The Federation of Korean Association of USA (FKAUSA) hosted the 1st Annual Special General Meeting and Leadership Conference at the Omni Hotel in Irving. In effort to integrate the Korean community with the larger community at hand, the conference linked together various organizations and speakers. Groups included NAACP, LULAC, Nation of Islam, Accion America.

Also, Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings was part of the introduction and expressed his thanks for the Korean community’s social and economic impact on the city. Speakers included personal stories in their dealing with people of different ethnicities, their respective organizations missions, and solutions for moving forward and uniting with the Korean community.

“Our community,”said Carlos Quintanilla of Accion America, “must look to all communities to start building relationships they include: the Black community, the Asian and the progressive Anglo community, relationships must be mutually beneficial and cannot be one sided. Much of his speech was on the lack of brown and black faces in politics.”

As many anticipated, the conference did not end without differences of opinions.

No stranger to controversy, Minister Jefrrey Muhammad from the Nation of Islam spoke on the relationship between Korean store owners and the Black community, specifically in South Dallas. “I was disappointed that they may have felt offended by Rev. Jeffrey Mohammad’s remarks,”said Richard Sambrano, co-Chairman of LULAC, “but I could be wrong!”

After the minister finished speaking, host and VP of Korean Society of Dallas, Ted Kim, stated “It is important that we all know how we all feel and that was accomplished” and reminded the audience in order for one group to understand the other, “we need to know where everyone stands.”

Many of the participants were satisfied at the outcome.

Hopefully the conference sparked new relationships and all communities of color will understand each other more thoroughly and move towards a path for a better tomorrow.

Participación de Carlos Quintanilla en el Programa Enfoque de Telemundo Dallas.

IRVING – Irving ISD made history Thursday by changing the way board members are elected.

It went ahead with a plan that creates five single-member districts, leaving two at-large.

Irving previously only had an at-large system, in which the general Irving population selects all seven board members. The current school board is all white, despite the district being composed of 84 percent minority students. Minority leaders wanted single-member districts, in which each district selects its own member.

The 6-0 vote came after several public hearings on the issue, but the move angered some minority leaders. They wanted the board to approve a seven single-member district system. They told News 8 the fight is far from over.

“The reason we don’t want a 5-2 is because we know nothing is going to change here,” said Anthony Bond from the Irving NAACP. “If they don’t go to a 7-0, we are suing them. We are calling for the kids to disrupt classes. We will be using every means necessary to get these people’s attention.”

Carlos Quintanilla from Accion America told News 8, the organization will not ask students to protest, but will concentrate on voter education and electing Hispanics to the board.
The 5-2 plan would potentially open the door for two Hispanic seats on the board. With the 7-0, the possibilities included at least four minority seats.

Full story

Dallas dentist and horse racing advocate David Alameel, a Democrat, will run for Congress, he said in an email to supporters this week. He’s challenging U.S. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Ennis, whose redrawn congressional district is less Republican than the incumbent would like. It’s still Republican, but it’s also a district where more than half of the voting-age population is either Hispanic or African-American. In his email, Alameel said he’ll start with $2 million in his campaign account.

Dallas Morning News

Chanting in unison, “We want classroom breakfast!” more than 1,000 children ate breakfast together Saturday morning at a rally sponsored by Accion America. The rally kicked off an effort to promote healthy eating habits among the fast growing Hispanic population of Texas and raise awareness about the benefits of Breakfast in the Classroom programs. Attending the rally were kids from 60 soccer teams, parents, representatives from school districts throughout Texas.

Hosted by Accion America in partnership with the Oak Cliff Soccer Association, the rally was held at Kiest Park in Dallas. The got breakfast? Foundation donated breakfast and milk to more than 1,000 children involved in the ongoing soccer program that takes kids away from negative activity into positive recreational and team-building activities.

