tag:newamericamedia.org,2009-04-06://19 2013-05-20T16:52:43Z 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://19.11456 2013-05-20T08:45:00Z 2013-05-20T16:52:43Z

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. -- Abusive behavior by law enforcement officers in towns across Kern County and neighboring Tulare County has generated distrust and resignation, especially among Latinos who make up the majority of the region's population. But national media coverage of...

Sandy Close and Raj Jayadev ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 BAKERSFIELD, Calif. -- Abusive behavior by law enforcement officers in towns across Kern County and neighboring Tulare County has generated distrust and resignation, especially among Latinos who make up the majority of the region's population.

But national media coverage of the alleged beating death by deputies of David Silva, a 33-year-old Latino father of four, in downtown Bakersfield may prompt a public reckoning with the wider issue, according to some two dozen attendees at a health care fair here interviewed by New America Media.

Less than a week after Silva was beaten allegedly by eight or nine deputies and highway patrol officers, the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, MSNBC and Fox News had all reported on the incident as well as on an apparent attempt to cover it up when Bakersfield police confiscated the cell phones of several bystanders who had videotaped it.

So had the Spanish-language news outlet Univision, which posted a compilation of video segments titled "Most Infamous Police Beatings."

"This is a really conservative community. Most people will think something like this was bound to happen -- it's been happening in other places. But the country's eye is now on Bakersfield and that could make the difference," said Amy Lopez, 22, a student of dental hygiene at Cal State Bakersfield.

Bill Phelps, who works with South Kern's low-income health plan program HMC, said news of the beatings had "accelerated a huge mistrust of law enforcement across all sectors of the community. Thanks to national media coverage, Kern County is now on the public radar."

Hilary Meeks, a reporter for the Visalia Times, noted that the incident hadn't occurred in a vacuum. "There've been five shootings over the last four years in neighboring Tulare County ... A sheriff's deputy ran over someone two years ago and nothing was done about it. We had a guy killed in Porterville. The court case ended in a hung jury. That was one or two years ago."

At least a third of those interviewed by NAM at the fair, held at the Kern County Fair Grounds on Saturday, had not heard about the Silva incident, although it's been front page news for the Bakersfield Californian's daily website, and on local TV. But recession-related closures of all but one Spanish- language news weekly and Univision's Bakersfield bureau, has turned the city into something of a media desert, especially for non-English speakers.

"Local awareness will build with more local, state and national media coverage," said El Popular publisher George Comacho, who plans to report on the story next week, especially in the wake of Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood's request on May 14 for an FBI probe into Silva's death.

Linda Vasquez, a 27-year-old Cal State Bakersfield student, was as agitated by the cover up as the beating itself. "The part that makes me angry is how they took the phones, because they've done that before." She told a story of how her brother was harassed, and the phone of another family member who recorded the incident was taken by law enforcement. She was not sure whether it was city police or the sheriff's department.

Ali Morris, CEO of the local Black Chamber of Commerce, thinks that even if public pressure mounts over the Silva case, it's going to take a lot of time and education to change things for the better. "We have a broken system. In theory everything should work right. We can start attacking it here or there, but it's the system that's broke. It should have never gotten to this point.”

The solution, Morris says, has to come with changes in perception on both law enforcement's side and on the public's side.

"I think both sides are responsible," Morris observed. "The whole police force is at the mercy of one bad officer. At the same time, the police officer wonders why he is putting his life in jeopardy when the people here don't want him there.

"We have to go at this whole thing piece by piece," Morris concluded. "If I didn't have a spiritual foundation I couldn't get through it."

Pablo, another Cal State Bakersfield student who is studying to become a police officer and didn't give his last name, learned about the Silva incident from his criminal justice professor.

"There have been a lot of shootings and beatings by law enforcement officials. They should train the police to use nonviolence or nonlethal force," he commented.

Cal State student Amy Lopez said she was frustrated that there hadn't been more public reaction like a student protest. "Something's got to give. I shouldn't leave it up to another group to say something. I should step up and do something."


]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11455 2013-05-20T08:25:00Z 2013-05-20T02:36:48Z

NEW YORK -- On a Friday afternoon, nearly two weeks after a deadly factory collapse in Bangladesh, Kamil Ahmed went with his family to a mosque in Brooklyn. He grieved for those who perished and prayed for those who survived...

Anthony Advincula ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=63 NEW YORK -- On a Friday afternoon, nearly two weeks after a deadly factory collapse in Bangladesh, Kamil Ahmed went with his family to a mosque in Brooklyn. He grieved for those who perished and prayed for those who survived the disaster.

And he made an urgent plea to his fellow Bangladeshis for donations.

One by one, he handed out empty letter-envelopes after the prayer meetings, telling those he knew that “small, big, or any amount matters.” Some immediately gave dollar bills, while others wrote a check. The money will go to Savar Victims Fund, a relief campaign that Bangladeshi Society, Inc. (BSI)— a national group of Bangladeshi immigrants based in Queens, N.Y. — established a few days after the April 24 collapse of the Rana Plaza factory in Dhaka.

The death toll from the disaster stands at 1,127. It is the deadliest industrial accident since the Bhopal disaster in India in 1984. Five factories were operating in the Rana Plaza, located in the town of Savar, about 20 miles outside Dhaka, when the structure fell.

Donations to Savar go directly to the Prime Minister Fund, a general relief fund that the Bangladesh Embassy in New York has created.

“We will go from one mosque to another to ask for help,” said Ahmed, 62, president of BSI. “Most of us are working-class people. We’re not wealthy, but everyone is supportive and willing to give something.”

That Friday alone, he and his friends were able to collect about $1,200, which he described as a significant step toward their ultimate goal of somewhere “between $20,000 and $25,000” before May ends. Similar efforts are underway in other Bangladeshi communities outside New York, says Ahmed.

