­by Bob Menéndez
United States Senator

Many might have said that as a boy who grew up in a tenement building as the son of poor Cuban immigrants, I was foolish to dream of serving my nation in the U.S. Senate. But that is why the United States, which celebrates its 231st birthday this Fourth of July, is the greatest nation in the world.

As I sit here today, a proud senator representing the people of New Jersey, I want the next generation to know that through some hard work and determination, anything is possible.

My journey to a life of public service began in New Jersey’s Union City when as a senior in high school I was accepted into the honors program. At that time students had to pay for their advanced books, but my mother and father – barely making ends meet as a seamstress and a carpenter – didn’t have the funds for this extra expense.

I protested until the school district agreed to pay for my books, but I felt indignant that others faced similar dilemmas. Education shouldn’t have boundaries created by financial disparities, I believed, so I rallied my peers to change what I saw as a broken system.

We spent a long, hot summer gathering signatures for a referendum to change the school board from one that was appointed by a corrupt administration to one that was elected by the public. And we won.

Encouraged by that victory, I sought to be a representative on the school board, and at the age of 20 I was elected as the youngest member in its history.

Since then, I have had the privilege to serve as mayor of Union City, as a member of both chambers of the New Jersey state legislature, as a congressman in the U.S. House of Representatives, and now as a United States Senator.

Still I can’t forget my roots growing up in that tenement, nor the principles that these ladder-climbing experiences have instilled in me.

These values informed every decision I have made in my public service career. From working to make health care more affordable and accessible, to stopping the privatization of Social Security, to improving our schools and making a college degree more attainable, I have strived to create opportunity and improve the lives of all who live in this great democracy.

While these values inspired me to become a public servant, what continues to motivate me every day are the people who share their challenges and aspirations with me. I have been privileged to touch so many lives.

This is my greatest satisfaction – to know that because of my efforts a family can be reunited, or a group of senior citizens can collect their delayed Social Security benefits, or a veteran can receive the health care that he or she deserves.

Constituents and their experiences have also helped inspire me to create some innovative legislation along the way. When my Patient Navigator Program, inspired by those who were not receiving adequate health care, was signed into law, I heard one of the most tragic yet inspirational stories in my time in Congress.

Hazel Hailey told me of her daughter, Robin Waiters, who suffered severe stomach pain for two years but despite her mother’s urgings, refused to see a doctor. When she finally visited one, she was diagnosed with colorectal cancer. She passed away three months later.

Robin’s final request was for her mother to tell everyone she could that they should seek out care. This inspired Hazel to become a patient navigator. The program, which focuses on outreach to target communities to encourage prevention measures and follow-up treatment, has allowed Hazel to fulfill her daughter’s dying wish.

It is stories like Hazel’s – stories of creating positive change – that are the real compensation of being a public servant and are a continuous inspiration for me to strive to do more.

I have been privileged to realize the American Dream, but I recognize that what I have achieved is still a distant aspiration for too many. I hope that my journey will inspire many, many others as they weigh the choices in choosing their careers.

(Bob Menéndez is serving his first full six-year term in the U.S. Senate. E-mail him care of hannah_august@menendez.senate.gov.) c 2007

by Marvin J Ramirez

Marvin Ramirez

The intention is good, but to pass is another matter. Millions of immigrants, but mainly Latin Americans, will have to pay enormous increases in the tariffs when they have to proceed with their applications for citizenship, permanent residence, renew ­their TPS, etc. It seemed that the end is to make life miserable for Hispanics.

That does not surprise them to all those legislators who keep on passing or blocking laws that affect Hispanics for worse, when the whole Latin America one day turns their back at them and cease being the U.S. eternal allied.

Among the villains there are some good legislators who represent the good legislative side, like Zoe Lofgren (D-San Jose), who would submit a legislation as a whole, against the new unjust tariffs would be implemented on Tuesday, the July 31.

Called, Just Resolution, this amendment calls to invalidate the law that authorizes the Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) to increase the tariffs and put them in effect.

Lofgren’s bill would annul this law that increase the fees and would reinstall the structure of previous tariffs.

The Congresswoman claims that the immigration service constantly has failed to reduce the backlog of applications, including the absence of transparency and effective administration.

