Zubiran in Mexico City, a surgical mask has to be replaced every two hours, this being especially important for healthcare professionals.

“At the moment, due to the emergency situation that prevails, common surgical masks are being replaced every two hours; medium-efficiency ones that are not as thin, every eight hours, and the hard, rounded ones, every seven days,” Morales said.

Once replaced, masks are not reusable under any circumstances.

Since news of the continuing spread of the H1N1 influenza virus, the blame game has run rampant among those targeting undocumented Mexican immigrants as spreading the virus. Yet, the evidence proves otherwise.

It’s hard to believe that the world has been in the grips of the H1N1 influenza virus for only less than two weeks. The constant media barrage makes it seem a whole lot longer. Not to mention, the 24/7 media coverage from ground zero of the virus plays nicely into the antics of conservative wingnuts whose favorite sport is making up reasons to turn the tide of public opinion against undocumented Latino immigrants.

It’s not hard to guess who these wingnuts are blaming for the spread of the virus. Yet, when it comes to playing the virus blame game, while it may have started in Mexico it’s clear everyone has had a part in spreading it.

The recent calls for closing the U.S.-Mexico border exemplify the knee-jerk assumption that has made its way across the country and into the halls of Congress.

Otherwise, it would be realized that most of the carriers of the virus into the United States didn’t enter the country swimming across the Rio Grande or trekking through the desert. The likelier carriers of the virus were either hang-gliding over the Pacific Ocean off the Mexican coast, hiking up the Aztec pyramids, window-shopping in the Polanco district of Mexico City or sitting in conference meetings. The usual things tourists, honeymooners and business professionals do when away from home and in Mexico.

In fact, the first large cluster of infections reported outside Mexico was attributed to a group of Canadians who had traveled to Mexico. Since then, stories have emerged of other U.S. victims — students at a New York private prep academy, a Marine at Twentynine Palms military base, a World Bank employee who had gone to Mexico on business and returned sick infecting his family, a third-year Harvard dental student, and a member of the presidential advance security team, who had gone to Mexico City to support the U.S. delegation that accompanied the President on his recent trip. The list keeps growing.

Now, the Wall Street Journal reports that there is evidence that the country’s earliest flu victims in California had “no apparent link to either Mexico or pigs.” The newspaper is reporting that the California victims may have even been sick before the first Mexicans contracted the virus since the California illness was reported at the end of March.

It’s reported by the Centers for Disease Control that among the earliest victims in California a different strain of the flu was the culprit rather than what is being seen in Mexico.

Yet, none of these facts are resonating as loudly or getting much airtime as pointing the finger and shoveling the blame onto undocumented Mexican immigrants. The blame game will only get worse as cases rise and the potential for that to happen is getting better every day.

(The following article is by Mexico City-based freelance journalist Mariana Llamas-Cendon who has been providing Latina Lista, along with other news clients, reports and articles of the current situation in Mexico.

In this article, the subject of the story, Miguel T. asked our reporter not to identify him. As he explained, "I don't want to be the face of death.")

By Mariana Llamas-Cendon

MEXICO CITY — The swine flu pandemic has already taken more than 20 lives just in Mexico City, and more than 200 cases of infection have been confirmed by the Mexican Department of Health, but thankfully there are residents, like Miguel T., who were lucky enough to tell their story with the virus H1N1.

Miguel’s lifestyle was quite common: he went to work; used public transportation and cabs regularly, ate out everyday, gathered with friends, and spent time with his girlfriend… until one day, around April 22nd, he started not to feel so well.

“I came home late. I noticed I had all the symptoms; even so I went to bed. Then, I got a message on my cell phone from (Mexico’s) Health Department saying that if the symptoms were present one should go to any public health center. So I decided to look for help,” said Miguel.

Miguel noticed that his body aches were stronger than he ever experienced before with any regular flu.

“The pain was quite acute, especially in the joints and muscles. My knees and legs felt as if I had tripped or fell down the stairs,” said Miguel T.

