MY ABUELO AND ABUELA made their way in this América by working the fields for years. That is why I keep the UFW icon and link on my site. This is an important part of my family’s history. Even as a child, my own papi worked the fields with my grandparents for years until my nanita decided it was “time for Juanito to go to school.” (That’s him in the pic to the left.) And then they made that happen.

I don’t necessarily think that it is bad for children to work alongside their parents. Actually, I think that is very good. And missing from what I see in the culture out there. It’s a sad loss. But as long as parents can be teachers in other ways (and not relegate it all to strangers) I suppose not all is lost.

This story, reporting on the Adkin Blue Ribbon Packing Company, in South Haven, Michigan, and the fact that many children are doing the work of picking the blueberries that we delectably drop into our desserts kicks off the lede by framing the magnanimous actions of Walmart, who is cutting ties with Adkin. I’m sure this is seen as a great opportunity by Walmart, known to many as the “most anti-union company” out there, a way to boost their image. But what will it do to those families who need that money? Is that really the most righteous thing they can think of doing?

Truth is, I watch these kids picking berries, smart kids who know about pesticides; strong little girl that can carry two buckets at five years old or so, and think to myself they are going to be so much more prepared for life than the little girl who is learning to feel self esteem when handed a trophy and tiara for being “Little Miss Blueberry.” Truth is, I see that little girl stooped over carrying two buckets for measly pay, and then those shots of kids happily eating blueberry ice cream or getting crowned Little Miss Blueberry, and it all feels very wrong. It’s just too symbolic of a larger truth. And anyway, why don’t they go out in the fields and crown the little girl with buckets? SHE is Little Miss Blueberry as far as I’m concerned. And her crown is the sacrifice of what most of us think of as childhood.

Despite the benefits of working closely with your parents, it’s obviously true that it’s egregious and wrong that this is what people are forced to do to live decently in this country. People should not have to enlist all their children to help them earn a living, to barely get by, to get paid by the bucket and not much. We know how spendy those little crates of blueberries are at the store!

But it’s not as simple as punishing the company. That punishes the families, too. Soon, lest we perish as a nation, it is incumbent upon us to open our eyes and begin seeing a larger picture.

We need to realize that this is the price of Capitalism as we know it, today.

The amount of poverty and suffering required for the emergence of a Rockefeller, and the amount of depravity that the accumulation of a fortune of such magnitude entails, are left out of the picture, and it is not always possible to make the people in general see this.”

- Che Guevara

There is no free ride, there is no cheap food, the reason we get delicious berries out of season anywhere in the nation is similar to the reason Madoff got rich. A lot of “little people” get screwed for these conveniences, to make it possible for distributors and retailers to jack up the cost and rake in profit on the sweat of children’s backs. It ain’t just going on in Michigan. It’s going on all over the nation, as the report says. (If you’ve TV, watch the special tonight on Nightline.) And you know what? This is the story of how this nation even got its feet of the ground. Enslavement and exploitation of people just like this, just like today.

Who works these fields? Who built this land? Who builds it today? Who keeps your fruit and vegetables on the table? Who keeps the agricultural engine running? It ain’t Pat Buchanan and it ain’t Mister Perdue and it ain’t Lou Dobbs.

Whenever will we get smart about the world? Stop pretending that economic problems sneak across borders with brown skin? Start staging ICE raids in DC, where the real border thievery goes on? When will we stop playing these little games, selling fake dreams that profess a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, while leaving off the whole truth of all the people that sweat and bled and died nameless to carry that pot there?

[For those new to UMX, The Weekly Immigration Wire is a (paid) weekly article I write for The Media Consortium. It is a column that runs on a few other sites, as well. (Linked at end of post.)]

By Nezua, Media Consortium Blogger

It’s a sad irony that a President who wants to unite opposing factions presides over an increasingly entrenched and partisan political landscape. There seems to be no satisfactory compromise for both the health care and immigration reform debates. Well-worn rallying cries and talking points are tooled and retooled until the root issues are nearly forgotten. The situation is tragic because the people’s needs are made secondary to an unending war between two political entities.

Alternet has the lowdown on several proposed, immigration-related amendments to the Senate Finance Committee’s health care bill. Race is an absolute contributor to these amendments. Need an example? Senator Steve King (R-IA) is shunning free-market ideology when it comes to immigrants purchasing their own health care with their own money. As author Jackie Mahendra puts it, “Free-market Steve King vs. Anti-immigrant Steve King. That pretty much sums up how absurd this debate has become.”

It is better for all of us that immigrants pay for their own insurance, and the health care bill should allow this. Mahendra notes that FAIR, an anti-immigrant organization and recognized hate group, is recruiting callers to pressure the Senate. She asks readers to take a moment to call their Senators “to oppose amendments that are bad policy for all Americans.” If you are as tired of the unceasing, empty rhetoric on these issues as I am, this seems a good way to take action.

The truth is, race very much affects our politics today, and in many ways. Wiretap’s M. Junaid Levesque-Alam writes of the increasing hostility towards President Obama, whose most raucous and visible opposition today comes from “monochromatic, middle-aged, white throngs.” Levesque-Alam concludes with some advice for the President: Remind the voters how a reformed government can affect them positively. Without this reminder, people’s anxieties and deep-seated biases are curdling into a sour and toxic brew.

Race-based irrationality and paranoia have also given birth to a new genre of infomercial, reports Talking Points Memo. Justin Elliot reports on the 28-minute Birthermercial that asks late-night viewers to “give $30 to have faxes sent to government officials demanding Obama produce his birth certificate.” Attorney Gary Kreep, is one of the men behind the below video that asks “Where was PRESIDENT Obama BORN?” According to TPM, Kreep is “engaged in an intra-movement feud with the pioneering Birther attorney Orly Taitz.”

