NEWSBYCRISS L. COX

August is upon us, and if you haven't been bombarded by back-to-school ads then you either live under a rock or the health care debate has caused you to chuck your TV out the window. While for most of us, back-to-school means new notebooks and shiny pencils, for others the story is quite different. Especially if you happen to be a Latina, since "41 percent of them do not graduate from high school on time with a standard diploma."

Not only do Latinas have a harder time making it to graduation, but Latinos in general are less likely to go on to pursue higher education degrees, according to the National Education Association. As the NEA article points out, "the consequences of a lesser-educated Latino population could be disastrous, especially in states where Latinos increasingly support tax revenues."

"This is not a boutique issue. This is everybody's issue. This is everybody's crisis," said Patricia Gándara, University of California Los Angeles professor and co-director of the Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles at UCLA.

While it may be more of an immediate issue for those of us in Texas or California, this is an issue that affects all of us. We need to make sure young women of all colors and backgrounds graduate high school and know that college is a viable, affordable option for them. We all know the old adage, "Knowledge is power." And how do we gain knowledge? Through education, therefore "Education is power," right? In Spanish, this translates to "Educación es poder." The interesting thing to me is that "poder" means "power" but also "to be able to"; therefore, in Spanish, this cliché reveals another layer of meaning: it's not about the power to do extra, it's about the basic ability to do things. If you do not have education, you do not have the ability to accomplish your goals. Luckily, some good people are doing something to give Latina women this ability.

The National Women's Law Center along with the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund will soon release a report offering "a close look at the dropout crisis for Latinas" and what educators and policy makers can do about it. (You can pre-order your copy of Listening to Latinas: Barriers to High School Graduation now, if you like.)  As a former teacher, the driving force in public school policy is parents. We teachers, although we are professionals and experts in our field, don't have the pull that the parents and the tax-paying community do.  Even if you are not an educator, please take a look at this report, and use your influence to create positive changes in your school. And the timing couldn't be better.

Something happened this summer that should translate into huge good news for Latinas: we put one on the Supreme Court. Justice Sotomayor, like President Obama, is proof that ¡sí se puede!, that staying in school can be done, and that it pays off, even if you come from a non-traditional household (where your parents didn't grow up speaking English or your father is absent). That you don't have to be white to succeed in politics or an academic career; that there's somewhere for people of color to go besides the NBA, NFL or reggaetón scene.

Unfortunately the Supreme Court is not the same bully pulpit as the Presidency. We see President Obama in the media daily; now that Justice Sotomayor's confirmation is done, we won't see as much of her in the news - but this doesn't mean we need to hide her away. Teachers and parents need to use this woman to inspire those young Latinas.

Now, please don't accuse me of racism. All of us women need to celebrate Sotomayor's victory, as well as Justice Ginsburg's, and their hard work. But the fact that Sotomayor is a woman and a Latina from an underpriviledged background adds a layer to her story that we have not seen before, and we need to play up that angle. This will speak directly to Latinas, the demographic that is suffering from the highest drop-out rates at the moment, but it will also speak to girls of any skin color who come from underpriviledged backgrounds.

In our world of 24-hour news overload it's easy to go from one thing to the next and let our attention be captivated by the controversy du jour, but let's not forget this milestone. Barack Obama's campaign and victory took place during the school year, where smart social studies teachers could take the opportunity to watch history unfold in their classrooms and give the event the significance it deserved.

Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation took place during the summer, while teachers and kids were home, but that doesn't mean we need to shrug and forget it, moving on to the next item on the standardized-test agenda: let's relive the moment in the classrooms, let's bring back the debates, let's read her speeches, let's talk about the issues surrounding her confirmation, and let's celebrate her victory, especially with those girls who need to hear it the most.

Let's educate and inspire an army of Wise Latinas (of every race and nationality).

Today, we have a special guest post from an avid reader and commentor here at Change.org - Criss L. Cox. Criss has jumped into the conversation at the Change.org Women's Rights blog many times and I felt it was time for her to get her own post. Criss is a teacher by day, blogger by night and freelance translator in between, who can usually be found procrastinating on Twitter. She was born and raised in Chile and feels strongly about reproductive rights, immigration issues and her conflicting views with the Catholic Church. You may read her ranting and rambling at http://blog.crisswrites.com or follow her on Twitter @CrissWrites.

