What says ¡Feliz Cumpleaños! better than a piñata

The piñata has come a long way in recent years from the birthdays of my youth some four-plus decades ago.

I can recall the multi-colored paper mache figures made to look (sort of) like donkeys, or multi-pointed stars. While it seems that some people stick to such images when trying to liven up a party with a piñata (what can be more fun than blindfolding someone, then handing them a club?), it seems like some people get ever so elaborate.

STAR WARS PIÑATAS (Darth Vader’s head!). A guitar with Miley Cyrus’ picture on it. Even piñatas meant to look like every child’s favorite Latina, Dora the Explorer.

It seems like a lot of effort to put into creating something whose sole purpose is to be smashed to pieces, thereby causing a lot of little kids to charge forward in hopes of gaining a few pieces of candy that will give them their next sugar rush.

Personally, I have only a couple of memories from childhood related to piñatas. One was of a party I attended when I was about three years old. Somebody ahead of me smashed the piñata. I charged forward along with a lot of other kids.

Yet I remember being too slow or too small. All the candy got scooped up before I could get to it. It sticks in my mind because it is the earliest memory I have in life of being disappointed.

THEN, THERE WAS the high school Spanish class project where we were supposed to pair up with others in class and make piñatas. Ours was a bright red creature that wound up looking something like a deformed earthworm.

Any lasting delusions I might have had of being some sort of artist were driven out of me by then.

Perhaps it is a sign that elements of Latin American (particularly Mexican) culture are working their way into our society that we now get very untraditional images for pinatas. All the Disney characters that one can buy a piñata for were definitely NOT the creation of any Mexicanos I know.

As far as the images of political parties and government officials that can be found in piñatas, that definitely strikes me as being bizarre. I might have disagreed with Rudy Giuliani’s actions and statements throughout the years, but I have to wonder about anyone who would actually purchase this particular item.

TO ME, A party is where you forget about politics and troubles and try to relax – not make some statement by smashing Giuliani over the head (I hate to think that will become of all those Barack Obama piñatas that are advertised).

So what brought on this reminisce of piñatas?

It is that I have managed to survive for yet another year on Planet Earth. So even though I have no plans for Tuesday to smash anything with a club, I felt an informal commentary on the Mexican way to liven up a party (at least that’s how a piñata was described in that dreadful 1970 western Two Mules for Sister Sara, which featured a mule-shaped piñata laced with dynamite) was the way to go.

I’m also going to take the time to point out that people such as Frank Robinson, Eldridge Cleaver and Julius Caesar allegedly shared my date of birth (although not the exact year), as did Jerry Allison – as in Buddy Holly’s original drummer with The Crickets.

I BRING THAT up because I know for a fact that those columns that tell you what “celebrities” were born on your birthday always tell me that my date of birth is shared by actor Richard Gere and one-time teenage pop singer Deborah Gibson (who is almost as old as I am).

Ugh! With the exception of his role in the 2002 film based on the musical “Chicago,” I can’t think of any recent Richard Gere film I’d want to see.

Then again, if we could get a Gere-shaped piñata, or at least one shaped like that dreadful 1997 film of his, “Red Corner,” perhaps that would be worth smashing to pieces.

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It’s about nothing more than trying to rewrite someone else’s legacy in history

Listening to broadcaster Glenn Beck and political dreamer Sarah Palin lead a group of ideologues into trying to believe that God only likes people who are exactly like them (not that they don’t believe that already) makes me wonder what the followup event will be.

The event held Saturday at the site in Washington where slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., gave his “I Have a Dream” speech made me think that this was an attempt to undermine that memory, and perhaps turn the site near the Lincoln Memorial into the spot where Glenn Beck once spoke. Although I don’t expect decades from now that anyone will issue a stamp memorializing Beck or Palin the way they did for King.

IT IS ABOUT trying to take a legacy that seriously undermines their cause, and try to divert it into something that could support their warped way of viewing the world.

In short, what the conservatives ideologues tried to do to the memory of Martin Luther King Jr. this past weekend is remarkably similar to what some in their ranks have tried to do in recent months to Cesar Chavez.

The founder of the United Farm Workers union occasionally gets quoted these days when nativist ideologues feel like digging up Chavez’ remarks about immigration policy.

Chavez had his problem with people coming here from other countries to work, send money back to their homeland, then return there someday themselves, although anyone who seriously reads what he said will realize he had no problem with the idea of someone wanting to come to this country to have a new life – provided they were determined to set up their permanent home in this country.

IT IS TRUE that a selective reading of Chavez can twist his words to make him sound like a nativist baboso.

But it is also true that the people who do that are guilty of twisting the truth, similar to the job that was done on the King legacy in Washington on Saturday.

Because the factor that made Chavez, a California-born man of Mexican ethnic origins, suspicious of his ethnic brethren was the willingness of the corporations he often fought against during his life to use foreign nationals in this country as scab labor.

That’s right. When the workers threatened to go on strike, these corporate types would look for foreign labor to fill the jobs. Not only did it keep their companies going and reduce the financial losses somewhat, it probably also was demeaning to some of these workers that a “foreigner” came in and took their job – even for a little while.

CHAVEZ RIGHTFULLY SAW that these unvisaed laborers were ripe for exploitation, and he wasn’t against those people as much as he was opposed to the way corporate America would want to use them for their own financial gain.

Whereas the modern-day ideologues who are quick to lap up a few selective words of “wisdom” from Chavez (while spending the rest of their time denouncing him as a “communist” and a rabble-rouser, similar to the way King was talked about by allegedly-polite society during his lifetime) are the ones who view the problem as being the workers – not the corporate entities.

I suspect that Chavez, if he were still alive today, would have made the leap to realize that the way to prevent these non-visaed workers from undermining the rest of the workforce in this country would be to push for real immigration reform – largely because it would undermine the reasons why some companies prefer to hire them (ie., they’re cheap labor who won’t complain when their rights as workers are violated).

Chavez’ interest was in the plight of the actual worker. Too many of the people who want to now use him to undermine immigration reform are interested in the companies who would prefer to dump on the workers.

IT IS BECAUSE of this attitude toward Chavez that I must admit to feeling something in the way of sympathy for those who view the Beck/Palin rally in Washington as an attempt to hijack the King legacy, because I know there are those who would like to do the same with Chavez.

Because of all the rhetoric that I heard spewed on Saturday, there was really only one line that struck me as being honest. And in all fairness, I must admit it came from the mouth of Sarah Palin.

It was her line that went, “I must assume that you too know we must not fundamentally transform America, as some would want. We must restore America and restore her honor.”

By “restore,” she means returning to a time when some people in our society were supposed to accept it as mere fact that they were second-class citizens, and others were just supposed to accept the idea that they didn’t exist in this country.

WHICH MEANS HER idea of “restore” entails many people leaving, even though they are a part of our society. Which ultimately, in my mind, makes events such as what happened in Washington this weekend nothing more than evidence of how delusional the ideologues truly are.

They can’t seem to accept the early 21st Century, and seem to think that if they shout loud enough that everybody will believe we’re back in the early 19th.

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Obama deportation “reform” faces fight within

The mood among many Latino activists these days is that one of the reasons they are “disappointed” with President Barack Obama is because he is continuing immigration policies held over from the George Bush days.

All too often, an angry activist will engage in a rant about how Obama is deporting more people than Jorge Bush himself ever did.

WHICH IS WHY I found a pair of stories published Friday in the Washington Post to be interesting.

The Post reports that Obama wants to move the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency in the direction of reducing the number of people it keeps in custody while they await deportation proceedings. The newspaper also published a separate story about how disgusted many ICE staffers are with the direction they think their agency is being taken by the Obama administration.

It seems like this is becoming yet another instance where Obama can’t win, no matter what he does.

The activists (many of whom voted for him) think he isn’t doing enough to help their cause, while the federal officials (some of whom probably didn’t vote for him) think he’s going too far with trying to offer help to the growing Latino population.

