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The great banking fraud is a shame

by Marvin Ramírez

Marvin J. RamirezMarvin J. Ram­íre­z­­

­For those families who are losing their home every day because of the fraud committed against them, my most sincere condolence for them.

Most of you, borrowers, were lied to by the banksters. The same ones who print the money control the interest rate, control the inflation and deflation, and set all the money rules: the Federal Reserve Bank. We are trapped by them. All of us.

What we are paid for our services and wages is not real money. Money is based by gold and silver, according to the U.S. Constitution. What we earn now is a piece of paper with an imaginary value, which if you don’t use it quickly, it will vanish.

And if the creators decide to devaluate it next week, then you might lose part of its value immediately to inflation. And who keeps the value that you lose? It doesn’t evaporate into the air, for sure.

You see, all the ‘money’ in circulation is lent to the government every year, based on the budget proposal that every government entity submits to the U.S. Congress, their State Assembly, or their City Council or Supervisors, for the following fiscal year. It’s been so since the Great Depression.

What you hear that we owe now days as a nation, is the so called National Debt, which according to documents, Congress and the Federal Reserve made a contract, which states that only the interest would be payable, not the principal. So, when we work, we get paid with phony money that we can’t save for our next generation, while the banksters (the elite), get pay with the nation’s gold, real money, which they use to buy islands, prime real estate, and so on. That’s why they are so powerful. They own most of the land in the world.

Meanwhile, you and me, those who ‘buy’ a house, have to use credit, because there is no money in circulation since 1933. The United States Congress removed the gold standard – the real money – and left our government borrowing since then, and the elite want us to keep us borrowing until it destroy us.

So if you ever wondered why we all – rich and poor – have to borrow money for almost everything, is because of that. That is why banks don’t work with cash. They use Promissory Notes, a document with borrowers’ signature, while we the people are forced to use Federal Reserved Notes (or green dollars).

And unless you are a banker, you cannot understand how the banking system works, as most people rely on their local real estate agent, who, with his or her selling skills, make the sale as quick as possible.

­The papers are signed, the seller says sign here, the buyer looks for the spot to be signed, and the deal is closed. Congratulations for your new house.

But is it your house for real? Of course not. It belongs to the government, which use it as collateral for the money it borrows.

This is the work of an elite who rules us all, and who have made us their slaves.

Community prevents foreclosed house from being auctioned

by Marvin Ramírez

With the help of members of ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), Armando Ramos and Fernanda Cardenas's: foreclosed home, which has already been foreclosed, was successfully spared from being sold in an auction on the steps of of the Alameda County Courthouse in Oakland. In the photo below, a young man representing the auctioning OCWEN company leaves afterWith the help of members of ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), Armando Ramos and Fernanda Cardenas’s foreclosed home, which has already been foreclosed, was successfully spared from being sold in an auction on the steps of of the Alameda County Courthouse in Oakland. In the photo below, a young man representing the auctioning OCWEN compa­ny leaves after failing to auction the house. (photo by Marvin J. Ramirez)

As foreclosures continue to inflict their devastating effects on families – especially hard-hit Hispanic and African-American households who live under a stage of fear waiting for the day when the sheriff comes and put a lock on their house – many are fighting back with a little help from ACORN, with a new strategy.

It’s not the first time that the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), that uses laud protests when an auction is about to take place.

The law says that a public auction must take place on the stairs of the courthouse, at the main entrance, and it must be publically announced days in advance.

So, when the auctioneer approached the top step outside of the courthouse, members of the ACORN, the owners and their friends, simply will not let the auction to take place by protesting with high noise.

The noisy protest is aimed at stopping the auction of a home, and in this case, it was the house of Armando Ramos and Fernanda Cárdenas located on 63rd Avenue in Oakland, which they have owned for five years. About 30 protesters were able to prevent the Cárdenas home from being auctioned on March 12.

However, Cárdenas said they still fear that they could be evicted from their home some other time soon.

Cárdenas said when they first bought their house their interest rate was 6.5 percent but it was an adjustable rate that could go as high as 14 percent, so they got a second mortgage with a 9.9 percent rate.

However, he said their monthly payments jumped from $2,600 to $3,700 and they can’t afford to pay that amount. Their joint income is of about $5,000 per month.

Cárdenas said they have tried to negotiate with their lender but their lender hasn’t been responsive.

