By Juleyka Lantigua
Forget about your parents' dreams of you becoming a doctor or a lawyer. That's so last century. If you'd like to have a say in, and a nice chunk of the proceeds from, the U.S. economy post-bailout, you must become skilled at trading in the real currency of the coming decades: information.

Yes, folks, we are witnessing the demise of money (actual, physical and printed on paper) as the unit that determines the real-world value of goods and services. As the global economy resettles, the really valuable stuff will be information, loads and loads of it. With that in mind, I have compiled a list of 10 very hot careers that savvy folks will want to get into on the ground floor.

Forensic Accountant -- this is the guy who finds the money people and corporations try so cleverly to hide. Salary: $45,000 to $100,000

Economics Professor -- she's the one who gets the call from the Speaker of the House to make sense of a meltdown, on a global scale, of course. Salary: $54,000 to $89,000

Financial Newspaper/Magazine Editor -- he's the one who gives the rest of us a vocabulary and finance primer when stuff hits the fan. Salary: $45,000 to $75,000

Data Security Analyst -- he's the gatekeeper at the big financial houses, who keeps the hackers at bay. Salary: $67,000 to $84,000

Bank Auditor -- she's the watchdog stationed at major banks, but works for the Federal reserve. Salary: $45,000 to $55,000

Corporate Appraiser -- he's the guy who tells companies what they're worth, based on assets, liabilities, working capital and everything in between. Salary: $72,000 to $90,000

Internal Auditor (Corporate) –- she's the one who makes sure the company stays on this side of the law. Salary:  $77,500 to $101,500

Compliance Executive –- he's the one who reports to the Securities and Exchange Commission about how well the company is following corporate governance requirements. Salary: $132,500 to $181,250

Data Miner -- she's the one who uses software to dig through massive databases, crunching numbers and spotting trends used for market research, and even money-laundering rings. Salary: $60,000 to $120,000

Intellectual-Property Attorney -- he's the one who makes sure the people who manipulate the information get to own that information, and reap all the rewards. Salary: $60,000 to $86,000

"Juleyka Lantigua is a journalist and editor whose work appears in national newspapers and magazines. For more info visit: www.juleykalantigua.com."

By Juleyka Lantigua
As a newlywed, I have spent a lot of time during the presidential campaign observing the Obamas' marriage. And I have come to the conclusion it is the embodiment of a model, modern marriage.

To begin with, no one is in anyone's shadow here, even if one is running for president. And they respect each others' accomplishments.

Barack Obama reminds us every chance he gets that he married a woman of worth, and a partner who complements and improves him. He is sometimes visibly in awe of her. Following her speech at the Democratic National Convention, he beamed as he declared, "How 'bout Michelle Obama? Now you know why I asked her out so many times, even though she said no."

For her part, Michelle walked on stage and honored her husband by introducing herself with these words: "I come here as a wife who loves my husband and believes he will be an extraordinary president." 

But the Obamas have also made it clear that theirs is a marriage made of flesh and blood. Through his two books and the ever-present media stories, we have learned of their financial struggles early on, and of the unity that they forged as newlyweds, and which has only flourished under the glare of the political spotlight.

Of being a politician's wife, Michelle has said, "It's hard and that's why Barack is such a grateful man."

It is that deep sense of gratitude for each other that I, as a wife of one year, want to emulate.

Another laudable characteristic I have seen in their marriage is the ability to play to each other's strengths. In the Obama marriage, Michelle is the taskmaster, the keeper of books and lists, the "defender of standards no one else even knows about," according to one magazine article. She's the one who organizes activities for the two daughters and carves out family time, even during a run for the White House. She took a leave from her high-powered job to focus on their family during the campaign. He, with his two bestsellers, is the current breadwinner. But, for many years, while he was earning a public servant's salary, Michelle was bringing home a $200,000 salary.

Their gift for complementing each other seems rooted in an almost effortless ability to make decisions by consensus. You can see it when they are interviewed separately, but especially when they are seated next to each other. They look to each other for cues, as they seek each other's consent and support. That unspoken thread of communication seems woven firmly into the fabric of their marriage.

I think it's safe to say that many more marriages would succeed if more of us committed ourselves to achieving that level of communication with our spouse. For my part, I pledge to at least try.

The Obamas will mark 16 years of marriage on October 18, and I wish them many more anniversaries so I — and others committed to their own marriages — can continue learning from them.

"Juleyka Lantigua is a journalist and editor whose work appears in national newspapers and magazines. For more info visit: www.juleykalantigua.com."