On April 25th, Miguel’s journey in search for medical attention was a tough one. After visiting two hospitals (Hospital de Traumatologia of Lomas Verdes and Hospital San Jose) — both located in the State of Mexico — he was finally redirected to a third one, where he finally received the assistance he needed.

“First, I went to a public hospital specialized in traumatology but I was denied medical attention,” said Miguel, who was well aware that by official declaration from the Department of Health, any public hospital must give prompt medical attention to anyone suspected of being infected with the human influenza.

This week's Supreme Court decision to not charge undocumented immigrants with "aggravated identity theft" distinguishes between undocumented immigrants who use random false Social Security numbers for work purposes and criminals whose sole intent is to steal specific identities to rob unsuspecting people of their money or leave them holding the proverbial shopping bag as these thieves max out their victims' credit cards.

Many critics of undocumented immigrants will not see the justice in this decision but it should be recognized that the Supreme Court would not have had to even render this judgment had it not been for the prior administration's abuse of this specific law.

Last year, the Bush administration announced roundups of illegal immigrants at several workplaces. Most of those arrested were charged with possessing false documents and aggravated identity theft. For example, 389 workers were detained at a meat-packing plant in Iowa; two-thirds of them were charged with felony identity theft.

The federal strategy of threatening to charge people with a far more serious crime of aggravated identity theft achieved two goals: criminalized the immigrant which would make legal re-entry into the country practically impossible and if the undocumented worker was sufficiently intimidated by the prospect of going to jail, it meant that he/she accepted the government's "generosity" in providing a speedy deportation.

It was a flagrant abuse of power that targeted the most defenseless people who reside in this country, regardless of legal status.

The Supreme Court ruling underscores that fact that there is a difference between real criminals and undocumented immigrants who just come to work. The ruling also signals that thankfully this nation is getting back to the roots of what made it great — using common sense.

While everyone agrees that the job of a border patrol agent along the U.S.-Mexico border is a thankless, dangerous job, there are a few agents who obviously feel that the no-man's land where they're stationed gives them license to abuse their positions.

.

Thanks to some great detective work by Jacqueline Stevens, University of California associate law professor and blogger/publisher of States Without Nations , comes the revelation of a disturbing pattern of abuse by Arizona border patrol agents against young Mexican-American boys.

It seems that in several different cases (the ones we know about), two of which were written up in great detail by Stevens, that Mexican-American teenagers trying to cross back into the United States from Mexico (one went to go drink in Mexico, the other had been living there and was returning to live in the U.S.) were stopped and questioned by the border patrol.

When both boys, Mario and Ricardo, presented their birth certificates, the border patrol 1) Declared that they didn't believe either boy and 2) in each instance, ripped up their birth certificates in front of them.

With no other way to prove their U.S. citizenship, the boys could do nothing to defend themselves when the border patrol agents declared them removed as Mexican citizens.

This week, two very important members of President Obama's Cabinet spoke out on the DREAM Act, the bill making its way through congressional committees to legalize the status of undocumented students and allow them to not only pursue affordable higher education but put their degrees to work once they have them.

Dr. Alfredo Quinoñes-Hinojosa journeyed from being an undocumented migrant worker to one of the world's most renown brain surgeon.

In an appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee this week, Department of Homeland Security, Sec. Janet Napolitano, responded to a question by Sen. Dick Durbin who asked about how she felt about the DREAM Act (the bill was introduced by Sen. Durbin in the Senate):

I supported the Dream Act when I was governor. I support it now. One of the most moving things I've been privileged to do as secretary is to administer the oath of citizenship to men and women in our military who have been serving in Iraq, who were not citizens, who have elected to become citizen. In a way, it kind of mirrors what you're talking about in the Dream Act.

But it seems to me that the Dream Act is a good piece of legislation and a good idea.

In a separate incident, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, also voiced his approval of the DREAM Act:

Duncan said it is important undocumented students have the opportunity to receive loans, and said he would do everything possible to encourage states to offer in-state tuition for these students.

“I think it’s absolutely in the state’s economic interest to make sure that these students have access and are treated just like their friends and peers from college,” he said.

