BlogHer is teaming up with CreateJobsforUSA.org to provide grants to select Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs). These CDFIs will then provide loans to under-served community businesses. One of the biggest issues in the current economic climate is a lack of access to capital; and this is an even bigger challenge for Latino entrepreneurs. Check out this link for more information, and please share it with folks you know who have businesses that are struggling to get off the ground.

By Seneca

Frankly, President Obama does not seem like he was fully prepared to be President. His hubris may have gotten the best of him. He ignited real hope and became lucky: Hillary Clinton became overconfident, GWB became a bane as a lame duck, and John McCain self-destructed. Ergo Obama became the man. Like a true liberal, he relied on his brilliance and elite thinking with good intentions for being elected. This has now wrought him calamity. In politics, it can be most unforgiving.

Where is President Obama’s Carville or Rove or Atwater or kitchen cabinet like Reagan’s California friends and influential backers or even Carter’s Hamilton Jordan to be his path finder as the American political swamp begins to devour him? Obama, being a loner by nature, is now, as President, up against the forces of economic and political troubled waters. Who in his Cabinet or White House is taking hits for him?

The wrath and smite of an aggrieved people will shortly visit him unless Lady Luck returns. The sadness is his latent failure may beget or unleash the might of ugly extremists with all their mean-spiritedness, intolerance, bigotry, nativism, uncharitable attitude all wrapped around the flag and the visceral language of religious and patriotic righteousness. This is beginning to sweep aside even the responsible fiscal and security conservatives. Obama is no FDR, who was more a political animal of his day: a doer who surrounded himself with seminal thinkers at a time of dire crisis. Even President Lincoln, the self-educated loner at a horrific time, relied on his military chiefs to move forward to save the Union. His leadership flowed from the simplicity and genius of his words which reassured and guided his people. Whereas, President Obama sees himself as a true Athenian actor on a stage full of Wagnerian menaces and Cassandra-like shadows and at best some misguided Panglossian spirit.

Obama is not a disappointment. Perhaps he symbolizes a national frustration that the world is not an American ideal but a brutish reality. The Latino failure to understand the current national crisis will prevent us from being able to survive the impending vortex. Immigration as a litmus test and a primary political metric increasingly appears to be misplaced by many of our Latino leadership. For instance on Tuesday, Representative Gutierrez was arrested in front of the White House to protest the record number of deportations the Obama administration has executed. This kind of political statement in the middle of an economic meltdown may make it appear that we are singularly focused on immigration. Yet in this hour when the ship of state begins to list dangerously, where are the voices of our Hispanic chieftains on jobs, education and the general welfare? Their silence is impressive in opining on the national debt debate while the latest Pew Report alarmingly announces that Latinos have lost 66 percent of their wealth! This devastating statistic is clearly proof that our community is in a deep depression and not a recession. The hope can only be when and if our elected and non-elected leaders in fact open their mouths that they will readily improve the silence. The sound must be one of true LEADERSHIP not just cheering on the mismanagement of the nation.

If you have been following the news about the AT&T/T-Mobile merger, you are probably aware that AT&T will control nearly half of the cellphone market if the proposed merger goes through. And you know that less choice is just wonderful for the consumer, right? If you don’t like AT&T, you would just be left with Verizon and Sprint as alternatives.

According to Reuters:

“Now holding 27 percent market share, AT&T would gain a 44-percent foothold if the T-Mobile merger is approved by the Federal Trade Commission.

At present, only four companies control 90 percent of the U.S. cellphone market. With a takeover of T-Mobile, AT&T would face off against Verizon and Sprint for dominance, perhaps even triggering a further consolidation of the remaining two smaller players. Would this be good for cell and broadband users?

There’s no guarantee that economies of scale would trickle down to consumers. After all, T-Mobile’s aggressive pricing forced AT&T to offer better plans. Without a strong competitor, prices rarely drop, although that’s not how AT&T is pitching the deal.”

The fearless Latino organizational leaders have come out in support of the merger including the National Council of La Raza and LULAC. And this largely has to do with the amount of “support” NCLR and LULAC receive from AT&T.

