In a written statement the Green Party for governor candidate Laura Wells, criticized Gov. Jerry Brown’s inaugural speech last week, for asking the poorest in state to carry more austerity even while he wealthiest in the state get wealthier. “Governor Brown is talking about austerity for the majority of Californians.

A Green Governor would be talking about fairness and balance, and continuing to have great schools, environment, healthcare and jobs. We would be talking about the kind of California we want.” Citing a report that shows the gap between rich and poor continues to widen, Wells said hypothetically to imagine a ballot proposition “would give the richest one percent an INCREASE in income of three times the TOTAL income of average Californians. Would that pass? No! “

Libertarian Party to participate in “Stripping of Freedom” at TSA conference

Libertarian Party Executive Director Wes Benedict will join Ralph Nader and Cato Institute information policy expert Jim Harper on Jan. 6, as a panelist at a public conference examining TSA security procedures, according a written statement. The conference is sponsored by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), and titled “The Stripping of Freedom: A Careful Scan of TSA Security Procedures.” TSA agents strip-scan and grope people when they want to take an airline fl ight. “We need to treat their security theater with just as much scrutiny. Terrorists win by tricking us into letting government trample on our rights.”

New human rights report condemns rise of immigration policing

The Obama Administration and Congress need to shift away from the immigration policing regime that the government has been building over the past decade, according to a new report issued within days of International Migrants Day, Dec 18.

Injustice for All: The Rise of the Immigration Policing Regime, is published by the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (NNIRR) and points to the dramatic growth of a multi-faceted immigration control system that is normalizing government abuses against immigrants in the U.S.

The report is based on over 100 stories of rights abuses documented during 2009-2010 by HURRICANE: The Human Rights Immigrant Community Action Network, an initiative of NNIRR. Injustice for All raises concern that increased policing through Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) with state and local agencies, along with heightened border security, is undermining the health and safety of entire communities. Injustice for All is the third report from HURRICANE, which maintains a national database of rights abuses against immigrants. Ada Volkmer, coordinator of the Western North Carolina 100 Stories Project that contributed to the report, explained, “We found that when local police have immigration enforcement authority they are more prone to perpetrate abuses, including racial profiling.”

The North Carolina project was started by community groups to document abuses and organize for redress following widespread experience with law enforcement discrimination and abuse in the region. “Immigration-police collaboration makes our communities more vulnerable to abuses and exploitation because people do not trust the police and will not go to them to report crimes,” Ms. Volkmer added.

The new face of small-town América

February 9, 2011

by Arlene Martínez

Book review

As a boy living in a tiny town in the Mexican state of Zacatecas, Edgar Sandoval dreamed of becoming a superhero who doubled as a journalist and lived in a metropolis. The superhero thing never really panned out, but being a journalist did. In 2000, 25-year-old Sandoval arrived in Allentown, Pa., to begin work at The Morning Call.

It’s a city he’d never heard of and didn’t especially want to be in, and he didn’t really want to cover Latino affairs, a beat sometimes disparagingly referred to as “The Taco Beat.” The Morning Call saw it as answering a need to cover the town’s surging Spanish- speaking population. Still, Sandoval felt pigeonholed. His editor, Mary Ellen Alu, asked him to look at it in a different way. “You can give a voice to a group who feel they’re being ignored,” Sandoval recalls her saying. For three years, Sandoval did that, telling the stories of business owners, immigrant workers, teenagers and others who often had little in common but a language.

Many of their lives are the essays that make up his new book, The New Face of Small-Town America: Snapshots of Latino Life in Allentown, Pennsylvania. (Penn State University Press, 168 pp; $29.99) There is the story of the two young mothers who emigrated from Honduras with hopes that one day their children would join them. It never happened for one of them, Naomi Eda Zelaya. Walking across an Allentown street, she was struck and killed by a car, leaving behind five children.

