by Marvin J. Ramirez

Marvin J. Ramirez

Just recently, a friend of mine’s 19-year-old son was released from jail from charges of beating a man with his bodies. He spent approximately seven months in the joint. He came out clean, however, prior to getting arrested he was attending City College of San Francisco. Obviously, he lost the whole school semester. It seemed that it was more important to punish him that making sure that he continued in school.

I wrote a strong letter to San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris expressing my concern that jail would not serve any purpose in directing this young man through a path of positive future and should let him finish his school semester.

The District Attorney’s Office insisted that he was a `gang member,’ but apparently they were wrong. So they let him free, according to his mother.

Many youths like this young man are thrown into jails by the thousands every years, as part of money-making scheme by the prison industry, the sole purpose of its goal.

Punishment is the best recipe this industry that is growing faster that our learning institutions, while teachers are being layoff, school budget cut to the bone, and basically every year have the whole education industry beg on its knees for money.

Young people continue being warehoused like animals with the sole purpose of punishing them for their criminal behavior, which at the end is the same citizenry that they purpose to protect who is the last victimized by this blinded system of punishment.

In a released written statement, Books Not Bars says mismanaged, expensive, and dangerous youth prisons must go Books Not Bars (an Ella Baker Center for Human Rights campaign) and families of incarcerated youth throughout California call on the state to abandon the warehouse prisons’ chronic failures and build the state’s continuum of effective local and regional treatment programs for youth.

The Division of Juvenile Justice (DJJ), which is budgeted $518 million for 2008-09, has missed successive court-imposed reform deadlines since the 2004 lawsuit settlement. It has wasted $100 million on unmet reform goals. With a population of 2,072 youth — each costing the state $252,000 per year — the California Youth Prison System has become California’s budgetary black hole.

According to the statement, which was released on April 17, despite the money, conditions in DJJ prisons have remained deplorable and shameful for incarcerated youth: Education fails to meet state minimum levels, both mental health and medical care are inadequate and often delayed, and violence in facilities remains dangerously high.

The miserable conditions have rendered rehabilitation impossible for youth in the prisons.

The DJJ has proven to be incapable of reform and has failed thousands of our youth in the meantime.

How do we expect youth to come out rehabilitated from this broken system?” asks Zachary Norris, Director of Books Not Bars. “Real change can only happen when we shut down the failing warehouse prisons. Only then can California shift to a local and regional rehabilitative system of care that allows youth to return to society with a chance to make it.”

In its recent budget cuts, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s only options to balance the state’s budget deficit has been targeting education, health and the most vulnerable sectors of our communities.

Unless everyone stand up and start demanding changes in the Constitution, where education receives a bigger share of the budget and never lose funding, we will continue losing funding to educate our future generations and our prisons industry growing.

by José de la Isla

José de la Isla

AUSTIN, TEXAS — In the two-minute lead up to the Texas Democratic primary debate, Lou Dobbs was spewing his usual agit-prop comments on CNN against the so-called NAFTA highway.

He claimed the candidates wouldn’t touch the issue because it “leaves Hispanic Americans divided as well.” The candidates, he suggested, didn’t want to upset Texas’ all-important March 4 Latino vote.

In fact, Barack Obama had already admitted in Dallas, “We have to improve our relationship with Mexico so their economy is producing jobs on that side of the border.”

During the debate, Obama said George Bush “has been so obsessed with Iraq that we have not seen the kinds of outreach and cooperative work that would ensure the Mexican economy is working not just for the very wealthy in Mexico, but for all people.”

In the spin room, after the debate, I asked state representative Ana Hernández, an Obama surrogate, to explain what Obama meant. A daughter of Mexican immigrants whose father was out of a job before leaving long ago, she said flatly, Mexico doesn’t have a middle class. “They need to fix the economic policy. The Mexican economy is out of whack.”

That part about the middle class seems to be a curious and popular belief. Yet Business Week reported in 2006, “The Mexican middle class swelled “to nearly 40 percent of all Mexican households, vs. 30 percent just a few years ago.”

In October of last year, Mexico’s former president Vicente Fox was in Houston touting his book and bragging about the ascent of the middle class — after a tragic decline in numbers during the ’80s and ’90s.

We don’t’ seem to get it straight. Yes, Mexico’s growth is too slow. It needs reforms. But the picture we paint is of an economy on the ropes.

This past Christmas, Mexican consumers brought ­up retail spending on the U.S. side of the border about fi ve percent over last year, while the rest of the U.S. was fl at line or worse. That ought to serve as a real-life reminder how Mexico, our third largest trading partner, doesn’t just take but gives.

