Xenophobia, US-style

An interesting read from Progreso Semanal's Max Castro, in both English and Spanish for the blog's readers. Spanish first, English text follows at the bottom.

To see the article in its original context, click here

Xenofobia republicana: Otra vuelta de tuerca
Miercoles, 11 August 2010 09:17 Max Castro


Por Max J. Castro
majcastro@gmail.com

El Partido Republicano tiene un largo historial de oposición a los inmigrantes y a la inmigración, la cual se remonta al menos a las primeras décadas del siglo 20. Cien años más tarde, el Partido Republicano del siglo 21 parece que trata de superar a su predecesor.
Desde que la actual ola de inmigración comenzó a fines de la década de 1960, prácticamente todas las propuestas legislativas a niveles local, estatal y nacional han sido patrocinadas y apoyadas por los republicanos. Proposición 187, la tristemente célebre ley californiana de 1994 para negar educación escolar y otros servicios públicos a inmigrantes indocumentados –invalidada por los tribunales— fue promovida por el gobernador republicano del estado, Pete Wilson. En 1996, el Congreso dominado por los republicanos dirigidos por Newt Gingrich, aprobó una dura legislación federal que negaba a los inmigrantes muchos programas sociales y hacía obligatoria la deportación incluso por delitos leves cometidos años o décadas antes.

El patrón ha continuado durante el presente siglo. En 2005, la Cámara de Representantes de EE.UU., dominada por los republicanos, aprobó la Ley de Protección, Antiterrorismo y Control de Inmigración, una ley extremadamente punitiva que, afortunadamente, nunca fue aprobada por el Senado. La medida provocó manifestaciones callejeras masivas de los latinos y sus partidarios. En la década actual, las legislaturas estatales y concejos de ciudad dominados por republicanos han aprobado cientos de medidas destinadas a perseguir a los inmigrantes ilegales.

La más reciente y draconiana de estas es la SB-1070 de Arizona, aprobada este mismo año por la legislatura estatal encabezada por el Partido Republicano y firmada de inmediato por la gobernadora republicana Jan Brewer. La ley, entre otras cosas, requería de todos los agentes policiales que inquirieran acerca del status migratorio de toda persona detenida o arrestada cuando existiera “sospecha razonable” de encontrarse ilegalmente en el país. Esta medida, aprobada sobre la base de una campaña de demagogia que vincula a los inmigrantes con el crimen, parece suministrar una licencia a los agentes policiales para que se dediquen a la identificación étnica.

El Departamento de Justicia de EE.UU. presentó una demanda judicial contra Arizona en la que mantiene que la inmigración es la sola responsabilidad del gobierno federal. A fines de julio, poco antes de que la ley entrara en vigor, un juez federal de distrito entregó en la práctica una victoria al Departamento de Justicia cuando prohibió al estado a poner en práctica disposiciones clave de la SB-1070. El estado está apelando la decisión.

La actual corriente de xenofobia ha llegado a su cénit con una propuesta que está siendo promovida por los republicanos en el Congreso para cambiar la Decimocuarta Enmienda de la Constitución de EE.UU., a fin de negar la ciudadanía a los hijos de inmigrantes indocumentados. La Decimocuarta Enmienda, una de las enmiendas más importantes de la Constitución, declara en su primera sección:

“Toda persona nacida o naturalizada en Estados Unidos, y sujeta a la jurisdicción del mismo, es ciudadana de Estados Unidos…”

Anteriormente el cambio de la Decimocuarta Enmienda y la abolición de la ciudadanía por nacimiento estaba limitada a los fanáticos anti-inmigrantes, incluyendo a unos pocos en el Congreso, como Tom Tancredo, republicano por Colorado. Actualmente, los miembros republicanos del Congreso, los cuales hace unos meses o años apoyaban la reforma migratoria completa que desembocara en la ciudadanía, en especial Lindsey Graham de Carolina del Sur, y el ex candidato presidencial John McCain, hablan ahora de realizar audiencias acerca de la Decimocuarta Enmienda, o cambiarla totalmente.

El tema ha provocado palabras feas y desinformadas, incluyendo la especulación acerca de mujeres extranjeras (léase mexicanas) que vienen a Estados Unidos con el deliberado propósito de “soltar un bebé” que automáticamente se convertiría en ciudadano, y por lo tanto sería un “bebé ancla” que facilitaría a otros miembros de la familia la obtención de un status legal.

