A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, I was in a band called The Isas. Well, it wasn't that long ago—it was 2010. And it wasn't that far away—it happened in Mexico. Jorge Alfaro, Ulises Tello and yours truly would rock out at cafes and bars around Mexico City.

The highlight show was our gig at the Bulldog Cafe, a famed, cavernous rock club that has hosted bands like Guns 'n' Roses, Radiohead and Poison. The place was packed to the brim and they streamed their heads off when we hit the stage. Here's the surviving footage from that night: the song "Love You":  

A Life Saving Sweat
​
The Finns have known for centuries that saunas are good for cleansing the mind and body. A new study suggests they could also be life saving. Researchers in Finland – from where the word “sauna” originates – tracked the habits of some 2,300 middle-aged men over a 20-year period. They found that those who took a sauna more often and for longer periods of time significantly reduced their chances of dying from heart disease. After taking into account the participants’ physical health, smoking and alcohol habits, and socioeconomic status, the researchers found that men who went to the sauna four to seven times a week reduced their risk of dying from a sudden cardiac arrest by 63 percent, compared with men who went just once a week. And those who spent more than 19 minutes in the sauna reduced their mortality risk by 52 percent. Frequent sauna bathers also lowered their risk of coronary heart disease by 48 percent and their risk of cardiovascular disease by 50 percent. The reason, the researchers suggested, is that the intense heat inside saunas increases a person’s heart rate to the same pace as physical exercise, resulting in lower blood pressure and improved heart function. The findings only apply to Finnish-style saunas, which, at 176 to 212 degrees Fahrenheit, tend to be hotter than your average gym steam room.


Obama’s Tax Proposal: Not An Amnesty, But Pretty Close
 
In his 2016 budget proposal, U.S. President Barack Obama proposed a one-time tax on earnings that U.S. companies have parked overseas. That’s no small pile: among S&P 500 companies, the amount has climbed from less than $500 billion in 2005 to $2.1 trillion in 2014. Obama’s proposed tax would mean a total hit of about $213 billion on those trillions, only 40 percent of what they would pay under current tax rates if they brought the money home, according to Credit Suisse. Alas, the proposal is unlikely to pass Congress unless it’s part of a larger tax reform. 


Baselworld: Home of the $40 Million Watch
 
There are always lots of surprises for watch lovers at Baselworld, which opened in Switzerland last week. This year, London-based Graff Diamonds is offering a $40 million watch called Fascination. It’s not the most expensive watch ever sold (last year, Graff exhibited a $55 million timepiece called Hallucination), but it does have 152.96 carats of white diamonds, including a 38.13-carat pear-shaped rock at the center that can be interchanged for a diamond watch face. Other luxury watchmakers have also launched jaw-dropping timepieces at the weeklong event that attracts 1,500 brands from around the world. Rolex, for example, revealed a new version of its nautical Oyster Perpetual Yacht-Master wristwatch that comes in black or 18-carat rose gold, and is mounted on the Rolex-patented Oysterflex bracelet, a rubbery-looking strap that has the resistance of metal. After celebrating its 175th anniversary last year, Patek Philippe brought more than 30 new designs to this year’s extravaganza, including the elegant 5073P-010 men’s platinum grand complication. That piece features 103 baguette diamonds around the dial and a hand-stitched alligator strap set with 42 baguette diamonds.

These articles first appeared in The Financialist in March 2015

Breaking the Vicious Cycle on India’s Rails
 
Everyone has seen the iconic images of India’s trains — stuffed beyond capacity, with the unluckiest passengers actually outside the cars themselves, hanging on for dear life. That problem springs from a vicious cycle: a lack of new capacity limits income for investment, and the lack of investment, in turn, limits capacity. But the current Indian government says it’s time to break the cycle. Its budget for fiscal 2016 estimates that the railroads will only need 88.4 percent of fare income for operations, and the plan is to use the left over cash to fund a 52 percent increase in spending on track expansion compared to 2015. Over the next five years, the state hopes to increase track length by 20 percent, and both passenger and freight capacity by almost 50 percent. (March 2015)


​Where Will They Put the Cornell of Japan?
 
