FEBRUARY 2019

Editor: Mimi Lozano ©2000-2019
mimilozano@aol.com

February Submitters, contributors, or attibuted to:  

Identity: 
Who Do They Say You Are? 
Who Do You Say You Are?

© Albert V Vela, PhD

February 1, 2019  

The Editor of SomosPrimos, states that the mission of the on-line magazine is two-fold: for persons to discover for themselves who they are, and for them to learn who their ancestors were.  

In her introduction to the January 2019 issue of SomosPrimos, Mimi relates how in junior high she saw how badly Mexicans were depicted in US History….which was not how she saw her grandfather and uncles as “fine, upstanding, caring, honest men.” She also found that the Mexican presence in US history books was scarce and negative.  

She comments how important researching her family history was because it “totally changed me. It grounded me. I was no longer an immigrant, a foreigner. I learned some of my ancestors were already here, and others came from Europe. I was born in San Antonio Texas, and learned I was a descendant of the original families that settled San Antonio in the 1730s, before there was a United States of America.”  

Later, in the early 1950s, she attended UCLA. She writes, “Rather than accepting information whose point of view I questioned, I substituted Economic classes for US History. My historic knowledge gives me peace and reinforces my patriotism as an American.”  

Obviously there is much more to Mimi’s observations of how badly US historians and schoolteachers distorted Mexicans and Mexican Americans in the Southwest. And like her, something inside makes us question things when we sense they are not right.  

I recall telling my high school US history teacher that my dad (1898-1973) strongly believed the United States stole the California from Mexico. When she candidly said that England or Russia would have taken it if the United States hadn’t, this struck me as wrong. Now we know that the desire to acquire California actually started with Thomas Jefferson (1801) and ended with James K. Polk who provoked the Mexican-American War (1846-1848).  

Today academics say that identity has two components: Who we think we are and who others think we are. Scholars explain that because so little of Mexican American culture was presented in history books and stereotyped in movies, we experienced ourselves as invisible. This feeling of invisibility resonated with me for a long time--the feeling I lived with a phantom.  

Dr George I Sánchez, New Mexican writer and statesman, was most likely the first to refer to Mexican Americans as an invisible minority. In his book, Forgotten People (1940), he reflected the view of Anglos that we did not exist because we had no culture or history—we had no identity.  

In the writing of the book Tracks to the Westminster Barrio: 1902-1960s, I came across Chicana/o academics like Martha Menchaca, Lisbeth Haas, Vicki Ruiz, Matt García, Gilbert G González, Albert Camarillo, Marío García, and Rudy Acuña, to name a few, who one way or another pointed to racism to explain why we became a subordinate minority in the Southwest. These authors also acknowledge how much they owe to others for their God-given talents and scholastic successes: parents, siblings, teachers, professors, spouses, and friends of all colors, creeds, political persuasions, ethnicities. . .  

Like in the story of It’s a Wonderful Life discussed by Professor Esolen in the following paragraph, good people mysteriously enter our lives uplifting our spirits with words of encouragement and guidance. With their support we are able to gain insights about our strengths and weakness to the point that we discover our personal power and voice.   

Professor Anthony Esolen and Identity

Anthony Esolen is professor and writer-in-residence at Thomas More College in New Hampshire. He wrote a literary piece for the December 2018 Magnificat magazine whose title is The Ordinary Man.  

I present it here because what Esolen writes is loaded with attributes of Identity. It’s a short bio of the famous movie director/producer Frank Capra best known for the Christmas favorite movie, It’s a Wonderful Life.  

Capra immigrated with his Sicilian parents as a young boy. When they got to the New York Harbor, his father Salvatore pointed to the Statue of Liberty saying, "Its light was the greatest the world had seen since the Star of Bethlehem," (p 208). His dad died in a horrible accident while working in a factory when Frank was in his teens.  

Frank knew what it was like to be dirt poor in the twenties and thirties, to be black with machine oil, to scramble from one job to another, to sing with tramps around a fire, and to bend the knee with your neighbor in worship.  

He was not a pious young man. He knew divorce also; but his second wife brought him back to the faith he never quite lost.  

He was first in his class at Caltech. Had he not been a director he would have been an astrophysicist. He opposed "mass entertainment, mass production, mass education, mass everything, “I was fighting," he said, for "the preservation of the liberty of the individual against the mass."  

It's a Wonderful Life also tells much about Capra’s values and his fundamental belief in the importance of being generous with our talents. In the movie, George Bailey is the good guy who gives his heart to the community of Bedford Falls. At a critical juncture, we see how Bailey is shattered and desperate. It's Christmas Eve night; it's snowing. Bailey is resolved to jump off a bridge into the frigid river to end his life.   

Clarence, an angel, appears to Bailey to save his life. He tells the angel, "I wish I'd never been born." Clarence gives Bailey his wish and shows him horrible scenes of how his town, family, and friends would have turned out if he had never been born.   

At the cemetery Clarence points out the grave of his younger brother, Harry, saying, "Your brother Bailey broke through the ice and was drowned at the age of nine."   

Bailey protests, "That's a lie! Harry Bailey went to war. He got the Congressional Medal of Honor. He saved the lives of every man on that transport.”   

Clarence interjects,

            "Every man on that transport died. Harry wasn't there to save them,  because you weren't there to save Harry. You see, George, you really had a  wonderful life. Don't you see what a mistake it would be to throw it away?"   

After more scenes of what might have been, Bailey comes back to his senses, runs to the bridge where he was ready to jump. He pleads with Clarence to help him. "Please! I want to live again!" And he pitifully implores God to bring him back.  

With his prayer answered, George runs home to save the Savings and Loan from the evil hands of the unscrupulous scrooge Henry Potter. In the final scene we hear the town singing Hark the Herald Angels Sing and Auld Lang Syn.

Capra, like Charles Dickens, was in love with goodness. Not with sweetness or political correctness, but goodness. He saw that people who follow their dreams of the modern world, make the world a nightmare; but people who hold true to God, their family, the place of their birth, and their neighbors are the means God uses to make this crazy world worth living in (p 212).  

New president of Mexico creates 'free zone' along U.S. border in hopes of boosting economy, reducing migration

Rob NikolewskiContact Reporter
The San Diego Union-Tribune, December 31, 2018

U.S. unauthorized Immigrant population continues to decline slowly, from peak in 2008

Editor Mimi:  Wow. .   No wonder Americans are beginning to notice the unauthorized Immigrant population.  
Look at the numbers:  from 1990 to the peak years of 2008-9.    It was almost 4 times the number entering since 1990.  Plus unauthorized (illegal) immigrants  has continued since the peak high between 2008-2009.  

These PEW figures are in the millions AND they are the figures for only the unauthorized immigrant population, not the legal immigrants.  Legal immigrants are not included in those numbers.  Remember too,  the 1986 Amnesty facilitated many living in the United States illegally, were now able to apply for welfare and free medical services.  They were no longer in hiding.  

Cambio de Colores 2019 Conference

Save the Date: The 2019 Cambio Conference will be held in Columbia, MO, from June 5-7, 2019. Stay informed about the conference activities by signing up for monthly email updates.
URL: https://cambioconference.wordpress.com/

Source: Ruben Martinez, mailto:mart1097@msu.edu
Sent: Robert6o Calderon, Roberto.Calderon@unt.edu 

The fortune 500 Just Lost Its first and Only Latina CEO

By Claire Zillman January 14, 2019

PG&E Corp. on Sunday announced that CEO Geisha Williams was stepping down. Her departure comes as the utility company—California’s largest—confronts political and financial upheaval from its role in sparking California wildfires. The company said that John Simon, its general counsel, will serve as interim CEO as its board of directors searches for a permanent replacement.

Williams’s departure marks the first exit of a female CEO from the Fortune 500 this year—bringing the total down to a measly 27 or 5%. What’s more, her resignation means the U.S.’s top 500 companies by revenue has lost its first and only Latina chief executive, according to Fortune data.

Fortune’s 2017 profile of Williams digs into her unique background. As a 5-year-old in 1967, she immigrated with her family to St. Paul, Minnesota from Cuba, where her parents had been political dissidents. By age 7, she’d become her family’s main translator, conducting conversations with accountants, lawyers, and property managers. After earning an engineering degree from the University of Miami and completing a lengthy stint at Florida Power & Light, she joined PG&E in 2007. There, she worked on upgrading the utility’s electricity grid, pushed it into clean energy, and decided to decommission California’s last nuclear plant. She was named PG&E CEO in 2017.

But since then, PG&E has been dogged by liability for wildfires that have devastated its home state, with investigators tying 17 major blazes to PG&E equipment in the year Williams became chief executive. Investigators are still trying to determine if the utility’s gear was the cause of November’s Camp Fire, the deadliest in California history, but PG&E has reported an equipment malfunction in the area before the fire erupted.

In announcing Williams’s departure on Sunday, PG&E chair Richard Kelly cited the “tremendous challenges PG&E continues to face.” Indeed, hours after Williams exited the company, it said it would file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection amid the financial strain of the wildfire fallout. Its shares plunged on Monday.

Williams was one of the 32 female CEOs in the Fortune 500 in 2017—the highest total ever. Since then, the number has fluctuated to 24 last year, then up to 28 before Sunday’s news. The share of female CEOs in the Fortune 500 is often cited as a stark illustration of men’s lasting grip on corporate power, even as the #MeToo movement prompts a reexamination of women’s marginalization in the workplace.

But the group of female Fortune 500 CEOs is also a nod to corporate America’s utter failure to diversify its leadership ranks. As the club loses its only Latina member, it should be noted that it also has zero African-American women.

http://fortune.com/2019/01/14/geisha-williams-pge-bankruptcy-fortune-500-latina-ceo/?utm_source=
Chicago+Latino+Network+List&utm_campaign=823d22dc42-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_01_16_
08_00&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_52bf0e15cb-823d22dc42-261193301

Amendments to the U.S. Constitution 

M
Ulysses Grant’s Failed Attempt to Grant Native Americans Citizenship

In a forgotten chapter of history, the president and his Seneca Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 
Ely Parker, fought for Native American rights

Grant was sworn into office as president in 1869, and set forth his vision in his first inaugural address. Calling American Indians the “original occupants of the land,” he promised to pursue any course of action that would lead to their “ultimate citizenship.” It was not an idle promise. In the spring of 1865, he had been appointed the nation’s first General of the Army, a post that involved overseeing all the armies of the United States—including in the West, where conflicts with native tribes had raged throughout the Civil War. In this position, Grant had relied on his good friend and military secretary, Ely S. Parker, a member of the Seneca tribe, for advice. Now, as the newly inaugurated president of the United States, he was ready to implement his plans for the Indians, with Parker at his side as his Commissioner of Indian Affairs.