A fundraiser has also been planned for May 28, with about 300 Bangladeshi business-owners expected to attend.

Ahmed notes that BSI’s social welfare secretary keeps track of the donation records and sends receipts to donors. To ensure that donations go to the victims and their families, some BSI members have even volunteered to fly to Bangladesh to help with the relief efforts.

“They’re offered to pay for their tickets out of their own pockets,” says Ahmed.

Mosque Attendance Up After Collapse

Muhibur Rahman, imam at Baitul Zannah Mosque in Brooklyn, says in the days following the garment factory collapse, mosque attendance rose dramatically. Many asked what they could do to help.

“Before our prayer meetings, I make an announcement about the donation drive,” says Rahman, 65, a native of Bangladesh. “This is a devastating calamity. It is important to stand beside them [victims] and those who are affected.”

Rahman also expressed support for greater efforts to pressure the government in Bangladesh to address the issue of building safety. Officials reportedly ignored safety violations issued just days before the collapse of Rana Plaza.

Says Rahman, “Some say that it’s the negligence of the building owners. I think the government needs to enforce strict laws and regulations.”

An Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh, meanwhile, has been adopted by global clothing retailers, demanding a five-year commitment to safety inspection and $500,000 per year toward safety improvements. A number of major US retailers have declined to participate.

“We pray,” says Rahman, “that Bangladesh and its people are able to recover soon.”

Bangla Media

Abu Taher, editor of Bangla Patrika, says his publication, as well as other U.S.-based Bangladeshi news outlets, have served as a collective “bulletin board to inform and connect people in the community.”

Immediately after the rescue and as soon as victims were identified, media here began to print the names so readers would know whether they have friends or loved ones among the dead.

“It’s a long list. But that’s something that we didn’t see anywhere else,” notes Taher.

Bangla Patrika has also helped in spreading the word about fundraising efforts— telling readers how can they contribute, where they can send their donations and how they can volunteer their time.

Data from the 2010 U.S. Census show there are about 15,000 Bangladeshis in the New York area and about 148,000 across the United States.

“People are calling us and asking for information,” says Taher. “Our community has been responding really well.”

Closer to Home

Helal Uddin was born and raised in a neighboring village close to site of the Savar tragedy. “I couldn’t believe what I was seeing,” he says, when images of the collapse first flashed across his television screen.

He says poverty is a reality for most residents of the area, and that the garment factories were often the sole means of making a living. Reports note employees in the factory earned an average of $37 a month for their labors.

Friends and neighbors, meanwhile, have since shared more details with Uddin, a small business owner in Brooklyn. One neighbor told him he’d received a call from someone in a nearby village, with relatives who died in the accident.

“We’re glad someone was able to make the connection and has informed us what the victims need. Food and water are not a problem right now,” Uddin recounted from the conversation. “But many have lost limbs.”

Uddin and others have now joined in efforts to raise funds, hoping to help pay for medical treatment and, where needed, prosthetics.

“We come from the same area,” he notes of the victims. “In a way, we are a family.”
]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11447 2013-05-19T10:00:00Z 2013-05-17T19:06:05Z

Laura Murphy ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 On Mother's Day, someone decided to shoot into a crowd of parading New Orleanians, injuring 19 people. Video footage of the event indicates that I was just feet away from the shooter. My family and friends think I should stop going to second-line parades or into "bad neighborhoods" (read: black neighborhoods, of course).

And some of them want me to leave New Orleans altogether. But this Sunday I am going to the second line, just as I will go any other Sunday when I wake up feeling like dancing -- which is more often than you'd think. I want people to know why.

New Orleans brass bands play what you might call second-line standards. There are the local favorites, such as "Roll With It" and "It Ain't My Fault"; there are the traditional dirges played to an upbeat tempo, like "I'll Fly Away"; and there are the popular covers that everyone sings in unison. My personal second-line jam is the Stooges Brass Band's rendition of the O'Jays' R&B classic "Back Stabbers."

On Sunday at the Original Big 7 Mother's Day second line, it took me only three or four notes to recognize Whitney Houston's "I Wanna Dance With Somebody," another crowd pleaser. People immediately started swaying, the "buckjumpers" trotted out some of their finest footwork and soon enough everyone was cheering, "With somebody who loves me!"

As the brass band pealed out the melody, I sidled up to my husband, a New Orleans transplant of three years and a second-line fanatic. I held his hand as we danced in the street with hundreds of other people -- black, white, Asian, Latino, young, old, native, transplant and all kinds of in-between. I silently rehearsed the only words I have to describe the second line: pure joy.

Only seconds later, just after we turned into the narrower streets of the 7th Ward neighborhood, we heard the all-too-familiar sound of gunfire. I think I heard four shots before I realized that I needed to get to the ground. I dropped to my belly right in the middle of the street, and other people fleeing the violence fell on top of me.

I remember that a soft, white T-shirt brushed my cheek, and I instinctively caressed the shoulder of a stranger, hoping to calm myself as much as her. Three or four more shots rang out before the firing stopped. Only feet from where the shooter had reportedly emerged from the shadows of a family home, we all lay in a silent pile, collectively holding our breath for several seconds more before we felt it safe to run.

When we returned to the corner a minute or so later, the scene was gruesome. People were writhing, bleeding, on every corner, on all sides of the spot where I had just dropped to the ground myself. The shooter had been indiscriminate, and if he had a target, it was impossible to tell who it could have been, because there were children, older ladies and dancing men among the 19 innocent people he callously wounded.

As the days pass and the fear and anger that emerged at the scene release me, a new frustration emerges. I can't help but keep wondering why more people don't seem to care or even know that this happened.

And I am going to say this very clearly: The reason so few people seem to care about this mass shooting is that the victims are assumed to be black.

