12:18 pm By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Immigration| Justice| New York| Violence| crime · 3 Comments
5 Nov 2009
There is much remembering that one year ago the United States elected it’s first person of color president. The U.S. was overwhelmed with bold, bright promises of hope and change. People wept, and I was among them. The start of the Obama era marked the end of the Bush era and hopefully would mean policy changes that would directly impact the everyday lives of all people pero yes, for people of color and immigrants there was a special hope. Hope that immigration reform that would keep all families together and value the lives of people who live and work in the shadows and out in the open.
But then something happened that many thought wasn’t supposed to happen anymore. Weren’t we post-racial? Days after Barack Obama became the president-elect a group of teenagers in Patchogue, Long Island, NY hung out doing what they did about once a week. “Beaner jumping”. That’s what they called it when they went out looking for anyone who looked Latino (they don’t care what kind of “beaner” you are) so they could assault them. That night the young men were out for blood though and they killed Marcelo Lucero.
Read more…
6:13 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Bilingualism| Immigration| Media| Politics| language| media justice · No Comments
28 Oct 2009It’s not just immigration that is being criminalized as some people have commented. Any trace of Latinidad deems people as targets for varying forms of harassment ranging from traffic stops, to tickets, to jails, to beat downs, to deaths. While some think that skin color alone can “mark” someone as other, and in this case Latino, language and varying levels of accents also brand. Just look at how much time is spent in this discussion on Latino in America on the issue of assimilation, acculturation and the role of language.
The issue always is how can you speak Spanish and still assimilate/aculturate with the ultimate goal seemingly being not being labeled/identified/called out as “other”. If you are going to insist on speaking Spanish then for everyone’s sake do it at home, where no one else can see or hear you or else face the consequences:
Let us not forget that we started 2009 with someone getting physically attacked while having a cell phone conversation in Spanish.
Sometimes we don’t even need language. Just having a name that could remind someone that you are Latino is enough to get you fired.
2:03 pm By la Macha · Immigration · 1 Comment
19 Oct 2009This video explains what is going on to immigrant youth in San Francisco. In short, they’re being deported without due process:
There will be a rally tomorrow at 2PM in San Francisco! If you’re there, let us know how it went!
4:53 pm By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Immigration| Justice| Politics · No Comments
17 Oct 2009
Yesterday, the Department of Homeland Security announced that it had entered into revised 287(g) pacts with 67 local and state law enforcement agencies. Despite the fact that many organizations, from this little Latino space in the blogmundo to the United Nations, have been critical of the program that empowers police to identify and remove undocumented immigrants, the “new and improved” 287(g) allegedly is “friendlier” (when have you known law enforcement to be friendly) and “race neutral” (is that like post-racial). The new Memorandums of Understanding (MOA’s), which haven’t been made public so they cannot be compared with the old MOA’s, allegedly include more oversight and state that the participating agencies have to focus on “serious” criminals and promise to follow civil rights and constitutional laws (no one checked if the signers had their fingers crossed behind their back).
Read more…
9:48 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Immigration| Politics · No Comments
13 Oct 2009Today is supposed to be a big day for the immigration reform movement(s). It is being called a National Day of Action organized , with some events already having taken place and more planned for today including people meeting with members of Congress and a vigil on the West Lawn of the Capitol, calling for family unity. That is the theme of today, la familia and keeping it together in the face of a politic and policy that seeks to weaken togetherness. Leading the charge politically is Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), who will propose his own immigration reform bill this month.
2:51 pm By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Family| Immigration| Nashville| Women| children · 1 Comment
7 Oct 2009It reads like a bad novela if it weren’t the real nightmare that so many families are living in the United States. First, Maria Gurrola is violently attacked and her newborn, Yair Anthony Carillo, is abducted by a woman claiming to be an ICE agent. Then, once reunited with her baby, Maria lost Yair and her other three children, this time to State authorities who cited vague “safety issues”.
Yesterday, the petition to remove the children from the home was withdrawn and Gurrola has been reunited with all of her children.
Tuesday’s hearing was planned at Juvenile Court to discuss allegations that the family may have known of a plot to sell the baby for $25,000. Court documents did not detail who made the allegations.
