A while ago, The Economist, did a cover story on ‘Networking.’ It explained how some groups did better than others by relying on ‘established’ or ‘informal’ networks. The story noted the most powerful ones and how rising or emerging groups use available networks or create new ones. Moreover, the article attempted to describe the ‘transnational’ dimension as well as the ‘domestic or national’ one. It also focused mostly on the Anglophone or the British Isles and its former enclaves or possessions which included the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand as well as the United Kingdom. It briefly discussed the more recent British colony: India.

The authors of the piece examined these countries primarily on old schools ties like prep schools: the UK’s Eaton being the most notable and the American exclusive New England prep schools like Andover, St. Paul’s, Exeter and Groton, among others. These exclusive high schools have traditionally served the WASP elite in the US. In other countries, the equivalent schools serve similar purposes. The alumni groups and the outreach programs from current students to successful alumni are most significant. The elite colleges and universities like Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Stanford, were also noted to understand the power and influence of networking. Military schools like West Point and Annapolis as well as Britain’s Sandhurst were deemed to be equally important. These institutions serve to credential those fortunate to attend but also to establish networks for safeguarding communications and links among the student body and the former successful alumni, especially the powerful and influential ones. Academic recognition in becoming a Rhodes scholar or Marshall Fellow also bestows a plethora of networking opportunities on the international level.

Networking usually and traditionally has served the elite or uppers in society. They are born into ambitious, powerful or wealthy classes. Many observers agree that the difference between the rich and the poor is glaring in terms of connections or networking. The poor are virtually ‘isolated’, not necessarily deprived. In simple terms the more affluent have easy access or are well-versed in the value of networking. Hence, in order to remedy the gulf between the haves and the have-nots current efforts include: established institutions’ recruitment of new and diverse members who have been selected and vetted by these elite organizations or schools. Thus, the ‘unconnected or isolated poor’ are targeted for scholarly recognition.

Moreover, networking is not limited to the privileged class connections but also includes membership in religious organizations or churches like the Opus Dei for Catholics or the Episcopal Church, the Mormon Temple or the Jewish synagogue and the related Jewish charitable organizations like B’nai Brith and Zionist movements. The different national Orthodox Churches also offer a wide-range of networking systems to Greeks, Russians, Rumanians, Bulgarians, Armenians and others. Professional and business organizations also provide meaningful networking to its members, like the Davos Economic Forum, the US National Manufacturers Association, the US Chamber of Commerce, banking and financial groups, the Council on Foreign Relations, American Academy of Political Scientists, the American Bar Association, the American Medical Association, the mysterious Bohemian Grove, and the mover and shaker Junior League for women in higher circles. Several charitable boards like the Red Cross, the Metropolitan Museum the Metropolitan Opera, and the symphony societies of major cities offer a veritable entry into both the national and local power structure.

Among African-Americans, the civil rights groups have effectively helped many blacks rely on the old warriors or stalwarts for connections. This includes the NAACP, the Urban League, and the myriad local civil rights groups. The African-American Methodist Episcopal (AME) is widely regarded as the ‘first among equals’ in the Black churches’ hierarchy. More interesting perhaps is the special value of ‘connecting’ in the national network of black college fraternities. African-Americans place significant value in the black fraternities after graduation. The United Negro College Fund also provides ample networking possibilities.

The other groups prominently mentioned in The Economist besides the run of the mill Anglo-Saxon power elites were the Jews, Armenians, Chinese, and Indians (South Asians). These represent a global diaspora of the enormous opportunities of unlimited possibilities. The increasing global growth of expatriated South Asians in the high tech sector and in international trade also provides a new network of ‘who is who’ in the on-going convergence of key technologies like computer technology and telecommunications. This ‘new economy’ has unleashed multiple networking arrangements.

