From Xico

In the beginning....

I don't have a clue why it has taken me so long to do this.  Probably because I'm in some ways nuts.

t is a shame, shame, shame that US students don't learn more about Mexican history, and from my perspective, Mexican history in particular.  It is one of those clichés that has a lot of truth: at least the Americans I know who live in the US and haven't visited Mexico still form their images from headlines about narcos and have only a tiny bit of curiosity about anything else in here.  There's a kind of "what's to know?" condescension which infuriates me.  I suspect they don't know much real US history, either.

I am going to try to draw pictures of Diego Rivera and Henry Ford and place them in their environments separately, and then bring them together as they came together in 1932.  They didn't really have much to do with each other as individuals, although they did meet, but they really serve well as, what should I call them, embodiments of their cultures and their times.  In this way, I hope we can see how these two very different cultures, Mexico's  and the United States'  developed, clashed, and paralleled each other particularly in the first third of the twentieth century. Also, I want to show how their economies became woven together along the edges at least while especially the US developed little understanding and empathy and appreciation for Mexico's cultures and history, a deficit which has had grave consequences.

But I don't want to do this in an encyclopedic way.  I'd be dead before I even got started.  So that you can dig in more depth, I am going to recommend books as I go along.  Don't feel confined to them!  My choices are all in English, usually written by Gringos: Maybe you can consider them introductory, or beginner books (though they are not simple-minded), and develop a passion for more as I have. Maybe you'll even study Spanish, as I did, if you don't already know it. 

Most (maybe all) are available for Kindles, and if they are, I've provided a link.  In no way am I boosting Amazon as the best source to buy downed-tree versions.  It's just that my Kindle has kept me reading like a junky here in our corner of Mexico where specific books can be pretty hard to come by.

The very first book I'd suggest is Richard Grabman's Gods, Gachupines and Gringos.  *,**I tried to think of something more serious to say start with, but I keep coming back to the fact that it's fun to read.  It is densely packed with personalities, opinions, punny titles and well-told tales which bring it to life.  Grabman races through the first I don't know how many thousands of years at mach speed, slows down a bit for the period of Spanish domination and hits his best stride with Independence and especially the late 19th through the first third of the twentieth century, my favorite years.  

While you are learning about Mexico in Gods, Gachupines and Gringos, I will catch you up on some American history.  

* You can order the book direct from the publisher in Mexico.  Here is the contact information:

Editorial Mazatlán, Av. Camarón Sabado no 610, Plaza Galerías, Local no. 11, fracc. El Dorado CP 82110, Mazatlán, Sinaloa, Mexico Tel 52 6699167899, [email protected]

** Richard has an excellent blog at mexfiles.net. Definitely worth following.

Good Guys and Bad Guys

Amurricans (or as a NY Times blogger called them/us, Amerks) exercising their rights:

  Foto Ap

Go Rick Perry Go!

Below you can find my translation of pieces of an article by several news agencies: Notimex, ap and Reuters which appears in today's La Jornada.

First a slight Rick Perry detour. 

Here is a photo of Rick Perry in glasses.

Perry may or may not need them,  but I suspect this pair is purely cosmetic.  There is no evidence of lense distortion of the eyes. Not even a tiny bit. They don't even magnify his eyes a bit the way glasses for presbyopia (older people's trouble seeing close--he surely needs some at 64. But he wouldn't want to wear THOSE in public). And you'll notice they are the um trendiest sort, the kind EVERYONE on TV is wearing.  Maybe he got the idea from Sarah Palin. 

On Sunday, Perry attended church at Clear Lake Evangelical Church in Iowa.  Notice the church is in Iowa.  In 2012 Perry soared and then crashed in Iowa.  At this church, according to the Washington Post, "He came for redemption.  . . . .  Rick perry held his arms across his torso and swayed as the choir sang. . . . He bowed his head while the pastor preached about 'God's perfect plan of salvation.'"

The Washington Post says that the border crisis "gives Perry an animating issue placing him at the forefront of Republican politics." The article goes on, "After church. . . Perry spoke about the influx of young immigrants in front of about 100 conservative activists who sat rapt inside a hot and steamy airplane hangar here.    When the governor said the words ´'securing the border,' he clenched his left fist, flexed his bicep and leaned his body forward. He paced side to side with a wireless microphone and no notes, bending his knees for emphasis. He looked like a Texas A&M football coach giving the aggies a pep talk.

