Or Nezua Leaves the Media Consortium and Moves On to What is Next

FOR THE LAST YEAR OR SO I’ve written a column on immigration matters for The Media Consortium, which was first called The Weekly Immigration Wire, and later The Weekly Diaspora.

Abruptly, the job has come to an end by my editor telling me on the phone they are not renewing my contract due to “editorial strategy.”

I’ll write  about the experience and related thoughts here to close up the story, as well as to think it out for my own satisfaction. I am taking my time with it and if you prefer curt and properly concluded writing, feel free to skip this post taking away nothing more than the fact that what comes after this point from TMC—whether it is called “Diaspora” or something else—is not my work.

I feel honored to have kick-started that new project of theirs and get it off the ground for the first 13 or 14 months. I’d be lying if I did not admit some frustration that I am let go just as CIR is centered, finally, in the national dialogue.

I publish this a handful of days after that happened. I’ve thought long and hard about what I should say, if anything, about my experiences. It is very hard out here in the NEW MEDIA [echo echo echo SHINE] world. You need to think about what you put live. I don’t want to react. Ranting was never a viable option; I’m not here to be petty. But the first draft of this post glossed over so much that I experienced, and mostly to put on a pleasant face professionally. And…yanno. To not Rock the Boat.

And the more I thought over the entire experience, the worse I felt about that. What do I do out here? I talk about my experience in the world, about ethnicity, about the power structures we run into, about immigration. About New Media. About writing…journalism…about allathat. Hey, that’s why the Kirwan Institute is flying me across the USA in a couple months. Dammit! Some people want to read about these things. And…as a writer type, I’d say until I write things down, they exist in a strange and nebulous place in my consciousness…likely to be erased by the everyday rushing of blood through my arteries, the living of the next breath, the What Is Important Today factor folding into the next day….

This is a Story About

It’s very tempting, when telling a story, to define the content as I did with the subhed atop this writing. It is natural to want to sum up, conclude, compartmentalize, prologue or otherwise provide a frame with so many words in order that your reader can better absorb the thesis.

But I can’t really say what this is a story about. It’s not just about my leaving my last job. Not at all. And yet, that was the departure point for much of it. Ultimately, I don’t want to predispose your thinking. In fact, I’d say it’s possible ten people could reach the end of this post and come away with different things. I’m not sure. But that’s how I wrote this. Not entirely sure of much except what it felt like to live and remember the moments.

This is a story about a number of things. People, the USA, society, gender, race, ethnicity, language, communication, media, blogging, challenge, lessons, immigration, people of color. Lenses. Business meeting art. Cultural change. More?

Marginalized Voices Are Being Mainstreamed…or Are They?

The job brought challenges. For them, I am grateful. They help me grow. They did and still do.

My very first one was perhaps due to the blurry crossover between what I do here at UMX all the time, and doing something that feels sort of the same, is often on the same topics, and written from the same seat!—but otherwise completely different in everything from process to pace. It is a business someone is running, and a job they offer me. Sounds obvious. But when you begin writing online—and when I began writing about immigration, specifically—it was from a very organic place and manner. I was going to say, I sometimes say, “I never wanted nor planned to write a word on immigration” but the truth of it is, I began the blog for the May Day Marches of 2006. That marked the official start. So I was bound to begin writing on it sooner or later.

But mostly what was driving me and my writing was wrestling with what IDENTITY means here in the U.S. to someone like me. I wrote about Chicanismo. And, también, about standing up to be counted among those willing to stare down the racists and those coming at mi gente from all sides. Talking about my family means talking about the border. And about American Indigenous. And about the war waged on us for many many years. It means talking about the power of the people, about programs like Bracero, about women who are on their knees cleaning the floors of the wealthy US citizens. Like mi bisabuela. It means talking about inequity. It means talking about immigration.

So my arc here has been a curriculum born from heart and only incidentally becomes marketable because of how long you’ve been at it, how much you run your mouth, the “hot” issues of the day according to Rahm, and an explosion in the new media frontier of which you simply happened to have been on the early tide of for serendipitous reasons.

When you find work through that path and segue over into a scheduled job…there are going to be a few places where you stop and say “Oh, wait. This is a wildly different thing.” With varying degrees of conflict required before it is clear. And here I may simply mean conflict to your expectations or personal running monologue.

I got there, though. In working that job. That’s one thing I feel proud about. Granted, it was not an easy transition. Me and my editor knocked heads a few times, especially early on. But that’s what having an editor is about. I have both been and had editors, and it is always a touchy relationship or one that takes time to feel out between any two particular people, as they will no doubt be passionate about words. But I grew to feel out the job. I grew to see that it was a place I section off my overall agenda and care and passion and feelings for the movement, and just earned my money doing what was required. For most of the time I worked for them, I felt good about TMC, because I was still allowed to speak my peace on the issues. That is, to use a lens that was not DC-centric, that was rooted in a more expansive and less border-frantic philosophy, or rather that spoke of the harm borders do, how they are in our mind, and how here in the US, immigration issues are not seen coherently, but too often a place where racism and imperialism dominate. But there were always tensions. I’m sure they existed for varied reasons, I won’t pretend to be omniscient. But there is going to be tension when you write from that place, and yet are involved with a media collective that hues to a different voice overall, one that is “independent” but yet still corporate in many cases, or DC-centric in ideology. That is only expected.

Though some things were not expected. One day my editor called me out of the blue to tell me she had issues with my “tone.” I was baffled. She didn’t mean my writing tone in the articles. She meant personally. On the phone. On emails. After a few minutes getting no clear picture of what this meant, I found myself getting frustrated, but tacked to the particulars to try and get clear of the indefinable accusation. I’d need a specific example. No, there was no real example to be had. I think the only one she could find was that recently I bragged about my blog “crushing” TMC’s blog in terms of activity. (Not respecting authority? Acting as if I were equal to them in status or power? Bad social etiquette? I said it in humor, after all….) Other than that, it was just an overall “tone” problem. I pointed out the good things I said about TMC recently as well, asked why we didn’t focus on those things. I didn’t bother to link her to my drowning maestro glosario entry, I honestly expect self-identified Feminists to already be familiar with these types of dynamics—surely she’s been told similar things by men who wanted her to offer up a bit of deference at any given moment?—and don’t want to insult them by snarkily throwing a bingo card into a tense situation like that.

So I mostly bite my lip while my belly flips. I end the phone call saying I don’t really appreciate the call coming during free time to convey what it had to convey, and I will continue to be as conscientious as I’ve always been. I felt very frustrated.

“For you, talking about race is a necessity; for us, it is a luxury.”

That quote is from a classic post in the classic iteration of UMX, back when the blogosphere just began to talk about race in the mainstream, it seemed. The person who made that statement was a commenter called “truth machine” who came by to make an ass out of himself for a short time one day, three februarys ago. The phrase was first offered as a cold observation of fact, and then again as a vehicle intended to deliver Wite Disdain.

It also communicates the difference in approach that can be found between many left-ward factions that otherwise share much agenda. For example, white feminists have the luxury of not having to factor into discussions of Feminism the issues that are particular to women of color. And as most know out here, that is actually an ongoing tension in organized Feminism.

This is one place tensions manifested at times between me and my last employers at times. The difference in viewpoints. Nothing antagonistic, as with ‘truth machine.’ But in a way that is useful to examine simply to learn about the new social and cultural terrain which we traverse here in the U.S. of A.

Other people are talking about this terrain, too, of course. Tracy Van Slyke, an owner of The Media Consortium, just co-wrote a book called Getting Beyond the Echo Chamber and in it she did a fair job—the best yet so far, I’d say, of any white progressive author writing out histories of the blogosphere—of looking around and seeing more of the terrain out here than normally recognized by many white progressive book writers: The black blogosphere. The women of color. The brown blogosphere. (Don’t remember if it got deeper than that in the book, I’ve a little left to go.)

Tracy quoted me in her book (forgive the self-referential move) as saying the difference in people of color and “identity-based” bloggers vs. white progressives is that (in about every angle of our activism) we are talking about our lives. Our families and their lives. About being in the crosshairs. About hate crimes rising against us. About very personal real-life up-close things. How our family came here, what struggle has been for our families, and finding a place, yet, where that story is told. Whereas the “Progressive” blogosphere often comes to these issues from a more detached, idealistic, altruistic, or theoretical place, when they do come at all. That’s just a fact, it’s not an accusation or a slur. It simply has to do with the history, overall, of our peoples. And what attention is given to the struggles of different peoples in the media, and why. And how that is portrayed when it is.

