HispanicVista Columnists - May 30, 2005

By Patrick Osio, Jr./HispanicVista.com

May 30, 2005

 

 Other than Ku Klux Klan members and their followers, all would agree that the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) correctly identifies the KKK as a “hate group.” The same can be said about some other SPLC listed “hate groups” such as the neo-Nazi, white supremacist groups - National Alliance, Aryan Nations or the Creativity Movement (formerly World Church of the Creator).  Or separatists groups like the Nation of Islam or The League of the South. No doubts - these groups have earned their status as bigots, racists and hate-group designations.

 

By Dr. Andrew Bernstein

In the current Senate debate over President Bush’s judicial nominees, some senators appear to be using a simple test: if a nominee has ever ruled in favor of property rights, he is unfit to serve as a federal judge.
The left has been preaching for many, many decades that so-called human rights trump property rights, that altruistic feelings for the weak, the poor, the handicapped, etc., ad nauseum, must guide a judge’s decisions, not some “outmoded” concept of justice based on the sanctity of the individual’s right to property. The senators worry that the nominees will reverse some of the massive violations of property rights that the left has subjected this country to for so long.

Allá Milwaukee "Taking Sides"

By Raoul Lowery Contreras/HispanicVista.com

May 30, 2005

 The word “hijacking” brings to mind Arab fanatics taking airliners and crashing them into the World Trade Center.

The word “hijacking” also brings to mind those among us who “hijack” well intentioned movements in the United States to further their own causes even as their own causes are evil and anti-American.

Take the case of Ward Connerly and his efforts to promote a “color blind society” through California ballot propositions. One can argue that Ward Connerly is a pawn of racist whites in their efforts to revive the America of the Fifties.  In the Fifties, most Blacks couldn’t vote, they couldn’t work except at menial jobs and they couldn’t get bank loans to buy homes in “Black” neighborhoods.

By Robert Miranda

Milwaukee Spanish Journal

 

Latte Latinos and Highspanics are the featured personalities of the new corporate magazine “Aquí Milwaukee”.  Actually, some in the Latino community are calling the magazine “Allá  Milwaukee” because it fails to live up to its statement that it will be a magazine for Milwaukee Hispanics by Milwaukee Hispanics. In fact, the magazine is run by Highspanics outside of Milwaukee and controlled by Journal Communications, the corporation that owns the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

I’m not sure what causes me more nausea.  The fact that Journal Communications has entered into the Latino media market under the wing of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce—an organization with less than 40% Latino business representation—or the fact that the “new ‘Hispanic’ magazine” has taken out advertisement with Clear Channel Communications—the corporation that employs Mark Belling.

May 30, 2005

 

Dehydration is a Process

 Water is something we all take for granted. It’s all over the place. Approximately two thirds of the Earth’s surface is covered with water. If you fail to consume water within a 48-hour period, your body begins to deteriorate. You can die from thirst. Drought threatens human survival.

Water flows downhill. We rely upon the fact that winter snows in the mountains will become spring flows of life sustaining water. It takes time to transform a snowflake in the mountains into a drop of water in your kitchen. If this process is interrupted, we’re all in deep, deep trouble. Wells and reservoirs run dry if the sources and flow of life giving water are not nurtured.

By Robert Miranda

The Republican Party is seeking political leverage within the Latino community; the Grand Old Party (GOP) has Hispanics advising them about the politics in the Latino community. One of these Hispanics is Perfecto Rivera, a staunch Republican business man who is chairman of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Wisconsin. The GOP, also known as the Republican Party, has groups that advocate for their political agenda. Groups like the highly conservative Hispanic Heritage Council and the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce have been working closely with Republicans for some time.
The GOP is working feverishly to win over Hispanic voters. One would think that because the Republican Party is seeking to make political inroads into the Latino community, any effort to attack Latino immigrants would be stymied by the influence and political networking of these so-called “Hispanics.”

By Domingo Ivan  Casañas/HispanicVista.com

May 30, 2005

  I had read several years ago that by this year (2005) young Hispanics will become the largest ethnic youth group in the U.S.  This means that our children are a majority and we as parents have a great responsibility to teach them well.  We must teach them to be respectful, honest, caring and to show their love toward us with no embarrassment. We must teach them the difference between being a conservative, liberal, pacifist, patriotic, left wing, and right wing, socialist, communist, the difference between a Republican a Democrat or being an Independent. 