However, there are some smaller organizations pushing back against this merger, and one of them includes the National Hispanic Media Coalition. You can read the NHMC’s statement on the merger here. But I just want to highlight this part about costs:

“Latinos pay more for mobile service than any other demographic group. Latinos, on average pay $102 a month on T-Mobile, compared to $120 a month on AT&T, $117 on Sprint and $115 on Verizon. 25% of T-Mobile customers are Latino, and many of them choose T-Mobile because of its affordability, flexibility and excellent customer service.”

You can contact the FCC and your congressional representative to express your support or concern about this proposed merger. But share your thoughts here as well. Do you think that Latino organizations have more to gain in telecommunications consolidation? Or do the benefits that the organizations receive outweigh the possible added costs to the individual consumer?

The Tea Party stems from the following : this so-called conservative resistance is plainly white Americans who borrow from several historical trends like the Boston Tea Party of the 1770s, but perhaps more importantly from the Know-Nothing Movement of the 19th century. But today add to the equation the reality that traditional White Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASPs) along with their close cousins the Scots-Irish feel under siege. In the aftermath of the Great Depression and WWII, they began to feel their position erode: ethnic minorities like the Irish Catholics, Italians and the Jewish community secured a firm and effective socio-economic and political status equal to the WASPs. Thus, the Anglo-Saxon narrative began to crumble: the America of Currier and Ives and Saturday Evening Post was increasingly a nostalgia trip.

When JFK won in 1960, the rise of white ethnic Catholics increased. Moreover, the Civil Rights movement in the early 60s unleashed a ‘people of color’ activism: Blacks primarily as well as Latinos, Native Americans and Asians, who sought to gain more recognition and fair treatment. Subsequently, the murders of JFK, RFK and MLK along with the Watergate Scandal and the military fiasco (retreat) in Vietnam profoundly questioned American ‘exceptionalism’. The American traditional power elite was shell shocked. This so-called exceptionalism had been a White Anglo-Saxon rich and a poor Scot-Irish narrative, which depicted these so-called original Americans as stewards of the American experience. For over 175 years, these inheritors of this narrative have extolled the American way of life and suddenly in the late 1950s and through the 60s, they began to grow wary of a central federal government that promoted or protected this perceived erosion of exceptionalism. This included: urban riots, busing, affirmative action, integration, civil rights, feminism, pro-choice, gay rights, environmentalism, rise in crime, anti-war protests, anti-poverty programs, welfare, gun control, immigration and growing narcotics use. These were all demonized and perceived as threats to the American narrative.

One result was the increasing awareness of the diluting of the traditional core WASP position in American society. The feeling among this dominant group was of being challenged by non-American cultural threats like the increased use of the Spanish language and the increasing migration of ‘non-whites’ (Latinos, Asians and Muslims) into the US. The most defining event was the passage of the Public Accommodations portion of the Civil Rights Act under President Lyndon Johnson which was even more disturbing to this first among equals group. President Johnson presciently noted at the time that this legislation created a White stampede out of the Democratic party. The South, the Mid-west and the Mountain states as many of the suburbs of the Northeast and the West Coast became solidly Republican. The GOP was no longer the Episcopalian Church at prayer. Its mild-mannered conservative demeanor was pushed aside by the arrival of poor and middle class southern whites and white ethnics (Reagan Democrats) along with other beleaguered whites. These included the affluent or middle class and poor religious, rural and laboring whites and non-WASPs. Politically they referred to themselves as “Middle America.”

This embattled group of mostly European-Americans are not unlike formerly powerful minorities around the world who have found themselves undone by unsettling demographic realignment and a radicalized, shrinking political base. True, in the short term everything is in their favor. However, in the mid to long term, the numbers and resulting politics spell their decline. See the Africkaners. They fell prey initially to political isolation, followed by marginalization and even repudiation on the world stage.