New America Media touches on the inspiring story of women immigrants that are the “new face of U.S. labor.” David Bacon writes that Lucy Wong and Lupe Chavez, from China and El Salvador, have “inherited the legacy of the 1934 General Strike and the rise of the longshoremen.” Wong and Chavez are San Francisco-based labor activists that are giving big hotel chains a run for their money. To “even the odds” between these local workers and the massive hotel corporations who strive to make them pay for their own insurance, protests have evolved in order to be more effective, taking on the shape of civil disobedience. “Without a new contract, the union is prepared to disrupt the normal order of business, just as the longshoremen did on the waterfront 80 years ago.”

And then there’s the story of a young woman named Mimin, who found herself trapped for seven years doing forced labor. At 17, Mimin emigrated from Indonesia to the U.S. thinking she’d “work as a housekeeper for a wealthy family in Los Angeles and send money to her parents back home,” but instead ended up “enslaved in domestic servitude,” as Emily Udell reports for In These Times. She finally escaped, but there are roughly 50,000 people like Mimin trafficked to the U.S. every year, and 27 million more enslaved around the world. This makes the job of uncovering and ending this practice our collective responsibility.

Sometimes it is the artist who explores intractable paradigms in new ways. And sometimes it is simply getting news from a different source, or filtered through an alternative lens. New America Media interviews Luis Alberto Urrea about his novel Into the Beautiful North, which NAM editor Sandip Roy describes as “an immigration story with a difference.” Urrea reminds us of the obvious: To many people, coming to the U.S. is a painful sacrifice. A woman parting from her beloved family to earn enough money to keep them eating does not do so lightly. A learned and respected elder settling for a career as a bowling alley attendant is the result of economic desperation. “You cannot eat beauty,” says a woman in his novel.

Nor can we in good conscience sing anthems about beautiful and spacious skies or fields of harvest if we do not remember how many are in need, and do our utmost to help them.

BACK UP IN THE UMX HIZZY, I now pen this missive to thee.

Dear Blog: Thank you for your patience whilst I’ve been flying about the nation, and thank you for all the good blog we is about to do. And let me go no further without also thanking you, dear reader and friend of the UMX tribe, for you (and you know who you are) have been kind and generous in helping your dear narrator, Nezua, to sail through 30,000 foot heights and descend, both feet outstretched, to land happy and hungry in a delicious Mexican restaurant or perhaps sunshine poolside where I be fotographed by La Opinion and interviewed by brilliant journalists about Wut It Iz Nez Do, alone or With Tha Crew.

That is to say, thank you for the donations and the support in all the ways you bring it. Because this world can be lonely and hard, like concrete under ya heed when you prefer fluffed pillow, and sometimes just one sooty warm draft of love makes it all okay. And it’s true that I sealed up a new job or two right before I took off on the trip to Atlanta (including [but not exclusively, oh squiniddy-eyed wordsmith!] new supercool art to be shown soon that I did for Latino Pundit), but the donations that came in while I was on the road brought a huge amount of comfort, and especially on the last night, when there ended up being a lack.

And now the story. And mind you, new readers, this is the story of my trip, of the get up go fly, smile into bright light, come down and hold-on grip. Not the story of The Sanctuary, per se. That one is told on other days and if  you need to catch up on the backstory page, visit The Sanctuary at ProMigrant.Org to see what is at the heart of this award show journey.

So.

How to tell such a story? What is the important part? But there are so many! And so often not what you are thinking, never what you have thought. You fly without a why and even without trying you return with twice as much of what you never sought. OH! I need a beat. But in lieu of this, let me touch upon some moments that may bring the Nezlanta heat.

[BOOMING VOICE] It began….in Oregon.

Oh WHAT? You really expect me to tell the whole story from when I left? Naw…there’s no point in that. Because the story doesn’t even begin there. We are always on the Continued tip. Eh?

But let me just saw WOW it’s a long trip to Atlanta, Georgia from Eugene, Oregon. I got so frustrated with the direction, the wanderingness one must take to get to another place. I know that’s how it works, especially when you don’t live near a major city, but even from PDX to Atlanta, the whole trip takes such a zigzag estilo to get where you’re going it just feels a bit stupid when you’re doin’ it. I took cab to train station and then Amtrak 3 hours north and then a plane south and then a plane East, and so on. But you know how this goes. So I’ll skip all that. But it took me a full day traveling to get to Atlanta. Woke up at 3:30 am to catch a 4:10 cab and didn’t get into my hotel room in Georgia until about 11:30 that night.

Oh, what? You heard me speak in Atlanta on blogging and New Media? And now aren’t sure how to reconcile some of what I said with how I’m running this little copper-wired circus? Well, let me interruptus and say that while I did lay down some general guidelines on What Propels a Blog Forward, there are always exceptions. And a lot has to do with the way you set up your situation and “what line you come in on.” By now, my readers know by now not to expect any hard format, nor do I worry about the length of my posts, nor do I feel a need to write every day so COME ON and just let Nez be Nez!

I met a Xicano in the bar the first night who turned out to be my first useful networking contact (and this is what I wrote on the sticker I promptly stuck to his chest so none of us forgot our places in the story). He works for the US Census and asked me “not to Tweet him” which of course was just his male way of trying to dampen his natural response to my irresistible sexiness and I smiled to show how much I appreciated his self control. I told him I just might consider going door to door in Latin@ neighborhoods for a low price of $16/hr if he would only teach me how to maintain such a suave demeanor in the face of glory. And so perhaps at some point we shall pick up that angle of the story. But for the moment, Nez said lata and took his swirly stomach full of Mini-Chicken sandwiches and scotch and crashed out in his fluffy cotton bed like a moss-covered Oregon stone.