The reason I think that this is important is because in my years of going through public school in the United States since the third grade to my college years I encountered many teachers and professors that seem to have their own agenda and philosophy in the classroom. 

By Walter A. Ewing, Ph.D.

The Politics of Contradiction

U.S. immigration policy is based on denial. Most lawmakers in the United States have largely embraced the process of economic “globalization,” but stubbornly refuse to acknowledge that increased migration, especially from developing nations to developed nations, is an integral and inevitable part of this process. Instead, they continue an impossible quest that began shortly after World War II: the creation of a transnational market in goods and services without a transnational market for the workers who make those goods and provide those services. In defiance of economic logic, U.S. lawmakers formulate immigration policies...

By Richard N. Baldwin T. /HispanicVista.com

May 30, 2005

 

Well, in a word, it's neither. It's a badly needed start but far from complete.

First, let's agree on one thing: The present immigration system in the US is hopelessly out of date, and has been for 25 years. As it is now, it is a total free-for-all with no controls or provisions for the rights of either US citizens or the immigrants.

Business interests, battered by both productivity issues (and yes, greed) in the global economy and also the downturn of 2002 have needed entry-level input to increase productivity.  Now, if you are trying to keep a plant on shore in the US instead of going overseas, immigrants for entry level makes sense. And especially, if they are illegal, you don't have to worry about benefits or union problems. But to be fair, there are a lot of seasoned US workers who have kept their jobs because of the addition of immigrant labor in their companies. It is not all a one way street. But in the wake of 9/11 and concerns about securing borders, the present free-for-all is insane.

Is the U.S. a good neighbor? In the 1930s, President Franklin Roosevelt decided that U.S. foreign policy needed a dramatic overhaul­ because America’s military occupations, dollar diplomacy, and disdain for other cultures were bad for business, bad for U.S. security, and bad for our own self-respect as a nation.
 A report released today by a team of foreign policy experts makes a compelling case that FDR’s Good Neighbor policy can inspire a new framework for international relations. A Global Good Neighbor Ethic for International Relations, a 32-page report produced by the International Relations Center (http://www.irc-online.org/) and Foreign Policy In Focus (http://www.fpif.org/), concludes that good neighbor principles and practices would be a healthy departure form business as usual.

Mexican and Indian Always…

By Jennifer Vo and John P. Schmal

Few of the great cities of the land have had such humble founders as Los Angeles. Of the eleven pobladores who built their huts of poles and tule thatch around the plaza vieja … not one could read or write. Not one could boast of an unmixed ancestry… the conquering race that possesses the land they colonized has forgotten them. No street or landmark in the city bears the name of any one of them.[from J. M. Guinn, Historical and Biographical Record of Los Angeles and Vicinity (Chicago: Chapman Publishing Co., 1901)]

Not too many people can claim that they have had a ringside seat at significant historic events.  And those who did have a ringside seat usually did not fully comprehend the significance of the events they took part in.  This appears to have been the case for my ancestor, Luis Quintero, a poor middle-aged African-Mexican tailor from Sonora, Mexico.  In September 1781, Luis and his family joined ten other families in the founding of El Pueblo de Nuestra la Reina de Los Angeles (The Pueblo of Our Lady Queen of the Angels), with no clear vision of what would happen.

COLUMN OF THE AMERICAS
BY ROBERTO RODRIGUEZ & PATRISIA GONZALES
 By Roberto Rodriguez

As has been universally acknowledged, Antonio Villaraigoza's victory as mayor of L.A. this past week is of historic proportions. Coupled with two other major developments, his election takes on an even greater national and historic significance.

Last weekend, some 40 anti-Mexican bigots were chased out of nearby Baldwin Park as they went from protesting immigration to protesting the Mexican-Indian heritage of the region and continent. What drew their ire are several inscriptions on a monument. One reads: "This land was Mexican once, was Indian always and is, and will be again." Another one reads: "It was better before they came.” Artist Judy Baca says that the latter quote refers to a statement by a white civic leader who was lamenting the influx of Mexican immigrants into the area - not an anti-white statement as the detractors were claiming.