The only Latinos mentioned in The Economist piece were the Cubans. It briefly alluded to their plight from their homeland which caused the diaspora to remain primarily in the US. But, at the same time, many went to Europe (Spain) and South America (Venezuela and Argentina) and a handful to Asia (Hong Kong and Singapore). Cubans came from a small island country where virtually all higher circles members knew ‘who was who’ or had access to each other. They represented a relatively small white elite and business class. Those who initially left were predominantly from these ‘haves’. Whereas the vast majority of the have-nots stayed in Cuba. The Castro upheaval forced these white exiles to flee Cuba over fifty years ago with their connections intact. As they resigned themselves to remain abroad for the foreseeable future, their social, professional, religious, economic and familial ties became key to their survival and success story abroad.

Long before the recent digital social networking phenomena arrived, the Cuban exiled diaspora was eagerly communicating with itself regardless of the distance. Moreover, the Cubans readily grasped that a “Cuban network” was indispensable to ensure a positive outcome in US society. This networking involved notification of jobs and resources available, as well as political developments on US policy towards Cuba. Readily, the Republican Party, anti-communist groups and conservative think tanks became the focus of these exiles. Additionally, securing positions for young Cubans in higher learning, government and business, and other efforts required constant and artful efforts. Possessing a solid educational level, many Cubans quickly determined that they needed special efforts to secure their children attendance to the Ivy League or similarly top schools. They also concluded that highly paid jobs in the public sector required access to those who were already connected, and in the private sector, they sought the necessary lines of credit for business creation and expansion. All these efforts required or suggested that connections or some networking was needed. To coordinate efforts and establish effective networks, the Cubans relied on the old school connections such as alumni from Jesuit or La Salle or Sacred Heart sponsored schools in Cuba. Social links in the Galician or the Asturian or Basque or Catalan cultural societies also proved to be useful while professional groups like the former Medical Society and the Cuban Bar Association were revived.

The collective goal of these political exiles developed into securing a piece of the American pie for themselves and fellow Cubans who continue to trickle in. Upon arrival, the leadership recognized that a well-structured and soundly connected network was required to project the diaspora’s socio-political objectives. This included the revival of many of the former social or economic structures which previously existed in Cuba. Only the Hungarian exiles in the 1950s came to the US with equally developed social and political skills. In sum, the Cubans and the Hungarians were uniquely effective in plugging into US society.

The other Latinos collectively have less know-how in creating ‘networks’ with such ease. Given the educational and socioeconomic levels of the bulk of recently arrived Latinos and many of the older Latino communities with ‘less favorable economic conditions’, networking has been elusive or plainly unattainable. Although the emerging Latino leadership and its aspiring followers have determined that the public policy sphere is ideal for networking or connecting, the question remains: How do we adopt as part of our culture the need and motivation to become connected, to turn into a cohesive population that seeks collective improvement? Increasingly, it appears such a mentality is beginning to bear fruit. Both political parties have felt the need to include and count on well-heeled and well-connected Latinos. The financial sector also shows signs of recruiting and connecting a healthy group of Latinos. The liberal professions like law and medicine also demonstrate an emerging high-tech Latino network. Academia has begun to show encouraging signs of Latinos interfacing in social science. The recently held “Latino Legacy Weekend” at Stanford University is an excellent example of the efforts to bring about a change and understanding that inclusion of our own in upwardly mobile plans will benefit all of us. As the latest census reveals that there are now over 50 million Hispanics in the US, hence, the challenge is for us to get this enormously varied Hispanic community to be aware of its need to become ‘digital’ and connect as active participants of this interactive global network in order to access multiple opportunities to succeed.

As of the 2000 Census, a little over three quarters of the town population was white, and there were roughly the same percentage of blacks and Latinos. And in recent years, there has been an influx of Somali immigrants, who are primarily Sunni Muslims. Shelbyville also has a Tyson Foods processing plant. For those who have followed immigration issues, you may remember that Tyson Foods was involved in an immigrant smuggling scheme years ago, but the company ended up being acquitted. The Tyson Foods aspect is important because many immigrants come to work in meat processing plants especially in the south.