Atlanta was hot.

My part of Atlanta was cramjammed full of smart, energized, accomplished people. It was very heady because of that, not to mention all the free wine and accolades heaped upon your for simply saying a few true things when it’s your turn in the light. These things mean a lot to me. The heat, the wine, the light. But don’t you ever think that Nezua doesn’t keep in mind the rest of the picture. Oh, you can forget it if you want, it’s not your job to narrate, it’s mine. But I’ll remind you. Part of the reason I play such a joker is because I know the joke’s on me when I don the King’s robe and finery. And I lean toward the Queen’s fur(s) and I cannot help but purr when the glint from her orbs paints reflections on my spurs—don’t be scurred!

But let me be mundane-grimey and a bit unrhymey for a moment and say that what I mostly got out of this trip was a) gratitude for having a home (perhaps a bit on this later, perhaps not, we’ll see) and an appreciation for the movements happening and people involved in “Ethnic Media.” We could say “Ethnic Media” but what I saw were lots of smart, dedicated, with-it, restless, happy activist-human types. Yeah, true, they gave off a different air than some of the bastions of progressisivsm® I’ve seen floating through the pie-crust blogostrata, but was this due to ethnicity? Well, perhaps indirectly. Meaning perhaps due to mindsets/convictions/agendas born from a marginalized experience in this culture. Perhaps not. I can’t rule on that. I know in some cases it surely couldn’t be that factor. But from all corners, I saw sparkling eyes and heart pouring forth. I felt it. I listened to an older woman talk to me about her filmmaking in the south, she lilted fire in a very gentle way, but there was steel in every syllable. She was ‘white’ and determined to expose the ICEcrimination going on in her state.

I met Kai Ma, who was another award winner who writes of the Korean American experience. Clearly a person bristling with electricity and joy and bound to keep shaking things up in the world. She spoke to me, too, after my panel on New Media about blogging. She and her compas will be busting out into blog world and it sounds like they are jazzed up enough and understand the blogosphere enough that they are gonna max it out. I’ll be looking for her work. Mostly because people with a certain energy in their eyes draw me in, and it has nothing to do with gender.

That look was in a lot of eyes there, energized by the possibilities—”winners” or not.

The two cats who create Debug Magazine (“Culture Without Borders”) had that same light in their eyes, and we’ll be hooking up, as they want to mix up blog with mag, and I told them I was down cuz I am! So….all of this. Energy, truth, lucha, media, self-empowered writers and truth-seekers and it had everything to do with feeling the change you want to see in the world is actually and literally within your reach. Hearts respond. And recognize one another. I know I’m gushing! Don’t harsh my joyful debriefing!

I’ll be watching Claudia Nuñez, whom I had never heard of but am now fully impressed by. Not just for her important and laudable work of uncovering a labor trafficking ring that ran from México to the US, but for her methods. She is the quintessential “intrepid” reporter, not taking no for an answer, not whining or slowing down when gaps open up in her plan, but leaping forward and tracking down anything she needs to to make that story happen. I love this…energy and determination and lean toward the DO in a person, regardless of where or how I see it. And I know from her award-winning story that she embodies this, but I did see a micro example of this in my personal meetings with her. So let me tell you about that.

After we all spoke at the banquet, (I’m told that) her boss at La Opinion told her that they “must” do a story on me and how I came to the Sanctuary situation, and having no idea of where to find me or anything, she shows up at midnight or so on the 70-something floor of a rotating bar in Atlanta where I was chilling with Roberto Lovato, Zach Taylor, Erin Polgreen, (the accomplished and dazzingly beautiful) @NeelanjanaB, y otros, and arranges an interview with me. (I have to admit, strong Chicanas who know what they want and move for it without excuses or appearances/pretenses of vaguery definitely disarm me, but that’s a side note.) So the next day, I don’t hear from her at the time we set and I thought that’s odd, but just went out on the Cigar Terrace and began reading and, well, Twittering! I was just killing time before my panel on New Media.

Claudia tracks me down, even though I never told her where I was staying or anything. I felt bad that I had not seen my voicemail notice and had put her out of her way. But again, was impressed by her P.I. work. And suddenly felt that anything she was looking for in the world would not be safe from her eyes; she is like an eagle! And that is to our benefit, all of ours. Not because she is writing stories on self-important Xicanos who embrace their heritage and try to make change for raza, but because she is uncovering dangers and exploitations in the world and clearly, very effectively. But yes, I sort of fell for her, as you can tell. It was the heart, again. She didn’t hesitate to ask me controntational things like “Don’t you worry people will think you are in a gang?” because of my ink and elements of my dress. But at the same time, she also wasn’t afraid to spill her heart in words about my blogtivity (en español for a torrential paragraph of sincere comment and I was lucky that my Spanish is “good” enough to be able to keep up with what she was saying) and let me see it in her eyes. That soul shining through again.

There was a lot of this energy in Atlanta (I even ended up laughing and hugging the bouncer at a club one night, this is a whole other story!) and I drank it up like it was sunlight. Claudia impressed me as she interviewed me because she didn’t just ask bullet-point questions or easy followups, but was connecting thoughts deeper and indirect and all content/agenda-related and then thinking forward and hitting me with a question that demanded honesty simply because I was unprepared for its orginality. By the time we reached the end of the interview, I knew I was in very competent hands and I was not being careful, but just engaging. It felt like being interviewed by a sculptor who was shaping a piece hands flying, smeared smock on, crazy vision dancing in the eyes. Beads and sky and blood and sand and US woven Mexicana pride.

