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The California-Mexico Studies Center is mobilizing a contingent of Dreamers to participate in this year‘s May Day march in Downtown Los Angeles to promote our Campaign for a Presidential Pardon for all undocumented immigrants in the United States and the parents of US-citizen children that were forced into exile in Mexico and Central America because of the deportation of their parents.
Please join our movement and share this post to mobilize as many people as possible in Southern California and anywhere where there may be May Day marches organized this year. Especially for those of you in the Southern California area, we plan to participate and we are organizing a CMSC delegation for May Day with different activities throughout the day and we hope you can join us !!!
We already have a banner and T-shirts printed for the first 50 participants that join our delegation and we hope to motivate everyone to join a May Day march nearby, if you cannot join us at the LA march.
This is another great way to stay connected but ultimately to continue advocating for our rights and for a path towards citizenship for all.
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By Michael Der Manouel, Jr., Luis Chavez and Lisa Smittcamp | Fresno Bee
APR. 12, 2022 | Photo credit: Craig Kohlruss
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Talk about a hit job by CSU Trustees!
We’ve all been around long enough to understand what a political hit job looks like. And in the case of former Fresno State President Joseph Castro, a man without a blemish on a sterling career in higher education, the assassination of his character by so many, is not only egregious, but also un-American.
Yes, we are referring to the matter of Dr. Frank Lamas, and the university’s disposition of allegations of sexual harassment charges against him while Dr. Castro was president.
In the matter of harassment charges brought against Frank Lamas, we know that Dr. Castro relied upon the advice of his Title IX office staff, his campus vice president of administration and campus counsel in handling personnel matters like the one involving Dr. Lamas. We also know that the CSU chancellor at the time, as well as the Board of Trustees, had full knowledge of the process and approved every significant step. They’ve since disappeared, choosing instead the path of self-preservation rather than introspection and transparency.
Let us be clear. We did not always agree with Dr. Castro when he was at Fresno State. At the same time, the campus undoubtedly rose in academic prominence during his seven-year-plus tenure as president. Our national rankings for academics surged while he was in office.
Dr. Castro’s focus on supporting students from all backgrounds to graduate more quickly and join the regional workforce was embraced by everyone in the Central Valley. It was this focus on student success that inspired the California State University Board of Trustees to appoint him as chancellor in September 2020.
Sadly, armed only with provocative, unsourced, and misleading media “reports” regarding a complex personnel issue, the same CSU Board of Trustees voted behind closed doors on Feb. 17 to pressure Chancellor Castro to resign. Their abrupt action took place during a seven-hour meeting without any discussion with Chancellor Castro and before an investigation of the allegations made against him.
Don’t be mistaken, we agree that the CSU must have no tolerance for sexual harassment and bullying. Those who violate policies and laws should be dealt with in the most serious manner.
However, it is clear to us that Dr. Castro has become a scapegoat for a deeply flawed system that desperately needs to be reformed. For years, the CSU — like many other public entities — has opted to settle challenging legal matters outside of court rather than to aggressively fight them in court. This isn’t “risk management,” this is a subsidy of behaviors that should have been rooted out and eliminated everywhere within the CSU — a legacy issue that extends well beyond Dr. Castro’s and his campus colleagues’ involvement in this matter and raises important questions about the role that former Chancellor Timothy White and General Counsel Andrew Jones have played, with support and encouragement from the Board of Trustees, in settling other similar cases across the CSU over the past decade.
We would suggest that we all take a deep breath before drawing any final conclusions about Dr. Castro’s handling of the Lamas matter until after the external investigation is completed. Isn’t that what we as Americans would all want if we were faced with the same circumstances?
Finally, and most importantly, California’s students have lost a leader who understood their life experiences better than any of his predecessors and, with his wife Mary, dramatically expanded educational opportunities to help our youth realize their full potential.
Now that the “mob” has succeeded in removing Dr. Castro from office without evidence of any wrongdoing, which other respected educational leader or community member is next?
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Michael Der Manouel Jr. is chairman of the Fresno County Lincoln Club, a local businessman and a 1985 graduate of Fresno State. Luis Chavez represents southeast Fresno on the City Council and earned two degrees at Fresno State, most recently in 2008. Lisa Smittcamp is Fresno County’s district attorney.