***

Mother's Day has come and gone, and while I'm sure moms loved the flowers and cards and macaroni necklaces, wouldn't it be nice if we could we give them something a little more... substantial? Like, decent, paid maternity leave?

Thanks to the Family Medical Leave Act here in the US women can take up to 12 weeks of leave a year without losing their jobs, but that's also without pay, unless you happen to have 12 weeks of vacation time saved up. Some employers do offer paid maternity leave, but those are few and far between, and I can assure you this perk is not available in lower-paying jobs.

Some women get around the unpaid issue by taking out disability insurance the year they plan to get pregnant - this was actually suggested to me by the insurance company's rep when I asked about maternity leave. Because that's what childbirth is, a disability. Isn't that a lovely message to send?

Now, I haven't birthed a child yet myself, but for the past two years I've watched my sister go through the ordeal. It's not a walk in the park, and she didn't even have any complications from her pregnancy. My nephew did cause a few problems after he was born - when he was three days old he had jaundice, and had to be in the hospital for three days. He probably doesn't remember much of those days, but they were utter hell on his mother.

When he was two months old, he had to go back to the hospital for an entire week thanks to a urinary tract infection. My sister's lucky enough that she was not working at the time, but most mothers can't afford that luxury (I won't be able to, when I have my little ones). If you've done the math, you've realized two months is past the traditional six-week maternity leave time frame.

A friend of mine is currently in the hospital on mandatory bedrest until her triplets are born. She's been there 2-3 weeks already, and the doctors are hoping she and the babies make it another 3 weeks before they're born... so that's six weeks of maternity leave gone before the babies are show up.

Six weeks of unpaid maternity leave is a joke. If the United States is such a progressive country, how can we be treating our mothers this way?

I didn't think much of it until I came across this blog post, asking the readers if pregnant women deserved special job protection (a touchy subject in this economy), and the first commenter mentioned that Chile, that skinny little country all the way down there in South America, has some extremely mom-friendly labor laws concerning maternity leave.

According to the Chilean Embassy, maternity benefits in Chile include:

• State subsidized maternity leave for six weeks prior and twelve weeks subsequent to birth; in the case of death in childbirth or during postnatal leave the father has the same rights.

• Special subsidized leave for mothers in case of specific illness of a child less than one year old; transferable to the father at her option.

But folks, that's not all! In Chile, women do have special job protection:

"Chilean women are further protected by Article 186 of the law that prohibits employers from firing pregnant women and making it illegal to fire a woman who has taken maternity leave for up to a year after she has finished this leave. Article 187 prohibits pregnant women from doing any heavy work or taking on a night shift."

That's six weeks before the child is born, plus twelve more after it's arrived. 18 weeks of paid maternity leave, offered by a country your average American (USian, I should say) would classify as "third world" because it's in Latin America. Latin American culture is generally considered male-dominated and chauvinistic, and "behind the times" when it comes to women's rights... but Chile's pretty much left us progressive US citizens in the dust, hasn't it? (PS: they also have a woman president.)

So, my friend with the triplets? She should have moved to Chile before getting pregnant. I haven't asked the details of her maternity leave arrangements, but I'll bet you a year's worth of diapers (yes, for all three kids) that it's not as cushy as what a mom in Santiago gets.

And as if that weren't enough, she doesn't have to worry about losing her job because of cut-backs of lay-offs or because she's taking too much time off to sit with her child in the hospital while he's receiving IV treatments for a UTI. If she does get laid off, the company must pay her salary for a year after she returns (or would have returned) from maternity leave.

The United States needs to realize that while we may have been ahead of other countries when it came to women's rights and other issues, we have not kept it up. Other countries are catching up and leaving us in the dust. If you really meant what Hallmark printed on that card you gave Mom last Sunday, let's do something about it and ask our government to take care of our new moms