News (Noticias) Tagged ‘parents’

Dipped, topped or eaten plain, America loves snacks. But new research from Mintel shows that not all Americans snack the same. Hispanics, the fastest growing population in the US, differ significantly in their snacking habits.

Mintel’s exclusive consumer survey reveals that Hispanic adults are twice as likely as non-Hispanics to reward their children’s good behavior with salty snacks (41% versus 19%).

But salty snack consumption among Hispanic adults is low, possibly due to traditional food preferences. Of five snacks—potato chips, pretzels, popcorn, nuts and corn/tortilla chips/cheese snacks—only 65% of Hispanics report eating three or more regularly (versus 80% of the general population).

Other key Mintel findings:

* Hispanics emphasize mealtime, with snacks often perceived as appetite-spoilers. Mintel found Hispanics more interested in packages with “small portions” than the general population
* Frozen snack usage is extremely low among less acculturated Hispanics, but more acculturated Hispanics eat them at the same rate as other Americans
* Hispanic children show higher preference for healthy snacks like yogurt, cheese, raw veggies and nuts than non-Hispanic children

“Manufacturers need to understand that Hispanic’s eating habits are not the same as the general population’s,” explains Leylha Ahuile, multicultural expert at Mintel. “Even among Hispanics, we see huge variety in snacking, eating and drinking tendencies.”

Ahuile emphasizes the importance of not viewing Hispanics as one homogenous group. “Understanding acculturation and how Hispanics differ from one another is key for companies hoping to tap into this rapidly growing market.”

Mintel Launches Multicultural Oxygen Reports

Mintel’s new Multicultural America series helps marketers understand how Hispanic, Black and Asian Americans shop, eat, act, believe and live. The reports cover behaviors, attitudes and lifestyles specific to these demographics, lending insight and analysis to trends and future opportunities. For more information, visit oxygen.mintel.com.

About Mintel

Mintel is a leading global supplier of consumer, product and media intelligence. For more than 35 years, Mintel has provided insight into key worldwide trends, offering unique data that directly impacts client success. With offices in Chicago, London, Belfast, Sydney, Shanghai and Tokyo, Mintel has forged a unique reputation as a world-renowned business brand. For more information on Mintel, please visit www.mintel.com. “

With literacy levels in the Unites States hovering at around 75 percent — an embarrassing rate for one of the world’s most powerful economies — and literacy a key issue in many Hispanic communities, Latin Baby has launched a new blog for Latino parents as part of its new Book Club.

The book club was created to help parents find bilingual books and selections that describe Hispanic culture and traditions. Most of the books are either bilingual or help parents maintain a connection to traditional children’s games, Latin American folk songs and nursery rhymes that are being forgotten as younger generations of Hispanics assimilate ever faster into the U.S. mainstream.

“I’m all for progress, but many of our cultural traditions are being lost with the passing of our abuelitos and the creeping influence of electronic games and toys that don’t really teach our children how to truly think and develop their imaginations,” said Monica Olivera Hazelton, founder and president of Latin Baby. “Latinos have a rich cultural heritage that is evolving as it merges with the best of U.S. creativity and innovation. I believe our grandparents’ wisdom and time-honored customs are an essential part of our U.S. identity and can take us to new levels of achievement.”

Both the book club and blog are designed to encourage parents to read to their children. Reading has become increasingly crucial as major studies emerge showing that unless a child can read by third grade, it is unlikely that child will succeed in school.

Through the book club, Ms. Olivera also sees much benefit in supporting Latino authors and songwriters who are writing and maintaining Latino traditions for future generations. “Like all great art with universal themes, the works of Latino artists help us see the present through the prism of history. These artists are the whispers of our past. They give voice to la sangre hispana — Hispanic blood — that is coursing through our veins, and not only help us understand ourselves, but help others to understand us, as well.”

The blog (latinbabybookclub.blogspot.com) will feature reviews of bilingual songs and literature for children, ages infant to young adult; book suggestions for parents; interviews with emerging and established authors; and special events held at local libraries and book stores. Of particular interest will be the LBBC’s Libro del Mes/Book of the Month, which will highlight must-have books for Latino or bilingual family libraries.

Besides Ms. Olivera, other stellar bloggers will submit reviews to the blog, including:

* Aurora Anaya-Cerda, owner of La Casa Azul Bookstore, (www.lacasaazulbookstore.com) an independent bookstore offering new and used books and music. She is an active member of the East Harlem community as a participant and supporter of cultural and educational events. She was awarded the Juanita Centeno Leadership Award and the UCLA Women for Change Leadership Award, both for outstanding dedication and service to her community.

* Violeta Garcia-Mendoza, born in Madrid, Spain, is a writer, poet, and blogger from Multi-Culti Mámi. The Pennsylvania resident is Co-Editor and Columnist for Literary Mama and a book reviewer for RainbowKids Magazine. Her poetry and prose have appeared in a variety of publications. She conducts writing workshops on-line in creative nonfiction and poetry through her website (www.TurnPeoplePurple.com).

* Carrie Ferguson Weir has four gigs going at once — she co-owns Los Pollitos Dicen, a boutique line of Spanish baby T-shirts, does public relations for small businesses, writes freelance, and posts for her own blog, Bilingual in the Boonies. Weir’s love of all things Spanish, Latino and bilingual comes from her Miami-bred, Cuban-American heritage, which she honors by regularly dousing her house with pine-scented cleanser and making a memorable flan.

* Christianne Meneses Jacobs is the Nicaragua-born publisher/editor of Iguana Magazine. In 2007, she was honored as one of the recipients of the “Anna Maria Arias Memorial Business Fund” for her entrepreneurial spirit and service to the Latino community through Iguana, the only Spanish-language children’s magazine in the U.S.

For more information, contact Ms. Olivera at 252-826-9956 or go to the web site, latinbabybookclub.blogspot.com. “

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein today announced that New York City’s four-year high school graduation rate continues to push upward, as it has every year under the Administration. The City’s four-year rate reached a new high of 55.8 percent in 2007, according to data released this morning by the New York State Education Department, with more students earning Regents diplomas and black and Hispanic students narrowing the graduation gap with their white and Asian peers. The State’s rates now include students who met graduation requirements in summer school following their senior year. Excluding these students to allow for comparisons with previous years, the City’s graduation rate has risen 5.7 percentage points since 2005, and 2.4 points since 2006. By comparison, graduation rates Statewide have risen by 2.8 points since 2005 and 1.4 points since 2006. The City’s increases translate into more than 5,000 additional students graduating since 2005. In addition, the City’s dropout rate has declined since 2005 by 3.3 points, to 14.7 percent from 18 percent. The Mayor and Chancellor were joined at Department of Education headquarters in the Tweed Courthouse by Deputy Mayor for Education and Community Development Dennis M. Walcott, United Federation of Teachers ( UFT ) President Randi Weingarten, UFT Chief Operating Office Michael Mulgrew, and Council of School Supervisors and Administrators ( CSA ) Executive Vice President Peter McNally.

“The graduation rate is a crucial indicator of whether our school system is fulfilling its core mission - giving our children the skills they need to become successful adults,” said Mayor Bloomberg. “After a decade of near-stagnation, New York City’s graduation rate has climbed significantly since 2002. We clearly need to help larger numbers of students to graduate, but the progress we’ve made so far means that thousands more students are graduating today than would have six years ago.”

