Advancing Paycheck Fairness for Latinas means Advancing Immigrant and Reproductive Rights

Latina activists in New York recognize that passage of the DREAM Act advances both economic and reproductive justice.

As we join the call for Paycheck Fairness, the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health recognizes that in the fight to achieve economic justice for all women, we must recognize, elevate, and address the unique challenges faced by Latinas and immigrant women.

According to the White House Council on Women and Girls, women make 77 cents for every dollar a man earns through employment. Yet, for Latinas, this rate is 56 cents on the dollar, which represents the largest wage gap of any other groups of working women.  What accounts for this widened disparity between men and Latinas, and between white women and Latinas? We know that although Latinas comprise the fastest growing community of color, we know that more than a third do not graduate high school, and Latinas experience the highest level of poverty among women in the labor force at 12.1%. Latinas have the lowest employment-to-population ratio and the recession hit Latinas particularly hard as unemployment rates more than doubled for Latinas in the years between 2007 and 2010.We know that immigrant women and Latinas with limited English proficiency not only face systematic bars on their participation in the labor force, but also discrimination, prejudice, and bias from employers. We also know that Latina farmworkers face horrific levels of sexual violence, sexual harassment, retaliation and manipulation from their employers. These factors account for the fact that Latinas are overly represented in low-wage sectors working at jobs that provide few to no benefits like health insurance, paid vacation, and  maternity and family leave.

And we know that these pay inequities impact Latinas’ access to reproductive health care.  Latinas compose the ethnic/racial group with the highest level of health care un-insurance. Latinas also face financial barriers to purchasing costly health care insurance on the individual market, and despite the enormous gains under the Affordable Care Act, undocumented folks will be barred from purchasing health plans on state exchanges or gaining coverage through Medicaid. The federally-imposed 5-year bar on legal permanent residents from accessing benefits under Medicaid blocks Latinas’ access to reproductive and sexual health care, including contraception and important preventive care such as the Pap Test (oh yeah – Latinas have the highest incidence of cervical cancer of women of all racial/ethnic groups). On top of this, federal funding bans on abortion care make abortion just as inaccessible as if it were illegal for far too many Latinas.

And while NLIRH celebrates and supports the advances called for in the federal Paycheck Fairness Act, introduced to the House of Representatives by Representative Rosa DeLauro (CO-3) and in the Senate by Senator Barbara Mikulski (MD), we view this legislation as part of a comprehensive solution to economic justice for all women and Latinas. Utilizing a comprehensive approach means addressing injustice in immigration, health care, education, and employment policy to reverse the culture of devaluation of Latina labor in states and communities across the country.  In recent years, a wave of political and policy developments in states are, instead of seeking to address the wage gap between Latinas and other groups, actively limiting Latinas’ opportunities for a quality education, optimum participation in the workforce, and the comprehensive, quality, and affordable reproductive health care needed to plan their families and their participation in the workforce.

Alabama Governor Robert Bentley signs bill which adds more immigration restrictions on top of HB 56.

Let’s briefly look at two states-  Arizona and Alabama –  where the wage rate for Latinas is 53 cents and 41 cents, respectively, for every dollar a white man earns working full-time year-round. However, instead of working to elevate the economic status of Latino families, the political classes in Arizona and Alabama have embarked on a radical anti-immigrant agenda aimed directly at limiting the employment and educational opportunities of immigrant and Latino families.  HB56, enacted in Alabama in 2011, requires public school boards to attain the immigration status of newly enrolling children and their parents. Section 8 of this draconian law forbids undocumented students from attending public universities and colleges and from receiving financial assistance. And despite the recent special legislative session called by Governor Robert Bentley to address concerns in HB 56, the changes actually tack on more dangerous provisions.  Both HB56 and Arizona’s SB1070 forbid employers from hiring undocumented workers, and both work to create a culture of fear and discrimination against those without papers.

