December 2008 Archives

"Para que piensen en aquellos que se quedan solos."

"Es 31 de Diciembre. Julieta espera en su casa la llegada de su familia para la celebracion del año nuevo. Faltan cinco pa las doce y su familia aun no llega."

Today's musical feature is the Symphony No. 9 "From the New World" by Antonín Dvořák, composed in 1893 during his three year visit to the United States (shown here is the 4th movement). Apparently,

Dvořák was interested in the native American music and African-American spirituals he heard in America. Upon his arrival in America, he stated:

"I am convinced that the future music of this country must be founded on what are called Negro melodies. These can be the foundation of a serious and original school of composition, to be developed in the United States. These beautiful and varied themes are the product of the soil. They are the folk songs of America and your composers must turn to them."

Purgatory in accordance with catholic teaching is a place or condition of temporal punishment for those who, departing this life in God's grace, are, not entirely free from venial faults, or have not fully paid the satisfaction due to their transgressions.

That's what life feels like everyday when you're an undocumented resident in the United States. I started writing about my life experiences over at my personal blog as a way to vent my frustrations and to inform other's about the trials and tribulations that come with being an undocumented resident. Over time, my writing turned into a crusade to raise awareness about immigration in the U.S., legislation bills, unfair and unjust laws, current events and of course personal experiences. Over time I found out that I wasn't alone in my struggle to adjust my resident status and in my struggle to help fight the injustices committed against undocumented residents all over the U.S. To date, the Federal DREAM Act is the only hope I and thousands of undocumented students have to legally integrate into the U.S. Ever since I first heard of the DREAM Act I have written blog post and stories at my college newspaper stressing the importance of it and the need for it. Through my writing I've come to realize that it's only when a face is put behind the problem do people actually take notice and stop and at the very least listen to what is said. My intention is to help inform and educate other's in the tribulations that I personally struggle with on a daily basis as an undocumented resident. Topics from school, relationships and how I'm able to thrive underground are some of the topics I'll be discussing.   I can even answer specific questions anyone might have about issues concerning things like drivers licenses, how I'm able to attend school or any other questions that might come up. Even though I cannot put my personal identity behind this cause because of the type of society we live in, I doesn't take away from what I'm trying to do for the cause. I'm just a person, but I am one of the thousands out there who are fighting the good fight and trying to play by the rules.    

El Random Hero

~ Con Safos ~

This year, 85 people have been reported killed and 367 injured in attacks by nationalists, Ms. Kozhevnikova said. She said the numbers were probably far higher because many attacks were unrecorded or were reported months later. Most of the victims have been dark-skinned men from Central Asia or the Caucasus, but tourists and foreign students have also been attacked.

A foreign student who was attacked on Dec. 5, Stanley Robinson, a young African-American from Providence, R.I., on a study-abroad program to Volgograd in southern Russia, remained in critical condition after being stabbed three times on his way back from a gym, a relative said. The police are investigating whether the attack on Mr. Robinson was a hate crime.

Michael Schwirtz - New York Times (13 December 2008)

Both Anti-BVBL and Dream Act Texas report on recent findings that Chertoff's home was cleaned by undocumented migrants.

Latina Lista also talks about this finding in Sec. Chertoff's housecleaners may have been undocumented but they weren't criminals. Here a good point is brought up - the reason these undocumented migrants weren't discovered is because they didn't have a criminal background. They weren't criminals. Neither are the vast majority of migrants working hard in this country.

Weekly Immigration Wire: Harvesting Hate in Hard Economic Times at The Unapologetic Mexican on the rise in hate crimes against Latinos along with anti-migrant sentiment and enforcement.

He said he was taken away and later found himself in a police lineup. He said he had been told that a woman had been robbed in Acapulco by a blond man with a goatee. Looking at the other men in the lineup, Crash said they could have been his brothers, all of them blond and with goatees.

Congratulations Nezua! Check out his post on National Human Rights Day at The Unapologetic Mexican which covers the latest Bush atrocity of limiting farm workers rights.

Hearts of Darkness: A journey into the nativist lair at Migra Matters. This is an excellent post on Duke's journey into the alternative universe that is FAIR. Definitely a must read.

Story on RAID in Indiana at Standing FIRM.

But that's JUST IT - these people posed no serious threat to our national security. And yet, ICE is diverting tons of resources into the symbolic arrest of 11 women and 4 men, who are working hard to make ends meet.

Bush Administration now bails out agricultural industry with changes to guestworker program that creates a government sanctioned slave market at Latina Lista.

These changes, not surprisingly, turns more control, oversight and interpretation of the law into the hands of employers who are already striving to pay low wages, house workers in unsanitary and unsafe housing, and retain a level of abusive control over their workers that dictate their movements, work productivity and earnings.

The Bush Administration continues to abuse immigration law to trump up the stories of security threats it wishes immigrants posed--voters are much more compliant when they believe they are facing imminent external threats.  George Bush looks wistfully back at his post-9/11 approval ratings and dreams of a populace permanently under siege.