“Today’s numbers confirm once again that steady progress is now the rule, not the exception, in New York City’s public schools,” said Chancellor Klein. “Although I’m pleased that the overall graduation rate is continuing to rise, it’s especially encouraging to see that the biggest increases are among our black and Hispanic students. This is further evidence that we’re beginning to close the shameful racial achievement gap in this City.”

Because this is the first year that the State included in its calculation students who graduated in August after their final semester, comparisons to previous years must exclude August graduates. Excluding those students, the City’s four-year graduation rate rose to 52.2 percent in 2007 from 49.8 percent in 2006 and 46.5 percent in 2005. At the same time, the dropout rate fell to 14.7 percent in 2007, down from 15 percent in 2006 and 18 percent in 2005. The five-year graduation rate rose to 59.5 percent in 2007 from 55.7 percent in 2006.

“Today is a day to congratulate teachers, principals, students and parents for all their hard work in keeping the graduation rate going in the right direction,” said UFT President Randi Weingarten. “Tomorrow we must ask ourselves what more can we do to get our kids ready for college, to enter the workforce, to improve their life skills? That’s going to require continued collaboration by everyone with a stake in our kids’ education, and in so doing we will dramatically increase the graduation rates.”

“We are seeing gradual, steady increases in student graduation rates because school leaders, teachers and parents are truly working together to improve student learning and ensure every child receives a quality education,” said CSA Executive Vice President Peter McNally. “Student achievement has always been a priority for school leaders, and while there is still more work to be done, with the proper resources we will continue to make progress.”

The percentage of graduates earning Regents diplomas has increased along with the overall graduation rate. A new high of 69.8 percent of graduates in 2007 earned a Regents diploma, compared to 68.4 percent in 2006 and 64.3 percent in 2005 - a 5.5 percentage point increase over two years. Students must meet more rigorous graduation requirements, including higher scores on their Regents exams, to earn a Regents diploma.

The four-year graduation rate among black and Hispanic students is increasing faster than that of their white and Asian peers. Overall, 47.2 percent of black students in 2007 graduated in four years, compared to 43.5 percent in 2006 and 40.2 percent in 2005. This 7.0 point increase over two years compares to a 4.7 increase among white students and a 4.5 increase among Asian students during the same period. Overall, 43 percent of Hispanic students in 2007 graduated in four years, compared to 41 percent in 2006 and 37.4 percent in 2005, an increase of 5.6 points. Between 2005 and 2007, the gap in the graduation rate between white and black students was reduced by 2.3 percentage points, and the gap between white and Hispanic students was reduced by 0.9 points.

The graduation rate among English Language Learners rose 3.1 points to 23.5 in 2007, after falling from 26.5 percent in 2005 to 20.4 percent in 2006. The graduation rate among special education students rose to 19.8 percent in 2007 from 19.4 percent in 2006 and 17.2 percent in 2005, a two-year increase of 2.6 percentage points.

Beginning this year, the City and the State are using a shared methodology to calculate graduation rates. Previously, the City used its own methodology to calculate the rate. Because this formula remained unchanged since 1986; it is still useful for comparisons over time. Using the City’s formula, the graduation rate rose from 58 percent to 62 percent between 2005 and 2007, an increase that tracks closely to the State’s calculation. Since the Mayor won control of the school system in 2002, the graduation rate has increased 11.2 points, using the City’s methodology, from 50.8 percent to 62 percent. Conversely, the graduation rate had been essentially stagnant over the decade prior to 2002.

MEDIA CONTACT:

Stu Loeser / Dawn Walker  ( 212 ) 788-2958

David Cantor  ( Department of Education )
( 212 ) 374-5141″

Pedro Cordova and Cecilia Vasquez were working odd jobs after coming from Mexico a year ago and leaving their children with grandparents, a relative says. A suspect has been charged with murder.”*

Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony’s baby twins are getting their first taste of life on the road. Given their parents’ superstar status four-month-old Emme Maribel and Max David are travelling in some luxury, of course.”*

Hispanic families now have
a trusted online source in child and adolescent mental health accessible in
Spanish at AboutOurKids.org. The NYU Child Study Center (CSC) has
translated its Web site into Spanish to help this underserved community
find important information about children’s psychiatric and learning
disorders.

“Only one in seven Hispanic children who are affected by psychiatric
and learning disorders get the help they need,” said Harold S. Koplewicz,
M.D., founder and director of the NYU CSC. “We’re committed to bringing the
latest and best information on children’s mental health to all in the
Hispanic community.”

HERE ARE THE FACTS*:

–  Hispanic adolescents have the highest number of suicide attempts among
all ethnic groups in the U.S.
–  Hispanic high school students exhibited the highest rate of sadness or
hopelessness according to one study assessing risk behavior in high
school students.
–  Hispanic youth have higher levels of emotional distress because of the
pressures to rapidly adopt the values of their new culture.
–  Hispanic teens evidence high rates of substance abuse and increasing
rates of juvenile justice involvement.
–  Few Spanish-speaking or Latino mental health professionals exist.
“This is a community that we can help by providing accurate and timely
information in a user-friendly format that can be easily understood by
parents,” said Raul R. Silva, M.D., vice-chair of the NYU Child Study
Center and associate professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
“Concerned that your child is anxious or depressed? Worried that your child
is abnormally thin? Things not going well at school? Where can you find
help? It’s all there at AboutOurKids.org en Espanol.”

The new site offers visitors translated articles and tips from renowned
CSC experts on a variety of relevant issues ranging from suicide and
depression to discipline and obesity. Helpful features such as the “A-Z
Disorder Guide” and links to other web sites and essential resources allow
Spanish-speaking visitors to quickly locate important information with the
click of a mouse.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION:

New York University Child Study Center is the nation’s leading
organization for research, prevention and treatment of child and adolescent
psychiatric and learning disorders. Through science-based clinical care,
cutting-edge research, expert professional training, and extensive public
education, the Center strives to generate new knowledge about child mental
health, improve the practices of healthcare professionals who serve
children, and influence child-related public health policy. Most
importantly, the Center provides hope, help and care to children and their
families who suffer from these disorders.

The NYU Child Study Center is committed to giving children back their
childhood. To learn more, visit AboutOurKids.org.

*All statistics sourced from The American Psychiatric Association

“*

The Hispanic Scholarship Fund (HSF), the nation’s largest organization in support of Latino higher education, has selected Ralph de la Vega, President and CEO of AT&T Mobility, as an honorary inductee into its 2008 Alumni Hall of Fame. De la Vega will receive the Triunfador Award at the HSF Alumni Hall of Fame gala on Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2008, at the Pierre Hotel in New York City.

Each year, HSF selects five accomplished Latinos to induct into its prestigious Alumni Hall of Fame. Four of the exceptional individuals are HSF alumni, who each received HSF scholarships to support their higher education aspirations. A fifth individual, while not a former HSF Scholar, is presented with the honorary Triunfador Award for realizing the ultimate professional achievement and “raising the bar.”

“We are proud to honor Mr. de la Vega because he personifies the mission and values of HSF,” said Frank D. Alvarez, HSF President & CEO. “He is an inspiration to aspiring Latinos everywhere. His success story is testimony to the impact of higher education and the tremendous difference it makes in a life.”

Alvarez said de la Vega serves as a positive role model for Latino students, which is a trademark of previous HSF Alumni Hall of Fame honorees. “Annually, the inspiring stories of HSF’s inductees put a face on and demonstrate the power of higher education,” he said.

