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Cornelia (from Town to Town at SFSU

por el equipo de El Reportero

Carlos BarónCarlos Barón

Adapted and directed by Professor Carlos Barón, and its music composed and directed by student Damián Núñez The play follows the adventures of the remnants of a theatre troupe, represented by the characters of Lear, Cordelia and The Fool, as they travel from town to town in search of performance gigs.

The original script, by Argentinian playwright Alberto Adellach, is an adaptation of Shakespeare’s “King Lear” with its own third-world roots and a universal scope. Professor Carlos Barón has translated the play to English and added a new scene and lyrics, making the play further resonate in today’s American society.

Graduate student Damián Núñez has composed eclectic music to be played by a pianist, cellist, bassoonist and percussionist. Adellach’s version won the 1982 Casa de las Américas Literary Award, given by the one of the top cultural institutions in Cuba.

On April 9 – 11, 8 p.m. April 12, 2 p.m. At the Little Theatre, Creative Arts Building, San Francisco State University, 1600 Holloway at 19th Ave., San Francisco, $10.

On April 16 – 18, 8 p.m. April 19, 2 p.m., at SOMArts Cultural Center, 934 Brannan St., San Francisco, CA 94103, $15 general/$10 students and seniors. For more Information call 415/338-2467; http://creativearts.sfsu.edu/cordelia.

Edgardo & Candela regresa a Yoshi’s

Un punto clave en la escena de salsa del Área de la Bahía, por más de 2 décadas, el cantante de conga Edgardo Cambón y su banda de salsa “Candela” regresa a Yoshi para una noche de explosión rítmica y mucha diversión, bailando las tonadas originales de Edgardo y los arreglos de Candela de reconocidos éxitos de salsa, combinados con un poco de Jazz Latino para el público más ávido.

El sábado 18 de abril, 2009. En Yoshi’s SF, 1330 Calle Fillmore, San Francisco, CA 94115. Para más información, llame al 415-655-5600, o visite: http://www.yoshis.com.

Dos presentaciones: 8:00 p.m. y 10:00 p.m., cover $16. ¡Pista de baile abierta!

Programas de inmersión idiomática de SFUSD en película

Los cineastas Marcia Jarmel y Ken Schneider crearon una película que retrata las experiencias de los estudiantes en los programas de inmersión idiomática en SFUSD, que se presentará este año en el Festival de Cine Internacional de San Francisco.

La cinta, Speaking in Tongues – 4 kids, 4 languages, 1 city, 1 world, sigue de cerca a cuatro estudiantes durante un año academic para ilustrar los complejos contrastes de la educación bilingüe. Sus padres hablan de sus razones para inscribir a sus hijos y por qué siguen siendo fuertes partidarios de la inmersión idiomática, a pesar de las críticas de familias, amigos y activistas a favor de sólo inglés. Vea la sinopsis: www.speakingintonguesfilm.info.

26 de abril / 3:15 p.m., 2 de mayo a las 3:30 p.m. y 7 de mayo a las 2:30 p.m. En Cine Sundance Kabuki / 1881 Calle Post. Las entradas están a la venta en ­http://fest09.sffs.org.

Grand tribute to the 90th birthday of ranchera singer Chavela Vargas

by Antonio Mejías-Rentas

Chavela VargasChavela Vargas

NONAG ERIAN: A web page and a tribute concert wi11 mark the 90th birthday of ranchera singer Chavela Vargas next month.

At the Mexi­co City concert — where famous admirers such as Joaquín Sabina, Miguel Bosé and Julieta Venegas are expected to perform—a web page detailing Vargas’ lengthy and fruitful career will be unveiled. Though in frail health, Vargas herself is also likely to perform.

Organizers have also invited two of the singer’s most prestigious friends: Nobel Laureate Gabriel García Márquez and Oscar-winning director Pedro Almodóvar.

Vargas was born Isabel Vargas Lizano in Costa Rica on April 17,1919. At 14 she fled her country and moved to Mexico, where she started singing in the streets before becoming a professional. Her coarse, deep voice was ideal for the Mexican rancheras, which she originally performed dressed as a man, and one of Mexico’s top composers, Jóse Alfredo Jiménez, became a friend and a mentor. She also befriended the country’s top artists and intellectuals, including Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, Agustín Lara and Juan Rulfo.

