by the University of Michigan

Nicaraguan painter Raúl Barrios, shows to El Reportero one of his paintings made on the trunk of a tree in the city of Managua. (photo by Marvin Ramirez)

ANN ARBOR, Michigan.— With school days just around the corner, a University of Michigan researcher has some advice for parents who want to increase their children’s academic success.

“If you want your kids to do well in school, then the amount of education you get yourself is important,” says Pamela Davis-Kean, a psychologist at the U-M Institute for Social Research (ISR). “This may mean that parents need to go back to school.”

“A growing number of large-scale, long-term studies now show that increasing parental education beyond high school is strongly linked to increasing language ability in children. Even after controlling for parental income, marital status, and a host of other factors, we find that the impact of parental education remains significant.”

Davis-Kean, who is also affiliated with the U-M Psychology Department, directs the ISR Center for the Analysis of Pathways from Childhood to Adulthood, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). She is co-editor of the July 2009 issue of the Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, a peer-reviewed journal presenting research sponsored by the Center that employs multiple perspectives to analyze the impact parents have on their children’s educational attainment.

One of the studies in the special issue examines the long-term effects of parental education on children’s success in school and work, beginning when children are eight years old and extending until they are age 48.

Another study examines how language skills and school readiness of three-year-olds are positively affected when mothers return to school.

“In every case, we’ve found that an increase in parental education has a positive impact on children’s success in school,” says Davis-Kean. “And this impact is particularly strong when parents start with a high-school education or less.”

“These findings may be reassuring to parents at a time when many are unemployed or worried about future job prospects,” Davis-Kean says. “They clearly show that in terms of the effect on children’s achievement, it’s more important for parents to get a good education than to get a high-paying job. Of course, the more education you have, the more likely it is that you’ll find a good job, so an increase in education is often leads to an increase in income.”

The reasons behind the power of parental education are not yet fully understood, but researchers think it’s more than just providing a model that children want to imitate. More education might mean that parents are more likely to read to their children, suggests Davis Kean. Or it could be that parents who are in school need to be more organized in order to get everything done, so they tend to create a more structured home environment, with dinner and bed-time occurring at regular times, for example. This kind of predictable, structured environment has a positive impact on child development, many studies have shown.

Creating a more structured environment for children – as opposed to giving them lots of free time – has been getting something of a bad reputation lately, Davis-Kean notes. But she believes that for the vast majority of U.S. children, the value of free time has been exaggerated.

“There’s this idealistic, nostalgic idea that free time gives children a chance to go out and play, and just experience nature,” she says. “But in reality, in today’s world where both parents are likely to be employed outside the home, what free time means for most kids is sitting in front of the TV, playing video games, and generally being bored with no stimulation.

“What’s really valuable for children is being engaged in activities that are supervised by adults. When kids are unsupervised, you see an increase in injuries. And ­summer down-time also has negative infl uences on school achievement in the fall.”

So parents who are going to school themselves should not worry about the effects of arranging more supervised activities for their children, according to Davis-Kean.

­­by the El Reportero’s news services

Alvaro Uribe

The Union of South American Nations (Unasur) met in Quito on August 10. Its official agenda went all but unreported as it was hijacked by the debate over Colombian-U.S. military bases.

Colombia’s President Alvaro Uribe had spent the previous week on a peripatetic tour of South America in an endeavor to, if not drum up support, win understanding for the accord with the U.S.

Unasur heads of state failed to reach a consensus over the thorny issue, which they agreed to discuss at a special summit in Argentina at a later date. Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez, meanwhile, once again ratcheted up the tension with Colombia, indulging his taste for sabre-rattling: “the winds of war have started to blow,” he said.

by Erick Galindo

WASHINGTON, D.C.— After 220 years on the outside looking in, Hispanics are celebrating the arrival of their first initiate to the U.S. Supreme Court. By a comfortable 68-31 majority, the U.S. Senate confirmed Aug. 6 President Obama’s nomination of Sonia Sotomayor, an appellate court judge from New York, as an Associate Justice.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. administered the constitutional oath in a private ceremony Aug. 8. That was repeated in the Court’s East Conference Room with some five dozen Sotomayor family and close friends as witness. The formal investiture will take place exactly one month later at a special sitting of the nine member Court.

