Cafeteria Man is a 65-minute documentary about one school district’s move toward a healthier and more sustainable food program. The film is an inspiring portrayal of the possibilities, as well as a realistic view of the challenges of transforming school food, and the importance of local leadership from parents, students and others to overcome these challenges.

Cafeteria Man follows chef Tony Geraci’s ambitious efforts in Baltimore City Public Schools, a large urban district that serves 83,000 students. Responding to student complaints about the unappealing, pre-plated food being served, Baltimore hired Geraci as Food and Nutrition Director of the city’s schools. Chef Geraci launched a sweeping, multi-faceted plan to transform not just what students eat, but their whole relationship to food. His vision included student-designed meals, locally sourced foods, nutrition education in the classroom, and school vegetable gardens.

Specialty Studios invites you to host a screening of Cafeteria Man to spark collective discussion about what’s possible in YOUR community and to inspire local change.  Organizing a screening event can help bring together the different constituencies you need to make change in school food programs — parents, students, sympathetic staff, childhood health organizations and local farmers.

Use the free downloadable event & school action guide and publicity materials to help you organize an effective screening, and find the resources & tools you need to radically improve the quality of food served in your school or district. 

Not only will our children’s health improve but, according to the California Department of Education, over 77 percent of students in environment-based education programs, such as school gardens, scored higher than their peers across all standardized tests, had higher grade point averages, and greater self-confidence and social skills. 

Lawmakers take heed!

The failure to pass background checks provoked a wild rumpus across the land, in some places directly against the lawmakers who voted against background checks. For example, in New Hampshire, Sen. Kelly Ayotte faced intense public confrontations by gun violence survivors, and her favorability ratings fell a whopping 15 points. The backlash against Sen. Jeff Flake in Arizona was so great, that on his Facebook page he admitted that his vote helped place him “somewhere just below pond scum.”

The uproar is keeping gun policy reform alive, and now there are movements for stronger background check laws in both the Senate and the House. Reps. Pete King (R-NY) and Mike Thompson (D-CA) have introduced a House version of a bill for strengthening background checks, which is already being co-sponsored by more than 170 House members. The more House members co-sponsor the bill, the more likely it is to advance and get a vote.

On the Senate side, five – just five – “nays” stopped background checks from going forward. Senate leaders have promised to bring background checks back for reconsideration if it looks like they can find the supporting votes.  Several Senators are said to be re-considering their positions. And we know the Senate is looking to the House, too, to gauge how strong the momentum is for passing new background check legislation. More leadership from the House will send a critical message to the Senate that this issue isn’t going away and elected officials who listen to their constituents will be out in front of this issue.

More than 30 people are killed with guns each day in our nation, according to the CDC. On June 14, just a few weeks away, we’ll be marking the sixth month anniversary of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings, nearly the fifth month anniversary of the tragic death of Hadiya Pendleton, and wondering what our elected representatives have done so far to reduce gun violence. In those same six months, gun violence will have taken more than 4,000 lives – people who were loved, needed and valued by their families and communities.

Enough is enough.

Now is the time to be heard. Together, we must continue the wild rumpus as we think about the safety of our children and communities. Together, we’ll be a strong voice for safer kids and safer communities.

Please click here to urge Members of the U.S. House of Representatives to co-sponsor the Thompson-King Amendment for stronger background checks and keep meaningful gun policy reform moving forward.

TAKE ACTION NOW!

MomsRising offers a special opportunity to write about what prosperity and good fortune means for my family. My sister, Anabel Mariko (“Ana”) and I, Isabel Yuriko (“Isa”), were born in California to a German father and Japanese mother back in 1972. My mother always said, “Don’t forget where you come from,” so we grew up speaking Japanese in the home, eating Japanese food, and traveling to Japan regularly. With our Asian identity deeply engrained in who we are, we can appreciate how our fate has been blessed with good fortune and prosperity.

Our stories are not typical of many other Asian American women. We are only mothers of four-legged children, and our American Dream has been fulfilled simply by being able to say that we are still alive. You see, my twin and I were born with cystic fibrosis (CF), a genetic lung disease that is extremely rare in Asians. Doctors told my parents that we’d be lucky to reach ten years of age. As you can imagine, my mother was devastated about the possibility of losing her daughters young. This illness forced her to grow up; she emerged from a passive, disenfranchised Japanese woman to an assertive, educated respiratory therapist and medical social worker. She is the heroine of our story.