Additionally, the abortion debate mobilized the Catholic Church as well as the more fundamental religious sects and many of their faithful (mostly former Democrats) now found solace in the GOP. Hence, Civil Rights and abortion were the two defining ‘wedge’ issues that attracted the vast majority of whites into the GOP fold.This new ‘emerging majority’ as the Nixonites labeled them began to promote the GOP as the God-fearing party of traditional ‘winners’ and not the Democratic party of ‘losers’: non-whites, the underdogs, the poor, the gays, the minority poor, the egg-head intellectuals and artists, and unions. Hence, this spawned culture wars which increased class distrust. Moreover, patriotic friction ensued with the GOP hiding behind American soldiers, defending the second amendment and attacking the ‘un-American’ position of these ‘new threats’ to traditional America. And the Democrats almost disoriented rallied around (or hid behind) the poor, feminists, victimized groups, unions, gays, environmentalists, entertainment industry, anti-war protesters, and other aggrieved minorities.

Eventually, political reality caught up with both parties. The GOP’s automatic support of virtually any military expenditure or war created enormous cost. This cost has been mostly ignored by the cowed Democrats. At the same time, the GOP clamored continuously for reducing the tax burden and deregulating the economy while the Democrats readily supported a vast array of costly social programs and set asides. Additionally, the response to the 9/11 terrorist act increased massive federal spending as did the grotesquely expensive wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. With a deregulated (predatory) financial sector came the economic bust in 2008 on top of an already ailing economy. This became the Great Recession of 2008 with increasingly widespread unemployment. The balanced budget of the Clinton years was no longer an economic virtue. The US economy no longer ‘unfolded’. It unraveled. The spending spree continues by both political parties, but it seems to have slowed down. The challenge is that discretionary spending is virtually non-existent in the budget. Everything seems to be recurring or fixed entitlement programs. Hence, the Tea Party phenomenon appeared within the GOP in 2010.

At first glance, the Tea Party is a relatively disorganized movement, but it is plainly spurred on by the horrific deficit spending, the debt growth, and the direction of the GOP: fiscally in disarray. It also seeks to neutralize the Democrats. Upon closer examination, it consists mostly of the white traditional nostalgic inheritors of the American narrative who seek to thwart the central (federal) government from empowering those ‘unnecessary’ recipients and threats. Thus, their grand design or scheme is to eliminate the funding for this ‘monstrous’ government apparatus. Hence, in short, one can readily detect the panic among the deteriorating traditional class of ‘first real’ Americans and their determination to make suspects of all perceived threatening groups (ie. non-whites) and defend the local government structure which preserves the American narrative. Borrowing its name from an American revolutionary event protesting Britain’s unfair taxation, the Tea Partiers’ tactics often resemble the ‘Know-nothings‘ from yester-year. They now appear to be creating serious dissension within the traditional GOP coalition. Security Republicans fear cuts in the defense establishment. Social conservatives want more religious values reflected in government and legislation. The Tea Party members at first glance may come across as fiscal Republicans, but there lurks a threatening anarchic element among the activists. ‘Shut the government down if necessary: who needs it?’ seems to be their motto. They do not seem to be concerned with the Latino or the poor people’s plight in economic terms nor do they seek a solution or comprehensive reform of immigration. In fact, if a serious consideration of immigration reform does emerge, the enormous cost involved in processing 12 million undocumented will certainly antagonize and re-energize the Tea Party. As the 2012 Presidential elections draw closer, these social, fiscal and security conservatives will coalesce but be pulled and tugged in different directions. Not any current GOP hopeful is able to bring them together cohesively. But then again, as always, the whole national economic, security and social discussion in general US elections revolve around capturing or winning this white nostalgic Middle America vote. Many observers might be tempted to say that this formerly governing class of whites find itself in a political death throe. Close examination of this group’s electoral behavior and the political appeals to them reveal that these so-called Tea Partiers together with the regular white coalition are the real swing vote in the US…..not African-Americans and certainly not Latinos…for now!

• In 2010, Latinos represented 15% of the workforce.
• Latinos who are working are less likely to have a college degree than their white and African-American counterparts.
• 8/10 Hispanics work in the private sector.
• The average weekly wage for Hispanic men is $560 and for Hispanic women is $508.
• 6.3% of Hispanics are self-employed, and Hispanic owned businesses are among the fastest growing.
• The average unemployment for Hispanics was 12.5% in 2010 — it declined slightly in February to 11.6%.

