­por Janet Murguía

Marchers protest the passing of the Arizona law that makes it into a crime to be undocumented in the country on May Day. (PHOTO BY DAVID BACON)

COLUMN – Every Mother’s Day, we have honored the women who nurture the hopes and dreams of families throughout the nation. This year our message has carried special meaning — to renew our focus on the number one priority of mothers everywhere —children.

Every mother looks for the future in her child’s face and, in the United States, the face of our future is increasingly Latino.

By 2035, nearly one-third of all children in the United States will be Hispanic. It is crucial to our nation that these children become productive citizens. Yet we lack the policies to allow Latino children to reach their true potential.

According to a new report by the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) and the Population Reference Bureau, America’s Future: Latino Child Well-Being inNumbers and Trends, the future of our nation is in trouble unless we take a targeted and comprehensive approach to address the challenges Latino children face.

Nearly 60 percent of Latino children are growing up in low-income or poor families, almost 20 percent of Hispanic children lack health insurance, and only 55 percent of Latino students graduate with a regular high school diploma. This is no way to prepare children so they can achieve the big dreams their mothers have for them.

Hispanic mothers have earned their worry lines. Today, too many are concerned with losing their homes and having to double up with relatives, forcing their children to attend new schools. As NCLR documented in       another recent report, The Foreclosure Generation: The Long-Term Impact of the Housing Crisis on Latino Children and Families, the current financial struggles of millions of Latino families are detrimental to their children’s ability to do well in school.

Given the unacceptably high unemployment and foreclosure rates that burden Hispanic families, we urge Congress to fast-track the creation of jobs to serve local needs in the communities hit hardest by the recession, to invest immediately in infrastructure, especially schools and public transit, and to protect the unemployed and other homeowners in distress from foreclosure.

Hispanic mothers want better lives for their children, and one way they can obtain this is by securing a quality education. We must hold our schools accountable for ensuring that children who are learning English master the same age-appropriate subject matter as their peers.

Just as Congress needs to take a comprehensive approach, so too should educators and state policymakers as they work to make schools more effective for Latino students. They should be aware of the significant differences in the challenges Hispanic children face according to which state they live in and how long their families have been in the United States. A full picture of Latino children’s well-being and circumstances in all 50 states is available at www.nclr.org/latinochildwellbeing.

The Latino population has many strengths, including cohesive families and communities, a youthful population, a commitment to the health and welfare of their children, and a strong work ethic.

­Hispanic mothers are doing all they can to keep their children on the right track. What’s missing, though, is a sense of urgency in our nation to make sure that Latino families have the opportunity to work hard, acquire a good education for their children, and build a better future for us all.

With a little help in leveling the playing field to create brighter prospects, we can turn around the troubling statistics on Latino children. Mother’s Day serves as a timely reminder that taking care of families is the best way to honor the mothers of this nation. Hispanic Link.

(Janet Murguía is president of the National Counsel of La Raza.) ©2010

Innovative radiation techniques reduce swallowing problems for head and neck cancer patients, improve quality of life

by the University of Michigan

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center have applied advanced radiation techniques for head and neck cancer to avoid treating critical structures that affect swallowing and eating. A new study shows these principles and techniques treated the cancer effectively while greatly reducing long-term swallowing complications.

The researchers applied highly conformal, intensity-modulated radiation therapy and knowledge of the anatomy and physiology of the structures involved to carefully craft a novel treatment plan that a avoids certain muscles in the mouth and throat that are most involved in swallowing. Generally, head and neck tumors do not spread to these structures.

Of the 73 patients treated with this technique, all but four were eating a normal diet after their treatment ended and only one was dependent on a feeding tube. Typically up to 20 percent of head and neck cancer patients remain dependent on a feeding tube after fi nishing an intensive course of radiation treatment concurrent with chemotherapy. Results of the study appear online in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. “More aggressive treatments for head and neck cancer have improved cancer control, but at the expense of quality of life.

In this study, we did not compromise tumor control and we were able to improve this important quality of life measure,” says study author Avraham Eisbruch, M.D., professor of radiation oncology at the U-M Medical School.