With Asian-style discipline, we persevered through time-consuming, daily medical treatments and lengthy hospital stays in order to defy these odds. Our illness shaped our characters in profound ways. First, like most Japanese, I was raised to feel ashamed and embarrassed by my illness. My mother put double-paned windows just in our bedroom so the neighbors wouldn’t hear us cough. We hated to feel different from our healthy peers and hated being misunderstood. We coughed often, but it wasn’t our fault. The illness made us feel inferior, until we met other kids with cystic fibrosis and learned that we were not alone. Over time, our bodies slowly weakened, but we focused on our strengths. We could study. Our focus on academics led us to Stanford University, and then to the University of California, Berkeley, where Ana studied genetic counseling and I studied social work.

Our two-some eventually became a quad. I married my college sweetheart, Andrew Byrnes, in 1998, and Ana married Trent Wallace in 2010. These men have proved that love defies all else; the desire to have children, to grow older together, to earn double incomes didn’t matter to these remarkable men. Our partners held us up during declining health, lung failure and watched our rebirth through double-lung transplants.  Since Ana’s lung transplant in 2000, and mine on February 6, 2004, we can now breathe deeply for the first time in our lives. We became competitive athletes and have returned to work- Ana is a genetic counselor and I am a hospice social worker. With such an extraordinary resurrection, we had to tell people about our miracle. The Japanese shyness about our illness took a 180 degree turn, and we published a memoir (The Power of Two: A Twin Triumph over Cystic Fibrosis, University of Missouri Press, 2007), volunteer for CF and organ donation awareness, and lecture publicly around the country and in Japan.

Several year after our transplants, after writing thank you letters and sending them to the California Transplant Donor Network, Ana and I both receive responses from our donor families. My sister’s lungs came from a 29 year old man in Oregon who died from a brain aneurysm. I learned that my lungs came from an 18-year-old Mexican-American man who became brain-dead after a car accident. He told his mother once that he wanted to donate his organs to help people.  These two families continue to grieve for their loved ones. Death is final and tragic. Yet, organ donation is the only positive aspect of their deaths. We breathe in gratitude each day because of their gifts of life. Organ donors represent the highest form of humanity.

As half-Asian women, we feel it’s especially important to show the Asian community that organ donation is a good thing. Our book was translated into Japanese (Mirakuru Tzuinzu (ミラクルツインズ, Iwanami, 2009). We visited Japan in October 2009, and brought a documentary film crew with us. During our book tour, the film crew captured compelling stories about Japan’s struggle with organ donation.  Like many other Asian cultures, Japanese culture has many superstitions around death, such as the deceased body should not be touched after death, that the soul remains in the body, or that the body belongs to the ancestors. In Asian culture, talking about death is bad luck, and believed to make it happen. There has been limited education about brain death and the organ donation process to get rid of myths that permeate society. Many Japanese transplant recipients are too embarrassed to share their stories, and yet, personal stories are the engines behind social change. The Japanese seem to focus on the donor – is he really dead? Will his spirit be troubled? Yet, there are thousands of people dying who could otherwise be saved with an organ transplant. To me, when a person dies, it is a shame to simply cremate the corpse, or put it into the ground, while there’s a chance to help someone else. So a focus on the potential recipients is critical— and on the mothers, like mine, whose child will die without an organ donor.

Ana and I target our advocacy efforts on Asian-American and minority communities, where organ donation consent rates are low. Here in the U.S., there are more minorities waiting for transplants than there are minority organ donors. There are so many stereotypes about Asian Americans: that they care more about S.T.& E: shopping, travel and entertainment. Well, I believe we have deeper values. We are also smart enough to get the facts. Health matters to everyone, regardless of culture, and it is just a matter of proper access to education across all levels of acculturation. I also believe that Asian Americans are the most generous people around. So there is tremendous potential to properly educate Asian Americans about this life-saving health issue called organ donation. Thankfully, our documentary film, “The Power Of Two,” will premier on KCET and LinkTV starting this May, in time for Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. Please check out http://thepoweroftwo.tv and be inspired to give the gift of life.

