When I accepted Peace Corps’ invitation to serve, the unhappiest person in my family was my mother. She told me things like “¡Va a gastar dos años de tu vida!” (You’re gonna waste two years of your life!), “¿Por que va ayudar a los extranjeros? ¡Ayúdanos a nosotros!” (Why are you gonna help the foreigners? Help us!), “¿Que tu va a un país del tercer mundo? ¡Ya nosotros salimos de eso!” (You’re going to a third world country? We already left that [situation]!)

Now, first thing is first. My mom was full of emotions so please don’t take her quotes literally. My mom did not want me to join Peace Corps. Going against the will of my family made my decision even harder, but I knew it was the right thing to do.

I left to Ukraine and about five months later I called my mother. I told her that I was homesick. I missed her, my friends, my social life, and my job. I even missed my job! All the things I was accustomed to were thousands of miles away. I could communicate with my friends and family, but it wasn’t the same: I couldn’t meet or spend time with them.

“Now you know what it’s like to immigrate to another country,” she told me. “Now you know what I went through.”

I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was going through the exact process immigrants go through. Immigrants who pursue the American dream and in turn leave their families, friends, and love ones behind. Many of these immigrants can’t even go back to their country, but they strive anyway by looking forward to a better future.

What is even more remarkable is that at least two people in every American’s family tree has experienced this process,* not only Latinos. Some families might have immigrated as long as 10 generations ago.** Regardless of time, however, we all come to prosper and to improve livelihood.

My Peace Corps service is coming to an end and as I reflect on my experience I realized - through my improved understanding - that my parents’ journey from the Dominican Republic to New Jersey forty years ago is part of the fabric of the person I am today. That’s because I better understand the challenges they faced, everything that they had to learn and everything they had to work for.

This has made my mother incredibly happy. She wasn’t expecting this when I joined Peace Corps. My mom now supports me because of my accomplishments, but also because I’ve learned to value more the plight of immigrants.

Now, I want to conclude my last blog entry of the year with a New Year toast: To every ancestor or parent and immigrant who chose to make the courageous journey to a new country, accept its culture and tradition, and seek a better life for himself and his family — ¡Salud!

¡Y Feliz Año Nuevo!

* Except for Native Americans who were already here and some African-Americans who’s anscentors were brought here as slaves.
**I averaged the span of time between the birth of parents and that of their offspring to 25 years and began on 1776 – of course, this could go back even further for some families.

By the year 2030, three out of five people in the world will live in a city* — this would make the majority of the world urban. The underlining reason for this population shift is that big cities provide employment opportunities and an attractive salary. Even a city with a high crime rate and decaying sanitation is better than the hopelessness of a village and a small city life.

Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, is a clean and modern city with a striving economy. The average salary per person is about $8,000 a year. In the entire country, however, the GDP per head is $1,340 a year.** In Pryluky, according to the Marketing Promotions and Investment Plan I edited, the average salary is a bit higher; it’s about $3,600 a year. The disparity is incredibly wide and all of this plays an important role in the development of Ukraine.

Even though Pryluky has a higher GDP than other cities in Ukraine, it cannot compete with the colossal size and resources of the capital which is sixty miles away. In turn, the best educated and motivated youths go to Kyiv to pursue the opportunities available and money that that might mean.

Can you really blame them?

No. But the effect this has on their city is logical. The youths leave and the city retains the older and less motivated adults. Add to this a low birthrate, a less than standard medical practice, a high HIV/AIDS infection, and life expectancy of 58 for men and you get an uphill challenge for any economic development consultant.

It took me a year to see how this cycle works. My observations made me realize why the Peace Corps is a two-year commitment as opposed to one. That’s because during the first year you observe the trend in population, and in the second year you implement projects to do something about it.

Since then, my projects have focused on providing consulting and training to businessmen, creating a paid internship program for students of the Law and Finance College, and, most recently, teaching basic business and leadership to 10th and 11th graders. All of these projects are action-oriented and demonstrate to the citizens that the city is looking out for their best interest.

