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Painter’s Rufi no Tamayo’s stolen painting may reach $1 million at auction

by Antonio Mejías-Rentas

Tres Personajes, la pintura robada de Rufi no TamayoRufi no Tamayo’s stolen painting, Three Personages

ART FOR A STEAL: A painting by the late Mexican master Rufi no Tamayo stolen 20 years ago and reportedly recovered from the trash is expected to fetch up to $1 million at auction next month.

Tres personajes, a 1970 colorful work from Tamayo’s mature period, was purchased for $55,000 by an unidentifi ed Houston couple in 1977. It was stolen in 1987 from a warehouse where they had placed it while moving. The painting was recently featured in the “Missing Masterpieces” segment of the PBS program Antiques Roadshow.

New York resident Elizabeth Gibson did not immediately identify the painting when she found it, according to an interview with the Associated Press, Iying in trash along a street on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. She picked it up and took it home and later identified it when her research led her to the Antiques Roadshow Web site.

New York auction house Sotheby’s said the painting could bring between $750,00 and $1 million when it is sold at its Latin American Art auction on Nov. 20. Gibson will receive the $15,000 reward the Houston couple put up when it was stolen, plus an undisclosed percentage of the sale of the painting.

The theft of the painting is still being investigated by authorities.

Born in 1899 in Oaxaca, Tamayo is considered one of Mexico’s most important 20th century painters. Coincidentally, a retrospective of the artist —who died in 1991—opened last week at the Museo Tamayo Ante Contemporáneo in Mexico City.

IN OTHER STOLEN ART NEWS:

  • A New Jersey truck driver who stole a 1778 painting by Spanish master Francisco de Goya from an unattended truck and then claimed he found it in his basement was charged last week with theft.

Niños con carro, insured at a value of about $1 million, was being transported from the Guggenheim Museum in Manhattan to the institution that owns it, the Toledo (Ohio) Museum of Art. It’s been returned undamaged.

  • Burglars broke into a ­foundry in Tuscany, Italy, this month and stole seven bronze statues by Colombian artist Fernando Botero. The insured works, valued at about $5 million in total, depict figures in Botero’s known rounded style.
    Hispanic Link.

Community asks San Mateo county to halt foreclosures

by Juliana Birnbaum Fox

Members of the community ­group San Mateo County ACORN attended the San Mateo County Board meeting this week to pressure the Supervisors to pass a resolution that would stay the foreclosure crisis. The resolution calls on local subprime lenders to voluntarily enact a 3 month moratorium on foreclosures and put delinquent or at risk borrowers, who are in unaffordable loans, into modified loans that are 30 year, fixed rate, and affordable based on the borrowers income.

Property owners, local governments, lenders and investors alike stand to lose billions of dollars; estimated losses for the San Francisco-San Mateo metropolitan area alone exceed $210 million– $25 billion nationally.

“ACORN is working with our elected officials to protect homeowners and neighborhoods from the crime and diminished property values brought on by too many foreclosures,” said Estela Baldovinos, a resident of South San Francisco and member of ACORN who is fighting to save her home from foreclosure. “Lenders and investors need to do their part to protect our communities.”

San Francisco moves foreclosuresto allow greater access to renewable fuels

Tom AmmianoTom Ammiano

Following several months of research, Supervisor Ammiano introduced the “Fair Retail Pricing” and “Alternative Fuels Access” ordinances at the Board of Supervisors meeting this week. Together, these ordinances make it easier for station owners to procure and stock alternative fuels, freeing independent operators from franchise agreements that limit their ability to procure alternative fuels.

“Independent operators are being squeezed out of the market and consumers are feeling the pinch like never before,” Ammiano said. “Assuring small business owners maintain ownership of gas stations in the City is the only way we can ensure healthy price competition, benefiting both our small business community as well as consumers.”

