Arizona Activists Face Jail Time for Providing Life-Saving Aid to Migran...

The Mexican American Vote

PHOENIX — In an office suite not far from the airport, Irma Maldonado, 18, expertly role-played what she’d be doing on the city’s streets in half an hour: knocking on the doors of residents and exhorting them to vote. But not everything was a game. Before a group of young canvassers headed out for the day, a team leader at the community organizing group LUCHAmentioned that someone had earlier pulled a gun on two members of the team.


“Everything was OK,” the organizer said, but Maldonado and the 15 or so other teens and 20-somethings were given safety whistles before hitting the streets.


Maldonado has a personal stake in America’s immigration debate, which has been making headlines throughout the election, particularly because of Donald Trump’s description of Mexicans as rapists and his desire to have Mexico pay for a border wall.


“Before going into high school — it was the summer of 2012 — my mother decided to self-deport to Mexico” with her two youngest children, Maldonado said. Maldonado, who was born and grew up in New Mexico, had a hard time adjusting to life in Nayarit, Mexico, a small state on the Pacific coast north of Puerto Vallarta, especially given that she hadn’t known her family’s status. “I think it was right when we had to move when I actually realized that my mom wasn’t actually legal here in the United States, when I was 14 years old,” she said. Her father, who has a green card, continues to work in New Mexico; Maldonado now is a first-year nursing student and lives with her 23-year-old sister in Arizona. Her mother and brother remain in Mexico.


Mexican-Americans such as Maldonado may help determine the political future of Arizona — and the nation — in a landmark election year. In an August survey, respondents were asked if Trump and Clinton made their respective parties more welcoming or more hostile to Latinos. Nine percent of Mexican-Americans said Trump made the GOP more welcoming; 74 percent said he made it more hostile. By contrast, 59 percent said Clinton made the Democratic party more welcoming; 9 percent said more hostile. An October poll by Latino Decisions found that 17 percent of Latino voters nationwide said they support Trump or are leaning toward him; 70 percent supported Clinton.

Convergence on the Border: Oppose Racism and Xenophobia

SOA Watch

300 Human Rights, Social Justice, Faith-Based, Labor, and Immigrant Rights Groups are calling for an International Convergence at the U.S./Mexico Border from October 7-10, 2016.



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Activists will Gather at the Border in the Lead-Up to the November Elections, to Highlight U.S. Foreign Policy as One of the Root Causes of Migration, and to Stage Protests and Nonviolent Direct Action against Racism, Xenophobia and U.S. Militarization at home and abroad.

Contact: Hendrik Voss, 202-425-5128, hvoss@soaw.org

Nogales, AZ – Thousands of activists throughout the United States and Mexico will gather on both sides of the border since the School of the Americas Watch (SOA Watch) is moving its annual vigil to the line between Nogales, Arizona, and Nogales, Sonora from October 7-10, 2016.

Trump's Border Wall is Already (mostly) in Place

Todd Miller
August 23, 2016
TomDispatch

Although wall construction began during Bill Clinton’s administration, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) built most of the approximately 700 miles of fencing after the Secure Fence Act of 2006 was passed. The 2006 wall-building project was expected to be so environmentally destructive that homeland security chief Michael Chertoff waived 37 environmental and cultural laws in the name of national security.



Migrants walk toward the U.S.-Mexico border wall on the outskirts of Nogales, Mexico, Tuesday, April 1, 2008., ,



At the federal courthouse, Ignacio Sarabia asks the magistrate judge, Jacqueline Rateau, if he can explain why he crossed the international boundary between the two countries without authorization. He has already pleaded guilty to the federal misdemeanor commonly known as “illegal entry” and is about to receive a prison sentence. On either side of him are eight men in the same predicament, all still sunburned, all in the same ripped, soiled clothes they were wearing when arrested in the Arizona desert by agents of the U.S. Border Patrol.

Once again, the zero tolerance border enforcement program known as Operation Streamline has unfolded just as it always does here in Tucson, Arizona. Close to 60 people have already approached the judge in groups of seven or eight, their heads bowed submissively, their bodies weighed down by shackles and chains around wrists, waists, and ankles. The judge has handed out the requisite prison sentences in quick succession -- 180 days, 60 days, 90 days, 30 days.

On and on it goes, day-in, day-out. Like so many meals served in fast-food restaurants, 750,000 prison sentences of this sort have been handed down since Operation Streamline was launched in 2005. This mass prosecution of undocumented border crossers has become so much the norm that one report concluded it is now a “driving force in mass incarceration” in the United States. Yet it is but a single program among many overseen by the massive U.S. border enforcement and incarceration regime that has developed during the last two decades, particularly in the post-9/11 era.