Secretary Solis also said that the Department of Labor (DOL) is working to coordinate with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to enforce work and labor rules. She also stressed that more definitely needs to be done to get Latinos back to work and to educate our young people in STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and math), as jobs in these sectors are higher paying.

Secretary Solis also announced an MOU (memorandum of understanding) with DHS that would stop ICE from investigating work sites where DOL already has an open investigation. This will allow DOL to inform ICE about the information that it has and will ensure that ICE doesn’t misrepresent itself and say that it is acting in a “labor” capacity. The goal of this MOU is to be more efficient and to cut down on duplication efforts between both agencies.

Because the MOU involved DHS, some questions about immigration reform were brought up on the call, and Cecilia Muñoz reiterated that President Obama will enforce current immigration laws and just because the immigration system is broken that he will not choose to selectively enforce immigration laws. Muñoz did acknowledge that with a population of 10-11 million undocumented people that there will be some unfortunate situations where families do get separated, but this is the reason why the administration is pushing for a legislative solution to the problem.

Overall, this call was informative and refreshing because Secretary Solis talked about what she was scheduled or expected to speak about, unlike my other interaction with a certain Latino elected official earlier this week. It is unfortunate that the White House is seemingly putting the immigration reform charge back in the Congress, which is especially challenging in this climate, but this has been the pattern with the Obama White House — letting Congress take the initial stab at any huge policy change. If you think back to the Bush days, President Bush did a lot by running around the Congress and avoiding oversight.

US-Mexico relations have clearly had a rough time in 2010. Mexico’s seeming inability to deal with the increased violence south of the border plus the disruptive and unfortunate so-called Wikileaks has made many policy-makers pause on both sides of the border.

These Wikileaks have become a serious diplomatic embarrassment to the US world-wide. But in the case of Mexico they may have created even greater tensions given the timing. Official and personal assessments in diplomatic reporting are never meant for public disclosure. Yet everyone knows that diplomats carry out their duty by reporting situations as they see them. Hence, awkward situations are created when revelations of this reporting plainly embarrass both the US and Mexico.  But the underlying problem is that relations are managed by both sides in an equally clumsy if not maladroit manner.

The Mexicans rely primarily on their nationalistic Foreign Ministry (SRE). This limits other actors or constituencies from having a more substantial role. Whereas on the US side even though Mexico is a NAFTA country, the bi-lateral relationship is still managed like the rest of Latin America: too often as an afterthought. European policy in Washington is guided by the historical gravity of the Trans-Atlantic ties and their constituencies (DoD, Treasury, the banks, the Council on Foreign Relations, academia et al). Middle East policy is primarily driven by the pro-Israeli lobby and the energy sector. Africa policy is largely formulated with plenty of NGOs and the Black Congressional Caucus input. Asia policy is guided by the US Navy (DoD), Treasury, Walmart, the banks, the high tech economy and the trade sector.  Whereas, US Latin American policy, by and large a constituency orphan (except for the glandular Calle Ocho crowd and the equally emotional anti-narcotics and anti-immigrant groups) is in the virtual hands of the State Department bureaucracy. It does not attract the influential and powerful top-cover of the other regions’ constituencies. Hence, without daily guidance from on top (the White House, Wall Street, the energy sector or powerful ethnic lobbies) the State Department bureaucratic mattress mice policy-handlers are cautious, timid, risk averse, invariably resort to lecturing the Latins on the virtues of America, insensitively imparting adult supervision and placing careers first over policy (hence more responsive to the GOP members of Congress because they do threaten careers unlike the Democrats). Therefore , the WikiLeaks stories have become a real validation of Mexican (Latin) suspicions of the US lack of serious purpose or attention and only episodically engaged. Consistent and serious policy treatment by the US will only come about when the Latin Americans begin to cultivate domestic heavy hitters in the US to become their constituents or supporters. The Mexican-American community and Latinos in general are notably missing in action in any foreign policy formulation. As for the Latin Americans and especially the Mexicans, the lesson to be learned is that only weak powers largely depend on the foreign ministry of a great power for problem resolution. It is difficult to foresee how the out years will significantly improve.

