You read that right, Latino kids suffer much more from dirty air and it’s effects, such as asthma.  In fact, 60% of Latino children are more likely to suffer from asthma and other respiratory conditions as compared to non-Latino whites.  It doesn’t end there:  Latinos are three times as likely to die of asthma.

The most horrible aspect of all of this is that our community is being overly affected largely because of the areas we live in, the jobs we have and the levels of poisons we are  exposed to because of it.  It’s called Social Injustice.

I wished I could say I don’t want to alarm you, but the truth is I do.  Not in a negative, scare-your-pants-off way, but in a I-need-to-do-something-about-this way.  We all need and can do something and it can be as easy as informing yourself.

To make it even easier for you to inform yourself, the Moms Clean Air Force has put together a team of experts to talk about “The Asthma Epidemic Among Latino Kids and What Moms Can Do About It.”

This blog radio discussion will look at the connection between coal pollution and asthma, the connection between asthma and race, differences in health care given to suffering children, and what parents can do.

To be part of this interactive conversation on BlogTalk Radio, we encourage you to click here to register. You may also RSVP on Facebook here and easily share with your friends.  The louder the better.

Photo by Mike Baird

In the past months, Roxana and I have been pouring over tons of information that is making our eyes open up to the dangers associated with air pollution and mercury contamination. What has us the most worried, and motivated to act and raise awareness, is the fact that Latinos are particularly vulnerable to the effects of bad air quality because of the communities´ tendency to live in areas with high levels of pollution.

Now, a new study released by the Sierra Club has made my eyes open up even wider. This study reveals that the simple act of fishing, and eating those fish, is threatening Latinos´ health even further because of how much mercury they are consuming. In fact, the press release states that “toxic mercury pollution, which primarily comes from coal-fired plants, constitutes a clear and present danger to the health of the Latino community.”

A clear and present danger. Wow!

Fish is making us sick. But why?

What happens is that people without access to cars and boats tend to fish near their homes, most of them Latinos in urban communities. They go to their local waterways, such as canals and freshwater lakes; waters where mercury pollution levels are significantly higher.

With 76% of the Latinos that fish regularly eating and sharing what they catch with their families, the risk is much higher among our community. What they are eating is fish caught in these contaminated waters; fish laden with mercury that comes from coal-fired power plants and, if consumed daily (as many do), intaking twice the amount of mercury considered safe by the Evironmental Protection Agency´s standards.

Mercury is a neurotoxin, meaning it is a poison. Any pregnant or nursing mamá can clearly remember how many warnings we received to avoid tuna, swordfish and any fatty fish that is most likely to contain high levels of this poison. But the danger to consuming mercury doesn´t end once our children are feeding on their own. They, and us, are still ingesting mercury in so many ways.

This is all very alarming, and even infuriating, to me. I am here to tell you about it so you too can get angry and motivated to do what´s within your reach to protect Latinos, and all communities, from the harmful effects of air and water contamination. And what´s within your reach is the very simple, yet powerful, act of joining Roxana and I and signing up at the Moms Clean Air Force to make your voice count.

We’re also co-hosting a Twitter chat where you can get inspired to be an activist for whatever cause you believe in.  We are all activists, and it’s the little details that count and add up.

MCAF Twitter Chat: Finding Time for Activism
Date: Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Time: 9:00 PM EST
Location: Twitter, at #MCAF
Register here.

Disclosure:  We are receiving a small honorarium for our time writing, speaking and participating in events as part of the Moms Clean Air Force. Be sure that we would not associate our names, likeness and blog if we did not believe in the cause

Photo by edenpictures

I admit I feel very weird referring to myself as an activist or advocate of any sort.  I come from a society that believes that as a woman “calladita te ves mejor” (the quieter you are the better you look). I believed it my whole life.

I’ve never spoken up publicly for things I truly believe in.  I am completely illiterate when it comes to rallying up support to call, email and/or, much less, visit our representatives to voice my opinion. Participating in a rally, a sit-in, a march, etc is the stuff I live vicariously through others, while I ponder on how brave and hero-like they are for protesting out loud.

Meanwhile, I ignore my own voice. My every-day-louder-and-louder voice that needs to be heard.

That’s over, ¡se acabó!

