“Scarface” not a history lesson by any means

It seems we’re getting “Scarface” back – that tale of a Cuban émigré kept locked up by Fidel Castro (for good reason, he’s a thug) until it was to the Cuban government’s advantage to dump him on the United States.

In fact, the early moments of that film from 1983 might have you think that you’re about to watch a serious film about one of the Mariel immigrants – those Cubanos who came in the early 1980s when Castro responded to international complaints that he wasn’t letting people leave his country by opening up his jails and mental hospitals.

MANY OF THOSE people immediately fled for Miami, where they were accepted by a U.S. government that was used to accepting Cubans as a way to spite Castro – not realizing that he was spite-ing us this time. Yet another chapter in the often silly saga of contemporary U.S./Cuba relations.

In that context, “Scarface’ was a fictional film that played off of what was happening at the time. It was made when the memories of the Mariel boat people (named for the fact that they left Cuba on boats departing the Mariel Harbor in Havana during the spring and summer of 1980).

But anybody who has ever seen the film realizes that history or sociology or a reflection of culture was the last thing that “Scarface” producers had in mind when they created the tale of Tony Montana – the Cubano hood who terrorized Miami and took over the drug trade in as violent a manner as was cinematically possible.

I may well be among the few people who even pays much attention to those early scenes of the film. Everybody else wants to see body parts hacked off and see actor Al Pacino brandishing his pistol while saying in the oft-imitated (and usually very poorly) phrase, “Say hello to my little friend!”

The real Mariel processing center



ABOUT THE ONLY thing I can say about Scarface and its reflection of that particular wave of Cuban exiles is that it is more historically accurate than “The Godfather, Part II” – which included that sub-plot by which Pacino’s Michael Corleone character IS one of the gangsters who runs those casinos that get chased out of Havana when the Castro revolution takes hold on New Year’s Day of 1959.



Total fiction, although it created another oft-imitated movie moment when Pacino’s Corleone tells his brother, Fredo (the left-us-way-too-soon actor John Cazale), “I know it was you, Fredo. You broke my heart” – essentially condemning him to death.

I’m starting to think that the only thing we need now is Pacino in a film about the Bay of Pigs in which he plays a part of someone who helped to coordinate the ultimately-unsuccessfull attempt to spark an uprising by the Cuban people against Castro.

Now what motivates me to think of “Scarface,” a film that I must admit I ignored when it came out in theaters because it looked so ridiculously over-the-top that I couldn’t take it seriously on any level!

I HAVE SEEN it a few times since then, and it seems my initial judgment was correct.

But there are those who get off on the over-the-top nature of the film. It has become a staple of the hip-hop scene, which is why it is getting a one-day re-release in movie theaters (it may turn up on Wednesday at a screen near you). And we’re also going to see yet another video version being released (specifically for those who feel the need to have blu-ray disc players).

I only hope enough people realize they’re not getting anything close to resembling reality. For one thing, there was only one Cubano cast in a significant role in the film – and reports of the time indicate that John Travolta nearly got a significant role in this film.

  -30-

You have to be cold-hearted if you can accept this

It is an old argument, and I doubt anyone is going to be swayed today.

Yet anyone who can read through a feature story published by the McClatchy Newspapers (ie., the Miami Herald, the Fort-Worth Star-Telegram and the Anchorage Daily News, to name a few) and see hardened criminals in the people who have a desire to have a new life in this country is cold-hearted.

AS IN YOUR ethnically-motivated ideological hang-ups have overcome any sense of compassion.

At stake is a story written by the company’s Mexico correspondent, who wrote about the path by which people have to work through Mexico before they even get to the U.S./Mexico border.

In many cases, we’re talking about people from central American nations (even though the ideologues want to label the whole stretch of the continent as “just Mexicans”) who had to slip through Mexico before they could even contemplate trying to get across the southwestern deserts that separate our nation from Mexico.

These ideologues are the ones who claim that President Barack Obama is somehow not respecting “The Law” by saying that some people already in this country are now at the bottom of the priority list for those who might someday get deported.

THESE PEOPLE ALSO are the ones whom the ideologues want to label as serious criminals, just because they set foot north of the Rio Bravo del Norte/Rio Grande.