I hope that my students and participants of my project heed to my underlining message. Right now, it’s very difficult to tell if my projects have been successful since since they have only been implemented for four to five months. Perhaps in four months, before I finish my Peace Corps service, I will get a better sense of its results. However, I know my observations have changed at least one person: They has changed me.

In New Jersey, things work a little different. As opposed to developing countries like Ukraine, in the developed countries, cities are still a center for jobs. Yet their importance are diminished because wealth is more spread out.

But in Jersey City, my hometown, the trend is something like this: Immigrants arrive, work hard, have children, educate children, and once the children earn good jobs, the family moves out of the city. At least this is what happened to my family (we moved to Princeton) and the families of my friends. Success is determined by how fast you can leave the city. But then, it becomes the city that loses its full potential by having its native born move on.

In a few months, I will finish my Peace Corps service and be on my way home. I can’t wait to get on a plane and go home. Home the place where I was born. Home the place where I will live again. Home the place that needs me. My home, Jersey City!

*Source: United Nations
**Source: Pocket World in Figures. 2007 Edition. Printed by the Economist

In my prior entry, I discussed the remarkable disparity between wealth and poverty in the US, but particularly in New Jersey. Income inadequacy in New Jersey stands at over 21% of the state’s population, or more than 1.8 million people. Even more alarming, almost 340,000 people, 4% of the population, experiences severe poverty measured by an annual income of less than half the official poverty level. At the same time, New Jersey’s Gross State Product stands at approximately $453 billion and the state enjoys one of the highest per capita incomes in the world.

A fundamental question that we should ask is whether the poor are accountable for their circumstances and, if so, what is the best policy response to poverty: Benign neglect?

The theory of “Social Darwinism”, which was popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, posits that the weak are diminished and their cultures delimited, while the strong grow in power and in cultural influence over the weak. Largely discredited, the underpinnings of this belief persist in concepts of personal accountability, the belief that “people must be personally accountable for themselves and their actions.”

It is important to recognize what accountability is not. If something has gone awry, it does not mean that there is someone to blame; that someone is responsible. Accountability is accepting that it does not necessarily involve assessing blame.

Personal responsibility involves an individual’s striving to be independent of others for his or her future. Each individual is in control of her or his actions and destiny. Others cannot live our lives for us.

Concepts of personal accountability are inextricably connected with the American tradition of individualism: Being responsible is being pro-active, making choices consciously and carefully, and accepting accountability for them.

It is a valuable concept especially if consideration is given to individual circumstances and the social conditions into which we are all born.

Milton Friedman posited that, “The free market is the only mechanism that has ever been discovered for achieving participatory democracy.” And yet, it appears inevitable that the distortions in the free market that Adam Smith and Milton Friedman warned against would lead to a circumstance in which the markets are not totally free and in which certain elements of society would remain largely confined to their status quo.

An example is the history of African-Americans who have had to overcome a legacy of slavery and disempowerment. It was not until this century that we could begin to see the beginning of the end of that terrible legacy and the mainstreaming of African-Americans into American society.

In recent speeches and testimony before Congress, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank, Ben Bernanke, has argued that, the most important factor in rising inequality is the rising skill premium, the increased return to education.

Based on his assessment, we could assume that the 25 percent of American workers who have the skills to take advantage of new technology and globalization will move ahead of the 75 percent who don’t have these skills.

Others suggest that the sub-set of the “movers” is actually much smaller. A research paper by Ian Dew-Becker and Robert Gordon of Northwestern University, “Where Did the Productivity Go,” argues that a small sub-set of the population is experiencing great gains, while a much larger sub-set is gaining significantly less and some not at all. They argue that between 1972 and 2001 the wage and salary income of Americans in the top 10 percentile of the income distribution rose 34 percent, or about 1 percent per year. For the same time period, the income of Americans in the top 1% rose 87 percent; income at the top 0.10th percentile rose by 181 percent; and income at the top 0.01th percentile rose by 497%.

The lesson is simple: The wealthiest in our society continue to compile the assets and tools to continue to distance themselves from the larger population. And this is occurring when less resources—like educational programs and interventions at an early age to promote health and learning—are being made available to make it feasible for those left behind to begin to catch up.

