One of the most disturbing realities of today’s struggle for comprehensive immigration reform is the lack of support that comes from native-born Hispanics here in the United States. I have heard some of the most racist, anti-immigrant vitriol coming out of the mouths of people who are just as dark-skinned as the very migrant workers they villify. I often scratch my head about this.

I used to think that this behavior was a way to forget the racism we native-borns have felt here, to distance ourselves from being relegated to second-class status. I have heard so many stories from older folk from Colorado’s San Luis Valley about how their troubles in the school yard, when they would be punished if they let some of their household’s Spanish slip. It always seemed to me that we were trying hard to put our painful past behind us, using the newer Hispanic immigrants as the objects of scorn, as a way to leapfrog away from our pain.

But you know what I think it really is? While I think leapfrogging has something to do with it, I also thing that this is related to the fact that our education flat-out stinks.

Case in point: I just finished watching PBS’ production of American Experience: A Class Apart, a show about the landmark Hernandez v. State of Texas case in the 1950s, that declared that Mexican-Americans were a protected group under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Now, let me ask you. How many of you knew about this? Now, I was a great student in school, but NO ONE ever taught us about this landmark ruling that made life completely different for our people. I can imagine that today’s kids are not learning about this either, since CSAP is really the name of the game.

The philosopher George Santayana said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

It’s my job as your sister in the journey to give you a link to this program’s page on the PBS website. Watch, learn, read…and teach your children. Maybe by remembering our past we can be better allies to our brothers and sisters that are here now, that need our support. See if you hear anything familiar to the conversation about immigrants we hear today.

Let’s not so easily forget our past.  Click here to watch the episode online, then come back and tell me what you think.

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Posted: March 28th, 2009 under civil rights, immigration.
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Honestly, I think that if any Coloradan still has opposition to the Tuition Equity bill after reading Chris Romer’s note dispelling myths about it (below), then they should resign themselves to the fact that they’re a racist.

No.  Seriously. The only reasons to oppose this now are centered around the national origin of the people that this bill would benefit.  Ergo, racism.

Here’s what he says:

The Facts About Tuition Equity - In-State Tuition for Colorado Students

Dear Friend,

I wanted to give you on update on my tuition equity bill because there is a lot of misinformation about what SB09-170 does for our state. First and foremost, SB09-170 will not cost the state a cent. All state funding has been removed from the bill and undocumented students would not qualify for state need based financial aid or the Colorado Opportunity Fund and will pay approximately $2,500 more than legal citizens. This means the bill will actually bring in additional dollars for our higher education system.

SB09-170 clears up in-state tuition laws for all students. Children who:

• Attend a Colorado high school for at least 3 years.
• Graduate or acquire a GED from a Colorado high school.
• Enroll in a higher education institution within 12 months of graduation.
• Remain in good academic standing.
• Are competent in the English language upon graduation from high school.

would qualify for in-state tuition.

Additionally, legal residents of the United States can domicile themselves in Colorado for at least 1 year to qualify for in-state tuition. Undocumented students will not have this option.

It is estimated that about 200 to 400 undocumented students a year would qualify for SB09-170. University of Northern Colorado, Colorado Mountain College, and Mesa State College have all endorsed tuition equity because each of those schools has a very high percentage of in-state students.

Finally, these students will be required to sign an affidavit stating they will pursue citizenship upon graduation.

I have also heard many people argue the futility of educating illegal immigrants because legally, they cannot be hired by Colorado businesses. First of all, educating our residents is always beneficial to our society, regardless of employment status, and secondly, on the federal level, legislation will be introduced shortly that would remedy this concern. The DREAM Act, expected to be introduced in two weeks in Congress would grant conditional legal residency to these students, as long as they graduate from high school, are accepted by a college or the military, and stay out of trouble.

We are already funding undocumented students’ K-12 education (as federal law mandates), and we will be wasting this initial investment if we do not provide an opportunity for these students to pursue higher education and ultimately give back to the state. Undocumented students are currently ten times less likely to attend college and realizing this futility, often drop out during high school. Tuition equity is by no means a free pass to college. Instead, all SB 170 does is permit this portion of Colorado’s population to pay in-state tuition. These students will still have to apply and be accepted, so only qualified students will benefit from the bill’s passage.