By Juleyka Lantigua

Many women are mad that Sarah Palin was chosen as the Republican VP nominee. They are infuriated that, when the country produced a contender like Hillary Clinton, all the McCain campaign could come up with was Sarah Palin. Even the National Organization of Women, that bastion of all things liberating, broke its own rules and publicly endorsed Barack Obama, just to make sure women voters knew which presidential candidate stood to advance women's rights.

The irony in all this is that Palin is actually proof that American feminism worked.

Think about it. How long have unqualified men been running everything from small businesses to corporations to school boards, large cities and even the whole country? It seems only fitting that feminism's path would lead directly to an unqualified woman ascending the slippery ranks of the political machine.

It is embarrassing and unfortunate that the rest of the world has given us women like Margaret Thatcher (British Prime Minister 1979-1990), Angela Merkel (Chancellor of Germany, President of the European Council, Chair G8), and Michelle Bachelet (President of Chile) who have carved out political careers that have changed the course of history. And all we could come up with is someone who will have an asterisk permanently affixed to her name in all history books to be written from now on.

But that is not Sarah Palin's fault. She happened to be the most politically expedient and affable accomplice McCain's puppet masters could find. She was going on about her business of mismanaging Alaska when some eager political strategist in Washington decided that women would not care if the Republican party chose a QUALIFIED woman for the job. They convinced themselves that any woman would do to fill the power suit left hanging in the wind by Hillary Clinton.

But women still have a choice. We can play along and support a woman VP who stands to humiliate our gender every time she opens her mouth, or we can tell all the men in Washington and across the country that we will not be their accomplices and support women who are not qualified, regardless of how long we have waited to have one of us in the White House or the board room or the corner office.

This may sound dramatic, but if women (and men) vote for Sarah Palin, we are essentially admitting that we are the same as the men (and women) who perpetrated this farce; that we are willing to ignore reality to create a fantasy that satisfies our need to feel like we helped write (and right) history by putting a woman that much closer to the presidency.

If we fall for it, then we have collectively lowered all the standards women have been fighting for decades to uphold.

"Juleyka Lantigua is a journalist and editor whose work appears in national newspapers and magazines. For more info visit: www.juleykalantigua.com."

By Juleyka Lantigua
So this month I will turn 33, which many people consider a person's biblical year, because Jesus died at that age. So, in preparation for what should be a spiritual 365 days for me, I have decided that at key moments when I am compelled to act, I will simply ask myself, "What would Jesus do?"

For instance...

When the office gossip is eager to share a juicy tidbit about that certain someone down the hall....I will say, "those who are without sin should cast the first stone!" Then I will waltz out of earshot and go back to my office.
(Because Jesus defended a woman of ill repute with similar words.)

When my boss complains at 2 p.m. that she forgot to grab lunch....I will reach into our dorm-size communal fridge and hand her exactly 5 whole grain crackers and 2 baby carrots dipped in humus.
(Because Jesus fed thousands with five loaves of bread and two fish.)

When the sky opens up and my basement gets four inches of rain in the space of one hour...I will summon up all my faith and walk on water...to where I keep the mop.
(Because Jesus walked on a lake to get to a boat.)

When my friends complain about being broke...I will say to them, "set out all your nets" and the money will come.
(Because that's what Jesus said to Peter when he and his fishermen where out in the ocean and not catching any fish. Then miraculously, the nets broke from the amount of fish trapped in them.)

When my husband comes home with sore muscles from a basketball game....I will let him touch my outfit so he can be healed.
(Because Jesus routinely let very sick people touch his robes, and they were instantly cured.)

When someone invites me to a dinner party....I will bring along some Evian and, while no one is looking, turn it into a nice vintage Rioja (Spanish red wine).
(Because that's what Jesus did at a wedding when they were out of the good stuff and all they had was jugs of water.)

I'm already feeling pretty good about this new year of life.

"Juleyka Lantigua is a journalist and editor whose work appears in national newspapers and magazines. For more info visit: www.juleykalantigua.com."

By Juleyka Lantigua
A couple of years ago I was helping a high-school senior with his college applications, but the military had other plans for him.

Without his parents’ permission, a recruiter had set up an appointment with him at his home while his folks were at work. After the son informed his father of the impending visit by a recruiter whose name he did not know and whom he had no way of contacting, his father, understandingly alarmed, called me.

As an immigrant from Colombia with little understanding of the U.S. military, he was fearful that the visit meant his son would be drafted, or that he would be convinced not to go to college. I assured him that his underage son was under no obligation to enlist. After our conversation, he had a talk with his son, and they agreed that the son would ignore the recruiter.