There is the story of Mexican immigrants Armando Cervantes and Sergio López, both 26, whose deaths in a van accident bared a bigger story on the plight of workers’ attempts to assimilate in communities where they are not always welcome.

There are others — about Edith Morales’s pride in watching the launch of the region’s first Spanishlanguage broadcast station and of Roberto Clemente Charter School principal David Vázquez’s efforts, sometimes frustrated, to improve student achievement.

One of Sandoval’s favorites, and the one with which he opens the book, is of Nerivonne Sánchez, whom he visited regularly in the months leading up to her lavish quinceañera, 15th birthday milestone. Sandoval captured Nerivonne’s struggle in transitioning from her Tweety stuffed birds to French manicures. His account was “not about a tiara or a party,” he says. “I focused on this girl who was having a hard time being a woman.”

Born in Los Angeles to parents who emigrated from Mexico, Sandoval was familiar with the customs, food and music of the country he lived in until he was 16. When Sandoval began at The Morning Call, the U.S. Census Bureau was in the midst of releasing data that showed the Hispanic population in the area had rapidly grown from 2000 over 1990.But Sandoval had less experience with the Puerto Rican and Dominican populations that make up most of Allentown — and his accent and occasional word choices outed him as being not from any island in the Caribbean.

He began learning the slang, the customs, the foods. The community grew to embrace him and his stories. “They liked to be shown for what they were, real people,” he said. The book is available at Barnes & Noble, www.amazon.com or by request. A paperback version is slated for release next year. Though many of the stories fi rst appeared in The Morning Call in a different version, there are some original pieces.

As for the fantasy a young Sandoval dreamed of, another piece eventually came true. Not that of being a superhero but of living in a metropolis. In 2007, Sandoval became a reporter for the New York Daily News. He lives in Hell’s Kitchen. Hispanic Link. Former Hispanic Link editor Arlene Martínez reports for The Morning Call in Allentown, Pa.)

A new year and new inspiration for giving

February 9, 2011

por Luis Carlos López

Hispanic Link News Service

This Christmas, I bought Shel Silverstein’s classic children’s book The Giving Tree. I chose it for Adriana, my little sister. I discovered the story — about a tree that responds to a little boy’s many wishes — in my college sophomore year while tutoring inner-city grammar school kids in Los Angeles.

At 11, barely half my age, Adriana is a fledgling, gifted writer. I’m a year into my career as a reporter. A year ago, my gift to Adriana was going to be a composition expressing my admiration and love for her, which I would submit to the campus newspaper. I borrowed the title, “Catcher in the Rye,” but after writing and rewriting a few hundred words, I failed to finish shaping it. I never pushed the “delete” button, either. Last month, as another Christmas approached and I watched Adriana grow in height and spirit, I decided to resurrect my project.

Pecking away at my computer’s keyboard, I sensed Adriana looking over my shoulder, which often happens when I’m at home working on assignments.

I braced for her critique to ring into my right ear.

“Ah, man, no wonder he’s a writer!” it came, flattering her big brother’s effort in an otherwise empty room. Standing behind me, she read my words aloud. They began: I see my little sister counting her change, trying to add up all her coins. Not knowing why, I ask, “How much do you need?”

“Twenty dollars,” she says.

“Why do you need $20?”

She is reluctant to tell me. I resort to big-brother wile and persuade her to reveal her secret. “I want to use the money to buy people presents,” she relents. “People” is code for “la familia,” not just parents and siblings, but everyone. Uncles, cousins and aunts, you name it.

I reach into my wallet to give her $20. She pushes my hand back and tells me she wants to find ways to raise the money herself. She loves December 25 not for the joy of seeing an assortment of presents under the tree with tags bearing her name, but because, like Silverstein’s tree, she takes an active role in giving.

My thoughts fl ash back to an incident that happened when I was 12. Mom and Dad took us three boys to Shakey’s pizza parlor, an unexpected special treat. They grinned and poked at each other and teased up a suspenseful mood. “We have something to tell you guys,” my mother finally speaks. Then she breaks the news: “We are having another baby.”

