EL CENTRO, CA - MARCH 13: Maya Ramirez, a single mother who relies on a monthly food handout from the Imperial Valley Food Bank through the Sister Evelyn Mourey Center for herself and her five children, sits on a couch as her seven-year-old daughter Sherha (L), five-year-old Victoria, and six-year-old son Felipe (R) have a snack on March 13, 2009 in El Centro, California. El Centro is suffering the highest unemployment rate in the nation at 22.6 percent, nearly as high as rates during the Great Depression, with Latinos especially being hit hard. The people of the Imperial Valley, an important food producing region in the desert north of the US-Mexico border and east of San Diego, are plagued with a devastating combination of drought, which has farmers desperate for water; a construction-idling housing bust; and a plummeting peso, which undercuts the buying power of Mexicans who shop on the US side of the border. On top of that, California is reeling from a massive budget crisis that ushered in higher taxes and deep cuts to programs and services statewide.