At the same  time, the two states in our case study here, Arizona and Alabama, have embarked on a radical anti-abortion and anti-family planning agenda. In both Arizona and Alabama, 20-week abortion bans disproportionately impact low-income women, including Latinas, who face numerous barriers to full information about their pregnancies, and for whom financial, geographic, and other challenges delay the process of attaining abortion care. Arizona has also put in place a race- and sex-selective abortion ban which appropriates the language of civil rights and gender equity to target the reproductive freedom of women of color. Oh yeah, and in Arizona, you are apparently pregnant two weeks before conception,  so this combined with the 20-week abortion ban puts abortion care out of reach for even more Latinas. Beyond abortion, we are seeing attacks on access to contraception and family planning programs. This only scratches the surface in terms of the amount of anti-reproductive health legislation passed in these states, particularly Arizona, and in states across the country.

Here at the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, we view the attacks on immigrant families and reproductive health as working hand-in-hand to diminish Latina reproductive justice. Because the question begs being asked, how can Latinas achieve their economic potential when they cannot attend university or work legally? How can Latinas fully participate in the labor force and provide for their families without the ability to space and plan their pregnancies and have the equality of opportunity for health?

Members of NLIRH’s Latina Advocacy Network in Texas fight to reproductive justice.

Despite the enormous challenges, Latinas across the country are mobilizing for reproductive justice. Our Latina Advocacy Network in Texas is fighting against dramatic cuts to the Texas Women’s Health Program, a program which has been central to their ability access needed breast and cervical cancer screenings. Our Latina Advocacy Network in Miami is mobilizing to build broad coalitions bridging reproductive justice to other social justice work. Our Latina Advocacy Network in New York recognizes that passage of the DREAM Act, and the ability for undocumented immigrants to attain higher education, is central to the fight for reproductive justice. NLIRH is also an advisory board member of We Belong Together, a coalition united for children and families, and participated in a delegation to Alabama to bear witness to the impact of HB 56 on the lives of Alabama’s families. And through  ¡Soy Poderosa!/ I am Powerful!, our civic engagement campaign, we will ignite the political power of all Latinas to advance health, dignity, and reproductive justice.

Together, we can make inroads in the fight for economic and paycheck fairness. However, this work must be intersectional, comprehensive, and take into account the lived experiences of all women, including Latinas. As we work to pass the important Paycheck Fairness Act, let’s also mobilize communities for immigrant rights, reduce barriers to quality and affordable health care, expand opportunities for education and job training, and last, but certainly not least, ensure that all women, including Latinas, have the rights and access to quality and affordable reproductive health care.

New report details immigrant farm worker women’s vulnerability to sexual assault and harassment on the job

A report released yesterday by Human Rights Watch, Cultivating Fear, describes how deeply vulnerable immigrant farm worker women are to sexual harassment and assault:

This 95-page report describes rape, stalking, unwanted touching, exhibitionism, or vulgar and obscene language by supervisors, employers, and others in positions of power. Most farmworkers interviewed said they had experienced such treatment or knew others who had. And most said they had not reported these or other workplace abuses, fearing reprisals. Those who had filed sexual harassment claims or reported sexual assault to the police had done so with the encouragement and assistance of survivor advocates or attorneys in the face of difficult challenges.

The report is full of horrifying – if unsurprising for those of us who have worked with farm worker women – stories of assault, and repeated abuse at the hands of employers or people in positions of power on the job, often using their immigration status as a tool of control and abuse. Additionally, farm workers often depend on their employers not only for their jobs but also their housing and transportation, creating a number of opportunities for abuse and control for vulnerable women.

This report comes out just as Congress voted for a Violence Against Women Act that is deeply hostile to immigrant women, eliminating critical protections for undocumented survivors of abuse.

Congress celebrates National Women’s Health Week by rolling back women’s health

This week, Congress decided to celebrate National Women’s Health Week by undermining Latinas’ rights to safe, legal abortion in immigration detention and in the District of Columbia, and by striping advances made in the Violence Against Women Act to prosecute intimate partner violence and other crimes. Muchas gracias por nada, Congress!