It all started with market imperfections like segregation, discrimination and barriers to access to capital, education, equal social and employment opportunity, and other wealth-generating resources.

In such a circumstance, seeking to hold the poor accountable for their own condition sounds too much like blaming the victim.

“George Washington would be rolling over in his grave.”

That’s what a woman muttered as she and a companion entered a restroom at the Labor Education Center in New Brunswick on Monday night just moments after leaving an overheated room jammed with more than 200 people who attended a public hearing before the Governor’s Blue Ribbon Advisory Panel on Immigrant Policy.

Her comment somewhat startled me but only because she was just inches from me and she said it without even caring that I heard her. Perhaps she was emboldened by the statements she heard earlier from like-minded citizens. Perhaps she couldn’t quite figure out where I was born or how I stood on the issue of immigration. Perhaps, like I said, she just didn’t care.

Anti-immigrant voices are getting louder and louder with each passing day. Carmen Morales, who spoke before the panel and described herself as an American of “Puerto Rican ancestry,” is one of them.

“Our voices should be heard the loudest,” proclaimed Morales of the You Don’t Speak For Me group. During the hearing, Morales sat next to Gayle Kesselman of New Jersey Citizens for Immigration Reform who argued that “anchor babies” - children born here to immigrants - are U.S. citizens only because the Constitution has been misinterpreted. The 14th Amendment, she said, only applied to slaves.

Kesselman maintains she’s not against immigration per se. She only wants sealed borders and for New Jersey to implement measures to prevent immigrants from coming here “like metal shavings to a magnet.” And she’s tired of the middle class carrying the burden for immigrants who live in substandard housing but yet send their money back to their countries.

Oh and yes she wants the country to rectify the matter related to those so-called anchor babies, a despicable term she threw out with no hesitation. And with no shame.

As Kesselman and Morales spoke, I looked around the room and saw a sleepy little girl in a pink top cuddling in the arms of her mother, and a yawning boy clutching his beige teddy bear. And there were a few other kids in the room who probably wondered why they had to sit in a crowded room and hear a bunch of grown-ups talk for three hours.

Maybe it’s just as well they couldn’t fully understand what was going on, especially when Diana Mejia of the Morristown-based Wind of the Spirit group described how guns were leveled at children during June immigration raids.

But their parents understand. That’s why they were there along with more than 100 others from the New Labor organization, an immigrant workers’ organization, who wore bright orange tee-shirts that read “Poco A Poco.”

There were a number of eloquent speakers on Monday night, and they weren’t all Latino. After all, immigration is not just a Latino issue although there are many who want to ignore that fact.

But perhaps the immigrants’ message to the panel was best summarized by a high school student from New Brunswick who’s been in this country for six years. He told the panel he wants to go to Rutgers but can’t afford it. Undocumented students who live in New Jersey pay higher out-of-state tuition rates at our state colleges and universities.

“Today, as an immigrant, I come forward to fight for my American dream,” he said in a clear and strong voice that carried all the way to the back of the room.

I hear you.

I have less than six months to learn to cook, ride a bike, ice skate, confess my dirtiest sins, go to a Spanish-language Mass in a Latin-American country, apply for my Master’s at Columbia School of Journalism, forgive and let go, and reconnect with an old schoolyard bully.

Those are eight of “twenty-five before 25” things I want to do by May 12, 2008.

My mini-“life list” is an extension of giving up “fear” for Lent where I underwent the painful process of self-discovery and starting becoming better organized and volunteered for several charitable organizations. I also stopped procrastinating…somewhat.

Life lists are pretty popular. The Web site 43Things.com has over one million members that post customized life lists and encourage others with similar goals to check them off. Books like Patricia Schultz’s “1,000 Places to See Before You Die” and other New York Times’ best sellers like “1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die” and “101 Things to Do Before You Turn 40,” encourage people to make their lives more meaningful.

Until about two years ago, I avoided anything outside of my comfort zone, preferring to retreat to my familiar cocoon called “home” rather than try anything new and exciting.