As the new Congress gets to work, they’re faced with a daunting task that to date has defined the Obama Administration: repairing the economy. The 2008 economic crisis and its aftermath constituted a perfect storm, highlighting everything that is financially flawed with this country: consumer debt, materialistic tendencies, lax government accountability, corporate greed, and wasteful spending in Washington. The latter is my favorite, mostly because bills are often passed with fiscal notes that no one reads, yet we always hear politicians claim they’re going to take office and remove wasteful spending. Since the solution of slicing a defense budget (which is more than the combined defense budget expenditures of the next twenty-seven countries with the highest defense budgets after America) is not politically sexy, I propose the following: abolish Radio & TV Martí.

I imagine the majority of my readers are now pausing and asking, “what the hell is that?” This is a legitimate question, because Radio and TV Martí are not well known outside of Miami, peripheral members of the Cuban-American community, and US-Cuba embargo academics, which means: US-Cuba history lesson time! Briefly, Radio and TV Martí were designed to counter the “Cuban” media perspective by providing alternative broadcasts to Cuban TV and radio. Their studios are based out of Miami, and they largely employ Cuban-Americans. Initially, different mediums such as news broadcasts and talk shows were employed by the radio version, with the TV version transitioning to soap operas and entertainment programming as well. Unfortunately, the significance of these programs rests in their continued existence despite the Cuban government blocking their signals, rendering them ineffective.

To put this into perspective financially, consider the following: In 1990, TV Martí was launched with a $16 million appropriation from Congress. By 2007, American taxpayers contributed over $500 million in taxes to Radio and TV Martí’s broadcasts, which barely anyone can hear or see. Thus, these two taxpayer-funded initiatives are a) not meeting their mission statements b) wasting American dollars and c) shiny tools in the Castro “blame el bloqueo for all of our ills” toolbox.  So, we’re asking people to retire later, social security will probably not be around by the time my generation is eligible for it, and unemployment is still high, but we must fund the anti-Castro movement! Even though it doesn’t reach Cuban soil. Ladies and gentlemen, that is American democracy at its finest.

For those wondering how this happened in the first place, the simple answer is Ronald Reagan. After his election, he tapped into the anti-communist element of the Cuban-American community in Miami by tightening restrictions against Cuba and establishing a financial and political partnership with the Cuban-American elite. This laid the groundwork for the Cuban-American electorate to rise to prominence, with Radio Martí being one of their first projects. Eventually, the electorate lobbied for and got its television counterpart, with both existing to this day via federal dollars. While the value of Radio and TV Martí was arguable during the Cold War, its existence holds no merit today.  Simply stated, we’re funding a program to reach the island and counter the Cuban media that does not even reach the island to counter the Cuban media. Such waste has come to define our perception of Washington, Wall Street, and everything financial in this country. If Radio and TV Martí are any indication of Washington’s true fiscal landscape, we’re in more trouble than we thought.

Now, abolishing these programs will result in a backlash from the Cuban-American electorate, especially if only one party pushes for it. But removing wasteful spending given these circumstances (a federal program that truly is ineffective) should be able to garner bi-partisan support and should be popular among Americans. Further, abolishing the programs would represent a step in the right direction in terms of normalizing relations with Cuba. Nevertheless, the utter ridiculousness and stupidity of these programs represents more fiscal mismanagement that probably should not surprise anyone, meaning we need to start demanding the accountability that we clearly lack. In closing, if it makes anyone feel better, the Castro government continues to refuse to cash our  $4,085 rent checks for Guantanamo (the lease rate during 1959 on the property) solely because they hate us. This gives the US a whopping $2,451,000 in savings over the lifetime of the Cuban revolution (not counting 1959 when Cuba “accidentally” cashed one of our rent checks). I guess we’re not the only ones flushing money down the toilet.

Matthew Stieglitz received his BA in Communication from the University of Delaware. He is currently a 2011 Master of Public Administration candidate at Cornell University concentrating in Government, Politics, & Policy Studies. After receiving his MPA, Matthew will attend law school in order to merge his public affairs background with a legal education to most effectively advocate for Latinos.

