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Archive for the ‘economy’ Category

New Study Shows that for Latinos in NYC, The Recession is a Depression

10:35 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Immigration| Money| New York City| Uncategorized| economy · 1 Comment

29 Oct 2009

empty-pockets Latino NY’ers are have been especially impacted by the current economic crisis according to a study released today by the Community Service Society (full disclosure, I worked for CSS many years ago).

-More than 1 in 4 Latinos lost their jobs. More than 4 in 10 low-income Latinos either had their hours, wages, and/or tips reduced, or lost their jobs—or both—in the past year.

-Low-income Latinos are more likely than Whites or Blacks to frequently worry about having enough money to cover expenses and bills. Latinos are more likely to worry about housing as well.

-Low income Latinos are more likely to have multiple workers in their household, but less likely to report that they have employer-sponsored benefits;

-For moderate to higher income Latino families, one in five fell behind in housing payments, and over a third had their health care costs increase;

- Latina and Black low-income working mothers are most worried about not being able to find or keep a job.

Really Great Report on Latino USA on Puerto Rican Crisis

9:01 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Immigration| Media| Politics| Puerto Rico| economy · No Comments

26 Oct 2009

I just finished listening to a really great report on Latino USA featuring two Puerto Rican experts, Juan Manuel García Passalacqua and Angelo Falcon. The two do a really good job, I thought, at explaining how migration from Puerto Rico has always been driven by economic crisis exacerbated by its colonial status. Given how badly things are going in Puerto Rico, Angelo Falcon and Juan Manuel García Passalacqua agree that a new wave of Rican immigration is happening and what exactly does that mean in a United States that has shown it’s anti-immigrant side especially when the haters, in the words of Angelo Falcon, don’t make distinctions among different Latin Americans and they certainly don’t ask to see papers when they unleash violence on our communities.

Puerto Rico on General Strike Tomorrow

12:08 pm By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Labor| Puerto Rico| economy · No Comments

14 Oct 2009

Puerto Rico has been feeling the effects of the global recession and its impact hits harder thanks to it’s colonial status. Record unemployment has been boosted thanks to pro-statehood governor Luis Fortuño laying off around 17,000 earlier this month, bringing the total number of people fired on the island close to 25,000. This has led to massive popular action in the streets of the isla del encanto and there is a general strike called for tomorrow, October 15th.

There are a number of solidarity events, especially here in NYC so stay tuned for updates.

Via / Global Voices

Puerto Rico’s Unemployment Numbers : So How’s that Colony Thing Working Out For Ya?

10:25 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Labor| Money| Puerto Rico| economy · 15 Comments

26 Aug 2009

puerto_rico For as long as I have believed in self-determination for Puerto Rico, I have thought that talk about the island becoming the 51st state was just that, talk. This is partially because of issues of race and identity. Despite the post-racial times the U.S. finds itself in (allegedly), the U.S. will not accept a brown, Spanish speaking nation as a state. I also think though, that annexation isn’t attractive because economically, Puerto Rico isn’t attractive. Claro, the island has been exploited economically, pero statehood would require the U.S. to invest more than it would get back from the island. Just take a look at the unemployment numbers coming out of la isla del encanto:

The unemployment rate in Puerto Rico stands at 16.5 percent, the highest of all U.S. jurisdictions, and the government is announcing even more layoffs of public employees.

Via / Latin American Herald Tribune

The U.S. Supports Mexico’s War on Drugs

8:25 pm By la Macha · Drugs| U.S.-Mexico Border| Violence| crime| economy · 3 Comments

10 Aug 2009

barack-obama2 Ok, remember how Mexico caught a whole bunch of drug traffickers a few weeks back? And how they were paraded in front of national Mexican television, and how it was the U.S. that basically funded the capture with money and weapons?

Well, the U.S. government doesn’t have a problem with any of that, and it wants us all to know that.

President Obama said Monday the United States remains Mexico’s partner in the fight against drug cartels, despite some calls in the United States to delay counter-narcotics aid because of alleged human rights violations by Mexican soldiers.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon reaffirmed his commitment to transparency and human rights in his offensive against the cartels, Obama said.

Some $100 million in anti-drug aid, known as the Merida Initiative, could be delayed because of concerns about human rights violations, it was reported last week.

“We have been very supportive of the Merida Initiative, and we remain supportive,” Obama said.

Obama also said the United States would work to reduce demand for drugs and stop the illegal flow of weapons south to Mexico.

The remarks came at a summit of North American leaders in Guadalajara, Mexico.

As I said earlier, I don’t really see this “war” ending until there is 1. either drug legalization efforts and/or 2. a national policy in the U.S. enacted whereby drug addiction is recognized as a disease needing treatment rather than a crime needing imprisonment.

So it’s incredibly disappointing to see that Obama, the liberal almost communist dictator, declaring the U.S.’s continued support of military options to Mexico–while also speaking out of both sides of his mouth on “ending U.S. demands for drugs.” If Mexico’s drug trafficking is a matter of national security, why isn’t treatment here in the U.S.? If Mexico can get millions and millions of dollars for military supplies, why can’t your local rehab clinic get some new chairs and a computer?

Oh, I forget, we have to use that money to imprison drug users.

The role of U.S. in Peru clashes

5:41 pm By la Macha · Environment| Peru| Violence| economy · 3 Comments

9 Jun 2009

peruindigenous Being in the U.S. affords me certain privileges, namely allowing me to be unaware of how laws of the U.S. affect citizens in other countries. I knew on some level what the fighting in Peru was about (corporate versus indigenous nations versus Peruvian government), but of course, the role of the U.S. is so hidden from people in the U.S., we don’t see it until we are told.