A native of Cuba, de la Vega came to the United States alone at the age of 10, while his parents were forced to stay behind because of complications with their immigration documentation. Leaving behind everything but his suitcase and the clothes on his back, de la Vega lived with family friends in Miami for four years before reuniting with his parents and sister.

In spite of these challenges, de la Vega’s family instilled in him an appreciation for education, and he went on to earn a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Florida Atlantic University and an MBA from Northern Illinois University. In addition to his degrees, de la Vega completed the Executive Program at the University of Virginia.

De la Vega’s commitment to community service is reflected by his active participation in many youth-oriented organizations. He serves as Vice Chairman of the Board for Junior Achievement (JA) Worldwide and sits on the Boy Scouts of America Board of Directors. He also serves as Chairman of the JA Hispanic Initiative, a program that encourages Hispanic students to remain in school and prepare for success in the business world.

“I am honored to be a part of HSF and the valuable work it does in developing the next generation of Latino leaders,” de la Vega said. “I have always believed in helping young people recognize their own potential and become all they can be. And HSF is among the most successful organizations in our country at doing this.”

De la Vega has had a distinguished career in telecommunications. In 1974, he started with BellSouth (then Southern Bell) as a Management Assistant. He worked his way up to directing all of BellSouth’s Telecommunications Network Operations for Alabama, Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi. He has also worked internationally, serving as President — BellSouth Latin America, with overall responsibility for BellSouth’s Central and South American operations in 11 countries.

In 2004, de la Vega joined Cingular Wireless as Chief Operating Officer and successfully guided the company through a landmark merger with AT&T Wireless to create the nation’s largest wireless phone company.

In late 2007, shortly after the new AT&T acquired BellSouth and took full ownership of Cingular, de la Vega was appointed President and CEO of AT&T Mobility, ensuring the successful rebranding of the company and the launch of the revolutionary iPhone, as well as a continuum of other innovative devices and services.

De la Vega is the first honoree to be selected for the 2008 recognition. The four alumni recipients will be announced in July.”*

Marchers Say Education Officials Are Changing LGE “Behind Teachers and Students’ Backs”

A sea of umbrellas flooded Santiago’s central Plaza de Armas around midday last Wednesday as teachers, high schoolers, university students, and parents took over the rainy Santiago streets in a national protests called by the Teacher’s Association. The protest was against the General Education Law (LGE), an education reform package being put forward to replace the existing Organic Constitutional Education Law (LOCE).”*

Secretary Chertoff: Good afternoon everybody. I am joined here by Secretary Gutierrez, the Secretary of Commerce, who I am delighted to have with me. As you probably remember, last August we promised to provide regular updates to the American people on our efforts to secure the border, enforce immigration laws and meet the needs of our economy by reforming temporary worker programs to the extent the current laws permit us to do so.

This will be the third update since the administration announced our 26 immigration reform and transformation initiatives in the wake of the failure of comprehensive immigration reform to pass Congress last year. Today we are going to highlight three major areas: first our continued progress at the border, second our continued efforts to provide employers with better tools to maintain a legal workforce and third, our efforts to strengthen and make more efficient our foreign temporary worker programs.

In each area you will see clear evidence of our progress, and of our commitment to address the nation’s immigration challenges using the tools, resources and authorities at our disposal. But again we will remind you that the need to address this program more comprehensively by Congress remains. And we hope Congress will in the very near future turn to this issue once again.

As in the past, I would like to begin by highlighting our efforts at the border itself, specifically fence construction, border patrol hiring and technology. As you will see, we currently have slightly less than 330 miles of fencing that’s been built. And we are moving toward our goal of 670 miles of fencing by the end of calendar year 2008.

We continue to work with landowners on the southern border to gain the access we need to conduct surveys and make decisions about the right kind of infrastructure to deploy on our border. We have had several hundred meetings, including town halls and meetings with individual landowners. We continue to be open to good-faith discussion about alternatives. But what we are not open to is endless debate or delay. We have an objective that Congress has mandated. It is our intention to meet that objective and to fulfill our obligation to the American people to get this fencing built.

With respect to border patrol staffing, you will see a dramatic increase since the President took office in fiscal year 2002. We have gone from 9,800 border patrol to our current border patrol numbers of 16,471. That by the way, is an over-5,000 Border Patrol agent increase from where we were when we announced the beginning of this effort as part of our Secure Border Initiative.

And we are on track to meet our goal of over 18,000 border patrol agents by the end of this calendar year. Again we are going to continue to post on our web site on the metrics of our progress towards achieving this goal. And we are achieving the goal without compromising on the standard of training, which is so necessary for those agents who are going to be working the very demanding environment of our border.

One of the special initiatives I would like to highlight is Operation Streamline. And this is a particular initiative under which all aliens caught crossing the border in designated high-traffic zones are actually criminally prosecuted before they are deported as part of an administrative process. This of course is a project we undertake in partnership with the Department of Justice and particular prosecutors who work with us to present these cases to the courts.

We initiated Operation Streamline in the Del Rio sector of Texas in December 2005, expanded it to Yuma in December 2006, and further expanded it to Laredo sector in October 2007. The results of this criminal prosecution initiative have been striking. We have seen significant reductions and apprehensions, a decrease in the recidivism rate of aliens prosecuted under the program, meaning once they get prosecuted, they stop trying to come in again, and a reduction in smuggling — in smuggling organizations and illegal entries in the relevant urban areas.

If you look at apprehensions, you could see a steady decrease from the time we began these initiatives to the present. The reason this works is because these illegal migrants come to realize that violating the law will not simply send them back to try over again, but will require them to actually serve some short period of time in a jail or prison setting. And will brand them as having been violators of the law.

And that has a very significant deterrent impact. In this regard, I want to thank the Department of Justice, which very recently announced a plan to higher an additional 64 prosecutors and 34 — 35 support staff to help with our various immigration-focused law enforcement initiatives at the Southwest border.

Apart from fencing, apart from people, a very important enabler is technology. And we continue to invest resources to develop, install and integrate our SBInet technology solutions to help Customs and Border Protection and the Border Patrol get effective control of our nation’s border.

Some weeks back there was a lot of discussion about a prototype project known as Project 28. But contrary to some of the down-beat media reports, Project 28 produced a functioning prototype system that added value to the Border Patrol effort and that we are now prepared to actually operationally deploy in two parts of the border in Arizona.

In fact, as reported on May 8 in The Houston Chronicle, visits down to the border by two members of Congress, members of our Homeland Security Committee Representative Sheila Jackson Lee and Representative Christopher Carney, actually had them observe with approval a lot of the progress that has been made and the value that has been added by this technology project. As a consequence, we plan to award the Arizona Deployment Task Order contract to Boeing to install the first operational configuration of this concept in two areas within the Tucson sector of the Border Patrol. This is, of course, a concept that envisions fixed towers with radar, sensors and remote-controlled camera equipment, unattended ground sensors, and common operating picture equipment and software.

In addition to this, we will continue to roll out our ground-based mobile surveillance systems. We have our four unmanned aerial vehicles operating, and we continue to deploy independent ground sensors. Do these efforts work? The answer is yes. We continue to see a decrease in apprehensions period as compared to the same period in prior years, 16 percent on the Southwest border and 15 percent overall.

Don’t take my word for it. The words of the San Francisco Chronicle on May 16: “The tightening of the border has made it increasingly difficult, dangerous and expensive for laborers to return to the United States if they leave, disrupting the traditional circular flow of farm workers from Mexico to California’s fields into Salinas’ central valleys.”

