The South Chicagoan

Be wary of people who tell you what Florida’s Latino vote will be

2012-01-31T00:02:00.000-06:00

At some point Tuesday night when you hear results from the Florida primary election, somebody is bound to try to supplement it by giving you figures that purport to be the Latino/Hispanic/Cubano/whatever vote for the Republican presidential dreamers.

ROMNEY: Not really the Latino leader

Heck, there’s even a poll that has been out there in recent days that says Latinos in Florida prefer Mitt Romney over Newt Gingrich by a ratio of seven to four.

I’M SURE SOMEONE is going to try to claim that whatever figures the exit polls produce is the evidence that this particular GOPer is the preference of Latino voters.

This is the person who’s going to take away the Latino support that was influential in Barack Obama getting elected as president in the 2008 election cycle.

This is the evidence that Latinos are realizing that the Republican Party is our salvation – the ones that are going to help us rise from our current status into something approaching civilization.

Nonsense!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I HAVE NO doubt that some people who have ethnic origins in a Latin American country who are registered to vote in Florida will pick a Republican ballot and cast a vote for one of the tontos seeking the GOP nomination for U.S. president.

GINGRICH: Keep trying

But I’m also pretty sure that a larger number of Latinos will have no interest in casting a Republican primary ballot. Which means some presidential candidate is going to claim to have a Latino majority of support, when in reality the majority will be those who don’t want any of these payasos in office.

Take that poll I referenced earlier – the one commissioned by the Univision television network that says 35 percent of Latinos want Romney, compared to 20 percent for Gingrich – with the rest of the Republican field getting so little support they may as well not exist.

That still means the bulk of Latinos don’t want any of these people. They’d rather have either an apathetic Obama (which he has been on many issues of concern to the Latino segment of society), or they may decide not to vote at all.

TAKE THAT SAME poll by Latino Decisions (a group that does studies trying to determine where the Latino segment stands on many issues). An Obama/Gingrich campaign would see Obama take70 percent of the Latino vote, while Romney would hold Obama to “only” 67 percent Latino voter support.

OBAMA: Winner, by default?

This could even happen in Florida, where the latest figures from the Pew Hispanic Center show that more Florida-based Latinos are registered to vote as Democrats (564,513) compared to Republicans (452,619) – continuing a trend that has been continuing for the past six years.

My point in all of this being that you are going to hear a statistic telling you who “won” the Latino vote in the Republican presidential primary on Tuesday. It will even be an accurate figure – and not completely worthless for studying.

Yet the truth is that many Latinos probably didn’t vote in that primary, no matter what Marco Rubio says or thinks – and many across the nation may be seeing their “voice” as being expressed on Nov. 6 when the bulk of Latinos vote against whomever the Republican Party nominates to run against Obama.

IN SHORT, MY ethnic brethren will be voting against the candidate whose rhetoric offends them more than Obama’s inactivity. We’re going to vote for the candidate who we hate the least – which is how many people will be voting in this particular election cycle.

Which means we may have well assimilated politically into society as a whole.

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It's Latinos who still believe in the “American Dream”

2012-01-30T00:02:00.000-06:00

I’m sure there are going to be some people who will dismiss a new Pew Hispanic Center study as the whining of Latinos – it says that 54 percent of my ethnic brethren believe we have been hit harder by the economic struggles of recent years than others in our society.

It's not just a CD to many Latinos

Of course, anyone who’s honest has to admit that the problems we have faced for some five years now haven’t benefitted anyone in any way.

BUT THE PART of the study released last week that caught my attention the most was a part that turned up near the end – it seems that we are eternal optimists.

For some 67 percent of Latinos expect their financial situation to improve during 2012 – higher than the 58 percent of the U.S. population as a whole. Also, 66 percent of Latinos told the pollsters that they expect their children to enjoy a higher standard of living than they have now.

As opposed to 48 percent of all people who think the same thing.

Are we just naïve? Gullible? Or is the American Dream still alive and thriving, and the people who have their hang-ups now are merely upset that more people are trying to grab a piece of that “pie” that our nation supposedly offers up that makes us one of the most desirable places on Planet Earth in which to live?

IT COULD BE that there are those among the 16 percent of our society that is Latino are at a place on the economic scale that isn’t pretty high. Therefore, just about anything would be regarded as an improvement. I’m not going to deny the element of truth in that argument.

For that same survey showed 75 percent of Latinos saying their personal finances were only “fair” or “poor,” and that 28 percent of those Latinos who own homes are having problems with the mortgage payments.

But it is an encouragement to see the belief in our society that still exists.

For it makes me all the more convinced that Latinos are going to be the impetus that keeps our society alive and thriving. We’re still willing to work and push and strive for better – which is what we should want in a society.

NOT A BATCH of people whose idea of reform for our society is a series of policies that amount to “protectionism” for themselves, and exclusion for anyone else who might also want to try the immigrant route – which truly is the basis of our society.

It is why I occasionally make the joke that the people who rant and rage about immigrants turning the United States into a “third world” nation are the ones who really would turn this into “third world” status if they ever were given their vision of what this country should be like.

Such optimism from my ethnic brethren is encouraging to read about – even though I’m sure the xenophobes of our society aren’t going to want to believe it.

Somebody still believes in the concept of America, and is interested in the idea of being a “real” American. It isn’t the people who usually try to claim that label for themselves.

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GOPols on Puerto Rico

2012-01-28T00:02:00.000-06:00

Personally, I do believe the day will come when Puerto Rico will become another state in the United States.

The flag, as envisioned by statehood backers

So the fact that Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney made comments on Friday while campaigning in Florida that some people seem determined to interpret as support for statehood strikes me as officials saying the incredibly obvious without offending those people who have a hang-up about this issue.

I REALLY DON’T think that either official, especially Romney, said anything terribly new. Yet it is the drawback of covering campaign activity that there are times when things get blown out of proportion to their true significance because space (and airtime) needs to be filled.

For the record, both campaigned at the Hispanic Leadership Network, where they were asked about the issue. Gingrich said he thinks Puerto Rico residents should decide the issue by referendum, and is prepared to respect whatever view they support.

“I am not dictating the outcome of the referendum,” he said. Which makes his rhetoric the typical political response – take no stance, and hope that confusion and chaos among Puerto Ricans prevents them from ever coming to a consensus on the issue.

Romney took a similar stance, only adding that he expects Puerto Ricans to support statehood in a referendum that will be part of their November general elections. “I expect the people of Puerto Rico will decide that they want to become a state and I can tell you that I will work with (Gov. Luis Fortuno) to make sure that if that vote comes out in favor of statehood that we will go through the process in Washington to provide statehood to Puerto Rico.”

DUH!

If the people of Puerto Rico do decide in favor of wanting to be a state (instead of a commonwealth with lesser rights, even though all their residents are U.S. citizens by birth), Romney (or any politician) would be hard-pressed to stand in the way of Congress going through the process that results in a place becoming a state.

Which isn’t exactly an overnight process either. It will take time.

If anything, I would have thought it a more newsworthy answer if Romney had said something in opposition to statehood for Puerto Rico. Because I suspect that would have gained him more political support from the ideologues than he will get from Puerto Rican voters living in Florida who go to the polls on Tuesday.

THIS IS ONE of those issues that gains little traction among Latinos as a whole. The bulk of us whose ethnic origins don’t include Puerto Rico don’t get all excited about this one.

And even many Puerto Ricans don’t put it at the top of the priority list – particularly if they are not among the 4 million who live on the island.

Why should someone who has already left the island care about the fact that their ethnic brethren don’t get all the benefits of their U.S. citizenship, when all they’d have to do to get it is make the same move to the mainland that many Puerto Ricans have made?

If anything, my only interest in the issue is because of the fact that I see how much it outrages some ideologues to think that Puerto Rico might someday be the equivalent of Hawaii. The idea of a state where Spanish is the indigenous language most commonly used does bother those people.

SO PERHAPS IT would be a good thing for a state of Puerto Rico; although I realize it is a tad juvenile to support something just because it offends somebody else.

But at a time when our nation is so rapidly becoming significantly Latino in composition, perhaps the time has come to quit thinking of Puerto Rico solely as the spoils the U.S. got from Spain after “winning” that war in 1898.

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¡Too much trivia!

2012-01-27T00:02:00.000-06:00

There is a serious problem in the suburbs of New Haven, Conn., and it doesn’t have anything to do with a local mayor making a silly remark about eating tacos to show support for Latinos.

Yet that is what is drawing public attention – the fact that East Haven Mayor Joseph Maturo, Jr., made an apology to anyone who was offended by his wisecrack.

IT MAKES ME wonder if it was, in part, deliberate. Because with all the attention going to his wisecrack, a lot of people seem to be downplaying (if not outright ignoring) the fact that police in that Connecticut town are showing signs of singling out the 10 percent of the local populace that is Latino for extra attention that some people say borders on harassment.

While such claims are heard in many places across the nation, the actions in this town were so severe that they caught the attention of the FBI – which recently arrested four East Haven police officers.

Those police officers who are supposed to be upholding the law and protecting the populace were (according to the FBI) performing illegal searches and making false arrests on Latino business owners and residents.

Late last year, the Justice Department issued a report that said East Haven police engaged in “discriminatory policing” against Latinos.

THAT IS SERIOUS. If anything, it goes so far to undermine any argument that the conservative ideologues like to make about immigration and ethnicity-related issues if the only way they can get their stance to prevail is from strong-arm tactics by the police.

Yet this has become an afterthought – getting a mere mention of a phrase or two in broadcast reports I have seen.

Because it is much easier for them to focus on a mayor being a nitwit and making an “apology,” which I sense those broadcasters think puts them on the “proper” side of this issue.

If they truly were on the “proper” side, they’d have been looking into these allegations of harassment (instead of most likely dismissing them as the rants of cranks) or thinking that such reporting would amount to “taking a side” on this issue.

PERSONALLY, I’M NOT all that offended by Maturo’s remark (when asked what he would do to show support for Latinos in response to the discrimination claims, he said, “I might have tacos when I go home”). It strikes me as being too stupid a choice of words to take seriously, let alone get worked up over.

Yet it seems that many people would rather denounce a political person for saying something stupid than address the issue of whether the police are behaving in a manner that borders on criminal.

THAT is the real problem we face here.

Not that this is the only trivial moment appearing in the news broadcasts these days. If anything, the confrontation between President Barack Obama and Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer may be even more pathetic.

IT IS NO secret the two don’t really get along. Brewer has her hang-ups that the federal government would oppose the fact that Arizona state officials are trying to meddle in a federal issue (which is what immigration policy is).

BREWER: Wants the attention?

The two have even met before, with Brewer going out of her way to pass along an impression of that meeting that made her look as heroic and triumphant as possible.

So her attempt this week to berate Obama when he arrived at a Phoenix airport was just more of the same. If anything, it seems like Brewer is the one who is eager to keep this rivalry alive.

Which means if we want to really cast a harmful blow to Brewer on this issue, the best thing we could do would be to ignore her.

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A ¿War about the Latinos? So goes Florida primary

2012-01-26T00:02:00.000-06:00

They want our votes, yet don’t seem to have a clue how to really reach us.

GINGRICH: Mocking Mitt

I couldn’t help but think that thought upon learning of the campaign back-and-forth taking place Wednesday between Republican presidential hopefuls Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney.

I’M SURE THEY think they were trying to get the support of my ethnic brethren. Yet all that really seems to have happened is that the two candidates seemed determined to gain the support of other voters without seeming to be pro-Latino.

In short, Wednesday will be one of the days whose activity will be used as evidence as to why these candidates were incapable of gaining legitimate support from Latino voters.

For the record, Gingrich – who has tried in recent years to make himself appear to have an interest in growing the number of Latinos who back the GOP – engaged in rhetoric meant to mock Romney.

He said that some suggestions Romney has made that would supposedly encourage people in this country without U.S. citizenship or a valid visa to leave on their own is a mere fantasy.

ACTUALLY, HE REFERRED to it as an, “Obama-level fantasy.” Gee, tying the Romney name to the Obama name.

It does nothing to make Latinos think Gingrich cares about our interests. He’s just trying to make the ideologues despise the thought of Romney as the Republican presidential nominee all the more than they already do.

ROMNEY: Invading Cuba?

If anything, it means he’s willing to use us as the negative part of the “punch line” to try to get himself a few more votes in the upcoming Florida primary elections.

But Romney showed he’s capable of using the same tactics. He claims that Gingrich’s efforts in recent years to take an interest in Latinos is nothing but pandering.

THEN, HE ENGAGED in some pandering of his own toward the Miami exile community that likes to think South Florida is just an extension of Havana – the way it was some six decades ago.

Just as we had a “drug czar” to oversee programs meant to reduce the spread of illegal narcotics, Romney says he would create a “czar”-type position to oversee our potential future relations with Cuba, and perhaps the rest of the nations of Latin America.

In his words, this person would promote freedom throughout the region. Which, to me, is rhetoric bordering on the ridiculous!

Because it strikes me as being more about trying to one-up people, compared to the rhetoric that Barack Obama used during the ’08 election cycle with regards to Cuba.

OF COURSE, THE ideologues despised that rhetoric because it implied he would want to seek some sort of real relationship with the Caribbean island nation – rather than the implication being given by Romney – who also made comments in Miami that had some people wondering if he was implying the possibility of a military strike if he gets elected.

His rhetoric was vague. But if he really is thinking such thoughts, that ought to be enough reason to vote against Romney for president.

Anybody who can’t accept the failure of the Bay of Pigs attempt at a Cuban invasion some five decades ago would only be driving this country into a bigger debacle if they were thinking of some similar, 21^st Century-style plot.

