During the first weekend in April, students from Cal Berkeley Democrats, CALPIRG, and College Democrats at UCSC gathered at UC Berkeley for a Campus Camp Wellstone training. Campus Camp Wellstone is a two-day intensive training on grassroots organizing, based on the strategies of the late Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone.  We spent the weekend studying strategy planning, membership development, volunteer recruitment, messaging, and grassroots lobbying—both in theory and practice. Progressive leaders like State Senator Loni Hancock, CDP Women’s Caucus Chair Karen Weinstein, and Joanna Rees, who all contributed to make the event possible, spoke at a lunch on Saturday about the unique power of students invested in Democratic activism.

The whole weekend centered on the story of St. James, a fictional town experiencing controversy over environmentally friendly development.  A bill before the city council would incentivize green development that favors small businesses and union labor, rather than big corporations that cut environmental corners and only provide minimum wage jobs to the citizens of St. James.  Students assumed the role of POWER, a grassroots organization with ties to other community groups, which would be responsible for running a campaign to pass the bill.  We first engaged in power mapping, an exercise which allowed us to visualize which city council members could be convinced to support the bill, and what groups would be able to pressure them to do so.  Then, we created a central message that would be used in a radio commercial to get the public on our side.  One team’s radio ad included an ambitious appearance by President Barack Obama.  Finally, we each acted as community members, who went to each of the city council members and St. James Mayor Dean, to lobby them to pass our bill.

The training motivated me to build the relationships that will make a difference in campaigning for student issues.  I felt most inspired by the trainers themselves: Carmen Berkley, Bill Schiebler, Matt Smriga, and Van Nguyen (a Cal alum and former ASUC President).  These four professional organizers are fellow young people, just a few years older than ourselves, who have made careers out of mobilizing supporters around the issues they care about.  They gave us a realistic view into what it takes to transform our values, such as environmental justice, reproductive rights, higher education, or labor, and turn them into legislative realities.  But most importantly, the four trainers pushed us to be leaders.  We left Campus Camp Wellstone with a better sense of the skills used by grassroots organizers and a mission to carry that knowledge into our communities, to inspire others to be strong, successful activists themselves.

At UC Berkeley, many of us would like to consider ourselves environmentalists: we recycle, print double-sided, and carry reusable water bottles, among many other things. However, the student groups we participate in, by printing thousands of flyers and generating hundreds of pounds in waste every year, often fall short of this ideal. As Cal Dems, we like to lead by example, so this semester we were thrilled to be one of a handful of clubs to participate in the pilot program of the ASUC’s Green Certification Program. The Green Certification Program, spearheaded by ASUC Senator Elliot Goldstein, rewards clubs that take simple steps to be more sustainable, like printing on 100% recycled paper, and providing recycling and composting at all their events. Here are some of the ways in which Cal Dems has reduced our impact on the environment:

• All of our flyers are printed on 100% recycled paper
• We provide recycling at all events and meetings
• We provide composting whenever we serve food
• All plates, forks, knives and utensils at our events are 100% compostable
• All meeting minutes and agendas are electronic
• If possible, we walk/take public transportation to off-campus events, and if not, we always carpool (at least 4 to a car)
• The Smart Ass is printed with soy-based ink on 30% post-consumer recycled paper
• We recycle our unused Smart Asses (just the magazines)
• We use large reusable containers for serving water, and never serve bottled water
• We hosted a luncheon for Campus Camp Wellstone on April 2^nd that received “Super Green Event” status through the UC Berkeley Office of Sustainability. We were able to accomplish this by providing only compostable plates and utensils, donating leftover food to a local homeless shelter, and printing all promotional materials on 100% recycled paper.

We encourage all student groups to be a part of the Green Certification Program next semester, and join with Cal Dems in reducing our impact on the environment.