Tokyo is getting crowded. Currently, some 90,000 people move to the metropolitan area each year. More than half of them are between the ages of 15 and 24—most of them in school or pursing employment. The government says this migration is hurting the economy of rural Japan, and it has embarked on a multi-pronged plan to slow the trend. For one, it has proposed incentives for companies to locate their head offices outside of major urban locations. It will also begin limiting enrollment at private universities in Tokyo, Kansai and Chubu by making them ineligible to receive grants if their student body hits 120 percent of designated capacity (usually around 8,000 students), thereby “encouraging” students to study in smaller towns. Will this create the next Ann Arbor or Ithaca? Not overnight, but over the next 10 to 15 years the regulations are expected to limit growth in Tokyo’s real estate market, according to Credit Suisse. (March 2015)


Real Horse Power 
 
Despite all the talk of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the world is obviously never going to return to the days of horse-drawn transport. Still, those who want an unusual—and costly—way of reducing their footprint might want to attend a Bonhams auction in Oxford on March 7. A Dutch private collector has decided to sell 24 carriages and coaches. The items up for auction include two wagons—a Barouche and a Waggonette Break—that were commissioned by rival champagne houses Veuve Clicquot and Moet & Chandon in the 19th century, and they’re predicted to fetch as much as $38,500 each. The most expensive set of wheels on the list is a Landau made for King William IV by London-based carriage makers Adams & Hooper in 1835. Other items include walking sticks, wicker picnic baskets, traveling drink sets and top hat boxes. There’s even a wooden easel in case a passenger spots a compelling vista to paint along the road. All of the vehicles have been fully restored and are roadworthy, but finding a place to park them could be challenging. (March 2015)

An Aquatic Two-Seater 
 
These days, it’s not just navy officers — or British secret service agents — who get to drive submarines. User-friendly personal subs are being designed for wealthy yacht owners, too. One of the latest offerings is the battery-powered HP Sport Sub 2 made by Dutch submersible maker U-Boat Worx. Packing six horizontal and vertical thrusters, the two-person aquatic machine can reach depths of up to 330 feet and stay underwater for six hours. If something goes wrong during the dive into the deep blue, the mini-sub has a ping locator beacon system, emergency releasable buoy and an extra battery that can operate life support systems for up to 96 hours — enough time for the crew onboard the yacht to notice something is up and raise the alarm. At 4.5 feet high and weighing nearly 2.5 tons, the submersible can squeeze onto yachts measuring at least 100 feet and can be towed behind a car. The prospective owner just needs a spare $1.35 million. (Feb 2015)


Lights Out in Brazil?
 
Drought and high summer usage rates are taking their toll on Brazil’s hydropower plants, which provide more than three-fourths of the country’s electricity. Key reservoirs are down from 40 percent of maximum capacity last year to 17 percent in January. In 2001, the government started rationing electricity use when reservoirs were at a relatively full 21 percent, and Credit Suisse believes the odds of another bout of rationing have more than doubled from 23 percent in early December to 54 percent. If the past is any guide, rationing would tip off a steep decline in consumer spending and investment activity. In fact, analysts believe a year of forced cuts in electricity consumption, beginning in May, would reduce 2015 GDP growth by 1.1 percentage points to -1.5 percent. In this scenario, unemployment would increase and soaring food and electricity prices would push inflation up 0.7 percentage points to an eye-watering 7.8 percent. As a result, the central bank would likely be forced to raise interest rates from 12.25 percent to 14 percent by the end of 2015. The biggest risk, however, is that the hit to growth prompts ratings agencies to downgrade Brazil’s precarious sovereign credit rating. In Brasilia, they’re praying for rain. (Feb 2015)