This is not an original insight, and it is not rare to hear it circulating in the blogospheres con melanin, but I was happy to get the sentiment into her book, happy that she included it. In fact, it made me feel very good about her and about the work they were doing.

Interestingly, there were some times writing the column when the same truth contained in that quote interfered with my work; or at least provided more challenge for me and my editor—a 20-something year old white woman. As I pointed out one day to my editor after having an article flat out rejected as a whole rather than being sent back to me with edit notes here and there—I am not like the fellow writing the TMC Economy Wire (very cool cat named Zach), nor Lindsey, who writes the Healthcare Wire. I am here dealing with issues that are inevitably personal and emotional. But maybe that’s not business talk. I have to admit there was nowhere really to go with that, once its said. So once I said it, I told myself I had to learn better how to compartmentalize. And I did.

Absorbing the Energies

What did I do to write on immigration every week?

I paid attention all week to news. This was (and is) how I know what’s going on, the landscape. I am on multiple list-servs, I am in touch with hundreds of people through Twitter and email and so on.

But the day I’d write the column, I’d open about ten or fifteen pages of articles (a predetermined list that was composed of independent news media who were members of TMC) and read through, slowly. If there are videos, I watch them. If there is audio segments of radio, etc, I listen. I sit and absorb ALL of this in one big undulating wave of information and energy. It’s quite a dosing!

So when the news would get thick with Mexican@s being mistreated or hunted, or in hate crimes being dismissed and the killers walking free, or when an abuela is manhandled or harmed in detention, it sometimes messed me up inside for a bit. I hope this is immediately understandable. Beyond the identification, I am an artist and certainly with my “nerve endings on the surface” as amiga Erika says of the artists’ condition. Shoot, I remember nights trying to write about these news stories and ending up in tears. And one time—it had to do with when a lot of abuses in the detention centers were coming to light—just ranting in my column. And then, as I wrote above, my editor called me back on the phone with a somewhat tentative “Um…this isnt really what we are looking for.”

She was right. It was my soul bellowing in pain, and yes, it was words coming from  a heart torn by barbed wire and thus, a voice that should sound out and perhaps be heard as one part of today’s human response to the immigration issue…but it wasn’t what they were paying me for.

I never submitted another article like that. I figured I’d just keep it in my blog, was grateful I have people willing to read what I write here.

Clash of the Lenses

I’d say I got the format down pretty damn well by the end. I became better and better at letting the words go without a struggle. I’d say pretty quickly. That night had a lot to do with it. Just a shift of the mindset.

I’ve been a fan of Poe for many years, many many years. And I’ve read up on some of my favorite authors as a boy and I know about Dickens and others getting paid to write in periodicals, or installments of fiction, and having to alter their words to make a buck. Knowing that is what prepared me, even, for selling art to magazines and such. You adjust to that particular market. My writing voice, which normally relies more on build, on rhythm, on music, and color, needed to fit into much sparer, dryer, “delivering news” type of style.

This reminds me of a chapter, again, in Beyond the Echo Chamber, by Jessica Clarke (directs the Future of Public Media Project at American University’s Center for Social Media and is the former executive editor of In These Times) and Tracy Van Slyke (the program director of the Media Consortium and is former publisher of In These Times.) The chapter is called Move Beyond the Pale, Male and Stale, and in it the authors predict the media landscape, if it wants to survive, must move beyond white male dominated viewpoints and the dispassionate, removed typical journalist voice; borrow a bit from the heart, soul, and fire of the blogosphere.

It is tempting here to make a cheap shot about how the edits to my work taught me the opposite, to tame down my voice. But that would be ignoring the very heartfelt and much-to-the-left thinking that they always allowed through, mostly in my final paragraph. I think just by hiring me, there was an example of media allowing less “stale” voices. And I do appreciate that. So yes, for what it’s worth, I do think they followed—or attempted to while I was with them—that dictum.

After all, this is a new media group. And as progressive as they want to be, they are a business that has to contend with the power structures in place. Anybody can talk about the white male centric landscape all they want. But it remains a power system that preferences certain voices and actions and views, nonetheless. These values and preferences ripple out and ripple down and ripple over, and I think they are worth talking about so that more and more people see the invisibled rule that shall never be spoken and can make a new way; can “move beyond the pale, male, and stale.”

Once I accepted within that writing about immigration with the job hat was very much different than writing on immigration for myself, the process became infinitely easier. In fact, after that took hold in me, I don’t think I ever bucked an edit anymore unless it said something new that distorted the orginal meaning beyond acceptability, or was something I could not approve being said about the Mexicano or undocumented community, or on the behalf of either. I didn’t need a fight, nor to be as intractably idealistic as a 19 year old would. I needed to write what was happening in immigration in the independent news circuit, and be true to myself. That was possible, most of the time.

But I did note the difference in our lenses and how that became a conflict at moments…and how the “brown” voice would be subsumed in a more anonymous, neutralized voice. And seeing that happen bothered me, sure. The media voice and how it handles mexican americans and white vs non-white is central to what got me out here, and what affected me as a child, and what needs to be shifted. If I am going to be involved in making media, then I have to feel good about how I am affecting the world in that specific aspect! Perhaps not every minute. But certainly when certain topics are being discussed.

Showing you an example of one edited—before and after—paragraph of my writing for TMC will give you a clearer idea than my describing the dynamic. (The original Diaspora blog post. The original source article.)

BEFORE TMC EDITS:

Reviewing Helen Thorpe’s Just Like Us: The True Story of Four Mexican Girls Coming of Age in America, Emily Deprang writes on a story that unfolds on a bus trip from Tucson to Houston and back and “details four young Mexican women” in varying legal situations—two with papers and two undocumented. Thorpe’s narrative is told through the eyes (green) of a “pale” skinned woman who has the chance to get up close to the idea of people being the same despite their citizenship status and are, after all, “Just Like Us.” DePrang calls the book “an epic journey through the realities of undocumented life” and feels “[e]very American—documented or not—deserves to meet Marisela, Yadira, Elissa, and Clara.”

AFTER TMC EDITS:

Emily Deprang reviews Helen Thorpe’s Just Like Us: The True Story of Four Mexican Girls Coming of Age in America for the Texas Observer. The story unfolds on a bus trip from Tucson to Houston and back and “details four young Mexican women” in varying legal situations—two with papers and two undocumented. DePrang calls the book “an epic journey through the realities of undocumented life” and feels that “every American—documented or not—deserves to meet Marisela, Yadira, Elissa, and Clara.”

Those edits can be reasonably defended. Some of my wording is unclear “on a story that unfolds on a bus trip” or cluttered, and my editor was great at lancing that stuff away. I learned from it, you better believe me. I’ll watch your fingers when you play that git-tar!

But you’ll notice what has been taken out with the edits, as well.

If you read the original article, you’ll see that the author herself very much intended to draw distinctions—those of hue and ethnicity and the privilege that comes with being lighter, with having green eyes, with being white. (If you get a feel for the book by reading the entire article, you might argue that this idea is central to the entire book that is being promoted:

Late in the night, the bus crawled to a halt, kicking up dust and gravel, and the lights came on, waking everyone. Wordlessly, the bus rustled to life and passengers began rummaging for purses and wallets. The doors hissed open, and a Border Patrol officer mounted the steps and creaked along the aisle, asking passengers if they were American citizens. When he approached us, I looked up at him with my pale face and green eyes and said, “Yes,” a defiant little frown on my privileged face. I didn’t offer any documentation. His eyes flicked to Juan, who proffered his Green Card. The officer studied it with a flashlight, front and back, scrutinized Juan, looked again at the card and returned it. The bus was silent until the officer left, and it was silent for a long time after.

The write-up celebrates how They Are Just Like Us, but as you can imagine, this would be a strange voice to adopt for a person of mexican descent writing on the piece, as I was. “Them”? “Us”? It becomes tricky, navigating this post-racial world!

My editor seemed to have answered this challenge by stripping the paragraph of any indication of this tension. And yet that tension is what the writer is communicating. Here I feel…it was the editor’s inability to grapple, yet, with these issues that made these edits, that rendered the very important lingering upon these tensions into a muted, spare collection of much safer words.

Moments like that gave me great pause. I bounced the edits back, learned not to push too hard whenever necessary, just move on with the JOB. But I’d spin into inner dialogue. Questions.

Were we—TMC and I—furthering positive change by our relationship? Was a reality/voice typically marginalized and under attack at almost all times—truly being given a platform? Or was I facilitating nothing more than the appearance of them doing so—Tokenism?

