"A small town struggles after immigration raid"

Yeah, I ran out of steam, but I'm still paying attention.
This was a good article: http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080816/D92JGJ8G2.html

J&C Bloggers on "Politics, Issues & You"

I have a hard time keeping up with my own short list of bloggers, along with local and national news reading I do online. But this Journal & Courier column caught my eye today - I had no idea... http://blogs.jconline.com/politics/index.html

I'd like to say I'll blog here about issues they're bringing up over there, but I know my priorities will prevent me from getting that done. I'll try and post here when I can, or comment there on occasion. Feel free to drop me a line if you think there's something I should be talking about.

There are times, like now, when an issue is so big in the news - the immigration reform bill - that I just want to watch it play out. I'm not an expert, and I don't have time to blog a play-by-play. I'm hopeful the bill will pass (REALLY hopeful). And I'm hopeful it'll have SOME redeeming qualities for the people it's meant to serve (um, immigrants and Americans, both - not just Americans). So, I'm paying attention, I'm just not blogging about it. It's hard to type with your fingers crossed. ;-)

Welcome Incoming Purdue President France Córdova

How cool is Purdue?

From the Lafayette Journal & Courier online:

Córdova makes history as first Latina to lead a Big 10 school

Incoming Purdue president France Córdova's picture, when hung next to those of the university's past leaders, will definitely stand out.

Córdova will not only become the first female president here, but the first minority as well. In fact, she's the first Latina president of a Big Ten university.

"She's making history, big time," said Antonio Flores, president and chief executive officer of the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities. "We have a very severe scarcity of Latinos in general in CEO positions, particularly at major universities."

The historic appointment is giving students and faculty at Purdue reason to celebrate.

Know Your Rights/Conozca Sus Derechos

If you really want to stir up the pot, bring up the topic of illegal immigrants who break the law (like drunk driving, theft, dealing drugs, etc.). Man, do folks get pissed about that. It's an open invitation to talk about how bad things are with the immigration issue. I guess my problem with that is, they make it sound as though we'd be living in Mayberry if illegal immigrants weren't living here and committing crimes.

We all want criminals off the streets. And I'm all for deporting felons. But the truth and the beauty of this country is, if you live in the United States, you have rights. It's not my intention to defend criminals, save for their right to due process. What is important to me is that residents in the community are treated fairly and know their rights. We all know that poem, First They Came..., let's make sure that's not the road we're headed down when we speak of groups of people.

This PDF file is where I got the name of this week's post. It's an interesting read, and "... is intended to provide an overview of the rights an immigrant (whether here legally or not) or even a citizen may exercise if confronted by an immigration official."

"Some of these rights are guaranteed by the Constitution, and others have been developed through case law and statutes. Each state may have differing laws regarding some of these rights, and this packet should be adapted accordingly. A significant variation worthy of noting is the right to remain silent; although constitutionally guaranteed by the 5th Amendment, some states have adopted statutes requiring anyone stopped by state and federal officials to provide his or her name."

I got that (above) off of this site: www.ilrc.org
"The ILRC is a national resource center that provides trainings, materials and advocacy to advance immigrant rights."

Vida Latina

Claudia Samulowitz is an English/Spanish translator and interpreter who chaired the Lafayette Commission on Latino and Hispanic Affairs in 2006. She's been trying for eight years to get a newscast in Spanish. Well, thanks to her, that dream has been realized. And the spots are exceptional.

Vida Latina will be aired at 5:12 PM on Tuesdays during the regular 5 o'clock news show and during the CBS Morning Show on Saturdays. They are also linked and archived on the WLFI website.

WLFI's decision to go ahead with this project was a good one. And it is Claudia's hope that maybe someday Lafayette will be able to have the local news in Spanish on a regular basis. I agree that this is where we should be heading, and I think it's only a matter of time before this hope and dream of hers is also realized.

Way to go, Claudia and WLFI!

No Hablo Inglés

I don't really want to cover the national language amendment issue, at least not in this post. It's been said that such an amendment would be purely symbolic, and/or could be divisive ("In 1980, Miami-Dade county approved an English-only ordinance... But thirteen years later, it was unanimously repealed after policy makers determined it had only served to divide the community."1). Really all I have to say about a national language amendment is, it's not all about you, Mr./Ms. English-speaking American. (shrug)

But there's another language issue - some folks seem to think that if you don't speak English, you don't deserve to obtain any of our public or social services. Or that people who work in the service industry shouldn't have to learn to speak even the least bit of Spanish. I think people who feel that way need to travel a little bit... the farther the better. To go places where people aren't like them, to see how some cities, even in the U.S., manage to do the "melting pot" thing at a whole 'nother level than you'd ever get here in the Midwest.

