Stealing Immigrant Babies

Check this one out: so now judges are taking custody of the children of undocumented immigrants and handing them over to American families when the immigrants are arrested/deported. See here.

What one judge in Missouri, David Dally, wrote in his decision is so telling:

“Her lifestyle, that of smuggling herself into the country illegally and committing crimes in this country, is not a lifestyle that can provide stability for a child. A child cannot be educated in this way, always in hiding or on the run.”

The crime the judge is referring to is using a false Social Security card to get work. So now, coming to this country to get a better life, getting a job and working to provide for your U.S. citizen kids is a crime that makes her unworthy of keeping her own child. This is so so so so sickening. The judge's logic is gross and awful.  The woman in this case is only trying to provide for the future of her children and the legal system in this country judges her as an unfit mother for her decision. 

Awful.  Please, Obama, reform our immigration laws NOW.

Support the DREAM Act!

The DREAM Act was reintroduced in Washington on March 26. Now is the time to call your senators and congresspeople to get them to act. This would change the lives of millions of currently undocumented individuals, many of them my own friends and people I consider my family. So please, do everything you can.

For more info on the Dream Act, go here. Basically, the federal DREAM Act (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act), is bipartisan legislation that would permit undocumented young people conditional legal status and eventual citizenship granted that they meet ALL the following requirements:
--if they were brought to the United States before they turned 16,
--are between the ages of 12 and 30 when the bill is passed,
--have lived here continuously for five years,
--graduated from a U.S. high school or obtained a GED
--have good moral character with no criminal record and
--attend college 2 years of college or enlist in the military after six years of temporary residency.

And if you are like me, you might not like the military option so much, but there are some great responses to these concerns by DREAMers. Read their message to progressives who oppose the DREAM Act here at DREAMactivist and at Citizen Orange. Basically, this would be a huge motivation for tons of young people to go to college and there is no obligation to join the military. The bill is not perfect, but it would change millions of lives--not only the young people themselves, but then their entire families who now would have a qualifying relative to legalize themselves.

Wondering what to do? You can: Go here for more info on actions to take. Read the case of one San Antonio DREAMer, Benita Veliz, at the NYTimes. Her picture is the one at the top.

Frenemy = Enamigo

Una de las pocas ocasiones cuando la traducción es fácil y bonita además. 

One of the few times when translation is easy and pretty too.

Yeah!

 
You probably have to be a translator to think this is funny...but, yeah, it was funny.

Arte Público Press and Voices Breaking Boundaries present

East End Live Art: La Voz Femenina 6
A celebration of International Women's Day
5:00 pm, Sunday, March 8, 2009
Café Flores, 6606 Lawndale Street, Houston, TX 77023
$ Free

La Voz image

Arte Público Press and Voices Breaking Boundaries team up again to celebrate International Women's Day with a reading by acclaimed Mexican author Rosario Sanmiguel, whose story collection, Under the Bridge: Stories from the Border / Bajo la puente: Relatos desde la frontera, was named toCríticas Magazine’s list, Top Picks for Hispanic Heritage Month. John Pluecker, who translated her work from Spanish to English will also join the gathering, and the afternoon includes a short documentary on the women of Juarez produced by artist Lise Bjorne who will also exhibit print images. VBB co-Founders Marcela Descalzi and Jacquelyn Shah will perform new work, as will students from VBB’s after-school workshop at Lee High School. VBB Founding Director Sehba Sarwar will host the show, and there will be an open mic for all. Bring your voices! This show is cosponsored by KPFT Pacifica Radio 90.1 FM, UH-LULAC, El Gato, Houston Institute for Culture, and Café Flores. 

A collective of translators

A collective of translators in Barcelona called Anuvela.  Translating from English into Spanish.  It would be awesome to do something like this for Spanish into English.  

Nuestra máxima aspiración profesional es poder vivir de nuestro trabajo, ni más ni menos. A pesar de lo mucho que podamos llegar a disfrutar con lo que hacemos, nuestro trabajo no es ningún hobby.

Awesome.  But is there a market for Spanish into English?  Surely not at the same level of the inverse.