I spoke with Welcoming America‘s Executive Director David Lubell about his involvement in Welcome to Shelbyville. And he said that Shelbyville was chosen because his organization had witnessed the changing demographics in the town and that they could more closely measure the impact of collaborations and the community building that his organization works on between U.S. born citizens and newly arrived immigrants in a smaller municipality. I asked if there had been any hate crimes or violent incidents that made this particular place ripe for this kind of organizing, and he did mention a mosque burning in nearby Columbia, Tennessee. Lubell explained, “Progress has been made in Shelbyville. This is not a story of complete success, but progress and community building between the ethnic groups is occurring especially when people make a concerted effort to do it. Welcome to Shelbyville is a hopeful film.”

Check out this clip, and do check your local television listings for tomorrow’s PBS premiere:

And if you can’t catch this on television, you will be able to watch the documentary in it’s entirety via this link. Welcome to Shelbyville is a recipient of a Gucci-Tribeca Documentary Fund grant and was a selection of the U.S. State Department’s 2010 American Documentary Showcase.

Meanwhile in Georgia, two bills are pending that are similar to Arizona’s SB 1070. Civil rights activists, including the state leadership of the NAACP, have been speaking out against these bills along with local Latino and immigrant right’s activists. Tomorrow (Monday) there will be a press conference on the Capitol Steps in Atlanta, Georgia urging the Governor to stop legislation if it is passed. Over 10,000 signatures of Georgians encouraging the governor to commit to veto the Arizona style laws will be delivered.

Until we see immigration addressed in earnest at the federal level, we will continue to see incongruent state laws.

What would conversations be like if we were all completely candid with our words and were able to bravely face reality?

Have you ever heard people talk about the “the community” or “inner city” and use these words as euphemisms for low-income individuals or people of color? What images come to mind when words such as “ghetto” or “urban” are used in order to describe a certain demographic?

I hear these descriptors constantly, and frankly, it makes me so irritated. Many times, when overhearing individuals discussing the “inner city” or the like, I feel like saying, “You mean Blacks or Latinos?”

It can be frustrating when I know others are talking about people of color, but don’t have the courage to directly say it out loud.

Of course, there is a reason why some people choose to talk around the issue of race, rather than directly referencing the group that they are discussing. Overall, people don’t want to bring up race. Acknowledging race would mean that individuals would need to recognize that one’s race truly can shape someone’s circumstances.

If people would acknowledge that race is an issue though, a very extensive conversation would need to be held, and past wrongs would need to be fleshed out. This conversation would consist of acknowledging racial differences, as well as recognizing that Whites are in fact beneficiaries of these very differences that can be detrimental to people of color. (These ideas are further expressed in The Racial Contract by Charles Mills).

Let’s talk about how it wasn’t until 1954 that a desegregation of schools was enacted. Let’s discuss how the Civil Rights Era marked a time in which African Americans gained “rights” on paper, yet this has never fully been the case in reality. We should also explore how race “doesn’t matter” and that we live in a “post-racial society,” yet many think it is okay to stop people who look “illegal” based on the color of their skin and ask for documentation.

People may not necessarily want to face the implications that a conversation about race would entail—avoiding the actual acknowledgment of race when discussing people from the “inner city” allows others to remain comfortable. Yet, if this were to be acknowledged and discussed in a candid manner, then this would validate that racism and discrimination do in fact exist.

We would then be forced to face the reality of the significance of race in issues such as housing, education, poverty, food insecurity, job discrimination, etc. With that, we would need to engage in a painful discourse as a society, perhaps ultimately changing our mindsets for the better.

Let’s be honest, all groups face poverty. Yet, when people discuss the “ghetto,” they are most likely referring to Blacks and Latinos. It would be much more effective to acknowledge that what we really mean when we say “the community” is people of color. If anything, it makes the issue worse when some individuals disguise what they are really thinking with loaded euphemisms. The tension can be sensed when individuals try hard to avoid bringing light to the role race plays in their daily interactions. Yet, race is often fundamentally underlying their thoughts surrounding discussions about the “inner city.”

I urge individuals to be more candid with their language. It is when people do not own up to what they are really thinking that miscommunication and negative undertones spark. Instead of tiptoeing around the issue of race, let’s directly put it out there and say what we mean.

Melissa Beatriz Skolnick is currently a graduate student attaining her Master’s in Social Work in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She strives to merge social work and journalism together in order to bring more awareness to various underrepresented communities, as well as to bring light to societal inconsistencies. In addition, she hopes to one day impact society through endeavors such as policy-making, writing through a widespread medium, and speaking to those who are willing to listen.