La idea de darle vuelta a la Decimocuarta Enmienda –una dudosa y poco probable propuesta— y el uso de un lenguaje tan deshumanizado (“soltar un bebé”) refleja la fuerte oposición de los republicanos duros de base a los cuales los políticos del partido les hacen el juego, conjuntamente con la transición étnica que está teniendo lugar en Estados Unidos. También revela la desesperación de los republicanos por controlar el crecimiento de la población latina, una tendencia demográfica que pronostica la hecatombe del Partido Republicano tal como es en la actualidad.

Los latinos están disgustados con el presidente Barack Obama, y con razón. Él no ha cumplido durante su primer año en la Casa Blanca (ni siquiera en el segundo) su promesa de reformar la ley de inmigración. Y es cierto que durante la administración Obama se ha realizado un número récord de deportaciones. Al mismo tiempo, la administración Obama ha abandonado los ataques en el puesto de trabajo y se concentra en expulsar a los inmigrantes que han cometido delitos graves. Mientras tanto, la administración ha evitado calladamente deportar a los inmigrantes indocumentados que llegaron a Estados Unidos siendo niños, una práctica que ha enfurecido a los republicanos. Pero también debiéramos tener en cuenta el papel de los republicanos en la obstrucción de la reforma, ni tampoco debemos ignorar lo que nos espera, si los republicanos controlaran una vez más todas las palancas del poder en Washington.

ENGLISH



Republican xenophobia: Another turn of the screw
Wednesday, 11 August 2010 12:03 Max Castro

By Max J. Castro
majcastro@gmail.com

The Republican Party has a longstanding record of opposing immigrants and immigration dating back at least to the early decades of the twentieth century. One hundred years later, the twenty-first century GOP seems to be trying to outdo its predecessor.

Since the current wave of immigration began in the late 1960s, virtually every anti-immigrant piece of legislation at the local, state, and national level has been sponsored and supported by Republicans. Proposition 187, the infamous 1994 California law to deny schooling and other public services to undocumented immigrants -- invalidated by the courts -- was pushed by the state’s Republican governor, Pete Wilson. In 1996, the Republican Congress, led by Newt Gingrich, passed harsh federal legislation barring immigrants from many social programs and making deportation mandatory for even petty criminal offenses committed years or decades before.

The pattern has continued during the present century. In 2005, the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives passed the Border Protection, Antiterrorism and Immigration Control Act, an extremely punitive bill that, fortunately, was never approved by the Senate. The measure sparked massive street protests by Latinos and their supporters. In this decade, Republican-dominated state legislatures and city councils have passed hundreds of measures intended to crack down on illegal immigrants. Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005

The most recent and draconian of these is Arizona’s SB-1070, passed earlier this year by that state’s GOP-led legislature and quickly signed into law by Republican governor Jan Brewer. The law, among other things, would require all law enforcement officers to inquire into the immigration status of persons detained or arrested where there is a “reasonable suspicion” that they are in the country illegally. This measure, passed on the basis of a campaign of demagoguery linking immigrants with crime, seems to provide a license for police officers to engage in ethnic profiling.

The U.S. Department of Justice filed suit against Arizona, asserting that immigration is the sole purview of the federal government. At the end of July, shortly before the law was to take effect, a federal district judge essentially handed the Justice Department a victory when she enjoined the state from enforcing key provisions of SB-1070. The state is appealing that decision.

The current wave of xenophobia has now reached its zenith with a proposal currently being floated by republicans in Congress to change the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution in order to deny citizenship to the offspring of undocumented immigrants. The Fourteenth Amendment, one of the most important amendments to the Constitution, states in its first section:

“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States…”

Once, talk of changing the Fourteenth Amendment and abolishing birth-right citizenship was confined to anti-immigration zealots, including a few in Congress, such as Colorado Republican Tom Tancredo. Now, GOP members of Congress, who only a few short months or years ago were backing comprehensive immigration reform leading to citizenship, notably South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham and former GOP presidential candidate John McCain, are talking about holding hearings on, or outright changing, the Fourteenth Amendment.

The issue has provoked ugly and uninformed talk, including speculation about foreign (read Mexican) women coming into the United States deliberately in order to “drop a baby” who automatically becomes a citizen and thus an “anchor baby,” facilitating other members of the family in attaining legal status.

The idea of toying with the Fourteenth Amendment -- a dubious and unlikely proposition -- and using such dehumanizing language (‘drop a baby’, ‘anchor baby’) reflects the fierce opposition of the hard-core Republican base to which the GOP politicians are pandering vis-à-vis the ethnic transition underway in America. It also reveals the desperation of the Republicans to stench the growth of the Latino population, a demographic trend that spells doom for the Republican Party as we know it.