If these students were allowed to pursue their educational goals, some of whom want to be doctors, then Kaiser Permanente in California wouldn't have had to resort to what they announced this week — giving a $2 million grant to a UCLA program that recruits foreign-trained doctors to work in U.S. Latino communities.

Luis Ramirez was attacked by a group of teens in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania last summer. He died two days later. Yet, the teens brought to trial for his murder were found to be guilty of only simple assault. Now, there’s a campaign underway to see that justice is served.

Last summer’s story of what happened to Luis Ramirez, who suffered a skull-busting, fatal beating at the hands of four teens in Shenandoah, Pennslyvania, rightfully outraged everyone who heard about it.

So why hasn’t the same kind of outrage been triggered by last week’s news that two of the teens, who were charged with aggravated assault and ethnic intimidation, were found by a jury to be guilty of only simple assault?

Luis Ramirez (left) and attackers Brandon Piekarsky (center) and Derrick Donchak.

For a man who had to have part of his skull removed to relieve the pressure on his brain, which still didn’t save his life, Ramirez’s attack was no simple assault. How the Schuylkill County Court jury could review the evidence, acquit the defendants of third-degree murder and arrive at their conclusion is not just incomprehensible but unjust.

On July 12, Luis Ramirez, a 25-year-old father of two, was attacked by members of the Blue Devils — not a hardened street gang, but the town’s high school football team. An eyewitness to the fight, who happened to be a former Philadelphia police officer, said that while the fight was brutal it was the response of the local police that shocked her just as much.

When the police arrived on the scene to find Ramirez bloody, unconscious and foaming at the mouth, the police officer looked like he was going to kick Ramirez because he thought he was faking.

The eyewitness told police that during the attack she heard the boys yelling the “f” word and calling Ramirez “Spic.” Somehow, Ramirez was able to call a friend for help on his cell phone during the attack. When his friends finally showed up, the eyewitness said that Ramirez’s attackers yelled, “Tell your (expletive) Mexican friends to get the (expletive) out of Shenandoah or you’ll be (expletive) laying next to him.”

The eyewitness was never called to testify in court. Hardly surprising since local officials initially failed to charge the Blue Devils with a hate crime because they said race didn’t play a role in the attack.

If you recall, Louis Caldera was the guy who authorized that bad decision to let the President's jet buzz New York City evoking memories of 9/11 from the New Yorkers who saw the plane.

Results of the photo shoot that pressured Caldera into resigning.
(Source: White House)

President Obama was angry and embarrassed enough to call for an investigation into the incident. The team conducting the investigation returned its report today and clearly showed that Caldera is to be held accountable.

Caldera said he resigns effective May 22, 2009 and as of today will no longer be directing "the affairs of the White House Military Office." He will spend the next two weeks completing the "necessary out-processing."

By Mariana Llamas-Cendon
Latinalista.net

It seems that the health emergency in Mexico City is totally under control since no new deaths have been reported, and infected people are being treated.

Apparently everything has returned to normality: Public places such as restaurants, theaters, bars, clubs, gyms, and offices reopened their doors last week — with elementary and junior high schools reopening today, May 11th.

Evangelina Salgado Mena busily stitches face masks to fill local demand.
(Photo: Mariana Llamas-Cendon)

Still many residents of the biggest city in the world remain in “vacation” mode since some had traveled to many of the tourist destinations that Mexico has to offer such as Cuernavaca, the capital of the state of Morelos, located 40 minutes from Mexico City.

Health authorities have reminded people to preserve the same sanitary rules: use masks, avoid crowded places and constantly wash hands.

Yet Cuernavaca shares the same problem as Mexico City — a lack of face masks. Drugstores, supermarkets and hardware establishments have run out since the demand from locals has already exceeded the available stock of masks.

While "Main Street" and "Wall Street," and every "side street," have taken direct hits during this economic slump, another "street" institution that has not been able to escape budget cuts and downsizing are public schools.

From Ypsilanti to Dallas and Spokane to Great Falls (Montana), public schools are taking a beating.