By Jude Soto

Please excuse me if this blog post is a bit halting because I am working late tonight, and I am a bit frustrated.  My desk has a six inch stack of loose-leaf papers that no amount of paper clips, binder clips, or manila folders can seem to straighten out. Instead of looking like the desk of one of those anonymous yet stern teachers of the Peanuts cartoons (I am still working on sounding like an out-of-tune trumpet), my desk looks like a Nor’easter hit and rained down multi-colored Post It® notes. Mess or no mess, the deadlines are still coming. If the homework isn’t graded promptly, the students won’t have proper feedback; don’t plan a proper lesson for tomorrow, the class will be chaotic.  It’s seven at night and if I don’t rush home to call my girlfriend, walk my dog, eat dinner with my widower father, exercise, ring shop, or pay bills, my sanity will the fly out the window.

Now, as Barack Obama says (over and over), “let me be clear,” this blog post is not what you think it is.  This is not a blog about my tough life as a teacher, because truth be told, I always wanted to be a teacher, and could probably do plenty of other jobs if teaching were that miserable a profession. Nor is this article the beginning of my autography, because if anyone thinks a biography of a 28-year-old who grew up in a middle-class neighborhood of Brooklyn and works for the government is interesting, I will personally administer them the shock treatment.  No, this article will be about why educrat Michelle Rhee should be one of the last people to lead a nationwide movement to fire so-called ineffective public school teachers.

There is a saying about educators, “Those who can’t teach, do.”  To tell the story of former DC School’s Chancellor Michelle Rhee one might have to say “Those who can’t teach, teach teachers.” If you’re reading this article, you’re probably familiar enough with the spin on her rise, so let me just summarize it for you.  She taught for three years in an urban public school as part of Teach for America, formed a successful non-profit organization, and then became the Washington school’s chief.  Some might say she’s a hero, but I think she is a quitter.

The revelation that Rhee had as a teacher was that her then-colleagues were to blame for the shortcoming of the American public school system.  Her solution has been one of the latest buzz-words thrown about people like Rhee and her political allies (most of them either never taught, or like Rhee, taught for a few years and then quit to teach teachers): teacher accountability.

In the early 1990s, in a shocking incident in a predominantly African-American elementary school in Baltimore, Maryland, a teacher who was having difficulty controlling her class proceeded to tape their mouths shut with masking tape.  After she had gotten her point across to the students, many of them were bleeding and crying.  Years later, the teacher would humorously mention this at a gathering of new teachers, knowing that her words would likely be recorded, and she even threw in an imitation of an African-American accent.  The teacher in question was never removed from the system, never suspended, nor did she make the front page of any tabloid.  No, after publicly recalling this story, Michelle Rhee remained one of the leading voices against teachers.  Yes, the leading voice of the “fire the teachers quickly” movement, in spite of a heinous and possibly racist act, avoided the very ax that she has so devilishly purveyed.

In December 2008, Michelle Rhee appeared on the cover of Time Magazine in a very dramatic photo.  She is standing in front of an empty classroom in a dark, Hillary Clinton-esque pantsuit, clutching a broom, staring straight ahead.  Taking this magazine out of my dog’s mouth, for a split second, optimist that I am, I became excited about reading a story of how Rhee was demoted to school custodian, but then I noticed that the headline was “How to Fix America’s Schools.”  In a similar vein, on the inside, one of the attached photos is of Rhee with that overseer’s glare that she is so known for, staring down a teacher in full, quiet classroom. The message is clear: scare, threaten, and remove the ineffective teacher from the classroom, and things will get better for our children.

In society, what we ask of our teachers, at the very least, is that they be dedicated, be effective, and take care of our children.  It is insane to think that someone who never majored in education or attended a student teaching program, taught urban children and then quit after three years, physically harmed them, and joked about harming them, is now the leading figure in the politician and business-led movement to improve the quality of the educational system by firing more of them.  Had there been an administrator watching Rhee during the masking tape incident, things might have been different.  Rhee would have been fired, possibly arrested, and there would be one less devil in a pantsuit on the cover of Time.  But then again, with the luck she has had, she may still have had her head-scratch inducing rise to power.