Anyone reading the McClatchy report sees that these people in search of a better life are the ones who get preyed upon by criminals – in many cases being forced into illegal activity by drug cartels.

And not necessarily transport of drugs. Sometimes, the violent acts involve these people who were passing through, and just happened to be found by the criminal element.

That is, of course, presuming that the criminal element doesn’t just feel a certain whim and have these people killed. Sad, but true. It has happened.

THE THING IS that a lot of people make the trip up north, knowing full well how treacherous it can be – and how their success depends so much upon luck. Yet these people being preyed upon are the ones whom the ideologues of our nation would try to claim are the problem.

Now I’m not in any way saying that the U.S. government ought to be taking any action to address this violence and harassment. There’s nothing it can do. This is a Mexican problem (and the fact that Mexico officials are in some cases willing to turn their backs and ignore the violence is a large part of the reason why many Mexican citizens also make this same trip).

Which is why I find it particularly pathetic whenever I learn of a story involving some sort of scam that targets the newly-arrived of this nation.

Preying on people who endured a load of doggy-doo (substitute your own preferred crude epithet here) to get to this country then have to deal with more abuse once they get here.

AND ALL TOO often, we find people who take an unsympathetic tact. As though those individuals deserve to get ripped off. Nobody deserves to be treated as prey for the criminal elements of our societies.

These crime victims (that’s really what they are) definitely don’t deserve to be considered criminal just for existing.

Then again, those people who have a problem with such thought probably also think that the Statue of Liberty is some mouthy French broad who speaks un-American thoughts with that line about; “Give me your tired, your poor/Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”

In my mind, anyone whose trip to this country including clinging to a Mexican freight train – keeping alert so that low-hanging branches don’t knock one off the rail car – certainly qualifies.

  -30-

Assimilation taking place, regardless

I’m not going to ramble on too much about how the growing Latino population is assimilating into this society, no matter how much the ideologues don’t want to believe it and are going out of their way to try to prevent it.

If anything, this story from the Tampa Tribune that highlights a Mexican-American teenager who chose to play football rather than real futbol probably says it better than anyone could.

“I WANTED TO show people that Mexicans don’t just play soccer,” the teen told the Tribune.

Anyway, read the story. Fresh commentary will return Tuesday.

  -30-

We’re going to college, no matter whom it offends

I remember once hearing a man of an older generation complain about the modern-day enrollment of his alma mater, the University of Notre Dame.

This particular man was a student there back in the days prior to 1972 when the university’s student body was limited to men – with women attending the nearby St. Mary’s College.

THE ALUMNUS MADE an argument, with a straight face, that the student body slots at Notre Dame filled by women were an injustice, if not an outright travesty.

They were spots – he thought – that could have gone to fully-qualified male students, who were denied the chance at a Notre Dame education all because some people would rather waste it on women.

I think most of us can write off this particular crackpot as an old fart who “doesn’t get it.” We can dismiss his line of logic as being absurd, particularly since the transition to co-ed status at Notre Dame created little controversy locally.

Yet I’m wondering how many people are going to let their own ethnic hang-ups get in the way of sense and try to use similar illogic in complaining about the newest study by the Pew Hispanic Center.

THAT WASHINGTON-BASED organization released a new analysis this week of university enrollments. Guess what? The fast-growing Latino segment of the population is also on the rise on college campuses.

It seems there are now more Latino students than African-American students (although the latter group also is on the rise). It also seems that in general, white students are the only category that is on the decline.

All the other assorted categories of people are up, as is the overall enrollment.

It isn’t just that there are more Latinos in general, which should translate into more Latinos in just about everything – including higher education.

FOR WHILE THE Latino population between 18 and 24 (the general age of traditional college students) went up by 7 percent between 2009 and 2010, the Latino collegiate enrollment went up by 24 percent during that same year.

Overall, the rate of young Latinos enrolled in college went from 13 percent 39 years ago to 27 percent in 2009 to 32 percent in 2010.

I’d argue all the more that this is further evidence of assimilation. Young people wanting to be a part of this society and realizing that the way to get to the top is through higher education.

If the Latino population were truly the separatist types that the conservative ideologues want to believe we are, then I’d say the last thing our numbers would be interested in doing is becoming a part of the collegiate scene.