The Financial Times June 4: “After nearly a decade of double-digit increases, remittances into Mexico have begun to decline. It appears that laws to crack down on Illegal workers are having an impact.” And a recent survey by the Inter-American Development Bank found that the number of Latino immigrants sending remittances home from the U.S. dropped from 73 percent to 50 percent in the past three years. This is attributed at least in part to this increased enforcement of the rules in the interior.

Now there is a negative metric, or a metric that while showing progress is an unhappy one. And that is the increase in border violence. As we have consistently predicted, when enforcement increases, when criminal organizations feel that their criminal businesses are being injured, they will fight back, and they will fight back with violence. Regrettably therefore, violence has continued to increase over the last several months as a consequence of this greater tempo of enforcement.

This fiscal year 744 incidents of violence have been perpetrated against Border Patrol agents, a 26 percent increase over the same time last year. Some of these attacks have shown a remarkable, callous disregard for human life, including one incident where an agent was literally struck and murdered by a vehicle fleeing into Mexico driven by a smuggler. I had the occasion to meet with the family of this agent shortly after he died as a result of this homicide. And I assured them we were going to continue to do everything we can to protect the Border Patrol as they work to protect the American people.

I also have to observe that as a consequence of President Calderon’s courageous and determined decision to proceed after the organized crime cartels on the Mexican side of the border, they have also seen an uptake in violence in Mexico. Hundreds of Mexican law enforcement officers have lost their lives or been attacked by violent drug cartels, including senior officials of the law enforcement establishment. President Calderon should be applauded for his efforts to dismantle these drug cartels and criminal organizations who are literally fighting to control portions of Mexico south of the border.

But we have to do more than applaud his work. We have to actually encourage it and assist it, and support his work as good partners with Mexico, dedicated to dealing with these organized crime organizations. And in these regard I want to call attention to the Merida initiative. We urge Congress to continue to move to pass practice appropriations legislation that will allow this very important plan to get over a half a billion dollars in money this year into Mexico to support this courageous effort to fight drug and organized crime violence.

We have a unique opportunity, one that may not come again, to partner with a determined leader in Mexico, so that we can address a shared problem in a partnership way that we cannot afford to ignore. Now of course we are not only focused on efforts to control the border between the ports of entry, we are increasing our security and our efficiency at the ports of entry themselves. We continue to move forward with the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, which is slated to go into effect in June 2009 at our land and sea ports of entry.

As you will remember, this initiative reduces the types of identification that can be presented at the border so that we get to a requirement of reliable identification for people who want to enter the United States. And it also has eliminated the old system of allowing people to simply orally declare their citizenship and get waved on through.

We have already implemented the first part of our effort to shrink the kind of acceptable documentation at our airports, and compliance has been close to 100 percent. Likewise, as we’ve increased the rigor of our requirements at the land and sea borders, we have found very high compliance rates. And we are working hard to increase the type of reliable documents, and the number of reliable documents which Americans and Canadians can use once this Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative gets implemented in June of next year.

For example, the new pass-card being issued by the State Department has received more than 200,000 applications, and production is set to begin this month. I have applied for one myself. I hope you have to, or you will shortly Secretary Gutierrez. What these cards are going to do is not be more reliable, but they will be faster, because instead of having to read a driver’s license, there will be a machine-readables only. You can simply zip through a machine-reader, which will make the process and times faster.

The states have also stepped up and become part of the solution to this issue of secure documentation. The state of Washington is currently issuing its own version of an approved, enhanced driver’s license that will be acceptable at the border. New York has announced that it has completed its business plan to begin producing those enhanced driver’s licenses. And other states are on the way to doing so as well.

As we move away from the borders, we have to also look at the issue of how we enforce the law of the interior, because we know that only by promoting a legal workforce can we reduce the incentives for people to come in illegally in order to do work in this country.

One critical tool for our success is giving the employer the means to check whether the applicant for a job is in fact presenting a valid social security number and name that match what is in our government databases. And the tool used to do this is E-Verify. This system has been a tremendous success, and the proof of the pudding is the marketplace itself. Every week on average, about a thousand new employers join this program. And I will tell you that at this point, I will estimate that is almost — maybe actually more than ten percent of the new hires being hired in the United States are currently being run through this E-Verify system.

We have almost 70,000 employers currently enrolled. The system works. Of those workers who are legal, 99.5 percent of them roughly are verified essentially instantaneously. And if those workers who have a mismatch — legal workers who we estimate to be about a half a percent, they are able generally to resolve their issue within less than two days.

Now of course we do have some people who don’t resolve the issue of mismatch. And that’s because in fact the number and the name don’t match, and it’s not merely a clerical error. We recognize that means that they are likely to be here illegally, or be using at least a false social security number and a false name to get work. And those people frankly, shouldn’t be working.

This system is doing the job it should do. It is resolving honest mistakes in a way that protects the worker. It is also identifying those who are not permitted to work because they are not here legally. And that’s what it should do as well. Now last year Congress gave a clear vote of confidence in the program by significantly increasing our appropriation for E-Verify. Several states have also indicated that they believe E-Verify is valuable and have enacted laws encouraging or requiring their businesses to use E-Verify.

We want to continue to have congressional support for this very important program. It should be re-authorized. Funding should be expanded. And to show that we are supporting this not just with words but with deeds, last Friday the President issued an executive order that is going to significantly increase the impact of E-Verify on the federal contracting workforce, because after all if we expect private employers to use E-Verify, the federal government should lead by example and not merely by exhortation.

The President’s executive order directs me to designate an electronic employment eligibility verification system - and I have designated E-Verify - that federal contractors will be required to use to verify the employment eligibility of their new workforce. The President also directed that federal departments and agencies require that the federal contractors use that E-Verify system to check the work authorization of the new hires and all their employees assigned to work on federal contracts.

E-Verify, working with these other agencies, is going to give these contractors the tools they need to make sure that workers who were hired to work on federal contracts are legal workers. It is always embarrassing frankly, when we have these periodic operations in which we discover illegal workers working on federal projects paid for by federal money that is ultimately paid for by the taxpayer.

So we are going to make sure we finish getting our own house in order first, even as we work to continue to make sure that others in the private sector use this system. Also today OMB has concluded its review of a proposed rule amending the federal acquisition regulation to implement the President’s executive order. As with all regulations, there will be a comment period for the regulations that we are issuing, the — counsel was issuing. But we are looking forward to get this — new system up and running later this year.

Finally, we are going to continue to keep the pressure up on employers and on illegal aliens by bringing significant cases. As you know recently we brought a case against a meat-processing operation in Iowa. Almost 300 immigrants, illegal immigrants pleaded guilty to using fraudulent documents to get their jobs in an Iowa meat-processing plant. That means they took the identities of innocent Americans and misused those identities. And at least in some instances, caused damage to the innocent American whose identity was stolen.

For those who say that we are only focusing on the illegal workers themselves, I point out that last year we had over 90 employers, or those in a supervisory chain who were convicted of crimes. We have had one CEO or President of a company sent to jail for 10 years. We have had recent conviction of a union official from the United Food and Commercial Workers union for his involvement with the activities at –.

We will continue to pursue employers. I know these cases take a little bit longer. There is a — it is always more difficult to work up the chain. I can tell you as an old organized crime prosecutor and as an old drug prosecutor, you always start with the bottom ring first, then you work your way up to the top ring. But I guarantee we are continuing to work on making cases against that top ring and we will do so whenever the evidence supports bringing that kind of a case.

