NewsTaco

By Toni Castro, Voxxi

A historic number of Hispanic children are in the country’s foster care system, a dramatic change brought on by immigration and the assimilation of a growing Latino population into American society.

The record increase is in part also caused by families breaking apart by divorce or separations caused by incarcerations or deportations of one or both parents.

The startling phenomenon was documented by the child and youth welfare group that operates under the name The Chronicle of Social Change.

“The increase of Latino children in the child welfare system is likely due in part to a growing population of third generation Latino children, who are at greater risk of child welfare involvement than their first and second generation counterparts,” said researcher Alan Dettlaff of the University of Illinois, Chicago.

The best evidence of what has been happening to Hispanic children in foster care is in Los Angeles, where Latino children today make up 59 percent of the youth supervised by the county’s Department of Children and Family Services—up from 39 percent in 2000.

It is a particularly stunning development made even more glaring considering that although Hispanics make up only about half of the county’s population, they comprise about two thirds of the children in the county.

Researchers said that nationally there is a similar tragic finding of an unusually large number of Hispanic children in foster care.

In 1995, only 10 percent of Hispanic children in the country were in the foster home care system. By 2010, that figure had risen to 21.4 percent, startling considering that Latinos make up only 16 percent of the national total population.

A 2007 study by the Urban Institute found that children of second and third generation Latinos were more likely to end up in foster care than those of immigrant parents.

“Latino immigrant children, most of them Mexican, made up one percent of Texas’ foster care population, but seven percent of the total population,” that study reported.

“The children of immigrants (second generation) represented eight percent of the foster care population and accounted for 20 percent of the total child population in Texas.”

“(But) by the third generation, Latino children had gone from a marked under representation to steep overrepresentation.”

Children born to Hispanic citizens made up 33 percent of the foster care population in Texas, the study found, even though they comprise only 22 percent of Texas’ overall child population.

Assimilation and acculturation into the American society, these reports have generally concluded, are not usually the panacea to these families staying together.

“Despite cross generational gains in economic integration, there are negative consequences to integration,” Dettlaff wrote in a 2009 study. “Drug abuse, bad parenting skills, recent history of arrest and high family stress, all those things are more likely in U.S.-born Latino families than foreign born families.”

This article was first published in Voxxi.

Los Angeles based writer Tony Castro is the author of the critically-acclaimed “Chicano Power: The Emergence of Mexican America” and the best-selling “Mickey Mantle: America’s Prodigal Son.”

[Photo By Mr. Conguito]

PRESS RELEASE

AUSTIN, Texas — The University of Texas Press has published “Unsettled/Desasosiego: Children in a World of Gangs/Los niños en un mundo de las pandillas,” a new book by University of Texas at Austin professor and award-winning photojournalist Donna De Cesare. Culminating 30 years of photographing gang members and their families, De Cesare uncovers the effects of decades of war and gang violence on the lives of youths in Central America and in refugee communities in the United States in this bilingual book.

Her work has appeared in Aperture and Mother Jones magazines, and has been featured on PRI’s “The World,” and on photo blogs of NPR and The New York Times.

Central American nations have recently had the highest per capita homicide rates in the world — surpassing the per capita death toll even in war-torn countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan — and gang violence has been the dominant explanation for this tragic state of affairs. Photojournalist De Cesare has a unique perspective on immigrants and the aftermath of war, and the realities of gangs and violence. She began covering Central America during the civil wars of the 1980s, focusing on the disrupted lives of children and youths, and continued her photography project in Central American refugee communities in the United States in the 1990s and postwar Central America since 2000. She documents a history of repression, violence and trauma in which gangs — trapped by social neglect — are as much a symptom as a cause.

With profound empathy for a reality that is too easily defined and dismissed as repugnant, De Cesare takes us on a visual journey into the lives of children deeply affected by civil war and gang violence. More than a photographic documentation, “Unsettled/Desasosiego” is a memoir of her decades as a war photojournalist, using photographs and personal narrative to trace the evolution and expansion of the notorious 18th Street and Mara Salvatrucha gangs from the barrios of Los Angeles to the shanties of Central America. They show how decades of war and violence — as well as the illegal drug trade — have created a culture that allows gangs to flourish. At the same time, her photographs portray the humanity of gang members and their families, encouraging us to understand the lives of youths at the margins and to take responsibility for the consequences of political and social actions that have ruptured Central American society for generations.

