Associated Press Discontinues Use of Term "Illegal Immigrant"

Check it out!
http://colorlines.com/archives/2013/04/associated_press_stylebook_drops_illegal_immigrant.html

From New Mexico to Denver, Gonzales' shoes take her to teaching Spanish and more

Check out the article just published today about Shaina Gonzales, Puentes LLC Founder and Director.  

http://www.examiner.com/article/from-new-mexico-to-denver-gonzales-shoes-take-her-to-teaching-spanish-and-more?cid=db_articles
February 16, 2013
By Laura Gabbay

In January of 1984, Shaina Gonzales was born. You probably know women like Shaina – you know the ones – the ones who give new meaning to strong yet gentle, passionate, brilliant, well-read, determined, devoted to community service, bilingual, talented, and whose connection to her closest family and friends is her top priority. She is the woman who you know you can call if you get in a jam.
I met Shaina when I worked at Mi Casa Resource Center in Denver. She was one of the young professionals, a case worker studying for her Masters in Social Work, serving the youth at Mi Casa’s Neighborhood Center at Lake Middle School. In the 2009/2010 School Year, 94% of the students qualified for the Federal free and reduced fee lunch program. The median family household income in the neighborhood around Lake in 1999 was $29,808. Today, Lake Middle School has a student enrollment of 568 children, of whom 476 are Latino/a.

What made you want to become a social worker?
For as long as I can remember, I’ve always wanted to help people. When I was in college at the University of New Mexico, I began volunteering with a crisis center on campus. This is where I think my journey really began. I loved being able to listen to people and help them through emotional crises. I also conducted a lot of community outreach for the agency and learned a lot about the non-profit world. During the time that I started volunteering, I also took a Sociology 101 course. This course was instrumental in me becoming a social worker. I learned so much in this class about our society, systems, issues that face the poor, and issues of race and gender. I was in love. I knew I had found my niche. Over time I learned that I was much more interested in the applied side of sociology and working with people directly. My senior year in college is when I decided I wanted to become a social worker and pursue higher education. I began my graduate work at the University of Denver’s Graduate School of Social Work in 2009 and graduated in 2011 with my master’s degree.

What makes you enthusiastic as a woman about creating a better community locally?
Women are powerful and wonderful. There are micro finance companies that work overseas and give the money to the women to create community change because research has shown that women are more likely to keep the money in the community and use it for the benefit of the community. Women in our country are still not equal with men. A lot of movement has been made towards gender equality, but there is still a lot of work that needs to be done. That being said, there is a lot of work that needs to be done towards creating equality in general in our country whether it is gender equality, marriage equality, racial equality, etc. Being a woman I guess in some ways is what makes me passionate about making the world a better place for other women and for the disadvantaged.

What drew you to women’s empowerment as a social issue? How does it relate to your professional work with youth?
I have been passionate about a lot of social issues in my young lifetime. My passion in the social services field initially started with suicide prevention and then I moved on to working with kids and families. Currently I am employed full time in the area of child welfare and continue to work with children and families. I was drawn to women’s empowerment issues when I worked with Project WISE for my second year graduate school internship. I loved my work with low income women because I saw firsthand how truly strong women are. The women I worked with had been through many personal problems, such as domestic violence, sexual assault, poverty, etc. But I witnessed their ability to overcome these issues, focus on making themselves better people, going to back to school, and focusing on how to become the best possible mother they could be. I still feel passionate about women’s empowerment in relation to my work in child welfare. I see so many single mothers who are struggling and end up catching a child abuse case for either domestic violence or poverty related issues. I feel strongly that these women need mental health and empowerment services in order to overcome these challenges. 