My younger brothers and Mom and Dad cheer and hug. I don’t. I dissent silently. Crap, I think to myself. I don’t want another sibling. Eight months later, my mom brought the López family addition home in a pink blanket. I ask if I can hold it. My mother proceeds, gently, to place Adriana in my arms. I fear the baby is going to cry. Adriana doesn’t. She stares at me with the most innocent eyes I had ever seen. They tell me all she wants is to love and be loved. She lets me wrap my arms around her. No protest. No tears. That day I learned how Holden Caulfi eld felt when he saw the “F–k You” sign on the bathroom stall. When I wrapped Adriana in my arms, I wanted to shield her from the crassness and violence of this world. I wanted to be her catcher in the rye. Of course I can’t.

“All the kids kept trying to grab for the gold ring, and so was old Phoebe, and I was sort of afraid she’d fall off the goddamn horse, but I didn’t say anything or do anything. The thing with kids is, if they want to grab for the gold ring, you have to let them do it…” The López family already knows Adriana’s life is something extraordinary.

But someday we will have to let her grab for the ring herself. This year, I gave her the book and my completed composition. She is mi muñeca, my doll. She distributed her batch of handmade presents and later handed a note to me: “Thanks for being a good brother. I really loved my present. I hope you know that you are also my giving tree.” Adriana wants me to teach her how to be a reporter. If she only knew what she has already taught me. Hispanic Link.

(Luis Carlos López is a graduate of Arizona State University. He is a reporter for the Hispanic Link News Service in Washington, D.C. An earlier version of this column appeared on the USA Today College blog. Reach him at lclopez4@gmail.com)

The Agenda of the Illuminti (20th part of a multi series)

February 9, 2011

by Marvin Ramírez

Marvin Ramírez

NOTE FROM THE EDITOR: Given the important and historical information contained in this 31-page article on the history of the secret and evil society, The Illuminati, El Reportero is honored to provide our readers with the opportunity to read such a document by Myron C. Fagan, which mainstream media has labeled it a conspiracy theory. To better understand this series, we suggest to also read the previous articles published in our previous editorials.

This is the twentieth part of the series.

The following is a transcript of a recording distributed in 1967 by Myron C. Fagan.

He had hoped that if enough Americans had heard (or read) this summary, the Illuminati takeover agenda for America would have been aborted, just as Russia’s Alexander I had torpedoed the Illuminati’s plans for a One World, League of Nations at the Congress of Vienna from 1814-15. Fagan correctly describes those members of congress, the executive branch, and the judicial branch of that time as TRAITORS for their role in assisting to implement the downfall of America’s sovereignty. It’s understandable that most listeners of that period would have found it impossible to believe that the Kennedy’s, for instance, were (are) part of the Illuminati plot, but he did say that Jack had a spiritual rebirth and attempted to rescue the country from the Illuminati’s stranglehold by issuing U.S. silver certificates, which apparently greatly contributed to the Illuminati’s decision to assassinate him (his son, John Jr., was also murdered because he had intended to expose his father’s killers after he gained public office).

— The United Nations’ charter was written by Alger Hess, Palvosky, Dalton, Trumbull, and other CFR stooges. A phony, so-called, U.N. conference was set up in San Francisco in 1945. All the, so-called, representatives of 50-odd Nations gathered there and promptly signed the Charter and the despicable traitor, Alger Hess, flew to Washington with it, elatedly submitted it to our Senate, and the Senate (elected by our people to safeguard our security) signed the Charter without so much as reading it. The question is: “How many of our Senators were even then traitorous stooges of the CFR?” Anyway, it was thus that the people accepted the “United Nations” as a “holy of holies.”