De Cesare is an associate professor of journalism at The University of Texas at Austin and the recipient of numerous honors, including National Press Photographers Association awards, the Dorothea Lange Prize from the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, the Mother Jones Award for Social Documentary Photography, and a Fulbright Fellowship. Her photography has been exhibited internationally in venues such as Visa pour l’Image in Perpignan, France; Centro de la Imagen in Mexico City; the Guangdong Museum of Art in Guangzhou, China; the Museo Tecleño in El Salvador; the Reiss-Engelhorn-Museen in Mannheim, Germany; and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

An exhibition of photographs from the book will be on view at the Benson Latin American Collection from April 25 through July 15. There will be an opening reception Thursday, April 25, from 6 to 8 p.m.

The University of Texas Press, founded in 1950, is a scholarly press that is part of The University of Texas at Austin.

For more information on the book, please visit the UT Press website.

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[Photo by Donna De Cesare courtesy University of Texas Press]

By Adrian Carrasquillo, NBCLatino

Ana Grace Marquez-Green, the little girl who loved to sing and dance, and was killed in a brutal school shooting at Sandy Hook elementary, was remembered by her mother Thursday on aFacebook tribute page, on what would have been her seventh birthday.

“In honor of Ana’s life, we invite you to celebrate with family or friends today,” she began the post. “Reach out to a neighbor, coworker or classmate. Perform a random act of kindness. Wear something purple or sparkly. Read with a child. Crank up the music, eat second dessert, dance like nobody’s watching. Call your leaders. Pray for our country. Pray for common sense solutions. Pray for a love revolution.”

In USA Today on Thursday, both parents, Jimmy Greene and Nelba Márquez-Greene, talked a bit about their daughter.

“Ana was an infectiously happy child loved by everyone — equal parts her passionate Puerto Rican therapist mother and her African-American jazz musician father, the parents wrote. “She danced rather than walk. She danced from room to room and place to place. She danced to all the music she heard, whether in the air or in her head.”

But the family, which works with “Sandy Hook Promise,” a nonprofit organization asking the country to make a promise a tragedy like Sandy Hook will never happen again, also addressed what they want people to remember on her birthday.

“We somehow missed the connection before, only realizing last week that Ana was born on the anniversary of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s death,” the parents wrote.

“When we think of all that Dr. King accomplished before he was taken away, we are all the more bereft that Ana’s limitless potential will never be realized. Like the thousands of children we lose every year to gun violence. How many might have grown up to cure a disease, write a symphony, or be the next Dr. King? Our message on Ana’s birthday is simple: Let’s stop squandering this potential. Let love win by valuing human life.”

In the Facebook letter, her mother shared a treasured and tragic possession — the last photo she took with her daughter.

“Seven years ago I gave birth to the most amazing sweet caramel princess. Less than four months ago, she was executed in her classroom. This photo is our final picture together taken at dinner on December 13th,” she wrote.

Her mother concluded her letter thanking everyone around the country for their support and with a final message for her daughter, taken much too soon.

“Thank you for loving and supporting us. Thank you for not letting Ana’s memory fade away. Thank you for your cards and letters both to us and to Washington. Thank you for reminding us that love does win. Happy first birthday in heaven to our princess of peace. Our princess for 6 and 1/2 years. Jesus’ princess for eternity.”

This article was first published in NBCLatino.

A multimedia journalist with a love for (read: obsession with) social media and how it interacts with news. He is of Puerto Rican/Ecuadorian descent and went to Stuyvesant High School before graduating from Stony Brook University’s School of Journalism. He worked at MyFoxNY.com and Fox News Latino before joining NBC Latino. Adrian sought to continue his work in Latino news because he believes there are stories out there asking to be told and a community that deserves a news site that reflects the nuance, richness and depth of the U.S. Latino experience.

[Photo by Connecticut Funeral Directors Association. Courtesy Kate-Orlikow Kineret-Rifkind]

By LatinaLista

The first time a teenage girl gets pregnant it can truthfully be called an accident but a second, third or fourth time?