If you travel, or otherwise pay attention to the whole wide world (which we're all guilty of forgetting to do from time to time, but hey...), you'll notice that while most of the people you talk to speak your language, most of the people in the world probably don't. Here's a list of the most spoken languages in the world according to the Ethnologue, a widely cited reference for languages around the world. According to this, more people speak Spanish than English. And more people speak Mandarin Chinese than English and Spanish combined.

"But I'm not talking about what people should speak in other countries; I'm talking about what they should speak in Lafayette, or the United States." And I say in response, "It's the 21st century, we've gone global, okay?!" People come from all over the world to live and work here and anywhere else jobs or family bring them. Should immigrants learn English? Yes, it'll serve them to do so. Should we deport them or deny them services if they don't? That just seems absurd and ignorant to me. It also seems counter-productive to fostering a healthy community.

I googled the term 'social services', and stumbled across this vision statement for the town of Culpepper: "Every individual and family in Culpeper will achieve optimum well-being in a community that fosters self-sufficiency, independence, health, safety, and mutual support." I really like that vision. And I think that suggesting folks who don't speak English don't deserve services does nothing towards that vision.

Photo 1 (sign) taken by "/kallu" http://flickr.com/photos/kallu/172147322/

Photo 2 (rock) taken by "eloc" http://flickr.com/photos/eloc/275420964/

"I'm for immigrants, as long as they're legal"

I hear that argument a lot, and on some levels it makes a lot of sense - we have laws, those laws protect us, we are safer because we have them. Why should we do anything for people coming into this country illegally? Well, there are actually compelling reasons why. And I think most people who are against "sending them all home" aren't for breaking the law, they are simply for fixing what's wrong without hurting the economy, breaking up families, and/or treating human beings like luggage.

Blake Hastings, Executive Director of the Free Trade Alliance San Antonio wrote an article, Immigration Reform: Its About the Economy Stupid, in which he points out:

"Opponents of a larger guest worker program argue that these undocumented workers are taking jobs away from Americans or, at a minimum, causing wage depression particularly for lower skilled jobs. However, there is no credible research which backs up these claims. The first question would be where are the 7.8 million Americans currently looking for work? The fact of the matter is they dont exist since we are at full employment. Therefore, the argument that these undocumented workers are taking away jobs from Americans has no basis in fact."

Mr Hastings goes on to say:

"Imagine 5% (those 7.8 million undocumented) of the total U.S. workforce leaving the country in a relatively short period of time because their employers are getting squeezed by enforcement actions. What would happen to the economy? At a minimum, we would experience an economic recession and those sectors most dependent on undocumented workers (agriculture, hospitality, construction, food processing and domestic) would be devastated. Worse, we could see food shortages, rapid inflation in many sectors and major disruptions to the economy. For example, over 95% of all new entrances into the agricultural workforce of the U.S. for the past decade are undocumented, accounting for over 20% of the total sector employment. How do we get the crops from the fields to our dinner plates if 20% of the farm workforce is suddenly gone?"

So suggesting that illegal immigrants just pack up and leave just doesn't have merit - it's more complicated than that.

Arnold Schwarzenegger is about to unveil his goal of bringing universal health care to California, including about 1.6 million undocumented immigrants who live there. It's way too early to say whether his plan will actually move forward, but the very fact that the Governor is considering such a thing again points out that not everyone sees illegal immigrants as luggage that should be shipped back home. These people live and work in our state, let's make sure they have health care... there is logic here, folks. I am better off working next to someone who's been immunized and is getting treated for any health-related issues than I am working next to someone who isn't. I'm better off living next to someone who's getting the same coverage I am should a flu pandemic break out. You can look at it as a good thing for you, if you don't want to look at it as a good thing for them, is the thing.

What I'm trying to get at, is that not everyone in Lafayette thinks illegal immigrants should be sent packing. Some of us believe there is value in having them here, and we need to fix the system so that those who aren't murderers or drug dealers can stay and work and feed the family they brought with them and send money home to the one they left behind. That's how I feel when I hear someone say, "I'm for immigrants as long as they're legal."