The most difficult part about coming home after a semester or year of study abroad is not the culture shock, the sadness of leaving behind a new home, or even the return to the more intense academic standards of Berkeley; it is answering the dreaded, vague question, “How was *insert country here*?!!” Trying to encapsulate a lifechanging 6 months or year in a couple of sentences is both impossible and exhausting. Instead, I ask people returning from studying abroad to name one thing they learned or one way the trip changed their perception about home. In my case, my semester in Cape Town actually made me appreciate the American political system, as well as our own leaders, in a way I hadn’t expected.

After spending three years of college life heavily involved with Cal Berkeley Democrats and local and state politics, I felt overwhelmingly disillusioned about American politics. Let’s be honest. That’s not hard to do, especially in an environment like Berkeley, a city and campus where a lack of faith in the system pervades everyday life. When I first found out about John Edwards’ second family and his terrible treatment of his wife, it was the last straw; he was one of the first politicians I really admired and felt inspired by as a teenager. As I left for my semester abroad last July, I was happy to take a break for six months and miss out on the drama of the November elections.

From my desk in the Berkeley bubble, reading up on and watching the latest news from South Africa (mostly surrounding the World Cup) gave me the impression of a country that had successfully healed from apartheid and supported a diverse population living in a newly developed, economically prosperous country. The spirit of ubuntu, or the South African concept of togetherness supposedly supposedly fulled the whole country, with the celebration of  “the beautiful game.” But really, politically, the World Cup only served to hide a country very far from this spirit of ubuntu—one suffering from so many more issues than I anticipated.

Despite being held up as a model for rapidly developing countries and economic success in Africa, in reality South Africa faces one of the highest rates of economic inequality (20% of the population controls a majority wealth), the highest rate of HIV/AIDS in the world (1 in 4 South Africans is HIV positive), a massive unemployment rate hovering around 25% (in townships, it averages 80%), and a broken educational system (South Africa spends more on education than any other country on the continent, but has consistently been ranked as one of the least improved not only in Africa but the world).

After speaking with a variety of local South Africans throughout my travels in both rural and urban areas, a single common theme ran through my conversations: everyone, regardless of race or class, expected their country to look vastly better than it did twenty years ago; they expected much more to have changed since 1994. They expected greater opportunity for upward mobility, more redress for apartheid, less structural inequality, and a more effective government.

During my trip, I visited Soweto, a collection of townships outside Johannesburg known as the heart of resistance to apartheid, and the home of Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela.  Anyone who lived in Soweto in the nineties saw the worst of the racism and violence characteristic of the National Party’s regime. One afternoon I sat in a park talking with a man who had lived in Soweto his whole life and experienced the chaos and brutality of the 80s and early 90s, and he showed a complete lack of faith in the African National Congress, its government, and its politics.

As I listened to his disillusionment and claims that the ANC had done little since apartheid ended, the Democrat in me clung to my faith in the democratic process. “But,” I said, “you at least still vote…right?” He gave me the most quizzical look and responded with an emphatic “Of course not! Why in the world would I?” I struggled with words to try to convey my thoughts on how the history of the country, the struggle of his generation and the ones previous, the brutal racism and oppression—anything at all—could not at least give him the incentive, the faith, or the motivation to walk to a polling location on election day and check a box. He reasoned that anyone who came into office would be the same as the last corrupt politician, and would do nothing to improve his quality of life. Considering the history of legitimate democratic government on that continent, I should not have been surprised, but his reaction still floored me.  A few days later, a South African friend conveyed to me over dinner that he knew men and women in rural parts of the country who have told him their lives today are no different than they were under apartheid—except that back then, they still had jobs.

The distrust of government is profound. The current president, Jacob Zuma is a joke, who thinks HIV can be avoided by showering after sex.  In fact, most people I met were by far more excited about Obama than they were about any of their own leaders—when I told a stranger that I voted for and strongly support Obama, I received the biggest hug of my life. It made me so proud and excited to actually be an American overseas (imagine that!), and made me feel so lucky to have the leader that I do.