Banned Mexican American Studies improved student achievement - Study

by Roque Planas

The Mexican-American Studies curriculum in Tucson public schools banned by the conservative-dominated Arizona legislature helped boost student achievement and offers a promising approach to bridge the achievement gap between Hispanic and white students, a new study says. 

The study, published in the December edition of the American Educational Research Journal, says that students who took the Mexican-American Studies courses when compared to Tucson students who didn’t take the courses. 

To test the effect of taking the defunct classes, the researchers used administrative data from the 2008 to 2011 school years to assess the relationship between taking the courses and high school graduation rates and performance on state standardized tests. 

Students who took the courses performed better on the state tests and graduated at a higher rate, the study found. 

“The estimated relationship between MAS participation and student educational attainment was surprisingly strong,” the study says. “These results corroborate findings that ethnic studies can lead to increased student development.” 

Republicans seek to throw out ballots in Latino heavy district in Arizona

Lawyers for Arizona Republican congressional candidate Martha McSally's campaign are moving to throw out provisional ballots of voters in Pima County, which has a large Latino population.

McSally is the Republican running against incumbent Rep. Ron Barber (D-AZ) in Arizona's 2nd Congressional District, one of the tightest races that still hasn't been called. Right now, McSally is leading Barber by a slim margin of 341 votes according to the Arizona Daily Star. But about 9,000 provisional ballots have not been counted yet, according to Tucson Weekly. 

McSally's lawyers suggested that they could go to court in an effort to stop some of the provisional ballots from being processed. McSally's campaign, in particular, is focused on six precincts in Pima County, five of them happen to be in the 2nd Congressional District, according to the Tucson Sentinel. Notably, Pima County is 35 percent Hispanic or Latino, according to the United States Census Bureau. Five of those Pima County precincts went for President Barack Obama over Mitt Romney in the last presidential election.

Obama, Tear Down this Wall!

Arizona Court Ruling Against Mexican American Studies

Rodolfo F. Acuña

U.S. Circuit Judge A. Wallace Tashima has made his decision to uphold disparate treatment of Mexican Americans, and the constitutionality of HB 2281. The purpose of this law was to destroy Tucson Unified School District’s Mexican American Studies Program.  In doing so, Tashima returned us to the times of Joseph McCarty.  

The Arizona law broadly banned courses that promote the overthrow of the U.S. government, foster racial resentment, were designed for students of a particular ethnic group or that advocated ethnic solidarity.

The penalty if Tucson did not comply was that the district would lose 10 percent of its annual funding -- some $14 million over a fiscal year.

Tashima ruled that the plaintiffs “failed to show the law was too vague, broad or discriminatory, or that it violated students’ first amendment rights.” On the positive side, he held that courses made-to-serve students of a particular ethnic group were not unconstitutional, which seems to imply that it is alright to ban ethnic studies programs.

The ruling raised more questions than it answered. The judge’s legal reasoning and wording was not consistent with his previous decisions, and it left me with the feeling that it had been written by law clerks and that the decision was not properly vetted by Tashima who has been more precise in previous rulings. A survivor of the Japanese internment camps, he had been expected to be sensitive to the rampant racism in Arizona.

Arizona slow to count votes

Races in Arizona Still Hang in the Balance 

by Fernanda Santos. NYT. 

PHOENIX — Three days after the election, the outcome of several races remained a mystery in Arizona as officials struggle to count a record number of early and provisional ballots, many of them cast by voters who believed they had registered but whose names were not on the voter rolls at the polling place.

On Thursday, Secretary of State Ken Bennett revealed the magnitude of the situation: 631,274 votes remained uncounted, he said, more than in any presidential election in memory and enough to anger voting- and immigrant-rights advocates, who have called on the Justice Department to investigate. (By Friday, there were 524,633 uncounted ballots. There are 3.1 million registered voters in the state.)

The advocates, who have been staging nearly continuous protests outside the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center, where most of the votes are being tallied, have raised accusations of disenfranchisement, saying the same Latino voters they worked so diligently to register may have been disproportionately affected. Based on accounts they have been collecting since before the polls closed, among the 115,000 voters who cast provisional ballots in Maricopa County on Tuesday were many first-time minority voters who signed up to get their ballots by mail, but never did.

Immigrants and Unions Work together to oust Joe Arpaio.