She recorded more than 80 albums before retiring in the 1970s. In a 2002 autobiography she described a 15-year battle with alcoholism and revealed she was a lesbian.

Urged by Almodóvar, who used her songs in some of his films, Vargas returned to the stage in 1991 and in 2003 debuted at Carnegie Hall, a performance released a year later in CD.

The tribute is slated for April 21 at the Teatro de la Ciudad de México.

DOUBLECELEBRATION: A gala to mark the 125th anniversary of New York’s Metropolitan Opera on March 15 also celebrated tenor Plácido Domingo’s 40-year history with the company.

Mario Vargas LlosaMario Vargas Llosa

Domingo was among several stars who recreated famed performances with original sets and costumes at the country’s top opera house. The Spanish tenor perfomed several arias, including one performed by Enrico Caruso in the 1910world premiere of Puccini’s La Fanciulla del West.

Domingo made his Met debut in 1968 and has opened the company’s season 21 times, surpassing by four Caruso’s record.

ONE LINERS: Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa is among finalists for the Man Booker International literary prize, a cash award of $85,000 to be announced in May. ­Salma Hayek will play Adam Sandler’s wife in an untitled comedy about a 30-year high-school reunion, with a cast that also includes Chris Rock and David Spade. Film maker Anthony Felton has announced that his film Héctor Lavoe, The Singer is about to go into post-production for an expected September release. Hispanic Link.

Parental rights amendment being introduced by Congressman Pete Hoekstra

Compiled by the El Reporter’s staff

Pete HoekstraPete Hoekstra

U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Holland, conducted a news conference March 31, announcing he will be introducing a bill with 70 congressional co-sponsors that would amend the Constitution to explicitly state that parents, not government or any other organization, have a fundamental right to raise their children as they see fit.

“In the President’s first address to a joint session of Congress, he stated that there is ‘no program or policy that can substitute for a mother or father,’” Hoekstra said. “I agree wholeheartedly.” The most effective means of protecting the parent-child relationship is by securing an amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The draft amendment places the text preserving parents’ rights into the text of the Constitution, ensuring that the child-parent relationship remains protected for generations to come.

“The right of parents to raise their children as they see fit is under direct attack by government and the courts,” Hoekstra said.

“The Parents’ Rights Amendment is about pre serving that right for parents as opposed to empowering policymakers either in Washington or any other organization.” Conducting Talk Show interviews on this topic are Congressman Pete Hoekstra and Michael Farris of ParentalRights.org.

West County School District workers rally to protect health and safety of kids

Endangered workers at the West County Unified School District here held a rally April 1, to protect the health and safety of school, and to preserve the jobs of frontline employees entrusted to care for them.

The rally precedes a school board meeting where the District plans to slash scores of jobs of frontline classified employees. The workers are asking the Board to postpone that decision to look for alternatives to layoffs, and they want to be part of the solution.

“Before the district makes these draconian cuts on the backs of employees who are entrusted to care for the health and safety of these school children, we ask the District sit down at a table with us and other stakeholders to fi nd a safe solution,” said Richard Leung of Public Employees Union Local 1.

“The employees who do ­the actual work have ideas on how the district’s operations can be streamlined to reduce redundancy, improve effi ciency and savings. This can help to make the pain of layoffs, if necessary, fair, equitable and minimal,” added Leung.

Assembly Republicans to introduce emergency measure to give gas stations relief from costly new mandate

SACRAMENTO- Assembly Republicans on Wednesday will introduce emergency legislation that will give gas stations relief from a costly new mandate that takes effect April 1st and could force many gas stations to shut down or face significant fines if they haven’t installed new fuel nozzles to capture more fuel vapor, a written statement announced.

The measure, authored by Assemblyman Martin Garrick (R-Carlsbad), said the release, will be introduced in the Legislature’s special session so that it can be acted upon immediately and would put in place a one-year enforcement holiday for the new mandate.

This will give gas stations greater time to comply with the rule, to prevent fi nes, closures, worker lay offs and higher gas prices. As of last week, just 35.9 percent of impacted gas stations across California had installed the new fuel nozzles, the document said.