Course aren't just being eliminated or class sizes growing larger but teachers are being given pink slips. If there was one institution where seniority counts for something, it's in the public schools where the rule of thumb during layoffs is that "the last hired are the first fired."

While it might make sense — less experience, less years vested in a school district and/or campus, less investment from the school district via in-service training — it is proving to be a devastating loss at those schools that are primarily attended by Latinos and African Americans.

Why?

With seniority, teachers usually choose to transfer out of those schools that are "majority-multicultural." It means leaving behind an old building, in a depressed area of town, with a higher workload and a higher population of at-risk students.

So to fill these vacant spots, first-year teachers pay their dues by putting in time at these schools. But if the last to be hired are the first to be fired — where does that leave the children at these schools most severely impacted by school budget cuts?

Quiz: Name the two highest-grossing illicit businesses in the world.

If you said the first profitable illicit business was drugs, you were right. If you said the second illicit business that paid well was prostitution, you are only partly right.

When prostitution is performed by women and girls who are forced to do it against their will, then prostitution becomes part of a much bigger issue — human trafficking. Sexual exploitation comprises the majority offense in human trafficking.

Human trafficking is the second largest illicit business in the world after drugs and generates an estimated 32 billion dollars annually according to the United Nations.

Trafficking is defined as the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services through the use of force, fraud, or coercion, for the purpose of subjecting that person to involuntary servitude, sexual exploitation, peonage, debt bondage, slavery, or other forms of exploitation.

It is a problem that doesn't get the attention it deserves but the debut this week of the United Nation's newest Goodwill Ambassador to Combat Human Trafficking may be able to paint a whole new picture of the issue.

It's long been known, over the last ten years, that women and girl immigrants were arriving in the United States in increasing numbers. It's also been known among mental health officials who service the Spanish-speaking population that these immigrant women face the same obstacles as the male immigrants — plus more.

With little command of the English language, no strong family support network and unfamiliarity with US systems and processes, these women struggle on a daily basis to achieve their perception of the American Dream.

A new poll by New America Media, entitled Immigrant Women: Stewards of the 21st Century, reveals that with all the adversities they face, these women credit moving to America in making positive changes to their lives.

The poll found that as many women settled in America, they also radically altered their roles in their private lives. Almost one-third report having assumed head-of-household responsibilities or sharing equally with their husbands the decision-making on everything from household finances to family planning. Moreover, the poll found that the overwhelming majority—Latin American (81%), Chinese (71%), Vietnamese (68%), African (66%) and Arabic (53%)—said they had become more assertive at home and in public after moving to America.

It's a good thing that they have learned to stand up for themselves because as the poll further shows, no one else is going to be able to take their place in confronting the challenges that threaten the safety and health of them and their families.

Rick Reyes joined the Marine Corps in 2000. He served in Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan in 2001 and Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003 as an Infantry Rifle Man. He returned from duty early 2004 and went into business for himself starting his own independent mortgage company.

Rick Reyes

Yet, Reyes' experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq changed how he saw the continuing role of the U.S. military in this region of the world. It wasn't long before he joined Iraq Veterans against the War (IVAW) and joined forces with the grassroots social justice organization Brave New Foundation's campaign Rethink Afghanistan.

On April 23, 2009, former Marine Corporal Rick Reyes appeared in Washington before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He told the congressional committee that they needed to rethink their strategy of supplying more troops into Afghanistan.

In the following Guest Voz piece, former Marine Corporal Rick Reyes shares his personal experiences of what he witnessed while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan and why he feels that his "patriotism was exploited for political gain."

Editor's note: The Rethink Afghanistan campaign wants Congress to consider three questions before approving a $94.2 billion supplemental wartime spending bill. The campaign's organizers feel the answers to these questions can clarify the future success of anymore military presence in Afghanistan.

I was on liberty in Australia, with a few buddies at a club I can’t remember sometime around midnight, when it happened. The music shut off and an announcement came on: “America is under attack. Head back to your ships.” This was the worst—the impossible.

This was September 11, 2001.