Perhaps more than anything, my semester abroad taught me to appreciate the core structures and values of our own political system: the fact that we have more than one viable party, that checks and balances work as they should, and that there is some level of civic engagement. Granted, the United States is no model for voter turnout or civic participation compared to other developed nations, but I see students at Berkeley who traveled across the country to campaign for Obama and worked tirelessly to keep California blue this past November. Despite the inherent understanding that although we always have room for improvement, there will always be leaders we can trust to make our lives better if we give them the opportunity. That faith in our system gives me the motivation and inspiration to wake up early on Election Day and cast my vote. I only hope that when I return to South Africa in the future, I’ll see a new generation of South Africans that feels the same way.

The 2010 census results paint a rapidly changing demographic picture for California. Asians are the fastest growing racial group in the state, increasing 31.5% in between censuses to almost 4.8 million people, or 12.8% of the state population. Asian American population growth occurred over the entire state, in both traditional regions such as the San Francisco Bay Area, the San Gabriel Valley, the Sacramento delta, the Central Valley, and the Inland Empire, and in historically low Asian population communities.

Even without looking at raw numbers, we see their increasing influence in California. Asian cuisines proliferate on our dinner tables, Asian stores line our streets and malls, and aspects of Asian cultures permeate our society. What about our politics, then? What impact do they have on Sacramento and on our city halls, on our campaigns and on our party?

A Gallup poll in early 2010 indicated that Asian Americans are, in general, more liberal than any other racial group. More Asian Americans identify as Democrats than as Republicans and are generally less religious and attend fewer church services. This combination has made Asian Americans the new forefront of the Democratic wave sweeping California.

Elections in the past few decades demonstrated this new reality. The San Gabriel Valley, once white, conservative, and middle class, saw a massive influx of Chinese and Koreans, along with Latinos, and turned blue over the past few decades. Further north in Fremont, San Jose, and the Silicon Valley, the Democratic tide rose with the dot-com boom and the massive influx of Asian immigrants. Traditionally Republican Orange County and the politically-swingy Sacramento area are now becoming bluer with explosive growth in the Asian American communities there.

Asian Americans champion many social issues on the progressive agenda affecting everyday Californians. Federal and state legislators such as Mike Honda and Judy Chu fight for increased spending on social services for our seniors and children and advocate for better education from preschool past college. Asian American leaders and students march against discrimination and political neglect and for safer communities. Asian American attorneys in organizations such as the Asian Law Caucus fight for the most vulnerable, the underprivileged, and the underrepresented in the courts and the bureaucracy. As a group historically discriminated against in immigration policy, Asian Americans fight for comprehensive immigration reform and the DREAM Act. Counter to popular belief, undocumented Asian Americans make up the plurality of students who qualify for AB 540 funding. In political life, Asian Americans have made inroads into elected positions as well. San Francisco and Oakland have their first Asian American mayors, and Berkeley professor Steven Chu, the United States Secretary of Energy, serves as one of three Asian American Cabinet members.

While Asian Americans are a crucial constituency for the Democratic Party, they should not be considered a shoo-in group. First, Asian Americans are not a monolithic bloc and cannot be treated as one. The term Asian American encompasses numerous different groups, with a multitude of traditions, languages, religions, and cultures. It includes not only the more well-known and more prominent Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, and Vietnamese heritages, but also Indians, Koreans, and Hmong, among others.

Secondly, Asian Americans used to lean Republican. Historically, only the Japanese Americans voted Democratic. Even today, Vietnamese Americans and Korean Americans still tend to vote Republican, often cited as a result of the roles the two parties played in the Vietnam and Korean Wars. However, the policies of the Republican Party are driving away Asian Americans, while Democratic principles and values resonate with most Asian American groups, especially recent Asian immigrants, who tend to be more liberal than later generations.

For the continued growth and prosperity of our party, of California, and of our nation, the Democratic Party should celebrate its diversity by embracing and responding to the demands of the Asian American communities. Their policies and their aspirations match the progressive vision that we Democrats stand for, and they are ready to fight for a vibrant and strong Democratic California.

