tag:newamericamedia.org,2009-04-06://19 2013-05-17T20:33:16Z New America Media is a nationwide association of over 3000 ethnic media organizations representing the development of a more inclusive journalism. Founded in 1996 by Pacific News Service, New America Media promotes ethnic media by strengthening the editorial and economic viability of this increasingly influential segment of America's communications industry. tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11449 2013-05-18T08:50:00Z 2013-05-17T20:33:16Z

Pelenise Faataui, a native of San Francisco’s Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood, recently began teaching Polynesian dance to friends and neighbors in the area. The daughter of one of the first Samoans to settle in the largely African American community,...

Jean Melesaine ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 Pelenise Faataui, a native of San Francisco’s Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood, recently began teaching Polynesian dance to friends and neighbors in the area. The daughter of one of the first Samoans to settle in the largely African American community, Faataui has seen her share of violence, having lost a 14-year-old brother and several relatives to gang-related shootings. Her dance, she says, brings a sense of community and culture to residents struggling to cope with the violence plaguing their neighborhood. For now classes are held in front of her house in the West Point housing projects, despite the very real danger of catching a stray bullet. Faataui says she has begun reaching out to local community centers in the hopes of finding a safer place to continue her work.



Jean Melesaine is a native of San Francisco and grew up in Hunters Point. She is a writer and videographer with Silicon Valley DeBug, a project of New America Media. Her work focuses on the issues and concerns of the Pacific Islander community.]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11453 2013-05-17T23:46:14Z 2013-05-18T00:17:54Z

Elena Shore ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=7 The beating death of 33-year-old father David Silva in the central California city of Bakersfield last week has garnered national attention. Univision reports the incident highlights the Latino community’s ongoing fear of law enforcement.

Univision Los Angeles reminds viewers “the death of David Silva from Bakersfield is one more in a long list of beatings by police agents in California.” The site went on to list some of the more well-known police beatings in recent years across the state.

Silva, the father of four young children, died May 8 after deputies say he fought with them and CHP officers who'd responded to a report of a possibly intoxicated man. Several passersby who filmed the alleged beating later had their phones taken by police.

An FBI investigation into the case is currently underway.

Bakersfield reporter Juan Carlos Gonzalez found that many of the city’s Latino residents are afraid to talk about the incident.

“Here where the incident occurred, it’s clear that people are afraid of law enforcement,” he reported. “Of all the people we tried to talk to, only two agreed to be interviewed, but only on condition of anonymity.”

Gonzalez reports that there have been “many cases of abuse” involving police and Latino residents. Nearly 50 percent of the city’s 400,000 residents are Latino.

One man who spoke on condition of anonymity told Univision through his screen door, “Generally people who are Mexican or just not American are treated worse than animals, in jail, in the street, wherever.”]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11446 2013-05-17T15:22:42Z 2013-05-17T15:34:54Z

Michael Lovano ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 LONG BEACH -- Long Beach Unified might want to hide the report card it got last month. The district received an overall grade of “D+” for its effectiveness at serving low-income Latino and African American students in a study released by Education-Trust-West (ETW).

More troubling still, the district received a failing grade when it came to the achievement gap separating white students from their Latino and African American peers.

The California-based policy, research and advocacy organization, which seeks to increase student achievement in the state’s K-12 schools, handed out report cards to dozens of California's largest school districts to measure how they are serving these groups. Using data culled from the California Department of Education website, grades were based on Academic Performance Index (API) scores and graduation data for the 2011 and 2012 school years.

The overall district grades were determined by averaging out grades given across four distinct areas: academic performance, academic improvement, achievement gaps and college-readiness.

Long Beach Unified received an average grade of “C” for performance and improvement, for both low-income students and students of color. College readiness was a mixed bag, with LBUSD receiving a “C” for its graduation rates for those same students, but a “D” for college eligibility.

Latinos account for 54 percent of all LBUSD students, with African Americans comprising 16 percent. Whites currently account for 15 percent of all students in the district. Seventy percent qualify as low-income.

Multiple Causes

“As a student who has gone through LBUSD, I can say that the report card is absolutely accurate,” said Chris Covington, 22, who is of mixed African American, Mexican, Irish, Scottish and Chinese heritage.

“When I went to see a counselor, I was automatically just put in any class. I was not put into a class that addressed the A through G requirements,” said Covington, referring to the high school courses required for entry into the University of California (UC) and California State University (CSU) systems.

Covington also pointed to the “zero tolerance” approach to school discipline as helping to widen the achievement gap. “When I was in high school, my teacher would have referrals ready for me, to kick me out of class,” he said. Discouraged, he eventually dropped out of high school, but was hooked back in through a restorative justice program – an alternative conflict resolution model -- at Reid High School. With the help of mentors there, Covington was able to graduate on time.

In the last school year, African-Americans in the district accounted for 43 percent of all in-school suspensions, according to the California Department of Education.

“If the student is not in the class learning, then they’re not on track to graduate,” said Covington, who noted research showing an (LBUSD) student is “suspended every 19 minutes.”

Today, Covington is a mentor himself, working with Long Beach youth through a local organization, Khmer Girls in Action (KGA). He suggested that the racial achievement gaps in city schools are likely more extreme than the ETW report suggests, given the complex racial dynamics of the city.

Ethnic Khmer students from Cambodia and other Asian minorities, for example, are lumped together under the catch-all banner of Asian Pacific Islander (API), so the problems they face often go unseen due to the common misperception that all Asian students are high achieving.

“In reality, Khmer students are having trouble with [academic] achievement and with graduation rates,” he said. The city’s Khmer families, he explained, also tend to live in poverty-stricken neighborhoods around Central Long Beach, which has one of the largest Cambodian populations in the world, outside of Southeast Asia.

Malachy Keo, a 17-year-old senior at Polytechnic High School and also a member of KGA, said economic pressures at home make it difficult for him to envision going to college, let alone focus on his daily schoolwork. “My mom’s always stressing out on work and money,” said Keo. “I’m almost finishing school and I want to be able to graduate so I can help support (my mom).”

“It’s hard for parents to be strong and keep going,” he added. “Their kids gotta’ drop school and get money to help support them. Most of them [the children] will drop out and just slang” – sell drugs -- to get by.

A Different Perspective

“The latest Education Trust report contradicts every other independent review of our school district’s performance,” said Chris Eftychiou, LBUSD’s Public Information Director, via e-mail.

Eftychiou cited numerous statistics, studies, and awards commending the district, including a Global Education Study that highlighted LBUSD as one of five top performing districts worldwide; a Dispelling the Myth Award given by ETW to LBUSD for implementing district-wide improvements; and a Broad Foundation report that showed LBUSD’s African-Americans, Latinos and low-income students outperform state standards.

“The unfortunate result is that rather than dispelling myths [about African American and Latino students], Ed Trust is now perpetuating them,” said Eftychiou.

Arun Ramanathan is the executive director of Education Trust-West. He acknowledged LBUSD’s recent successes, but said the data pointed to serious issues.

“We know Long Beach is touted as a top district in California. When we saw their data, we were surprised -- very surprised,” he said. “It’s not our data. It’s the state’s data,” he added. “We have the greatest level of respect for folks down there, but the data is the data.”

LBUSD wasn’t the only district that fared poorly. Los Angeles Unified also earned an overall grade of a “D+” in the ETW report, while two other large school districts, San Francisco (“D”) and Oakland Unified (“D-“) received even lower scores.

The school district with the highest overall grade in the state, by comparison, was Baldwin Park Unified in Los Angeles County. Ninety-four percent of Baldwin Park students are low-income and 91 percent are Latino. The next two highest graded districts are also in Southern California – Los Alamitos Unified in Orange County, and San Marcos Unified in San Diego.

Still, while competing views abound, most agree the future for LBUSD looks promising. District funding is expected to almost double from $6,200 to $11,000 per pupil over the next eight years should Gov. Jerry Brown’s new funding formula for public schools pass, according to ETW.

“We will have some increase in resources,” said Virginia Torres, president of the Teacher’s Association of Long Beach. She is optimistic the revenue will help ease the racial and class disparities in education – disparities found not only in Long Beach but also in districts across the state.

Michael Lovano is a community reporter for Voicewaves, a youth-led community news hub founded by New America Media.
]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11442 2013-05-16T08:35:00Z 2013-05-16T21:58:58Z

Andrew Lam ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=8 Self-immolation isn’t what it used to be.

This ultimate form of protest became global news in 1963 when the venerable monk Thich Quang Duc set himself ablaze in the middle of Saigon, Vietnam, protesting religious oppression. Doused in gasoline, the monk sat serenely in lotus position and lit a match. A bird of paradise thus blossomed and bloomed, and quickly charred his body.

The photographer Malcolm Browne captured Thich Quang Duc’s fiery renouncement of the mortal coil, the image quickly becoming an icon of the Vietnam War era. The term “self-immolation,” in fact, entered into common English usage after his death, which led to a coup d’etat that toppled the pro-Catholic Ngo Dinh Diem regime.

Half a century later, to die by fire in protest registers little more than a media blip.

As of this writing, 117 Tibetans have set themselves ablaze since 2009 in a series of protests against Chinese rule. The most recent incidents came in April, when two young Tibetan monks and a lay Tibetan woman set themselves on fire. There was little coverage of their deaths.