By the time he met Parker, though, Grant was considered a failure. His heavy drinking had helped to end his military career, and now, as a grown man with a wife and four children to support, he was reduced to working for his father. But Parker recognized a kindred spirit. Unlike most white men, who prided themselves on being outgoing, even boisterous, Grant was quiet—so reserved that he usually headed for the store’s back room to avoid talking to customers. Only after Grant got to know a person well did he reveal his kindness and his intelligence. This was just how Parker had been taught to behave when growing up on his people’s reserve in Tonawanda, New York. Men were to remain stoic in public, and to open their hearts to friends only in private.

When the Civil War broke out, Parker returned to New York and tried unsuccessfully to enlist in the Union Army. Finally, with the help of his friend Grant, who was no longer a failure, but instead a renowned general on the brink of defeating the Confederates at Vicksburg, Parker won an appointment as a military secretary. He first served General John Smith and later Grant himself. From Chattanooga to Appomattox, Parker always could be seen at Grant’s side, usually carrying a stack of papers and with an ink bottle tied to a button on his coat. 

Ely S. Parker, the Seneca attorney, engineer, and tribal diplomat, as photographed by Civil War photographer Mathew Brady (National Archives)

The friendship between Grant and Parker strengthened after Grant was appointed General of the Army, a position he held from 1865 to 1869. During these years, Grant often sent Parker, now an adjutant general, to meet with tribes in the Indian Territory and farther west in Montana and Wyoming. Parker listened as tribal leaders described how their country was being overrun by miners, cattlemen, railroad workers, farmers, immigrants from Europe, and freedmen from the South.

Parker reported everything back to Grant and together they worked out the details of a policy with the main goal of citizenship for the Indians. The army would protect Indians on their reservations as they transitioned from their old ways and entered the mainstream of American life, learning how to support themselves through new livelihoods like farming or ranching. It might take a generation or two, but eventually Indians would be able to vote, own businesses, and rely on the protections guaranteed to them in the Constitution.

The board wholeheartedly supported the efforts of Congress to overturn Grant’s Indian policy. The first step came in the summer of 1870 when Congress banned active duty military personnel from serving in government posts—primarily, Grant believed, so that Congressmen could appoint their supporters instead. To counteract this move and prevent the Indian service from sliding back into the corruption of political patronage, the president appointed missionaries to run the reservations. Grant was still determined to win American citizenship for every Indian, and he hoped that the missionaries would guide them along the path toward it. But the Board of Indian Commissioners remained just as determined to oppose Grant. William Welsh, the board’s first chairman, believed the president’s policy could be overturned by toppling the “savage” who stood at its center, Ely Parker. Welsh was infuriated that a man like Parker could hold such a high position. He was also appalled that Parker had married a young white woman, Minnie Sackett, and that the couple was the toast of Washington society.

To take down Parker, Welsh accused him of negotiating a bloated million-dollar contract to supply the Sioux in the summer of 1870 and pocketing most of the money himself. Welsh demanded that Congress investigate Parker and hand over the management of the Indian service to the Board of Indian Commissioners. Congress obliged, forcing Parker to submit to a public trial before a committee of the House of Representatives. 

Although Parker was ultimately exonerated, Congress passed legislation recognizing the members of the Board of Indian Commissioners as the supervisors of the Indian service. Humiliated and with no real power, Parker resigned his position as the Commissioner of Indian Affairs in 1871.

Without an ally like Parker at his side, Grant watched his plans for the Indians come undone. A succession of Commissioners of Indian Affairs replaced Parker, but none had his vision. Before long, Grant ordered the army, which he had once hoped would protect the Indians, to fight against the tribes in a series of bloody wars, including the Modoc War in 1873, the Red River War in 1874, and the Great Sioux War in 1876. By the time Grant left office in 1877, his “peace policy,” as the press had nicknamed it, was judged a failure by all.

 
Since then, Grant has been remembered as a “circumstantial” reformer, at best, or as the clueless tool of wealthy men like Welsh, at worst. His accomplished friend Ely Parker has been wrongly dismissed as little more than a token. Americans would not realize until the 20th century that the vision of the two friends had been correct. In 1924, Congress granted citizenship to all American Indians who had not already achieved it.
In 1924, Congress granted citizenship to all American Indians who had not already achieved it.

Sadly, the friendship between Parker and the president came undone along with Grant’s Indian policy. After resigning his post in 1871 and moving away from Washington, Parker saw Grant only twice more. When the former president lay dying in the summer of 1885, Parker came to visit him, but Grant’s oldest son Fred always turned him away. While Grant never reflected on the failure of his policy, Parker always regretted that the plans he had made with his quiet friend from the leather goods store in Galena had ended so badly.

Mary Stockwell is a writer in Ohio. She is the author of Interrupted Odyssey: Ulysses S. Grant and the American Indians.

Source:  Smithsonian 

German Government-Backed Brochure Aims To Brainwash Children

As the progressive agenda manifests itself in every facet of our society, parents are on the frontlines in the battle to preserve traditional values.

For raising our children the way we see fit, and for not accepting the progressive agenda, we are accused of discrimination, intolerance – even racism.

This problem is not unique to the United States, and one country is pushing back against traditional families in an absurd way.

Germany is a democratic nation with a parliamentary system similar to that of the U.K.

But like the rest of Western Europe, the government of Germany has increasingly forced progressive propaganda on its citizens.

Most German families still follow the norms of traditional gender roles when it comes to their children – and that does not sit well with the German government.

Like other nations, including the U.S., German children are being indoctrinated in homosexual and transgender lifestyles in school and the media.

Now, to further root this propaganda in the hearts of future generations, the German Federal Ministry for Family Affairs has helped to produce a brochure for teachers – aimed at beginning the indoctrination process in preschool.

And what does this brochure think of traditional parents who oppose these teachings?

The brochure was published by the Amadeu Antonio Foundation, whose website makes comparisons between traditional parents and neo-Nazis and anti-Semites for promoting “hate and intolerance.”

The Minister of Family herself, Dr. Franziska Giffey, wrote a foreword for the brochure stating their aim is to “change the behavior of preschool children” whose families oppose “gender” theory, “sexual diversity,” the “sexualization” of children, and “immigration,” according to LifeSite News.

In fact, the German government donated the equivalent of over five thousand U.S. dollars to the Foundation that created the brochure.

The brochure calls the “intolerance” of traditional parents a “children’s rights issue” and states that acceptance of alternative lifestyles and mass immigration creates a “civil, welcoming society.”

The authors of the brochure include their thought that, “part of the educational task to teach children gender equality and the diversity of gender identities and ways of life,” and to accept these ways of life is “part of a democratic attitude…crucial in order to avoid discrimination because of the sex or sexual orientation and in order to empower inter- and transsexual children,” as reported by LifeSite News.

They write that many children are growing up in so-called “rainbow” families and that reality should be reflected in the nation’s preschools.  So what do they propose German children be subjected to in preschool?  Well, they go so far as to give examples to assist educators who meet with resistance from conservative parents.

One such example relayed how two siblings who were quiet and obedient in class were being raised by “racist parents” because they displayed “traditional gender roles.”

“The girl wears dresses and braids; at home she is being instructed in house-and-needlework; the boy is physically being strongly challenged and drilled,” stated two professors with the Foundation’s Gender and Racism group.

The government-funded brochure claims that these “issues” with conservative parents “must be addressed.”

Another example is the story of a mother who complains to a preschool teacher because her son is being encouraged to play “makeup and dress-up games” that are traditionally female.

In this case, the brochure’s advice is that the teacher state that “gender diversity and tolerance are welcomed at the preschool,” and that children should be allowed to “experiment.”

The brochure says that this issue should be perceived as one of infringing on the child’s rights to determine his or her own identity and that the “teacher must tell the mother that her own “[gender] assumptions” should not be pushed on her child.

It continues by saying that, “Children are thus being ‘deprived of possibilities for an individual development,’” and that children deprived of adopting the progressive agenda are going to be improperly socialized.

Needless to say, many churches and Christian leaders are appalled by the brochure, with authors and columnists stating that the government has no business telling parents how they should raise their children.

“It is not the duty of the state and of pre-schools to check and correct the way of life of the parents,” wrote one columnist, and that if the government “get[s] access to the private life of families” in this manner, then “a principal line is crossed,” as reported by LifeSite.

Critics of the brochure – of which there are many in both public and private roles – say the brochure is not unlike Nazi propaganda against Jewish people and issue a warning about the dangerous content.

One commented that “One can clearly see here a new form of social engineering.”  In fact, the head of the Amadeu Antonio Foundation who produced the brochure has admitted to being a spy for the GDR, Communist Germany party, in the past – spying on German citizens.

This brochure – and the ideology behind it – should send shivers down the spines of all American parents. We are not far behind in receiving this type of brochure in our own country as the progressive agenda takes over and our schools increasingly adopt curriculum designed to brainwash our children.

It can certainly be likened to propaganda throughout history in which the state worked to control the minds and private lives of its citizens.

If this type of propaganda is not stopped, anyone who raises their children with traditional, conservative values may be labeled as “racist,” “promoting hatred,” or worse…

Perhaps even government intervention into our private family lives because we disagree with the propaganda.

It is a nightmare scenario straight out of the history books – and we should all pray that history does not repeat itself.

Source: Online newsletter,  Mommy Underground 
https://mommyunderground.com/government-backed-brochure-aims-to-brainwash-children/

Ken Marries Ken? 
Mattel Under Fire 
Over 
Same-Sex Wedding Set

Since that time, Mattel has created groundbreaking “careers” and storylines for Barbie. Today, it seems Mattel is thinking of foregoing Barbie altogether and instead creating a Ken only wedding set.

Matt Jacobi and Nick Caprio, a gay couple from Arizona who plan to get married next May, brought to Mattel’s attention the fact that they currently lacked a “wedding set” featuring two grooms that they could gift their small niece who will be acting as their flower girl in their upcoming nuptial event.

“We thought it would be special to give her (small niece) something with a little meaning behind it,” Jacobi said. “What a bummer you don’t have one (wedding set) with two grooms.”

According to a Lifesite News report, Mattel quickly responded to Jacobi’s complaint and extended an invitation to the gay couple to attend a meeting where a pitch for a same sex, Ken-marries-Ken doll set design would be discussed.

“Mattel has been wonderful and we are meeting with the head of Barbie design, their design team and marketing. We are just sorting out travel details and schedules,” Jacobi explained.

Capiro went on to make his case why a children’s toy franchise needed to embrace the same-sex agenda.

“We just want every family to be reflected within the toys,” he said. “They’re a big part of our culture, and it’s something that if kids are always exposed to this and they can see their own family, it gets rid of the question ‘what is this’ and this explanation and long story you have to go through, because it’s something that will just be what it is, and it’s just people that are in love.”