A new analysis by the Centers for Disease Control reveals that while everyone can celebrate the fact that there’s a decline in teen birth rates, the same can’t be said for repeat birth rates.

Click on picture to read full story.

[Photo by Phoebe !]

By Tony Castro, Voxxi

Are Latino kids being unfairly targeted as study subjects for obesity in youth and the relationship to drinking a lot of sodas?

There is now a growing controversy over the cottage industry of grant money going to study soda-drinking Hispanic kids, with the center of the storm a $30,000 payout from National Institute of Health to a researcher at the University of California, San Francisco.

It sounds like academic overkill to some, particularly the soda beverage lobby, especially the speculation that the final cost of that study might be something like $100,000.

But the fact of the matter is that, these grants aside, obesity among Latino kids—and their soda drinking habits—is a serious national health problem, at least to Hispanic health which already is hard hit by increasing diabetes rates.

In Texas alone, by 2030, nearly six million Latinos will be obese—a number that could soar to almost nine and a half million by 2040—and adds up to a looming health crisis, with potentially high costs for the state, according to the Lone Star State’s demographer’s office.

In the U.S., the obesity rate among Mexican-Americans is 40.4 percent and almost as high among other American Latinos—and significantly above the national rate in which 35.7 percent of adult Americans are obese.

Latino kids and soda marketing

Part of the problem is that Latino youth have become some of the key targets for soda marketing.

“Hispanic teens were exposed to 99 percent more ads than their white counterparts,” according to a Yale University study on how soda and beverage companies target minorities.

The UC San Francisco study by Anisha Indravadan Patel, entitled “Increasing Water Intake In Lieu of Sugar-Sweetened Beverages among Latino Youth,” confirms as much.

“This issue is of particular significance among Latino youth as they are more likely to drink (Sugar-Sweetened Beverages) and less likely to drink tap water than white and Asian children,” the study reports.

“To date, few interventions have focused on increasing water intake among children and there have been no interventions that have focused on increasing tap water intake among Latino children.”

A new book by New York Times reporter Michael Moss tells the story of former Coca-Cola executive Jeffrey Dunn, who had first-hand knowledge of corporate game plans for marketing sodas to youth in Latin America regardless of consequences.

Dunn tells the author:

“A voice in my head says, ‘These people need a lot of things, but they don’t need a Coke.’ I almost threw up.”

This article was first published in Voxxi.

Los Angeles based writer Tony Castro is the author of the critically-acclaimed “Chicano Power: The Emergence of Mexican America” and the best-selling “Mickey Mantle: America’s Prodigal Son.”

[Photo by Josh Galemore]

By Claudia Sermeno, Being Latino

That is a question that we as Latino Americans are used to asking of representatives of educational, community, political, service and other societal entities. But is this a question that we now have to ask our own children, our own youth, and our own counterparts?

It is a common occurrence that children of “Americanized” Latino families are not proficient, let alone fluent in the language of their previous generations, Spanish. Whether or not this reality is created purposefully or not is a variable factor for families. Some parents unknowingly establish a monolingual environment by not using, not exposing children to the Spanish language either verbally, written or in the media that is prioritized in the home, namely television programming, radio, and Internet.

For others it is a choice made in what is believed to be the best interest of children, meaning for parents cultivating an English only household translates to guaranteed access to societal equity and reduces the likelihood of experienced prejudice and racism. With documented and historically accurate instances of implemented marginalization of Latinos in the 30s, 40s and alongside the civil rights movement, the emphasis of raising English only speaking children may have been a key strategy for parents to ensure that their children did not experience racial and cultural prejudices like they may have.  I have to believe that Latino parents who do choose to raise monolingual children do so with good intentions.

Regardless of why or how it’s done the fact of the matter is that children who would otherwise multiply their opportunities in life, such as in jobs, internships, even relationships sometimes experience negative consequences because of their lack of Spanish language skills. Such consequences are not limited to careers, education, workplace constituents and thus can also mean experiencing alienation and prejudice from within the Latino community itself. A Latino youth who does not speak Spanish is often accused of not being “Latino” enough, of leaving his roots, labeled as “white washed” or coconut and treated as neither Caucasian American nor Latino American.

