Tag: immigration reform

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The Twisted History of Jerry Hough

It’s been a while since Duke University Political Science Professor, Jerry Hough, kicked off a sh*t storm of commentary by offering a bluntly racist critique of the New York Times article, How Racism Doomed Baltimore.

The Times piece is an excellent take down of entrenched poverty among Blacks in Baltimore, describing the collapse of Baltimore’s inner-city as the nexus of a history of racial coding and legal restrictions, social exclusion, white flight, inequitable public policy, and straight-up financial chicanery, suggesting that these conditions contributed to the world weariness and anger behind the unrest we were witness to following … Read more “The Twisted History of Jerry Hough”

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Top 10 Victories for Immigrant Rights in 2013

While Congress struggled in 2013 to enact just and meaningful reform, and the President is close to surpassing 2 million deportations, immigrants won victories in many states and many levels.

In no particular order:

1. The Supreme Court Strikes Down Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act

Undoubtedly, the fall of DOMA’s Section 3 has brought much-needed relief among members of the LGBT community. While there is much more left to do in terms of winning rights for all members of the LGBT community, over 36,000 bi-national same-sex couples can finally live together without worrying about imminent family separation … Read more “Top 10 Victories for Immigrant Rights in 2013”

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Deportation Nation: Yes, Obama Can Pull the Brakes

Ju Hong was scared, even unsure, as to the consequences to him if he interrupted President Barack Obama during his stump speech on immigration in San Francisco earlier this week.

After all, he was put there by the White House, vetted, to make sure he was merely another prop while the President gave yet another boring speech on immigration.

[youtube_sc url=” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDEk3OTT_kY”]

Hong, an undocumented graduate of U.C. Berkeley with a gutsy record of engaging in immigrant rights activism, has grown weary of speeches on immigration. With the House unlikely to pass comprehensive immigration reform, he represents the many … Read more “Deportation Nation: Yes, Obama Can Pull the Brakes”

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How Not To Win Immigration Reform

Something rather bizarre has been happening for the past few weeks.
Enthusiasm for comprehensive immigration reform is waning, despite many wonderful and brave political actions to the contrary.
Why is that? I will leave the explanation for some other day. What I find more curious and perplexing is that self-proclaimed advocates for immigration reform are not busy trying to work on saving comprehensive immigration reform. Instead, many of them have turned their attention to attacking undocumented immigrant organizers.
Ever since the path-breaking DREAM 9 action, where several undocumented youth self-deported to Mexico, and brought back six other individuals to
… Read more “How Not To Win Immigration Reform”
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Who Gets to Be American?

Remember Sebastien De La Cruz? He’s that 11 year old Mexican American singer who performed the National Anthem to open game 3 of the NBA final in a traditional mariachi outfit. Here’s his picture.

Cute kid, right? Also a great talent. But, apparently a brown kid in a Mariachi suit isn’t very cute to some of us, particularly if that kid happens to be singing the National Anthem on network TV.
Rather than celebrate the whole “nation of immigrants” thing and acknowledge that all of us are wearing some sort of national costume from another country, usually Europe, racists reacted,
… Read more “Who Gets to Be American?”
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When Xenophobia Trumps Common Sense, Common Decency Often Goes By the Wayside

I’ve written here before about the dilemma Washington Apple Growers were faced with in 2011 because of crack downs on undocumented immigrants. It turns out that the majority of documented immigrants who answered a poll by saying that undocumented immigrants mostly take low wage jobs that no one wants are right. No amount of recruitment was able to produce enough American-born workers to replace immigrants who were scared out of the fields, and what should have been one of the best years on record for the Washington apple industry ended up being a bust. Farmers in Georgia and Alabama have … Read more “When Xenophobia Trumps Common Sense, Common Decency Often Goes By the Wayside”

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The Obama Paradox

I’ve gotten some grief lately over critical comments I’ve made about President Obama. Folks reference a piece I wrote a while back about why I was a supporter of Obama’s candidacy in the last election, calling on other racial justice advocates who were critical of his first term to join me. Why, folks now ask, would I so strongly support the candidacy of our nation’s first Black president, only to be so critical of his reign?

Here’s my answer. In politics, silence is often as good as consent.

We ought not stand mute in the face of human rights violations … Read more “The Obama Paradox”

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What Does Pork Have to do with the U.S. Immigration “Problem?”

Years ago, I moved to Eastern Tennessee to work at the Highlander Research and Education Center. Highlander was founded as the Highlander Folk School, but reincorporated under its current name after its charter was revoked by the State of Tennessee in 1962 in an effort to dislodge the school from its pivotal position in the African American Civil Rights Movement.

Highlander is famous for hosting students like Rosa Parks, Dr. King, John Lewis, and Ella Baker. But I’ve always felt that its greatest accomplishment was organizing the Citizenship Schools. Under the leadership of Septima Clark, Bernice Robinson, and Esau … Read more “What Does Pork Have to do with the U.S. Immigration “Problem?””