(KTVU.com contributed to this report)

­

Chávez slams Colombia’s Defense Minister

by the El Reportero’s news services

President Hugo Chávez said on March 8 in his weekly Aló Presidente broadcast that Colombia’s hardline defense minister, Juan Miguel Santos, was “a threat to the region” and warned that he would respond “with tanks” to any Colombian military encroachment on Venezuelan soil.

Chávez’s comments, which play well at home, do not represent any real threat to bilateral relations with Colombia.

Indeed the president made a point of calling on his counterpart Alvaro Uribe to preserve relations between the two, which are dominated above all by trade.

However, the comments do come at an interesting moment: the first meeting of the new South American Defense Council, a Brazil -Venezuela initiative to formally boost regional defense co-operation for the first time in the history of the Southern Cone, takes place today and tomorrow in Santiago, Chile.

Farc and drugs scandal rattles Ecuador as elections loom

An investigation into a cocaine shipment seized in 2007 has revealed hitherto unreported contacts between a senior official from the government of President Rafael Correa and the ex number-two leader of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias

de Colombia (FARC) almost up to the eve of the Colombian raid on his camp inside Ecuador in which he was killed. Its ramifications, which have already affected a regional human rights NGO, could prove damaging to Correa in the run-up to the 26 April general elections.

Where’s the crisis heading?

The insouciance about the world ­economic crisis in Latin America’s bigger economies has proved shortlived.

In Brazil and Mexico companies are slashing costs and downgrading forecasts.

Among the middle sized economies, only Peru seems to believe that it will escape the crisis unscathed. Venezuela and Colombia have expressed worries about the crisis but barely touched the policy tiller. Chile, typically, has taken action. It has decided to raid its sovereign wealth fund to pay for a welter of new infrastructure projects.

Ecuador has gone back and opted for blunt protectionism.

Another state may require residence ID for drivers

by Grazia Salvemini

Maryland, one of only four remaining states that do not require proof of legal U.S, residency to obtain a driver’s license, may soon do so.

More than 60 members of that state’s House of Representatives sponsored House Bill 195, the “Proof of Lawful Presence Act 2009.” Hearings began Feb. 25.

The bill is cross-filed as Senate Bill 369. Hearings will begin March 18.

Gov. Martin O’Malley, a Democrat, has stated he will support the legislation.

O’Malley explained that thousands of undocumented persons, including many from North Carolina, travel to Maryland to obtain licenses, often entering fraudulent documents through the system.

Immigrant advocates claim that denying licenses to undocumented workers for whom such transportation is deemed essential is likely to cause thousands to drive without a license or insurance. Licensing also ensures that all drivers have passed state motor vehicle exams demonstrating that they know the rules of the road, beneficial to the safety of everyone, the advocates say.

Other states that do not check the immigration status of applicants are Hawaii, New Mexico and Washington.

Arizona rancher guilty again of abusing migrants

by Jonathan Higuera

TUCSON, Ariz.—A federal jury in Tucson ~as found that border vigilante Roger Barnett guilty of assault and intentionally inflicting motional distress on four people who were part of a group of migrants who had crossed into Arizona from Mexico without authorization. Barnett was ordered to pay a total of $77,600 to four of the six plaintiffs who testified in the two-week trial which ended Feb. 17.

The verdict stemmed from a March 7, 2004, incident on public land near Barnett’s ranch in southern Arizona. A group of 16 migrants were resting in a wash when Barnett found them and held them at gunpoint for about half an hour. During the incident, plaintiffs testified that Barnett kicked one of the women who was lying on the ground twice and ordered, “Levantarse, perros.”

While no criminal charges were ever filed in the case, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund fled a civil action against Barnett, his wife Barbara and his brother Donald, who were also present at some point during the incident. The judge dropped the charges against the latter two.

The jury dismissed three other charges against Barnett: violating the plaintiffs’ civil rights, false imprisonment and battery.

“We’re satisfied with the verdict,” Katie O’Connor, a staff member with Border Action Network, a human rights organization in southern Arizona, who sat through the trial, told Weekly Report.

“Jurors obviously connected with the plaintiffs, who had guns pointed at them and were in fear for their life. But they still couldn’t go the extra distance in recognizing that everyone in this country is entitled to certain rights, whether here legally or illegally.”

Border Action Network helped MALDEF locate the plaintiffs, which took months of work.