THE PEW STUDY reflects increases in all groups, which means that it reflects our society in this century – in that it is no longer anything that anyone can seriously try to pretend is an ethnically, or racially, homogenous group.

U.S. society these days is a mixture. A true melting pot – even though a certain older generation seems to think that a melting pot means that everybody else loses their characteristics to become just like them.

Which was never true, and should never have been an ideal.

Now I mentioned the Notre Dame alum with the ridiculous rhetoric. His counterparts (for all I know, he himself under some sort of anonymous handle) are posting comments all over the Internet about how this increase is bad, VERY bad, because it is taking away opportunities for more deserving people.

THESE ARE ALL supposedly scholarship kids who can’t even pay their own way, and therefore are being given something they don’t deserve.

All nonsense, of course.

Yet it’s the kind of ridiculous rhetoric that they’re determined to spew – trying to impose their own misery onto the rest of us.

Which makes our growing numbers (roughly 349,000 additional Latino college students this year) a statistic that is the best revenge, in and of itself.

  -30-

Obama starting the Latino voter outreach that should have been ongoing

I’ll give President Barack Obama one bit of credit – his campaign officially started up the effort on Thursday that is meant to persuade Latinos to support his re-election bid in the 2012 cycle.

OBAMA: It's about time



It is known as Project Vote, and its purpose is to make sure that all people possible are registered to vote – with special interest put on younger voters, African Americans, those who are of American Indian origins, gay people, and Latinos.

IN SHORT, ALL the people that the conservative ideologues would like to see marginalized and, especially in the case of Latinos, stay home on Election Day.

Obama wants them to vote because he’s pretty sure he’ll take their votes. Even the Latino vote, which I’m sure the ideologues are going to claim is lost – citing the recent poll that says only 38 percent of Latinos are definitely going to vote for Obama come next year’s Election Day.

Of course, they ignore the fact that when you add in the people who say they’re leaning toward Obama, it pushes him to a majority. And when you look at the segment that says they’re going to vote for a Republican presidential candidate, it is insignificant.

Which means that Obama’s challenge is to get Latinos to decide that it is worth the time and effort to cast a vote, and that not voting is essentially support for those ideologues who want to view Latino growth as a problem.

THAT IDEA BECOMES clear with another poll released recently. Public Policy Polling actually questioned Latinos about who they favor: Obama or another specific candidate.

It seems that Mitt Romney is the GOP’s best bet to get the Latino vote – because he takes 29 percent compared to 66 percent for Obama. That makes him comparable to John McCain of 2008 who managed to take 32 percent of the Latino vote.

Other GOP candidates mentioned in the poll did significantly worse than Romney – who actually has his own problems with the ideologues and may not get the Republican presidential nomination.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry (whom the latest Gallup Organization poll showed is the GOP front-runner) showed just how much of a Latino “problem” he has – Obama beats him among Latinos 72 percent to 26 percent.

AS FOR LAST week’s presidential “flavor of the week,” Michelle Bachmann would get beat by Obama 74 percent to 26 percent for the Latino vote. And for those who still hold out hope for a Sarah Palin candidacy, she’d lose among Latinos 74 percent to 25 percent (and 53 percent to 40 percent among all voters).

Those polls don’t contradict. Obama is going to take a sizable share of the Latino electorate, although the honest truth is that many of them will be voting against the Republican rhetoric that is interested in bolstering the white male vote by demonizing Latinos.

Which is why a significant portion of the Project Vote initiative is voter registration. After all, Latinos can’t cast a ballot if they’re not properly registered to vote.



ROMNEY: Least offensive to Latinos?



And they also need to be motivated to want to vote.

SO IT IS nice to see that Obama’s campaign is making an effort to create motivation. Although to be honest, it would be a lot easier to accomplish had their past two years included accomplishments that made it seem like Obama remembered the Latino presence in our society.

A last-ditch effort by the old Congress last December to push for the DREAM Act just didn’t do it.

It is that lack of action that has caused the current status-quo where many Latinos seriously wonder if they should just stay home – even though such action would play into the hands of those individuals who are counting on Latino apathy to bolster their own goals.

Which at times resemble nothing more than an effort to keep the United States permanently lodged in the 19^th Century, rather than accepting the realities of the 21^st.

  -30-

When does work become demeaning?

