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2012-25 Support for Youth Platform Proposed by Xochitl Espinosa, NALACC Whereas, more than 25 youth leaders met

during the Work Sessions on Migration, Culture and Youth, (Jornadas de Migracin, Cultura y Juventud) in Chicago, IL immediately preceding the 2012 Latino Congreso, May 16-17, 2012, and, Whereas, the following consensus declaration was prepared by the group on issues of education, workers rights, culture, and empowerment. EDUCATION: -We demand the integration of curriculum, language, and history relevant to Latino youth into U.S. educational structures. -We demand spaces and structural processes for Latino youth to empower, affirm, and express their cultural identity. -We demand resources and access to spaces of understanding the topics of sexuality, health, and educational processes for Latino families. -We demand resources and access for the development of various culturally sensitive parenting tools, for Latino families including inter-generational dialogue. - We demand NLC organizers to host an annual pre-NLC youth summit driven to discuss youthrelated issues. - We demand that every Latino student with disabilities has equal access to public education and their needs are fully met. Upon graduation, they should be just as able to be employed as anybody else. WORKERS RIGHTS -We demand the equal treatment of all Latino workers regardless of status, citizenship, race, age, gender, and language. -We demand legal resources for workers to voice their demands, hardships, and discrimination both within Latino organizations and within the workplace. We committ to monitor the track record of Latino politicians to make sure our agendas are their priorities. We commit to develop advocacy stragegies aimed to solve the main issues affecting Latino youth in the U.S. and to address the root causes of migration in sending countries

EMPOWERMENT -We demand spaces and access for Latino youth to be a part of leadership and all decisionmaking processes and structures. -We demand access and know-how to electoral political process within all Latino organizations and in larger political bodies. -We demand spaces for dialogue and collaboration for intercultural Latino groups. -We demand the end of damaging stereotypes in the media, and all public arenas in the United States. -We demand an end to homophobic language towards Latinos and all LGBTQ. -We demand an end to sexist and patriarchal language in our culture. - We demand recognition, inclusion, and more resources for undocumented-led youth organizations CULTURE We demand youth-led alternative and independent spaces for virtual dialogue to foster solidarity across borders We demand student-led Latino summits to know their problems and issues We demand spaces that foster creative and conscious art education and conversations that supports and empower Latino migrant youth to change the xenophobic treatment of Latinos in the media. THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that organizations represented by delegates of the 2012 National Latino Congreso: Should establish a Latino Youth Forum to be held prior to the NLC to provide a space to debate and reach consensus about the most important issues and strategies to solve problems affecting them across borders. The forum must include multiple agendas including culture, human rights, education, labor rights, civic and political engagement, environmental rights and any other issues deemed necessary by the NLC. BE IT FURTHERMORE RESOLVED that the organizations represented by the delegates of the 2012 NLC support, disseminate, and adopt the declaration of the second Youth, Culture, and Migration Summit, which reflect the opinions of Latino Youth in the United States and various countries of Latin America on political, economic, cultural, and social policies affecting them, fostering the development of multinational and multi-sector networks to find articulated answers to these issues.

The NLC should follow up on the resolutions proposed by Latino youth and support the Youth, Culture, and Migration Summit as a bridge to build networks and alliances among Latino youth in the United States and Latin America, empowering them to follow up the agreements related to Latino youth and include the outcomes of the youth summit in plenaries and workshops. BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED that the NLC should include youth representatives, increasing the number of youth delegates with full voting rights to a minimum of 25% of the full assembly and respecting their forms of expressions as active actors with the capacity for organizing and leading many relevant social justice processes for the Latino population.

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