Moreover, the upcoming release of the 2010 census will not provide sufficient clarity but probably provoke a debate on the accuracy of the Latino population numbers and the statistical definitions of the overall Latino community. Also, the changing political landscape in Washington and the state houses bodes a tough slog ahead. Plainly, the Latino community’s challenges persist and often appear to become even more muddled. The apparent political meltdown of the Obama Administration suggests an even more difficult time for the traditional Latino Democratic Party consensus. They are coming up empty-handed by and large. The GOP also faces a real dilemma with its feverish anti-immigrant emerging majority and its pragmatic need to continue to attract Latinos beyond the social conservative mantra.

This past election Latino GOP candidates achieved better results than their Democratic counterparts. As the political passing of Democrat Governor Bill Richardson occurred, with the end of his tenure, there were no Latino Democrats running for governor in any of the 50 states, yet, Republican Latino candidates for Governors were elected in Nevada (Brian Sandoval) and in New Mexico (Susana Martinez).  Three or two new Mexican-American GOP Congressmen (depending on whether Jaime Herrera of Washington State considers herself Latina) were elected. Texas chose two of these newly elected legislators: Kiko Canseco and Bill Flores. Additionally, in Idaho, another Republican Raul Labrador was elected to Congress; Labrador is Puerto Rican. The GOP also sent three Florida Cuban Americans to Congress, two were re-elected (Ileana Ross-Lehtinen and Mario Diaz Balart) and one was newly elected (David Rivera). While Marco Rubio, the newly elected GOP Senator from Florida, restored the number of Cuban-Americans in the US Senate (2), after Mel Martinez’ departure; Senator Bob Menendez is the only Latino (Cuban-American) Democrat in the Senate. While two Democrat Latino congressmen from Texas lost their seats (both Mexican-American) Solomon Ortiz and Ciro Rodriguez; three Democrat Puerto Ricans Congressmen were re-elected (Serrano, Velazquez and Gutierrez). Let’s not forget that Mexican-American Democrat Ken Salazar of Colorado left the Senate in 2009 to become President Obama’s Secretary of Interior and was replaced by a non Latino. At the same time, Democrat Congresswoman Hilda Solis left the House of Representatives to become Secretary of Labor and saw her seat also go to a non-Latino.  The sum of all these musical chairs further suggests that neither party has nor will have, any time soon, a solid in-run into the Latino community.

While the Democratic Party still appears to garner more Latino support over all, the question is whether this may hold solidly in the out years. The growing willingness of Latinos to vote for either party makes them most attractive to court since this vote will increasingly be ‘up for grabs’. But for the GOP to reap the benefits of this voting population, it will have to become more welcoming to the Latinos. Lately we have seen some GOP leaders seeking to augment their outreach to Latinos by restating their outlook on issues such as immigration reform. For example, Newt Gingrich, former speaker of the House, has made an about face. Though historically he was Tea Party-ish on immigration, he is now openly seeking to position himself favorably with the Latino community by calling for the legalization of all workers residing in the country.

As the GOP begins to position itself for the 2012 presidential elections, we may yet see Jeb Bush (President George W. Bush’s brother) emerge as the GOP’s leading candidate who can deliver the Latino vote, especially Cuban Americans, the more conservative segment of the Latino community. Jeb is Roman Catholic, has a Latina (Mexican) wife, speaks fluent Spanish and has a solid base among both Florida and Texas Latino Republicans. Though his dynastic family name could still be an obstacle, given the current lack of potential candidates, the Bush name still could re-emerge. The biggest impediment for Latinos to vote solidly GOP is the troubling tenor or anti-immigrant tone among many of the rank and file members and some extreme sectors of its leadership.

The most immediate challenge to the Hispanic/Latino community is the conduct in addressing the undocumented or illegal conundrum: how do you satisfactorily resolve the status of over ten million undocumented people? The Latino community faces a formidable challenge in making the case for amnesty. An expanded Cuban Adjustment Act is not in the cards for the rest of the undocumented Latino immigrants. Getting to the front of the line is politically unacceptable. Plainly, politically the conditions for a reasonable and just resolution are distant. Especially when while the economic conditions are bleak or at best uncertain the mantra from some quarters seems to be: blame the illegals.