I would love to tell you more.  It would be a pleasure to discuss where the accountability in the school system should really lie.  It would be fun to discuss the merits and motives and Michelle Rhee, Joel Klein, and the leaders of the charter school movement, but my pile of papers beckons to me right now.  I will get this work done, and I will take care of my personal business.  But if I get drained, and get tired of being that happy teacher who gives students high fives and announces that he loves them at the end of every class, I may have to leave and seek greener pastures.  I hear there are some lucrative career options in educational policy.

Jude Soto has been a teacher in a low-income public high school in New York City since 2004. A native New Yorker, Soto has an M.A. in history from Brooklyn College. Outside of the academic world, his pursuits include traveling, weightlifting, and long distance running.

Fenton communications, teaming up with Presente.org, has already been operating a site called, MoveTheGame, urging the public to get involved in the effort to relocate next year’s All-Star game out of Arizona.

Since the Arizona law pretty much sanctions racial profiling in the name of immigration enforcement, one could imagine that an event with MLB, whose league is comprised of not only a diverse group of players but immigrants as well, that there could be hostility towards players, players’ families, and fans. The Major League Baseball Players Association has already issued a statement in opposition to the Arizona law back in April.

My feeling is that it is unconscionable to put MLB players, their families and fans at risk of being stopped by the local law enforcement authorities in this state because they may appear ‘foreign’. Furthermore, Major League Baseball shouldn’t award a state that stokes the flames of hatred and fear with an event like the All-Star game that brings in millions of dollars.

The meat of Murguia and Henderson’s piece is at the end, which I will include for readers here:

Surely the “best interests of baseball” include protecting players and millions of fans of color, not allowing MLB to be perceived as condoning blatant discrimination and injustice, and taking a stand for fairness, equality and other values that Americans and baseball hold dear. Selig should stand up for these players, these fans and these values.

Such a move would not be unprecedented. The NCAA does not allow post-season events, such as the Final Four, to occur in states that fly the Confederate flag. Years ago the NFL stood up to Arizona over its refusal to recognize the Martin Luther King Jr. federal holiday and moved the 1993 Super Bowl. Those sports institutions defended their players and fans, even though there was no direct threat to their safety. The Arizona law, however, is a direct threat, and Selig ought to take action.

If MLB wants to maintain the right to call baseball America’s favorite pastime, and preserve the legacy of Jackie Robinson, the All-Star game should not go to Phoenix next year. Commissioner, for the sake of baseball players and millions of fans, move the game.

If you are in agreement that MLB should move next year’s All-Star game, please take action here.

Obama and his fellow Democrats appear to lack the political bravery to take strong leadership on immigration reform. This suggests they have lost whatever courage they may have possessed early on. It increasingly indicates that the President is listening to his top political advisors who have convinced him like Rove did to President Bush that CIR is ‘lose lose’ proposition. They read the polls and know how to count. California for instance has 42 percent white population, but this group represents 70 percent of voter registration within the state. Then combine this reality with the deep divisions among the Hispanic community plus general Latino voter apathy. Further exacerbating this situation are the potential high negative feelings toward immigrants held by some in the Black and Asian communities. All this may be telling Mr. Obama to turn tail on CIR or anything related to immigration reform that could result in positive action for illegal aliens. Moreover, the current Administration is militarizing the US-Mexico border while faintly apologizing over the recent shooting of a Mexican teen by the Border Patrol. In sum, there is no penalty for not doing anything to resolve or achieve some progress on the current immigration tangle. Enforcement or clamping down on the presence and flow of the undocumented into the country seems to be the preferred way forward. However, a severe penalty lies electorally should any constructive attempt be made to help alleviate the current impasse to do the right thing.