AS OBAMA SEES it, what he wants is for the Immigration officials to focus their attention on those people who are among the so-called 12 million living in this country without citizenship or a valid visa who actually pose a threat to our society.

Which as he defines it are those people from other countries who came here to try to cover up their criminal background. Or those people who come here and start engaging in criminal behavior in this country.

What he is not as concerned about are those people who are going out of their way to live their lives in the shadows and are just trying to work as hard as they can so they can earn as much money as possible to try to advance themselves in life.

He sees the situation by which people whom Immigration managed to fluke their way into finding through some raid and are now being incarcerated while awaiting deportation proceedings as being non-threatening to our society.

WHICH MEANS HIS policy desires is something along the line of treating such people the same way we treat those who face charges for minor criminal offenses – they don’t have to post any bond while their cases are pending in the court system.

Now I know that idea bothers those people who want to view these people as criminals just by their very existence north of the Rio Bravo del Norte/Rio Grande. Even though fact is that a visa violation is a civil offense, not criminal.

Which means that they have done something that is even more minor than many of the drug-related and other criminal offenses that people are allowed to walk out of court for without having to post any bond.

It would be a significant step forward if we were to start distinguishing among the individuals who face immigration violations, rather than trying to lump them into one terrifying mass.

INSOFAR AS THE idea that the Immigration staffers don’t approve, it does not surprise me.

I have been a reporter-type person for a long-enough time period to know there often is a difference of thought between the people who run government agencies (who are appointed by the chief executive who won the most recent election) and the staffers who operate the departments within an agency – and who often can recite the number of administrations under which they worked.

They usually think more in terms of the procedural moves, instead of worrying about the ideology inspired by the work they do. Of course, it also can create people who can’t see the big picture beyond their agency, because they get caught up in its minutia.

But it seems, according to the Washington Post, that we have an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency that was created during the Bush years (to replace the old Immigration and Naturalization Service) to think in terms of removing people from this country out of a sense that they imposed a threat to national security.

NOW THAT THEY'RE being told that keeping some of those visa violators incarcerated in jails across the country while they await their deportation hearings is somehow flawed has become a challenge to the way they go about their jobs.

Could this be evidence that Obama is somehow coming to his senses and realizing which side is more likely to support him in the future (particularly the U.S. citizen ethnic brethren of those visa violators)?

I’m not convinced that these actions will appease the Latino activists and others with an interest in serious immigration reform.

But it will be interesting to realize that people who theoretically are our opposition also are upset with Obama because they think he’s being too nice to us.

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¿What is a Mexican?

It is usually a sign of how ignorant some people can be. They dismiss every Latino they encounter as being “Mexican.”

The latest such incident involved a homicide in Baltimore. A 51-year-old man who came to this country from Honduras is now dead. He was viciously beaten.

THE PERSON WHO is now in police custody because of this incident gave law enforcement officials a statement about how he did this because he “hates Mexicans.”

Probably anybody who tried to point out to this person the error of his ways would get nothing but his contempt, and not just because officials say this particular person may be mentally unstable to the point where he might not be found guilty of a crime.

Not that state-ordered detainment in a mental hospital is any picnic for this man.

But it is not just the unstable who want to view the Latino mass as nothing more than a mass, one that bears the Mexican label because it is the nearest Latin American nation to the United States. Although I wonder if this had happened in New York, if this person would be claiming he “hates Puerto Ricans.”

ONE TENDS TO hate what they’re most exposed to.

I’m not about to go on a diatribe about the differences in various ethnicities – of which there are so many that comprise the Latino grouping. Because the people who go out of their way to ignore the differences are too far gone to want to hear anything logical.

But it was this same mentality that was exposed recently when Chicago White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen made comments about how the team has managed to hurt itself in recent weeks with some key blown ballgames.

He said he expected some “fans” would merely blame it on the “crazy f----ng Mexican” who manages the team.

THE REACTION TO that comment has been one of confusion. Some people don’t get why Ozzie, who comes from Venezuela, would refer to himself as a Mexican. Some are saying it is a sign that Guillen himself is confused and doesn’t even know what he is.

I read Guillen’s comments and realize he is mocking those people who are criticizing him, saying they are the types who just dismiss him as a Latino, and don’t even have the sense to get the labels right. I actually thought it was kind of funny.

But in Chicago sports circles, it is living on among people who probably don’t realize they were the very target of Guillen’s diatribe.

These are just a couple of moments that have cropped up in the news in recent weeks about a point that often causes Latinos to laugh at the masses who can’t (or don’t want to) make any ethnic distinctions.

YOU THINK YOU are insulting us? I’d enjoy seeing your reaction if you ever found out just how much in return we are mocking you for your cluelessness.

There is one bit of positiveness in all of this. In Baltimore, nobody seems to be taking this particular man’s ethnic justification of his attack on a Honduran as a justifiable reason for his actions. Be honest. Anybody who knows their history will acknowledge there have been moments in our past where his words would have been accepted, and he might very well be free.

Or at most, facing a relatively minor charge.

So where do we go from here? I do believe that Latinos themselves have a bit of explaining to do about ourselves.

PERHAPS WE OUGHT to be a little more specific about our own ethnic origins, instead of trying to turn all of Latin America into one mass. When one considers that it is the Spanish language itself that is the only commonality to these nations, it is erroneous to think of us as one.

As for those of us who have multiple Latin American ethnicities in their backgrounds, the idea of saying that one is a mixture of Mexican, Puerto Rican and Salvadoran (for example) sounds as sensible as those people who claim to be German, Dutch and a touch of Cherokee Indian (if they feel like making themselves sound exotic).

Not that there aren’t similarities. But many of those aspects are also things that Latin American nations have in common with the United States.

We are, after all, a part of the Americas. One mass of two continents filled with people.

IF YOU REALLY must know the truth, I get more offended by those people in the United States who try to use the word “America” as though it belongs only to this country than any nitwit who tries to label all Latinos as “Mexicans.”

But that “America” issue is one best discussed another day.

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They don’t look like criminals to me

Seventy-two people found dead, shot to pieces. From the looks of things, it seems that most – if not all – were people from Latin American nations who were hoping for that better life that can exist in the United States.

Yet to listen to the nativist-inspired rhetoric that is being given too much credence these days, these people are criminals by their very existence. All because they desired that chance at a better quality of life that is promised by the United States.

I WONDER IF that means there are people out there who think that these 72 (58 men, 14 women) somehow got what they deserved, and that somehow we ought to be thankful these individuals never made it as far as the U.S./Mexico border – let alone north of it into los Estados Unidos.

It was with a slight touch of sadness that I read the reports that came out Wednesday about all the bodies that were found when law enforcement in Mexico conducted a raid on a ranch in Tamaulipas – one of the northernmost Mexican states that borders against Texas.

Reports indicate that this site may be just one of many that exist where the bodies get dumped, and that officials may find many more sites. Who knows how high the death toll will go?

Investigators say they believe the bodies were of people from assorted central and South American nations who wanted to go to the United States, and were using a route that took them through Mexico in order to get to our nation. The fact that they made it as far as Tamaulipas and were only about 100 miles from Brownsville, Texas (less than the distance between Chicago and Milwaukee) means their physical journey was nearly complete when they died.

IT SEEMS THAT the investigators think that the people found in this particular stash of bodies were killed by the smugglers who were hired to try to get them across the border. It is believed that the smugglers made a sudden demand for more money.

When the people who were trying to come here were unable to pay (most likely because they had already coughed up every penny they had to these smugglers), the smugglers decided that the easiest way to deal with the situation was to kill them.

For what it is worth, that perspective comes from the fact that one of the bodies found was actually still a living, breathing body of a man who came from Ecuador. Left for dead but managing to survive, he was able to tell authorities what had happened to him and people he was with.

What has yet to be determined was whether these 72 were a massive bloodbath by human traffickers, or whether this was just a dumping ground of bodies that accumulated over time.

AS FAR AS I am concerned, it is yet another piece of evidence that the real criminals when it comes to the flow of people across the U.S./Mexico border are the smugglers – both those who help them get into the United States and those who prey on them once they get here.

