Elenamary

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day.

While you are celebrating with your Irish-Ameircan friends, or your Mirish friends, remember to spill a little of your green beer for the undocumented Irish in the United States.

Today is a good day to remember that it is not just Mexicans or Latinos that are not legally in this country but Europeans, Asians and Africans, too. And a good day to remind people that it isn’t as simple as “getting in line” to come to the United States.

I want you to know and to spread the word that only “…147 new un-skilled workers without US citizen or legal resident family already here were allowed to enter the US last year [2006] legally and receive green cards.” -Migra Matters

And that there are undocumented Irish in this country who would like to be able to work legitimately, have drivers licenses and more importantly not live in fear. People sometimes see this as a race issue or an ethnicity issue and it isn’t.

“I was not very long there until, like water, I found my own level. ‘My people’ — the people who know about oppression, discrimination, prejudice, poverty and the frustration and despair that they produce — were not Irish Americans. They were black, Puerto Rican, Chicano. And those who were supposed to be ‘my people’, the Irish Americans who know about English misrule and the Famine and supported the civil-rights movement at home, and knew that Partition and England were the cause of the problem, looked and sounded to me like Orangemen. They said exactly the same things about blacks that the loyalists said about us at home. In New York, I was given the key to the city by the mayor, an honour not to be sneezed at. I gave it to the Black Panthers.” -Bernadette Devlin McAliskey

Next time some racist person makes the argument that the Irish were different than Mexicans, remind them that they aren’t different and send them to these links.

Voices from the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform/The Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform “The Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform (ILIR) is fighting for the voice of the estimated 50,000 undocumented Irish in the immigration debate.”

Far From Home: A chronicle of the undocumented Irish in the United States (images of undocumented Irish in the United States).

Undocumented Irish in the US (Irish politicians try to lobby for the Irish in the United States)

Irish Immigrants Visit Congress to Ask for Rights

So the big news this past week was a raid in Fairfield, Ohio. I am tired of this stuff, and it hurts every time it happens. Reminds me of the 1930’s or last week. Here are the headlines for Latino happenings in Ohio:


160 immigrant workers arrested in raid on Ohio poultry plant
World Socialist Web Site - Oak Park,MI,USA

Early Tuesday morning, 300 federal immigration agents, aided by local police and sheriff’s deputies, descended on a poultry processing plant outside of Cincinnati, Ohio and arrested 160 immigrant workers.

I found this next one funny because it was written up by WorldPoultry.net located in the Netherlands?!

Ohio chicken plant raided for illegals
WorldPoultry.net - Doetinchem,Netherlands

Following a 2-year investigation, some 160 people were arrested in an immigration enforcement raid at a Koch Foods poultry processing plant in Fairfield, Ohio

Man seeking to cool off drowns in Ohio River
Kentucky.com - Lexington,KY,USA

A construction worker looking to cool off drowned in the Ohio River, Oldham County police said…Police have not released the man’s name, but said he was 38-years-old, Hispanic and from the Louisville area

.


US immigrants worry as families face deportation
Reuters Canada - Toronto,Ontario,Canada

A day after one of the largest workplace immigration raids in Ohio, the Hispanic community in Cincinnati’s suburbs was scrambling to track down missing family members and arrange care for children whose parents were caught up in the raid.

Increase in SAT participants is encouraging - an editorial
The Plain Dealer - cleveland.com - Cleveland,OH,USA

Just as impressive, this year’s group includes record numbers of Hispanic, black and Asian-American participants, as well as a much larger number of low-income test-takers.

Toledo, Ohio is also home to the Farm Labor Organizing Committe (FLOC) an AFL-CIO union in existence since the 1960’s it is our Midwest version of the United Farm Workers (UFW). FLOC has strong union roots in Ohio, Michigan, and North Carolina, particularly with pickles and tomatoes.

AFL-CIO’s Linda Chavez-Thompson in Toledo for Labor Day Parade
Toledo Blade - Toledo,OH,USA

The daughter of Mexican- American sharecroppers, she rose through the union ranks to become executive vice president of the AFL-CIO. She is the first Hispanic to hold the office.