Immigration, educational achievement and equal economic opportunity are the most important and pressing issues on the Latino agenda. They remain unresolved or unmitigated. The Latino socio-economic indicators reveal a huge underclass in the making. Though, some progress is also apparent: more college graduates and an increasing middle class; the vast influx of immigrants in the last three decades has raised the numbers in poverty.  Educational statistics show a startling under-achievement among Latinos. Health and income conditions among Latinos are most unsettling. They continue to confront the Latino community. Most disturbingly the election of the first Black-American to the Presidency has sadly unearthed and aroused many racist sentiments in the body politic. Obama inherited two costly undeclared wars, the deepest recession since the Great Depression, a run-away debt crisis, the clear lack of vision among the leadership in Congress, a fractious body politic, a lame press, a growing income inequity, a withering national infrastructure, an underfunded and weakened educational system and a shrill tax sharing burden debate. The GOP take over of the House of Representatives will further hinder the President’s range of action. This is a daunting scenario. Obama is now weakened and is in no position to take up the Latino agenda. In sum, the national Latino leadership should be readying itself for a monumental struggle in addressing the key issues confronting the community. Moreover, the bruising political effort to attain some rational discussion and resolution of the tangled issue of immigration will not be swift. Success or failure will serve test the Latinos’ ability to manage formidable issues.

Lastly, Latinos seem to be totally disengaged from the global agenda. When a Latino soldier’s body is brought back home from war seems to be only occasion we discuss the war and the security challenges facing the country. Security policy is virtually absent from the Latino national agenda. Hence, it seems almost premature to discuss the Latino participation in globalization or its engagement in foreign policy and trade. The way forward is indeed a true challenge.

Photo Credits: NV Governor-elect Brian Sandoval, taken from his campaign’s Facebook page, and NM Governor-elect Susana Martinez, campaign website photo

It’s “undocumented” immigrant, not “illegal.” As a classmate of mine justly said recently, people can’t be illegal. So I would greatly appreciate it if from now on, we used the term undocumented immigrant when discussing immigration.

I understand that you are frustrated that undocumented immigrants are “taking your jobs,” but the reality is that they are doing the jobs that you will not. I take personal offense to your ignorant and generalizing comments when you say things like this. Although most of my family was able to come to the United States many years ago with visas, today immigration policies make it much more difficult to do so. I have some family members who are undocumented and have already lifted more fingers than you probably ever will. As the ACLU purports, the fact is that immigrants actually have a positive effect on the American economy.

And you think that immigrants should not even bother to be here if they are not making the effort to learn English? First of all, language has nothing to do with the amount that these individuals give back to this country. In actuality, immigrants do believe they need to learn English so that they can make it in the United States, yet sometimes it is not that simple. Latino immigrants specifically assert that they know they need to learn English, and even realize that they may be discriminated against if they don’t. Also, even though many immigrants do want to learn English, as a friend of mine logically pointed out, sometimes these resources are not necessarily available, such as workshops and classes funded by say the government. Let’s not forget one of the many positive attributes of speaking a different language in this diverse country, because were it not for my own Latin heritage, I would have never learned Spanish and been able to assist in bridging the gap between different communities in the U.S.

Weren’t your ancestors immigrants themselves once? And did they not come over with a primary language of their own? Did their simple motivation of having a better life threaten to take jobs away from others? Perhaps, but it seems to me that you are not acknowledging the similarities between immigrants today and immigrants from just a century prior.

It’s not that I’m blind to the validity of some of your points, however far-fetched they may be, but in order to embark on this discussion over immigration, you need to stop making sweeping generalizations. In addition, you need to start looking at outside forces that come into play, such as why these immigrants are coming into the U.S. in the first place. As to what is true versus misconceptions surrounding immigration, the list goes on and on.  I urge you to peruse this link in which the ACLU discusses Immigration Myths and Facts.

Thank you.

Melissa Beatriz Skolnick is currently a graduate student attaining her Master’s in Social Work in Philadelphia. 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.