There’s no need to fake the truth about it. And the mutual issues between us and Mexico don’t just concern migration.

It’s abundantly clear, for instance, our illicit drug habits promote crime and corruption in Mexico. So it’s important to control lawlessness by bringing our drug habits under control. That’s also why it was stunning that Obama sounded like Nancy Reagan mouthing “just say no” in a four-point agenda for talks with Mexico that included investing in antidrug education on both sides of the border. Huh?

Something more like treatment, decriminalization and taking the economic profit out of drug dealing would make more sense.

Federico Peña, Bill Clinton’s former transportation secretary and an Obama advisor, told me after the debate that what is needed is to replace Bush’s Latin America policy in “a way for all people to benefit.”

So far there’s not much to show how that’s done.

No doubt the intentions are good. But where is the insight? When do the candidates getting instructive about the practical reality of life in North America? Are we getting fed more faith than fact? Or OMG are we getting waltzed once more.

I posed Obama’s statement to Congressman Henry Cuellar. He was in the spin room supporting Hillary Clinton. His Texas district borders Mexico and he was the only one to bring up sovereignty. “They (Mexico) have to come up with their own solutions. Can’t tell them what they ought to be doing,” said Cuellar.

That night, more college degrees were congregated at the University of Texas except for commencement.

This is the place where the world-class LBJ policy school is located. The university has one of the fi nest Latin American library collections in the world. Surprisingly, the policy talk was kind of hollow. Timid even.

If, as Obama’s people so often suggest, transparency is the path to getting better policy, may I remind them 7.6 million viewers were watching on CNN and Univisión.

[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 Emily C. Ruíz

Emely Ruíz

As eventually happened with Vietnam, U.S. military involvement in Iraq is pulling Hispanics in two directions. Maybe three.

Numbers tell some of the story. The latest Pew Hispanic Center poll found less than a quarter of Latinos (24 percent) support U.S. troop participation. That’s down from 31 percent in 2006 and 39 percent in 2004.

U.S. Department of Defense figures show that Hispanics comprise 10.9 percent of those serving in the Armed Forces, well below their percentage in the eligible age group in the three decades of the volunteer army.

There are those like Jess Quintero, who served two tours – one in the U.S. Army and one in the Air Force – toward the end of the Korean War and leading up to Vietnam.

Quintero, president of the Hispanic War Veterans of America, talks proudly of the Hispanic contributions in defending the world’s democratic ideals from the Revolutionary War forward. He recites the names of family members, from generations past to grandchildren, who with no hesitation answered the call.

Then there is Pablo Paredes, more recently a Petty Officer third class and weapons-control technician in the U.S. Navy. Declaring his opposition to the invasion of Iraq, he refused to board the USS Bonhomme Richard as it deployed to the Persian Gulf, in December 2004 as part of the Operation Iraqi Freedom. He received an administrative discharge after serving three months at hard labor without confinement and a demotion in rank. He now works as a peace educator with the American Friends Service Committee.

Then there’s the third and largest element, reflective perhaps of the broader community’s attitude. This group is neither rallying friends or families to “save democracy,” nor actively protesting the U.S. commitment.

Few Hispanics were visible in the basically white anti-war protests across the country this month. Nor have they formed visible anti-war groups of their own, such as those which sprouted up in the Vietnam era.

Most memorable was the 1970 national Chicano Moratorium march in East Los Angeles, in which a county sheriff’s deputy killed KMEX-TV news director Rubén Salazar with an armor-piercing tear-gas missile. On the East Coast, the mostly Puerto Rican Young Lords staged similar demonstrations.

Today’s older antiwar Latinos often have a background in Vietnam-era activism, while a smaller number are parents of soldiers who’ve died in more recent Middle East conflicts, says Jorge Mariscal, professor of Chicano/Latino Studies at the University of California, San Diego.

“Younger Latinos are involved because they see the impact of the war on their friends and the militarism in their schools with recruitment,” he says, adding that the reason more aren’t involved is because of the lack of outreach from mainly white anti-war groups to attract members of color.

JESS QUINTERO, executive director of the Hispanic War Veterans of America, gives these reasons Latinos should consider military careers in service to their country and continue supporting U.S. efforts to complete successfully the country’s mission in Iraq.