These well-hewn paths are not unique to TMC or any one company, new or old. There are simply currents in place. Strong currents in place that rise from standing structures in the stream. If you are to find a new path, it will not be the one of least resistance.

When I was accepted into NYU Film and both my best friends were so jealous that they couldn’t hide their disgust. They had wanted to be filmmakers all their lives. And I decided when flipping through the Cornell book at the last minute that my long-time dream of acting would be best expressed in pursuing a Film and TV degree. And got into NYU. And when I was two hours south, and writing and shooting short films not much later, I always invited those friends to star or be crew in my films. I wanted to bring them in to the circle of possibility.

When a certain “brown” list serv began, I argued hard for a woman or more to be on the mod panel, to shake up the typical power structures. I wasn’t even on the mod panel, and believe it or not, it really was an argument. But the young male in charge acquiesced as we had both been in Chicago when the list was conceived, roomed together, and I was kind of “in on it” to some degree. I reached out to various women of color to ask if they were interested at that point.

When my friends and I began the Sanctuary, we did the same thing—reached out to bring in people who had less of a platform. I could go on, and there are many examples that do not involved me, but I know less about them.

Those who want to change the landscape and remake the power paradigms need to always be pushing power outward to the margins. There will always be those with less power in a given moment or situation, and who have suffered in ways due to that reality. And until they get more, the societal structure will be unsound and unjust. The more drastic the ratio of inequality, the more danger exists in that unsound structure.

Those who wish to hoard the power while pretending they are here to make a new day will meet conflict when they appear in the midst of those wishing to truly change the system. This happened recently on the aforementioned list-serv dedicated to “brown” issues or framing, and is in fact related to this story.

The Process of UnNatural Selection

There are bloggers out there who have written for years on immigra—Oh, hell. I was gonna totally background myself and put it all carefully without ever mentioning UMX so as to avoid the accusation that my care for an issue is all about my own ego! Now I’m reacting preemptively to idiots. Never worth the time. Which brings me anyway (isn’t that neat?) to the link I wanted to bring in. Because some responded to the next post I’ll link by claiming all I wanted was more blogroll links.

If you’ve been around since the classic days of UMX, you may remember this post. The post’s use of the word “front” is a double entendre. For me, that post stands out as my having finally internalized the realization that most white progressive bloggers at the time (or the ones known to me) saw their range of issues are universal ones, while issues that apparently disproportionately affected people of color (and especially MESCANS! for cryin out loud) are fringe issues, “pet issues,” etc.  You know! This was that crazy blogular year of 2007! Shit was blowin’ up ALL over! And that post sprung out of my seeing the reality of the mainstream focus as it applied to the Mexican American community, or the undocumented or the Latino community. It was also pretty raw because it was me reacting to the march the year AFTER the massive march in 2006. And those numbers inspired many, and made it feel that change was imminent. So when 2007 came and the march was stomped by the police walking in creepy military type formations because they needed to make a point about massive numbers of mexicans marching, it was jolting.

But in truth, the police attack on la marcha in 2007 was only a catalyst. That feeling had been bubbling up for a while.

It is clear now that the immigration issue presents a true challenge to human rights activists as well as those who identify as “Progressives.” And I’m sure there are many posts by many people saying as much; I’ve read many since then. And it was, in fact, a reader/commenter who summed that idea up concisely in one of my threads, which is where I got the title for “The True Front of Progressivism.”

I’m not claiming I originated anything. I’m making clear, using a narrative I can stand behind as witness, where tension existed on this issue, in some parts of the Internet. This is where I learned. Duke, a co-founder of the Sanctuary, could point out his own posts on how Dkos/Markos was insisting immigration was not a relevant topic for Democrats, and so on. Manuél, Kai, Mala, Kety—everyone could tell their part of the story.

No matter which angle you come at it from, the fact is, it has only been recently that immigration has become a “hot” issue on the Left.

In the last year or so many groups have sprung up. Groups that exist to advocate for immigration rights, lawyer firms with Twitter accounts that cater to immigration. While NDLON has been pushing hard for the issue for years, it is only now that the larger entities like Dkos and Netroots Nation and such are embracing the issue, devoting more time, money, space. They want a win. A Democratic win. And I’m sure they feel it is the Right Thing to do. Now.

So there’s some background. Now we come back to the present.

Remember that “Brown” list? Let’s call this (purportedly) Latino-centric list “BrownWorld.” Well, one day about a week ago, someone sends an email, happy about a panel of speakers pushing immigration as an issue. Happy because it’s a big media draw, and in large part because the well-known Markos Moulitsas (founder of Dkos) is pitching the idea that Now Is the Time for Immigration reform.

But right away, some voices spring up on the list, protesting that nobody who follows the issues regularly is being included. Some of these bloggers are on top of this nearly every day. For years. Remember, the white-O-sphere had been very resistant to seeing immigration issues as their issue. The Wite Disdain was offered in place of any humble examination that a greater justice could be had by the core issues being more inclusive or basically, just more aware of the actual real world. That reality is remembered by many. While others want to move past it without acknowledging it in any meaningful way. They probably see no need.

Yet, on the parts of the bloggers who were brushed off, a resentment brewed. We had been told these issues that drew crosshairs on our families were “pet issues.” “third rail.” Not to be included in the constant push for justice!

I am reporting how some were reacting to this announcement of this panel. For me…I had already learned. Didn’t and don’t really raise hell about it anymore. Don’t see the point. I’ll still make the statements I do about what I see. But it’s not like I do it to make it stop or make someone see. I make the statements I do…to make them. Because it’s what I see from where I am sitting.

The overall response from many after I wrote True Front was that I had been “begging for links” in my post. The focus mostly rested on my tone. Though nobody spoke to me directly, I got the feedback in various ways. Sort of a “trickle down” effect. There were sentiments expressed that nobody who blogs should ever “shame” people into acting  (…to save lives?). Okay. I think I agree with that, after all. I didn’t write to shame anybody into anything. I was calling it as I saw it.

But I got the message! Many were annoyed by it. Okay. What I chose to take away was “organize and support your own people and don’t expect the so-called ‘Progressives’ to get in on it.” And I think it was an empowering lesson and message, one that Malcolm X. touched on in his many talks to the African American community.

Then a year or two passes, and suddenly some of those same people are taking up the helm. Yes, I understand why those voices leaped up on the list when that panel was discussed. Markos was one of those people who had not long ago opined on the non-necessity of advocating for immigration reform.

Look, I’m 40. Not 20. I know a bit of how the world works. And in fact, having Markos get behind immigration is, I’m sure, a net positive for the promotion of the agenda in the media. I, too, understand the bafflement of those on BrownWorld who saw the panel as 100% a good thing and couldn’t understand why those damn immigration bloggers were complaining again! Hey! Immigration is now gonna get some backing by a blog star! Influence and all that. Of course, now that a person stakes a claim on the issue, the question comes into play as to what they might see as satisfactory as far as terms of the bill. What will they push for, exactly? What will they concede?

But off the bat, yes. The more voices, the better!

And I said so:

I am not suprised by the stars heading up the “cause.” But hey, I would love to see Markos and others get on this issue with the fever and passion and endurance and knowledeability and powerful stances I’ve seen for years from many smaller immigration-oriented bloggers, so who knows what will happen. Anything is possible.

So yeah. You can see I needed to acknowledge the truth of things. We don’t need any more hidden histories. But at the same time, it’s not a bad thing that he is speaking in support of immigration, come on!

The thread went on… .

It’s funny, on “BrownWorld” how there are a couple non-brown people (white) who can always be counted on to leap up when us oversensitive and whiny POC and put the pressure on to be quiet. I think part of it is this DC mentality that if everyone is cheering that the picnic was sunny, nobody will remember the rain. So a voice not in lockstep really rattles them, as if it portends gloom, foretells failure. Insecurity?

These unofficial list monitors say things that sound amazingly…Reaganite. They are like Progressives…until it comes to their reaching for logic born out of conserative thinking. Like telling us “I just think you are disempowering yourself” by pointing out the eternal preferences that overlook certain voices.

I think of Clarence Thomas who hates himself for Affirmative Action perhaps helping balance against historical and systemically entrenched injustice in his own path. Would that also be the logic of the BrownWorld Reaganites? That this program is disempowering to minorities? Either way, they leap up over and over, striving to hammer down the Last Word and help the system stay as it is. They never see the larger justice suggested by questioning certain entrenched value systems.

They identify too much with the standing systems that preference what they do. I get that. But it feels obscene on a “brown” list.