Although there are many ongoing controversies involving the LGBT message, Caprio and Jacobi believe that since homosexuality is now so prevalent in society that toymakers shouldn’t question embracing the lifestyle as a viable alternative.

“As more same-sex couples are having kids, your kids are going to have kids in class that have gay parents. Love is love and it’s that simple,” Jacobi said.

Of course, not everyone agrees with this gay couple.

“Lefty types seem to have an obsession with molding the kiddos to do their bidding. It’s kind of disturbing, really,” Corey Sallings said on the conservative program Louder with Crowder.

“I will never purchase Mattel again,” an online commenter opined on social media. “Why push this adult decision on children? The world is confusing enough. God is not pleased with us. I pray your revenues show this.”

If Mattel does make a move to introduce a Ken-marries-Ken or even Barbie-weds-Barbie wedding set, it won’t be the doll maker’s first dip into controversy. In 2017, Mattel put out a pro-LGBT message when they had Barbie post on her official Instagram account. Barbie posted a photo of herself proudly donning a “Love Wins” t-shirt with the comment “proud to wear.” This, of course, is the slogan that has been used by the LGBT community to represent their community since 2015.

It might be tempting for believers who live in this society to become almost immune to the sin that is homosexuality. However, the Bible is extraordinarily clear on the issue.  For example, Leviticus 18:22 says, “Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable.” Another example is found in 1 Timothy 1:10 “for the sexually immoral, for those practicing homosexuality.” The Bible in essence compares homosexuality with murderers and the vilest of sinners.  Jesus Christ told us to love our neighbors — but he said nothing about accommodating sinful lifestyles.

Source:  ~ 1776 Christian

https://1776christian.com/ken-marries-ken-mattel-under-fire-over-same-sex-wedding-set/ 

Our Grandparents 
by Rosemary LaBonte

This was written by Rosemary LaBonte to the editors of a California newspaper in response to an article written by Ernie Lujan who suggests we should tear down the Statue of Liberty because the immigrants of today aren’t being treated the same as those who passed through Ellis Island and other ports of entry. The paper never printed this response, so her husband sent it out via internet. Maybe we should turn to our history books and point out to people like Mr. Lujan why today's American is not willing to accept this new kind of immigrant any longer. Back in 1900 when there was a rush from all areas of Europe to come to the United States, people had to get off a ship and stand in a long line in New York and be documented.

                           Some would even get down on their hands and knees and kissed the ground. 

Editor Mimi:  "It was very strange.  About 30 years ago, my husband and I traveled throughout Europe, on our own, using public transportation, shopping in grocery stores, finding our own hotels, talking to the people, etc. It was a wonderful experience, but when we got off the plane in Los Angeles.  I unexpectedly,  did that very same thing.   It surprised my husband and me too.  I could not help myself, I was so grateful to be home in my country, the United States of America. It was an involuntary action. I am sure My grandfather Alberto Chapa, looking down on me, was smiling. He brought his family into the United States, legally, from Mexico in the 1920s. Abuelito learned English and became a naturalized citizen, as did my Mom." 

The new immigrants made a pledge to uphold the laws and support their new country in good and bad times. They made learning English a primary rule in their new American households and some even changed their names to blend in with their new home.   They had waved goodbye to their birth place to give their children a new life and did everything in their power to help their children assimilate into one culture. Nothing was handed to them. No free lunches, no welfare, no labor laws to protect them. All they had were the skills and craftsmanship they had brought with them to trade for a future of prosperity. Most of their children came of age when World War II broke out. My father fought alongside men whose parents had come straight over from Germany , Italy , France and Japan None of these 1st generation Americans ever gave any thought about what country their parents had come from.  They were Americans fighting Hitler, Mussolini and the Emperor of Japan . They were defending the United States of America as one people.

When we liberated France , no one in those villages were looking for the French American, the German American or the Irish American. The people of France saw only Americans. And we carried one flag that represented one country. Not one of those immigrant sons would have thought about picking up another country's flag and waving it to represent who they were. It would have been a disgrace to their parents who had sacrificed so much to be here. These immigrants truly knew what it meant to be an American. They stirred the melting pot into one red, white and blue bowl.

And here we are with a new kind of immigrant who wants the same rights and privileges.  Only they want to achieve it by playing with a different set of rules, one that includes the entitlement card and a guarantee of being faithful to their mother country. And . .  not standing in line, waiting their turn and following the rules.

I'm sorry, that's not what being an American is all about. I believe that the immigrants who landed on Ellis Island in the early 1900's deserve better than that for all the toil, hard work and sacrifice in raising future generations to create a land that has become a beacon for those legally searching for a better life. I think they would be appalled
that they are being used as an example by those waving foreign country flags.

And for that suggestion about taking down the Statue of Liberty , it happens to mean a lot to the citizens who are voting on the immigration bill.  I wouldn't start talking about dismantling the United States just yet.

Sent by Yomar Cleary ycleary@charter.net 

 

Central American Countries Are Helping Middle Easterners 
Illegally Enter The United States

Source: The Federalist

American, Panamanian, and Costa Rican law enforcement and intelligence officials are engaged in actual programs here to hunt, investigate, and deport real terrorist suspects who are, in fact, discovered among the thousands of migrants from the Middle East, Horn of Africa, and South Asia funneling through Latin America.

“Islamic Refugee” With Gas Pipeline Plans Arrested in New Mexico Border County

UPDATE 7/1/16—Despite official denials from authorities Judicial Watch stands by its reporting, which was subsequently corroborated by National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers Chairman Zack Taylor.

Police in a U.S. town bordering Mexico have apprehended an undocumented, Middle Eastern woman in possession of the region’s gas pipeline plans, law enforcement sources tell Judicial Watch. Authorities describe the woman as an “Islamic refugee” pulled over during a traffic stop by a deputy sheriff in Luna County, New Mexico which shares a 54-mile border with Mexico. County authorities alerted the U.S. Border Patrol and the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTF) has been deployed to the area to investigate, sources with firsthand knowledge of the probe confirm.

The gas pipeline plans in the woman’s possession include the Deming region, law enforcement sources say. Deming is a Luna County city situated about 35 miles north of the Mexican border and 60 miles west of Las Cruces. It has a population of about 15,000. Last year one local publication listed Deming No. 1 on a list of the “ten worst places” to live in New Mexico due to high unemployment, poverty, crime and a horrible public education system. The entire region is a High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA), according to the Justice Department’s National Drug Intelligence Center due to the large amounts of methamphetamines, heroin, cocaine and marijuana smuggled through the state by Mexican traffickers. Specifically, the renowned Juárez and Sinaloa cartels operate in the area, the feds affirm in a report.

Judicial Watch has broken a number of stories in the last few years about Mexican drug traffickers smuggling Islamic terrorists into the United States through the porous southern border. Last summer high-level sources on both sides of the Mexico-U.S. border offered alarming details about an operation in which cartels smuggle foreigners from countries with terrorist links into a small Texas rural town near El Paso. Classified as Special Interest Aliens (SIA) by the U.S. government, the foreigners get transported to stash areas in Acala, a rural crossroads located around 54 miles from El Paso on a state road – Highway 20. Once in the U.S., the SIAs wait for pick-up in the area’s sand hills just across Highway 20.

A few months ago Judicial Watch reported that members of a cell of Islamic terrorists stationed in Mexico cross into the U.S. to explore targets for future attacks with the help of Mexican drug traffickers. Among the jihadists that travel back and forth through the porous southern border is a Kuwaiti named Shaykh Mahmood Omar Khabir, an ISIS operative who lives in the Mexican state of Chihuahua not far from El Paso, Texas. Khabir trained hundreds of Al Qaeda fighters in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Yemen and has lived in Mexico for more than a year, according to Judicial Watch’s high-level Homeland Security sources. Now Khabir trains thousands of men—mostly Syrians and Yemenis—to fight in an ISIS base situated in the Mexico-U.S. border region near Ciudad Juárez. Khabir actually brags in a European newspaper article about how easy it is to stake out American targets because the border region is wide open. In the same story Foreign Affairs Secretary Claudia Ruiz, Mexico’s top diplomat, says she doesn’t understand why the Obama administration and the U.S. media are “culpably neglecting this phenomenon,” adding that “this new wave of fundamentalism could have nasty surprises in store for the United States.”

This recent New Mexico incident brings to mind a story Judicial Watch broke less than a year ago involving five young Middle Eastern men apprehended by Border Patrol in an Arizona town (Amado) situated about 30 miles from the Mexican border. Two of the Middle Eastern men were carrying stainless steel cylinders in backpacks, alarming Border Patrol officials enough to call the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for backup. A multitude of federal agents descended on the property and the two men carrying the cylinders were believed to be taken into custody by the FBI. Only three of the men’s names were entered in the Border Patrol’s E3 reporting system, which is used by the agency to track apprehensions, detention hearings and removals of illegal immigrants. E3 also collects and transmits biographic and biometric data including fingerprints for identification and verification of individuals encountered at the border. The other two men were listed as “unknown subjects,” which is unheard of. “In all my years I’ve never seen that before,” a veteran federal law enforcement agent told Judicial Watch.

Judicial Watch, Inc.
425 3rd St Sw Ste 800
Washington, DC 20024
202.646.5172
press@pr.judicialwatch.org 

Texas 
Border Patrol Requests 
another 
120 miles 
of 
border fencing.

“Right now we would like to see about another 120 miles of fencing in this sector alone. We’ve got 277 miles of river country. It winds an awful lot,” Raul Ortiz said.

“But if we were able to get the infrastructure, a few more agents and certainly the technology, I like our chances against the transnational criminal organizations out there,” he continued. “What I say to anybody who says we don’t need those things, come walk in my shoes.” 

Ortiz appreciates President Donald Trump’s hands-on approach to the border crisis and said anyone who knows border security will stipulate that a wall is absolutely necessary.  The chief also said that he is happy the president is taking initiative on the issue and he is actually visiting the border to learn what is needed to improve the conditions there.  Source: TTN staff  - Daily Caller: 1/11/2019

Border Patrol Chief Ortiz said that in 2018, illegal attempting to enter were from 41 (forty-one) countries.  

Ortiz said, "Just yesterday, we apprehended 133 illegals who were not coming from Mexico or South America."  He emphasized that illegals are coming from all over the world.  The first three countries mentioned were:   India, Pakistan, China.  Percentage of  world population. 

http://www.fairus.org/sites/default/files/2017-08/California2014.pdf

Sent by Yomar Villarreal Cleary

Border Massacre Reveals Truth About Crisis

January 11, 2019

While some sections of the borders are highly secured, such as where Jim Acosta went over the week, others are total warzones. The Daily Wire reports:

On the same day that CNN Chief White House Correspondent Jim Acosta posted his report from McAllen, Texas assuring Americans that there wasn’t “anything resembling a national emergency situation,” at least not there, very different reports were coming out of a Mexican border town just a few hours northwest: Authorities found 21 bodies, some burned, after what appears to be yet another clash between rival drug cartel gangs.