.  .  .  .

"'I will tell you this,' he added, his voice growing louder.  'If the federal government does not do its constitutional duty to secure the southern border of the United States, the state of Texas will do it!'"  

"The activists rose to their feet and cheered.  Perry had scored a touchdown."

This is one of those situations where if I didn't laugh I'd cry.

 As I said, the following story is from a joint effort by news agencies in La Jornada. The translation is mine.

"Yesterday Rick Perry announced the deployment of a thousand soldiers in the National Gard on the frontier with Mexico to reinforce the security in the midst of a human crisis without precedent, in the face of tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors, the majority coming from Central America.

"The governor, a possible aspirant [I wish this were a joke.  Maybe a running character on Saturday Night Live if it still exists] for the Republican nomination for president, said that in recent months the security measures on the border had been seen to be overwhelmed by the arrival of some 57 thousand unaccompanied child migrants crossing into the US between October and June.

"The governor maintained that cartels and criminal gans were exploiting this situation in order to engage in trafficking in people and drugs.  

"Perry said that the National Guard troups would work together with state agents from the Department of Public Security to guarantee security to all residents.

"The soldiers will also help to combat the drug cartels and to dissuade the foreign criminals from entering.

. . . .

"Perry, critical of the White House response to this crisis, said that the State has the responsibility to act in the face of 'the vain words and empty promises' of the federal government. 

Democratic legislators accused Perry of militarizing the frontier.  'Militarization is the wrong reponse to the arrival of these children,' said Joaquín Castro, a Congressional representative [from San Antonio]I continue to hope that our state  can give a measured more useful response than to send armed soldiers to welcome the children seeking refuge from the violence," he said.

The chief of police of Cameron County [the southeastern most county of Texas, across the border from Matamoros.  It includes Brownsville] Omar Lucio said that he didn't know if the troops would arrive at that part of the border and asked what benefits it would bring in case it did.  'These people are trained for war, not for police work,' he asserted. . . 'I think the money would be better spent if it were given to agencies in charge of enforcing the law near the frontier.'

"More than 3 thousand agents of the Border Patrol operate in south Texas.  Perry has asked Obama on many occasions to send the National Guard to the border. "

+ + + + + +

And just so you can get further acquainted with this man Rick Perry who is governor of Texas and apparently still hoping to run for President, listen to him at athe Conservative Political Action Conference  of the United States this year in Washington DC.  

  

Good grief.  I hope you recognize what a fantasyland this man lives in with his followers.

 

And here are some pictures taken from La Jornada of kids.

 

 

A child at a demonstration in California. (Reuters)

 

An immigrant minor rests under a train in Arriaga, Chiapas, on his way to the US frontier (Foto: Alfredo Dominguez)

 

A child in a processing center in Texas. (foto AP)

 

Two small Central Americans play in a refuge in Tapachula [Mexico, I think.] (foto: Alfredo Dominguez)

These kids could be anyone's kids.  They don't need a system that batters and bruises them.

More on migrant children

So you can continue feeling loose and amused, a piece from the Colbert report:

The Colbert Report
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So you can know that not all Americans are anti-immigrant children, my old home state of Texas isn't all bad.

And here are some letter writers to the NY Times, the paper of choice in my home town.

La Jornada has been covering this migration story pretty extensively.  Below you can find my translation of parts of La Jornada's David Brooks' column in La Jornada yesterday (July 19).  This isn't so amusing or uplifting, but it is important reading.

"The influential comic Jon Stewart on his . . .show 'The Daily Show' gave examples of  an almost obscene fear which could be seen in the political debate over the crisis of the exodus of migrant children.  In the face of the question so many politicians were asking,'Why you couldn't just deport them,' he responded, "What the fuck is going on with them?  We are talking about children.'  And in response to the repeated rhetorical phrase of many politicians that "this is a nation of immigrants," he said, yes, "We have always been a nation of immigrants who hate the most recent immigrants."

"Washington, so as not to [seem inconsistent], continues to be overwhelmed by a debate which does not offer a solution to what  everyone now calls a "humanitarian Crisis", let alone to its root causes. Meanwhile community service organizations, immigrant rights groups, lawyers, immigrant activists, religious groups and civil rights groups continue to help and defend the tens of thousands of childrn from Mexico and other nations of Central America who now find themselves distributed not only along the frontier, but in diverse places across the country.

. . . .