​
Russia: More Bearish News
 
Cartoonists have portrayed Russia as a bear for centuries, and a teddy bear was even the mascot for the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games. But for locals and investors in the country, bearishness is getting old. Sanctions from the West, the Ukraine conflict and low oil prices will cause at least two years of recession, according to Credit Suisse. The rouble could depreciate further to 82 per dollar from 61 today, and central bank easing of interest rates is unlikely to boost economic activity since banks’ lending rates are still high. Among other problems, Credit Suisse expects foreign reserves to fall by $85 billion to $300 billion this year. In a worst-case scenario, a vicious cycle of falling reserves could make lenders nervous about a possible default, which in turn could cause capital flight. That scenario would likely lead to more currency intervention, and reserves could fall to a mere $190 billion. (Feb 2015)

I met Harriet Kilgore in 2013. Her voice was gutsy, her songwriting powerful. At the time, I was playing in the singer-songwriter world in L.A., so I met many great musicians. What was different about Harriet was her life situation: she was homeless. She slept in the alleys behind the Venice boardwalk and had endured many trials and tribulations in her life.

I've already documented many aspects of my time with Harriet: the story of how we met, the morning I found her attacked, my efforts to help her and our songwriting work together. You can find articles on these these in HuffPost and in LA Weekly. The Bravery Tapes episode on her is here, and there's a supplemental video here. 

But I thought it would be appropriate today to publish the lyrics to the song we wrote together, "Trials." It says so much about her life, her perseverance and who she is. 


"Trials"

Like a wildfire out of control 
I would rage and scream 
Life had taken its toll 

I was afraid of everything 
Lying in my soul 
All I really wanted was 
A love to make me whole 

Hard trials came, hard trials went 
And the lesson I learned were lessons well spent 
Looked in all the wrong places, searching outward all around 
When at last I looked inside, love overflowing I have found 

A new life faces me everyday 
Now that I’ve learned to get out of my own way 
Now I’m climbing higher, Sights set for glory 
Helping others is the moral of my story 

Hard trials came, hard trials went 
And the lesson I learned were lessons well spent 
Looked in all the wrong places, searching outward all around 
When at last I looked inside, love overflowing I have found

 A smart belt (Feb. 2015)
 
Belts have been used to hold up trousers for centuries. This year, the humble object is going high-tech. Apart from preventing an embarrassing wardrobe malfunction, French company Emiota’s prototype belt called Belty also works as an activity tracker and wellness coach. Sensors inside the belt buckle monitor how many steps the user takes, and they vibrate when the user has been sitting around for too long. The belt also keeps a record of waistline measurements. The data is then sent wirelessly to a smartphone app that analyses the information and makes gentle suggestions on how the user can improve fitness and, if necessary, shed some pounds. The Belty also expands and contracts with a person’s waistline. When the user sits down, or puts on weight, the belt automatically loosens itself to give more room to breathe. It then tightens when a user stands up—or, ideally, loses that extra flab.


​Airbnb versus The World (Feb. 2015)
 
January wasn’t such a good month to be a hotel operator in New York City. Revenue per available room fell 18.6 percent, while occupancy dropped 7.5 percent. In part, visitors stayed away because of the heavy snowfall. But another, longer-term reason is the advent of new forms of supply in the market—namely, the growing popularity of Airbnb. Visitors looking to pay between $150 and $250 a night are flocking to the website that rents out apartments for short-term stays, often with more amenities and more space than hotel alternatives. That hurts occupancy at mid-range hotels both inside and outside the core tourist zones, according to Credit Suisse.. The number of apartments available through Airbnb—now as many as 10,000 per night in New York—is now big enough that it’s eating seriously into the hotel market. Top-end hotels that attract business travelers, on the other hand, aren’t so vulnerable to Airbnb. Yet. 