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By Maria Ortiz | La Opinion | APR. 8, 2022 | Photo by Craig Angerer
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The United States intends to achieve a regional agreement on immigration and asylum at the next Summit of the Americas to be held in Los Angeles.
The Joe Biden Administration chose Los Angeles to host a summit of leaders from Latin America and the Caribbean that is a key part of the U.S. reach towards a region increasingly courted by American adversaries such as Russia and China.
The Summit of the Americas, which will take place in the week of June 6, will focus on the defense of democracy and human rights in the Western Hemisphere, as well as on addressing irregular migration, climate change and efforts to ensure equitable growth as the region emerges from the crisis of the Covid pandemic.
President Joe Biden proposed on Friday the creation of a regional migration pact as the main objective of the Summit of the Americas, which will bring together heads of state and government in June... READ MORE (English)
Leer en Espanol
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By Warren Rojas | Business Insider | MAR. 31, 2022 | Photo by Drew Angerer
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Advocates see hope for action before pro-Trump hardliners like Jim Jordan take charge if they win the midterms.
The fact that Senate leaders on both sides of the aisle are even talking about moving an immigration reform bill just months before the midterm elections is cause enough for celebration, advocacy groups tracking the latest negotiations say.
Members of the Alliance for a New Immigration Consensus, however, say they are most excited about what they describe as the collective sense of urgency driving the revived negotiations.
Advocates told Insider that Senate Republicans likely understand that the chances of making positive gains on immigration will plummet if Donald Trump devotees were to gain power next year. House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, for instance, has stoked fears that terrorists are creeping into the country (which the Customs and Border Patrol refuted), while House Judiciary Committee ranking member Jim Jordan's top priority is completing Trump's easily breached border wall. Should Republicans win in the midterms, such anti-immigration hardliners would be in charge... READ MORE
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By John L. Culhane, Jr. | Consumer Finance Monitor | MAR. 31, 2022
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In a new lawsuit filed in a California federal district court, a recipient of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) alleges that a credit union violated the Civil Rights Act of 1866 (42 U.S.C. § 1981) and California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act (UCRA) by denying her loan application based on her status as a DACA recipient.
DACA allows individuals who arrived in the United States as children to receive a renewable two-year period of deferred action from deportation and makes them eligible for an employment authorization card allowing them to work in the U.S. DACA recipients receive a social security number with a special designation indicating that that the holder is not a citizen or a permanent resident.
In her putative class action complaint filed against Alliant Credit Union, Yuliana Camacho alleges that she has been a DACA recipient since 2011 and applied to Alliant in 2021 for a loan to purchase a car. According to her complaint, Ms. Camacho submitted her social security number and her application was pre-approved. To complete the application process, Alliant subsequently asked her to upload an additional form if she was a visa holder, a permanent resident card if she was a permanent resident, or a naturalization certificate if she was a naturalized citizen. After informing Alliant that she was a DACA recipient and not a visa holder, permanent resident, or naturalized citizen, Alliant allegedly informed her that it did not lend on DACA status and sent her an adverse action notice indicating that her credit was denied based on her... READ MORE |
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By Gustavo Arellano | LA Times | MAR. 24, 2022 | Photo by Al Seib
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Final part of a three-part series by acclaimed local author, offering hard facts about the scoundrel sheriff who relies on racial profiling of his own people and well-known internal gang activity within the LA County Sheriff's Department.
The ostensible purpose of my sit-down with Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva was to talk about his department’s Latino makeup and outlook. It took a bizarre detour when he began to offer random, tone-deaf pronouncements about the Black community for reasons known only to him.
But throughout our one-hour chat, for which he arrived late but nevertheless gave me a tad more than his promised 60 minutes, el sheriff offered all sorts of insights, each more out there and telling of his Nixonian nature... READ MORE
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By Colin Lodewick | Fortune | APR. 12, 2022
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Legislators in California are attempting to fulfill the dreams of countless workers and are taking steps toward enshrining a four-day workweek into law.
A new bill introduced in the state assembly, known as AB 2932, aims to lower the maximum threshold for overtime pay from 40 hours to 32 hours for companies with over 500 employees in the state. Assembly members Cristina Garcia and Evan Low coauthored the bill, which has not yet been set for a hearing.
