Tag Archives: immigration

A Challenge for HispanicLatinos: To Wholly Understand Themselves

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How America proceeds into the future with a growing but economically disadvantaged HispanicLatino population is hardly a question on the national agenda.  In almost defaulting on its financial obligations last year, the United States demonstrated in real time that after 40 years of economic change, precious few Americans understand how the country got to this point and fewer have a clue about the way forward.  Having barely devoted time to understand the larger economic and demographic story transforming the country, the vast majority of Americans could not possibly understand the criticality of raising the country’s debt ceiling.

HispanicLatinos are no different.  Beyond knowing the general framework of the problems and challenges facing the country, few have any idea about what they should do next.  Even though many more HispanicLatinos are sensing how critical they are to the nation’s future, the true scope of their importance does not animate their daily lives.

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HispanicLatinos: A Different Deal at an Important Moment for the Country

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Through the years most Americans have believed that their country is exceptional and assume it is eternal.  Indeed, its ability to provide opportunity and freedom and to convert human potential into spectacular scientific and technological progress eclipses other nations, and America remains a shining example of the promise of humankind.  Despite its faults and shortcomings and because it is not a perfect union, it could have become a slave-holding, colonial-imperialist power for longer than it was tempted.  Enough of its people, however, chose differently.

Americans have spent hundreds of thousands of lives and invested trillions of dollars to make the world a safe and better place for humankind.  Most Americans – including the vast majority of HispanicLatinos for whom loyalty is almost part of their DNA – take immense pride in their country, and rightfully so.  Yet history is not destiny; demography is.

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To Be or Not to Be: A Nation in Decline with HispanicLatinos at Its Center

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The United States is in decline and in danger and, like nations throughout history, can fail.  Unless HispanicLatinos – continuously becoming a larger part of the national population – understand the circumstances confronting them and the country, they will jeopardize their own existence and further complicate the viability of America’s future.

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You Can Take It With You

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It is hard right now to quantify the impact that immigrants leaving the country are having on the national economy.  Soon enough, though, a think tank will put pencil to paper and we should have a better idea.  But it stands to reason that those of us who through the years have seen cities revitalized from one coast to the other will not be surprised at the data that will show a downtick in economic activity and increased joblessness across the board.  Indeed, entire towns and industries in the Midwest and in the South are being saved from extinction by immigrants who do work no one else wants.

We seem to forget so quickly that a growing population drives an economy forward.  It is a simple lesson.  The term ‘ghost town’ might invoke scenes from old western movies but it also is an economic epitaph:  No people, no economy.  No economy, no city.

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Drugged and Ignorant

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I have stopped paying attention to most people who think they know what they are talking about when it comes to the situation in Mexico and Latin America regarding the drug threat.  In almost all the public pronouncements of know-it-alls from presidential candidates to the lowliest of citizens, they seemingly all profess to know how to best handle the border against drug smuggling.  Fences.  Lampposts.  Sensors.  Armed guards.  Pilotless drones.  Moats.  Walls.

Morons.  Few ever consider that the fault lies on this side of the border.

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English as the Second Language: Geeeez, I Don’t Know…

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The question regarding Alejandrina Cabrera is poignant.  She is the city council candidate in San Luis, Arizona, who is being blocked from the ballot by political rivals and the courts for not being able to speak English well enough to handle the city’s business.  I am a great defender of HispanicLatinos using, retaining, relearning or strengthening their Spanish.  I believe using Spanish confidently is instrumental in creating secure individuals who can succeed professionally.  Continue reading →

On Florida and Jan Brewer and Ann Richards

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It is interesting to see the national media try to make sense of the HispanicLatino vote in Florida before the Republican primary on Tuesday.  The media speaks of it as one vote, and it is in a sense.  The HispanicLatino vote next week could be as much as 80 percent Cuban American.  But most HispanicLatinos in Florida now vote Democratic, so the media would be more accurate to describe the group voting next week in the GOP contest as the Cuban Republican vote, and they should point out that it is shrinking as each day passes due to its aging nature.  Continue reading →

Basic Math: A No Vote is a Half Vote

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So a Peruvian student in the country illegally, Lucy Allain, now of New York, last week accosts Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and asks him why he does not support the Dream Act.  The expected confrontation occurs.  He withdraws his hand as if she were trash, she said later.  Aides move Romney away from her.  I can imagine how she felt.  Romney is simply wrong on the issue.  More so, in his world, Romney would be called a cad.

But Lucy is wrong on another, vital matter. Asked by Jorge Ramos on Univision’s Sunday news program, Al Punto, for whom she would vote for if she could, she responded that she would vote for neither Romney nor President Obama, who has failed the HispanicLatino community – and the nation – by not pursuing immigration reform, not pushing for the Dream Act and pursuing a deportation program that in the end will prove counter to the national interest if it stands over a protracted period of time. Continue reading →

Another Front in the War Begins in Arizona

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Back when Richard Nixon began the culture-wars that have led America to its current political paralysis, he and his cynical advisors used the friction between a generation bent on change and the so-called silent majority to win elections.  Thus came to be the modern-day Republican Party that exploited the nation’s fears about a new culture dominated by acid, amnesty and abortion and then took advantage of the resentment against movements seeking to affirm women’s rights, the civil rights of minorities, protection of the environment and the rights of gays and lesbian.  The culture-wars were anchored by the infamous “southern strategy” that was – and is – racist to its core.

Instead of incorporating the change that a generation born of television, openness, wealth and mobility were going to bequeath on the nation and bending it to produce a positive result, the Nixon cohort sought to abuse the divisions of a culture-war that after so many bitter years has been won by the generation of change on every front.  Nothing punctuates the victory over reaction than the pre-Christmas lesbian couple selected in San Diego for the traditional kiss by which the Navy celebrates the returning home of a ship.  Seen around the world, the kiss should be seen here for what it is: The end of the Nixonian culture wars.  Nevertheless, a new war is being stoked by Nixon’s political descendants who put HispanicLatinos in the cross-hairs of history. Continue reading →

Well-dressed by the Depression

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The advertisements for Joseph A. Bank, the men’s clothier with its ubiquitous advertising, scare me.  Buy one suit, get two suits, two shirts and two ties absolutely free.  I do not know what the first suit costs but two additional suits, two shirts and two ties at no charge?  Hardly seems possible, unless we are heading for an economic depression. Continue reading →