The former litigator, of Puerto Rican background, has dominated public attention for weeks, including four days of sometimes acrimonious hearings in June, in which she answered questions that often focused on a remark she made 10 years ago at the University of California-Berkeley during a speech suggesting one’s personal experiences and outlook can affect decision-making on the bench.

Sotomayor’s personal and legal positions on abortion, gun ownership and eminent domain, and her tenure on the board of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund were areas of intense scrutiny.

She answered 17 questions in reference to her now-famous “wise Latina” speech, which her detractors claimed implied that she was not without bias. Each time, she affirmed she would uphold the Constitution and precedent. Once citing ‘’empathy” as a desirable quality, she avoided suggesting it as a qualification for judgeship.

Shortly after the Senate vote, President Obama than ked its members “for giving Judge Sotomayor a thorough and civil hearing in a timely manner so she can be fully prepared to take her seat when the Court’s work begins this October.” The president added he was pleased with the margin of her support.

The vote was strongly partisan. All 31 opposing votes came from Republicans. Nine GOP members supported it.

Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) was not present to vote, but he previously expressed his support for confirmation. Kennedy is convalescing after surgery for a brain tumor.

The Republican opposition drew criticism in many Latino circles over how race, ethnicity and gender issues drew more attention than did judicial qualifications. Other speculation centered on whether a wall was going up between the Republican Party and Hispanics.

“That so many from one party were reluctant to recognize Judge Sotomayor’s impressive qualifications will be something our community is likely to remember,” said David Lizarraga, chairman of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

Democrats accused Republicans of ignoring the judge’s substantial record. Minutes before the full Senate vote, Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont urged Republicans to vote their ~conscious.” He denounced any suggestion that Sotomayor’s ethnicity or gender would play any role in her rulings, and called the insinuation “demeaning to women and all communities of color.”

Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund president Thomas Saenz agreed with Senate Democrats, saying, “Her eminent qualifications and wise committee testimony shattered a glass ceiling. This tremendous accomplishment is marred only by the fact that so many senators chose to elevate partisanship and political pandering over principle. History – and the fast-growing community of Latino voters – will judge these senators harshly.”

Both Hispanic senators, Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) and Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), voted in favor of confirmation.

“This is a moment at which a young Latina, sitting in an elementary school classroom, will fully understand that anything is possible in this amazing country,” Menendez stated.

Organizations throughout the country held confirmation parties. In Washington, D.C., rallies on the day before the Senate vote were held as major Hispanic organizations came together to show PMsolidarity.

“It is a date that will quickly take hold in the memories of millions of Hispanic Americans of all ages and backgrounds,” National Council of La Raza President Janet Murgufa said. “Finally, our community has representation on the highest court in the land. For that reason and many others, this vote matters to Latinos and it matters to our country.”

The Supreme Court was formally established in 1789. Alabama Republican Jeff Sessions, ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, said that the vote against Sotomayor was a stance against Obama and an indicator of possible obstacles for future court nominees. Republicans cited Sotomayor’s perceived bias against gun rights as a major factor in their votes. With a pending gun-rights case on the Court’s docket, Sotomayor refused to state a specific opinion on the matter, saying only that the Court had recognized the right to bare arms as an individual right.

­Libertarian Party spokesman Donny Ferguson called the confirmation “a defeat for individual property and gun rights.”

Several key pro-gun senators voted in favor of confirmation.