“Mexican authorities said Thursday that 21 bodies, some burned, have been found in the northern Mexico border state of Tamaulipas in what appears to have been a clash between drug gangs. The bodies were found near the remains of seven burned-out vehicles near the border town of Miguel Aleman,” CBS News reports.

The city of Miguel Aleman is located in the northwestern border state of Tamaulipas, Mexico. The city is about three hours northwest of McAllen and borders the southern edge of Texas. […]

While Acosta made sure to note that he saw no evidence of a crisis “at least in McAllen,” the reality, of course, is that multiple towns on both the north and south edge of the border are seeing not only the humanitarian crises that necessarily result from illegal immigration, but the additional, often deadly violence of the drug cartels.

Editor Mimi:  This was so sad.   A Latino attorney,  positioned to have done so much good for the Latino community,  instead a life wasted.  Intelligence, leadership talent, and an education thrown aside for involvement with drugs, three times,   

.

SPANISH PRESENCE in the AMERICAS ROOTS 

Trailer for a Bernardo de Gálvez documentary: 

Did U.S. Soldiers Fight

Under a Foreign Command?

By Joe Perez

Any serious student of the American Revolution knows that the United States won its independence from England only with the help of foreign countries, most notably Spain and France.  While several countries contributed to the American’s cause of freedom through donations of money and war materiel, the foreign assistance most commonly known is the service of foreign commanders.  This has raised the question throughout our country’s history, “Did U.S. soldiers fight under a foreign command?”

To address this question, one must delineate the difference between the two terms “foreign commander” and “foreign command.”  U.S. troops can fight under a foreign commander but if that commander is serving as an officer in the U.S. military, it is not a foreign command.  However, if U.S. troops fight under an officer of a foreign military, they are fighting under a foreign command.  Let us take a look at a few of the more commonly recognized foreign commanders during our War of Independence and study the question at hand.  The terms Continental Army and U.S. Army are used here interchangeably since the thirteen colonies had already declared themselves the United States of America when the Continental Army was active.

Marquis de Lafayette

Probably the most famous foreign commander during the American Revolution is the Marquis de Lafayette.  Born into French wealth and nobility, Lafayette was inspired by the Americans’ fight for freedom.  He volunteered in the American army and was commissioned a Major General in 1777.  Lafayette led American troops in four battles.  When he returned to France, he petitioned his government to support the American cause with money and troops.  “This lobbying in Versailles may have been his greatest service to the United States as it helped tip the balance in favor of sending a French army in 1780 under the command of General Rochambeau.”¹

      All of the officers mentioned above served in the U.S. military under the ultimate chain of command of General George Washington with the exception of Gálvez, who commanded his own forces as a General in the Spanish army.  The Continental Marines who participated in the Battle of Mobile served under the chain of command of General Gálvez, thus being the first U.S. troops to serve under a foreign command.  That it happened under Gálvez reinforces his special connection with the United States of America and its war for independence.     

Recommended online articles:

The Little-Remembered Ally Who Helped America Win the Revolution

This is an interesting article that appeared on the Smithsonian Online website. file:///C:/Users/SuperUser1/Downloads/The%20Little-Remembered%20Ally%20Who%20Helped%20
America%20Win%20the%20Revolution%20_%20History%20_%20Smithsonian%20(1).pdf

On the Trail of Spain in the United States   
This is an article about how Juan Ponce de Leòn, Friar Junipero Serra and Bernardo de Gàlvez helped shape the United States of America.  Thank you, Roland Cantu for sending the link shown below. https://marcaespana.es/en/current-news/society/trail-spain-united-states

This article, from ABC Cultura, is in Spanish and includes a video and nice painting.  
The link was sent to us from our friend in Spain, Dr. Evaristo Martinez-Radio Garrido.
https://www.abc.es/cultura/arte/abci-marcha-olvidada-imperio-espanol-arraso-ejercito-ingles-misisipi-
201803260219_noticia.html?fbclid=IwAR2O83df9K0jfbsg-UOuscKCWDyoPuxIccsKxp9ssK6AjeYUhlZ4A4iK0HI

Update To Our Website  ~  granaderos.org

 Granadero Roland Cantu created our fantastic website and continues to update it and keep it fresh.  

His latest modification to the site is the addition of a link, called Video Archives, that takes you to the various videos of us by videographer Rafael Cavazos.  The page it directs you to also has a link that takes you to Rafael’s page on YouTube.com, which contains several more videos of various topics by Rafael.

Visit www.granaderos.org and see our wonderful website by Roland.  Scroll through the site and click on the myriad of links that take you to photos, videos and articles.

Thank you, Roland, for building the site that represents us in a professional manner.    ~  Joe Perez

HERITAGE PROJECTS

Mt. Saint Mary's University, Los Angeles, CSJ Oral History Project

CSJ Oral History Project 

A collaboration between the CSJ Institute, Film & Television, 
and the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, Los Angeles province.

What's Coming from FamilySearch in 2019 

In addition to over 300 million additional historical records and images for family history discoveries, look for the following new offerings in 2019.

For the first time, fun discovery experiences that have been available only at life-sized, interactive kiosks in select FamilySearch venues will also be available on FamilySearch.org in 2019. Making these three discovery experiences available online will expand the reach of the activities to more patrons globally.

• All about Me

Have you ever wondered about the origin and meaning of your name or what events happened in the year you were born? The All about Meexperience will allow you to discover these fun things about yourself and also about your ancestors.

• Picture My Heritage

This simple and fun experience lets you insert yourself digitally into traditional clothing related to your heritage. On Picture My Heritage, you can save your custom photos or share them with friends and family.

• Record My Story

Priceless stories and memories from you or family members can be recorded on Record My Storyand added—by text or audio—to FamilySearch.org or downloaded to another source.

2. Family Tree and Friends, Associates, and Neighbor (FAN) Relationships

The free FamilySearch Family Tree will give users the ability to record other relationships to an ancestor beyond immediate family members, when applicable, such as friends, associates, and neighbors (FAN). This function will aid research by allowing users to record information about other people living in an ancestor’s household as noted in a historical record, such as boarders or staff.

FamilySearch will continue to develop site experiences that enable families to connect with their ancestral homelands near and far. FamilySearch.org will also provide more help throughout the site to make it easier for visitors to accomplish key tasks in a few simple steps.

3. Updated Find Capability

The FamilySearch Family Tree search capacity will be significantly updated to provide faster and better results. Another innovation will allow search engines such as Google to present names and limited facts from the Family Tree to online search queries without the searcher being signed into FamilySearch.org. This feature will enable millions of people searching for their ancestors online to discover the vast, free services FamilySearch offers them.

4. Memories

Millions of people use FamilySearch Memories to record, preserve, and share their family photos, historical documents, and stories. In 2019, users will be able to record audio remembrances related to a photo they have uploaded. Memories will also give users the capability to organize items in an album according to their interests or needs.

5. RootsTech London 2019

The first international version of the highly successful RootsTech family history conference will be held in London on October 24–26, 2019, at the ExCel London Convention Center.

The RootsTech London 2019 convention will not replace the annual conference in Salt Lake City (held on February 27–March 2, 2019) but will be an additional RootsTech event. Registration for RootsTech London opens in February 2019.

###

FamilySearch International is the largest genealogy organization in the world. FamilySearch is a nonprofit, volunteer-driven organization sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Millions of people use FamilySearch records, resources, and services to learn more about their family history. To help in this great pursuit, FamilySearch and its predecessors have been actively gathering, preserving, and sharing genealogical records worldwide for over 100 years. Patrons may access FamilySearch services and resources free online at FamilySearch.org or through over 5,000 family history centers in 129 countries, including the main Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah.

RELIGION

The graveyard at the Sacred Heart Church at Boho where the grave of Reverend James McGirr contains ‘healing soil’ ( public domain )

The Grave That Heals: 
Irish Folktale Proven True as Soil from Priest’s Grave Shows Key to Fighting Drug-Resistant Bacteria
by Ed Whelan

The discovery was made in Boho (County of Fermanagh), a sleepy village near the border with the Irish Republic. In the old churchyard there is the grave of the ‘’Reverend James McGirr, the parish priest in 1803’’ reports the BBC. He was a respected figure in the community and on his deathbed he claimed that the earth from his grave had healing powers. There is a long-standing belief in the locality and beyond that the earth from Father McGirr’s grave can heal and is very effective against infections.

The graveyard at the Sacred Heart Church at Boho where the grave of Reverend James McGirr contains ‘healing soil’ (public domain)

The graveyard at the Sacred Heart Church at Boho where the grave of Reverend James McGirr contains ‘healing soil’ ( public domain )

The origin of the belief in the healing earth may pre-date the 19th century. Boho is located in an archaeologically rich area and it has been settled since at least the Iron Age. It is probable that the church was located on or near an ancient site such as a Celtic shrine or sanctuary. Some have speculated that the folk remedy ‘’can be traced back to the Druids who once occupied the land’’ reports the Mothernaturenetwork.

The cure involves taking some soil from the grave and bringing it to the home of a sick person. The BBC quotes Frank McHugh, a local historian as stating that ‘’people would lie with the soil placed under a pillow wrapped in cloth’’. Then they would say a prayer and the soil would eventually be returned to the grave of the parish priest. There have been numerous claims that the soil has healed many down the centuries, even though it is not been approved by the Catholic Church.

Medieval Medical Books Could Hold the Recipe for New Antibiotics

The testing of the ‘healing soil’ from the graveyard was carried out by Dr Gerry Quinn, a senior microbiologist and a member of an international team of researchers, looking for new antibiotics to treat the growing problem of drug-resistant bacteria. He became interested in the folk remedy and he decided to take a sample of the healing earth. Dr Quinn wanted to test the earth to see if there was a scientific basis to the claims that it could cure illnesses. He suspected that there was a scientific reason for the widespread belief in the folk cure. What he discovered in his laboratory amazed him and the wider research community.

Dr Gerry Quinn at the grave of Reverend James McGirr (Credit: BBC)

It is hoped by Dr Quinn that up to twenty antibiotics can be produced from the newly discovered bacteria. However, these will need to be tested in exhaustive clinical trials, that could take years. Nevertheless, the new antibiotics could prove to be crucial in the fight against drug resistant pathogens.

There are fears that because of the overuse of antibiotics that even relatively treatable conditions and infections could become resistant to treatment. 