Their experience is all too common for Black and Latino boys in high school, as the military has bullied schools into giving them special access to students.

Under a threat written into the National Defense Authorization Act, Congress made it mandatory for high schools to provide military recruiters access to juniors and seniors, including names, addresses and telephone numbers. Generally, schools were required to give military recruiters equal access to students as they did to institutions of higher learning, such as colleges and universities.

The new law made it compulsory and punishable not to comply. “Schools that do not comply … could jeopardize their receipt of (Elementary and Secondary Education Act) funds.” Considering that a majority of public schools, including 22,000 high schools, receive money from this 1965 federal regulation, schools find themselves between a rock and a hard place.

The guidelines claim that turning over the information is “generally not considered harmful or an invasion of privacy,” and parents do have an opt-out option. They can request a Student Data Release Form for Military Recruitment from their child’s school and withdraw the student’s name and contact information from the list provided to recruiters.

The armed forces have a longstanding tradition of recruiting soldiers of color and sending them off to the front lines. During the Vietnam War, some 80,000 Latinos served, incurring about 19 percent of all casualties. The irony is that Latinos only made up 4.5 percent of the total population then.

Today, military recruiters go out of their way to lure students with an array of inflated promises of cash bonuses, loan repayments, college scholarships and exotic-sounding assignments.

Joining the Marines, Army, the Air Force or Navy is a viable option for many high school seniors, but that should be the student’s choice, not a decision made under pressure from aggressive recruiters.

"Juleyka Lantigua is a journalist and editor whose work appears in national newspapers and magazines. For more info visit: www.juleykalantigua.com."

By Juleyka Lantigua
Too few Latinos graduated from college this year, and every year. While Latinos make up 13.5 percent of the U.S. population, we account for only 7 percent of the bachelor’s degrees, according to the National Center for Educational Statistics. Based on reading similar accounts and on years of mentoring young people and helping my siblings graduate college, I can tell you that it comes down to three essential things.

One: Most of Latinos attend overcrowded and under-funded public schools, which often leads to little personal attention from a guidance counselor, let alone individual help with applications and essays. As a result, only one in four college-age Latinos is actually in college. That’s rather low compared to 42 percent of whites and 60 percent of Asians in the age same group.

Two: We face cultural expectations that undermine the idea of attending a four-year school away from home. In many Latino homes, young adults (whether high school graduates or not) are expected to work to support the extended family, both here and back in their country of origin. And many young women are essentially only allowed to leave home when they do so on the arm of a husband. Of those of us enrolled, 49 percent, or 1 in 2, are the first in our families to attend college, according to the National Center for Educational Statistics.

Three: We must adjust to an environment that is often hostile toward ethnic minorities, where we are often the sole brown face in a class. This last one cannot be emphasized enough. Arriving on a typical college campus in the fall can be akin to landing on an alien planet, where the natives inspect and scrutinize you, reminding you daily that you do not belong.

This year, my brother was among the joyful graduates. Though he was always a focused student, getting him across the stage took the combined efforts of two parents, three siblings and the Florida State University C.A.R.E. program, which is tailored to support Black, Latino, Asian students like him.

Similarly, my sister and I attended Skidmore College under the auspices of H.E.O.P., another program geared to recruiting and retaining talented, underrepresented and economically disadvantaged students. Through a coordinated and on-going effort, which includes a pre-college summer enhancement program, academic guidance and social exchanges, such programs provide the right combination of support that promotes a successful college experience. At my alma mater, H.E.O.P. achieves an average graduation rate of 94 percent, which is considerably higher than the 80 percent for the general population.

Colleges must step up their roles in recruiting and retaining more of us if they are to meet the growing needs of a society where a bachelor degree is the first step in maintaining middle class status. If colleges do that, more Latino families will have the opportunity to celebrate as their children toss their caps in the air.

"Juleyka Lantigua is a journalist and editor whose work appears in national newspapers and magazines. For more info visit: www.juleykalantigua.com."

By Juleyka Lantigua
Venus Williams hits a tennis racquet like a girl. Her sister Serena serves, receives and volleys like a girl. These women also earn gold medals, grand slams and tons of money at it—just like girls.

All the women Olympians in Beijing battling it out for gold were once girls too. And when they were girls, they were taught to enjoy sports. Someone walked them onto a track for the first time. Someone taught them to shoot a basketball. Someone waited for them at the deep end of the pool.

Although I’m not a world-class athlete, I throw, catch, run and serve like a girl. And I’m proud of it. Being athletic has been key in my life, touching my professional success, my personal growth and even my spiritual well being.