Let’s only hope THIS amounts to little more than campaign trash talk, to be forgotten as soon as possible after the Tuesday primary in Florida – which is about the only place in the country that might show even the slightest interest in such talk.

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1 in 4, compared to 1 in 7

2012-01-25T00:02:00.000-06:00

The Florida presidential primary elections will take place Tuesday, and will give us the first election where the Latino population is significant – and not merely fast-growing (such as Iowa or South Carolina).

Just how significant are we talking?

THE PEW HISPANIC Center released its own overview of the Florida electorate, showing just how many Latinos potentially could show up at the polling places next week.

And for those people who think the Florida Latino vote is the Miami exile community, that’s only part of the story.

For the record, 13.1 percent of the state’s registered voters are Latino (about 1 of every 7), compared to 23 percent of the state’s overall population being Latino (about 1 in 4). Insofar as ethnicity, 32 percent of the Florida Latinos eligible to vote are Cubano, while 28 percent are Puerto Rican and 9 percent are Mexican-American (compared to 59 percent of Latino eligible voters nationally).

Now I know the ideologue argument – those are small and should be ignored. Which would be true if the rest of the Florida populace were united in opposition.

FORTUNATELY FOR MY ethnic brethren, the idea of those people agreeing on anything is ludicrous. Which makes our number sizable enough to break any sort of tie. It is why any candidate who has engaged in hostile campaigning activity to date potentially is going to pay for it now.

The statistic that amazed me the most is the fact that 452,619 Latinos are registered to vote in Florida as Republicans, compared to 564,513 Latinos registered as Democrats.

The past six years have seen the shift away from the Republican Party for Latinos in Florida. Those exiles are dying off, and their hostility toward the “Party of Kennedy” is not being passed down to the future generations.

If anything, it may well be the hostility toward GOPers that is developing in recent years, and could become a long-running trend (the number of Latino Democrats in Florida registered to vote has increased by nearly 200,000 people since 2006 – while Latino Republicans has increased by only about 38,000 since then).

SO IT WILL be interesting to see how the turnout comes down next week.

For the chance is good that the majority Democrats of Florida Latinos will not be turning out in force because of Barack Obama running un-opposed. What about the Latino Republicans?

Will they feel compelled to turn out in any significant numbers? What if a large number decided to sit it out for the GOP primary? Which is what the Republican operatives are ultimately hoping happens in the general election – as they want Latinos to “sit it out” and vote for nobody, rather than Obama.

There is one potentially depressing factor – Florida has about 2.1 million Latinos who are eligible to vote. But as indicated earlier, the number of people who are actually registered is about 1.1 million.

THAT MAKES 1 million Latinos who are fully capable of registering to cast ballots on Election Day, but who won’t.

I realize that Election Day apathy exists among all ethnic groups. Perhaps Latino apathy in Florida isn’t any worse than any other place.

But it still is dismaying to see 1 million Latinos decide it’s not worth bothering to express their voice with a vote – which is one of the perks of living in this society.

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Mitt Romney’s family NOT a collection of “illegal aliens”

2012-01-24T00:02:00.000-06:00

Somebody doesn’t know their history, or their immigration law. Or perhaps they’re just susceptible to the idea that anybody from Mexico is somehow “illegal” just by their very existence.

That’s about the only way to describe NBC News reporter-type Andrea Mitchell, who I think was trying to make some sort of sympathetic point that being “illegal” doesn’t make one a bad person.

THE ONLY PROBLEM is that her statement that the Romney family (including Mitt’s father, George, who was 5 at the time) did not follow the law when they returned to the United States in 1912 (after having spent several decades in Mexico to escape religious persecution in this country).

Now I know the ideologues will claim they were being persecuted because of their polygamous beliefs. But I’m sure the “good Christians” who were particularly worked up would have found something else to complain about with regards to Mormons.

But back to Immigration. I guess we’re supposed to think that George Romney (who went on to become governor of Michigan) was an “illegal alien.” Does that make Mitt (born in Detroit) an “anchor baby?”

I write those terms that way to mock them, because the whole concept is nonsense.

IT TRULY IS someone who doesn’t really comprehend immigration law and its history trying to place things in a contemporary context of hate that makes no sense.

For me, I was able to shoot this claim down in my mind when I double-checked the year that the Romney family returned to this country – 1912. They wanted to get away from the hostilities in Mexico that eventually became the Mexican Revolution of the 1910s.

Whereas the first U.S. immigration laws were enacted in 1924. Even then, the original immigration policy specifically exempted Mexican citizens from any of the restrictions that were imposed against Jewish people and non-whites who might have wanted to come to the United States.

The reason that was done was because the xenophobes in Congress of the 1920s were more concerned with keeping eastern European Jews out of the United States. They gave little thought to Mexicans.

AND IN THE Southwestern territories that later became states, people crossed over that border in both directions every day without a thought given to it.

My point being, if they came in 1912, there was no federal immigration law in place. Their arrival was not “illegal” in any sense – unless you are letting your view of an immigration policy be guided by your ethnic hang-ups.

And as newspaper columnist Ruben Navarette has reported, when the Romney family originally fled the United States for Mexico in the 1880s, they never did anything to renounce their U.S. citizenship.

In fact, Mexican officials allowed them to live there (in separate colonies where they were not assimilated into the Mexican masses) but never granted them citizenship.

IT TOOK SEVERAL decades for those Romneys who did not return to eventually become so ingrained in Mexico that they now have citizenship – although my understanding is that the Mexican Romneys claim dual citizenship (a concept our own nation does not recognize).

But the point being, how can it be “illegal” for anyone with U.S. citizenship to return to this country?

It makes me glad that I missed the Chris Matthews Show (where all this happened) on Sunday, because I would have been screaming obscenities at the television screen.

Nobody was illegal. And for Andrea Mitchell to use the term is offensive because she’s giving it a certain credibility – when anybody with sense ought to be going out of their way to show how stupid its use is with regards to immigration.

WHAT WE OUGHT to be doing is making the use of “illegal” to describe people the equivalent of those people some four decades ago who deliberately ate grapes and lettuce picked by migrant farm workers so as to show their disgust for Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers – even though he called for a boycott of such foods.

It would be a sign of just how big of nitwits they truly are!

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¿Is Mitt a Mexican?

2012-01-23T00:02:00.000-06:00

Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who’d like for us to think he’s the GOP front-runner for U.S. president, is causing many of us Latinos a headache – and not just because he’s willing to spread the ideologue rhetoric about immigration reform.

ROMNEY: A Mexicano named Mitt?

For the fact is that the Romney family lived for a time in Mexico. One faction of the family still lives there – a faction that can call itself second-cousins to Mitt.

WHICH HAS SOME people wondering – Is Mitt Romney a Mexican? Is he a Mexican-American? Is he Latino (or the type of Latino who’d rather call himself “Hispanic” or “Spanish”)?

Or is he just another white guy trying to get Latino votes in the upcoming Jan. 31 Florida primary elections?

Romney himself hasn’t talked much about this fact – which seems to mean that people are being allowed to perceive Mitt in accordance to what they want to believe about him.

Personally, the only one of those questions that has a straightforward “yes” or “no” answer is the first.

NO! ROMNEY IS not a Mexican. He was born in Michigan (the state where his father served a stint as governor). And as National Public Radio is reporting, Romney has second cousins who live in Mexico and have Mexican citizenship – but he has never met them.

He’s never ventured to his father’s birthplace in Chihuahua or to the communities in that Mexican state where his family lives.

The fact that the Romney family passed through Mexico for a time during their stint in the Americas doesn’t seem to be a crucial factor in his life.

Which is his choice. I’m not going to mock Mitt for not embracing his Mexico ties (including the fact that his father was a Mexican, by birth). Personally, I think he’s missing out on what could be the most interesting aspect of his character. But it’s his life.

BUT IT MEANS I am going to get all bothered when certain political people try to claim that Romney’s campaign for president has some sort of special appeal to Latinos because of these Romney family ties to Mexico.

They just don’t mean much.

For the record, the Romney family fled the United States in the 19^th Century for Mexico – in large part to get away from the hostility and intolerance of the U.S. society for their Mormon religious beliefs.

Within Mexico, they settled in special colonies that enabled them to avoid intermingling with the Mexican people (which, to me, sounds an awful lot like what the conservative ideologues accuse Latinos of doing in this country).

BUT THEY WEREN’T totally unlike the native people. For when the Mexican Revolution of the 1910s cropped up, many Mormons fled those colonies to come back to the United States. My own grandfathers came to this country around that time because the revolution caused so much unrest there was no chance of a worthwhile life there.

Among others who came were the members of the Romney family who directly result in the creation of Mitt. His father, George, was 5 when he left Mexico.

I couldn’t help but notice that NPR report I alluded to early that found a Mormon colony today with 40 Romney relatives.

They’re still going out of their way, it seems, to live apart from Mexican people in Mexico.

THERE JUST SEEMS to be too much of a separation, and in my mind the fact that Romney can say with a straight face all that nonsense-talk about immigration reform being unnecessary shows the separation.

Even NPR noted that Mitt’s Mexican primos wish they could have a few moments alone with him to try to talk some sense into his head.

So is it right to think of Mitt as a Mexican-American? Only in his wildest of fantasies should he be thought of as one. Because it would be an improvement.

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Redistricting a political headache, as elected officials usually get their way

2012-01-21T00:02:00.000-06:00

I couldn’t help but notice a pair of actions this week related to redistricting – actions that go against the desires of those people who have problems with the way politicians put their own self-interest ahead of what allegedly benefits “the public” when it comes to drawing political district boundaries.

This version of Chicago is no more

For it seems that as long as politicians follow certain guidelines, they can more or less draw whatever boundaries they want and the courts will feel compelled to go along.

ONE SUCH ACTION occurred in my home town of Chicago, where the City Council managed to approve new boundaries for the city’s 50 wards – changes meant to reflect shifts in population that include a boost in the number of Latinos who live in Chicago.

The other action came from the Supreme Court of the United States – which unanimously shot down the efforts of an appeals court that had ruled Texas state officials had put together boundaries that violated a sense of fairness.

Now Texas needs new Congressional district boundaries, and the nation’s high court says they have to bear some resemblance to the map that the state Legislature drew up.

That map, of course, was prepared by a Republican majority and was a blatant effort to keep in check the significant population gains by Latinos in the Lone Star State.

THE APPEALS COURT had ruled that the state Legislature wrongly acted in ways to dilute minority voting strength. But the Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that redistricting is essentially a state issue, and not the business for a federal court to get involved in.

Who's to say how much this will change

So Texas is likely to get something along the lines of what the Republican majority of that state wanted in the first place; boundaries meant to ensure that Texas sends a majority of Republicans to Washington as part of its congressional delegation.

And that will be done, in large part, by keeping the growing Latino population under control. Which I’m sure pleases the ideologues.

But it does reinforce the idea that I was taught some two decades ago. There is no one “right” map when drawing political boundaries. So long as basic rules are followed, the courts will usually go along with whatever concoction the local politicians come up with for themselves.

AND IF IT means my ethnic brethren in Texas (including an aunt and cousin who live in San Antonio) get snubbed a bit in the process, then it becomes all too legal.

Which is what the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund ought to keep in mind as they contemplate the idea of lawsuits in Chicago – claiming that the City Council on Thursday could have done a better job of drawing ward boundaries to reflect the fact that 29 percent of the city’s population is Latino (compared to 33 percent African-American and 32 percent white – mostly ethnic).

For the fact is that the City Council approved a map that gave slight increases to Latino political representation, and managed to do so in a process that is being called political compromise.

I write it that way because the honest truth is that this particular set of ward boundaries was forced down the aldermanic throat by certain leaders, including Mayor Rahm Emanuel – who just wants a map passed so that they can move on with things.

BUT STILL, A process was followed. Which means the high courts are likely to think that the process was followed, and that its results should be respected.

As for the rest of us? Perhaps we’ll need to stock up on clothespins – to help keep our nostrils pinched to protect us from the stench of partisan politics.

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Even Latino churches are assimilating

2012-01-20T00:02:00.000-06:00

An intriguing piece of reporting from the Christianity Today magazine.

Immigration levels from Latin American nations declined in the past couple of years, and that is having an effect on churches that have significant Latino congregations.

FOR WHILE THE number of newcomers isn’t as high as it was just a few years ago, it isn’t really thwarting the Latino population growth. Latino numbers are more now about people born in this country, rather than those who came from somewhere else.

Which means we’re talking about people who are more assimilated into the society as a whole. There may still be a desire for a church service that reflects elements of the ethnic “motherland,” so to speak.

But they’re being done more and more en Ingles, which isn’t all that radically different from other ethnic groups that still maintain churches reflecting their “home” culture.

But the idea of “selective assimilation” is something you best should read about for yourself.

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¿Do they even want the Latino vote?

2012-01-19T00:02:00.000-06:00

A piece of commentary that's worth reading.

Univision Radio broadcaster Fernando Espuelas offers up his theories about how Republican political officials could gain significant shares of the Latino electorate – although most of them amount to merely showing respect for the growing part of the population.

RATHER THAN DEMONIZING our growing numbers!!!

Which is why I’m convinced there are significant parts of the GOP electorate that desperately doesn’t want anything to do with Latinos. Manage to win something without them, then you owe nothing and can justify (in their own mini-minds) ignoring my ethnic brethren.

Of course, such a line of logic goes both ways. Ignore us, and we’re likely to ignore you right back. Particularly in the upcoming election cycle.

Which in the end only serves to make themselves irrelevant.