Vassilis Alexakis

However, I was quite annoyed by a well-known linguist who declared, at a conference of francophone writers, that a writer can compose an original work only in his native language. My modest experience in this realm tells me this is unfounded. I don't think my passage into French, as difficult and painful as it was in many ways, has curbed my imagination, limited my freedom, or deprived me of the pleasure of writing. Precisely the reverse is true: French has enhanced my enjoyment, expanded my horizons, and given me greater freedom.

From an essay at Words without Borders that muses on the difficulties, opportunities, stresses and joys of living and writing and reading in two languages. Tons of thought provoking quotes and thoughts. The essay was originally written in French, then translated by the author into Greek, then translated from the Greek into English by Andriana Mastor. Totally indicative of the deeper conflicts/divisions/trafficking.

Arts organizations and non-profits have only held power in the artworld since the National Endowment for the Arts stopped issuing individual artists’ grants in the early 90s, as Robert Mapplethorpe’s images were confiscated and Jesse Helms railed against the likes of Andres Serrano and Karen Finley. Houston’s The Art Guys were some of the last artists in America to receive an NEA individual grant, in 1995. Since then all art funding has passed through local or genre organizations, fracturing the illusion of objectivity that the NEA provided, and doling out money to art ‘warlords’ capable of sustaining their own gangs and squeezing others.

Click to read more of Buffalo Sean's report from the Houston ArtCamp. It's interesting. He breaks down Houston the Houstonartworldscene real well.

Stop the Raids, Obama!

On Tuesday, February 24, the Obama Administration executed the first worksite raid of his administration. Outside Seattle in a factory in Bellingham, Washington, 28 workers, including 3 mothers, were chained and arrested as part of an ICE enforcement operation.

TAKE ACTION:

1. Call the White House at 202-456-1414 and tell President Obama:

· Business as usual at ICE is not change we can believe in.

· Now more than ever, a top to bottom review of ICE priorities and it enforcement operations is needed.

· At a minimum, until the new ICE Director (named Monday) and an oversight strategy is in place, please halt these types of enforcement actions.

· Just last week, you promised that you are committed to fixing the broken immigration system through comprehensive immigration reform. The President can't say one thing and do another. The community needs clarity.

It looks like public pressure will help.  The new Homeland Security director Janet Napolitano has already ordered a review of the raid, saying enforcement efforts should be focused on employers.  Keep the pressure on...

A Lady at a Party Told Me

I'd really like to learn Spanish, but not like Mexican Spanish, I really wanna learn Cotillion Spanish.  It just sounds so dignified, y'know?

Ah, Cotillion Spanish really is soooo much more beautiful.

"Para un México desmilitarizdado. Vallanse ya."

Street protests that started in Monterrey almost a week ago have now extended to the Texas-Mexico border.  /  Lo que empezó en Monterrey hace casi una semana ahora se extendió a la frontera tejana/mexicana desde Juárez hasta Reynosa.  


Bands of people, mainly youths with their faces covered, sporting baggy pants, headbands, huge draping shirts and regiocolombiano styles, starting shutting down streets in Monterrey last week.  Now similar protests (but with women and children in front) shut down the international bridges in border towns from Juárez to Reynosa.


El discurso de los manifestantes es rarísimo.  Hablan de una resistencia contra el ejército.  Their protest is supposedly against the military.  Fighting to remove the military from communities.  The same military fighting against the narcos in the drug war.  The word on the street is that they are being paid by the Gulf Cartel to protest.  Between 300 and 500 pesos per person.


Who knows what is really going on?  This video from Reynosa shows what seems to be absurd, postmodern protests against "neonazis" and "fascists."  It seems the drug cartels have taken the vocabulary of the Zapatistas and repurposed it to further their cause (con nuevas fallas ortográficas).  Parece ser una verguenza extrema.  A performance of political protest paid for by pimps.  But who really knows for sure.  The Zapatista communities fought to rid their communities of the military in the nineties.  These protestors use a similar rhetoric to very, very different ends.  Cuidado con la solidaridad.