by José de la Isla

A Jan. 5 Wall Street Journal story by Susan Schmidt and Maurice Tamman mugged some Latino leaders connected with housing advocacy.

Congressional Hispanic Caucus members and CHC’s separate but closely allied nonprofit public policy institute came under close scrutiny for the appearance of an overly close association with troubled mortgage lenders. The Journal article said congressional representatives and the institute received contributions for dubious purposes.

Schmidt and Tamman asserted Congressional Hispanic Caucus members “received donations from the lending industry and saw their constituents moving into new homes, pushed for eased lending standards, which led to problems.”

At least $2.3 million in political contributions were made to members of the Hispanic Caucus at the height of the subprime mortgage expansion in 2005.

Countrywide Corp., Washington Mutual, and New Century Financial, Ameriquest Mortgage Corp., Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were among the companies mentioned that contributed and participated in an internship, research and advocacy program,called Hogar, administered by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute.

Aracely Panameño, of the Center for Responsible Lending, was said to have attempted to warn Hogar with data about shortcomings
in housing lending practices and impacts on Latinos.

The biggest judo chops were saved for California Congressman Joe Baca, the immediate past chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and a longtime advocate for opening up first-time home-buyer opportunities.Roughly 9,200 families in San Bernardino, Calif., Baca’s district, lost homes to foreclosures.

AmeriDream Inc., a nonprofit housing company and an Hogar sponsor, provided a $25,000 charitable contribution in October 2008 to a foundation set up by Baca. Baca backed AmeriDream’s seller-financed down-payment assistance program with money that originated from home builders who made donations to the nonprofit.

The program was outlawed last year through new housing legislation. Now Baca is cosponsoring a bill to allow similar, but not the same, approach for seller-financed down-payment assistance to low-income Federal Housing Administration borrowers.

The WSJ story’s tone and impression was that of borderline wrongdoing or at least ethically challenged activity. Lapses in good judgment, yes. Coming under the soft, romanticsway of money, probably. But having Latinos take the brunt of the subprime mess is taking it too far.

There’s no question subprime schemes front-loaded Latino clients, although so far data is unavailable by ethnicity. Nationally 1.5 million homes (not just Hispanic households) were lost and another 2 million families with subprime loans are in danger of losing theirs in the near future.

Esther Aguilera, president of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, told WSJ she was shocked by the story’s conclusions and its accusations. They missed the point about the root causes of the housing crisis and “protections for families from unscrupu lous predatory lenders,” she said.

Ed Gonzáles of the Real Estate Associates Latinos in Houston, told me by e-mail that lending fundamentals were clearly compromised during the go-go years. Now, he asks “who/what made the decision to overlook or minimize lending guidelines?”

There is plenty of blame to spread around and other aspects to investigate. But, for scapegoating purposes one would have to believe Latinos were turning the dials on world banking vaults and making puts and calls on hedge funds and packaging mortgages on Wall Street for Europe and China.

So trying to hang the jacket on what seems like an “Industrial-Latino Housing complex” is, to say the least, going too far. While it may have uncovered some of those reaching into the cookie jar, they are not the ones who baked the bad batch. Getting little attention is another damage done by this housing collapse. It is one affecting many families of this generation who will now look at the American Dream thing as just another scam.

[José de la Isla writes a weekly commentary for Hispanic Link News Service. He is author of The Rise of Hispanic Political Power (Archer Books). E-mail
joseisla3@yahoo.com.] ©2008

by Ricardo Chavira

After 50 years of revolutionary rule, Cubans are still waiting for the one thing that matters most: economic security. While they enjoy free health care and higher education, millions of Cubans endure the grim hardship imposed by salaries of less than 30 dollars a month.

Traditional analysts and exile activists will tell you that Cubans above all yearn for democracy and full respect for human rights, and that assessing Cuba in simple economic terms is wrongheaded.

Certainly political freedom does matter. However, it’s far less pressing for most Cubans than the day-to-day struggle to make ends meet. That has never been truer than today. It could well be the ultimate standard by which the revolution’s success or failure is eventually judged.

I reached this conclusion after 20 years of travel to Cuba and conversations with hundreds of its residents.During most of this time Cuba has endured an economic calamity. Its tenuous recovery is now seriously threatened by the global financial crisis.