Lawsuit aims to bring Medi-Cal benefits to youth in custody

Dennis HerreragrafoDennis Herreragrafo

City Attorney Dennis Herrera has filed suit against the State of California for illegally preventing disadvantaged youth from receiving Medi-Cal benefits while they are in the custody of a public institution. Because a high percentage of minors in custody suffer from medical conditions such as substance abuse and severe mental illnesses, he claimed, their access to Medi-Cal benefits is crucial to their health. Herrera’s lawsuit seeks to stop state administrators from denying Medi-Cal benefits for inpatient psychiatric hospital care needed by detained youth, and requiring the restoration of benefits for all covered medical services ­upon their release.

“The state has been illegally denying Medi-Cal benefits to thousands of children for years,” said Kimberly Lewis from the Western Center on Law and Poverty. “Most of these children have serious emotional and psychiatric disabilities that are left untreated when their Medi-Cal is cut off and it can take months to get coverage again after they are forced to reapply.”

The noose – Mexicans can’t forget their Texas legacy

­by Andy Porras

The noose is on the loose. Again.

Ever since those nooses dangling from a schoolyard tree raised racial tensions in Louisiana, the frightening symbol of segregation-era lynching has been hanging around the country.

The ghosts of Jim Crow and certain Texas Rangers are smiling and dancing in their graves. The rope trick they made famous is making a comeback.

Tejanos share memories of their ancestors facing situations similar to those of their darker brothers.

According to William D. Carrigan and Clive Webb’s “The Lynching of Persons of Mexican Origin or Descent in the United States, 1848 to 1928,” Texas mobs lynched at least 597 persons of Mexican descent.

“This does not include many incidents of other forms of mob violence,” writes Chicano historian Dr. Rudy Acuña. “This is considerable, considering that the Mexican population was small in comparison to the black population.”

Is placing a noose on a schoolyard tree a deplorable act of racism? Or is it just a prank, as that Louisiana school superintendent labeled his white students’ actions? Some of the current rash of “noose” incidents are being investigated as possible hate crimes. Most educators and law enforcement officials agree there’s no ambiguity. No matter their skin color, people understand exactly what it means.

The South’s brutal acts are more widely known, but Texas had its own barbarians who went around roping first and asking questions later.

Thanks to educator/journalist Jovita Idar (1885-1946), we have written accounts of occurrences during a tumultuous time for Tejanos in the border city of Laredo during the Mexican Revolution of 1910.

On U.S. soil, a second “war,” unnoticed by school textbooks, was raging. Los Rinches (Tejano lingo for the Rangers) were out and about lynching brown men, women and even children who sought refuge from their land’s political upheaval.

Jovita, whose students were mostly Mexican children, became a compelling historical figure. Throughout Texas, the lack of books and other basics often led Tejana teachers to abandon their pedagogical dreams and search for other careers. Jovita joined two brothers as a writer for her father’s newspaper, La Crónica, Her “radical” words often detailed the rabid discrimination against the Mexican students. But the reports that really ruffled Texas government’s feathers were about the Texas Rangers.

One laid bare the truth about the Rangers lynching a Mexican child in the town of Thorndale, near Austin. Another told of a 20-year-old Tejano burned alive by a mob in Rocksprings.

Soon thereafter the young periodista-journalist, called for organizing against the racist and brutal acts by the Rangers and white Texans in general. The Rangers added her to their hit list.

Jovita’s motto, Por la raza y para la raza — by the race and for the race” — became a rallying cry that led the formation of the feminist group La Liga Femenil Mexicanista.

Despite Rangers’ threats to put an end to such extreme ideas, the Tejanos formed their own schools, allowing formerly excluded students to enroll at no cost. They even provided the students with free lunch and school clothes.

Fearing the Mexican Revolution would spread into South Texas, the Rangers increased their presence along the border, continuing their repression against all people of Mexican origin. Jovita’s editorials were considered inflammatory by state and federal officials to the point that she was “cautioned” by both to curb her criticism.

In 1914 Jovita hit the hate jackpot with an article critical of none other than U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, who had deployed troops to the border. it was just the thing Los Rinches needed to come calling. Sent to destroy her father’s newspaper offi ce, an entire company of Texas’ fi nest mounted their high- grade steeds, surrounded the office and demanded her presence.

