A busy ñewsweek brought the return to glory of the original self-deportationist, Daniel D. Portado, who, it turns out, is a fictional character created by POCHO Jefe-in-Chief Lalo Alcaraz; an Alabama plan to import Canadians to replace the immigrant labor that used to keep the state running; and militant MEChA murmurings about the Lack of Visible Latinos in the hit BBC/PBS series Downton Abbey.
Other top stories included First Lady Michelle Obama’s partnership with Caribbean food conglomerate Goya and the astounding “installation art” of Ramiro Gomez, Jr. Here’s our big list:
- No one was more astounded than Lalo Alcaraz when GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney advocated undocumented immigrants return to wherever they came from voluntarily — “self-deport.” The concept of “self-deportation” as a political solution was invented by Lalo as a joke in 1994. A New York Times article crediting the original self-deportationist Daniel D. Portado led to a Daniel D./Lalo A. appearance on Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC show and we have video.
- As Alabama joined hate-leader Arizona on the racist anti-immigrant legislation road to hell, the southern state’s crops started rotting in the fields as spooked migrants split for better pastures. In an effort to halt the devastation, some proposed the importation of hard-working white workers from Canadia.
- In Florida, First Lady Michelle Obama announced her new plan to help Chicano kids make better food choices and advised them to eat like Puerto Ricans.
- A life long militant MEChA member from East Los Angeles raised hell about the lack of Latino actors on the hit series Downton Abbey. “If you can put Morgan Freeman in Robin Hood, you can put Lupe Ontiveros in Downton Abbey!” he demanded.
- POCHO, online for just a month, announced a transmedia partnership with its first sponsor, RentALatino, Inc. which supplies “token Latinos for any occasion.”
- Other notable stories this week included a music video tribute to the pocho pride of Pacoima, Ritchie Valens, and the astounding installation art of Ramiro Gomez, Jr. who makes the invisible visible as he inserts paper images of hardworking Latinos into the landscape of Los Angeles.