Because the Cuba debate is so intensely politicized,I was surprised during my first trip in 1989 to find most Cubans preoccupied with their personal economic plight. The same day I attended an event at which Fidel Castro vowed to preserve socialism, a teacher quietly complained to me he did not earn enough to provide for his family. He brushed off questions about revolutionary politics, pressing on the possibilities of making a new life in Spain or the United States.

In August 1993 Cuba was fully in the depths of its euphemistically named “Special Period in Peacetime,” the near-collapse of the system after Soviet aid ended. The government offi cials I met were shaken.They expressed grave concern about their country’s future. Food and other basic necessities were in alarmingly short supply and blackouts lasted most of the day. A senior bureaucrat and her husband invited me over for dinner, a lone avocado adorned with lettuce.

Over the next several years I witnessed Cuba’s agonizing climb away from the precipice. But its people, not unlike millions of others throughout the Caribbean and Latin America,have never attained liberation from the torment of not having enough.

Cuba’s poverty is less dire, for example, than that which prevails in Haiti or Honduras. Its 11.4 million residents aren’t starving or homeless. They are generally grateful for universal medical attention and education. Still, those advances do nothing to alleviate the stress caused by a dire housing shortage and chronically existing on too little.

Government rationing and subsidies are supposed to make for a decent standard of living. The reality is considerably different. Pay, for reasons never clear to me,is simply too paltry to cover the cost of living. The price of cooking oil, meat, produce, clothes, shoes among others items is prohibitive.A pound of powdered milk,for example, can cost two dollars. Cars and vacations to nearby resorts are out of the question for most.

Those with relatives elsewhere have the relief of remittances. Even they and many more pilfer from where they work. Food, beverages, clothes and anything else that has a black market buyer fi nds its way from the workplace to the street.

Recently Vice President José Ramón Machado Ventura acknowledged in understatement that Cuba was confronting “very diffi cult”economic times. That’s hardly news to Cubans I know. They are nurturing the hope that Presidents Raúl Castro and Barack Obama will overcome half a century of hostility,meet and pave the way for a relationship that includes economic betterment for the island.

“We want political change that will bring with it improvement in the standard of living,” one Havana native tells me, speaking for multitude. “It’s not really possible for us to continue on as we have.” Hispanic Link.

(Ricardo Chavira, a former foreign correspondent who covered Cuba, last visited the island in 2008 and continues to have contact there. He teaches journalism and Latin American Studies at the University of California, Irvine and California State University,Fullerton. E-mail: ricardo.chavira50@yahoo.com)
©2009

by the University of Michigan

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — When Lamont Christian returned from war, he often felt angry, afraid and unworthy. Years later, Christian found himself living in a homeless shelter, a sign that time had not healed his emotional wounds.

He went to the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System for help, and there, he learned the root of his problems: he was suffering from depression,post-traumatic stress disorder and anger management problems. Now, he wants others to learn from his experience.

“If I had a message to give to veterans who are coming out of the military now or even veterans who have been out for a long period of time, it’s that nothing is going to happen in your life unless you go and get the help you need,” he says.

Christian is a veteran of Vietnam, but his experience holds true for soldiers returning from current battlegrounds as well.

Nearly a third of veterans who are treated at Veterans Affairs health care centers have significant depressive symptoms, and about 13 percent have clinically diagnosed depression, says Marcia Valenstein, M.D., clinical psychiatrist with the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System and associate professor of psychiatry with the University of Michigan Health System.

Depression is a “very potent” risk factor for suicide among people receiving treatment for depression at the VA, she notes, with a suicide rate that is three times higher than that of the overall VA patient population.

Such high rates led Valenstein and her colleagues to study the best time to provide intensive interventions to veterans with depression to prevent suicide. In a study just published by the Journal of Affective Disorders, the researchers found that veterans with depression were at highest risk for suicide in the 12 weeks after they were hospitalized for psychiatric conditions.

“This finding highlights the need for very close followup for patients who are discharged from our inpatient services because this is a particularly vulnerable time for them,” says Valenstein,a core investigator with the Serious Mental Illness Treatment Research and Evaluation Center at the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System.

Current government recommendations have focused on providing intensive follow up for patients following all new antidepressant starts. More attention needs to be paid to the highest-risk periods that follow psychiatric hospitalization, Valenstein says. “Health systems with limited resources should focus their efforts on this time period to have the greatest impact on suicide prevention.”