What year did you start your own business, Puentes LLC? Do you have a partner? Tell me a little about her? Is she a social worker too? What made you two decide to do this together? What was the tipping point to help you make that the year you became a business owner? Tell me about your business and who its clients are?
I started Puentes, LLC in 2011 after I graduated from graduate school. I had several friends asking for me to help them to study Spanish because they felt so strongly that they needed the skills to better serve the community. A friend of mine gave me the idea to start a business teaching Spanish. It was all pretty quick. Luckily, my sister had just recently graduated with her Masters in Business Administration, so she helped me a lot in terms of organizing the structure of the business and getting it started. I began enlisting the help of many of my friends and family members, to make Puentes a reality. For example, my cousin is a graphic designer and created the logo. It’s been a fun project!
The mission of Puentes, LLC is to provide human service professionals with tools, education, and resources to better serve and engage their Latino clients, while also reaching Spanish language competency in areas related to their practice. We are committed to inspiring these professionals to become powerful agents of change in order to meet the diverse needs of the Latino community. Currently, we offer basic Spanish courses for service professionals who seek to be able to communicate better with their Spanish speaking clients.
The course is not designed to help folks become fluent, but rather give them tools to help begin to bridge the language divide in our community. I am the sole owner of the business, but I have a colleague from graduate school that helps out with teaching, curriculum building and outreach. Her name is Alice Wheet. She is a social worker who also holds a degree in public policy. Her social work and professional practice is macro and community focused and she, like me, is very passionate about issues that relate to the Latino community in our country and passionate about helping to bridge the language divide.

Have you always had an entrepreneurial spirit? Or is it new for you?
I have not always had the entrepreneurial spirit and it is definitely new to me. I never thought I would own my own business. It is challenging and is a skill set that I am not sure comes so natural for me. Social work feels like a much more innate skill that I have. Being a business owner is a whole new territory for me!

What has been the biggest challenge you’ve addressed in community service? The biggest accomplishment?
I had addressed many challenges in community service so it is hard to pick just one. Over my career thus far I have addressed issues related to suicide, youth and women’s empowerment, poverty, homelessness and now child abuse and neglect. Social problems are found in nearly every facet of our community. One thing that I love the most about being a Social Worker is that I can work in many different areas and do not ever need to tie myself down to one specific social issue. So many of the issues are also related in very intricate ways. For example, the rates of child abuse increase drastically when there is domestic violence present in a household.
My biggest accomplishment thus far has probably been establishing Puentes LLC as a business and holding two successful courses in which I taught basic Spanish to roughly a total of 20 students. It was inspiring to see students with very little Spanish experience be able to communicate enough to conduct a basic intake with a potential client by the end of the course. I truly feel that these classes made a difference for the students and in the long term will hopefully have a larger community impact the more that I offer them.

Would you comment on what you intend to keep doing as the 2013 begins, in terms of your community service?
I am excited that we will be starting a new round of Basic Spanish for Service Professionals courses starting Wednesday, March 20. The course will run for 8 weeks and will be two hours each night. There has been a lot of interest in this course and I am excited that so many folks are enthusiastic about gaining language tools to better serve their Latino clients. It’s truly exciting stuff.

If you saw a newspaper headline 5 years from now that meant your community work had been successful, what would it say?
“Research now shows that more Americans are becoming bilingual in English and Spanish.”

One of Shaina’s favorite quotes makes great sense to me, having met so many special people who also happen to be social workers. "Social work isn't something you do--it's who you ARE." - Professor Deb Ortega, University of Denver Graduate School of Social Work

Shaina is also an active volunteer mentor for the Wise Woman Network of Project WISE. To learn more about how you can volunteer to mentor other women, call 303-765-5879.

Readers, who are in the human services field or who are simply interested in learning Spanish in a smaller, warm, supportive setting, should check out the next series of Puentes LLC classes starting next month on March 20 on Wednesday evenings. Classes will be held at Project WISE which is centrally located near the Auraria Campus at 13th and Kalamath. Plenty of free parking is available adjacent to the Project WISE building.

I like re-reading all of Shaina’s favorite quotes but this is the one by Franklin Delano Roosevelt that I will leave readers to consider.

"The test of our progress is not whether we add to the abundance of those who have much, it is whether we provide enough to those who have little."

Mapping immigrants’ impact on American life

Laura Simich

What sort of Americans will the children of immigrants become?

This is one of the central questions that Philip Kasinitz and his colleagues have studied for more than a decade. Kasinitz, a professor of sociology at the Graduate Center, CUNY, recently spoke at Vera about the changing landscape for first-generation Americans since the 1970s. His research focuses on immigrant youth who came to the United States as young children and have grown up balancing the demands of their cultures of origin and the American culture that they strive to remake as their own. The profound demographic changes in the past 40 years brought about by immigration raise questions that Kasinitz shared during his Vera presentation.