I mention Roberto Lovato and he is another fount of soul-power that I refresh and recharge on. He wastes no time in appeasing ignorance or catering to fools, but all the while he is fueling his fuego, there is a smile playing on his lips. El gato is at home in his world, he is finding joy en la lucha. He dips calamari and spits historical on characters in his current book, on the “guevara prototype” and a wise person hears him out. He is one of the few men I know worth listening to at length. Hey, what can I say? I’m biased in a few ways. Anyway, we work together on the regular as it is, but connecting in that human way does so much and I’m convinced it doesn’t make sense to pronounce ANYONE a serious compa or even antagonist without first meeting and chewing on some Calamari. But then again, that’s my bias regarding virtual relationships, too. It’s just what I’ve learned and keep learning. For me.

I could go on. And on. I have a fistful of business cards and I’ve already written the list of them. I did not take home a card that I was not excited to hold, and I was excited about getting each one. From the director of La Noticia to Roshani Kothari of OneWorld to David Kobia of Ushahidi—these meetings are undoubtedly one of the most valuable resources that can come out of events like this. It’s like shopping for sweeteners and skimming directly to the mapled-down essence atop a tubful of sap. Oh, don’t take that the wrong way, my superfine sugary friends who weren’t at the Expo; the converse is most definitely not implied.

And now let me close out by saying muchisimas gracias and stank you one last time to New America Media for the honor and award, and the recognition bestowed on our little group The Sanctuary. It really is a fantastic accolade and we are all very proud of it.

And of course—when life sees fit to pump up your shoes with hot helium neon halo juice, mama nature will be sure to stroke your hair kindly and then kick you to the curb to keep you humbly.

Which is how the magnificent story ends of course. With me walking all night in a strange city with 45 pounds on my back, except for an hour I slept on the concrete. I won’t be one of those whiners, because of course, I knew from the first day I had no ride home from the return flight airport. There was really nothing I could do. It was, in the end, the most sensible ticket to buy. Watcha gonna do? It was part of the deal, and I used the night to reap gratitude, although as a friend reminded me, no: I really had no idea how it would end. But I’m ready for the flux and again, this is why awards and events like this—while so good for the soul in certain amounts—are only part of a recipe. Breathe deep en la cocina. Keep the nostrils open, keep the mind open. Good with the bad, big shot with the stinky midnight lowlife, glare of flash and click of shutters vs. 4 am reflux and muscular exhaustion and desire to weep you’re so tired.

And it’s good to be home. It’s good to have one. Peace! But not before Justice.

[For those new to UMX, The Weekly Immigration Wire is my weekly (paid) article I write for The Media Consortium. It is a column that runs on a few other sites (see end of post) and is written with a more formal voice than other blog posts found on this site.]

by Nezua, TMC MediaWire Blogger

On Tuesday, President Obama announced Sonia Sotomayor as his pick to replace Supreme Court Justice David Souter. Sotomayor could be the first Latina appointed to the Supreme Court. Predictably, attacks and slurs from the Right are already flying. Regardless, Sotomayor would be an excellent choice for the Supreme Court, signaling to Latino/as that the White House is aware of our need for more representation in government.

Reporting on Sotomayor’s nomination, the Washington Independent’s Daphne Eviatar notes that, while the choice doesn’t push the envelope in terms of liberalness, it does indicate that Obama was “willing to stand up to unfounded criticism of Sotomayor as a far-left liberal.” Interestingly enough, President George H. W. Bush originally nominated Sotomayor for the district court, and her life reads like Many GOP-adored tales of hard work leading to success.

Which leads one to wonder why are they attacking Sotomayor’s nomination with such vitriol, by painting her as a “radical, judicial activist/scary Latina feminist/underqualified diversity pick“? As Michelle Chen reports for RaceWire, Sotomayor has a reputation for “principled independence suffused with real-world experience” and the GOP’s squawking is a typical barrage of “hypocrisy, shrill animosity and racist code words.”

Sotomayor describes herself as a “Newyorican,” which is someone who has been born in New York City from parents hailing from Puerto Rico. While her nomination sparked controversy as to whether or not one can technically “immigrate” from Puerto Rico, there is no denying the country’s colonial history. Many see Sotomayor’s nomination as a success story for immigrants. She certainly does.

New America Media’s Roberto Lovato writes that despite the GOP’s desire to overlook Sotomayor’s uplifting and quintessentially “American” story, the Republican party would do well to use this opportunity very carefully. Sotomayor’s nomination provides an opportunity to draw a line between the GOP that bled Latino/a votes due to their immigration stance and what they hope to become. According to Lovato, Sotomayor—and we—should view the confirmation hearings as “nothing less than a trial to determine whether the GOP is ready to make restitution for its role in a number of judicial and political wrongdoings perpetrated in the Bush era.”

But it doesn’t seem that the Republican party is very concerned with the Latino/Hispanic vote, let alone common decency, judging by the desperate moves of California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, an immigrant himself. In an attempt to clean up the state deficit, Schwarzenegger would “eliminate four programs that provide money and food to more than 100,000 legal immigrants,” many “elderly and disabled.” This action will hurt many people who are a vital part of our social fabric.