We, as adults share the responsibility of recognizing the implications of both, raising monolingual and bilingual children. Especially with the ever increasing presence and power of Latinos in the U.S., it is a call for action for the adult generations to clarify that though being bilingual in English and Spanish doesn’t necessarily establish authenticate one’s being Latino, it does provide greater opportunities and is valuable in maintaining a connectedness to the Latino culture; moreover, that being monolingual English only doesn’t deny one’s cultural or ethnic heritage either.

Rather, because language is fluid and dynamic it is an aspect of one’s being, not a definitive of one’s being. The beauty of language is that it can be learned at any age, so for any Latino youth out there whose parents for whichever reason did not encourage bilingualism, becoming proficient and or fluent in the Spanish language is attainable! And in a culture where more is better, having access to two languages can only be better for our Latino children.

This article was first published in Being Latino.

[Photo by kate.gardiner]

By Diana Bohn, Berkeley Daily Planet

Rodrigo was a happy nine-year-old fourth grader at Jefferson Elementary School in Berkeley, where he lived since he was two years old. On January 10, 2013, Rodrigo and his parents, Reyna Diaz Mayida and Javier Ponce Guzman, returning from a trip to Mexico, were detained at the border in Houston, Texas. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) authorities discovered that the father’s visa as well as the visas of Rodrigo and his mother had expired, so the entire family was denied entrance to the U.S. The family was told that they could not re-apply for a visa for five years.

In Berkeley, Rodrigo’s classmates are determined to bring him home. Five of them want to go to Washington D.C. to testify in front of the Senate and Congress to ask for their classmate’s right to return to Berkeley. They are studying the struggles of Martin Luther King, Cesar Chavez and Rosa Parks for justice and believe today is their moment to battle for a cause they believe is part of our democracy.

Click on picture top read full story.

[Photo by bringrodrigohome.org]

By Shelley Diaz, School Library Journal

Librarians who serve children in predominantly Latino communities were shocked this past December to read a New York Times article claiming that there is a dearth of Latino characters in books written for young readers—a notion that is at odds with their own experiences. In fact, they tell School Library Journal, there is actually a wealth of resources currently available to these kids, and librarians have the power (and the responsibility) to make those meaningful connections.

“When I first started as a librarian 27 years ago, there was very little out there,” admits Tim Wadham, director of the City of Puyallup Public Library, WA, and its Spanish-language collection as well as author of SLJ’s bi-monthly Libro por libro column of K–12 books and programming centering on the Latino experience. “There were some books available from Spain, but nothing that spoke directly to the kids that I was working with. There weren’t that many Latinos writing at that time.”

However, there has finally been a sea change for this population of readers, Wadham argues. “Now, there’s an explosion of very talented authors, writing in English, Spanish, and bilingually,” he tells SLJ.

Click on picture to read full story.

[Photo by Franklin Park Library]

By Salud Today

San Antonio business officials, educators, residents, and government officials have invested in free preschool for thousands of low-income, mostly Latino children, PolicyLink reports.

Voters approved a one-eighth penny increase in sales tax to pay for four new full-day pre-kindergarten centers, workforce training for early childhood educators, and grants for schools to expand preschool programs.

The increase was championed by Mayor Julian Castro to help ensure that all children enter kindergarten ready to learn and succeed. San Antonio schools have one of the lowest spending rates per pupil in the country, along with high dropout rates and low college attainment, according to the report.

Business leaders also supported the initiative:

Business leaders also see the initiative as the foundation for building a workforce pipeline in a city with a growing knowledge-based economy and a need for more high-skilled workers.

“The business community took a long-term view of business success,” said Richard Perez, president and CEO of the Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce. “We have to make long-term investments to be prepared for the next economy.”

Research shows that even small investments in quality early education can yield large benefits later, including increased high school graduation rates, lower rates of incarceration, and higher lifelong incomes. Other programs show returns of over $10 in economic benefit for every $1 invested in early education.

It is not just the students themselves who benefit. Investments that enhance the capabilities of young people increase productivity broadly and stimulate business development, said Timothy J. Bartik, a senior economist at the W.E. Upjohn Institute. He believes that early childhood education is a better economic development strategy than conventional approaches, such as tax breaks for businesses.

