"Illegal status (i)s a civil matter"

That headline is a snippet from an editorial published recently by the New York Times that I am sure is giving indigestion to the nativists of our nation. I'm sure in their minds, it is reinforcing the idea that the Times is out of touch with their views.

In reality, it merely shows that those people are out of touch with a certain level of common sense when it comes to the issue of immigration reform.

FOR THE TIMES' editorial caught my attention because it so clearly stated what ought to be the underlying principle of whatever measure winds up becoming the Obama administration's attempt to revamp the nation's immigration laws.

The Times went so far as to ridicule the idea expressed so often by these people who want to build their walls in the southwestern U.S. desert that some people are illegal and committing crimes by their very existence.

Such a concept is pure nonsense. But it also is the way in which many local officials try to justify having their police departments take punitive actions against people. They claim they want to get involved in national security, even though their actions show just how far in over their heads they truly are.

This ultimately is a federal issue -- one in which the locals wind up mucking things up all the more when they start trying to run through databases the identities of anyone they want to suspect of somehow not belonging in this country.

BECAUSE ULTIMATELY, IT means their prejudices and presumptions wind up singling out certain people for abuse, while failing to realize that people who don't have that valid visa truly do come in all colors and ethnic backgrounds.

There also is the reality that not all law enforcement agencies are pulling such stunts. Which means ultimately, people when encountering police can't be sure if they're going to face undue harassment because someone looks at them and wants to think they should be somewhere else far, far away.

It was such unequal application that ultimately caused the death penalty in this country to be struck down as unconstitutional back in 1972. You'd think similar legal logic would cause all these local measures to be knocked down for the count. Perhaps it will someday. But that does us little good for now.

For what it's worth, the Times' editorial is worth checking out (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/27/opinion/27fri2.html?th&emc=th), if for nothing more than getting a chuckle over how much it is irritating the xenophobes of our society while they are trying to do their holiday shopping.

-30-

What is Thanksgiving's true lesson?

It has become a theme used by some Latino activists wishing to be a bit obnoxious come Thanksgiving -- one that even I have used from time to time.

It is the concept that Latinos have some sort of special "bond" with the native tribes that the Pilgrims met up with when they arrived back in the 17th Century in what is now Massachusetts.

SOME GO SO far as to take shots at the Pilgrims, calling them the original illegal aliens. Yet there are times when I wonder just how fair, or accurate, that is.

Not so much the part about the Pilgrims being "illegal," because it does accurately show how artificial the concepts of "legal" and "illegal" truly are. But the idea that the tribes native to what is now New England are somehow synonymous with Latinos is a stretch.

The simple fact is that the native tribes indigenous to Massachusetts are not the same as the ones from the southwestern United States, let alone what is now Mexico or any of the other countries that comprise Latin America.

Only a buffoon believes that all "Indians" are alike -- or even Indian, for that matter.

I DOUBT THOSE tribes who attended the first Thanksgiving had much of a clue about their racial brethren that lived in what we now think of as Latin America. They probably would have thought them equally as "foreign" as all those English people who suddenly showed up to stomp on Plymouth Rock.

Now I know that people from Mexico take some pride in the fact that their racial composition is a mixture of the Spanish and indigenous elements. Give some of us our way, and we'll start proclaiming ourselves to be pure-blooded Aztec.

Yet this is a case where rhetoric doesn't match the reality of history. It's not like the tribes of the 19th Century thought any more highly of the Mexican government than it did that of the United States. Both countries have their moments that they should be less than proud of, at least if they seriously want anyone in the world to think of them as places of compassion on Planet Earth.

It is because of that fact that I don't feel it totally correct for Latino activists to be making too much of Thanksgiving as history. It feels a bit hypocritical to claim a kinship that never truly existed.

IF THERE IS a lesson to be learned from Thanksgiving, it is one a bit more universal. Regardless of what one thinks of the religious ideals of the Pilgrims, they were newcomers to a land who initially received cooperation from the native tribes.

There was no cheap talk about legal, illegal or whether people did or didn't belong. The problems arose when such concepts were introduced by the successors to the Pilgrims, who adopted a sense of entitlement to their new homeland.

Some would go for the cheap rhetorical points and say the reason the nativists fear newcomers who aren't exactly like themselves is that they fear we will treat them as badly as their ancestors treated everybody else.

But I'll say the lesson of Thanksgiving is that it was a time when differing peoples coexisted peacefully and with with cooperation. It's too bad we can't achieve the same attitude today.

-30-

When will immigration be loved?

It was intriguing to learn of Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., and his recent comments that the Democrats pushing for health care reform are eager to have the issue resolved before New Year’s Day.

According to Durbin, Democrats are viewing 2009 as the year they focused on revamping the health care system so as to ensure that many of the 47 million currently uninsured people in this country would gain some sort of means to pay for medical treatment.

BY THAT SAME thought, 2010 becomes the year that Congress and the president will focus on measures meant to jolt the national economy back into shape (beyond the short-term measures that President Barack Obama pushed for early this year, and which his GOP critics are determined to think of as failures – even though they appear to be working).