Again and again and again we have been startled, shocked, bewildered, and horrified by the UN’s mistakes in Berlin, in Korea, in Laos, in Katanga, in Cuba, in Vietnam, mistakes that always favored the enemy, never the United States. Under the law of averages, they should have made at least one or two mistakes in our favor, but they never did. What’s the answer? The answer is the “CFR” and the parts played by their subsidiaries and stooges in Washington D.C., thus we know that complete control of our foreign relation policy is the key to the success of the entire Illuminati oneworld order plot. Here is further proof.

Earlier I fully established that Schiff and hisgang had financed the Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, takeover of Russia and fashioned its communist regime into becoming their chief instrument to keep the world in turmoil and to fi nally terrorize all of us into seeking peace in a U.N. one-world government. But the conspirators knew that the “Moscow gang” could not become such an instrument until and unless the whole world would accept the communist regime as the legitimate “de jure government” of Russia.

Only one thing could accomplish that and that is the recognition by the United States. The conspirators figured that the whole world would follow our lead and that’s their bag to induce Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover, to grant that recognition. But all three refused. As a result of the late 1920’s, the Stalin regime was in dire straits. Despite all purges and secret police controls, the Russian people were growing more and more resistive. It is a matter of record, admitted by Lipdenoff, that during 1931 and 1932, Stalin and his whole gang were always packed and ready for instant fl ight.

Then in November 1932, the conspirators achieved their greatest coup, they landed Franklin Roosevelt in the White House, crafty, unscrupulous, and utterly without conscience.

That charlatan traitor turned the trick for them. Without even asking consent of Congress, he unlawfully proclaimed recognition for the Stalin regime. That did it. And exactly as the conspirators figured, the whole world did follow our lead. Automatically that squelched the previously growing resistance movement of the Russian people.

That automatically launched the greatest menace the civilized world has ever known. The rest is too well known to need repeating. We know how Roosevelt and his traitorous State Department kept building up the communist menace right here in our country and thus throughout the world. We know how he perpetuated the whole Pearl Harbor atrocity for his excuse to hurl us into World War II. We know all about his secret meetings with Stalin at Yalta and how he, with Eisenhower’s help, delivered the Balkans and Berlin to Moscow and lastuj but by no means least, we know that the 20th century Benedict Arnold not only dragged us into that new corridor, the United Nations, into the one-world government, but he actually schemed all the arrangements to plant it within our country.

In short, the day that Roosevelt entered the White House, the CFR conspirators regained full control of our foreign relations machinery and firmly established the United Nations as the housing for the Illuminati one-world government. I wish to stress one other very vital point.

That Wilson’s “League of Nations” fl op brought Schiff and his gang to the realization that control of just the Democratic Party was not enough.

True, they could create a crisis during the Republican administration as they did in 1929 with their Federal Reserve manufactured Crash and Depression which would bring another Democrat stooge back into the White House, but they realized that a four-year disruption in their control of our foreign relation policies could play havoc with the progress of their conspiracy. It could even break up their entire strategy as it almost did before Roosevelt saved it with his recognition of the Stalin regime. IT WILL CONTINUE ON THE NEXT WEEK’S EDITION.

Oakland’s first Chinese-American mayor walks through the city

February 9, 2011

por David Bacon

New America Media

Oakland residents walk with their newly elected and first chinese american Mayor Jean Quan during her first tour through downtown: (PHOTOS BY DAVID BACON)

OAKLAND, CA – Oakland Mayor Jean Quan walked through the city on her inauguration day, last January 3rd. She is the first Chinese American woman elected mayor. She started at the Oakland Asian Cultural Center in Chinatown. She then stopped at the Asian Resource Gallery, which featured an exhibit of posters curated by Greg Morizumi, from the Third World Strike at the University of California and political movements in the Asian American community since the 1960s.

Mayor Quan designed one of the posters in the exhibit, protesting the beating death of Vincent Chin. During her walk, she visited Lincoln Elementary School, in the heart of Chinatown.