“Everyone has a huge stake in making sure that a broad range of the population has as many capabilities as possible,” he said.

This article was first published in Salud Today.

[Photo courtesy saheadstart.org]

By Salud Today

Check out this great video about the Hispanic Health Council’s (HHC) comprehensive approach to the prevention of childhood obesity, through promoting healthy eating physical activity and access to healthy affordable food.

HHC uses community-based research, evidence-based direct services and policy advocacy to improve the health and well-being of Latinos and other diverse communities.

The video is among the winners from the Let’s Move! Communities on the Move Video Challenge announced recently by First Lady Michelle Obama.

This article was first published in Salud Today.

[Photo screenshot courtesy Hispanic Health Council]

By Stan Washington, New America Media

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Hispanic parents in this city care about the education of their children just as much as any other ethnic group, declared one Hispanic mother, Marta Lopez, during a recent town hall discussion on education.

Lopez, who works at a local school, said there is a false stereotype that Hispanic parents in Memphis aren’t engaged in their children’s schooling. There are some parents who may be reluctant to involve themselves in school life because of language barriers, she said, but that is changing.

“In the last couple years, I’ve seen a lot more Hispanic parents stepping up and playing more of a role in their children’s education,” said Lopez. “We’re not just sitting back in the corner waiting on someone to do something for our families, for our kids. We are actually stepping forward.”

Lopez was among a number of concerned parents who participated in a recent town hall meeting on education, co-sponsored by New America Media and Latino Memphis, a nonprofit agency that advocates for the Hispanic community in the greater Memphis area. The parents expressed a number of concerns about their children’s education to an audience of local teacher’s groups, PTA organizations, education advocates and local media.

The parents came looking for answers and assistance in navigating a school system that is currently very much in flux.

The majority-white Shelby County schools and the predominantly black, city schools in Memphis are currently in the midst of one of the largest school district consolidations in the nation’s history – one that will shape the course of public education in the Memphis area for generations to come.

So far, it’s been a slow and (according to some) arduous process in merging the larger Memphis City Schools with the smaller, but richer, Shelby County Schools. The county Board of Education still has a number of obstacles to overcome, such as closing schools, reconciling two separate teacher evaluations systems, and managing a district that now includes unionized teachers in Memphis, and non-union county teachers.

Yet the larger problem appears to be a lack of trust between the two districts that dates back to the 1960s, when whites fled Memphis (and the city’s public schools) after federal court orders instituted busing as a way to integrate city schools.

While education matters in the Memphis-area have traditionally been framed in black and white, the Hispanic community has grown in recent decades by a large number. Yet their collective voice has yet to be included fully in the public discourse around schools. According to 2010 Census Bureau data, Hispanics now comprise 6 percent of Shelby County’s population of 935,088. The City of Memphis makes up the bulk of that population at 652,050 residents. Of that group, 63 percent are black, 29 percent are white, and 6.5 percent are Hispanic.

With discussions still ongoing over how the school district merger will take shape, Hispanic activists and parents have not been content to sit on the sidelines and wait to see how it all unfolds.

“I know that if you want your kids to succeed, you must be involved at all levels – at home, at school and at the district level,” Lopez said.

Many of the parents at the town hall spoke little English and were more than pleased to see that an interpreter was provided. Their concerns were not very different than those of other parents – school safety, student opportunities and academic requirements, aid for special needs students, and more communication with teachers.

The parents did express a desire to see more bilingual forms and instructions coming from the schools. Because the literacy level of many immigrant Hispanic parents is low, said one, they need more instruction from the schools on how to help their children with homework.

Cheryl Floyd, regional director of the Tennessee PTA, informed the parents that they would feel less intimidated if they joined forces with other parents when meeting with teachers or other school officials.

“One of the biggest things we try to do is bring parents together to collaborate in their voice to advocate for their children,” Floyd said. “If you have an issue at your school like getting regular progress reports or getting information in Spanish, then we are the voice to help you get that.”

“We are a culturally diverse organization and all-inclusive. Wherever you are from or wherever your needs are, we want to be able to help address them,” she added.