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Some too eager to ignore modern reality

2012-01-18T00:02:00.000-06:00

What may well be hurting Republican efforts to gain a significant share of the Latino vote is that some people are just determined to believe that Latinos only live in certain areas.

ROMNEY: Conflicting campaign strategies

They want to envision “el barrio” as being a lighter-complexioned take on an African-American ghetto, except that the people “talk funny.” In short, they want to isolate us into certain areas that they can then ignore – while focusing on the rest of the country where “real” people live.

TAKE MITT ROMNEY, who has a campaign strategy that is reaching out to Latinos with Spanish-language advertising these days in anticipation of the Jan. 31 primary.

But in South Carolina where the primary is scheduled for Saturday, Romney is touting his alliances with individuals who are perceived by the growing Latino electorate as hostile toward our existence.

Apparently, somebody hasn’t given the numbers “211” and “148” to the Romney campaign.

Those numbers are percentages – as in the size of the growth of the Latino population in South Carolina between 1990 and 2000, then between 2000 and 2010.

NOW, IN ORDER to get such sizable increases during the past two decades, South Carolina would either have had to have increased overall to such a size that it could rival the Californias or Texases when it comes to population.

LINCOLN: Is GOP ashamed?

Or, it would have had to have had such an insignificant number of Latinos to begin with so that ANY increase would be a significant percentage boost.

That is what has happened to South Carolina, where 5.1 percent of the overall 4.63 million residents (as of the 2010 Census Bureau population count) was Latino. Which means going from about 1 percent to 5 percent overall during that two-decade time period.

That is why South Carolina gets the designation as having the “fastest growing Latino population” of any state in the nation.

IT REALLY IS evidence that Latinos are going everywhere – even into South Carolina. Heck, even Alaska has a 5.5 percent Latino population these days.

And the Romney camp seems determined to appeal to the people who want to view this as a problem to be overcome – instead of the potential for rejuvenating our society with a jolt of fresh labor.

In short, running Spanish language campaign ads in South Carolina might make just as much sense in that southern state. It would be a realization of our expansion, rather than thinking that my ethnic brethren are confined to a few select neighborhoods in Miami.

It is going to be the reason that Republican officials are going to have some serious problems in this election cycle – even though they want to believe that a national discontent with Obama will take them to victory. It’s really a national discontent with political people of all kinds – themselves included.

IT ALSO IS the reason why I find rather pathetic such attempts by ideologues to toss out the names of Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan as examples of Republicans who did things to benefit non-white people, compared to Democratic Party rhetoric without action.

REAGAN: Ignoring 'amnesty'

Lincoln may have “freed the slaves,” but I see way too many ideologues these days who want to downplay the Lincoln involvement in their political party’s creation when it doesn’t fit their ideological hang-ups (which is all too often). It really seems that the one-time “Party of Lincoln” is ashamed of that label.

And as far as Reagan’s attempt at immigration reform that gave the “amnesty” to long-term residents, the very ideologues who like to worship at the “Temple of Bonzo” are usually quick to denounce that 1986 action as Reagan’s one “mistake.”

Those aren’t the attitudes that are going to sway many Latinos over to their side come Nov. 6.

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It takes so little to be the leading GOPer among would-be Latino voters

2012-01-17T00:02:00.000-06:00

GINGRICH: Number 1 among Latinos?

Insofar as Newt Gingrich goes, I have to admit his people have created a website that tries to portray a semi-positive image of the growing Latino population of this nation.

Which isn’t much to offer up. Yet when one considers just how despicable many of the other candidates in the Republican presidential candidate field truly are, it becomes blatantly obvious why Gingrich can be perceived as the “leader” of the Latino pack.

SO I WASN’T surprised to learn that CNN reported Monday about how the Somos Republicans group officially endorsed Gingrich – hoping maybe to give him a jolt that could close the four-point gap that now supposedly exists between Gingrich and Mitt Romney in the upcoming South Carolina primary.

Somos Republicans is a group that is trying to promote the idea of Latinos joining the GOP in larger numbers – a noble, if not extremely difficult, goal.

Personally, I found it telling that Somos Republicans’ previous leader quit the group and now calls herself a Libertarian – claiming that the modern-day incarnation of the Republican Party is just too hostile toward Latinos.

Go through the rhetoric being used by the candidates who wish to challenge Barack Obama in the November general election, and they all have their moments when they make it clear that they are more interested in appealing to the conservative ideologue masses who would want to use Latinos as a political punching bag.

SO GETTING AN endorsement for Gingrich is merely a matter if him going out of his way to avoid saying something so blatantly stupid that it would make it impossible to have a straight face while backing him.

That truly is sad when you think about it. Latinos who feel compelled to be Republicans have to look for the candidate who expresses the least amount of disgust for our presence in this country.

And people seriously wonder why most Latinos are likely to cast their ballots for Obama – even though his record during a first term in office has been one more of apathy than anything else when it comes to issues of concern to the one-sixth of the U.S. population with ethnic origins in Latin American nations. Apathy versus token interest, as opposed to outright outrage! What a “buffet” of political dishes to pick from.

Not exactly the most joyous of election cycles for the Latino electorate. Which is why I already have a headache – one not likely to go away until Nov. 7 (if ever).

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Can pretty wrapping paper and shiny bow cover up package that smells of caca?

2012-01-16T00:02:00.000-06:00

Is George Rodriguez, head of a Tea Party faction in San Antonio, Texas, with many Latino members, on to something?

Will Latinos be more accepting of the ideological tone of the Republican Party if it is described to them as “conservative,” rather than as “Republican?”

IT SOUNDS FAR-FETCHED to me. But Rodriguez is standing by it. He used a conference of the Texas Public Policy Foundation to try to advise his fellow Republican-types how they can reach out to the Latino vote without having to temper the tone of any of their rhetoric.

Even though I’d argue the real solution is to temper the rhetorical tone so as to be more respectful of people. Someone who shows my ethnic brethren no respect sure isn’t about to get mine.

But some of my ethnic brethren seem determined to try to mix themselves into a group whose talk would seem to indicate they’re not truly wanted.

Which is why Rodriguez’ message last week warranted some national news coverage. The Reuters wire service has a story out of Austin, Texas under the headline, “Say ‘conservative’ not ‘Republican’ to woo Latinos: Tea Party.”

ON FIRST GLANCE, I don’t buy into it.

If anything, it reinforces the idea that the Republican Party has managed to tag itself as the opposition political party among the fast-growing Latino population.

It almost is like Rodriguez doesn’t want us to realize that the GOP to which he and his followers want to be faithful has a serious problem. He’d rather try to put a cutesy label on it, rather than make the political party truly acceptable to the interests of Latinos.

Which wouldn’t be impossible to do. Because way too many Latinos are “Democrats by default.” It is becoming more and more clear that many of us are going to vote, once again, for Barack Obama to be president – because of the fact that we can’t stand the thought of ANY of the GOP dreamers currently running in the primary elections.

WE’RE VOTING AGAINST the Republican Party (just as we did by a 2-1 ratio in 2008 against John McCain), rather than for anything. Because apathy seems better to us than hostility.

Which is why Rodriguez is correct when he told that gathering of Texas ideologues, “whenever the word ‘Republican’ is used, it was almost like an automatic wall that falls.”

But the idea that pushing the label “conservative” down our collective throat will make any difference is just silly. How clueless do these people believe the Latino electorate is?

I’d say that Rodriguez’ suggestion is the equivalent of painting that “automatic wall” a new color (I’m sure the nitwits among the ideologues will joke that we’ll cover it in graffiti), rather than taking a sledgehammer to the wall to knock it down.

IF ANYTHING, I do believe many of my ethnic brethren would love to be able to do a symbolic number equivalent to what happened to the Berlin Wall of old – smash it to pieces so that we’re welcome all the way around. Just like, someday, we’re likely to do with those barricades being built in the desert that separates this country from Mexico.

Berlin Wall. Photograph provided by Silkstreet

That isn’t the case now. And it won’t be the case until there are some serious attitude changes – none of which are on the scene for the 2012 election cycle.

So my snide and snotty headline on this commentary was intended to be a response to the wire service dispatch headline written by Reuters.

Because no matter how much the GOP "package" gets wrapped in glossy paper, something about it still smells foul.

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The confusion that can doom them

2012-01-14T00:02:00.000-06:00

I have engaged in many rants in recent months about how the Republican candidates with dreams of becoming U.S. president may be doomed because of their occasionally hostile and often condescending attitude toward the nation’s growing Latino population.

The GOP has candidates who would thoroughly enjoy being able to appeal to the nativists of our society. Yet those candidates also have to find a way to temper their rhetoric because they don’t want to turn the Latino electorate against them so intensely that they wind up putting Barack Obama back in the White House.

IT MEANS THAT except for the nitwit candidates who don’t care, and are unlikely to take the nomination anyhow, there is a delicate balancing act that has to be done.

We have candidates who try desperately to say things, hoping that only certain types of people are listening. Then, they say something else to the other group.

Such as the case of Mitt Romney these days, who is getting praise (in some quarters) for the campaign advertising he is doing in Florida en Español. Not that Mitt is speaking Spanish. He’s having his son, Craig, habla en el otra lengua.

We get to hear the usual rhetoric about “American values” and our “national greatness” that the ideologues may think sounds sincere but comes off as so phony that it makes me perceive those people as “anti-American” in nature. The Spanish language doesn’t make it sound any more real.

HIS CAMPAIGN SPOTS also tout the fact that he has the backing of such Cuban exile community politicos as Mario Diaz-Balart, Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.

All of which I’m sure he thinks is going to make his campaign appeal to the significant Latino population come the Florida primary election on Jan. 31.

Yet these spots, and these appeals, are running at the same time that Romney is campaigning in South Carolina – and going out of his way to lambaste the campaigns of Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry as being somehow “soft” on immigration enforcement (a.k.a., kicking certain types of people out of this country).

As it is, he has his operatives working the state making sure people know that he is supportive of the efforts by the state Legislature to impose Arizona-style laws meant to get local officials involved in enforcing federal immigration laws in ways that comply with their own ethnic, ideological hang-ups.

THAT KIND OF rhetoric is exactly what turns off Latinos – even those whose families have been here for generations and for whom immigration is not a directly-relevant issue.

For we see the way some people would like to apply these restrictions indiscriminately to Latinos in general. It becomes a matter of disrespect, and Romney is trying to appeal to that element of disrespect in South Carolina.

While hoping that nobody in Florida is paying too close of attention. Which is most definitely a headache causer.

Because the fact of the matter is that while we don’t have national elections for president, we do have individual state and territory elections for national office. Which means that whoever gets elected to office ultimately has to be capable of making decisions on behalf of the nation – and not just the parts of the nation they want to favor.

SO WHILE THE political pundits of South Carolina are quick to predict that his tactics there will help his campaign effort in the primary to be held a week from Saturday, those very same words will come back to haunt him elsewhere.

Which could wind up being the reason why anything he’s doing now will be for short-term gain and long-term loss.

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A politician who shows some backbone

2012-01-13T00:02:00.000-06:00

Many political people have a knack of keeping quiet the moment the word "immigration" gets thrown into the rhetorical mix.

But in Cook County, Ill., county board President Toni Preckwinkle is standing by her guns, insisting that county officials didn't screw up when they implemented a new policy saying that Cook County Jail officials will not automatically make calls to Immigration and Customs Enforcement so that a hold can be placed on any inmates who may also have questionable immigration status.

SHE HAS BEEN coming under fire recently for a case involving a Mexican citizen involved in an auto accident that killed a man. The inmate had bond set, and was able to post it -- allowing him to be free while charges were pending. But he's not showing up to court anymore, and there is evidence that he skipped out of the country.

Which may please the nativist element of our society in the sense that a Mexican went back home. But they were more interested to vent in a "law and order" fashion and punish him severely -- perhaps even more harshly because he was a "foreigner."

Preckwinkle says that the case doesn't justify flawed cooperation with Immgration, and that county officials aren't going to be pressured into giving in just because the xenophobic element of our society knows how to scream at a particularly loud decibel level.

Anyone wanting to know more about this moment of political "courage" by an elected official (which truly is rare) should read the relevant commentary published at this site's sister weblog, the Chicago Argus.

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Maybe then, we could sing Guantanamera together?

2012-01-12T00:02:00.000-06:00

I’m sure it is pieces like this one, written by a Harvard University academic and published this week by the New York Times, that gets the conservative ideologues of our society all outraged and convinced of a conspiracy against them.

But then again, Jonathan Hansen’s piece in the Times entitled, Give Guantànamo Back to Cuba, has some legitimacy to it. You ought to read it for yourself.

MAYBE THE DAY has come for the United States to bring an end to that “perpetual lease” that U.S. forces pressured Cuban government officials to sign to allow for development of a military base at Guantànamo Bay – which for the past decade also has been the site of a detention facility for those prisoners of our Middle Eastern conflicts whom we did not want to treat as traditional “prisoners of war.”

Anybody who cares enough to find them can read the past commentaries I have written about that situation – which I still think went a long way toward undermining the U.S. credibility in the so-called “War on Terror.”

There were times when our behavior was as pathetic as that of the “terrorists” whom we lambast!

Then again, it seems that our nation’s behavior with regards to Cuba in general is a sorry, sad-sack story of shame, almost as bad as that of the behavior of Fidel Castro himself.

ANYTIME HE CAN claim the moral high-ground and not be completely ridiculous, you know you’ve done something wrong.

Perhaps the time has come to pull out of Guantànamo Bay. Because other than showing los Hermanos Castro that we’re there because we can be, what is really accomplished for our national security?