Profit Metrics That Don’t Measure Up (Feb. 2015)
 
Corporate profits have been on a tear in recent years thanks to low interest rates, rebounding consumer demand, and stagnant pay for workers. Earnings per share for the S&P 500, for instance, rose from $17.48 in the first quarter of 2010 to $27.47 in the third quarter of last year. But in 2015, that won’t be the best indicator of business activity or the direction of the economy, according to Credit Suisse. That’s because the S&P 500 metric is going to be disproportionately affected by falling oil prices and the stronger dollar. Energy companies and multinationals that depend on overseas sales are overrepresented in the S&P 500. Oil alone makes up 8.4 percent of the index, even though the entire mining sector, including hydrocarbons, represents just 2.7 percent of the U.S. economy. Other sectors, such as construction companies and law firms, are underrepresented. In other words, corporate profits will likely be better than the numbers indicate this year. By the same token, the statistics over the past few years have been overstated. A better gauge for investors, then, would be the national income and product accounts, or NIPA, because it includes all U.S.-headquartered corporations and therefore not biased towards specific sectors. 



Swipe This (Feb. 2015)
 
It’s been happening in sci-fi movies for decades, but humans are finally getting micro-chipped in real life. Epicenter, a high-tech office complex in the Swedish capital of Stockholm, is offering its employees a tracking technology normally used to identify dogs and cats. A radio-frequency identification chip, which is about the same size as a grain of rice, is inserted into a person’s hand, giving them access to the building, their office and photocopy machines. They can even share their contact details by swiping another person’s smartphone over their hand. So far, around 20 people have had the chips implanted in their hands, and many of the nearly 400 people who work in the office plan to follow suit. “It’s a way to simplify life,” says Epicenter co-founder Patrick Mesterton, who was among the first to be chipped. “This is just the beginning.”

Zapping Away Hunger (Jan 2015)
 
Overcoming obesity usually involves the practice of self-restraint to avoid overeating. But what if doctors could just turn off the desire to consume food? The Maestro Rechargeable System, developed by Minnesota-based EnteroMedics, is a pacemaker-like device that is surgically inserted into a patient’s abdomen, where it literally switches off hunger pains. It does so by sending electrical pulses to the abdominal vagus nerve, which tells the brain when the stomach feels empty or full. The gadget is programmed to intermittently block those nerve signals to reduce feelings of hunger in the patient, thus curbing their urge to snack or overeat at mealtime. A 12-month-long clinical trial involving 233 patients with a body mass index of more than 35, which is categorized as severely obese, found that people fitted with an activated device lost 8.5 percent more of their excess body weight than those in a control group. The results were good enough for the machine to become the first obesity device approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration since 2007.

The Swiss Harbinger (Jan 2015)
 
The Swiss National Bank shocked the global financial system last week by announcing that it was discontinuing its minimum exchange rate of 1.20 francs per euro. Policy makers also lowered the interest rate on deposits from negative 0.25 percent to minus 0.75 percent. But the move to weaken the currency in a bid to slow inflows and the expansion of its balance sheet, which had increased to 80 percent of GDP by the end of last year, signaled something more than about Switzerland itself. The timing of the move was key: it came just ahead of the European Central Bank’s meeting this week in which the ECB may announce quantitative easing measures. According to Credit Suisse, the Swiss action appears preemptive in nature and suggests the ECB is more likely to act, since QE would likely to further weaken the euro and would have increased inflows to Switzerland. In fact, Credit Suisse analysts calculate that there’s a 70 percent chance that the ECB will announce sovereign bond purchases, and a 50 percent chance they’ll aim to purchase 500 to 750 billion euros worth. What will be the effect on the euro? Credit Suisse cut its forecasts to 1.12 euros to the dollar in three months and 1.05 euros in one year.

​Could Mexico Tighten More Than Expected? (Jan 2015)
 
Mexico’s central bank may hike interest rates more than Wall Street expects this year. Credit Suisse forecasts a full percentage-point increase in the overnight rate to 4.0 percent from 3.0 percent, while market consensus forecasts the rate will sit at 3.6 percent by year-end. The reasons for the more hawkish call? The peso has lost 12 percent since September, and that could endanger the bank’s 3 percent inflation target, especially after it missed targets in 2014. Conversely, higher rates could help show the bank’s resolve to strengthen the peso and fight inflation. The bank cut rates by 1.5 points in 2013-14, giving it space to tighten monetary policy. As Credit Suisse analyst Alonso Cervera asks, “If this is not the time to undo these cuts, then when?”