A Tejano crowd gathered to see what caused so many Rangers to come to town.

They gasped as Jovita stood in the doorway resisting the Ranger captain who had ordered her to get out of the way.

Jovita stood motion less. The Ranger captain and the journalist exchanged words. She read him her rights. The tall Texan with a badge ordered his men to back off, and he did the same.

Such a stand comes with a heavy price. The men returned in the dark of night with sledgehammers. They annihilated La Crónica. They destroyed the conscience of a community, but they failed to silence its messenger. For a memorable moment in Texas history, a Tejana cut loose the noose.

Jovita would write again from a safer place, San Antonio, where she and her husband lived out their lives.

(Andy Porras is publisher of the Sacramento area bilingual monthly Califas. Reach him at ­califasap@yahoo.com). ©2007

How to unseat a former president

by José de la Isla

HOUSTON– Mexico’s former president Vicente Fox has a talent for drawing almost as much criticism out of office as when he was the incumbent

In July of last year, he was succeeded by Felipe Calderón, of his own center right National Action Party, PAN in Spanish. Fox is widely credited with advancing democracy and reforming Mexico’s economy by controlling inflation and lowering interest rates. But he left office with a trail of disappointments.

Since that time, Fox has followed in the tradition of former heads of state, such as George Bush Sr., Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, U.K.’s Tony Blair, and Spain’s José María Aznar. They have remained active and at times vocal.

However, Mexico has only tepid acceptance for its former presidents going public, certainly not by the old Institutional Revolutionary Party, PRI in Spanish, that held power for 72 years, and now twice beaten for the presidency.

Political animosities die slowly and Fox’s antagonists seek to hang a personal enrichment jacket on him. Other allegations circulating include influence peddling by his stepchildren through his marriage to Marta Sahagún, and aspersions about Vámos México, the foundation they head. A commission has been authorized to investigate some of the allegations.

At the same time, Vicente Fox might be on the verge of taking an important place on the world stage. In late October he was elected co-president of Centrist Democrat International, the association of center-right parties around the world. He is also setting up a presidential library and think tank at his ranch. Throughout October, he has promoted In the United States his autobiographical book, “Revolution of Hope,” written with Rob Allyn.

While he was abroad last week, a group in Boca deL Río, Veracruz, toppled a statue of Fox before it was to be dedicated. When asked about it, Fox told me the people responsible for the “mischief,” were not average citizens but operatives of the state’s federal senator Fidel Herrera Beltrán. “He himself announced it,” Fox told me.

Herrera Beltrán, a PRI member, heads the Senate’s policy coordinating committee. More aftershocks were to follow. In Los Angeles, Fox walked out on Telemundo52 interviewer Rubén Luengas after uncomfortable questions about who owns certain properties in Guanajuato state near his ranch. Records appear to bear his wife Marta Sahagún’s name.

Then in San Jose, Calif., speaking at a downtown hotel, Fox drew a small protest across the street at the Plaza de César Chávez.

At a press conference, Fox claimed Herrera Beltrán was behind the anti-Fox campaign in Mexico, and alluded to the senator’s presidential aspirations. Just to make sure the mud stuck, Fox said Herrera “has a Drug Enforcement Agency, DEA, record related to narcotrafficking.”

Herrera called Fox’s 1charge a smoke screen, to distract public opinion from Fox’s administration corruption. The issue, he told El Universal, a Mexico City daily, was a recycled 10-year-old matter found to be a complete lie.

Víctor Valencia de los Santos, who heads the commission inquiring into the Fox administration, called the whole matter “a rude strategic distraction.”

The issues and name-calling heated up after Quién magazine published photos of the Fox’s homestead, Rancho Cristóbal. Questions immediately arose about whether government funds contributed to the renovations.

“It is evident he got rich during his six years in office,” Lino Korrodi, a former Fox campaign finance manager, told El Universal. Now a critic, Korrodi says Fox didn’t have the kind of money to renovate the ranch during his presidency.

Either legitimate charges are made before the appropriate tribunals or let historians argue over the details.