Yet there are those who want to believe it is the people themselves who are the criminal element. All I know is that such sentiment seems so misguided. Although I know there are those people who will want to ignore this latest incident – along with any other stashes of bodies that turn up – and claim they somehow brought it upon themselves.

One other aspect of this story makes it all the more pathetic. It seems these smugglers are getting into the business of moving people across the border because of all the added pressure they’re getting from Mexican authorities in recent years related to narcotics trafficking.

There also is the fact that people themselves in Mexico are taking a tougher line toward these drug gangs. So the criminal element is reacting violently – which usually is the sign of a thug.

“THIS ACT CONFIRMS that criminal organizations are looking to kidnapping and extortion because they are going through a difficult time obtaining resources and recruiting people willingly,” government spokesman Alejandro Poirè told the New York Times.

Could it be that Mexican authorities, whom some in this country want to dismiss as being supportive of a drug culture, are having some impact on the problem?

It may be so. What definitely is so is that there are 72 people now dead in Mexico for whom I can say there is only one advantage to their fate – they won’t have to endure the harassment from those in our country who would be ever so eager (and ignorant) to write them off as a criminal element, just because they wanted to come here and do the dirty work that keeps us going as a society.

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There’s just no pleasing some people

Bopping about the Internet on Tuesday made me realize that some people are just determined to be miserable.

The subject matter for today’s observations is the Miss Universe pageant held Monday night. It would seem that those people with a conservative ideological bent are determined to see this year’s eye candy show put on by Donald Trump as more evidence that something has gone drastically wrong with our society.

FIRST, THE UNITED States was represented by a woman of Lebanese ethnic background who also is a practicing Muslim (going so far as to fast for Ramadan). There were those earlier this year who considered that all wrong, although I wonder how much they were appeased when – in recent days – she came out and criticized her religious colleagues who back the proposed mosque in Manhattan that would be so close to the one-time site of the World Trade Center.

Then, she doesn’t even finish in the Top 15 of the pageant, which winds up being won by Miss Mexico.

Jimena Navarrete Rosete gets to be Miss Universe for the upcoming year, a fact that already has the ideologues getting all bent out of shape on various sites on the Internet where people go to illogically discuss things.

Admittedly, there seem to be three trains of thought when it comes to the Miss Universe pageant (which has other trains of controversy, such as whether that Baldwin brother judge deliberately tripped up Miss Philippines by asking her a trick question).

ONE COMES FROM those people of Latin American ethnic backgrounds other than Mexican, particularly those who come from places such as Puerto Rico or Venezuela where the local officials have created organizations meant to bolster the home reputation by pushing the idea that they can win beauty pageants. They think they got robbed.

Then, there are those of Mexican background who are seeing this purely symbolic victory as being the equivalent of a “Drop Dead” to every nitwit who in recent months has spewed hateful rhetoric about immigration reform. I have read a lot of statements that are the equivalent of besa mi culo, only most are even more vulgar than that phrase.

But yes, we’re also getting those people who are convinced that someone is making a “politically correct” statement by naming Miss Mexico to this post. It is meant to undermine the way they want to view the world. “How else could a mere Mexican win anything?,” is what they want to think.

Probably the most humorous response along these lines was one person (anonymous, of course) who wrote, “it’s too bad Miss Arizona wasn’t there. She would have wanted Miss Mexico kicked out of the Universe.”

BUT THERE ARE also websites filled with comments that suggest Navarrete is involved with narcotics trafficking, that she is historic because she is, “the first Mexican to ever be pretty in history,” and even comments that manage to take chimichangas and tacos and turn them into the subject of sexual innuendo.

Some people are just determined to take what should be a trivial moment and a one-time newspaper photograph of a woman bursting into tears as a tiara is put on her head and turn it into something ugly.

There are times when the commentary on this weblog has taken an angry tone. Largely it has been in direct reaction to the nastiness of those people whose hangups have them all upset over the trend of our society – where Latinos aren’t going to be a “minority” by any means.

On this issue, that nasty overtone almost makes me feel sorry for their sad existence. In large part because the population trends are such that no matter how nasty their rhetoric is today, this is an issue that is already resolved. They lost. Listening to such nasty comments comes across as whining and sour grapes on their part.

FOR THE RECORD, Navarrete gets a package of prizes that includes clothing and shoes, a diamond tiara to keep, a scholarship that will pay for acting lessons, and my own favorite part of the deal – she gets to live in New York for the next year in a luxury apartment.

Yes, there are those people on the Internet who are ranting about yet another Mexican being able to get into the United States (as though they wouldn’t have had any problem if runner-up Miss Jamaica had won?) It’s so ridiculous that it almost covers up the hatred being spewed. Which may have made her comments related to immigration reform and Arizona all the more appropriate.

Navarrete said she respects the right of a nation to “impose and enact” their own laws, but said, “I tell you that all the Mexicans and the Latins that are living here in the United States are hardworking people, people who want to improve on their quality of life.”

Perhaps people should listen to the Lady from Guadalajara (the home city of my maternal grandfather), who says she intends to spend the next year unofficially promoting her home nation, in addition to her official “cause” promoting awareness of AIDS/HIV.

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Is McCain Budweiser boycott going too far?

There is a call for a boycott taking place Monday that I could easily endorse, for the mere fact that I have never cared much for Anheuser-Busch beer products. Finding some other brand of cerveza to drink is something I do, even without any effort to make it into a political cause.

But a part of me wonders if the Budweiser boycott that was called for by the group Somos America has the potential to trivialize the issue more than anything.

THE LATINO ACTIVIST group wants all Latinos in Arizona to not drink any products distributed by Hensley & Co. The significance of that move is that the distributorship is the source of income for the woman who had hopes of being our first lady – Cindy McCain.

As in the spouse of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who in his political actions of late has made it clear that any sympathy he ever once held for the Latino community and its newcoming members to this country is gone. He was put in a position where he had to choose between the Latinos or the nativists, and he picked them.

In all fairness, I must admit that this is a free country. If he prefers to associate with “them,” that is his choice.

But it is equally true that we also have a right to associate with whom we want to, or don’t want to. Which means people wishing to come up with ways to show McCain that we are dissatisfied with his actions and political rhetoric of late are just as justified as McCain is in picking which side he is on.

IT DOES NOT bother me that Latinos in Arizona are deciding they’d rather not spend their cash in a way that helps enrich someone who isn’t their friend.

It’s just that I wonder if this is now going to become some sort of trivialized attack that focuses around beer, instead of on issues such as the need for immigration reform.

I’m wondering how long it will be until someone decides this is somehow an attack on the manufacturers of Budweiser and all its sister beer beverages. I also wonder how many other people are like me – we don’t drink Budweiser because it doesn’t have any real taste to it.

Like I wrote earlier, it will be easy for me to not drink such products, particularly since I’m not aware of anyone in my Midwestern U.S. location that gets its Bud from her distributorship. Now if this were an attack on the Jackson family – as in the sons of Rev. Jesse Jackson – that might be different, since his son Yusef owns one of the largest Bud beer distributorships in the Chicago area.

SPECIFICALLY, SOMOS AMERICA says its justification for a boycott is the fact that Hensley & Co. has made significant financial contributions to people who supported the Arizona Legislature’s attempt to impose a law giving local police greater authority to intervene on behalf of federal immigration law enforcement.

Which really means that Hensley & Co. is likely behaving in a manner befitting an Arizona-based business; they’re giving money to the political establishment in hopes of, if not quite gaining influence, at least ensuring that someone will try to prevent bad things from happening to them.

Which also makes me wonder if some people are going to wind up perceiving the Somos America boycott as being the equivalent of beating up on a woman. Don’t want to go after McCain? Smack his wife around a bit!

Some Arizona-based observers speculate that what this could be about is getting the owners of Anheuser-Busch to decide that they don’t like having their product’s name being dragged indirectly into this verbal brawl over immigration reform, and that somehow they might put pressure on the distributorship to “knock it off” when it comes to campaign contributions.