Among many indicators of success, including higher education and earnings than their parents’ generation, the children of immigrants have lower levels of criminal involvement than other groups. Although there is ample evidence for these phenomena, Kasinitz says that the findings merit repetition in the face of reflexive anti-immigrant sentiment. Despite successes, many problems facing both immigrants and native minorities require our attention, but one thing is clear: continued immigrant success stories depend upon how we as a society deal with immigrants’ legal status. Currently, one-third of immigrants in the U.S. are citizens, and one-third are lawful permanent residents. But unlike in the past, one-third are undocumented and currently have no path to becoming legal, which feeds growing disparities.

While racism is a real and harmful legacy, minority community organizations that have received and helped immigrant newcomers exist in immigrant gateway cities like New York. These organizations have adapted to the changing demographics of recent immigration patterns, and the children of immigrants are taking advantage of them. One of the concerns Kasinitz expressed is that the relative gains made by the children of immigrants can obscure the formidable challenges still facing native-born racial minorities.

The most pressing issue, according to Kasinitz, is addressing the exclusionary use of the term “illegal,” which has become even more incendiary in public discourse than “race.” In fact, anti-immigrant rhetoric often conflates the two terms and their meanings. This is ultimately a policy issue, because there are no legal protections for the undocumented of the sort the civil rights movement fought for and won. As Kasinitz asked at the end of his talk, “Is ‘illegal’ the ‘new black’?

Article taken from: http://www.vera.org/blog/children-immigrants

Love knows no borders, no walls!

Regis University & CFIR/AFSC
present a very special vigil…

Making Broken Hearts Whole!
February 6th from 6:00-7:00 pm at the ICE Detention Center at
30th & Peoria in Aurora, CO

(be at AFSC at 5pm if you need a ride!)

Vans leave Regis University at 5:15 pm. Contact Connor McFarland (cmcfarland@regis.edu) to reserve a spot in the vans.

Bring a love poem or love letter for Justice to share OR a valentine for someone interned! (We'll be delivery Valentine's to each person in the detention center on Feb. 14).

Un momento para agradecer….. Giving Thanks.

Nov. 20, 2011

I have a lot to be thankful for this year. We just finished our fifth week of the first Puentes pilot class. Each week when I get home from class I’m mentally exhausted. I need to decompress and reflect back on the experience. Is the class improving? Are we giving the class the best possible tools for communication? Sometimes it’s hard to let go of my perfectionism and notice all the small victories we are making together. Shaina and I can see that the class is making big strides in their Spanish ability, and little by little, we are becoming better instructors.

I’m so lucky to be surrounded by a group of people who show up every week with determination and conviction. Learning a new language is extremely challenging. I’m finding out that teaching a foreign language is hard too. But each student accepts the intensity of our accelerated 8-week course and meets us at a high level of ambition. I’m extremely passionate about the Spanish language; I get to share that with others. While we’re sharing and learning, we’re fostering connections with Spanish-speaking individuals and communities. I’m passionate about that, too, and so is the class. I’m thankful for these individuals who are dedicated to reaching out to their clients and neighbors by creating bridges for communication. Their efforts to learn and grow are truly making our communities safer and stronger.

I’m also grateful to have the privilege of being a citizen and native English speaker. The frustrations and challenges of trying to improve our Spanish have been reminding me how hard it can be to live in a country without knowing the language. My heart goes out to all of the families and individuals who have in some way fallen victim to our foreign policies and broken system of immigration enforcement. This is not an easy time of year to be separated from loved ones, for any reason. But can you imagine a mother or father being detained in a prison, without access to a phone to even speak to their children? Or a son or daughter who migrated to the U.S. while the rest of the family is back home?

The disparity statistics mentioned previously in this blog are more reminders of why we are doing this work. No person in this world should have to face hunger, especially when we are producing more food than ever before. Everyone should have the ability to access health care, education and a living wage. We have a long way to go on the road to equality. But, if we can change one thing with Puentes, may it at least be to better connect families in Colorado to services that will improve their quality of life in some way. Last but not least, I give thanks to Shaina for involving me so greatly in this endeavor.

I hope that everyone has a blessed and safe week off from class… with lots and lots of práctica!

In peace, love and solidarity,

Alice Wheet

Associate Director, Puentes, LLC

¿Latinos, quienes somos?