Resources:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/125579/asian-americans-lean-left-politically.aspx

http://professionals.collegeboard.com/profdownload/young-lives-on-hold-college-board.pdf

As hectic as it may be, the battle over the federal budget gives us a window into the minds of our country’s key political players. A budget expresses our values, quite literally; it shows the amount we value everything the government does in plain dollar terms. So now that the madness is over and President Obama and the GOP-controlled House of Representatives have reached a budget agreement for the 2011 fiscal year, I want to take this opportunity to delve into the collective psyche of the newly empowered House Republicans by revisiting some of the provisions of their proposed budget. More often than not, the key to understanding the House’s bizarre opening gambit is politics, not good policy.

If you believed the right-wing rhetoric during the 2010 midterm elections, the new GOP House majority surfed into Washington on a wave of popular dissatisfaction with big government spending and the mounting debt. Though it seems more likely that the public felt dissatisfied with the slow pace of economic recovery (which impacts them more directly and immediately), the Republican victors claimed a mandate for drastically cutting spending to reduce the deficit. Instead, once in office, they pursued an ideological agenda with very little to do with balancing the budget, thus promising to further obstruct America’s faltering economic recovery.

Consider one of the GOP’s most shamelessly partisan legislative moves: the passing of the Pence Amendment, which would have cut federal funding for Planned Parenthood. An obvious attempt to push forward a pro-life viewpoint, it would have reduced access to many of Planned Parent’s services, including legal abortions. Needless to say, this will not stimulate any economic growth. It also bears remembering that the vast majority of services provided by Planned Parenthood are basic health services, like screening for ovarian or cervical cancer and sexually transmitted diseases, as well as education. Luckily, House Republicans faced a strong public backlash for passing this amendment and it did not make the final budget.

Another relatively minor spending cut that received a disproportionate amount of attention for its obvious political motivation has been the attempt to defund National Public Radio. Removing federal funding for NPR would put an imperceptible dent in the national deficit while likely reducing the ability of many smaller and more rural radio stations to provide its content to listeners. So where’s the logic? The belief that NPR is the medium of choice for elitist urban liberals earned it a spot on the House’s chopping block. Whether this reputation is true or not does not matter to the GOP, they picked this battle to score political points, not constructive policy victories.

The President and the House also fought over funding for education. While President Obama offered a general freeze on non-security related discretional spending, he proposed increasing spending for the Department of Education by 11 percent. This money would go towards both primary and secondary education, including an expansion of Pell Grant eligibility to more low-income families paying college tuition. Republicans wanted to cut both eligibility and the maximum grant an individual can receive. If they truly cared about America’s long-term competitiveness, they might not want to make it more difficult for children from low-income families to attend college. But, anticipating a short-term political payoff from cutting government spending, they opted to reduce America’s investment in its future.

While House Republicans decided to make these politically charged cuts in discretionary spending, they have been far less willing to consider any realistic policy solutions that significantly lower the deficit in the long-term. For example, Defense Secretary Robert Gates proposed substantial but responsible cuts in military spending, which makes up about a fifth of the federal budget, or, to put that in perspective, about as much as all other discretionary spending put together. Yet, aside from a few new Tea Party freshmen, Republicans refuse any cuts in military spending, even on notoriously expensive and useless programs. Apparently it is not possible to be both a deficit hawk and a war hawk.

And then the Big Kahuna: entitlement spending. Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid spending make up the largest, fastest growing part of the federal budget, therefore responsible budgeting cannot proceed without reforming these necessary, but expensive programs. Admittedly, neither party agrees even among its own members on the best way to fix entitlements. But if Rep. Paul Ryan, the Republican chair of the House Budget Committee, had his way, parts of Social Security would be privatized and a voucher system would replace Medicare and Medicaid. This proposal did not have the support of all House Republicans, nor most economists, but it is consistent with conservative orthodoxy.

If House Republicans really want to get serious about reducing deficit spending, however, they need to show some flexibility on the other side of the budget equation: revenues. While “thou shalt not raise taxes” appears to be a commandment of the conservative movement, spending cuts alone will not reduce the debt. The Bush Tax Cuts, which received a two-year extension last December as part of a deal between Congressional Republicans the Obama Administration, disproportionately favor the wealthiest Americans and are economically unsustainable. Similarly, reductions in capital gains, estate, and corporate income taxes may earn House Republicans more conservative credibility, but they truly hurt the American middle class.