Does this mean that those of us who see a reform of the immigration laws as an equally significant issue are now going to get “the economy” used as an excuse to ignore us – thereby banishing our concerns about the federal laws that regulate immigration to the United States to some future year?

I’d like to think that the senator from Springfield, Ill., merely oversimplified, and that his rhetoric doesn’t mean that immigration is getting pushed further back, since Obama himself (along with his political allies) has hinted that next year is the year that immigration will be dealt with.

In one sense, it makes sense not to do it next year, since immigration reform is going to be a hot-button issue that will make this year’s rhetoric against heath care reform seem like sugar-coated kisses being blown to the president.

WHY BRING UP such rhetoric in an election year?

Yet such an attitude is short sighted, because it underestimates the significance of the immigration reform issue to a portion of the population. Heck, there probably are some people in this country who believe that immigration reform was of a higher priority than health care reform (I find it hard to pick between the two, they both are significant problems confronting our society).

I hope the president realizes that if he and his allies truly are looking for excuses to put off doing something decent to reform the immigration laws, he stands to anger a significant chunk of the U.S. population.

Doing nothing (a.k.a., maintaining the flawed status quo) may wind up angering as many people as doing something.

THIS IS ONE of those issues that is going to have to come up – and the sooner we revamp it, the better off we are because we can then begin the process of healing that our society will have to go through as a result of reform.

For there are those people in our society who have a warped idea of reform – more deportations, and more federal dollars wasted on building those barriers along the U.S./Mexico border.

In short, true reform of the federal immigration laws is going to wind up offending their twisted sensibilities, similar to how the Civil Rights legislation passed by Congress during the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson went against the so-called “way of life” that existed in the Southern U.S.

Yet now, we have made progress toward resolving some of the “hurt feelings” that were stirred up in the South (and in other parts of the nation, bigotry wasn’t restricted purely to Dixie) as a result of the legislation.

EVEN THOUGH SOME political analysts still like to push the idea of the Civil Rights Act as LBJ’s political mistake that hurt the Democratic Party – as though leaving the status quo in place would have been proper – most of us now realize that is revisionism by an awkward fringe of our society.

Likewise, in future decades we’re going to realize that trying to put in place laws that try to inhibit the natural order of our society – that Latino population is going to grow no matter what kind of legislative straightjacket one tries to put on it – are equally ridiculous.

Immigration reform’s time is overdue – it probably should have occurred during the years of George W. Bush as president, but didn’t because he couldn’t restrain the nativists of his political party from letting their worst fears run amok.

Now, it is Obama’s turn to take a crack at the issue. His success (or failure) on that issue will be an equally big (if not bigger) part of his ultimate legacy than health care. Let’s hope that Obama’s legacy doesn’t become that he tried to play political dodgeball with the issue.

-30-

We need an honest definition of who is a “real American”

Strictly speaking, it’s not a Latino issue. But the saga involving Amal Abusumayah brings up so many issues that are relevant to the Latino experience when dealing with people who have a small-minded view of what our society ought to be.

Abusumayah is the woman who was shopping at a supermarket in the Chicago suburb of Tinley Park when someone went out of their way to make a rude comment to her about Arabs, then later tried to yank the hijab off her head.

IN SHORT, IT was an incident of anti-Arab sentiment, and the woman (who is white) who was involved in the incident against Abusumayah was arrested by local police. Earlier this week, she had a $5,000 bond set, and she could get some time in prison if ultimately convicted – since police went so far as to seek “hate crime” charges against her.

Of course, the incident had to occur within days of a study commissioned by BusinessWeek magazine that said Tinley Park, Ill., was the best municipality in the United States in which to raise children.

It will be interesting to see which event – the study or the incident – sticks in the public’s mind when it comes to the Chicago suburb’s reputation.

As reported, Abusumayah was trying to shop for groceries when the woman made comments about the gunman at Fort Hood, Texas, claiming he was a foreigner and so was she. Then, when Abusumayah was trying to use the self-checkout lane at the supermarket, the woman came up from behind her and tried to rip off the head scarf that she wears as a religious gesture of modesty.

THERE HAVE BEEN some people who have been critical of the fact that “hate crime” charges were sought because they want to believe that there is some level at which trying to make someone uncomfortable about their ethnicity is somehow either appropriate, or the type of harassment that people like Abusumayah just have to learn to put up with.

Which is why I couldn’t help but comment on this incident, since it sounds all to common to many of the incidents of harassment that Latinos are confronted with each day.

Now as reported, the woman who was so offended by Abusumayah’s presence in the supermarket made comments about people not belonging in this country, even though it turns out that all the people she specifically mentioned were U.S. born – which means they’re U.S. citizens who have every right to be in this country.

That is the case for Army Major Nidal Hasan, who was from the Virginia-based suburbs of Washington, D.C., and for Abusumayah, whose parents were immigrants from the Middle East but herself was raised in Berwyn.

WHO OUTSIDE OF the Son of Svengoolie – that Chicago-based television host whose Berwyn fetish is better known than the tacky horror films he narrates – would have a problem with that?

What this comes down to is that someone has their own idea of what constitutes a “real American,” and it doesn’t include someone who doesn’t come from a background identical to their own.