And it would be nice to see “Guantanamera” revert back to being a pleasant old melody – rather than a song of protest!

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Cop gets prison time for ripping off Latinos

2012-01-11T00:02:00.000-06:00

I’m sure there are some people in our society who see the dull-eyed stare in the mug shot of Mark Ott and figure that something has gone wrong with our society – punishing a police officer for his activities that focused on people, “he thought were illegal immigrants.”

Of course, what was really going on was that Ott was a police officer in a small Florida town who saw Latinos and figured in his mind that they don’t belong in this country (even though his home state is among the one-time Spanish colonies).

SO HIS REACTION, according to police and court records, was to rip them off.

Latinos who got pulled over for traffic stops by Ott usually found themselves facing some period of harassment (including the likelihood of being shackled for a time) that would end with Ott rifling through their wallets to help himself to some cash.

In the incident that led to his arrest, a man named “Santos” had a $100 bill and a $50 bill taken from his wallet.

But “Santos” turned out to be a police officer cooperating with the FBI – who were investigating too many similar complaints from people who claimed that this one cop was too eager to single them out.

PROBABLY BECAUSE HE figured they deserved abuse, or that if by chance their immigration status really was questionable, there’d be nothing they could do about it. Perhaps he thought they should be thankful he was merely helping himself to some money – rather than bringing them in for arrest and putting them through the legal system.

In this case, the system wound up working. Ott, himself, wound up getting hit with the criminal charges – to which he pleaded guilty on Tuesday and got a minimal sentence in prison.

If a judge had been so inclined, it could have been as much as 45 years. But since the judge went for minimum terms and made everything concurrent rather than consecutive, it is just a three-year prison term.

Which makes it likely that Ott will be a free man some time in 2013. This is just going to be a bad year of his life of the 36-year-old Ott. He’s going to have ample chances to put his life back together in the future – even if it is unlikely he ever will work as a law enforcement officer again.

BUT FOR THOSE people who want to complain that the FBI would have been better off searching for “real” criminals, or perhaps even trying somehow to enforce immigration laws (even though it’s not their duty to do) than in focusing on a police officer who was figuratively nickel-and-diming people, I’d say they’re missing the point.

If anything, the Ott attitude is all too common.

There are those people who prey off of those who are living in the shadows of our society because of the jumbled mess that is our federal immigration policy. They are the ones who are at risk and have no protection from criminals – particularly since too many ideologues want to think of them as the real criminals because it fits in with their own ethnic hang-ups about what our society should be.

It also is the reason why many Latinos are paying attention to the immigration reform issue even if their own families have been here for generations and the issue does not directly impact them.

TOO MANY PEOPLE take the attitude that Ott seemed to – that Latinos are somehow worthy of such harassment.

Which is why it is a positive to see the system work properly in this case.

It may be a short prison term. But it is important to see punishment for those who harass others because of such ethnic angles, rather than presuming that the harassed are somehow worthy of it.

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2.8 % of 1.32 M = N.H. Latinos

2012-01-10T00:02:00.000-06:00

Newt Gingrich campaigning at a Mexican restaurant in Manchester, N.H., with printed materials en Español? Mitt Romney admitting to a Rochester, N.H., crowd that his father was “born” in Mexico.

That’s about as “in” to the Latino population as the Republican candidates for the party’s presidential nomination got themselves to during the past week leading up to Tuesday’s primary elections in New Hampshire.

IT’S ALL A matter of numbers, as in the above equation. With only 2.8 percent of the state’s 1.32 million people admitting to having Latino ethnic origins in their backgrounds, I’m sure most of the campaigns felt that this week was a “break” from having to address such ethnic concerns.

For all I know, these candidates got to run the kind of campaign they wish they could run everywhere – one appealing to people where diverse ethnic concerns (particularly anything associated with the Spanish language) don’t exist.

The one plus is that we really didn’t hear anyone say anything stupid about Latinos during the past few days. Since they pretty much ignored our existence, they didn’t do anything that those of us in other states could use against them once they begin campaigning on our turf (such as the Florida primary election coming up Jan. 31).

But I’d argue they’re not doing much of anything to appeal to us either. And that, as much as anything else, is going to be why most Latinos in other parts of the country are going to turn our attention away from the Republican primaries as they come about.

SERIOUSLY, I MENTIONED those two candidates earlier. But one can argue that the dynamic of the GOP primary field these days is whether any of the other candidates can knock Romney out – or will he truly become a dominant process who will overwhelm all who dare challenge him.

I’d say it’s largely out of Romney’s hands. And I wonder if anyone truly cares what the one-time U.S. senator from Georgia thinks about anyone – even Latinos.

All of this is to explain why I’m not all that concerned about the New Hampshire primary – even though many political geeks like to wet their pants at the idea of that tiny, northeasternmost state having such influence over determining who gets to run for president of our nation.

Now I know there are those who made an “issue” out of Iowa being un-diverse enough to not deserve “first in the nation” status for its caucuses (although Iowa’s Latino population has increased by 63 percent during the past decade).

BUT ONE CAN argue the same, if not moreso, for New Hampshire – where the Latino population has increased by about 75 percent during that same time period!

I can’t help but remember those old episodes of The West Wing that depicted campaign activity in New Hampshire and showed locals boasting of their diversity – as represented by a large number of “Franco-Americans.”

It’s the quirk of the campaign season. We get through these unrepresentative states, then we can get into the serious campaign activity in places that are more like the rest of the nation.

Then, were going to have the chance to see these candidates being pressured into addressing the Latino viewpoint on various concerns. And if the candidates think they can ignore us the way they have this past week in New Hampshire, they’re going to see how quickly we turn on them and make their political existence irrelevant.

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EXTRA: No Hall of Famers from Latin America this time around, but they were still memorable

2012-01-09T19:44:00.000-06:00

I wasn’t under any delusion that Vinny Castilla was going to get a phone call on Monday telling him he had been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y.

He may someday become a member of the Mexican Baseball Hall of Fame (in Monterrey). And I’m sure Colorado Rockies fans are willing to think of the one-time Saltillo Sarapero (a Mexican League ballclub) as one of the best ballplayers their team ever had.

BUT IT DOESN’T surprise me that a .297 hitter with just under 300 home runs during the course of his U.S. major league career didn’t get more support from Hall of Fame voters.

In fact, I’m sure there are some people who want to know the names of the six voters who actually cast ballots in favor of Castilla having a bronze plaque in Cooperstown. So that they can hold those six up to ridicule.

I think those people are a bit extreme – even though I wouldn’t have voted for him if I had a ballot.

But I was curious to see how much support he would get because, as one of the few Mexican-born ballplayers of recent years (many Mexican citizens wind up playing the bulk of their careers in the Mexican League because Mexican ballclubs tend to want to keep local talent at home), I have always watched his career with some sort of amusement.

HE COULD HAVE been one of the all-time greats of the Mexican League. But when combined with his significant stint in the United States, I fully expect he will someday get picked for the Hall of Fame there, because that institution likes to honor Mexicans who go abroad to show off their talents.

Which is why ballplayers like Sid Monge and Celerino Sanchez are Mexican Hall of Famers – even though those who remember ONLY their U.S. baseball careers would find such a thought to be incredible.

I’m sure the fact that Castilla has continued to stay connected to baseball by managing Mexican teams in various international tournaments, along with ballclubs in the League of the Pacific in Mexico will enhance his image even further.

Which is why I feel compelled to write this commentary. Anybody who tries to dismiss Castilla as a one-and-done (in terms of election chances to the Hall of Fame in this country) is missing the point on his significance. And the fact that he won’t have a bronze plaque in Cooperstown anytime soon (if ever) doesn’t change that.

THAT WON’T BE the same fate for Bernie Williams. The one-time New York Yankees center fielder from Puerto Rico managed to get enough Hall of Fame ballots (almost 10 percent) that he’ll get another chance next year.

Although I suspect that the people who eagerly go against one-time Yankees star Don Mattingly every year so they can dump on the ballclub will soon add Williams to their list of ballplayers they won’t even consider – even though Williams has his own share of accomplishments and was one of the top ballplayers of those Yankees teams that dominated the American League from the mid-1990s through the 2000s.

Although some have since been broken, Williams once held career post-season playing records for games played, runs batted in, extra base hits and home runs. Which may well be a factor of him getting the chance to play in so many playoff and World Series games.

But somebody who keeps coming into championship-level games that often in his career is doing something right.

WHICH COULD MEAN that Williams’ name will linger on for years – as people let their memories run of those great Yankees ballclubs that likely will produce only one Hall of Fame ballplayer (unless the Yankees-bashers decide to play hardball and single out Derek Jeter for their rejection as well).

And will continue to linger for up to 14 more years as he gets Hall rejection after rejection.

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We’re already polarized. Obama merely acknowledging problem, rather than ignoring it

2012-01-09T00:02:00.000-06:00

President Barack Obama’s administration announced last week some changes in the way immigration policy is being enforced, and the ideologues on all sides are making predictable arguments for (and against) the changes.

OBAMA: Not ignoring problem

Personally, I view the changes as short-term moves. Real reform is going to have to be done on a more intense level than this.

BUT I COULDN’T help but get a giggle at reading some of the news coverage that came out during the weekend (when people supposedly don’t pay as much attention to news reports as they do during the week).

The Christian Science Monitor, in particularly amused me. For while they did a nice report, their attempt to use a headline and subhead to frame the issue showed all too clearly what the problem truly is in our nation.

According to the Monitor, the changes will “likely … shore up his support among Latino voters,” but adds that they “could also polarize the country.”

Polarize the country?

AS THOUGH WE’RE now all in agreement on this issue, and it’s going to be Obama’s fault that we suddenly have a flawed immigration system that has become so convoluted it is virtually beyond repair?

That’s nonsense. We’re already “polarized” on this matter. That subhead reeks of an attitude that we’d be better off ignoring the problem.

Perhaps if we don’t look at it too intensely, it will go away. “Yeah, that’s the ticket.” As Jon Lovitz’ pathological liar character used to say in Saturday Night Live sketches whenever his statements were stretching further and further away from reality.

Anyone who says (or writes) anything is going to infuriate someone else. That doesn’t mean we ignore the problem and wish we could somehow pretend it does not exist.

BECAUSE THAT IS the problem. We have a flawed immigration policy, and some people don’t care because of their own ethnic hang-ups. Others are just too eager to avoid a fight.

But it is a fight that our society is likely going to have to go through if we’re ever going to achieve a sensible policy that does manage to properly regulate the flow of people from around the world into this country – without those aforementioned hang-ups being their focal point!

And let’s be honest. Changes in immigration policy such as the 1996 measure (by a then-Newt Gingrich-led House of Representatives) that requires some people to leave the United States for up to a decade before trying once again to apply for “resident alien” status were created for that very reason.

It is with such conditions in place that Obama is using his authority to make some minor changes – such as allowing people in families where some are of legal immigrant (if not citizen) status and others are not to be treated with a higher priority.

KEEPING FAMILIES TOGETHER (instead of applying the ideologue’s idiotic logic that claims the “foreigner” should leave this country and take his (or her) U.S. citizen brethren with him/her.

There’s even going to be more training for Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, which likely will slow down the deportation rate for a time while said training is being implemented.

There ought to be nothing radical about having better-training people in such sensitive positions. Unless you’re the type who doesn’t care about sensitivities and merely wants people removed.

In which case, you ARE the problem! And the fact that bringing this issue to a head is going to offend your sensibilities isn’t something that our society should be concerned with.

I BELIEVE WE’RE going to remain polarized on this issue until we have the debate and engage in the reform. That is ultimately what will bring us together.

And as for those people who are so hard-core that they will remain offended for the remainder of their lives? They can join the segregationists of old who are nearing the end of their lives – muttering under their breaths about how our society has gone straight to “hell in a hand-basket,” as that silly cliché goes.

While the rest of us will have the sense to ignore them and move forward with our lives.

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Dumping Arpaio won’t be a cakewalk

2012-01-07T00:02:00.000-06:00

My feeling about Joe Arpaio these days is about the same as I once felt about Russell Pearce.

PEARCE: He's history!

I realized that the two had managed to worm their way into the political establishment in Arizona that they were firmly entrenched and that it would take something drastic to jolt them out of office.

BUT WE GOT something drastic in the form of the Arizona Legislature’s efforts to have local officials meddle in federal immigration policy (and implement their own ideological hang-ups into the policy).

That is what caused Arizona voters in Pearce’s Mesa, Ariz.-based to succeed in their efforts for a recall election. Pearce is now a former politician – one who got dumped because of his own ideological hang-ups.

Now, maybe the voters of Maricopa County, Ariz., will use their own voice at the ballot boxes to dump Arpaio.

Now it’s not the exact same circumstances. Pearce got dumped because people were so grossly offended by his arrogance on this issue that they went for the recall election route – by which they can dump someone from office even though they still have time remaining in the term.

ARPAIO IS GOING to have his term as county sheriff come to an end – and will have his record come under scrutiny as he tries to seek a sixth term (which he said Friday he plans to do).

ARPAIO: Will he soon be?

But Arpaio is also the official who likes to think he’s some rough-and-tough western lawman who goes after the bad guys and treats them something fierce once he catches them (although I always wondered if his making inmates in his jail wear pink underwear made him look more ridiculous than the inmates).

In reality, he’s just a bully who lets his personal hang-ups determine who he thinks is criminal and who isn’t. It has become so obvious that even the federal government is now realizing that too many of the people he arrests get arrested because of their Latino ethnic origins.

Even Immigration and Customs Enforcement (which is supposed to be interested in such cases) realizes that the Maricopa County sheriff’s department is not credible enough under current management to be trusted.