¨But although they are offered medical checkups and other urgent services at the beginning, the children can't count on long term assistance including treatment for trauma-caused conditions which many suffer, and it is here that organizations dedicated to bringing services to migrant communities find themselves burdened with the recently arrived.  Although not all the communities where new shelters are being considered offer the migrants a welcome, others are opening their arms.

"In the city of New York where almost half of the city is made up of immigrants, the municipal authorities and social organizations are collaborating to develop a strategy to bring support to the more than three thousand minors who have arrived there and in other parts of the state (it is expected that another seven thousand  will arrive in the next months).  At the national level, there are approximately 100 shelters under federal government supervision.

"Although the government of Barack Obama promises that "the rights" of the minors will be respected, even if the rate of deportation [cases] is successfully accelerated, as [who? the President?]  desires, this [increase in availability of lawyers?]has not happened, lawyers and civil rights activists say.*

"The immigration lawyer José Pertierra affirms that you can't guarantee the legal rights of migrants without a lawyer. He explained to La Jornada that at this time the children don't have a right to a lawyer.  The problem is that a violation of immigrant law is a civil matter, not a criminal matter and as such there is no automatic right to a lawyer. . . . Furthermore, by law, a minor does not have the capacity to represent himself before a court.

"Pertierra offers the example of a Honduran girl of eight appearing before a judge who did all he could not to scare the child while he explained the process to which she would be submitted, that she would be subject to deportation and would have to present herself on a certain date to argue her case, none of which she understood.  Having just arrived, after crossing Mexico, she was brought to the immigration authorities, was transferred to a center and from there to the outskirts of Washington.  Then an unknown man in an unknown land explained the law to her.  These scenes are repeated thousands of times around the country.

"Even worse, in some cases in which lawyers are presented to represent the minors, the federal government has tried to deny access to them.

"Because of this, the demand before a federal court presented recently by the ACLU and the National Center of Immigration Law  to oblige the government to guarantee legal representation to these children is among 'the most important steps in practical terms at this point' says Pertierra.

"'It is incredible that the government has been categorically denying to children in custody in Nogales who are fleeing violence, access to lawyers,' says Jennifer Chang Newell, of the migrant project of the ACLU, shortly after a judge ruled that the federal government had to permit a group of Salvadoren children to be able to consult with their lawyers.  However, the ruling is not so extensive for all minors in this exodus.

 . . . . The religious activist Juan Carlos Ruiz of the group Nuevo Santuario declared in an action in front of Federal Government offices in New York, 'today the children of Honduras, Mexico, Guatemala and El Salvador -- like those of Gaza -- shout for protection and defense from all of us.'"

Brooks finishes by asking whether Obama who has done more to fortify the border than any president before him and who has deported more than any president before him will be remembered as "The Deporter in Chief" or whether he will have the courage "to face the anti-imigrant forces that have prevailed in recent years."

 * This paragraph puzzles me.  In Spanish it reads, Aundque el govierno de Barack Obama promete que "los derechos" de los menores serán respetados, aun si se lograr acelerar como desea, el proceso para facilitar su deportacion, en los hechos esto no ha ocurrido, denuncian abogados y defensores de derechos civiles. 

 

Related articles

The Surprising David Brooks

They are children

I thought of one cynical and valuable reason the US should not deport kids back to Central America. If they go back, for many of them, the only alternative will be to join up with narcos.  

But, really, I want to ask what has become of our country that children have become pawns in the terrible, destructive, inhumane political games we play? 

Who are these kids?  They are children whose parents love their kids and are afraid for their lives.  I don't understand why Obama, et. a.. don't bring in UN people who know how to work with situations like this.  Why doesn't Obamat consult with other countries? I know there are some legitimate concerns: Central American-led gangs in Los Angeles, for instance.  Why doesn't the Administration consult with the mayor of LA?  

Sometimes it seems to me that Obama doesn't really delve into the flesh and blood of difficult situations, for instance avoiding going to see the kids on the border, and strategizes instead, plays a chess game.

So below are some pictures of kids on the way to the US.  If you think about it, they could be kids anywhere.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The above picture is I think in the US.  These are kids sleeping in a shelter.   Take a good look at it.

Now to prove that every situation has its funny side, click on Jon Stewart's "America's Immigration Crisis - Kids´Edition below.

The Daily Show
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Practice your Spanish listening to this interview about neonazis in Guadalajara. To me (and others) the idea of moreno nazis is an oxymoron.