Back at my ship, ambulance sirens blared. Hundreds of Marines stood on deck, anxiously awaiting word. Someone said the Pentagon had been bombed. My platoon sergeant stood up and delivered a fiery speech filled with "No one fucks with America!" and "We’re going to kick some ass!"

Later that night, the same sergeant turned to me and asked me if I was ready. Without giving it a second thought, I replied, “This is what I joined for.”

Flash forward to a few weeks ago, as I recalled those words testifying before Senator John Kerry and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. I sat where a young Kerry was once seated as he woke the country up to the grim realities of the war in Vietnam. I explained to the Committee that I always desired to serve my country, ensure basic freedoms, and fight for justice and the American way.

This had been my dream since childhood, a way to honor my Mexican immigrant parents who worked tirelessly to give my family a better life, a way out of an East Los Angeles neighborhood plagued by gang violence. But what I witnessed and experienced in Afghanistan and Iraq has forever shattered this once noble ambition.

The Explorers (scout) program wants its members to get real-life experience in training for careers. Yet, scouts participating in the law enforcement program aren’t just being exposed to the life-and-death scenarios that face law officials today, they’re being subjected to a training that teaches them to react first, think later to situations that demand there not be knee-jerk reactions.

The New York Times’ picture of the group of babyface Latino teens clutching guns, sporting flak jackets, dark blue uniforms and wearing serious expressions looked like an illustration for an expose on child soldiers. If it hadn’t been for the headline, a reader wouldn’t have known until three paragraphs into the accompanying story that these boys were all-American Explorer scouts, a kind of cousin to the Boy Scout program.

These scouts (14-20-years-old), girls included, are participating in a program that focuses on prepping them for “learning for life” careers and skills. In this case, it’s supposed to prepare them for a future career in law enforcement — a future that is counting on the continuance of terrorism, illegal immigration and border violence thriving in American society.

These scouts are being put through regular drills simulating situations that feature how to confront suicide bombers, chase down undocumented immigrants and how to “take out” active shooters.

It was reported today that the Obama administration is expanding an immigration program that was started under the Bush administration.

It entails checking the immigration status of people booked into local jails. The idea being that those who are found to be undocumented and who have served their time for their crimes will be deported versus let back into US society.

On the surface, this sounds like a very good program. After all, no one wants rapists, murderers or thieves let back into society if they don't have a legal right to be here, but this program is flawed on a variety of levels.

Rather than just expanding a flawed program, the Obama administration would do better to re-evaluate it and implement an improved version and one that reflects that this administration understands what true immigration reform means.

According to a new report released today by The National Council of La Raza (NCLR) and the Campaign for Youth Justice (CFYJ), one out of 4 incarcerated Latino youth is held in an adult jail facility.

The report, America’s Invisible Children: Latino Youth and the Failure of Justice discovered several key facts that underscore the institutionalized prejudices that exist in our legal system towards Latino youth and other youth of color.

These prejudices have resulted in a domino effect of discrepancies in treatment among youth inmates resulting in Latino youth being overrepresented in the judicial system, receiving harsher treatment, being dealt a sentence that is more punitive than their white counterparts for the same offense and more likely to be placed in adult prisons.

Yet, one of the more surprising, and disappointing, finds of the report, is that "a higher proportion of white youth prosecuted in the adult system are released pretrial (60%) than any other racial or ethnic categories. While most (54%) of Latino youth prosecuted in the adult system were detained pretrial; of the Latino youth detained pretrial, 72% were held in adult jails."

The obvious question from such a finding is: What makes white youth seem more trustworthy to be released pretrial than Latino youth?

Is it who their parents are? The school they went to? The section of town they live in?

Or is it the color of their skin?

In the last two days, there has been more positive news regarding aspects of immigration reform than has been seen in the last few months.

To start with, the DREAM Act received a very large endorsement from the President of Harvard University.

Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust sent a letter to federal officials declaring her support of the passage of the DREAM Act.

"I believe it is in our best interest to educate all students to their full potential - it vastly improves their lives and grows our communities and economy," she wrote.