Here is a run-down of what has been going down on the Hill:

DHS Appropriations Abortion Rider

Rep. Price (left) opposed the anti-abortion amendment by Rep. Aderholt (right.) Source aderholt.house.gov

The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday morning decided to strip the right to abortion care for Latinas’ and all women in immigration detention when they added an amendment (the “Aderholt” amendment) to a bill funding the Department of Homeland Security. The amendment, which passed in a party-line vote of 28-21, prohibits the use of federal funds for abortion care for women under immigration detention custody. The original amendment only allowed exceptions for life and rape, but not incest. The incest exception was added later. However, as our Executive Director Jessica Gonzalez-Rojas noted in NLIRH’s press statement, “Passage of the Aderholt amendment shows remarkable contempt for some of the most vulnerable women in our community.”

This amendment was completely unnecessary, as the dangerous and restrictive Hyde Amendment already applies to women in detention. Additionally, DHS has the Performance Based National Detention Standards (PBNDS), which are comprehensive stake-holder reviewed standards for health care in detention centers. This amendment would only open the door to interpretation to restrict access to services around abortion care, like transportation, follow-up care, and counseling, in instances where detained women pay for an abortion themselves.

With high levels of rape and sexual assault in immigration detention centers, and the fact that detainees may be U.S. citizens and those whose only crime was their presence in this country, attacking access to reproductive health care in detention is a dangerous and unjust move by House Appropriations leadership.

VAWA: The Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act

Rep. Sandy Adams- Sponsor of H.R. 4970, a bill that takes the VAWA name, but leaves Latinas behind. Source: adams.house.gov

Just a few hours later, on Wednesday afternoon, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 4970, a bill which calls itself the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). In reality, this bill rolls back protections for immigrant victims of intimate partner violence (IPV) and other crimes and excludes new protections for LGBTQ and Native American survivors, approved in a bill passed by the Senate to reauthorize VAWA. The Violence Against Women Act, first enacted in 1994 with strong bipartisan support, has been reauthorized several times over the past decades with a history of cooperation across party lines. However, yesterday’s move by the House of Representatives broke that strong tradition. In doing so, they advanced a bill that actually rolls back protections for immigrant women, by allowing abusers to insert themselves into an IPV survivor’s immigration proceedings, and undermines the U-visa system, which is an important tool for abused immigrant women whose immigration status is used as a form of control. This House bill also notably excludes strong provisions for LGBTQ and Native American victims that which  were approved by the Senate in their bill to reauthorize this vital tool to combat domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence, and other crimes.

Rep. Gwen Moore- sponsor of H.R. 4271 modeled after Senate-passed VAWA and opponent of H.R. 4970. Source gwenmoore.house.gov

To add insult to injury, the powerful House Rules Committee, which establishes rules for debating legislation, prohibited any amendments to be added to H.R. 4970 before the vote. This meant that opponents of the bill, like Rep. Gwen Moore (D-WI 4th), herself a survivor of sexual violence who faced challenges prosecuting her abuser, was unsuccessful in her many attempts to remove dangerous provisions for immigrant victims and include protections for LGBTQ and Native Americans.

D.C. 20-Week Abortion Ban

And today, House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution is hoping to advance legislation to deny the right to abortion care to the residents of the District of Columbia.

Representative Trent Franks (R-AZ-2), author of the racial profiling anti-abortion bill, the so-called “Prenatal Non-Discrimination Act,” now has his sights on imposing a dangerous abortion restrictions for the women of the District of Columbia. H.R. 3803, or the “District of Columbia Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act” relies on the medically-debated concept of “fetal pain” to strip a Latinas’ and all women’s rights to essential and potentially health- and life-saving abortion care.