Indeed, with the exception of Mohamed Bouazizi, the Tunisian fruit vendor who set himself on fire and thus sparked what became known as the Arab Spring, self-immolation has by all accounts become a failed form of protest as an agent of change. Since Bouazizi, in fact, 150 more Tunisians have set themselves on fire in protest against the new government that took over after the downfall of Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali's secular dictatorship.

Whether in Syria or Palestine, Greece, Italy or Vietnam, individuals continue to go up in flames as crowds look on.

“All the Tibetans who resort to self-immolation do so because they feel they have no other way to make China and the rest of the world listen to their country’s call for freedom,” Byrne-Rosengren, director of the London-based advocacy group Free Tibet, told Radio Free Asia last month.

Alas, China has turned a deaf ear to their cries, while the world media has averted its eyes.

Aristotle once observed that the plot of a tragedy should be so framed that, even without witnessing the events, simply hearing of them should fill one with “horror and pity” — even lead to insight and action. But the amphitheater of the 21st century has fallen into decay, scattered and fragmented into a multitude of media platforms. There are too many actors in too many theaters and their tragedies — overwhelming, lacking in context, incoherent, truncated or badly reported — have lost their grip on the human psyche.

Studies about desensitization of the modern mind are aplenty, but the general consensus is that over-saturation of images and narratives of violence have resulted in a collective numbness. A profound act of public death cannot hope to sway a world in which horror itself has lost its power.

What we want instead is entertainment, and what we gravitate toward and react to, more often than not, is profanity.

A year after Bouazizi went up in flames in Tunisia, an unknown amateur filmmaker named Nakoula Basseley Nakoula,” aka “Sam Bacile,” inflamed the Middle East with incendiary video clips ridiculing the prophet Muhammad. His film turned the Arab Spring of 2011 into the Autumn Rage of 2012, resulted in the death of an American ambassador in Libya, and continues to be a bone of contention in Washington.

The cynic observer can’t help but wonder: If self immolation no longer works as an agent for change, then is it still worth the price?

At its most profound the act stands as the highest form of human compassion, a confirmation of life by giving up one’s own. At its most incoherent self-immolation becomes more expressive of the frustration of the powerless. The individual, enamored by death, possessed by anger, elicits neither horror nor pity but cynicism. After all, to burn with passion is very much different than to be consumed by rage.

Fire — this gift and curse to humanity — is a terrifying beauty. Contained, it hints at elegance, cooks our food and propels our world. Out of control, it engulfs body and soul. It seduces. It overpowers. And it destroys.

In a world where individuals leverage more power online than in the public square, it may be that to live burning with desire for change — regardless of the oppression and humiliation — is the real challenge to becoming actual agents of change in the world. So why not live instead? And find new paths that call attention to the suffering of one’s cause. Find a way to force the world’s attention once more back onto the stage — and evoke pity and horror in us all.

To burn with that desire, to call our attention and hold our gaze until we weep — isn’t that worth living for?

Andrew Lam is editor and cofounder of New America Media. He is the author of Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora, East Eats West: Writing in Two Hemispheres, and most recently, a collection of short stories, Birds of Paradise Lost. 
]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11439 2013-05-16T07:55:00Z 2013-05-15T23:01:23Z

Peter McDermott ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 Photo: Seniors and volunteers at the New York Irish Center in Long Island City. (Peter McDermott/Irish Echo)

Part 2. Read Part 1 here.

LONG ISLAND CITY, N.Y—In most conversations he has with casual acquaintances or strangers, Paul Finnegan asks the same question: “Do you know someone who might benefit from going to the New York Irish Center?”

It’s part of his personal outreach for the organization he heads up in Long Island City in Queens.

The center comes alive seven days a week with people from all age groups. But Finnegan has been so effective at recruiting those over 65 the center now involves 200-250 seniors in various activities. The center is so important to the lives of Irish elders that it was created in 2005 with partial funding from the Irish government, which continues providing financial support.

The Biggest Threat

“Isolation is the biggest threat facing seniors. They’re very, very vulnerable to going off the grid,” Finnegan said.

He explained, “Maybe your relationship wasn’t so good with your children, or they’ve moved away and you continue to live in the old neighborhood.” In some cases, he added, being widowed can cut a person off from a wider circle of friends and acquaintances.

The New York Irish Center itself is not off the grid: On a westbound No. 7 train it is just three minutes from Grand Central Station in the heart of Manhattan. “That’s our biggest selling point,” said Finnegan, a native of Galway City in Ireland.

Mary Wicelinski was among those who traveled over the Pulaski Bridge from Greenpoint, Brooklyn’s famously Polish community, for the weekly seniors’ lunch on a recent Wednesday.

“It’s a situation where you look forward to it,” she said. “It’s not easy for me to get out. I have a walker,” added Wicelinski, who was born a Fitzgerald to Irish immigrant parents.

“My son called me up. He said, ‘Where are you going?” I said, ‘Bridie is bringing me to the Irish Center.’ He loves to hear that I’m coming here.”

Sitting near her at that mid-morning hour -- 11 a.m. -- were Bridie Mitchell, Peggy Cooney and Carmel McCarthy, respectively from Counties Leitrim, Meath and Cavan. They’d come from Greenpoint, too.

All three have been visiting the center since it opened in 2005. Like many of the other seniors they help with the serving and the washing-up.

“Eight years? It doesn’t seem possible,” Cooney said.

“Our shoes are worn down now,” McCarthy said.

“It’s not just Irish,” said County Offaly native Julia Anastasio, who is married to an Italian American. “We have Italians, Spanish and a couple of black gentlemen are regulars on Wednesdays.”

The New York Irish Center was the brainchild of the Rev. Colm Campbell, who was sent by Irish church officials to act as a chaplain to young emigrants in the mid-1990s.

The three-story structure was acquired by a group of sympathetic Irish businessmen with Campbell’s project in mind. At the time, the neighborhood was beginning to take off after being talked up for years in the media. Eight years on, the high-rise apartment buildings that line the waterfront are just one visible sign of a rapid gentrification.

“He’s a remarkable man,” Finnegan said of Campbell, who now lives in an assisted living facility in England, close to his sister. “He had a vision.”

The priest amended that vision somewhat as he learned more of contributions to Irish American culture of his own older generation and began to understand more about their needs.

Irish Government Support

At the same time, the Irish government was becoming increasingly concerned about Ireland’s aging émigré population. “From the perspective of Dublin there’s a genuine appreciation of what immigrants have done, such as sending remittances home,” which helped their families and communities, Finnegan said.

The center’s board members typically want to give back to the World War II generation of immigrants, Finnegan said. One told him that he knew families in his community in rural Ireland who were greatly dependent on “the parcel” that arrived from England or America.

The Irish government, however, realized that quite a few of them were living abroad in less than comfortable conditions. In the mid-20th century, a large number of Irish males particularly sought work in England. Many became used to a transitory lifestyle, which put them at a much higher risk of isolation later in life.

The Irish community in the United States also found that it wasn’t immune to some of the same problems.

Irish officials in New York supported Campbell’s efforts. Now, half of the funding for the center’s operational costs comes from the Irish government, the City of New York and the American Ireland Fund.

Because of Ireland’s austerity budget, Finnegan said, Dublin is targeting its funding more to frontline services and less on capital building projects.

The center’s board raises the other half of its funding with events, such as “Night of Comedy and Music” scheduled for June 6, with former “Saturday Night Live” comedian Colin Quinn and other entertainers.

The center seeks to help maintain friendships through original social networks, such those that had built up around jobs -- men who worked together as baggage handlers at JFK airport, for example, and women who worked in school cafeterias – or in church parishes or those associated with individual county associations and their umbrella group, the United Irish Counties.

“Others know each other from the dancehall days,” added Finnegan, a married father of two children.

“You hear about people on the grapevine,” he said. “Someone might ask, ‘Where’s Joe?’ Someone else will say: ‘He’s not well but he’ll be in next week.’”

“When people don’t show, you miss them. And, yes, some pass away,” said Julia Anastasio. “Fr. Campbell always made sure there was a memorial Mass.”

From Lunches to Computer Classes

At that moment, Anastasio was readying herself to go to Mass at St. Mary’s Church across the street ahead of the lunch.

She spends much of her time caring for her husband and so nowadays goes to the center for the seniors’ lunch only.

But the center aims other kinds of activities at seniors, as well, notably the Saturday morning computer class. The staff also tends to involve other age groups as teachers, volunteers and participants.

“We mix the generations as much as possible, and we do it pretty successfully,” Finnegan said. It’s good, too, he suggested, for twentysomethings who miss the company of grandparents back home.

Generally, many of the oldest regulars are less inclined to venture out for such evening events as movie or trivia-quiz nights. “Seniors are routine orientated,” Finnegan said, adding, “They’re not looking for much excitement or intrusion in their lives.

“We’re welcoming to all, even those who have substance abuse problems,” Finnegan said. “After getting over the feelings of defensiveness about life, they feel accepted.

“We find a place for them. It never got so bad that we were out of our depth,” he said. “We would like next to hire a social worker, but it wouldn’t be someone upstairs that you made an appointment to see. It would be someone that everyone would know.”