NINE NFL Quarterbacks Who Boldly Share Their Faith in Christ

Sadly, in today’s America, people are often ridiculed, belittled, and even punished for their Christian faith. For instance, believers have lost their jobs due to their support of traditional marriage. In this divisive environment, high profile athletes might understandably feel keeping their faith private is in their best interests. Thankfully, numerous successful athletes haven’t chosen to do so. The following nine NFL quarterbacks boldly share their faith in Christ:

#1: Drew Brees

After he stops throwing a football on Sundays for the New Orleans Saints, Drew Brees will be remembered as one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time. The humble athlete accepted Christ on his 17th birthday after undergoing knee surgery. Brees once commented to CBN News, “I live for God, for the faith that I have in Him, and knowing the sacrifices that Jesus Christ made on the cross for me, and just feeling like it’s in God’s hands and all I have to do is just give it my best, commit the rest to Him, and everything else is taken care of.”

#2: Kirk Cousins

Minnesota Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins held an offseason youth football camp this past summer. When asked about the event, Cousins said, “If I’m going to put my name on a football camp, it’s got to communicate what I’m about. And the foundation of my life is the Bible and is the Gospel, so it’d be hard for me to put a camp on, whether it’s football or anything else, and not talk about the foundation of my life.” At the camp, the quarterback encouraged kids to use the Bible as their “playbook for life.”

#3: Carson Wentz

Last year, Philadelphia Eagles starting quarterback Carson Wentz suffered a season-ending knee injury. On the day the serious injury occurred, Wentz said, “Obviously, It’s been a rough day for me personally, I am not going to lie. I have a ton of faith in the Lord and in his plan.” The inspiring signal caller went on to add, “As I reflect tonight, I just know the Lord’s working through it, and I know Jesus has a plan through it. I know he’s trying to grow me in something, teach me something, use me somehow, some way, this will just be a great testimony as I go forward.”

#4: Nick Foles

While Carson Wentz sat on the sidelines last season, his fellow Christian teammate Nick Foles led the Philadelphia Eagles to a Super Bowl victory. Foles told CBN, “Life is meant to be lived in fellowship, with one another. To me, relationship in Christ is a relationship, not a religion, and I’m just grateful for it. God always has a plan, you just got to trust it.”

#5: Andy Dalton

Andy Dalton, quarterback for the Cincinnati Bengals made the decision to follow Christ in the third grade. Regarding his faith, Dalton said, “One thing I have realized when growing in my faith is that I can’t be passive in my relationship with God. It is truly a relationship and I need to keep up with it.”

#6: Russell Wilson

Russell Wilson won a Super Bowl with the Seattle Seahawks at a young age. Talking about playing football in the Emerald City, Wilson stated, “In terms of my faith I believe I’m here for a reason. I believe God placed me in this city for a reason. That never wavers for me, I’m going to trust that the Lord’s put me here.”

#7: Case Keenum

Case Keenum’s 2017 season ended when the Nick Foles-led Philadelphia Eagles beat the Minnesota Vikings in the NFL’s NFC Championship Game. Now a quarterback with the Denver Broncos, Keenum commented to CBN, “Those things that we have in this world that are of the world, man, they don’t last. You know, they’re over. And if you count on those things to be everything for you, they’re just going to let you down.”

#8: Derek Carr

Derek Carr is the signal caller for the Oakland Raiders. On his website, the football player remarked, “Being a Quarterback is what I do but it does not define who I am. I am first and foremost a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

#9: Philip Rivers

Phillip Rivers has been the starting quarterback for the Los Angeles Charges for more than a decade. A married father of eight children, Rivers told Pastor Miles McPherson of Rock Church in San Diego, “My faith has always been very important to me. I think that the center of our marriage and the foundation of our relationship was on Jesus. That is why it’s worked to this point.”

~ 1776 Christian

 https://1776christian.com/9-nfl-quarterbacks-who-boldly-share-their-faith-in-christ/

Christian Persecution Expected to Increase in the New Year

Although the subject of Christian persecution isn’t pleasant, knowing the amount of persecution others face worldwide is important information for everyone. Unfortunately, according to Release International, 2019 is expected to see an increase in persecution for Christians around the world.

According to Release International, some 215 million believers currently face persecution in the form of violence and discrimination for their faith worldwide. These numbers are only expected to increase, with particular concern for believers in India, China and Nigeria.

Nigeria was described as being particularly dangerous for Christians.

“In Nigeria, Fulani militants look set to continue devastating attacks against Christians in the north and central Nigeria,” Release International said in a press release. “In the first six months of 2018 alone, they killed up to 6,000 and drove 50,000 from their homes…There was a deliberate plan to destroy and take over the predominately Christian communities in the region. A strategic modern-day jihad.”

Moving on, Christian persecution in China has been widely reported on for years. A partner with release warned “The government wants to reduce Christianity to just a minor activity by unimportant older people.” This disgust for believers by a militantly secular government is being felt as the state cracks down on churches, congregations and pastors throughout the nation.

In India, Christians face persecution in the form of violent mobs. Release International is trying to alleviate the damage.

“Release is providing Bibles in local languages to replace those militants destroy and is giving vital aid and support to pastors who have been arrested,” the organization said.

Unfortunately, the projected outlook by Release paints a wide picture of persecution becoming more widespread throughout many countries, not just the ones mentioned. They also listed Pakistan, Eritrea and North Korea as being hostile environments for believers.

Sitting in the safety of America, believers might wonder what they can do to help the persecuted noted all over the world. Obviously, prayer is one way to help as is getting involved with organizations that are working to combat the problem. Of course, bringing the darkness into light in the form of sharing information is sometimes one of the most helpful ways a believer can make a difference. Many times other believers are simply unaware of the scope their fellow believers face daily as part of their everyday lives. It is a foreign concept to most Americans, thankfully.

U.K. Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt recently announced his desire to complete a review of the persecution facing Christians around the world. Hunt appointed Bishop of Truro, the RT. Rev. Philip Mounstep to lead the review.

“With Christianity on the verge of extinction in its birthplace, it is time for concerted action that begins to turn the tide,” he said, referring to Christians living in the Middle East.

“It is not in our national character to turn a blind eye to suffering. All religious minorities must be protected and the evidence demonstrates that in some countries, Christians face the greatest risk,” he added.

This additional study into where persecution is happening and what can be done to counteract its efforts is at least a good start. It’s also important to remember that the Christian life will also come with some form of persecution. As it says in 2 Timothy 3:12, “Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” Thankfully, believers can look forward to their ultimate reward one day for enduring persecution here on earth. That’s not to say; however, believers should turn a blind eye to fellow Christians as preventative and protective action is most certainly appropriate when possible.

~ 1776 Christian

EDUCATION

Retirees to Embrace Campus Life by Lindsay McKenzie, January 9, 2019 
March 20-23, 2019: CABE, California Association for Bilingual Education, Long Beach, CA
March 28, 2019: LEAD Conference, Su Voto es su Voz 
Graduate Student Paper Competition: “Latina/os and the Renewal of U.S. Democracy” 
Border College: The Past, Its Present, Our Future by Michael Ortiz
4-Year Colleges With the Biggest Increases in Percentages of Underrepresented Minorities

Retirees to Embrace Campus Life 
by
Lindsay McKenzie, January 9, 2019

 Future residents and guests watch the groundbreaking ceremony of ASU 
Mirabella in February 2018.

Photo credit: Charlie Leight/ASU NOW

A sold-out housing complex for senior citizens on Arizona State University’s Tempe campus sparks a conversation about whether universities are doing enough to engage with older people.

New housing under construction at Arizona State University isn't slated to be completed until 2020, but the university president has nonetheless dubbed it "the world's coolest dorm," and future residents have already secured their spots.

The residents won’t be typical college students, however -- they’ll be people in their 60s, 70s and up. The housing complex on the university’s Tempe campus will be a retirement community with a twist -- the residents will be able to take classes, make use of campus facilities such as the library with university-issued ID cards and immerse themselves in university life as much, or as little, as they like. They'll also be encouraged to mentor and build relationships with younger students.

“There’s no reason everyone can’t be a college student and engaged in what this community has to offer for the entirety of their lives,” ASU president Michael Crow said at a groundbreaking ceremony for the complex, called ASU Mirabella, in February 2018. “We’re excited that we’ll have on our campus several hundred new learners, new teachers and new experts,” he said.

Crow said he wants to reconceptualize "lifelong learning," a popular talking point among university leaders who promote the important role of higher education in helping adults prepare for new career opportunities. Retirees are often left out of the equation and have not been a significant part of those efforts, said Todd Hardy, managing director of innovation zones at ASU. While they don’t need degrees or certificates to show to future employers, many retirees do want to keep learning and feel engaged, he said.

“We want these residents to be part of our community and to be fully integrated into everything we do,” Hardy said “We’d like them to be guest lecturers, advise us on start-up companies, be docents at our art gallery and performance hall. We’d love them to engage in ways that appeal to them.”

Mirabella residents could even help shape academic programs and research at ASU, he said. Areas of collaboration might include art therapy, Alzheimer’s treatment, nursing and online education. ASU is even considering whether students could work with Mirabella residents as part of their coursework.

ASU is part of a growing trend of privately owned retirement communities being built on or near college campuses.

Ramona Meraz Lewis, a faculty coordinator at the College of Education and Human Development at Western Michigan University who has conducted research on older learners, said ASU Mirabella is an “innovative take on a somewhat established idea.”

While some of these retirement communities may lease or buy college-owned land, such as Kendal at Oberlin, which has close ties to Oberlin College in northern Ohio, and Vi at Palo Alto near Stanford University, very few are actually situated on a campus, she said. Some communities, such as Oak Hammock at the University of Florida or University Commons at the University of Michigan, have deep connections to the universities and were even founded by former faculty. But neither community is directly managed by the universities.

Lasell College, a private institution in Auburndale, Mass., shares a 13-acre site with a retirement community called Lasell Village. To be a resident at Lasell Village, residents must commit to taking at least 450 hours of learning and fitness classes each year, including attending lectures with regular students pursuing degrees.

“With the U.S. on the brink of an ‘elderly boom,’ finding ways to engage older learners in the life of campus is a smart idea,” said Lewis.

“Demographic changes have led many retirees and senior citizens to rethink the postretirement life phase. The new trends suggest older learners have a great interest in staying active, intergenerational opportunities and lifelong learning.

“The human resource in terms of energy, experience and time that older adults are often willing to contribute is a win-win for the individual, the campus and the students,” she said.

Still, Lewis said higher education leaders could do a lot more to promote “age as a function of diversity.”