It is the same twist of logic that Latinos often have to cope with when people get worked up about the fact that the Latino population is growing at rates that will make us an equal presence in numbers by the middle of the century – and already have us at a significant share of the U.S. population now.

It really is the case for Latinos, a growing percentage of whom are born in the United States and come from parts of the country that once were a part of Latin America. Listening to actress and Texan Eva Longoria describe herself as a 9th generation American when she appeared last week on George Lopez’ talk show is interesting because it is a claim that few of these so-called “real Americans” can make.

SO EXCUSE ME for feeling a little bit of sympathy for Abusumayah.

Her story is one that has been experienced by so many others whose ethnic origins lie in Latin America. The encouraging aspect of this incident is that the local officials didn’t hem and haw and try to figure out legalistic reasons by which the woman could be let off for her alleged actions against Abusumayah.

So perhaps that is one bit of evidence that our nation is moving in the right direction.

But the real progress will be achieved when certain people quit thinking of “foreigner!” as an expletive every time they see someone who doesn’t look exactly like they do.

-30-

Who seriously wants the trade embargo?

I got a kick out of reading the results of a new poll taken of the Cuban people (as in the ones still living on the island, not the exile community centered spiritually around Miami).

For it seems that this particular survey shows the bulk of the island’s population is ready to see the United States as their country’s salvation – even though the Communist government there has long peddled the idea that los Estados Unidos is responsible for everything that is wrong.

IT SEEMS THAT the old cliché, “the grass is greener on the other side of the fence,” is at work here. It seems that 75 percent of the Cuban people are in favor of a transition to Democracy (with another 19 percent having “no answer” to the question).

And even though the issue was never brought up in the poll proper, 8 percent of those surveyed said they thought the United States would go a long way toward helping the Cuban people if they were to do away with the half-century-old trade embargo that was meant to isolate Cuba from the world, but has wound up providing los hermanos Castro with their key talking point in criticizing the U.S. (while doing nothing to discourage the rest of the world from doing business with Cuba).

Now it is possible on the face of things to criticize this particular poll, which was conducted by a Latin American firm for the International Republican Institute – which gets some of its funding from the State Department.

In short, this is a poll paid for with federal government dollars that says (surprise!) Cuban people want more to do with the United States.

THEN AGAIN, I’M sure it is nowhere near as ridiculous as the official propaganda line that comes out of Havana, which would probably claim the Cuban people are completely satisfied with their quality of life these days – even though this new poll says that 53.5 percent of those surveyed said life was going, “badly or very badly.”

In short, the economic troubles of recent years that have resulted in food scarcity (and an extreme shortage of toilet paper) are making people wonder about the benefits of being a Communist state.

It is a scene so reminiscent of the final days of the old Soviet Union, where the people ultimately were anxious to try to “decadent” ways of capitalism not because they cared about the politics one way or another.

They were anxious to be a part of whichever method would give them a higher standard of life.

WHEN THE DAY comes that Cuba drops its Communist ways, it will be because the people were anxious to eat, not because they seriously had any firm belief that capitalism itself was superior.

Now anyone who has read my commentary on issues related to Cuba knows I do not support the concept of the trade embargo. It was a flawed policy when it was implemented, and the fact that the rest of the world has largely refused to go along means that it has come closer to isolating the United States instead of Cuba.

I have always thought that if the United States were seriously interested in trying to gain the hearts and minds of the Cuban people, it would do away with the embargo then let U.S. companies start flooding the market with so many goods and services.

Political rhetoric (whether Communist or capitalist) will be regarded as cheap and irrelevant by most people. They will support whoever can get them the goods they desire in life.

WHICH IS WHY I believe one of the biggest accomplishments that Barack Obama could achieve as president would be to take the actions that ultimately resulted in restored relations between the United States and Cuba.

Wouldn’t it be ironic if, after a couple of generations of Cuban exiles worshiping at the temple of Republican politics, it turned out to be a Democratic president who brought the two sides together?

I would think it incredibly humorous if, in the future, the significant difference between Cubans and Cuban-Americans is that the former looked up to the Democratic Party, while the latter still remained latched to support of the Republicans.

-30-

Scarlet “A” will dominate immigration reform rhetoric

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano (also the one-time governor of U.S./Mexico border state Arizona) has stirred up the pot before the immigration reform debate has even begun.

She made it clear that President Barack Obama has enough sense to realize that the 12 million so-called “illegal aliens” already in this country without a Visa or other papers largely are making worthwhile contributions to our society, and therefore ought to be allowed to remain.

IN SHORT, “REFORM” as envisioned by Obama consists of changing the artificial status from “illegal” to “legal.” That is going to tick off the nativist elements, to whom “reform” consists of an increase in the number of deportations.

Napolitano made her blunt comments when speaking last week to the Center for American Progress. She told them that while there will be some rhetoric put into the immigration laws to call for increased enforcement of criminal laws against companies that deliberately seek out undocumented non-citizens as a cheap source of labor, there also are going to have to be changes in the procedure for becoming a citizen.

She calls it a “three-legged stool” and it is significant because the Obama administration has been rather vague during its time in the Oval Office about what constitutes immigration reform.

It has shown signs of being intimidated by the vocal critics who want to push a xenophobic thought process into determining our nation’s immigration policies.