While many Asian Americans in the United States have illness stories, it’s an honor to share our unique story: how our fate cursed us with genetic illness and blessed us with twinship; how double trouble became double fortune, thanks to our organ donors.

Thanks for reading our blog. I wish you many deep, healthy breaths in your life.

With love and gratitude,

Isa Yuriko (and Ana Mariko too!)

For information on organ donation, see: www.donatelifeamerica.net

For Information about cystic fibrosis, see: www.cfri.org

Washington, D.C.—The National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health (NLIRH) commends the Senate Judiciary Committee for its passage of the Senate bill for immigration reform, the “Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act” (S. 744). The group expressed concern, however, that the bill moves forward without two major civil and human rights considerations for aspiring citizens: access to affordable health care and equal rights for binational gay and lesbian couples.

“While we support the advancement of the Senate immigration reform bill, we are deeply discouraged and disappointed that the Senate Judiciary Committee has disregarded the health care needs of immigrant women and families and the civil rights of gay and lesbian binational couples. The ability of aspiring citizens to be healthy and productive and of all families to stay together are basic civil rights issues that must be addressed as the immigration reform debate advances,” said Jessica González-Rojas, executive director of NLIRH.

On Tuesday night, S. 744 was voted out of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 13-5 vote. In the current Senate bill, aspiring citizens on the roadmap to citizenship are excluded from affordable health care options, like Medicaid, for the entire duration of their provisional immigration status and face an additional five-year bar under current law. The bill also excludes aspiring citizens from the gains of the Affordable Care Act during their period in provisional status. As such immigrant women and families may be waiting up to 15 years or more before they can access affordable health insurance and see a doctor.

The legislation also advances without ensuring fair and equal treatment of binational gay and lesbian couples. Senator Mazie Hirono (D-HI) and Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) have offered amendments to improve the Senate bill, and have urged members of the Committee and Senate to address health and LGBTQ inclusion moving forward.

The exclusion of health care access and gay and lesbian families in the Senate bill is out of touch with our country’s values. A majority of Americans support aspiring citizens’ inclusion in affordable health coverage options. In May, 164 organizations urged the Senate Judiciary Committee to address the restrictions and lift the 5-year bar currently imposed on aspiring citizens’ access to affordable health coverage programs like Medicaid. Additionally, a majority of Latinos support the inclusion of gay and lesbian families in immigration reform.

“The Committee’s decision to exclude aspiring citizens from access to affordable health care and fair treatment is harmful, unwise and short-sighted. We know that our families, communities, and economy benefit when families can be together and live healthy, full lives. We urge members of the Senate to work with Senators Hirono, Leahy and others as the bill moves to the Senate floor to resolve these issues and ensure that all families in the United States can live with health, dignity and justice,” González-Rojas said.

After the birth of our first child, those days were colored with our excitement, naivete, and grueling sleep-deprivation – the hazing of new parents.

I felt like a zombie after weeks of waking to nurse and burp the baby every 2-3 hours. I was commended all around for breastfeeding our son, but

(c) Toshimasa Ishibashi

the truth is that it took support. I would barely have had the time to prepare a meal consisting of more than toast or take a sip of water without a supportive partner. As breastfeeding advocates, we celebrate that breastmilk is virtually free, but what about the economic costs to families if mom needs to be home without paid leave to get it going?

My husband took family leave from his job to support the growth of our family. We had carefully planned our leaves by cobbling together a patchwork of time from borrowed paid sick days, temporary disability pay (for pregnancy recovery) and limited unpaid leave days under the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA). The trouble with this tapestry is that it required us to borrow from our future to invest time in the present. The time we took off under FMLA secured our positions at work, but threatened to destabilize our economic foundation as we lived off of savings. Furthermore, borrowing paid sick days meant that once we were back at work, we would not have sick days to use when we or our children inevitably became ill.

(c) Dustin Ground

Among American families, we were lucky! Only 11 percent of families in the U.S. have access to paid family leave through their employers. Over 60 percent lack access to personal medical leave in the form of temporary disability through their employers. Shockingly, the United States is far behind the rest of the world as the only industrialized nation without paid family leave. So, it should come as no surprise that there is still an uphill battle for families to assemble the structure needed to support breastfeeding for longer than a couple of weeks.