Let me tell you something, white people. If you are on a Brown-centric List. Don’t find yourself in that position. Also, males? If you are on a female-centered list? Don’t do the same thing to women. Also, ANY PEOPLE who are SUPPOSEDLY in a cause that disproportionately affects certain other-related people than yourself? Don’t be finding yourself all up in that issue laying down the law for them.

You’d think these things would be obvious.

Anyway, in the course of that conversation, the Reaganites offered a couple other points of view.

One was that it was an “All-Latino” panel, so what complaint had any of us? Always complaining, no solutions, they said. (Because…including voices that have been on the issues for years is not implied as a solution inherently in the original observation?)

They were saying that Markos Moulitsas is “Latino” in a political sense. I know they weren’t meaning it like GOP uses Michael Steele–for an appearance reason with no visible cultural stance or pride or agenda that prioritizes the community. Because that’s called a “token.”

But I don’t have to be so ungenerous either. It is possible, too, that Mister Moulitsas is just now thinking about how the issue applies to him and his family. Or not even. Maybe the rightness just happens to now be revealed to him. These things can be very personal and I wouldn’t attack someone for any pace they take, if it is natural. That would be meanspirited and just stupid.

So it wasn’t important until now. And now it is. Okay! At least now it is.

Yet what I DO take issue with is how when the media that had all gathered together to be in the presence of Markos’ Very Huge Megaphone and asked him what other bloggers were involved with immigration, he replied that he couldn’t think of any offhand. That there were some smaller bloggers who had been doing some good work, but he hadn’t yet figured out a way to reach out and help give them a voice.

I guess it did not strike him that one way to do so…would be to mention their name or blog at that very moment.

If someone is an expert on the social landscape of the Internet in any way…that is a bad position to stake out. To claim such distance from the very issue you are championing. After all, this is the same Markos who emailed me personally a few months ago to inform me he had put my name in the hat when Presente.org asked him who to look at for choosing their National Campaign Director! This is the same Markos that has The Sanctuary on his blogroll! He knows peoples names. Let’s not be silly.

But don’t take it too far: I do not think it was personal. I’m betting the omission at that moment was a reflex that simply felt “safe” when presented with the question.

Those who aren’t really interested in changing the landscape of power and only want their own chair on the dias do not push power outward. They instinctively hoard it to their table and cradle their arms around it.

Is this about my thirsting for links? Is this about me wanting an immigration blogger limelight? Nope. I made it clear how tied to that issue I am and why and what it’s not about. Additionally, I am much more involved in art lately than blogging (as you can tell by the blog since January 1) and I find myself in this different role and relationship to the issue not by accident.

This is just a story I want to write down here and remember.

The Gloves With Spikes Inside Them

Don’t they wonder? Those Reaganites on the progressive lists? They claim we are just over emotional, don’t want to solve anything, etc. We leap up passionately about the same things over and over…don’t they wonder why? Why we would do it, if we know it hurts us? Do they not think there are consequences to bucking these systems? Oh there are. Beyond being told you are whiners and ‘disempowering yourself’ by supposed allies. Beyond, too, being hushed by other people of color. Maybe older ones, maybe more careful ones. You can get some people of color very worried by rocking the boat too much, and they may lash out at  you for fear that they will reap consequence for your actions. They have become more practical, and often grew up in a time where it was much less safe to do so.

If you attack patriarchy, there will be consequence. If you attack white supremacy values there will be consequence. We know this. White people often HATE hearing about white people. And the talk need not even be so pointed; most visibly stiffen to even hear the phrase “white people.” Having the phrase appears means the normal invisibility of Whiteness is banished and that there IS a dynamic and that it CAN be named and described. It’s enough to get you thrown out of a holiday picnic!

There’s a reason I hid most cultural markers of mine as much as possible for years. There are currents in place. There are unwritten rules. If you push back…you will feel it.

First in the belly. A fear. You did something dangerous. Should’ve kept quiet. Don’t rock the boat. Why are you starting trouble? Shhhhh. You fear that every time you do this and do it publicly, it will come back in a form that makes your kids ask why you can’t afford things more and more. You will limit your job opportunities. You will make enemies. You will feel uptight. You will, at times, feel a target.

The effects of pushing back on power structures are not unknown to those who do it continually. If you had to assume these people of color were not being overemotional, but are in fact very RATIONAL actors…what would prompt them to do these things? What would prompt us to keep at it? Because many blows for justice come with a pain that marks the hand wielding the tool. Why would you keep swinging?

One of the Reaganites trying to shut down the mostly-POC complaints said he couldn’t understand how we kept saying the Progressive Blogosphere is mostly white. I replied that it was indeed viewed that way. I had just read Tracy’s book and as I mentioned, had been impressed to find the inclusion of histories of the brown blogosphere and black blogosphere and women of color-o-sphere in addition to the . I pointed out to him that in her book, in the chapter “Move Beyond the Pale, Male and Stale” Jessica Clark and Tracy Van Slyke had pointed out that in fact, the Progressive sphere was viewed as white and privileged. I went on further to say that to ignore this was to fall into a blindness that Whiteness prefers: the invisibility of its own dominance in a sphere.

I felt pretty good about slinging out my employer’s book title and some content. I thought she’d like how I used it as a forward-thinking example of literature, aware of the demographics of our modern day and on the cutting edge of where media had to go. I knew my editor was on the list, and would read the email. Our call took place only a short time after that list meléé.

I was actually surprised when less than twenty seconds into the phone call, I was told I was being let go after 13 or 14 months!

A Different Direction

We had only been scheduled to speak about how to get the column done on Wednesday night. But after a neutral greeting sentence or so, my editor says “I’m glad we had a chance to talk” as if it were not expected. That line struck me as odd, especially as it led directly to “because we are not going to renew  your contract.” She went on to say tersely that now that the “[immigration] issue is heating up” they wanted someone “in DC.” I said Okay. It was a bit surreal for me. I hadn’t expected it at all. I’m the first one to write on this column for them, I got it off the ground, and I’ve been on it for years before this, and here I felt like I was the boxer who trained for so long, jogged to the ring in his satin red jacket and was told the fight was off before the bell rang.

I totally forgot to ask if she liked the plug I gave Tracy’s book. Nor did I argue. I just said ‘Okay,’ right away. To my ears, she sounded put off-balance by the quick agreement, if anything. Maybe she was expecting more resistance. Because she offered an explanation a second time, even though I hadn’t asked for more. “Yeah, we’re just gonna…take it in a different direction,” she tacked on. Hunh.

I wondered immediately what direction this might be. Will the new writer continue to pose questions like this on media calls? Will they continue to try and push awareness outward by continually advocating for more grassroots voices in the column? Whatever direction it takes, I hope it is one useful to the People. And also, yes, I do hope that The Media Consortium is successful in their plan of building a lasting coalition of smart, informative, independent media.

What We Have Here is a Failure to Communicate

Obviously, there is no way to know exactly spurred the call. There could have been a few reasons. An “editorial strategy” that required I be FedExed the last of my pay within days; that would pay me for two more weeks, but required not another day of work from me. Strategy that thought it better to have no column at all for a couple weeks rather than have me write it; better to have no immigration blogger at all since none is waiting in the wings.

And Hell, I want to take it personally! But there is no point in that. Maybe the entire operation is faltering and needs to reboot. As I said, I agree that it is time for the next level. I feel it in my life, yes. And I was beginning to feel very frustrated by the lack of communication. Everything felt in flux with no clear direction of where it was going. By the end I was doing the work their interns had been doing for 8 months or so…before they just stopped. With no warning to me that I can remember. I used to bring it up, but stopped mentioning that the interns weren’t doing their part of seeding the article ladders, and just started doing that work myself.

In fact, the end came as a bit of a shock simply because I thought that I was getting my part down much smoother; that my editor and I had worked out a system that no longer included too much back and forth. I was even writing very much in the style I knew was preferred by then. Any conflict—or outward appearance of it at least—had disappeared.

But perhaps not. Perhaps I was just not in the loop there.

I think bloggers have it hard when we get hired by companies like this. What lead you to blogging? A need to call out the truth, no? A need to present your side of it? A need to join forces and support those you want to see grow? A need to stand up to step on destructive patterns and forces. Do these traits and needs go away when you get a paycheck? No. And is there a consequence to still saying what you want about what’s going on? Even if it takes place on a closed list? Yes, you better believe it. Is that what happened in my case?  I don’t know, can’t be sure, don’t care. It doesn’t really matter.  I wrote it here, as I said, because I feel there are things to learn and know by traveling the narrative. Even if one doesn’t agree with all the statements I made. And because I needed to write it down.

And now, I need to move on.

