NewsTaco

By Emily Smith, Opposing Views

New York City parents and activists filed a federal lawsuit with the Office of Civil Rights on Monday, claiming that the city’s high school admissions process discriminates against black and Hispanic students by storing them away in low performing schools and setting them up for failure. They demanded a federal investigation and an overhaul of the admissions system.

Deputy Chancellor Marc Sternberg said that Mayor Bloomberg’s administration inherited a system where zip code once determined a student’s quality of education. Since his first day in office, eliminating the achievement gap is a reform Bloomberg’s administration has championed. Admission to top performing schools is instead based on academic records, test scores, attendance, student preference and other factors.

Click HERE or on the picture to read the full story.

[Photo by SpottingWithTom]

By Hunter Walker, Talking Points Memo

New York City could soon become the first major city in the country to give non-citizens the right to vote. The proposal, which would allow certain non-citizens to vote in local elections, appears to have a veto-proof majority in the New York City Council — enough to overcome opposition by Mayor Michael Bloomberg. As hearings on the proposal get underway Thursday, supporters are optimistic it will become law by the end of the year and believe it will have an impact beyond the five boroughs.

Click HERE or on the picture to read the full story.

[Photo by xbettyx]

By Vivan Yee, New York Times

One is German, another a New Yorker of Egyptian descent. Others are Cuban-American, Colombian, Dominican and Argentine.

These are the unlikely members of Mariachi Flor de Toloache, a New York mariachi band. Even more unlikely: all of the band’s nine members are women, the pioneers of what they believe is the city’s first all-female mariachi ensemble.

In 21st-century New York City, it may not be surprising to see women popping up in what are traditionally men’s roles. But despite a few notable female performers, mariachi has always been, and continues to be, male-dominated, though a few all-female mariachi groups have begun to gain prominence on the West Coast and in the southwestern United States.

Click on picture to read full story.

[Photo screenshot courtesy Mariachi Flor de Toloache]

By Victor Landa, NewsTaco

As usually happens, news stories about natural disasters and their aftermath in the U.S. miss the devastating effect that storms and earthquakes and such have on the communities of undocumented workers. There is no blame to be doled, it’s not so much a matter of fault as it is a consequence of circumstances: the undocumented live in the shadows and natural disasters pushes them further into the dark corners.

This past weekend, though, the Washington Post printed an Associated Press story about Mexican immigrants in New York and New Jersey and their lives in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy. The top layer of the story exposed the basic problem;

Some of those who need help to get temporary housing and food are afraid to come forward because they risk deportation. And many have returned to damaged, powerless, moldy homes because they have no other place to stay.

The numbers are staggering. According tot he Census there are 2.3 million Latinos in the New York ?city area; and according to local non-profits at least 20,000 Mexicans were “hard-hit” by the storm in Staten Island alone.

The Mexican government has visited the area, looking for immigrants in the shadows, pointing them to places where they can find assistance - the problem being that in times of crisis officials wear military uniforms and immigrants will be afraid of them.

More than 735 people have signed up to receive economic help from the government of President Felipe Calderon, but there is only $180,000 so far to distribute, said the Mexican consul in New York, Carlos Sada. As of this week, 66 checks had been written to victims of the hurricane, totaling $110,000.

To compound matters, immigration officials have been conducting “limited street enforcement operations” in the area.

The agency will be “resuming normal enforcement activity, with continued emphasis on at-large criminal aliens, in the near future,” an ICE statement to The Associated Press said.

And to add another layer of problems for the immigrant workers, they mostly get paid in cash for daily labor so every day they go without work is a day they don’t get paid. If any good will come from the storm it’s that there will be more work now for immigrants in the clean up effort.

Groups that are part of the National Day Labor Organizing Network have also brought day laborers to do volunteer cleanup activities on weekends. El Centro del Inmigrante is trying to become a hiring center for day laborers, making sure that they work in safe and secure conditions.