For our Father’s Day blog carnival, we invite fathers to share their stories about how paid family leave – or a lack of it – impacted their relationship with their newborn(s) and partner. Below are some possible topics about paid family leave to get you started, but your creativity is welcome:

• Time to take up more household responsibilities after birth
  

  (c) Toshimasa Ishibashi

• Tales from tag-team feeding sessions overnight (ie, burping, diaper changing, sleep deprivation, etc.)
• Attending appointments with doctors, lactation consultants, etc. to support mom through health or breastfeeding challenges
• Staggering family leaves to delay baby’s start at day care
• Using family leave as a gay dad
• Using family leave as an adoptive parent of an older child
• Needing family leave after birth complications
• Supporting mom through postpartum depression

To have your family’s story featured in the Father’s Day blog carnival, email it to us at info@momsrising.org by Tuesday, June 4, 2013.

(c) Matt Kangas

SAN ANTONIO, Texas — I just got back from the 4th annual Salud America! Latino health summit. Researchers, policy analysts, public health advocates and elected leaders gathered to discuss the most pressing health concerns facing the U.S. Latino community.

Once under the auspice of “childhood obesity”, grassroots activists and researchers painted a much broader and more complex picture: many of the health challenges facing the Latino community is systemic and environmental. We must implement policies that bring physical education back to schools; build parks and bike lanes to promote outdoor activity; make sure that all communities have access to fresh produce; and curb junk food marketing to children — which is increasingly becoming digital and harder for parents to monitor on their own.

“Don’t reduce obesity to a disease that needs to be cured,” said Dr. George Flores, program manager for The California Endowment’s Healthy California Prevention team. “It’s an opportunity for equity.”

Photo on right: Here is a man who takes public health very seriously: New York Assemblyman Félix Ortiz. From the time he was a child and circulated his first public petition asking the Governor of his native Puerto Rico to support the formation of a youth baseball league, he has successfully helped draft and implement public health policies in New York: the first law in New York — and the country! — to prohibit hand-held cell phones while driving; a law that provides farmers with economic relief by requiring schools to purchase locally grown produce; a law to ensure that nutritionally based education programs be a part of every classroom; and a law to create five eating disorder centers across the state to help those who suffer from eating disorders like bulimia and anorexia.

Latinos are the largest minority group in the country, accounting for 50.5 million people in 2010. “The increasing presence of Latinos in the United States will impact all institutions,” said Dr. Rogelio Sáenz, Dean of the College of Public Policy at the University of Texas at San Antonio.

I was heartened by the promising statistics and stories that came out of the summit. The high school dropout rate among Latinos in the last 10 years has been cut in half and Latino youth are going to college at a faster rate than even their Caucasian counterparts. The Latina teen pregnancy rate and fertility rate, in general, has dropped with upward mobility.

In terms of health epidemics facing the community, such as type 2 diabetes and heart disease, there is a lot of grassroots energy on the ground to turn this around. Latino elected officials with the help of their constituents are helping transform “food deserts” and neighborhoods dotted by crime and blight into healthy-living hubs. Latino youth and parents especially are empowered and demanding that healthy food options be available in their local supermarkets and schools.

Photo on left: Dr. Amelie G. Ramirez, Director of Salud America! and Professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, has moved mountains in the area of Latino health. All the research, the amazing speakers we got to network with and the summit could not have happened without her. Photo on right: Paul Lopez, a Denver City Council member and a member of the board of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO), gave an inspiring presentation with “before” and “after” pictures of his childhood neighborhood, which now has a grocery store, community gardens at its schools, and soon, a park.

On a personal note, it was my first time in San Antonio and I fell in love with the city. What is a health conference without downtime to explore the great outdoors? Enjoy!

Photo: The outside space of the South Texas Heritage Center at the Witte Museum is lush and beautiful. In general, I was pleasantly surprised at how much green space San Antonio had — not at all what I expected with the punishing heat.

Photos: My friend Elsa took me to Mi Tierra, a Mexican restaurant in the market and hands-down the best place I’ve eaten chicken enchiladas verdes. I loved the decor of the restaurant, too, especially the mural of Latino leaders and celebrities.