Latino lawyer vs immigration foes: did Obama cave in?

by Raúl Reyes

I thought I had heard it all from Lou Dobbs, CNN’s most trusted name in anti-immigrant hysteria. Still, I was surprised when he went off on President Obama recently for delivering a speech to the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. Dobbs accused the USHCC of being “an organization interested in the export of American capital and production to Mexico and Mexico’s export of drugs and illegal aliens to the United States.”Actually, the mission of the USHCC is “to foster Hispanic economic development and create sustainable prosperity for the benefit of American society.” The chamber protested Dobbs’ remarks and he later apologized for “misspeaking.”

End of story.Almost.

Personally, I can’t help wondering what the outcome would have been if Dobbs had made incendiary remarks about an African-American or Jewish group. Hispanic advocacy organizations are like the late Rodney Dangerfield – they get no respect. Just ask Thomas Saenz, legal advisor to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Saenz was slated to head up the civil rights division at the Department of Justice. It was reported everywhere from blogs to The New York Times that he was offered and had accepted the position. Then the offer was rescinded. The nomination went instead to another Latino, Maryland Secretary of Labor Thomas Pérez.What was the problem? Immigration — although the civil rights division deals primarily with voting rights, discrimination and police misconduct.

The Obama White House was apparently scared off by opposition to Saenz’s past work with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. An op-ed in the Investor’s Business Daily called Saenz “a man who has devoted his life to promoting illegal immigrant rights.” I think Saenz has done an outstanding job protecting the constitutional rights of Latinos. He led the 1994 fight against California’s Proposition 187, which would have denied education and health services to undocumented workers. The real story here is that restrictionists have succeeded in distorting the mission of groups like MALDEF and the National Council of La Raza.

I am not a member of these organizations, nor have I agreed with all of their policies. However, I respect their efforts on behalf of Hispanics, and believe that their civil rights work benefits all U.S. residents.

I find it troubling that because they support comprehensive immigration reform, they are labeled “pro-illegal alien,” or worse, denounced as extremist.Ironically, some of the harshest critics of Latino advocacy groups are themselves far removed from the mainstream. Poll after poll has shown that a majority of voting-age adults favor some form of path to citizenship for the estimated 12 million undocumented U.S. residents. Anti-immigration hardliners did not fare well in the 2008 elections. It’s easy to associate lobbying groups with protecting the interests and influence of the wealthy and powerful.

­Yet MALDEF and the NCLR were borne out of political underrepresentation, discrimination, and the fight for civil rights. They have also been training grounds for top Hispanic lawyers. I have faith in Obama’s commitment to comprehensive reform. Maybe he simply didn’t want a distracting confirmation hearing while dealing with the grim economic situation. But it’s disappointing to think that he caved to a vocal minority with intolerant views of Latinos. Hispanic Link.

(Raúl Reyes is an attorney in New York City. Email him at rarplace@aol.com). ©2009

There’s still time to complete those unfinished educations

por José de la Isla

HOUSTON – The U.S. Census Bureau released new numbers about Hispanic higher education this month. Reports like this are like one’s annual check-up. In the end, some small lifestyle changes and a good diet will make the future a whole lot brighter.

Out of about 12.7 million college students in 2007, 11.5 percent of those attending full-time were Latino, a leap from 10.3 percent the year before. That means about 1.5 million in 2007, compared to 1.2 million in 2006.

Of the 5.3 million students who attend part-time, Hispanics comprised 713,000, or 13.5 percent.

As a rough baseline, Hispanics make up 15 percent of the national population.

Out of about 900,000 full-time students, Hispanic women run ahead of Hispanic men, with 55 percent of Hispanic undergraduates and 60 percent of graduate students.

In an age when the presumption about high Hispanic secondary school dropout rates is virtually cliché, this snapshot is startling.

It is part of a possible trend that deserves much more attention.

Back in 2002, Richard Fry of the Pew Hispanic Center authored a report that flew in the face of what many people surmised. He found large numbers of Latinos enrolled in postsecondary education. “In fact,” he said, “by some measures a greater share of Latinos are attending exposure. One would think relatively few incentives are needed to boost Latino education attainment numbers. Yet too often our advocates become boosters for dysfunctional systems when a simple shot in the arm can help these huge numbers complete their courses of study.

That relates to something Barack Obama must have had in mind when he said on Feb. 24, “I ask every American to commit to at least one year or more of higher education or career training. This can be a community college or a four-year school, vocational training or an apprenticeship.

