MANCHESTER – Nearly two dozen people celebrated the raising of the Salvadoran flag in Manchester this month as part of Hispanic Heritage Month (HHM). State Representative Maria Perez, a Salvadoran native from Milford, organized the event.

Perez told NHPR that her goal was to include Latinos and people from other cultures. “I don’t want [other] groups that are underrepresented to feel excluded,” she said.

According to a Pew Research Center analysis of the U.S. Census Bureau, an estimated 2.5 million Hispanics of Salvadoran origin resided in the United States in 2021. Approximately 63,000 Hispanics and Latinos are living in New Hampshire. Just over 1,300 of them are from El Salvador.

Mayor Joyce Craig said Salvadorans contribute to the city with businesses, industry, art, faith, education, and politics. Craig noted Manchester has put forward a Multicultural Advisory Board, and she would like to support similar initiatives at the state level.

Photo: Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig with State Representative Maria Perez, Milford (Credit: Rep. Maria Perez)

The first Salvadorans to the United States before the El Salvador Civil War (1979–1992) began arriving primarily in San Francisco, where they worked as shipyard employees in the early twentieth century. During the ongoing civil war for about 12 years, approximately 1 million Salvadorans fled seeking refuge; about 50 percent immigrated to the United States. Over the past 20 years, more Salvadorans have immigrated to the U.S. due to social inequality, disputes over social and political issues, and increased violence.

The Salvadoran diaspora in the U.S. has established a few large and well-funded organizations. The Salvadoran American Humanitarian Foundation, ENLACE El Salvador, Salvadoran American Leadership & Educational Fund, El Rescate, and Christians for Peace in El Salvador are among them.

Perez emigrated from El Salvador 20 years ago, escaping violence and looking for a better life for herself and her family. The struggles of her fellow compatriots that she knows firsthand are not far from her thoughts. “It wasn’t easy to get here,” she told WMUR. “But I always remind myself I am here because I got the opportunity to be here.”

She grew up in the 1980s during the height of guerilla warfare in El Salvador, witnessing brutal acts of violence. At age 16, her family sold her for an arranged marriage in the United States. Perez said it was not her choice, but got her away from her father’s abuse and the war.

Her arranged marriage lasted 11 years and gave her two children. Perez earned degrees from Nashua Adult Learning and Nashua Community College.

Perez has turned to politics to represent others who need help. She said she wants to be a voice for Latinos and for people in rural communities struggling to be heard.

At the flag-raising ceremony, Perez honored her country by wearing a white embroidered blouse and a red skirt with indigenous patterns from El Salvador. The Central American country celebrates its independence on September 15, the first day of HHM.

Cover Photo Credit: Rep. Maria Perez

“As the United States grapples with worsening polarization and seemingly intractable conflict, the Solutions Journalism Network (SJN) is thrilled to announce its second class of Complicating the Narratives (CTN) Fellows,” writes Julia Hotz, Fellowship Manager with SJN.

Eleven journalists, representing a wide variety of geographies and communities, will spend the next 12 months using CTN techniques and interview questions to report on solutions to some of the nation’s most divisive issues, with communities historically misrepresented by media and misunderstood by audiences. In the Meet The 2023 Fellows post, Hotz shares that “topics for our fellows’ projects range from gender-affirming care to wildfire management; the goal is to replace polarization, problems and simplicity with understanding, solutions and complexity.”

Hugo Balta, Publisher of the Latino News Network (LNN) is a CTN Fellow. “Mainstream news more often than not focuses on extreme views creating a false impression of divergence that bolsters fear and distrust,â€� Balta. “Elaborate ideas and points of view require more than overly simplistic bite sized misleading narratives served up by the establishment.â€� Balta’s CTN project will explore conflict and solutions surrounding health insurance access and inequities.

CTN helps journalists to find new ways to report on controversial issues and polarizing politics. It draws on the experience of experts in conflict mediation. When reporters use these strategies, they listen better, ask more revealing questions, effectively introduce opposing viewpoints, and embrace nuance in their reports. They learn to tell more accurate, richer, and fuller stories.

