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Founded in 1986
Founding Publisher/Editor:
Lito A. Gajilan
Columnists:
Atty. Michael J. Gurfinkel
Joseph G. Lariosa
Gani P. Tolentino
Ted L. Reyes
Atty. Reuben S. Seguritan
Photographers:
Butch Gata
Sheryl Garcia
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not reflect the opinion of the paper nor that of the publisher
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For the past 20 years, The Filipino Express has provided the Filipino American community the best news, arts and entertainment coverage from around the United States and the Philippines.
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This website includes selected articles from this week's edition of the Filipino Express. Not all the stories published in the printed version appear on this site.
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To tell us what you think about Filipino Express Online or to comment on the stories published here, E-mail us at Filexpress@aol.com
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Time for Immigration Reform is Now
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THE White House and members of Congress must move quickly on enacting a just and humane immigration reform package that will reunite families, reinvigorate the economy, and remove the term “illegal or undocumented immigrants” from the dialogue in this country. Ethnic media, which reaches over 60 million adults in the United States, calls on Congress to move decisively on immigration reform because there are few issues as important to the nation's well-being as an overhaul of the inefficient, inhumane and economically debilitating immigration system. More importantly, we are also urging our readers and viewers to contact their Senators and Congressmen and let them know that immigration reform must be a national priority.
The immigration system is broken not just for 12 million undocumented immigrants, but also for specialized workers blocked from joining the American economy because of narrow quotas, and mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters of U.S. citizens who must wait for years before being reunited with their families. Our nation needs comprehensive immigration policies that will replace a broken system of raids and roundups with one that protects all workers from exploitation, improves America's security and builds strong communities. It’s time to end the division between workers, which has allowed big business to exploit both sides. Clearly, working-class citizens and immigrant workers have much
in common – dreams of better homes, education for their families and quality healthcare. There is more that brings us together, than separates us. United we can be a strong force for change, changes that that bring more workforce safety and humane conditions.
Immigration is often portrayed as an explosive, divisive issue. In reality it's not. Since the repeal of the national origins quota system in 1965, which discriminated against certain immigrants, a consensus has been building towards an immigration system that respects the country's core values. These include economic opportunity, equality under the law regardless of ethnic background, and an embrace of the world's most innovative, energetic and ambitious workers. Now, with the country facing serious competition from workers abroad, it's more important than ever to create a world-class immigration system. It's for the good for families, good for communities and good for America.
Guest editorial by New American Media
315 Bleecker Street, Suite 190
New York, NY 10014
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Grim News for Employment-Based Immigrants
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The wait time for employment-based applicants to obtain a visa number will be much longer in the coming months and in future years, according to Charles Oppenheim of the U.S. Department of State Visa Office.
The grim prediction is based on a recent analysis by the Visa Office of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) processing during the first seven and a half (7 ½) months of the current fiscal year and the changes to the processing patterns. Mr. Oppenheim also estimates that all of the 140,000 employment-based visa numbers allocated for this fiscal year will be used by September 30, 2009.
Visa numbers for the employment based 3rd preference (EB-3) which refers to skilled and unskilled workers became unavailable starting May 1st. The cause was the clearing by the Department of Labor of its huge backlog of labor certification cases which resulted in the filing of tens of thousands of I-485 applications with priority dates in 2004 and earlier.
At that time, visa numbers for the other employment categories remained available except for China and India whose second preference (EB-2) showed a cut-off date of February 15, 2005 and February 15, 2004, respectively.
But there has been a strong surge in the demand for other preferences, Mr. Oppenheim said. The 4th preference (EB-4) which refers to religious workers and other special immigrants may experience retrogression later this year as a result.
There has also been a heavy increase in applications for the employment-based 5th preference (EB-5) for immigrant investors and for the employment-based first preference (EB-1) for outstanding professors and researchers, multinational executives and managers and persons of extraordinary ability.
The EB-1 for India may require the establishment of a cut off date in August or September this year.
The surge in the EB-4 and EB-5 is significant because unused visa numbers in these categories are given to the EB-2 and EB-3 categories. With these categories using all their allotted numbers, the retrogression of the EB-2 and EB-3 will get worse.