But whatever the training may be, every American will need to get more than a high school diploma.”

That means completed, not incomplete, education levels.

Still, the same old interests are out there pushing for failing systems instead of focusing on individuals who started, but just didn’t finish, the marathon.

Much attention needs to go into this segment of the population which has already proven it can compete.

These students didn’t finish because financial need, youthful lack of discernment, or other life distractions that threw them off course. National and local Hispanic advocacy groups and officials need to figure out how to innovate re-entry through new public investments to encourage success, not subsidize failure.

Among the incentives to reintroduce young adults (yes, many of whom are already working or starting families) to education ladders should be approaches using the Internet, ipod, e-mail and web conferencing.

The education portion of the historic $787 billion stimulus jolt should bring back those who didn’t finish.

They are the proverbial low-hanging fruit.

Public dollars have already been spent as down payments on their education.

It’s time to encourage them and the system to finish the job.

The failing portions of an education establishment that shoves students out and blames the learner — well, they shouldn’t get any of the money. Tell the administration to put that in their transparency website. That’s a healthful diet everybody can live with. Hispanic Link.

(Reporter Edwin Mora assisted in researching and preparing this column. De la Isla is author of The Rise of Hispanic Political Power (Archer Books, 2003). He writes a weekly commentary for Hispanic Link News Service. E-mail ­joseisla3@yahoo.com). ©2009

They are forming a new country, the North American Union, behind the back of the people

by Marvin J. Ramirez

Marvin J. RamirezMarvin J. Ramirez

When El Reportero started reporting late last year that there were plans to replace the United States dollar for a new currency called, amero, people reacted with disbelief, and probably considered me loco de la cabeza, while most mainstream media fanatics called it “conspiracy theory.”

However, this “conspiracy theory” was true, and it is now – finally – being mentioned in many mainstream news organizations that you know, those that are actually the government’s mouth pieces: FoxNews, CNN, etc. All this is being done behind closed doors from the people in the United States.

See ­http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hiPrsc9g98, where CNBC discusses it as imminent, while it criticizes the same media for giving so little coverage to it.

The amero comes as another deal, also hidden from American reappears in the shadow. And this is the super highway connecting the United States with Mexico and Canada.

The Bush administration open-border policy and its decision to ignore this country’s immigration law, is part of a broader agenda.

President Bush signed a formal agreement that will end the United States as we know it, and he took the steps without approval from neither the U.S. Congress or the people of the United States, as it was reported by CNN.

It is called, the North American Union, a deal that will create one currency and one government, comprised of Mexico, the United States, and Canada.

In 2005, Representative Marcy Kaptur of Ohio gave a presentation about NAFTA Super Highway to the U.S. House of Representatives.

At that time, some people seemed unsure if it was going to happen, but it definitely seems so now, according to several media reports.

Everyone knows that America has been losing its independence as goods that used to be made here are displaced by foreign imports,” said Kaptur. She mentioned the trillion dollar a year trade deficit the United States is facing.

This is something that will hurt our economy even more as large suppliers will be shipping their payloads to Mexico to then be transported on the highway to America. The highway will also be owned privately by Sentra (a subsidiary of a Spanish transportation company owned by a multi billionaire), which could then lease the highway to foreign interests where tolls could be used for independent money collection, according to the news report.

Holding a map of continental America, Kaptur went on to show and explained that what the Bush administration was planning then, was what it would be the continuation or the step after NAFTA.

The plan, she said, was to lack NAFTA even tighter in this country and across the continent. It is called the Agreement on Security and Prosperity what was being negotiated then by the Bush administration very quietly.

Most Americans have not even heard of the term but it really is the successor to NAFTA. “No hearings have been held in this Congress on the subject.”

Kaptur explained with detail about the more than $9 billion that will be invested in Mexico on a super highway, while losing more that 30,000 jobs in the U.S. and employing more than 150,000 workers in Mexico.

“It will employ about 15 percent of all unemployed people in Mexico, so many of them having been uprooted from their farms because NAFTA provided no transition provisions to allow people to have a life and to survive in rural areas in Mexico, and over 2 million families have been uprooted from Mexico’s farm communities, and are doing what?, they are moving north, to eat,” said Kaptur at a Congressional hearing, and broadcast by C-SPAM.