ADMITTEDLY, THIS IS just talk from Napolitano, bringing to mind the old cliché, “Talk is cheap.” I’m curious to see action, not only how far the Obama administration will go but how soon they will be willing to act.

They have hinted at being willing to do something in 2010, claiming that health care reform is a higher priority (while ignoring the degree to which some conservatives desire to make the two issues intertwined).

But a part of me won’t be the least bit surprised if Obama administrative types will fear the issue being used against them for cheap rhetoric in the 2010 election cycle. They’ll try to claim the issue should wait until 2011 – or later.

The only problem with that is the growing Latino population itself. An increasing number of us are native-born, which means immigration technically isn’t an issue for us. Yet many of us know people for whom it is an issue, and we’re also realistic enough to know that these nativists often can’t (or don’t want to) tell the difference between a Latino and a Latin American.

SO THE DEGREE to which they rant against our immigrant brethren is also an attack upon ourselves (which is the reason why I get so worked up over this issue, even though my own family is third-generation in the United States).

In one sense, I was surprised to learn of Napolitano’s comments (which I read about in a New York Times news account of her speech to the Washington-based group). They seem just a little too blunt.

A part of me is wondering if Napolitano is in the Obama dog house these days (does this mean Bo gets to live inside the White House until Janet is forgiven?) for speaking too honestly?

Or is this one of those famed “trial balloons” used by political types – have someone throw out an idea to see how hostile the reaction will be. If it isn’t too nasty, they proceed.

IF THE RESPONSE is too mean-spirited, Obama could always claim Napolitano wasn’t speaking for the administration (even though she really was).

I can already picture the immigration critics lining up against her, adding this to her list of negatives (Napolitano is the official who once criticized the idea of a U.S./Mexico border wall by saying that people would find 51-foot ladders to scale 50-foot-high walls).

But at a time when too many officials seem to be too timid in dealing with the issue, it was refreshing to hear at least one political person acknowledge the reality of the immigration situation – even though I don’t think her reasoning will be accepted by anyone.

She says that the reason we can now proceed with such policies to make people already living in this country legal so they can live openly is that there have been significant improvements in national security along the Rio Bravo del Norte/Rio Grande.

ON THE DAY of Napolitano’s speech, the New York Times found officials such as Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, who said not nearly enough has been done for national security. Meanwhile, those of us in support of true immigration reform have always realized this issue really has nothing to do with national security.

It is about people wishing to dictate the composition of this nation because they don’t like the way the natural course of things is going – they want to view the growing Latino population as a criminal plot, which is little more than absurd.

Equally absurd is going to be all the people who will scream the word “amnesty” at the top of their lungs every time the proposal put forth by Napolitano is discussed.

-30-

Dobbs’ CNN departure leaves me cold

Excuse me for not being among the ranks of people getting all happy over the announcement this week that Lou Dobbs, the cantankerous news anchor who seems to want to be a 21st Century version of Father Coughlin, is leaving the Cable News Network.

Dobbs said he wants to be able to take a more active role on certain issues confronting our society than he can if he remains involved with CNN and has to put on the pretense of being “objective” and a journalist devoted to the concept of reporting news – instead of trying to influence it.

SO WHEN I hear that Dobbs will no longer be on the air every weeknight in the early evening, I suppose it means I can go back to watching CNN during that time slot. Personally, I always managed to find better things to do than watch Dobbs, so I doubt his change will alter my life’s daily routine in any way.

If anything, it now means we’re going to hear from Dobbs on so many fronts, and he no longer has to pretend he’s anything other than an advocate for a morally offensive stance on the issue of immigration reform.

But this is a free country, and he has the right to be wrong. And to paraphrase Voltaire as he put it so pompously all those centuries ago, I will defend to the death his right to say silly things.

Now I have been noticing some commentary cropping up on the Internet from Latino activists who are celebrating Dobbs’ departure as some sort of moral victory.

SOME ARE EVEN going so far as to try to claim responsibility for getting Dobbs dumped from the cable network founded by Ted Turner, but now run by a batch of suits whose idea of vision goes no farther than the latest stock reports.

Both concepts are ridiculous, particularly the idea that any activist somehow deserves praise for getting Dobbs off of CNN, which in recent weeks cropped up as an issue from people who trashed Soledad O’Brien’s “Latino in America” series as being hypocritical coming from a network that also let Lou go on his rants about immigration.

All this really means is that Dobbs will go on the lecture circuit, most likely to take fees to give speeches to groups ideologically inclined to believe Lou’s rhetoric that all the problems in these peoples’ lives are the fault of “those foreigners!”

He may even hook up with one of those conservative think tanks that will pay Dobbs significant amounts of money to think his shallow thoughts and spread them – in the name of the cause.

IN SHORT, DOBBS has not been silenced by any means. It just means that what little bit of restraint he might have felt by being affiliated with CNN has now been removed. He can be a blunt bully, all in the name of that same cause.

For the reality is that this fight over immigration, particularly when it comes to people who come from countries in the rest of the Americas, is far from over. If anything, Dobbs’ career move is likely yet another step toward the battle that will arise when Congress finally gets off its duff and decides to take on the issue.