I learned to swim very early since I grew up on and island (DR), where swimming is second only to walking in terms of normal physical activity. I remember endless competition among cousins. We would heave our lanky bodies into the ocean, or the river down from my aunt’s house, and swim until our lungs hurt from the strain. Arms flailing, head bobbing under and above the waves, I learned two of the most fundamental lessons in life.

Lesson one: Know your own limits. I was skinnier and younger than my older cousins, so it would have taken a miracle for me to win any of our afternoon meets. But there I was, at the starting line of every single one.

Lesson two: Define success for yourself. It didn’t matter that it would be years before I achieved a respectable pace. It only mattered that I tried and that I outdid myself every time. Winning wasn’t the point. I just wanted to make it back to the starting line so I could play with the older kids.

Later on, volleyball was compulsory at my elementary school, so all the kids learned to play. I took to the sport and in high school I became varsity co-captain. I was even named "Class Athlete" and my picture—volleyball in hand—appeared in the yearbook. My participation in volleyball made my transition to college much smoother. In college I made the varsity team as a first-year. Practice sessions, team events and weekend tournaments taught me the importance of managing my time well.

The invaluable life skills I acquired through participating in sports—whether organized or casual—stayed with me long after I left the court. There are girls—daughters, nieces, cousins, goddaughters—in our lives right now who would benefit equally from a guiding adult to usher them into an athletic activity. And who knows, you could be mentoring the next Venus or Senera Williams in the process.

"Juleyka Lantigua is a journalist and editor whose work appears in national newspapers and magazines. For more info visit: www.juleykalantigua.com."

By Juleyka Lantigua

This summer, New York City showed great leadership in moving this country in a multilingual direction.

On July 22, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg signed an executive order requiring city agencies to offer assistance, documentation, interpretation and publications in six foreign languages: Spanish, Russian, Italian, French Creole, Korean and Chinese.

This should be a model for other cities, and I wish it had happened sooner in New York.

You see, I grew up an immigrant in New York City in the 1980s and 1990s. My family moved from the Dominican Republic when I was ten years old, and my sister was seven. None of us spoke English when we arrived, and spent the first couple of years struggling to navigate the public institutions that defined our new existence—schools, hospitals, employers, the IRS, the INS and many others.

At first my mother relied heavily on neighbors, friends and people from church to help her understand official correspondence or fill out forms to enroll us in school or get us a library card.

At around age twelve I started to speak enough English to translate school paperwork and job applications for my family. And I would accompany my mother to doctor visits, potential employers and other agencies. That meant missing school sometimes and spending long hours in crowded municipal offices.

There was a tangible economic cost to our household when my mother had to miss work or I had to miss school because city agencies did not offer translation services or literature in Spanish.

That cost is still felt by millions of immigrants who have their lives curtailed daily by a lack of services and information in their mother tongue.

Municipalities face a cost, as well.

Income and real estate taxes, commercial and individual license fees, and countless other monetary transactions fail to be executed daily because many public offices do not conduct their business in a language people can understand.

Places like Los Angeles, Houston, Miami and Chicago should follow New York's example.

In L.A. County, at least 224 languages have been identified by the Census, with publications being produced in about 180 of them. What's more, the Los Angeles Unified School District lists 92 languages spoken by its students. None of that is surprising for California, a state with 11.6 million documented immigrants and an estimated 2.4 million undocumented ones. Spanish is the most frequently spoken foreign language.

Houston, the fourth largest city in the country, is 37.4 percent Latino, which accounts for Spanish being the unofficial second language there, while about 90 are spoken in the metropolitan area. Houston’s emergency services have taken the lead. In the first half of this year, 7,102 emergency calls to 911 were handled in 32 languages, according to public records. The top three languages requested were Spanish, Vietnamese and Mandarin.

Similarly, Chicago area hospitals are on record as having used 26 languages for over-the-phone interpretation, including Spanish, Polish, Arabic, Cantonese and Russian.

Miami is probably the most functionally bilingual city in the entire United States, with 58.5 percent of the county's 2.4 million residents speaking Spanish.

That’s where my parents now reside. And although their English is much better than it was when I was a child, life is much easier for them in a place that provides equal services in their native tongue and where they can file their taxes, renew their insurance and conduct banking transactions in a language they command.

Opponents of multilingual services ask why we should provide services for people who don’t speak English.

The answer is simple: It brings in money—to the people who earn and pay it, and the governments and businesses that collect it.

"Juleyka Lantigua is a journalist and editor whose work appears in national newspapers and magazines. For more info visit: www.juleykalantigua.com."