Not So Normal

Every time I say something like this, I feel as if I'm preaching to the choir, but when I listened for that familiar chorus of affirmation this week, I didn't hear it. Somehow I keep expecting people to stop me on the street to process it, as many did when I was heading home through predominantly African-American neighborhoods right after the event. I expected Facebook and Twitter to be on fire with sympathy for the victims. I suppose I half expected there to be nationally organized fundraisers for the 19 people in the hospital. But all I heard were crickets.

How can so many people in this country -- people for whom violence is not the norm -- resign themselves to violence simply by relegating it to the category of "street violence" or "black-on-black violence"? When people thoughtlessly repeat this refrain, they suggest that everyone in that crowd should equally be considered a perpetrator simply because he or she is black, even though there was only one shooter, maybe two, who took aim at hundreds of innocent, dancing, celebratory black citizens festively enjoying a sunny Mother's Day afternoon.

When white people designate this as a "problem in the black community," the glaring implication is that violence is a problem endemic to the black community, that it is inherent and that it is both impossible to solve and not "our" problem anyway. That is the assumption motivating all the horrendous comments that make blackness the explicit or implicit source of violence instead of laying the blame on one cruel person. And it is that same assumption that silences and repackages our mourning over the violence that occurred in New Orleans this weekend.

Instead, what is endemic, and certainly feels intractable, are the systemic inequalities that persist in New Orleans and in the U.S. overall, injustice for which we are all responsible. Research coming out of the Orleans Parish Place Matters project indicates that life expectancies can differ by 25 years in New Orleans, depending on ZIP code, an indicator of the racial breakdown of a population. Place Matter's work shows that "social, economic, and environmental conditions in low-income and non-white neighborhoods make it more difficult for people in these neighborhoods to live healthy lives."

Furthermore, the study proves what should be clear to everyone: Neighborhoods that lack good schools and worthwhile opportunities are correlated with higher rates of violence. When we know this, we cannot hold individuals solely responsible for violence; we must respond urgently to the inequality in our educational institutions, employment opportunities and health care.

And maybe it is easier for many white and middle-class people to turn a blind eye to violence that happens in black communities because they think it cannot happen to them or to anyone they know. How does an entire race become anonymous to the point of seeming alien? How do white Americans live in this country and pretend that they do not know and are not responsible for their neighbors simply because of race?

Second-Line Community Building

I dance and talk and sing and debate with people of all races and classes and professions on Sunday afternoons. We are friends, neighbors and dancing partners, despite all the differences that may divide us. It is hard for me to imagine how anyone could live in New Orleans and not have relationships across what might seem to be impossible boundaries in some other towns. And it is hard for me to imagine living anywhere else anymore.

Knowing and loving people who are different from us, embracing their talents, joys and jokes, as well as recognizing and responding to their hardships and suffering is what makes us able to fight for and get passionate about justice in this world. Sometimes I get angry when I hear that someone is concerned about breast cancer only after a family member suffers from it or follows news from Ireland because he or she has some imaginary ancestral connection to the place. Why are the people who look like you more valuable than the people who don't? Why do we bother to learn about the suffering of our own community when we completely fail to respond to the suffering in others?

The story of violence and injustice in the black community is not my story to tell. There are many people who know it better than I do and have the most effective strategies (though often not the resources) for responding to it. But it should not be the sole responsibility of the African-American community to inform white Americans of the discrimination and inequality that determine the very life outcomes of the citizens of this nation and world.

It makes me sick to have to write this. I didn't want to say anything about being a witness to violence in New Orleans to anyone. I didn't want to post to Facebook or to Twitter that I had been in the 7th Ward on Sunday because I am afraid that it will be my story, the story of an innocent middle-class white person who was affected by the shooting, that gets picked up.

I am afraid that friends and family and colleagues will only finally believe that this is a significant event because it happened to someone they know. Look at the photos of the shooting that did make the national papers -- there are white folks everywhere in those photos, even though we made up a minuscule segment of the people who were attending the parade, and only a fraction of the people who were harmed. And let me not exonerate myself: After teaching and writing about injustice for years, I am writing about violence in my own community for the first time only after it hit close to home.

I decided that I had to say something, however, because I am a professor, and the way I attempt to effect change is through the words I write and the students I teach. I teach my students that the systemic, racialized inequalities that persist in our community and in the world carry prices and consequences that are much more significant than the cost of effective, ubiquitous education and health care -- basic necessities that we deny the majority of black citizens in my city and many others in the U.S. I teach them that it is the responsibility of every citizen to ensure that every other citizen is provided with his or her right to health and security.

And I insist that every human being deserves far more than the basic necessities. Many have suggested this more eloquently before today, but this event provides us with a moment to reflect again on our commitments. And personally, I suppose I am trying to transform the sadness and anger that grew out of my experience this weekend into something worthwhile.

The mass shooting that occurred on Sunday is not a black problem or a poor people's problem or a New Orleans problem. It is the responsibility of all of us to end the vicious inequality that leads to violence. We must all make a commitment -- regardless of our race or our class -- to the people and organizations that work to increase opportunity, education and well-being for all citizens in New Orleans and around the world.

We must support culturally informed, community-driven and -led conflict-resolution initiatives, like Project Ceasefire, that teach all of us that hatred and violence are the least effective solutions to our problems. We must dedicate ourselves wholeheartedly to addressing the problems that no doubt affect all of us, but affect us unequally.

I will be at next week's second line. I can't wait to hear the opening strains of "Back Stabbers," which I suspect will be met with an unusually emphatic "What they do!" from the crowd. I know my family and friends will be horrified, worrying that I take my life for granted.

But let me explain: The second line is the most vibrant and loving cultural tradition I know of in the U.S. It celebrates life as it commemorates death. I will be there to celebrate and commemorate, alongside all the diverse members of this community who also take that work seriously, because I never feel more alive and more a part of this community than I do when I am at a second line.

