What does the world look like as reported on the pages of California's growing ethnic newspapers? PNS for two years has monitored the Chinese-, Spanish-, Vietnamese-, Japanese, Arab-language news media as well as English-language newcomer and native-born ethnic press published and/or distributed widely in California. Every month PNS has released a digest of select items. This week, we're sending two samples of a column of gleanings we will publish weekly in 1999, compiled by PNS and written by Emil Guillermo, executive producer and host of PNS's New California Media weekly TV show. Just as the alternative news media connected the disaffected populations in the 1960s, so in the 1990s the ethnic media connects the new ethnic majority communities of California -- to one another and to the larger public forum. We hope you will find the column an intriguing window into the new California. (First of two columns)

THE MEXICANS ARE COMING, THE MEXICANS ARE COMING

Severe economic policies in Mexico will increase the number of undocumented Mexicans emigrating to the United States this year by more than 450,000, according to a report in La Opinion (Los Angeles).

The Mexican government recently announced a 30 percent increase in the price of gas, a 15 percent increase for telephone service and a 38 percent increase in rent.

With movement from elsewhere in Central America because of Hurricane Mitch due to bring over a million more "environmental refugees," this could be a busy year along the U.S. border.

FOLLOW THE MONEY

Mexico's economic crisis has its government paying close attention to every dollar coming into the country from the U.S.

La Prensa (San Diego) reports that the Mexican government has started a campaign to make sure that its residents get every penny of the billions of dollars poured into the country from family members in the U.S. using an ad blitz that gives people a number to call for money-sending tips.

Government officials claim Mexicans on both sides of the border lose millions because of excessive charges, lost transactions or low exchange rates.

In 1997 alone, $5 billion dollars was transferred from the U.S. to mother Mexico, making this the country's third largest source of income after oil and tourism.

Government action was spurred by consumer lawsuits filed against Western Union and MoneygGram alleging false advertising and hidden fees that could be as high as 10 percent of the wired amount.

PHILIPPINES NOT IMMUNE

Though the Asian money crisis has had relatively little impact in the Philippines as a whole, workers have been hit hard.

The Philippine Star reports a 31.1 percent rise in unemployment -- a million new workers unemployed in the course of a year, and analysts predict the crisis will last at least three years.

The four million Filipino workers abroad -- whose earnings account for a large portion of the nation's foreign exchange reserves -- aren't faring much better. The value of those earnings are threatened by the economic downturn creeping across the globe.

NO SHOE JOKES, PLEASE

Though Ferdinand Marcos is unburied, he is still dead.

His wife Imelda, according to the Philippine News (San Francisco), is another story.

Acquitted last October of corruption charges, she has come back alive and kicking, filing a 500 billion lawsuit against her husband's cronies, claiming they used her family's money to back cronies to run more than 100 Philippine companies.

That's in pesos, not dollars, but it's still a chunk of change. Imelda says she just wants to claim what is rightfully hers. "Practically... everything in the Philippines."

NOT WITH MY WILD ANIMAL, YOU DON'T

The World Journal (San Francisco edition) reports that animal rights sentiment is growing in the westernized Chinese city of Shanghai. More than 10,000 students have signed a petition calling for the protection of endangered wild animals.

China has had a wild animal protection law on the books for 10 years. but enforcement has been lax. The students, representing more than 10 institutions in the Shanghai area, have taken their message to nearby villages talking to residents, as well as tourists, informing them of the existing law.