The raid cost $4 Million dollars? To arrest 161 people? That is aproximately $24, 845 per person ignoring the fact that a lot of those people were later found to either legally be here or granted humanitarian stays.

Aid sought for raid detainees
Cincinnati Enquirer - Cincinnati,OH,USA

The federal raid on a Butler County company that led to the arrest of 161 suspected illegal immigrants Tuesday cost $4 million, a state official told more than 40 people who met Saturday to determine how to help families affected by the raid.

Raid Impacts Hispanic Community
WKRC TV Cincinnati - Cincinnati,OH,USA

One of the main concerns for Latino leaders is that amongst the people that have been detained and put in those buses, are parents of children who’s future right now, is uncertain. Jorge Neri, President of Lulac in Butler County: “Most of these kids are US citizens, they are in school right now, what is going to happen to those kids. A lot of single mom’s a lot of women work in this plant.”

Cincy Hispanic Community Not Happy With CC’s WLW
Streaming Magazine - West Palm Beach,FL,USA

Cincinnati’s Hispanic community says Clear Channel’s WLW-AM is guilty of “blatant racial discrimination against them” following the recent airing of a segment called “Speaking to An Illegal Alien,” which featured translations of Spanish phrases such as, “Be careful with those hedge clippers around the garden….The previous instance of offense came in May, when the station put up billboards featuring a Hispanic man and a donkey, called “The Big Juan.”

Cincinnati Hispanic Fest largest in region
Cincinnati Catholic Telegraph - OH, United States

Volunteers, exhibitors and, of course, guests, are invited to attend the annual Cincinnati Hispanic Festival, held at the Hamilton County Fairgrounds Sept. 8-9.

(Thank you to Irasali’s husband who tipped me off).

SHEETROCK® Brand drywall is currently hosting a contest in Chicago: El Mero Mero Drywalero.

El Mero Mero: The one, The Magnificent, the very best and only; a pure Mexican idiom.

Drywalero: One may argue a “pochismo” — a water downed Mexican-Americanism, but I wouldn’t call it a pochismo. I would call it a Mexicanism made by the immigrant because there is no word for el drywalero. It is a term of necessity and acquisition, rather than a pochoizing of an English word for one that already exists in Spanish.

This all reminds me of a translation of a document I did. The document was for housing code violations and what needed to be fixed. The problem was that the words I was translating were words that the “Spanish reader” knew in English not in Spanish. For example wafer board, dry wall, oriented strand board, and plywood while some of the words may exist in Spanish (though for the most part not) they are words that are generally not encountered until el imigrante gets to the United States and works in construction. Anyway, I love the idea of a competition of El Mero Mero Drywalero almost has much as I love the title of it.

New Blogs!

EscapeLatino.com is a parent site for different Midwest city blogs including ¿Qué pasa Columbus?, ¿Qué pasa Cincinnati?, ¿Qué pasa Indianapolis?, ¿Qué pasa Louisville?, the blogs are maintained in both English and Spanish.

Latino News

Ohio groups say Senate failed on immigration bill: Ohio advocacy groups for immigrants were slamming the Senate for shelving the immigrant reform bill last week.

Festival offers taste of Latino culture: ….12th annual Festival Latino yesterday. The festival, which attracted about 300,000 people last year, kicked off its first day in full swing and brought not only Latino culture to Columbus but a whole lot of fun, too.

Latinos protest immigration crackdown: Tensions have run high in Lake County’s Mexican immigrant community since May 18, when ICE agents detained 24 people in a single sweep.
Since then, federal agents have returned several times with arrest warrants for specific people. But the agents typically question other Latinos they chance upon and detain those suspected of being here illegally.

Delay in Mexican center raises questions: City of Columbus begins to learn that German Trejo is the fraud we always knew he was.

Mexican immigrants deliver good news: nice, healthy babies: Despite low income, low education levels and insufficient health insurance, Mexican immigrant women were giving birth to healthy infants….The 31-year-old Pittsburgh native crafted her dissertation on the topic titled “Living the Latina Paradox’: An Ethnography of Pregnant and Postpartum Mexicans in Northeast Ohio.” In August, she will receive her doctorate in medical anthropology from Case Western Reserve University.