Through the Moms Clean Air Force I have joined a fierce group of mothers constantly motivating and inspiring me just by being who they are and doing what they do with an untamed passion.  Women like Dominique Browning, former editor of House & Garden magazine and a New York Times contributor and best seller, who is admirable in so many ways, but even more so because she is using her influence and connections to lead a movement to carry moms’ voices to Congress in support of the Environmental Protection Agency´s new Mercury and Toxics rule to protect our kids from dangerous air pollution.

Voices like Elisa Batista, a Cuban-American mom raising two beautiful kids with her Salvadoran husband.  Elisa uses her skills as a reporter and blogger with a strong community to constantly tackle the issues moms are rising, or should be rising, to.

Estas mujeres no son calladitas y son MUY bonitas (These womern are not quiet, yet they look very good.)

They, and all the other amazing moms that are part of this movement, have opened my eyes to the fact that I DO have a voice–and it’s not a small one. I have learned that every little action counts.  That emails and letters to our Senators and Congressmen do make a collective impact. That one tweet, one update on our Facebook wall in support of our cause, one blog post, one call to a friend can open a door to awareness that wasn’t there before.

Collective marches, protests and such are powerful, but your small actions in your immediate circle of influence (and we ALL have one, either on or offline) are just as powerful.

I want to prove to you how easy it is to join a cause you can truly believe in and take action.

Since SpanglishBaby is receiving a stipend to bring awareness to the danger of mercury, coal-related emissions and other toxins polluting our air and causing horrible chronic diseases amongst us–which can all be regulated through the Clean Air Act´s new Mercrury and Toxics rule and save thousands of lives each year–I want to motivate you, as well, to join our cause and spread the word.

To do so, I am personally (from my own account) going to give away at random a $100 donation to your favorite charity if you Join the Moms Clean Air Force (MCAF) to add your voice to this powerful movement of parents supporting clean air.  Click  here to join and then come back to this post and leave a comment telling me you did so and I will select a winner from all the comments using random.org.

To receive an additional entry Like the MCAF Facebook page and leave another comment telling us you did so.

Go for it! It feels great.

This giveaway ends Tuesday, June 28 July 5th at midnight PST and is open to U.S. residents over 18 years of age.  Check out the Giveaway Rules.

Disclosure:  We are receiving a small honorarium for our time writing, speaking and participating in events as part of the Moms Clean Air Force. Be sure that we would not associate our names, likeness and blog if we did not believe in the cause.

Pretty messed up, right? But it is totally true. Before I joined the Moms Clean Air Force, I didn’t know much about the devastating effects of coal-fired power plants — especially when it comes to the Latino population.

If you care about the quality of the air our children breath in every day, then I urge you to support the work of MCAF. There are lots of things you can do to get involved from tweeting with us to writing a letter telling the EPA you support their new Mercury and Air Toxic rules which are under attack in Congress.

Can you believe some people are trying to mess with our niños right to clean air? Don’t you think that’s a basic right? We owe it to our children to do something to stop this nonsense.

If you agree, you can go here for more information on how to get involved. I promise it’ll only take a couple of minutes out of your busy life, but the rewards will be totally worth it!

However, I haven´t worked hard enough at eliminating from my home the toxic chemicals that invade the air we breathe everyday.  These are found in the paint on the walls, on the materials used to make our couches and mattresses, in the plastic from which our kid´s toys are made of, in cleaning products, air fresheners, even on the pads we use to change babies´diapers.  We´re talking nasty chemicals, lead, BPA, flame retardants and much more.

Are you as overwhelmed as I am just thinking about it?  You´re not alone.

Many of us stay inactive because we just don´t know where to start. We can´t all afford to own couches made of pure natural and organic products. We can´t all go out and buy hybrids to leave a smaller footprint.  And that´s OK. However, there are small, conscious things we can all do at home that little by little add up to a healthier lifestyle and a diminished exposure to the chemicals we breathe.

The air in most major cities is nasty enough.  Let´s together explore ways to counteract it with cleaning up the air in our homes.  As a starter, I´ve found these books that I want to explore because they are full of practical, useful, and, sometimes, shocking information to get us to act.

Better Basics for the Home

by Annie Berthold-Bond

Amazon.com review: “These days, more and more people are saying no to “better living through chemistry” and yes to a lifestyle that is less toxic and more environmentally friendly. This trend toward a more natural lifestyle has become something of a crusade for Annie Berthold-Bond, author of Better Basics for the Home….This book represents the culmination of her search for a more sustainable lifestyle. Taking her cue from an earlier time, Berthold-Bond, former editor in chief of Green Alternatives for Health and Environment, offers more than 800 simple and practical alternatives to common household toxins, covering everything from skin care to gardening. And the good news is that adopting her suggestions and formulas isn’t hard at all.”