Another institution that also sees today's punitive actions against the undocumented as nothing but mean-spirited accomplishing nothing but depriving knowledge to a select group of people is the New York public library system.

New York's El Diario reports that since Monday, May 18, all undocumented immigrants have been able to use their matricula consular as a valid form of identification.

The New York board of directors of public libraries voted to accept the matricula consular, the Mexican government-issued ID card, as valid identification after several requests from immigrant activists. "The main purpose of libraries is to provide free information for academic purposes and creative education, representing all points of view," library spokeswoman Zoila Bofill told El Diario/La Prensa.

The immigration issue is also starting to move in Washington too.

Dr. Douglas Massey is a professor of Sociology at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University and is an adjunct professor of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. Specializing in the sociology of immigration, Dr. Massey has received numerous recognitions for his work on immigration, especially Mexican migration into the United States.

Dr. Douglas Massey

In 1982, Dr. Massey co-founded the Mexican Migration Project (MMP), which is a binational research effort to gather social as well as economic information on Mexican-US migration. In its 27-year history, the MMP has compiled a comprehensive database of Mexican migrants. Dr. Massey and his colleagues make the data available to the public free of charge for research and educational purposes.

Dr. Massey has also written a number of books on the sociology of immigration and because of his expertise in the subject is often called to speak or be interviewed on the topic.

It was the case this week when Dr. Massey was asked to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Citizenship for a hearing entitled "Securing the Borders and America's Points of Entry, What Remains to Be Done."

Dr. Massey shares with Latina Lista his testimony before the congressional committee, along with, statistical graphs that illustrate the historic nature of Mexican migration into the United States and how an inflexible US immigration policy aggravated a manageable issue.

(Editor's note: Dr.Massey provided Latina Lista with ten graphs to illustrate certain points in his testimony. Because of size and space restrictions, it was decided to use only 7 images.)

Testimony of Douglas S. Massey Before the Senate Judiciary Committee May 20, 2009

Good morning senators. Thank you for the opportunity to testify. I am a social scientist who has been studying immigration for three decades and co-direct a research project that has been in the field for more than 25 years and generates the largest and most reliable source of data on the behavior of documented and undocumented migrants to the United States.

During the 1970s the United States declared a War on Crime; during the 1980s it declared a War on Drugs; and in the 1990s it declared a War on Immigrants. In my view, these policies had more to do with domestic politics than with the underlying realities of crime, drugs, or immigration, with negative consequences all around.

Figure 1

In the case of immigration, in 1986 the Immigration Reform and Control Act launched what proved to be a two decade-long militarization of the Mexico-US Border; and in 1993 the Border Patrol enacted a new strategy of blocking the border at strategic crossing points.

From 1980 to 2000, the number of Border Patrol Agents increased 3.7 times, linewatch hours rose by a factor of 6.5, the agency’s budget increased by a factor of 12 (see Figure 1).

Paradoxically, this militarization occurred as undocumented migration reached its peak and began moving downward. It also unfolded as we were drawing closer to Mexico economically, agreeing by treaty to lower the barriers to cross-border movements of goods, capital, information, services, and certain classes of people.

Figure 2

Between 1980 and 2000 total trade increased nine times, business visitors 7.4 times, treaty investors ten times, and intracompany transferees 27 times (see Figure 2).

Somehow it seemed we wished to integrate all factor markets in North America except one, and to build a border that was permeable to all flows except workers.

This fundamental contradiction was not sustainable.

By Anahi Parra
LL Special Report
Latinalista.net

Away from my hometown of Mexico City, I am currently in New York City, where last Sunday I had the opportunity to witness two rallies regarding gay marriage in New York, one pro-marriage equality, one against.

The English-language media coverage was more focused on the rally co-organized by Broadway Impact, the Human Rights Campaign, the Empire State Pride Agenda, Marriage Equality New York, the Civil Rights Front, and Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.

The greater coverage might have been due to the presence of New York governor David Paterson and New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, along with a large list of Broadway and television stars that included Audra McDonald, Cynthia Nixon, Kristin Davis, and Ana Ortiz of Ugly Betty. The audience of this rally was mainly composed of middle-class, white people, mostly men, some holding babies in their arms while happily dancing along to the cast of “Hair” singing “Let the Sunshine In” as a supportive gesture.

