March 2012
0 posts
"Bilingual Sestina"
by Julia Alvarez
Some things I have to say aren’t getting said in this snowy, blonde, blue-eyed, gum chewing English: dawn’s early light sifting through the persianas closed the night before by dark-skinned girls whose words evoke cama, aposento, sueños in nombres from that first world I can’t translate from Spanish. Gladys, Rosario, Altagracia—the sounds of Spanish wash over me like warm island...
Dear San Antonio de Padua,
Can you please help me find a man who isn’t a pain in the nalgas. There aren’t any in Texas. I swear. Especially not in San Antonio.
Can you do something about all of the educated Chicanos who have to go to California to find a job. I guess what my sister Irma says is true: “If you didn’t get a husband when you were in college, you don’t get one.”
I would appreciate it very much if you sent me...
February 2012
75 posts
Cafepress under fire for Anti-Mexican merchandise
thenoobyorker:
nbclatino:
Cafepress removed its Anti-Mexican page after complaints. An Anti-Mexico page remains up (Screenshot)
Cafepress is an e-commerce website where you can buy user-submitted t-shirts, mugs, tote bags and much more. All manner of merchandise is available for purchase — including anti-Mexican items.
Read More
This is disgusting. With that said, let me stress that for...
“When I realized a Chicano could write and could get published… I felt like...”
– Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands / La Frontera
“The problem is we don’t make the connections and everyday I grow more tired of...”
– The Other Side of Immigration
“Soledad era independencia, yo me la había deseado y la había conseguido al cabo...”
– Hermann Hesse, El Lobo Estepario
“Let’s get one thing out of the way: Mexican immigration is an oxymoron. Mexicans...”
– Sherman Alexie, a poet, short story writer, novelist, and filmmaker. His book “The Lone Ranger and Tonto’s Fist Fight in Heaven,” was on the banned curriculum of the Mexican American Studies Program.
la poesía: a tumblr dedicated to english, spanish,... →
“all i wanted was a room somewhere to fall in love and write about it softly.”
– Jennifer Clarvoe, Counter-Amores
“Deep in our hearts we believe that being Mexican has nothing to do with which...”
– Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera
“I will tell you a sad story: White people are moving away
From this city...”
– An excerpt from Benjamin Alire Sáenz’s poem “War (in the City in Which I Live)” from Dreaming the End of War.
"Illegal" by Benjamin Alíre Sáenz
The way we employ language says a great deal about our national character. Illegal is an adjective. It is not a noun. The use of the term in place of a human being is uncivilized, ungenerous, and mean spirited. I’ve always believed that when we call other people names, we begin to lose our dignity. With regard to dealing with the complex issue of Illegal (here used as an adjective)...
“Don’t doubt your power, or you give power to your doubts.”
– Ernesto “Che” Guevara
“But not wanting a specific sex is even more problematic. Why? Because in a bona...”
– Erin Klg, “When Women Don’t Want Daughters”
“Books saved my sanity, knowledge open the locked places in me and taught me...”
– Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera
1 tag
“Americans once boycotted grapes and lettuce to help migrant workers fight for...”
– Scott Simon from NPR, “Other People’s Atrocities: None of Our Business?”
“We are tired of being an unwilling party to what appears to be a deliberate...”
– We are removing Argentina’s official inflation figures from our economic indicators page. Find out why.
Opinion: If only Obama wore a crown
The President’s explanation of his immigration record to Univision Radio was condescending. (Flickr: Intel Photos)
By HELEN AGUIRRE FERRE Channel: Politics
Whether you believe in mandatory deportation, regulated work permits, or earned citizenship, most agree that it is economically and civically hazardous to have approximately 12 million people living in the shadows because of their...
“El amor de mi hombre
no querrá rotularme y etiquetarme,
me dará aire, espacio,...”
– Gioconda Belli, stanza XI of “Reglas de juego para los hombres que quieran amar a mujeres mujeres”
“Nunca nos quitarán ese orgullo de ser Mexicana-Chicana-tejana ni el espíritu...”
– Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera
“It was important for me to relate to that time when I arrived in New York,”...”
– Demián Bichir: Oscar Nominee For ‘A Better Life’ Interview On Leaving Mexico And His Move To The U.S. [HuffPost]
Oscar (by the way, Oscar is another Mexican) or not, he’s a winner tonight. Orgullo!
(via thenoobyorker)
Many actresses/actors (almost all Anglo/white)...
Natalie Portman used the term ‘undocumented’ to...
univisionnews:
By JORGE RIVAS Channel: Immigration
Natalie Portman took the stage at the 84th Annual Academy Awards on Sunday to announce the year’s best actor nominees. When she introduced Demián Bichir for his role in A Better Life she identified his character as an “undocumented immigrant” and not with the pejorative “illegal” term.
Read More
“by looking at the pace with which viruses evolved, you can reverse engineer your...”
– On today’s Fresh Air, the history of the HIV virus.
“If we want to change existing conditions, we must first transform ourselves...”
– Jiddu Krishnamurti
The Nation: Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric is Anti-Latino →
thenoobyorker:
This is a little heavier than what I normally post but Victoria Soto nails an aspect of this debate,
The immigration debate got very personal for Latinos in California in 1994 when Proposition 187 passed, denying undocumented persons basic social services such as a public education. The justification for Prop 187 was to curb financial waste, not negative feelings toward Latinos....
Latino Voters & the Republican Party
Just pay attention to the rhetoric. Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) paints a picture of Mexico as a chaotic dystopia, a source of torture and prostitution, where “illegal people,” a phrase many Latinos see as pejorative, are preyed upon by drug dealers. “The whole state of Mexico is being controlled by drug cartels,” she says, a claim that is as factually false as it is rhetorically bold.
...
2 tags
“Many still don’t know that under the guise of “American Jobs for Real Americans”...”
– Los Angeles Apologizes for Role in Massive Deportations [HuffPost]
This is part of the film Mi Familia (with a superstar cast of brown folks) where Jennifer Lopez (a Mexican-American citizen in this film) is deported. The video may be Hollywood, but that events were very real.
(via thenoobyorker)
...
“The Canales story has been repeated over and over in the Southwest by other...”
– (via afroxander)
Georgia bill would bar illegal immigrants from...
nbclatino:
Georgia State Capitol building in Atlanta. (Photo/Hisham Ibrahim)
BY ASSOCIATED PRESS
ATLANTA — A Georgia state Senate committee has passed a bill that would bar illegal immigrants from state colleges and universities and also would tweak some existing state laws having to do with illegal immigration.
Read More
LAPD Chief Says Undocumented* Immigrants Should...
by Eyder Peralta on NPR 01:36 pm | February 23, 2012
Whether undocumented immigrants are granted driver’s licenses has been one of those mainstay questions in the country.
Yesterday, Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck jumped firmly into the debate, arguing that immigrants in the country illegally should be given some kind driver’s permit.
Beck argued that it was a matter...
“The debate around immigration in Washington brings the same smoke and mirrors...”
– Guestworker Programs Blend “Free Markets” and Forced Labor for Migrant Workers
“He is rigid and a homophobic. He said, ‘I want a constitutional amendment to ban...”
– Former US Senator Al Simpson, (R-Wyo.) on Rick Santorum. In 2011, Simpson emailed me this statement on HB 74, a bill to ban recognition of same-sex marriage in Wyoming:
“I can’t imagine anything more inhuman, insensitive and unfair. Wyoming people believe in getting the government out of their...
BBC Article: American 'illegals' in Mexico →
The face of self-deportation: emotional family...
univisionnews:
By: UNIVISION NEWS Channel: Immigration
In an emotional interview on Univision’s Al Punto Jorge Ramos reunited a family torn by self-deportation. Antonio Alarcon, a 17-year-old Mexican immigrant, was left behind in New York City after his parents were forced to return to Mexico. They were faced with poor job prospects in the U.S. and with the sudden death of the caregivers of...
