National Day to Combat the Culture of Racism – Warning that combatting the culture of racism that is entrenched in society requires changing not only laws and institutions, but also hearts and minds, philanthropic leaders have convened a national day of activities to promote racial healing. National organizations and local governments joined the call to commemorate the second National Day of Racial Healing the day after Martin Luther King Day. Luz Benítez Delgado, a program officer at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, says that this work is about helping change the national conversation and healing the wounds left by centuries of racism.
New Agenda to Address the Problems of Impoverished and Segregated County – Fresno County, a rural area in California’s Central Valley, is one of the poorest and most polluted in the country. Black and Latino residents there suffer disproportionately from poverty and pollution, as the county is among the ten most racially unequal in California. In 2018, community groups in Fresno are getting ready to continue putting the issues affecting the poorest on local government agendas, encouraged by a recent ambitious investment plan to promote social development in the city’s most marginalized and segregated district. Rubén Tapia reports.
Deportations Threaten Remittances that Sustain Millions in Guatemala – Guatemala’s economy relies heavily on remittances sent home from the United States by migrants, which, according to economists, reached $8 billion last year. The impact of these remittances is evident in Mayan communities in the western part of the country that have been marginalized and ignored, triggering mass migration to the north in recent decades. However, with the tightening of immigration policy under President Trump, many fear the loss of their livelihoods in the north. Maria Martin joins us from a Mayan community in Guatemala.