Wal-Mart to fund Latino soccer field: Adult and youth teams in the Latin League, hailing from Toledo, Fremont, Findlay, Bowling Green, Defiance, Monroe, Adrian, and Temperance will come to play on the fields.

Oh lord have I missed blogging. And dear lord do I know that this current blog is ugly. I have no idea where my years and years of old blog entries have gone. And once I find them I am not sure I will know how to upload them. I no longer know how to maneuver around wordpress (thought I still did). I have no idea how to get my RSS feed to stay constant, how to get my comment gravatars up and running. To find my old descriptive blogroll or definitions of terms. Nor how to filter the spambots more efficiently.

In a way though it matters very little. I had forgotten about my blogtitlan (a term I believed coined by Cindylu). I had forgotten about the community I had developed. The people who I was worried about and worried about me. The people who got me to grow and self-analyze.

I was first brought to blogtitlan by el Padrino de blogtitlan, Julio Sueco of Yonder Lies It. He left a comment on my blog and it startled the shit out of me. It was back when I blogged for shits and giggles, never thinking people would question me, or get me to think about what I was saying. I’ve come to expect and look forward to people having a real discussion with me and causing me to stop and think. I was also shocked that Julio added me to his blog roll and commented about me right next to Ana Castillo. Damn! I was shocked. An academic Xicano reading my blog?! An academic Xicano who would put my blog right next to Ana Castillo’s blog?! She was someone I read about in class. She was someone who had authority to speak about being Latino, about Xicanoism, about Latino Studies. Why link to me?

Two springs ago I went to the NACCS annual convention. It was there I decided I could be a Xicana (something I still struggle with) and a Xicana authority….because really all Xicanos are an authority on their own experience. I may not write nor do I desire to write for academic journals on the development of the Xicano identity within blogtitlan and the digital racial divide but I can tell my story. I can tell me story and accept it as Xicano fact. And I can try and accept myself as a Xicana, even though sometimes I think “No, I am a USian”, “No, yo soy Mexicana”, “Chicanos are those people that don’t really have a culture”. In the end blogtitlan and my Latino Studies classes taught me that I shouldn’t just accept myself as a Chicana but as a moxie Xicana.

However, that said, I  leave you with this quote from Julio:

Off course it still irritates me to be xicano in the vicinity of my gringo cousins because though I speak english I am not a US citizen. Here in Sweden they a saying about Germans: there is a little Hitler in every German. I can say this about my gringo Xicano cousins: there is a little migra in every US born Xicano.

I just went to the Jacksonpike Prison.  My friend is there (don’t worry it is a misdemenor however it was her second offence so she got 30 days!)

I recently lost my wallet and as such don’t have my drivers license or even my student ID, so I had to use my passport at the prison.  My roommate also lost her drivers license and used her student ID.
When we presented my passport and my student ID, the sheriff(?) told me that my ID wasn’t acceptable she then
asked her co-worker if it would be alright to accept my passport has ID.  When she was informed that it was okay
she told me she was going to need my social security number and something with my address on it (she never asked my roommate for either).  I handed her my book of checks with my address on it and asked if it was necessary to give my social security number.  She responded that yes it was, and I inquired what if I didn’t have one?  She responded that everyone has a social security number.  I explained to her very politely and with lots of respect that international students didn’t have SSNs.  She then asked me “Are you legal?” mind you she had my US passport in hand.  And lord of all people, to ask me if I am “legal”, I am NOT the one  you want to ask.

I told her yes that I was.  I asked her if I could write my SSN down rather than say it aloud.
She got lots of attitude and said that she didn’t see why I couldn’t just say it out loud.  I explained it made
me uncomfortable and that I would be more than happy to write it down and that I appreciated her understanding.
I was damn respectful, I would’ve made my nuns proud.

Plus I really wanted to see my friend.

The story gets much better.  After seeing my friend I went back and asked the woman
for her name and identifying number.  She refused to give it to me and told me she didn’t have to because it was
“personal”.  I explained that as a civil servant in a civil setting it was not, and that her identifying number
was given by the government.  She said again “I don’t have to give it you.  It is my name it is personal.  And you
won’t tell me what it is for.”  I asked if I could speak to her supervisor.  She called him and he refused to speak to me.
I asked her if I could have his name and identifying number.  She refused again. I asked her are you refusing to
give me your name or an identifiying number and your supervisors name and identifying number”  she responded yes and
told me that i needed to get out of her window.  I explained to her again that as a civil servant this was a
very acceptable request.  She walked away and took someone else at a different window.