By Steven J. Ybarra, JD/HispanicVista.com

May 23, 2005

Notas por La Casa Politica

 

So here I am in North Lost Wages. Stop and think about it.  It is the only city in America built on losers.  You come here and you leave (i.e., lose) your money and then the city grows.

Growth is an important issue here in North Las Vegas, Nevada.  Amidst all the wealth, however, there is this enormous poverty across the city boundary between Las Vegas and North Las Vegas. Differences are obvious, such as streets that are paved and those that have potholes.  Differences even exist between reasonable development and a sprawl that does not provide any vision for how to take care of the needs of children and old people.  Of course, other differences include that North Las Vegas is mostly brown, black and Asian, which accounts for something, I guess. 

THINKING OUT LOUD/IMMIGRATION

Scapegoating Mexico is easy, but it doesn't get us anywhere

By Wayne A. Cornelius

Mexico is eager for the U.S. to liberalize its immigration policy but sees no reason to change its own. With as much as $20 billion flowing into the country from migrants working in the U.S. this year — money that supports more than one of five Mexican households — why should it? It is not a lack of capacity but a lack of will that prevents Mexico from policing its border with the U.S.
So goes the conventional wisdom in Washington and in the anti-immigration lobby, which leads to mindless Mexico-bashing — mindless because even if the Mexican government were 100% committed to restricting the movement of its nationals and putting Mexican people-smugglers out of business, it would not make a discernible difference in illegal crossings.

By Manuel Hernandez/HispanicVista.com

 A twenty-two year old nephew and a 2004 graduate at the University of Puerto Rico, on a recent visit to the 2004 National Puerto Rican Day Parade to New York City, shared with me some interesting impressions of the Puerto Ricans there and made a few striking remarks about how his perception of a national identity had changed once he left the Parade and reflected on what he had seen and experienced while participating in the largest parade in the United States.

He was dazed at the sight of so many Puerto Rican flags being waved along Fifth Avenue and proudly displayed on tee-shirts, nails, hats, cheeks, heads and in other parts of the human body. In-spite of majoring in Puerto Rican history, it was hard for him to understand how and why Puerto Ricans in New York elected to celebrate and preserve culture without apprehension.

From the Southern Poverty Law Center Intelligence Report

In February, the Center's Intelligence Project published a special website feature on white supremacists active in prominent Washington, D.C., publishing venues. The report revealed that the managing editor of Human Events, a conservative weekly, and The Evans-Novak Political Report, a highly respected newsletter, was also an editor for the anti-Semitic journal, The Occidental Quarterly.

Kevin Lamb, who had served as managing editor of both publications for several years, was also a repeat speaker at extremist conferences, including those of the race-science organization, The New Century Foundation, which publishes the hate newsletter American Renaissance.

By Erika Robles/HispanicVista.com

May 23, 2005

                  On May 1, 2005, the British Sunday Times leaked a secret memo with the minutes of a meeting dated July 23, 2002, indicating that President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair had agreed to invade Iraq. The memo, written by Mathew Rycroft –a Downing Street foreign policy aide- and obtained by Michael Smith –a defense specialist writing for the Sunday Times of London- was a huge story in the U.K., but went almost unreported in the U.S.
                The memo, labeled "secret and strictly personal –U.K. eyes only," contains the minutes of the meeting and begins with the head of the British intelligence service, identified as "C", saying "C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

By Rob Paral

Immigration Policy Center

The most recent attempt by federal policymakers to address the issue of undocumented immigration came on May 12, 2005, when a bipartisan group of senators and congressional representatives introduced the Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act. The act is notable in that it directly addresses the plight of the current undocumented population, as well as dealing with future flows of immigrants. The act not only creates a new temporary worker program in which currently undocumented immigrants can participate, but includes a pathway to permanent residence for the recipients of work visas. Given the extent to which undocumented immigrants already living in the United States are part of U.S.-based families, any effective immigration reform proposal must include both a temporary worker program and a pathway to permanent residence for undocumented immigrants who have roots in the United States.

Patrick Osio, Jr. has written an intensive manual on the Mexican perspective discussing numerous issues between our two countries. Recently President Fox was called to task for using what is in the U.S. politically incorrect racial reference, the manual has a chapter candidly discussing racism in Mexico.  The manual is an in depth primer on the culture and protocol for better understanding Mexicans. Through better understanding personal or business relationships may be better established. How to avoid the most common faux pas that can ruin relationships and cause embarrassments are explained.  