From ages five through nine, I was a tomboy, climbing trees without care and then scraping and bruising my knees on the way down. I also spoke my mind, to the point where people would blush. Now my throat closes up, my mouth gets dry, my hands get sweaty, my stomach flip-flops, and I find myself almost paralyzed by FEAR.

Determined not to be ruled by this four-letter word, I began drawing up my emotional and spiritual “twenty-five before 25” in November. Here are some priorities on that list:

* Confess everything to my priest.
Though I’ve known Father Peter since my days as an undergraduate at Rutgers and feel safe telling him anything, there are some things I keep to myself for fear of being judged (even though I know he and God won’t judge). So when I meet up with him in December, I’ll tell him how I can be a brat to my mother, how I am thinking of moving in with my boyfriend before we get married (a shocker to my Cuban family as well), and that I don’t usually go to confession before receiving the Eucharist.

* Meet up with a school-yard bully.
I recently connected with the girl who made my life a living hell in fourth to sixth grades. I sent her a message through the Facebook and she was asking how my family was and what I’m doing with my life. This is hardly what I expected from the girl who stole my diary during lunch break in sixth grade, read it to the class and then ripped it apart. She called me fat and ugly on numerous occasions and by the end of sixth grade, gave me the nickname “Carmen-less…because you are “car-less” and “men-less.”

“Um, who in sixth grade has a car?” I thought to myself. Though some in class were kissing and had “boyfriends,” I hardly considered these 5’ 2’’ 12-year-olds with peach fuzz but no chest hair “men.”

But in the spirit of forgiveness and maturity, I want to meet up with her and make my peace. I just have to muster up the courage to send her a message.

* Go to Spanish-language Mass in a Latin American country
Make the sign of the cross. Stand up. Sit down. Sing. Pray. Give an Offering. Pray. Sing. Leave. I’ve become so jaded; I just go through the mechanics of the weekly Sunday Mass at my New Brunswick church. Once in a while, Father Peter gives a moving homily on forgiveness or on hope that makes me cry. But usually I sit and daydream. That changed when I went to a bilingual Mass at St. Francis Cathedral in Metuchen that honored Hispanic Heritage Month.

When I saw everyone at Mass reach across and hold hands during the “Padre Nuestro,” my eyes welled up and I truly felt like I was in God’s house. If that was such a cathartic experience, imagine what Mass would be like in Buenos Aires or Santo Domingo?

* Forgive and Let Go
This is the most important thing on the list. I sometimes hold on to people or past events like a figurative safety blanket, clenching my fists around it tightly. The only way to move forward is to unload that luggage and focus on what I want to accomplish in life, not how I’ve screwed up in the past. The faster I learn to conquer my “fears,” there isn’t much left to be fearful of.

What is on your “life” list?

The Pew Hispanic Center released on December 6, 2007 its report on Hispanics and the 2008 Presidential Elections. The reports quantifies what many in the Latino community already know . . . that the anti-immigrant stance by the Republican presidential candidates are fueling an anti-GOP-backlash that may cost them and Republican Congressional candidates dearly at the polls. I have personally been watching both the Democratic and Republican debates. The issue of immigration comes up in both party’s primary debates, but the Republican debates have been clearly anti-immigration-oriented.

In a nutshell, the Republican anti-immigration stance has rolled back its gains of the last eight years of Latino voters. According to the Pew report, 57% of Hispanic registered voters now call themselves Democrats or say they lean to the Democratic Party, while just 23% align with the Republican Party. This is a 34 percentage point gap in partisan affiliation among registered Latinos. In July 2006, at the height of the immigration debates, the same gap was just 21 percentage points. In 1999, the partisan affiliation gap was 33 percentage points, which means that Latinos are more likely to vote Democrat in the 2008 election than even in 2006 when the Sensenbrenner bill fueled mass marches around the country and anti-Republican sentiment.