Laura Murphy is assistant professor of English and the director of African and African-American studies at Loyola University New Orleans. She is the author of Metaphor and the Slave Trade in West African Literature and editor of the forthcoming Survivors of Slavery: 20th and 21st Century Slave Narratives.
]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11443 2013-05-18T09:25:00Z 2013-05-16T20:30:08Z

Rodel Rodis ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 This was the question posed to me by a curious TV news reporter on May 7, just three days after a stretch limousine, carrying nine Filipino nurses to a bridal party across the San Mateo Bridge, suddenly burst into flames killing five of the occupants, including the bride.

Ann Notarangelo, the reporter who is also the weekend anchor of CBS 5′s Eyewitness News, explained that she was only asking the question because it was on the minds of her viewers. She came to my office to interview me because she thought I might know the answer as I taught Filipino American History at San Francisco State University and I am the legal counsel of the Philippine Nurses Association of Northern California. Plus, I added, I am also married to a Filipino nurse.

She said that she was frankly surprised to learn that 20 percent of all the registered nurses in California are Filipinos, a considerably large percentage since Filipinos number only 2.3 million (officially 1.2 million) out of a state population of 38 million.

“I just never noticed it before,” Ann told me, “because I generally don’t see people in racial terms.” But, she said, in reflecting back on all the times she visited friends and relatives in hospitals all over California, she now recalls seeing Filipino nurses everywhere. Not just in California, I said.

Filipino nurses in the US may be invisible even when they are visible everywhere but not anymore.

Tragedy Sheds Light on Filipino Nurses

The video clip of the fire-engulfed limousine was the top story over the weekend. The fatalities included Neriza Fojas, 31, a newlywed bride who was planning to get married again in the Philippines in June; Michelle Estrera, 35, the bride’s Maid of Honor who worked with her at a Fresno medical facility; Jennifer Balon, 39, and Anna Alcantara, 46, of San Lorenzo, both of whom worked at the Fruitvale Healthcare Center; and Felomina Geronga, 43, who worked at the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Oakland.

Americans also learned about the nurses who escaped the fire and were treated for burns and smoke inhalation: Mary G. Guardiano, 42; Jasmine Desguia, 34; Nelia Arellano, 36; and Amalia Loyola, 48. In a TV interview, an anguished Nelia Arellano blamed the limo driver for failing to stop immediately and for selfishly refusing to help them get out of the burning limo.

As the San Francisco Chronicle described it, “They came from little towns scattered all over the Philippines, hungry for the good life in America. A nursing degree was each one’s solo ticket over, and once they found each other, they became the best of friends.”

As the TV camera started rolling, the TV news reporter posed the question to me:“Why are there so many Filipino nurses in the US?”

There are push and pull factors that are at play, I explained. The main push factor is the poor Philippine economy where an average Registered Nurse earns only about 5 percent of what an RN is paid in the United States. The main pull factor is the nursing shortage in this country.

But Americans should not to be too surprised at the large number of Filipinos here, I told her. After all, the Philippines was a U.S. colony from 1899 until the Japanese occupation in 1942 and, some would argue, a “neo-colony” for many decades after the Philippines was granted independence by the United States in 1946.

It certainly does not surprise the British to see many Indians and Pakistanis in England, nor does it surprise the French that there are many Algerians in France. They understand that people from the colonized countries generally tend to gravitate and immigrate to their “mother” countries, even after their native countries are granted independence.

Four Waves of Migration

Filipino nurses did not arrive in the United States overnight. They have been immigrating here for more than a century. In fact, there are four distinct waves of Filipino nurse immigration to the United States.

The first wave came after the United States began its colonization of the Philippines and needed local health care professionals to meet the health needs of the subject population which is why the U.S. Army recruited Filipinos to work as Volunteer Auxiliary and Contract Nurses.

Under the Pensionado Act of 1903, Filipino nursing students were among those sent to the United States as government-funded scholars (pensionados) including those pursuing a nursing education. Some of those who stayed for employment as nurses went on to form the Philippine Nurses Association of New York in 1928. The association’s first president was Marta Ubana, who completed her Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree at Teachers College, Columbia University.

Many other pensionado nurses returned back to the Philippines to help set up and manage the 17 nursing schools that were established in the Philippines from 1903 until 1940. Large numbers of the graduates from these nursing schools thereafter immigrated to the United States as, unlike with the Chinese and Japanese, there were no exclusion acts enacted against them since Filipinos were considered “U.S. nationals” and even traveled with U.S. passports.

One of the pioneer Filipino RNs was Isabel L. Mina, who graduated with a nursing degree from the University of the Philippines in 1919 before working at the Mary Chiles Hospital in Manila. Isabel and two other Filipino nurses, Josefa Cariaga and Petra Aguinaldo, boarded a ship in Manila 1921 bound for Hawaii where they worked in a hospital before moving on to California. They then boarded a train and traveled to New York where they worked in a local hospital for several years.

Information about Isabel Mina was obtained by her San Francisco-based granddaughter, Lissa Sobrepena, who learned about her grandmother when she logged on to Ancestry.com. For a fee, the website produced photos of her grandmother in 1921 and her documents including the ship’s passenger manifests and the two passport applications she filled out when she lost her U.S. passport while traveling in the United States.

What stunned Lissa was when she found out that her grandmother’s best friend, Petra Aguinaldo, coincidentally just happened to be the grandmother of her husband, Robert Sobrepena. Neither Lissa nor Robert knew that their grandmothers – who died before they were born – were close friends and that they had traveled together across the United States as RNs.

The second wave of nurses from the Philippines began in1948 when the U.S. State Department set up an Exchange Visitor Program to “combat Soviet propaganda." According to Catherine Ceniza Choy, associate professor of ethnic studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and author of Empire of Care: Nursing and Migration in Filipino American History (Duke University Press, 2003), owing to the “special relationship” between the mother country and its former colony, a large percentage of the exchange visitors came from the Philippines.

