by John Flórez

“You can become president!”

That’s what my grade school teachers told me. If I studied and worked hard, they said, I could become president.

So I did what they told me. But it turns out what they promised me wasn’t the truth, although I’m pretty certain they didn’t know it at the time.

Here we are, months before the Democratic and Republican parties’ presidential primaries and well over a year away from the general election itself and it’s clear to me that without millions of dollars stuffed in my pockets, I won’t be able to get out of the campaign starting blocks.

The latest campaign finance reports show that among Republican contenders Mitt Romney has already raised $34.5 million. Near behind him are Rudy Giuliani, $29.6 million, and John McCain, $23.5 million.

Barack Obama has rung up nearly $57 million on the Democratic cash register, trailed by Hillary Clinton, $31.5 million, and John Edwards, $21.6.

Already poor John admits having to spend $400 or more for a haircut to look presentable to unpretentious Democratic primary voters in states like Iowa and New Hampshire. No telling what it’ll cost him to primp up for the sophisticated electorate in California and New York. Or even Texas.

I wonder what the grade school teachers of today are telling Mexican kids like me the costs about becoming president? If they’re using Bill Richardson as a model, his ante to date is $13.1 million.

Dang those grade school teachers of mine. There I was, a poor Mexican kid with missing teeth, striped bib overalls and worn-out shoes being told the big lie by my Riverside Elementary teacher.

Later, my Jefferson Elementary teachers even read to me from books that anyone could become president.

I remember seeing pictures on the classroom wall of a white guy with wavy, silver hair. They said he was the first president of the United States. I later found out he wore a powdered wig. When you are a kid, history can be confusing.

My teachers taught me the pledge of allegiance to our flag and made me feel proud to be a United States citizen. I was especially honored to pull the ropes that raised the fl ag on the pole in front of the school in the morning. They talked about “our” forefathers and encouraged me to read books about U.S. history.

I gazed at the forefathers’ pictures, looking for any brown faces like mine. I learned not to take things too literally.

My teachers taught me about the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Though my immigrant parents taught me to be proud of my Mexican heritage, they helped bolster my pride in being an “American,” too.

My public schools did something else that is often overlooked. They taught me how to live, learn, work and play with others, and to discover the common values that bind us.

As I look at today’s roster of formidable presidential candidates — a female, a black and a Hispanic among them — now I can accept what my teachers told me. While we may never realize all the dreams our teachers had for each one of us, we won’t forget the gift they gave us — believing that we can make a difference and we are part of something larger than ourselves.

(John Flórez writes a regular column for the Deseret Morning News in Salt Lake City. He has founded several Hispanic civil rights organizations and served with more than 45 state, lo- cal and volunteer groups. E-mail: jdfl orez@comcast.net). © 2007.

by Salome Eguizabal and Charlie Ericksen

Elvira Arellano her son Saúl

Just as Elián González put a fresh human face on “Cuban refugee” nearly eight years ago, Elvira Arellano has gone and done it to the derisive term “illegal alien.”

There are many parallels to their stories. Each centered on a young, single mother and her son.Each mother took incredible risks to build a better life for her child. Both mothers dreamed the “American dream.” And both lived a nightmare.

There are differences in their dramas, too, as large as the Florida Straits that swallowed Elián’s mother and almost ended his own life. Elízabeth Rodríguez died at age 28 along with all 11 others aboard their Florida-bound small craft. Elvira was torn away from the clinging arms of her son and quickly deported.

Five-year-old Elián was found bobbing in an inner tube by a pair of Florida fisherman on Thanksgiving Day 1999. Instantly the child won this nation’s collective heart with his story and his smile. His arrival also ignited a political battle that stretched through seven months.

Mexico native Elvira is 32 now and her struggles are reflected in the lines in her face.

Her happy years seem past. She set out with dreams but no documents ten years ago.A lengthy romance included the birth of her lone joy, Saúl, now 8, but eventually ended in separation from the child’s father.

In December 2002, while employed as a maintenance worker at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, Arellano was caught in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement sweep. After all her appeals failed, she defied her deportation order last year and sought sanctuary with Saúl inside the city’s Adalberto United Methodist Church.

The pair became national spokespersons against U.S. immigration policies that separate mother and child. Over the past year, their situation became symbolic of the struggles facing the many mixed-status U.S. families, those made up of both undocumented and legal residents. The Pew Hispanic Center estimates there are 3.1 million children born here to an undocumented parent.

“Congress must act in September to stop the separation of families, the torture of four million U.S.-citizen children, the raids and deportations,”

Arellano said the day she announced her plans to leave the church’s protective walls after a year in the sanctuary and travel to Washington, D.C., to lobby.

Before departing, she told Hispanic Link News Service that if ICE wants to arrest her, it should do so in Washington “in front of the men and women who make the big decisions and who are ignoring the millions of families who are shouting that we need changes in the immigration laws.”