How To Grow Fresh Air

by Dr. B.C. Wolverton

Amazon.com:  ”Plants are the lungs of the earth. This revolutionary guide, based on 25 years of research by NASA, shows how common houseplants can combat sick building syndrome and cleanse the home or office of common pollutants.”

Clean Air

by Andre Bridges

Amazon.com: “Learn how to live green in this series from noted astronaut and environmentalist, Sally Ride that is dedicated to 3 of the Earth’s main resources–air, energy, and water. Each volume describes how people use the Earth’s resources and what can be done to protect them. Packed with full-color photographs and illustrations.This volume examines how burning fossil fuels, clearing forests, and other human activities affect the Earth’s climate by contributing large amounts of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.”

Raising Elijah

by Sandra Steingraber

From Amazon.com:  ”Nothing could be more important than the health of our children, and no one is better suited to examine the threats against it than Sandra Steingraber. Once called “a poet with a knife,” she blends precise science with lyrical memoir… Now she speaks as the scientist mother of two young children, enjoying and celebrating their lives while searching for ways to protect them–and all children–from the toxic, climate-threatened world they inhabit… Through these everyday moments, Steingraber demonstrates how closely the private, intimate world of parenting connects to the public world of policy-making and how the ongoing environmental crisis is, fundamentally, a crisis of family life.”

Slow Death by Rubber Duck

by Rick Smith and Bruce Laurie

From O: The Oprah Magazine: “Slow Death by Rubber Duck. . . isn’t just alarmist environmental shock and awe. It’s a thoughtful look at how pollution has shifted over the years from something tangible and transparent (industrial pollutants as the cause of acid rain) to something abstract and nuanced (BPA’s links to breast cancer). The challenges this change presents, as many of the world’s top scientists explain in these pages, should be of serious concern to us all.”

Tengo Asma/I Have Asthma

I thought this is an excellent book for those kids that are suffering some of the consequences of our dirty and toxic air.

From Amazon.com: “The child in this story suffers from asthma, a chronic condition that sometimes produces frightening attacks. But kids learn that with proper medical supervision and treatment, asthma can be kept under control, and kids who are affected by it can live happy, active, and normal lives. As preschool and early-grades children read these illustrated What Do You Know About? Books , or have them read to them, they will be encouraged to explore their own feelings about problems that might be bothering them, or to find answers to a wide array of questions that puzzle them. The books have appealing color illustrations on every page, and each title features a short section of advice to parents. What Do You Know About? Books are available in both English and Spanish language editions.”

Join us in educating ourselves and advocating for our kid’s right to clean air and a healthy life.  Let your voice be heard amongst those in the Moms Clean Air Force.

Disclosure:  We are receiving a small honorarium for our time writing, speaking and participating in events as part of the Moms Clean Air Force. Be sure that we would not associate our names, likeness and blog if we did not believe in the cause.

Photo credit: Monica Arellana-Ongpin

Queridos hijos,

I’ve never been one to care too much about celebrations like Mother’s Day. I feel they are way too commercialized and too much effort is put into material gifts. Plus, my dad — your abuelito — used to say that Mother’s Day is everyday! But I guess you’re too young to understand any of that.

You’re also still too young to understand the perilous state of our planet. But, I’m not. I’ve called earth home much longer than you and I’m embarrassed to admit that I haven’t done much to try to make it a cleaner place for both of you… until now.

I recently accepted an invitation to become part of a group that wants to make sure parents do everything in their power to protect you, our beloved children, from toxins in both the air we breath and the water we drink. The Moms Clean Air Force was specifically created to fight against the weakening of the Clean Air Act which is under attack by politicians in Congress.

At stake are the new EPA’s Mercury and Air Toxic Standards which will prevent 17,000 premature deaths and 120,000 childhood asthma cases every year. A powerful neurotoxin, mercury can harm fetuses and the developing brains of young children. In fact, mercury pollution affects more than 400,000 newborns every year. Why anyone would fail to see the importance of the EPA’s new standards and the need for us to support them is preposterous, to say the least.

I know you have no idea what I’m talking about, but one day you will. And I want to make sure you know that, as the one who gave you life, I did everything I could to try to make this planeta a better place to live for both you and future generations.

On this Mother’s Day, the best gift I could possibly get is for all mamis and papis to heed the wise advice of this ancient Native American proverb:

“Treat the earth well: it was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children.”