From msnbc.com:

The strikers’ demands are the same as those of the protesting Indians: that Congress revoke laws to promote oil and natural gas extraction, logging and large-scale agriculture on traditional Indian lands. Garcia decreed the laws to comply with a new U.S.-Peru free trade agreement.

“We don’t get anything from this huge exploitation, which also poisons us. We’ve never seen any development and my community lives in poverty,” local Aguaruna leader Mateo Inti told The Associated Press in Bagua, the scene of Friday’s violence.

They also want Garcia and his Cabinet prosecuted for the bloodshed, which they say also killed 30 Indians. The government puts the civilian death toll at nine — outraging the Indian leaders who accuse police of burning and hiding more bodies.

“We’re not taking even one step back. We haven’t lost this fight,” protest leader Daysi Zapata said.

In a two page article, there is one sentence that details what all this has to do with the U.S.–or in other words, how U.S. style capitalism is killing people a world away from the U.S.–or, in other words, how people in other countries learn to “hate” the U.S.

Or, more bluntly, people don’t hate the U.S. because we’re ‘free’ and because of our ‘rights,’ they hate us because we create economic structures that destroy and violate their land, communities and peoples–all in the name of protecting and defending our ‘rights.’

On a tangent, this is what makes me think that maybe “ethnic media” has some legitimacy. I cringe at the name “ethnic media,” but if it is the only media that is attempting to do something as simple as explain what U.S. trade agreements are doing to the world–then maybe I can get over the name a lot faster than I thought I could.

Corporate media should be ashamed of itself.

Hugo Chavez Hearts Obama

3 Jun 2009

After all that hate, then some awkward moments, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez appears to be warming up to Barack Obama…if you consider calling Obama more leftist than he and Fidel Castro showing love (and I do). Reuters reports:

Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez said on Tuesday that he and Cuban ally Fidel Castro risk being more conservative than U.S. President Barack Obama as Washington prepares to take control of General Motors Corp.

During one of Chavez’s customary lectures on the “curse” of capitalism and the bonanzas of socialism, the Venezuelan leader made reference to GM’s bankruptcy filing, which is expected to give the U.S. government a 60 percent stake in the 100-year-old former symbol of American might.

“Hey, Obama has just nationalized nothing more and nothing less than General Motors. Comrade Obama! Fidel, careful or we are going to end up to his right,” Chavez joked on a live television broadcast.

Chavez’s message is not lost on Republicans, who were quick to jump on Obama’s bones for the move. Check out the RNC’s video attacking Obama after the jump. Read more…

Remesa Reversal

9:34 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Dominican Republic| Dominicans| Money| economy · 1 Comment

18 May 2009

g_3472__324612fbc718498 The current economy has had an impact on all communities, but especially Latinos, who were already feeling the pinch. This has caused a reduction in the amount of money that immigrant communities are sending to their home countries, and anti-immigrant scapegoating has a role to play as well. Pero here’s a very interesting development, as reported by Feet in 2 Worlds, remesas have started to change their usual traveling direction, with money coming from Latin America to the United States.

“We have seen a significant increase in the number of money transfers made from the D.R. to the U.S.,” confirmed Reny Pena, supervisor of customer services and transfers at the company’s office [La Nacional] in the Upper Manhattan neighborhood of Washington Heights.

Pena said that the volume of transfers from the Dominican Republic to the U.S. grew from between 80 and 120 monthly transfers in 2006 to the current rate of about 150 transfers a day. The increase has prompted the agency to expand the department that deals with U.S.-bound remittances from one to five employees.

When $300 necklaces mean something

11:28 am By la Macha · Family| Immigration| U.S.-Mexico Border| Violence| economy · 1 Comment

4 May 2009

While I was reading this post comparing the brutal murders of men of color and town reactions to the murders from Elle PhD, I came across this older article about the murder of Luis Ramirez in Pennsylvania.

By May, Ramirez had settled in Shenandoah, working two jobs after spending six months picking berries in Georgia.

“He worked hard so his kids would have more than he had growing up,” Dillman said. “He talked a lot about how we take so much for granted here.”

His diamond-encrusted religious medal, which cost him $300, now hangs over the fireplace in the three-story home on Main Street where Dillman and the children live.

“I just don’t understand how you can beat someone so badly when you don’t even know them,” Dillman said. “People here are just ignorant. They think life begins and ends in Shenandoah.”

It made me so sad to read this section. Earlier in the article, the author mentions that Ramirez had been kicked so hard by his murderers that the cross from that necklace left a cross mark on his chest.

Even as the article let’s the reader in on a detailed understanding of the lives of the “boys” accused of murdering Ramirez (honor students, football stars, etc), the one detail it tells us about Ramirez is that he spent $300 on a diamond encrusted necklace.

Oh, and he had two children out of wedlock. With a white woman. And was last seen walking down the street with a teenage girl.

Does it surprise anyone that the men accused of killing Luis Ramirez have been found not guilty?

Is it murder when you’re just doing something that everybody imagines doing themselves?

What right do dirty Mexicans have to “ruin the lives” of good boys, clean boys, who are doing their best to live day to day in a world that rewards criminals (with $300 necklaces) and denies jobs to hardworking “real Americans?”

Is it justice to punish those poor boys? Or is it justice that the visible display of Ramirez’s arrogance was used against him to destroy him?

Elle notes in her post:

Dr. King once said something to the effect of the arc of history** is long, but it bends towards justice.

Right now, I’m just stuck on how achingly long it is.

And all I can say is me too.