She also built in a brief speaking engagement in Los Angeles and it was there she was arrested Aug. 19 outside Our Lady Queen of Angels church after meeting with reporters. Within hours she was deported to Mexico.

The National Immigrants Solidarity Network calls her deportation “a shameful move, a clear signal from the government to terrify people who dare to speak up and fight injustice.”

Elvira, now staying in the border city of Tijuana, says she plans to continue her fight from Mexico. She promised her tearful son they will be reunited soon.

Until that happens, Emma Lozano, president of Centro Sin Fronteras, an immigrant advocacy group in Chicago, is caring for Saúl. The boy has traveled the country extensively, pleading for his mother’s future and is likely to continue to do so.

“He has met other children who are also living  under difficult situations because of their parents’ deportation, and he wants to be a part of this struggle,” Arellano told Hispanic Link a few days prior to her deportation.

In Cuba, Elián González is an apparently well-adjusted high school student now. He was permitted in June 2000 by the U.S. government to rejoin his father there despite huge public clamor to allow the boy to remain with relatives here.

There’s another difference in the two families’ stories. Cuban Elián is still beloved by millions here. A news photo of him screaming as he was dragged from his Miami family’s house by federal immigration agents sealed that image.

ICE was careful not to make the same public relations blunder with Saúl. They waited until he and his mother were being driven away from the Los Angeles church before surrounding their car and seizing Elvira.

(Salome Eguizabal and Charlie Ericksen report for Hispanic Link News Service, based in Washington, D.C. Reach them at editor@hispaniclink.org.) © 2007.­

by Marvin J. Ramírez

Marvin J. RamírezTo talk about the American Dream is to talk about owning a home – for most people. Many immigrants from all over the world come to North America to reach that dream, which in many instances is more than just owning a home. It’s about working hard and be able to have the basic needs of life, including to own a home, provide their children with a quality education and raise them healthily, and when is time to retire from a long, hard working life career, not to be worried about the essentials.

But instead of seeing people living the American Dream happily without worries, what I see is despair and struggle in their lives, especially those who have engaged in buying a home on the false assumption and promises that the property would increase in value, so later be able to earn a profit and then buy something more affordable.

Instead, entire families, probably in the millions nationwide, are seeing their lives torn apart now, by an injustice system that capitalizes on the property, on the basic need of people to put a roof over their heads, by monopolizing all forms of funding assistance and so abusing the so called “homeowners.”

But really, are they really homeowners? How can they be with a tax imposed on one’s own home? It really becomes a state rental property.

How can it be owned if the state says you have to pay every year to own it, or you will lose it?

The taxpayers should make our local government reduce their dependency on property taxes. One way would be increasing sales, corporate, and gas taxes.

For God’s sake, politicians, liberate your constituents. Let them own their home without penalty.

Make laws that protect one family’s own dwelling against any tax debt or lawsuits by health providers. Let them get old graciously without fearing that some government entity will evict them for lack of money to pay taxes or a debt. One’s home should be the last sacred sanctuary where a family holds together.

To rescue badly needed taxes, you yo got to be creative. Tax second homes or additional properties owned by the family. Do not tax the sanctuary, the only home the family has to inherit to their siblings. Because without having home security, there is no American Dream.

If you, politicians, do not do anything after reading this writing, then you are not working for your constituents, rather for other interests.

by Juliana Birnbaum Fox

Los Pleneros de Severo, de Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico’s Los Pleneros de Severo Quiñones (PSQ), a dynamic Bomba & Plena group, will be playing the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts on August 24.

Pleneros de Severo Quiñones is Charlie (dir. & Congas), Tony (singer), Bandy (Quinto), Raul (Guiro) & Agustin (Bas). Jose Nogueras, one of the main characters in Puerto Rico’s folkloric representations says: “PSQ has taken Plena to another level.”

Angel Alvarado, director of Grupo Esencia, the main Plena group in Puerto Rico”When PSQ is on stage – everything else just stops, is like if your inner self says -listen, watch, and dance.” Tickets are available through www.MissionCulturalCenter.org.

City College Rams host football scrimmage

The Rams, City College’s football team, will host a scrimmage match against San Joaquin Valley College at 4:00 P.M. at Rams Stadium on Wednesday, August 22, 2007. San Joaquin Delta was one of the top five teams in the Valley Conference last year and is traveling out to play the Rams for their fourth annual face-off.

Led by Coach George Rush, the Rams were the top team in the NorCal Conference last year and remain a prime source for Division I recruiters. In 2006, 15 team members transferred to prominent college football programs, including Penn State and Nebraska. Rush described the scrimmage as “a valuable opportunity to provide a competitive atmosphere while protecting our players and getting to see them perform together as a team.”

The two teams will meet at CCSF’s Rams Stadium, located on City College’s main campus at 50 Phelan Avenue in San Francisco.