BUT THAT DOESN’T mean that I’m presuming Arpaio is a shoo-in for electoral defeat.

He ought to be. But I’m sure there are enough nitwits who have no problem with Arpaio’s behavior who will cast ballots for him.

Which means that any effort to dump him from office is going to be difficult. A lot will depend on who decides to challenge Arpaio. After all, it could turn out that someone even more absurd than Arpaio could decide to run for the post.

It also is going to depend on the electoral efforts of Latinos – whom I expect will turn out in force to cast ballots for ABA. But people who are for Anybody But Arpaio alone aren’t going to dump him.

AND I’M SURE that old Joe (he’s 79) would love it if he could manage to win regardless of his problems – sort of as a way of sticking it to his critics (who are only guilty of trying to use common sense when it comes to making a judgment about him).

So I’m not about to put any money down on the idea that Arpaio is history – although I’m definitely hoping that the same sentiment that resulted in Pearce’s being dumped gets expressed again when it comes to the sheriff.

Because the bottom line is that Arpaio’s conduct is an embarrassment to the greater Phoenix metropolitan area. His time should never have come, and it definitely needs to go.

Here’s hoping my ideological brethren can get their acts together and jolt Joe from public office come Election Day.

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New Mexico has Latinos? What else is new!

2012-01-06T00:02:00.000-06:00

My chuckle for the day came from the New Mexican newspaper published out of Santa Fe, N.M., as they tried to write a comprehensive story about the population trends in that Southwestern U.S. state.

Headlined NM on pace to be more urban, Hispanic, the story tells us that Latinos will be the state’s dominant ethnic group by the end of the 21^st Century.

AND IT WON’T matter one bit what kind of public policies the federal government tries to impose. This population growth is inevitable.

Of course, I’d argue (with a rather sarcastic tone) that any place called “New Mexico” ought to have a sizable Latino population. Actually, it ought to have a sizable Mexican-American population – although I understand that many of the locals are of the type that prefers to think of themselves as descended from the
Spanish settlers, rather than the indigenous peoples.

Even though the reality is that they’re all combinations of the two – and probably some other ethnic influence also in their mix. That is the reality of our society today.

In fact, I’d argue that it is sad that Latinos ever became the “minority” in the parts of our nation that were once part of Mexico, and part of the New Spain colonies before that.

I KNOW THAT the white settlers of the 19^th Century to the Southwest like to think they entered an empty land that had nothing of value until they arrived. It really took policies meant at exclusion to ever put a non-Latino majority into such places.

Which means that the trends of today can be seen as merely the inevitable occurring. Despite their best efforts, the Latino will assert themselves in the Southwest.

Which is why of the just over 2 million people who now live in New Mexico, just over 46 percent identify as Latino – a rise from the just-over 42 percent who said they were Latino back in the 2000 Census Bureau population count.

Of course, we ought to keep in mind the issue of perspective. Latinos aren’t limited to the Southwest. In my own home state of Illinois, the total of Latinos is just over 2 million – or about the total population of New Mexico.

AND ILLINOIS LATINOS are only about one-sixth of the state, although we comprise about 29 percent of the population of the dominant city of Chicago.

But the Southwest, where the Spanish influence IS the original settler (not the English) is going to be the place where the Latino is dominant..

Will it really take until century’s end for Latinos to become the majority in New Mexico? It seems to me like it will happen a lot sooner.

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Political pandering, or merely accepting reality?

2012-01-05T00:02:00.000-06:00

I couldn’t help but notice the Washington Post on Wednesday using its website to portray an effort to acknowledge Latino “contributions” to our nation’s history as mere political pandering.

SALAZAR: More realistic national parks?

It is Barack Obama using the federal government, specifically the Department of the Interior, to cover the cost of actions that are meant to make Latinos think more highly of him – and possibly vote for him come Nov. 6.

NOW I DON’T doubt that the Obama re-election effort doesn’t get some pleasure out of such actions, realizing it does build up some goodwill – particularly when contrasted with the often-hostile rhetoric that emanates from the Republican faction of our political people.

Yet anyone who tries to dismiss the talk coming from Interior Secretary Ken Salazar as being purely political is missing the point. If anything, I find that line of rhetoric to be the “purely political” statement – coming from someone who doesn’t want to acknowledge the reality of our nation’s history of growth.

Salazar this week said he sees a possibility of new national parks being developed in Colorado and New Mexico at sites that get their historic significance from the fact that the southwestern U.S. was once a part of Mexico – and the New Spain colonies before that.

In fact, he wants to see more national parks and historic sites that are tied to minorities – meaning non-Anglo. It's just reflecting the reality of our nation and society as it truly is in the 21st Century -- instead of pretending that it is still wedged into a 19th Century vision of what place some people wanted this country to remain in.

WE MAY WELL get a national park someday at the site in California where United Farm Workers founder Cesar Chavez back in the 1960s used to show the levels of hardship endured by migrant farm workers all those decades ago.

Which, I’m sure, is a concept that will offend some. Then again, those people need to be offended. The fact that anybody takes their offense as legitimate in nature IS the problem our society faces these days.

Which is why I was encouraged to learn that Salazar was to meet on Wednesday (according to the Washington Post) with people like Sens. Mark Udall and Michael Bennett, both Colorado Democrats.

The more talk we get about this affair, the better off we all are.

BECAUSE THE REAL trick toward achieving anything on this goal is whether we can get a serious dialogue going – or will this issue get bogged down in partisan politics.

Which is a very real possibility for now. We have a Republican-controlled House of Representatives, and many political operatives believing that the 2012 election cycle might result in a GOP-leaning Senate as well.

If that happens, we may well wind up with a Congress for the next couple of years that will be more interested in trying to find justification (no matter how lame) for calling for Barack Obama’s impeachment – rather than trying to do any government business.

Something like national park development may well get dumped on as somehow trivial. Although such development is certainly a legitimate part of having a long-range plan for our nation.

WE NEED TO have government officials who can look to the end of the 21^st Century and trying to figure out how to get where we want our nation to be – rather than just trying to dump on each other for ideological reasons through 2014.

People who try to dismiss this issue as some sort of political stunt surely are among the ones who fall into the latter category.

-30-

GOP presidential dreamers won’t come to West Liberty, Iowa

2012-01-04T00:02:00.000-06:00

To listen to the Republican hopefuls for U.S. president, they are working every corner of Iowa – reaching out to these people who are the median of our society to show how it is they (and not Barack Obama) who is in touch with their values.

Yet I couldn’t help but notice one corner of the state that ALL of the would-be candidates have managed to ignore.

ABC NEWS POINTS out that no one has made it to West Liberty, Iowa. That’s the town that, during the past decade, has developed a majority Latino population – making it the first Iowa municipality to have more Latinos than anyone else.

And for those people who like to dwell on the number 5 (as in only 5 percent of Iowa’s population is Latino) because it sounds small, I’d argue the relevant number is 63 (as in there are 63 percent more Latinos now in Iowa than there were a decade ago). In fact, Iowa state officials estimate that the Latino population in their state will triple from its current levels during the next two decades.

Now I’m not surprised that none of the Republican campaigns for U.S. president would deem a place like West Liberty, Iowa to be important enough for a public appearance (which supposedly is the reason why Iowa deserves to have its “first in the nation” status maintained – it is easier to campaign face-to-face in a place that has "all kinds" of white people than in a more urban state that more accurately represents what our society is about).

To the degree that candidates of the GOP persuasion want to reach out to Latino people for possible votes, they want to visit cute and colorful ethnic communities that are somehow separate from the rest of society.

THEY GO TO Miami and Calle Ocho and pretend to be simpatico with the Cuban exile community. Although some of them wind up showing their ignorance under such conditions.

GOP field makes it inevitable

But traveling to Iowa? A place where the ideologues would like to think change will not occur – even though the changes impacting all of our society are occurring here just as much as any other place!

Visiting West Liberty would mean having to confront a lot of the nonsense rhetoric that their campaigns either are spewing, or are turning a deaf ear to because they desperately want the political support of the people who spew such trash talk.

So they stayed away, even though an appearance in this community could very well have shown them trying to understand the new realities of our society.

THE FACT THAT they seem to want to be the candidates of choice for people who don’t want to “get it” is the reason why many of those campaigns will be downright irrelevant when it comes to the Latino segment of the electorate – and not just in Iowa.

If Barack Obama has any political sense (sometimes, I wonder), he’ll make a West Liberty appearance one of his priorities – even though I know his people like to say they’re already heavily present in Iowa themselves.

Even though the president has no primary challenger. He’s going to want to ensure that the people of that state who are disgusted with the dwarves running for the Republican nomination turn out for him (because let’s remember that it was Obama’s victory in the Iowa caucuses four years ago that gave us the first evidence he might be able to thwart the “inevitability” image that Hillary R. Clinton was trying to portray about her own presidential chances.

By the time you read this commentary, you likely will know who has “won” the Iowa caucuses – and who gets to have the jump-start on their campaign activity.

AND THE WEST Libertys of the nation will be waiting to see IF the soon-to-be dwindling numbers of GOP candidates will bother to visit them.

“Fat chance!,” is all I have to say.

-30-

¿Romney dreams of killing DREAM?

2012-01-03T00:02:00.000-06:00

A part of me would like to believe that Mitt Romney was somehow “set up” with an embarrassing question during the New Year’s holiday weekend by an opposition political operative.

ROMNEY: Gag that man!

It is a totally-believable tactic.

THE REASON I’D be willing to consider this is because the alternative (which is probably the truth) is that the man whom many people want to believe is the front-runner to get the Republican Party’s nomination to run against Barack Obama for U.S. president is nothing but a knucklehead.

I’m wondering if Romney is counting on the concept that Iowans are rural white people who won’t care about immigration or ethnicity. Perhaps he’s not fully aware of how much the Latino population in Iowa has increased (63 percent during the past decade).

Romney did more than his share of damage to himself on Saturday when – during a campaign appearance at a restaurant in LeMars, Iowa – he was asked by a “local” if he would veto the DREAM Act, should it ever be sent to him by Congress.

Rarely do political people give straightforward “yes” or “no” answers. This would have been the classic moment for a politico to engage in rambling rhetoric that really doesn’t say much of anything.

INSTEAD, ROMNEY SAID, “the answer is yes.” And he had too many reporter-types around, documenting this moment for him to claim he didn’t say it. Perhaps he wants his words to be undocumented, like certain people now are – living lives in the shadows of our society.

Now I know the ideologues are going to claim their rancid rhetoric represents the norm of our society (it doesn’t), and that they’re pleased that Romney would take a stand.

But this really put Romney in so much hot water. Something stupid to have to start out the new year with – and just days before all those caucus-goers in Iowa take their stand on who should be president (Obama, or one of the GOP geeks!).

Because it makes it clear that Romney is interested in appeasing the ideologues more than he is in doing what might be the proper thing to do on this particular issue – which is about letting people who have lived the bulk of their lives in this country and who are fully assimilated have the ability to educate themselves (which further benefits our society) and become full-fledged members.

THE ONLY PEOPLE who think that is a problem are the ideologues – and now Mitt Romney.

Even those Latinos to whom immigration is not a primary concern realize that this issue is one about basic respect. The people who oppose ideas such as the DREAM Act are doing so largely because they want to thwart the trend of a growing Latino population.

Which makes them even more ridiculous than the mythical Don Quixote jousting with windmills.

And this is who Romney is taking sides with. He’s making the same mistake that John McCain made back in 2008 when he was so eager to side with the ideologues that he backed away from his own past actions in immigration reform – which actually were legitimate and could have helped him cut into the Latino vote.

IT WILL BE a moment that will come back to haunt him, should he get the Republican presidential nomination. Because when, during the summer months, he tries to portray himself as some voice of “moderation” who is more like us than Obama could ever be, we’re going to be able to laugh at such a concept and regard it as rhetorical trash.

I couldn’t help but notice a commentary published recently that says Romney’s moment of stupidity on this issue is an embarrassment to his religion – he’s a Mormon, although church leaders themselves are like many other faiths in professing a need for sympathy and compassion for people regardless of immigration status.

To a degree, I can appreciate the political “dance” that Romney has to do to try to get himself nominated.

It just bemuses me why Romney feels the need to pick sides with the people whose views, some 50 years from now, are going to have us all wonder how we could be so twisted that we ever took THOSE PEOPLE seriously to begin with.

-30-

Miami Marlins drop their Mermaids? Considering other changes, timing seems odd

2012-01-02T00:02:00.000-06:00

The Miami Marlins are moving to a stadium to be located just off of Calle Ocho, they have a Venezolano as their manager, one of their top player acquisitions was a Dominicano and the team made a serious bid to try to get the biggest name Latin American pelotero in the game today.

Soon to be history? Image provided by Miami Marlins

By their own admission, the Marlins are trying to make themselves into a ballclub that will have a significant appeal to the many Latin American ethnicities that populate Miami these days – and also appeal to the many Latinos across the country and in the Caribbean.

BUT I CAN think of at least one aspect in which the Marlins are NOT copying their Latin American beisbol counterparts. The presence of cheerleaders.

Actually, it’s not official yet. But the Miami New Times newspaper reports that the Marlins are going to get rid of the dance team known as the Manatees. Those are the fat guys who giggle around to give the fans a moment of comic relief.

Good riddance. I have always thought that the Chicago Bulls basketball team was rather disgusting for its fat-guy dance team known as the Matadors. Somehow, I doubt the Manatees are any classier. There’s something about fat jokes that doesn’t appeal to me (and not just because my own gut is a little larger than it should be).