The SJN trainings are centered around the four pillars of CTN which focus on skills and techniques including:

• Listening differently through the technique of Looping
• Going beneath the problem by asking interview questions that probe and uncover motivations rather than positions
• Framing and covering stories from a different lens; stories that embrace complexity and provide necessary context
• Countering confirmation bias in our audience and ourselves through infographics, inclusive events and exercises that check journalist blind spots

LNN has been chosen to participate in SJN fellowships before. Last year, LNN participated in the Democracy SOS fellowship supporting reporters and editors in significantly strengthening journalism’s role in advancing our democracy through innovative approaches that build civic engagement, equity, and healthy discourse. In 2021, Connecticut Latino News (CTLN) was among the newsrooms chosen to be part of the Advancing Democracy project. CTLN produced a special series exploring responses to why Hispanics-Latinos don’t vote by engaging with thought leaders in Connecticut and drawing from the best practices and lessons learned in communities across the country. 

This year, Belen Dumont, Writer/Editor with LNN East is a fellow in the Democracy SOS fellowship. Dumont’s project will focus on affordable housing.

Balta is an accredited solutions journalism trainer. He recently led “Solutions journalism: New ways of elevating your reporting and engaging audiences”, a free online course hosted by the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas.

Balta will be leading the “Fair, Accurate And Ethical Storytelling: How To Serve Your Latinx Community With Solutions Journalism” at the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ) Conference in Miami, Florida on July 13.

Publisher’s Notes: NH Latino News is part of the Latino News Network.

LNN Spotlight focuses on major issues important to local Hispanic/Latino and underrepresented communities — stay updated on the monthly series by following us on Spotify, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, and Radio Public.

On this episode of LNN Spotlight, Writer/Editor Belén Dumont speaks with AARP New Hampshire State Director Christina FitzPatrick on the invisible work of family caregivers and the types of resources available to them.  

The total amount of unpaid care New Hampshire residents provided for their loved ones in 2021 carried a value of $2.8 billion, an increase of $500 million since 2019, according to an AARP report released in March. 

Currently, more than half of Millennial family caregivers identify as people of color, while an increasing 27 percent identify as Latino, according to the U.S. Census. Further research shows that about 75 percent of Latino caregivers are women and are likely to be in their early to mid-40s. 

As a variety of federal and state-level initiatives look to address the growing financial and emotional stress New Hampshire caregivers are experiencing, community organizations are calling for culturally-informed policies that look at the specific needs and experiences of different communities. 

“There’s a real cultural component to how people perceive this role as caregiver,� FitzPatrick said. “So, I’m looking at it and thinking about how difficult it is and it is difficult. But in the Latino community, in particular, there is more of a sense that this is a duty and something that people want to live up to rather than seeing it as a burden or something that they have to do.�

In the interview, Dumont also shared her experiences as a bicultural Latina who watched her family care for all four of her grandparents at home. Listen to learn why she sees “pride� in the family caregiver role. 

The COVID pandemic continues to impact family caregivers as it has “disrupted the work patterns and the apparatus that family caregivers had created to help them maintain a balance in their lives,â€� FitzPatrick explained. 

It’s common for family caregivers to work full-time or continue their education while caring for a loved one. Many of these individuals learn to single-handedly juggle multiple schedules and responsibilities at a time, creating a delicate system around them.

FitzPatrick pointed out that “…Hispanic caregivers are more likely than others to be working full-time and they’re more likely than others to be caring both for their own children and for an older relative at the same time.â€� 

According to FitzPatrick, organizations that work with family caregivers are more likely to meet the needs of their clients and understand their perspectives when their staffs are increasingly diverse.

“It’s diversity in all its forms,� she said. “There are differences between people who live in rural areas than people who live in urban areas, people who have kids living at home and people who don’t, people who don’t speak English and people who do.�

FitzPatrick added that all employers can greatly support their employees by providing them with some flexibility so they can better balance their work and caregiving responsibilities.

“It really helps out the worker and the worker’s family and also really helps people to feel more loyal to their employers and in the long run that means you’re reducing turnover,� she said.

Learn more by listening to the full conversation and checking out the March 2023 report at www.aarp.org/

Publisher’s Note: AARP New Hampshire and New Hampshire Latino News are partners in providing greater visibility and voice to local Hispanic-Latino communities. 