I hope I haven’t made any hard and fast statements about things, as I feel this is all very much part of a story and a learning that is far from over. I do not offer this account as the definitive chapter, but only one angle in on a narrow window of time. Perhaps added to other days and stories, it will help tell a larger truth.

And So It Goes!

I’ll end by saying thank you to TMC for 13 months of employment doing something I enjoy doing. For supporting my voice while they did. For teaching me a bit more about dry AP style journalism (that is not sarcastic at all!) And one more time for the cash flow. There were a few months were things were so bad on my end, my TMC gig was primarily responsible for insuring the rent got paid. So okay, there is a note of anxiety now, as finding another gig at this time is not necessarily going to be easy. But I am confident that my fate brought me here for a very good reason and that it will work out beautifully.

If you want/are able to help bridge the gap, donations will be accepted with gratitude.

And so it goes! And on we go. In a different direction. In two weeks I’ll be in the Yucatán. Sounds good to me.

[For those new to the Unapologetic Mexican Blog (UMX), The Weekly Diaspora is a (paid) article I write for The Media Consortium. It is a column that runs on a few other sites, as well.]

By Nezua, Media Consortium Blogger

Professional pundits and Democratic politicians are in a frenzy over what Martha Coakley’s senate seat loss to Republican Scott Brown might mean for American politics.

Immigration reform in jeopardy

As Harold Meyerson of the American Prospect reports, the loss of one seat probably won’t derail heath care reform, but it does make the chances of passing immigration reform slimmer. Meyerson writes that immigration reform is “necessary to restore our economic vitality and political equality,” and actually passing reform would benefit the Democratic faction. Unfortunately, that means that immigration reform will require 60 votes in order to pass the senate.

The Texas Observer‘s Melissa del Bosque writes about the slim chances of immigration reform passing in 2010. According to Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX), a member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, a 2011 target date is “probably more realistic.” del Bosque refuses to lose hope, reminding us that Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) has assured the public that “the Obama administration promised to bring up the issue in 2010.” Of course, bringing up an issue and actually passing reform are two very different animals.

Holding on to hope for 2010

In her daily roundup of Spanish-language media, Erin Rosa of Campus Progress also urges a positive outlook “despite the reorganization of the Senate.” Rosa relays that Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-CA) assured the media during a telephone conference that President Obama “remembers his promise well.” While “most latinos” interviewed are impatient, they hold on to hope that 2010 is the year for reform.

TPS for Haitians

Haitian undocumented that are currently within U.S. borders will be given Temporary Protected Status (TPS), as Julianne Hing reports for RaceWire. The decision only applies to Haitian immigrants in the U.S. prior to January 12, 2010. Hing observes that it is unfortunate that it took “a disaster of this magnitude” to inspire the White House to offer TPS to Haitian immigrants, though it is “a great relief.”

What will the recently granted TPS status mean for Haitians that are already in deportation proceedings? Such is the case of Haitian immigrant Jean Montrevil, as Aarti Shahani reports for New America Media. Montrevil came to the U.S. on a green card in 1986 to “make it big,” but in his efforts, “got stupid,” and caught up in selling drugs from his taxi cab. That was 20 years ago, and Montrevil has served 11 years in prison to pay for his errors. Montrevil is now a father of four and a community leader. The Department of Homeland Security considers his prison time proper cause to deport him. Many others feel he has done his time, and is a positively contributing member of our society. Democracy Now! also covered Montrevil’s story recently, as noted in the Jan. 7 Diaspora.

Invisible to the first world

Why are countries like Haiti mostly invisible to first world nations like the U.S. until catastrophe strikes? Leonardo Padura asks, before the earthquake, “Who talked about Haiti?” for IPS News. Haiti desperately needs the emergency aid so generously given today, but the country has needed help for a long time. “Let us hope that tomorrow, when the tragedy no longer dominates the headlines, and the dead are buried,” writes Padura, “we will not forget Haiti exists….”

Disappointingly, “U.S. corporations, private mercenaries, Washington and the International Monetary Fund” are remembering Haiti in a rather cruel and opportunist fashion, as Benjamin Dangl reports for AlterNet. At a time of crisis and great human need, Washington D.C. is “promoting unpopular economic policies and extending military and economic control over the Haitian people.” This is disturbing, as a long history of economic exploitation helped render the country vulnerable to disaster. The recent earthquake has claimed roughly 200,000 lives so far.

Haiti in context

While borders and border cities bear the brunt of blame when migrants move, the cure won’t be found in bigger bails of barbed wire, or harsh enforcement tactics that deny escape from economic desperation or dangerous conditions.

Jocelyn Barnes, reporting for The Nation, provides a much needed contextualization of Haiti. There are many related factors that weakened and harmed Haiti’s ability to thrive, not the least of which have been storms and earthquakes. But the privatization of Haiti’s infrastructure—which was “championed” by current envoy to Haiti in charge of “leading the quake assistance brigade” former president Bill Clinton—have definitely been instrumental in the country’s fate.

Marching against Arpaio

Finally, given the recent holiday celebrating the life and efforts of civil rights hero Martin Luther King, Jr., we would be remiss in overlooking the January 16 march in Arizona protesting Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio. The event was organized by Salvador Reza, a respected Mexican American activist and community organizer in Arizona. Musician Linda Ronstadt, Co-Founder of United Farm Workers Dolores Huerta, and approximately 5,000 people marched from a park to Tent City, the name for the sheriff’s makeshift detention center.

Arpaio is reviled by many in the Latino and undocumented community for his methods of racial profiling and humiliating treatment of detainees. Recently, Arpaio was compared to Bull Connor by an ad published in in the Arizona Republic by 60 black leaders and the Center for New Community.

King’s vision was large and led to new horizons; it cannot possibly be contained to one era, or one day on a calendar. The struggle continues, every day, everywhere.

____________________________

Also featured at Huffington Post, America’s Voice, FDL, The Media Consortium, Talking Points Memo, Open Salon, DailyKos, Sanctuary, Open Left, Rabble, RaceWire, In These Times Blog, NAM Ethnoblog

[For those new to the Unapologetic Mexican Blog (UMX), The Weekly Diaspora is a (paid) article I write for The Media Consortium. It is a column that runs on a few other sites, as well.]
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By Nezua, Media Consortium Blogger [Original title: Protecting Haitian Refugees Through Immigration Reform ]

On Tuesday, the worst earthquake in 200 years struck just off the coast of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, as The Nation reports. Bringing “catastrophic destruction” to the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, the disaster has spurred relief efforts worldwide. Crises like this are important reminders of how the treatment and protection of refugees must be a part of immigration reform.

Temporary protected status for Haitian refugees

In September of 2009—just one year after Haiti was decimated by four successive hurricanes and tropical storms that affected at least 3 million people—New America Media (NAM) made a prescient call to halt all deportation to Haiti, and grant Haitians temporary protected status (TPS) status in the U.S. “before more Haitians die or are impacted by natural disasters.”

Andrea Nill, writing for NAM’s EthnoBlog, reminds us it was only ten months ago, in March of 2009 that the Obama administration indicated it would “continue deporting undocumented Haitians,” in spite of the critical situation on the ground. Yesterday, Nill argued that not granting Haitian refugees TPS at this point would be “inconsistent with the promises the Obama administration has already made to the people of Haiti.” Later in the day, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano responded by stating deportations to Haiti would, indeed, be temporarily halted.

Legalize the undocumented; boost the economy

It’s a fortunate confluence of circumstance, when doing the right thing could also help our faltering economy. Jorge Rivas of RaceWire highlights a new study on the beneficial economic effects of legalizing undocumented workers through comprehensive immigration reform. The study came about through a partnership between the Center for American Progress and Dr. Raul Hinojosa-Ojeda, associate professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. The research suggests that legalization would yield $1.5 trillion to the U.S. Gross Domestic Product over a 10-year period, generate billions of dollars in additional tax revenue, increase wages for all levels of workers in the U.S. (the “wage floor”) and create hundreds of thousands of jobs.

Detention center cover up continues

RaceWire also reveals new developments in the horrific tale of corrupt immigration officials “desperate to conceal” multiple incidents of abuse in Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centers. Violations of law include “covering up evidence of gross mistreatment, undercounting the number of detention deaths, discharging patients right before they die, and major efforts to avoid scrutiny from the news media.” Reportedly, ICE has made great efforts to cover up detention conditions and cruelty. (Video below).

‘Draconian’ anti-immigration legislation passed in Mississippi

Rev. Jeremy Tobin of American Forum reports on a piece of “draconian” anti-immigration legislation passed in Mississippi in March of 2008. SB 2988 makes it a felony for an undocumented immigrant to work in the state. The bill includes a waivable fine for employers that cooperate with the prosecution of undocumented workers. SB 2988 oppresses immigrants and weakens the power of organized labor. According to Tobin, one frustrated legislator said that the bill was “making it a crime to work an honest job.”