All I have talked about so far is enforcement. But, as we said, when we pursued the issue of comprehensive immigration, we know the American economy does need workers. And it’s going to need workers from other countries even though we have had an increase recently in unemployment. But they have got to come in a way that is legal, visible and regulated.

We currently have at least some programs that allow that to take place. And what we are trying to do now is to make those programs as accessible and as attractive as possible so that people can use the legal pathways as much as — as conveniently as possible in order to satisfy their labor needs.

Let me give you just a brief survey of some of the things we have done recently. In April we published an interim final rule that extends the total period of optional practical training from 12 to 29 months for — immigrant students with a degree in science, technology, engineering or mathematics, who have accepted mployment with an employer enrolled in E-Verify.

What this does is it allows us to continue to keep smart, well-educated foreign students who want to come over and ultimately get a work visa, allows us to keep them in place doing productive work while they are awaiting the work visa process. And that’s not just good for them. It actually creates jobs in the American economy for others as well. So it’s a win-win both for the students, a win-win for the employers and a win-win for American workers.

The H-1B program, which is similarly focused on getting some of the best and the brightest to get these work visas so they can work and produce, and add value to the United States. This program also has to be refined to be made more fair and more orderly. For this reason, in March of this year we published an interim final rule that prohibits the filing of duplicate — multiple H-1B petitions by a single U.S. employer for the same foreign worker.

Essentially what happened was it was like buying a lot of lottery tickets. Some people tried to hoard the marketplace, or flood the marketplace by filing duplicate — multiple applications to try to get as many of these spots as possible.

That wasn’t fair to other employers. It didn’t do the job of distributing these visas as widely as possible and as efficiently as possible in the economy, so this new regulation will act to prevent employers from flooding the system with petitions and will allow a broader array of employers to participate in a fair and more equitable fashion in this system.

I’m also pleased to announce that we will be extending the validity period of the employment authorization documents that we issue to individuals who are waiting adjustment of status to lawful permit residenture or in colloquial phrase, the green card.

Currently, adjustment applications are granted employment authorization documents with only a one year maximum validity. Beginning later this month, we’ll start issuing these documents with a two-year validity period for aliens who are waiting adjustment of status if their application is expected to be pending for more than a year.

This, again, is eliminating a persistent source of frustration for workers who are here, who have a pending adjustment application but have to go and renew their employment documents every single year. It’s going to cut the paperwork there.

Finally, I’d like to talk about the H-2B program, which relates to seasonal and temporary non-agricultural workers. As you know, the cap on this went down and we’re still awaiting Congressional action to lift the cap up, again, which is going to help not only ease applicants for jobs and not only the employers who want to hire them, but all the other people who benefit when workers produce productive activity and then the benefits ripple through the economy.

Currently, up to 66,000 foreign workers are admitted under this visa category and typical employment for H-2B workers includes landscaping, hotels, crab and clam industries, and resort areas; particularly those things which become more populated during the summer months.

As you know the Labor Department published a proposed rule in May addressing a number of bureaucratic and inefficiency concerns that had been raised about this program. But today we have sent over the Office of Management and Budget here at the Department of Homeland Security a new proposed regulation which would also propose some significant changes designed to increase the effectiveness and attractiveness of this H-2B-9 immigrant classification program.

It eliminates certain regulatory barriers, adds protection for foreign workers, and increases efficiency and coordination. It also proposes to change the definition of temporary employment to recognize that some H2B employment could last up to three years. Under this change, an employer who demonstrates a temporary need lasting no more than three years could keep the same worker in the same job for all three years provided they can demonstrate that there’s no American worker available to do that work, because we do put Americans first.

Again, it’s going to answer a complaint that we’ve heard for a long time from the business community. It implements one of the reformed proposals we tried to get done through comprehensive immigration reform, and it’s going to produce benefits not only for the employees themselves, but for everybody else who benefits when we can invigorate businesses, particularly seasonable and temporary businesses that produce benefits throughout the entire economy.

The bottom line is we’re doing what we said we were going to do last August. We’re doing tougher enforcement; more effective enforcement. We are showing results. We are trying to work with the existing law to make it as easy and non-bureaucratic as possible for temporary workers to be brought in to fill jobs American won’t fill.

In the end these are not permanent solutions. A truly permanent solution requires a more comprehensive look at the issue of immigration reform. Only Congress can take that step and although we bought some time, perhaps, this problem is going to persist until Congress grabs the nettle and decides that we’re going to put together a comprehensive immigration reform program that everybody can live with.

With that I’d like to ask Secretary Gutierrez up here.

Secretary Gutierrez: Thank you. I would like to talk a little about the business environment and what is happening in the business community as it refers to immigration and the need for immigration reform. There’s a lot of discussion about the burden of immigration but there is not enough conversation about the risk of not having enough immigrants, especially a risk to our economy and a risk to our competitive position as it relates to the rest of the world.

So as you can see from the Secretary’s comments immigration reform remains a top priority for the Bush Administration. In the absence of legislation from Congress we’ve been proactively tackling this issue head on with as many administrative actions as possible.

The American people want and deserve a thoughtful, broad-based approach to immigration that focuses on the security and the economic prosperity of our country. Last August, Secretary Chertoff and I announced a package of administrative reforms that sharpened existing tools to protect our citizens and make our immigration system more workable.

We’ve made strides in securing our border. In fact, we’ve made great strides in securing our borders and enforcing existing immigration laws. But we cannot neglect our economic security; and that’s exactly what we’re doing by not passing comprehensive immigration reform.

At a time when we are facing tough economic challenges, our actions must boost our economy, not hamper it. The reality is that we simply do not have enough workers at both ends of the spectrum and I will repeat that. Our reality as a nation is that we do not have enough workers at both ends of the spectrum. That means for low-skilled, field laborers, all the way to high-skilled technology workers.

For example, for the fifth straight year our H-1B cap was filled at or before the start of the fiscal year. This year the cap was reached in one week. That’s why, as Secretary Chertoff mentioned, we are proposing administrative reforms to our high-skilled programs and to the H-2B non-agriculture temporary worker program.

In addition, we have proposed changes to the H-2A agricultural seasonal worker program. The changes will make the H-2A system more efficient and ensure an orderly and timely flow of legal, foreign workers. They will also protect the rights of all agricultural workers, American and foreign, and make no mistake we need both. We don’t have enough domestic workers to meet the food needs of our country.

The New York Times ran an article with the headline “Shortage of Labor to Cut Food Supply: Farmers Handicapped by Lack of Help Reduce Their Crop Acreage.” That headline and the article ran in 1920. Coincidently that was amidst one of the worst anti-immigration waves that we have ever seen.

Nearly a century later we face similar challenges, but this time, rather than reduce consumption we’ll have to turn to foreign producers or move our farms overseas to feed our families. In fact, that is already happening. A survey by the U.S. Farm Group, Western Growers, indicated American companies now farm more than 45,000 acres of land in Mexico employing 11,000 people.

At a time when we are looking to further secure our food supply to tighten our import safety and to continue to increase and contribute to world supply because of the prices of food, we should not encourage the outsourcing of American agriculture. And what Congress is doing by avoiding to pass comprehensive immigration reform is effectively encouraging the outsourcing of American agriculture.