“Our immigration services have to advance to the 21st century,” Lofgren said. “But, the USCIS has stopped explaining consistently or justifying the quantities and distributions of this new increase of fees.

Meanwhile I agree that the USCIS has to modernize its existing infrastructure and procedures, but they must do it in a transparent and open way,” she said.

After repeated requests for several months, the USCIS has still to provide to the Congress a detailed plan of its efforts of the modernization of its infrastructure. Our immigration. Our system of immigration should be so much effective as just; to sacrifice one to obtain another should not be an option”.

“It is unfortunate that after thousands of calls from legal and advocate groups and components, the USCIS will continue its due increase,” said Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez. “The increase creates financial burden for families who want to happen for the legal process of the naturalization.”

It seems, that despite of so many protests, only a miracle will free the immigrants of so heavy financial load that Uncle Sam has imposed on these future children of North America who have already given part of their lives for the well-being of their Uncle Sam. An Uncle who often becomes cruel, up to the point that makes us think that he hates us, although he loves our work.

It is necessary to be a positive so that the Lofgren’s bill has a positive effect in the Congress.

­by José de la Isla

José de la Isla

MEXICO CITY – Do you remember the 1992 election when Bill Clinton adjusted his policy thinking to accommodate President H.W. Bush’s big vision of a free-trade zone for all of the Americas?

Clinton’s Fleetwood Mac vision had to turn on a dime, and he did it successfully. Clinton even had his advisor Henry Cisneros come to Mexico City for a private chat about it with President Carlos Salinas.

Eventually, a North American Free Trade Agreement was signed under President Clinton, one that excluded labor issues and had weak national provisions for Mexico’s development.

The treaty was like having cause without anticipating effect.

It was one, but not the only, reason for the rise of immigration to the United States, especially by the most marginal Mexican populations.

Then September 11th closed the border, like damming a stream where a freer flow of back-and-forth movement by job-seeking people had occurred before.

Where Latin American economic development had been a priority, it receded to near zero as “terrorism” and military solutions became the hot buttons.

Unfortunately, the national mentality changed also toward all of our neighbors to the south. Since that time, Democrats have retrenched and Republican interests have narrow-focused on free-trade expansion. Neither is a vision for a new North America, especially one where the old problems have not gone away.

We are back again where we were before the 1992 election.

In the current environment, our presidential candidates show little vision about the geography issue. Do they know we are North Americans? That the Western Hemisphere matters to our future? That Mexico is the gateway?

Will someone, please – for our own sake – ask the top candidates what that vision is.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney recently issued a seven-point plan of action on the Western Hemisphere. He touched on our vital interests in energy, trade and security. Much of it rehashes, rhetorically, longstanding concerns (Castro, trade, “must rebuild relationships,” etc.)

However, it was refreshing to see the confession, “since the terror of 9/11, America has become so preoccupied with other regions that we have forgotten our friends in our own hemisphere.”

Indeed, the candidates in the presidential campaign of 2008 can serve the nation best when they focus on a national and hemispheric vision. It’s time to sober up the jingoistic attitudes setting in. Illegal immigration, and the pogroms that have been coddled and allowed, are detrimental to our standing in the world and to our own future.

Angry voters with cynical beliefs, increased retrenchment, isolationism and the weird 19th century notions about the Americas – is that the nation the presidential candidates want to lead?

To change that course will take guts.

An addled public waits to see which one is not bidding to become President Chicken.

A phrase went around last July before the Mexican presidential elections here. In private conversations, people said it was not possible to make one good president out of their top three contenders.

The U.S. political scene seems to be going in the same direction. The seven declared Democrats and eight Republicans in the race are watering down, not improving, the public’s understanding about what kind of future we can build with respect to our neighbors.

It’s the vision thing, again.

Unless someone comes along with clear insight, we will be discussing this again, in similar terms, in 2012.

In the 1992 Clinton-Bush campaign, we got to the starting gate. In 2008, it seems we are there again for the long-delayed national debate.

[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.] c 2007

­by Marvin J Ramirez

Marvin Ramirez

Senate Finance Committee approved by a bipartisan vote of 17-4 the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act, which would expand coverage to more than three million children and maintain coverage for the 6.6 million children currently in the program. Latino children would especially benefit, since close to 40 percent of all uninsured children in the U.S. are Hispanic. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called Thursday on President Bush not to block expanding health care to millions of children.