Photo: And how could I visit San Antonio without stopping at the Alamo?

The new Salud America! “Healthier School Snacks & Latino Kids” research materials, which can be found at www.salud-america.org, include:

• A research review with the latest science;
• An issue brief (lay summary of the review);
• An infographic; and
• An animated video

This is the first of six new research material packages to be released over the summer by Salud America!, each of which will focus on a specific topic on Latino childhood obesity and highlight the issue, policy implications and future research areas.

The “Healthier School Snacks & Latino Kids” package highlights the fact that young people consume a high proportion of their daily calories at school.

“Research shows that access to unhealthy snack foods and beverages in schools has a disproportionately negative health influence among Latino students, and schools with a higher proportion of Latino students tend to have weaker policies regarding access to and nutritional values of these items,” said Amelie G. Ramirez, director of Salud America!, based at the Institute for Health Promotion Research at the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio. Salud America! is a national network of stakeholders seeking environmental and policy solutions to Latino obesity.

“By 2050, 35 percent of young people in the U.S. will be Latino. Providing healthier school snacks and drinks can help make sure this growing population is healthy,” Ramirez said.

To learn more, visit www.salud-america.org.

The next steps in my journey were not easy and I fumbled a lot. A LOT. Needless to say, I did not know the first thing about eating right or exercise, but I decided that I could either accept the ailments that came with my current lifestyle or do something about them. Gradually, I started to make “better” food choices, read labels and become more educated about what I was putting in my body. Then, very apprehensively, I started to add more physical activity in my daily life.

I hope my story will help others realize how every journey to health starts with a small step and how the healthcare system can be a key partner in the path to a healthier life.

In commemoration of National Women’s Health Week, MomsRising is encouraging our members to focus on taking small steps to improve their health and to reach out to their friends and communities to join them.

One of the things I remember about my journey is that I did not do it alone. Right by my side, every step of the way, was my amazing mother. She replaced the sweets in our house with fruit, the processed cooking oils with olive oil and found alternative recipes for our family’s favorite foods. Even before I could jog or run, she walked with me around our neighborhood and encouraged me to go to the gym instead of watching TV. Most importantly, she never let me give up on my goals. I know today that I could not have done it without my mom.

One more important thing my mother provided, was coverage on her health care plan. My doctors and my nutritionist were a key support system. Once I made my decision to lose weight, we continued to monitor my health and the effects that my new regime had on my body. At each visit, we discussed the progress with my weight and the improvement of my blood pressure. Most importantly, we paid close attention that I was losing the weight the “healthy way” and taking steps to keep the weight off.

That’s why I’m excited that the Affordable Care Act is making it easier for doctors and their patients to take action to prevent health problems before they start. For many women, preventive services like mammograms, Pap smears, birth control and yearly well-woman visits are now available without cost sharing.

Moreover, starting next year, insurance companies will no longer be allowed to refuse women coverage just because we are battling breast cancer or have another pre-existing condition — and they won’t be allowed to charge us more just because we are women.

And if you’re one of the millions of women who are uninsured or who buy insurance on their own, on October 1, 2013, you will be able to visit a new Health Insurance Marketplace where you can compare and choose from a range of plans to find one that best fits your needs and budget. All of these plans must cover a package of essential health benefits, including maternity and newborn care.

To get more information about the Marketplace and to sign up for email and text updates to get ready for October, visit HealthCare.gov and check out this video message from Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius.

Being healthy starts with each of us taking control.

My journey to a “healthier me” has been a constant one. Even today, I schedule regular workouts, track my daily water intake and schedule regular check-ins with my doctor. Eventually my journey led me to lose one-hundred pounds. In 2007, I ran my first 10-mile race and I plan to run my first half marathon in January 2014. In 2008, eight years after beginning my journey, I became a personal trainer and fitness consultant to help other women like me actualize their fitness goals.

This week, millions of women from around the country are going to be taking their first steps, continuing their journeys and celebrating healthier more active lives. How will you make the most of National Women’s Health Week?

Join me and the rest of the MomsRising team in celebrating National Women’s Health Week and playing Healthy Moms BINGO! The MomsRising BINGO card lists 25 simple, healthy activities that are small, important steps we can all take to improve our health and start more healthy habits!