The rally included guest speakers Mike Rawlings, Mayor of Dallas, Texas, Estafania Shine, Program Director of Learning4Today and Attorney and President of the Oak Cliff Soccer They encouraged parents to get their kids to participate in current school breakfast programs and become got breakfast? Ambassadors for Breakfast in Classroom programs within Texas. And where those programs do not exist, parents were encouraged to talk to principals, teachers and school administrators to get on board with Breakfast in Classroom programs. A video of the event is available on YouTube under Got Breakfast  Rally. Carlos Quintanilla, President of Accion America, whose organization served over 100,000 meals to children this summer, emphasized the importance of eating healthy and getting school districts to participate in Breakfast in Classroom programs by addressing the myths that go along with failure to have this program available to students.

“Breakfast in Classroom programs are successful for many reasons, while serving breakfast in the cafeteria has its drawbacks from a functional standpoint,” explains Quintanilla. “Classroom by classroom ensures that all children get a healthy meal. The district saves money and even makes money in the long run by having that efficiency.” 

By switching from the traditional cafeteria breakfast to serving “grab ‘n’ go” classroom breakfasts, schools can feed more children. “For school districts with high free or reduced fee student population, cafeteria breakfast is a dinosaur,” says Gary Davis, founder of the got breakfast? Foundation. “Cafeteria breakfast is fiscally inefficient and socially impractical. For school districts truly desiring to feed more eligible children breakfast each school day while positively impacting their bottom line 100 percent, classroom breakfast is the real and proven solution.”

According to the Food Research and Action Center’s School Breakfast Scorecard for 2009-2010, serving Breakfast in the Classroom is a key strategy for increasing participation rates. Studies show kids who eat breakfast perform better in school. Research has documented the following benefits of Breakfast in the Classroom:

• Improvements in attendance
• A reduction in tardiness
• Fewer stomachaches and visits to the school nurse
• Increased test scores
• Fewer disciplinary problems
• Improved diets
• Reduction in obesity rates

To allow Homeland Security to continue to take aggressive and unacceptable actions against our community is not an option. We are calling on every good citizen, on every good resident, on all good Christians, on all people regardless of color and ethnicity to join us to end the unacceptable practice of separating families. You cannot take a mother from her Child and you cannot take a Child from their mother, it is morally wrong and intolerable.

WE URGE YOU, WE IMPLORE YOU TO JOIN US ON OCTOBER 17 AT 4PM,

SEND A TEXT MESSAGE,
FORWARD THIS EMAIL,
MAKE A PHONE CALL,
INVITE A FRIEND,
BRING YOU CANDLE,
BRING YOUR SIGN,
BRING YOUR SPIRIT SO THAT ANATOLIA CAN STAY WITH HER CHILDREN AND HER HUSBAND.

Irving family waits, hopes mom’s deportation will be stayed

By DIANNE SOLÍS
Staff Writer
Published: 09 October 2011 10:35 PM

IRVING — Family matters mightily when you lose your mother at 11, face military conscription at 14, and exit your war-torn country at 15 with a visa obtained by a father who wants to save your life.

That’s why 45-year-old Abel Garcia uses the metaphor “like losing a limb” to describe the potential deportation of his 47-year-old wife, Anatolia. Their three children agree.
“You also break the children’s hearts,” 12-year-old Jennifer, the oldest daughter, said in precise English.

Every immigrant has a hard luck story. But this story, at this time, may matter more to federal authorities.

Anatolia Garcia’s family and legal advocates are hoping that a recent focus on “prosecutorial discretion” may help her stay in the country.

Immigration officials are allowed to apply prosecutorial discretion that would halt some deportation cases, according to a White House and Department of Homeland Security reminder in mid-August. Homeland Security authorities gave guidance on who would qualify for a deportation cancellation — and said they would form a review committee for about 300,000 cases.

That announcement rippled through immigrant communities where desperation can turn rumor into fact. Soon the “guidance” became “el orden de Obama,” the order of Obama.
Hundreds of families in the Dallas area, and maybe more, could benefit from prosecutorial discretion if the person scheduled for deportation has no criminal record, has long ties in the community, or has U.S.-born children, among other factors.

Anatolia Garcia fits that description. Her husband is here legally, and she benefited for along time from his legal status as an asylum candidate. Now, her husband has temporary protected status as a Salvadoran, but that does not help his wife because she is Mexican.
Immigration laws and procedures can be conflicting and confusing. Reaction from immigration officials to the guidance announcements has been mixed.