Daphne Eviatar, writing for the Center for Independent Media, reports on the perversely-named “Secure Communities” initiative, in which ICE officals are quoted defending a program that aims to deport those ticketed for so much as a red light. Under this soon to be expanded program, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) plans to deport “tens of thousands” of immigrants in 2010. Under the Secure Communities initiative, even a legal immigrant could be deported if accused and not able to hire or enlist legal representation.

Secure Communities “represents a new comprehensive approach to remove all criminal aliens held in the United States prisons and jails.” Even the phrase “criminal aliens” conjures up visions of hooded creatures with sinister intent…and maybe dangling antennae. Little is required to sweep an immigrant into the detention system and classify them as “criminal.” It can be nothing more than an overstayed visa, or being profiled at a 7-11 by ICE officials looking to make quota. It’s all part of a thriving detention industry: DHS projects a budget for new detention centers, including the needed number of arrests (400,000 are planned for next year) to fund and staff said centers. As a result, arrests are made for any infraction, imagined or real, the beds are filled, the lawyers can’t be afforded and aren’t provided, workers and family members are deported, the budgets justified, the checks cut, and the detention center industry looms larger every day.

In Deportation While U Wait, RaceWire’s Michelle Chen reports that ICE has found a way to further expedite the process. “At one downtown Los Angeles courthouse,” Chen writes, “Officials have found an efficient way to cut through the red tape: kicking people out of the country without waiting for a decision from the judge.” If there is a previous deportation order in their records, ICE rules on their own and deports the man or woman. But we should be careful to rush to judgment as often, “what looks on paper like a justifiable deportation often masks the nuances of individual hardships and structural problems that limit immigrants’ ability to press their legal cases.”

In the Colorado Independent, Erin Rosa reports that the Obama Administration is moving forward with plans to end the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program, which funds local jails and state prisons to house undocumented immigrants. Rosa notes that Colorado “netted $3.1 million from the program last year, and $3.3 million in 2007.” The White House defends the move by saying the resources can “better be used to enhance federal enforcement efforts.”

There are many people waiting to see those “enhanced” efforts in the shape of legislation. There is hope these efforts will improve the quality of peoples’ lives, not DHS’s budget. Many people who harbor those hopes demonstrated in Postville, Iowa in memory of the ICE raid that shattered the community a year ago. Lynda Waddington writes of this year’s difference in attitude for the Iowa Independent. In 2008, emotions were raw and more anger was expressed, but this year, there was “a specific focus and call for comprehensive immigration reform.”

YOU KNOW what everyone is talking about! Obama’s nomination of Sonia Sotomayor! And it’s great news. I like to see a smart Latina make her way into this possibility (and in fact there needs to be more women in general in that court, you know?) though such a move does not, of course, undo the White House’s actions/inactions in other areas that hurt Latin America. But we know that. And this is exciting to see for a few reasons. Also, I have to add, it’s really nice to see my Puerto Rican amigas so happy today. (Just as it is offputting to hear a few strange conversations that are flitting around out there about the hair of her honor! Ah, one “type” of Latin@ getting up in the world always gets us alll throwing punches for a minute! But let’s be happy for her and prove Rushlimbo wrong about this dividing Latin@s.)

The announcement!

And who better to celebrate with, but this Interesting cat?

[For those new to UMX, The Weekly Immigration Wire is my weekly (paid) article I write for The Media Consortium. It is a column that runs on a few other sites (see end of post).]

by Nezua, TMC MediaWire Blogger

Celebrated stories of early American pioneers, explorers, and immigrants typically center around men of fortitude and bravery. Depictions of modern-day migrants are still very male-centric, and this cultural lens is a default in most cases. But women play a central and overlooked role in today’s immigration story. Even when not directly highlighted, women often bear the weight of keeping families together and helping them grow stronger.

New America Media has just released the results of a poll titled “Women Immigrants: Stewards of the 21st Century.” NAM surveyed 1,002 female immigrants from Latin American, Asian, African, and Arab countries. According to Sandy Close and Richard Rodriguez, “The story that has not been told is the story of the woman immigrant. This poll is an effort to capture her narrative, and what becomes clear in the responses–many to questions that seemed on their face to have nothing to do with family per se–is that the gold thread giving meaning to her life is family stewardship.”

The poll reveals that the typical model of migration, in which the man left to find work and send home money, has changed. Women are assuming head of the household duties, even if in their prior situation they were in less of a leadership role. The women interviewed for the poll named “securing family stability” as the most important motivator for seeking U.S. citizenship.

NAM also features a number of articles that break down the poll’s findings. Some feature short videos such as the one below, titled Family, Work and Progress — Latina Immigrants Speak. In this video, Latinas talk about why they came to the U.S. The reasons range from political asylum to simply being able to raise and feed their children. These are hard-hitting pieces because we can see and hear people tell their own story in their own words.

A common line spouted by those in favor of a strong enforcement agenda is that immigrants come here to ‘steal’ or ‘take’ our jobs. The focus is on an abstract, shadowy fence-hopper from Latin America who encroaches on turf and swipes resources. Ironically, there is never a mention of NAFTA and the effect it has had on the Latin American economy in these particular discussions! Perhaps no families would need to migrate north if unfair economic practices hadn’t taken so many jobs from Mexico, Guatemala, and the rest of Latin America.

Quite different than recycled stock footage of a man sliding over a busted-up border fence, NAM’s poll and videos present the truth in its plain and sorry reality. While it may make for less thrilling copy, it’s important to hear a mother talk about leaving a child behind so that she can forge a better path for them both, or about being alone in a strange place with nobody to help; about spending as much on long-distance phone calls to your children as you would on bringing them across the border.