Quan was previously a member of the Oakland School Board, and students excited by her visit made small speeches and sang for her. Kindergarten-age children looked on through the school windows.

Her walk took her down 17th Street, where storeowners have been hit hard by the economic recession. One storeowner hugged her, as the mayor urged Oakland residents to support local businesses by shopping in the city.

The last stop on Mayor Quan’s walk was the Leamington Hotel, where her father worked as a cook. There she was honored by the leaders

of the Alameda County Central Labor Council, the International Longhsore and Warehouse Union, and other local unions, along with the longshore union’s drill team. Mayor Quan’s husband, Floyd Huen, her son and daughter, and state Assembly member Sandre Swanson, one of her strongest supporters, all walked with her together with dozens of well-wishers.

FDA seeking to ban intravenous vitamin C

February 9, 2011

by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger

(NaturalNews) Not content to kill 100,000 Americans each year with deadly Big Pharma drugs while censoring the truth about the healing effects of herbs, nutritional supplements and natural medicines, the FDA has now set out to deny Americans access to yet another lifesaving medicine known simply as vitamin C.

As reported by the Alliance for Natural Health, the FDA has notified a manufacturer of injectable vitamin C that it will be amercriminally prosecuted if it continues to manufacture this lifesaving nutritional therapy. (http://www.anhusa.org/action-alert…)

Why injectable vitamin C saves lives

In an age where tens of millions of Americans are already vitamin C deficient and suffer from colds and other infections that can be prevented with vitamins, the FDA appears to be acting on what can only be called a death wish for the American people.

But really, it’s more likely a targeted attack at the alternative cancer industry that frequently uses injectable vitamin C to help patients eliminate cancer tumors and heal from various cancers.

If there’s one thing that the health authorities in the United States absolutely cannot tolerate, it’s natural cures for cancer.

That’s why (nearly) all the natural cancer treatment clinics have been chased out of the country, leaving only toxic chemotherapy centers (poison clinics) in their place. And that’s probably why the FDA is going after vitamin C right now as well. Take away enough natural cures and the people will be forced into accepting conventional medicine, regardless of whether it works or not.

Injectable vitamin C has many other uses besides cancer, too. As the ANH reports, “The government, instead of banning intravenous vitamin C, should instead be supporting research into it. Even though IV C is being used in burn units around the world, including in the US, and has been adopted by the military for this purpose, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) refuses to fund any studies using intravenous C in patients.

There are privately funded studies currently underway, but of course these cannot continue if the FDA bans the substance.”

Take action now to protect your access to vitamin C

Please take a moment to take action with both of the following petitions:

The Alliance for Natural Health has posted an online action item that sends a letter to Dr Margaret Hamburg, the commissioner of the FDA: https://secure3.convio.net/aahf/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=648

The Natural Solutions Foundation has also posted an action item, this one going out to various FDA and government offi cials: h t t p : / / s a l s a . d e m o cr a c y i n a c t i o n . o rg / . . .

Of course, sending these letters to FDA bureaucrats assumes that they give a damn about human health in the first place, and after observing the FDA’s behavior over the last several years, I can confi dently state that the FDA’s own actions betray its real agenda: To protect the profits of the drug companies by eliminating competing products such as vitamin C.

As Dr Rima Laibow says about this issue, “When injectible Vitamin C goes, the rest will soon go, and the natural Docs WILL be criminalized a la the infamous Flexner report. Codex standards effectively criminalize accurate speech on nutrition. This IS the other shoe; I do not believe we are being alarmist.”

The rise of tyranny

The larger issue here, however, is not this isolated decision by the FDA but rather the question:

Why do unelected regulatory bureaucrats have such power in the first place?