I don’t think anyone in Washington feels happy with this year’s last-minute compromise budget. While I give all parties involved credibility for demonstrating the ability to work together, the debate hit its biggest roadblocks on social issues, especially abortion, in the last few nail-biting hours before the possible shutdown. If the newly sworn-in Republicans want to make a good-faith effort towards governing in bipartisan Washington, they need to put aside pointlessly partisan problems and show that they can negotiate on tough issues like defense, entitlements, and taxes. As we move forward into a potentially messier debate over the 2012 budget, Republicans cannot afford to serve the interests of their far-right base and alienate their Democratic colleagues by passing ego-boosting social legislation with no budgetary purpose. And we won’t let them.

On January 22, 2009, only two days into his presidency, Barack Obama signed Executive Order 13492, which called for the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention facilities no later than one year after the signing.  January 22, 2010 came and went, as did January 22, 2011, and yet the detention camps at Guantanamo remain open and occupied by 172 detainees.  In light of this failure and the President’s March 7, 2011 executive order resuming military trials of prisoners, many have questioned if this President, who campaigned on closing Guantanamo and respecting both domestic and international law, has not merely failed to deliver on his promise, but outright betrayed the very principals he advocated before his election.

The detention camps at Guantanamo became controversial very soon after they were established in 2002 to hold detainees captured in the war in Afghanistan.  In December of that year, the Los Angeles Times reported that at least 59 detainees, nearly ten percent of the prisoners in the facility at the time, were deemed of no intelligence value and were slated for repatriation before ultimately being transferred to Guantanamo. Senior military commanders began to fear that many of those in the facility were completely innocent.  The Bush administration abused the legal ambiguity surrounding American jurisdiction over Guantanamo Bay (as it is territory leased from Cuba) and the status of detainees as either criminals or prisoners of war to indefinitely detain many of the prisoners without trial. The detainees would never have been subject to the notorious abuse and “enhanced interrogation techniques,” had they had the rights to receive a civilian trial.

While his major opponents in the primary and general election were also critical of the administration’s policies (though John McCain significantly softened his position in an effort to court mainstream Republicans), Obama was the only major contender in the 2008 race whose campaign focused so much on the issue, with the candidate promising to shut down the prison and emphasizing civilian, not military, trials.

It seemed very early on that Obama might fulfill his campaign pledge.  Not only did he order the closure of the detention facilities and the end of dubious military commissions and “enhanced interrogation techniques,” but he also appointed as his Attorney General Eric Holder, who seemed just as determined to end the legal abuses of the previous administration.

After a few months, however, it became clear that Guantanamo would not be easy to shut down.  Obama’s plan for a quick shutdown of Guantanamo required a review of each detainee’s individual case, but the Bush administration had failed to compile comprehensive files on many, leading to delays as the Justice Department compiled evidence.  It was determined that many prisoners could not be tried because they had been tortured, but were considered far too dangerous to release. Efforts to transfer prisoners to their home countries were often complicated by the refusal of those countries to accept their nationals.  A civilian trial for the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, stalled because of significant bipartisan opposition to a trial in New York and has now shut down in favor of prosecution before a military commission. Suggestions of moving the remaining prisoners in Guantanamo to maximum security prisons in the United States has been met with similar fear mongering.  This culminated in December of 2010, in which the 2011 National Defense Authorization Act, passed by Congress with large support from both parties, banned the use of Pentagon funds for the transfer of Guantanamo detainees to the United States or other countries, including for trial. Obama signed the legislation despite his original plans, as he was hardly likely to win the same battle with a far more conservative Congress that would take office soon thereafter.

It could perhaps be said, then, that Obama had no other choice than to resume military trials of prisoners, albeit ones subject to regular review and which grant access to legal counsel and other rights that detainees never had access to during the previous administration.  The Obama administration probably considers imperfect justice better than none at all, though it still stands by its ultimate goal of closing Guantanamo and trying its detainees in civilian courts.  For now, however, it seems that the President’s promise, no matter how right or noble, cannot be brought into fruition.