Among these nurses was Maria Guerrero Llapitan who came to the United States in 1948 to take post-graduate nursing courses at Baylor University in Texas. Maria had served as the supervisor of the operating room of a hospital in Bataan before it fell to the Japanese invaders in 1942. After completing her postgraduate studies at Baylor, Maria moved to Chicago to work at the Cook County General Hospital where she met her fiance. She then went to Hunter College for Women in New York to get her nursing degree while working at Sloane-Kettering Memorial Hospital in New York.

Maria married her fiancé in San Francisco where they set up a family in 1951. She later was among the Filipino nurses who formed the Philippine Nurses Association of Northern California in 1961.

The third wave of Filipino nurse immigration to the US came after 1965 when U.S. Immigration laws were liberalized to allow Filipino nurses and other professionals to immigrate to the United States. It also allowed Filipino nurses to come to the United States on tourist visas without prearranged employment and to then adjust their status in the country.

During this period, the number of nursing schools in the Philippines soared from 17 in 1940 to 170 in 1990 to more than 429 at the present time. Many of these nursing schools were diploma mills exploiting the desire of many Filipinos to enter the nursing profession.

Unfortunately, as a result of the inferior education offered by these subpar nursing schools, only 15-20 percent of the Filipino nurses who immigrated to the United States after 1965 could pass the state nursing board exams. This led to the establishment in 1977 of the Commission on Graduates of Foreign Nursing Schools (CGFNS) to help prevent the exploitation of graduates of foreign nursing schools who immigrate to the United States to work as nurses but who can’t pass the nursing board exams here.

The CGFNS developed a pre-immigration certification program that consisted of a credentials review; a test of nursing knowledge (CGFNS qualifying examination), and an English-language proficiency examination (TOEFL).

Since 1977, CGFNS has administered more than 350,000 tests to approximately 185,000 applicants in 43 test sites worldwide. From 1978 to 2000, the data showed that 73 percent of CGFNS test takers came from the Philippines, followed by the United Kingdom (4 percent), India(3 percent), Nigeria (3 percent), and Ireland (3 percent).

'Grow Your Own Nurses'

Menchu Sanchez is a 3rd wave nurse immigrant who has worked as an RN for more than 25 years, the last three years at the New York University Langone Medical Center. Menchu was in charge of 20 at-risk infants in the Intensive Care Unit of her hospital when Superstorm Sandy battered New York last October and knocked out the electric power to the hospital. Menchu organized the nurses and doctors to carry the babies in warming pads down 8 flights of stairs to safety. Menchu was invited to sit beside First Lady Michelle Obama at the State of the Union address of Pres. Barack Obama on February 12, 2013.

In his speech, Pres. Obama cited Menchu as a role model: “We should follow the example of a New York City nurse named Menchu Sanchez. When Hurricane Sandy plunged her hospital into darkness, she wasn’t thinking about how her own home was faring. Her mind was on the 20 precious newborns in her care and the rescue plan she devised that kept them all safe.”

Many Filipino nurses who entered the United States on H-1work visas after passing the CGFNS tests benefited from the passage of the Nursing Relief Act of 1989 which provided for their adjustment to permanent resident status if they had H-1 non-immigrant status as registered nurses and had been employed in that capacity for at least 3 years.

But the “sunsetting” of this law in 1995 effectively decreased Filipino nurse immigration to the United States. The passage of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1998 (IIRIIRA) further discouraged nurse immigration.

The passage of nativist legislation was fueled by fears of foreign nurses taking American jobs as former Washington DC Mayor Marion Barry complained : “it’s so bad, that if you go to the hospital now, you find a number of immigrants who are nurses, particularly from the Philippines,” Barry told the Examiner. “And no offense, but let’s grow our own teachers, let’s grow our own nurses — and so that we don’t have to be scrounging around in our community clinics and other kinds of places — having to hire people from somewhere else.”

Grow your own nurses, that’s what the United States did. According to the National Council of State Boards of Nursing, U.S. nursing schools produced close to a million nurses from 2006 to 2011.

While the demand for Filipino nurses may have waned in the United States, the demand for Filipino nurses in the rest of the world did not diminish. Filipino nurses working for the National Health System (NHS) in England drew international attention last February when Britain’s 91-year-old Prince Philip, while on a tour of a new cardiac centre in Bedfordshire, England, turned to a Filipino nurse and said: “The Philippines must be half-empty – you’re all here running the NHS.”

Not quite, not by a long shot, your majesty.

According to Reuben Seguritan, general counsel of the Philippine Nurses Association of America (PNAA), the Philippines is the world’s largest supplier of foreign-trained nurses with 429 nursing schools and 80,000 nursing students.

To place this number in context, City College of San Francisco, with 89,000 students, does not have the resources to accept more than 75 students into its nursing program. The nursing students are chosen by lottery from a list of about 500 students who otherwise qualify for acceptance, a selective system practiced by community colleges all over California.

Is there a fourth wave of Filipino nurse immigration to the US?

Yes, but it hasn’t arrived yet. According to recent CNN report, “Demand for health care services is expected to climb as more baby boomers retire and health care reform makes medical care accessible to more people. As older nurses start retiring, economists predict a massive nursing shortage will reemerge in the United States.”

The CNN report adds: “We’ve been really worried about the future workforce because we’ve got almost 900,000 nurses over the age of 50 who will probably retire this decade, and we’ll have to replace them,” [economist and nurse Peter] Buerhaus said.”

The fourth wave may come as early as 2014 when the U.S. Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare, comes into effect and about 30-40 million Americans without any health insurance will finally be covered by health care insurance.