The Mexican Perspective is available through E-mail delivery for $9.95 making it possible to download the manual to save on your hard drive, printing its entirety or particular sections while reaping considerable savings over printed copies.

Op-Ed & NEWS, May 30, 2005

Los Angeles Times Editorial

 

Thinking Out Loud/Immigration

Searching for Solutions

 

The conceit of newspaper editorials is certainty. The anonymous author speaks for an institution, and the institution has it all figured out. But on some big issues it is said, and said truly, that there are "no easy answers." Healthcare is one. Traffic is another. Immigration is a third. These are issues that affect us all as individuals, and require decisions from us as a society. Yet every avenue toward a solution hits a dead end. Clashing interests, or simple mathematics, block the way.

Editorial Observer New York Times

In Los Angeles, the Inevitable Is Reflected in a New Hispanic Mayor

By Carolyn Curiel

 

There is almost an air of bemusement among Latinos in Los Angeles over the fascination with the election of one of their own as mayor. They like the attention, and that also goes for the new mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa. But stories here about rising Latino power are nearly anticlimactic....

The Los Angeles mayor's office was in many ways a domino waiting to fall. And the man who probably most helped the cascade is not Hispanic at all - former Gov. Pete Wilson.

Editorial New York Times

Homeland Eyes, Right and Left

Besides worrying about Al Qaeda, the Department of Homeland Security is responsible for sorting through terrorist threats posed by the motley array of aggrieved and violent homegrown groups stewing out in the United States. The Oklahoma City tragedy, the Unabomber and the bombing at the Atlanta Olympics all were ample demonstration that threats can come from within as well as from abroad. That makes it all the more disturbing to hear reports that the department seems to be wearing political blinkers in this vital task.

Editorial New York Times

Growth and the Poor

 

Last year should have been a good one for Latin America's poor; the region's economies grew by 5.8 percent. Yet outside Chile, Latin America's high growth rate is not cause for rejoicing. In places with relatively egalitarian income distribution, growth helps everyone. But in unequal countries, where the poor get only a few cents out of every new dollar, growth bypasses the poorest. Latin America is the world's most unequal region. That means growth will not reduce poverty unless Latin American governments redirect it to the poor.

Is Venezuela going nuclear?

 

Conversations with Iran give cause for concern

By Douglas MacKinnon

Houston Chronicle

The most prominent development in U.S.-Venezuelan relations these days involves the case of Luis Posada Carriles and whether he should be extradited from the United States to Venezuela. There he would stand trial for a third time for his alleged involvement in the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner. Meanwhile, a story with the potential to be much more important is being ignored: The growing power and global ambitions of Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez.

Border crossers' universe is unseen but touches all of us

 

By Ben Altman

Baltimore Sun

Anyone who never hired an undocumented worker, please stand up.

So you're clean - no nannies, no housekeepers, no cash payments. Congratulations.

But let me check. How about yard service? Have you asked the fellow with the trimmer for papers? Who cleans your office? The last time you had dinner out, who washed the dishes? If you bought food at the supermarket, who packed the chicken breasts? Boxed the tomatoes? Picked the oranges?

Analysis

GOP Tilting Balance Of Power to the Right

 

By Jim VandeHei

Washington Post
As Democrats tell it, this week's compromise on judges was about much more than the federal courts. If President Bush and congressional allies had prevailed, they say, the balance of power would have been forever altered.

Yet, amid the partisan rhetoric, a little-noticed fact about modern politics has been lost: Republicans have already changed how the business of government gets done, in ways both profound and lasting.

Census Numbers Confirm Record Latino Turnout in Elections 2004

Study reveals dramatic growth of Latino electorate, key role of naturalized citizens

A record number of Latinos made their voices heard in Election 2004, with 7.6 million casting ballots, according to a preliminary analysis of a newly-released Census Bureau study conducted by the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) Educational Fund. The number of Latinos voters also increased dramatically from previous Presidential elections, and grew at a faster rate than the non-Latino vote.

Hispanic voters had record turnout in '04

 

By Andrew Sirocchi

Hispanic voters turned out in record numbers in the November 2004 election, extending a trend that has seen them increase their influence in the last four presidential elections.

A U.S. Census Bureau report released Thursday found that 67 percent of Americans returned ballots for the November election, including more than 47 percent of registered Latino voters.