On top of it all, the Latino national leadership is AWOL as usual. One big problem appears to be that our narrative lacks passion. With passion, one moves mountains and captures the imagination of the majority. It seems the Latino narrative plainly may not evoke deep feelings like slavery did or the drama of the Cubans fleeing communism or the high seas trek of many immigrants over the last two centuries. Jumping fences, digging tunnels under the border, hiding under the car’s floorboards, and fording river puddles are not captivating. Chases across the desert are equally uninspiring as opposed to the high drama of immigrants arriving at Ellis Island, NY. Add this to the unjust perception that Latino immigrants are a motley lot seeking hand outs. When the vast majority of immigrants came to America before mid 20th century, the US had not established a social safety net to provide those in need. An exception was made for Cuban exiles because their narrative coincided with the height of the Cold War. Hence, their flight from Communism was readily embraced. Now with a social safety net (medicaid, food stamps, etc.) available the dominant white majority in this recent economic downturn has grown mean-spirited and appears to fear these immigrant ‘hordes of mendicants’ who will feast on their largess. Hence, the Latino narrative becomes even more unappealing. Latinos are viewed like the Native Americans who were colonized and occupied by Anglo-Americans simply putting a stake in the land and proclaiming it was no longer Native American property. Likewise the Alamo and Gold Rush served to conquer the Spanish-speaking people of the Southwest. This may explain why Latino narrative does not fit into the traditional American immigrant saga. Distressingly, high hopes for a practical, timely and humane resolution seem to evaporate as time passes. Then again, the Washington approach may be to get out from under the problem (encontrar una salida) and not to resolve it.

The Associate Press reports:

“Richard Fry, a senior research associate at the center, said some of the Hispanics who did not finish high school are immigrants who may not have had any educational training in the United States. For these students, it takes time to learn and access information about earning a U.S. educational credential.

According to the report, the longer foreign-born Latinos without a high school degree are in the United States, the more likely they are to earn a GED.

But Fry said a puzzle still remains: Hispanics born in the United States who drop out of high school are also unlikely to have a GED. The report found that only 21 percent earn the credential.”

There are several reasons people can point to for our lagging GED attainment including poverty and the immediate need to work, a lack of information about GED tutoring programs, ineffective community outreach for high school dropouts, and misplaced cultural priorities. But I think it’s time we start taking our educational destiny into our own hands instead of waiting for the schools, our leadership, and others to come to the rescue. I have flipped through a GED test book, and anyone who speaks English or who has a working knowledge of English should be able to pass this test. People can request GED sample tests online, and most public libraries have sample test booklets.

If we don’t commit to helping high school dropouts attain GED certification and continued education in vocational programs, we could face more trouble in the future. Overall, our high school and college completion rates have improved for all Americans. But at the bachelor’s degree level, just 13% of Hispanic adults have completed an undergraduate degree, while 17.5% of black adults and 31% of white adults have earned bachelor’s degrees. Asians blow everyone out of the water. For adults of Asian descent, 50% of them have earned bachelor’s degrees. We have to stop being comfortable with being last in terms of educational attainment, and that change starts at home.

The bill that Brewer signed today “prohibits classes that advocate ethnic solidarity, that are designed primarily for students of a particular race or that promote resentment toward a certain ethnic group.”

The Tuscon School district offers a Mexican-American studies program, in addition to courses in Native-American and African-American studies. The  focus is on ethnic history, literature, and information about the influences of these particular groups. However, law makers who promoted the bill believe that these courses teach students that they are oppressed by whites.

I’m a product of public schools that did not have ethnic studies, but I remember as a young high school student that I was always eager to read books by Hispanic authors such as Rudolfo Anaya, Ana Castillo, or even the great Colombian author Gabriel Garcia Marquez and was ready to immerse myself in the studies about my culture. I sought it out on my own, and fortunately, my parents encouraged it. But many students don’t have those resources or parents who encourage discovery and learning about their culture in addition to exploring other ethnic groups and traditions.

Regardless of what one thinks about ethnic studies and whether it is a valuable discipline or not, completely shutting these courses down may do more harm than good. I was able to speak with Cindy Mosqueda, a Ph.D. student in higher education and blogger at Loteria Chicana. Mosqueda was a Chicano studies student at UCLA as an undergraduate, and she indicated that in her experience ethnic studies was not about teaching ethnic superiority nor was it a continual lesson in being oppressed.