The applicants from India and China will have the longest wait. The EB-2 cut-off date for July 2009 is January 1, 2000, but it may become unavailable this August or September. At the start of the 2010 fiscal year (10/01/2009), India’s cut-off date for EB-3 will be November 1, 2001 while China’s cut-off date will be March 1, 2005.
The Visa office estimates that on October 1, 2009, which is the start of the 2010 fiscal year, the EB-3 category will have the following cut-off dates: China – March 1, 2003; India – November 1, 2001; Mexico – March 1, 2003; other countries – March 1, 2003.
Without immigration reforms, the waiting time for the EB-3 applicants will probably be over a decade.
(Editor’s Note: REUBEN S. SEGURITAN has been practicing law for over 30 years and is included in the Marquis Who’s Who in American Law. A former law editor, he previously taught law and international politics and is the author of “We Didn’t Pass Through the Golden Door.” He frequently writes and speaks on immigration and other legal topics. He has received numerous awards in the U.S. and abroad, including several outstanding professional awards and Philippine Presidential awards. For more information, you may log on to his website at www.seguritan.com or call (212) 695-5281.)
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CHICAGO, Illinois (JGLi) – The celebration of the 111th Philippine Independence last week has opened my eyes that sooner or later the second generation of Filipinos in America might fast become endangered species.
It was not only me, who noticed it. Chicago-based contemporary artist Willi Buhay was fuming and dismayed that the children of Filipino immigrants are nowhere to be found in Philippine cultural events.
If I were the Philippine government, I am going to draw up a plan that will attract children of overseas Filipinos to visit the Philippines by expanding its cultural immersion program, like offering scholarships in continuing Philippine cultural studies.
Or perhaps, encourage non-government organizations to put schools or specialized institutions of learning that will teach Filipino as a second language overseas with large concentration of Filipinos, like Los Angeles or San Francisco, California, etc.
I remember in almost all key cities and towns in the Philippines, where Chinese business dominates the market, there are Chinese schools.
After all, if the young overseas Filipinos would develop deep cultural ties to the native lands of their parents, it will benefit the Philippine economic and cultural relations.
In their efforts to let their children melt with mainstream America, most Filipino parents have raised their children as Americans by speaking to their children in English even at home.
CHILDREN CAN SPEAK MANY TONGUES
These parents do not realize it that their children can learn the English language in school and on the street. They don’t know that very young children can pick up several languages at the same time at a past clip.
If they teach their children with their own mother tongue, like Filipino or Cebuano or Ilocano, at home, their children will have an edge over other children because their children will be bilingual or multi-lingual speakers.
On many occasions, when I ask Filipino American college students if they speak their parent’s Philippine language, they would tell me they don’t. And they will blame their parents for not talking to them in Philippine language at home.
“I tried to study Filipino language in some foreign language schools,” one of these students would tell me, “but I could not pick up the pace the way my parents speak English.”
And I would tell them, “sayang” (what a waste).
And my attendance at the Filipino cultural presentation at the Daley Center in Chicago, Illinois last June 12 Philippine Independence celebration was a stark reminder that the young Filipino generation is a vanishing breed.
MOSTLY YOUNG AT HEART
Performers of such Philippine folk dances as Sinkil and Kapa Malong Malong were mostly young at heart. I did not see any young performers.In fact, a Filipino American columnist is being silently vilified for pointing out that Filipino ramp models were mostly middle aged. Because the columnist is not fond of publishing critical comments from his readers, his readers are forced to talk behind his back.
Yes, in some American universities, where there is big concentration of Filipino American students, there are Filipino American students associations. Members of these groups are engrossed in learning Filipino culture thru songs and dances and food but they are very few compared to the total Filipino American population in the area.
The lack of interest in Filipiniana is obvious. There are very few Filipinos, who can inspire them. Except for superstars Manny Pacquiao and Charice Pempengco or Leah Salonga, overseas Filipino youth do not have other heroes or role models to look up to.
Everybody knows that Mr. Pacquiao and Mesdames Pempengco and Salonga cannot stay on the stage forever. So, an ever-growing search for more Filipino heroes is in order if the community would like to catch the attention of the young Filipinos.