March is Women’s History Month. It celebrates women’s contributions, struggles, blocked opportunities, and ultimate triumphs.

It is also a time for issuing empty promises that things will improve, a refrain often heard but only partially fulfilled.

For Latinas, Women’s History Month presents a vivid reminder of the barriers and challenges they face. The discussions, campaigns, and commitments to action marginalize their stories and struggles.

Equal Pay Day epitomizes this sharply: “This date symbolizes how far into the year women must work to earn what men earned in the previous year.â€�

In March 2023, March 14th was Equal Pay Day, an embarrassment and a mark of economic inequality and inequity that defines many women’s lives today.

But Equal Pay Days for Latinas and Black women do not appear in the Equal Pay Day story. Equal Pay Day for Black women is September 21, 2023. In 2023, Latinas will reach Equal Pay Day on October 8.

While the start of Spring marks Equal Pay Day for all women, for Latinas, it appears as stores decorate for Christmas.

This economic fact fails to appear in the mainstream media narrative during this month celebrating women. This absence underscores the invisibility of the struggles, inequities, and barriers that cripple Latinas.

Other examples of Latina invisibility are equally jarring. The Latina maternal mortality rate is the most poignant.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently released the latest maternal mortality rates.

The data horrifies.

Between 2018 and 2021, overall maternal mortality increased by 89 percent, while Whites saw a 79% increase and Blacks 70%.

A 2022 article notes that the annual number of maternal mortalities in the U.S. has doubled over 20 years. The United States, Afghanistan, and Sudan are the only countries with increasing maternal mortality rates.

Armed with this data, media and political leaders in wealthy civil society have alighted on two alarming and unacceptable points.

First, the U.S. maternal mortality rate is 55th globally, greater than Russia, in a nation that purports to care about women, children, and families.

Second, the Black maternal mortality rate at 69.9 per 100,000 live births is the highest among racial/ethnic groups. This fact is deplorable on both moral and social levels.

Yet scant attention is directed to the disturbing and frightening situation of a continual significant increase in the Latina maternal mortality rate, data found in that same CDC report:

Between 2020 and 2021, there was a 53.8 percent increase in the maternal mortality rate for Latinas. This is the most significant increase among racial/ethnic groups.

Between 2018 and 2021, Latinas experienced a 137 percent increase in maternal mortality. Again, the largest increase among racial/ethnic groups.

This dramatic increase in the Latina maternal mortality rate is a harbinger of economic, social, familial, and personal consequences that will reverberate throughout society.

The health of women and children represents a key index of the health of a nation. The overall U.S. maternal mortality rate and the alarming high increase in the Latina rate are symptoms of a disordered society that disinvests in women, children, and families and a failing healthcare system.

The continual increase in maternal mortality rates — especially the accelerated rate increase among Latinas — indicates an insidious malignancy impacting the well-being of mothers, children, families, and society. While some aspects of this problem have been identified, the invisibility of Latinas conceals the gravity of their condition.

Each of us will pay the price for this invisibility.

For Latinas, the lesson is that their challenges and barriers and the inequities endemic to their lives are far more significant than is commonly acknowledged. Rectifying these endemic inequities requires Latinas be made visible. The inequities affecting Latinas must move from the margins to the center of policy agendas to ensure economic, housing, health, education, and workforce equity.

As Women’s History Month winds down, it is time to take on the task of equity for all women all year around — and not just talk about it during March.

Until there is equity for all women, there will be equity for no women.

Publisher’s Notes: Women’s History Month: Latina Invisibility was first published on The Edge.

Noreen M. Sugrue is currently the Director of Research at the Latino Policy Forum. Before joining the Latino Policy Forum, she was a professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is the author or co-author of many articles and book chapters. Her international and domestic research focuses on immigration, immigrants, gender, health care, and the workforce centering on inequity, inequality, and distributive justice. In addition, she analyzes and evaluates the construction and implementation of social policies to address and redress inequities.

Do you have an idea for an Opinion-Editorial? We want to hear from you. Email us at Info@LatinoNewsNetwork.com

New Hampshire Latino News produces and amplifies stories focused on the responses to the social determinants of health. A key social determinant, Health Access & Quality is defined as the extent to which people have equitable, affordable and available access to needed healthcare services. This definition includes both physical accessibility and availability via financial means, transportation options, and other factors.