While we may elect lawmakers in America today, those lawmakers have long since delegated the real “laws of the land” to bureaucratic agencies like the FDA which are run by unelected politicians who simply write their own laws and regulations without the approval of Congress. This situation is described by attorney Jonathan Emord as The Rise of Tyranny, which also happens to be the name of his book on the topic (http://www.amazon.com/R i s e – T y r a n n y – . . . )

This book, which I consider a “must read” on the subject of health freedom, explains how the delegation of powers to rogue federal agencies (FDA, DEA, DHS, TSA, etc.) results in the nation being ruled by tyrannical bureaucrats who operate outside the authority of Congress. Under this power structure, for example, the FDA could simply announce one day that “all vitamins are illegal,” without Congressional approval and without any new laws being debated or signed into law. The delegation of powers to agencies like the FDA is the granting of dictatorial police state powers over entire sectors of our society.

Dina y Fidel

February 4, 2011

por Isaac Bigio

Análisis Global

Dilma Rousseff

On the first day of January, when the largest island in the Caribbean commemorates the fiftysecond anniversary of the revolution that put in place the only non-capitalistic economy in the West, the largest Latin American country (Brazil), is being taken over by its first ruler who belonged to a Castroinspired guerilla movement.

Dilma Rousseff, who was imprisoned from 1970 until 1972 and accused of being one of the leaders of the Plantation Vanguard Armed Revolutionaries, has become the first female president in Brazil’s history after having arrived in the palace by means of votes, not guns.

She, just like Uruguayan President Pepe Mujica, Bolivian Vice-President Alvaro Garcia and the governing parties of Nicaragua and El Salvador, comes to power by undergoing an inverted evolution, unlike Castro, their inspiration.

When, at the end of 1958, a series of strikes and an overwhelming crisis led to the fall of the corrupt dictatorship of Batista, Fidel’s relatively small insurgency had the benefit of a power vacuum. At that time he proclaimed himself to be opposed to communism and a proponent of introducing, into Cuba, a constitutional system similar to that of the United States.

However, the Castro brothers applied a series of reforms and nationalizations that brought about a conflict with Washington, first by becoming admirers of Moscow and then bytransforming their democratizing movement into a communist party that imposed a planned economy.

Fidel Castro

In order to create several fronts against the U.S., Havana began to promote armed conflicts on both sides of the Atlantic. Che Guevara first began to fight in the Congo and ended up being defeated and killed in Bolivia.The 1973 coup in Chile demonstrated the tendency of those years of the Cold War, during which the White House refused to allow any Latin American country to become closer to the Kremlin.

When, in 1979, the Sandinista guerillas triumphed in Nicaragua, the Castro brothers triumphed in Nicaragua, the Castro brothers asked Ortega not to emulate their system and also to accept a market economy and a multi-party state. When, in the years from 1989 to 1991, the Soviet bloc disintegrated and the Sandinistas lost an election, Havana became isolated. To confront this problem, the Castro brothers approached the European Union, made concessions to the free market and pressured the Latin American left to govern by means of constitutional processes.

Everywhere the Castro brothers asked the old guerillas to reinsert themselves in the system, although in Colombia they didn’t succeed. The model was followed in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, in all of which countries nationalistic strong men sought reforms that overturned the neo-liberal market policies.

The former Castro-like guerillas, such as Dilma or Pepe, even “moderated” their positions more than the ALBA (Bolivian Alliance for the People of Our America), and advocated social democratic policies.

The more her atheistic and subversive past is revealed, the more Dilma speaks of her Catholicism, of her pro-life beliefs and of her opposition to same-sex marriage.

Dilma will not carry out nationalizations like ALBA has. Instead of making Brazil into a new Cuba, she will try to make Cuba and ALBA profitable for Brazil. Her strategy will be to continue the policies of Lula: to make her nation a bridge between those who promote free enterprise and those who are left-wing populists.

( T r a n s l a t e d by Mark Carney)

Seven states positioned to advance ‘Arizona’ initiatives

February 4, 2011

by Ali Noorani

In the vacuum left by the federal government’s failureto reach a comprehensive fix of the nation’s broken immigration system, states have taken it on themselves to fill the void through a patchwork ofstate-based laws that mirror Arizona’s approach. However, states considering harsh immigration proposals should heed Arizona’s cautionary tale.