SOMEHOW, I CAN’T envision a Belgium-based conglomerate getting that concerned about this matter. I also can’t see how it could play out successfully. What would be the conservative ideologue reaction to the idea of a Belgian telling the wife of a U.S. senator what to do?

They probably would applaud her for standing up to them.

So while I can appreciate the idea of a boycott in trying to pressure business interests that the Latino population is growing and can have a serious economic impact if turned against them, I only see the trivial results of singling out this one business.

One which, I couldn’t help but notice on Monday, was using its website to tout the Budweiser ties of Mexican ranchera singer Vicente Fernandez and other ties to Latinos.

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Cinematic portrayals of Mexican revolution higher on drama than fact

My guess is that it is meant to be a cinematic tribute to Mexico.

Turner Classic Movies is citing this year as the 100th anniversary of the Mexican Revolution, which may have had its origins in 1910, but didn’t end until 1918 – which is the year most often cited by people looking for a quickie date to mark that moment.

BUT THIS ALSO is the time when Mexico approaches its Bicentennial. Sept. 16, 2010 will be the 200-year mark from the time when Mexico declared itself independent from Spain (although that nation didn’t acknowledge that fact until 1826).

So perhaps it is still good timing that the cable movie channel that likes to dig into the films of decades past decided to come up with films that were meant to show moments of the Mexican Revolution. Although looking at their list, I must confess that I only have seen one of the films on their list.

Anybody who thinks they’re going to learn anything serious about Mexican history from Viva Villa!, that 1934 film depicting Wallace Beery as Pancho Villa (and also including Fay Wray, as evidence that her career did not only consist of being held in King Kong’s grasp) had better think again.

My own memories of that film include the opening sequence that attempts to portray how a young Josè Doroteo Arango Aràmbula (who became the man known as Francisco “Pancho” Villa) became radicalized against the government after seeing his father flogged to death (100 lashes) for no legitimate reason.

THE FILM QUICKLY turns him into a man who, while holding some noble ideas about fighting for “the people” of Mexico, is also a skirt chaser and a lush. If this film had been made in the 1970s, John Belushi in all his “Bluto Blutarsky” glory would have been cast as Villa.

I’m not going to dump on Viva Villa for being historically inaccurate, since I understand that any film of just under two hours is going to have to condense and simplify the facts in order to avoid getting bogged down in detail that would lose the viewer.

It’s not like the passage of time has caused any greater detail to accuracy. Anybody who has ever seen the 1994 attempt by actor Jimmy Smits to star as The Cisco Kid (with Richard “Cheech” Marin as Pancho) knows that film doesn’t come close to conveying the reality of the French Intervention – that period from 1862-67 when France thought it could restore itself as having a presence in North America by merely repossessing Mexico.

Oddly enough, it was the revolutionary forces that fought off the French and drove them from Mexico that evolved into the government that Villa and his revolutionary cohorts felt the need to drive from power some 50 years later.

BUT IN VIVA Villa!, the ideological concerns of the revolution (a belief that the wealthy urban areas were advancing at the expense of the rural folks) are almost irrelevant. Even his raids on Columbus, N.M., which some people like to think of as a Mexican invasion on U.S. soil because it feeds into their ideas that a threat exists "South of the Border," gets short shrift.

I only hope people keep this in mind when they watch this particular film on Turner Classic Movies, which plans to air it on Sept. 26. Not that I’m saying that people can’t get some pleasure from watching these old films. I only hope people realize they’re not getting a history lesson.

Instead, they’re getting something about as accurate as the episode of The Simpsons where Bart watches a program about King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, when they’re suddenly attacked by Ninjas.

Which is why I probably will make an attempt to see a few of the films, although I will confess that some of them are more likely to be sought out by me on DVD rather than having to comply with the Turner Movie Classic channel programming schedule.

I SUPPOSE I should be ashamed to admit that I call myself something of a film buff, but have never actually seen the 1952 film Viva Zapata! With Marlon Brando and Anthony Quinn (a.k.a., Antonio Rodolfo Quinn Oaxaca). So if anybody knows where I can find a clean copy of Viva Zapata! (not all herky-jerky from countless decades of being mis-edited), I wouldn’t mind hearing from them.

As for the idea of Brando trying to play the part of a Mexican, his portrayal certainly couldn’t be any worse than that of Charlton Heston playing the part of a Mexican police detective in Touch of Evil – which is an interesting film despite that portrayal.

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How important is it to have Latinos on jury?

A man from El Salvador faces criminal charges in connection with the death of Chandra Levy, and his attorneys are fearing they’re going to get stuck with, if not quite a lilly-white jury, a panel that contains no Latinos.

Levy, of course, was the girl who was missing for a year and who ultimately was found dead. What caught the nation’s attention about her slaying is that it came out during the investigation that she was involved with a married Congressman from California.

GARY CONDIT, A California Democrat, ultimately turned out to be irrelevant to Levy’s disappearance and death. The intern with the Federal Bureau of Prisons was found in a park, and prosecutors say they think the man who now faces criminal charges was hanging around that particular park to seek women to attack.

In the case of this defendant, Ingmar Guandique, he came from El Salvador but he does not have a valid visa. Which means his arrest will eventually result in his deportation from the United States – unless he winds up getting a life prison term in this country.

For now, he is innocent until proven otherwise, and we’re approaching the point at which he will go on trial. Which is why his attorneys are worrying about jury composition.

They wanted the court to provide them with surnames of potential jurors so that someone could compare them to the 2000 Census results. They wanted to see how many of the people are Latino, and to what degree the Superior Court system for the District of Columbia was bothering to include Latinos in the jury selection process.

I CAN COMPREHEND their desire, since this case has the potential to stir up resentment. A case that was meant originally to take down a Democratic politician may now get twisted by the ideologues into something meant to take down the issue of immigration reform.

There are those who will try to turn Guandique as the prototypical person trying to get into the United States – someone who is just here to attack the women of our society. Which in its own sick, twisted way sounds like the kind of rhetoric the racist ideologues used to spout against black people – who supposedly just wanted to have white women.

Yet the judge in this case is rejecting the request, and I can comprehend his logic to a degree.

Not every person in this country who identifies themselves as Latino has that traditional Spanish name. There’s no guarantee that a person comparing names on lists is going to catch every Latino. They may wind up missing people.

YET I CAN’T help but wonder about the prosecution, which according to the Washington Post dismissed the interest in jury composition as a “delay tactic” and a “fishing expedition.”

Whether people want to accept it or not, this ethnic factor is one that must be taken into account. I only hope we don’t get the sight when the case finally goes to trial of a prosecution deliberately using its authority to exclude Latinos from the jury.

In fact, I suspect the defense’s tactic is more meant to put prosecutors on the spot on the off-chance that they were considering trying to keep Latinos out of the case. Even though they’re not going to be able to put together a list, in advance, of Latino jurors, they’ve made it clear this is something they will be looking at.

Which means they’ll have to determine a person’s ethnicity and how much it influences their character by the questioning process that takes place whenever a criminal case goes to trial.

BESIDES, SOME OF the loudest, most obnoxious, law-and-order types I have ever met are people of Mexican ethnic background. The defense team could go out of their way to put as many Latinos as they can find on the jury, only to find out that they are the ones most embarrassed by this type of conduct.

Which means they might feel an even stronger motivation to punish this baboso – assuming, of course, that prosecutors are able to prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

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Republicans getting too eager on social issues

The reality of this year’s election cycle is that Republican gains on Nov. 2 will be because the economy hasn’t rebounded fast enough under President Barack Obama, so some people are willing to put up with all the ideological “crazy talk” on social issues that is being spouted by the GOP.

The problem, it seems, is that too many people who identify with the Republican Party seem to think that it’s the ideological rhetoric that is winning them over voters. That's the kind of mentality that results in a lot of one-term Republicans getting dumped in 2012.