I expect Dobbs will become one of the most outspoken critics of whatever Congress does with the issue (and if they decide to do nothing and try to maintain the status quo, I will become one of their most outspoken critics).

We’re going to have to take on the issue of immigration and come up with more realistic definitions of “legal” and “illegal.” Because the current use of the terms is artificial – one that is imposed by politicians to support whomever they choose and reject what they’d rather not have to deal with.

IT IS THE reason why it is hypocritical when people say they are merely against illegal immigration, and have no problem with people who come to this country “the right way.”

What it really means is that they want more people who are potentially like themselves, and do not want to have to deal with those who can never fall 100 percent within their Anglo ideal of what they think the United States is about.

For the reality is that this is a country that is a mutt, and I mean that in a positive sense. It is a country that takes on some characteristics of all of its newcomers, while also imposing some of its values onto those same people. That is the “American way.”

Too many people allow their xenophobic tendencies to focus exclusively on the degree to which people bring their customs into the U.S. mix, while ignoring the degree to which assimilation does take place.

NOW WHY DO I feel the need to go on this mini-rant, elements of which I have stated many times previously in the commentaries published on this weblog?

It is because I realize this is an issue that is not over, not by a long shot.

While some people might view the departure of Dobbs from cable television as some sort of victory for those of us who want a more rational approach to immigration enacted into federal law, I see it as a strategic move on the part of the opposition.

Dobbs is a rhetorical sniper who is looking for a new spot from which to shoot his venomous talk. Those of us seeking serious reform need to be careful we don’t give him too clear a shot to attack us.

-30-

Slamming Sammy's face just silly

As much as I wonder about the sensibilities of people who are trying to make an issue out of what Sammy Sosa is doing to his face, I also wonder if this is an issue where Latinos are going to perceive it differently just because we're all too aware that people are a mixture -- no matter what they would prefer to believe about themselves.

None of the "white" or "black/other" that too much of Anglo (and even some segments of African-American) society prefers to think.

SO FOR THOSE of you who want to know more about what thoughts ran through my mind over the latest pop-culture controversy about Sosa's face, you should check out this weblog's sister site, the Chicago Argus (http://www.chicagoargus.blogspot.com/)

I always knew there was something funky about Wrigley Field, aside from the 95-year-old bathrooms (with troughs).

-30-

Just what America needs, another talk show

Perhaps it was only so appropriate that Eva Longoria Parker was the first official guest on comedian George Lopez’ attempt at a talk show that gives a “Latino” sensibility to all of this country’s viewers.

At one point, Lopez directed Longoria to a “stripper” pole, which she was to use to bump and grind and give this country a sensual image straight out of our wildest fantasies.

WHAT DID SHE do?

She did a couple of twirls before giving up, while telling us the whole time that she “flunked” a course she took in pole dancing that was meant to help get her husband aroused at the sight of her.

In short, the image of Longoria whirling about with a big hard pole between her legs was nowhere near as erotic as the image those of us with dirty minds created in our heads. Reality didn’t live up to promise.

And in many ways, that is how I would assess the first “episode” of Lopez’ talk show, which followed the rigid format of all the other late-night talk shows.

LOPEZ DOES SOME standup comedy for a few minutes, followed by some rehearsed bits that are meant to be edgy, while also humorous.

Then, the second half of the hour-long show allowed two guests to be interviewed by Lopez, before a musician performed a couple of songs to finish off the program.

For the record, the guests were Longoria and Los Angeles Lakers basketball player Kobe Bryant, and aging guitar player Carlos Santana – who gave us a rendition of one of his earliest hits from some four decades ago (which itself was a cover of the old mambo classic “Oye Como Va”).

Not exactly scintillating television, even though I enjoy listening to Santana and can appreciate the concept of eye candy on television.

TO ME, THE concept of a talk show is to find an interviewer who can get his “guests” to say something interesting – in short, to do something more than merely plug their latest entertainment industry project.

Learning that Longoria has returned to college to take courses in Chicano Studies just didn’t do it for me, although I got a laugh from Lopez’ response that he was, “a Chicano who didn’t study.”

That didn’t happen Monday night. In fact, the bulk of the Bryant portion of the program was devoted to him explaining why he usually does not appear on talk shows.

He doesn’t have much to say. He’s a ballplayer. It is his life. It is what he does.

AFTER LISTENING TO him speak, I’m convinced he’s telling the truth.

Even Lopez’ attempts at “edgy” humor fell flat. He had a camera crew go out and ask people questions, then had people from his audience try to guess the answers. It was supposed to be a test of how much we stereotype people based on their appearance – particularly ethnic or racial factors.

Yet how much real humor can there be in hearing an Asian man insist he does NOT have a small penis? Even if he did, who outside of Howard Stern ever boasts of that fact? In short, Lopez’ take on “edgy” was one step up from a fart joke.

And yes, he told one of those as well – did you know that farting after eating Mexican food is a perfectly acceptable way of telling the cook how much you truly enjoyed “la comida?”

BUT THERE WERE a couple of moments that stick in my mind in a positive sense, one of which was at the very beginning when the camera crews panned out over the audience so that we television viewers could see that people of just about every racial or ethnic background in this country were present.