37th Annual Millbrae Labor Day Festival brings music, crafts and food to the streets

Every year for the past 37 years, the last unofficial weekend of summer brings throngs of festival lovers to Millbrae for one of the Bay Area’s biggest Labor Day weekend events, transforming the downtown streets into a vibrant street fair with two days of live music, arts and crafts, and food and wine. This year the festival is expanding its green initiative, encouragingrecycling and composting and running a shuttle service from the Milbrae BART/Caltrain station to the south end of the festival.

­The music lineup this year highlights bands that pay tribute to history’s great rock and roll. It will feature Zoo Station (U2), Who Too (The Who), Evolution (Journey), The Gator Alley Band (Lynyrd Skynyrd), Replica (80’s rock bands), along with talented teenage sensations Lane Four, fan favorites in the KFOX Last Band Standing Competition. String ensemble HeartStrings Music, jazzy r&b trio Emerson & The Growiser Band, and woodwind/keyboard duo Dreamroad round out the stellar lineup of music. The festival will also feature performances by the Chinese Folk Dance Association, the Mills High School Dragon Team, and the Shinnyo Temple Taiko Drum Group.

Presented by the Millbrae Chamber of Commerce, this year’s festival runs September 1-2 (Saturday and Sunday of Labor Day weekend) on Broadway (1 block west of El Camino Real) between Victoria and Meadow Glen. Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. both days. Admission is free.

by Dr. Mark W. Hendrickson

Property taxes in Pennsylvania appear locked into a long-term uptrend. In recent years, there have been huge increases in the portion of the property tax that finances county government. County officials have levied these increases to pay for the unfunded mandates imposed by the state government in Harrisburg. The largest share of the property tax funds the public school districts, and virtually nobody foresees a time when the expenditures of those districts will stop rising. These ongoing pressures for additional tax revenues raise the question: Is it politically and economically feasible to continue raising property taxes in the coming years?

Some might look at the results of a recent ballot proposal in Lawrence County and conclude that Pennsylvanians prefer a property tax over others types of taxes, but this conclusion is unwarranted. When offered the opportunity to receive a modest reduction in the public-school portion of their property tax in exchange for a one-percent increase in their earned income tax, voters in every school district in the county overwhelmingly voted against it. The context here is crucial. Voters were not opposed to property tax relief, but to a package deal that represented an overall tax increase.

We have a political stalemate in Pennsylvania, because Harrisburg has mandated that the only permissible reform to public-school funding must be structured like the Lawrence County proposals. The psychology is all wrong. It’s hard for voters to get excited about a proposal that makes an obnoxious, already-high tax just a little less high (i.e., the property tax) at the price of ratcheting up another obnoxious tax—the income tax—when the federal/state/local taking of income is already at an uncomfortable level. If Harrisburg really wants reform, it needs to emulate the boldness of the Michigan government in the 1990s, when it totally scrapped the property tax for school funding, and replaced it with a two-percent hike in the state sales tax. I suspect that Pennsylvania voters would be far more comfortable with an increase in one type of taxation if it were offset by the complete removal of another type of taxation. If you give pennsylvania voters the chance to eliminate one part of their tax bill completely, then tax reform has a fi ghting chance for approval.

The larger, more fundamental problem here is the property tax itself. This form of taxation is totally antiquated, appropriate in America’s 19th-century agrarian society, but out of place today. In the 1800s, when there was no income tax and it was considered none of the government’s business how much money anybody made, the property tax served as a proxy for one’s income. This made a lot of sense then, because it was logical to assume that the citizen farming 80 acres had a higher income than one farming only 40 acres. Today, though, the homesteads of most Americans are not their source of income, but merely where they live. Why, then, take more money from a citizen with a house of 1500 square feet than one with 900?

One of the elementary principles of prudent taxation is that, in order to avoid harming citizens, taxes should take into consideration the individual’s ability to pay. Today, one’s ability to pay depends far more on one’s income than on the size of one’s house. To continue taxing people as if their house were generating their income is absurd.

An additional fault of the property tax is that it can jeopardize home ownership. On the surface, it appears that once a person has paid off the mortgage on his house, then he owns it free and clear, but this is not so. If the homeowner falls on hard times and can’t pay his property taxes, the sheriff comes and confi scates the house.

Under the present system, a person doesn’t really “own” his home completely, but in effect rents it from the local government which permits him to keep it only so long as the “owner” continues to pay taxes on it. We have heard of senior citizens—wonderful, lawabiding citizens who worked hard for decades to buy their own home—having to sell their home because they couldn’t afford the taxes. This is abominable. And how many of America’s homeless persons became so because they fell on hard times and were evicted from their homes because they couldn’t pay their property tax?

In an era when it has been the federal government’s policy to facilitate home ownership as a central feature of “the American dream,” it is anomalous for local governments to make it diffi cult for some citizens to keep their homes. The property tax is outmoded, unfair, irrational, and destructive. It’s time to abolish it.