While the turnout percentage for Hispanics remained statistically similar to the past two presidential elections, a review of the report by the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials Education Fund concluded that a record 7.6 million Hispanics cast ballots in November.

Voting surged in 2004, Census says – No change on Hispanic and Asian rates

By Kathleen Murphy,

Stateline.org Staff Writer

Nationally, voter turnout in the United States increased to 64 percent of all adult citizens in 2004, up from 60 percent in 2000, the U.S. Census Bureau reports.

 More white and black Americans went to the polls in 2004 than four years earlier when the struggle between Republican George Bush and Democrat Al Gore also turned out voters in record numbers and produced an epic split in which Gore won the popular vote but Bush won the electoral.

U.S. Border Security at a Crossroads

 

Technology Problems Limit Effectiveness of US-VISIT Program to Screen Foreigners

By Robert O'Harrow Jr. and Scott Higham

The race to tighten the nation's borders began just after the terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Authorities learned that hijackers had lived illegally in the country, renting apartments, taking flying lessons and moving around freely.

Congress demanded changes in border controls and tight deadlines for building a computer network that would screen foreign visitors as they seek to enter or leave the country by scanning their fingerprints and matching them against databases of suspected terrorists.

Pressing to meet that goal, the Homeland Security Department last year awarded one of the most ambitious technology contracts in the war on terror -- a 10-year deal estimated at up to $10 billion –

Accuracy of migrant death list challenged

The Border Patrol fails to count bodies found by other law enforcement agencies, border activists say.

By Claudine LoMonaco

The Border Patrol says it does everything it can to accurately count the number of migrants dying in the desert.

But three bodies sitting in the county morgue haven't yet made it onto the Border Patrol's list. Those bodies push the number of illegal immigrants who died in the recent heat wave up to 17. The Border Patrol has counted only 14.

The three not on the tally were found by local law enforcement agencies, not Border Patrol agents. One was a middle-age Mexican woman who died of heat exhaustion. An off-duty Tucson police officer found her on a freeway exit southeast of Tucson Sunday morning. Pima County sheriff's deputies found the second body in the desert west of Tucson Tuesday morning. Tohono O'odham police officers found the third body under a bridge later that evening.

Early Heat Wave Kills 12 Illegal Immigrants in the Arizona Desert

By Nick Madigan

The shades were drawn against the blistering sun in a room at the Southside Presbyterian Church, where six immigrants, survivors of punishing treks across the desert that took at least 12 lives in the last few days across Arizona, lay on cots and pondered their luck.

"I'm never going through that again," said José Jacinto, 20, from Michoacán, Mexico, who had crossed the border clandestinely in a group of 14 people trying to blend into the United States work force, like countless others every day. "I got really scared out there. Maybe next time, it'll kill me."

Somewhere in the scorching expanse of the Sonoran Desert, two people in Mr. Jacinto's group, ages 15 and 17, died before his eyes, he said. Mr. Jacinto recalled that he fainted of dehydration three times.

Employers of Illegal Immigrants Face Little Risk of Penalty

By Anna Gorman,

Nearly every day, immigrants newly arrived from Mexico pick up job applications at Car Wash on Sunset.
Owner George Garcia insists that they provide proof, such as Social Security or green cards, that they are authorized to work. What he does not do is pick up the phone to see if the documents are phony.

"I run a business," he said. "Why is it my job to kick people out? It is not my responsibility to figure out who is legal and who is not legal. It's their job to stop them at the border."
Garcia doesn't worry about being fined or arrested by immigration authorities. Even if federal agents did raid his Los Angeles carwash and arrest his undocumented workers, it wouldn't take long to replace them.

Hispanics Build a Solid Base - Immigrants Change Makeup of Construction Crews

By Dana Hedgpeth

Edvin Osorio's alarm clock echoes through his tiny Landover Hills basement apartment. It is 3:45 a.m. He and his roommates, all from the same town in Guatemala, rouse themselves quickly, dress and head to Osorio's white Chevrolet van.

Osorio climbs into the van with two of his three roommates and flips the radio to WHFS 99.1 FM "El Zol." "That's bachata ," Osorio says, smiling as the Dominican music fills the van.