If you want to know the truth, I was shocked to learn of a federal complaint filed against a Panda Express in West San Jose, Calif., because it said that Asian people actually worked there.

The few times I have been in Panda Express franchises, they have been staffed with what seemed to be people of all ethnicities or races EXCEPT for anyone Asian.

I DON’T CARE for the attempt at Chinese food prepared by this chain, and have always joked that Panda Express is to Chinese cooking what a Taco Bell is to anything Mexican.

Generic. As in absolutely no connection whatsoever.

So imagine my shock to learn of a Panda Express in the northern California city where the Asian workers supposedly are allowed to stand around and merely watch while their Latino colleagues are forced to do all the work – including having to scrub toilets.

I only hope we’re not getting some Latino kitchen worker cleaning out a toilet bowl, then immediately going on to serve food. Because if we are, then that is disgusting.

ALTHOUGH IT SHOULDN’T be the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission getting involved. It should be the local Health Department in San Jose.

I’m not sure what to think of the lawsuit, except to say that certain jobs stink. We do them, then move up the professional ladder as quickly as we can. I’m not going to say that being asked to clean a toilet at work is demeaning, in and of itself.

It all depends on the context in which the labor is requested – or demanded!

Personally, I can only once recall being asked on a job to clean a toilet. It was my first job, nearly 30 years ago at a Subway sandwich franchise in the Chicago suburbs. Only once did it happen, and I recall my boss made sure I didn’t go near anything edible for the rest of the day.

I ALSO RECALL it was a task that got rotated around to everybody. Which is why I really couldn’t complain. That, and the fact that the washroom really wasn’t that messy to begin with, since the boss was picky about who she allowed to enter.

According to the statements taken by the EEOC, the Latino worker in question felt more singled out by being told to literally clean up the mess from where people deposit their bodily waste.

“I felt so ashamed when the Asian workers watched me obediently run from the bathroom to the tables to the counters, cleaning when they did not have to,” the worker said, in a statement.

From the bathroom to the tables to the counters is a phrase that makes me wonder if that worker was spreading germs around the pseudo-Asian restaurant. Once again, Health Department.

IT ALSO MAKES me wonder if this manager in particular would then try to claim it was the Latino guy who spread the germs and caused the potential for any food-borne illnesses.

It’s a good thing I don’t care for Panda Express food, or else this story would thoroughly disgust me into never wanting to eat there again – even though I realize it is unfair to judge all 1,200 franchise locations across the country by the alleged actions of one store manager.

As for those people who on various sites on the Internet are suggesting a boycott of some sorts of Panda Express franchises, all I’d have to say is that no self-respecting person eats there anyway.

But still, I can’t help but wonder if we’re ever going to learn the truth about this allegation. Or if this will become yet another one of those lawsuits that get settled without any admission of guilt on anyone’s part?

  -30-

New policy already showing results

It hasn’t even been a full week since the Department of Homeland Security imposed new guidelines that determine priorities for the deportation of non-citizens from this country, yet already there is evidence of some results.

The New York Times on Tuesday published an account of an aspiring priest who is a Mexican citizen who has been fighting deportation from the United States for the past five years, and was told that deportation proceedings are no longer pending against him.

MANUEL GUERRA, WHO had been fighting his personal war against the federal government to remain in this country, can now focus his attention on trying to advance his lot in life – which will translate into providing a better contribution to our society.

The fact that Homeland Security has come to its senses and realized that there’s no legitimate reason to view Guerra as a threat to our nation that needs to be removed by force is a plus for our society.

Although the real positive will be the fact that Guerra is merely one of the first of many – as most of those roughly 11 million non-citizens now living in this country without a valid visa don’t pose a threat.

We ought to be focusing on those individuals who have shown a proclivity towards real criminal behavior (instead of trying to regard the technicalities of immigration law as major crimes in-and-of themselves).

THAT IS WHAT will improve the national security of the United States, more than construction of any barricade along the U.S./Mexico border or any fantasies of mass deportations of all whose ethnicity doesn’t comply with one’s hang-ups about who SHOULD be allowed to live in this country.

So even though a new poll has only 63 percent of Latino voters approving of Barack Obama’s presidential performance and only 38 percent saying for sure they’re voting for him, those are figures that are bound to go up.