Metro police spokesman Don Aaron released a press release saying that Metro police agree that the children should be returned to the parents after extensive interviews by Metro, TBI and the FBI over the last day. All the agencies are in agreement, he said.
“At this time, (authorities) do not believe the parents, Maria Gurrola and Jose Carrillo, are involved,” Aaron said. “Significant unanswered questions remain, however, including why Gurrola and her newborn son were chosen by alleged kidnapper, Tammy Renee Silas. Statements made to law enforcement by Silas are part of the continuing investigation.”
Now if only all the babies can be reunited with their mothers, like Cirila and Angeline.
Via / USA Today
1:10 pm By la Macha · Bilingualism| Education| Immigration| children · 6 Comments
7 Oct 2009One of my biggest pet peeves about anti-immigration pro-nativist rhetoric is how it has created this universal idea in U.S. culture about what “stupid” really is, especially in the area of language. Specifically, if you don’t speak English, you are actually (among other things) stupid. Irritating logic to say the least, but somewhat understandable how easily racism can twist lack of comprehension into stupidity.
What is beyond fathomable–what just destroys my faith in humanity every time I hear it, is the idea that being *bilingual* (or speaking more than one language), means you are stupid. Or “lagging behind.” Or somehow unable to keep up with the world or simply unprepared for life.
Witness: This very interesting clip from CNN that showcases a white family that decided to send their white children to a school that teaches it’s kids in Spanish. Which means that the kids are fluently bilingual before they graduate.
Notice how many times the reporter let us know that the kids are not “lagging behind?” And that there is a waiting list to get into the school? And that, holy Jesus, it’s actually a GOOD thing to know more? That when you know more, you are actually SMARTER?
I’ve said it a thousand times, and I’ll say it again here. Only in the Good Ol’ U.S. of A. could the population be so blinded by racism that we actually refuse to be educated in the attempt to ‘be smart.”
Only here could we honestly take pride in and form a national identity around ignorance.
12:25 pm By la Macha · Family| Immigration| children · Comments Off
6 Oct 2009Remember Maria Gurrolla of Nashville, Tennessee? The woman whose son was kidnapped by a woman posing as an ICE agent? Well, in what has to be described as the most inane bullshit that could only happen in the good ol’ U.S.A., William Bennet let’s us know in comments that Gurrolla got her son back, only to lose him AND HER THREE OTHER CHILDREN in the same day.
A kidnapped newborn is safe in foster care and an Alabama woman suspected of taking him is in custody, but investigators say the case of 4-day-old Yair Anthony Carillo is far from closed.
Among the questions still unanswered are whether a woman who posed as an immigration agent and stabbed the baby’s mother was working alone and why state child welfare workers took the baby and three siblings into custody shortly after the family was reunited.
Child welfare officials would say only that Maria Gurrolla’s children were placed in foster care for “safety” reasons. The department said in a statement Monday that a juvenile court hearing is expected in Nashville Tuesday.
…
He said the caseworkers saw something in this situation that made them concerned enough that they felt the safest thing to do was find a foster home for the children. He declined to say what caseworkers were concerned about or whether complaints had been filed against the family.
He said most of the time when DCS takes children, they are eventually returned and the agency always explains to the family what they can do to regain custody.
I wonder what it was that made the caseworkers feel “concern” about. Was it, as was the case with Cirila Baltazar Cruz, that the mother couldn’t speak English? Or, did a family member, as the AP is reporting, attempt to sell the baby?
Sources familiar with the case of a kidnapped Tennessee newborn tell The Associated Press that the boy and three siblings are in foster care after allegations that a family member tried to sell the infant.
The thing about cases like this, is that you never can know for sure. ICE *has* stolen babies from their birth parents for no other reason than English not being a first language in the home. Ex-partners *have* hired people to pose as ICE agents to scare and intimidate women they think still “belong” to them. There is no singular-agreed-upon-written-out-in-multiple-languages method for the government taking children from parents who are in the country without proper documentation.
Terror fuels the government led war against immigrants, and it’s tearing families apart, leaving women stabbed and without their children, and immigrant families criminalized when they are the legitimate victims. I am not a big fan of reform, but if reform at least gets a set singular process in place for ICE agents who are removing children to do so–sweet Jesus, let’s get moving.