Tobin calls out various organizations that backed the bill. These groups “started out anti-civil rights” and have since “reinvented themselves to be anti-immigrant rights.” He also notes that a “disturbing” number of Mississippi Democrats voted for SB 2988.

Also featured at The Nation, Huffington Post, America’s Voice, FDL, The Media Consortium, Talking Points Memo, Open Salon, DailyKos, Sanctuary, Open Left, Rabble, RaceWire, In These Times Blog, NAM Ethnoblog

[For those new to the Unapologetic Mexican Blog (UMX), The Weekly Diaspora is a (paid) article I write for The Media Consortium. It is a column that runs on a few other sites, as well.]

By Nezua, Media Consortium Blogger

“Is it ever ‘the right time’ to pass immigration reform and a path to legalization?” asks Maribel Hastings at New America Media. The short answer? Yes. Our national economic situation dictates that we are smart about the resources available to us all. It’s also a moral imperative to adjust our laws to protect the most vulnerable of us.

Hastings runs through the complications, campaign promises, and opportunities facing the Obama administration in regards to immigration reform. While acknowledging the nature of our government as “a complex organism,” Hastings nonetheless signs off with a warning: There are many awaiting action today, people “who voted for Democrats with the expectation that they would make comprehensive immigration reform a reality.”

This year is primed for immigration reform. Activists worldwide are pushing for a “record number of ratifications” to The International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Their Families (ICRMW), as Oneworld.net reports. The ICRMW was adopted by the United Nations in 1990, and “sets standards for humane working and living conditions for migrants.” To date, 42 countries have are signatory to the ICRMW and 15 more have taken “preliminary steps to approve the convention.” While the U.S. debates reform, protecting and supporting migrants should be at the front of the list.

The Washington Independent looks back at 2009, a year in which immigration was never center stage, and yet it managed to impact every other major issue on the table, from health care reform to the economy. Daphne Eviatar profiles five individuals who shaped the immigration debate for good or bad in 2009. Characters such as the infamous Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona, and commentator Lou Dobbs, formerly of CNN are included in the list, but admirable women like Dr. Dora Schriro also made the cut. Dr. Schriro’s reports on the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention system led directly to “a major commitment” to overhaul it.

In the light of policy and compacts, it is important to remember that there is a dark and often violent side to the immigration reform debate. Luis Ramirez was beaten to death by multiple local youth in Shanendoah, PA. The local police worked to obscure the facts of the murder and thwart justice, but their complicity and hand in the judicial process has been uncovered, as RaceWire reports.

Former Shenandoah mayor Thomas O’Neill’s description of the police department reads, essentially, as a gang felled by hubris: “If they want to help somebody, they will, If they want to hurt somebody, they’ll hurt them. There’s nothing they could do that they couldn’t get away with. That’s what they thought.”

Another incident that exposes the inadequacy of current immigration laws can be found in the case of Haitian community activist Jean Montrevil, who now faces deportation, as Democracy Now! reports. Montrevil is a working father of four, married to an American woman, a “longtime community leader,” is very involved with local immigrants rights groups and checks in with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) regularly and voluntarily. During one such check in Montrevil was detained and marked for deportation.

ICE is removing a tax-paying and productive member of society for a 20 year-old drug conviction for which Montrevil did his time—11 years in prison. There is no chance of a legal appeal, though ICE has the power to defer the deportation. If it isn’t halted, Montrevil’s wife Jani will be left alone with their four children. Before 1996 immigration reforms passed by Congress and signed into law by Bill Clinton, a judge would have had discretion to consider the effect of such a deportation on the children.

Melissa del Bosque reports for the Texas Observer on the violent fallout from Mexican President Felipe Calderón’s continued drug war “on the Mexican side of the [U.S.-Mexico] border.” del Bosque notes a disturbing trend: A growing number of uninvolved people in the proximity of State- or cartel-initiated violence in Mexico are being impacted by the violence. This is an important balance to mind, as law and State forces are designed to help the populace thrive. Various sources place the death toll in Mexico between 9,000 and 13,000.

We conclude this week’s Diaspora with a big shout out to Wiretap, which is closing its doors. Wiretap was a well-written, vibrant, and relevant collection of writing by younger people. Their writing on immigration was original, provocative, and useful. We wish them well. You will be missed!

Also featured at Huffington Post, America’s Voice, FDL, The Media Consortium, Talking Points Memo, Open Salon, DailyKos, Sanctuary, Open Left, Rabble, RaceWire, In These Times Blog, NAM Ethnoblog

[For those new to the Unapologetic Mexican Blog (UMX), The Weekly Diaspora is a (paid) article I write for The Media Consortium. It is a column that runs on a few other sites, as well.

By Nezua, Media Consortium Blogger [original title "Weekly Diaspora: Working Together for Reform"]

As we usher the last decade into the realm of memory, it’s time to stop viewing immigration reform as an Us vs. Them issue. The metaphors and language we use are key to framing a debate because they can communicate broader truths via association. For example, a scientist might mention the porous nature of all membranes and boundaries found in nature to describe the ineffectiveness of the militarized U.S.-Mexico border.

Reporting for New America Media, Marcelo Ballvé defines two emerging policy terms—“complementarity” and “circularity”—that are being used to describe the seasonal ebb and flow of migrant labor and argue for progressive reform. The terms effectively render concepts impenetrable borders and zero sum supply of resources, which are key fighting points for those who oppose progressive immigration reform, rigid and backward in contrast.

Former Mexican foreign minister and New York University professor Jorge Castañeda argues that clamping down on the border and the flow of migrant labor disrupts a healthy and needed circulation.

Justin Akers of the Progressive compares geographically targeted unemployment rates with immigration population numbers to demonstrate a similar concept. The data “shows that unemployment is more structural than the result of a direct competition for the same jobs.” Further, Akers writes, while it would cost an estimated $200 billion to remove the undocumented population from the U.S., it would, conversely, add approximately $180 billion to the national Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to bring these people into the system. Yet, the unfortunately pervasive story line that the undocumented steal jobs from willing citizens, an idea championed by anti-immigrant groups, continues to “poison the well of American politics,” as Akers writes.

Making matters worse, the Obama administration “has not made much effort to advertise” its various changes to U.S. immigration policy, as Edward Alden reports for Oneworld. Granted, some of these measures seem rather commonsensical and are hardly signs of ground-shaking progress—such as not immediately jailing those seeking asylum in the U.S. from “torture or persecution abroad.” But on the other hand, the Bush years plunged us into some very irrational policies and behaviors, and undoing those should be publicly declared as progress. By keeping things quiet, the White House may be trying to keep the Right calm, but as Alden writes, the administration is “walking a narrow line.”

Other positive changes in U.S. immigration policy include the closing of the T. Don Hutto immigration detention facility in Texas, which became infamous as a children’s prison, and the rescinding of Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s federal authority to make immigration-related arrests.

However, as Alden reminds us, “there has been no softening of the toughest immigration enforcement campaign in recent U.S. history” and the White House has yet to adequately defend itself from the charge leveled by its own “liberal allies that it is simply continuing the Bush administration’s enforcement policies.”

The human rights struggle for U.S. immigrants is a cause with multiple facets. If only reforming the detention centers were the only thing on the reform agenda! RaceWire’s Leticia Miranda reports on the tiny, cramped, unhealthy, and often-infested single room occupancies that many immigrants from China end up in. The San Francisco Gate has a video (below) that briefly lays out the story.

Over at AlterNet, those who fight for human rights and fair treatment of immigrants voice more than one call to action. The Immigration Raids Response Network has called for a national boycott of Greyhound, accusing the bus company of working hand-in-hand with the Department of Homeland Security to racially profile Latinos. While Greyhound was “under fire” in 2005 for policies that advise profiling, this time the enforcement measures are blatant. A witness states that “Greyhound guards closed off the boarding area until passengers were checked by immigration officers and the bus was empty.” If true, this is disturbing behavior for a commercial entity to be undertaking.

And finally, also at AlterNet, Eric Ward argues that Arizona’s “Rogue Sheriff” Joe Arpaio, is “a symptom of something more sinister” that affects the rest of the national population. “What we do or don’t do will reverberate across the country,” Ward warns. The response to Arpaio’s antics has so far been confused and lukewarm. Progressive thinkers and activists must unequivocally reject Arpaio’s gross, dehumanizing, and xenophobic behavior.