But the New Times reports that the ballclub is also considering getting rid of the Mermaids. Those are the women in short shorts and tight tops who have the physical attributes meant to fill out those skimpy outfits to maximum male pleasure.

THE MARLINS ACTUALLY created their cheerleaders (who dance atop dugouts in between innings and also make appearances on behalf of the ballclub) back in 2003. It was something that put them at the head of Major League Baseball (although ball clubs such as the Cincinnati Reds, the St. Louis Cardinals and the Tampa Bay Rays have experimented with the concept since then).

Not leaving Mexico City anytime soon. Image provided by Mexico City Red Devils

But it isn’t like the idea of cheerleaders on a baseball field is an alien concept. It is downright commonplace in the professional leagues that exist in Latin American nations.

I’m sure that every single Mexican League ballclub has its set of girls wearing some skimpy take on a baseball uniform while they jiggle their stuff. Although I’d argue that the most “offensive” part of their schtick is that their outfits are covered with advertising logos.

It can be hard to say whether the dancing squads are promoting ballclubs like the Mexico City Red Devils and the Monterrey Sultans, or cerveza brands such as Tecate or Modelo?

AND ANYBODY WHO types in the words “baseball” and “cheerleaders into an Internet search engine will quickly find multiple versions of videos depicting the cheerleaders of the Licey Tigers of the Dominican League.

Who at first glance look like they’re the famed dance squad of the Dallas Cowboys football team! Except that I doubt the Tigers come up with anywhere near the level of phony moralism that the Cowboys claim to have.

It’s about showmanship. And a part of me saw what the Miami Marlins were doing in recent years as I wondered if this was a spreading of a Latin American concept to baseball in this country.

Why not?!?

IF THE BALLPLAYERS of the U.S. major leagues (the American and National, to be exact) are going to come from Latin American nations, why shouldn’t some of the atmosphere of a ballgame in the Caribbean also carry over?

Yet just as the ballclub is taking on a Latin American flavor, they’re dropping one aspect that could have further enhanced that aspect of watching a ballgame in Miami.

I wonder if somebody thinks that manager Ozzie Guillen is an entertaining-enough personality, and that the girls would somehow have interfered with his image.

-30-

Year ends with religious leaders pondering their support for Latinos

2011-12-31T00:02:00.000-06:00

A pair of reports worth acknowledging the next time you hear some person rant and rage about religion while trying to put a religious “spin” on their rhetoric.

GEORGE: Telling the truth, on this issue

The Los Angeles Times looked at the Alabama situation where officials have tried imposing new state laws meant to “crack down” on the problem of too many “foreigners” trying to live there.

THEY FOUND CHURCH congregations finding a sudden drop in their membership – because of Latinos who either left the area to avoid harassment OR are now living their lives incredibly underground.

Then, there is the situation involving Chicago Catholic Archdiocese Cardinal Francis George – who in a recent interview with the newscast of the local Fox affiliate said that Republican politicians have caused themselves serious problems because of the way their government officials want to spew intolerant rhetoric when it comes to immigration.

“They’ve got themselves into an impossible bind on immigration,” said the cardinal, which would seem to be backed up by the polls done by the Pew Hispanic Center that show Latinos backing Barack Obama for president by a 2-1 ratio of support even though a majority of Latinos have serious problems with Obama’s performance during the past three years.

In short, Latinos think Obama is too willing to appease those ideologues; who don’t return the favor with their support. There are times I think the only thing that GOP ideologues despise more than the growing Latino population is Obama himself.

THEN AGAIN, OBAMA might well be a close second on the Despise-O-Meter to the growing Latino population.

We have one religious leader admitting the problems being caused by the ethnic rhetoric, and church congregations in Alabama are seeing first-hand how such rhetoric is a turn-off and threatens to make them irrelevant in the society of today.

I could go into more detail about these pieces of reporting, although I think you’re better off reading them for yourselves.

Then go out and celebrate the coming of a new year. Fresh commentary will return here Monday.

-30-

Rick Santorum gaining? And people wonder why Latinos not trusting of GOP for president!

2011-12-30T00:02:00.000-06:00

I’m not really surprised that Rick Santorum, the one-time Pennsylvania senator with a record of hostility toward many, including the growing Latino population, is actually gaining in support in Iowa – the state that will have its presidential caucuses next week.

The Republican primary is going to consist of many, many voters who are desperate to vote for Anybody But Mitt (as in Romney). They’re even willing to turn to a guy who (if he were to get the nomination) would be a blatant statement by the GOP voters that they care less about any of the party leader rhetoric about the need to appeal to Latino voters.

AS FAR AS I’m concerned, the fact that this is the way the Republican electorate is behaving is the exact explanation for the apparent contradiction that came out in a new study released this week by the Pew Hispanic Center.

The focal point of its study is that Latinos are disgusted with President Barack Obama on account of the fact that he’s willing to play along with the conservative ideologue desires when it comes to immigration and increased deportations.

Fifty-nine percent of all Latinos questioned by Pew said they disapproved of Obama because of the increase in deportations that have occurred during his administration.

Only 27 percent said they “approved” of the president’s conduct – which is something that he is doing to try to persuade the conservative ideologues to lighten up their opposition toward serious immigration reform. Of course, those ideologues merely use it to boost their demands for more deportations; then blame Obama for not giving it to them.

SO YES, THERE are many Latinos who are disgusted with the fact that Obama didn’t bother to address immigration reform when there was a chance to squeeze it through Congress (preferring to push for healthcare reform instead). And the fact that he appears more interested in appeasing the ideologues rather than pushing for needed reform doesn’t bolster his Latino backing.

Yet there’s no way that this “disgust” is going to translate into Latino votes for a Republican candidate. Any party whose backers are now turning to Santorum as an option for president isn’t going to get our support.

Which is why that same Pew study shows that Latinos will vote by a 2-1 ratio for Obama over any Republican nominee. In short, the same ratio of support that Latinos gave Obama over John McCain in the 2008 election cycle.

Specifically, Pew says Latinos would vote 68 percent to 23 percent for Obama over Mitt Romney, and 69 percent to 23 percent over Rick Perry.

SO EVEN THE candidate (Romney) who the political pundits claim is the Republican Party’s best chance to actually beat Obama come Nov. 6 would still lose the Latino vote overwhelmingly.

Keep in mind that the Pew study says that Obama would only beat Romney by a 49 percent to 47 percent vote among all voters (regardless of ethnicity). Which could well mean a virtual tie – with Latinos becoming the potential to break a tie in any Obama/Romney election.

Should that become the reality of the 2012 general election cycle. But that seems to be the “nightmare scenario” for a large share of the Republican electorate.

So in the election cycle that seems destined to be the one where voters pick for the person they “hate” less, it is really starting to look like the GOP “disgust” level is going to wind up doing themselves in.

IN FACT, THAT Pew study also showed that only 12 percent of Latinos think the Republican Party is more concerned about Latinos. It can be spun as being a significant boost, since a similar study by Pew two years ago showed only 6 percent of Latinos thought highly of the GOP.

But 12 percent? That’s as bad as the perception of all people in this country when it comes to Congress (13 percent approval, according to the Gallup Organization).

And that is bad!

-30-

Pair of Latino-oriented films make Library of Congress’ collection of historic, significant movies

2011-12-29T00:01:00.000-06:00

I couldn’t help but notice a pair of the films that made this year’s additions to the Library of Congress collection of movies that they are working to preserve as cultural treasures of our society.

That doesn’t necessarily mean “best,” which is good. Because I don’t think I’d include Stand and Deliver or El Mariachi on any list of cinematic bests – although both are among films that I find myself watching if I happen to be flipping through channels and stumble across them in mid-broadcast.

BUT WHILE MOST of the news coverage I read or watched about this year’s additions to the list focused on the fact that Silence of the Lambs and Forrest Gump made it, I get more of a kick out of these two additions.

Latinos can be a part of the pop culture without getting overly schmaltzy or preachy. Although the former film that starred Edward James Olmos doing his take on educator Jaime Escalante had its own cheesy moments.

But I can remember that when the film came out in 1988, I had an uncle and aunt who made a point of seeing it at the movie theater several times BECAUSE they enjoyed the idea of a cinematic effort with Latino characters who succeeded in their efforts.

Even the one gang-banger character in the film (portrayed by non-Latino actor Lou Diamond Phillips) winds up being a success – getting one of the highest scores on the Advanced Placement calculus exam of all the “students” portrayed.

IT MIGHT NOT be the most historically-accurate portrayal of what really happened back in the 1980s at Garfield High School in East Los Angeles. But it doesn’t stretch the truth any more than most movies do.

Cramming an entire school year’s worth of details into a film of less than two hours is impossible UNLESS certain elements get condensed. And nobody claimed that Stand and Deliver was meant to be a documentary effort.

But I get more of a kick out of the fact that El Mariachi is getting some recognition, because it was the film that was made for some $7,000 by college student Robert Rodriguez – who came up with the cash by working a side job as a janitor.

Watching the action film that sees so many bloodied bodies in the U.S./Mexico border town of Ciudad Acuña was made less gruesome by the fact that the acting is so bad that it comes across as good.

THIS FILM WAS considered interesting enough that it essentially got remade into a much more commercial effort starring Antonio Banderas. Desperado may well have given us Salma Hayek in all her nude glory.

But Banderas, despite his talent, doesn’t match the performance of Carlos Gallardo as the black-clad mariachi who, while looking for musical work, gets mistaken for a hired killer named Azul.

Which itself leads to a line that cracks my brother up everytime he hears it. Azul, of course, is the Spanish word for the color “blue.” Which leads Gallardo’s character to ask (translated to English), “If he’s named ‘blue,’ why doesn’t he wear blue?

Which, when you think about it, is a totally practical question.

THERE ALSO IS the other moment that amuses me about the film. It’s villain is a would-be drug dealer named Mauricio (the one who dies at the end after being shot by Gallardo's mariachi-turned-killer – who goes by the nickname of “Moco.”

Which translates from Spanish to English as mucus. Or booger.

The only other film I’m aware of that had a character named “booger” was the 1984 film Revenge of the Nerds (he was the grotesque one played by actor Curtis Armstrong who “won” an arm-wrestling contest by blowing snot into his palm to disgust his opponent).

And, somehow, I doubt that Revenge of the Nerds will ever make the Library of Congress’ collection of films worthy of historic preservation.

-30-

Better late than never, judge rules for obvious!

2011-12-28T00:02:00.000-06:00

SNOW: Ruling for the incredibly obvious

It came just as government officials were rushing to complete business and close for a three-day holiday weekend. So perhaps the ruling by U.S. District Judge G. Murray Snow should be considered something of a Christmas present for those of us with an interest in the growing Latino population.

Yet if it is a present, it is one that has the appeal of a pair of socks or a sweater – practical, but dull.

FOR THE REALITY is that Snow’s ruling that specifies that a non-citizen physically being in the United States without a valid visa is not, in and of itself, a felony offense isn’t some drastic change in policy.

It is THE LAW, as currently written. Only the conservative ideologues who want the law to reflect their own personal hang-ups think that the law says anything other than that.

The reality is that those people found to be in this country without valid citizenship or some sort of visa aren’t committing a criminal act (although one who has repeatedly entered the United States without papers can be charged with a crime – if prosecutors deem it necessary).

The ideologues always like to engage in rants that claim the “illegal aliens” (using government-speak, rather than real English) are worthy of arrest upon detection because they’re committing a crime – just by being in this country.

THAT IS NONSENSE, and it is good to see that a federal judge is willing to issue a ruling that specifies just how nonsensical it truly is.

The only people who are going to have an objection to Snow’s ruling from Friday are the ideologues – because now they’re going to be confronted with the fact that it doesn’t matter how much they scream or how loudly they do so.

Much of the nonsense they spew when it comes to the subject of immigration reform is wrong. The sooner that realization hits the political people of our nation, the sooner we will be able to make sense of the bureaucratic maze that U.S. immigration policy has evolved into.

So Snow didn’t really change anything. He reinforced what was already in place (but which some people are determined to ignore).

THAT IS WHY I consider it a “gift” the equivalent of clothes for a young child. It doesn’t create a lot of excitement.

It is practical. It is useful. But it is not as though we have anyone making a serious change in policy that will push the debate forward.

If anything, Snow has merely reinforced the idea that he likely will be demonized by all kinds of anonymous crazy people using the Internet to say what they don’t have the nerve to so in polite society.

It also is why we don’t have Latino activists making a big issue of Snow and praising him for his efforts. All he’s doing is upholding the law.

WHICH AS APPLIED to the conduct of Maricopa County, Ariz. Sheriff Joe Arpaio is truly a change of pace, and which has the activists this week demanding his resignation.

For too many eyes are now seeing that the conduct of that sheriff’s department for the greater Phoenix area when it came to Latinos was to single my ethnic brethren out for abuse because they didn’t fit his definition of who “belongs” in this country.

Although I don’t share the desires of some activists who want Arpaio prosecuted, and are talking about what it would be like for him to be incarcerated in his own jail, and reduced to wearing pink-colored underwear like he forces inmates to do to try to “shame” them.

Personally, I think such actions would merely reinforce Arpaio’s sense of self-importance. I’d rather see him reduced to insignificance – so that five or so decades from now, we won’t have a clue that such a person could ever think of himself as a legitimate law enforcement official.

-30-

What a diff’rence two months make

2011-12-27T00:02:00.000-06:00

It was just a couple of months ago that Yorvit Torrealba of the Texas Rangers was on the cover of Sports Illustrated, which used a photograph of him trying to tag out Jon Jay of the St. Louis Cardinals for their cover of the issue reporting on the World Series this year.