The center’s only other full-time employee is Jane McCarter, the culture and heritage officer. It’s important for Finnegan that the volunteer-staff ratio be weighted considerably towards the former, something that helps it to be truly a community center.

“You don’t want the staff to be a self-perpetuating situation,” he said.

It’s important, too, that the seniors help keep the center ticking.
“This is my little space on a Wednesday. My therapy,” Anastasio said, adding with a laugh, “And I’m still cleaning.”

Peter McDermott this article for the Irish Echo through a MetLife Foundation Journalists in Aging Fellowship, a project of New America Media and the Gerontological Society of America. It is the second part of a series.


]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11432 2013-05-15T15:14:39Z 2013-05-15T16:18:04Z

Ngoc Nguyen ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=70 SAN FRANCISCO -- For months, hundreds of community members and advocates participated in workshops throughout California to figure out how to spend millions generated through the state’s cap-and-trade program. Just when the groups finally hammered out an investment plan that would start to pump money back to communities, Gov. Brown proposed Tuesday to divert that money to the general fund.

Part of Brown’s May budget revise, advocates say the move is a setback for communities facing the greatest health threats from climate change.

“Communities of color were the ones that defeated Prop 23 [the so-called Dirty Energy Prop], carried margins electing Gov. Brown. This is the wrong time to not be making good on the promise of improving environment, health and job creation in these communities,” said Ryan Young, legal counsel for the Greenlining Institute, which sponsored legislation (SB 535) that directs a quarter of the cap-and-trade auction proceeds to disadvantaged communities.

The governor is proposing a one-time loan of $500 million from a greenhouse gas reduction (GHG) fund – where auction money is deposited – to the general fund. The figure is the projected auction revenues for 2012 to 2014. So far, the first two auctions – one last November and one in February – generated about $140 million.

Gov. Brown’s office deferred questions to the state Dept. of Finance and the California Environmental Protection Agency (CalEPA).

In a statement, the Dept. of Finance called the loan “appropriate” and “fiscally prudent,” saying the agencies need more time “to design and develop their programs to ensure that … [they] maximize long term greenhouse gas reductions.”

“We felt it was premature,” said CalEPA spokesperson Jim Marxen. “We don’t know how much money we’re going to have. [The $500 million] is a projection … plus three additional auctions. As [the money] comes into [the GHG reduction fund] it will be loaned to the general fund.”

He added that the Air Resources Board (ARB), the agency tasked with implementing A.B. 32, will update the “Scoping Plan” by the end of the year.

“We can make a better decision with that info,” he said.

Mari Rose Taruc, state organizing director for the Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN), said she was “heavily disappointed” by the governor’s move.

“I don’t know what more vetting they could have done,” said Taruc, referring to the ARB’s process to craft an investment plan. “[They held] three workshops across the state … multiple hearings on this issue. [There were] lots of opportunities for public comment. It doesn’t make sense.”

APEN advocates on behalf of Southeast Asians and other residents in Richmond, Calif. who live near the Chevron oil refinery and face health impacts from pollution. Taruc said community members were very “excited about” and engaged in the ARB’s workshops to craft an investment plan, because they want healthy and prosperous communities.

She said the governor is diverting funds that are specifically intended to address climate change and “toward pollution reduction.” The impact of those funds would be diluted in the general fund, she said.

The state says it will pay back the loan with interest, but has not specified when it would do so.

“There were some win-win programs [in the investment plan],” said Young, the lawyer for the Greenlining Institute, including “low income energy efficiency…[and] restoring transit options for low income communities.”

Young said the governor’s decision isn’t necessary, pointing to the state’s budget surplus of $2.8 billion this fiscal year, and he called it “the wrong move.”

“We want to see tangible benefits starting now when the program is starting off. It’s precedent setting to do that,” he said. “Buy loaning these monies out, it really shortchanges these communities.”
]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11431 2013-05-15T08:30:00Z 2013-05-15T22:28:55Z

Peter Schurmann and Donny Lumpkins ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 RICHMOND, Calif. – At the West County Detention Facility, inmates can pay upwards of $20 for a five-minute phone call to friends, relatives or lawyers. While the high rates are a cash cow for the prison, for detainees they have become a major hurdle to staying in touch with the outside.

For immigrant detainees and their families, the high phone rates can lead to total isolation.

“$50 gets about 15 minutes of actual talk time,” said Roberto de la Rosa, whose mother is currently being held at WCDF. De la Rosa noted that with repeated dropped calls and reconnection fees, the cost of a single conversation rivals a single families’ monthly phone bill.

De la Rosa was among a group of some 40 activists, former inmates and family members who gathered last Friday outside the prison, located about 30 miles east of San Francisco. Representing a cross-section of local civic, religious and legal organizations, protestors carried signs that read, “Detained mothers have the right to call home.”

The rally was part of a national Mother’s Day action led by the national Campaign for Prison Phone Justice. A fact sheet released by the group notes most Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainees are either in deportation proceedings or have petitions for asylum pending, and that affordable phone access is critical to their effective legal representation.

De la Rosa’s mother has been held in detention for close to two years, and was brought to WCDF in 2012 after nearly a year of being shuffled between centers. Her son says the constant moving and high phone rates have made staying in touch difficult.

“I’ve really only been in touch with her for the last four months,” he explained. Having recently lost his job and with persistent health problems, he says the added expense of maintaining communication with his mom, on top of rent and groceries “has really taken a toll on the family.”

WCDF houses some 1100 inmates, including those held by the county as well as candidates for realignment -- a state-led initiative to transfer low-level offenders from state to county supervision. In the fiscal year ending in 2012, the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office, which runs the Richmond facility, was paid more than $3 million by the federal government to hold ICE detainees.

Christina Mansfield is co-founder of Community Initiatives for Visiting Immigrants in Confinement (CIVIC), which recently launched a national campaign to bring attention to the high cost of prison phone calls. She was at Friday’s rally, where she described immigrant detainees as “a captive market … The high cost of phone calls creates additional and unnecessary suffering for families, and privileges profit over the right of families to remain in contact.”

Unlike state and federal penitentiaries, which are required by law to contract to the lowest bidder, counties are not subject to the same regulation. “Most county jails go with the companies that get them the most profit,” explained Mansfield.

The issue first gained prominence in 2000, after a class action lawsuit was filed by Washington, DC resident Martha Wright against the prison phone companies for charges related to calls made from her grandson, who spent 18 years behind bars. She later sued the Federal Communications Commission, and this past April her case was taken up by the Congressional Black Caucus.

The phone system at WCDF is run by Alabama-based Global Tel* Link. The company paid $75,000 for the contract with Contra Costa County, which receives 57 percent of all profits made from the phone calls. The contract is due to expire in June 2013.

Last year, the company saw profits from calls made within WCDF nearing $700,000, according to documents obtained via a public request act filed with the Sheriffs office by CIVIC.

Global Tel* Link declined to comment for this story.

A call from inside WCDF includes a $3.25 connection fee regardless of the duration, with per-minute rates running as high as 25 cents for interstate calls and an additional 30 cents when phoning out-of-state. Inmates in county jails like WCDF pay higher rates than those in either state or federal penitentiaries.

De la Rosa said that with calls routinely dropped, he often has to pay the connection fee more than once in a single conversation.

Reverend Deborah Lee is director of the Interfaith Coalition for Immigrant Rights, one of the organizers of Friday’s rally. Gripping a stack of flyers with slogans that read “Justice” or “Happy Mothers Day – Affordable Phone Calls,” Lee described the rates as “exploitative,” saying they inhibited inmates ability to maintain family ties and stay up to date on their legal cases.

Prison reform advocates have long argued that maintaining connections to family and friends on the outside is critical to reducing recidivism and ensuring a smoother transition once inmates are released.

“Families are being overcharged for the most basic things,” she said, “like telling relatives you love them, or speaking with their attorneys about their cases.” Inmates’ relatives often pay anywhere from $25-$50 for two or three brief calls. “It’s cruel and inhuman,” said Lee, “the stories we hear are heartbreaking.”

One of those stories is that of Abesulom Taye, who was released from WCDF last week after a seven-month stint on a technicality stemming from charges dating back to 1998 for marijuana possession. Taye was among those at the Friday rally.

“It happened so fast,” he recalled of his arrest, saying it was unexpected as he had been granted asylum by a judge in 2010. A father, Taye said while he was detained he often had to “decide whether I wanted to talk to my son or have food that day.” The high costs meant that calls went from every other day to once a week. Eventually he racked up phone bills totaling $2000.

Lee’s group has joined with CIVIC in seeking a fair and open process for Contra Costa County to negotiate a new contract that would comply with ICE standards in going with the lowest cost provider.

“We shouldn’t be trying to balance our budgets on the backs of people trying to talk to their kids,” she said.]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11412 2013-05-12T08:00:00Z 2013-05-17T19:53:07Z

Traducción al español Ed. Note: In August, University of California President Mark Yudof will step down after a five-year tenure that coincided with one of the worst economic downturns in recent memory and a historic demographic shift that continues...

Peter Schurmann/Video by Josue Rojas ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 Traducción al español

Ed. Note: In August, University of California President Mark Yudof will step down after a five-year tenure that coincided with one of the worst economic downturns in recent memory and a historic demographic shift that continues to play out across the social and political landscape, as well as in higher education. Yudof spoke with New America Media editor Peter Schurmann about how the University of California has met these challenges and its plans for the road ahead.