First, Lyglenson Lemorin, the Haitian-born bumbler who threatened national security with ninja stars (not joking), to whom the feds couldn't get any criminal charges to stick, was recently ordered deported by Immigration Judge Kenneth Hurewitz in Miami.  No such thing as double jeopardy for immigrants!

Judge Hurewitz's asylum denial rate, incidentally: 89.4%.  The national rate: 59.8%.  Interesting that Hurewitz was the one selected to hear the case.  Did I mention that Immigration Judges and DHS prosecuting attorneys are both part of the executive branch?

Yoon named the victims as his infant daughter Rachel, who was born less than two months ago; his 15-month-old daughter Grace; his wife, Young Mi Yoon, 36; and her 60-year-old mother, Suk Im Kim, who he said had come to the United States from Korea recently to help take care of the children.

CNN (10 December 2008)

Maria Teresa Peterson of Voto Latino has asked for our support with an "idea for change" on change.org.  "Make Early Voting Available on a National Basis" still needs 74 votes to make the next round.  Undocumented youth have already been bringing it, making the DREAM Act the number one idea for change on change.org.  Let's support the folks at Voto Latino, too.  Vote here.

The flow of remittances to developing nations - currently about $283 billion, according to the World Bank - could decline by up to 9 percent because of the global slowdown, he said.

India was the top recipient of remittances last year, amounting to $27 billion, or about 3 percent of its gross domestic product.

Remittances received by China reached $25.7 billion; the Philippines, $17.2 billion; and Bangladesh, $6.6 billion; according to the IOM's "World Migration 2008" report.

Mexico got $25.7 billion in 2007, it said.

John Zaracostas - Washington Times (8 December 2008)

If you've been paying attention to the news lately you've seen the rise in violence against Latinos. Just a few days ago men jumped from a truck and beat two Equadorian brothers nearly to death with a metal bat. We've also seen both Marcelo Lucero and Luis Ramirez beat to death in what are reported as hate crimes.

FAIR Claims Demonizing Rhetoric Unrelated to Anti-Latino Violence at Hatewatch.

FAIR said that this "outrageous behavior" was part of "a calculated strategy" aimed at "silenc[ing] legitimate immigration policy debate" and added that those who suggest such a link between rhetoric and hate crime "provide no proof whatsoever." FAIR and its leader, Dan Stein, were particularly incensed that Latino rights organizations had "cynically" suggested that the recent murder of Marcelo Lucero on Long Island, N.Y., by white teenagers who had gone hunting for "Mexicans," was related to the demonization of Latino immigrants that had been particularly heavy there.

In What Exactly *Are* You Thinking? over at Change.org David links to an article on anti-migrant sentiment in the UK. The cry that the 'white working class' is suffering is one used to promote migrant fear. The piece titled - has a great opening paragraph:

One of the most annoying things about people who like to play around with anti-immigrant politics is that they seem to be incapable of expressing themselves straightforwardly. They're like estate agents who don't want to mention that houses have toilets - it's all this euphemistic "are you thinking what I'm thinking" stuff. And usually, I'm not thinking what they're thinking, and I don't know what they mean.

This week's entry for Music on Monday is Thievery Corporation's new album Radio Retaliation.

It's in-your-face majority world political trip-hop/dub, featuring artists like Seu Jorge and Femi Kuti. Don't let the message distract you from the music, though--both are great. From the group's website:

"Radio Retaliation is definitely a more overt political statement," says Rob Garza of Thievery Corporation. "There's no excuse for not speaking out at this point, with the suspension of habeas corpus, outsourced torture, illegal wars of aggression, fuel, food, and economic crises. It's hard to close your eyes and sleep while the world is burning around you. If you are an artist, this is the most essential time to speak up." So that's exactly what they do with their new album.

Recording in their Washington DC based studio, Rob Garza and Eric Hilton, better known as the international DJ and production duo Thievery Corporation, have managed to blossom in the heart of a city they often refer to as "Babylon;" a poignant reference to the traditional Rastafarian distaste and distrust of a corrupt and unjust modern system. Although the city is best known as the seat of an aggressive American Empire, paradoxically Washington DC has long been the home of a music subculture legendary for fierce independence, a staunch do-it-yourself work ethic, and conscientious social activism exemplified by genre-defining pioneers like godfather of go-go Chuck Brown and indie punk rockers Bad Brains, Minor Threat and Fugazi.

Likewise, although some may lazily pin Thievery Corporation as the soundtrack to their cocktail infused late night soiree, the duo have always drawn deep from the well of independent and confrontational music subculture their home town is known for, to produce an ever expanding globally conscious catalogue of music that is difficult to classify.