For this poll came in the days just before the Obama-sanctioned Homeland Security action. And much of the reluctance to back Obama came about because it was perceived he was not doing enough to protect people from the vagaries of immigration policy.

Now, it seems he has taken action that in its first few days is already producing results. Although as I have written before, it is going to take more than just a couple of people to convince Latinos that this policy change is legitimate.

IF GUERRA TURNS out to be the lone beneficiary, then the president won’t benefit. If he turns out to be the first of many, as is legitimate, then he strengthens his lot in electoral life.

For a serious review of 300,000 deportation cases is just a bit much. It needs to be pared down. Which is why federal officials are now regarding those young students and spouses of military personnel as a lower priority.

Now before the ideologues start up their ranting and raging about all these people being given “amnesty,” it really isn’t. Just because the deportation process is being halted, it doesn’t mean they’re on any path to citizenship – or even any process by which they can openly work in this country.

Federal officials have said that any of these people who no longer face deportation want to hold jobs in the United States, they’re going to have to go through a separate review process. Only then would they be issued work permits.

WHICH IS A good thing. Anything that causes these individuals to face some scrutiny so that we know exactly who is in this country is an improvement.

For the current situation governed by a bureaucratic mess of flawed immigration policy creates the conditions by which so many millions of individuals live in our society’s shadows.

Latino or not, we’re all better off if those shadows are erased.

  -30-

“Hero” stories coming out, no matter how much ideologues want them hidden

Perhaps this is the significance of the former Washington Post reporter, Jose Antonio Vargas, who a couple of months ago wrote a detailed story of how he had managed to live, work and thrive in the United States despite not being a citizen or having a valid visa.

Vargas personally had the documents revoked that he was relying upon to exist in this country. His life is going to become a bureaucratic nightmare.

BUT IT HAS forced some people to accept the fact that it is absurd to try to write off every single one of the roughly 11 million un-visa’ed residents as being criminal just because they exist.

That certainly seems to be the sentiment expressed out in Albuquerque, N.M. – where Antonio Diaz Chacon is getting public recognition for his acts even after admitting that he also is among the 11 million.

His “acts” involve an incident last week in which a man tried to abduct a 6-year-old girl. Diaz witnessed the incident, got into a car and chased them.

Once he caught up with them, he was able to get the girl and bring her back. Police in Albuquerque say they believe he saved the girl from serious physical harm, and Mayor Richard Berry is using the word “hero” to describe him.

AND FOR ANYONE who thinks that Diaz somehow pulled off some sort of scam to get praise by covering up his immigration status (or lack thereof), Berry said he knew of Diaz’ status when he offered his praise.

“His citizenship has no bearing on our gratitude as a community,” Berry said, in a prepared statement. Which ought to be such an obvious statement that we all accept.

Except for that segment of our society that lets their ethnic hang-ups get the best of them, and to which too many of us as a whole have been listening to far too often whenever anything related to immigration and reform comes up for discussion.

Perhaps it is because they just shout so loud! We should realize that the volume and bluster is meant to cover up their lack of logic.

ALL OF THIS comes about even though the 23-year-old Diaz has lived in the United States for the past four years without a valid visa. He is a Mexican citizen who is legally married to a U.S. citizen who said he gave up on trying to get a visa (and the legal label of “resident alien” as opposed to “illegal alien”) because the process was difficult – and expensive.

The ideologues of our society are going to want to denounce Diaz (and Vargas, who is Filipino) as people who are criminal by their existence. Vargas took high-paid (by certain standards), high-profile work away from a U.S. citizen, while Diaz deliberately ignored the procedures by which citizens of other countries can become a part of our nation.

Yet, if anything, they may well be the perfect evidence of the need for immigration reform. The current procedures are so tangled up and confusing that they become near impossible for one to maneuver through without a touch of luck.

If we had a process that made sense, perhaps Diaz would have been ready, willing and able to get through the procedure – instead of hoping that the fact he has a U.S. citizen for a wife will somehow enable him to get his papers in order.

WHICH ACTUALLY IS coincidental, since Vargas came to this country when he was 12 on forged papers, with his naturalized citizen grandfather figuring that the boy’s legal status would get straightened out when he someday married.