We owe you y la madre tierra that much!

This post is part of the MCAF Blog Carnival: A Mother’s Day Gift. If you’d like to join the fight to treat the earth that we’re borrowing from children well, you can start by going here.

Photo by: alex-s

Once upon my life I lived in South Beach only blocks away from the turquoise Caribbean Sea.  One day, I got tired of the calmness and beauty of it all and decided I was ready to embrace a bit of chaos in my life. You know, wanting to grow up and all that.  This was before I hit my Thirties.

So, I sold everything I had, packed my bags and moved to Mexico City. Just like that. Against everyone´s advice that the city would crush my ambitions and dreams.  What they didn´t know is that I needed to be crushed.

What I didn´t realize at the time is that air quality is not to be taken for granted.  I had never lived anywhere where pollution was a problem, so I really took clean air for granted.

I lived the best and worst years of my life in Mexico City. I met my husband there.  I found my own soul there.  I grew up. This story is not a negative account about Mexico City, it´s about the fact that I learned that the air you breathe is determines the quality of your health.

Because I spent so many years breathing the air of one of the most polluted cities in the world, I learned how difficult it is to constantly wake up to a nose so stuffed you can´t breathe. Blood in my nose was not something I was used to, but it was an everyday occurrence.

On really bad days when there was tons of traffica and no wind to drive the smog cloud over the mountain ranges, you feel short of breathe (also due to the altitude, until you acclimate) and you can taste the smog in your tongue. It tastes and smells like dirt and oil.

I got used to the fact that older-model cars have one day out of the week when they can´t drive, the “Hoy No Circula” regulation.  This is done to try to eliminate the number of cars being driven and lower air pollution. It helps, but not quite.

One of the biggest reasons we left the city and moved closer to the beach was because we couldn’t stand the idea of one day raising kids in such, such dirty air.  Plus, I just couldn’t stand waking up congested and bloody.

We now live in one of the worst polluted cities in the U.S., but it is still not at the level it is in Mexico City, partly due to the fact that the smog is blown away to the beach and doesn’t just hover over like it does in D.F.

I know what dirty air tastes, smells and feels like. I don’t want it here. I don’t want it for my girl.

If you don’t want it for your children, I urge you to join us in protecting the Clean Air Act. Find out more here.

Disclosure:  We are receiving a small honorarium for our time writing, speaking and participating in events as part of the Moms Clean Air Force. Be sure that we would not associate our names, likeness and blog if we did not believe in the cause.

{© SpanglishBaby Media}

I recently found out that Latino children are 60 percent more at risk than white children to have asthma attacks. I also found out that Latinos are three times as likely as whites to die from asthma. (If you’d like to know why, please check out this article). And, I freaked out because my own daughter, Vanessa, was diagnosed with asthma almost two years ago!

Were you aware of these numbers? I wasn’t and I felt guilty. But I’ve decided to turn that guilt into action by doing what I’ve always done best: informing people. That’s always been one of my favorite parts about being a journalist because I truly believe that information is power.

Today I’ll start with a very personal story.

Two years ago this summer, when I was very pregnant with my second child, Vanessa — who was almost three at the time — wasn’t able to get over a chest cold. Or at least I thought that’s what it was. We visited her pediatrician at least every two weeks, while he tried to figure out what was going on. Mainly, she had a debilitating cough that wouldn’t go away. The worst part was that it usually kept her — and her father and a very pregnant me — awake at night. I felt like I was going out of my mind.

My husband kind of called it early on when he said the words I’d been dreading to hear since she was born: “Maybe it’s asthma.”

As a child who grew up with asthma until he was a teenager, my husband is pretty aware of what this invasive illness looks and sounds like. But I didn’t want to hear any it. I knew asthma could be hereditary and I was hoping that, because my daughter was almost three, she’d no longer be at risk.

I’ll never forget how I finally broke down a few weeks before my son was born. None of the pediatrician’s treatments were making a difference and we found ourselves back in his office one more time. (In all fairness, pediatric asthma is very difficult to diagnose). Because it was a last minute appointment, we had to be seen by a physician’s assistant. Tired of having to explain my daughter’s symptoms to yet one more person (and with my hormones raging thanks to the impending birth of my son), I lost it and demanded that something be done. Now.