New America Media: President Yudof, you took over as head of the UC system in 2008. What was the biggest challenge you faced at the time?

President Yudof: I think the major challenges hit almost immediately in 2008 or by the following year. I knew we were in an economic downturn but I didn’t know it was the greatest economic downturn since the 1930s. I figured our budgets were in trouble but I wasn’t anticipating cuts over the next few years of $800 plus million.

I would say admissions [policy] was another immediate challenge. My first few weeks in office, there was a faculty proposal to change the admissions system. I’m very avid for access, I’ve supported affirmative action and I’m very avid for diversity. But I also have a rule that I don’t sign anything that I don’t understand. It took me a while to understand the faculty’s proposal, and ultimately I endorsed it. It carried the Board of Regents and … led a few years later to a holistic admissions policy that said it’s not just numbers or your ranking in high school, but that you had to look at the whole student and if the person had overcome poverty or other challenging circumstances, or had particular talents.

NAM: You mention affirmative action. What’s your take on reports that show college diversity has in fact increased in its absence?

Yudof: I’ve been for affirmative action for a very long time, probably since the mid-to-late 70s. It’s something I’ve had a passion for. I’m very proud of the fact that we have a high degree of socioeconomic diversity. Over 40 percent of our students are Pell grant eligible. A place like Berkeley or UCLA or Davis has more Pell-eligible students than the whole Ivy League combined.

So I think we do a very good job of reaching out to low-income students. But it is not a substitute for one additional tool, which is affirmative action. If you actually look at the numbers, they’ve recovered some but African American enrollment is relatively flat - up just slightly from the time of Prop 209 [passed in 1997, prohibiting race-based admissions policies in California colleges and universities]. And while Hispanic enrollment is up, it really reflects the fact that Hispanics make up a greater share of the population of California. It’s not really a quantum leap in terms of our young Latinos and Latinas being able to gain access to the university. I think we could do a lot better if we had that additional tool.

NAM: Putting aside the question of affirmative action, what is the biggest obstacle to reaching young people who don’t see UC as a viable option?

Yudof: There are many obstacles. One is that mom and dad sit down with their kids at the kitchen table and decide they can’t afford it. So we created the Blue and Gold Program. Today, if you make under $80,000 a year [then] you don’t pay any tuition. That simple. You have to apply for your Pell grant and Cal grant, but if you don’t get everything you need, we guarantee that you will pay no tuition. And in fact we contribute toward the living costs and all that.

So one thing is you need financial aid. The second thing you need is clarity about financial aid. That’s very important. You can’t just say, “Trust me, come see us after you’re admitted.” A third thing is that high school graduation rates just aren’t what they should be. And college preparation just isn’t what it used to be. We can’t admit you and graduate you if you never got out of high school.

NAM: Now that you are leaving, what do you see as being the major challenges facing your successor?

Yudof: Well, there are a lot of challenges [and] money is big part of it. I mean, we should be taking 30,000 more students, but the state isn’t paying for the students we have. So money is a big problem. Expanding enrollment would help, but there’s no money to expand enrollment. That’s a major, major challenge here.

The second challenge is tuition. What we have is a highly differentiated system. And it’s highly redistributive. Roughly 30 percent of every dollar we take in from tuition we reinvest back in financial aid. So the nominal tuition is $12,000 but the real tuition is probably about $8500. It’s like the sticker price on an automobile: 62 percent of our students don’t pay the sticker price, [which is] income adjusted. But it’s still a problem, and particularly for the middle class because the higher your income, the less eligible you are for financial aid.

Another big challenge is that the [state] financial model is broken. The state isn’t likely to come up with a whole lot more money. Over the years we’ve lost about $800 million. We’re back about $150 million but we’re nowhere near the funding levels we had in 2007. I mean we’re way far away. We probably won’t approach those levels for another five or six years.

NAM: To what extent are the financial challenges facing the university a bigger question about public values?

Yudof: It does involve public values. And sometimes it’s public neglect. To some extent, the shifting values represent the shifting demographics. America as a whole is aging. People ask where their retirement income will come from, or how they will pay for their drug costs. It’s not to say they hate higher education, but there is a lot of competition for resources.

I [also] think there’s a loss of the sense of a common purpose, or the common wealth in this country. We build more toll roads today than ever because state governments find it so difficult to come up with the money to build freeways. We have more gated communities. We have more private than public police officers. There aren’t enough judges, and there’s not enough money to support the legal system. I see higher education like that. Too often it’s treated as a private good rather than a public good that has an impact on all of us.

NAM: The UC schools have long been the leader in higher education in California. How can they better serve the new majority of minority students in the state?

Yudof: That’s a key thing. We have higher graduation rates than just about any public university in the country. If you look at Nobel laureates, we have 60 of them, more than whole countries. We have very good graduation rates, including among minority students. So it’s a good place.

But that is the key question for the next 25 years. How can we be sure that we are serving California? And to serve California, it means you have to serve Latinos, African Americans, Asian Americans, whites and other groups. I think it’s an open question and I think we’re not where we need to be.

I think we need to be bigger than we are, with more students and more undergraduates. We also need to continue to be an open door for community college transfer students. Applications from community colleges are down because community colleges are being starved. They have 400,000 fewer students.

I think we need to do more on the e-learning side. I think we need an e-learning access to the university. We should have a curriculum online with specified for-credit courses that are open to potential transfer students. This would be an additional level that would allow for greater access.

NAM: How is the growing emphasis on technology impacting the curriculum? How useful, for example, are humanities?

Yudof: I’m worried about the humanities. Most of what I took in college was the humanities. If someone told me it was relevant, I didn’t take it. I took Greek thought and I took astronomy and I took philosophy and psychology. I was very good at abnormal psychology; it just came natural to me.

All these national efforts … that say if it doesn’t help in the physical sense or if it doesn’t put food on the table then it isn’t worth while, I don’t believe that for a moment. The corporations can do wonders teaching engineering or business principles, but I haven’t come across one yet that teaches Wallace Stevens or T.S. Elliot. I’m deeply worried that in this quest where the only education that matters is one that produces a very specific job outcome or product that humanities is going to get squeezed out. But students still pick the humanities and social sciences in very significant numbers. They’re carrying the banner.

NAM: The biggest issue for students who come to a UC school or any other university is employment. Where do you see the connection between higher education and jobs?

Yudof: I think we’re here to educate. I mean, we’re also here to help with the jobs but primarily to educate. And to me, the most important skills in a university setting are cognitive skills. Can you solve a problem? Can you synthesize ideas? Can you express yourself? I don’t believe you’re a good engineer if you just memorize the principles. You have to be able to apply them, and manipulate the concepts. My view of life is, no matter what you are - a neurosurgeon, or a postal employee - a person who can solve problems, and hold ideas in his or her head is extremely valuable. Our obligation, then, is to educate the students … [to ensure] that they learn to learn, that they’re creative, reflective. If we’re not doing that then we’re not educating.]]> 65979028 tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11409 2013-05-11T08:00:00Z 2013-05-11T06:03:55Z

Alejandra Alarcon ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 Photo: The author, Alejandra Alarcon, as a baby with her older sister Gabriela (Gaby) and brother Robert (Rocky), in the family van. Their mother usually made the van comfortable for the long trips to Mexicali.

Editor's Note: The author of this commentary, Alejandra Alarcon, 18, writes for Coachella Unincorporated, a youth and community media organization founded by NAM to serve residents of the rural Eastern Coachella Valley in Riverside County, California.

COACHELLA -- Like a lot of other families living in the Eastern Coachella Valley, when one of our family members fell sick, it meant driving about a hundred miles across the border into Mexico, to the City of Mexicali, to get taken care of by a doctor. The only other option, it seemed, was not being taken care of at all.

Now, because of healthcare reform efforts in the United States, young people growing up today in the Eastern Coachella Valley – the unincorporated rural communities of southern Riverside County -- don’t need to go without health insurance the way I did. The scenario is finally beginning to change. At least, it can change – if people here are made aware of the health services now available to them through federal health care reform, right in their own community.

“We owe it to our country to inform the citizens to take advantage of all these resources that are available,” said Ronnie Cho, associate director of public engagement for the White House, during a speech about health care reform that I attended in Washington D.C. as a reporter last April.

Cho is right. For the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to make a difference, people need to first be aware that health care is an option for them. People need to know that they can afford to visit a doctor, without having to stray more than a few miles away from their home.

When my family would go to visit relatives across the border in Mexicali, we always took advantage of the opportunity to stop by the Mexican pharmacy to buy medicine for ourselves, as well as for our friends and neighbors who always requested some.

As a child, I thought those trips to Mexicali to visit the doctor were the only way – it was just what people did -- until later on in my youth, when my father got a job with a new trucking business that gave him medical benefits that included family coverage. Because my dad worked for a lot of different trucking companies during the years, and because there were lengths of time when he was unemployed, our health care situation was never stable. But at least for those few years, my family and I received the best health care we’d ever had.

“Young people are relatively healthy, so they think, ‘I don’t need health care,’ until something happens and they actually need it,” said Cho.