The bill, in addition to imposing an unconstitutional pre-viability abortion ban, contains a number of dangerous provisions that endangers women’s health and makes women vulnerable to numerous lawsuits. While the bill contains an exception in cases where women’s lives are in danger or when they face “substantial and irreversible” harm to a “major bodily organ,” this essentially means that women have to be on the brink of death or permanent disability in order to receive the abortion care she needs to preserve her health.

Official Photo of Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton. Source www.norton.house.gov

The bill allows the “father” of the fetus, or “maternal grandparents” in cases where a minor seeks abortion care, to file a civil lawsuit against an abortion care provider who violates this bill, showing a complete disregard and distrust of women to make the best health care decision for themselves. The bill also opens up the door to any party – spouses, parents, siblings, health care providers, guardians, even the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia- to file a lawsuit against abortion providers who provide abortion care at or after 20 weeks of gestation. What legislators, and even the U.S. Supreme Court, have failed to realize is that many post 20-week abortion are absolutely essential to preserve the health and life of a woman seeking abortion care. No woman should die or become ill as a result of a pregnancy.

Again, to add insult to injury, Chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Rep. Franks and author of the 20-week abortion ban, has prohibited Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton from testifying.

NLIRH will be submitting testimony for the hearing today, as well as live Tweeting from Rep. Holmes Norton’s press conference and the hearing itself.

Stay posted by following our blog as well as our Twitter page.

Mamas day for the rest of us

In the last few days leading up to mama’s day, I have been so touched by the all the amazing efforts put into a mothers day that reflects the realities of our lives, and not just a commercial extravaganza celebrating a very narrow motherhood ideal.

NLIRH is so proud to be part of the Strong Families initiative, and the Mamas Day cards Strong Families has put out are a beautiful set reflecting the experiences of many  kinds of mamas that are often invisible in greeting card aisles: queer and trans mamas, disabled mamas, activist mamas, young mamas, immigrant mamas…they celebrate motherhood not as a vague ideal, but as the way mamas across our communities live: as real people, with complex and rich identities. Go over and send an important mama in your life a card!

And while you’re at it, let’s send the president a little something in the name of immigrant mamas everywhere. The imagery and commercialism of the day often reinforces ideas of race, class, citizenship, sexuality, and marital status that we seek to redefine and break open. Add your voice to push back against dehumanizing messages and images of motherhood and mothering that do not reflect the reality of our lives. Tell the President that separating mamas from their families is wrong, and will not solve any of our national crises.

¡Feliz día de las madres!

 

President Barack Obama affirms that same-sex marriage should be legal

Today, President Barack Obama stated in a televised interview that he believes that same-sex marriage should be legal:

“At a certain point, I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married,” Mr. Obama told ABC News in an interview that came after the president faced mounting pressure to clarify his position.

This is a historic moment – it is the first time that a sitting U.S. president has stated a position in favor of marriage equality.

So how does this affect the lived reality of LGBTQ Latin@s? Well not too much, yet. Though this affirmation does not have any legal effect just yet – neither the Supreme Court nor Congress seem in a rush to overturn DOMA – this “evolving” of the president’s position does indicate the increasing visibility of LGBT advocacy in the last few years, and places the President in a position to do something about making that change.

When same-sex marriage does become a reality at a national level, there will surely be benefits for LGBTQ Latin@ communities. For one, LGBTQ immigrants with U.S.-citizen partners will have the option to be petitioned for permanent residency and citizenship, in the same way that straight people are able to do currently. This would be huge for the vast number of bi-national couples who face separation or having to leave the U.S. to be together. The Uniting America Families Act – a proposed measure that would allow U.S. citizens to petition same-sex partners for citizenship – also addresses this issue for bi-national same-sex couples and has been part of NLIRH’s policy priorities, but federal marriage equality would solve this issue altogether.