LPG Marketer’s Association party-list Rep. Arnel Ty believes that Obamacare will “stimulate” the U.S. hiring of foreign nurses. “This will hopefully spur U.S. demand for new foreign nurses and other health practitioners such as pharmacists, physical therapists, medical technologists, radiologists, and speech pathologists,” Ty said.

To another question posed by TV reporter Ann Notarangelo, I answered that I do not know the exact number of Filipino nurses in the United States. All I know is that number, whatever it is, was significantly reduced by 5 on the evening of May 4, 2013.
]]> 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://19.11446 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://19.11445 2013-05-17T08:10:00Z 2013-05-17T20:51:11Z

Nannies, housecleaners, caregivers—they are sometimes called the world’s most invisible workforce. In the US alone, it’s estimated that more than 2 million people do this type of work. Most are women and many are immigrants. And pressure is growing...

Monica Campbell ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 Nannies, housecleaners, caregivers—they are sometimes called the world’s most invisible workforce. In the US alone, it’s estimated that more than 2 million people do this type of work. Most are women and many are immigrants. And pressure is growing to address their working conditions. As part of our Global Nation coverage, The World’s Monica Campbell has our first piece in a series about domestic workers. It looks at a home aide from Fiji, her elderly employer, and a short documentary called “The Caretaker” highlighting these intimate partnerships.



A few years ago, Florence Tratar fell down. In her 80s, it was enough of a spill to change her life drastically and leave her bound to a wheelchair. And with no family nearby, she needed someone to move in and care for her immediately.

But nobody she hired clicked, until she found Joesy Gerrish, a caregiver from Fiji.

“I liked her right away,” says Tratar. So once Gerrish’s references checked out, she was hired and moved in to help Tratar full time. It’s easy to see why Tratar picked Gerrish. In her early 40s, she is energetic, has a quick laugh, and says she treats her employers like family.

Now, Gerrish gets up early every morning, makes Tratar’s meals, drives her to appointments.

“I do everything!” Gerrish says.

“Everything!” Tratar agrees. “I mean, whatever I have to do, Joesy does.”

I met Tratar and Gerrish in Sebastopol, California, north of San Francisco. The two women had ventured out to see a short documentary about Gerrish. The film, by San Francisco-based director Theo Rigby, shows how immigrant caregivers increasingly fill a demand in the United States to attend to the disabled and elderly.

The documentary shows Gerrish cooking and shopping for a previous employer, an ailing Japanese woman. She feeds her, turns her over so she won’t get bed sores. It’s non-stop work.

After the film, Tratar realized how little she knew about Gerrish’s life: How she misses Fiji—and how she’s in the US without legal authorization.

“This is a shock to me because I just didn’t know,” Tratar says.

She’s against hiring people without papers, she says. But she also can’t say why she never asked Gerrish for documentation. Maybe because she didn’t want to know, she says, because Gerrish was a good fit.

Meanwhile, Gerrish says she doesn’t worry about stepping out of the shadows so publicly. She tells Tratar how she’s hoping immigration reform might grant her legal status.

“It’s getting there,” Gerrish tells Tratar. “It’s a long journey but we’ll get there.”

Gerrish also tells Tratar how, in her off time, she is working to improve labor conditions for other caregivers, nannies and housekeepers. In California, it’s estimated that some 200,000 people do this type of work, many without papers.

She talks about women from Mexico she knows, along with other immigrants from elsewhere, who live in the US illegally and worry about getting deported on their way to work. Also, Gerrish says, she hears about women worried about getting paid, since they are off the books. If there is a dispute with an employer, wages can be held back and undocumented workers can be aware that they still have the right to claim wages.

“Oh, there’s a lot of that, getting paid under the table. A lot!” Tratar exclaims.

“Yes,” Gerrish says, “but that’s the only kind of work that we can do. We would like to do other stuff. But we’re stuck with that.”

Gerrish says she has felt mistreated by other employers.

“Oh, you’re like a slave,” she says. “Do this. Do that. Do that. I say, ‘Wait a minute, I only have two hands.’ But they want you right there, right there, right there. Otherwise, I’ll kick you out. But you have to do it. Otherwise what else can you do? You need to survive.”

Gerrish is working with labor advocate Maureen Purtill, who organizes immigrant women at the Graton Day Labor Center nearby, in Sonoma. Purtill remembers Gerrish’s reaction when she told her that, among other demands like overtime and vacation, they’d push for workers to get uninterrupted sleep.

“She burst into laughter, in this uncomfortable laughter, like, ‘Oh, I would love that. That would be amazing. I’ve never had the right to sleep five hours in a row, or eight hours in a row,” says Purtill. “Caregiving requires sometimes, you know, care every two hours if you’re caring for elderly people.”

It’s the case with Gerrish, who wakes up with Florence Tratar at 4:00 or 5:00 a.m. every day.

“Oh my goodness gracious, you need domestic help,” says Tratar. “I don’t know what I would do without Joesy. I couldn’t survive.”

Tratar hopes that Gerrish will legalize her status in the US soon. She understands now that deportation is a constant worry for her caretaker.

“Everyday you live in fear, just looking behind your shoulder every day,” Gerrish says.

The question now is whether new legislation would let both women rest a little easier.]]> 47149832 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://19.11417 2013-05-14T08:15:00Z 2013-05-14T20:53:58Z

Stewart Kwoh ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 On March 5, 2013, in a historic election, Chin Ho Liao was elected to serve on the San Gabriel City Council, but the city council refused to let him take his seat. This was unheard of and something no city had ever done before. The council took this unprecedented action because of a single complaint filed by a city resident with close ties to one of the losing incumbents, who contested Liao’s eligibility to run.

But this is more than a story of local politics gone awry. There are lessons here that increasingly diversifying communities across the country should heed as we embark together on the important task of fortifying the rights of every American to take part in our proud democracy.