As Lopez stated it, THIS image is the America of the 21st Century.

And in this image, it probably only makes sense that a Latino gets a chance to make a third-rate talk show. It certainly wasn’t any more trite than some of the talk-show fare we see on television these days.

On a final note, let’s state for the record that the first person to be insulted by George Lopez as part of his talk show was one-time slugging pelotero Sammy Sosa.

LOPEZ JUST COULDN’T resist a chance to refer to Sosa’s recent skin treatment that, depending on the light, make it appear as though he is bleaching the color of his face.

Sammy, Sammy, Sammy.

You have to admit that you were less ridiculous when you were behaving like a real-life Chico Escuela back in the days when you were hitting all those home runs while leading your Chicago Cubs teams to their annual 90-loss seasons.

-30-

The fight's not over yet!

As anyone who has read my commentary knows, I am a supporter of the idea of health care reform.

The idea that so many people in our society are uninsured in the event of a serious medical problem is a situation that can drag down our society. It also is one that I have a hard time believing anyone could seriously be opposed to.

YET I AM realistic enough to know politically that there will always be opposition, particularly from people who want to be able to vote against anything even remotely tied to President Barack Obama (let alone his major government initiative for his first year in office).

Personally, I felt a mild bit of relief when I learned that a bill had actually managed to pass the House of Representatives. But I know that a measure also will have to make it through the Senate, changes are likely to be made, and the bills will have to be reconciled before anything can be sent to Obama for his final approval.

My point is that there are still many places in the political timeline where this concept could be sabotaged. The political fight is far from over. Nobody should be uncorking bottles of cheap champagne to celebrate a “victory” that more people in our society will be insured.

I must admit to one bit of surprise. When the measure finally went through the procedures Saturday that result in passage, there didn’t seem to be much in the way of immigrant-bashing taking place.

DOES THIS MEAN Republicans for a few minutes backed away from their insistence that anything resembling health care reform was really a scam just to get the U.S. government to pay for medical care for Mexican citizens?

I doubt it.

I’d like to think the real explanation is that when Republican representatives were confronted with the moment of truth of having to vote (for the record) “yes” or “no” on the measure, they chose to go with their semi-legitimate talking points – which would mean that even hard-core GOPers realize how ridiculous their claims are that health care reform would merely benefit the so-called “illegal aliens” of our society.

Either that, or reporter-types have come to realize that Republican officials saying nasty things about people born in other countries (particularly if those countries are in Latin America) is just so routine that it no longer qualifies as newsworthy.

SERIOUSLY, I COULDN’T find much of anything in the way of Sunday morning reports and analysis that addressed how the House health care reform measure addressed the issue, if it chose to at all.

That would be the ideal, realizing that trying to make concessions to people who want to demonize the immigration reform issue does nothing to benefit public policy and only risks offending the growing Latino population of our nation.

Not that Democrats weren’t willing to dump on some people. Much was made of the fact that the health care reform advocates putting together the bill did give in to demands from the anti-abortion types who want to make sure that anyone who has to rely on a government-supported health insurance plan will not have access to medical procedures that even hint at terminating a pregnancy.

It was those measures that literally caused the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to endorse the final package that came up for a vote before the House this past weekend.

IT ALSO MEANS that some of the people who voted for Obama a year ago out of a belief that he was a liberal change are now going to see this as a sign he sold them out by giving in to the anti-abortion advocates.

But there wasn’t immediate evidence he sold out immigration advocates.

So did the president pick Latinos over women? Or is it likely that the immigration crackpots who want to believe Obama tells lies when he says health care reform is not just a scam to pay for non-citizen medical care will try to tack their harmful amendments onto the bill when it comes up for consideration in the Senate?

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Be patient, por favor

My "technical" difficulties are not fully resolved. But I'm also not anxious to just leave this weblog (and its sister site) sitting unattended.

Hence, there will be periodic commentary, although not the daily routine you regular readers have come to expect. I hope to resume that daily schedule as soon as possible.

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It's not laziness, just computer problems

I am experiencing computer problems that prevented me from filing the standard commentary readers of this weblog would have expected for Friday. As of now, I have yet to resolve these problems, but hope to do so as soon as is possible.

So I plan to go back to filing commentary meant to make you think (and occasionally annoy you) in the very near future. Please come back.

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Rivera faces tough critics - a pair of abuelitas

I'm not about to declare longtime broadcaster Geraldo Rivera to be some sort of exceptional Latino pundit, but that does seem to be the direction he's trying to take his career that will soon be entering its fifth decade.

Rivera has a pair of books he wrote in recent years to try to give himself a voice on the issues related to the significant growth of the Latino population in this country -- "His-Panic" and "The Great Progression."

THE FORMER TRIES to show how ridiculous most of the arguments made against Latinos truly are, while the second tries to show how much our society will benefit by accepting the Latino population increase.

Neither book goes all that deep, but I couldn't help but get my kick from this particular book review of Rivera's latter tome.

Published by the San Antonio Express-News (http://www.mysanantonio.com/entertainment/books/63960067.html) newspaper, the review is worth reading. Of course, any time one can get two abuelitas to go at it, the end result can be intriguing.