WHICH IS WHY I believe that all the immigration rhetoric being spewed this year is going to harm the party long-term. It is boxing the GOP into positions that are so counter to the direction our society is headed in the 21st Century.

It is in that light that I view the whole issue of whether or not it is appropriate to have a mosque as part of a Muslim community center located just a couple of blocks from the one-time site of the World Trade Center in New York City.

Republican partisans are claiming it to be a positive that some people are upset that Obama himself has shown some sympathy for the Islamic group that wants to develop the community center.

The Gallup Organization came up with their own poll – one which they headlined More Disapprove Than Approve of Obama Mosque Remarks.

FOR THE RECORD, 37 percent of those surveyed disapprove of the president’s stance, while only 20 percent approve. That’s nearly a 2-1 ratio. That’s not good.

EXCEPT …

It ought to be obvious that 37 plus 20 don’t come close to equalling 100 (as in percent). Another 41 percent of the public says it doesn’t know enough about the issue to say anything, while 2 percent insisted on saying nothing.

That is a lot of people who realize that there are more important things in life than to be obsessing about this issue. Life is too short to let the GOP partisans get us all worked up into a tizzy.

IF YOU WANT a realistic ratio, consider that its just over a 3-2 ratio of people who aren’t concerned about Obama’s comments, compared to those who want to demonize him for what he said.

Less than 40 percent, which fits into the general ratio of people who consider themselves to be the hard-core of the Republican Party these days. When put into that context, we ought to realize that this really is a parochial issue, one that is best for New York municipal officials to resolve. Only a New Yorker (actually, just a Manhattanite who probably grew up in a suburb) could think the whole country is supposed to care about this issue.

For me, the bottom line is that it is wrong to associate all people of the Muslim faith with any of the extremists who tried to use their religion as an excuse for their actions against the Western World back on Sept. 11, 2001.

Anybody with sense realizes this. Anybody with a truly craven approach to politics sees this as an issue that can be used to beat up on a group of people so as to encourage another group to turn out to the polls come Nov. 2.

I HAVE AN easier time than some people in perceiving this kind of rhetoric largely because it reeks of the same level of nonsense as all the trash talk being used when it comes to the issue of immigration reform.

Some people are just so determined to view those of us whose ethnic origins are from a Latin American nation as less-than-human, which is what offends those of us whose families have been in this country for generations – and in many cases longer than the people who are most vociferous about this kind of trash talk.

It seems at times that there are some people who are Republican because they perceive it as the white people’s political party. This, of course, comes at a time when the nation’s population is becoming less and less Eurocentric in character. Which makes me wonder if they’re isolating themselves into a rut from which they will not be able to escape.

That is why the more realistic of Republican partisans see a need to tone down the harsh rhetoric. It just gets too off-putting.

THE PERFECT EXAMPLE ought to be seen with regards to African-American people, who for generations were among the Republican Party’s base because they perceived it as the “Party of Lincoln” that freed the slaves.

But the decision in the 1960s to appeal to those people who had their hangups about civil rights chased away the bulk of the black vote for the GOP (although a few holdouts like Condoleezza Rice remain).

Which makes me wonder if the Republican approach to dealing with Latinos, Muslims, and just about anyone else who isn’t of a specific Christian religious denomination is to chase them out of the GOP before they can become a part of that particular party?

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Will a company of ballerinas lead U.S. into sensible ties w/ Cuba?

When Cuban officials later this year pay tribute to the founder of the national ballet company, U.S. officials will be on hand to acknowledge that the great Alicia Alonso was once among our nation’s cultural ranks.

The scene will be in November at the Havana International Ballet Festival, which pays tribute to the woman who helped create the official ballet in the early days of the regime of Fidel Castro. Among her experiences that made her uniquely qualified to creatre a national ballet company was that she had been a member in the 1940s of the American Ballet Theatre.

THAT COMPANY, BASED in New York, will be performing at the festival to acknowledge their one-time member, who turns 90 come December.

American Ballet officials said this week they will be making their first appearance in Havana since 1960 – which was the point in history when U.S./Cuba relations entered the bizarre state in which they still remain.

What makes this visit notable? It is that it likely is a test run for what could be U.S./Cuba policy for coming years.

The American Ballet Company went through a year’s worth of negotiations with the State Department to get permission to make this trip – because technically it is in violation of current restrictions against travel to Cuba by U.S. citizens and business entities.

BUT GOING ABOUT Washington these days is talk that President Barack Obama, who previously has expressed interest in moving toward normalized relations with Cuba, is planning to make changes in that direction.

Not that anybody should start planning their Cuban beach vacation yet or start making reservations at the one-time Havana Hilton. As reported by various news organizations, Obama envisions cultural exchanges by which U.S. entities could help influence their Cubano counterparts.

As though we’re trying to spread our knowledge all about the world. It may sound a bit arrogant if thought of in those terms, but I prefer to think of it as being a more sensible policy than the current outright ban that now exists.

Businesses would not be able to open offices in Havana, but they would be allowed to set up partnerships with those in their industries. Sports teams would not have to go through as much of a legal ordeal as they would now if they wanted to play matches in Cuba.

HUMANITARIAN GROUPS WOULD be able to send relief with much more ease than they currently do, because existing policies make them justify the need for every single item included as part of relief packages.

One other change allegedly being considered by U.S. officials is that the rules for individuals who wish to send money to Cubans would be changed. There are those who got all worked up last year when Obama eased restrictions so that people with blood relatives in Cuba could send them limited amounts of U.S. currency.

Now, anyone would be able to send limited amounts of money or sponsor a specific partner in Cuba.

The key, of course, is that these are mere steps toward what should be the desire of anyone in this country with sense – a restoration of full relations between Washington and Havana. Although when one considers the reality of partisan politics in our society, I’m not convinced I will live long enough to see that goal achieved.

BECAUSE ANY KIND of action toward Cuba that goes beyond these mere baby steps that Obama allegedly is going to propose would take Congressional approval. It likely will take the deaths of los hermanos Castro for certain political people to ease up on their opposition to that.

Not that I’m downplaying the flaws of the Castro years. It’s just that I have always thought of Fidel and Raul as having more in common with third-rate dictators rather than any true threat to world peace. A part of me has always thought the current trade embargo inflates the Castros into more ofa threat than they deserve to be regarded as.

There also is the fact that Fidel Castro, in particular, has been effective in using the U.S. trade embargo and the harm it causes to the Cuban economy to his advantage.

Poor little Cuba, being bashed about by ¡los Yanquis Imperialistas! Even if we know it is a crock, too many Cubanos stuck on the island in poverty find it easier to blame their lot on some outside entity that they never get to judge for themselves.

WHICH IS WHY I like the idea of these cultural exchanges. While I am sure the Cuban government will go out of its way to limit the exposure of U.S. people to the Cuban populace, the simple fact is that some of our character is bound to seep through the Cuban “walls” and get to the people.

If anything, I think exposure to U.S. ingenuity is what will ultimately motivate the Cuban people to step up the pressure on their government to the point where serious change will have to be made.

I see Obama’s proposal as a first step toward winning over the hearts of the Cubanos on the island.

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Is New York giving us a Latino/black conflict?

At a time when the nation’s attenting is being put by conservative ideologues on whether or not followers of Islam can be “American” enough to have a community center near the site of the one-time World Trade Center, the real tension from New York City may well involve Latinos instead.

There have been several incidents in recent months on the Staten Island borough involving attacks on Latinos. While most of the victims in the 11 incidents were specifically of Mexican ethnic backgrounds, it seems that they were just seen as Latino (or more likely, by whatever nasty epithet narrow-minded people use to describe those with ethnic origins in Latin American nations).

BUT WHAT IS making these particular incidents stand out is that it seems most of the “attackers” are of African-American racial background.

In short, the white supremacist’s dream come true – the black people and the brown people beat up on each other while they sit back and snicker.

Reports about the incidents have found black people who complain about the newcomers taking away jobs, while also denying that these attacks have an ethnic motivation.