Although this is a step in the right direction, legalizing same-sex marriage does not even begin to scratch the surface of the social justice issues that LGBTQ Latin@s face today. LGBTQ immigrants face numerous barriers that marriage simply does not touch, and strategies that require immigrants to couple with U.S.-nationals for citizenship will only affect a small portion of the LGBTQ immigrant community. And though legalizing same-sex marriage may mean that some LGBTQ Latin@s will be able to share their partners’ health benefits, it will not create health benefits for couples in which neither party is insured. We envision a world in which everyone has access to care and in which everyone has the right to live and work in the communities they choose, regardless of marital status. Marriage equality will create these conditions for some, but will leave many LGBTQ Latin@s with these problems unresolved.

It is a good day for LGBTQ people today, but we must not envision marriage equality as the end. Only an end to inequity can bring reproductive justice for all!

Texas and Florida Latina Advocacy Networks on the move!

Everything is bigger in Texas, but does that include community organizing? Last week a few of us went down the Rio Grande Valley to visit our incredible activists who have been working on creating an educated and saavy group of Latin@s in colonias throughout the Valley. The Texas Rio Grande Valley is a place that is often times forgotten about by the rest of the United States. It is only recently that it has been placed on the map because of the work that our Latina Advocacy Network (LAN) has been doing around the Affordable Care Act and the destructive cuts to women’s health services in Texas – our activists are truly incredible, and right when you think they have surpassed any expectations, they do something else to raise the bar, and really push their activists to the next level.

Our leaders hold “juntas comunitarias,” (community meetings) in different colonias on a daily basis. Some of our more developed colonia leaders come to these meetings equipped with a neighbor or family member by their side to get them involved in the LAN;  a pen and paper to write down any information they have learned in the meeting, or an assignment(s) they have taken for an event; and an open heart and mind.

Obama Administration announces new grants to community health centers

Yesterday, the Department of Health and Human Services  has awarded $728 million in new funds to community health centers (CHCs) under the Affordable Care Act, or health reform.

According to an announcement and report by the White House yesterday, these funds will support 398 renovation and construction projects at community health centers.  Of this money, $629 million will go to 171 existing health centers across the country for “longer-term projects to expand their facilities, improve existing services, and serve more patients.” The remaining funds, $99.3 million, will go to 227 existing health centers “to address pressing facility and equipment needs and boosting health centers’ ability to care for additional patients and creating jobs.” 

The Affordable Care Act calls for increased support of community health centers; specifically $11 billion over 5 years to expand services at existing community health centers and creating new centers to reach millions more patients.

What will these grants do?

• According to the Department of Health and Human Services, today’s grants will expand access to health care services to 860,000 patients. 

How has the ACA helped community health centers?

• Since the enactment of the Affordable Care Act, or health ref0rm, in March 2010, billions of dollars have been invested in community health centers.
• These grants have funded 190 construction and renovation projects at health centers and created 67 new health center locations. 

How will the ACA continue to support community health centers?

• Over the next two years, these grants will support construction and renovation projects at 485 health centers and create 245 new CHC sites.

Why are community health centers important for Latinas’ health?

Community health centers are a lifeline for Latinas, their families, and their communities. In 2009, 35% of patients at community health centers were Latin@/Hispanic and 865,000 were migrant and seasonal farmworkers, many of whom were Latin@.

For many in our community, including undocumented Latin@s, community health centers can be the only source of primary and preventive care, as  CHCs provide health services regardless of one’s ability to pay, citizenship or immigration status, and primary language.

Federally-qualified community health centers are located in medically-underserved communities, are governed by a board that represents the diversity of the community, and meet performance and quality standards. Certain CHCs focus on specific populations like the homeless, migrant and seasonal farm workers, LGBT people, and those in public housing.

CHCs provide access to recommended cervical and breast cancer screenings and help Latinas manage chronic diseases.

Recognizing the importance of community health centers in reducing health disparities and delivering care to medically underserved communities, the ACA make substantial investments in these health centers to allow them to see millions more patients every year.

For more information about Community Health Centers and Latinas, please visit our website, where you can find our publication Medicaid and Community Health Centers Threatened with Funding Cuts: What is really at stake for Latinas and immigrant communities?