These stories are important. Watching and reading human dramas that demand emotional engagement combat the anti-immigration punditry’s characterization of immigrants. As a result, a question forms that won’t go away: Why are these women alone in their struggle? If they were perceived as U.S. citizens, we would move mountains to come to their aid. It isn’t surprising that some Feminists strongly support immigration, though there is an ongoing debate.

Enforcement tactics are also devastating on a large scale. Writing for the American Forum, Dr. Erik Camayd-Freixas paints a clear picture of how the tactics deployed supposedly in the name of U.S. “security” do nothing to secure either happiness, safety, or a sound economy.

In Wiretap, 15-year-old Lupe Carreno tells about the day ICE took her father from her own home, and what that means to her life today: “When they began to walk down the stairs with my dad, it hit me. This could be the last time I see him for a long time. I looked away. I didn’t want to see them take my dad. When I looked down the stairs and didn’t see them anymore, I cried. My mom and my aunt told me not to cry, but this made me cry even more. The whole event only took 15 minutes.”

Lupe’s family has medical problems, but her father’s insurance is no longer there. The enforcement agenda has transformed a happy, cohesive family unit into a fractured cluster of pain and fear. Lupe lives in uncertainty now and worries her mother may be deported any day.

As in Lupe’s case, there are weaknesses in the system that do not provide for those with medical needs. Such as in the case of Xiu Ping Jiang, a Chinese immigrant who fled to the U.S. after being forcibly sterilized for having a second child. In Immigration Limbo for the Mentally Ill, Wiretap’s Brittany Shoot tells how Jiang was separated from her children by immigration officers, and shortly after, fell into a depression. Being an immigrant, she had no state-funded legal counsel to represent her. “This has caused her case to be drawn out for more than a year while she languishes in a detention center,” Shoot writes. “With a history of attempted suicide, her family members in the States grow increasingly fearful that they will lose their fragile sister inside the system.”

Will telling Xiu Ping Jiang’s story produce more than “[o]ne day of frenzied blogging” following the original reportage? Shoot seems to doubt it.

Returning to New America Media, we have the story What Am I Without My Leg? Eglis, an undocumented immigrant, lost her leg to an uninsured driver and is struggling to live with the consequences. Eglis’ story is a brutal example of the healthcare gap for immigrant women.

Finally, the Colorado Independent reports on a bill sponsored by Senator Dianne Feinstein D-Calif. that would create “a special ‘blue card’ status for undocumented immigrants who’ve worked a minimum number of hours in the agriculture sector in the past two years.” Some immigration advocates would call this a success. But true progress includes acknowledging in law and public dialogue what such a move truly indicates: That immigrants are not a threat to our nation, but in fact, a crucial and needed part of our way of life. Without them, we fall apart. This is what happens when you remove a mother from a family. This is what happens when you remove a workforce from a factory in Postville, Iowa. And this is what will happen if we continue to punish or forcibly remove immigrants from our nation.

———

Also featured at The Sanctuary, Huffington Post, Talking Points Memo, Open Salon, DailyKos, MyDD, Open Left, FDL, Rabble, Alternet, RaceWire, In These Times Blog and America’s Voice …

by Nezua, TMC MediaWire Blogger

[For those new to UMX, The Weekly Immigration Wire is my weekly (paid) article I write for The Media Consortium. It is a column that runs on a few other sites (see end of post).]

The Latino/a community has had ample reason to hope that President Obama would take on immigration reform in a humane manner. While Obama is undeniably centrist in his political approach, and has long been fond of language stressing punitive solutions to the immigration issue, he certainly seems to understand that “America is changing and we can’t be threatened by it.” Enforcement policies are becoming a threat, not only to immigrants, but the country at large.

AlterNet picks up on a position paper authored by the Sanctuary’s founding editors (of which I am one) on the Luis Ramirez killing and subsequent court case. The article ties the crime and Shanendoah jury’s decision to a larger pattern of dehumanization aimed at Latinos/as, and analyzes “[h]ow effortlessly a subhuman category of being is constructed and subsequently reviled.”

It’s a disturbing lens for examining current immigration-related news, but useful. If a person is deemed criminal by nature of their appearance, name, and culture, then the larger public will feel comfortable treating them in ways they would never condone for themselves. This process unfolds when the nation is made fearful by hack punditry and politicians who continually employ aggressive verbiage and dishonest framing of the realities we face.

Nina Jacinto, writing for WireTap, thinks it crucial that communities of color “continue the conversation about Luis Ramirez, in order to find some kind of justice” in the situation. “[R]acial injustice may continue to exist subversively in many parts of the country,” Jacinto writes, “But in many areas, hate crimes against people of color go beyond language, can become violent, and end in death.”

Using a lens that positions immigrants as the Other and less-than, it’s easy to understand why some staunchly oppose the DREAM act, which grants temporary citizenship to people brought here as children, who have lived in the U.S. at least five years, received high school educations and are of “good moral character,” as Public News Service reports. Supporters of the DREAM act view its opposition as cruel; a punishment leveled on children who have done nothing wrong. But if one had no interest in seeing those children become an educated part of U.S. culture, opposing the DREAM ACT makes perfect sense.

It is hard to make sense, however, of continuing enforcement measures that clearly wreak havoc on a state’s economic well being. Arizona is harming its own economy via an extremely heavy-handed enforcement approach towards communities that keep the state healthy. Doug Ramsey interviewed Alessandra Soler-Meetze, director of ACLU-Arizona for Public News Service. She claims that “[w]e have relied on punitive measures that have targeted not just recent immigrants, but long-time legal residents and even U.S. citizens, simply because of the color of their skin.” This creates an aura of discrimination that bleeds consequences into surrounding communities.

