­by Marvin Ramírez

­MUSIC IS MOURNING: Friends of Guillermo Guillén who saw him arrive to San Francisco sevaral decades ago, today they say good-bye. From left to right: Marvin Ramírez, editor de El Reportero; los congueros Emilio Pérez, Humberto López; singers Manuel Ernesto Guadamuz, Edgar ‘Gato’ Aguilar; percussionist and bassist Jaime Vanegas, (raw below) percussionist Donaldo Mantilla, bassist Danilo Murillo, persucionist Bayardo Rocha, and singerTomás Gutiérrez.

The current economic crisis affecting the U.S. and the rest of the world was not an impediment for approximately 40 Bay Area women from building hope for themselves by creating the business of their dream. They all graduated on May 4 amid a grand fiesta at the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts. Some had their own exhibition booth on display for business.

Armed with a business card, a business plan, and the energy and skills they learned, they were ready to conquest the world of commerce.

It took them months to achieve their effort. From setting up a restaurant to many other type of business plans, the women worked hard and with dedication, determined not to let their family daily obligations to interfere in their goal.

Every year, the non-profit organization, ALAS or Women’s Initiative graduates dozens of new students, and helps build the entrepreneurial capacity of women to overcome economic and social barriers and achieve self-sufficiency.

Through out the years, the Mission District-based organization has help hundreds of women create jobs for themselves, access the mainstream economy, and increase their economic self-sufficiency when they are given business planning and financing support, according to their program description.

Many of them never had the opportunity to attend school or improve their working skills over their lifetime, either because they were busy raising a family or simply because they were unaware of their potentials and did not know from where to start.

However, as many women lose their life partners or the bread-maker in the home, they fi nd themselves unable to survive on their own, or because of lack of work skills fi nd it hard to fi nd jobs.

But ALAS (Alternativas para Latinas en Autosuficiencia) program, which boasts culturally competent services and extensive net­works that propel Latina entrepreneurs into business success, has become the perfect solution for these women.

The program targets low-income women of traditionally underserved groups including minorities, immigrants, and welfare recipients. Over half of the Women’s Initiative community participates in our classes offered in Spanish through ALAS.

by Edward Helmore

Carlos Slim

Carlos Slim, the Mexican banking and telecoms tycoon sometimes ranked as the world’s richest man, has said his £12m-£14m stake in the Independent was a mistaken investment — “a bad one”.

The comments come in a wide-ranging profile in the New Yorker, designed to investigate the 69-year-old’s plans for the New York Times Company, the troubled media group he provided with a $250m (£157m) credit lifeline this year.

Slim’s comments over his 2008 investment in Sir Anthony O’Reilly’s Independent News & Media – long thought to be orchestrated by O’Reilly’s arch rival Denis O’Brien – come soon after the troubled media group agreed a “standstill deal” with creditors that will end on 26 June.

But Slim showed no similar regret over his stake in the New York Times.

“We think it’s the best newspaper,” he said. “The best brand … We believe in media content. We think the paper will disappear, but not the content. The content will be more important.”

Slim indicated that he does not view his non-voting stake as a precursor to making a bid for outright ownership.

“Our business is to be the carriers,” Slim said, referring to his business as one of Latin and South America’s largest cellphone and broadband providers. “If I wanted to buy a newspaper, I would have done that fifty years ago…”

But there are fears the Times could file for bankruptcy within a year and, unless a new business model can found soon, that the entire industry may be on the brink of rapid contraction. Slim indicated that he was confident that major news brands will survive.

While many within the Times expressed concern that the controlling Sulzberger family preferred to make a deal with reputed monopolist Slim over a similar offer from former US record mogul David Geffen, Slim offered the New Yorker a glimpse into his thinking.

Investing in a downturn – a trick he has repeatedly used to build his empire – will give him an advantage over rivals who are hunkering down or do not have the liquidity to exploit the situation, the magazine said. In this context, Slim’s investment in the Times is a bet on the long-term value of journalism. “I think content and information are important for our new civilization”, he said. (The ­Guardian.co.uk).

by Cindy Von Quednow

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador — Of the 40,000 Salvadorans living outside this nation of seven million who were eligible to vote in its presidential election March 15, only 221 did so, according to El Salvador’s Supreme Tribunal Electorate.

Of those, 122 cast ballots for former CNN newsman Mauricio Funes, the candidate for the leftist Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), while 99 went to the ruling Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) candidate, Rodrigo Avila.

