Immigration
We didn’t cross the border, the border crossed us.
You can’t deport me! I’m Scotch-Irish, like President Obama! (toon)
Herr Trump can’t deport me! I’m of Scotch-Irish descent, just like President Obama. Here is my official CLAN POCHO tartan if you don’t believe me.
Watch: Pregnant mujer crossing border gives birth to ‘Alien’
Locked in the back of a van, desperate migrants must cross the Mexican border into the U.S. before one of them gives birth to an illegal alien. The Birth of an Alien (El Nacimiento de un Extranjero) is from Sumiko Braun.
To win playing BORDERS, you need to beat La Migra (video)
BORDERS is a game from Gonzalo Alvarez where players walk in the shoes of an immigrant to endure the danger of a journey across the desert. You only win if you can avoid La Migra and beat the heat by hiding under bushes and staying hydrated. Many make the journey towards the border with the promise of a better life, but only the fittest survive.
Mas…To win playing BORDERS, you need to beat La Migra (video)
Savage Wild West Adventures of the Border Patrol (1951 toons)
“Heroic” Border Patrol Agents of Lore: Or “That’s Not the Migra I Know!” More Tales of Greedy “Mexicans,” “Savage” Native Americans, and “Heroic” Uber Gringos!
Pappy’s Golden Age of Comics Blog is at it again — posting delectable artifacts from American comic book history that are also revelatory chronicles unraveling the collusion of race, ethnicity, violence, and more in popular “entertainments.”
Mas…Savage Wild West Adventures of the Border Patrol (1951 toons)
Deported moms in Tijuana long for families, work for reform (video)
In Dreaming in Tijuana deported mothers fight for immigration reform in the United States. The anguish of family separation has turned them into activists who promote the U.S. Latino vote from the Mexican side of the world’s “most transited” border. [Video via Univision.]
Got milk? Not without immigrant farmworkers! (video)
Check out this trailer for Farmworker: How Immigration Feeds America from freelance journalist Diana Prichard. She’s working on a film telling the story of how immigrants are critical to American agriculture.
And always remember who worked hard to get you that next glass of leche or bowl of hot queso.
Let’s get one thing straight: No human being is ‘illegal’
“Could the president grant deferred removal to every unlawfully present alien in the United States right now?”
That’s how Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts referred to individuals lacking the proper documents to be in the country during a recent hearing on DAPA (Deferred Action for parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents).
“Alien” is the legal term to describe these individuals, but Justice Sonia Sotomayor also referred to them as “undocumented immigrants.” She objected to the phrase “illegal immigrants”, which she considers too harsh. Justice Sonia Sotomayor even explained that “illegal immigrants” associates them with “drug addicts, thieves, and murderers.”
Mas…Let’s get one thing straight: No human being is ‘illegal’
Mexican immigrant parents: From my shame to my pride
When I first applied to UCLA, I wrote in my personal essay that I didn’t have any positive role models in my violent neighborhood.
Having grown up in East Los Angeles’ Ramona Gardens housing project, I wrote that most of the adults represented gang members, drug dealers, thieves, tecatos (heroin addicts), alcoholics, felons and high school dropouts (or push-outs). I also wrote about my disdain for housing authority officials and government workers for behaving like prison wardens and guards toward us: project residents who depended on government aid or welfare.
Moreover, I decried the police abuse that I had witnessed and experienced, like the time when a cop pointed a gun at me. My crime: being a 15-year-old making a rolling stop while learning how to drive.
Not Rockwell: ‘INS is watching him!’ (music video)
I always feel that somebody’s watching me. Could it be La Migra? [Music video by Comedy High.]
Regular gente plus Los Cenzontles: ‘I’m a Mexican-American’ (videos)
Mexican, American or both? Residents of Elkhart County, Indiana, talk to The Elkhart Truth.
And this wonderful music video from Los Cenzontles expresses the same sentiments in song:
Mas…Regular gente plus Los Cenzontles: ‘I’m a Mexican-American’ (videos)
By @buttronica: I ramble and maybe I’m too dark at times, but damn!
Economists say once a person has been unemployed for six months it is highly unlikely they will reenter the workforce.
It’s been a year since I was fired from my job and I feel like a BIG GIANT LOSER.
It wasn’t anything I did in particular. I thought for sure that one time I asked Floyd Mayweather if “he likes to take his work home with him” would do me in, alas, it was far more uneventful.
“We’ve decided not to renew your contract.”
“Um, OK.”
And it’s not like I’m totally unemployed. I regularly walk a dog named Jimmy Fallon — this causes great confusion when I nonchalantly say, “Jimmy Fallon growled at me today,” (though for the most part he is quite lovely, other than eating his own poop).
Mas…By @buttronica: I ramble and maybe I’m too dark at times, but damn!
Es saludo es pa Donald Trump (NSFW en Español video)
Look what we’re doing here — fixing your sidewalk so you can walk and you want to send us back to Mexico? Who’s going to do the work if we’re gone? Look at the white boy with his hands in his fucking pockets! [NSFW en Español.] (Original video apparently from @aque_tuuu_botellas on Instagram.)
Can you spot the Latino in this photograph?