March 23^rd marks the one-year anniversary of healthcare reform, a significant step forward for the American middle class and a monumental achievement for the Democratic leadership of our time. However, a year later we still feel the sting of the bitter political battles—the most notable casualties being the loss of the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives and the lack of a public option. At the time the bill passed, I distinctly remember asking myself, “Why wasn’t the debate framed as a human rights issue?” Instead, we heard the arguments of the insurance companies, the rising premiums, and the socialist takeover of health coverage.

The American system of government holds civil and political liberties as fundamental rights to be protected by government and guaranteed by the executive, legislative and judicial branches. America portrays itself as a world leader of democracy and as an advocate for the adoption of civil liberties in other countries. Our approach to protecting the First Amendment guarantees the right of a free and autonomous press, freedom of religion and freedom of speech.  However, we push social and economic rights aside as constitutionally unrecognizable or judicially unenforceable entitlements.

By contrast, many European countries and Canada recognize these rights as fundamental needs, not just as entitlements. Thus, many Americans see last year’s expansion of healthcare as un-American. This difference between the United States and other developed nations comes to light when discussing other human rights issues.  The United States stands alone in refusing to ratify the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (1966) (except for South Africa and Cuba). The treaty includes several provisions that recognize the right to non-discrimination at work, to just and favorable conditions of work, trade union rights, the right to social security, protection of the family, the right to an adequate standard of living, the rights to health and education, and the right to participate in cultural life.

The belief that social and economic rights are un-American goes against the evidence. Some states already provide social and economic rights to their citizens, such as Massachusetts with its statewide healthcare system. What about the nature of our institutions keeps the federal government from making health a universal right across the whole country? At the time of the formation of the international system, the United States government considered human rights as established by the United Nations as a measure of progress on our own shores. However, McCarthyism and American exceptionalism reversed the use of human rights as a gold standard. In the 1960’s, groups such as the NAACP demanded that the newly formed UN Commission on Human Rights look for human rights abuses within the borders of the United States. Our leadership refused. As the Cold War escalated, our changing culture and politics deemed any person who advocated for a high living wage and more robust safety nets a communist sympathizer and a traitor. Additionally, racial tensions arising from a reactionary group of Southern Democrats who controlled a powerful minority in the Senate refused to allow African Americans access to a right to socio-economic conditions and vetoed any piece of legislation including these rights.

During the fight over the new healthcare bill, the Tea Party and its sympathizers made their message very clear: no socialism in America! In contrast, healthcare supporters had a difficult time making our points heard without being called un-American. Going into the healthcare bill debate, I assumed the conversation would center around medicine, doctors, and patients, but I learned that legislation and people’s reactions to politics revolve around a person’s interpretation of our institutions. The very structure of our institutions and what our Constitution and history mean to each person makes the incorporation of new laws difficult for us to agree on across the whole country—making human rights as a national standard nearly impossible. Fortunately, the United States Constitution’s flexibility makes it open to reinterpretation over and over again in the civil court system. I see my job as a young activist as helping to reframe the debate and to steer public opinion into thinking in terms of human rights.

By Paula Villescaz

This March marks the one year anniversary of the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as the 2010 Healthcare Reform Bill. The bill brought sweeping provisions to an American healthcare system very much in need of change. It includes the expansion of Medicaid plans to the poor and unemployed, a ban on denial of coverage based on pre-existing conditions, and abolition of the lifetime benefit caps imposed by most, if not all health insurance plans. Its effects will be felt the most and the longest by the demographic who is least likely to take advantage of its most immediate benefits – young adults. What follows is my own story—just one of millions of examples of the importance of young adults being covered by a health insurance plan.

In October of 2009, I began experiencing excruciating lower back pain. By the following January, shortly after celebrating my 21st birthday, I could no longer sit, stand, or walk, and my doctors discovered a tumor in my lower back. After numerous lab tests and biopsies, on March 12, 2010, I was diagnosed with Ewings Sarcoma, a rare children’s bone cancer. Soon thereafter, test confirmed that my cancer had metastasized and spread to my lungs. I was given a 15% chance of survival.