According to a report compiled by the National Immigration Forum, at least seven states are likely to propose immigration enforcement laws similar to Arizona’s “Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act,” commonly referred to as SB 1070, the nation’s broadest and most punitive immigration measure. Some will attempt to follow Arizona’s example despite overwhelming evidence that Arizonalike immigration legislation will further strain already fragile state economies.

Out of the seven states likely to consider Arizonalike legislation, Pennsylvania and South Carolina are highly at risk of approving such harsh immigration enforcement measures. In Pennsylvania efforts to pass anti-immigrant proposals failed in the summer of 2010 but efforts in 2011 could be supported by the now-conservative controlled legislature and Governor Tom Corbett who as Attorney General, filed a legal brief in support of SB1070. Several Arizonastyle bills have also been pre-filed in South Carolina. Like Pennsylvania, passage of a bill similar to South Carolina also has a conservative controlled legislature and governor supportive of the Arizona law.

SB1070 diverts scarce resources away from community policing by forcing police to spend time playing a federal role. In addition, taxpayers will bear the inevitable financial burden of lengthy court litigation.

As efforts to reform the nation’s immigration laws have stalled in Congress, the number of state-based immigration laws has increased dramatically. In 2008 alone, 1,305 bills were considered by state legislatures, 206 were enacted, and three were vetoed.

Arizona’s legislation is mired in a costly legal battle that appears headed for the United States SupremeCourt and could take years to resolve. Several key policy and public safety questions remain unanswered by proponents.

According to independent analysis, the lawwould exacerbate problems it purports to address, such as public safety, a state’s budget deficit, and confusion around the role of law enforcement agencies to enforce federal immigration laws. Analyses also show that SB1070 has already cost Arizona millions of dollars in tourist and convention revenue.

Preliminary assessments of the likely outcome of proposed copycat measures in state legislatures across the country indicate that at least

seven states, Georgia, Mississippi, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Tennessee, are likely to pass a measure similar to Arizona’s.

These states have some combination of the following: a re-elected, highly-motivated potential bill sponsor, an alreadyintroduced measure similar to Arizona’s or a legislatureapproved resolution supporting Arizona’s SB 1070, as well as a conservative governor and conservative majority in the legislature.

Politically, the law had an electoral ripple effecton races and campaigns in Arizona and the rest of the country. It had a powerful and negative impact on the Republican brand among the nation’s fastest-growing electorate: Latino and immigrant voters. Republican leaders in these states now have

tough choices to make as they weigh the responsibilities of governing.

Who will speak for their party on immigration reform and what path will they choose as their states contemplate Arizona-style policies in response to the broken immigration system?

How will they answer questions of cost and safety?

The exact number of states that will pass harsh immigration enforcement laws depends on a number of factors.

We can, however, be certain that the immigration battle in state legislatures in 2011 and 2012 will have a profound impact on independent voters’ perception of leadership in troubled economic times and the progress of changing the public face of the Republican Party among Latino voters.

Republicans will have a real electoral problems in 2012 if the party continues to be seen as one that lacks respect for Latino and immigrant families.

The immigration problem is a national one that requires a federal solution.

We can’t solve it on a state-by-state basis, and we certainly can’t solve it with proposals like SB1070 in Arizona or in any other state. We need the federal government to take bold and decisive action, and fix our immigration system now.

(Ali Noorani is executive director of the National Immigration Forum.)

The Nicaraguan community is mourning

January 28, 2011

by Marvin Ramirez

Francisco Ramirez Miranda

Mr. Francisco Ramírez Miranda, born in Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua, delivered its soul to the Creator on Jan. 13, 2011 in the city of San Francisco. He was 82 years old.