I’m pretty sure I was the only redhead at the NYU Latino Law Students Association Gala in the spring of 1990. The food was delicious, my date looked stunning, and I was glad I had jumped on the opportunity when I received the LALSA invitation.
My journey to that moment began 25 years earlier. I was born in Santiago, Chile in 1965: a third generation Chilean on my father’s side (whose people came from Odessa), and first generation on my mother’s side, who arrived when she was 12 from Hungary.
We left Chile in 1970 after the election of socialist president Salvador Allende. For Mom, socialism was close enough to the Soviet regime she’d fled in Hungary.
I started kindergarten at P.S. 81 in the Bronx. With a curly mop of flaming red hair and speaking only Spanish, I immediately embarked on a lifelong career of not fitting in. I learned English fast, but I still felt like an outsider. I got into X-Men comics because I identified with the mutants.
BBC Video: That time Germany offered to help Mexico invade the U.S.
As the disputes that led to World War One were building, Germany tried to enlist Mexico’s help against the U.S.A. It didn’t turn out like the Germans hoped, and the repercussions of the Kaiser’s overture are still felt today, especially at the border.
Three poems from Mexington, KY by Profe. Steven Alvarez (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. He’s a poet, too.
CON PAPELES / CON DIGNIDAD
0:03to my left is Appalachicano see & down the canyon just six miles in
0:07a thousand people oh it’s citizenship—
0:09one senses the isolation of citizenship in Appalachicano seen the twin mining
0:13communities nestled in the corner mountains—
0:15the history this area has been a history of struggle—
0:18labor struggle—
0:21do—
0:25do—
0:28since the turn of the century—when the club dinner in A district was the first
0:31major coal producer in Kentucky—
Mas…Three poems from Mexington, KY by Profe. Steven Alvarez (audio)
Video Shocker! Rapists, criminals at work in California vineyards
Detras Del Muro – Behind The Wall from Kiara Ramirez reveals the shocking truth about the immigrant workers in Northern California vineyards.
Video trailer for ‘Desierto’ now includes Donald Trump quotes
Desierto — a gripping action-adventure film inspired by events on the US-Mexican border — opens in two weeks. The original English trailer (above) has now been supplemented with a trailer that includes remarks by Donald Trump:
Mas…Video trailer for ‘Desierto’ now includes Donald Trump quotes
A young family, divided by the border, lives ‘Through the Wall’ (video)
Undocumented immigrants Abril, brought to the U.S. as a child, and her 2-year-old boy Julián live near San Diego. Julián’s father Uriel was stopped by police for a minor traffic ticket and deported to Tijuana. In order to see each other, Uriel, Abril and Julián must cross difficult terrain to reach the border to spend time together the only way they can — Through the Wall. [Video by Tim Nackashi.]
‘Meet an (orange is the new black) Immigrant’ (video)
Thought experiment? Guerrilla theater? A prank?
When Sergio Mieja (he’s @SMieja95 on the Twitter) got the idea for this video, he didn’t know exactly what the message was. He just wanted to see who supported Donald Trump.
“But as I was filming it,” he explains, “many of the people I met expressed their feeling and emotions towards this subject and it was then I knew what the purpose of this video was and realized it had a much more significant meaning. Please share this message with your friends and family.”
A professor visits migrants at the border near Nogales, Mexico
By the time the two young women walked into the shelter, the other migrants were mostly finished with their meals. They stood out as two women among dozens of recently deported men enjoying a meal before continuing on their way. I did what I had been doing all that January morning: I served them each a glass of hot chocolate and a plate of food.
We were volunteering at the Kino Border Initiative (KBI) in Nogales, Mexico, as part of the Center for Social Concerns’ Border Immersion Faculty Seminar. For several years, Notre Dame students have participated in this seminar, but this was the first time it was being offered to faculty and staff as well. As a professor of U.S. Latino literature who studies and teaches about the border, this was an opportunity for me to experience the border in a different way.
Mas…A professor visits migrants at the border near Nogales, Mexico
Sal and Isela’s song for a farmworker: ‘Sudor (Sweat)’ (video)
It’s hard work, but somebody’s got to do it. Califas balladeers Sal and Isela tell the story of a farmworker in Sudor (Sweat).
Mira los lyrics:
Mas…Sal and Isela’s song for a farmworker: ‘Sudor (Sweat)’ (video)
El Vez live at the Tiki Oasis: He’s going to ‘Aztlan’ (videos, toon)
The Tiki Oasis, San Diego, Califas 2014: El Vez is going to Aztlan — that’s where he wants to be. “The Mexican Elvis” (real name Robert Lopez) is from Chula Vista, Califas, so he’s already there. POCHO world headquarters — in East Los — tambien!
Here’s the studio version, from his album Gracias Land:
Mas…El Vez live at the Tiki Oasis: He’s going to ‘Aztlan’ (videos, toon)
Versifying in Texas: Rossy Evelin Lima is a poet on a mission (video)
Rossy Evelin Lima is an award-winning Mexican poet and linguist. She spoke at TEDxMcallen last year about her experience as an immigrant writer in the U.S. Her website is is here.