Jenny Brown  Labor Notes
October 19, 2012
http://labornotes.org/2012/10/immigrants-and-unions-work-oust-notorious-arizona-sheriff

Latino workers in the Phoenix area are fighting back
against the bullying sheriff of Maricopa County, Joe
Arpaio. They've registered over 34,000 new voters for
the November election.

The "Adiós Arpaio" campaign is part of a strategy by the
hotel union UNITE HERE to turn around Arizona's anti-
worker policies, in a right-to-work state where Latino
workers have only recently begun to flex their political
muscles. Maricopa County contains 60 percent of
Arizona's population

Organizers say they feel a seismic shift in the
political landscape. "I've never been part of something
historic before," said Lucia Vergara Aguirre, president
of UNITE HERE Local 631. The union has been growing,
representing workers at the Phoenix airport complex and
at several downtown hotels, and has other organizing
drives underway.

Cultural Nationalism

 Cultural Nationalism ,Chicanocentricism, Cowardness

Take Your Pick

Rodolfo Acuña

One of the advantages of growing old is that, if you look back in time, you see patterns in behavior and events. You can anticipate that the boulder that Sisyphus is pushing up the hill will roll back.

This morning I clicked on to the Los Angeles Times and read that Gov. Jerry Brown -- who signed the Agricultural Labor Relations Act in 1975 -- vetoed the Farm Worker Safety Act, legislation. 

Many supporters were disillusioned. It was the 50th year anniversary of the United Farm Workers’ struggle to get farmworkers the same protections that many animals enjoy. Moreover, Jerry Brown was a favorite among Latino voters.  I remember two years ago a left-leaning Mexican American attorney saying that his priority was to get Brown elected and he would not contribute to anyother cause.

In the context of history, Brown’s flip flopping is no surprise. I remember in 1978 his opposition to Proposition 13 which contributed to destruction of California’s education system, only to join the sponsors once the initiative passed. Brown offered no moral leadership.  Brown also recently vetoed the Trust Act that would have limited the state's law enforcement's interactions with federal immigration enforcement efforts.  It would have been a bold answer to Arizona’s nullification of federal powers.

The adage to never trust a gringo or a liberal who comes speaking Spanish rings true.  Brown knows that the United Farm Workers do not have the same cache among liberals that they did in the 1960s and 70s so he relies on Mexicans and Latinos having a short memory and on liberals not caring enough about farmworkers and immigrants.  How many voters are there who care?

The Difference Between a Political and a Pedagogical Judgments

 White Lies  And  What’s to be Done?

By  Rodolfo F. Acuña

When I was a kid there was what we used to call white lies.  You distinguished them from lies that were untrue. You told white lies because you did not want to reveal a secret or hurt someone’s feelings. Children would easily get caught telling lies – we were not too good at it. However, we got better as we marched into adulthood often believing our own lies.

I guess I never grew up, a lie remained a lie. When I started to write commentaries in the 1980s this got me into trouble with many of my politico friends. They told me that what they said were not lies but political judgments. The first rule in politics, they said, was to get re-elected.

In L.A., I began to lose friends not only because I had to tell it like I saw it, but because as a writer and historian if I got caught in a lie, my moral authority suffered and this undermined the purpose for writing. At first it was easy because I concentrated in exposing the injustices in the system. But as Mexican Americans and Latinos became part of the system I found myself criticizing my friends.

The issues that caused me the most anguish were police brutality, education and Latino politicians taking large sums of campaign funds from the likes of Downtown Real Estate Attorney  Richard Riordan and developer Eli Broad. When I criticized them mutual friends would say that they were making “political judgments” and that to be successful and remain players that they had to make these sorts of compromises.

I could not live with the contradictions so I distanced myself -- unwilling to make a complete break because there were issues where they got it right and benefited the community.

I literally got sucked into the controversies in Arizona. I have been interested in the abuse of immigrants there since the 1970s with the Hanigan Case where a well-connected rancher and owner of a Dairy Queen and his two sons tortured three undocumented Mexican workers. It infuriated me that the state court would not convict them.

The Failure of National Latino/Mexican American Organizations

Rodolfo F. Acuña

With all of the hype around Latinos these days, how could Arizona have happened? I thought we had power. One-third of Arizona is Latino and its neighbor California is the land of milk and honey – the favorite destination of politicos of all colors. Over fifty percent of Los Angeles is Latino; its mayor is Mexican American as is the mayor of San Antonio, Texas.