The Bike That Costs More Than a Sports Car (2015)
 
Here’s a bicycle that won’t be left out in the rain – or left anywhere, in fact. British company Goldgenie, which specializes in creating personalized gold-plated gifts, has covered a Giant men’s racing bike with 24-karat gold. The $380,000 price tag makes it more expensive than most luxury sports cars – and that doesn’t even include a lock. Every part of the bike structure has been coated in the precious metal, right down to the cogs, spokes and ridges of the gear chain. The only bits that haven’t been embellished with bullion are the saddle, which is covered with San Marco suede, the tires and some other small parts. Goldgenie, which also sells gold-plated iPhones, handguns and car badges, adorns the bike with diamonds for the finishing touch. They might want to throw in a security guard as well.

China: No Need for the Mall (2015)
 
China’s e-commerce market isn’t just growing; it surpassed the U.S. in 2014 to become the biggest business-to-consumer market in the world. Credit Suisse estimates that Chinese e-commerce accounted for 9.7 percent of retail sales in 2014, with 368 million people — 56 percent of all Chinese Internet users — buying online. Part of the story is that logistics are improving, meaning there’s better infrastructure to deliver online orders. That’s helped retailers expand their offerings to include new categories of online stores such as food and drink, maternity, cosmetics, and healthcare. What’s most notable about China’s market is its relative lack of brick-and-mortar locations: in 2013, China’s retail space was only 0.6 square meters per capita, compared to 1.3 square meters in the U.K. and Japan and 2.6 square meters in the US. Since it’s quicker and easier to build an online shop than a real-world store, e-commerce growth in China seems bound to continue. By 2016, online sales should account for 13.4% of retail sales, according to Credit Suisse.

Could Mexico Tighten More Than Expected? (2015)
 
Mexico’s central bank may hike interest rates more than Wall Street expects this year. Credit Suisse forecasts a full percentage-point increase in the overnight rate to 4.0 percent from 3.0 percent, while market consensus forecasts the rate will sit at 3.6 percent by year-end. The reasons for the more hawkish call? The peso has lost 12 percent since September, and that could endanger the bank’s 3 percent inflation target, especially after it missed targets in 2014. Conversely, higher rates could help show the bank’s resolve to strengthen the peso and fight inflation. The bank cut rates by 1.5 points in 2013-14, giving it space to tighten monetary policy. As Credit Suisse analyst Alonso Cervera asks, “If this is not the time to undo these cuts, then when?”

These articles were first published in 2015 in The Financialist

I wrote the following story with a colleague in 2009, when I was political correspondent in Mexico for Bloomberg News. The story didn't run; or rather, we changed it into an entirely new story before it did. But the original was a fun one to report, so I decided to republish it here:

Mexico Antics Reflect Power of Congress, Challenge For Calderon
 
So far this year, Mexican lawmakers chained the doors to Congress, camped in sleeping bags on the lower house floor and stopped colleagues from convening in their chambers to block President Felipe Calderon's energy bill.
     Calderon's supporters heckled rival lawmaker Layda Sansores by likening her to a pole dancer. Key opposition leader Manlio Fabio Beltrones denounced the government for spying on him. And Senate chief Santiago Creel announced at a news conference that, while still married, he fathered a child with a popular actress.
     While the high jinks amuse and disgust Mexico's citizens, they also signal the arrival of democracy less than a decade after 70 years one-party rule ended. A body that once served as a rubber stamp for Mexican presidents is now Calderon's biggest obstacle to revamping the state oil monopoly, his principal initiative. The raucous, undisciplined lawmakers with their newfound power may help determine his legacy.
     ``Congress has been exerting more power, pressuring the executive, and that's the reflection of greater democracy,'' said Miguel Tinker-Salas, professor of Latin American studies at Pomona College in Claremont, California. ``That would have been unheard of when the president was all-powerful.''
     Beneath the theatrics lies an escalating power struggle among the country's three main parties, none of which holds a majority in either chamber.
 