“And this is happening at the heart of the illegal immigration problem, and is NAFTA disruption of the Mexican country side.”

Even worse, as she reported, is that the same Spanish company, Sentra, that has a 99-year concession highway in Ohio, is involved in the concession for the super highway Mexico-United States.

In the NAFTA website, it shows that the super highway is to connect Mexico, the U.S., and Canada. And while Mexico is building the super highway infrastructure with materials from China, and not from the U.S., the people at Mexico’s Lázaro Cárdenas port, are employed by workers making almost nothing. The whole unloading containers now happening in U.S. ports like Oakland and Oregon could be ignored and transported via the super highway.

You can bring massive containers from Asia through Mexico through this corridor, which is leased to a foreign nation, said Kaptur.

With force, she said, “The people of the United States better wake up! We better ask ourselves, why America have to work so hard for less, why is more expensive to send the chil­dren to college and graduate with huge debts? Why isn’t your pension plan secured? Why are we having to pay so much for health care? Why is not your retirement benefi t forever? Because these kind of interests don’t want you to have it, because they are so fi lthy rich off the investment they are making globally, that they don’t care about you, they don’t care about this country, they don’t care about democracy.”

In sum, the change of the currency and the formation of one North American union as one country, it will have a great negative impact on every person, but a great benefi cial one for the banking elite and billionaire international corporations. Americans! Wake up, wake up, or you will not have a country for you and your anymore, soon.

More intense bladder cancer treatment does not improve survival

by the University of Michigan

ANN ARBOR, (Michigan). – Despite enduring more invasive tests and medical procedures, patients who were treated aggressively for early stage bladder cancer had no better survival than patients who were treated less aggressively. Further, the aggressively treated patients were more likely to undergo major surgery to have their bladder removed, according to a new study from researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Because bladder cancer is often treated as a chronic disease requiring lifelong surveillance, it is among the most expensive cancers to treat in the United States.

Urologists vary widely in how they approach early stage, or non-muscle-invasive, bladder cancer.

In this study, researchers gathered data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results Medicare database. They looked at 940 doctors who provided care to 20,713 early stage bladder cancer patients. Each doctor included in the study had treated at least 10 patients for bladder cancer. Results of the study appear in the April 15 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

The study found that average per-patient treatment expenditures ranged from $2,830 for doctors in the low-intensity treatment category to $7,131 for doctors in the high-intensity category. At the same time survival rates across all intensity categories were similar.

“What this indicates is that some doctors are providing potentially unnecessary care, or care without measurable benefit to the patient. It makes sense to many doctors and patients that more would be better, but unfortunately there can be unintended consequences of unneeded care,” says study author Brent Hollenbeck, M.D., M.S., assistant professor of urology at the U-M Medical School.

The study found that patients treated more aggressively had more imaging procedures and more invasive surgical procedures.

The aggressively treated patients were also nearly twice as likely to require major medical interventions, and were 2.5 times more likely to undergo radical cystectomy, a procedure to remove the bladder.

The study authors suggest that certain patients might still benefit from greater intensity of care, but further research is needed to determine which patients would benefit.

­Hollenbeck also urges randomized clinical trials to look at the value of some of the more expensive and common health services to determine their optimal use for patients with early stage bladder cancer.

“Urologists should not assume that more aggressive management of early stage bladder cancer will translate into better outcomes for their patients. By reducing unnecessary health care, we can reduce wasteful spending, which will lessen the cost burden of bladder cancer, one of the most expensive cancers to treat from diagnosis to death,” Hollenbeck says.

Bladder cancer statistics: 68,810 Americans will be diagnosed with bladder cancer this year and 14,100 will die from the disease, according to the American Cancer Society.

Local leaders rally to support Efren Paredes Jr.

­by Juliana Birnbaum Fox

Efren Paredes at age 15 in court, and now at age 35.Efren Paredes at age 15 in court, and below, now at age 35.

The Bay Area has become an active center of support for Michigan inmate Efren Paredes, Jr., convicted in 1989 and sentenced to life at the age of 15 for a murder he still maintains he did not commit. There was no physical evidence linking Efren to the crime, nor any eyewitnesses, and his family maintains that he was home with them when the murder occurred.