A great article that provides insight into the Latino experience in the United States. This article was taken from: http://www.linkedin.com/news?viewArticle=&articleID=873452085&gid=4149151&type=member&item=77748289&articleURL=http%3A%2F%2Fwp%2Eme%2Fp1CQ4e-9t&urlhash=GtG6&goback=%2Egde_4149151_member_77748289

October 27, 2011 By Araceli Orozco

Currently, Latinos are not only the fastest growing minority group in the United Sates, but also they represent the largest, the youngest, and the poorest minority group in this country.

According to the Census Bureau (2001), from 1980 to 1990, the Latino population grew only 10%, whereas from 1990 to 2000, they showed a growth increase of 58%. This increase is alarming in itself, but is even more so when compared to the 13% increase of the total U.S. population from 1990 to 2000.

The rapid growth of the Latino community is made evident when looking at their geographical diversification. Traditionally, Latinos have preferred the West Coast and the South, mainly clustering in the states of California and Texas. In recent years, this pattern has changed and Latinos are moving to other states, such as North Carolina, Arkansas, Georgia, and Tennessee. Ninety-one percent of Latinos live in urban areas, whereas only 9% live in rural areas. It is worth noting that these figures may not include illegal immigrants since the nature of the data collection process may not be representative of “unofficial dwellers.”

In general, Latinos are younger than other groups within the U.S. While 39% of Latinos are under nineteen years old, only 29% of the larger U.S. population falls into this category. The disparity in age difference is more pronounced in the elderly population, (5% of Latinos are over 65 years old as compared to 12% of non-Latinos). The average age for Latino woman is 27, while the average U.S. woman is 36. This pattern is the same for males, the average Latino man is 26 years old while the average U.S. man is 34 years old. In general, the average age of Latinos is 26 and the average age of the U.S. population is 35.

Research published during approximately 1990-2000, suggested that Latinos are among the poorest in the country. Their income is significantly lower than the average U.S. population. Their poverty rate is 21.8% compared to the 19% poverty rate of the total US population (U.S. Bureau of the Census 2002).

This scarcity of resources has put a burden on accessing basic resources, education, skilled occupations and therefore higher socioeconomic status. Achieving higher socioeconomic status appears monumental because Latinos are disproportionately disadvantaged in all of the arenas mentioned above. For example, in terms of income, while 10% of Latinos make less than $10,000 annually, only 6% of the total population makes this amount. On the other hand, while only 29% of Latinos make $50,000 or more annually, half of the residents of the U.S. make this much money (Marrota & Garcia 2003).

This disparity makes sense when one looks at the significant difference in the occupations held by these two groups. For example, the total U.S. population holds 31% of the managerial positions, while only 15% of the Latino population works in these positions. In occupations like farming, forestry and fishing, Latinos hold 5% of the jobs, while the total U.S. population holds only 2% of these jobs (Marrota & Garcia 2003). Again, it is not clear if these figures include illegal migrant workers, who hold most of the agricultural jobs in this country. Seventy percent of farmers born outside of the United States constitute the majority of the agricultural workers, and of those, 90% are of Mexican descent (Alderete, Gaxiola, Kolody & Vega 2000 cited in Hovey 2002).

Poverty among Latinos does not only result in financial struggle, but also in limited access to resources, such as education and health services. For example, Latinos have the highest high school dropout rate. Moreover, while the number of high school and college graduates has increased for the total U.S. population, their Latinos counterparts have maintained the same educational attainment since 1990 (Marrota & Garcia 2003). These educational obstacles provide some explanation for the under-representation of Latinos in higher education, it also suggest some linkages between their poverty and educational attainment.

As stated above, poverty also results in limited access to health services for Latinos. In the United States, health is measured by looking at the population’s medical coverage, death rate, and causes of death. Latinos have a history of having limited or no access to medical services. Seventy-one percent of the average U.S. population and 73% of non-Latino Whites are covered by private insurance, whereas only 47% of Latinos are covered by private insurance (Marrota & Garcia 2003).

According to the Center for Disease Control (2000), among minorities, Latinos have the second lowest death rate. Asian Americans have the lowest and African Americans have the highest mortality rate. Among the leading causes of death, heart disease, malignant neoplasm, accidents, diabetes, liver disease, and homicide are among the higher for Latinos in comparison to the total U.S. population. Other leading causes of death for non-Latinos Whites are influenza, diabetes, and suicide (CDC 2000 cited Marrota & Garcia 2003).