We know there are employers who have not been able to fill many jobs with American workers. We simply can’t ignore the problem and hope that the issue will go away. A comprehensive solution remains the best and the most long term option. Without it, we’re getting a piecemeal approach, which is something we talked about when we mentioned the fact that comprehensive reform had failed, we talked about the fact that we were going to get a piecemeal approach to a national issue.

For example, in 2007 states enacted 240 immigration laws. That’s up from 84 the year before. Immigration is being debated in every capital in the country. A total of 1,562 immigration bills were introduced last year. This patchwork of laws is untenable in the long term. So we will continue to look at ways to improve existing programs and address all aspects of immigration. Other major economies around the world have realized the need for immigration policy to help them grow their economies, and we are all competing for growth, and everyone is trying to grow their economies and most major economies have realized that they cannot grow without a comprehensive immigration policy.

Our country has a long history of making immigration work. We have more experience than any other nation and it has been one of our greatest advantages, if you look back through our economic history we would not have accomplished what we have accomplished if it were not for the help and the work of immigrants.

We can make immigration an advantage that will last for a century. The issue is not going to go away. Regardless of who is President and regardless of which party is in power, immigration will remain both a tough challenge but also a tremendous opportunity for our country if we get this right, if we approach it in a thoughtful way, and if we are decisive about confronting a problem that will not go away.

Thank you, and I will be happy to take your questions.

Question: Secretary, I wanted to ask you about –

Secretary Chertoff: Which Secretary; there’s two.

Question: — I’m sorry, Secretary Chertoff. I wanted to ask you about a traveler that was issued by the State Department in April that talked about what we’re talking about, the violence along the border; and they say in part it’s because of lucrative narcotics trade continues along the U.S.-Mexico border, which indicates that the drug cartels you are speaking of are fighting over the routes for smuggling drugs; and I wondered what that says about securing the border when there’s so much violence and it’s related to the drug cartels which are trying to fight for routes.

Secretary Chertoff: It says a number of things. First of all, that’s typically what happens as you start to enforce and you make it harder, they start to fight over the shrinking pie, so to speak, and who gets the best opportunity to exploit what additional space is left. So that’s, in some sense, a good sign. The bad news is it causes a lot of violence and death and it’s created a lot of havoc, particularly in Mexico.

I think several lessons flow from this. First, we’ve got to get this Merida initiative agreed to and funded in a way that’s practical, that operates as a partnership as opposed to us simply dictating; and then recognizing that both countries have a common interest in securing the border.

Second, we need to make sure we’re protecting ourselves on our side of the border. That means continuing not only to enforce the law the way we’ve been doing, but continuing to make sure our border patrol has the right mix of technology and infrastructure that gives them the most protection. And one of the arguments about this fencing is not only does it keep drug smugglers and human smugglers out, it makes it harder for them to get across with loads of drugs or whatever, but it also actually protects the border patrols because it makes it harder for people to shoot at them from across the border. We’ve had occasions of that; or to otherwise commit acts of assault.

So I think the lesson is clear. We certainly can’t back down in the fact of violence. We’ve got to work with the Mexican government to continue to put the pressure on, break these cartels like we’ve done with organized crime in other settings, and we’ve got to get to our friends in Mexico the assistance and support that they need.

Question: Secretary Chertoff, about the executive order on E-verify for federal contractors, do you have somewhat of a number of how many contractors that would involve and how many workers potentially?

Secretary Chertoff: I think we were potentially talking about hundreds of thousands, if not millions of workers. This is going to apply to contractors who are getting a new contract. Once this comes into effect they’re going to be required to run all their employees through E-verify. Or if they have a contract and they’re going to bring new employees onto the contract, they’re going to have to do that.

Since I can’ t predict what contracting is going to be like in the next two or three years I can’t give you a precise number, but it’s going to be at a minimum hundreds of thousands and I think maybe millions of people will be run through that program.

Question: Can you tell us whether this will cover subcontractors as well contractors?

Secretary Chertoff: I think now we’re getting into exactly the area where we’re going to wind up having to write the detailed regulation. There are all kinds of issues about what the contracting entity is, so we’re going to get into all kinds of topics that will be fascinating for the lawyers. But I’m not going to try to give the legal analysis from up here.

The basic principle is this: if you’re working for the federal government and you’re being paid with federal taxes you ought to make sure that you’re employees are obeying federal law when it comes to their employment authorization, and this executive order as implemented in detail by the regulation will do precisely that.

Question: Mr. Secretary, do you have any concerns of lately the failure of the Merida initiative not only can put at risk the struggle from the Mexican government, I guess the drug smuggling, but also can affect the current cooperation between — in securing the border.

Secretary Chertoff: I assume it’s going to succeed. I think the logic for the Merida Initiative is strong. I know that many people have been making the case for it. I’ve made the case for it. I know my cabinet colleagues have made the case for it. I know the Mexican government’s made the case for it. It seems to be indisputable that it’s a joint problem we have at the border and it’s something that we have to jointly solve. This President has not only said the right things, President Calderon; our President as well; but not only has said the right things but he’s done the right things and he’s done them at a considerable cost to some members of his government who have been the target of assassination plots. So I think we have a moral responsibility to work with the Mexican government but I also think that we have very practical self-interest reasons to work with Mexico on breaking the back of these drug organizations.

Question: And in regards to the raids and the enforcement issue, don’t you think that maybe you are affecting somehow the rights of almost 400,000 U.S. citizens which are the children of the illegal immigrants.

Secretary Chertoff: You know, it’s always very sad when a child winds up paying a price for an offense or violation of law that the parent commits, and we try to deal with the issue of arresting people in a way to make sure children are not left unattended. We recognize when people are deported they’re likely to take their young children with them, even though they’re American citizens. But we cannot allow the fact that someone who has a child who’s an American citizen to create a de facto immunity from the law. And, you know, it’s like any other violation of law. Sometimes I’ve seen situations where parents have had to go to jail for violations of the law and they’ve had children in the courtroom and the judge said, you should have thought about that when you committed the violation. So it’s a sad thing to do. Again, that’s why we talked about comprehensive immigration reform. We wanted to deal with these issues in a way that was fair and also respected the law, but the law being what it is we’re going to enforce it.

Question: Do you expect to have the border secure by the end of the Bush administration?

Secretary Chertoff: I think we’ll have made a dramatic amount of progress. I think if we continue on the course we’ve set now we can get the border secure by the border patrols definition sometime in 2011, maybe a little earlier. If we can do comprehensive immigration reform and if we could get a real temporary worker program, we could actually do it faster because that would relieve some of the pressure from the economic migrants. They would then move over and take a legal pathway instead of an illegal pathway. But if we don’t have that tool it’s going to take a little bit longer, but I think we can get it done by 2011.

Question: On the executive order there’s been some criticism on the Merida system in terms its ability to actually handle a big increase in the number of workers that would be — when they were talking about –. Are you at all concerned about getting in all these federal contractors potentially looking for people, that’s going to put a strain on E-Verify to compromise –.

Secretary Chertoff: Well, first of all, I don’t think we’re going to get hundreds of thousands or millions all at once. What’s going to happen is the system will phase in as you get a new contract the workers will be verified under that contract. We have seen — we’re very capable of dealing with an increase of a thousand a week and obviously Congress will need to continue to support the system with appropriations as they’ve done. But once you’ve got the — you know, this has been road tested and did fairly well and it’s gotten rave reviews. And, again, don’t take my word for it. The marketplace is moving to the system. That’s why we’re getting thousand people to sign up every week, so I’m confident that provided we get the appropriations we need, which I’m sure we will get, that this is not going to be a problem to scale up.