Scar tissue from radiation treatments to the head and neck often creates long-term problems with swallowing and eating solid foods that do not ­improve over time. In this study, 29 percent of the patients required a temporary feeding tube during treatment because of pain while swallowing.

But by one year after treatment, only one of the 73 patients on the study still required a feeding tube. Questionnaires to assess eating and swallowing function showed that on average, patients had only slight difficulties up to two years after treatment. No patients had a spread of their cancer to the untreated structures and few cancers recurred overall, suggesting it was not harmful to avoid treating these areas. After three years, 88 percent of patients were cancer-free. Eisbruch and his colleagues were also leaders in pioneering head and neck radiation treatments that avoid the salivary glands, reducing significantly the severity of permanently dry mouth, which has previously been a major complication of radiotherapy for head and neck cancer.

“We seek a cure for these patients, but we also seek quality of life. As cure rates have improved in recent years, quality of life issues become more and more important. Our next steps are to identify which patients are likely to do well with treatment and reduce the intensity of treatment to limit the burden of these side effects,” Eisbruch says.

Methodology: The study looked at 73 patients with stage III or stage IV oropharyngeal cancer, including cancer of the tonsils or the base of the tongue. Patients were treated with seven weeks of daily intensity-modulated radiation therapy to the neck, designed to avoid the swallowing structures. Chemotherapy was administered weekly during this time.

Patients were assessed with videofluoroscopy, an imaging procedure, periodically during treatment and up to two years after to assess swallowing. Swallowing was also assessed by doctors and through patient report using standard questionnaires.

Head and neck cancer statistics: 35,720 Americans will be diagnosed with head and neck cancer this year and 7,600 will die from the disease, according to the American Cancer Society.

by the El Reportero’s news services

Laura Chinchilla

Six Nicaraguan banana workers who Dole Food Co. attorneys have accused of fraud will get a chance to explain their position on Tuesday when their attorneys speak before a California judge at a hearing.

The men, who claimed in the lawsuit that exposure to pesticides made them sterile, received $2.3 million after a 2007 jury verdict. But the judge in the case is considering reversing the award.

Attorneys for Dole on Monday suggested that the men were part of a ‘’fraud army’’ coached in their testimony by an American and Nicaraguan lawyer with a plan to extort billions from the giant food company in multiple lawsuits.

Judge Victoria Chaney, who has been elevated to the state appellate court since she presided over the 2007 trial, has returned to Los Angeles Superior Court to consider dismissing the verdict. The case is closely related to one that Chaney dismissed last summer on grounds of fraud.

Chinchilla takes office in Costa Rica

Laura Chinchilla became Costa Rica’s first female president on Saturday, taking the oath of office in an open-air public ceremony with thousands of supporters cheering her on.

The new president swore to uphold Costa Rica’s constitution and accepted the presidential sash that moments before had been worn by Oscar Arias, the twice elected president who won the 1987 Nobel Peace Prize for helping 5end civil wars in Central America.

The 51-year-old Arias protegee became president after winning the February 7 presidential election representing the centre-left National Liberation Party (PLN).

She is the third female president in Central America, after Violeta Chamorro of Nicaragua and Mireya Moscoso of Panama.

No Unasur-Obama meeting until members firm up a consensus

As the leaders of Unasur open their summit in Buenos Aires on May 4, there is one item they know will be absent from their agenda: an agreed schedule for their long-awaited meeting with U.S. president Barack Obama (and, consequently, a tentative date for that meeting).

It does seem clear that the US government wanted to wait and see what emerged from the summit before committing itself, particularly since Unasur has said that what it wants is to discuss the regional security implications of the U.S.-Colombia agreement on base facilities. And on this, as on other key matters, Unasur has yet to reach a solid consensus.