“One of the most important factors in quality of life as we age is avoiding social isolation. If our campuses can be a part of this in ways that enrich the lives of our students, our alumni, our retirees and our larger communities -- then we should be open to those opportunities,” she said.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, just 0.3 percent of students pursuing a degree are aged 65 and over. And education programs targeting those aged 55 and older rarely generate significant long-term revenues, according to Jim Fong, founding director of the University Professional and Continuing Education Association’s Center for Research and Strategy.

“The target market is conditioned to not want to pay for much in terms of educational programming,” he said.

However, demand for educational programs from older learners is increasing, said Rovy Branon, vice provost for the University of Washington's Continuum College in Seattle.

Many universities provide enrichment opportunities for older learners, such as free lectures, but Branon said he's seeing “a trend towards more serious academic pursuits."

"Older people aren’t necessarily interested in getting a degree or diploma, but they are interested in doing serious study as part of their retirement, and some are even retooling for a third or fourth-act career," he said.

As Americans' life spans increase and people stay healthier longer, universities need to adapt, said Branon, who described the challenges and opportunities of the “60-year curriculum” -- a concept coined by Gary Matkin, dean of the Division of Continuing Education at the University of California, Irvine, which describes a continuous learning program from high school to retirement -- in an op-ed column he wrote for Inside Higher Ed in November.

Seth Meisel, associate dean of academic affairs at Northwestern University, said although many university administrators are starting to talk more about the 60-year curriculum, they will need to carefully consider the specific needs of older learners -- an area of pedagogy known as gerogogy. Classes "need to be in a location that is accessible and flexible," he said. Older learners also often have a lot of experience and want that to be acknowledged. "They want a learning environment that builds upon their experience," he said.

The National Resource Center for Osher Lifelong Learning Institutes -- a network offering lifelong learning opportunities to senior citizens -- is based at Northwestern. The 122, soon to be 123, college and university-based institutes offer noncredit courses for affordable prices. These courses "are not generally cash cows," said Meisel. But the network is growing and is popular with older learners. "There is an influx of retired people looking for meaning and purpose and engagement in their lives," he said.

"They're not looking for the validation of a degree -- in many cases, they're interested in areas they feel were neglected in their education," said Meisel. "There are engineers who want to learn about the humanities and arts, or vice versa."

Back to College, Again

Tom and Pat Gagen, a married couple in their 60s and future residents of ASU Mirabella, said they became interested in living on a university campus after seeing an ad for ASU Mirabella in a newspaper.

“We wanted a style of living that would provide for continued learning, for social encounters, worry-free living arrangements, and access to several levels of health care should we need it,” the Gagens said in a joint email.

The Gagens retired in 2012 and currently live in Scottsdale, Ariz. They don’t have any formal connection to ASU but are women’s softball season ticket holders and enjoy attending other events on campus.

Tom, a former health-care executive who was CEO of the Sutter Medical Center in Sacramento, and Pat, a former geriatric social worker who later worked in the insurance industry, both said they don't want to earn any more degrees, but they are interested in auditing classes and mentoring students.

“We are very excited about being in a learning environment with access to the university and its many resources. We want to take full use of the arts, the sports, the lectures and special events, and the whole campus environment,” they wrote. “We want to experience others our age and learn from their lives as well as from students.”

Activities that mix students and seniors “strengthen us as a community and help to minimize some of the wrong impressions that both the young and seniors may have,” they wrote. They would like to see other universities make more effort to engage with seniors.

“First, we still have a lot to offer. Second, we still have a lot to learn,” they said.

Living at ASU Mirabella doesn’t come cheap. Residents pay a “buy-in” fee starting at $378,500 for a one-bedroom unit and up to $810,200 for a two-bedroom penthouse. Residents also pay a monthly fee of between $4,195 and $5,570. When residents die, 85 percent of the buy-in fee is refunded to their heirs.

Despite the high cost, ASU Mirabella has already sold out. Residents like the idea of being part of a university community, even if they don’t have any connection to the institution, said Paul Riepma, senior vice president of sales and marketing for Pacific Retirement Services, an Oregon-based nonprofit that is leading the development of the complex.

The 20-story building will contain 304 apartments and cater to residents with varying health needs -- from independent living to round-the-clock care. In addition to fine and casual dining rooms, the complex will have a cocktail lounge, a fitness and aquatic center, an art studio, an art gallery, a beauty salon and spa, a library, an auditorium, several game rooms, a woodworking shop, and classroom space.

Riepma noted that “10,000 people turn 65 every day -- the graying of America is upon us.” Baby boomers have “higher expectations of what life can be like” in retirement than the generation before them, and “not everyone wants to live on a golf course surrounded by people just like them,” he said. Universities don’t have to cater only to people aged 18 to 22, and Riepma is hopeful that the model will expand to more universities. “People of all ages can benefit from an environment of lifelong learning,” he said.

Although ASU will receive some money from Pacific Retirement Services for the lease of its land, the incentive for the project is not financial and the university has not invested in the $270 million building, said Hardy, ASU's managing director of innovation zones. He did not say how much money the university would receive for the land. The East Valley Tribune reported that ASU would receive an up-front rent payment of $7 million from Pacific Retirement Services.

“We want to build an intergenerational experience and benefit from each other,” he said. “That’s the main reason we’re doing it.”

Space on campus is at a premium, and there were many other things that could have been done with the land -- but Hardy said ASU wanted to do something different.

“I don’t think it’s occurred to many people that they could do this,” he said. “In fact, when they first hear that we’re going to have this project right on campus, they’re more than curious about it. They ask, ‘Why would you do that?’”

March 28, 2019: LEAD Conference, Su Voto es su Voz

You are cordially invited to attend LEAD Summit X - ¡
No Cost to Register and Attend! - http://events.constantcontact.com/register/event?llr=ywih55cab&oeidk=a07efvr4gjra946f9cc

See here for viewing sites: https://coe.csusb.edu/lead-summit/summit-program/townhall-viewing-events

Su Voto es Su Voz: Everyone Counts

Over the past decades, Latinos have emerged as the largest minority in the nation, with majority populations in many states and regions, and in some cases, the majority demographic among school-age children. In many ways, this is our moment as a major cultural influence on art, music, food, and so forth. Our workers, too, are the backbone of many sectors of the intertwining local, regional, state, national and global economies. Yet, the strength of our schools and communities, basically, “our place in the world”, is impossible to evaluate without focusing on the educational outcomes of Latino students.

Latinos continue to have some of the highest drop-out/push-out rates, score among the lowest on achievement tests, and have low college enrollment and graduation rates. Both Latino students and teachers have a high mobility rate, are located in racially segregated communities with high poverty rates, and attend schools with fewer resources, staffing, and programs.

Education is of economic imperative, and the Civil Rights issue of our generation; it’s a right not a privilege. For the U.S. to create a positive future it will require a Latino citizenry that more greatly participates in the American democratic process, and that is poised to shape the U.S. political landscape through voting and civic engagement.

As we represent a significant portion of this country's future strength, we must achieve a dramatic and powerful change in our communities, one that necessitates civic courage, social action, public service, and the creation of leadership opportunities.

Latinos have also been frustrated with decennial Census projections that historically underestimate the Latino population growth. The push to be accurately counted has always been high stakes because the size of ethnic minority populations directly affects the ability to allocate federal funding for public services and to influence the way Congressional and other voting districts are drawn.

Join us this coming March 2019 as we commit to enhance the intellectual, cultural and personal development of our community's educators, administrators, leaders, parents and students. Current and up-and-coming minority and social movements, and leaders will be highlighted, so as to broaden our right to think critically and participate in civil debate, i.e., to sustain democracy.

Join Us: California State University, San Bernardino is pleased to announce the Annual LEAD Week (Latino Education and Advocacy Days).

Are you ready to make a difference in the Latino community? 
Are you ready to connect with and be part of Latino educational leadership?
Are you ready to find cross-sector solutions to improve the education and lives of all students?
Raise Your Hand, Step In, and Get Involved!!!

Latino Education is the economic imperative of our time, and the civil rights issue of our generation.  Latino students disproportionately bear the crux of the educational crisis, and is where the greatest improvements and most fundamental changes must be fared.

Please join us for a week-long assembly, as we convene key stakeholders: teaching professionals and educators, researchers, academics, scholars, administrators, independent writers and artists, policy and program specialists, students, parents, families, civic leaders, activists, and advocates. In short, those sharing a common interest and commitment to educational issues that impact Latinos.

Conference Location: Santos Manuel Student Union Event Center (unless otherwise noted).  (Complimentary Parking Lot D Only)

Follow Latino Education and Advocacy Days (LEAD) on any or all of our social media networks, and help promote a broad-based awareness of the crisis in Latino Education and enhance the intellectual, cultural and personal development of our community's educators, administrators, leaders, parents and students. Share our links and show your online community that Latino education is the economic imperative of our time, and the civil rights issue of our generation.

https://www.facebook.com/LEADProjects https://twitter.com/LEADProjects http://instagram.com/LEADProjects http://www.youtube.com/user/LEADCSUSB http://www.linkedin.com/groups?home=&gid=2306496 https://www.snapchat.com/add/leadprojects

Official Social Media Ambassadors for LEAD Summit X: Puente Project - Please use the hashtag #LEAD2019 when participating via social media.

-- Join or learn more about LEAD activities, events or programs on any of our social networks, partnerships or education projects -- Video - LEAD "About Us" Corrido de Enrique Murillo
LEAD - Latino Education Projects

Sent by Enrique Murillo Jr EMurillo@CSUSB.EDU 

Event Website: http://leadsummit.csusb.edu/ Program: https://coe.csusb.edu/lead-summit/summit-program 

GRADUATE STUDENT PAPER COMPETITION

“Latina/os and the Renewal of U.S. Democracy”
October 31 – November 2, 2019 
Marriott East Lansing, MI

The Julian Samora Research Institute (JSRI) (jsri.msu.edu) at Michigan State University is holding a Graduate Student Paper Competition as part of its 30th Anniversary Conference Celebration on Oct 31 – Nov 2, 2019. The winner of the competition will receive an award of $2,000 and will be expected to present it at the conference. Submissions are solicited on a broad range of topics focusing on Latina/o communities in the Midwest.

The Julian Samora Research Institute (JSRI) (jsri.msu.edu) is proud to announce a call for papers and panels for a conference celebrating its 30th anniversary as a Latino-focused research institute. The conference theme is “Latina/os and the Renewal of U.S. Democracy."

The major topic areas for the conference are: health disparities, business ownership and entrepreneurship, and service delivery gaps.

Submissions by researchers, practitioners, and graduate students are invited on these topics but are not limited to them. Other topics of interest are:

Submissions must be original student papers reporting formal research results, theoretical developments or analyses, case studies, innovative practical applications, evaluations of interventions, policies or programs, and analyses of emergent issues and trends which contribute to our understanding of Latina/o communities in the U.S. Preference will be given to authors addressing the conference theme of “Latina/os and the Renewal of U.S. Democracy" or that fall within one of the following categories: health disparities, business ownership and entrepreneurship, and service delivery gaps, but all Latina/o topics are welcome.