The danger of failing to let Fox become an elder statesman is that a cynical North American public can further lose confidence in Mexico’s emerging democracy and economy. Stereotypes, in matters such as this, are easier to come by than the facts.

Already, public opinion is making life-after-the-presidency read like a soap opera, a telecomedia. Ex-presidents have a lot to offer still. They do. Really they do.

[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].© 2007­

They blame the undocumented and punish the children, but who are the real culprits?

by Marvin J. Ramirez

Marvin RamirezMarvin Ramirez

The more I see the fury perpetrated against undocumented immigrants by immigration officials (USIC), despite the clamor from the business sector, churches and labor groups to stop the immigration raids of non-criminal, hard working people, the more I get to see the hate from those who rule from the top, the ones who give the order.

The more I see war and war, and more money to support it, the more I see the true intentions of the bankers who control the United States to possess the world and its people.

And I get more confused about North Americans who keep turning their eyes the other ways to the problems the country is facing: a continued deterioration of the dollar abroad, the economy as a whole plummeting ­while artificially injecting into the economy with phony money created by the Federal Reserve Bank without gold or silver backing.

And this is being done after the current real estate fiasco that is making the middle class to lose their homes.

Latin America, meanwhile, continues going on a different political path, away from that of Washington’s sphere of influence to liberate themselves from the tentacles of the International Monetary Fund that have kept their countries in misery for decades wile ruled by U.S.-backed dictatorial regimes.

At home, in our Latino communities, the pain is being felt like never before, on the children population, the future of the nation.

While Latinos – mainly those undocumented who have been contributing to our ailing Social Security fund for the main population to benefit – who are and have been the backbone of the U.S. economy, keep being targeted and persecuted when things are not going well everywhere else. They are hunted like animals.

The children, those whose parents came into the country undocumented,  are feeling the emotional trauma caused by the immigration raids, on top of the economic distress caused in the absence of their parents when they are taken away from their homes and deported.

A new report released today by the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) and the Urban Institute found that for every two people detained in immigration enforcement operations, one child is left behind. Two-thirds of these children are U.S. citizens and a similar share is under age 10.

“The local governments and communities we studied did not have  adequate resources to deal with children’s needs in the aftermath of the raids,” said Randy Capps, a demographer with the nonpartisan Urban Institute, according to a Wednesday’s written statement.

“At the same time, the federal government did not  have in place policies and procedures that explicitly consider the protection of children,” Capps said.

According to information I’ve found while researching the internet, what is going on now is a state of emergency in the U.S., but no one is going to tell you that. No matter how hard the media tries to make things look promising and normal in the economy, things are not going right. The U.S. national debt owed to the international banks, is so huge that there is no way it can be paid. And soon, our dollar could be replace by either the Euro or the Renminbi, the name of the Chinese currency.

To disguise reality, they (the international bankers) keep fi ghting the war on terrorism sending more money to Iraq and taking away our constitutional rights at home little by little. So they start with the hunting of undocumented immigrants, and don’t care about the children left behind.

In other related news, one ultimate act of control of every one of us will be the implementation of the Real ID, which is supposed to be implemented in 2008.

If you read this edito­rial, please don’t accept it. Some have said that the U.S. Mexican fence being built now is not to stop illegal immigration, rather to stop us from leaving. Many states are turning against it, although they are saying is because of its high cost.

With the Real ID, which will reveal every commercial, medical transaction your engage in, they won’t let you out if you owe money, etc. Do not accept it. It’s not to control terrorism, but to control us as human beings with political and fi nancial ends.

HCF announces scholarships

100 students to be awarded scholarships

Washington, D.C – A consortium led by the Hispanic College Fund (HCF) with the support of The Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) and the United Negro College Fund Special Programs Corporation (UNCFSP) announced the opening of the NASA MUST scholarship application. The NASA MUST scholarship application is now available online athttp://www.hispanicfund.org. with a deadline of February 1, 2008.

The NASA MUST consortium was awarded a grant to administer NASA’s Motivating Undergraduates in Science and Technology program (MUST), a program that awards scholarships and internships to undergraduate students pursuing degrees in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, more widely known as STEM fields. Students from underrepresented groups in STEM are encouraged to apply.