The verdict is the second successful civil case against Barnett. In 2006, a federal jury ordered him to pay nearly $100,000 to a Mexican-American family he detained while they were hunting on public land. The verdict was upheld last September by the ­Arizona Supreme Court.

In that 2004 incident, MALDEF reported Barnett pointed an assault rifle at the plaintiffs, including three girls ages 9 to 11. Witnesses testified that he held the family and a friend, all legal U.S. residents, at gunpoint, cursed them with racial slurs and threatened to kill them.

In an interview with Hispanic Link in 2000, Barnett claimed to have captured hundreds of undocumented migrants who, he described as “crossing the border like cockroaches in the night.”

Following the latest verdict, O’Connor said, “We hope the two large checks he has to write will persuade him not to engage in this activity in the future.” Hispanic Link.

Gus García wasn’t just another tall Texas tale

by Andy Porras

Even by Texas standards, larger-than-life characters the likes of lawyer Gus Garcia exceeded all such expectations.

I first learned of his heroic courtroom brilliance through my father José’s vivid recollections.

My father was my first and best history teacher. He would detail García’s various exploits to me, ending each with this approximate phrase to affirm his respect and awe: “Few men live a life of greatness and leave positive imprints on the lives of others, on society, and, in some unique instances, the world.”

Many of my father’s lessons revolved around Mexican-American experiences that are still slighted in state textbooks. In his day, discrimination against Latinos was a given, overt and rampant throughout the state. Latinos were barred by custom from many schoolrooms and courtroom juries, and by vicious signs posted in Texas eateries, stores, public swimming pools, beaches and restrooms. In one case, a funeral home in Three Rivers refused to bury a Latino soldier, Félix Longoria, killed in World War II “because the whites would not like it.”

García resurfaced in my life last month through a patchwork of old news accounts, historic photographs and film clips in the television documentary “A Class Apart,” about a landmark but little remembered civil rights case that was dusted off on PBS’s American Experience.

He was the lead attorney in the case.

“We were not considered intelligent,” explained the narrator.

García’s life story shredded that lie over and over again. After graduating from high school in San Antonio, he attended the University of Texas on an academic scholarship, earning a B.A. degree in 1936 and an LL.B. in 1938, passing the state bar the following year.

“Gus was a member of the university debate team,” my father told me one day. “The Texans met Harvard in competition and Gus outdebated another great American, John F. Kennedy!”

Drafted during World War II, García became a first lieutenant in the Army. He went to Japan assigned to the Judge Advocate’s office.

When the United Nations was founded in 1945 in San Francisco he was part of a U.S. legal team.

Then he returned to San Antonio, where he set up his legal practice, diving into several civil rights projects.

After the more celebrated 1946 Méndez v. Westminster Independent School District case ended segregation of Mexican-descent children in California, García filed a similar suit, Delgado v. Bastrop ISD, in Texas, along with Robert Eckhardt and A.L. Wirin of the American Civil Liberties Union. The Garcia team won.

In the case explored in “A Class Apart,” Hernández v. State of Texas, García and fellow attorney Carlos Cadena challenged the conviction of a Mexican-American defendant by an all-white jury that intentionally ­excluded Hispanics, not an uncommon practice at the time. They argued that the defendant was denied a fair trial.

It was the nation’s first Latino civil rights case to be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court.

So invisible were Latinos then that the Justices asked Garcia if the people he represented “spoke English at all” and if they were U.S. citizens.

“Garcia wrote a crucial chapter in our Latino history,” my father told me then. “Here he was confronting the 12 most powerful judges in the land at a time when our country didn’t even respect the remains of dead American soldiers because of their skin color!”

So impressed were Chief Justice Earl Warren and his fellow judges that they allowed García an extra 16 minutes to voice his argument. Never before had the Court granted such permission.

“Not even the great Thurgood Marshall, when he went before the Court to argue the historic Brown v. Board of Education case had been granted extra time,” my father told me.

Sadly, as the PBS documentary concludes, the bottled demons García had battled for much of his life led to his untimely death at age 49, alone and broke on a park bench near San Antonio’s famed “Mercado.” Hispanic Link.

(Texas native Andy Porras is publisher of Califas, a bilingual monthly journal in Northern California. Email him at andyporras@yahoo.com). ©2009

Boxing

Sunday, March 15 — at Quezon City, Philippines

  • WBO super flyweight title: Fernando Montiel vs. Nonito Donaire.
  • IBF light flyweight title: Ulises Solis vs. Brian Viloria.