Arizona’s war on Mexican Americans does not make sense, especially in the light of the growth of the Latino population that now numbers 50 million. This nightmare seems out of place.  Alabama maybe, but Arizona?

It is time that we try to find answers and admit our weaknesses. The most obvious flaw is that Arizona has exposed a weakness in Latino and Mexican American organizational infrastructure.

A partial answer as to why Latinos are so ineffective is that the Latino population is having growing pains. It has grown dramatically in the past fifty years, going from a regional to a national phenomenon. This transformation has out stripped the capacity of traditional organizations such as the League of United Latin American Citizens and the American GI Forum to  deal with this change.   

Presently there are only two organizations that could be called national and they came about in 1968 with the founding of the Southwest Council of La Raza and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund.   

Anglos and Historical Amnesia

by Rodolfo F. Acuña  

       What Americans just don’t get is that most people see history differently than they do.

Truth be told, Mexican Americans are the only ethnic/racial group in the United States who are at this moment being ordered to forget their history. No one has passed a law ordering the English, the Irish, or the Jews to forget their history and culture; it was only demanded of the Germans during the American cultural and political panic after World War I.

I went to Catholic Schools that for all intents and purposes nurtured Irish nationalism. St. Patrick’s was a holiday and we learned the latest score of and prayed for the Fighting Irish football team.

American historical ignorance is a disgrace.  Students have a D.W. Griffith “The Birth of a Nation” vision of slavery and even at the university level most students do not know that the Southwest once belonged to Mexico.

In 1968 I was denied employment in the History Department at San Fernando Valley State because, according to the chair, I could not be objective in teaching Latin American history because my parents were Mexican. He forgot that every U.S. History class was taught by a white American.

“Occupied America” was attacked by academic reviewers at the University of California Santa Barbara because, according to them, I lied when I wrote that the United States invaded Mexico.

The study of history is the search for the truth and you cannot learn the truth unless history is vetted and discussed.

"Show me your papers" - Arizona

In allowing the notorious "show me your papers" provision of Arizona's SB 1070 bill, the U.S. Supreme Court effectively supports the rollback of rights and protections that have been long fought for and honored in this country -- specifically,  the freedom from racial discrimination. Importantly, the Court struck down the other three provisions that had been challenged in the case.
Ruling on whether or not the "show me your papers" provision (Section 2B) "pre-empted" federal authority in immigration, the highest court in the country decided it was "premature" to block it. However, we are alarmed that this provision, very much the heart of SB 1070, can only be implemented through racial profiling.
The provision requires state and local law enforcement to determine the immigration status of any person lawfully stopped, detained or arrested whenever there is "reasonable suspicion" that the person may be undocumented, and to verify that person's status with the federal government.
As an Arizona community leader has pointed out, "and we know what 'reasonable suspicion' is: brown skin."
Although the ruling left open the potential for legal challenges on the implementation of the law, we are deeply concerned, in the meantime, about the rights and protections of our communities in Arizona. Already, it has been the practice of police in the Tucson sector to "hold" people they have stopped for 20 minutes until they can make contact with a federal agent - not a problem given that there are literally thousands of Border Patrol agents constantly milling around, particularly with the decrease in cross border migration. This practice will undoubtedly increase the number of immigrants who are being detained and deported simply because they were driving their children to school, going to a grocery store, or just going about their daily lives.

Supreme Court blocks some of Arizona SB 1070

 The U.S. Supreme court today struck down most provisions of the Arizona law SB 1070 while sustaining one of its most controversial provisions.

The court sustained the “show me your papers” provision of the law that requires state law enforcement officers to determine the immigration status of anyone they stop or arrest.

The most conservative members of the court voted to sustain the entire law.  Imagine this.  Judges who consider themselves conservative support a law that requires all persons to carry papers to show their immigration/citizenship status.   This is a practice most often found in repressive regimes such as that of Syria or Nazi Germany.

The decision was a partial victory for the Obama administration, which had sued to block several parts of the law.

Developments in the immigrants' rights arena

Last Friday, President Obama announced he would grant "deferred action" on deportation to certain young immigrants eligible under specific guidelines for a two-year period. While we welcome this decision, we also recognize its limitations in scope and implementation. Some immigrant youth will have much-needed reprieve, but countless others in our communities will continue to fall through the net. Our struggle continues. Several key developments in recent months - from the SCOTUS hearing on SB 1070 to Alabama's HB 658 to the new Border Patrol strategy - illustrate the challenges that we continue to face as diverse communities and as a movement for rights, justice and dignity of all people. We hope you'll join us in this journey as we continue to affirm the need to offer real opportunities for adjustment of status, a generous legalization program that upholds our humanity and respects our dignity.
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Supreme Court ruling on SB 1070 expected  

Later this month, the Supreme Court is slated to announce their final ruling on Arizona's anti-immigrant racial profiling law, SB 1070. What does this mean for our communities and how will we respond? We have compiled a few key resources to help make sense of it all.  Read more... 