The NASA MUST program will award100 undergraduate students a one-year scholarship of up to one-half of the student’s tuition and academic fees not to exceed $10,000 per academic year plus a maximum stipend of $5,000 to participate in a mandatory summer research experience at a NASA center. A NASA center summer placement is based on a student’s career goals and depends on internship availability. Additionally, students will benefit year-round from tutoring, lecture series, faculty and peer mentors.

The NASA MUST Consortium is a dynamic collaboration of three qualified and experienced not-for-profit organizations with applicable expertise to manage all facets of the NASA MUST Program. The HCF, SHPE and UNCFSP each have an established track record of providing education and support services to Minority Institutions, faculty, and students.

For more information and details about the NASA MUST program, visit any of the Consortium member websites: http://www.hispanicfund.org ­, http://www.shpe.org or http://www.uncfsp.org. For information about NASA’s education programs, visit http://www.education.nasa.gov. Consortium member contacts include: Matthew Goldmark, HCF, (202) 296-5400; Rafaela Schwan, SHPE (817) 272-1116 and Sonya Green, UNCFSP, (703) 205-7636. (Hispanic Wire.)­

St. Luke’s Hospital could close

by Ali Tabatabai

Good-bye to St. Lukes Hospital?: The California Nurses Association holds a demonstration on the steps of SF City Hall on Thursday prior to a committee hearing of the Board of Supervisors on California Pacific Medical Center's plan to close St. Luke's Hospital. Good-bye to St. Lukes Hospital? The California Nurses Association holds a demonstration on the steps of SF City Hall on Thursday prior to a committee hearing of the Board of Supervisors on California Pacific Medical Center’s plan to close St. Luke’s Hospital. Asamblyman Mark Leno, speaks against the closing. (photo by Jennifer Salgado)­

Inpatient emergency care services at St. Luke’s Hospital in San Francisco’s Mission District were resuscitated for another 90 days, after hospital executives admitted on Thursday to neglecting a state law requiring official notice be sent to the city’s health commission before a closure.

At a hearing before the Board of Supervisors committee and a capacity crowd of hospital staff and community members, California Pacific Medical 7Center officials announced they will comply with the law known as Proposition Q and said their plans for the hospital was the first step in a process to redevelop city’s healthcare landscape.

“Whatever the future is for St. Luke’s and CPMC’s presence in the south of market, it’s not going to be a financially based decision from a standpoint of looking to make a profit,” said Christopher Willrich, California Pacific’s vice president of strategy and business development.

According to Willrich, St. Luke’s is currently lospopulaing $30 to $35 million each year while 60 percent of its acute hospital beds lay empty on any given day. He added that 85 percent of the hospital’s emergency room visits are for “low-level” emergencies such as asthma attacks and diabetes complications.

­CPMC, an affiliate of Sutter Health, had originally declared its plans to cut its pediatric and neonatal intensive care unit starting Nov. 16.–eventually eliminating all long-term emergency stays and turning St. Luke’s into an outpatient ambulatory hub by 2009. To balance the loss of St. Luke’s, CPMC also intends to build a $1.7 billion new hospital on Cathedral Hill at Van Ness Avenue and Geary Boulevard.

However, Public health director, Dr. Mitch Katz, said the move would leave San Francisco General as the only acute care hospital in the south-east side of the city.

“I don’t believe a simple closure of St. Luke’s, and closure of the [emergency department] could enhance our health status, have” Katz said. “We only now have nine acute care hospitals in San Francisco and we very badly need all of our emergency departments.”

During the hearing, Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier grilled Cal Pacifi c’s executives on rumors of sabotaging St. Luke’s numbers in order to justify the downgrading. She asked Willrich if CPMC was referring patients with private insurance to its other campuses and holding on to billing statements for its Medicare/ MediCal claims.

Willrich, however, categorically denied all accusations of engaging in the process known as, “medical redlining.”

“There’s no understanding that this is the way things are done,” Willrich said, “This doesn’t not sound like CPMC.”