Now, Torrealba is the ballplayer that many fans want to dump all over; on account of the fact that he got into a scrap and punched out an umpire – while playing beisbol for the Caracas Lions in the Venezuelan League.

IT SEEMS THAT Torrealba didn’t like the fact that an umpire said he struck out during a game last week (although it was clear that he swung, and missed, the pitch) and ended his arguing with the ump with a punch – which looks to me more like a push right on his face mask.

Not that I’m excusing such behavior. Baseball rules make it clear that strikes and balls are un-arguable. And making contact with an official is always a no-no.

So it can be seen as a harsh penalty that was handed down on Monday by the Venezuelan League’s officials. A 66-game suspension – which means he’s off his team for their four remaining games of this season and he loses the option of playing baseball in Venezuela next season – since those teams play 62-game schedules.

With all this hanging over his head, I doubt there’s any chance that the Venezuelan League’s champion would try to include him on their roster for the Caribbean Series (as it usually tries to do with peloteros who have U.S. major league experience).

WITH THAT MUCH of a layoff, who’s to say if he’ll ever be able to play baseball in the Venezuelan League again? Which considering that Torrealba is a Venezuela native, it probably is a big deal for him.

Because while having a contract to play baseball with the Texas Rangers in the United States means he brings in some decent money, the Latin American ballplayers who make a point of returning home to play in the winter leagues in places like the Dominican Republic or Puerto Rico usually consider those the games they play for personal pride.

It’s about showing just what kind of a man one truly is. And now, Torrealba is branded as a “thug,” of sorts.

What will be interesting is to see how this plays over in the United States – as a reading of assorted Internet comment sections make it clear that many baseball fans in this country expect the Texas Rangers to do something to punish Yorvit as well.

NOT THAT THE Rangers of the American League are expected to honor a suspension handed down by the Venezuelan League. Although it is curious that when Manny Ramirez tried to get around a 100-game suspension in U.S. baseball (about two-thirds of the season) by playing baseball in the Dominican Republic, officials there chose to reject his desire UNTIL the U.S. suspension was served.

So who’s to say what will happen with Torrealba, who at best is a reserve catcher with the two-time American League champion Texas Rangers. Is this going to be the excuse that Texas uses to try to unload him onto some less desirable team?

Although I must admit to preferring this story to the last one that involved a Venezuelan League ballplayer. Remember catcher Wilson Ramos of the Aragua Tigers (and the Washington Nationals during the summer) being kidnapped?

At least this “story” is for on-field activity.

ALTHOUGH IT STRIKES me as ironic that Torrealba will be the “controversial” ballplayer this season from the Venezuelan League.

Because I’m sure this season (which runs from mid-October though Dec. 30, with playoffs in January and the Caribbean Series the first week of February) was supposed to be the year that the controversy from Venezuela came from Carlos Zambrano.

The summertime pitcher for the Chicago Cubs is pitching for the Anzoategui Caribbeans this season to get himself back into shape and bolster his chances of continuing to pitch in the U.S. major leagues.

Yet aside from getting hit in the head by a batted ball back in November, Zambrano has done little more than rack up an 0-1 won/loss record – with 13 strikeouts in 17 2/3 innings pitched, and an earned run average of 2.55.

Not exactly the stuff of which winter league legends are born.

-30-

A tamale-less Christmas?

2011-12-26T00:02:00.000-06:00

I shouldn’t complain.

I realize there are people in this world who are less fortunate than I was this weekend, which wound up being spent with my brother on Christmas Eve and then the two of us checking up on our father come Christmas Day.

IT’S ALSO NOT like I starved for the weekend. I got to enjoy a couple of ham dinners with all the trimmings during the holiday weekend, and got a real surprise of a prime rib dinner on Saturday night.

I can still feel that huge hunk of beef inside me. Who knows how long it will take for it to totally flush from my system (and no, I’m not in the mood to hear from the vegetarians out there about how much damage I’m doing to myself by eating beef and pork).

Yet, I must confess.

When I spoke to mi Tia Charlene Sunday afternoon and she made an impromptu offer for my brother, Chris, and I to come over to her house for yet ANOTHER holiday meal, a part of me gave it some serious consideration.

NOT BECAUSE I was really hungry (as I write this, I’m nibbling on the remnants of some ham). But because my aunt included in her holiday meal that item that has become a staple of many Mexican-American families trying to retain a touch of the “old country” at Christmas.

Tamales.

She had them. She emphasized the fact that I could get a taste of them if my brother and I came over. Only the fact that I don’t want to stuff myself to the point of gluttony came between me and some tamales – which I am now trying to figure out if I can get a taste of during this post-holiday season.

Tamales during Kwanzaa? Why not!

I HAVE WRITTEN in past holiday seasons about the role that tamales can play in a Mexican ethnic feast. Because making tamales (corn meal stuffed with meat, or a sugar paste, or fruits or actually just about anything you’re imaginative to put in there) is a task that takes up so much time and is difficult to get just right (if you’re not careful, you’ll get something with the texture of paste), it is not something that one gets on a regular basis. It usually is the Mexican ethnic food for special occasions.

In my family, it was the item we got as part of the Christmas holiday meal (with a ham usually made as well, along with all the side dishes that are appropriate to such a meal).

But ever since my maternal grandfather died, tamales became something that my family made a point of making a special trip to a Mexican-oriented grocery or restaurant to obtain. My own mother never bothered to learn how to do them – claiming it was easier to just pick up a few dozen at the store.

Yet that is what caused me to have a tamale-less holiday this year. My brother and I do have a favorite place to get tamales (in Chicago’s South Deering neighborhood, located just southwest of the South Chicago neighborhood that gives this weblog its identity).

BUT IT IS a haul. Somehow, both of us kept coming up with other things to do – preventing us from making the trip to buy a few dozen. And because of the complexity of tamales, most of these businesses only have them available on weekends.

And since the holiday season came on a weekend this year, it meant we could not make a last-minute dash to the restaurant of choice to get them. They were closed to celebrate Christmas.

So maybe this week I’ll be making a trip (and no, I’m not giving away my location. Find your own place for decent tamales) for some of the edibles. Perhaps I’ll start a new tradition.

Ring in the new year with an old holiday staple.

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“Feliz Navidad” has become a holiday staple

2011-12-24T00:02:00.000-06:00

We’ve all been inundated with way too much pop music containing a Christmas holiday theme. Which means I’m sure that we’ve all heard Jose Feliciano’s song, “Feliz Navidad.”

Some of us may well be sick of it. Personally, I got my fill of the song years ago. But it is intriguing to read Feliciano himself reminiscing about the song that is one of his biggest hits – it was inspired by his reminiscing about childhood Christmases, combined with him trying out a new instrument he had just received as a gift.

NOW WHENEVER I strum a few riffs on a guitar, it just comes out as noise. When Feliciano used his cuatro (to the right, which some consider to be Puerto Rico's national instrument) in such a way, it inspired a pop song that will outlive him, and probably all of us.

So I’m taking a break from serious commentary this weekend in hopes of enjoying the holiday. Serious commentary will return Monday. Personally, I’d advise all of you to do the same. There truly is nothing on the Internet this weekend that will be more interesting than anything you encounter in real life.

You might even enjoy the accompanying Feliciano video, which is cheesy in a way that has become mainstream.

But for those of you who want to hear something cheesy that will always remain cheesy and never become conventional, check out either Ricky Martin or Jimmy Boyd. Although personally, I get more of a kick from this moment of the Arkansas-based Subiaco Academy's Christmas concert from last year.

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Large Latino share unsure what to think come ‘12

2011-12-23T00:02:00.000-06:00

I’m not sure what to think of the results of a new poll used by the Telemundo network newscasts to show that President Barack Obama’s Latino support isn’t so hot.

How many Latinos will wear these stickers on Nov. 6?

That poll shows Obama with a 56 percent approval rating among Latinos who were questioned, with 35 percent specifically saying they disapprove.

WHICH STINKS WHEN compared to the fact that two years ago, Obama had a Latino approval rating somewhere in the mid-80 percents. It is being interpreted in some ideological quarters as evidence that Obama’s Latino support is slipping faster than that of the rest of the electorate.

Considering that Obama needs a strong Latino vote support to have a chance of winning come Nov. 6, this could sound bad.

Yet in my mind, I can’t get past the latter figure. The 35 percent. Which is supposedly the share of Latinos who do not approve of Obama and are likely to vote against him.

Considering that even in Obama’s supposed Latino “dominance” of 2008, opponent John McCain took 32 percent of the vote, it just seems to me that there is a certain segment of Latinos who want to be a part of the Republican establishment,.

WHICH IS THEIR right, if they so choose. I just don’t see any big jump between 32 percent in ’08 and a possible 35 percent in ’12.

So if Obama is losing Latino support, it sure isn’t going over to the Republican opposition. It also has me thinking that the remaining 9 percent (56 plus 35 equals 91, which is short of 100) is that share of the people who are dismayed with Obama but disgusted with the hostility of the GOP.

Could it be that one in every 10 Latinos who could vote will decide that casting a ballot for president next year isn’t worth their time or effort?

THAT strikes me as being a more realistic vision of what is going through the Latino voter mindset these days, than any grand notions of how Obama is driving Latinos over to the one-time Party of Lincoln that wishes it could be a twisted version of what Ronald Reagan was really about.

IT ALSO FITS in completely with the way I have always perceived this upcoming election. Obama’s chances at victory will depend on part on whether Latino voters bother to vote. Because while Obama will “win” the Latino vote in 2012, fewer voters overall would reduce its share of significance.

If that 9 percent of Latinos decides not to vote at all, it converts that 56 percent of Latino backers for Obama into 62 percent support of the people who do vote. But 62 percent of a smaller voter pool isn’t worth as much.

It could be the factor that causes us to be stuck with someone who’s going to feel their political allegiance to those people who want punitive policies directed at us.

Which probably will be the primary motivating factor for many Latinos who do ultimately decide to show up at polling places on Election Day.

WHO DO WE “hate” more? A truly depressing reason to vote. But it may well be the one that Latinos have, and which makes us have something in common with the electorate at-large.

There is too much evidence these days that this upcoming election cycle will be one where people vote against the person they don’t want to be president, rather than for someone they would want to be the nation’s chief executive.

All of which makes me think my ethnic brethren have assimilated into this society much more than the ideologues would ever want to give us credit.

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Latinos engage in political tactics, but will they work?

2011-12-22T00:02:00.000-06:00

Latino aldermen in Chicago are trying to get a share of the City Council roughly equal to the 29 percent of the city’s population that they have according to the most recent Census Bureau count.

Which is a completely noble goal that only the hardest-headed of conservative ideologues could have an opposition to.

YET LEARNING OF the latest tactic being employed by Latino officials in Chicago to try to have the city ward boundaries redrawn in a way that reflects the new reality (33 percent African-American, 32 percent white, 29 percent Latino and the remaining 6 percent Asian or other) of the city’s 2.7 million people count makes me wonder if it will work.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel has tried to avert the idea of an ethnic “war” over redistricting by saying he will push for a slashing of the Chicago City Council from 50 to 25 wards – if the aldermen can’t get their act together and agree on a new ward map.

Which the council’s Latino Caucus is countering by saying the equivalent of, “Bring it on!” Those alderman offered up a map of ward boundaries based on the idea of 25 wards, split equally among Latinos, white people and black people.

In fact, 25^th Ward Alderman Danny Solis went so far as to tell the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper that Latinos would benefit if city officials had to start all over with drawing ward boundaries.

BECAUSE BY KEEPING 50 wards, there is the idea of needing to respect existing boundaries as much as possible – even though many of those boundaries date back to an era when the city’s Latino population was confined to a few neighborhoods instead of being a significant part of a large swath of Chicago.

At least that’s what he wants us to believe. Personally, I’m skeptical.

If anything, I wonder if the idea of larger wards means that the city’s neighborhoods (many of which have specific ethnic flavors to them) will be ignored, because so many neighborhoods would have to be combined in order to create a larger-scale ward out of 25.

And when that happens, it makes me wonder if the potential for gerrymandering will become even larger.

IT MAKES ME think that the political operatives who already are trying to keep the growth in Latino population from knocking out too many incumbent aldermen (regardless of whether they are black or white) will gain even more control over the process.

It makes me skeptical of the idea that a real-life 25-ward map would have eight black-oriented wards, eight white wards, seven Latino wards and two others that could have strong chances of being either black or Latino in ethnic orientation.

Because if there really is a hard-and-fast “rule” of electoral politics, it is that there are no rules, and certainly no guarantees, about how future elections will turn out.

In fact, there’s really only one part of this Latino-inspired reduction to 25 wards that I do like – the fact that it means Latino officials are realizing they are going to have to take the initiative in terms of gaining anything in the way of political empowerment.

WHETHER OR NOT this particular tactic (which the Sun-Times characterized as “calling Emanuel’s bluff”) works, it is a sign that Latino officials are seeing the need to take actions on our own. Nobody is going to give us anything out of the goodness of their hearts.

If anything, any support we get will be from someone who expects us to align with their interests in the future – rather than look out for our own.

As for those who will claim that this sounds like divisiveness being caused by “all those foreigners,” I’d say it is exactly what electoral politics has been about for generations.

Now, we’re trying to play a significant role. Which is what ought to be occurring everywhere. Not just in Chicago.

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Ideologues prepared to battle with churches at Christmas over immigration?

2011-12-21T00:02:00.000-06:00

We’re talking about Catholics, Episcopalians and Methodists. Not exactly fringe religious elements in our society by anyone’s definition.

Robert Bentley has Alabama church officials ...

