In low-income communities already reeling with double-digit unemployment, news that your state plans to trim several million dollars from juvenile corrections might not cause much outcry except for the loss of jobs. But consider the implications. With states from Florida to California closing youth prisons, thousands of young people [...]
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From the moment we realize that life goes hand-in-hand with a lifestyle, vague notions of the American Dream hover in the background. Embraced or rejected, they are almost impossible to escape. Yet the definition of that dream varies. Newspaper columnists opine about the holy grail of middle-class values. Pop [...]
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On a recent Saturday morning in tiny Hidalgo County, Tex., hundreds of men and women wearing bright gold t-shirts with Equal Voice emblazoned across the front marched to polling centers in eight voter precincts. They had already spent weeks peppering candidates with questions on everything from national immigration reform [...]
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In the barrage of reporting that surrounds the midterm elections, pundits and poll analysts have consistently overlooked one essential fact: After the ballots are counted, deeply divisive issues will remain. And so will the voters. Girding themselves for lackluster voter turnout, low-income communities around the country long ago began [...]
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Mathematically, it looks straightforward. A simple scorecard with 37 governors’ jobs up for grabs, 37 seats in the U.S. Senate, and 435 seats in the House of Representatives. But the way those numbers fall in the November election will define political control – and the lives of ordinary families [...]
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In the dusty Arizona desert, a young man wearing only one shoe limps toward a group of college students. Thirsty and bleeding, he begs for help. He has trudged for 12 miles, all the way from the Mexican border, and says he has never made this trip before, doesn’t [...]
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HOLLANDALE, Miss. – For a few nights earlier this year, 24-year-old Quincy Mackin slept with his high school diploma hugged up under his chin. No surprise, perhaps, when you learn that Mackin didn’t receive the document until last December or that he’d struggled for years to earn it. Or [...]
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In America, where we celebrate success above all, the worst thing a person can be is poor. For much of her adult life, Tinsa Hall felt like she had it made, at least relative to where she’d been. She lived in a six-bedroom home on a wide, tree-lined street [...]
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When the government announces a fact or figure, be it a complex budget forecast or simple school enrollment, conventional wisdom holds that the numbers are, more or less, accurate. Not so with the U.S. Census – at least, not in the past. In 2000, more than 3 million [...]
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By now, the drumbeat is impossible to ignore: Job, jobs, jobs. With one in 10 adults unemployed, President Obama had little choice but to highlight jobs during his Jan. 27 State of the Union address. He mentioned the term nearly 30 times during the hour-long speech. But among people [...]
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Apr 17 2012
Michael Seifert | Rio Grande Valley Equal Voice Network Compañero. The word means “companion,” and is from the Latin, meaning “the one I share bread with.” A compañero, then, is someone with whom you share the bread of life—be it the bread of the day’s hopes and dreams, struggles and disappointments, or blessings and bounding happiness, which, experienced alone, remain Read more →
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