Anyway I am pissed.

I’ll be filing a formal complaint tomorrow.

Sunday mornings should start earlier, at 8am. They should start with Sunday morning news programs with a bunch of white men debating over who is doing a worse job, white man number one or white man number two. Which should be watched with a warm cup of cofee in hand, Sunday New York Times strewn across my lap, and me snuggled under blankets with a hot intelligent man next to me. Yesterday was MUCH better than a Sunday. Yesterday, I woke up and at 8am started cubing potatoes, I cubed 10lbs of potatoes for homefries. I turned on CSPAN and watched The State of the Black Union while chopping my potatoes and all day, only interrupted for Barack Obama’s announcement. I was making 10lbs of homefries because I had invited over my friends to watch Obama’s formal announcement on his candidacy for President. We had a wonderful breakfast of eggs, bruschetta, homefries, muffins, biscuits, bacon, veggie meat, coffee, milk, and mimosas. We snuggled under blankets, watched CSPAN discussed politics, took naps interrupted by mugs of warm coffee. It was a fabulous day of CSPAN, good food and great friends. My friends are so great that they not only helped me cook, they helped me clean too!

Let’s get to the Politics! The State of the Black Nation was by far better than Barack Obama’s speech. I was kind of disappointed with his speech…all though I am still excited about his candidacy. My wonderful friend Kae who took charge of the eggs yesterday morning, described his speech as a good first date. I like you, you seem great, I want to kiss you, but I am not sure where this relationship could go or if we will love each other…

As for The State of the Black Nation, at 8 am when the first panel started, while I was chopping potatoes alone in my living room, I ended up yelling at the TV and the panel. They were asked the question that was something like “We all have heard about how Hispanics are now the largest minority. What do you think about this new diaspora?” I am going to ignore (for the most part) the use of the term Hispanic and move on to the word diaspora. Not one of the panelists questioned the use of the word diaspora and those who did respond used it. It is NOT just a DIASPORA! It was terrible hearing educated political, religious, leaders discuss the “new immigrants”. Have they not ever heard the catch phrase: WE DIDN’T CROSS THE BORDER THE BORDER CROSSED US! Who do they think inhabited Texas, New Mexico, California, Colorado, Nevada, Arizona BEFORE slaves were brought, BEFORE the Anglos colonized? Pissed me off. Not all of us are a new minority, not all of us are part of a diaspora.

On a lovely note, I loved watching and hearing Cornel West speak. He is an amazing auditor, I can’t imagine what it would be like to sit in on one of his lectures. He seems like the kind of person that you would sit down to talk to and only 10 hours later realize it was 4 in the morning. He is the kind of man I would want to marry. He did put forth a great question, why did Obama decide to make his announcement during this convention that had been scheduled more than a year in advance? There were judges, governors, congress representatives at this event, why wasn’t Barack there?

Journalism should be impartial. I can only assume it is difficult for any journalist to be impartial because of their own views. And of course, I bet editors have a hell-of a lot of influence by changing a word or two here and there. I came across this article published in both the Cincinnati Post and Kentucky Post and it really pissed me off. It was titled “Plea deals sought by caught illegals“. There are two words out of these six words that offend me…anyone want to guess?

Dictionary.com caught:

1. To capture or seize, especially after a chase.
2. To take by or as if by trapping or snaring.

The word caught reminds me of trapping a mouse. It is dehumanizing, and comes across as some kind of cat and mouse game. A chase, a hunt. I don’t want my people hunted.

The word “illegals” is even more offensive. People, humans, are not illegal. People commit illegal acts, but are not illegal. A nun who robs a bank, is not illegal, but she did commit a crime. Her act of robbing the bank was illegal, the nun isn’t “an illegal”.

The sentence, with the words “caught” and “illegal” is very dehumanizing. But I guess, it doesn’t matter since these “caught illegals” aren’t really human.