Funes won, 51 percent-49 percent.

The preference of those living abroad reflected the rest of the electorate in the first FMLN victory in history, which ended the 20year rule of its right-wing government Unlike Mexico and Peru, the Salvadoran government requires nationals who live outside the country to obtain an identification card and vote in person.

While ARENA’s Avila had opposed allowing those Salvadorans living abroad to vote as too difficult and costly, FMLN Vice President-elect Salvador Sanchez Cerén argued they should not be denied that right. He promised to “work hard…with initiative” to allow them to participate in choosing the country’s elected officials in the future.

There are now an estimated 2.5-to-3 million Salvadorans living in the United States, most from refugee families who fled its civil war during the’80s and ‘9Os.

Gisela Edith Bustamante, who flew “home” to cast her ballot this month, agrees: “In a moment such as this, we have an opportunity to change the country’s history.” The San Salvador native has lived for eight years in Washington, D.C.

By Census count, 200,000 Salvadorans reside in the capital and surrounding suburbs, making it the second largest U S. conclave of Salvadoran immigrants after Los Angeles, which has 350,000.

Like other Salvadorans living in the exterior, Bustamante was assigned to vote in San Salvador’s Mágico Gonzalez Stadium.

To cast his vote, Benito Garcia, dressed in the red, white and blue colors of the ARENA party, had traveled from Bethesda, Md., where he has lived for 25 years. “If we could vote from there, we wouldn’t lose time off from work,” he said.

This was also the feeling in Ana Gladys Rubio’s family. She flew in from Los Angeles.

Her husband stayed home. “Someone had to work,” said Rubio, who lived in Arlington, Va. for 18 years before moving West.

A survey conducted at the Central American Research and Policy Institute at California State University – Northridge showed that 87% of the Salvadorans living in the Los Angeles area would have liked to have voted from their U.S. city of residence Some 300 people participated in a March 8 symbolic election in Los Angeles’ MacArthur Park, a haven for Central American immigrants.

CARPI director Douglas Carranza noted that the results of El Salvador’s election clearly mimicked those of the survey, which showed that while there was a will to vote, most people could not do so because of immigration status, cost or time constraints.

TSE president Walter Araujo, who visited the stadium on election-day morning, emphasized the importance of being able to vote outside the country, stating, “Salvadorans want to participate in their democracy, even when they are far away. The state should revise the Constitution, and that can be done by the national assembly.”

(Cindy Von Quednow traveled to San Salvador to cover the election for Hispanic Link and El Nuevo Sol elnuevosol.net Email her at: ­vonquizu@gmail.com).

­by the El Reportero’s news services

Barack Hussein Obama

U.S. President Barack Obama achieved one aim at the Summit of the Americas held on April 17-19 in Port of Spain, Trinidad: to prevent the hijacking of the event by his Venezuelan counterpart, Hugo Chávez.

With smiles, handshakes and his message that he had come to listen and learn, he managed to win the media battle and convey the impression that he was inaugurating a new kind of relationship with the media. Though critics have maintained that he delivered little more than gesture, in a couple of areas — Cuba and Colombia — there was some substance as well.

Questions mount about Ecuador elections

On May 7 Fernando Cordero, the president of the rump of Congress, said that there had been fraud in the recent elections. Cordero is loyal to President Rafael Correa, who officially won the April 26, elections. Cordero’s claim endorses the grumbles from former president Lucío Gutiérrez (2003-2005) who claims that the elections were riddled with fraud.

The elections were monitored, by both the Organization of American States (OAS) and the European Union. Both organizations pointed out shortcomings in the elections and the OAS observers’ report stopped well short of saying that the elections were fair. The OAS secretary general, José Miguel Insulza, however, hailed Correa as the winner before the observers produced their report.

Bank of the South ready to operate

BUENOS AIRES – With an initial capital of seven billion dollars, the Bank of the South is ready to start up operations in this capital, amid the severe global economic crisis, local media reported.

The final details on the constitution of the new financial body were put in place at a closed-door meeting of Economy and Finance ministers from all seven member countries.

The announcement was made amid the global financial crisis to counter growing pressure from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which is trying to become a major moneylender in the region, the newspaper Pagina 12 reported.

The publication said that Argentina, Brazil and Venezuela would contribute two billion dollars each, while Uruguay and Ecuador would provide 400 million each, and Paraguay and Bolivia would put in the remaining 200 million dollars.