Their leaders down in Alabama were among a half-dozen religious officials who sent a letter this week to Gov. Robert Bentley saying that in the Christmas spirit, he ought to consider a repeal of the laws that state’s Legislature passed this year to get itself involved in immigration matters.

AS THOUGH ALABAMA doesn’t have enough real problems to cope with, they feel the need to take on this issue – and naturally, they picked the wrong side. Leave it to ideologue politicos to always do that.

Bentley on Monday responded quickly – having an aide sent out a statement saying that he has no intention of supporting a repeal of the immigration measure that officials like to brag is the nation’s “toughest.”

Which strikes me as being as ridiculous as an old Saturday Night Live sketch in which a Bill Clinton character (portrayed by the late Phil Hartman) bragged that his home state of Arkansas had just surpassed Mississippi in adult literacy rates (going from 50^th to 49^th), and was getting ready to make a push on surpassing Alabama.

All I know is that I suspect we’re going to hear a lot of cheap rhetoric this week from many of the same people who are ardent supporters of this measure in relation to this being the days leading up to Christmas.

BECAUSE, AFTER ALL, Jesus is the reason for this season, they will tell us. Or some other cheap variation on that line that has become a cliche.

... as upset as Pat Quinn bothers some Ill. catholics

Yet when the real religious leaders talk about compassion being particularly essential during this holiday season, we get the tons of Internet rhetoric (all of which will be anonymous) from people who think the church should pipe down, or mind its own business.

I couldn’t help one person who suggested to the Birmingham News newspaper that churches should have their tax exemptions revoked if they’re going to comment on government issues.

Which might be a semi-legitimate point, but not in this context.

FOR I SUSPECT that this individual would be all for the exemption, provided that the church only said “appropriate” things (as designated by conservative ideologues) and kept its collective mouth shut on any other issues.

That strikes me as being a very anti-religious attitude to have, although I suspect these people think they’re the religious ones and that it’s the rest of the world that has a problem.

Of course, it’s not just on immigration that this kind of attitude can arise. It reminds me of the situation in my home state of Illinois where Gov. Pat Quinn recently had a meeting with Catholic church leaders who thought they were going to be able to tell the governor what kinds of actions he can take with regards to abortion or gay marriage.

Quinn has supported measures on those issues that leaned toward “the left.” That upset the church, including Cardinal Francis George, who didn’t buy into Quinn’s explanation that while he is Catholic, he was elected in 2010 to be governor to all Illinoisans.

PERHAPS THE PEOPLE of Alabama wish they had Chicago’s Catholic establishment for religious leaders. Then again, even these same officials are in agreement with their Alabama counterparts when it comes to immigration.

The simple fact is that many churches see the current immigration laws as being flawed in that they create circumstances where (according to the letter of the law) families can be split up permanently.

Keeping families (such as the Girons of South Gate, Calif.) together is what the churches favor, because they see it as compassionate and rather conservative. Letting families get split up is a radical, and immoral, concept in their minds.

Anybody who has a problem with that last statement, particularly at this time of year, is someone I’d rather not meet. In fact, I’ll go so far as to put another label on them – un-American. I’m sure that one hurts them the most.

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R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Find out what it means to me

2011-12-20T00:02:00.000-06:00

Aretha Franklin isn’t any Celia Cruz. But perhaps she was onto something some four decades ago when she recorded the old Otis Redding song and made “Respect” into her namesake hit.

Because when it comes to the question, “What do the Latinos want?,” it really is a matter of respect.

WHICH IS SOMETHING that the socially conservative ideologues of our society don’t want to give. It also is the reason why GOP political operatives create nothing more than snickers whenever they talk about their strategies and tactics for taking the Latino vote in the upcoming election cycle.

What triggered this particular commentary was my rambling around the Internet on Monday when I stumbled across a website for a syndicated radio program that last week published a piece with the headline, What are Latino voters looking for?

In my head, the mental jukebox immediately triggered Franklin’s powerful voice telling us about “respect” and that’s all she wants from her man.

It also is what Latinos want from the society at-large. All those people who persist in thinking there are plots by pregnant Mexican women to sneak across the southwestern deserts in order to have their children in this country to enrich themselves are showing off not only their own ignorance, but their lack of respect.

THEY WANT TO demonize anything unlike themselves, because that can be easier than taking the time to comprehend someone else. It's really that simple.

In fact, I couldn’t help but notice that the website asking that question wound up having a reader comments section that devolved into rants against Newt Gingrich (for showing sympathy toward the Latino population), the Southern Poverty Law Center and people who are offended by states like Arizona and Alabama for their latest legislative actions that meddle in immigration issues.

All definitely disrespectful. And all complete evidence of why various polls show that Latinos are just as concerned about education or economic issues as anyone else, yet still want to know about the immigration stances.

For we realize that too many people use immigration as a way of showing their general comprehension of the ethnic changes occurring in this country these days.

THE PEOPLE WHO most often rant and rage are the ones who don’t want to respect our existence, and somehow have fantasies about our decline in numbers north of the Rio Bravo del Norte/Rio Grande. To put it in terms they might better comprehend – it ain’t gonna happen!

Of course, another Internet posting that caught my attention was a letter written to the Christian Science Monitor by Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, a long-time immigration ideologue who lets those views influence (some would say warp) his conduct as chairman of the House Judiciary committee.

He wants to believe that Republican/conservative political empowerment can advance without acknowledging the Latino population of this country.

What amused me the most was his claim that in the 2010 elections, 38 percent of Latinos voted for a Republican to represent them in Congress. It may well be true in that some Latinos live in areas where they don’t have much of a choice.

BUT IT JUST strikes me as being pathetic that a public official thinks 38 percent is all that good. It means 62 percent of Latino voters didn’t pick your guy.

You have to do a lot better than that in order to legitimately claim that you have gained a significant share of the Latino vote.

Which to me makes it seem that people like Smith don’t really want to have Latino voters around. Like their idea of the ideal is one where we just don’t exist.

That doesn’t sound very respectful to me. Perhaps they need a dose of Aretha, even though I think a more appropriate song for them would be Franklin’s follow-up in “Think.”

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Does Justice Dept. view give Atencio claims credence?

2011-12-19T00:02:00.000-06:00

CLARIFICATION: This commentary has been altered slightly to account for Marty Atencio's medical condition. Although the changes in no way alter the point that was trying to be made.

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Of all the crummy times for someone to have nearly died while in the custody of the Marcopa County, Ariz., sheriff’s office, it had to come this weekend.

Because of the fact that the Justice Department last week issued a report contending that the sheriff’s office’s conduct in recent years has been hostile toward Latinos to the point where we are being singled out – rather than protected – by the police, you’d think the sheriff would want to remain low-key and not do anything stupid that might add credence to such allegations.

INSTEAD, AN INCIDENT occurred Friday that is now getting international attention, and only goes to confirm the suspicions of those who want to think that the law enforcement agency run by Sheriff Joe Arpaio is suspect.

The incident in question involves Ernest “Marty” Atencio. The 44-year-old military veteran of the first Gulf War (the one to liberate Kuwait from Iraqi head Saddam Hussein) was arrested Friday and taken to the jail.

Sheriff’s police would have us think that Atencio became unruly and that his behavior created the need for the use of force by law enforcement officials.

According to reports from the New Times newspaper of Phoenix, that “force” came in the form of a Taser device meant to stun him. Instead, it induced a heart attack and Atencio at one point was dead, before being revived and remaining "brain dead" for the present.

HIS BROTHER, MIKE, is going around using the word “murder” to describe the actions, and it seems that many are willing to give such a thought the benefit of the doubt. Could it be that the attitude of these law enforcement officials toward the growing Latino population is just so intensely negative that what we need is a massive overhaul of that department?

It may be. Because at the very least, you’d think the sheriff’s department would be looking to avoid any incidents that can cause problems – even though it seems that the initial word about Atencio’s death while in the sheriff’s department’s custody came from someone who is a political rival of Arpaio.

Which means there is political gain for Mike Stauffer in having this incident become public. But this can’t all be written off by Arpaio backers as nothing more than partisan politics at work.

So now, the eyes of investigators who already were trying to figure out just how far gone the sheriff’s department for the Phoenix, Ariz., metropolitan area has become also have to figure out if use of the word “murder” in this case is overkill – or legally appropriate. This is going to arouse the public anger.

BECAUSE THE ONE thing that, based on various news accounts (that could have missing details) in existence, seems apparent is that Atencio’s condition was caused by his reaction to the use of a Taser – which was the act of a fellow human being.

What comes into play in determining whether using the word “murder” is appropriate or libelous is whether the officer who used the Taser device had a clue that they were using it in a way that could cause death – rather than the intended (I’m presuming) effect of knocking him unconscious for a little while.

Because if it could be shown to be a deliberate use, then this does become a criminal case – instead of an accident.

We’ll also have to learn more about what provoked the matter to rise to the level of Taser use, even though I’m sure police will fight like crazy to eliminate this aspect of the case.

AFTER ALL, WHAT if police were doing something that could be construed as provoking Atencio into trying to fight back?

There are those who are going to want to give law enforcement the benefit of the doubt in terms of believing that the police would only use force if provoked. Heck, I’d like to believe that same thing.

But if even the Justice Department is willing to admit the problems that have long existed in Maricopa County, then a part of me fears how ugly the Atencio matter is going to become before it is resolved to anyone’s satisfaction.

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Talk about assimilation – Latina ballerinas

2011-12-17T00:02:00.000-06:00

I got my kicks on Friday reading about Alondra Gomez, a 14-year-old immigrant from Mexico who now lives near Chattanooga, Tenn. For in her six years in this country, she has taken up ballet and become quite skilled at it.

GOMEZ: A future dance sensation? Photograph provided by Ballet Tennessee

Which is why on Friday and Saturday, she was (and will be) dancing the role of the Sugar Plum Fairy in a version of The Nutcracker that is being presented by the Ballet Tennessee company.

IT MAKES HER the first Latina to have such a prominent role in that company – located in a part of the country that many don’t associate with Latino populations (and where the ideologues would probably prefer to think we don’t exist at all).

Yet we do. The reality is that our population numbers are on the rise across the nation. Even in the shadows of Lookout Mountain.

For those who want to know more, the Times-Free Press newspaper out of Chattanooga actually gave Gomez a nice write-up – one that tells us of how she barely comprehended English and didn’t really know much about ballet when she first arrived in the United States.

Which, to my mind, makes Gomez yet another story of the assimilation that is taking place – no matter how much the ideologues don’t want to believe it. Perhaps she will educate us all someday IF she achieves her goal – a spot with the American Ballet Theatre in New York.

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It’s about time somebody noticed Maricopa's truth

2011-12-16T00:02:00.000-06:00

For far too often, Maricopa County, Ariz. Sheriff Joe Arpaio has been a colorful character – some nitwit who talks “tough” and makes inmates in his jail wear pink-colored underwear.

In reality, he is nothing more than someone who gives aid and comfort to that segment of society that supports law enforcement because they like the idea of someone who beats up on other people – and probably wishes they could join in the “fun” themselves.

SO MY HONEST reaction to learning Thursday that the United States government is cracking down on that department, and is cutting it off from certain federal programs that would add to its legitimacy, is something along the line of, “What took you so long?”

It’s about time that somebody calls out this particular official who uses his law enforcement authority to try to legitimize harassment against the growing Latino population.

Because, if anything, it is law enforcement officials such as Arpaio who are the real threat to our society. Using the “rule of law” to legitimize their antics only causes greater disrespect for the law.

As for those people of a socially conservative ideological bent who on Thursday were ranting and raging that this is some sort of evidence that the Obama administration does not represent the interests of “real” people, all I have to say is, “Pipe down!”

BECAUSE AS I write this, I am getting a headache from the rhetoric they are likely to spew in outrage that the federal government would seriously look out for all people, instead of just themselves.

For those who weren’t paying attention on Thursday, the Department of Homeland Security said Thursday that it would no longer let the Maricopa Sheriff’s office partake in the benefits of the Secure Communities program – by which local officials share their information with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials.

Perhaps it is a realization that any information provided out of Maricopa is tainted too much to be reliable.

That would be the impression given earlier in the day when Justice Department officials publicly blasted Maricopa County for its conduct, saying the sheriff seemed more concerned with harassing Latinos in the Phoenix area rather than protecting them from crime.

THE OTHER GROUP that seemed to get singled out for abuse, according to the Justice Department , was anyone who was critical of Arpaio’s policies throughout the years. For all I know, if I lived in Arizona (I do have some cousins who live there), perhaps I’d be getting investigated for something or other.

This is exactly the attitude we need to overcome if our society is ever to truly move beyond the divisiveness that crops up all too often whenever ethnicity comes up. Having someone in an official position to back up their world viewpoint (which often doesn’t extend beyond the municipal boundaries) causes the problem.

So perhaps we have an action from the Obama administration that shows a willingness to take on the problem, instead of giving in to the individuals in our society who want to view the Latino population growth as THE problem.

It definitely is a step in the right direction. Although as to whether or not Arpaio should go, I would leave that up to the county officials. If they’re willing to keep him on and live with the shame, it’s their choice. Just realize it adds to their lack of credibility on such issues.

THEN AGAIN, I expect the kind of people who are offended by what happened on Thursday are the same ones who read the headline Mexican-Americans aren’t moving up, study finds and figured it was evidence that Latinos are too deficient to belong in this society.

Actually, that study contends that the obstacles erected by these ideologues is what is standing in the way of Latino advancement in society. Which in their minds makes it another case of “the facts” getting in the way of the perception of our world that the ideologues want to have.

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