Saturday, March 21 — at Stuttgart, Germany (ESPN)

  • WBC heavyweight title: Vitali Klitschko vs. Juan Carlos Gomez.

Saturday, March 21 — at Pensacola, FL

  • Roy Jones Jr. vs. Omar Sheika.

Friday, March 27 — at Los Angeles, CA (ESPN2)

  • Samuel Peter vs. Eddie Chambers.

Saturday, March 28 — at Cancun, Mexico

  • Interim WBO bantamweight title: Fernando Montiel vs. Eric Morel.
  • WBC super featherweight title: Humberto Soto vs. Antonio Davis.
  • Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. vs. Luciano Leonel Cuello.

Saturday, March 28 — at Miami, OK (Showtime)

  • Andre Dirrell vs. David Banks.
  • Ronald Hearns vs. Harry Yorgey.

Friday, April 3 — at Primm, NV (Showtime)

  • Yuriorkis Gamboa vs. TBA.
  • Breidis Prescott vs. TBA.

­Saturday, April 4 — at TBA, USA (Showtime)

  • WBC/WBO light welterweight title: Timothy Bradley vs. Kendall Holt.

Spicy Latin Mambo Grooves

by the El Reportero’s staff

Featuring conga player Rafael, Zack Ferris in Piano, David Pinto in the base Bass. At 504 Broadway in SF, 94133. Special Guest Steve Turner Jr. Sax, Ron Mesina Bongo, Miguel Drum Set.

On Thursdays of March 5, 12 and 19, from 6 – 10 p.m. No Cover ! www.myspace.com/rouxtrio or www.myspace.com/rouxtrio. Reservations Encouraged 415-982-6223.

Dispatches from the war room

The man who has served as polling mastermind to Bill Clinton, Al Gore, South African President Nelson Mandela, Britain’s Tony Blair, Israel’s Ehud Barak and many other world leaders, will share his insider’s perspective on their campaign war rooms.

Stanley B. Greenberg, will describe how Bill Clinton accepted bold deficit reduction to promote long-term growth, losing the middle class voters he taxed and elaborate on how Nelson Madela embraced an inclusive “better life for all” theme, rather than a black power theme, demanding that the country unite and move forward.

Greenberg will also recount how Ehud Barak as Israeli Prime Minister stepped on the third rail of Israeli politics by offering the division of Jerusalem, and offer his take on how Tony Blair’s political convictions and religious faith propelled him to support George W. Bush in the invasion of Iraq.

At the Commonwealth Club, 595 Market St., 2nd floor, San Francisco. March 16, 5:30 p.m. Wine reception; 6 p.m. Program, 7 p.m. Book signing. Free for members, $15 for Non-members. To buy tickets call 415/597-6700 or register at www.commonwealthclub.org.

Talking about eratives

In these turbulent economic times coupled with the continuing rise of unemployment, cooperatives are an attractive model for businesses and homeownership. Get to know more about cooperatives and how they allow workers to become owners of their own businesses and how renters can become owners of their own homes.

The Mission Asset Fund (www.missionassetfund.org) invites you to discussion in Spanish about cooperatives. Coop representatives will talk about their experiences in a cooperative as well as how one can create a cooperative or get involved in one.

Representatives from the following cooperatives­ and businesses will participate: Mission SF Federal Credit Union, Rainbow Grocery, San Francisco Community Land Trust, TechCollective, Design Action Collective, y TeamWorks.

The discussion will take place Saturday, March 14th at the Centro del Pueblo (474 Valencia, near the cor- ner of 16th Street), starting at 11:00 am.

Call 415-839-6637 or go to www.fondopopul.ar.org/  cooperativas to reserve a seat. If needed, we will be offering childcare.

Luna Negra 2009: A night of women’s live art

Women artists from the Bay Area, Latin America, the Caribbean and beyond come together for one night of multidisciplinary performance art; one night where artists of traditional and contemporary artistic expressions unite, driven by their passion to share their unique voices and gifts with the world.

Women who are multidimensional, of diverse backgrounds, offer their creative perspectives on what it looks like to be an artist today – not solely the traditional “moon goddess” image with altars and candles, but gritty, non-conforming artists who bring their vision to the stage.

On March 25, 2009, from 7-9 p.m. General Admission: $8, students and seniors: $6. At the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts Theater 2868 Mission Street, San Francisco. For more info call 415-821-1155.