This aura is visible in the comment threads of almost any immigration-related article online. Commenters show nothing but hostility towards mothers who are losing their children and jobs. They demonstrate absolutely no empathy. This atmosphere is cultivated by enforcement measures like those enacted in Arizona. As Leslie Savan writes in AlterNet, Mexicans have been “the prime target of the most rancid typecasting” in the discussion that plays out in the media. And “once the type has been cast, it has jumped easily to Latinos of any origins.”

A year has passed since the devastating Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids in Postville, Iowa. New America Media’s A Year Later Iowa Raid Haunts Immigrants covers how some workers were treated during the raids, and what their lives are like in the aftermath. Veronica Cumez, a “soft-spoken 33-year-old mother of three” was hit on the head by a ICE agent during the raid, then yanked from her hiding place. Now, as she awaits the final outcome of her case, she lives wearing an electronic ankle bracelet that reminds her of her status at every turn.

Besides anxiety, loneliness is also a major ingredient of her new life. In the weeks and months after the raid, an entire network of kin from her village in Guatemala, San José Calderas, including three brothers-in-law, were either arrested and deported or abandoned Postville.

In 2006, Barack Obama confessed a limit to his own mental prowess:

It’s hard to imagine that we want to live in a country where we would have police and immigration officials coming into people’s homes and taking away the father of a family, sending him back to Mexico, leaving a mother and child behind.

But this is where we live. And when the talk is constantly about how borders are unsafe, how Mexicans are bringing Swine Flu to our communities, or how immigrants are taking jobs away from U.S. citizens, of course events will play out violently.

In U.S. Women Migrants Protest Abuse in County Jails, Feministing’s Courtney Martin writes of how one woman’s arm was allegedly broken by Maricopa County Sheriff’s guards. And in a letter signed by many women (one who tells of her jaw being broken during an ICE raid) the situation is made starkly clear. “Please help us,” plead the women. “[W]e’re in a tunnel without end, treated like dogs.”

And yet, Democrats hem and haw, afraid to take a firm moral stance on what so many humans in the nation are living through. Less than a week after the annual May Day marches, and at the end of President Obama’s first 100 days, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano “carefully skirted repeated questions” about whether the forthcoming Immigration reform should include “broader opportunities for legalization of the 11 million or so undocumented immigrants living in the United States,” according to the Colorado Independent.

The administration views the immigration issue as “controversial and politically dicey.” It’s too bad that our representative are not comfortable coming out in strong support of human rights as they apply to all these situations.

There is a major problem with continuing a public dialogue stressing dangerous borders, plays tough with phrases like “going to the back of the line” and rounding up and deporting people. These “solutions” ignore one of the most important causes of the problems. There is an imbalance in the economic exhange between the U.S. and nations like Mexico.

Fortunately, there are those who fight such injustice. You will find these people at the very roots of the situation, such as students who start hunger strikes to protest the “violence and terrorism” aimed at the Latino/a community and hope to inspire “those in higher power to say that they can’t close their eyes to the injustices we see day after day.”

And as Yes! Magazine reports, May Day marches filled the streets of over 125 cities this year. Author Colette Cosner reminds us that the “hope of the May Day marches resides not in the media coverage nor the government’s lack of response, but rather in how it connected people in the community in their efforts for further actions.”

Finally, as the film Made in L.A. made clear, it is often mothers who fight the hardest against the injustices that affect their families. RaceWire’s Julianne Hing reports on Elvira Arellano, who was deported in 2007. Now in Mexico, Arellano is running for a seat in the Mexican Congress. “I am going to seek laws in Congress that protect women, and also that protect undocumented Central Americans who are treated like criminals in Mexico,” Arellano said.

Also featured at The Sanctuary, Huffington Post, Talking Points Memo, Open Salon, DailyKos, MyDD, Open Left, FDL, Rabble, RaceWire Alternet …

Art by David Siquieros

HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY and Feliz Dia de las Madres to all you mothers out there, who so often are the ones making sure to keep the children safe and strong. My own mother was the constant in my life. And even after nana (my maternal grandmother) split with her husband (my grandfather) it was nana who took us in. And she took us in because my mother needed a place to live, after splitting with my own father. In my nanita’s case (paternal grandmother), mi abuelo Felipe died and once again, it was a mother who took care of her son. On my mother’s side, it was Mollie who jumped on a ship and came to the US, fleeing nazi violence in Eastern Europe. All down la linea on both sides…it is women who moved us forward when we may have faltered.

The men never seem to last long, for many varied reasons. Tatarabuelo Alejo, the Zapata-esque pulquería worker, died shortly after 40. My abuelo, Felipe Emilio, died early of diabetes and it was mi abuela (Lucha Quintana) who kept things going. My own father had jungles in México to explore or maybe Califas needed him more. But these things happen in a world. Today we focus on the women: they sacrifice so much to take care of us…and too often receive blame for what goes wrong. In the better moments, the children give back, remembering what they owe. As was with the case with cousins Geno, Roberto, y Vicente who joined the US Army to bring us into the US. That’s how Nanita got her green card. And there is good reason Mexicanos celebrate la Madre.

Like the earth, like the waters, like the sky—like mama nature herself who loves us down to our bones and even when we’re bad, or wrong, or all alone…

Happy Mother’s Day. You are appreciated.

I PROMISED YOU a film review yesterday and you can now find it here, at the XOLAGRAFIK Theater.

The still below is an image from that same film, Made in L.A. (Hecho en Los Angeles). I’d love it if you could check out that trailer and review before you read the press release below, which asks for your help in a little organizing that is going on between The Media Consortium and the makers of this film to spread the word about the film for the May Day screenings that are planned.