Mosqueda expressed, “In fact in fact, we were encouraged to take classes outside the department, and I got to know students of other ethnicities better that way.”

While I have never formally immersed myself in ethnic studies from an academic perspective, I can appreciate the teaching of different ethnic traditions and the notion that there should be multiple points of view taught in the public schools. We have never been a ‘one curriculum fits all nation’, and completely shutting down these ethnic studies courses might turn off students who are marginal students — the ones who might benefit from learning about their history and reading the works of authors from their ethnic group. The generic public school curriculum is boring enough as it is. The history books already censor and omit so much that shutting down ethnic studies is a small minded solution for Arizona’s public school children. With the signing of this bill, Governor Jan Brewer ratcheted up the level of scrutiny her state will face from all who care about diversity and equitable policy.

Blog by David Molina, currently serving on the Oregon Commission of Hispanic Affairs:

Latinos have never shied away from a fight either against the United States (think U.S-Mexico War) or for the U.S. (Civil War, WWI, WWII, Korean, Vietnam, Persian Gulf, and now in Iraq and Afghanistan). While SB 1070, signed into law last week by Governor Jan Brewer of Arizona, gives law enforcement officials the “green light” to enforce federal immigration policy, as a parallel to 287(g), many speculate the decrease in calling law enforcement to crime scenes particularly with undocumented communities. At the same time, speculation that Latinos will be rounded up after weddings and quinceañeras and at our daily favorite restaurants, we must remember that this new law takes effect in less than 90 days. Latinos have seen this before. Despite massive protests on the streets and letter writing campaigns campaigns, in 1994 California passed Proposition 187 which eliminated public services to undocumented residents and led to major discrimination and hate-crimes against Latinos. In 2007, Pennsylvania made it a crime to rent to undocumented Pennsylvanians leading to a downward economic spiral and an exodus of residents impacting entire cities and county budgets. In 2008, Oregon passed a measure eliminating the issuance and certification of a drivers license to undocumented residents. Obviously, cities and counties are laboratories for the states; the states are laboratories for the federal government. Will SB 1070 language begin seeding in other communities or will it be a wake up call to the serious immigration reform talks that need to happen?

Latinos are the last front in the U.S. By 2040 the U.S. Hispanic population is expected to reach or exceed 100 million when one in four persons will be Hispanic making our group the largest and fastest-growing ethnic/racial minority population group in America. Our purchasing power surpassed $1 trillion dollars in 2006 and is growing at an average rate of four billion dollars per month and 50 billion dollars per year. Some pundits have speculated that SB 1070 is aimed at suppressing Latino voters in the November election. The myth on the street and the cable channels is that Latinos are politically apathetic, while far from it, Latinos are registered to vote at a rate six times greater than the general population and turning out to vote at a rate five times greater than the general population. Giving Arizona law enforcement officials authority to ask for individuals proof of residency may curtail the out-of-control violence on the Mexican side of the border by the drug cartels, but slamming innocent hardworking families in the crossfire, and potentially leading to racial profiling.

If history is any indicator, Latinos are not going away. Piolin Por La Mañana asks his Latino callers every time when they call, why they came to the U.S. and the response is always the same: “a triumfar” or “to triumph, to succeed.” It’s a simple reminder that Latinos aim to be part, contribute and build this country stronger just like African-Americans, the Japanese, the Irish and Italians before. America was founded by hardworking immigrants. As a son of immigrants, from my experience, our family has a love for the United States. I don’t believe we can continue to sacrifice and build this country from the ground up and then tell immigrants that they are welcomed, then compromise that contract as SB 1070 just did.

So where is the America that could be?

1. Boycott Arizona. Avoid traveling there and engaging with business headquartered in the Grand Canyon state.

2. Make sure that you and all of your friends and family are registered to vote and are informed about the upcoming midterm elections — and then get out and vote. Conventional wisdom is that we (Latinos and other Americans) don’t turn out in as large of numbers for midterm elections, but our participation is as crucial as ever.

3. Contact your Congressional Representatives and Senators and ask that comprehensive immigration reform be pursued.