Latinos are upset with President Barack Obama, and with good reason. He didn’t deliver on his promise of immigration reform not in his first year in the White House (or even in his second). And it is true that a record number of deportations have happened under the Obama administration. At the same time, the Obama administration has focused away from work place raids and concentrated on expelling immigrants that have committed serious crimes. Meanwhile, the administration has been quietly refraining from deporting undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children, a practice that has infuriated Republicans. And we also should consider the role of Republicans in obstructing immigration reform nor should we ignore what is in store for us should the Republicans, once again, control all the levers of power in Washington.

Prospects For November

With the never-ending onslaught from the right's noisemaking apparatus (Fox, Tea Baggers, and the like), congressional ethics investigations against senior House Democrats Rangel and Waters, continuing economic softness and the ongoing Afghanistan quagmire, what are the prospects for November's general elections?

Seu Jorge rocks Miami, Orlando & Chicago

This has to be the best concert(s) I have attended all year. Seu Jorge, the talented actor/musician from the Belford Roxo district in Rio de Janeiro, is on tour. His latest release is a team effort with colleagues percussionist Pupillo, guitarist Lucio Maia of Nação Zumbi, and bass player Antonio Pinto. The results are incredible. The result is the self-titled LP "Seu Jorge and Almaz", with covers of some Brazilian classics as well as some totally unexpected U.S. and European sounds.

Not only does his reworking of the Brazilians standards blow me away, but I found his tweaking of Kraftwerk's "The Model" to be amazing: it is no mean feat to take the prog-synth group's alienated, stark love song and turn it into a sticky dub reggae excursion. As for his cover of Roy Ayre's "Everybody Loves The Sunshine", it felt like an homage to an African-American standard from across the Diaspora, filtered through a different type of black lens. And MJ's "Rock With You" is not meant to be a straight cover - in my opinion - but instead a softer take on the tune, revealing more subtle textures than in the original, where Quincy Jones and Michael make the tune as lush as a velvet sofa. His ominous version of "Cirandar" totally changes the way you hear the original - which, I admit, I only did after hearing his version. "Pai Joao" becomes an almost arena-sized samba with a sing-along chorus reminiscent of old Two-Tone sing alongs and British pub rock. And Jorge Ben's "Errare Humanum Est" has quickly become my favorite track, with its expansive echo and touches of psychedelia. And these are only the tunes I have the space to write about here!

I had the good fortune to see him in both Orlando and Chicago in the last week thanks to work travel and all I can say is: If you can't get out to one of the remaining tour dates...Buy this CD!

To see the crew in action, click HERE

GO SEE: THE LOSERS & IRON MAN 2

While readers of this site will by now have figured out that I am an avid (dare I say rabid?) sci-fi, comics and adventure buff, I would be remiss where I not to recommend wholeheartedly and without reservation the following films: The Losers and Iron Man 2.

The Losers

The Losers is a great film, another in a long line of caper/buddy flicks, this time involving covert operatives on the payback trail as opposed to a bank job, mob rubout, et cetera. It features one of the most underrated actors out there today - Idriss Elba. Elba has gotten busy since the demise of his leading character from HBO's The Wire, Stringer Bell. Since then he's gone on to star in a couple of romantic comedies (including Daddy's Little Girls). However 'Musings' isn't as a blog know for its interest in romantic comedies, we'll reference only his two recent roles that speak to our readers, Rock 'n Rolla (Guy Ritchie's great flick from 2009, featuring Gerard Butler alongside Elba) and The Losers.

Iron Man 2

How can you go wrong? Robert Downey, Jr., reprising his role as Tony Stark, alongside great actor Don Cheadle (in a role formerly played by Terrence Howard in the first installment), and Mickey Rourke (who has also had a great boost to his acting career of late, with parts in Man on Fire, Sin City, The Wrestler and now Iron Man 2) all do more than carry their weight.

The Illinois General Assembly soldiers on...

The Illinois General Assembly went on recess after a session of several substantial pieces of legislation, most notably pension reform. However, they have yet to complete work on the 800-pound gorilla in the room: the annual operating budget for the state government's own operations. There is a gaping $13 billion budget deficit, an amount large enough that no amount of fiscal slight-of-hand, borrowing or other stopgap measure can paper over.

We all now wait with bated breath for the Speaker of the House, House Minority Leader, Senate President, Senate Minority Leader and Governor to hash out some sort of tentative agreement that they believe their respective caucuses and supporters will go for, at which time they will call everyone back to the state capitol Springfield, Illinois for a final vote. We're nowhere near finished yet, people.

City prepares for massive Statehouse rally - Springfield, IL - The State Journal-Register

City prepares for massive Statehouse rally - Springfield, IL - The State Journal-Register

The Mad Russian Strikes Again!

World Wide Magazine - Mad Russian Crashes a Pat Buchanan Rally from Vladimir Noskov on Vimeo.