Full disclosure: I blog for the Media Consortium on Thursdays and I, too, was Made in L.A..

The Media Consortium and  the Emmy-winning documentary Made in L.A. have an exciting new partnership in the form of a very cool new widget with up to the minute news on immigration and grassroots events.

For those that haven’t heard about Made in L.A. , the movie tells the story of three Latina immigrants finding their way in the U.S. It’s a very personal, human story that puts a face on the immigrant experience and draws parallels between today’s immigrants and those whose families came to the U.S. generations ago. We just kicked-off a  grassroots community screening campaign in honor of May Day using the film’s content and web videos as tools to educate and build support for humane immigration reform. You can check-out these efforts here:http://www.madeinla.com/mayday – and Rep Luis Gutierrez’ recommendation of the film here.

To help get the word out, we’re partnering with The Media Consortium’s MediaWires project. Made in LA is co-sponsoring an immigration headline widget, [You can see this in my sidebar to the right --Nezua] which features top immigration-related content produced by Media Consortium members along with information about the May Day screenings. You can see the widget here: http://www.widgetbox.com/widget/the-latest-news-on-immigration-policy-us-immig

The Immigration Wire (immigration.newsladder.net) is a one-stop shop for the best independent reporting about immigration rights and policy reform. We believe that the more people have access to strong, independent reporting, the more we can positively impact the public and political dialogue. This project is highly beneficial to organizations looking to inform, engage and activate their constituencies.

Using the stories posted to Immigration.Newsladder.net, we’ve created a series of new media tools to help get the word out about this critical issue, listed below. Contact Erin Polgreen, erin@themediaconsortium.com to learn how you can become a part of this dynamic project.

• Widgets: Our simple headline widgets allow you carry up-to-the minute news about immigration on your website. These widgets are very easy to install (only copy/paste the code) and update 24/7. To see the Made in LA widget, visit: http://www.widgetbox.com/widget/the-latest-news-on-immigration-policy-us-immig
• Blogs: Every Thursday, The Media Consortium publishes a free, open source blog reviewing the week’s top news about immigration. It’s a great way to help inform and engage your audience! These blogs are free for anyone to repost on their own sites–we’ll even email them to you fully coded, so that all you have to do is copy/paste. Click here for samples: http://www.themediaconsortium.org/author/nezua/
• Twitter: Follow ImmigrationLadr on Twitter to get the latest headlines as they are submitted to the Immigration Wire.

If you are interested in hosting an immigration widget on your site, I’ve included the HTML coding below.

JAVASCRIPT:

<mce:script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://cdn.widgetserver.com/syndication/subscriber/InsertWidget.js” mce_src=”http://cdn.widgetserver.com/syndication/subscriber/InsertWidget.js”></mce:script>< script>if (WIDGETBOX) WIDGETBOX.renderWidget(‘ b5d91b35-477e-40c2-b6db-f5d50ab3ee3e’);</script><noscript>Get the <a href=”http://www.widgetbox.com/widget/the-latest-news-on-immigration-policy-us-immig” mce_href=”http://www.widgetbox.com/widget/the-latest-news-on-immigration-policy-us-immig”>The latest news on immigration policy, U.S. immig</a> widget and many other <a href=”http://www.widgetbox.com/” mce_href=”http://www.widgetbox.com/”>great free widgets</a> at <a href=”http://www.widgetbox.com” mce_href=”http://www.widgetbox.com”>Widgetbox</a>!</noscript>

FLASH:

<span class=”mceItemObject” classid=”clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000″ codebase=”http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=9,0,0,0″ type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” width=”170px” height=”423px” id=”InsertWidget_9cb24367-4c7d-4c9a-9a06-7ecfd0f738e0″ align=”middle”><br /> <span name=”movie” value=”http://widgetserver.com/syndication/flash/wrapper/InsertWidget.swf”class=”mceItemParam”></span> <span name=”quality” value=”high” class=”mceItemParam”></span> <span name=”wmode” value=”transparent” class=”mceItemParam”></span> <span name=”menu” value=”false” class=”mceItemParam”></span> <span name=”flashvars” value=”r=2&appId=9cb24367-4c7d-4c9a-9a06-7ecfd0f738e0″ class=”mceItemParam”></span> <span class=”mceItemEmbed” src=”http://widgetserver.com/syndication/flash/wrapper/InsertWidget.swf” mce_src=”http://widgetserver.com/syndication/flash/wrapper/InsertWidget.swf” name=”InsertWidget_9cb24367-4c7d-4c9a-9a06-7ecfd0f738e0″ width=”170px” height=”423px” quality=”high” menu=”false” pluginspage=”http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” wmode=”transparent” align=”middle” flashvars=”r=2&appId=9cb24367-4c7d-4c9a-9a06-7ecfd0f738e0″ /></span></span>

May Day is the perfect time to provide your audience with more information about immigration reform and to think about sharing . All you have to do is copy/paste the below HTML wherever you’d like to place the widget on your site. This widget is a great way to push independent reporting to new audiences–and by hosting it, you are also supporting the work of your fellow Media Consortium members. You can also click here to see the widget and get coding to place it in a blog or on a Facebook page. Please contact Erin Polgreen,erin@themediaconsortium.com, with any tech-related questions.

If you have questions about the film, want to host an event or talk to me or the filmmakers, just let me know.

all best,
Tracy
–
Tracy Fleischman
(323) 424.3010 office
(310) 916.7977 cell
tfleisch@gmail.com