Authors must submit a completed manuscript with a cover letter that points out the significance of the work, title page that includes the title, author’s name and affiliation, E-mail address, and phone number(s), and an abstract. The manuscript must be on 8.5” x 11” (letter) pages (with one inch margins), 12 point Times New Roman font, and double-spaced; each page, other than the title page, should be numbered. The work must conform to an acceptable writing and documentation style (Chicago, APA, MLA, etc.). A panel of faculty judges will review each submission for content, clarity, elegance, organization, overall quality and format. Charts, tables, diagrams, and other graphics that support the work are acceptable, but must conform to the writing and documentation style used.

The winning student author will receive a $2,000 award and will be expected to present the work at the conference in East Lansing, Michigan on October 31 – November 2, 2019. The award winner must attend the JSRI conference and be present to receive their award. Students who wish to present at the conference should also consider submitting an abstract through the general Call for Papers.

Submission Deadline: August 2, 2019

All submissions must be made electronically and in a Word file. Please submit papers to jsamorai@msu.edu. For questions call (517) 432-1317. Additional information regarding the JSRI 30th Anniversary Conference and related events are available at jsri.msu.edu.

Sent by Roberto Calderon, Calderon@unt.edu 

Border College: The Past, Its Present, Our Future

by Michael Ortiz
Latinx Talk l 30 Oct 2018

URL: https://latinxtalk.org/2018/10/30/border-college-the-past-its-present-our-future/

Two Latino students smiling as they read something on laptop screen in library

I little thought as a graduate student that my academic future lay in driving a truck around Texas brush country. But so it turned out. I’ve been a professor at Rio Grande College (RGC) since I received my doctorate in 2009. I had planned on a career in research, but my experiences in graduate school led me to pursue a teaching career instead, and it seemed to me that there was no better place to teach than where I grew up.

In one way, the distance isn’t great. It’s only a few hours from the University of Texas at Austin, where I went to graduate school, to the middle Rio Grande border region, where I now work. In another, the distance is immense. My colleagues might be surprised at conditions here, but for me it’s home. This is where I’m from.
             Dr. Michael Ortiz

RGC has a student body of about 1,000, with 23 full-time professors. I teach five courses per semester, in a variety of formats–traditional, teleconference, and online–in the afternoon and evening, in addition to performing administrative duties.

Most faculty who come to RGC are here to stay. That’s partly because the workload and logistical challenges make it difficult to build a competitive vita. But it’s also true that, like me, many faculty come here because they have some connection or attraction to the region. And the job itself has rewards that exceed the compensation and scarcity of resources.

This summer a former student stopped in to see me with his young daughter. He recently took a sequence of graduate courses with us. Located in another city, he interacted with me mainly through technology, although we also met face-to-face when I traveled to his area. Most of our interactions took place outside the traditional classroom. The reason he made the seventy-mile trip to see me that day was to give me some pan de pulque to thank me for the time I’d given him.

That’s the kind of reward I’m talking about.

RGC is part of Sul Ross State University, which is a member of the Texas State University System. RGC comprises three separate campuses, but operates as one, distinct from the main university campus,which is several hundred miles away. Faculty travel among the three sites every day.

The campuses, located in Uvalde, Eagle Pass, and Del Rio, are separated from one another by an hour’s drive. Del Rio and Eagle Pass lie on the border, opposite the rapidly growing cities of Ciudad Acuña and Piedras Negras, Mexico. RGC also serves the Winter Garden region, a leading producer of vegetables.

The main university campus is located in West Texas, which is a vastly different part of the state. It lies well north of the longest stretch of border without ports of entry, hundreds of miles from population centers in either country, but surrounded by tourist destinations like Big Bend National Park, and artists’ colonies like Marfa, Texas. Brewster County, where the campus is located, is the largest in Texas (it’s three times the size of Delaware), but is sparsely populated, with a minority Hispanic population. The university administration is increasingly centralized, however, with executive cabinet members visiting RGC perhaps once or twice a semester, if that often.

The main campus follows the four-year residential model. Situated on a beautiful mountainside overlooking the charming town of Alpine, it boasts historic red brick academic buildings, a student union with post office and café, a library, dormitories, sports facilities, a childcare center, and a presidential mansion. The main campus attracts students from all over the state.

By contrast, RGC offers only upper-level coursework, partnering with Southwest Texas Junior College, from which almost all its students transfer, renting its buildings and holding its graduations in community centers. Its nontraditional student body is overwhelmingly Hispanic, female, first-generation, and low-income. Students pursue careers in practical fields like education, business, or criminal justice. They typically have their own families and often they may be helping to support siblings or parents or extended families as well. RGC accounts for around a third of the university’s enrollment. Despite having no freshmen or sophomores, it graduates about as many students as the main campus.

The Uvalde Study Center that became Rio Grande College was established in response to a grassroots campaign in 1973. It was created during a time of transition in Southwest Texas. The Bracero Program had changed the face of the Winter Garden region. Crystal City, where many RGC students reside, had seen the rise of La Raza Unida. The Mexican American Youth Organization (MAYO) had instigated school walkouts. A major civil rights lawsuit had been under way in Uvalde since 1970.

The Study Center held its first graduation at a bank in 1976. Campuses in Del Rio and Eagle Pass were subsequently opened. In 1987, the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) sued the state, citing inequities in higher education along the border, an action that prompted the legislature to provide additional funds to border-serving institutions. This led to expanded opportunities through bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degree programs offered at numerous border universities. Under this impetus, Rio Grande College was named by the state legislature in 1995. It receives its own state funding, but its budget is controlled by the administration in Alpine, which it supports financially.

The creation of the Uvalde Study Center was part of a movement to serve underrepresented populations through regional colleges. Texas saw the opening of Texas A&I University at Laredo (now Texas A&M International University) as an upper-level institution in 1970. This paralleled a largely unsuccessful endeavor to establish private ethnic colleges like Colegio Jacinto Treviño and Juárez-Lincoln University. These colleges may have had little long-term effect on the region, but the attempt shows how desperate the people they served were for education on their own terms. Broadly speaking, both public and private colleges were characterized by community engagement, long-distance administration, and reliance on makeshift arrangements. Higher education in Texas has evolved since then. RGC alone remains a fly in amber, a throwback to the 1970s in its long-distance administration, which seemingly reflects a disbelief that it could ever manage its own affairs.

In 2000, President Vic Morgan formed a strategic planning committee at RGC. In consultation with community leaders, the committee called for the independence of RGC, citing inaccessibility of resources and an untenable administrative structure. President Morgan refused on account of RGC’s small size. Instead, RGC was granted its own vice president in 2001. Rented facilities were improved. $1 million was allocated to improve library access as well, but that ultimately went toward improvements on the Alpine campus instead.

The next strategic plan for RGC, drafted in 2008, repeated the call for independence. The steps it outlined were never implemented, and RGC was denied its own plan in 2016. RGC no longer has local administrative oversight, as its vice president position was eliminated in 2017. Enrollment has declined over the past year.This summer, RGC’s degree programs were “aligned” with those in Alpine, over the protest of faculty, despite the fact that they reflect our partnership with Southwest Texas Junior College.Without its own programs or a catalog tailored to its students’ needs, RGC has effectively regressed.

It’s not surprising that the administration isn’t eager to discuss independence. With the main campus fighting its own enrollment and budget battles, under mounting pressure to exhibit growth rather than shrinkage, Sul Ross State University needs Rio Grande College now more than ever. But the question remains, does Rio Grande College need Sul Ross State University?

Unlike some counties in West Texas, where the population has declined, the counties served by RGC have grown significantly in recent decades. This is especially true of the border counties. Significantly, RGC has not grown proportionally. In fact, despite forty-five years of existence, it remains unknown to much of the population. I believe that it could grow. But its growth would require local leadership possessing an understanding of the region and an ability to react to local issues and needs. The only way to accomplish this is the separation of Rio Grande College from Sul Ross State University.

Several years ago, I took a group of students on a goodwill visit to the main campus. Tellingly, most of the people we encountered had never even heard of RGC. One worker referred to us as “a group of Mexicans” after we passed, an occurrence for which I obtained an apology on my students’ behalf.

I’d reached out to the president’s office to inform them of our visit and request a tour, but when our assigned guide insisted on following his memorized “prospective freshman” script at every stop, I politely informed him that we could explore on our own. My students were a bit envious of their peers in Alpine. I was a little envious, too. My own “campus” is a single rented building in the center of a parking lot between a welding shop and rodeo grounds on the edge of town.

It was then that I began to ask, what do we need? At RGC we know how to work with limited resources. Our “peripatetic” approach, harking back to the borrowed spaces of Plato’s Academy and the Lyceum of Aristotle, makes us affordable, adaptable, and flexible. Our “weakness” is our strength. Imagine how much more we could do with what we have, were we given the tools to do it!

What we need is our own path to independence. Not a five-year plan facilitated by a distant university with a record of disengagement and conflict of interest. Not a sequence of goals set under an administrative structure that hinders our ability to meet them. What we need is a state-supported, locally-driven effort in which RGC will be given its head to engage with the community in pursuit of the opportunities that it knows are there, under the umbrella of our university or another, with the publicized goal of independence at a later date.

The idea of independence is not a mere fantasy. In 1987, when Laredo State University became independent, its enrollment fluctuated around 1,000 students. Yet Texas A&M International now has an enrollment of over 7,000 and a high school STEM Academy. Southwest Texas Junior College is a stable local institution with an enrollment of over 6,000 students. Why can’t Rio Grande State University be a standalone upper-level partner?

In a recent memo to the faculty, President Bill Kibler stated that RGC’s becoming an independent university or even a branch campus would have dramatic financial and operational implications, and that the Chancellor, the Board of Regents, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, and the Texas State Legislature have no plans for and would not support a change to the structure of Sul Ross State University.

In short, our future has already been written. Of the several hundred thousand people in the binational region where our students reside, not a word has been said. But this idea of a university as a brick-and-mortar tower on a hill, waiting for people to come, goes against everything that RGC is and has ever been. RGC exists in the community, for the community. The community deserves to have a say in its future. Its destiny isn’t something to be written by administrators in West Texas or Austin. The right of our region to educational self-determination must be recognized, facilitated, and, more importantly, funded.

It’s true that resources are scarce. Some might argue that nothing can be done, and that RGC simply needs to endure as the stepchild it is. I disagree. I say: Sí, Se Puede!