Three Oscar-nominated Latinos want Academy Award

by Antonio Mejías-Rentas

Mike ElizaldeMike Elizalde

HOPEFUL TRIO: Three Latinos with Oscar nominations this year are speaking about the possibility of taking an Academy Award.

“I will be nervous’ very nervous,” Mike Elizalde told La Opinion about his candidacy in the makeup category for Hellboy II. In an interview in his Los Angeles studio, the 48-year-old artist from Mazatlan, Mexico, recounts that as a child in Los Angeles’ he becoming fascinated with monsters and special-effect movies.

After a stint in the Marines he worked installing air conditioners, learning makeup techniques on his own and building a portfolio.

Meeting Mexican director Guillermo del Toro was decisive for Elizalde, who has worked on several of del Toro’s films’ including this year’s Oscar nominee. Elizalde is moving with his wife and children to New Zealand this week to work on del Toro’s The Hobbit.

Another nervous nominee is 34-year-old Spanish actress Penélope Cruz, who is most critics’ favorite in the supporting actress category for her performance in Woody Allen’s Vlcky Crlstina Barcelona Whatever happens, I will probably have a few beers, and I don’t drink,” she told The L.A. Times blog Golden Derby. The actress will attend the ceremony with her mother and two siblings. The third Latino nominee Academiais Chile-born cinematographer Claudio Miranda’ for his work in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. He also grew up in Los Angeles. He told the EFE news agency that having an architect father was an early influence.

“You never think of how those things influence you when you grow up’ but I know I have taken many ideas from my father, on how not to repeat myself and always do new things”, the 44-year-old said.

The Academy Awards will be handed out in Los Angeles Feb. 22.

­NOMINEE: A Panamanian rapper who refuses to drop an offensive name earned 13 nominations for the Billboard Latin Music Awards’ announced Feb. 17 in Miami. The nominee is Flex, who has stayed on top of charts several months with the hit single Te quiero. He uses that name only in the United States. Throughout Latin America he presents himself as Nigga.

The awards, to be handed out April 23 in Coral Gables, Florida’ are part of the yearly Billboard Latin Music Conference. The awards ceremony will be broadcast by Telemundo.

GONE: Joe Cuba, a singer and percussionist who launched the Latin boogaloo craze in the 60s died Feb. 15 in a New York hospital from complications from a bacterial infection. He was 78.

Born in Puerto Rico as Gilberto Miguel Calderón, he adopted the name of Joe Cuba in New York in the 1950s. He formed the Joe Cuba sextet in 1954 -an unusual lineup for Latin music then—and scored several hits that fused R&B and Latin styles. Hispanic Link.

Bay Area youth to Washington to eco-lobby effort for climate and energy policy

compiled by the El Reportero’s staff

Youth from the Bay Area, joined thousands other young activists from all over the country to attend what is considered the largest single effort in history to lobby Congress on climate and energy policy, the Energy Action Coalition. The summit was held from Feb. 27 to March 2 at Capitol Hill in Washington.

Formed in 2004 by youth organizers, the Energy Action Coalition is composed of hundreds of organizations and local groups around the country focusing on environmental and social justice causes.

The coalition was, until recently, headquartered out of San Francisco. It has now set up shop in Washington D.C. and has managed to move a lot more than its of- fi ce to the nation’s capital. Over ten thousand youth are expected to participate in Power Shift ’09.

The rally’s mission was to demand a clean, just energy future and a robust new energy economy. The youth held more than 350 lobby visits with representatives from all 50 states.

Health emergency drill to simulate door-to-door distribution of medicine

As part of the San Mateo County Health System’s “Silver Dragon III” emergency drill, Community Emergency Response Teams (CERT) and the San Mateo Coastside Medical Reserve Corps (SMC MRC) will go door-to-door delivering earthquake preparedness information from 9 a.m. until noon.

The exercise will test the ability of the Health System to work with local cities, law enforcement, fi re departments MRC and CERT teams to distribute large quantities of medicine and medical supplies from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Strategic National Stockpile (SNS).

CERT and SMC MRC volunteers throughout the county will practice their readiness to provide emergency assistance, specifically in the event of a major health emergency such as Pandemic Infl uenza, a food or water-borne illness, or an intentional release of a bio agent. In order to test door-to-door distribution as realistically as possible, CERT and MRC teams will be distributing earthquake preparedness brochures to simulate the medicine that could be delivered following a health-related emergency involving large segments of the population.