The Associated Press reported that some black community activists say these attacks are by people with drug addictions who would be inclined to attack anybody they think might have money or some other thing that might help feed their addictions.

THAT MAY WELL be true.

Only one of these 11 cases has any “hate crime” charges attached to it. And in the irony of ironies, the person facing the charge is an immigrant himself from Jamaica.

I can realize some of the frustration since the experience of black people in this country is different from any other group that has ever been a part of U.S. society. For so many years, so many restrictions were put in place to keep black people at the bottom while other groups have come in and worked their way up through the ranks of our society.

It is continuing to happen even today with the growing Latino population.

WHICH MEANS I can comprehend why people who want to think of our society as consisting of white people and other people are grossly oversimplifying circumstances.

But to read reports quoting black people complaining that, “America has got to do something as far as immigration goes” in terms of stunting its growth, propping up rhetoric that would seem equally comfortable from the isolationist segment of our society.

Because there isn’t much doubt to me that many of these incidents ought to be thought of in terms that until now would have been thought of as purely signs of hostility between black and white.

We also ought to be working to ease those tensions, because the fact is that the Latino population has already surpassed the black population in size and is going to continue to grow until it is an equal factor in terms of numbers in our society.

THE LAST THING anybody thinks our nation needs is such a large part of the populace believing it is being isolated to the point where it feels the need to “fight back.”

I’m not predicting an ethnic war of Latinos versus the rest of U.S. society. Nobody wants that, except for maybe some of the nativist nitwits – who truly are a minority of our society.

We need to find the way to unite all of us in ways that make us realizehow we can be brought together by our similarities – unlike those nativists who want to push the idea that certain peoples currently in this country should just accept that they, “don’t belong.”

Because the optimistic part of my sensibilities makes me believe that people of sense will realize that trying to unite our nation with nativist thoughts against Latinos is nothing more than an “un-American” concept.

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Immigration rhetoric gives us protests galore

Much of the public attention paid to immigration reform-related protests this weekend went to an incident in Washington where a few activists insisted on running onto the playing field during a ballgame at Nationals Field to try to publicly display a banner related to the situation in Arizona.

Yet I find more intriguing the fact that Tea Party-type activists felt the need to show up in Arizona on the same day along the U.S./Mexico border, and that Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio felt the need to dignify them with his presence.

ACTIVISTS, WHO LIKE to think they’re adopting the attitudes of the nation’s founders even though all they’re doing is misappropriating their imagery (ie., their use of the Gadsden flag), showed up at a town along the border for a rally to express their support for people who want to crack down on newcomers to this country.

Arpaio, the Phoenix-area sheriff who likes to trash talk out of a belief that it makes him appear to be tough on crime (instead of just absurd), showed up at the rally and spoke to the gathering of a few hundred people who converged on Hereford, Ariz. (population as of 2000 just over 6,500).

Just to give you a sense of the kind of crowd that was present, Senate candidate J.D. Hayworth got enthusiastic reactions when he trashed opponent Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who in the past has supported legitimate immigration reform, but has tried to use rhetoric implying he would support the more conservative goals of these activists.

As Hayworth put it, “he may try to change the terminology. Indeed, John McCain was sending out letters earlier this spring offering the boilerplate denial, saying, ‘well, you know I oppose amnesty.’ And then in the next paragraph saying, ‘we must grant concessions to these people and regularize their status.’ That’s the new term” for what he wants to persist in thinking of as “amnesty.”

IN SHORT, THE kind of people who bothered to show up in Hereford were the same kind of people who at Nationals Field were cheering for the security to beat up on the activists, even though some video taken at the ballpark during the Washington Nationals’ game against the Arizona Diamondbacks caught the shocked reaction of some spectators at how forceful security was in trying to subdue the activists.

Now it doesn’t shock me that these Tea Party types would feel motivated enough to make a trip to Arizona for the weekend. It doesn’t even shock me that Arpaio would feel a kinship with them.

But Arpaio is the guy who made a point of saying that nobody had better engage in civil disobedience in his county related to immigration reform, or else he was prepared to do some significant numbers of arrests.

Speak out in Sheriff Joe’s county, and he’ll bust you.

UNLESS YOU HAPPEN to say what Sheriff Joe wants, then he’ll back you.

While I realize the Tea Party types weren’t trying to blockade anything or physically disrupt anything such as some immigration activists have done in recent weeks under certain circumstances, it just seems odd for Arpaio to be involved in such an event.

By the way, he went so far as to tell the spectators that the key to controlling the flow of people into the United States at places other than the officially-sanctioned entry points is for the Border Patrol to be given the authority to stop would-be migrants while they were still in Mexico.

So in the mind of Sheriff Joe, U.S. Border Patrol officials should be allowed to cross over into Mexico and start harassing people they suspect may want to someday head north of the line in the sand that compriises the U.S./Mexico border.

JUST ENVISION (LEGITIMATELY so) how great the indignation would be in this country if Mexican officials tried to cross over the border into the United States for any reason. Why do I sense that Sheriff Joe and his ilk would be screaming that it amounts to an invasion and ought to be thought of as an act of War!

Of course, the sheriff was speaking to a group inclined to be supportive of another rally speaker, a Tuscon-based radio station host who, according to the New York Times, told the crowd, “instead of finding bugs in our beds, we’re finding home invaders.”

In short, we had a lot of absurd people gathered together along the U.S./Mexico border. Which makes me wonder if the people (just over 68,000) of nearby Agua Prieta in Sonora, just to the south and east of Hereford, were pondering to themselves what must be in the water north of the border to make people engage in such crazy talk.

Because that scene was more absurd than anything that happened in Washington, where five people wound up getting kicked out of the ballpark for disrupting a ballgame for a few minutes. Besides, I would think by now that the Arizona Diamondbacks would be immune to the fact that their presence in any city is going to stir up the people who would rather have a rational approach to resolving the problems with our nation’s immigration laws.

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340,000. And they’re not going anywhere

One of every 25 adults living in the United States has legal issues with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. But the ratio regarding the babies born to those people is one of every 12 newborns in this country.

Those ratios are based off the Pew Hispanic Center’s latest study, which offers up statistics on exactly how many children born in this country have parents who are not U.S. citizens or resident aliens (meaning they have a legitimate Visa).

THE BOTTOM LINE is the figure 340,000. The study says that of the 4.3 million babies born in the United States during 2008, eight percent were children who qualify for the “anchor baby” status – the label that the nativist element of our society wants to give to those children so as to demonize them.

Make them out to be less than human, and it becomes easier to engage in rancid rhetoric about altering the U.S. Constitution so as to make it possible to boot the kids out of the country because one has an ethnic hangup concerning their parents.

For what it’s worth, the Pew study says that 76 percent of babies born in that year were to parents who were U.S.-born, while 16 percent were to parents who had been naturalized into U.S. citizenship or were somewhere along the legal process toward gaining citizenshiup.

It is that remaining 8 percent who are getting Republican partisans all worked up into talking about changing the 14th Amendment to the Constitution – one of the three that was enacted in the years following the Civil War so as to ensure that someone couldn’t claim that the “letter of the law” meant that the former Negro slaves were not U.S. citizens.

NOW, SOME PEOPLE want to use a bizarre interpretation of that amendment to claim that the “letter of the law” means these children born in this country should not be considered a part of it.

I could go into a lengthy rant about how the idea of booting children, some of whom have lived in this country for so long that they know no other home, is immoral, and that the people who are pushing for this particular change are some sort of mental degenerates.

I also have commented here in the past about how it is ridiculous to think that there is enough support for a constitutional amendment. When one considers how convoluted ahd complicated (and time-consuming) the process of an amendment is, any talk of making such a change is nothing more than cheap, and hateful, rhetoric on the part of politicos who want to pander to a segment of our society that in reality is the problem – rather than the solution.

But to me, that 340,000 babies figure (and roughly 4 million of all young people under 18) is probably the most realistic reason why talk of a 14th Amendment amendment is absurd.