No mother, no child, no human being should have to live with this terror hanging over their heads.
6:54 am By Maegan La Mala · Family| Immigration| Nashville| Women| children| crime · 7 Comments
3 Oct 2009
Four day old Yair Anthony Carrillo and his mother, Maria Gurrolla of Nashville, Tennessee were doubly victimized by the fear that is the current immigration system in the United States on Tuesday, when the infant was kidnapped by a woman claiming to be an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent.
The fake official slashed Gurrolla after she initially refused to hand over the child though in the end Carillo was taken away from her.
As if having your newborn child violently taken from your arms weren’t traumatic enough, enter Yuri Cunza, president of Nashville Area Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and publisher of La Noticia, a Spanish language newspaper in Nashville who instead of connecting the long history of how immigration enforcement separates parents from their children, from Elvira Arellano to Cirila Baltazar Cruz, asks Latino immigrants communities to trust law enforcement and other state agencies who act as de facto ICE agents.
“I am really concerned about the possibility of newborn babies and Hispanic women can be targeted because of a level of vulnerability,” Cunza said…
Cunza said that the suspect posing as an immigration officer will create a chilling effect for Hispanics who regularly interact with immigration authorities. “It is misrepresenting how the government works or behaves in this country,” he said.
From Postville to Patchogue, the cries of immigrant mothers and children tell what is just another day on the job for those who continue to terrorize Latino immigrant communities and the carriers of hate who spread their racist gospel via the mainstream media. It is why children at a young age learn to stay close to their mothers in immigrant communities and maintain a low gaze in the presence of law enforcement. It doesn’t even matter if the ICE badge is real or not, just ask el espiritu de Brisenia Flores and her father. Yair Anthony Carrillo, with four days on this earth, is learning how to live in fear when he should be in his mother’s loving care and Latina motherhood is criminalized and victimized.
Updated: Late last night, after I wrote this post, Yair was found safe.
Via/ The Latin Americanist, Standing Firm, The Unapologetic Mexican
1:26 pm By la Macha · Celebrities| Immigration| children| race| society · 3 Comments
29 Sep 2009
Anybody who follows the immigration debate knows the tired old explanation as to why undocumented immigrants are really “illegals” or “aliens.” They committed a crime! They are here illegally! They deserve the label!
Well, as I am sure many of you have heard, director Roman Polanski is currently in the news because 30 years after committing the crime of raping a 13-year-old girl, he was arrested in Switzerland and is awaiting extradition to the U.S. He has continued his life since his arrest and admission of guilt in a pretty unadulterated way. He works. He lives in multiple houses. He won a prestigious award. He has friends and supporters. And he lives (and has lived) quite openly as a man who likes to fuck young girls.
In short, if the U.S. really wanted him, the U.S. could’ve gotten him. And yet…it didn’t. And as I mentioned, after committing a crime, Polanski received no small level of support from others, up to and including “liberal” presses like NPR calling his crime “sex with a thirteen-year-old” rather than “rape.”
So, you have the case of families coming to the U.S. to get a job and help support families here and in other countries–and those people are no longer people. They are illegals. They are aliens. They deserve what they get.
You have the case of a man who *admits* to drugging and raping a thirteen-year-old child, and you have a “troubled genius” who, well, maybe isn’t that bad. I mean, not a rapist rapist. Just a regular rapist. A not bad rapist.
What is up with this difference? Why isn’t Glen Beck going after this scumbag? Why isn’t Lou Dobbs? Why isn’t the U.S. mobilizing an entire department to go after all the rapists? The illegal rapists? Why don’t we have an entire system of detention centers set up exclusively for all the rapists and their families to sit in until we can figure out what to do with them? If the rapists didn’t want their children locked up, they shouldn’t have raped, right?
I am not the only one who notices the differences in standards here. What I am wondering is will any of the “they are illegals” troupe be brave enough to account for the differences? And lest men think they are not the problem here, will any men be brave enough to account for why crimes against women and girls are so easy to forgive?
VivirLatino is a daily publication published by 2 Mujeres Media, dedicated to featuring all the latest politics, culture, entertainment of interest to the diverse and influential Latino and Latina community in the U.S.
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