1. As U.S. citizens, Latinos have a responsibility to serve their country in time of war.
2. There is a strong Hispanic military tradition rooted in patriotism among Latino families to respond quickly, valiantly and honorably when the country and its ideals are at risk.
3. Military service offers numerous educational opportunities during and after military service.
4. Generous signing bonuses can assist recruits and their families in financial need.
5. The military offers stability, sense of direction and role models during the most vulnerable stages of a young recruit’s life.
6. It provides the basic necessities such as health benefi ts, housing and food.

NO, JOIN PROTEST PABLO PAREDES, peace educator with the American Friends Service Committee, gives fi ve reasons Hispanics should actively oppose further U.S. involvement in Iraq:

1. Hispanics are overrepresented in the most dangerous roles of the military and sorely underrepresented in the offi cer ranks and elite jobs.
2. Recruitment programs that target Hispanics make false promises of education, a better economic status and citizenship.
3. Hispanics who have served honorably come home to face inequality and discrimination; they aren’t provided access to adequate veterans’ benefits.
4. Hispanics’ historical ties to the U.S. military have been destructive to their ancestors. “Marines are taught to sing about the pillaging of the ‘halls of Montezuma.’”
5. The war has propelled the rise of vigilante groups such as the Minutemen who in their propaganda messages stereotype and scapegoat all Hispanics as national security risks. Hispanic Link.

(Emily C. Ruíz is a reporter with Hispanic Link News Service in Washington, D.C. Reach her care of e.cruiz@hotmail.com).

­by Margine Quintanilla

Celebrating Children and Books Day

The government of Mexico donates 25 thousand textbooks to schools, public libraries and community centers in the United States, to be used as support material in the education of children and young people of Mexican origin who live in the USA.

This program is a part of an annual agreement of cooperation signed by the Secretaries of Foreign Relations and Public Education of both countries in order that Mexican and Hispanic students, who live and go to schools near the consular district of San Francisco, are provided with a valuable tool to support their educational process.

The collections that will be delivered, are comprised by textbooks from fi rst to sixth grade of primary education based in the Mexican educational system, in which is promoted in the children the development of knowledge, skills and attitudes.

This contribution comes an important ally for parents and teachers, for whom it will represent a valuable educational tool that will help to strengthen the education of the children and pupils.

On April 14, ConsulGeneral of Mexico Carlos Flix, would make delivery of 500 collections of books with 50 units, to diverse representatives of educational districts, and those in charge of schools, community centers and libraries.

The information office opens with the following schedules: on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday from 2 to 6 p.m., on Wednesday from 2 to 8 p.m., on Saturdays and Sunday, the 12th to 4 p.m. For more information call (415) 557-4277.

New alternative to learn to dance

If you like dancing, you can learn diverse types of exotic dances across a new interactive methodology of dance that proposes the Ballet Center of San Francisco.

According to specialists in this field, any person can learn to dance with this new method, which includes videos digitized during the practices.

This program incorporates a big diversity of different styles of dance as ballet, African dance, Mexican folklore, Tahitiano and other styles that exist around the world.

For major information you can come to the Children’s Center Library, where this proposal is being presented, in collaboration with the Main Library and the support of John Crawford, specialist in videos at the University of California, Irvine.

Also if you do not want to come alone, there will be a program – workshop of special dance, for families and children from 6 to 13, focused in world dance and culture. The classes will start from 2 to 3 p.m. on April 26 in the Children’s Center. The space is limited to register, call at (415) 557-4554.

San Francisco celebrates Children and Books

Close to a 1,000 Bay Area children and families will celebrate Día de los Niños, Día de los Libros (A Celebration of Children and Books) on Sunday, April 27th at Mission Dolores Park in San Francisco. This annual event honors children and their families, and promotes literacy, language, and culture.

Free and open to the public, Día provides each child with the opportunity to see live performances, participate in high quality art activities, and leave with a book of their very own. The theme of this year’s celebration is “Planting the Seeds of Reading.”

By making culturally relevant books available to children of all backgrounds, Día de los Niños, Día de los Libros allows children to see themselves reflected in literature and, in doing so, fosters enthusiasm for reading,” says Janet del Mundo, Sales and Marketing Manager of Children’s Book Press.

Día de los Niños, Día de los Libros San Francisco. Sunday, April 27, 2008, from 1:00-4:00 p.m., at Mission Dolores Park (Dolores St. @ 20th), San Francisco, CA 94110.

In case of rain, the event will be at SF Bahá’í Center, 170 Valencia St. @ Duboce For general information, call 415-575-3535 x14, or visit: http://www.mlcsf.org/communityprograms.html.