The agreement to set up the Bank of the South must be ratifi ed by the presidents and parliaments of all seven countries involved.

The Bank of the South, an initiative by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, will finance development programs in key economic sectors, and will seek to reduce asymmetries, promote he equitable distribution of investments in the region and fi ght poverty and social exclusion.

Cuban eye surgeons help Nicaraguans

MANAGUA – Cuban ophthalmologists of the Operation Miracle mission in Nicaragua have completed over 50,000 eye surgeries, coordinator Doctor Mercedes Argote said. She told Prensa Latina that between the Sandino City’s Clinic and those in the cities of Bluefi elds and Puerto Cabezas, 50,113 ey­e surgeries were performed.

by John Rosales

Mexicans are wearing masks again. Blue ones.

Although these contemporary, surgical masks are meant to guard against the swine flu outbreak, masks have been a part of Mexican culture since 3000 B.C. Before the Spanish Conquest of 1521, they were used by prieststo channel the powerof their gods.

Over the centuries, mask-wearing in Mexico became ceremonial. From cultural rituals (Day of the Dead, Carnaval) and Christian dances (Our Lady of Guadalupe, San Sebastian, Moors and Christians, Pastorela) to historical dances (Battle of Cinco de Mayo, The Conquest) and those that are harvest-related (First Fruits, rain-petitioning).

The ingenuity and beauty of some Mexican masks combine human and animal features. Birds, alligators and various beasts can be identified within a humanized face mask. Snakes and lizards sometimes emerge from a human nose as an abstract expression of the unity between humans and animals. Some masks depict full animal figures (like a tiger) attached to a human face making it impossible to discern the animal from the human.

Masks of war, such as those of jaguars and tigers, signifycourage and bravery. Once positioned over a real face, they imbue the wearer with noble qualities. They also hide and protect the wearer from enemies, such as a nasty pig virus. The almost universal acceptance of cultural themes and beliefs linked to masks reveal much about overall Mexican character.

Enter the sky-blue surgical mask. If television and Internet images are a clue, Mexicans everywhere are wearing this latest face mask, which I think contains old themes like ‘’healing” and “survival.”

After all, doctors say the new mask protects people only if someone sneezes right at them. It appears the mask is more :psychological than anything, given that the pore size of most masks are too large to keep viruses from going through. No matter. Arising from flu tragedy in Mexico might be a new artistic treatment of a modern mask.

In traditional Mexican mask-making, the color blue signifies water and purity. Red stands for bloodshed and evil, while green alludes to crops and black to death. In Mexico today, I’ve not seen pictured a single red or black surgical mask.

The surgical mask may not protect against death or catching swine flu as much as a vaccine (in development as we go to print), or washing hands, using alcohol-based hand cleaners, or foregoing handshakes and kisses. But it helps.

We know the new swine flu virus can be transmitted between humans, but we don’t know how easily.

Almost certainly it is transmitted by sneezing and coughing and by skin-to-skin contact (like shaking hands, kissing) with an infected person.

While scientists remain puzzled as to why the infection currently appears to be worse in Mexico than in the United States, the new blue mask seems to lend a mystical if not pragmatic power to the wearer—that of survival.

The masks of Mexico have always been a record of its people, cultures and religions. From pre-Conquest and Spanish colonization to Catholicism, wars and modern times, masks have been used to teach history and values.

The calavera (skull) masks used during Day of the Dead ceremonies taught that death is a natural part of the life cycle and should not be feared. Viejos (Old Men) often ­reflect a humorous rather than depressing good (angel) and evil (devil), male and female, life (human) and death (skeleton).

Human-animal duality masks refl ect on the mystic unity between people and animals.

In the modern world of Mexican sports, lucha libre masks add terror and fearlessness to the arsenal of a Mexican wrestler. It appears that the paper-thin surgical mask does the same for wearers in their battle against airborne swine germs.

As a Mexican American who lived in Mexico for a short period, I fi nd it refreshing in an artificial sense to see that Mexican masks still retain the power to protect against evil, to transform the wearer into something to be reckoned with, and to teach lessons about bravery, survival and, well, hygiene.

The beauty and mystery inherent in Mexican masks of old is unquestionable. Museums, art galleries and collectors crave Mexican masks as folk art collectibles.

It remains to be seen the long-term cultural effect of the blue surgical mask in Mexico.

For now, I’m satisfi ed to just let it protect its wearers from harm’s way. Hispanic Link.