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They’ll take our money, but do they want us in the stands?

The National Basketball Association as a whole is stepping up its efforts to try to sway the growing Latino population of this nation into being fans of professional basketball, yet there are times when I wonder how many of these team owners are doing so with a clothespin clamped onto their nostrils.

The story is starting to get around about the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers. One of the sorrier franchises in professional basketball, owner Donald T. Sterling recently settled a lawsuit related to his real estate interests.

IT SEEMS THAT the team owner also owns a series of apartment buildings. His critics say he engaged in rental practices that were meant to discourage black people and Latinos from living in his buildings.

In some cases, Sterling’s staff refused to accept checks for rent payment, then tried to claim that the Latino or black tenants should be evicted for non-payment of rent.

Not that he was offering up housing for “whites only.” It seems that Sterling, according to reports in the LA Weekly newspaper, preferred to market his buildings as residences for people of Korean ethnic backgrounds.

He did this, the newspaper reported, because he sensed that Korean immigrants would be more accepting of substandard conditions and would not generate complaints the way that black and Latino people might.

THERE’S ALSO THE little tidbit from the original lawsuit filed earlier in this decade – one that quotes Sterling as saying that Latinos, “smoke, drink and just hang around the building.” Gee, I never realized it was a criminal act to stay at home.

Of course, would he or people with this kind of mentality have used reverse logic, saying that if they had left their homes, they were just going out to cause trouble?

Now I know in theory that Sterling’s real estate dealings have little to nothing to do with his ownership of a professional sports franchise. And I also realize that the settlement he negotiated to bring to an end a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles did not require him to admit to any guilt.

So there is no piece of paper that says he discriminated against black people or Latinos. But he does have to pay a fine of $2.725 million – which is a record-high fine for a case involving housing discrimination.

I DOUBT THE federal government could have pressured such a large settlement if there wasn’t some substance to the complaints against Sterling.

But it just makes me wary to read about such activity taking place among the ownership at a time when the NBA is trying follow the lead of many other sports leagues in seeking fan support from the Latino population.

In the case of the NBA, they’re developing a theme called ène-bè-a, which is meant to be a phonetic spelling of the Spanish pronounciation of the letters N-B-A.

It is the theme of the Spanish-language portion of the league’s website, and also is a marketing campaign that lets people know of the goings on of the six Latinos and 19 Latin American- or Spanish-born players in the NBA these days.

IN SHORT, THEY’RE trying to make it clear that Latin American athletes in this country aren’t solely playing baseball – although 25 players with Latino ethnicity is a far cry from the nearly 40 percent of Major League Baseball players who are either Latino (which is U.S.-born, for those of you who are clueless) or born in a Latin American country.

But is this one of those cases where certain teams are going to gain reputations for being less hospitable to the vision of the future than others?

It would not be unheard of.

In baseball, the Boston Red Sox to this day get some grief for being the last major league team to have black ballplayers (although the Philadelphia Phillies weren’t that far behind them). Both teams preferred to think of themselves as all white into the late 1950s – even after it was clear that black ballplayers (and darker-skinned Latin Americans) were here to stay.

THEN, THERE’S FOOTBALL, where the Washington Redskins’ ownership into the 1960s remained hard-core against black athletes, and only acquiesced when integration of the Redskins (that nickname is an issue of offense that we can discuss another day) would be a condition of their being allowed to play in the federal government-owned D.C. Stadium (later renamed for Robert F. Kennedy).

This is the potential category in which Sterling could be placing himself – the NBA equivalent of George Preston Marshall.

It’s not exactly the kind of environment I could picture many Latinos spending their money at.

Then again, perhaps the best revenge is one that is settled on the playing field. Perhaps the proper response for Latinos is not to reject the NBA, just the Clippers. It just means we’ll all have to be just like the rest of Southern California and root, root, root for the Los Angeles Lakers.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: One can argue that the Los Angeles Clippers are such an insignificant basketball franchise (http://blogs.laweekly.com/ladaily/city-news/clippers-owner-allegedly-didnt/) that it really doesn’t matter what their owner thinks about ethnic relations.

The National Basketball Association as a whole (http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=115670) wants our money.

Who didn’t support whom?

The Senate last week passed one of their purely symbolic resolutions – one that proved to have more symbolism than was originally intended.

The resolution at stake was a resolution that officially declared last week (the final week of October) to be National Hispanic Media Week. It was meant to be a sop of respect toward the roughly 800 Spanish-language newspapers and 550 Spanish-language magazines, all based in the United States.

THE SENATE PASSED the resolution, which noted that Spanish-language publications generated more than $1.4 billion in revenue last year. In short, it is a significant business interest, and one that shows the degree to which the Latino population is a significant market for business interests to appeal to.

Now the only reason this particular resolution has gained any lasting attention is because all of its support came from the 60 members of the Senate who happen to be Democrats.

This was one piece of symbolism that Republican members of the U.S. Senate wouldn’t touch with a 3.3-meter pole.

Some pundits already are trashing the GOP for not being willing to cast a “yes” vote in favor of a measure that didn’t do anything solid, and was a mere gesture of support to a business interest that is part of the growing Latino population.