Over the past decades, Paredes, now 35, has become a symbol for prison system reform in cases involving juveniles. His parole appeal is currently being considered by a state commission.

“Paredes’ sentence as a juvenile to life in prison without parole (JLWOP) violates human rights legal standards,” reads a letter from the Berkeley City Council to Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm. The letter mentions the questionable circumstances that led to Paredes’ conviction, and his leadership and positive contribution to society despite his 20 years of incarceration. “For this country to be the lone holdout on the issue of JLWOP weakens our moral and legal standing in the international community,” the letter continues, urging a ban on the practice. The city council adopted a resolution condemning Paredes’ sentence as a human rights violation in February of this year.

Despite being an honor student and having no prior convictions, the judge in Paredes’ case exercised his option to sentence him as an adult because of his apparent lack of remorse for the crime, which involved an armed robbery and murder at a store where Paredes worked. All of the other defendants in the case pleaded guilty in exchange for plea bargains, and have since been released from prison.

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Local activist Elizabeth “Betita” Martínez, director of the Institute for Multi-Racial Justice, wrote in her support letter for Paredes, points out the larger systemic issue of injustice imposed upon the Latino community in the court system.

“Mr. Paredes’ trial attorney had advised him to show no emotion during his trial, which had a very negative effect on the sentencing phase,” Martinez writes. “Until recently the attorney always denied giving this advice. However, he has now admitted it, a fact that is included in Mr. Paredes’ current appeal.”

sentenced more juveniles to life in prison without parole than any other state except Pennsylvania, according to a 2007 UCSF study. CurrentlyLocal Paredes supporters are also calling attention to the fact that California has ­277 such individuals are serving these sentences in the state. The United States and Israel are the only nations that imprison juveniles for life.

Elizabeth “Betita” MartínezElizabeth “Betita” Martínez

“For many children, [life without parole] is an effective death sentence carried out by the state slowly over a long period of time,” said Michelle Leighton, chief author of the study. Life terms also fall disproportionately on youths of color, with blacks 20 times more likely to receive such a sentence in California.

The UCSF report asserts that trying children and teenagers in adult courts does not take into account several important factors: the bigger potential for rehabilitation and reintegration into society; their ineptness at navigating the criminal justice system, and their lessened culpability as compared with adult offenders.

“It’s a local issue to us,” said Wendy Kenin of the Berkeley Peace and Justice Commission. “This gives us an opportunity to weigh in­to take a stand on the issue of juvenile sentences of life without parole.”

The board will be making a recommendation to the Governor’s Office about Paredes’s release in the coming weeks. The Governor will render the final decision. Generally these decisions are made within a few months, but there is no official timetable.

Correa forges further ahead in Ecuador

by the El Reportero’s news services

Rafael CorreaRafael Correa

In the final opinion polls, published on April 6, for the general elections on April 26, President Rafael Correa appears to be stretching his lead.

The polls show Correa with about 57 percent support, easily enough to win the presidency in the first round. The big question, which the polls do not really answer, is what will happen in the simultaneous congressional elections.

Correa’s personal vote will boost his Alianza País (AP), but whether this will be enough to give the AP a majority in the 124-seat congress is far from clear.

Fidel Castro open to Cuba-US dialogue

Development: On 5 April Cuba’s former president, Fidel Castro (1959-2008), said that Cuba was not afraid of dialogue with the U.S., and slammed as “fools” those external analysts that suggested the Communist-led regime needed confrontation to exist.

Signifi cance: Castro’s comments capped some interesting developments over the weekend that indicated the growing outreach on both sides of the Florida Straits.

A visiting delegation of seven U.S. congressionals (all Democrats) met the head of the Cuban parliament, Ricardo Alarcón, and the foreign minister, Bruno Rodríguez, and declared that the US and Cuba should restore diplomatic relations first and then begin talks.

A senior oil advisor at the Ministry of Basic Industries, Manuel Marrero Faz, said Cuba would welcome US investment in its fledgling offshore oil sector.

Finally, White House officials hinted that President Barack Obama would shortly fulfill his 2008 campaign pledge to allow unlimited family travel and remittances to Cuba.