Having a legal procedure in place for immigration that is such a mess that too many people rely on holy matrimony to try to straighten themselves out ought to be the ultimate evidence that we need immigration reform.

  -30-

Not enough of the Latino vote?

George W. Bush is supposedly the Republican official who was able to get significant Latino support by claiming 44 percent of their vote in the 2004 presidential election.

OBAMA: We think more of him than GOP



The political pundits seem to think that a Republican can get himself elected U.S. president in 2012 if he (or she) can take about 40 percent of the Latino electorate’s backing.

SO WHAT DOES it say that a summertime poll of prospective Latino voters shows that the eventual GOP nominee is likely to get only 18 percent Latino support. While there are still significant numbers of “undecided” personas, it seems that Obama gets 61 percent support in his re-election dreams.

Which means Obama is almost at the total two-thirds of the Latino vote that he got in 2008, while it would take virtually every single undecided Latino voter swinging over to the Republican Party for their nominee to come close to matching 2008 nominee John McCain’s total.

It seems that while there are those Latinos who  aren’t all that pleased with the incumbent president (only 49 percent said they were “certain” to vote for Barack, compared to 10 percent certain to vote for a Republican for president), the rancid rhetoric coming from too large a segment of the GOP is turning off too many people.

Only 19 percent of Latinos surveyed think the Republicans are making the right decisions when it comes to immigration policy, compared to 65 percent who prefer Obama and Democrats on the issue.

NOW I’LL BE the first to admit that this poll by Latino Decisions (a group that is conducting periodic polls of the Latino population to try to figure out where we stand on assorted issues) is coming more than a year prior to Election Day.

There are so many factors that can change between now and then.

There also is the factor that a poll can be concocted to confirm just about any premise one wants to make. So anybody who has a poll that says the exact opposite of this can keep it to yourself. If it is at all credible, I’ll come across it on my own.

And if it isn’t, then it says more about your ideological hang-ups than it does anything truthful or legitimate.

BUT I BRING these figures up because I get periodic comments sent to me (usually via e-mail) telling me how this upcoming presidential election cycle is already wrapped up. We just have to figure out which Republican official is going to get the privilege of being remembered by history as the person who spared us further damage of an Obama Administration.

I happen to think that anybody who says they know how this election cycle will turn out is either a liar, or incredibly stupid.

For while I will concede the economic conditions that are severe enough to take down any presidential administration (Obama may not have caused it, but he has been unable to fix it), I’m wondering if Obama’s opposition is too inept to take advantage of it.

It is possible that Obama could get elected despite the economic problems, which weren’t of his doing and which it could be argued that his efforts to find a solution have been complicated by the partisan politics played by the people whose hang-ups caused them to hate the idea of a “President Obama” from Day One.



PERRY: Making his choice, just like McCain



AND PART OF that is because Obama – who has permitted significant measures toward the “border security” that the ideologues demand – isn’t giving them all. He’s refusing to completely demonize the growing Latino population.



Latino voters aren’t enthused about Obama because he doesn’t seem willing to push hard enough. Yet this latest poll reflects the fact that many Latinos know who their enemigo really is.



So unless there is a sudden shift in the partisan rhetoric toward Latinos (not likely, since even Texas Gov. Rick Perry is shifting his own somewhat-tamed talk to something more rancid when it comes to immigration reform), I don’t see any GOP nominee getting anywhere near that 40 percent standard.

Which could mean the significance of the Latino vote next year is that it could be what saves Barack Obama from going down to defeat due to the recession of the late aughts.

  -30-

EDITOR’S NOTE: On a separate matter, the Christian Science Monitor published a feature about the work ethic of the growing Latino population. I’m sure the headline of the story, in and of itself, will manage to offend the conservative ideologues. Have a Happy Monday!

The nasty rhetoric has begun on deportation

I’m not surprised, or swayed, by the fact that some political people already are trashing President Barack Obama because the Department of Homeland Security this week said that deportations of college students and spouses of military veterans was doing nothing to improve the security of our nation.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Friday about how Georgia’s political people were expressing outrage with the new policy that puts those students and spouses at the bottom of the priority list of non-citizens who ought to have to worry about being removed by force from the United States.