Precarious Power
 
     Calderon's pro-business National Action Party has a precarious hold on power with a plurality in both houses, the old-guard Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, is trying to reclaim its lost glory, while the Party of the Democratic Revolution, or PRD, is marred by in-fighting and refuses to formerly recognize Calderon as a legitimate president.
     The president's party is trying to negotiate deals to push through his initiatives. Under former PAN president Vicente Fox, the party had its proposals for structural reform blocked. It finally won approval for changes to tax and pension laws last year.
     The PRI, which has the second-most seats in the 128-member Senate, is Calderon's main obstacle. It ruled Mexico for most of last century through a system of patronage, tampered elections and an monarchic-like executive that Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa once called the ``perfect dictatorship.'' It lost its congressional majority in 1997 and finally gave up the presidency three years later.
     The PRD, which has the second-most seats in the 500-member lower house, tries to thwart the PAN with more brusque tactics. In 2006, its lawmakers blocked Fox from delivering his state of the union address, claiming fraud after its former presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador lost the election by less than a percentage point. 
 
Unusual Antics
 
     No party is exempt from unusual characters and antics. Andres Bermudez, a PAN lawmaker, is known as the ``Tomato King'' because he amassed a fortune in the tomato industry after immigrating illegally to the U.S.
     In the 1990s, legislators poured glue into electronic voting buttons used by a fellow party member, and striking sugar laborers mooned lawmakers from the front of the chamber, according to Julia Preston and Samuel Dillon's book ``Opening Mexico.''
     This year, congressional debate is centering around a plan Calderon submitted in April to allow the state oil monopoly more leeway to hire private companies. The government says the initiative will help Pemex invest more in exploration and halt a decline in output and reserves.
     Led by Lopez Obrador, PRD lawmakers shut down Congress for two weeks in April in protest over the bill. They say it will transfer Mexico's energy riches to local business elites and foreigners, in violation of a constitutional clause that has reserved oil to the government for 70 years.
 
Bargaining Chips
 
     If Calderon's party survives shenanigans from the PRD, it will still need at least some votes from the PRI to win approval for the bill. The role of potential spoiler has given bargaining chips and renewed power to PRI lawmakers such as Beltrones, its leader in the Senate.
     The PAN hopes to put the bill to a vote in September. It may be a watered-down version of Calderon's plan. The PRI has submitted its own energy initiative that omits a key Calderon plan to allow the private sector to operate refineries. Meanwhile, Lopez Obrador's followers are promising more protests.
     Lawmakers in this young democracy may not have enough experience to decide on initiatives as important as energy reform, said Francisco Gonzalez, professor of Latin American studies at Johns Hopkins University in Washington. Legislators have trouble developing continuity and expertise because they can't serve multiple terms in the same chamber, he said.
 
``Don't have a clear idea''
 
     ``The vast majority don't have a clear idea of the implications of the decisions they're being asked to vote on,'' Gonzalez said.
     Congress only started up this decade investigative branches similar to the U.S. Government Accountability Office to enhance their understanding of the issues they vote on.
     Corruption, while perhaps not as blatant as during the PRI era, is still alive and well in the form of bribes and favors. Bermudez was accused by Zacatecas state's auditor office in 2004 of committing nepotism when he was a mayor and of giving government salaries and perks to people who didn't work for him.
     In a famous case in 2002, the Attorney General asked Congress to strip immunity from three lawmakers, accusing them of funneling millions of dollars from the state oil company to the PRI for campaign funding. The legislators were later absolved from the scandal, called ``Pemexgate'' after the oil company.
     Despite the scandals, these lawmakers hold the future of Mexico in their hands, and there is perhaps no issue more crucial than the fate of Pemex.
     ``This is where you need to have a legislature acting aggressively, responsibly and in an innovative fashion,'' said George W. Grayson, professor of government at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia.