Castro praised the US senator, Richard Lugar (Indiana), the senior Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who on March 30 wrote to President Obama asking him to sanction Cuba’s re-admission to the 32-member Organization of American States and appoint a special envoy to establish direct talks on issues like drugs and migration with the government of President Raúl Castro. Lugar, Castro said, has his “feet on the ground”.

Castro pointed out that Cuba and the US have been co-operating on anti-drug traffi cking efforts for several years. Senior officials meet once a month.

Vázquez Mota quits cabinet in Mexico

Development: On 4 April Josefina Vázquez Mota resigned as education minister to run for congress on July 5.

Signifi­cance: Vázquez Mota is a heavy hitter. She is now a possible presidential candidate for the ruling Partido Acción Nacional (PAN) in 2012. It seems that she will take over the leadership of the PAN in the lower chamber after the elections.

Vázquez Mota was brought in to shake-up Felipe Calderón Hinojosa’s election campaign at the beginning of 2006 when he was lagging badly in the polls. She had previously been running the Fox government’s welfare programmes, which were delivered by a web of NGOs, so she knew which strings to pull to get the votes out for Calderón. Vázquez Mota made a major contribution to Calderón’s narrow win in the 2006 presidential election. Vázquez Mota won a seat in congress in 2006, but joined the government as education minister.

(Latin News contributed to this report.)

Hispanic join in planning of health reform

by Soraya Schwartz

Following a March 5 White House meeting of some 150 major stakeholders in President Obama’s promised national health reform package, a series of regional summits has been launched, starting in Dearborn, Mich. Through April, additional forums are set for California, Iowa, North Carolina and Vermont.

President Obama detailed the process and led the discussion at the White House session, where some half dozen Hispanic health reform advocates participated.

The president said he expects to see Congress complete health legislation before the end of 2009.

Governors Jennifer Granholm of Michigan and Jim Doyle of Wisconsin were invited to moderate the March 12 Dearborn session, which brought together a diverse group to present their concerns and ideas. The day started with a video message from the president and summary reports on the White House interaction the week prior and community meetings that took place in December.

Melody Barnes, director of the White House domestic policy council, represented the Obama administration.

Also joining in the first regional meeting were doctors, patients, insurers, policy experts and health care providers, as well as representatives from both major political parties.

Among those contributing ideas atthe daylong White House event were National Alliance for Hispanic Health president Jane Delgado, National Hispanic Medical Association founding leader Elena Ríos, National Council of La Raza president Janet Murguía, League of United Latin American Citizens executive director Brent Wilkes and U.S. Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.).

President Obama set the agenda: “We can no longer talk about whether we will have health care reform, but how we will have effective reform and how are we going to do it.”

Those attending, among them numerous Democratic and Republican members of Congress as well as advocates representing both business and labor constituencies, were divided into work groups to discuss essential elements a bill should contain.

Ríos and Delgado shared their assessments with Weekly Report.

Delgado commented on a major shift on how the nation will look at health care in the future. “The President is already clear. He’s saying this is all a down payment. We’ll get as much down as we can, but we’re moving in the right direction. And we’ve never had this much momentum.”

‘93 REFORM WAS ILL-FATED Ríos emphasized, “Everybody wanted to work together and had great ideas. I am optimistic.” She added the reminder: “The demographics of our country are changing. We need a bill that is responsive to all Americans.”

Becerra had contributed to his session that it is essential to ensure protections for the nation’s undocumented immigrants in any plans.

Ríos noted a key difference between 2009 and 1993, when the Clinton administration launched its ill-fated health care reform effort.

While today the nation has a much larger and still growing non-white population, in 1993 Hispanics and other persons of color were marginalized.

Now they are seen as part of the fabric of America and the backbone of the economy.

NHMA is ready to work with the White House and congressional leaders “to make the new legislation more responsive to our community’s needs,” Ríos said.

Affordable inner city, rural and border health care will be vital to provide accessibility for Hispanics and other people of color, she cited, stressing the need for more ­interpreters, language services, cultural outreach programs and health information technology.

The White House issued an invitation to the general public to join the discussion by communicating their interests to: www.HealthReform.gov. Hispanic Link.

(Micah Muscolino contributed to reporting and writing this article.)

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Welcome to our Marvin J. Ramirez website! We are an innovative newspaper located in the heart of San Francisco. With a relentless passion for telling powerful stories, we inform our community with truthful news, insightful analysis, and compelling reporting.

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