[Photo by Paul Soulellis]

By Yago Cura, NewsTaco

What with all the starched white dress shirts and itchy pants, at first I thought I was at a spelling bee; but, then I realized that although the kids were dressed in their Sunday best, fauxhawks moussed to perfection—shoes shined to a high gloss, it was the parents that were resplendent with pride.

What might cause these parents to outshine their effervescent children? What might induce them to beam with such peacock fervor? In a word: citizenship. On September 19, 2012 roughly 250 people gathered in the Mark Taper auditorium of the Central Library for the Children’s Citizenship Ceremony courtesy of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

The event celebrated the induction of our youngest citizens, and ushered them into the habits of our particular type of democracy. Many city and federal employees and organizations helped add much pomp and circumstance to a pretty solemn event. There were introductory remarks by Phyllis Coven, the District Director, District 23, of the U.S.C.I.S.; and, John Szabo, the new City Librarian, delivered the opening remarks which centered on the link between libraries and a healthy democracy.

There were 53 applicants from 17 countries, and Nancy J. Alby, Field Office Director of District 23 for the USCIS and Dawn Evans, Supervisory Immigration Services Officer for the USCIS, read the names of each of the applicants and their country of origin. The list was varied and dynamic; there were applicants from New Zealand and Vietnam, applicants from Guatemala and Poland. As each of the names of the applicants were called, they stood up to be recognized; many of the applicants were barely tall enough to ride the chairs they were sitting in, but they stood proud despite their limited statures.
Then, Alejandro Mayorkas, the Director of the U.S.C.I.S., administered the Oath of Allegience, a remarkable mumbling ensued, and five minutes later, 53 of our country’s newest citizens emerged from the Taper.

Libraries have always held a special place in our democracy. They are more than just brick-and-mortar kiosks for tax forms and passport applications; libraries are also laboratories that allow citizens to assess a menu of ideas, many contradictory to their lifestyle, and pick a corresponding narrative to help them subtract truth from fiction. The library is a laboratory of personal betterment and social education, dare I say personal evolution.

From this event, one thing was very evident. Libraries are as essential to democracy as polling stations and jury duty; at the local level, in fact, the clerk or librarian at the library may be the only face-to-face interaction you have with your local government. Libraries may not be an American invention, but their ubiquity is a fact of American life. Libraries have always sought to inform and educate, but lately they’ve also been tasked with upholding the behaviors of an informed, educated citizenry.

[Photos by Yago Cura]

By Justin Mitchell, Feet in 2 Worlds

When Angelo Falcón wrote “The End of El Diario/La Prensa?”, he didn’t have particularly high expectations. But the article, a look at possible future scenarios for New York’s legendary, nearly 100 year-old Spanish-language newspaper hit a nerve with New York’s Latino establishment.

“I write all these things all the time, and most of the time people ignore me,” Falcón told Fi2W with a laugh.  As the president and founder of the National Institute for Latino Policy, and a prominent writer, researcher, and academic in the field of Latino studies in the United States, Falcón knows that he writes for a select audience.

But soon after the piece’s July 16 publication, Falcón realized he had something special.

“This time, I was like, oh my god!” he said

Earlier this year, ImpreMedia, the company that operates El Diario and several other Spanish-language dailies throughout the United States, was acquired by US Hispanic Media Inc. a subsidiary of S.A. La Nación, an Argentinian company.  This was just the latest in a long line of ownership and management shake-ups in the last decade or so, a decade that has seen a drop in the paper’s circulation, dramatic staffing cuts, and a growing sentiment among prominent New York Latinos that the paper’s overall quality and commitment to its community have declined considerably.

Several people pointed out that S.A. La Nación runs one of the most prominent conservative papers in Argentina, while El Diario has long been known for reflecting progressive views in New York’s Latino community. Many feel this is another reason to worry about the future of El Diario/La Prensa.