On May 7, after two intense months of legal battles and community outrage, Liao was finally permitted to take his oath of office and join the council as its newest member. What happened during these two months tells a story of Liao’s courage, one that began a quarter-century ago. It also highlights how demographic shifts like one that has been taking place in San Gabriel can set off dynamics that present challenges – and opportunities – for communities with rapidly changing populations.

The city of San Gabriel, one of California’s oldest settlements, is nestled in the San Gabriel Valley, in the eastern part of Los Angeles County. San Gabriel has a population of less than 40,000, and is celebrating its centennial year. In recent decades, the city and the region as a whole have undergone massive demographic changes resulting in a diverse population of Asian Americans and other immigrants. In San Gabriel itself, over 60 percent of the population is Asian American, over three quarters of whom are immigrants.

Among those who now call the San Gabriel Valley their home is Chin Ho Liao, an immigrant from Taiwan who came to the U.S. to seek out higher education and who then settled in San Gabriel. Since his retirement, he has engaged in one of the most longstanding of American traditions – volunteerism. For the past 24 years, he’s served the community of San Gabriel through his involvement with nonprofit and civic organizations. Then he sought office so he could serve the community as a public servant.

Prior to the March 5 election, San Gabriel’s five-member city council had no Asian American members, and only two Asian Americans had previously served on the council. The five candidates in the city council race included three incumbents and two Asian American challengers, including Liao. In a result that surprised many, Liao and the other Asian American candidate were the top two vote-getters and won seats on the council. Only one of the three incumbents won re-election.

Three weeks after the election, when it came time to install the winners of the election, the city council told Liao that he could not take his seat. At that point the council still included the two incumbents who lost. Despite the conflict of interest, and despite the appearance of undermining a historic moment for Asian Americans, the council ignored the plain and clear requirements of state law to seat Liao.

The council justified its action by pointing to the complaint contesting Liao’s eligibility to serve. However, the proper procedure was to let Liao assume his seat first and then to consider the complaint.

Compounding its error, the council announced that it would conduct its own review of the complaint, rather than refer the matter to a neutral third party such as a court or an administrative hearing officer. The council that was to conduct the review included three of Liao’s political opponents: two incumbents who were not up for re-election in March but who supported the re-elected incumbent and the two losing incumbents, plus the re-elected incumbent who similarly supported the two losing incumbents. These circumstances cast doubt on the integrity of the council’s decision to conduct its own hearing.

The Asian Pacific American Legal Center (APALC) took on Liao’s case because we are a civil rights organization and we believed this to be a civil rights case. It was clear that Liao’s fundamental right to hold office, a right recognized by the courts, had been violated. It was equally clear that the fundamental right to vote of the San Gabriel electorate had been infringed.

This is because the two rights are inextricably linked – the confidence that voters have in democracy depends on their belief that elections fairly won will not be unjustly taken away from the candidate they supported. And nowhere is this more critical than with newcomers to the American electoral process, including Asian Americans whose burgeoning but fragile political participation was threatened by the council’s ill-founded actions.

In the end, the council defied expectations and ruled in favor of Liao – an issue that was never in doubt in the hearts and minds of the San Gabriel community. Certainly the efforts of our legal team played a part in this outcome, but even more important was the inspiring courage demonstrated by Liao in fighting for his right to represent the people of San Gabriel. Also inspiring was the activism of San Gabriel community members, who formed a multi-racial coalition to voice concerns about the threat posed by the council’s actions to San Gabriel’s democracy.

As San Gabriel looks ahead to its next 100 years, those who serve the community would do well to embrace the future and welcome the participation of all Americans, including the newcomers who have come to pursue their aspirations. In our rapidly diversifying society we must all be prepared, like the residents of San Gabriel were, to demand that all Americans are afforded their right to take part in the political process.
 

Stewart Kwoh is the founding President and Executive Director of Asian Pacific American Legal Center (APALC). Kwoh is a nationally recognized leader and expert in race relations, Asian American studies, nonprofit organizations and philanthropies, civil rights, and legal services. He was named a MacArthur Foundation Fellow in 1998, becoming the first Asian American attorney and human rights activist to receive this highly prestigious recognition, often referred to as the “genius grant.”
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Anthony Advincula ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 When three of Khorshadul Kabil’s children came home from school with high fevers, dread set in for the 42-year-old immigrant from Bangladesh and his wife.  Three of their four kids have severe asthma. In a few hours, the children— ages 3 to 14— were heavily wheezing and coughing. Their father rushed them to a nearby hospital.

Kabil knows all too well that those symptoms can quickly escalate to a dire situation. The couple’s 14-year-old daughter has had convulsions. The 3- and 7-year-old boys have shortness of breath and chest pains at least twice a month.

“Our situation [is] not good,” said Kabil, who lives in Florida. “My job [doesn’t pay enough for me to buy] health insurance,” he said in broken English.

He works part-time at a small grocery store a few blocks from their rented house in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. His wife is a stay-at-home mom. There are times, he said, when they can’t afford to pay for their kids’ medicines.

The state has a nearly free, low-income health insurance program for children called KidCare, but the Kabils don’t qualify to take advantage of it. That’s because that program, like Medicaid, has a five-year residency requirement. The family emigrated from Bangladesh to the area just two years ago.

Kabil and his wife could enroll their children in KidCare, but they would have to pay much higher fees for each child -- almost $200 per child as compared to $20 per month for all his children.

Five-year ban slapped on new immigrants

When the Welfare Reform Act  passed in 1996,  the five-year ban was slapped on immigrants.  

But in 2009, when Congress passed the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act (CHIPRA), states were given the option of extending eligibility  to even newly minted immigrant children. CHIPRA even offered to pick up 70 percent of the costs if Florida did away with the waiting period.