Still, Alioto-Pier expressed her concerned on the impact the closure would have on the neighborhood, adding “You get rid of St. Luke’s and women who want to give birth to their babies in their communities all of a sudden have to go into Pacifi c Heights.”

Doctor’s from St. Luke’s, who treat high number of patients on government programs, also had their questions about the potential loss of the hospital. Michael Treece, chairman of the department of pediatrics at St. Luke’s has cared for children in the Mission District for over ten years. He noted that kids get sick at higher rates than adults and more serious conditions could develop into lifethreatening complications if not dealt with properly.

“Do we really want to ask families to bring their sick children all the way across town on a bus,” Treece asked. “Is that who we are?”

Thirty-three-year-old, Jan Zimmerman, who recently delivered her baby at St. Luke’s, said it should remain open as an example to the rest of the nation. ­She said that San Francisco should be home to hospitals that provide “the same opportunities and resources so that we have the best kind of healthcare available for everybody.”

The strong community reaction seemed to take stock with CPMC’s chief executive offi cer, Dr. Martin Brotman, who stayed for entire hearing lasted close to three hours. While he said he found the medical redlining accusations to be insulting, he thought the dialogue was constructive. “Everybody said we’re running a terrifi c hospital in there and they don’t want to lose it, that resonates,” Brotman said, “I heard what they’re saying and I’m going to reassess what the options are.”

Brotman said CPMC will continue to work with Dr. Katz and the city to determine the future of St. Luke’s and San Francisco’s medical system.

­

Officials: Chávez gains if trade pacts nixed

by the El Reportero news services

Hugo ChávezHugo Chávez

NEW YORK – Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez is ready to gain a public relations victory in Latin America if the U.S. Congress fails to approve free-trade pacts in the region, according to sources.

If Congress failes to ratify trade pacts with Peru, Colombia and Panama may unleash a crisis in U.S. relations with Latin America. As a U.S. adversary Chávez, would turn it to his advantage, according U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns.

“If we turn away (from approving the pacts), it’s going to embolden someone like Hugo Chávez that he can make hay out of that crisis,” said Burns. “We certainly don’t want to see someone like Chávez gain a public relations benefit if it doesn’t get through, that’s surely what he’ll try to do.”

Chávez blames U.S.-backed free-market policies for increasing poverty in Latin America. He has promoted his leftist Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, of which Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua are members.

­Bush presses US Congress on Latin America trade deals

President Bush Friday urged the U.S. Congress to approve a set of free trade accords with Colombia, Panama and Peru. VOA’s Brian Wagner reports that Mr. Bush said the trade deals will benefit U.S.

President Bush made the speech in Miami, Florida noting it is crucial for U.S. trade with Latin America and other parts of the world. He said that $72 billion in goods and products passed through Miami’s ports last year.

The president said the strength of international trade has helped push the area’s economic growth and employment levels above national averages. “I think the case for trade is unmistakable in Miami, and we need to make that case all over the country. I’ve come to a place that has benefited from trade so others around the country can understand it can happen in their areas as well,” he said.

Problems mount in Tijuana

On 29 October the federal Tribunal Electoral del Poder Judicial de la Federación (TEPJF) again delayed its confirmation that José Guadalupe Osuna Millán had won the August election for the governorship of Baja California. Osuna Millán is due to take office on November 1.

He is the only Partido Acción Nacional victor in a gubernatorial election since President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa took office in December 2006. If the TEPJF does annul the election in Baja, it will also set a questionmark against the narrow victory by Calderón in the 2006 presidential election. Calderón’s margin of victory (0.56%) was more than 10 times smaller than Osuna’s, yet there has not been a full recount of votes cast in the presidential election.

Calif. blaze counties are 40% Latinos, four Mexican migrants believed among the dead

­by Adolfo Flores and Mario Aguirre

A series of wildfires that have blazed for a more 7than week in six Southern California counties that are home to 7.2 million Hispanics—nearly 40°/0 of their combined population—finally appear under control.

The wind-driven inferno initiated the largest series of evacuations in the state’s history.

