by José de la Isla

HOUSTON– Word is out that PBS is providing funding for a two-hour documentary about Latinos in the military. “The War Within” is tentatively scheduled for a two-hour airing in 2010.

It’s welcomed news. And still, it’s bittersweet for reasons that might seem recondite to some.

Gus Chávez, one of the co-founders of Defend the Honor, a leading pressure group, recently noted John Wilson, the PBS veep who oversees all of its programming, still refuses to recognize Latinos were wronged earlier in the documentary by Ken Burns about World War II. And Wilson refuses to acknowledge the new proposed documentary about Latino fighting men and women has anything to do with that other dust-up.

Ken Burns, the video documentary-maker whose productions are widely considered pop history, failed initially to include in his 15-hour PBS documentary The War any mention at all of the role played by half a million Hispanics in uniform during World War II. Latino groups were especially chapped because such an encyclopedic effort will serve to instruct new generations for decades to come about a chapter in U.S. history when we were all in it together.

A student looking for a Ph.D thesis topic in historiography could pick what happened next as an object lesson in how history was rescued from fiction. Beyond the simple who did what and why is the weighty subtext about how important segments of the nation are defined by the script, even by those who purport to know the boundaries between non-fiction and fiction, those who know history can be novelized by leaving important parts out.

The net effect is that national audiences get a false impression. And many new Latinos — the newcomers from abroad and the inexperienced young — do not get ­a valid national perspective. Those who control the images we see on TV have the power to defi ne all Latinos as recent arrivals, and always a little bit more foreign, a little less relevant, than reality.

One of those taking on PBS was Maggie RivasRodríguez, a university professor and respected journalist, author of A Legacy Greater Than Words: Stories of U.S. Latinos and Latinas of the WWII Generation. She directs an oral history project at the University of Texas, Austin. As co-founder of Defend the Honor, she challenged Burns for his omissions.

After nearly every major national Hispanic organization, members of Congress, prominent Hispanic authorities, sponsors (oops, contributors), veterans and a lot of the public weighed in, Burns fi nally relented and agreed to add 28 minutes produced by Héctor Galán.

That’s what it takes to keep yesterday’s history from becoming today’s fiction.

But that was then and this is now. The PBS suits are still not about to admit the error of their ways, although their action to fund documentary producer Galán’s two-hour program about Latino service in the military speaks for itself.

While PBS was errant, and still stonewalls, it has stumbled onto a content goldmine for national audiences about the nation’s story. In 2010 we will see the results.

This skirmish matters because around 1965 television replaced newspapers as the chief source of news. Ever since, imagery, impressions and myths have dominated as the basis for how we make informed decisions, according to Rick Shenkman, author of How Stupid Are We?

A 2001 Department of Education report said six out of 10 high school seniors knew so little U.S. history they were basically historically illiterate.

Washington, D.C. journalist Steven Knipp reports many high school students think the United States was on the same side as Germany during World War II. Given that, 2010 can’t get here soon enough.

(José de la Isla, author of “The Rise of Hispanic Political Power” (Archer Books, 2003) writes a weekly commentary for Hispanic Link News Service. E-mail joseisla3@yahoo.com). ©2008

by Grazia Salvemini

Thirty-three janitors will be reinstated to their jobs following a federal appeals judge’s ruling June 16 that there was no justifiable cause to have terminated them five years ago solely because their Social Security numbers did not match federal database information.

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco acknowledged, “Though it seems reasonable to suspect some of the f red workers were undocumented,” the disparity was not enough to determine whether the employees were undocumented.

The Aramark Facility Services in Los Angeles fi red the employees in 2003 upon receiving “No-Match” letters indicating that 48 employees had inconsistent Social Security numbers.

The employees were given three days to clear up any discrepancies or obtain proof that they were applying for a new number. Fifteen employees did, and the other 33 were fi red within ten days.

The employees, who were defended by the Service Employees International Union, claimed they were fi red without just cause.

The court found that Aramark “has not established constructive knowledge of any immigration violations,” and moreover, should have given the 33 employees more time to produce the necessary documentation.

According to the National Immigration Law Center, 70 percent of the more than 17 million errors in the Social Security Administration database involve U.S.-born citizens.

The federal government is trying to implement a “No Match” rule to prevent the hiring of undocumented workers. A federal judge has blocked the rule from going into effect.

In other immigrant related news:

Arizona E-Verify law challenged in Appeals Court

by Patrick Palafox

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco began hearing June 12 arguments by civil rights and business groups protesting a law passed in Arizona that requires all businesses to comply with E-Verify.

The Legal Arizona Workers Act requires businesses to enroll in the E-Verify system, a voluntarily federal program to check the legal status of workers. Any business in the state that violates the law twice will be shut down.

The civil rights groups fighting against the law are the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Arizona and the National Immigration Law Center. The business coalition was comprised of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Federation of Independent Business among others.