They cruise down New York Avenue through the dark, sipping coffee from Dunkin' Donuts. Osorio pulls up to Sixth and F streets NW and parks at a meter, then waits for the six-foot-tall metal gate to open so they can enter the construction site of the Shakespeare Theatre.

Watching the Border Watchers: What the Minutemen Look Like From the Streets of Oaxaca

By Angel Luna

SAN JOSE, Calif.--When I first heard about the Minutemen -- a group of vigilantes rounding up illegal immigrants along the Arizona border -- my first thought was, "I wonder what the reaction will be back home in Oaxaca." On a recent visit, I got a chance to find out.
The Minutemen drew a lot of attention recently when California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger expressed his support for the group and "welcomed" it to expand its operation to his state. Here in the United States, the response has been mostly soft pressure -- letters to congressional representatives and candlelight vigils. In San Jose, Calif., where I live, many people feel the situation is a lost cause and are just waiting for the worst...

Ties that Bind: Immigration Reform Should be Tailored to Families, Not Just Individuals

By Rob Paral

The most recent attempt by federal policymakers to address the issue of undocumented immigration came on May 12, 2005, when a bipartisan group of senators and congressional representatives introduced the Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act. The act is notable in that it directly addresses the plight of the current undocumented population, as well as dealing with future flows of immigrants. The act not only creates a new temporary worker program in which currently undocumented immigrants can participate, but includes a pathway to permanent residence for the recipients of work visas. Given the extent to which undocumented immigrants already living in the United States are part of U.S.-based families, any effective immigration reform proposal must include both a temporary worker program and a pathway to permanent residence for undocumented immigrants who have roots in the United States.

Tensions rise in U.S.-Mexico border region
'Minutemen' and pro-immigration activists converge as politicians make a political meal of illegal crossings
By Steve Geissinger,

Forecasts for the California-Mexico border this summer have risen to somewhere between sizzling and explosive, with Minutemen Project volunteers and pro-immigration activists poised to clash amid re-emerging political rhetoric and public tension.

After Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's calls forbetter federal border controls and praise of Minutemen patrolling the Arizona-Mexico border to report illegal immigrants, the group expects to begin similar efforts in California — a move pro-immigration demonstrators plan to counter.

Is L.A.’s New Latino Mayor A Threat to Blacks’ Clout? Experts Say No

By Monica Lewis,

With Los Angeles voters electing the city’s first Latino mayor in more than 100 years, the question of how much political clout blacks now wield may be lingering for some. But political scientist David Bositis tells BlackAmericaWeb.com that the election of Antonio Villaraigosa should not be seen as a threat to the city's black power base.
“Certainly African-Americans have a considerable amount of influence,” said Bositis, who works with the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a Washington, D.C.-based organization that tracks political and ethnic issues.

Lawmakers protest delay in program to aid women-owned small businesses

By Kimberly Palmer
 Members of Congress filed an amicus brief Thursday in support of a lawsuit against the Small Business Administration for failing to kick off a program to provide advantages in federal contracting for women-owned small businesses.

Late Wednesday, SBA officials announced that they will begin to implement the program, which was enacted into law by the 2000 Small Business Reauthorization Act. Rep. Nydia M. Velazquez, D-N.Y., who has voiced strong criticism of SBA, dismissed the agency's announcement as meaningless. "This is the same story over and over again," she said.

Campaign for Our Children Unveils New Spanish Language Web Site Promoting Teen Pregnancy Prevention

Campaign for Our Children (CFOC), a nonprofit group established in 1987 to promote adolescent preventive-health issues, today unveiled a Spanish language version of its popular Web site, http://www.cfoc.org, which receives more than twenty million hits annually. The new site offers a wealth of abstinence-plus information for Latino teenagers and their parents.

"The launch of this site is a testament to our commitment to lowering the number of births to teens in the United States," said Hal Donofrio, president and chief executive officer of Campaign for Our Children. "Currently, Latinas have the highest teen birth rate among all the major ethnic groups in the United States. We need to do whatever it takes to help get those numbers down. This new online resource is one way to begin the dialogue with the Latino community about teen pregnancy prevention."

NCM Launches First Comprehensive National Survey of Ethnic Media Usage

Center for American Progress and The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund co-sponsor 10 language poll conducted by Sergio Bendixen targeting 11 ethnic groups

New California Media (NCM), in partnership with the Center for American Progress (CAP) and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund (LCCREF), today announced the launch of the first national multilingual poll to document the collective role of ethnic media in the lives of America’s ethnic communities.  This groundbreaking poll marks the first time that a national study was commissioned to find out how ethnic Americans get their news and information from the media.