Again, Cho got it right. I can remember my worried mother, back in 2008, telling my little sister and me that we once again did not have health insurance and would have to resume our trips to Mexicali. In retrospect, I never minded the long trips to the doctor or dentist’s office. In fact, I never worried about my health. My parents always had medicine from Mexicali available in our cabinets for emergencies. For my siblings and me, it was not something that got in the way; it was something that we believed had to be done because there was no cheaper option.

The irony is that even though being uninsured felt normal to me and my siblings growing up, it is families like ours that need that insurance the most. Families like mine that live in the unincorporated communities of the Eastern Coachella Valley – most of us are Latino, many (like my parents) are immigrants, and many make a living as farmworkers or do some other type of physical labor – are especially in need of the protections provided by health insurance, because of occupational hazards and other health risks associated with living in an area where people lack money and resources.

Today, the Affordable Care Act, which will be fully implemented on January 1, 2014, is helping families like mine take control of our medical insurance, by providing options and a sense of security. It’s an idea – health care security -- that at one time, at least for my family and I, seemed impossible to imagine. The health insurance that for so long seemed like such a special privilege will now become available to more people than ever before.

The ACA was put into place in part to make sure insurance companies cannot end your coverage plan when you need it the most, cannot bill you into debt, cannot discriminate due to pre-existing medical conditions.

Among other provisions, the ACA will secure medical insurance for American citizens after getting laid off or changing jobs. It will require insurance companies to cover the cost of mammograms and cancer screenings. And for the first time, young adults will remain eligible to be covered under their parent's or guardian’s health insurance plan through the age of 26, even if they are married.

As a result, 3.1 million young adults are now covered along with their families, and over 107,000 Americans with pre-existing conditions who didn’t previously have insurance, are now receiving health coverage, according to federal data.

If you know where to look, it is free and simple to apply for affordable or no cost medical insurance programs such as Medicaid and the Childrens’ Health Insurance Program (CHIP), which cover medical services that include doctor check-ups, emergency care, hospital care, vaccinations, prescription drugs, vision, hearing, and dental. 

There was a time, for a lot of us living here in the Eastern Coachella Valley, when driving across the border seemed like the easiest and most affordable way to access health care. Fortunately, for many of us, that no longer needs to be the case. Our communities can have the security of health insurance that for so long seemed just beyond our reach, if we just know where to find it.

To see if you qualify for Medicaid or CHIP, or to apply online, visit: http://insurekidsnow.gov

To find out what is your best insurance option for your specific demographics and needs go to: http://finder.healthcare.gov


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Brenda Rincon ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 Image: Teacher Simon Moore speaks with a student at Coachella Valley High School's Health Careers Academy.

Ed. Note: In 2011, California’s legislature passed AB 790, a statewide initiative aimed at addressing the growing number of high school graduates unprepared or under-prepared for either college or a career. Studies document that up to 70 percent of high school seniors fall into one of these two categories. The initiative targeted 20 school districts and some 600,000 high school students across California. Schools implementing the Linked Learning Pilot Program – one of a number of school reform efforts in the state – integrate academic rigor with a demanding technical curriculum geared toward a professional field. In its first two years, the program has met with promising success. This is the third and final installment of a series of reports by New America Media’s ethnic media partners on how Linked Learning and similar programs are being applied in some of the state’s most underserved communities.

THERMAL, Calif. – This June, Stephany Madrigal will not only be graduating high school, but will be doing so as a certified medical assistant, qualified to enter the workforce and earn about $25,000 annually.

But she won’t be doing that.

Instead, she will attend California State University at San Marcos where she plans to earn a bachelor’s degree in nursing. She hopes to work part-time as a medical assistant. She credits her academic success to Coachella Valley High School’s (CVHS) Health Careers Academy (HCA), a classroom-career training hybrid program often misunderstood even on its own campus.

“Other teachers and counselors that don’t have the buy-in or don’t have the understanding of what happens in the academies are some of our biggest problems, if you will, as we try to be more successful,” says Simon Moore, lead teacher for the HCA.

Academy students participate in a curriculum that includes job shadowing, internships, college visits, and regular progress checks with teachers – a luxury at a school with only nine counselors for its 2,300 students. While not part of the statewide Linked Learning Pilot Program, established in 2011, HCA's template is demonstrative of the success such programs are having in fostering both career and college readiness.

CVHS also offers academies in Hospitality, Tourism & Recreation, a Public Safety Academy, and a Digital Design & Production Academy. According to John Noonan, who oversees the academy programs, they graduate 99 percent of their students, far exceeding the 70 percent graduation rate of the school as a whole. There are about 900 students in the school’s academies.

Even so, Moore says the biggest misconception is that the academies are strictly vocational and do not prepare students for college.

Madrigal says this is not the case. Even though she was a straight-A student, she was not on the college track until she joined HCA. “It was one of my academy teachers that told me about the SATs,” she says. “My counselor never told me.”

In addition to close relationships with teachers, academy students develop close bonds with one another due to their mutual career interests. “Everyone in the health academy says this is like a big family.  It sounds cliché, but it’s actually what happens,” says Madrigal. “We are with each other every day, we get to know each other and our teachers; we have all their support.”

She adds that students help one another fulfill the academy’s community service requirement, 30 hours each school year, and that together they apply for scholarships and attend SAT workshops.

“All my friends are going to college,” says Madrigal.

It’s About Jobs

Along with other high schools in the region, Coachella Valley High School’s career academies are part of a broader collaborative economic development program.

“In order for our region to have a healthy, thriving economy, we must have great jobs,” says Kim McNulty, director of Next Generation Learning at the Coachella Valley Economic Partnership (CVEP). “In order to attract and grow companies who offer high-wage, high-growth jobs, you've got to have a smart, well-educated, well-trained workforce.”

In Coachella, high dropout rates and low college attendance have been the norm with just over 25 percent of residents having a four-year college degree.

While each of the area’s three school districts oversees their individual academy programs, CVEP supports their work with a regional strategic plan, community outreach efforts, and by bringing together the career academy teams with partners in the business community.

The academies take learning outside the classroom; job shadowing and hands-on exposure are powerful learning tools for students interested in exploring a specific field. Non-Academy teachers, however, are not as enthusiastic.

“We have teachers that complain about students being out of class one day a week for job shadowing … [but] they don’t get it. They think [students] are missing information – and they are – but you have to understand what they are gaining as well,” says Moore. “I hear students say their goal is to go to college. That’s not the goal. The goal is to get a job after finishing college in a career you want to work in.”

Before coming to the Health Careers Academy, Moore had a lengthy career in emergency medical services.

The academies are able to achieve their graduation rate even with an academically diverse student makeup. According to Moore, high academic achievers are programmed by educators to believe the academies will not help them reach their goals.

“A lot of teachers have this misconception because they don’t understand this [career] exposure,” says Moore. “[Academy students] are literally working with doctors, literally working with nurses, in laboratories, in all these different positions.”

But more and more of the school’s top students are enrolling in the academies. Two of last year’s top 10 graduates, including the salutatorian, were HCA students. “Every year we have had someone in the top 10. This year we have the potential to have three, which would be a record,” says Moore.

He estimates that half of his graduates go on to higher education, while the other half go directly into the workforce. California mandates that a minimum of 55 percent of students enrolled in career academies are “at-risk.”

Julia Salazar was one of these students.

Replicating the Family

“As a freshman, I didn’t do any work,” says Salazar. “My dad didn’t care if I went to college or not. [The Academy] helped me focus. I learned it’s important to get a college education.”

Salazar will graduate in June and plans to enroll at the local community college and become a Licensed Vocational Nurse.

“We have all types of students,” says Kent Braithwaite, a teacher in the HCA. “We have students who might not be graduating from high school and are now going to have professional careers as certified nursing assistants, all the way to future surgeons.”

According to Coachella Valley High School, only four percent of academy students have parents who have graduated from college. About 48 percent of students have parents who did not graduate from high school.

“I believe [these numbers] are an important factor as to why the academies’ small learning communities are important,” says Noonan, the school’s academy director.

“The academy program is absolutely perfectly suited for this type of community because the academy structure replicates the family,” says Braithwaite, who has been teaching here for 34 years. “In our community, in the Coachella Valley Unified School District, we are dealing with many shattered families who are challenged economically. The priorities are keeping a roof over the head and food on the table.”

Academy teachers are used to going to bat for their students and defending a program they believe prepares their students for the real world.

“To the naysayers, I say I challenge you to match the students who are only book smart with some of our health academy students that are 3.0 and above and have all these other skills, these interpersonal skills, interacting skills,” says Moore. “Our kids blow them out of the water 90 percent of the time.”

Brenda Rincon is a writer and the editor of Coachella Unincorporated, a youth-led community media project founded by New America Media to serve the rural communities of the Eastern Coachella Valley, an agricultural region in Riverside County, California. This story was made possible through a grant from the California Education Policy Fund.

Related:
In Oakland Classrooms, Students ‘Learn to Work’

Film Project on LA Street Vendors Brings Community into the Classroom

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Viji Sundaram ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103
But heaven forbid you want to seek the help of a mental health caregiver. As a member of the “model minority” community in the United States, would that not diminish your standing in the eyes of other Asians, perhaps even among your own friends and family members?