THE NEWSPAPER WENT so far as to report about how this political fight is “highlighting a disconnect” between the federal government and the local officials who have put Georgia on the side of places like Arizona and Alabama.

“The lack of seriousness about illegal immigration is exactly why we have to take measures on the state level to protect Georgia’s taxpaying citizens,” said a spokeswoman for Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal, to the newspaper. “It is unfortunate that the president is picking and choosing the ways in which he will enforce the law.”

Which is mild, compared to some of the rancid rhetoric also cropping up around the Internet – usually written by the same character named “anonymous” who is among the most hateful individuals to ever exist.

But there are also political people who are supportive of what was done this week, and I’d argue that this type of talk shows how partisan the opposition rhetoric is. Even Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., is lightening up a little. Although the constant critic of Obama on this issue is like many other Latinos in waiting to see how this federal action plays out before giving permanent praise.

IF THERE IS a true “disconnect,” it is between the ideologues who want to shout “Rule of Law!” to try to justify a bad policy in desperate need of overhaul, and those of us who possess a bit of compassion – to go along with common sense.

For everybody who wants to claim that Obama is having Homeland Security officials behave like this as an effort to pander for the Latino vote in the 2012 elections, I’d say that the critics are pandering for the ideologue vote.

Although I actually believe it is more accurate to say that talk such as what is coming from Georgia officials in opposition to what is happening is really the reason why there won’t be a significant Latino voter support for the eventual GOP presidential nominee – or many other Republican candidates for political office.

It also is why the Somos Republicanos group (which exists to try to get more Latinos in support of the Republican Party and its candidates) gave its support to the Homeland Security Department’s latest action – issuing a statement calling it, “a Reaganesque move” to promote cooperation on immigration reform.

  -30-

Non-citizen students less likely to be deported

It’s a step in the proper direction. But somehow, I suspect it is going to take some time before there is any notable bump in the Latino support for Barack Obama that registers in various polls.

OBAMA: Taking a baby step



I say that because there’s bound to be some ideologue who responds to the new federal policy that puts students and military veterans who are in this country without a valid visa at the bottom of the priority list for people to be deported by saying that Obama acted irrelevantly.

AFTER ALL, HE doesn’t suddenly “win” the Latino vote because of this. Actually, he will “win” the Latino vote, but because of GOP hostility, not because of this. But back to the point.

Latino activists and others who have been upset that Obama has been so willing to give to the conservative ideologues whose idea of immigration reform is nothing more than a boost in deportations are going to want to see how the new policy announced Thursday by Homeland Security Department officials actually works.

Will it amount to change? Or is it just cheap rhetoric that does little to change the daily reality?

Change is what the growing Latino population wants. Although I’m sure the rhetoric offered up Thursday will manage to offend the ideologues who want to view the Latino population as the problem.

AT STAKE HAS been a concern about people who were brought to this country at a very young age by their parents, who didn’t bother to go through the process (or got tangled up in it) of getting visas for the family.

The result is people who have lived the bulk of their lives here and are as assimilated to this society as anyone can be who don’t have citizenship.

Because of the lack of a visa, it complicates their ability to have a meaningful adult life, particularly when it comes to obtaining the higher education that is essential for one to succeed. That is what the various versions of the DREAM Act in Congress have tried to address.

But some people don’t want to address the problem. They don’t want to take a realistic look at the situations of people.

THEY JUST WANT to spew rhetoric and ramp up the number of deportations – even though various federal programs indicate that deportation is supposed to be the means of dealing with those non-citizens who have developed into serious problems (most often by committing serious crimes in this country).

And before anybody out there spews it, just being in this country is such a petty offense. Nobody with sense believes that they’re all criminals. The fact that YOU do IS the PROBLEM that our society faces.

So I have no doubt that Obama, by pushing for this policy that reduces the chances of college students and military veterans (or their non-citizen spouses) from being deported, will offend some.

They will spew rhetoric nasty enough that the public perception will be influenced in ways that the president may well drop in approval ratings by a point or two (as of Thursday, the Gallup Organization had Obama at 40 percent).

BUT THAT RATING will go up steadily in coming months IF we see that this isn’t just talk, and there really is less harassment of people. And as I have said before, the reason so many Latinos take interest in this issue (even if, as many of us are, we were born here) is because we realize there are some who either can’t, or don’t want to, tell the difference between who is, and is not, legal – and just want to regard all as “ought to be” illegal.