The PA looked at me like I had lost my mind — and she was probably right — but I couldn’t bear to see my sweet girl go through another sleepless night due to a persistent cough that wouldn’t go away no matter what we had tried til then. I stormed out of the doctor’s office trying to make sure I kept my calm so as not to scare my daughter.

I decided right then and there that we had to get to the bottom of this and thanks to a truly helpful customer service representative at our insurance company, I was able to get an appointment for the next day with an asthma and allergy specialist at our neighborhood hospital.

I will be forever grateful to this doctor because — even though she ended up confirming what we had dreaded: Vanessa has asthma and is allergic to a bunch of environmental triggers — she opted for a very aggressive treatment involving several medicines (like albuterol and budesonide) which I’d never heard of before, and finally got rid of my daughter’s cough. We all went back to sleep and I felt like we were in control again…until the next episode, of course.

I hated having to see my tiny daughter with a nebulizer. I still do.

However, every single day I thank God that she’s never had a full-blown asthma attack like the ones her daddy has described from his childhood years. They sound terrifying and I hope we never have to go through them.

So, you see, accepting an invitation to be part of the Moms Clean Air Force is a personal thing for me.

I hope you join us in the fight to make sure the EPA continues to ensure we can all breath the cleanest air possible.

Photo of a Los Angeles sunset by Alan

Living in Los Angeles is not for the faint of heart. We live with the constant threat of tsunamis, wild fires, earthquakes (too often referred to as “The Big One”), and contaminants in our air. You can say it’s the price we pay to live in average 72-degree climate and under the most gorgeous skies, not to mention our sunsets, mountain ranges, sushi and beaches (albeit freezing waters!).

Last week was an intense one, to say the least, with the constant news barrage regarding the radiation particles coming to our coast from the tragic nuclear power plant explosions in Japan. It is devastating to see what is happening in Japan, and even more so when you can see the exact same thing happening to you at any given moment. It makes you much more aware of the planet we have been placed upon and our responsibility to it as living organisms that are here to protect it. It makes you feel more alive as part of an evolutionary chain that calls Earth a planet that is a living being, just as much as you and I. It moves, it changes, it shifts, it breathes, it evolves.

I was in this state of mind when I received an email from the Environmental Defense Fund inviting Roxana and I to join a group of moms fighting to save the Clean Air Act Amendments proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). From that email I learned that the Clean Air Act was signed into law in 1970, yet the last amendment made to it was in 1990. Twenty-one years later, a new set of rules—Mercury/Air Toxics Rule for Power Plants– have been issued by the EPA to reduce emissions of toxic air pollutants from power plants, the most dangerous being mercury, arsenic, chromium, nickel and acid gases. These toxic air pollutants are known or suspected of causing cancer and other serious health effects, like brain damage in exposed infants and asthma in children.  In fact, nearly 5 million children suffer from asthma and childhood cancer rates are rising dramatically. Roxana’s children are part of the asthma statistics.

We have decided to accept the invitation to join the Moms Clean Air Force project that aims to prevent Congress from limiting the EPA’s authority to ensure clean air for everybody, especially our kids. The Asthma and Allergy Foundation estimated that 80 percent of Latinos live in areas that failed to meet one U.S. EPA air quality standard, so the Latina moms’ voice is a critical part of this project.

We rarely get political in SpanglishBaby, but this is Earth politics and a self-empowerment issue to protect the air our children breathe. As I already mentioned, it is a personal issue for us as well since Roxana’s children (one of them my godchild) suffer from asthma, and my family lives in one of the nine most polluted places in the world and the city with the most ozone pollution in the United States; air pollution that causes 9,200 premature deaths per year in California. How’s that for this hitting close to home?

Those that know me, know that I don’t believe in coincidences. My mantra is always “everything happens for a reason.” If we are being called to speak out about and help defend the Clean Air Act as concerned parents, then there must be a higher reason for it. We hope you allow us this space and help us by speaking out, sharing our posts and commenting on the ruling.

Public Comment on the PROPOSED MERCURY AND AIR TOXICS STANDARDS

The public has 60 days to comment on the ruling, and it’s really important that as many concerned parents as possible participate in this process. Please comment by emailing the EPA.

Comment email address:  a-and-r-docket@epa.gov

Emails should reference these Docket ID numbers.

Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2011-0044 (NSPS action)
Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2009-0234 (NESHAP action)

Disclosure:  We are receiving a small honorarium for our time writing, speaking and participating in events as part of the Moms Clean Air Force. Be sure that we would not associate our names, likeness and blog if we did not believe in the cause.