The pressure to live up to the model minority myth, sometimes coupled with cultural and language barriers, is driving scores of Asian and Pacific Islanders, one of the fastest growing ethnic communities in the United States, into depression and even suicide. Sadly, according to recent studies, they are the least likely to utilize mental health services among other ethnic communities.

“The stigma is so great,” observed Sylvia X. Bhatia, a Chinese American woman and one of seven founders of the San Francisco Bay Area online campaign, “It’s Ok,” set to launch May 10.

The goal of the public awareness campaign is to send the message that it’s OK to seek help for depression, and it connects people to mental health providers focused on serving Asian Americans.

In 2010, the State of California and the City and County of San Francisco declared that May 10 each year would be observed as Asian Pacific American Mental Health Day.

Mental health experts say mental illness in the Asian community is more severe than ever before. Asian-American women, for example, have the highest rate of suicide among women 65 and older and the second-highest rate for women between 15 and 24, according to a 2003 national study by the Ford Foundation. And Chinese immigrants have a depression prevalence rate of 34 percent, compared with 9 percent in the general population, based on a 2006 study by Asian American Family Services.

For many Asians, talking about emotional problems is socially and culturally unacceptable. They believe the stigma will shame their family and make them appear weak. Additionally, mental illness is a Western concept that some Asians do not fully understand. In some Asian languages, there is no term for mental illness, according to Dr. Russell A. Lim, a professor at UC Davis, whose clinical focus is trans-cultural and community psychiatry.
Bhatia hopes the “It’s Ok” campaign will draw Asians out of their silence and eliminate the stigma associated with mental illness.
“We want to provide a safe forum where they can share their stories and not feel ostracized,” she said. “Hopefully, that will start the conversation.”
The campaign hopes to leverage the power of social media and connect those seeking help with one another and to the many resources available to them.
Right now, “those resources are underutilized,” Bhatia said.
Some of the organizations that will provide services include:

* Asian & Pacific Islander Wellness Center
* Family Service Agency of San Francisco
* Asian Americans for Community Involvement
* Chinese-American Family Alliance for Mental Health
* RAMS, Inc. (Richmond Area Multi-Services, Inc.)
* Asian Community Mental Health Services
* Community Health for Asian Americans.

The “It’s Ok” campaign will initially focus on the San Francisco Bay Area, “but there’s room for growth,” Bhatia asserted.






]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11389 2013-05-08T17:34:08Z 2013-05-08T17:47:26Z

Thomas Goldsmith ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 Photo: Certified Nursing Assistant Jackie Turrentine removes a device from Clydie Pugh-Myers’ legs after a daily therapy session. When Turrentine’s two hours end, Pugh-Myers remains alone. (See Chuck Liddy’s photo essay. Copyright News & Observer.

DURHAM, N.C. — Clydie Pugh-Myers, one of the state’s first black licensed practical nurses, once drove a red Cadillac around Durham, sang in the choir at her church and generally stayed busy.

These days, living with two knee replacements, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and other ailments, she can no longer drive and sits at home alone a lot. She says even people from her church don’t come to see her much.

“Since I’ve gotten 84, it’s gotten tough,” Pugh-Myers said in her South Durham home.

Like Pugh-Myers, roughly three out of 10 North Carolinians older than 65 live alone, as do 12 million people nationally. As the state’s over-65 population reaches a million, the percentage and raw numbers of older people living alone will also increase, the result of the flood of baby boomers, many of whom have divorced, never married or will outlive spouses.

Researchers at the Washington, D.C.-based AARP Foundation have pinpointed social isolation as a factor, along with housing, income and hunger, that can lead to catastrophe for older people. Stacks of medical studies tie living alone to increased rates of physical and mental illness, another indication that rising Medicare costs will be even tougher to contain.

Keys to Successful Aging

Faced with the alternative of long-term care, most older people prefer to live alone, but it’s not easy and there are emotional and physical risks. The keys to successful “aging in community” involve support from family and sometimes government, advocacy in health care, keeping up mobility, access to transportation and social involvement.

For example, Pugh-Myers has a background in health care and help from family and government-paid caregivers to protect her from some of the worst consequences of living alone.

“I stay alone so far,” she said. “It’s a tough life, but God’s good. I’ve got two or three friends. When I was working, I had a whole lot of friends.”

Daniel Rodriquez, 87, in North Raleigh, has family members living nearby who check on him daily, and family in his native Puerto Rico he talks with regularly.

Martha Driver, 85, of Garner, also has supportive family and a deep religious faith.

Professionals who work with older people say they need to have strong advocates for them in dealing with health care and other vital matters. Or, like Clydie Pugh-Myers, an older person can speak up for herself, as she felt compelled to do during a recent hospital visit.

“I said, ‘What kind of antibiotic am I on? I’ve been on that long enough – I would change that,’” she said. “Everything I told them to do, they did it, and I got better.”

Conditions can turn grim for older people in a society where people are living longer, husbands usually die before wives, relatives aren’t always nearby and social services are shrinking relative to the growing number of aging baby boomers.

“They have no children. Their siblings have died,” said Alan Winstead, executive director of Meals on Wheels of Wake County. “And they are alone.”

Sequestration Cuts 12,000 Senior Meals

Myers, Driver and Rodriquez each get visits from Meals on Wheels or in-home caregivers, part of a set of state, local and federal services that are mostly maxed out and face static or decreasing funding. Federal sequestration cuts have trimmed $1.9 million this year from North Carolina counties’ ability to offer this help. Meals on Wheels of Wake County, for example, will serve 12,000 fewer meals this year because of sequestration cuts.

The budget proposed by Gov. Pat McCrory, a Republican, calls for no increase for such services, despite waiting lists of more than 13,000 people statewide.

Daniel Rodriquez is one of the more fortunate solo seniors, practicing what experts call “aging in community.” He lives alone in North Raleigh and no longer drives, but remains close to family, with one daughter in the same apartment complex. Rodriquez spent his career as a plant manager in New England, then came to North Carolina after his adult children moved here.

“My daughter comes every day,” Rodriquez said. “I’ve got another one in Wake Forest; she comes every Saturday.”

For daughter Lydia Menzel, 57, the weekly trip from Wake Forest is a Saturday reward as well as a chance to fix food and prepare medication for Rodriquez.

“I’m finding it to be a blessing,” Menzel said. “It’s great every week.”

For exercise, Rodriquez takes his dog, constant companion Tess, out for a walk three or four times a day.

“Since my wife died, I’ve been with the feelings that I would like God to take care of me,” Rodriquez said. “It’s a lot different. It’s kind of tough.”

Rodriquez has a colorful life to reflect on – he spent his teen years in Puerto Rico, then moved to New York City in the 1940s. Before he started climbing the ladder to success in manufacturing, he got a job making brushes for 75 cents a day.

“I used to have a good time,” he said of his days working and partying in lower Manhattan, then raising a family. “Now I am suffering myself a little. Sometimes I think I am getting my daughters to work a little bit too much.

“I ask God to let me be with him and stop this type of life.”

A New Normal

Martha Driver, 85, worked for BellSouth until she was 65, then stayed on past the typical retirement date because the company needed her. Many of today’s older seniors have rich lives to remember, but may lack the resources, ability or will get out of the house to shop or see friends and family.

“I haven’t been able to go to church in a little over a year,” driver said. “I did real well until the last year and a half. I had double pneumonia and had side effects from that. It seems like I don’t have the same energy I did.”

There are ways that older people living alone often require changes in lifelong habits, acceptance of new ways of doing things and higher levels of dependence.

“If you don’t stay active, you start losing your ability to be active,” said Winstead, with Meals on Wheels. The agency serves thousands of residents daily, both with home visits and at senior centers or other sites where dozens of seniors can dine and talk together.

“If you’re going to a congregate meal site, you get to do a few activities with your new friends,” Winstead said. “It’s very simple if you’re at your apartment to say, ‘Nah, I don’t feel like it.’”

Duke University’s Dan Blazer, a nationally renowned geriatric psychiatrist, said the proximity of other people, particularly a spouse, is typically a sign that an older person will be healthier, physically and emotionally.

“Often you need somebody there to say, ‘Did you take your pills tonight?’” he said. “When a spouse dies, with men especially, their mortality increases in the year after their spouse’s death.”

He added, “When you lose somebody really close to you, like a spouse, not only do you miss the person emotionally, there are routines that you go through, like what you do in the morning. When that other person is gone, that routine is gone and that can be very disruptive.”

More Lives May Spin Out of Control

Changes in social services and the mental health system mean that more people living alone may see their lives spin out of control, said Craig Burrus, Wake County’s program manager of senior and adult services .

“It’s on the increase and likely to continue based on the state of the mental health system and the dwindling of services and personal interaction with the people that need help,” Burrus said.

Among other county functions, Burrus oversees adult protective services, the staffers who get called in when an adult can clearly no longer maintain an independent life.

If the person is living in a seniors-only complex such as Capital Towers in North Raleigh, management can alert the county that the tenant’s situation is desperate.

“They happen to go into somebody’s apartment to do a routine check and it’s a mess with feces all over the place,” Burrus said.

With the increase of solo seniors, the importance of remaining engaged will also grow, whether through senior centers, adult day cares, informal gathering places or churches.