According to Falcón, S.A. La Nación paid a paltry price for ImpreMedia, while at the same time dismissing many of its executives.  He also cited rumors about the impending departure of Rossana Rosado, who has been the paper’s publisher since 1999, as well as an apparent redefinition of her role as working under ImpreMedia CEO Monica Lozano to “implement an impactful external agenda that builds solid and lucrative relationships with leading business, civic, political and community partners,” which Falcón suggested as constituting “a demotion or preamble to a buyout.”

Among possible scenarios Falcón suggests in his article are the new owners pushing a more conservative agenda for the paper, allowing the paper to fail by not investing resources, or possibly shutting the paper down outright.

As Falcón is quick to admit, the article is just him “speculating.”  Yet based on the response, he feels he clearly expressed concerns that have been stewing for quite some time.

“Sometimes you write these things and you feel like you tapped into something out there,” he said.  ”This was the case in this regard.”

Recently, El Diario columnist Dolores Prida wrote a response to Falcón’s article, in which she argues that New York’s Latino community won’t allow the paper’s demise. No comment has come from the paper’s management, and El Diario/La Prensa declined to comment directly for this story.

But in conversations with various media figures, academics, and former employees of El Diario, Fi2W found a remarkable concord of opinion on the current state of the paper.  Nearly everyone agreed that the paper is not what it used to be.

“You can see a marked difference between the newspaper, El Diario of today, and the newspaper, El Diario of twelve or fifteen years ago,” said the leader of a prominent Latino community organization who asked to remain anonymous. “I used to read El Diario every day many years ago.  I don’t even look at it now.”

According to him and other community leaders, two of the most important aspects of El Diario’s past greatness have slowly been abandoned: a strong editorial voice, and a community-based, investigative approach to reporting that made the paper more than a news source, but a community advocate.

“Its editorials used to actually have an impact on City Hall, and up in Albany,” Falcón said.

Marta Garcia is a member of the National Hispanic Media Coalition’s New York Chapter, a group Falcón also belongs to.  She told Fi2W that the most unfortunate decline is in El Diario’s on-the-ground reporting.

She noted that the paper no longer covers a host of issues important to the Latino community, and the coverage it does have lacks depth.  ”You have reporters that are not familiar with our community,” she said.  ”The substance of the reporting is very poor.”

Miguel Sarmiento, El Diario’s former managing editor, also served as interim executive manager and ombudsman before resigning for medical reasons in November 2010.  When he started with the paper, Sarmiento recalled he had over 50 reporters in his newsroom.  By the time he left, that number had shrunk to 31.  According to Sarmiento, the paper cut 15 more staff members soon after he left.  He said that with such a small staff, the coverage suffers.

“They’re just reacting to police blotter and depending on the wire services a lot,” Sarmiento said.  ”And that’s because they don’t have the personnel to cover all the areas.”

Sarmiento sees the decline of El Diario over the last decade as mostly the result of an excessive focus on transitioning to digital media before the Latino community was ready.

“El Diario readers, they are a whole different segment of the market,” he said.  ”They do not have access or easy access to computers, iPods, or any other of the digital era tools yet.  They will, but we lag behind a few years.”

This argument is supported by a 2010 study from the Pew Hispanic Center that found Latinos fall considerably behind whites and slightly behind African Americans in general Internet use as well as home broadband Internet access.

Sarmiento himself was hired to help with the paper’s digital transition, as he had previously worked for AOL, and as a digital supervisor for the Spanish service of the Associated Press.

Yet with time, Sarmiento became convinced that for El Diario the secret to future success was expanding the print edition while maintaining high editorial and reporting standards.  El Diario showed a slight growth in print sales a few years ago, he said, yet the company inexplicably decided to neglect that aspect of their operation.

A report from the Pew Research Center, based on data from the Audit Bureau of Circulations, does show slight growth in El Diario’s circulation from roughly 2006 to 2007, with that level basically maintained until 2009, before dropping precipitously.