The federal government announced at the end of 2022 that it will be ending continuous Medicaid enrollment. For over 72,800 Granite Staters, that means their coverage will be gone if they don’t contact the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) by March 31.

This continuous enrollment, a provision of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, allowed millions of Americans to remain on Medicaid without having to show that they still qualify. Starting April 1, the DHHS will return to its annual redetermination process, in which recipients will have to prove their eligibility for the first time since before the Covid-19 pandemic. 

With the March 31 redetermination deadline rapidly approaching, the department is sending out yellow letters to New Hampshire residents that need to complete this process. State Medicaid Director Henry Lipman said that NH EASY users may receive an electronic copy of the letter as well.

The letters state in bold, “Continuous Medicaid coverage is ending,â€� and include instructions and resources to navigate redetermination. 

“It’s going to be important for Medicaid beneficiaries to watch their mail, email and text messages for notices from the state and to complete their Medicaid renewals in order to avoid a gap in their health coverage,� said D.J. Bettencourt, deputy insurance commissioner of New Hampshire.

The over 72,000 recipients that haven’t yet completed this process ahead of March 31 will lose their Medicaid coverage if they don’t meet this deadline. That’s why Lipman said it’s important for recipients to look out for these yellow notices. 

“All of the notices related to eligibility, everything now going forward is yellow during this unwind period,â€� he said. 

Lipman said his department has been mindful of New Hampshire’s Latino and Spanish-speaking communities when coordinating this outreach campaign. Between eight and nine percent of New Hampshire Medicaid recipients are Hispanic. That’s much lower than the national average, but still a point of emphasis for Lipman and his team.

“We don’t have the necessary ethnicity data to send it out directly [to the households that need it], but we’ve made the letter available and prominent on our website in Spanish,â€� he said. “We’ve worked in the past with New Hampshire Public Radio and their Spanish news component. We do try to have sensitivity not only to people who speak Spanish, but to other languages.â€� 

In preparation for an expected wave of last-minute redetermination requests, Lipman said the department increased call center capacity so recipients can have the chance to qualify. 

But not everyone who completes redetermination on time will be able to keep their existing Medicaid coverage. In fact, many won’t qualify to stay on Medicaid and will have to seek out alternative health insurance options. 

To help with the search, New Hampshire’s DHHS recognizes two services as the state’s Health Insurance Navigators: First Choices Services and Health Market Connect, both of which offer services in English and Spanish.

“Our goal is to find, connect with and enroll as many New Hampshire residents in whatever qualifying plan that they’re eligible for,â€� said Eli Cohn, navigator with Health Market Connect. “So if they’re continuing to be eligible for Medicaid, we want to keep them on Medicaid… if not, we want to get them on a healthcare plan on heathcare.gov.â€�  

Cohn expects to be helping many state residents whose incomes are now too high to stay qualified for Medicaid.

“If they need to transition out of Medicaid because they’re over income, we can get them into a Marketplace plan that’ll still offer them some financial support,â€� he said. 

Cohn said that Health Market Connect hasn’t gotten a lot of calls just yet about the March 31 redetermination, specifically. He anticipates that will change in the near future as recipients start reacting to the letters.

“I think it’s going to pick up really, really soon,â€� he said. “It feels, to a lot of people, this yellow letter looks a little threatening… A lot of the job is going to be emotional sensitivity, helping people find the peace of mind that they’re looking for by getting themselves covered.â€� 

Benefits will end gradually for those who no longer qualify, however. Lipman said that they will remain usable for one year after a person has been ruled no longer eligible. 

Additionally, the state will leave children, people in long-term care settings and other vulnerable individuals to be evaluated towards the end of this Medicaid unwind, a process expected to take about one year. This way, these groups have more time to seek alternative healthcare options, if necessary.

Resources:

First Choice Services; 1-877-211-NAVI or (603) 931 3858; https://acanavigator/com/nh/home

Health Market Connect; 1-800-208-5164; https://hmcnh.com

Federal Health Insurance Marketplace; https://www.healthcare.gov

Marketplace Call Center; 1-800-318-2596 (TTY: 1-855-889-4325)

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Cover photo: TaxRebate.org.uk