Any discussion centering on the impoverished conditions of Latinos in this country would be incomplete without noting the discrimination and oppression that Latinos have historically faced from the larger U.S. society (Houvouras, 2001). The U.S. government has taken advantage of Latinos in numerous ways.

First, in February 2, 1848, the U.S. government took away their land. This arrangement was made official with the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. In this treaty, Mexico had to grant Texas, New Mexico, and Upper California to the United States in exchange for reparations for war damages (Romo 1996 cited in Houvouras 2001). When the land was transferred, Mexicans living in those states were promised full rights as U.S. citizens; however, soon became second-class citizens, and faced several anti-Latino laws. Moreover, they were forbidden to speak their native language. Examples of the anti-Latino/anti-immigration are laws such as the Immigration Reform Act of 1986, the Illegal Immigration Reform Act, and the Immigrant Responsibility Reform Act of 1996 (Romo 1996 cited in Houvouras 2001).

Latinos have been seen as cheap labor, given few or no benefits, and have been target of discrimination. All these factors come into play when examining their poverty. Despite the common belief that education is a ladder to higher income, statistics show that even if a small fragment of the population manages to achieved higher education, their income would still be disproportionate as compared to their white counterparts (Marrota & Garcia 2003) due to discrimination practices, and historical disadvantage.

The increasing growth of the Latino population is concerning to many USA citizens and politicians. Their pronounced inequality in income, education, access to health and social services are burdens to enhance their socioeconomic status and overcome poverty. These indicators of well-being could perhaps improve if they were not targets of racism, discrimination, and oppression.

Latinos are and have been a strong and cheap labor force that has contributed greatly to the economy of the U.S. society. The first generations of Latinos have built a strong resilience in the face of adversity. However, if the Latino population continues to grow as projected, and their poverty and access to resources remains unanswered, the total U.S. population will encounter the consequences of “hosting” the largest minority of the U.S. living in poverty. The lack of attention to the Latino problems could potentially modify the current economic trends and health status of the United States.

Will the larger U.S. society be ready to face the consequences?

Some not-so-happy news.

Latino kids have greater chance of going hungry in U.S.

Published September 07, 2011

Washington – Nearly one third of Latino children in the United States live in families that have difficulty feeding them, according to a report released Wednesday by the Bread for the World Institute.

"Nearly one in five children in the United States lives in a family that struggles to put food on the table," according to the report, which is based on data from the Census Bureau and the Department of Agriculture.

"Latino children of immigrants are even more likely to be at risk of hunger," the Institute said.

In 2009, amid one of the worst economic crises since the Great Depression, 30 percent of Latino families resorted to Feeding America, the largest network of food banks in the United States, the study said.

According to the 2010 Census, Latino children number 16 million and make up 22 percent of the U.S. population under 18. While 92 percent of these children were born in this country, 58 percent have at least one immigrant parent.

The figures presented by the Bread for the World Institute serve as a call to action to protect the country's most vulnerable groups, experts said.

The study says that, in the world's richest nation, 17.4 million homes - including 26.9 percent of Latino households - faced "food insecurity" in 2009.

compared to 23.2 percent among children in general, according to the figures assembled by the Institute, a Christian movement focused on alleviating hunger worldwide.

In 2009, 14.3 percent of the population lived in poverty, but among Latinos the percentage was 25.3 percent.

The report says that 56 percent of immigrant children live in low-income families. In general, these children live in families with incomes 20 percent below the level of families with U.S.-born parents.

Although food aid exists for these families, particularly by means of food stamps, many immigrant homes do not participate in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, despite the fact that they meet the requirements to do so.

In 2011, just 44 percent of eligible Hispanic children received benefits under SNAP.

According to the Institute, immigrant households have an unfounded fear that asking for or receiving help through SNAP could affect their immigration status.

Likewise, U.S.-born children of undocumented parents have more difficulties getting access to nutrition programs because their parents do not ask for help out of fear of being arrested or deported, the analsyis added.

Currently, federal laws prohibit providing social aid to undocumented foreigners and legal residents who have been in the country for less than five years.

Read more: http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/health/2011/09/07/latino-kids-have-greater-chance-going-hungry-in-us/#ixzz1XKnIKZtP