By Juleyka  Lantigua
Some of my friends have looked sideways at me, or burst out laughing when I’ve declared someone on TV looks “ambiguously ethnic.” At first, my friends looked at me like I’d been possessed by the spirit of a closeted racist or one of the devout self-haters among us. Thankfully, I have been allowed to explain…

When I say that someone—usually in a TV commercial, billboard, magazine ad or any other type of mass media—looks ambiguously ethnic I mean that they have certain physical attributes that in this society have come to be associated with someone who belongs to an ethnic group—Latino, Black, Asian, Native American and so on. Or, in many case, like they are of mixed heritage.

So maybe they have curly dark hair. Or almond-shaped eyes. Or nice caramel or olive complexion. (Gotta love the food analogies related to looking ethnic.) Maybe they have naturally full lips or well-set noses. Maybe their faces are just a tad flat or oblong or round or hexagonal. You get the idea: they definitely do not look white.

The kicker is that you cannot readily shove them into any of the ethnic groups you pride yourself in a) belonging to, b) being aware of, or c) being down with. Hence, the person looks ambiguously ethnic.

You know they belong somewhere, but can’t use your advanced cultural GPS to designate their exact ethnic geography. What’s more, a part of you wants to claim them for your own tribe. (I’ve decided that since Dominicans run the gamut when it comes to looks, ANYONE could be Dominican. So almost always, any ambiguously ethnic looking person gets nationalized on the spot.)

Let’s be clear that I have no issues with people being/looking/claiming/acting/fronting like they’re ambiguously ethnic. I stopped thinking about it over a decade ago.

What irks me is how cleverly marketers and advertisers are getting hip to this “trend.” McDonald’s, Bank of America, CoverGirl, and a bunch of other national brands have advertising campaigns that feature folks who fit this description.

On an economic level, it makes sense to use models/actors who look ethnically ambiguous: saves on the production cost if they were to make different versions of the same commercial featuring people from several groups. On a visual level, it’s a win-win, since no one can feel excluded from a national campaign if the actors/models look like no one and anyone at the same time.

I’m not trying to find deeper meaning in this at the moment. Just wanted to put it out there for open discussion.

"Juleyka Lantigua is a journalist and editor whose work appears in national newspapers and magazines. For more info visit: www.juleykalantigua.com."

By Juleyka Lantigua
Skyrocketing rents are pushing black and Latino residents out of their communities. The polite word for this is gentrification, and in New York, it’s becoming more than a nuisance.

Bill Clinton’s much-publicized relocation to the heart of New York's famous black neighborhood, Harlem, brought with it rising property values, opportunistic landlords ready to capitalize on their celebrity neighbor and big businesses that took over storefronts that had been locally owned for generations.

The good news, some argue, is the renewed interest from the business sector for places such as Harlem -- places long overdue for an economic renaissance.

The bad news is that as middle-class residents move into Harlem, the Lower East Side and Washington Heights, longtime lower-income residents are forced to pack up and leave.

Even in a city where rent-control policies protect many residents, especially the elderly and the working poor, landlords find ways to generate vacancies. The payoff is high, since rent-controlled units that are vacated immediately go for general market prices.

Landlords have long been performing “self-help evictions,” which means they are locking out longtime residents from their apartments and tossing tenants’ belongings out onto the streets, according to the City-Wide Task Force on Housing Court.

And that’s not the least of it.

Landlords have also filed unsubstantiated eviction suits that claim residents did not pay rent or did not complete a lease form. These bullying schemes succeed because poorer tenants often cannot afford to take time off from work to dispute the claims. They usually opt to move out instead of dealing with the harassment and bureaucratic runaround.

Many of the newly displaced cannot afford to go anywhere else. Some are already using a large portion of their salary to pay rent on their apartments. Approximately 37 percent of rent-stabilized tenants spend more than 40 percent of their income on rent,  Mark Green, a New York City public advocate and former mayoral candidate, has said. One in six spends more than 80 percent of his or her earnings on rent.

College graduates, young professionals, newlyweds and single people who are willing to split a three-bedroom five ways are arriving to the city in droves, ready to pay bloated rents for apartments historically occupied by poorer families.

Communities like Washington Heights, formerly referred to as “bad” or “distressed” neighborhoods, have become prohibitively expensive for most working families. It is cruel to push rents so high that people can no longer live in the neighborhood they have called home for decades.

* Adapted from an op-ed syndicated by the Progressive Media Project

"Juleyka Lantigua is a journalist and editor whose work appears in national newspapers and magazines. For more info visit: www.juleykalantigua.com."