Wednesday, July 31, 2002

Sunday, July 28, 2002

Saturday, July 27, 2002

Friday, July 26, 2002

Meanwhile one obvious place to start narrowing the health gap for Latino children is the language barriers. President Bill Clinton issued an executive order in August 2000 mandating that physicians who receive Medicaid and Medicare funds provide interpreter services for patients who do not speak English. The rules are flexible, but the national medical associations have opposed them as being too costly.

When the Arlington Free Clinic received a $17,500 grant from the Meyer Foundation for a year of interpreting services in July of 2001, Pallesan chose to address her clientele's greatest need by hiring the three trained Spanish-speaking medical interpreters. The grant, which expires this month, covers 600 hours of AHEC interpreting services.

Wednesday, July 24, 2002

The other day I was talking with Xavier Becerra and Silvestre Reyes. They taught me a saying; I think it sums up what Democrats stand for as a party. Now, I am not going to dazzle you with my Spanish, but let me try to say this probably with a St. Louis accent: "Dime con quien andas, y te dire quien eres." Tell me who you hang out with and I will tell you who you are.

Democrats in Congress have always supported the issues that are important to the Latino population. We opposed Proposition 187 in California and we led the drive against English-only initiatives across the country and in the Congress.

Monday, July 22, 2002

[T]his President lives by one of the rules of his old friend, the late Lee Atwater: if something is certain to happen, be for it. . . . Unfortunately for this President, he can't afford to get a bad grade on his midterms, because he needs to control both chambers of Congress to get any of his agenda passed, and this guy ran for president to get things done, not to just hold the office.

Saturday, July 20, 2002

Friday, July 19, 2002

Thursday, July 18, 2002

Wednesday, July 17, 2002

So the Congress commends Puerto Rico that it has preserved its language and culture? That is very nice. WE WANT THE SAME HERE! I spoke only Spanish for the first 18 years of my life but I learned English when I came to the U.S. If I had wanted to speak Spanish and keep my culture I would not have come here.

(d) SENSE OF CONGRESS.-It is the sense of Congress that the Secretary should encourage all States and public and private agencies or organizations that receive assistance under this title to ensure that children and families with limited English proficiency who participate in programs under this title are provided materials and services under such programs in an appropriate language other than English.

Tuesday, July 16, 2002

On another note, Pesquera denied having anything to do with U.S. Congressman Jose Serrano’s (D-N.Y.) opposition to having the U.S. Congress salute the 50th anniversary of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, which will be commemorated July 25.

However, he said his contacts in Washington are doing everything they can to urge the U.S. government to work on the status issue in Puerto Rico and enable a plebiscite with the full approval of Congress and the White House.

Pesquera also said he hoped President George W. Bush will follow up on the initiative begun by former President Bill Clinton to establish a status committee for Puerto Rico this year.

Monday, July 15, 2002

"Communities where immigration is new tend to see foreign languages as symbolic of segregation or a lack of assimilation. They don't look beyond that," said Victor Greene, an immigration scholar at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. "So they ease their fears by passing these laws."

Saturday, July 13, 2002

Friday, July 12, 2002

Thursday, July 11, 2002

Wednesday, July 10, 2002

[W]e say "one nation." Are we still one nation? Barely. Multiculturalism is making it difficult to keep our nation together. Jim Boulet, whose organization, English First, is promoting English as the official language in the USA, points out that the Bush Justice Department has failed to repeal a Clinton Administration initiative which requires that any government action be translated into any of the hundreds of languages in use in the world. Most people don't know of this provision but when it becomes known we will surely no longer be one nation. Check out: [ http://www.englishfirst.org ]

"Under God" has been discussed adequately by other commentators. But how about "indivisible"? We can only pray that is the case. There are groups in the far West and in the Southwest who want to split off portions of the United States to make separate nations. That needs to be fought with all that is left within us.

It's not right. Why do they bring a guy from Japan to interpret for Japanese players and they don't do it for Latin players. Why do Latin players have to suck it up and learn English? Hideo Nomo isn't better than Pedro Martínez. Ichiro isn't better than Juan González. It's not fair to Latin players.

Tuesday, July 09, 2002

Sunday, July 07, 2002

Thursday, July 04, 2002

Wednesday, July 03, 2002

Recently, someone went into an emergency room here [Texas] and was unable to communicate their symptoms in English. The answer, of course, is not for her to learn English but for the State to provide a translator. Next will probably be an employment requirement for emergency room doctors to know Spanish. I try to reverse this in debate with people, imagine I am on vacation in Mexico and have to go into an emergency room there, am unable to communicate in Spanish. Would I start whining that my civil rights were violated, or would I accept that I took that risk by going to Mexico without being able to speak the language? If I asserted my English language rights, they would quite properly catalog me as an "ugly American"...but there can be no "ugly Mexican" here, heavens no.

When [his Ninth Circuit colleague Alex] Kozinski dissented from a 1995 decision striking down an English-only initiative, Reinhardt did something few other judges would even think of doing: He wrote a separate concurrence to the majority opinion for the sole purpose of assailing Kozinski, the dissenter. "Judge Kozinski's view of the rights of non-English speaking persons would make the Statue of Liberty weep," Reinhardt wrote, evoking the specter of an "Orwellian world" and "Big Brother." Were Kozinski's views ever
implemented, he added, the victims would be "people who are not as fortunate or as well educated as he--people who are neither able to write for nor read the Wall Street Journal" (to which Kozinski occasionally contributes).

Hispanics are not an undifferentiated mass awaiting instructions from their self-appointed leaders in Washington. There are a good many Hispanics who proudly salute the Stars and Stripes rather than the flag of Mexico. These people will repay Republican outreach efforts with their votes — if the GOP simply treats them just like other Americans.

Should our politics become increasingly racially divided, with the Democrats entrenched as the party of blacks, and the GOP the party of Hispanics, each U.S. election will become a high-stakes contest in which only one tribe wins, just like elections in places like Indonesia or the Balkans. . . . [O]nce elections become a referendum over whose tribe triumphs, each one becomes a desperate battle in which anything goes, sort of like the 2000 presidential election in Florida, only squared and cubed.

Instead of seeking the Hispanic vote or the black vote as a bloc, Republicans would do better to earn the votes of individual blacks and Hispanics. A determined effort by President Bush to pass school vouchers, which earn the support of 60% of blacks, would do the GOP more good politically than would a hundred speeches in Spanish.

Tuesday, July 02, 2002

White has always been the "preferred color" of hospital corridors, waiting rooms, and physician coats. Why? This is because to members of Western European culture, white symbolizes such things as cleanliness, purity, and peacefulness. To many Asian groups, however, white is a color that is reserved for death and funerals!

Monday, July 01, 2002