The Department of Veterans Affairs has made mental health issues a priority,Valenstein notes. VA health centers have received more than $300 million for expansion of suicide prevention and other mental health services from the Veterans Health Administration.

Note: The views expressed in the study are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Department of Veterans Affairs.

by the El Reportero’s news services

A flurry of summits held in the Brazilian resort of Costa do Sauípe in mid-December — Mercosur,Unasur, Rio Group and the new regionwide CLAC— was not only a display of President Lula da Silva”s aspiration to regional leadership but also a sign that the creation of something akin to “an OAS without the US” could be in the offing.

Symbolic of the region’s new assertiveness was the much-publicised incorporation
of Cuba to the Rio Group. Meanwhile, in Panama, a US reminder of its own continuing influence passed largely unnoticed by the regional media.

Bolivia panics over Brazil gas sales

On Jan. 8 the government of President Evo Morales announced it was sending a emergency mission to Brasilia to discuss the sudden drop in Brazil’s natural gas imports from Bolivia.

Since Jan. 1, Brazil’s state energy group, Petrobras,has cut its daily imports of natural gas from Bolivia by a third, to around 19m cubic metres a day, from 31m.

This is because good rains in Brazil have fi lled reservoirs, allowing it to switch to cheaper hydroelectric plants rather than natural gas-fired thermal plants. Brazil is Bolivia’s main customer for Bolivian natural gas, which provides the Morales government with an estimated 41 percent of its fi scal income.

Divisions could cost ruling Frente Amplio elections in Uruguay.

The ruling Frente Amplio (FA) coalition is in danger of losing October’s presidential elections. Such a contingency seemed re-
mote throughout the entirety of the mandate of President Tabaré Vázquez so far.

It is now a real possibility with the FA facing divisive primary elections in June after failing to offer unanimous support to a single candidate for the presidency during a party congress in December.

Israel’s Gaza invasion provokes protests throughout Latin America.

CARACAS, Venezuela — Opposition to Israel’s invasion of the Gaza Strip is heating up throughout Latin America .

Venezuela has expelled Israel’s ambassador. Guatemala and Colombia have called on Israel to stop fighting and begin immediate peace talks. Demonstrators in Argentina , El Salvador and Bolivia have condemned the invasion.Brazil is sending aid to victims.

“There is a tradition in Latin America of rejecting violence to solve any international confl ict,” said Adrian Bonilla , the director of the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences in Ecuador . “There is also a tradition of supporting the weakest country in a confl ict since most Latin American countries have been part of the Third World network.Another factor is that Israel is a close ally of the United States.”

Not surprisingly, Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez has taken the harshest stance.On Tuesday, he kicked out Israel’s ambassador and diplomatic staff. The Palestinian militant Islamist group Hamas applauded the move on Wednesday as a “courageous step.”

Chávez on Wednesday showed the photograph of a Palestinian child killed by Israeli bombs and said Israeli leaders should be tried for killing innocent men,women and children.

“Behind Israel is the American empire,” Chaavez said.

Chávez questioned why President-elect Barack Obama “until now hasn’t said anything” about Israel’s aggression. (Latin News and McClatchy Newspapers contributed to this report.)

­­by David Blair, Diplomatic Editor

The U.S. could intervene in Mexico

­
US troops storm Chapultepec in 1847 PHOTO COURTESY OF CASAIMPERIAL.ORG

The U.S. may be force-d to intervene in Mexico to prevent the country’s “rapid and sudden collapse” at the hands of organized crime and drug carteles, according to the US army

A report on the “Joint Operating Environment”, compiled by the army’s high command, places Mexico alongside Pakistan as a possible failed state of the future. The United States, which shares a 2,000 mile border with Mexico, would be the obvious destination for massive refugee flows if its neighbor descended into civil war.

President Felipe Calderón has deployed Mexico’s against organized crime. This battle against four major drug cartels, along with a myriad of local syndicates, claimed the lives of 5,367 members of the security forces or suspected criminals last year alone.

“Two large and important states bear consideration for rapid and sudden collapse: Pakistan and Mexico,” reads the US army’s report.

“The Mexican possibility may seem less likely, but the government, its politicians, police and judicial infrastructure are all under sustained assault and pressure by criminal gangs and drug cartels. How that internal conflict turns out over the next several years will have a major impact on the stability of the Mexican state.