­Tele-presidents embrace new media in information war

Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez, who leads the way in his embrace of new media in Latin America, now has his own account on the social networking site Twitter. He immediately extolled the virtues of Twitter to his Bolivian peer Evo Morales, who he received in his home state of Barinas last week, and invited all revolutionaries to use Twitter for the “ideological battle”. Chávez pioneered a new style of presidential communication, and governance, with his weekly television and radio broadcast Aló, Presidente in 1999, since when other regional heads of state have followed his lead.

How Latin America could set China an example

The world’s biggest economic issue is how to end the undervaluation of the Chinese renminbi against the US dollar without disrupting trade and capital flows. The consquence of the undervaluation is China’s huge (dollar-denominated) trade surplus. At the moment the Chinese authorities recycle this surplus by investing in US government bonds and other securities. Another way of recyling would be to allow foreigners to borrow renminbi.

Cuba reiterated Tuesday that the unilateral making of lists by the US government accusing other countries of supposed support to terrorism is incompatible with the international right and the UN resolutions.

by Rosalba Ruíz

Police officials from four states said that Arizona’s new immigration law, which empowers police to question the immigration status of anyone they suspect of being “unlawfully present” in the country, is a bad idea.

Members of the Law Enforcement Engagement Initiative (LEEI), an organization of police leaders advocating for immigration reform, said they would oppose similar legislation if it were proposed in their own states.

“I think this bill will have catastrophic impact on policing,” said George Gascon, San Francisco’s top cop, during a LEEI teleconference involving Hispanic Link News Service just hours before Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed the state legislation.

Law enforcement officials listed the high risk for racial profiling, a negative impact on community trust toward police and additional pressure on local police who already have limited resources as primary among reasons they oppose the law.

“(The law) does have some national ramifications,” said Richard Myers, Chief of Police in Colorado Springs, Colo., and member of LEEI. “The legislation poses yet another unfunded mission to the police that we just cannot sustain …It expects local police to engage in what is the primary mission of federal authorities.”

Myers said that one of his concerns is that other states would follow the lead.

Civil rights advocates have decried the law, citing the potential for racial profiling.

Before passage of the law, the Arizona Association of Chiefs of Police voiced its position against the bill, but the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association, a police officers union, asked for the governor’s support of the bill, saying the legislation would be another tool that would assist officers “in keeping our neighborhoods safe.”

Raleigh, N. C. chief Harry Dolan, a member of LEEI, stated that while preventing crime is the role of police, solving the immigration issue is the federal government’s responsibility: “I don’t want to give a position on it. I just want to say, federal government, please step up.” Hispanic Link.

IN OTHER IMMIGRATION NEWS: Conservative Latinos now say they support immigration legislation

by Luis Carlos López

PHOENIX, Ariz. — Just as President Obama was about to reveal his intention to scuttle pursuing immigration reform this year, several conservative Latino political activists and faith-based leaders used an April 29 telephonic news conference coordinated by author/activist Juan Hernández to spread the word that there’s plenty of support among Hispanic Republicans for a comprehensive bill to be fl oated in Congress this session.

While former President George W. Bush’s Secretary of Commerce Carlos ­Gutiérrez participated as hewas waiting at an airport, ex-Florida Gov. Jeb Bush was a last-minute no-show.

Hernández vaguely blamed his absence on a late “schedule change.”

Hernández read a statement by the former governor given to POLITICO the day before in which he stated that Arizona’s SB1070, signed by Gov. Jan Brewer April 23, “creates unintended consequences.” He added, “I don’t think this is a proper approach.”

Ironically, participants in the news teleconference stressed that for a reform bill to have any chance for success, President Obama must assume a much more forceful leadership role.

Stating that together they represent several hundred congregations, the half-dozen evangelical leaders were unanimous in denouncing the Arizona legislation.

Meanwhile, with the 90-day countdown beginning for Arizona’s SB1070 law to take effect, Latinos aligned with both political parties continue to call for rallies, marches, boycotts and non-violent protests nationwide on May 1 and beyond.

The law signed by Governor Brewer has already prompted two lawsuits, one coming from the National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders, which fi led a complaint April 29 citing that the legislation was illegal because it undermined federal authority. Hispanic Link.