New S.F. branch library opens

City offi cials, including S.F. Mayor, Gavin Newsom, City Librarian Luis Herrera, ­Supervisors Sophie Maxwell and David Campos attended the grand opening of the Portola Branch Library’s new building.

The Portola Branch is the ninth branch to be completed under the Branch Library Improvement Program, which is funded by a $105.9 million bond measure passed by voters in November 2000.

The branch is one of four libraries that were housed in leased facilities and are now being replaced by city-owned buildings.

Project costs totaled about $6.2 million. A separate fundraising campaign by Friends of the San Francisco Public Library provided new furniture and equipment for the branch.

The light and airy new 6,300-square-foot branch features a beautiful public art display of four handmade glass and metal shutters, a view garden, an expanded children’s section, a designated teen space and a program room that will allow after-hours access for the community. The branch also includes an expanded collection of books, CDs, DVDS and other materials, new furniture and shelving, a prominent reading area, more computers, Wi-Fi access to the Internet and more functional work spaces for the Library staff.

Hispanic funding options for college shrink

by Edwin Mora

(Second of two parts) Lending options for Latino college students are diminished as a result of the nation’s economic instability.

Even those non-federal lenders still remaining after some have abandoned the college-loan business due to the credit crunch are tightening the reins on their lending standards.

“Private loans are now charging higher interest rates, demanding higher credit scores and insisting on co-signers,” says Ronald Johnson, director of financial aid at the University of California-Los Angeles. “With tighter restrictions, students will find that their lender options have dwindled.”

Due to new demands by private lenders, it is anticipated that students without co-signers will not be eligible for private funding, Johnson points out.

Tuition fees for undergraduate students present the new scenario. At UCLA they add up to about $25,000. Latinos make up 14.1 percent of its 12,579 admitted freshmen for the fall 2008 semester.

According to a recent Pew Hispanic Center study, when compared to other ethnic/racial groups such as non-Hispanic blacks, full-time undergraduate Latino students receive the lowest amount of financial aid funds and take out larger federal and non-federal loans.

Private funding for college is a common alternative.

In some cases, it supplements federal student loans. In the last decade, more and more students have resorted to private lenders to cover their higher education costs, according to The College Board.

Of the estimated $62.3 billion in overall student loans in the 1997-98 school year, about $60 billion, or 96 percent, came out of federal loans. These include those provided through states and institutions.

A decade later, the same types of loans paint a different picture. Of the estimated $162.5 billion total in 2007-08, about $143.5 billion, or 88 percent, came from federal funding; the remaining $19 billion, or 12 percent, came from non-federal loans.

Financial aid advisors at both UCLA and the University of Texas-El Paso pronounce that at this point, those students in need of assistance will not find themselves in financial limbo. Federally guaranteed loans and grants are still available at institutions for students who demonstrate monetary need. State-sponsored assistance, on the other hand, is becoming less common as some states struggle to stay afloat during this economic downturn. Some have started reducing their higher education budgets. This could result in tuition fee increases.

On Nov. 4, a budget cut of $65.5 million for the University of California was posed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. This was in addition to a $48 million reduction already included in the state’s budget proposal.

As part of a contingency plan, UCLA’s Johnson says there are some limited types of funding that his offi ce can deploy on a case-by-case basis. However, he points out, UCLA cannot replace the money made available by private lenders.

Raúl Lerma, University of Texas-El Paso fi nancial aid director, cautions, “For the next year we will be ready for people who might have lost their job, but we may have to do some financial aid recalculations based on the applicants’ household ­income at the time.”

Both financial aid advisors say that they have not seen a substantial influx of students to the fi nancial aid offi ce this semester, but this may change in the upcoming year.

Details as to how the nation’s economic stimulus plan agreed upon by President Barrack Obama and Congress could affect the college aspirations of Hispanic students remain to be clarified.

Of extra concern to high school graduates with exemplary education credentials but whose immigration status remains clouded is whether The Dream Act, rejected by past Congresses, will finally become a reality when voted on by a friendlier Congress this session. It would not only provide them with more affordable higher education opportunities, but allow those who perform well a chance to adjust their status and remain in the country Hispanic Link.

(Edwin Mora reports for Hispanic Link News Service in Washington, D.C. Email him at edwin.mora@gmail.com). ©2009