She encouraged the parents to utilize the PTA website which is bilingual.

A consistent homework schedule would be a great help, pointed out one mother. At her child’s school, she’s not sure when her second-grade daughter is supposed to be doing homework: “One week they have homework. The next week, nothing. The week after that, nothing.”

“I work in a restaurant and it is difficult for me to take time off on short notice to make meetings. Sometimes I only get a 24-hour notice. I need to know what’s going on ahead of time,” she added.

Local organization representatives and parents both agreed that Memphis area teachers need more cultural diversity training, to better understand and communicate with the various ethnic communities that have children attending the area schools.

“That is something we need to look at. Hopefully, we can address those needs,” responded Tammie McCarter, director of Parent and Community Engagement for Memphis City Schools.

“When you have any concerns about your child, it is your right to call the principal or, with a staff person, to make an appointment to address those needs,” McCarter said.

By the end of the 90-minute meeting, the air of anxiety and uncertainty that had permeated the meeting earlier appeared to be replaced by a general sense of optimism and hope. The community organizations encouraged the parents to never stop pushing to get their concerns met, and reminded them that they don’t have to fight alone.

Andrew Duck, a bilingual teacher in the Memphis City Schools, pointed out that, culturally, Hispanic and other immigrants tend to hold teachers in a higher regard than parents typically do in the United States — where teachers are blamed for nearly everything that is wrong with the educational system.

He commended those who hosted and participated in the town hall meeting, which he felt was a step in the right direction for the soon-to-be unified district.

“It was a great first effort,” Duck said. “I think of all of the issues that we talked about today, the key to everything is communication. We need more people today to understand to communicate their worries and their desires to school leaders.”

This article was first published in New America Media.

[Photo by Stan Washington, New America Media]

By Khalil Abdullah, New America Media

WASHINGTON, D.C.–Thousands of unborn Americans have no say on whether the process of across-the-board federal budget cuts – the so-called “sequestration” — should move forward after officially going into effect today.

Although still in the womb, those infants will be among the Americans most affected by the sequestered loss of close to $700 million to the federal Women, Infants and Children (WIC) nutrition program for lower-income families, compared to 2012 funding levels, according to a report released this week by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP).

The reduction in WIC funding will have an immediate impact on new African American mothers because they breastfeed less frequently than many of their peers from other groups. Latino families are also likely to be hard hit, the report said.

“Cuts to postpartum women who are not breastfeeding will fall disproportionately on African American women,” the report notes. “Cuts to children will fall disproportionately on Latino families. Latinos represent 38 percent of infants participating in WIC and 39 percent of women, but 45 percent of children.”

Unborn and Breast-Feeding Infants

Unborn and breast-feeding infants are even more dependent on nourishment from their low-income mothers than the very young children that WIC is also designed to serve, but all rely on the program to stretch meager household food budgets.

Administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, WIC (formally called the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children) is a $7 billion program serving an estimated 9 million individuals nationwide.

The report from CBPP, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, D.C., explains that states may vary in how they choose to downsize their eligibility rolls to offset the loss of federal money. Some states may make gradual changes in managing their caseloads; others may take immediate and more dramatic actions.

Should Congress not restore funds by Sept. 30 (the end of the current fiscal year), according to the report, “based on the ways in which states are most likely to institute the cuts, we estimate that by the end of the fiscal year, the number of participants whom WIC is serving would have to be 600,000 to 775,000 women and children fewer than the program served in an average month of fiscal year 2012.”

WIC, a program of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), is usually touted as being one of the most successful intervention programs to target low-income mothers and their children. The program, however, has not been without its critics, some of whom consider it to be a corporate subsidy program for manufacturers and marketers of WIC-approved products.

The CBPP report does not address those controversies, but it does summarize 2012 USDA research showing that “WIC participation contributes to healthier births, higher intake of key nutrients, less consumption of sugar and fats, and a stronger connection to preventive health care.”

Misinformation Could Spread

The downsizing of WIC funding was not the CBPP report’s only concern. The public’s reaction to learning about changes to WIC, depending on how each state chooses to adjust to the loss of funds, could have negative repercussions with serious health consequences.