I’LL AGREE WITH those pundits in thinking it is sad that not even a lone GOP senator or two could find it within themselves to cast a vote in favor of this symbolic resolution.

And I’m going to look down upon those who will claim that Republicans ought not to be thinking about supporting such measures, because Latinos aren’t exactly supportive of GOP interests these days.

The fact is that this has the potential to become the ultimate “pollo y huevo” argument (a.k.a., chicken and egg). Do Republican politicos refuse to support Latinos, or is it Latinos who won’t support GOP political people?

I have always believed that many of the Latin American newcomers to this country could have been had by the Republicans, particularly the ones to whom the Catholic church and its morals prevail in their thoughts on social issues.

ONE OUGHT TO consider the number of Latin American nations where abortion is a criminal act and where the idea of gay rights also borders on criminal to realize that there are parts of the Americas outside the United States where the most conservative Republicans would feel completely at home.

I always thought that if the Republican Party had any true sense, it would have taken the lead on trying to reform the nation’s immigration laws to make it possible for the masses already here to stay in the United States. They’d gain voters for life, and possibly never lose an election again.

Instead, the social conservatives let their ethnic hang-ups get the best of them.

It is what has turned off many Latinos to the Republican Party, and is what has made many of us “Democrats by Default.”

THESE HANG-UPS HAVE become so intense that they can’t even bring themselves to vote for a resolution that, if we can be honest, is rather trivial. Society as we know it did not come to an end because last week was National Hispanic Media Week.

All Republican officials managed to do with this incident was make themselves look – in the eyes of Latinos – just a bit more petty than usual.

As for those who will argue that Republican officials should not be supporting things that are in the interest of their opposition, I’d argue they’re the opposition because the GOP has made no attempt to gain us among their supporters.

Besides, I always thought one of the “rules” of electoral politics is that it was the job of the candidate to make people want to vote for him (or her).

SO SHOULDN’T IT be the role of GOP candidates to explain how they would benefit our interests – and occasionally even throw us a purely symbolic gesture?

If they’re not willing to do that, as is the case in this instance, then neither I nor anyone else is all that interested in hearing the GOP whine about how the growing Latino population is going to provide a mass of votes for Democratic candidates for years to come.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Pure symbolism appears to be beyond the ability of Republican (http://news.ncmonline.com/news/view_article.html?article_id=67ff17c41341d3cf253805269bb1f6ef) political people to show the least bit of support to the growing Latino population.

School kids may educate parents about the Census

It will be interesting to see what comes of the “Census in Schools” program that Census Bureau officials plan to kick off on Monday in an effort to bolster the number of people who actually cooperate with the effort next year to count the nation’s population.

Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and Census Director Robert M. Groves will be at the Digital Harbor High School in Baltimore to show off their new program, which consists of a curriculum for many subjects that manage to include plugs for the significance of the 2010 Census.

OFFICIALS SAY THE program is meant for all grades from kindergarten through high school, and for all subjects – not just social studies. They say they’d like to think that 56 million students at 118,000 schools will be exposed to the program.

On the surface, it doesn’t make much sense.

Teaching second-graders (including my two nieces, Meira and Jessica) about the Census may be a noble gesture, but I wonder how much will stick in their minds.

And somehow, when the Census Bureau form shows up at homes across the nation next spring so that people can count how many live there on April 1, 2010, I doubt many of these children (even the ones in high school) will be the ones with access to the mail.

IN SHORT, I doubt there will be many kids bothering to fill out the Census Bureau form.

What a gesture like this is about is somehow getting the idea of the Census (rather than any specifics) into the minds of the youth of America, in hopes that they go home and pound into their parents the significance of allowing oneself to be counted.

As I have written on many other occasions, being counted by the Census Bureau is acknowledgement that one exists.

So if it takes a little nagging from the kid in the family to encourage a parent to give that Census form a second look next spring, if even one parent bothers to fill out the form because their kid helped explain it to them, then perhaps this initiative is worthwhile.

WHAT I FIND interesting about this effort by the Census Bureau as a whole is that it is merely a large-scale effort of what I have heard occurring in certain municipalities across the nation.

I know of one Chicago suburb where municipal officials are considering sending notices to one particular elementary school in town. Those notices would be a bilingual explanation of the significance of the Census.

The point of that effort is that the one school is in the part of town that has the bulk of that town’s Latino population, and municipal officials are thinking that a “note from school” will be looked at more closely than a municipal mailing – you know, the notices that once we figure out they’re not bills get tossed in the trash without a second thought.

Now this particular school-oriented effort by the Census Bureau itself is not focused on boosting the Latino population count – although the bureau is undertaking several initiatives to make sure as many Latinos as possible are counted.

BUT ANYTHING THAT encourages people to quit being paranoid and give us an honest count of how many people really live in this country (whether U.S. citizen or not, all it claims to be is a count of how many are here at a specific moment in time) is a good thing.

And who’s to say that some lesson taught now won’t stick in the mind of some youngster when they become adults. Perhaps a Census lesson now will ensure that compiling a population count in 2040 will be just a tad easier.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Although starting in Maryland, officials ultimately hope to have schools (http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/2010_census/014406.html) in all 50 states cooperate with an initiative to educate school kids about the Census.