AN ILLEGAL POEM
By Illegal Immigrants
I cross river,
Poor and broke,
Take bus,
See employment folk.
Nice man
Treat me good in there,
Say I need
Go see Welfare.
immigrants
Stop the gay Muslim Chinese terrorist illegal aliens! (video)
Conservatives explain how gays, Muslims, Mexicans and President Obama are all working together to destroy the moral fabric of America. Video’d at an anti-immigration protest in Houston, pro-immigration supporters also chime in while dancing.
La Cucaracha: Murrieta, CA is concerned for the kids (toon)
In case you missed it, the “crisis manager” hired by Murrieta doesn’t much like my cartoons or my use of the Twitter hashtag #MurrietaHateCityUSA.
Ken White, of the most excellent PopeHat blog has the story:
Mas…La Cucaracha: Murrieta, CA is concerned for the kids (toon)
Jorge Ramos: Let’s treat child refugees like children (video)
Jorge Ramos, of Univision and FUSION, says there is but one moral choice for America: We have to treat child refugees like the children they are — with love.
Undocumented strangers meet and share their secrets (video)
Director Rocsi Diaz’s short video The Secrets of Strangers explores what happens when undocumented immigrants reveal their status to people they have just met — other undocumented immigrants.
Mas…Undocumented strangers meet and share their secrets (video)
Texas Governor Perry ‘outraged’ at deportation center photos
(PNS reporting from AUSTIN) Texas Governor Rick Perry was “outraged” after seeing leaked photos of crowded child detainees at the U.S. Border Patrol Detention center in Brownsville, PNS has learned.
“The kind of sloppy detention seen in those photos is a clear waste of space as well as taxpayer dollars,” Perry said in an email sent to aides Monday night.
Perry thinks the centers could squeeze in more detainees using the “tight pack” system long advocated by GOP lobbyist John E. Rebb.
Mas…Texas Governor Perry ‘outraged’ at deportation center photos
Where do immigrants come from? These days, the answer is ‘Mexico’
These days in Aztlan — and across lots of the United Estates — most immigrants come from Mexico, but it wasn’t always that way. A hundred years ago or so they were from Germany.
The Pew Research Center reports:
Mas…Where do immigrants come from? These days, the answer is ‘Mexico’
Mexicans + Lexington, Kentucky = ‘Mexington’ (photos, audio)
Steven Alvarez, POCHO amigo and Assistant Professor (Writing Rhetoric and Digital Media, Latin America Studies, English) at the University of Kentucky, teaches a course called Mexington, about the growing community of Mexican Americans in UKY’s hometown, Lexington.
Here’s a student podcast interview with the Profe (he’s on the Twitter, too) and a few selected photos from the recent field trip he led to Mexington.
Mas…Mexicans + Lexington, Kentucky = ‘Mexington’ (photos, audio)
One Canadian’s Opinion: Sen. Ted Cruz for President (video)
Cuban-Canadian-American Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) is the best man for the next President of the United States, you Yankee hosers. With Sarah Palin as VP.
PREVIOUSLY ON TED CRUZ:
Mas…One Canadian’s Opinion: Sen. Ted Cruz for President (video)
Mexican immigrants wash Chicago’s glass houses in ‘Paraíso’ (video)
Dangling from ropes on the sides of Chicago’s tallest skyscrapers, a crew of immigrant Mexican window washers faces death every working day. That’s why they embrace life. They’re both Paradise (Paraíso.) [Spanish with English subtitles.]
To live outside the law you must be honest: ‘Border Stories’ (video)
“To live outside the law you must be honest,” Bob Dylan wrote. For two guys crossing into the U.S. from Mexico without papers, that’s easier said than done.
PREVIOUSLY ON BORDER VIDEO:
Mas…To live outside the law you must be honest: ‘Border Stories’ (video)
Where in the US is Carmen Sandiego? And WTF is she saying?
Courtesy of Tio Sam’s United States Census.gov is this screen capture of Mexican-American distribution in the USA. Click here for an interactive map of other “Latino/Hispanic” ethnicities. Spoiler: Most Cuban-Americans are in Florida. [Click image to enlarge.]
Mas…Where in the US is Carmen Sandiego? And WTF is she saying?