I wanted to drop a couple of links to an insightful pairof posts over at Obsidian Wings. First, Eric Martin quotes Henley:

Insurgency can't pose an existential threat to the country. Is there a single instance of insurgency warfare conquering foreign territory? Even if you consider South Vietnam and North Vietnam to have really been separate countries, it was, as certain hawks never tire of pointing out, Hanoi's regular Army that conquered the South. The FLN could kick France out of Algeria, but it could never rule France. Hezbollah drove Israel out of Lebanon in the 1990s using guerrilla warfare. It couldn't use the same tactics to drive Israel out of Galilee. Insurgencies can prevent foreign or local governments from consolidating control over the insurgents' "own" territory. Guerrilla movements that get big enough have been able to take power in their own countries.

But they can't conquer. Insurgency is fundamentally reactive and, if not always merely "defensive" . . . parochial. A guerrilla army swims in the sea of the people, like the man said, and foreigners make a lousy sea. Even if all "the terrorists" wanted to follow us home after we "cut and run" from Iraq, they could never have remotely the effect here that they manage in Iraq. Here they lack a sea.

By and large, a country like the United States only needs to commit to an ongoing posture of counterinsurgency if it is also committed to serial military domination of foreign populations. In fact, the United States is currently so committed, on a bipartisan basis. But that's an unwise and immoral posture that will lead to national ruin in the medium to long term. The Iraq defeat offers one of those rare moments for real national reappraisal, an openness to genuine reform. Rather than work at getting better at executing an unwise and immoral grand strategy, let's choose a different one.

Scarily, the argument is as reductive as that. The common orientalizing conception of non-Americans, fostered in part by inculcation of the heroic national narrative in All Dutiful Children, allows us to simultaneously posit that the savages can't run their own societies without our military oversight and are clever enough to infiltrate our Great Nation's border and defeat us from within.

Part two comes from Publius:

And that brings us back to the real problem with terrorism - its potential for success. Terrorism gives way to a nationalistic fury that is hard to contain or to channel in constructive ways. Even the most reasonable people get outraged - and are right to be outraged.

Even worse though, most countries (India and USA included) have hyper-nationalist parties ready to seize upon tragedies like these for domestic gain, regardless of the collateral damage the parties' proposed policies would cause. Of course, the outrage these parties exploit is perfectly understandable, and it's universally shared. And the terrorists know this - indeed, they're counting on it. That's what often makes their strategy successful.

It's just infuriating -- you want to get mad, but getting mad is exactly what they want. Indeed, it's part of the plan.

In other words, the act of terror and the response are carefully choreographed episodes played by wealthy elites, symbolic gestures that happen to grind up real lives. And the cannon fodder believe in the drama most passionately--that is, after all, the purpose of the theatre.

This may be a DREAM come true at No To Borders and Binaries. The Pass the DREAM Act idea on Change.org has 752 votes and it looks like it will make it into the second round, but more votes will be needed to keep this issue at the top.  Please stop by the site and vote.

Making the DREAM ACT Happen at Dream Act Texas

Realizing the promise: tomorrow is the day, let's make some history at The Sanctuary. Today there will be a major gathering of grassroots leaders in DC.

This is truly a historic moment in our Nation's history and YOU can participate. Tomorrow, visit http://www.realizingthepromise.org/ from 3PM to 6PM to watch the entire event LIVE on our WEBCAST. We will be live-blogging the event at Standing FIRM, so be sure to check back for that too.

Check out Agriprocessors and the Guatemalan Immigrants at Immigration Prof Blog. This article tracks some of the workers and takes time to speak with them on their experiences. From an interview with one worker, Sanail:

On his bedroom wall, he displays a framed photo of himself in Postville. He laughed as he leafed through other pictures, which show him standing in knee-deep Iowa snow, bundled up against the unfamiliar cold. He would love to go back, but he swears he will never be an illegal immigrant again. The price is too high.

Prominent Racists Attend Inaugural H.L. Mencken Club Gathering at Hatewatch. Peter Brimelow gives his reasons for McCain's loss - not enough white Americans.

The president-elect only got a majority of white votes among 18-to-30-year-olds, according to Brimelow. "What this election shows is that whites vote one way and everybody else votes the other way."

From Bender's Immigration Bulletin - Immigrants offer a solution to America's problems. This article, by Mary Sanchez, goes over some facts from a Migration Policy Report along with here opinions on the appointment of Napolitano.

We create free language learning solutions that address refugees and disadvantaged immigrants in host countries whose language they can't speak or understand.

Our solutions are freely available on the web so that people like you, NGOs, and government agencies can download and distribute them wherever they can make a difference.

Fluenz.org

Bush said that one of his biggest disappointments was the failure to pass a comprehensive bill on immigration reform.

"I firmly believe that the immigration debate really didn't show the true nature of America as a welcoming society," he said. "I fully understand we need to enforce law and enforce borders. But the debate took on a tone that undermined the true greatness of America, which is that we welcome people who want to work hard and support their families."

Lauren Sher - ABC News (1 December 2008)