Protesters against gay marriage participate in rally organized by Latino clergy.
(Photo: Anahi Parra)

A few blocks away, earlier that afternoon, Reverend Ruben Díaz, Sr, the New York Hispanic Clergy Organization, and Radio Visión Cristiana International gathered in front of David Paterson's office building with what some estimate were “thousands” of Latin evangelicals, who made it all the way to Manhattan from the outer boroughs and some from other states, transported in vans and buses.

Having in mind the contrast that I saw between both rallies, i.e. one being mainly organized by white people, and the other only by Latinos, I know that there are other Hispanics who have another perspective.

As Ana Ortiz said to Rev. Diaz “You do not represent the voice of Latinos! Absolutely not! Not in our name!."

Her words need repeating, because while walking through the anti-gay marriage rally, what struck me the most was to see children holding signs against gay marriage, as well as to hear an 18-year-old girl expressing her worry about these unions.

"God created gay people. He loves them. But they don't know what they are doing,” she explained to me with patience. “It is in our hands to make them go back to the good path.”

Imagine this scene: It's 6:30 a.m. in the middle of the week at a city trolley station. People are wiping the sleep from their eyes as they hustle to catch a ride that will take them to work and school.

Now imagine that suddenly uniformed officers, en masse, storm the trolley station looking for only a "certain type" of individual. People don't know what is happening. The uniformed officers approach only those "kinds" of people they are after. It includes men, women and children. The people are questioned then whisked out of the area, and before anyone knows it — out of the country.

While a scene like this tends to evoke memories of what the Nazis did to the Jews, it was an all too real scene last week — in San Diego!

Sonia Sotomayor, the product of a South Bronx public housing project, who lost her father at the age of nine, went on to win scholarships to Princeton University and Yale Law School.

New Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor

This 54-year-old Puerto Rican Latina is currently the U.S. Appeals Court judge in the 2nd Circuit, a position she has held since 1998.

All commentators agree that Judge Sotomayor's record speaks for itself in terms of experience on the bench, and given her upbringing by a single mother, her impoverished childhood in the Bronx and her devotion to service in the judicial system, all these elements combine to underscore the fact that Sotomayor has the empathy that was so important to Obama and his team.

As one CNN commentator said, Sotomayor is the face of a new America where demographics have shifted substantially to the point where second thought is now applied in appointing only white males.

A new report about Latina teen pregnancy doesn’t just examine the issue but, for the first time, breaks down the differences found among Latino families and how they contribute to Latina teens having the highest rates of teen pregnancies and births.

Last week, The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy released a report entitled “Latino Teens and Parents Speak Out About Teen Pregnancy.” I have to confess that news of this report didn’t excite me very much. I mean, what else new could possibly be added to the sad fact that Latina teens have the highest rate of teen pregnancy and births among their peers?

But after looking it over, I found that finally there is a report addressing something new. It’s something that the Latino community has known all along but has treated like the proverbial “elephant in the living room.”

It’s standard practice by most of us to remind the media, politicians, national organizations — all those that lump Latinos into one convenient group — that not all Latinos are Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, etc.

Yet, what’s never pointed out often enough is that even within each of these subgroups are further differences — those who are native born and those who are not; those who speak only Spanish, those who speak English only and those who are bilingual.

What’s been silently acknowledged all this time, and what this new report statistically reveals through its survey questions, is that these differences among Latinos contribute to how education is valued, how parents and children relate to one another, and how traditional cultural attitudes regarding gender play a role in Latino life.

When Sonia Sotomayor was named this week by President Obama as his choice for the upcoming Supreme Court vacancy, everyone knew that conservatives would scream and holler.

The cover page of the Berkeley speech delivered by Sotomayor and from which the now infamous quote was drawn from.

They haven't disappointed.