Question: But just to follow up, an official from Arizona testified at the Congressional hearing recently that it wasn’t getting rave reviews from some of the employers there. They were getting lots of false positives, they were having trouble explaining the system, and particularly smaller employers were having trouble dealing with the system so not everybody thinks it’s working okay.

Secretary Chertoff: Well, the first thing I can tell you is, again, let’s look at the numbers. I mean, if it was something people didn’t want to participate in because it’s a voluntary program at this point we wouldn’t be getting a thousand a week. I’ve given you the numbers on the error rates. Now I can’t tell you that every employer may have difficulty understanding the system or getting it to work. I have talked to a lot of employers and those employers have been very supportive and have appreciated and have really endorsed the system. Obviously, you know, you’ve got to learn how to use the system. You’ve got to have the right computer IT connections. But, again, I can’t argue with the numbers. The numbers are clear. People are continuing to join and they’re joining because they think it’s a good system.

Moderator: Two more questions.

Question: One of — for one, on the contractors, number one, the E-verify is voluntary? Is it voluntary for them or is it –

Secretary Chertoff:No.

Question: — going to be mandatory for them?

Secretary Chertoff: No, for federal contractors who are getting new contracts who are putting new employees on existing contracts, it’s going to be — it’s not going to be voluntary. They will have to do it as a condition of getting the contract.

Question: And if they are found, for example, you surprise them with workers who are not documented to work in the United States, what is the consequence for them? Do they lose the contract? Are they fined? What would be the consequence?

Secretary Chertoff: Again, I don’t want to start writing regulations from the podium. In general, the way E-verify works is if you’re using the system in good faith you’re not going to be held liable, you’re not going to be punished. If it turns out that somebody either games the system because they steal the real identity so that it passes muster or if, you know, an honest mistake is made. I mean, the idea here is not to create pitfalls for the unwearied. The idea is to give people a good faith opportunity to comply. If they do, they’re going to be held harmless even if it turns out that someone took advantage of them or somehow there was an honest mistake.

Moderator: last question.

Question: Can you refer to the fact that sometimes you have found yourselves in an embarrassing situation where your legal workers –

Secretary Chertoff: Not me, personally. I mean –

Question: — how prevalent has this been and –?

Secretary Chertoff: If you go back and look over press releases we’ve issued over the last two, three years you’ll see periodically there are enforcement operations that occur at military bases, government facilities. I think many years ago, this goes way back, maybe 10 years ago, when I was in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New York that found illegal workers doing the painting in the U.S. Attorney’s Office. You know, this kind of stuff, these kinds of stories, are always, you know, in the papers at various points in time. And I think the public looks at this and they say, well, if the government can’t tell that the people working under government contracts are legal, then how can they tell us to make the same effort. So I think we’re trying to walk the walk as well as talk the talk.

Question: What sector in this chain is being more effective for the lack of foreign workers and then what would be the consequences if this situation continues for this year?

Secretary Gutierrez: We are seeing it in agriculture and the actual food production for the raw materials that many companies use in their processing. So that would be the main part but that is not the only part. We are seeing it in service jobs throughout the economy. In this specific instance we talk about farms moving overseas because they can’t find enough workers. At a time when we are concerned about (a) our food supply; and (b) food safety. So I would say in terms of food chain, it goes across in some cases manufacturing; in some cases distribution. But the primary area would be in the production in the farming.

Moderator: last question.

Question: Mr. Secretary Chertoff, you asked for 100 million this year for E-verifying in the budget and I’m just wondering is that enough to cover this order that — will be needed? Finally, I also just want to ask, one thing you didn’t mention about your initiatives is citizenship applications. It doesn’t seem like we’re tapping on that as like what happened on passports. There was this all out effort to make sure Americans got their passports on time, but it seems like people are still having to wait to see if they get their citizenship or not.

Secretary Chertoff: A couple of things. First of all, I do think the money that we have is sufficient. Obviously Congress appropriates. We only propose a budget. On the issue of citizenship let me say a couple things. First of all we have worked to attack the problem of the backlog, the security check backlog. The FBI, of course, has the responsibility. We’ve worked with them to find a way to really move through that backlog and they’ve been making progress.

Secondly, I think we actually obviously got a big flood of citizenship applications that came last year and earlier this year. Our estimates of the amount of time it will take to get through that process have been decreasing as we’ve hired more people to process them. Obviously when you get — I think we may have been as much as doubling or close to it, of new applicants, that’s going to cause a strain on the system. But we are, again, our pace is accelerating and we have, in fact, made a very concerted effort to hire people. Obviously they have to be properly trained and to process people for citizenship as quickly as possible, but, and I underline the but, without compromising on the security. That’s the one thing we’re not going to compromise on.

Moderator: Thank you very much.

“*

The Hispanic Heritage Foundation (HHF) today honored U. S. Representative Rubén Hinojosa (D-TX) and ExxonMobil Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Rex W. Tillerson, with the Inspira Award for their leadership in education for Latinos and for inspiring a new generation of Hispanic leaders in the United States.

According to Jose Antonio Tijerino, HHF president and CEO, the Inspira Award was created to honor Latino leaders who inspire youth in the public and private sector, and in the media. Last year’s Inspira Awardee was Actor Wilmer Valderrama. Rep. Hinojosa and Tillerson were honored on Capitol Hill during the 11th Annual Hispanic Heritage Youth Awards in Washington, D.C., which also recognized more than 20 outstanding students from the region. Washington, DC was the last of the 12 Regional Youth Awards ceremonies which have taken place and recognized more than 200 Hispanic high school seniors across America and provided more than $600,000 in educational grants.

“The Inspira Award recognizes those who have taken a leadership role in breaking barriers and creating opportunities for Hispanic youth,” said Tijerino. “We commend Rex Tillerson for his vision in encouraging and facilitating young Latinos to focus on science, technology, math and engineering through our Youth Awards and countless other efforts including the National Math and Science Initiative. We also applaud the lifetime of commitment of Rep. Hinojosa who is our champion from barrios to Capitol Hill on the issue of increasing educational opportunities for Latinos. They are truly an inspiration.”

Rep. Hinojosa has played an instrumental role in helping to improve educational and workforce-improvement programs for minorities and low-income families. In addition to the many education initiatives he has supported, Rep. Hinojosa founded a year-round program called HESTEC in 2002. Held at the University of Texas-Pan American, HESTEC emphasizes the importance of science literacy for Hispanics to educators, students and parents.

Rep. Hinojosa serves as chairman of the Education Task Force for the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and has had tremendous success in vaulting Hispanic-Serving Institutions to a position of prominence. In 2007, Hinojosa helped pass the College Cost Reduction Act which will allow students to pursue higher educational goals by making college more affordable.

“I am extremely honored to be selected for this prestigious award,” said Rep. Hinojosa. “Education is the cornerstone of opportunity. It paves the way to improve technology, spreads new knowledge, advances innovation and ultimately shapes our future. It is vital that Hispanic-serving organizations, educational institutions and corporations help America stay competitive by advancing our educational system and capitalize upon the abundance of young and talented Hispanic minds.”

Tillerson and ExxonMobil have a long history of support for programs that improve opportunities for minorities and women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. These programs recognize the urgent need to encourage more Hispanic students and professionals to attain higher educational achievements and support initiatives that deliver high-quality educational programs, which prepare Hispanics for leadership in the workforce and in the classroom.