It has been a turbulent decade, one in which the nation’s politics have reflected an urge to close our borders as a defensive mechanism. We need to chart a new course, one that welcomes and celebrates possibility. Our nation need not be shaped by fear, and in fact must not, if we are all to live together.

Also featured at Huffington Post, America’s Voice, FDL, The Media Consortium, Talking Points Memo, Open Salon, DailyKos, Sanctuary, Open Left, Rabble, RaceWire, In These Times Blog, NAM Ethnoblog

[For those new to the Unapologetic Mexican Blog (UMX), The Weekly Diaspora is a (paid) article I write for The Media Consortium. It is a column that runs on a few other sites, as well. (To be linked at end of post.)]

By Nezua, Media Consortium Blogger

Note: This week’s Diaspora is short due to the holidays. We’ll be back to full-length next week.

Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), an arm of the Department of Homeland Security, apparently isn’t beholden to US or international law. In The Nation, Jacqueline Stevens reveals the “clandestine operations, akin to extraordinary renditions” carried out by ICE.

Beyond the department’s public list of detention facilities—many of which are already sites of alleged abuse—ICE is also “confining people in 186 unlisted and unmarked subfield offices” around the nation. According to Alison Parker, deputy director of Human Rights Watch, these secret detention centers may violate the UN’s Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which the United States is a signatory.

But what’s most appalling is ICE’s assertion that the department is some sort of super-police with powers of rendition. James Pendergraph, former executive director of ICE’s Office of State and Local Coordination, said in late 2008 that “if you don’t have enough evidence to charge someone criminally, but you think he’s illegal, we can make him disappear.” The boldness with which a law official would state such an idea is confounding; the confession, if true, is criminal.

Last week, The Diaspora wrote about the introduction of the CIR ASAP immigration bill by Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL). Freshman Congressman Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) is a recent addition to the list of 87 cosponsors on the bill, as The Colorado Independent reported last Wednesday. This is a positive step forward. The bill will most likely be sponsored in the senate by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY). CIR ASAP establishes a basic layout of progressive immigration reform, but the final bill will probably become more focused on enforcement in Schumer’s hands.

Finally, David Moberg reports on the Obama administration’s controversial use of “audits” to purge employment payrolls of undocumented workers for In These Times. While the audit method is much quieter and less likely to make headlines, it is also ineffective. Not only do audits rely upon “flawed federal databases” to judge who is documented, they also purge immigrants who are “legal.”

As the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Executive Vice-President Eliseo Medina explains, workers fired as a result of ICE probes or audits do find other, lower-paying jobs that offer even less protection to the worker. Ultimately the number of undocumented workers in the US remains the same, and the entire exercise but “a losing game of musical chairs.” Medina stresses that SEIU is not suggesting the law shouldn’t be enforced, simply that it be enforced in a way that works.

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Also featured at Huffington Post, America’s Voice, FDL, The Media Consortium, Talking Points Memo, Open Salon, DailyKos, Sanctuary, Open Left, Rabble, RaceWire, In These Times Blog, NAM Ethnoblog

[For those new to the Unapologetic Mexican Blog (UMX), The Weekly Diaspora is a (paid) article I write for The Media Consortium. It is a column that runs on a few other sites, as well. (To be linked at end of post.)]

By Nezua, Media Consortium Blogger

On Tuesday, Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) introduced the Comprehensive Immigration Reform for America’s Security and Prosperity Act of 2009 (CIR-ASAP). Rep. Gutierrez said that the bill represents “the final push for comprehensive immigration reform,” as Khalil Abdullah reports for New America Media. Seth Hoy at AlterNet breaks down some of the bill’s key points, which include a border security provisions, family unification, a legalization component, and improved detention conditions.

The legislation is an encouraging first step forward on the path to immigration reform. But many hurdles must be overcome before an immigration bill from the House or Senate becomes law, especially in today’s tense political environment. Outright antagonism from the nativist lobby or the far Right will be no small part of the challenge, no matter how concessionary the legislation is to Republicans.

In the absence of nationally legislated reform, many border states like Texas are attempting to fill in the gap. One of these cases is a town called Del Rio, as Melissa del Bosque reports for the Texas Observer. Del Rio’s new school superintendent, Kelt Cooper, has “an overarching concern about Mexican nonresidents attending [U.S.] public schools.” U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents, acting under Cooper’s request, recently took a headcount of children crossing the bridge that connects Ciudad Acuña in México to Del Rio, Texas. No other border to the county was inspected similarly.

At Cooper’s order, Del Rio school district employees handed out fliers to drivers with students who crossed the bridge that morning, informing parents that their children were being withdrawn from school unless they could prove U.S. citizenship. If Cooper truly cared about his student body, he’d take a lesson from another school with a large immigrant population and harness the energy available to him, rather than sowing fear and division amongst the student body.

In AlterNet, David Bacon writes about the impact of President Barack Obama’s brand of immigration enforcement, which has been sold as hard on employers, but not on workers. A key part of this approach has hinged on phasing out the aggressive and visibly disruptive SWAT-style raids that were common in the Bush era and instead warning companies that their employment rolls would be inspected. But these employee audits are just another proxy move in the absence of sound legislative that guides how this country treats immigrants.

The “softer” raids are not, in fact, harder on employers. The audits that result in the loss of hundreds of jobs at a time often take place during or close to attempts to organize a union. The workers are let go and the companies—recent examples include American Apparel and ADM Janitorial—are given immunity. These selective raids and probes cannot drive every undocumented worker away. Furthermore, if the flow of cheap labor were to dry up, the U.S. economy would collapse. These audits are but “a means for managing the flow of migrants, and making their labor available to employers at a price they want to pay.”

Daphne Eviatar reports on Thursday morning’s House Homeland Security Committee hearing for The New Mexico Independent. The hearing, “ostensibly about how [Immigrations and Customs Enforcement] should improve its immigrant detention system” revealed deeply divided convictions among attendees. Immigrants today are either “dangerous criminals” who need to be locked up and deported, or “hapless men and women” who only broke the law in their pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness. These divisions need to be settled, as the incarcerated population has doubled in the last ten years.

Even if prisons were built in every state and were designed only to hold undocumented people, the problem is not solved. The flow of migrants from South of the border must not be viewed as a vacuum. It is a symptom of the economic imbalances between the U.S. and Mexico.

So is the case with climate change, as Michelle Chen reports for RaceWire. Today, immigrants flee toward healthier economies and are demonized as the cause of the economic storm that howls behind them. It is no different for those displaced by “environmental destruction,” which is “reshaping the flow of labor and people as they move from one endangered livelihood to another.”

Chen advises us to accept the “fluidity of human movement,” as the consequences of remaining stuck in today’s limited immigration dialogue are dire. “Migration stems from the convergence of environmental destruction and social inequality,” writes Chen. There’s not a fence in the world that can address those forces.

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Also featured at The Media Consortium, Huffington Post, America’s Voice, FDL, Talking Points Memo, Open Salon, DailyKos, Sanctuary, Open Left, Rabble, RaceWire, In These Times Blog, NAM Ethnoblog

[For those new to the Unapologetic Mexican Blog (UMX), The Weekly Diaspora is a (paid) article I write for The Media Consortium. It is a column that runs on a few other sites, as well. (To be linked at end of post.)]

By Nezua, Media Consortium Blogger

The nation’s 10% unemployment rate is feeding anti-immigrant sentiment, as Marcelo Ballvé reports for New America Media. Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) critiqued President Barack Obama’s recent jobs summit as “fatally flawed” because President Obama did not discuss wresting millions of jobs away from undocumented families. Smith’s argument is flawed.

A “known Capitol Hill immigration hardliner,” Smith asks us to assume that for every job the U.S. could theoretically “take back” from an undocumented worker, an eager U.S. citizen would flock to fill it. But, as Ballvé reports, “several studies suggest that among Americans and legal residents, it’s mainly those lacking a high school diploma who are competing directly with undocumented immigrants for jobs (and by most estimates, that’s less than one out of every 10 U.S. workers).”

Smith’s reasoning is a leap that only a hardliner could make, and is simply not borne out by any reliable data or experience.

In fact, a soon-to-be released book called Working in the Shadows: A Year of Doing the Jobs (Most) Americans Won’t Do by journalist and SEIU researcher Gabriel Thompson tells the opposite story, as In These Times reports. Thompson went undercover to work alongside migrant workers for one year. The work was so strenuous that Thompson used painkillers to make it through. But he gained a crucial perspective: Despite the detached and abstract imaginings of Republican politicians, these are jobs that “even most unemployed and destitute ‘Americans’ are not necessarily willing or able to take … even if the pay is decent.”