The views the author expresses are his own, and do not represent Sul Ross State University or the Texas State University System.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
Historia Chicana
Mexican American Studies
University of North Texas
Denton, Texas

source: Roberto Calderon, Roberto.Calderon@unt.edu
Sent by: Dorinda Moreno pueblosenmovimientonorte@gmail.com

CULTURE

HEALTH

The Opioid Epidemic
We Will Never Give Up by Jan Rader
 

 Fire Chief Jan Rader Hope in the Fight Against Opioid Addiction
Guideposts February 2018

Faith Fuels This Fire Chief's Fight Against the Opioid Epidemic.  The fire chief in the West Virginia town known as the "Overdose Capital of America" on why she remains hopeful in the face of her city's—and the country's—health crisis.

" I’m the fire chief in the city of Huntington, West Virginia. I command a department of nearly 100 firefighters. I grew up in this area, just across the river in Ironton, Ohio. I’ve been a firefighter in Huntington for 24 years. I love this city, and I’m fiercely loyal to it.

It pains me deeply that these days Huntington is known to the rest of the world mostly for the people who die here. “Overdose capital of America,” the national media calls my city. It’s true, the rate of drug overdose here is tragically high. We had close to 2,000 overdoses in 2017 in Cabell County, which includes Huntington. The county’s population is just 96,000 people. The overdose rate more than quadrupled in the past two years. One in 10 residents of Cabell County suffers from a substance use disorder. One hundred thirty-two of those users died in 2016. The medical cost of this crisis in our county is estimated to be about $100 million annually.

The cost for us firefighters is high too. More than a quarter of all emergency calls we respond to today are drug overdoses. By comparison, just eight percent are for actual fires. Every day, my firefighters encounter people with substance use disorders at their worst—strung out, passed out, dead or near death, sometimes sprawled in front of their own children. We revive those people with Naloxone, a medicine that rapidly blocks or reverses the effects of opioids. Often we revive the same user a few days later. And again a few days later.

Firefighters are tough and stoical by nature. The men and women in my department do their jobs with commitment and professionalism. Still, the work takes a toll. We all mourn for our city. We are baffled and frightened by the destructive power of drugs. We grow frustrated at helping the same people over and over. We feel helpless when we arrive at a house and find children in diapers crying over the bodies of their incapacitated parents.

And yet I have hope. I believe Huntington will come to grips with this crisis. I believe even the most addicted individual can recover. I do not face the future with fear.

Why? My answer to that question starts in an unlikely place—a filthy apartment above a bar in downtown Huntington. That’s where three firefighters and I responded to an overdose call a few years ago. There we found a man named Mickey Watson lying fully clothed in a tub filled with water and ice. Mickey had overdosed on heroin. His friends put him in the tub in a misguided effort to revive him.

My firefighters and I were on our guard. We’d revived Mickey from drug overdoses four times in the past six weeks. He was a hard-core addict. He’d been using drugs since he was a child—his mom, also an addict, gave him his first taste of alcohol when he was eight years old. Now 30, Mickey could become enraged as he crashed from a high, even if his life was being saved.

His lips were blue, his body gray. The drugs had stopped his breathing. Were we too late? Two firefighters heaved him from the tub while a third kept an eye on his drug-addled friends. Mickey’s hair was plastered down his shoulders. A paramedic put a breathing mask on his face and handed me a canister of Naloxone nasal spray. I administered the medicine. An anxious pause. Mickey heaved a breath.

He was alive!

There are some people in Huntington—anyplace, really, dealing with drug abuse—who wonder why so many resources are expended on people like Mickey. I think that’s the wrong question. All people were created by God. It’s not up to me or anyone else to judge the worth of a human life. Substance use disorders do not discriminate by race, economic background or spiritual background. I can drive through any neighborhood in this city, rich or poor, point to houses and say, “Someone overdosed there.”

Many addicts in Huntington were prescribed powerful opioid painkillers after an injury. They got hooked without knowing it, then needed more drugs to avoid becoming what we call “dope sick”—nauseous, in pain, freaked out, unable to sleep. The classic symptoms of opioid withdrawal. Heroin is the next step, cheaper and stronger than pills. Before you know it, a once upstanding member of our community is a heroin addict or hooked on fentanyl. Then that person overdoses and my firefighters are called to save another life. It’s the lifesaving that gives me hope.

Lifesaving is what drew me to firefighting. In my twenties, I was happily employed as a gemologist at a mall jewelry store near Washington, D.C. One day I saw a woman collapse in the mall outside the store. I didn’t even know CPR then. I called 911 and waited helplessly until the paramedics arrived.

To my surprise, one of the paramedics was a woman. I’d always assumed firefighting was a guy’s job. They revived the woman and took her to the hospital. At that moment, I knew I wanted to do that kind of lifesaving work.

My brother, then a pastor in Huntington, told me the city was hiring firefighters. “You’re in great shape,” he said. (I was a runner.) “You should apply.”

I took the test and scored high enough to be hired. There was one other woman in the department. The next year she retired. For the rest of my time in Huntington, I’ve been the sole woman in the department.

I fought lots of fires. But my passion was always for saving lives. I even went back to school, got a nursing degree and worked on my days off in a hospital emergency room. I wanted to know more about medicine, what happened to the people we rescued after they left the ambulance.

The overdose calls started coming in the early 2000s, around the time I got promoted to lieutenant and then captain. Suddenly firefighters under my command were reviving people strung out on prescription pain pills. We never imagined we were on the cusp of an epidemic. Drugs, we thought, were a big-city problem, not an issue here in the Bible Belt.

The calls kept coming. We had to learn how to respond. I helped write our standard operating procedure for using Naloxone. We also had to develop safety measures to protect ourselves from violent addicts and to help bystanders, especially kids. The drugs we deal with are always changing—different formulations, strengths and mixtures with other drugs, such as methamphetamines. Every addict behaves differently. When a call involves a shooting or a stabbing, we wait for police to give us the all-clear before we go in.

That doesn’t sound very hopeful, does it? Well, I was raised in the First Baptist Church in Ironton. And one of the principles of my faith is that God is present even in the midst of tragedy. My mom was active with the American Cancer Society. Dad built houses with Habitat for Humanity. My parents did not let the size of a problem stop them from contributing to the solution.

I do not view the work my firefighters do as a hopeless rearguard action against an unbeatable epidemic. Every life we save is another opportunity for an addict to bottom out and turn around. You never know when God is going to change someone’s life. Remember Mickey Watson? The heroin addict in the bathtub? That day, my firefighters and I were accompanied by a film crew making a documentary about drug addiction in the heartland—a sad by-product of Huntington’s reputation as an overdose capital is the steady stream of reporters and film crews documenting life in our city.

After we revived Mickey with Naloxone, the filmmakers needed him to sign a release form so they could show the episode in their documentary. Before he signed the form, he demanded to see footage of his overdose. He watched himself getting hauled from the tub, his skin blue, his face contorted. The sight shocked and disgusted him. That moment, he made a decision to get sober.

Today Mickey is off drugs, married and working as a cook at a local restaurant beloved for its barbecued ribs. He’s a loving father to the four kids he had during his years of addiction. He helps others suffering from substance use disorders. None of that would have happened if we’d given up on him.

That’s why I have hope. Addiction is not a sign of irredeemable moral failure. It’s a disease, a physical, mental and spiritual condition. And like every other disease, it can be treated. One reason Huntington is in the news so much is because our mayor believes in being open about the problem, not fudging or downplaying the numbers. Our city’s transparency has enabled us to come together to work on solutions. Doctors and nurses do ride-alongs with my firefighters. Churches are partnering with the local medical school to share wisdom about how to help the addicted. Once a month, pastors, community leaders and I meet to confer and pray for our city.

Not long ago, I was at one of those prayer breakfasts, sitting with the police chief and other community leaders. My phone buzzed with a Facebook message. It was from someone in long-term recovery.

“I know this is random, but God put it in my heart to let you know the difference you’ve made in my life,” he wrote. He recalled the many times we’d revived him from an overdose. He described his treatment for addiction, his marriage, his job and his newfound joy raising his kids. “None of this would have happened if not for you all doing what you do so selflessly,” he concluded.

Hopeful? You bet. Every day, we firefighters see addiction’s destructive effects on our community. We persevere, knowing that God and good people working together can overcome any challenge. We will never give up."

For more inspiring stories, subscribe to Guideposts magazine.

BOOKS & PRINT MEDIA

 Newspapers & magazines 
  meet in Las Vegas 

On October through the 27th, the 37th National Association of Hispanic Publications (NAHP) was held at the Golden Nugget Hotel in Las Vegas, with the participation of important speakers such as Dr. Benjamin Chavis, of the African-American newspapers organization, NNPA; the national president of LULAC Domingo Garcia; film producer Moctesuma Espaza; Congresswoman Dina Titus and Cid Wilson, president of HACR, were some of the participants.  

Fanny Miller, current President of the NAHP, Director of El Latino and Founder of Celebrando Latinas Magazine brought a message to her members,  “improving our publications through mutual support, we can learn a lot from one another,” Miller said.  

Founder of Negocios Now named 
“Latino Publisher of the Year”

Chicago (HINA) – Negocios Now founder Clemente Nicado received the “Latino Publisher of the Year” award during the National Association of Hispanic Publications (NAHP) convention, held October 24-26 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The four days were full of activities with the same objective, to assert the strength of the Spanish-language media and to provide tools for success.

Rewarding newspapers

The José Martí awards for journalism, the most important awards in Spanish-language in the United States, were given during the conference.

“The Jose Martí awards are the largest and oldest Latin awards in the country, given to the best of the Hispanic media in its different categories,” said Kirk Whisler, Founder of the NAHP and the José Martí awards.

During the conference the life of different publications was recognized: 
105 years since the founding of El Diario La Prensa in New York; 65 years of Diario Las Americas in Miami; 40 years of La Oferta in San Jose; 35 years of El Popular in Bakersfield; 30 years of El Aviso, El Clasificado and El Latino, three of the largest publications in Southern California. The history of newspapers such as El Nuevo Georgia, Al Día Dallas, and others were also recognized.

Among the publications that received the José Martí awards are El Diario La Prensa in New York, La Opinión in Los Angeles, Hola Noticias in Charlotte, El Aviso Magazine, Mundo Hispánico, and El Tiempo Latino among others.

The Publisher of the Year was given to Clemente Nicado for his work and vision in Negocios Now; 

The NAHP 2018 Latina Publisher of the Year award was handed over to Jackie Letelier of Revista Mujer.

Among sponsors for this year’s NAHP were Toyota, American Petroleum Institute, Macy's, Coca-Cola, Nexus Services,  Monster, Ford, Comunicad, JUUL, and Maya Cinemas. 

Source: Fanny Miller  fannymiller.nahp@gmail.com 

The 2019 Américo Paredes Book Award

Center for Mexican American Studies at South Texas College