Originally Posted on The Huffington Post (5.17.13)

We kicked off the week with Healthy Mom’s BINGO and discussing the importance of preventive care.  In addition, on Monday – National Women’s Check-Up Day — we had a special message from the Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius highlighting the benefits and upcoming implementation of the Affordable Care Act.

On Tuesday and Wednesday we talked health, fitness and nutrition for the entire family.   We were joined on our #WellnessWed Tweetchat by Erika Kendal, author of Black Girls Guide to Fitness — @bbg2wl — to talk about nutrition and her journey to healthier eating.  Even the MomsRising team took a much needed “Dance Break.”  In addition,  we had our first ever Google Hangout on Air with guests @DubyaWife and @MyBrownBaby discussing healthy habits and next steps for living healthier lives moving forward.

We finished off the week with an amazing MomsRising Radio Show focused solely on National Women’s Health Week.

All-in-all it was an incredible week! We made doctor’s appointments, learned new recipes, started new habits and learned how to keep improving our health moving forward; including how to take advantage of current and new benefits under the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

Just in case you missed the images from last week, take a look!

This blog was originally posted on May 17, 2013 on the Huffington Post

On April 17, we at the Women’s Refugee Commission (WRC) welcomed the introduction of S. 744, the “Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013.” For those of us who are veterans of the immigration reform efforts of 2006 and 2007, this day marked a long-awaited return to a serious national conversation about our immigration system. But April 17 also represented a major step forward for the protection of immigrant women’s rights – something we at the WRC have been working towards for more than 15 years.

As we began to analyze the contents of the bill, it became clear that our efforts to bring policymakers the message that immigration reform is not comprehensive unless it includes women had begun to sink in. For the first time in the modern history of immigration reform efforts, the “Gang of Eight” Senators who drafted the legislation took seriously the need to think about the lives and experiences of immigrant women and their families, and to make sure that the contributions that immigrant women have made to this country were acknowledged and honored with an equitable and inclusive path to citizenship.

S. 744 marked a turning point in the fight for immigrant women’s rights. But the bill is not perfect. And amendments introduced by several members of the Senate Judiciary Committee to drastically narrow eligibility for legalization – and ultimately citizenship – would have a disproportionately detrimental effect on women. As the bill moves through committee and onto the Senate floor, the rights and well-being of immigrant women will depend on Senators keeping women – and women’s realities – in mind.

The face of today’s immigrant is increasingly female: Immigrant women comprise 51% of all immigrants in the United States and 100 immigrant women now arrive in the United States for every 96 men. More than 5 million women in the United States are undocumented. Legalization programs that discourage or prevent women from participating have not been – and never will be – effective.

Immigrant women’s contributions are different than but equal to men’s: Forty percent of undocumented women work in the home, caring for their children and families. Sixty percent of immigrant women work in the informal economy, where work is often temporary or unverifiable. Any legalization program that requires continuous employment or limits the documents that suffice as proof of employment will leave women out. In a survey of over 4,000 low-wage workers in the three largest cities in the U.S. – New York, Chicago and Los Angeles— 98% of undocumented nannies, 92% of maids and housecleaners, and 77% of garment workers did not receive any pay stubs. In isolated and informal workplaces it is unrealistic to expect workers to ask their employers for documentation, especially immigrant workers with such little control over the terms and conditions of their work in the first place.

To be able to legalize and get on a pathway to citizenship, women must have a fair and appropriate way to prove their physical presence, employment history and contributions: Historically, women have been disadvantaged by legalization programs in immigration reform. A comprehensive study of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) by the Urban Institute and Rand Corporation found that women faced significant difficulty proving physical presence and meeting requirements for legalization because 1) important documents such as leases, utility bills and bank accounts were in their husbands’ names and 2) many women who worked in the informal economy struggled to prove employment. Adding to these challenges, the historical devaluing of women’s work as homemakers meant that IRCA left many women behind.