SB 170 is a beneficial bill to the state of Colorado and all of its residents. That’s why Republican businessmen such as Alex Cranberg and Dick Monfort support this legislation. Education officials, bussiness people, Republicans, and Democrats have all come together in favor of SB09-170 because it makes economic sense for Colorado.

Thanks for taking the time to read this and I hope this helps you understand why I support tuition equity.

Respectfully,

Chris Romer

¡Órale!  If I were Mexican, I would call Chris Romer an “honorary Mexican,” but I’m not (I’m Guatemalan-American).  So I’ll just call him an honorary Latino.

Take the time to give his office a call to thank him for his eloquence: 303-866-4852 or chris.romer.senate@state.co.us.

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Posted: March 23rd, 2009 under Tuition Equity.
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Well, as of this writing, Colorado’s Senate Bill 170:  Nondiscrimination in Higher Education Funding, is floundering in the Appropriations Committee.  Depending on how you look at this, it’s either a good thing or a bad thing.  Personally, I think this is a good development, because it’s going to be seen just how little this bill is going to cost the State of Colorado: $0.

What does the State have to gain?  Well, if you multiply the number of people who will suddenly be able to afford tuition by even just the cost of a year’s tuition at a community college, well, you can see the benefit immediately.  These are dollars that would not normally be funnelled into the educational system, and I think that this influx of cash, however small, is something we can’t afford to turn down in this time of state budget cuts.

Why is tuition equity important?  Because it’s the just thing to do.  Children that are brought across the border are just as much at the mercy of their parents’ decisions as children born into families that reject modern Western medicine.  We cannot ignore the reasons why their parents are here:  a lot of low-paying, menial jobs that Americans simply won’t do are too plentiful.  I fault unscrupulous business owners, a too-low minimum wage and lack of benefits for even the lowest-tier American worker, our ravenous consumption as a society and an immigration system that is just flat-out broken.  It’s our societal greed that has created this situation in which the most plentiful jobs are the least lucrative for Americans.

It’s amazing, however, how completely illogical some of the opinions against Tuition Equity can sound.  Listening to a caller talking to David Sirota as he guest-hosted for the recovering Jay Marvin on AM760 the other day, I was astounded to hear a conservative call in and posit that personal responsibility was required for young people graduating from high school; that once a person turns 18 they “have some decisions to make.”  The insinuation was that young people need to be responsible for their legal status.  I was stunned to hear this comment from an otherwise lucid person.  Doesn’t he know that you can’t even begin the legalization process until you’re 21 years old?

To expect a high-school graduate to all of a sudden begin their legalization process is ludicrous, not in the least because of the age requirement to even begin to apply.  The current system requires a person oftentimes to apply for residency from the other side of the border.  Imagine what that means.  A young immigrant likely doesn’t even speak or write or read Spanish properly (it’s true!), and worse, they likely have never even met their relatives on the other side of the border.  They’ve spent their entire young lives trying to be as American as possible…they can’t even drink the water over there!  Is it humane to expect this young person to pick up and move to a place they don’t even know just to satisfy some conservative draconian attitudes?

You know what happens to young people that are idle?  They get into trouble.  Do we really want idle young hands to go back over the border and possibly get mixed up with the narcoterrorism that’s going on across the border?  How different is this from the disenfranchisement young American citizens in urban areas face, with diminished school resources and at-risk lives?  Seems that if you’re Hispanic, either born here or not, you’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t.  You can’t be educated no matter what you do.

Of course, my comments here are generated from my deep frustration at the lack of compassion my countrymen and women are showing toward those who are no different than me.  But Progressive America, you have to understand that we Hispanics feel these issues deeply, and when you don’t belly up to the table and fight alongside  us, we get the message loud and clear that we’re only as good as a vote.  But let your abdication of your place in this debate keep on guiding you.  When it’s time for gay rights, or reproductive rights, or any other part of the progressive agenda, you won’t have Hispanics to push the agenda along.

Had it not been for Hispanics turning out in twice as many numbers to vote for the Democratic ticket as for the Kerry election, Colorado would not be the vibrant azure hue it is today.  You want your progressive agenda?  You want your Democratic Party candidates elected?  Get on board with us and help us.  It’s  not so much the conservatives that are the issue.  It’s you, our fellow Democrats.

Get on board!