“You cannot bet all your marbles on one venture that doesn’t guarantee results.  I saw that the print edition was the money-maker of the company,” said Sarmiento.

Many people who spoke with Fi2W wanted the paper’s editorial staff to meet with leaders in New York’s Latino community in order to learn about the issues that need to be covered.  This, with a return to the high editorial and reporting standards of the past, might bring the paper back, they said.

But Miguel Pérez, a journalist and professor at Lehman College, feels that this is unlikely.  People have grown tired of El Diario, he said, and the chances of the paper taking any outside advice is low.

“I’ve actually sat down with them on several occasions and suggested ideas that frankly go in one ear and out the other,” he said.  He calls the current state of the paper a “failure of management,” and calls the circulation losses in such a burgeoning Latino market “inexplicable.”

This leads to the worst-case-scenario that Falcón suggested: what if El Diario goes out of business?

But others say El Diario continues to fulfill an important role in the Hispanic community.

Valería Treves, the Executive Director of New Immigrant Community Empowerment (NICE), a nonprofit that supports immigrants in Queens, told Fi2W that she still reads the paper to learn about what is going on.

Marta Garcia expressed doubt that the paper would go out of business, but instead focused on worries about whether is would take on the new owner’s conservative viewpoint.

“My concern is, is El Diario/La Prensa going to change as we know it?” she said.

“The reactions go from people who are really saddened and concerned about it, to a number of people saying, you know, who cares?” Falcón said.  ”It’s kind of a range of reactions.”

If the paper were to go out of business, most people seem to believe that it would quickly be replaced.

“It would be devastating, it would be a shame,” said Pérez.  ”But I don’t think it would last for very long.  I know people who would jump at the opportunity to start another daily.”

Falcón argues that it is up to El Diario to tell the community where their beloved institution is going as it closes out its first century of publication.

In a voice mail message, executive editor Erica Gonzalez told Fi2W that Impremedia CEO Monica Lozano and Rosado are ”possibly going to issue a statement soon.”  Further calls to Gonzalez, Rosado, and Impremedia’s New York office asking for a timetable on the statement went unanswered.

“Right now, it’s kind of a wait and see what the next step’s going to be,” Falcón said.  ”How they react, I think, is going to be very telling in terms of what the future of the paper is.”

This article was first published in Feet in 2 Worlds.

Justin Mitchell was born and raised in Fairbanks, Alaska. He graduated from the University of Northern Colorado in 2002 with a degree in theater, and worked as an ESL teacher in the Czech Republic, Cambodia, and Korea. He is now a student at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism with a focus in international journalism. Follow him on Twitter @mittinjuschell.

Fi2W is supported by the New York Community Trust and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation with additional support from the Ralph E. Odgen Foundation and the Sirus Fund.

[Photo by Justin Mitchell/Fi2W]

The Pew Hispanic Center has released a new set of data that allows readers to get a more spatial understanding of Hispanic populations in America. This interactive map spans 1980 to the present, and shows the important things about Hispanic migration and population expansion. Not only does it allow us to get a visual perspective of the growth, it also allows the readers to look at the shifts in the Hispanic cultural hubs of America, and see where the Hispanic population really isn’t growing.

Firstly, the population has grown immensely from 1980.

In 1980 the U.S. population was 226.5 million, 14.6 million of whom were counted as Hispanic, congregated in three cores areas: New York, Miami, and Los Angeles. By 2010, America has grown to 309 million, the Hispanic population to 50 million. Over 30 years the Hispanic population has managed to surge ahead of most groups in population, and spans a much broader area of America than it did in the 1980s — even Alasaka has a Hispanic population.