While New Jersey is not considered a swing state for the presidential races, it will be the focus of attention for the two open Congressional seats being vacated by Representatives Jim Saxton and Mike Ferguson. As candidates line up to run for those vacant seats, I recommend that they read the Pew report given that Saxton’s Congressional district has approximately 4% Latino residents and Ferguson’s seat has 7%. While these numbers may not appear to be large, they are significant in a tight race and those Latino voters will be the key difference between victory and defeat. As an example, look no further than November 2006 when Mike Ferguson beat Democratic challenger Linda Stender by only a razor-thin margin. The Ferguson/Stender race demonstrated how a small voter base could play a pivotal role in swinging the elections in a direction that favors them. The Latino vote in those congressional districts may shape the face of the United States Congress if the Pew report correctly predicts the negative sentiment of Latinos about the Republican Party.

That being said, it’s important to note that the Pew reports finds that 41% of Latinos say that there is no difference between Democrats and Republicans on the question of “Which Party Cares More About Latinos.” Forty-four percent of Latino registered voters say the Democrats have more concern, while just 8% say the GOP has more concern. With a large percentage of “no difference” registered voters, it means that no candidates regardless of political affiliation can ignore nor take advantage of the Latino vote in 2008.

To download a copy of the Pew Hispanic Center report on the 2008 Elections, go to http://pewhispanic.org/files/reports/83.pdf.

This year we celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the LEAP Academy—a decade of growth and success. This historical milestone is significant at several levels. First, LEAP Academy became one of the first thirteen charter schools that were inaugurated in September 1997 in New Jersey. The establishment of charter schools opened the door for a new breed of public schools with a focus on innovation and accountability and with a new governance structure independent from local school districts. Charter schools were designed as vehicles for change and improvement and in ten years, LEAP Academy has proven that schools can be different and that they can serve as transformational engines for children, families and communities.

Second, with its affiliation with Rutgers University, the LEAP Academy has become a true example of the kind of university-school partnership that is needed to tackle not only the underachievement of many children of color, but also the need for exposing our university students at the undergraduate and graduate levels to real-life field experiences that can enhance their academic training. LEAP has also proven to be fertile ground for engaging faculty in applied research and teaching, as well as in service. Universities are the right partners for engaging in the education of children and for contributing to the advancement of communities that have been left behind like Camden City. Derek Bok, President Emeritus of Harvard University said it best—“Serving society is only one of higher education’s functions, but is surely among the most important. At a time when the nation has its full share of difficulties … the question is not whether universities need to concern themselves with society’s problems but whether they are discharging this responsibility as well as they should.”

Our experience with LEAP Academy demonstrates how the traditional insularity of universities can be superseded by the solidarity of school and community. Our Centers of Excellence are designed to support LEAP Academy’s mission and are a true example of the kind of reciprocity that needs to be present when engaging in these kind of partnerships. Through these Centers, we have been able to provide health services to families and children; training for parents to prepare them to be advocates for their children and for their community; quality preschool education for the youngest children; a professional learning community model for teachers to ensure that they are part of a new culture for learning; and quality pre-college programs to ensure that our students are ready to tackle the challenges of a college education. LEAP Academy serves as a student pipeline program from High School to College and into Graduate School.

Third, at a time when schools in urban cities like Camden, NJ continue to lag behind, LEAP Academy embodies what the Annie Casey Foundation characterizes as a “sign of hope.” Hope for providing children with a quality education … hope for a school that can be catalyst for transforming the City … hope for families who are striving to provide their children with a real opportunity to succeed … hope for a city with so much potential for reinventing itself … hope for a brighter future for Camden’s youth.

Over the last ten years, we have encountered an amalgam of obstacles—lack of adequate and equitable funding; lack of support for facilities and lack of a real understanding about what charter schools are and its potential for triggering real change in education. In spite of the obstacles and many challenges, LEAP remains strong, a beacon of hope for the city and beyond. Our vision is reaffirmed each day when our students come in to the school and remain committed to excellence. Our promise is validated every year when we graduate our seniors and see then enroll in college. Our commitment is renewed when we see their parents prosper and listen to their dreams for their children and for themselves.

Thanks to all who have in many ways contributed to LEAP and its students.

While the Iraq War continues and prospects for comprehensive immigration reform collapse, Congress failed once again to act on behalf of working families. This week, the U.S. Senate and both of our U.S. Senators voted WRONG by supporting the Peruvian Free Trade Agreement.