Among them were Democrats Mark Warner, Virginia; Tim Johnson, South Dakota; Max Baucus, Montana; and Republicans Lamar Alexander, Tennessee, and Lindsey Graham, South Carolina. All have an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association.

by the University of Michigan

A girl rides her pure breed hourse during the ‘hipicas’ celebrations in Managua, Nicaragua, from the 1 to the 10th of August.  (photo by Marvin J. Ramirez)

­ANN ARBOR, Mich.— Eating a small lunch doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be so hungry for dinner that you’ll eat more than usual, a new study suggests.

Exercising after a small meal can reduce the sensation of hunger and potentially help lose weight, according to Katarina Borer, professor in the University of Michigan School of Kinesiology and principal investigator on the study.

When the meal was small, people felt hungrier than when the meal was larger. But for the next meal, hunger ratings were equally high, the study showed.

Exercising makes you less hungry, but does not make you hungrier or eat more at the next meal.

“The stomach or gut knows when we are full, and that has to do with volume and energy contained in food,” she said. “Our body tracks the amount of food that goes into our mouth and the stomach. Our stomach is the smart guy who knows what’s going on and tells our brain.”

Borer withheld calories through diet, and also had people burn calories through exercise. The study showed that caloric deficit in the form of small meals causes hunger but the reverse is true when we expend calories through exercise after a large meal. But when she replaced those calories and nutrients intravenously, people still did not feel full after either a small meal or exercise, which suggests again that the volume of food actually passing through the mouth and gut triggers hunger or fullness.

Borer’s findings disclaim the widely held position that the hormone leptin acts as a satiety signal in controlling appetites, and that the hormone ghrelin signals hunger, Borer says.

Current thinking is that hormones and other sensors in the body somehow track our energy/caloric deficit or excess, and then ghrelin signals our bodies that we need to eat during an energy deficit and leptin directs that we should stop in response to caloric fill. Hormones leptin and ghrelin did track energy availability (defi cit due to small meals and exercise and excess due to large meals and intravenous nutrients), but did not affect appetite, she said.

Borer’s fi ndings certainly do not give license to eat a small volume of calorierich food like a pizza while dieting, she stressed. You’d feel hungry sooner than after consuming large volumes of healthy low-energy foods.

The added benefi t of low energy but nutrient-rich food is a possible weight loss and general good health, she says. Lots of vegetables and lean meat are wiser choices than pizza, she says, though equal volumes of both make us feel full.

“You need to satisfy.”­

­

by the El Reportero’s news services

Fidel Castro

The 83rd birthday anniversary of the leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro, was marked with the opening of a photo exhibit at the Hotel Nacional in Havana.

The inauguration of the exhibition, made up of 83 photos showing different moments in the life of the revolutionary leader, was attended by the president of the Cuban National Assembly (Parliament), Ricardo Alarcon, who said that “we should congratulate each other for the exceptional fact that the Cuban people have someone who symbolizes their best features,” Escambray reports.

Fidel Castro appears healthy in two new pictures taken less than two weeks ago by a group of US clerics belonging to the Pastors for Peace group and posted on their website.

Wearing a white track suit, dark t-shirt and a blue cap, Castro seems to have gained weight since previous pictures, AFP reports.

The revolutionary leader has been out of public view for three years after stepping down for health reasons and handing power to younger brother Raul Castro.

However it is believed that the former president is still consulted on major decisions but his role in day-to-day government of the island is unclear, FOXNews reports.

El Salvador boosts agriculture

San Salvador, Aug 13 (Prensa Latina) The Salvadorian government started a program on Thursday to revitalize the former strength of agriculture, increase production and legalize land possession.

“We want to turn the countryside into the driving force of the country’s ­productive development,” President Mauricio Funes said in the ceremony to launch the plan, and recalled that the sector had been forgotten for years.

By vitue of the new policy, the authorities will speed up handing over title deeds of lands to farmers, until reaching 3,000 in the first 100 days of the new government.

The Executive has granted 934 title deeds since it assumed power on June 1, to families that had been for over 20 years awaiting legalization. Simultaneously to that measure, production of essential grains will be increased, by means of handing over fertilizers and packages of improved corn, bean, rice and sorghum seeds.