Omar Jadwat, a staff attorney with the ACLU, argued that regulating
immigration is a federal responsibility and that this law “invites chaos and confusion” to U.S. citizens, Latinos and legal workers. He expressed astonishment that the state would pass a law that threatens to shut down businesses given the economy’s “precarious” condition. Jadwat told Weekly Report that the Social Security Administration has opposed the expansion of the project because according to it, the E-Verify program encourages identity theft.

He said workers using a working number and name can get around E-Verify, which he added raises privacy concerns.

According to the Department of Homeland Security Web site, E-Verify is a voluntary program that links the DHS and Social Security Administration databases.

­Employers access the validity of new hires’ social security numbers from their 1-9 forms and use the free service to check the new hires’ immigration status. Hispanic Link.

by Alex Meneses Miyashita

Bilingual education continues making headlines

English-language learners narrow the achievement gap with white students when these two groups are not segregated in different schools, according to a report by the Pew Hispanic Center.

The study, released June 26, reported ELL students tend to be isolated in public schools that the center suggests are low-achieving given the schools’ characteristics.

Such characteristics include higher student-to teacher ratios, higher enrollment and a large number of students from poor families.

“A large part of the gap is that they’re not attending the same middle schools,” said Richard Fry, senior research associate at the Center and author of the report.

Fry pointed out that in New York schools, for instance, a 48-point gap in mathematics proficiency separates white and ELL eighth graders who study in schools that do not have these two groups together.

In schools where both white and ELL students are enrolled, the achievement gap narrows to 31 points. The scores of white students at these schools also drop.

The study reports 4 million ELL students in the nation and estimates the number will surge considerably in the coming years.

The number of students from immigrant parents will grow from 12.3 million in 2005 to 17.9 million in 2020’it projected.

The study focused on the states Arizona, California, Florida, New York and Texas, which have the highest concentration of ELL students.

The 34-page report, The Role of Schools in the English Language Learner Achievement Gap’ is available at http://pewhispanic.org.

­

by the El Reportero news service

Álvaro Uribe

Just before midnight on 26 June President Alvaro Uribe announced that he intended to re-run the 2006 presidential election after the supreme court severely questioned the legitimacy of his re-election two years ago. Uribe’s plan to hold a new election is a dramatic and asymmetric challenge to the supreme court.

In passing sentence on Yidis Medina, the former congresswoman convicted of taking bribes to support the government’s re-election reform, the supreme court said that Medina’s crime invalidated the legislation that allowed Uribe to run for a second term rather than the legitimacy of his (landslide) victory.

However, Uribe knows that if he can score an even larger victory in a repeat of his second election in 2006, he will find it much easier to push for a third opportunity in 2010.

Latin banks raise interest rates

Across Latin America central banks are raising interest rates. There is nothing unusual in that, given that inflation is rising. What does make the central banks’ actions unusual is that their counterparts in the industrialised (and indeed in developing economies such as India and China) are mostly refusing to raise rates.

Oaxacan campesinos try to stay on the land

SANTIAGO DE JUXTLAHUACE, OAXACA, MEXICO – The Mixteca region of Oaxaca is one of the poorest areas in Mexico. Indigenous Mixtec, Triqui and other groups from this region now make up a large percentage of the migrants who have left to work in the United States. But many people try to stay on the land and farm, despite the difficulty.

Nopales grow on the ranch of Sidronio Rivera, in Santa Cruz Rancho Viejo near Juxtlahuaca, where his wife plucks a chicken for dinner.

Zacarias Salazar plows his cornfield behind oxen, in the traditional way with a wooden plough. Because of corn dumping enabled by the North American Free Trade Agreement, it is almost impossible for Salazar to grow and sell corn at a fair price in Mexico any longer, and his crop is now mostly for the sustenence of his family. Nearby, a family living in the U.S. has abandoned their home.

People sell produce and other products on Juxtlahuaca’s market day. Some farmers blockade the main highway, after being told there was no room for their stalls in the center of town.

US drivers risk their lives filling tanks with Mexican fuel

U.S. motorists are risking rampant drug violence in Mexico to drive over the border and fill their tanks with cheap Mexican fuel, some even coming to blows over gas shortages and long queues.

The gap between Mexico’s subsidized gasoline and record U.S. prices has made it well worth making the trip, and U.S. drivers are even shrugging off the dangers of Mexico’s drug war which sees almost daily shootings in border towns.

Some say they can save up to $100 a month by filling up every two weeks in Mexico.

The extra demand is causing shortages at hundreds of Mexico’s border gas stations, some of which are starting to ration fuel.

Mexico’s subsidized gasoline — around $1.40 cheaper per gallon than in the United States — is a huge draw as average U.S. pump prices hit an unprecedented $4 a gallon ($1.06 a liter). In West Coast cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles, prices are over $4.50 a gallon.

(Pravda contributed to this report).