“Mexico, with a population of 110 million, provides America with more migrants than any other country. It also lies astride the crucial smuggling routes linking the US with the drug-growing areas of South America, notably Colombia, which remains the world’s biggest source of cocaine.

If Mexico became a failed state, millions would flee across the northern border and organized crime gangs would have a secure base from which to penetrate America. This could leave Washington with little choice but to intervene, possibly by military means.

“Any descent by Mexico into chaos would demand an American response based on the serious implications for homeland security alone,” says the report.Mexico’s crime gangs have retaliated for Calderón’s offensive by targeting members of the security forces for murder. Dozens of soldiers have been beheaded. Many ordinary police officers and security officials accept bribes from the drug rings. This corruption,which may reach into the highest levels of the government itself, is a crucial factor obstructing Calderón’s campaign. Ultimately,it may also have the effect of destroying the state itself.

The U.S. Army’s report stresses that countries can collapse very quickly, pointing to the example of Yugoslavia which broke up during the civil wars of 1991 – 95. “The collapse of Yugoslavia into a chaotic tangle of warring nationalities suggests how uddenly and catastrophically state collapse can happen – in this case a state which had hosted the 1984 Winter Olympics at Sarajevo, and which then quickly became the epicenter of the ensuing civil war.”

Calderón won Mexico’s presidency by a tiny margin of less than one per cent during a controversial election held in July 2006. Despite this slender mandate,he has made the fight against organized crime the central goal of his leadership.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/centralamericaandthecaribbean/mexico/ 4271720/Mexico-in-danger-of-collapse-says-US-army.html

by Charlie Ericksen

WASHINGTON, D.C. Ñ Hispanic leaders are absorbing New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson’s decision to decline President
elect Barack Obama’s nomination as Secretary of Commerce with a mix of sorrow and disbelief.

The reality show scenario of a black president circled by a strong Hispanic supporting cast hit a snag even before Obama could take the oath.

Both men are progeny of international mixed marriages, Obama with a Kenyan father, Richardson with a Mexican mother. Both built reputations as public servants of conviction and strength, of contagious confidence who together could inspire this nation to believe in itself again.

“An individual of great integrity and commitment,” Dialogue on Diversity president Cristina Caballero described Richardson to Hispanic Link News Service, sharing a common reaction to his retreat. She singled out his support on women’s issues when he served 14 years in Congress. “When our organization started nearly 20 years ago, he was one of the first two leaders to step forward.”

The morning after Richardson’s Jan. 4 announcement,the Washington Post’s headline story called his withdrawal “the first visible crack in what had been one of the smoothest presidential transitions in modern history.”

In its lead editorial, the Post credited hi with making “the right decision” and questioned the Obama transition team’s failure to do its homework.

The Post editorial stated that while Richardson’s confirmation “would inevitably have been delayed and the controversy an unnecessary distraction for the new Obama administration,…it’s unclear whether the political ground simply shifted on them in the wake of the (Illinois Gov. Rod) Blogojevich arrest. ” Blogojevich is accused of inviting cash offers in return for appointment to Obama’s vacated U.S. Senate seat. Political realities, not people, drive the news machines in this town.

A federal probe was initiated this past summer into whether Richardson’s offi ce or a political action committee he helped form
encouraged a New Mexico state agency five years ago to hire a California company whose president made contributions totaling $100,000 to two Political Action Committees associated with Richardson.

Speculation had been building in Washington that a “pay-to-play” allegation involving a Richardson supporter could turn his confirmation hearing into a media feeding frenzy. Kindled by a growing public distrust of federal leadership, it was ignited by revelations concerning Blagojevich, alleged to have put the U.S. Senate seat being relinquished by the president-elect up for bid.

None of the Hispanic organizational leaders Hispanic Link News Service contacted expect Richardson to end up in jail. He has been charged with nothing, convicted of nothing. Almost to the person, Hispanic leaders accept his “unequivocal”statement that he and his Administration “have acted properly in all matters and this investigation will bear out that fact.”

The danger is a political one. Had he chosen to tough out his conformation hearing, the fl ack would have sliced up not just his own
image. The effectiveness of Obama’s administration would take shrapnel, too.The pending investigation, Richardson said,“promises to extend for several weeks or, perhaps,even months.”

Such an eventuality could impede Obama’s quick-start response to the national economic crisis and defl ect attention from other matters of serious concern.

Obama accepted Richardson’s withdrawal with expected deep regret, stating that he looked forward to “future service to our
country and in my administration.”