Otherwise, they will be inured to patronize or idolize non-Filipinos. This is bad to the Filipino culture.
ATTENTION-GRABBING CHALLENGE
And getting the attention of these youth is a huge challenge to Filipino parents, who can only do so much.
Such media as televisions, radios, Internet, newspapers, video games, etc. are something the youth cannot turn their attention away from. This is the reason why some organizations would welcome prominent guests from the Philippines to grace their events even if hosting them will cost them a fortune.
And the National Press Club of the Philippines in the U.S.A. hit pay dirt when they welcome as their guest Conrado S. De Quiros, popular columnist of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, in the induction of new officers and members this coming Father’s Day, June 21, at Chateau Ritz in Niles, Illinois.
Mr. De Quiros should be in the best position to re-orient the group of what is going on back home. (lariosa_jos@sbcglobal.net)
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Who hit the tv “replay” button? For a moment, one asked: Weren’t those re-runs of tatmadaws beating up demonstrators in Burma’s “Saffron Revolution?
They were footage of Iran’s baseej para-military trashing protestors against election dagdag-bawas. Many saw bleeding Neda Agha-Soltan’s eyes go blank on a Tehran sidewalk. She was one of thousands who challenged President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s "reelection".
A 63 percent margin means Ahmadinejad boosted his conservative vote by 113 percent over 2005 results, notes the Chatham House study. “There’s little correlation at provincial level”. Turnout in Mazandaran and Yazd provinces exceeded 100 percent. “Using identity documents of dead people to cast additional ballots is a widespread problem. “.
Just like our “birds and bees”? In the 1986 snap elections Ferdinand Marcos “won” with 10.8 million votes. But Namfrel’s quick count proved Corazon Aquino trounced Marcos. That fraud triggered People Power
Iran is also strapped to primitive manual counts. Yet,in less than 24 hours, Tehran claimed it collected, counted, verified, then collated 37 million ballots cast. That’s physically impossible. Worse, Ahmadinejad “won” every single province –- by identical margins. That is implausible.
Filipinos agonized thru manual elections since 1907. The process is tortuous. In the 2004 elections, 35.4 million voted.Count for local officials ended two weeks after the May 10 vote. Tally for the President came 41 days later -– on June 20..
Iranians flayed vote-rigging with silent, peaceful marches. They were met by beating, tear gas and, as the Neda Agha-Soltan video shows, bullets. U.N. Secretary Ban Ki-moon urged an "immediate stop to the arrests, threats and use of force."
Grudgingly, the Guardian Council conceded irregularities in 50 districts. Some returns outnumbered voters. “If votes cast exceed the number of cardinals present, let all ballots be burned,” directs a rule for conclaves to elect Popes.
A Tehran re-reun would correct injustice. But it’d compel Supreme Leader Ali Khameinei to swallow his claim that God “blessed” this electoral fraud. Thus, the Revolutionary Guards Monday warned protestors: “Prepare for a revolutionary confrontation.”
The Guards compete with Burma’s tatmadaws in brutality. Is there a “Tiannamen Moment” just ahead?
“I don’t know,” Adrian Sullivan wrote in the Times ( London ) “But something changed last week...The ‘twitter revolution’ will transform the way we cover and consume breaking news…Nothing quite captured the mood and pace of events like the tweets coming from people of Iran,”
In 2001, Filipinos were the first to harness text and cell phones to call out People Power, Howard Rheingold observed in his book: “Smart Mobs; The Next Social Revolution. Japanese use cell phones to shop. Filipinos waged a peaceful revolt with them.
Black-clad supporters were summoned together by a single line, passed from phone to phone: “Go to Edsa. Wear black”, Rheingold reported. That helped topple the corrupt Estrada regime.. Lebanese cloned that tactic to wage their “Cedar Revolution,” reported Cathy Hong of Christian Science Monitor.
Dictators like Ferdinand Marcos or Papa“Doc” Duvalier padlocked newspapers, cut phone lines and jailed journalists. Information Minister Francisco Tatad ordered registration of mimeograph machines..