Immigrants are pushed into these shadow realms by laws such as HB 2008, which is currently sending waves of “panic” through the undocumented community in Arizona, as IPS North America reports. Passed on November 24, HB 2008 “requires state, city and any government employee in Arizona to report to immigration authorities any undocumented immigrants who request a public benefit.” Government workers who fail to make such a report are subject to four months in jail.

Laws aimed at immigrants are ultimately divisive. We see this time and time again, from the 287(g) agreement, which deputizes police with federal immigration enforcement duties and powers, to a matter as simple as picking up a free toy for a disadvantaged child on Christmas. The result? Scenarios in which parents don’t take their children to the doctor because they fear deportation. Who can morally defend such laws?

Perhaps speaking of morality in our legal and political process is idealistic or naïve. In a time and place when the term “Sanctuary City” is used as a slur, it’s hard to tell which way is up. Melissa del Bosque reports on Houston Mayor Bill White’s gubernatorial run for the Texas Observer. White, a Democrat, barely announced his candidacy before the “volley” of metaphorical “napalm” began.

The Texas Republican Party is accusing White of turning Houston into a “Sanctuary City.” According to del Bosque, this particular political battle will morph into a flurry of competition between the Left and Right to “throw immigrants under the bus” in the climb for political power.

Finally, Wiretap Mag reports on an old tradition that is still vibrant: Art and activism joining hands to wake up, shake up, empower and teach people about a current struggle for justice. Geoffrey Dobbins reports on the unique voices that came together to record My America, a benefit CD for a film about the struggles of undocumented immigrant youth in the U.S.

Dobbins writes that the ultimate goal of the CD and film is to “get Congress to pass the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act (DREAM). The DREAM Act would provide a path for these young people to gain legal status.”

A soundtrack for change sounds nice. Turn it up.

Also featured at Huffington Post, America’s Voice, FDL, Talking Points Memo, Open Salon, DailyKos, Sanctuary, Open Left, Rabble, RaceWire, In These Times Blog, NAM Ethnoblog

[For those new to the Unapologetic Mexican Blog (UMX), The Weekly Diaspora is a (paid) article I write for The Media Consortium. It is a column that runs on a few other sites, as well. (To be linked at end of post.)]

By Nezua, Media Consortium Blogger

The Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is shifting its focus to silent or “quiet” raids, as Erin Rosa reports for Campus Progress. In quiet raids, ICE conducts “audits” of staff at pre-selected organizations and gives employers a chance to fire all workers who cannot produce documents of citizenship.

The Bush administration favored dramatic, SWAT-like raids, but the Obama administration is taking a non-confrontational route. As Rosa reports, ICE has announced the latest wave of audits ahead of time, though specific business are not being named “due to the ongoing, law enforcement sensitive nature” of the audits. During a phone briefing, ICE chief John Morton explained that the “over 1,000″ new audits are designed to “create a ‘culture of consequences.’” Undoubtedly, the economic consequence of tens of thousands more people losing their income will be as dramatic as a door kicked open in the middle of the night, and it will affect all of us.

While job loss is undesirable, at least the audits are not aggressive or violent like some raids. Also, undocumented workers could find another job post-audit. The Obama administration’s claims that audits take the burden of raids from workers is defensible in that case, though reports of employers that are fined for having undocumented staff members are hard to find.

However, the Department of Homeland Security’s practice of jailing “unadjusted” refugees after a year is indefensible. As Emily Creighton reports for AlterNet, the U.S. has a long-running and proud history of providing a safe haven for those seeking refuge from persecution “on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a social group, or political opinion.” And yet ICE is incarcerating refugees who have not adjusted to permanent resident status after one year of residency in the U.S. The problem is, permanent resident status is only obtained after a lot of paperwork, vaccinations, and other hurdles have been completed. The process “can take over a year” in and of itself.

A depressed economy and perceived cultural shifts in the U.S. demographic are bringing out the very best and worst of our society. In RaceWire, Michelle Chen writes that the immigration debate today “looks more like a balance sheet” and reflects “the economic anxieties besieging politicians and voters.” Chen does an excellent job underlining a recurring problem: As long as immigration reform is treated like a “number-crunching” exercise, nothing gets fixed. “Without a human rights-based counterpoint to the demand-supply rhetoric,” Chen writes, “lawmakers would be all too willing to cede immigration policy to the corporate gatekeepers of the private sector, while faithfully preserving the structure of inequity.” We can do better than this. “These are numbers, not people.”

Ironically, many immigrants pay into the health care system through payroll taxes, but cannot benefit from them, as EunSook Lee, reports for New America Media. “It is unreasonable and saddening that under the current health reform proposals, the people who really need it will not get it,” writes Lee. “Communities across America are waking up … and Congress needs to take notice.”

Another case of the most vulnerable being targeted unfairly comes, unfortunately, in a place we’d hope never to find it. In the Texas Observer, Melissa del Bosque reports on how the Salvation Army is trading Christmas cheer for anti-immigrant politics. The Salvation Army “and a charity affiliated with the Houston Fire Department” are holding an annual toy drive, but checking immigration status before giving any toys to needy families! “Apparently,” writes del Bosque,”even Santa isn’t immune to the anti-immigrant hysteria brewing in the nation.” Perhaps in the world that the Salvation Army envisions, we will encourage children to leave legal documents for Santa on Christmas Eve, rather than cookies and milk. [update: very vocal pro-migrant protests have caused Salvation Army to rescind this policy.]

Ending on a lighter note, Joshua Holland reports on how the mercurial Lou Dobbs now favors “the very legalization process for unauthorized immigrants that he’s long derided as a brain-dead ‘amnesty’ policy pushed by pernicious liberal elites in order to keep down the wages of good, hardworking Americans.” Dobbs is now championing what he once dubbed “shamnesty.” It is such a jarring reality that Holland muses on whether Dobbs “really is an undocumented Mexican immigrant named Luis Miguel Salvador Aguila Dominguez” as the Onion facetiously reported.

Also featured at Huffington Post, America’s Voice, FDL, Talking Points Memo, Open Salon, DailyKos, Sanctuary, Open Left, Rabble, RaceWire, In These Times Blog, NAM Ethnoblog

[For those new to the Unapologetic Mexican Blog (UMX), The Weekly Diaspora is a (paid) article I write for The Media Consortium. It is a column that runs on a few other sites, as well. (To be linked at end of post.)]

By Nezua, Media Consortium Blogger

Ed. Note: This week’s Diaspora is short because of the holidays. We’ll be back to full-length next week.

Last Tuesday, Amy Traub dismantled a few harmful myths about immigrants for The Nation. Traub takes on the old ‘immigrants steal our jobs’ myth, saying it “holds no water.” Immigrants of both documented and undocumented status help the economy, and their energy and efforts create jobs that would not exist without their participation. Traub makes a crucial connection clear: Immigrants are a boon to the economy, and “U.S. natives gain $37 billion a year from immigrants’ participation” in the U.S. workforce.

In AlterNet, Timothy Noah outlines the cost of denying immigrants health insurance, dubbing the overall effect a “Nativist Tax.” If we begin restricting the access immigrants have to health care, why not bar them from other parts of society? Why not bar them from the hospital altogether? Why not prevent them from buying milk at the corner store? It’s the beginning of what could be a bad chain reaction.

Katherine Vargas describes her own naturalization ceremony for the Progressive. It’s a good read. Vargas writes that citizenship is not, to her, only about apple pie and baseball, or even the paper we call a passport. To Vargas, citizenship is the ability and right to participate in the political process and take part in the history of the country.

New America Media covered the “Phone Call Heard Around the Country,” a nationwide teleconference on the approaching year and immigration reform. “Tens of thousands” of callers were connected, and on the call—which turned telephones on speakerphone into “de-facto radios” around which so many gathered—legislators urged listeners to “call their members of Congress and ask for action on immigration reform.”

Finally, for some light fare, Wiretap Mag features a “humorous—albeit problematic—parody” of the immigration issue.

I understand why Wiretap deems it problematic. The cartoon tries to create a perfect parallel between the conquest and decimation of the North American indigenous population in the 1600s by Europeans with today’s economically displaced immigrants (who are, themselves, often indigenous, or descended from the indigenous). In this way, it uses the words of the cartoon “Indians” to argue against their own kind. The cartoon is probably quite useful, however, in opening dialogue with younger people on the topic.

The Weekly Diaspora wishes you and yours a satisfying holiday season, whether you are fasting or feasting. May you be safe and with loved ones.