“We’ve seen over 47 million people voluntarily leave their jobs for better opportunities. We’re seeing a labor shortage across the board from small to big businesses,” Garcia told Fortune. “And so it’s very clear that employees don’t want to go back to normal or the old way, but to rethink and go back to [something] better.”
She added that while catered meals or game rooms might have been enough for companies to attract workers in the past, she believes they want more now.
“They are looking for a healthier work/life balance... READ MORE
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By Mary Beth Sheridan | Washington Post | APR. 11, 2022 | Photo by Luis Antonio Rojas
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Legislators in California are attempting to fulfill the dreams of countless workers and are taking steps toward enshrining a four-day workweek into law.
COAHUAYANA, Mexico — María Jesús was grilling tortillas. Patricia was frying pork ribs. Adriana was sipping a cup of tea to calm her nerves. For the Martínez sisters, that Friday was shaping up like most Fridays in their mountain village, the women preparing lunch in their simple homes as their husbands tended the fields.
Then the women’s father, Javier, sent an urgent warning: The Jalisco cartel had arrived.
“Our lives changed in a minute,” said María Jesús, 31. Gunmen in four armor-plated “monster” trucks had been spotted just across the valley, Javier told his children. They grabbed their kids and ran.
Three months later, 17 family members are crammed into an abandoned restaurant here in Coahuayana, a banana-growing town on the Pacific coast, home to an estimated 1,000 Mexicans uprooted from their communities.
As criminal groups battle for control over Mexican territory, the displaced are becoming increasingly visible, in towns such as Coahuayana and at the U.S. border. An estimated 20,000 people have fled violence in the past year in Michoacán state, roughly the size of West Virginia. Thousands more have abandoned their homes in other states like Zacatecas and... READ MORE
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By John Fensterwald | Ed. Source | APR. 12, 2022 | Photo by Allison Shelley
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Requirements would bypass local districts' authority to choose what should be taught.
An influential committee of University of California faculty that oversees academic admissions requirements is proposing that UC set criteria and content for high school ethnic studies courses similar to what the State Board of Education rejected two years ago as divisive.
If adopted, the requirements (see pages 11-12) would circumvent both a state law and the ethnic studies model curriculum that the state board adopted in March 2021. Both give local districts the authority to decide what should be taught in ethnic studies.
Instead, one of many course goals that UC would require would be to prepare students to “address and dismantle systems of oppression and dehumanization in the many forms in which they appear.” Another would be to prepare students to “recognize and interrogate power and oppression at ideological, institutional, interpersonal, and internalized levels... READ MORE
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By Colin Lodewick | Fortune | APR. 12, 2022
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A new bill introduced in Congress this week would grant $150 million to school districts and colleges, many of which are in the central San Joaquin Valley, to help Latino students go to college.
The HERE Act, introduced by Sen. Alex Padilla and U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, would address the gap in college attendance and completion rates for Latino students, which lag behind the white population. About 20% of Latino adults 25 years and older in California have an associate degree or higher, compared to 54% of white adults, according to ¡Excelencia in Education!, which uses information from the U.S. Census Bureau.
For the first time in 20 years, due to decreasing enrollment, the U.S. lost 10 of its Hispanic-serving institutions or colleges where 25% or more of students are Hispanic or Latino. Fresno State, Fresno City College, and all other community colleges in the Valley are designated as Hispanic-serving institutions.
The HERE Act would create partnerships between K-12 schools that enroll 25% or more Hispanic or Latino students with those colleges to create a college-going culture, award scholarships, and address barriers to education such as child care, transportation, and food insecurity. It would also emphasize teaching as a profession in hopes students would remain in the Valley and address the nationwide teacher shortage... READ MORE
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Centro CHA Community Update
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As we go into spring, Centro CHA would like to share some updates with you about our work! Our citizenship workshop in celebration of Cesar Chavez was a success! We had a great turnout and assisted more than a dozen people apply for naturalization. Please stay tuned to our emails as we will be hosting another workshop coming soon
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Today, we would like to take some time to showcase some of our amazing clients who achieved the next step of their American Dream!
These are some pictures of a few of our clients who have obtained their citizenship.
Si Se Puede!
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Please consider sponsoring our program today!!!
To be a sponsor contact Professor Armando Vazquez-Ramos at: armando@calmexcenter.org or 562-972-0986
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