“Partnering with Washington’s leading progressive think tank, and the public education arm of its oldest civil rights umbrella organization to undertake this poll underscores growing recognition that ethnic media are vital to America’s future governance,” said

Pain Study Finds Gap in Minorities Seeking Help

By Darryl Fears

Washington Post Staff Writer
Hispanics who suffer from severe chronic pain are less likely than members of other ethnic groups to seek professional help for their ailments, according to a study by the research arm of a major pharmaceutical company.

The study, published last week in the Journal of Pain, found that 70 percent of Hispanics who suffer from intense pain consulted a doctor in the past three months, compared with 84 percent of whites and 85 percent of blacks.

About a third of the 1,300 people who participated in the telephone survey conducted by Partners Against Pain reported experiencing chronic pain, and 20 percent of those said they had never sought professional care. About 50 million Americans endure persistent pain, according to the American Pain Foundation.

Pre-School Expulsions: Black Boys Ousted Most

By Sherrel Wheeler Stewart

Pre-kindergarten students are getting kicked out of school at a rate more than three times that of children in grades K-12, and a large percent of those expelled are black boys, according to a recent study by Yale University researchers.
The study by Walter Gilliam of the Yale University Child Study Center showed that blacks attending state-funded pre-kindergartens were twice as likely to be expelled as Latino and Caucasian children and over five times as likely to be expelled as Asian-American children.
The study also said that when child care providers had resources available to help manage behavior intervention, the number of expulsions for all preschoolers was cut in half.

School Law Spurs Efforts to End the Minority Gap

By Sam Dillon

Spurred by President Bush's No Child Left Behind law, educators across the nation are putting extraordinary effort into improving the achievement of minority students, who lag so sharply that by 12th grade, the average black or Hispanic student can read and do arithmetic only as well as the average eighth-grade white student.

Here in Boston, low-achieving students, most of them blacks and Hispanics, are seeing tutors during lunch hours for help with math. In a Sacramento junior high, low-achieving students are barred from orchestra and chorus to free up time for remedial English and math. And in Minnesota, where American Indian students, on average, score lower than whites on standardized tests, educators rearranged schedules so that Chippewa teenagers who once sewed beads onto native costumes during school now work on grammar and algebra.

Time for Reverend Sharpton's apology?
By Larry Elder

Where is Reverend Al Sharpton's apology?

 "Black leader" and former presidential candidate Al Sharpton recently capped off a busy week by demanding apologies from Mexican President Vicente Fox and Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca.

 Fox, in defending Mexican illegals working in America, said such workers take jobs that "even blacks" refuse to do. Enter Sharpton. He demanded an apology, arguing Fox's words "confirm the stereotype that blacks are the lowest peons in the workforce of this country." Although Fox promptly "clarified" his remarks and told Sharpton that he "regretted any hurt feelings," Sharpton remains unappeased. "If I step on your toe," said Sharpton, "I should apologize. I should not say that I regret that you think your foot hurts."

Turmeric Shows Promise in Treatment of Alzheimer's

By Syed Amir

Turmeric, an indispensable ingredient of most spicy dishes of South Asia, has been used for generations for enhancing the flavor of curries and imparting them the characteristic rich, golden color. Besides its role as a food additive, the herb has found extensive application as an anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidative agent in the Ayurvedic and Unani systems of medicine. Some earlier evidence had indicated that it was helpful in the treatment of breast and prostate cancer. However, the multiple therapeutic properties assigned to turmeric have never been tested or proven in a well-designed scientific study.

Colleges split on credit-transfer rules

By Kavan Peterson

 

Traditional, nonprofit universities are at odds with smaller, for-profit career colleges over a proposal before Congress that would make it easier for students to transfer between institutions of higher learning. At stake is millions of dollars worth of course-work that transfer students either get credit for, or are forced to re-take by their new college.

 Hardest hit by the proposed rules would be large state university systems, such as Penn State and Indiana University, which are trying to block legislation that would force them to ease restrictions on credit-transfers from for-profit institutions such as DeVry University and the Culinary Institute of America.