This piece was inspired by a comment on my last blog post about abolishing Chicano Studies departments because “they doom aspiring minorities to a lifetime of poverty.” It reminded of the time-honored American tradition of emphasizing the necessity and superiority of certain fields over others. You’ll be hard pressed to find anyone who doesn’t slam the sciences or business while the line frowning upon ethnic studies goes down the street and around the corner. This often times is exemplified by employers who see a resume come across their desk with Women’s Studies or Latino Studies at the top, causing the following Q&A: “What exactly did this person learn? What did they do? I bet they learned to hate men (Women’s Studies) or white people (ethnic studies).”

These questions come up because a good number of people don’t know the content of these fields and subsequently disregard them. But those answers couldn’t be farther from the truth. When it comes to practical applicability, ignoring certain fields should only be acceptable when applying for a job that requires a particular specialization (such as nursing, engineering, a Master’s degree, etc). Otherwise, you can acquire the same skills in Chicano Studies that you can in almost any other field. The key is what you do out of the classroom through internships, research, and extracurricular pursuits, not one’s major. Thus, the importance of fields such as Chicano Studies lies in challenging how we think, not in being a gateway to employment.

Now, we can all agree that “minority issues,” throughout time, have been relegated to the doldrums of academia. American students get one version of history, and it’s not the one that includes the contributions of Latinos dating back to the Revolutionary War. For example, readings for a class I took this semester touched on the Bracero Program, shockingly revealing that my colleagues didn’t know about it, or its economic significance to American agriculture during and immediately after World War 2. And they certainly didn’t know its effect on US-Mexico policy to this day. Most of my colleagues taking the class were not Latino, meaning they were (on the surface) immersing themselves in a curriculum that was not personally relevant. The class shed light on issues relating to race, immigration law, labor relations, foreign policy, and employment discrimination. Broad topics, in a broad field, that got everyone to reflect on the legal and political mechanisms that promulgate Latino disempowerment.

Enter my definition of an effective field of study: one that causes people to spend time in thought, to question what they read, and ultimately be independent thinkers. In my experience, fields such as Latino Studies are among the best at creating such ability.  At their core, these departments offer exposure to areas such as law, history, policy, race relations, and politics. They’re fully capable of fostering independent analysis and are highly effective at challenging the preconceived notions of students. As our country increasingly grows fixated with taking information at face value, they’re needed now more than ever.

Let us use the death of investigative reporting to illustrate this point. The news has become stories on polls, causing a race to the bottom for some in political awareness, and necessitating the need for critical thought. This past election we saw campaign ads in New Orleans with a fence of illegal aliens crossing the border cause people to actually think New Orleans has such a fence, and subsequently feel it’s acceptable to ignore constitutional civil liberties, stop minorities in the street, and ask for identification. People don’t know how to interpret the news, specifically how to differentiate between current events, opinion, and garbage. When someone can’t take a principled stance on an issue, question different ideologies, and challenge their own belief systems, it’s a crisis. If people could do that, then they wouldn’t be surprised to learn Lou Dobbs, like countless other Americans, slammed illegal immigration while depending on it. I’m not saying ethnic studies departments solve any of this, they simply aid in fostering the ability to think critically, which this country desperately needs.

In closing, I would be remiss if I didn’t include a conversation I had with my Father before attending college. It went something like this: “Matt, you can study anything you want. As long as it leads to gainful employment.” My response was choosing a field I felt could segue into multiple professions: Communication. And as I near completion of my Master’s degree in Public Administration from Cornell, I am in a cohort with students whose undergraduate backgrounds include everything from Political Science to Women’s Studies to Philosophy. Our common link is the undergraduate research we conducted, fellowships we held, and leadership roles we took that enriched our academic experience. They highlight what a college degree really is: a piece of paper on the wall. As long as one pursues courses that teach them how to think critically while pursuing opportunities that maximize professional growth, they won’t be doomed to a life of poverty. That makes Chicano Studies OK in my book.

Matthew Stieglitz received his BA in Communication from the University of Delaware. He is currently a 2011 Master of Public Administration candidate at Cornell University concentrating in Government, Politics, & Policy Studies. After receiving his MPA, Matthew will attend law school in order to merge his public affairs background with a legal education to most effectively advocate for Latinos.