In a statement to the press, Reid shows his concern that despite of its strong bipartisanship, the bill might not go anywhere if the president doesn’t act on it.

“Today we came one step closer to fulfilling the bipartisan Senate’s promise of improving the lives of millions of American kids,” Reid said. “By overwhelmingly approving a plan to renew and enhance the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee voiced our commitment to ensure low-income, uninsured children have access to health care.  This bill does not go as far as some of us would have liked, but it is a strong example of bipartisan compromise.”

According the statement, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) it’s very crucial for Latinos.

It’s  very critical to the well-being of Latino children and their families, the most uninsured racial/ethnic group in this country, Reid said.

“There are still 9 million uninsured children in America, 38.8 percent of whom are Latino.  Unfortunately, our President has failed to protect Latino families served by SCHIP by submitting a budget request that would not even provide enough to cover those already enrolled.

That is why the Senate will take up legislation investing $35 billion in the Children’s Health Insurance Program, $30 billion more than the administration’s request.

My question is why people have to beg every so often, for funds to cover programs that will keep the future generations healthy to take the country to the future?

by José de la Isla

José de la Isla

HOUSTON — In their mad scramble to gain credibility from the increasingly important Latino vote, presidential candidates are already harvesting endorsements and forming “advisory” committees of prominent Hispanics.

So how is one candidate more in tune than another? What is authentic interest and what is entirely self-serving?

In fact, who sets the Latino agenda?

The late Los Angeles Times columnist Frank del Olmo complained in 1987 about the efforts of then-San Antonio mayor Henry Cisneros who proposed a summit to prepare a national agenda for the 1988 presidential race.  Del Olmo reasoned, it is simply not possible to combine the political interests of Mexican Americans, Cubans, Puerto Ricans and Central Americans. He even referenced what he called “the myth of a Hispanic vote.”

Today, the list would go beyond ethnicities to regions, income groups, education categories, religion, citizenship status, and gender.

Of course, there is no myth now but a functioning reality about the importance of the Latino vote.

Yet, what exactly is the Latino perspective when so many “issues” are put on the table? With the possible exception of the deep-seated dismay with Congress’s inaction on immigration and (so far) education, other matters can cut any which way.

True, Del Olmo was correct to object to a one-size-fits-all mentality. Yet, an agenda resulted in 1988, formulated by 50 leaders, of the National Hispanic Leadership Conference. It offered a buffet of 14 policy issue areas. In 1992, a similar bipartisan agenda was offered to George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

Even those who follow politics closely may be surprised to learn that this contemporary effort, while significant, was not unprecedented. Actually, the first such effort occurred in 1939.

In his forthcoming book, “The Search for a Civic Voice: California Latino Politics,” Kenneth C. Burt brilliantly documents the First National Congress of the Mexican and Spanish-American Peoples of the United States (known as El Congreso). Representatives to it came from Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Montana and New York.

The basic values expressed in the first meeting, held in Los Angeles, stand up to this day. Eduardo Quevedo, its presiding chairman, talked about promoting unity within the Hispanic community by combating inequality. The movement would form alliances with other progressive organizations. Its agenda was directed at state-level initiatives and federal action. It had a transnational perspective, showing presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lázaro Cárdenas’s shared responsibilities in matters of immigration and progress.

El Congreso stood for democratic rule in those pre-World War II days, when some prominent state and national leaders flirted with fascism and others rationalized for Stalinist Russia.

And most applicable today, they stood for civic participation — extending voting rights by eliminating discriminatory practices, and engaging in outreach to turn out the vote.

The national mobilization foreseen in 1939 was not carried out. But its spirit has persisted over the seven decades. Now, a new initiative — ya es hora, now’s the time — involves the National Council of La Raza, the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, the Service Employees International Union SEIU and the We Are America Alliance, ImpreMedia, Univisión, and 300 regional and local organizations in 15 states.

This is the kind of action that makes presidential frontrunners perk up. The Wall Street Journal concedes the mobilization “could influence the agenda and outcome of the 2008 election.”

So, who speaks for Hispanics? The voters do, of course. And it seems candidates listen, but only after a scrappy Latino agenda packs a brawny wallop at the polls. And with each election, their hearing improves.

(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