THAT IS A lot of children, and it is a figure that likely is going to grow in coming years because of the fact that the Latino population is a young one that is growing, and will continue to grow for the next few decades.

The people who really think that Immigration is capable of deporting that many young people (and providing for their care while the process is pending) are as ridiculous as those who think they can deport every single person who has a Visa issue – even though the estimates of how many individuals fall into that category goes as high as 12 million.

It’s not practical. Which is what makes such talk a waste of time – unless one’s intent is to engage in hateful trash-talk.

After all, it is not like those children have the criminal records or other characteristics that some people argue is the reason why we should be getting rid of the non-citizens.

NOW I KNOW some people toss out the absurd idea that these children of non-citizens should be made to leave with their parents, with the idea that they could return on their own when they reach adulthood.

That kind of talk is nothing more than a lie from the people who spew it. What those people really want is for the kids to be removed, figuring that circumstances will be so intense that they will never be able to return.

I say that if people really are willing to acknowledge that those children have a claim to U.S. citizenship, then there is no reason that they should be forced to leave – even for a limited time period.

After all, citizenship is citizenship. It’s not like we have various classifications of citizenship.

IN THEORY, ALL of those people who make it through the naturalization process and take the Oath of Allegiance (in which one renounces their allegiance to any other nation on Earth) are just as much citizens as anyone who is actually born in this country.

Which is why the idea of removing any of those 340,000 newborn babies from this country is nothing more than some twisted person’s pipe dream.

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Obama shows bizarre approach to bipartisan politics

President Barack Obama may well have given us a bipartisan approach on Friday to the politics of immigration reform. He took an action that is guaranteed to tick off everybody.

For the record, Obama signed into law the Southwest Border Security Bill. It was a measure approved by Congress just this week. The president didn’t waste any time giving this measure his approval.

THE NEW LAW calls for spending $600 million in federal funds to bolster the U.S./Mexico border security measures. It is meant to appease those people who think the whole solution to the immigration problem is to fortify the border to keep people out of the United States.

It is exactly the kind of measure the Latino activists in particular will hate, because they will see it as a waste of time, along with a step in the wrong direction.

Even those activists who are politically aware enough to realize that something is going to have to be given to the “opposition” in order to get them to ease up on the fight against real reform are going to see this and wonder why Obama seems so eager to appease the “other” side, while only giving them vague promises about how much he’d like to help Latinos and others with an interest in immigration reform – if only there wasn’t such intense GOP opposition.

It is going to come across like Obama is more interested in keeping the people who give the nativist stance on the issue too much credit off his back, rather than doing anything that might seriously take the nation in the direction of legitimate reform of our federal immigration policy.

IF ANYTHING, IT is the actions like this that are to explain the fact that Obama’s approval rating among Latino prospective voters is down – although in most cases, still above 50 percent. We know who our enemies really are.

Yet before anyone gets the sense that Obama has chosen sides against Latinos, that really can’t be said with any accuracy.

Because I see the way this got handled, and can already envision the anger that Obama is going to hear from those people who really want to believe that immigration “reform” really does consist of policies that encourage an increase in the number of deportations from this country.

Obama issued a brief written statement on the day that the bill got its final favorable vote in Congress.

THURSDAY’S “ACTION” BY Congress answers my call to bolster the essential work of federal law enforcement officials and improve their ability to partner with state, local and tribal law enforcement,” his statement reads, in part.

When he actually signed the bill into law on Friday in his office, the only thing done to draw any attention to it was that some press photographers were allowed to take pictures of him sitting at his desk – with Homeland Security Director Janet Napolitano (the woman who once admitted that no walls along the U.S./Mexico border would keep people out) standing over his shoulder.

No flourishes to boast of how this is some sort of “essential” step toward protecting the national security of the United States from being undermined by a batch of “foreigners” who slip in throught he dark of night (when the deserts might only be 95 degrees instead of 120).

No boasting on his part. No spewing of rhetoric. Nothing to imply that he has chosen to side with them and will now use the power of the federal government to knock down those people who have the sense to realize how flawed our nation’s immigration policy is.

IN SHORT, OBAMA on Friday gave a favorable gesture to people who are in no way going to appreciate it or enjoy it. In fact, I won’t be surprised if the hostile rhetoric directed his way because of this act will make it sound as if he somehow is undermining the cause of border security.

These people who argue about federal government waste of taxpayer dollars will probably complain that $600 million isn’t enough money. They’ll want more!

In fact, reading Obama’s statement from earlier this week caused me to notice a line that likely will offend the nativists.

“This new law will also strengthen our partnership with Mexico in targeting the gangs and criminal organizations that operate on both sides of our shared border,” the president said, in his statement.

THERE ARE THOSE people who want to blame Mexico for causing a problem, and certainly aren’t going to want to concede that the problems related to crime and violence along the U.S./Mexico border are ones that both nations share a responsibility for.

It is that kind of attitude, expressed all too often by too many people, that causes the growing Latino population – even the ones who se families have been in the United States for a few generations – to take up sides with our ethnic brethren, regardless of their immigration status.

We realize how much our fate is intertwined with theirs. And we wonder when the president is going to feel the urgency to take hard, but necessary, actions on the immigration issue.

How much do you want to bet that he’d have better than a 44 percent overall approval rating (according to the Gallup Organization on Friday) these days if he had done so already?

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People want to rant about those who call them on their nonsense

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is getting smacked about these days by people determined to believe the nativist-inspired rhetoric being tossed about on immigration reform must have some truth to it.

It was at a recent gathering in Nevada that Reid, who is trying to get himself re-elected despite the attempts of conservatives to single him out for defeat, made a comment that has them ticked off because he’s calling them on their ridiculous rhetoric of recent months.

“I DON’T KNOW how anyone of Hispanic heritage could be a Republican, okay,” Reid said, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal newspaper. “Do I need to say more?”

“Condescending.” “Insensitive.” “Lame.” Conservative commentator Michelle Malkin went so far as to call Reid’s line his, “latest racially/ethnically divisive gaffe.”

As though Reid is the equivalent of some of the outspoken meatheads (including Malkin herself, on occasion) who populate the GOP and its supporters these days.

Now I’m not going to make too big of a deal of Reid’s use of “Hispanic” rather than “Latino,” since a part of me considers both terms somewhat lame and interchangable. Although I know some people would argue that use of that phrase alone probably makes Reid mentally in line with the people who are now criticizing him these days.

WHAT REALLY MATTERS is the idea of whether all Latinos ought to be Democrats. I have been the type who has long asserted that most Latinos are Democrats by Default, because of the fact that the Republican Party these days has been hijacked by many people who have ideological hangups that cause them to prefer being a part of a political party that deliberately opposes the growing Latino population in this nation.

Which is why I wonder how Republicans managed to get one-third of the vote in the last presidential election? I understand the conservative leanings of Latinos whose thought processes are dictated by their religious beliefs, but it is such a large gap that one has to overcome to stick by the GOP despite the rancid rhetoric being spewed these days by people who seriously want to dismantle the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.

That is what Reid was getting at.

He was calling out the Republicans who challenge him as being the kind of people who would be hostile to Latino interests, especially since one of their objections to Reid in Nevada is that the Senate leader of Democrats has not blatantly objected to President Barack Obama’s rhetoric on immigration reform – which has been supportive of the idea of real reform, instead of increasing deportations.

WHICH MAKES ME think of the people who are dumping on Reid these days as the equivalent of the schoolyard bully who likes to go about smacking people about, but thinks it is a great crime against humanity when one of his victims decides to respond by belting him (or her) in the jaw.

It is easy for me to dismiss those people. But what of the Latinos who stick by the GOP?

It would be advantageous for the future political empowerment of Latinos if we had sizable numbers in the ranks of both the Democratic and Republican parties, and perhaps even a Green or a Libertarian or two.

But for the time being, I wonder about those people who decide these days to throw their ranks in with the Republican Party, and who make the statements that attempt to defend the GOP partisans and mute the nasty tone in their rhetoric whenever the immigration reform issue comes up.