Since these conservatives can't dispute Sotomayor's experience — 17 years on the federal bench makes her the most experienced appointee to the Supreme Court in 75 years —

"Well, the thing that is so different about Sonia Sotomayor is that she has a lot of street-level experience with the criminal justice system. She was a prosecutor in New York City. She was a trial judge -- a federal trial judge, in New York City. That’s something that none of the justices in the Supreme Court have done -- is had the experience with juries, with defendants, handling the traffic in a courtroom. But the thing that makes her such a formidable choice is that she also has the intellectual achievements and that -- that people expect in a Supreme Court justice -- the distinguished academic career and a decade on the federal court of appeals in New York, where she has a record that is pretty much unassailable.”

and they can't refute her impoverished upbringing by a single mother in public housing, the conservative critics of Obama's appointment have latched onto an issue that they themselves are becoming more and more notorious for utilizing for their own political benefit — the race card.

Gabriel Arana is a Spring 2009 intern at The Nation, as well as, a graduate student at Cornell University. Though Arana is based these days on the East Coast, he is a product of the U.S.-Mexico border region.

(One disclaimer — Latina Lista is quoted in Arana's story.)

The Border Violence Myth

by GABRIEL ARANA

May 27, 2009

If media reports are to be believed, an Armageddon-like rash of drug-related violence--unlike any seen since "Miami Vice years of the 1980s"--has crossed from Mexico into the United States, "just as government officials had feared." Even if you've never used or sold drugs, you're not safe: kidnappers are breaking into the wrong houses and holding innocent civilians for ransom, putting guns in babies' mouths. Severed heads might end up being rolled into dance clubs, beheadings might end up on YouTube. Television segments narrated like war documentaries broadcast dramatic footage of Border Patrol Humvees kicking up dust in the Southwest, Minutemen with binoculars overlooking the border and piles of confiscated drugs. In the national media, it's become a foregone conclusion that Mexican drug violence has penetrated the United States.

But the numbers tell a different story. According to crime statistics for American cities along the US-Mexico border and major US metro areas along drug routes, violent crimes, including robberies, have either decreased in the first part of 2009 or remained relatively stable. This is not to say that the increased violence in Mexico has had no impact in the United States or that no violence in the United States can be traced to the conflict in Mexico. Rather the drive not to get "scooped" by competitors has led media outlets to conclude prematurely--based on hearsay and isolated incidents--that a wave of drug-related violence is upon us.

The increase in drug-related violence in Mexico over the past few years is well established, the result of a crackdown on drug cartels by President Felipe Calderón's administration. By most accounts it began in December 2006 when 6,500 federal troops and police were dispatched to the Mexican state of Michoacán. In a series of gradual steps, this war on drugs broadened: over the past two years, 45,000 troops and 20,000 federal police have been dispatched to different regions of the country, primarily in northern Mexican cities like Tijuana and Ciudad Juárez. Almost 8,000 cartel-related deaths have been reported in Mexico, with a spike in the summer of 2008.

The situation, however, had been viewed from a distance in the United States until the media began raising the nightmarish scenario of a spillover across the border.

On the heels of President Obama's announcement last week of Sonia Sotomayor as his Supreme Court nominee, the American public was subjected to the sad antics of extreme conservative personalities — Gingrich, Limbaugh, Coulter, Tancredo — who undeniably relish the media spotlight, and sought those extra five minutes of fame by bashing Sotomayor.

As the week went on, charges by these individuals only got more outlandish. Starting with just labeling her as a racist then going on to say she practiced "reverse racism" to finally saying that she belonged to an organization the equivalent of the KKK for Latinos, these individuals exemplified just how low each of them in their own way would go to get a coveted seat before the television camera.

Sadly, in their quest for ratings, each of the major networks and cable news shows have indulged these extremists to the point that now one of the most eminent Latino organizations has to defend itself against an intentional slander by former Republican Rep. Tom Tancredo.

Tancredo has equated the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), a 40-year-old civil rights organization, with the Ku Klux Klan. He obviously has not visited the web site and read the history or ALL the different projects, studies, activities and issues that the NCLR has championed — or he just doesn't care.