Born Nov. 14, 1928, Mr. Ramírez-Miranda, who was a professional accountant in his native land, worked at the to prestigious fi rm in Nicaraua, such as the Desmotadora Betsa in the city of Chinandega, where he was accounting personnel manager for more than 30 years. He also worked for the store Almacén Villa-Pereira.

In 1968 contracted nuptials with the also Nicaraguan lady, Mrs Rose Emilce Miranda of Ramírez in 1968, with whom procreated two children, Francisco M. Ramírez Miranda and Víctor Manuel Ramírez Miranda. Was also a father of two daughters of its fi rst marriage, Magda and Margarita Ramírez Mejía.

His funeral was held at Duggan Serra Mortuary in Daly City, California, January 13, and then taken to Holy Cross Cemetery on that same day.

Terminate Mexican-American Studies class or lose $15 million in funds

January 28, 2011

por James J. Lyons

Hispanic Link News Service

Hours before relinquishing command of the Arizona State Department of Education and being sworn in as the state’s new Attorney General, Tom Horne issued his final education decree — that the Tucson Unified School District (TUSD) must terminate its Mexican American Studies program or lose 10 percent of state funding, almost $15 million. Horne’s 12th-hour edict ended his eight-year tenure as Arizona’s education chief, a period marked by clashes with Hispanic parents and teachers and costly federal court litigation. Horne’s action was the latest in a long and highly-personal crusade against ethnic studies that some educators say smacks of state censorship and racist historical revisionism. Horne said his order was necessary to carry out a new Arizona law (House Bill 2281) which took effect on New Year’s Day.

The law prohibits a school district or charter school from including in its program any courses or classes that promote the overthrow of the United States government, promote resentment toward a race or class of people, are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group and/or advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals. Although the Tucson school district offers all students the opportunity to take four ethnic studies classes — African American, Asian American, Mexican American and Native American Studies — he said he was acting only against the Mexican American program because it was the lone one he had received complaints against. Horne commented that any may run afoul of the new law, TUSD’s ethnic programs were developed as part of a plan to end a school desegregation court order. Horne was elected State Superintendent of Education in 2002 on a promise that he would vigorously enforce Proposition 203, a measure passed by state voters in 2000 banning bilingual education.

He kept his promise and led the development of a program under which all non-English-language background students who are limited in their English proficiency (LEP) must be instructed in special English-only classes, separate from other children, for a minimum of four hours per school day. Educators and researchers have challenged the effectiveness of Horne’s instructional program and the legality of the segregated English-only program, which is currently undergoing scrutiny by a Federal District Court in Tucson pursuant to a 2009 U.S. Supreme Court decision. Anticipating Horne’s action, TUSD board members held a special meeting on Dec. 30, passing their third resolution on the issue.

The resolution restates their support of the Mexican American Studies program and their commitment to abiding by the new state law. They sent Horne and the incoming state education superintendent a letter calling for “collaboration, not legal action.” TUSD superintendent John Pedicone issued a statement pointing out students who took the challenged course had higher test scores and were more than twice as likely to graduate and three times as likely to go on to college.

Horne’s successor as state superintendent, John Huppenthal, will decide whether to uphold Horne’s edict. If he does, the TUSD has vowed to appeal. Meanwhile, a federal court suit brought by 11 TUSD teachers and the ACLU challenging the constitutionality of House Bill 2181 under the free speech clause of the First Amendment is pending. Having moved up the political ladder to become Arizona’s chief law enforcement officer, Horne will now oversee enforcement and defense of the state’s controversial anti-immigrant law SB1070. He told a Phoenix FOX news station that he will also use his new position to end the TUSD Mexican American Studies course.

He stated: “I’ve never yet seen a school not come to compliance, or school district not come to compliance, when there was a threat to withhold funds. So, I am expecting that to happen here. If it didn’t, I think the school board would be recalled. The parents wouldn’t stand for it, for them to give up 10 percent of their entire budget just so they could be in defiance of state law.”

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