POCHO wishes you a Merry Christmas (toon)
Merry Christmas from the Pochodores: Lalo Alcaraz, Jefe-in-Chief; Dennis Wilen AKA Comic Saenz, Jefe de Editorial; Sara Inés Calderón, Subcommandanta del Ñews; Victor Payan, Subcommandante de la Cultura; Beto Mesta AKA Eres Nerd, Texas Burro Jefe; Santino J. Rivera, Florida Burro Jefe; Elise Roedenbeck, New Jack City Burro Jefe (Emeritus); Melanie Ruiz, Director of Marketing; Al Madrigal, Migrant Editor.
Aloe Blacc’s ‘Wake Me Up!’ tells immigrants’ stories (music video)
This is not an American tale. This is a tale of ordinary people around the world over who have to cross manmade borders to secure a future for themselves and their families. Panamanian-American Aloe Blacc sings their story in Wake Me Up!
Feminists: The struggles of immigrants are our struggles, too
I’m often asked, “Where were you born?”
My answer? Houston, Texas.
“Where were your parents born?”
El Paso, Texas.
“Where were your grandparents born?”
El Paso, Texas, Balmorhea, Texas and Ft. Davis, Texas.
That is when people usually start to get frustrated and ask, “Well, where is your family from originally?”
The actual meaning behind this statement is “You are a brown-skinned woman and brown-skinned women are not native to the U.S.”
My answers explain that I am not the stranger. Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada and Utah were all once part of Mexico, after all.
Mas…Feminists: The struggles of immigrants are our struggles, too
La Cucaracha: Yay! Cali OKs drivers licenses for undocumented (toon)
- PREVIOUSLY ON LALO ALCACRAZ PARKING VALET: Standing While Brown: A white lady tried to get me to valet her car
Califas will issue driver’s licenses to the undocumented
Fox Latino, which puts “undocumented” in their headline but “illegal” in their story, reports:
California, home to the nation’s largest immigrant population, would become the 11th state to grant immigrants who are in the country illegally [sic] the right to a driver’s license under a bill that passed the Legislature late Thursday and that Gov. Jerry Brown supports.
The success of the legislation comes after years of setbacks for Democratic lawmakers and Latino activists.
The state Assembly approved the bill on a 55-19 vote late in the evening, hours after the Senate passed it on a 28-8 vote. The Democratic governor issued a statement indicating he would sign it into law.
MAS Whitewashing: Tucson OKs textbook list with NO Chicano authors
Let me tell you a joke. Ready? The Tucson Unified School District. Get it?
No? Allow me to me explain.
On Tuesday night the TUSD approved a textbook list for their now defunct Mexican-American Studies program, which they have dubbed “Culturally Relevant US History and US Government.” The list, which consists of 25 books, has absolutely ZERO Chicana/o authors on it.
Go ahead and read that again.
If you have been following the divine comedy in Tucson at all then you already know that they not only destroyed their wildly successful Mexican-American Studies program but that they also banned a laundry list of books by Chicana/o authors, closed barrio schools and fired MAS teachers.
Mas…MAS Whitewashing: Tucson OKs textbook list with NO Chicano authors
Mexican cuisine in Alta California: Not what you think (video)
Here in San Angeles there would be no restaurants without Mexicans in the kitchen. But they’re not cooking what you think.
Sheriff Joe is racist, says Federal judge, and Pocho Ocho other things
The news broke out of Phoenix late Friday, but to tell you the truth, we weren’t surprised. Judge G. Murray Snow of the United States District Court for Arizona officially declared the policing policies of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio unconstitutionally “racist.”
The New York Times summed up the decision this way:
… the sheriff relied on racial profiling and illegal detentions to target Latinos, using their ethnicity as the main basis for suspecting they were in the country illegally. Many of the people targeted were American citizens or legal residents.
It took us a while to read the entire ruling but we went through the whole thing and came up with eight additional findings about “America’s toughest sheriff”:
Mas…Sheriff Joe is racist, says Federal judge, and Pocho Ocho other things
How many generations until Latinos become ‘Americans’?
 |
 |
I consider myself Latina, close to my family’s Mexican culture; I’m bilingual and I’m happy with that identity. But, more often than not, it seems like everyone else is trying to corral me into some other identity, telling me that mine is not sufficient.
The neighborhood where I live (photos, above) is a perfect example.
It’s split in two: one part of it is gentrifying rapidly, and the other is filled with Mexican and many immigrant families. I where it’s more Mexican, which makes me — in all my professional hipster-ness — stand out sometimes, but people still speak to me in Spanish and often I just become part of the scenery. But then there are other times.