I COMPREHEND THE idea that some people think they’re so far along in the assimilation process that they think they have little, or nothing, in common with those who are just arriving in this country. I also realize that many Latinos have come to realize that we are tied in with our newer ethnic brethren because there are many in this country who don’t want to have to make the distinction.

It makes me wonder if we’re going to have many Latinos in the near future who come to realize the plight of Juan Seguin.

He was the Tejano who back in the 1830s came to despise the Mexican government’s tyranical behavior and threw his lot in with those Texian settlers who decided to fight for independence. He was not among those killed at the Alamo, although he was a significant part of the group that attacked the Mexican army near San Jacinto and managed to capture Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna – the act that resulted in Mexico signing the agreement to grant Texas its independence.

Yet as the number of white settlers into Texas continued to grow, Seguin came to find himself treated like the enemy, particularly when he began to push for the idea that the newcomers ought to respect the rights of the natives who were already there.

HIS PLIGHT BECAME so severe that he wound up having to leave Texas to live for a few years in Mexico under the government that he still regarded as an enemy, because he was regarded as a bigger enemy by the new leaders of his home land.

For their sake, I hope the Latinos who are sticking with the GOP are successful in having a moderating effect on the party rhetoric. For if they don’t, there will be those among my ethnic brethren who are going to find themselves politically homeless.

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Weeping woman? Or Latina Loca?

There’s going to be an addition to the Halloween festivities this year at Universal Studios themepark in Hollywood. Mixed in with the images of killer clowns and other grotesque figures is going to be a woman who cries way too much.

We’re talking about La Llorona, the weeping woman.

SO NOW, WE have images from Mexican folklore working their way into the horror stories of our society. Although I must admit that I never thought of the stories of La Llorona as being something that would fit in with images such as the Killer Klown Gang or the other hideous figures that are part of the Universal Studios annual Halloween presentation.

Then again, they always were meant to be tales to scare young children into submission. “Do what your parents say, or else La Llorona will come and snatch you away while you sleep!”

For those of you who are not familiar with the tales, keep in mind there are variations – some of which get detailed and graphic, and others of which take on feminist characteristics.

But the way I heard them, La Llorona was a beautiful Mexican woman with two children, who learned that her husband was being unfaithful.

IN HER ANGER, she threw her children into the river, where the current carried them away and they drowned. When the woman came to her senses, she became so anguished at the loss of her children that she tossed herself into the river as well, where she drowned.

So as it is told by Mexican parents wishing to scare their kids into submission, the wailing of the wind they hear on dark stormy nights is the ghost of La Llorona crying about the loss of her children. In her mad desire to replace them, she is looking for new children, perhaps them.

And she will snatch them away out of their beds in the middle of the night – IF they misbehave.

Admittedly, it’s not quite Freddy Krueger with his razor-fingered glove slashing away indiscriminantly at people. I’m sure there are some people who will think that the La Llorona tale is a bit lame, compared to some of the other gross-out images they will see.

AFTER ALL, WHAT does La Llorona do except cry annoyingly? Even though the press release put out by Universal Studios describes her as “the bloodthirsty spectre of Mexican legend” who will “stalk guests on the Universal backlot.”

But I do find it interesting that a Halloween production that definitely is commercial in intent (ie., they exist to try to make money) is willing to turn to Mexican folklore when trying to find new images for what is considered by its fans to be a Halloween scare-fest.

It is the wave of the future. While the growing Latino population in this country is assimilating into the society at its own rate, we also have to consider that cultural assimilation also includes elements of the one-time foreign cultures becoming a part of the U.S. mass of pop culture.

That means we’re going to get elements of Latin America someday dropping the “Latin” portion and becoming a part of the culture of the Americas as a whole.

COULD IT BE that Mexican culture’s contribution to the United States will someday include the La Llorona tales? That certainly strikes me as being more significant than the proliferation of third-rate taco stands that now exist in this country, or the fact that there’s actually a brand of coffee bean made in Mexico that plays off the La Llorona image.

I get a kick out of the idea of future generations of children of all ethnic origins being able to understand the stories explaining that the wail of the wind is really La Llorona expressing her sadness over the loss of her children.

But it does have me wondering how her image will be received come Halloween of this year.

Will La Llorona become an image that will truly terrify the people who show up at Universal Studios themepark in search of a cheap thrill? Or will she be the figure whose wailing gets so nervewracking that she drives her fellow hideous figures in the show crazy?

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We’re assimilating, whether people want to admit it or not

It seems Latinos are not as Catholic as many would presume, and the younger we get, the less connected we feel toward organized religion.

To me, that just seems like more evidence we are assimilating into the culture of the United States – despite the rhetoric we often hear from those critics of immigration reform who claim one reason to oppose it is because Latinos are determined to cling to their old-country ways instead of trying to fit in to the culture of the United States.

OF COURSE, ANYONE who were to take off the nativist-tinted glasses would realize how ridiculous that is. There are times I look at young Latinos (I’m talking teen-age) and wonder why they’re so eager to fall in to the same pop cultural caca that other teens seem to adore.

But that desire to blend in despite the attempts by a segment of our society that tries to throw up roadblocks (that is really all that laws such as what Arizona tried to enact amount to) is strong. I see it in the poll results of the two news-gathering organizations that in recent weeks have come up with several polls attempting to capture the mood of the nation’s Latino population.

According to the latest poll, 62 percent of Latinos identify themselves as Catholic.

But there is an age difference. When it comes to peole under 29, only 55 percent of Latinos would say they are Catholic. When it comes to Latinos over 65, 80 percent have clung to the religious faith that is dominant in so many Latin American nations.

THAT TREND IS not a Latino oriented one. It is simply the reality of every ethnic or racial group within our society. In fact, I wonder if 55 percent of those under 29 identifying themselves as Catholic makes Latino youths stronger Catholics than other ethnicities when it comes to their religion.

That is not the only evidence of assimilation.

For if 62 percent of Latinos are Catholic, that means 38 percent are something else.

When it comes to those Latinos, their choice to break away from the Catholic church of their ancestors to adopt a new religious faith in this country is often a choice to fit in with whatever denomination is prevalent in the communities in which they are trying to settle.

THE POLL FOUND that those Latinos who made a conscious choice to identify themselves as being other than Catholic really were trying to assimilate into their new faith – they were taking it seriously to the point where Latino Protestants are twice as likely to attend weekly church services compared to the number of Latino Catholics who bother to show up every Sunday morning for mass.

When it comes to Latino Protestants, 70 percent said they think the Bible is literally “God’s Word” and should be followed accordingly. Only 46 percent of Latino Catholics believe that.

One other statistic in this latest poll caught my attention. It relates to abortion.

Latinos are less likely to think abortion is acceptable than the rest of the population. Yet as people from Latin American nations assimilate into this country and pick up on the English language, there is the tendency for their perspective to shift.

IT SEEMS THAT 49 percent of those Latinos surveyed who speak primarily English think abortion should be a legal medical procedure. When it comes to those who cling to the Spanish language to communicate, only 31 percent think it should be legal.

It reminded me of a Gallup Organization poll from a few months ago – one that said a person’s education level (not gender or ethnicity) was the best determinant of one’s stance on abortion – with college-educated women being the most likely to favor the medical procedure being treated as such, instead of being thought of as some sort of criminal act.

I realize there is a difference between someone who earns a college degree, compared to someone who merely picks up on the English language.

But it strikes me that learning the language is an act of assimilation and an attempt to move up in U.S. society.

WHICH MEANS IF the Latino population were truly the unassimilated mass that the conservative ideologues often try to claim we are, we would be prime pickings for their support because we would provide a mass of people who might support their ideals.

Instead, our growing population in this country is assimilating into the mass of society – a mass that is willing to look beyond their rhetoric. Which makes me think the real reason they fear our growing numbers is because they know we will add to the overall total of people who find their rhetoric about our society way too restrictive.

In some cases, it is as restrictive as that of the nations that we, or our ancestors, fled from in search of a better life in the United States.

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