Since memos about low and high priorities were issued in March and again in June, discretionary decisions that would halt deportations haven’t been uniform, said Laura Lichter, a Denver immigration attorney and the president-elect of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

“We have seen a lot of good decisions either on holding off on prosecuting, or granting relief, or agreeing not to deport someone,” Lichter said.

But Lichter said the majority of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officials are “in a holding pattern” and seem to be waiting for more guidance. The immigration lawyers association is monitoring cases and stressing to immigrants that amnesty hasn’t been given.

Irving homemaker
Anatolia Garcia is a homemaker who oversees her three children’s studies and drives them to activities. Emmanuel, 9, loves mathematics; Natalie, 10, favors karate. Jennifer opts for mystery novels and gets her highest grades in reading. The family owns a brick, three-bedroom home in a neighborhood where family names are etched into the sidewalk cement.
Her life in Irving is vastly different than it would be back in Oaxaca, one of the most impoverished states in Mexico. She fears the drug-related violence and kidnappings that have gripped Mexico.

She said she doesn’t understand why she’s in deportation proceedings. Her Houston attorney has appealed her removal order but was turned down eight weeks ago.

Close monitoring
Three weeks ago, Garcia was told she must wear an electronic ankle monitor.
An ICE subcontractor visits twice a week because she’s considered a flight risk because her deportation date is near.

“We’ve paid our taxes for years,” Garcia said in Spanish. “We are current on all our bills. I’ve never committed a crime.”

Garcia calls the monitor “a humiliation.”
At the Dallas ICE headquarters, Nuria Prendes, the head of enforcement and removal operations, declined to comment on the Garcia case. But she did say there is an alternative to ankle monitoring when final deportation nears: “Detain them.”
Prosecutorial discretion dates to the 1970s, and several legal memos explaining when it can and can’t be applied have been issued through the years. In March and June of this year, John Morton, ICE’s director, issued memos providing guidance on who might be covered so that the agency’s limited resources were focused on “enforcement priorities.”

Learn More: Dallas Morning News

Accion America today officially closed out its Summer Feeding Program in which over 35 apartment complexes throughout the Dallas Metroplex serving over 99,000 meals, making Accion America one if not the only Hispanic organization that served Hispanic Children.

Accion America President Carlos Quintanilla has sent a comprehensive requests under the Texas Open Records Act inquiring how many sites were being served by Hispanic organizations throughout Texas and in particular Dallas and surrounding communities. The request also seeks information of Hispanic hiring within the Texas Department of Agriculture and the amount of funds directly allocated to Hispanic based organizations.

During this very hot summer we had twelve full time people working along with over 35 apartment managers, using several box trucks provide to our outreach effort by Bruce Carter, we also received more than 125,000 meals and over 125,000 individual milk servings that were distributed daily. This information was not reported by Fox 4 News..

We thank the following stations: Channel 11, Univision 23 and Telemundo 39, who did cover our outreach efforts, where very clearly we, with the help and assistance of Mr. Carter, provided much appreciated and needed food box lunches and breakfast.

Accion America joins with Mr. Carter, many in the African American community and within our community to demand a retraction on the biased reporting of Becky Oliver and her racially based negative reporting that appeared on Fox 4 News last night. Carlos Quintanilla personally invited Ms. Oliver while picking up food for our daily distribution to visit our 40 plus sites, to talk with parents and apartment complex manager and see the appreciation in Children’s faces, she refused to do that saying that was not the story she was doing. We are disappointed that Fox 4 News would spend so much time on hate mongering and a one sided story.

Mr. Carter deserves an apology and deserves to be given credit for helping us serve 100,000 verified, documented, photographed and videotaped effort to feed hungry Children.

A link will be available at www.accionamerica.com highlighting through a comprehensive photo and video montage that Becky Oliver’s story was intended to portray an anti African American sting to her story and does not even recognized the hard work that was done by many to serve needy families.

On the personal reference made regarding Mr. Carter, we do not look at what someone did twenty years ago, we look at what someone is doing right now, this moment, Carlos Quintanilla is a prime example of that.

Bruce Carter, we stand with you.

We took the first step in the fight that led to President Barack Obama change of policy on Deportations.

Beneficiados