S. 744 provides more opportunities for women to legalize and get on a pathway to citizenship than any prior effort at reform. But these provisions must be protected and improved: Exemptions and waivers to employment requirements for those who can demonstrate sufficient income or resources, are pregnant, on maternity leave or are primary caregivers for children will help ensure that women can renew their Registered Provisional Immigrant (RPI) status (the first step in the legalization process) and eventually earn green cards and full citizenship. Similarly, provisions that allow workers to use day labor center records and sworn affidavits to prove employment help ensure that women who work in the informal economy will not be excluded from legalization and citizenship simply because they cannot provide proof of work. Lastly, in awarding caregivers the same number of points as master’s degree holders, the new merit-based visa provisions will help ensure that work as a homemaker is not an impediment to permanency.

Legalization and the pathway to citizenship will still be harder for women than men: High fees and penalties will disproportionately disadvantage women and limit their ability to apply to achieve full citizenship because when difficult financial choices have to be made, families are more likely to preference the male members of a household. Similarly, it will be difficult for many families to overcome the public charge or income and resources requirements to earn status – even when both men and women in the household are working. In households where a woman stays home to care for children, it will be all but impossible. The 2011 deadline by which an individual must be physically present to apply for RPI status is already likely to exclude more women than men, since the number of women coming to the U.S. only recently equaled the number of men. Any further rollbacks of this date will make even more women ineligible. Lastly, the imbalance between points for caregiving and points for employment and education in the merit-based visa system risks leaving many women behind.

Amendments that limit eligibility for legalization and increase costs will undermine women’s ability to get on a pathway to citizenship and will increase the likelihood that immigration reform will exclude many women. As advocates for women’s rights, the Women’s Refugee Commission is particularly concerned about amendments that would:

• Bar anyone who was not in the U.S. before December 31, 2009 from applying for RPI status, and bar spouses and children who entered the U.S. after 2011 from being included in the principal applicant’s petition (Lee 7)

• Increase the penalty that must be paid to apply for RPI status to $5,000 (Grassley 7)

• Require individuals to maintain an income that is four times the federal poverty line (over $90,000 for a family of four) for all 10 years they are in RPI status in order to apply for permanent residence (Sessions 29)

• Raise the income requirement for RPI status renewal for those who cannot meet the employment eligibility requirement to 125% of the federal poverty line, and require that those whose eligibility depends on their income and resources maintain that income level throughout their 10 years in RPI status (Hatch 5)

• Eliminate a provision that allows workers to provide sworn affidavits instead of pay stubs to prove their work history (Grassley 13 and Lee 12)

• Make women ineligible for RPI status and permanent residence if they could become a public charge in the future (Sessions 17-19)

• Make women ineligible for RPI status or permanent residence if they are likely to need means-tested public benefits – including Medicaid, Affordable Care Act tax credits, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families or Supplemental Security Income – in the future (Sessions 25-28)

• Eliminate a provision that would allow removed parents, spouses or children of U.S. citizens or permanent residents to apply for RPI status (Sessions 24)

Fortunately, in addition to the considerable work done by the Senate Gang of 8 to make the pathway to citizenship accessible to women, there other champions for immigrant women’s rights among the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. They should be applauded for their efforts to preserve the bill’s existing legalization provisions and to build upon them in the amendment process, including by:

• Changing the date on which an individual has to be present in the U.S. to apply for RPI status from December 31, 2011 to April 17, 2013 (Blumenthal 15) or to the date of enactment of the immigration law (Feinstein 14)

• Permitting individuals who apply for RPI status to petition for spouses and children who are outside the U.S., if they meet eligibility requirements (Hirono 14)

• Modifying the penalty paid in connection with an application for RPI status (Leahy 8) and permitting the penalty to be paid in installments (Hirono 12)

These amendments are only a sampling of the more than 50 amendments that would affect women’s access to legalization. WRC’s full vote guide on women and legalization is available on our website. If your Senator is a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, we urge you to call or email them and ask them to Vote YES on amendments that strengthen protections for women and Vote NO on amendments that would leave women behind.

While we are only at the beginning of our fight for full inclusion of women in immigration reform, this is a fight we can win. We’ve come a long way already. As advocates for women’s rights, we must continue to stand together and keep the pressure on Congress to recognize that reform will not be comprehensive – or successful – unless it includes women.

Michelle Brané is director, Migrant Rights & Justice Program at the Women’s Refugee Commission. Emily Butera is senior program officer, Migrant Rights & Justice Program.