The report states, “To be sure, most states should be able to achieve the necessary spending cuts without denying benefits to…pregnant women and infants.”

The study’s authors caution, “Once states begin denying benefits to other families, however — including non-breastfeeding women who have just given birth and children as young as one or two — misinformation is likely to spread. Some eligible women who are pregnant or have an infant may come to believe they can no longer get benefits either, and may not apply for them.”

A woman’s physical health is not only adversely affected by the lack of sufficient nutrition for herself and/or her children, but stress induces negative health consequences of its own.

“Programs like WIC that help poor families with pregnant women or very young children afford the basics,” the report states, “may help improve longer-term outcomes for children by reducing the added stress that parents or children may experience if they cannot pay their bills or do not know if there will be adequate food.”

This article was first published in New America Media.

[Photo by Francesco Rachello]

By Mike Cassidy, San Jose Mercury News

This divide isn’t about who has computers and who doesn’t; or who does and doesn’t have Internet access. This divide is between kids whose families have the means and know-how to layer an extra helping of education on their children and those who don’t.

The old divide is closing with the wide adoption of smartphones and the growth of free access to the Internet through public Wi-Fi and, of course, public libraries. But the new gap has to do with how kids are using the Internet and who is available to guide them along their digital journey.

Click on picture to read full story.

[Photo by woodleywonderworks]

By Colleen Flaherty, Education Votes

In a small town in northern Wisconsin, Spanish teacher Scott Ellingson has two students in his class who traveled a long way to be there.

When their mother heard about the incident, she paid $15,000 to have a coyote smuggle them across the border. The coyote never showed, and they were detained by the Texas Border Patrol for two months. They were released to their mother, who was living in Wisconsin, where they began attending school.

Last year, an immigration judge issued an order that they must voluntarily depart the United States by December 13, 2012, or be deported back to El Salvador.

“December 13 has passed and they now risk being deported,” said Ellingson. “In their village back home, young men either join what is considered to be the world’s most ruthless and dangerous gang or they are killed. The family believes that going back to El Salvador would be a virtual death sentence for their boys.”

Ellingson has done what he can to help. He drove the family six hours to Chicago to a political asylum hearing. They were turned down. He has helped raised money to cover extensive legal fees and assisted in hiring a new lawyer.

They are good-hearted young men who just want to have a chance in this country. Jorge, the eldest, has confided to our Hispanic custodian that he wants to be a teacher one day so that he can help students just as his teacher has helped his family, said Ellingson.

Currently, 72 percent of Americans support a pathway to citizenship for the 11 million aspiring citizens living in the United States. Increasingly, there is bipartisan support for DREAMer students and comprehensive immigration reform from congressional Democrats and prominent Republicans, including Sens. John McCain and Marco Rubio. Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, who opposed the DREAM Act three years ago, has also come on board.

Congressman Cantor, in a recent speech, said:

It is time to provide an opportunity for legal residence and citizenship for those who were brought to this country as children and who know no other home.

More than 50,000 DREAMers graduate from U.S. high schools each year.

Ellingson said that before immigration reform passes, there are many things people can do to reach out and help families like Jorge and Miguel’s. He’s noticed that in his community, which he describes as “pretty conservative and pretty homogenous,” putting a human face on the issue drives people to look beyond their political identity.

“When they actually meet these people and get to know them, they see that these are good people. They work hard and they want better things for their families, just like everybody else in this country. It’s amazing how people who are normally conservative can put politics aside and fight for these families.”Ellingson also maintains that education is essential, and he starts with his own students. He asks them to research their own family histories, where their families are from and when they emigrated to the United States.

“The point of the project is that we’re all immigrants or descendants of immigrants, and the stories are roughly similar to immigrants coming here today.”

Ellingson said he is hopeful for immigration reform, and that it will mean so much to students all over the country like Jorge and Miguel.

“These are children, these are human beings, and they long for what we all want. They want to get an education, get good jobs, and they want to eventually have their own families. They deserve to,” said Ellingson. “We as educators do whatever we can do to help out students in class, to continue to be here and to be successful.”

This article was first pubished in EdVotes.org.

[Photo courtesy EdVotes.org]