But the spread and speed of Internet changed the “calculus of censorship.” Over 35 governments — from China, Cuba to Burma – block access to the Web. Iran is one of the most aggressive”, notes Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society.
“YouTube”traffic within Iran was down 90 percent last week. Facebook has been tamped down by more than half. Some 20 million Iranians are wired. In the Middle East, they're second only to Israelis Cyber-savvy citizens proved adept in hop-scotching controls.
Iranians connect to “digitalsafehouses”: computers outside Iran. These strip identifying data and open blocked Web sites. Traffic from Iran to such “safehouses” increased tenfold in a week, New York Times reports.
The Ahga-Soltan video,for example, went thru server proxies. An Iranian slipped copies to Guardian, in London, Voice of America and five contacts in Europe. CNN broadcast the film. “In less than 24 hours, Ms. Agha-Soltan was transformed, on the Web, from a nameless victim into an icon of the Iranian protest movement”.
Twitter sends a burst of 140 characters.Thus, it was derided as the “inane calling to the impatient.” But Twitter proved particularly resilient to censorship, notes Harvard Law School’s Jonathan Zittrain.
Twitter can originate from a phone, a Web browser or specialized applications. The posts find their way to many outlets.“Qualities that make Twitter seem inane and half-baked make it easy to be echoed elsewhere in the world – and makes it so powerful.”
”Tehran (meanwhile)has become the city of whispers”,New York Times Roger Cohen observes... “Tomorrow, Vanak Square.”, whispers one.. “Everyone wear black,:” says another…. A man, 28, whispers: “The government will use more violence.”
Reminds one of 1986. Here, a neighbor would whisper: “Rally at Camp Crame Edsa at 4. Tell others.” Twitter with it’s 140-character -cap, come to think of it, is a whisper. Only it sounds in cyberspace.
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WE found five individuals listed from the Ellis Island Immigration records under the name Rizal. The first is Rizal's nephew, Alfredo Hidalgo RIZAL born 1882 Philippines arr via S.S. Majestic 9/26/1907, a Harvard, student University" (Notes by Maria .E. Embry-birth name: Alfredo Rizal Hidalgo son of Saturnina Mercado Rizal & Manuel Hidalgo; B.S Law School National University Wash D.C. Speaker Anti-Imperialist League Missouri Exposition Speech 12/1907 about 1904 World's Fair. Dr. Jose Rizal wrote to his nephew on 12/20/1893,
“Go ahead then; study, study, and meditate well what you study. Life is a very serious thing and only those with intelligence and heart go through it worthily. To live is to be among men and to be among men is to struggle. But this struggle is not a brutal and material struggle with men alone; it is a struggle with errors and preoccupations. It is an eternal struggle with a smile on the lips and tears in the heart. On this battlefield man has no better weapons than his intelligence, no other force but his heart. Sharpen, perfect, polish then/ than your mind and fortify and educate your heart.” This very steering fatherly advice probably provoked Alfredo in using Rizal name instead of Hidalgo.
Now, let me tease your mind on the two female immigrants listed as Rizal. The detailed record indicated that they were residence of Bohemia. I would go on the passenger manifest of the immigrant ship Stuttgart. It would reveal, Maria Rizal, 30 years old and 4 years old Marie as her child. Leaving the port Bremen Germany arriving at the Ellis Island on Dec 16, 1892 and then to New York. I am anxious as we are anticipating the coming exhibit in Prague and learning more about Rizal Bohemian venture on 1887. Is there a window?
The lunar calendar on the 4 year old Marie would be just speculation but maybe there was more than coincidence that Maximo Viola did not see or did not tell us. Maria Rizal was his GF and got a child before leaving Bohemia in 1887? The river valley of Bohemia would remain mystical to me , did 26 years old Jose secretly serenaded 25 years old Maria. Jose Rizal would become the father of a whole nation.
During the years of Ellis Island immigration from 1892-1924, there were more than twenty million immigrants passing through the Ellis Island center. Maria Embry and I are working on the history research in documenting the Filipinos who came by the Ellis Island door. Most of the records came from ship logs and transcripts. Rizal left New York bound to Europe on board the city of Rome.
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