Every morning at 3am, Francisco Sunun arrives at a fish market in Long Beach to clean. He applies bleach and a strong acid product to remove fish scales, meat and fat that sticks to the floors, counters and walls. By 4am, after only an hour of exposure to the cleaning products, his head starts to hurt. Soon, his eyes become itchy and he gets a sore throat. Some days, he gets a bloody nose, can barely talk and feels he can barely breathe. “We told our bosses that the chemicals were too strong,” says Sunun, an undocumented worker from Chiapas, Mexico. “They said they would try to fix it, but they haven’t done anything.”
 
For now, Sunun, 38, takes a nap when he arrives home in the afternoon and soon feels better. But he’s worried that the long-term effects of the chemicals won’t be so easy to overcome, fearing that one day the symptoms might evolve into a permanent illness. Sunun isn’t even sure what medical condition he might have. He doesn’t have health insurance, and he doesn’t make enough from his low hourly wage to afford to see a doctor. He doesn’t want to change jobs either because stable employment is hard to find in the current economy.
 
Sunun’s situation is common for many Latino workers in the U.S. The problem spans across many industries. Janitors and housekeepers are exposed to heavy levels of chemicals from cleaning products and don’t know how to protect themselves. Warehouse and slaughterhouse workers fall through the cracks of health and safety regulations and are prone to serious injury. Farm workers inhale or absorb pesticides used on crops and end up with skin problems or bad neurological effects. They also die from heat stroke.
 
Day laborers are also at risk because employers who hire on an informal basis are less likely to provide adequate protection against chemicals or injury, says Tony Bernabe, an organizer for immigrant workers at the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles. These employers—often homeowners who pick up day laborers waiting on street corners—are known to provide cheap masks or no protection at all for workers who use strong chemicals for flooring, painting or other home construction projects. “If the employers aren’t providing the right conditions, workers should go somewhere else,” says Bernabe. “They shouldn’t have contamination in their bodies just to make some money.”
 
Hispanic workers, especially those who are born outside the U.S., have the highest fatality rates of any ethic group, according to Sherry Baron at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, or NIOSH. There is a lack of reliable statistics for health problems and non-fatal accidents because undocumented workers tend not to report such issues for fear of losing their jobs. Like Sunun, many who suffer non-fatal problems don’t seek medical assistance. In 2007, just over half of employed Latinos had health insurance through their employers, compared with 73% of white workers, according to the Hispanic civil rights organization National Council of La Raza.
 
So what is being done to try to protect Latino workers more? Many activists and non-profit organizations organize training and education programs so Hispanic workers can learn their rights in the workplace and can know how to protect themselves from hazards. “There’s a lot of information about chemicals that an employer can use to decide what measures can be taken so people aren’t exposed,” says Deogracia Cornelio, associate director of education at UCLA’s Labor Occupational Safety and Health Program. “They can do training, they can give people breaks, and they can put into place practices that eliminate the hazards.” But are employers doing this? For the most part, no, Cornelio says. “These people fall into a gray area where nobody’s responsible for them,” she says.
 
Also, officials from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, which is part of the Department of Labor, enforce regulations aimed at keeping workers safe. The problem is, however, that OSHA doesn’t have enough inspectors to keep tabs on all employers, says Baron, who is coordinator of occupational health disparities at NIOSH. “The number of inspectors that OSHA has makes it very difficult to do systematic enforcement,” she says. Often, officials find out about health and safety problems after an injury or fatality has already occurred. “You don’t want to find problems because a worker died,” Baron says. “That’s certainly not prevention.”

For more on Latino efforts for healthier workplaces and neighborhoods, read "And environmental justice for all."