“To be recognized by the Hispanic Heritage Foundation is a great honor,” said Tillerson. “In today’s challenging fields such as technology and energy, our nation needs more brilliant minds than ever before, that’s why we support programs like the Hispanic Heritage Foundation’s Youth Awards’ Engineering and Mathematics category, which emphasize the importance of role models, including those who have succeeded in the math and science fields, while celebrating the unique Latino culture that brings added strength and dimension to our nation’s workforce.””*

Encouraging young Hispanic students to complete high school with college readiness skills and motivation to attend college is the focus of a free three-day leadership camp at Grayson County College.

The Hispanic Youth Leadership Camp (HYLC), designed for students in grades 7-12, will meet on the GCC Main Campus from 8:30 am-3:00 pm July 7-9. Camp organizer and Hispanic Initiative Coordinator Monica Mudgett said the mission of the camp is to increase the number of first generation Hispanic students who are prepared for college, while removing barriers among the parents and students.”*

The siblings from Lakewood were at the boardwalk Saturday to see Los Tigres Del Norte, or the Tigers of the North, a legendary Mexican-American band whose accordion-laced music and lyrics of love, loss and immigrant soul-searching have drawn devoted fans for nearly four decades.

“The old songs are the best,” said 18-year-old Sandra as she waited for the concert to start. “They are true-life songs.”

The sisters remember hearing Los Tigres songs as little girls while their mother cleaned the house in Mexico. Before long their parents moved to Boston, where they worked 16-hour days making tortillas to pay their children’s way to the United States.”*

When Rep. Xavier Becerra endorsed Barack Obama back in January, even his own parents wanted to know why. “Don’t you know the Clintons?” they asked. “Didn’t they do good stuff for us in the past?”

Becerra, a Democrat from California, says the reaction he got from home underscores the challenge Obama faces now: how to win over Hispanic voters who voted for Hillary Rodham Clinton in the primaries and now hold the keys to victory in states such as Florida, Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico. “*

Selecciones, the world’s best-selling Spanish-language magazine, joins the American Heart Association’s (AHA) Go Red For Women and Macy’s, one of the nation’s largest retailers, in a multi-platform awareness program, Go Red de Corazón, to alert Hispanic women to the threat of heart disease. Together, they will honor Silvia Gallegos, a heart-health advocate who is making a difference and working to improve heart health in her community, on June 19 in Miami, with Lili Estefan, host of Univision’s popular show, “El Gordo y la Flaca.”

Research shows that only 29 percent of Hispanic women know that heart disease is their No. 1 killer in the United States. “That’s why the program hopes to educate Hispanic women about heart disease and empower them to take action to reduce their personal risk, said Go Red For Women national spokesperson Ileana L. Piña, MD, Professor of Medicine,/Cardiology/Heart Failure-Transplantation and Veterans Administration Quality Scholar at Case Western Reserve. “In our world, we take care of everyone else because our families are the focal point. But we have to begin to care for ourselves, so we can be there for the ones we love.”

The heart-health advocate honoree, Gallegos, helps send that message to Latina women in her community. She is manager of the community health department at the Dallas Concilio of Hispanic Service Organizations. She has worked tirelessly in the Hispanic community in Dallas for more than 25 years on health issues, and now focuses on educating parents about heart health, the correlation between childhood obesity and the development of type-2 diabetes in children, and how to prevent and control both. Her grassroots health program includes exercise groups; screenings for glucose, cholesterol, blood pressure, waist circumference and Body Mass Index (BMI); and classes on healthy living. Thanks to her dedicated efforts to promote the benefits of regular activity, a key component of heart health, more than 500 participants walk together each week in more than 25 groups in the Dallas area.

Additional program elements of Go Red de Corazón include:

* Radio media tour with Selecciones editor Genevieve Marlin-Fernandez and Go Red For Women spokesperson Dr. Ileana Piña

* An awards celebration with Hispanic influencers, including Lili Estefan, María Antioneta Collins, Neida Sandoval, and Teresa Rodríguez on June 19 in Miami to honor a heart-health advocate

* Specially created t-shirts sharing the Go Red message in Spanish to support the Go Red For Women movement - available at www.shopgored.com

Go Red de Corazón kicked off in the February issue of Selecciones with a Heart Health Guide insert from AHA, sponsored by Macy’s, that featured information about risk factors for heart disease and prevention tips. Additionally, Selecciones and AHA participated jointly at Hispanic health fairs, where they distributed heart-health guides.

“It was a natural for Selecciones to partner with the American Heart Association and Macy’s on Go Red de Corazón,” said Genevieve Marlin-Fernández, editor, Selecciones, whose own father died of a massive heart attack when she was 19 years old. “Each and every month Selecciones provides need-to-know content related to health and well-being. Educating Latinas about heart disease should be a priority for the entire Hispanic community. I am proud that, through this partnership, we are doing just that.”

As part of Go Red de Corazón, Selecciones’ readers had the opportunity to submit “heart-warming” stories about their mothers or other women influencers who made a significant difference in their lives. Five winners of this essay contest will be invited to attend the Go Red de Corazón reception.

Celebrating Macy’s fifth year as the national sponsor of the Go Red For Women movement, Peter Sachse, president of Macy’s corporate marketing says, “We are as passionate about this cause today as we were when the movement launched. Together, we have made substantial strides in raising awareness of heart disease as the number one killer of American women. As we continue to elevate the awareness among all women and men, we have developed this unique program that targets education and supports populations where the message has not been heard. Raising the profile of women’s heart health is a profound commitment for our company, and we build our support each year in both dollars and visibility for the cause.”

Go Red de Corazón hopes to reach millions of Latinas with the message to take charge of their heart health. Information about risk factors for heart disease, prevention tips, a heart-health guide created just for Latinas and free recipes can be found at www.goredcorazon.org or by calling 1-888-AHA-1212.”*

For service provided to English language learners, UC Riverside doctoral candidate Gregory O’Brien will be honored as a recipient of the 2008 Los Angeles County Bilingual Directors’ Award at a ceremony held June 7 at the Long Beach Hilton Hotel. O’Brien, principal of Sparks Elementary School in the Hacienda La Puente Unified School District, has dedicated his career to bilingual education.

He is completing work on his Ph.D. in parent involvement from UCR and has worked to enhance the power of immigrant parents at the school site and in their homes. His dissertation work addresses how culture influences the participation of Mexican immigrant parents in the formal schooling of their children in California.

“How fitting that Gregory’s award-winning service to English language learners is being matched by his intellectual contributions to Latino education through his dissertation work,” said Professor Robert Ream of UCR’s Graduate School of Education and co-chair of O’Brien’s dissertation committee.

O’Brien’s interest in bilingual education began early on when he attended college in Argentina and Spain, before graduating from the University of Minnesota with a BA in Spanish. He began teaching in the Hacienda La Puente Unified School District in 1995 where his knowledge of Spanish was essential in his bilingual classroom and with the majority of the parents of his students. After gaining experience at the elementary, middle and high school level, he worked for several years as a district program specialist in the Multilingual Office.

Each year, a category of education personnel is honored with the L.A. County Bilingual Directors Award. This year, the award is going to site administrators. In addition to Outstanding School Administrators who have made significant contributions to bilingual education, the organization will also be honoring Denise Moreno Ducheny, California State Senator, 40th District “*