Obama’s Latino “problem” is that he has been seen sloughing off our interests because he doesn’t want to do the work – and arouse the ire of the ideologue opponents. Real action (and this might be real, because even Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., is supportive) will bolster the president’s Latino backing.

It will be because of actions like this (and NOT just this, other things have to be done too) that the Latino segment of the electorate will decide that it will be worthwhile to vote come 2012 – and vote for Obama largely because of who he’s not.

Which is the people who comprise the bulk of the opposition political party who want to view us as the problem, instead of as part of the solution to the problems facing this nation.

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NOTICIAS de LATINO: Texas a sample of Latino politicos of the future

There’s a political brawl shaping up in Texas that probably is going to be the prototype for the next decade or so for those individuals who are interested in the concept of increased political empowerment for the growing Latino population.

CASTRO: The challenger



Actually, it’s also of interest for those people of a certain ideological bent who are interested in thwarting increased political representation for Latino populations.

FOR IT SEEMS the tactic is going to be to craft such legislative and congressional districts in ways that appear to have significant numbers of Latino voters, but have enough of a base of non-Latino people as well who will vote for “anybody but” a Latino candidate.

There are going to be many Latino populations that will have their political representation in the form of old-guard white (or white ethnic) government officials.

They’re going to try to claim a moral high ground by claiming that anybody who objects to the situation is somehow being bigoted against them because they’re white.

While it is true that an elected official is supposed to represent ALL of the people of their particular political district, it doesn’t change the fact that the redistricting gamesmanship taking place across the country is meant to maintain a certain old-guard membership. Which means it becomes the “problem” for increased Latino representation.

THE WALL STREET Journal reported on one such incident involving a new congressional district stretching from the state capital in Austin to San Antonio. State Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, would like to move up to Congress to represent the Latino population of the district. But that means he’d have to take on long-time Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas – and be willing to risk a political civil war.

DOGGETT: The Latino incumbent?


This kind of maneuvering was done deliberately by the Republican establishment that drew the Texas political boundaries. Pit Latino political growth against the Democratic party, and sit back and watch as a GOP majority makes it all irrelevant in the end.

And people wonder why in Illinois, it is regarded as a joke by Latino activists that the Republicans there claim they would have given Latinos more than they got from the Democrat-drawn map. Illinois Latinos would face the same type of phony promise.

What else was worthy of attention to Latinos across the country?

HOW LITTLE DOES IT TAKE TO BE THE LATINO GOP PREFERENCE?: Fox News is using its Internet presence to report about the existence of a Republican presidential candidate who is actually sympathetic to Latinos.

HUNTSMAN: The favorite?



They say it is former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, whom they consider Latino-friendly because he doesn’t outright oppose the DREAM Act (although he favors so many restrictions on who’d be able to use it that it might become a moot point for many).

But I got my chuckle from the fact that Huntsman’s non-descript presidential campaign hired the same woman to be a national Hispanic chair that held the same position for John McCain’s presidential aspirations in 2008 – the ones that ultimately got about 32 percent of the Latino vote!

All in all, this is still shaping up to be the campaign where the best the Republican Party can hope for is a general apathy that causes Latinos to decide it’s just not worth taking the time to vote for anybody – a truly non-descript and un-inspiring message if ever there was one.

WHEN SAMMY SOSA SPEAKS, DOES ANYBODY LISTEN?:  Major League Baseball’s website managed to find one-time star slugger Sammy Sosa, who said he sympathizes with his one-time teammate, Chicago Cubs pitcher Carlos Zambrano – who recently walked out on his ballclub and may wind up being released with no further pay.

Sosa also told the people of mlb.com how he wishes his fellow peloteros from the Dominican Republic would be more careful and save the money they manage to make playing professional baseball so that they don’t wind up financially busted in the future.

Not that there’s anything terribly radical about what Sosa, who says he’s not broke, has to say. There are too many ballplayers of all ethnicities who manage to let money slip through their fingers because they get scammed, or don’t understand money management.

But how many fans really care anymore about Sosa – except when they want to denounce the Hall of Fame election chances of the only ballplayer who ever managed to hit 60 or more home runs in three seasons?

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