Hispanics continue to express confi dence in Richardson’s ethical behavior.

Obama’s two remaining Hispanic nominees on his 20-member Cabinet Ñ U.S.Rep. Hilda Solís of California as Secretary of Labor and Senator Ken Salazar of Colorado as Secretary of Interior Ñ confi dently await their Senate confi rmations.

Intent on making Obama keep his promise to the Hispanic community to create a diverse, inclusive administration, members of the infl uential National Hispanic Leadership

Agenda have already conferred and forwarded to Obama’s transition team the names of half a dozen seasoned, highly qualifi ed individuals as candidates to head the Commerce Department.

John Trasviña, the NHLA’s Washingtonsavvy chairman and president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, told Hispanic Link News Service that the group identifi ed several individuals with strong credibility in the community who will receive widespread support if they’re nominated. Hispanic Link.

President-elect Barack Obama has topped previous administrations with the number of Hispanic officials nam­ed, according to White House chief of staff-designate Rahm Emanuel, as reported in Politico. “[W]e have more Hispanics in senior positions in this White House than under either President Bush or President Clinton,” he said.

Besides the better-known C­abinet appointments of the past, Emanuel based much of what he meant on Latino Assistants and Deputy Assistants to the President at any one time.

Otherwise, it looked like slow-motion to high expectations until Dec. 17 when U.S. Senator Ken Salazar (D-Colo.) was nominated as Secretary of the Interior. Salazar has been a leader on Capitol Hill on renewable energy, health care, farming and rural community issues. Ken Salazar ­ ­If confirmed, he will head a department with more than 70,000 employees and an annual budget exceeding $10 billion that manages and conserves most federallyowned land and administers programs related to indigenous populations. He has served in the Senate since 2005.

On Dec. 15, Obama named Nancy Sutley, of Argentine descent, as his choice to head the White House Council on Environmental Quality. (See Political Poop. page 2.)

As yet, no announcement has been forthcoming about the Secretary of Agriculture Cabinet post. U.S. Rep. John Salazar (DColo.), Ken’s brother, with strong backing by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, had been reported in contention. However, one Salazar in the Cabinet may be enough forthis administration. by the El Reportero’s news.

After being appointed to the powerful House Appropriations Committee, John Salazar virtually removed himself from contention.On Dec. 11, the Associated Press reported him saying he never asked to become agriculture secretary in the fi rst place and was happy joining the Appropriations Committee.

The name of Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.) has been bandied as likely to become U.S. Trade Representative.Reps. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio and Kendrick Meek of Florida and Rep. Hilda Solís of California indicated interest in replacing him as the fifth-ranking member in House leadership. But on Dec.16 Becerra bowed out of Trade Rep contention, deciding to stay on the House leadership ladder and on the important Ways and Means Committee, saying he was eager to get to work “in the People’s House just down the street from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The clock is ticking. I’m ready to go!”

That kind of enthusiasm is welcomed among the Democrats, but it can also cause, shall we say, issues,as happened last week when Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrión Jr., 47, a Democrat of Puerto Rican descent, was being mentioned as a possible nominee for Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

Rumors intensifi ed after Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa declared himself out of the running for any administration position. He said he wanted to continue at the helm in his West Coast city instead.

A funny thing happened on the way to Carrión’s “nomination.” On Dec. 5,he told some Yale students that U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton , now Secretary of State-designate, had called to congratulate him on his selection for a Cabinet post.

The remark came dur ing a question-andanswer period following Carrión’s lecture on Latino-Jewish relations, an event sponsored by Yale Hillel and La Casa Cultural. Intended to be “off the record,” it was reported in The Yale Daily News and attested to by ten students. Evidently, he thought the anecdote would not go beyond the room.

Carrión has been rumored in line for one of several positions, most recently the newly created Offi ce of Urban Policy.

A similar goof concerning Philadelphia lawyer Nelson Díaz, who is/was a HUD “mentionable.”

He told the Philadelphia Inquirer that he had received a call from “the transition team” about a job. The Washington Post
reported Díaz as saying, “If it’s high enough, I might be interested in looking at it.”

So far, there have been no formal statements or announcements by the transition team yet about Carrión or Díaz. However, on Dec.13 President-elect Barack Obama nominated NewYork City’s housing commissioner Shaun Donovan to lead HUD. Hispanic Link