A few weeks later, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act passed. While I cheered for the passage of the historic, law from my hospital bed with my new bald head, I did not yet understand how much it would affect my life. Luckily, as a student at UC Berkeley I already subscribed to the Student Health Insurance Program, and it covered the majority of my cancer-related costs.  But as time went by and I became familiar with the fine print, I realized how much the bill would change my life. At an average of $60,000 per chemotherapy treatment, along with prescriptions and monthly blood tests and transfusions, within a few months I reached my would-be lifetime benefits cap. Thanks to the healthcare bill, I remained covered and completed my full treatment plan, including weeks of radiation therapy and follow up doctor’s visits and tests.

In addition to immediate benefits, the bill’s provisions will help me well into the future. Once I graduate, if I am unable to find health coverage I will qualify to enter the “High Risk Pool” of insurance coverage created by the State of California. Furthermore, starting in 2014 insurance companies will no longer be able to deny me coverage based on my pre-existing condition.

The bill does not just help young people like me who are already sick. Now, all of my peers will be able to stay on their parent’s health insurance until the age of 26. Graduates today face many tough questions, further complicated by the recession: Should I go to graduate school? Should I find a job? Will mom and dad really let me move back in? Fighting and paying for a serious illness is not at the top of this list. However, I am living proof that getting sick can happen without warning to anyone at anytime.

For young people, understanding how insurance works and how the law impacts them may sound complicated. For this reason, we need to use the resources of non-profits across the country to be well-informed. One such non-profit is Young Invincibles, a national organization that provides a graduation toolkit to educate young adults on their healthcare options. This toolkit provides young adults with vital information about how graduates can continued to be covered. The toolkit is available for free at younginvincibles.org/toolkit.

I had the privilege of joining Democratic Leader Pelosi at a press conference celebrating the one-year passage of the healthcare bill, and the opening of a new healthcare clinic in the heart of San Francisco. During the conference a reporter asked me, “How do you expect young people to enroll in insurance plans and take advantage of the new reforms?” My response was simple—it’s up to us. It’s up to you and me to be informed and make sure our peers around us are informed as well. At our age, it is easy to believe that we’ll never get hurt, and that we have years of good health ahead of us, but health crises are blind to age. Life threatening diseases afflict the young and old alike; every year 70,000 young adults, just like me, are diagnosed with cancer, and 215,000 twenty year olds are diagnosed with diabetes, among the many other chronic and acute diseases.

Come May, I will be on the journey of achieving my life ambitions and goals beyond college, complete with an inevitable multitude of stumbling blocks along the way. Thanks to the healthcare bill passed a year ago, being able to afford comprehensive health coverage will not be one of them. By staying informed, proactive, and engaged you can keep yourself covered too.

By Maxim Levet

Home to a rich culture, delicious food, a thriving economy, and over a billion people, India, the world’s largest democracy, is by far one of the most fascinating places on the globe. However, on my recent trip there this winter, one thing caught my eye: above all else, India is a land of extremes—extreme wealth and extreme poverty. On the one hand, the poor live in slums and earn less than $50 a month, while on the other hand the rich live next door to the slums in 27 story high-rises, complete with helipads and parking spots for over 160 cars (I’m speaking of the recently built home of multi-billionaire Mukesh Ambani).

Where does the middle class fall in all of this? According to a study by the World Bank in 2005, 264 million people in India qualify as “middle-class”, or about a fifth of the population, and that number is growing fast. While this is a good sign, there is one large problem that plagues the country, and it’s that while the middle class and the rich are prospering (India’s economy grew at an average rate of 8.5% per year from 2005 to 2009), the poor are being left behind. Even though many government officials would rather look the other way, something must be done to address this very serious issue of income inequality.