The other interesting thing note to the map is the replacement of dispersed Hispanic population hearths. New York City’s metropolitan area (Bronx, Kings, and New York County on this data) during the 1980s has more than 1.1 million Hispanics, according to this data. It surpasses Miami-Dade by double, but fails to reach Los Angeles’ population. By 2000, New York State is off the list. The east coast’s Hispanic population is indeed growing — don’t think otherwise — but, likely due to immigration, the U.S.-Mexico border has become the center of America’s Hispanic population.

As a result, it’s safe to assume that the heart of Hispanic culture in our country is no longer as spread apart as it used to be between Los Angeles, Miami, and New York. The twenty-first century Hispanic culture in the U.S. will likely center around Southern California, the border, and Gulf coast populations

As stated before, Hispanics have grown in noticeable numbers across the country, aside from very minimal growth in the Dakotas and Montana. It also shows that the largest concentrations away from the border and the Gulf are in Cook County, Illinois, and the Boston-Washington D.C. megalopolis. It’s an interesting map to look at, with some valuable data on major counties for Hispanic populations, but more importantly, one that tells us a great deal about who we will be as a nation in years to come.

[Screenshot By Pew]

The prevalence of obesity in United States children has reached epidemic proportions. The most recent national estimates suggest that the prevalence of at-risk-for-overweight continues to remain alarmingly high, with no signs of decreasing. Currently, 31.0% of children 6 to 11 years of age are estimated to be at-risk-for-overweight or obesity, and 16.0% are estimated to be overweight. From a public health perspective, childhood obesity is also particularly concerning because it has been documented that obesity in childhood tracks into adulthood and leads to premature death.

The current obesity epidemic is even more pronounced in minority children and children with low socioeconomic status, likely the result of poor food choices and decreased opportunity for physical activity.

One of the challenges when combating obesity in low-income neighborhoods is that the urban environment can discourage children from being active. According to the advocacy group Transportation Alternatives, which has long been concerned with the character of New York’s streets, high crime rates and heavy truck traffic often make such streets unsuitable for play. Local parks too often lack simple amenities like spray showers.

More generally, the habits born of living in these environments can create a vicious cycle in which children become more and more accustomed to staying inside and watching TV or playing video games. New York City is now doing something to promote physical activity in some of its most disadvantaged neighborhoods.

During a two-month period last year, seven civic coalitions in New York neighborhoods like East Harlem and the South Bronx got permits from the city to close certain local streets to traffic for designated periods of time. Working with the police and other city agencies, they re-designated the areas as temporary “play streets,” encouraging neighborhood children to use them for exercise and offering a range of free games, athletic activities and coaching.

They call them “pop-up” playgrounds.

Data collected from the sites indicates that families visited local play streets for one to two and a half hours on average — time that many would have otherwise spent inside, according to a majority of the parents surveyed. This was a resounding success!

Encouraged by last year’s results this summer the city is running 12 pop-up playgrounds, which offer instruction in activities as varied as yoga, running, tennis, rugby and jump-rope. All the sites are in low-income neighborhoods with high rates of childhood obesity.

Hopefully this idea will be implemented in urban communities across the country. Julia De Martini Day, who works on health issues for Transportation Alternatives, says that a new survey this year aims to link the success of the play streets to campaigns to pressure lawmakers to make land-use changes in these neighborhoods, be they better street lighting, more park benches, designated bike lanes — or even permanent play streets.

Get involved in your community to encourage physical activity. Contact Transportation Alternatives for more information. Healthy habits can become a vicious cycle that will lead to healthy lifestyles.

[Photo By stevendepolo]

Comedienne Jesenia Bailey and fellow Latino comedian Carlos A. Gonzalez recently produced a spoof of “La Cucaracha” as performed by Lady Gaga and Pitbull. In the video, below, the two singers are parodied for their grandiose and stylized performances, as the two “singers” sing the classic Mexican folklore song.

Bailey told us that she and Gonzalez collaborated on this project because, as Latino comedians, they frequently have to make their own projects. “We are two comedians with a passion to promote Latino Sketch Comedy in a bold new way so, because of this, given the lack of comedy opportunities that are available to the Latino community, we decided to create and produce our own comedy projects — including: sketch comedy shows, online videos and films,” Bailey said.