This measure will benefit 600,000 farmers and will allow increasing national production in 10 percent in the 2009-2010 period.

by Arlinda Arriaga

Community colleges, the fastest growing segment of U.S. higher education institutions, may see a boost in Hispanic enrollment as early as this fall because of President Obama’s American Graduation Initiative plan.

The Administration’s 512 billion proposal calls for funding spread over 10 years. It was announced July 14 during the president’s visit to Macomb Community College in Warren, Mich.

There are 1,177 community colleges in the United States. Their total enrollment is 6.7 million, or 46% of all college students, with non-whites entering at increasingly higher rates, according to the American Association of Community Colleges.

As of spring 2009, more than half of all African-American and two-thirds of Latino undergraduates attend these institutions. Of the Latinos, 39% are the first in their families to go to college.

The figure for Asian Americans is 45%; for Native Americans 52%.

At present, whites comprise 63% of community college enrollment, Hispanics 169%, blacks 13%, Asians 7% and Native Americans 1%.

The AACC also estimates that because of the economic downturn, enrollment nationally increased by about 10% in 2009 over 2008.

Of the Obama plan, $9 billion would go toward challenge grants to motivate colleges to be innovative in recruitment and address dropout rates, and $500 million for online education, with the remaining $2.5 billion serving as seed money to generate an additional $10 billion in renovation and construction on community colleges.

Some of the funds could be available by the 2010 budget year that begins Oct. 1, according to the White House.

Dr. Cecilia Cervantes, president of the National Community College Hispanic Council, an AACC affiliate, focuses on preparation and support of Hispanic leaders in education. She told Weekly Report she hopes this funding brings more Hispanic staff, faculty and administrators onto campuses.

“We’ve been trying for many years to open the door wide enough for students to come in. These funds will help our efforts to create that much needed opportunity for students,” Cervantes, who heads Hennepin Technical College in Hennepin, Minnesota, told Weekly Report. For more on the American Graduation Initiative Plan visit www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Investing-in-Education-The-American-Graduation-Initiative/.

In other news, Red Card is offering a new deal for immigration. To “bring order to U.S. borders” by separating citizenship and workers, the Red Card Solution was presented to several congressional staff members this summer at the Library of Congress by Helen Krieble, president of the Vernon K. Krieble Foundation.

Krieble explained that the “solution” is not immigration reformation, but a step toward it. The presentation included an advance screening of a mint-documentary explaining how the process would work.

The documentary described how undocumented agricultural workers often come to the United States to work for a season and then “because they’re afraid to go home, they stay through the off season and become permanent illegal residents.”

Behind the solution is the Krieble Plan, which she deemed “a reform plan that wins elections and is good for America.” The plan outlines how immigrants can receive and use their red cards.

After undergoing thorough background checks, applicants would be allowed to secure jobs in the United States Then they would be issued a “smart card” containing all of their personal information. The card could be swiped like a credit card to allow them to cross the U.S. border legally.

Their jobs would be ­seasonal. The smart card would allow them access to the United States for the amount of time contracted for the seasonal labor. They would be given the same health care and workman’s compensation as other U.S. workers.

“The Krieble Plan will help secure the border by providing an easy method that allows legal workers to go through a background check and enter the country legally,” Krieble emphasized, stressing how the workers would not be eligible U.S. citizenship.

Employers would be required to pay them at least the minimum wage, just as they do for other workers.

When asked how the job offers would be posted for immigrants to fi nd, Krieble said they would be computer-based, with hard copies of job postings available.

She also responded that they would fi nd out about work opportunities through word of mouth, just as they do today.

The cards, like green cards, would need to be renewed as they expire in order for immigrants to remain in this country.

The Red Card Solution is being presented to Congress as a way to help combat our current immigration crisis by “welcoming workers securely and legally,” Krieble said.