Momentum had been building in the state to do away with the five-year ban. Two state bills, introduced last year and sponsored by Republican Sen. Rene Garcia (SB 704) and Republican Rep. Jose Felix Diaz (HR 4023), would have eliminated the five-year waiting period for lawfully residing children.

Both bills failed to pass last week. Given the fact that Florida is in the midst of preparing for the onset of health care reform, including Medicaid expansion for low-income people, "there was only so much energy and time, and the Medicaid expansion -- rightfully so -- took a lot of that energy," lamented Linda Merrell, the convener for Florida Child Healthcare Coalition. The Medicaid expansion program became a higher priority for lawmakers, she said.

The five-year waiting period impacts somewhere between 20,000 and 40,000 immigrant children across the state, according to a Florida Center for Fiscal and Economic Policy (FCFEC) report. According to Merrell, Florida has the second highest number of uninsured children in the nation.

Karen Woodall, executive director of FCFEP, said that unless the bill is reintroduced and is passed next year, these children would remain uninsured.

“The Affordable Care Act…does not remove the five-year wait,” she said. “These kids will continue to use a more expensive emergency-room treatment, and the government will pay more for these services.”

Misinformation

There was also misinformation and confusion about the costs of eliminating the five-year waiting period and expanding Medicaid to include those children.

A fiscal analysis by Florida Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) reported that expanding healthcare to lawfully residing immigrant children would dramatically increase the healthcare costs for the state. Even though AHCA  retracted its analysis later on, advocates said, the damage twas done.

The Florida Center for Fiscal and Economic Policy contends that the maximum cost to the state to extend coverage to these children would be $17.6 million per year, an amount that could already be covered by unspent state funds already earmarked for children’s health coverage as well as funds freed up as a result of increased federal-match rates.

Florida currently receives about $39 million from the federal government, but that amount would increase to slightly more than $63 million if the state eliminated the five-year waiting period for legal immigrant children.

A strong anti-immigrant sentiment in the state also played a role in defeating the measures, advocates say.

“There’s still a very strong anti-immigrant sentiment among legislators,” Woodall explained. “It does not matter whether these children are lawful-residing immigrants.”

Sponsors of SB 704/HB 4023 pledge to reintroduce the bills again at the first state legislative session in 2014 or even earlier at a special session.

Life-changing Accident

Palm trees and white beaches were part of the American Dream for Kabil and his family when they first came to Fort Lauderdale.

“We love it here. The weather [is] like Bangladesh; it’s comfortable,” he said.

But, just a year after they arrived, things took a bad turn. Kabil had a hit-and-run accident that left him nearly crippled. The driver has not been found.

“I was walking to my work and the car came [from behind me]. I did not see it,” he recounted. “I was on the ground, but the driver did not stop.”

Although he can still walk, the accident has affected his mobility. He gets tired easily, he says, particularly if he works for a long time in a day.

“I need a doctor. My kids need a doctor,” Kabil said. “Every day we have health problems, but we have no access to health care.”


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Jude Joffe-Block ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 Traducción al español
Pictured above: Santiago Dominugez, bottom right, poses with his children, grandchildren and a portrait of his daughter, Rosa, who is in Arizona. (Photo: Jude Joffe-Block)



TEPEAPULCO, Mexico -- It’s a typical Sunday in the town of Tepeapulco, in Mexico’s central highlands. Families gather, cook and catch up.

And that’s the scene at Santiago Domínguez’s home. At 82-years-old, he’s the family patriarch. He’s wearing pressed slacks, his dark hair smoothed back. By lunchtime, he’s surrounded by relatives.

But one person’s always missing: Rosa, Domínguez’s daughter. In the living room, there’s a picture of her as a young woman.

“I thought she’d only be gone three or four years—and then come back,” Domínguez said in Spanish.

But it’s been 18 years since Rosa left for Arizona with her two young sons. They went illegally to join the boys’ father there. She’s now 43 and has never returned to Mexico. Without papers, it’s just too risky.

“It got to the point that I told her, ‘You know, I’m not sure if we’ll see each other again,’” Domínguez said.

But now they might.

A proposed Senate bill would allow millions of immigrants who entered the US illegally to apply for provisional status and the chance to work legally and travel internationally.

“There’s hope like never before,” Domínguez said.

And it’s a feeling felt throughout Mexico.

A few towns over, Catalina Cervera knocks on a neighbor’s gate to visit the house next door—the one her younger sister, Sandra, abandoned.

Cervera’s sister left Mexico with her young children about 10 years ago. They crossed into Arizona illegally, picked produce, and now live near Phoenix.

“They’ve taken the door, the windows,” Cervera said in Spanish as she stood in front of her sister’s house.

Since her sister’s been gone, thieves have stripped her house clean, even the roof. It’s a cinder block skeleton.

Cervera said she and her sister feel impotencia, powerlessness—they want to see each other, but can’t.

Her sister couldn’t visit when their mother was dying. And a few years ago, Cervera couldn’t get a tourist visa to see her sister in Arizona.

Cervera said she lacked what’s needed for a US visa: things like a bank account, a business, or a credit card. But now she can envision her sister—and her sister’s kids—visiting Mexico again.

“They are motivated with the dream that this immigration reform is going to happen,” Cervera said of her relatives in Arizona.

But as Congress debates the legislation, the wait continues.

Back in Tepeapulco, Domínguez’s tradition is to sing to his daughter a famous ballad over the phone. It’s called “Sin Ti” or Without You.

“What else matters if being far from you makes me cry,” he sang.

Over a 1,000 miles away, in Arizona, his daughter Rosa has become an activist for immigration reform. She asks to only use her first name because of her unauthorized status.

“I want this to happen now, because our parents’ lives won’t wait,” Rosa said in Spanish.

And if reform does happen and she can travel to Mexico freely one day?

She said she’ll surprise her dad with a mariachi band. And they’ll play that ballad he’s sung to her for the last 18 years.

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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