The YouTube video is below, and the song may be downloaded on iTunes or Amazon. What do you think?

[Video And Screenshot By LaCucarachaSong]

New York City councilman Ydanis Rodriguez  was arrested yesterday with hundeds of others as police there emptied the Occupy Wall Street camp at Zuccotti Park.

After almost 18 hours in which Rodriguez claimed he was roughed up by police, he was released from police custody.

Rodriguez was charged with resisting arrest and obstructing government administration, both misdemeanors, and a complaint claimed that he “tried to push past a metal police barricade and tried to keep from being handcuffed.” He was eventually released without bail, according to NBCNY.

Other elected officials appeared in court to support Rodriguez, some even called for an investigation.

Here’s NBC NY’s video:

[Video By NBCNY; Photo By NY City Council]

Today as we remember those we lost on 9/11, here are a few remembrances from our News Taco community:

• 9/11 Is No Excuse for Bashing Muslims
• The September 11 Lessons I’ve Learned
• Experiencing The Post-9/11 New York City

Feel free to share your 9/11 experiences or memories with us here in the comments or on Facebook.

[Photo By Meda]

I moved to New York City the summer after 9/11, though I was actually born in Brooklyn, but raised in Miami, so it was a return of sorts. The city was still visibly stunned and the country was astir with its color-coded thing. “Ground Zero” had stopped smoldering months ago, but the clean-up was well under way. Thousands had died, which meant that hundreds of thousands were being directly affected, which then affected the millions grinding it out in the city.

A deep sense of distrust, especially towards Arabs and East Asians, descended on the city like some medieval plague. The summer after 9/11 jobs became scarce as state and federal monies were put on hold so that our “response” might become apparent (nation building price tag and all). The Department of Ed and City University of New York had freezes; this or that association was only hiring internally. The summer after 9/11, New York City still reeled from the pelagic psychic pain and ultra-deep remorse inflicted by those two planes.

The summer after 9/11, the subways were thronged with anti-terror police in body armor, scaring the crap out of everybody. Of course, though, it was for your safety, so unless you were heading up your own cell you shut your mouth and shared the platform with the swat squadron.

We were told numerous times a day that it was the new price of freedom. According to the Daily News, by 2008, the NYPD was already “reinventing itself as an intelligence and homeland security agency” as well as “the nations’ largest police department.” As the country’s hawks played with smoke and mirrors at the United Nations to obtain legitimacy for their eventual invasion of Iraq, New York City became one of the safest and best patrolled cities in the world with “37,000 officers,” and “tens of millions of dollars – much it from federal grants – on an array of high-tech security measures designed to thwart threats.” This is the reason that the NYPD is the only police force in the world with an international presence as many of its officers work in conjunction with Central Intelligence Agency analysts.

I lived in New York for a total of eight years, in handful of neighborhoods. The last five living in a Harlem enclave (Striver’s Row) in a neighborhood were I stuck out like a sore thumb because I was Latino but not Black. I have lived in an attic on Church Ave in Brooklyn, and right on third Ave in Spanish Harlem, in a Hasidic Brooklyn neighborhood where the world would shut down on Friday evenings in preparation for Shabbat. And I have been out and about to the wee hours of the night, intoxicated and stumbling, bumbling through wind-slapped city streets, industrial zones, and hipster kingdoms. And nothing has ever “happened.”

I have never been mugged or pistol-whipped or knifed in the gut or taken advantage of in a violent and aggressive manner. I also taught high school for three years in the Bronx in a poor neighborhood with a large gang presence. So, I have seen fights, melees, and minor bar brawls, but I benefited directly from the safety and surveillance of a post-9/11 heavy police presence. Which is to say, 9/11 was more than a day in history for New York City, it was a pivotal moment in that city’s identity which, for better or worse, becomes your reality as soon as you step into the city.