Blazer pointed to telemedicine as a means to bridge gaps between people living at home alone and medical professionals. A physical therapist could, for example, monitor via Skype the progress a patient is making as he learns to use a walker or crutches in a home setting. But the up-close personal visit remains best, whether for professional or personal contacts.

“The most advantaged people can escape isolation – they go into retirement communities,” Blazer said, referring to places such as the Forest at Duke, where residents can start in independent cottages and wind up in skilled-nursing care.

Making the Rounds

Healthier or more mobile acquaintances can help isolated folks by actively encouraging those living alone – especially with memory or hearing problems – to get out and make their customary rounds.

Hazel Logan, 84, works with the senior ministry at Martin Street Baptist Church in Raleigh. Many members of the congregation from the World War II generation, Logan said, keep active and reach out to members living alone who can no longer make it to church.

But they also have an active ministry to younger people in the historically African-American neighborhood around the East Raleigh church.

“We grew together, we had children together and now we are old together,” Logan said of her peer group. “We were satisfied with the church membership, but that is not altogether what church is about. We are focusing now on what’s outside the walls.”

Thomas Goldsmith wrote a longer version of this article for the Raleigh News & Observer with support from the MetLife Foundation Journalists in Aging Fellows program, a collaboration of New America Media and the Gerontological Society of America.
]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11383 2013-05-07T08:25:00Z 2013-05-07T00:58:41Z

Semany Gashaw ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 SAN FRANCISCO -- In a thriving Bay Area technology sector where black and brown faces are the exception and not the norm, Chris Cruz, a Filipino American, and Isaac Reed, an African American, are crashing the party.

“Stereotypes are one hell of a drug,” says the 25-year-old Reed. Being judged on appearance by other industry professionals, he adds, is something he’s come to expect. “Until I open my mouth, [then] they understand I’m educated. But I don’t let it intimidate me. It actually empowers me.”

When it comes to California’s technology sector, Cruz and Reed surely aren’t alone in feeling racially isolated.

A study conducted in 2011 by three California-based groups – the Black Economic Council, Latino Business Chamber of Greater Los Angeles, and the National Asian American Coalition – looked at workforce diversity at a dozen companies in Silicon Valley, including industry giants Intel, Cisco and Ebay, and found an industry where African Americans and Latinos are grossly underrepresented when compared to their percentages of the state population. In the study, Blacks comprised less than 3 percent of company employees on average (they are 6.8 percent of the state population), while Hispanics comprised anywhere from 4 to 9 percent of employees at those companies surveyed, despite accounting for 38 percent of the California’s population according to the 2010 Census.

Another study conducted in 2011 by CNN Money culled workforce data from California-based technology companies Intel, Dell and Ingram Data. CNN, too, found diversity in the tech sector to be seriously lacking: whites comprised 64 percent of the workforce in companies surveyed. The next largest group was Asian at 20 percent. Meanwhile, Hispanics comprised only 9 percent and Blacks 6 percent of all employees. The CNN study did not include major companies like Facebook, Apple, Google or Amazon since those companies do not make such employee information public.

Racial stereotyping within the tech sector is perpetuated by the lack of diversity within the industry, says Dr. James Lai, director of the Ethnic Studies Program at Santa Clara University. Overcoming those stereotypes, he says, can be a real barrier for young minority entrepreneurs, like Cruz and Reed, who are trying to make a name for themself.

“If you’ve got to pitch [an idea], you have to have an image. And that image can be used against you, because there are stereotypes that people bring,” says Lai. “They [employers] may see an African American and they may think, ‘Well, how many African Americans do I know in the computer industry?’ And the truth is that there are not that – about one percent in most companies.”

Beating the Odds

The young duo’s efforts – Cruz, like his partner Reed, is also 25 -- to break into the tech industry began in January 2011, with the development of a mobile application for smartphones that they called Zuggol.

Zuggol allows users to set a personal goal and track progress toward that goal, which is assigned to one of six given categories: art, business, fitness, fashion, education and music. Users can update their goal status according to progress made, and “follow” others on Zuggol pursuing similar quests, to get helpful tips or advice on what is or isn’t working for other people.

For those inevitable moments of hopelessness, users can look to Zuggol’s “push” page for extra motivation -- the page contains quotes from successful individuals across a variety of professions, from Babe Ruth to Maya Angelou.

In February of 2013, Zuggol became available on the open market, joining thousands of other mobile applications available for purchase through the Apple Store.

Fittingly, the path taken by Cruz and Reed to create Zuggol was one forged by perseverance and self-sacrifice in service of a shared goal.

They couldn’t afford to hire a programmer to build the application, says Cruz, so he taught himself Objective-C, a programming language used in Apple’s current operating systems, over a six-month period.

While Cruz worked on the technical side, Reed secured investment deals and corporate sponsors such as Muscle Milk and Velvety Wine.

“Initially, motivation was probably the only thing that kept me going,” Cruz says. “There were times during those six months of coding, I lost all hope -- same with Isaac -- and every single time, I would read quotes or talk to somebody in the tech industry, which helped reignite my motivation.”

Overcoming the odds was nothing new to either Cruz or Reed.

Raised in a family of seven, Reed was the eldest of five siblings. At the age of 12, the family lost their home to foreclosure and was homeless for about a year. They couch-surfed, sleeping in different people’s living rooms until they were able to move into a one-bedroom apartment in Oakland, where there were “shootings on a regular basis.” Adding to their troubles, Reed’s father left the family at that same time, leaving his mother to care for her five children.

“I’d seen a very large spectrum of the African American community in a negative fashion and I couldn’t stand it,” he said. “And so I asked myself, ‘What can I do to not be in this realm?’ I decided that everything that they’re doing, I’m going to do the exact opposite and see where I go.”

Reed attended the Bay Area School of Enterprise in Alameda, a public charter high school where his entrepreneurial tendencies flourished. He eventually went on to graduate from San Francisco State University, becoming the first in his family to obtain a college degree.

Like his business partner, Cruz was also raised by his mother and had a father who was in and out of his life. He lived in a house in Hercules, a city 25 miles from San Francisco, until the age of six, when his father was incarcerated for selling drugs. Soon after, the family was evicted from their home and rented a bedroom in a house in San Francisco. For 16 years, his mother raised him in that bedroom, saving up all her money so he could attend Archbishop Riordan High School, an all-boys private school. But his mother could only afford two years at Riordan, so Cruz spent his junior and senior years at Philip & Sala Burton High School, a public school with a tougher reputation.

“It taught me a lot more about just surviving and about how life is,” says Cruz.

Back then, being an app developer never crossed his mind, admits Cruz. Growing up, he was a rapper who won awards and produced music with storied Bay Area rap artists like Big Rich and San Quinn.

He credits having to care for his ailing mother -- she almost died twice, once from a heart attack that Cruz attributes to stress -- for shaping his work ethic.

“It really pushes me beyond what anything else would,” he says.

Changing the Culture

Now entrenched in the tech industry, Reed and Cruz face a different kind of struggle, not with poverty, but with the biases within their chosen profession.

When asked if race is still an issue for them in the tech world, both agree that as people of color they have to work harder to impress. “Sometimes I’ll talk to people and say I’m a programmer, or I develop -- but if I say that I coded Objective-C in six months, then they will pay attention to me. If I don’t, I’ll usually get ignored,” says Cruz.

“It’s also disheartening to see, for me especially, [that] I am the only African American at many of the [tech] events I go to,” adds Reed. “Sometimes I see African American women, but… the males, you don’t see any.”

Cruz once tested the environment by changing his appearance to see how people would treat him. “If I let my hair grow out, I’ll look more Caucasian. But if I’m shaved I get completely ignored because it seems like the people [in tech companies] keep to themselves a lot at many of the startups, especially all the mixers that I go to.” As a result, the men have stopped going to industry mixers, a crucial environment for networking opportunities and pitching ideas.

Today in the Zuggol office in San Francisco’s financial district, Cruz and Reed’s idea has grown into a budding enterprise of 20 employees, nearly all from non-white ethnic backgrounds ranging from Filipino to African American to Hispanic. The company is experiencing steady growth – their user base increases by about 10 percent each week -- and the partners say they are busy fundraising and securing private investments deals.

Cruz and Reed are proud of what they’ve accomplished so far and say they will strive to continue to make a difference, by doing whatever they can within their own company to diversify the tech sector.

“I feel like we’re the underdogs and that Isaac and I are doing it for our people,” says Cruz. “I feel we have our ethnicities on our shoulders in the tech industry.”

]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11375 2013-05-06T16:15:00Z 2013-05-10T00:05:25Z

中文翻譯한국어 번역 NEW YORK -- October 1 is D-day for New Yorkers to start shopping for affordable health care coverage on the New York Health Benefits Exchange. Some 2.9 million residents are uninsured (out of a population of 19.2 million),...

Text: Khalil Abdullah / Video: Josue Rojas ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 中文翻譯
한국어 번역

NEW YORK -- October 1 is D-day for New Yorkers to start shopping for affordable health care coverage on the New York Health Benefits Exchange. Some 2.9 million residents are uninsured (out of a population of 19.2 million), and experts and advocates are ramping up to make New York the benchmark state for maximizing health care access for the uninsured, the underinsured, children and even undocumented immigrants.