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Posted: March 19th, 2009 under Tuition Equity.
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My friend, Christopher Earle, is an accomplished writer, editor, and photographer living in Englewood, Colorado. His background includes journalism, business writing, technical writing, and procedure writing. He has worked on a freelance basis for NPR and the Associated Press, just to name a few. He spent his early childhood in the Caribbean and has spent 12 of the last 20 years in Asia. He is a progressive thinker, involved in local and national politics, as well as interested in topics ranging from consumer protection to the environment and how these affect regular people.

I’ve asked Christopher to talk to us about a subject that inspires lots of passion in him, the mortgage industry.

Guess who is coming to your mortgage refinance negotiations? According to an article in the New York Times, it’s the man accused in lawsuits, including one filed by the comptroller of New York State, of misleading his investors about risks the company was taking and being well aware of risks of sub-prime mortgages to both his company and homeowners. These unethical mortgage and business practices resulted in the near total collapse of Countrywide Financial and the devastation and destruction of countless lives from the resulting foreclosures.

The man is Stanford L. Kurland, ex-President of Countrywide. The man who sold his interest in Countrywide for nearly $200 million just before leaving the company is now head of Private National Mortgage Acceptance Corporation, d.b.a. PennyMac. The name is appropriate. They’ve been going around buying up, for pennies on the dollar, the same type of delinquent sub-prime loans that Kurland helped create. The loans are being bought from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), who acquired them from failed banks. The bank failures were a result of the same type of industry wide greed and lack of ethics he helped foster while at Countrywide.

The financial backing of PennyMac is coming from major players like BlackRock, the investment manager, and Highfields Capital, the hedge fund. In addition, Kurland has put in some of the $200 million he made from the sale of his Countrywide stock just before leaving he left the firm.

PennyMac paid the FDIC $43.2 million for $560 million worth of delinquent residential mortgages. That is 7 cents on the dollar. Did you get that? Seven cents. Although these loans weren’t originated by Countrywide, they are the charred remains of the now insolvent and FDIC owned First National Bank of Nevada. These loans resemble the types that Countrywide once offered, many with initial teaser rates that would go up suddenly, leaving homeowners unable to make the new and “improved” payments. PennyMac is allowed to keep 20 cents of every dollar it collects on the defaulted mortgages. Eventually, they will be allowed to keep 40 cents. They are planning on building their current $800 million dollar portfolio to around $15 billion within the next year and a half. That could translate into nearly $5 billion dollars in additional profits. Profits for the same people who have already made billions from now failed banks and finance companies bought and bailed out by you, me, and everyone else who pays taxes.

The way it is working is like this:  PennyMac buys a $500,000 mortgage from the FDIC for 7 cents on the dollar. This works out to $35,000. They then offer to cut the homeowner’s interest rate from 7% to 3%, cutting the homeowner’s payments almost in half. They can do this because they paid virtually nothing for the loan. They are allowed to keep 40% of the new loan value, which is $250,000. Their return on their investment is $100,000. The FDIC, which is really you, me, and other taxpayers, get $150,000 plus the initial $35,000 that PennyMac paid for the loans. We get $185,000. The interest paid by the homeowner on the initial loan is locked securely away in the bank accounts of people like Kurland, BlackRock and Highfields Capital.

Better than nothing? Sure. The thing is this: Kurland, Countrywide, and the entire banking industry made obscene profits writing these loans in the first place. We are now rewarding them by giving them obscene amounts of money to work as a glorified collection agency undoing the mess they created in the first place. Look at the numbers. The FDIC could hire at a couple of people for $100,000 to renegotiate loans directly with homeowners. We taxpayers wouldn’t get as bad of a deal as we are now getting. We wouldn’t be rewarding the greed of Kurland and his type.
And what of Kurland? It seems fundamentally wrong that he personally made $200 million dollars from writing these bad loans. Now he will make tens or hundreds of millions from cleaning up his own mess. He, and everyone else involved in the sub-prime mortgage mess, should be prosecuted for racketeering. Since that isn’t likely to happen, they should, at a minimum, be banned from ever working in the mortgage or banking industry. Would this be a “brain drain” for the mortgage industry? These people are the ones whose greed created the problem. Are they the “brains” you want in banking and finance? I sincerely hope not.

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Posted: March 4th, 2009 under Economic Justice, foreclosures.
Comments: none