[Photo By join the dots]

By a show of hands, how many of you have had “the talk” with your children or remember ”the talk” with your parents?

I thought so; it’s not something we Latinos do well. Latinos learn about sex much in the same way we learn to swim – someone throws us into the deep end and yells: MOVE YOUR ARMS!

My experience was slightly different and you’d have to have known my mother to understand. She was a Spock/Donahue mom – that’s about the best way I can explain it. But I’ll get back to that.

All this comes up because I read that, beginning this year, the City of New York will mandate sex education in it’s classrooms. The New York Times says the plan uses

a curriculum that includes lessons on how to use a condom and the appropriate age for sexual activity.

This is all part of NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s initiative to improve the lives of black and Latino children. Teen pregnancy rates among blacks and Latinos is high in New York city, but that’s no different than it is anywhere else in the U.S. The Backersfiled Californian reports:

While nationwide, three out of 10 teen girls will become pregnant, for Hispanic teens, the chances are a full 50 percent. More than half of Hispanic women have their first child before the age of 20.

For some reason – culture, religion, propriety – Latinos tend to stay at arms-length from confronting sex in a head-on conversation. No one is better at the double entendre, but we’re oddly stumped (…stop!) when it comes to talking about sex with our kids.

Back to my mom. She was a registered nurse and I was eight years old when she announced that we’d soon have a new baby in the family. She sat my brother and me at the dinning room table, took out her Ob/Gyn text book from the 1950′s and proceeded to give us what amounted to a plumbing lesson: you know, a very clinical “insert tab a into slot b.” I thought it was interesting, but was antsy that the lesson end quickly – my buddies and I were digging a tunnel in the empty lot across the street and I was worried mom would see the dirt under my fingernails; she was a hand washing task master. The lesson came in handy later in life when middle school kids began to spread the myths of how people get pregnant. I had the goods, the scientific explanation of how babies are made, and I spoke my truth with pubescent authority. I held court and kept my all boy audience in rapt attention as I described girl parts (I’d seen the drawings in my mom’s book and been lured into a game of I’ll-show-you-mine-if-you-show-me-your’s by a girl cousin thrice removed, but that’s another story) what those parts were for and how they worked.

I was reared according to Doctor Benjamin Spock and Phil Donahue;  a latch-key kid before the term was invented. My mother’s strategy was to arm me with as much information as she could and trust that I would use it. This was, in the late 60′s and early 70′s, not a typical Latino upbringing.

Stacy Shepard gives us a thought provoking perspective in the Bakersfiled Californian piece:

Recent research that has begun to focus more on Hispanics has found that one explanation for their stubbornly high teen birthrates may have to do with the failure of traditional prevention messages to connect with the community.

Standard prevention messages often characterize teen pregnancy as destructive behavior that can jeopardize future ambitions…Consequently, “a lot of teen pregnancy messages have been seen in the Latino community as anti-family, anti-baby, anti-child messages,” said Bill Albert, chief program officer for the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy.

The idea that babies ruin your future doesn’t travel well in many Latino communities. But the idea of a planned family does. A University of Texas study found:

Unlike parents within other ethnic groups, the study found that Spanish-speaking Latino parents expressed a desire to get help to better explain sex, healthy relationships and contraception to their children. Hopkins said each parent group expressed interest in speaking with their kids about sex, but Spanish-speaking Latino parents want help with the appropriate language to do so.

“They expressed a desire to take courses from the school or the community to learn how to talk to their kids,” (research assistant sociology professor and research associate at the Population Research Center Kristine) Hopkins said.

That’s an enormous shift from when I was a kid, and I’m hoping it’s what the NYC schools have in mind. Culturally appropriate sex education, and a little slot a and slot b, should make a huge difference.

Follow Victor Landa on Twitter: @vlanda

[Photo by knittymarie]