"We are doing something that very few other states are doing," Elisabeth Benjamin, vice president of health initiatives at the Community Service Society of New York, told a group of reporters--most from ethnic news organizations--at a roundtable briefing convened by New America Media. "Our exchange truly will be one-stop shopping allowing apples-to-apples comparisons of the variety of health insurance plans available."

Unlike other states whose exchanges may refer certain applicants to other agencies, New York's exchange will offer consumers the full menu of available options, from qualified commercial health plans to public assistance programs like CHP (Child Health Plus) and Medicaid. "You go into the New York Exchange and it's extraordinary," Benjamim added. "You will come out with coverage, maybe even emergency Medicaid if you're undocumented."

New York is one of 19 states that opted to build and design its own exchange instead of relying on the federal government to do so. Because the ACA requires everyone to purchase health insurance, states that are more effective in bringing larger numbers of its residents into coverage will presumably be able to drive down insurance premium costs.

In New York, one study estimates the premium costs for an individual and families could be reduced by as much 66 percent per month. That’s a significant decrease in state where individuals and families pay $1,200 and $3,400 a month respectively, (the latter for a family of four). Individuals and families who do not qualify for Medicaid because their incomes are too high may still be eligible for subsidies to assist them in purchasing health care insurance.

Although enrollment through the exchange does not begin until October 1, the ACA has already yielded tangible benefits. It has allowed some 160,000 young adults, for example, to stay on their parents’ health insurance plans until age 26 -- and New York has extended that age to 29. This is helping to reverse a decade long national trend for the 19 to 25 age group, according to data compiled by the Commonwealth Fund: the percentage of young adults who were uninsured fell from 48 percent to 41 percent between 2010 and 2012.

New York is also ahead of the curve in committing funds -- some $27 million annually -- for ACA's Navigator program which provides one-on-one counseling and referrals to consumers. By contrast, Ohio, with a much smaller population but a high rate of uninsured, is committing only $2.3 million on a one-time basis.

Sarah Rothstein, assistant director of policy and planning for the New York State Health Benefit Exchange, described how the Navigator program will bridge the state's language access issues through a multi-layered approach. People who don't want to enroll over the phone or through the website will be able to get in-person assistance from community based organizations that have been certified as navigators. Though the website for the exchange currently carries instructions in English and Spanish, other languages will be added. Call centers will also commence in October with staff versed in multiple languages including Arabic, Russian, Cantonese, Mandarin, Creole, French, Hindi, Korean, Polish, Punjabi, Urdu and Bengali.

Lorraine Gonzalez-Camastra, director of health policy for the Children's Defense Fund in New York, emphasized the state's goal of providing universal coverage for children -- "regardless of income or immigration status." Some 283,746 children in New York are uninsured, of whom 51 percent are minorities, including many noncitizens of immigrant families.

Latinos make up 23 percent -- the largest cohort -- of the state's uninsured population overall, noted Becca Telzak, Health Policy Supervisor for Make the Road New York, a grassroots organization. "Imagine not being able to speak the language of the person who's talking to you," she said. "It makes it a thousand times harder" to negotiate some of the complexities of selecting the appropriate insurance plan.

Meanwhile Asian Americans are growing rapidly in the state, especially in counties that have otherwise seen declines in the white population. The influx reflects both growing numbers of refugees from Bhutan and Myanmar, and rising birth rates among more established Asian American groups, noted Noilyn Abesamis-Mendoza,  health policy director for the Coalition for Asian American Children and Families.

Government agencies and advocacy organizations expect to bring one million New Yorkers under the healthcare insurance umbrella. The open enrollment period begins October 1 and will extend through March 31, 2014 for the first year of implementation. Medicaid eligible persons will be able to enroll at any time throughout the year, as will those with children who qualify for New York’s CHP program. Forty-six percent of those who get public coverage will be non-Hispanic whites, while 28 percent will be Hispanic; 13 percent will be black; and 13 percent will be Asian Americans and others.

The New York Health Benefit Exchange will also run the Small Business Health Options Program (SHOP) which is expected to attract many from immigrant communities who own their own business. SHOP will enable employers to compare the qualified health plans on the exchange and even leverage their purchasing power by partnering with other businesses.

SHOP will be made available to businesses that have 50 employees or less during the first two years of enrollment, 2014 and 2015. Businesses with 100 employees or less will be able to use SHOP in 2016.

From its website to in-person counseling, CDF’s Gonzalez-Camastra said the state has taken great care to ensure that “there is no wrong door” for New Yorkers to obtain accurate guidance.


This story was written as part of a series of press briefings on healthcare reform with ethnic media organized by New America Media and funded by the Atlantic Philanthropies.


]]> 65184821 tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11374 2013-05-06T13:43:09Z 2013-05-07T17:41:51Z

Sandy Close ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=26 Traducción al español

Editor's Note: Ahmed Rachidi, a native of Morocco who has been a British resident since 1985, was held in extrajudicial detention in Guantanamo from March 2002 to May 2007, when he was released without charge. Now 47, he is the author of a memoir about his experiences in Guantanamo, called The General: The Ordinary Man Who Challenged Guantanamo, co-authored by Gillian Slovo and published in March 2013. NAM editor Sandy Close interviewed Mr. Rachidi by phone in his home in Tangier, Morocco where he lives with his wife, mother and three children.

Why did you call your memoir "The General"?

Because I was one of a limited number of prisoners at Guantanamo who spoke English, I was often forced to be an "unofficial leader" by guards and interrogators. They nicknamed me "the general."

How were you released?

I was released in May 2007. I was on the "cleared for release" list for one year before I was released. Although I was a British resident and had worked as a chef in London for 16 years, I was repatriated to Morocco. I was never allowed to regain my passport so I was unable to return to London even for the release last March for my memoir.

How did you go from being a chef in London to being a prisoner in Guantanamo?

I had traveled to Islamabad in the late summer of 2001 on a one-month business visa. When I saw television coverage of Afghan refugees fleeing US air strikes across the Pakistan border, I wanted to help. It's the kind of emotional response you have when you see disasters. I thought I would volunteer for a week -- the border was not far away. But I wound up in the middle of a war zone. There was nothing I could do. When I crossed back into Pakistan I thought I was safe. I was riding in a car with five other passengers but the car was stopped at a Pakistani army checkpoint. After 44 days in a Pakistani jail, I was traded by Pakistan intelligence to the FBI.

Were you the only prisoner "cleared for release?"

At any one time there are as many as 50 or 60 prisoners on the "cleared for release" list, including Shaker Aamer, a native of Saudi Arabia. He is the last British resident held in Guantanamo. President Obama claims that those who are cleared for release can't go back either because they will face torture in their home countries, or because their governments don't want them back.

Is that true?

That simply is not true. For the last 11 years the British people have been campaigning for the release and return of Shaker to his family in London. And the U.S. has already sent dozens of prisoners back to countries like Yemen and Saudi Arabia.

How did you know Shaker?

I knew Shaker in the isolation box. Like me, he was a father. I can tell you that a father in Guantanamo is a desperate father knowing that his kids are growing apart and away from him. They are growing away from him without his knowing, without his care, without his affection and attention. So a father in Guantanamo is simply a devastated father.

Can you tell us about the hunger strike?

Shaker is one of over 100 prisoners in Guantanamo who have been on a hunger strike for almost three months. The Obama Administration claims they are on a hunger strike because they want better treatment or better food. But that is not true. They are on a hunger strike because they want justice. They want freedom. They want to go home to their families. And this time they will not quit.

Where you ever on a hunger strike?

I was on a hunger strike many times in Guantanamo. Food is the only comfort that prisoners have in their cell. So when there is a hunger strike that means that the prisoners give up their one source of peace and comfort. They allow themselves to fall into a deep coma. It's like crawling with your weak body into this dark tunnel with no light at the end of it.

What makes them quit?

During one hunger strike in 2006 the prison commander assigned me to a special block to take care of prisoners he said were coming out of the hospital. But they were actually coming from isolation blocks that were kept ice cold. Each prisoner was shaking, each prisoner had a bruised nose with dried blood and black ringed eyes that were petrified. Everyone complained of gut wrenching pain and bleeding hemorrhoids. Soldiers would insert feeding tubes with such force and no anesthetic through their noses and throats while they were strapped to chairs. Then the soldiers would pour medication to make their bowels move. After half an hour they would wet their pants and defecate. They would be left for hours like that. If they vomited, the soldiers would repeat the process. By using these tactics, they stopped the strike. Even I begged the administration to stop.

What is your biggest worry right now?

This will be the last hunger strike. To stop eating is the only way prisoners can exert any control when they are powerless. But this time Shaker and the other prisoners don't have the same strength, the same energy they used to have. Mentally and physically they are very weak. I am worried that something can go wrong, that someone will lose his life.

The hunger strike has gotten President Obama's attention. Has that helped?

President Obama said that he is sending 40 doctors to Guantanamo. Prisoners don't need doctors. Prisoners want to go home to their families. They have been crying out for justice for 11 years. To hold someone for 11 years without trial, without charge, is a crime.

What is the message of the hunger strike?

Guantanamo is a concern to every human being who believes in democracy, who believes in human rights, who believes in the rule of law. We don't have a lot of time. We need to come together to force President Obama to restore the rule of law and put an end to this disgrace.

See a video of Ahmed Rachidi speaking about his time in Guantanamo.
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