Sisyphus Chicano Style

Abandonment or Struggle

By

Rodolfo F. Acuña

When asked what I have learned from writing about Arizona and what is going to happen in the future, I feel like the legendary king of Corinth immortalized by Albert Camus’ essay “The Myth of Sisyphus.” You remember the guy who was condemned for eternity to roll a rock up a hill.  Every time he felt that he was making progress, the giant rock rolled back to where he started. 

The moral of the story, according to Camus, is the absurdity of thinking we can learn the meaning of life.  This absurdity compels us to turn to religion for answers -- religious faith supposedly tells us the meaning of life without us having to find the answer for ourselves. It gives us faith that we can roll the rock up the hill even though it keeps rolling back.

For over forty-three years I have been pushing a rock called Chicana/o Studies, obsessed with the notion that we as a community can push the rock to the top of the hill. Chicana/o Studies would give a greater number of us access to knowledge that would free and enable us to solve the contradictions of American society. 

Instead of reaching the top, the rock has become heavier and it has slipped back to where we started in 1969. Still we believe that we can reach the top of the hill despite the size of the rock. Truth be told, it would be easier to leave the rock behind and “make it in my own.” 

Delusions with the Democratic Party in Arizona

An Illusion Becomes a Delusion

Maybe I am Missing Something

By

Rodolfo F. Acuña

The delusion takes over in ordinary life to the point that we develop a false consciousness.  During 911, for example, many Americans were convinced that we never violated the sovereignty of another state, although history is replete with examples to the contrary.

Thus, our delusions obfuscate reality. We don’t know that Donald Duck is not real.

I guess illusions are great if you want to control children by fixating them on the television tube.  But when the illusions become delusions and create false consciousness we have a problem.

This is how I felt about my last article dealing with the Arizona Democratic Party, criticizing its neglect by not building a core and its failure to protect the rights and interests of Latinos within that state. A small sector of readers reacted as if I were criticizing Holy Mother the Church. 

Their defense of the Democratic Party was delusional. I am accustomed to the excuse, “Well I vote Democrat because it is better of two evils.” I can buy that, but to say that the Party is looking out for the interests of Mexicans in Arizona is a bit much.

The email that bothered me most was from Luis Heredia, a longtime Democratic Party operative. Heredia worked for Raul Grijalava more than a dozen years ago. Since then he has tied his kite to the official Party bureaucracy.  His brother is the head of the Arizona Mi Familia Vota.

Democratic Party politicians fail Latinos

All Politics is Local

Democratic Party’s Abandonment of the Core

By

Rodolfo F. Acuña

The fitness exercise pilates, from my limited understanding of the exercise method, works on the principle of developing “a strong core or center (tones abdominals while strengthening the back), and improving coordination and balance.” The principle fascinates me because it can be applied to almost any endeavor.

          

For example, when San Jose State Chicano professors approached me in 1969 with a plan to start a Mexican American Studies program at the Master of Arts level, I responded that I did not believe that a MAS graduate program could grow without a solid undergraduate degree. My thinking was that “a strong core or center” had to be developed to allow for the coordination and balance of a large program.

The core’s abdominal muscles are the masses of students. The only programs that are subsidized in the higher education are those blessed by the institution.  Logical persuasion would not develop a discipline or method to educate neglected sectors of society. You needed bodies to build the core. 

I have applied this principle to politics. Unless you have bundles of money such as the case of Republicans and you can buy elections, Mexican Americans and Latinos are not going to bring about changes in the political arena. A strong core is essential for coordination and balance to leverage this outcome.

The building of the political core does not depend as much on individual political activism as it does on the core, which is not built by electing Latino elected officials. You can have progressive representatives such as Arizona Congressman Raul Grijalva but his power although concentrated at the core can easily be isolated by the system.

In many ways Grijalva is an aberration, elected in an island of Mexican American and white liberal constituents. Even so he has problems raising political capital and he has organized successful re-election campaigns despite the Democratic National Committee whose main purpose is keeping control of the White House.