The Peru trade agreement was negotiated by the Bush administration and replicates the same provisions in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) that have suppressed wages and displaced jobs for millions of American workers. Even more unfortunate, it’s a fact that their votes for the Peru deal will do nothing to improve the economic conditions of workers in Latin America and at the same time further displace more U.S. workers. Who were they voting for? Certainly not for working families in New Jersey.

Recent history has also shown that the NAFTA model of trade has not worked for Mexico; it has led to massive displacement of workers from the rural areas and has increased migration of Mexican workers into the United States. According to the Pew Hispanic Center, the number of people immigrating to the United States from Mexico in the first eight years of NAFTA increased by more than 61 percent, to a total of more than six million undocumented immigrants from Mexico alone. This increase in migration was directly caused by NAFTA’s agricultural provisions that subjected millions of Mexican small farmers to unfair competition from a flood of subsidized imports from the United States. Unfortunately, the Peruvian/NAFTA-like trade agreement has the same rules and therefore will have the same results.

In New Jersey, both Senator Lautenberg and Senator Menendez have courageously led the fight for comprehensive immigration reform. While we praise them for their willingness to address the reality of our U.S. market - that undocumented workers will continue to come to the U.S. as long as there are U.S. companies willing to hiring them for their cheap labor - we believe that the fight for immigration reform alone is just one side of the coin. Our union wholeheartedly believes that workers from Latin America and the rest of the world will continue to migrate to developed countries like the U.S. to look for opportunities for jobs because they are unable to earn a decent living back home.

If our senators really want to address the roots of the immigration problem in the U.S., they need to start by taking responsibility and reforming our trade policy. On this, our senators got it wrong. The Peruvian trade agreement does nothing to change the flawed NAFTA trade model and will only continue to exacerbate conditions for workers both here in the U.S. and the world. More NAFTA-style trade agreements only destroy people’s livelihoods in their home countries, forcing them to continue migrating north to the U.S.

It is time for a new kind of foreign policy agenda that engages the global economy for the benefit of workers and departs from the failed NAFTA model pushed by the Bush administration. It is time for our leaders to take responsibility where they can. They should say “NO” to more of the same Bush administration policies that will hurt American workers and do nothing to improve the lives of Latin American workers.

New Jersey and American working families will remember in the next elections that when it came to protecting our jobs, Congress once again got it wrong.

On December 1st, countries around the world recognized AIDS Day. The day came and went, but the facts remained unchanged. According to UNAIDS, the number of people infected with HIV/AIDS is 33.2 million. The figure is less then was originally anticipated last year (40 million), even though the numbers are stagnating, infections are still rising.

One place where the number is rising is Eastern Europe and Ukraine. Ukraine is the European country with the fastest growing HIV infection rate. According to UNAIDS – Ukraine, about 12,000 people have been infected this year alone, bringing the registered total to 117,000. Though this is the official number, the real number is assumed to be twice as much according to the World Bank because of trials in the documentation process.

On the ground, there is a lot to do. I believe that the Peace Corps and UNAIDS have taught me more about the HIV epidemic than I knew before starting my service. Peace Corps receives PEPFAR (the President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief) funding to offer grants to initiate HIV projects at our sites. (PEPFAR funds in Ukraine are used primarily for prevention - education and training.)

It’s hard to speak about my project because with an epidemic so large it is difficult to measure progress. Using PEPFAR grant money, I trained eleven school psychologists (who work as health teachers) to implement new lesson plans on HIV prevention. They in turn organized an HIV Week in all the public schools in the city for students in the 9th – 11th grade (students graduate in the 11th grade here).

I only had $700 to work with and I used my resources carefully. By the end of the week, the Board of Education claimed (from surveys) that 550 students learned how to protect themselves from HIV. I attended lessons in eight out of eleven schools. I hope that the survey results were correct in order to curve the adult HIV rate in my town which is about 1 for every 40 people.*

*Statistic from the Oleg Dmetrovich, Director of Social Services for Family, Youth, and Children in the City of Pryluky.