The problem is geographic. While big cities are booming with new construction, new industries, and more tourism, rural India is stagnating. Since 1980, the degree of inequality between the states, as measured by the Gini Coefficient, has shot up 50%, as rural states such as Bihar and Orissa struggle to catch up with more urban states such as Punjab and Haryana. In the urban states capital is readily available and investments (many of them foreign) are frequently being made in areas like infrastructure and information technology, but in the rural states many farmers still use decades-old equipment that they can’t afford to replace. From 1993 to 2000, while urban employment grew by almost 35%, rural employment actually shrunk by more than 30%. This has caused millions of poor, rural Indians to flock to cities in hope of finding work. When none is found, they set up slums such as the one pictured, in Kaloor. Mumbai is home to Asia’s second largest slum, Dharavi (of Slumdog Millionaire fame), which houses over 800,000 people. This cycle continues and only perpetuates the situation that makes upward mobility nearly impossible for anyone not born into a middle class or wealthy household.

If India does nothing to correct this trend, it will face serious problems sooner than it would like. The lack of agricultural production already causes massive food inflation, which sometime peaks at close to 20%. This winter, India saw its worst shortage of onions in recent memory.  Instead of just focusing on the high tech and tourism industries, which have brought the country soaring revenues recently, the government should invest more in rural infrastructure and education. It should give its poorest citizens a chance to move up the income ladder, which will in the long run benefit every one of its 1.2 billion inhabitants, not just the few at the top.

In 2001, annual deportation rates decreased for the first time in recent memory.  But in just one decade since September 11^th, our culture of fear doubled the number of undocumented immigrants deported every year.  Just this week, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano bragged that the Obama administration currently deports more immigrants than ever; in just the two years since she took office, 779, 000 individuals have faced deportation[1].  We are indeed deporting more than ever, despite the fact that the estimated number of undocumented immigrants entering the U.S. annually has dropped by a staggering 500, 000 persons since 2007[2].

Nativism, in the form of anti-immigrant legislation targeting people of color, is a real threat to any notion we hold of justice.  Arizona’s example, SB1070, was not an isolated incident. In fact, state legislators across the country proposed over 600 anti-immigrant bills last month alone[3].  The Mississippi Senate recently passed SB2179, which allows law enforcement officers in any lawful stop or detention to force a person to prove that he or she is lawfully present in the United States, no warrant necessary.  This bill mirrors the intent of two others considered by Mississippi legislators: one requires people to speak English to get a driver’s license, the second mandates that all state documents only be printed in English.

Yet, dehumanizing immigration policy is nothing new.  In 1790, the Naturalization Act stated that only white immigrants of proven moral character could have a path to citizenship.  In 1870, naturalization was extended to immigrants of African descent.  The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which later included all of Asia, banned immigration from the region and ruled Asian immigrants were “aliens ineligible for citizenship.”  This law had enormous material effects; not only were aliens ineligible for citizenship unable to participate in the political system, but in California, they were not even allowed to own land.  Furthermore, after 1922, a woman marrying an alien ineligible for citizenship would lose her own citizenship status.  This law did not apply to men.  Racial and gender discrimination in immigration policy and enforcement was not outlawed until 1952.  The law did not explicitly state that Asian immigrants could become naturalized until 1965.

In recent history, immigration reform has not made our borders more secure, but more dangerous.  There are currently more border patrol agents than uniformed cops in the entire country.  Every major immigration reform law since 1986 increased the numbers and powers of border patrol officers.  Because there are more agents, more people are stopped, and due to an illusion of progress, more agents are deployed.  The result is a never-ending loop that makes controlling the Southern border consistently more expensive but not necessarily more effective.  Every time undocumented immigrants are returned to their country of origin, they gain a little more knowledge of the system, but little incentive to not try again.  The average undocumented immigrant will successfully enter the U.S. after only two attempts.

Immigration policy is indeed a human rights issue.  This year, approximately 500 people will die trying to enter our country.  And yet, despite bipartisan acknowledgement of the need for a solution, comprehensive immigration reform remains a false promise.  President Obama can say the words during the State of the Union, but can he deliver?

[2] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/01/AR2010090106940.html

[3]http://colorlines.com/archives/2011/01/states_raise_record_number_immigration_bills_in_2011.html