It blackened more than a half-million acres, destroyed 1,800 homes and caused seven deaths. Four of those caught and killed by the blaze are :believed to be undocumented migrants. Their charred bodies, found Oct, 25 near the Mexican border have been sent to the San Diego County Coroner’s Office to attempt to identify them.

The U.S. government and local outreach organizations as well as the Mexican Red Cross, have extended a hand to those in need of shelter, food or medical care. The National Council of La Raza teamed up with the American Red Cross to ensure the needs of the Latino community are met. The ARC has asked NCLR to share information on any other relief services where it may refer displaced families and to identify specific locations where communities are having difficulties.

A fact sheet was prepared by the two groups and the National Immigration Law Center to help non-English speaking immigrants navigate the different avenues for receiving aid.

“We’re making sure that the Hispanic community has the information and resources to receive the help it needs,” said NCLR spokesperson Laura Anduze. “We understand it may be difficult for them to seek assistance.”

Mexico’s Red Cross has been helping out in San Diego since Oct. 25 in providing bilingual assistance to the Spanish-speaking community.

Firefighters from Tijuana have been aiding firefighters from California and neighboring states on both sides of the border.

President Bush joined Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on an Oct. 25 visit to the “disaster” areas in San Diego and promised federal aid to the fire victims.

“This declaration means millions of dollars in much-needed assistance to help our state rebuild and recover,’ ‘Schwarzenegger said. “The federal government did the right thing.”

The Federal Emergency Management Agency set up a hotline aimed at the Hispanic community and those who speak 173 other foreign languages. In the six affected countles there are nearly 3 million Spanish speakers with limited English skills, accord. ing to the 2000 Census.

FEMA also sent bilingual and multicultural representatives to assist those in the devastated areas.

The hotline is the starting point for victims to register for federal assistance. Families can receive up to 28,000 for temporary housing, building repairs, lost possessions, and medical and funeral costs through their Individuals and Households Program.

Within the first 48 to 74 emergency-period hours, FEMA disregarded victims’ legal status when issuing services. To receive the financial aid, proof of legal status is required, however. Not all members of a family must show such proof to qualify. In fact, FEMA requires that just one family member —children and minors allowed—to be a citizen, resident or a qualified foreigner. One person’s information is sufficient during the registration process. A parent must make it clear that the aid is for his or her child.

“If a person doesn’t meet the requirements, we refer them to other volunteer or faith-based 1organizations where they don’t need to provide information ­regarding their legal status,” said FEMA spokesperson’ Mayra López de la Victoria.

Although the federal government has been quick to offer aid, undocumented communities such as the Mixtecos in San Diego’s canyons will be left out of the loop when it comes to rebuilding their lives.

Amanda Martinez of New American Media reported that Mexican government officials are filling the gap. The Mexican Consulate has been at the forefront of the effort to meet the needs of the undocumented community through partnerships with other groups.

Grassroots organization Casa Familiar located near the border doesn’t ask for documentation. It has become an emergency evacuation center.

Outreach worker Mónica Hernández found that members of the undocumented community were reluctant to evacuate their homes and receive help because of their fear of the Border Patrol.

Boxing

Saturday, October 27 – at Erfurt, Germany

  • 12 rounds, heavyweights: Alexander Povetkin (13-0, 10 KOs) vs. Chris Byrd (40-3-1, 21 KOs).
  • 12 rounds, middleweights: Sebastian Sylvester (26-2, 13 KOs) vs. Simone Rotolo (27-2, 13 KOs).

Saturday, October 27 – at Rama, Ontario

  • ­12 rounds, IBF super bantamweight title: Steve Molitor (24-0, 10 KOs) vs. Fushang 3K Battery (58-8-1, 35 KOs).

Saturday, November 3 – at Cardiff, Wales

  • 12 rounds, WBA & WBC super middleweight titles: Mikkel Kessler (39-0, 29 KOs) vs. Joe Calzaghe (43-0, 32 KOs).
  • 12 rounds, WBA light welterweight title: Gavin Rees (27-0, 13 KOs) vs. TBA.
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