On July 1, over at Minnesota righty superblog True North (”Pointing Minnesota in the Right Direction”), Kevin Ecker decided to use his time to highlight an anti-immigration rally in Austin, Minnesota:

Political activism at it’s [sic] best is honest grassroots efforts by people finally fed up with lying politicians who decide to do something about an issue rather than just complain. We have a great example of that coming up here in Minnesota on the immigration issue.

On Saturday, July 11th at 2 PM, there will be a rally held at the Mower County Courthouse. It’s located at 201 First Street NE, Austin, MN. This will be the second rally in a month at that location.

Basically Austin is a town that the residents feel has been devastated by illegal immigration, and a lone resident, Sam Johnson, finally got fed up. He organized the first rally despite being up against professionally organized counter protests by the likes of La Raza, Centro Campesino and various Marxist organizations bussed in from the cities.

Sam Johnson, honest American, just doing the best he can to make our country free of “illegal immigration.” Or, you know, any immigration. Because this is Sam Johnson:

In case you’re wondering — and I doubt you are, but some people might not be able to view the picture — yes, that’s a guy wearing a neo-Nazi uniform. Because Sam Johnson isn’t just a hard-working white American who’s fed-up with illegal immigration. He’s a neo-Nazi, the head of the National Socialist Movement Southeast Minnesota. He is one of the most vile individuals in my state, and he’s a guy who the world will be better off without.

Sally Jo Sorensen of the outstanding Bluestem Prairie blog actually interviewed Johnson (one hopes she took a long, hot shower afterward); you should really read all of part one and bookmark the site for the next two installments, but here’s a brief excerpt:

“Minorities should not be citizens,” Johnson said, “only 100 percent true white Americans.” He outlined his vision of a nation in which all people of color would be stripped of their citizenship, no matter how long their families had lived in the United States, and moved to communities that would be strictly delineated according to race.

People of African descent would live with other people of African descent, Latinos with Latinos, Asians with Asians, American Indians with American Indians, and “real Americans” with other “real Americans. “Real American” and non-citizen status would be determined be having had family living in the country for five generations or 50-70 years.

Only if non-whites broke the law would they be sent back to the country of their ancestors’ origins, regardless of how long their families had lived in the United States. Of course, Johnson emphasized, this would dictate deporting all immigrants living here illegally.

“Minorities could have jobs, own homes, and enjoy their own culture,” he said. They simply wouldn’t be citizens of the United States, nor could they become citizens. They would have to keep separate.

Why separate?

“If you look back in history to every country that’s allowed different races to mingle,” he said, “you’ll see that nation has fallen.”

“Look at what happened to Rome,” he said, when I example him for an example of what he meant. “Jews and Africans came into Rome, there were uprisings, and Rome fell.”

This is the guy that True North — a blog that has included Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn.; PowerLine’s Scott Johnson; and David Strom, the head of the Minnesota Taxpayers League as contributors — decided to back. A neo-Nazi. But that shouldn’t be surprising — the Republican party has deliberately chosen to throw its lot in with the most extreme elements of the hard-core, fascist-and-no-that’s-not-hyperbole, racist right. It is disgusting. It is despicable.

This is why those of us on the left don’t buy it when the right claims that they’re not racist — because they are so very willing to embrace racists when it helps them. If Republicans want to stop being seen as the party of hate, they need to stop the hatred. Otherwise, they need to own the fact that a sitting Republican congresswoman is a contributor to a website that promoted a neo-Nazi hate rally, promotion that included sharing Sam Johnson’s email address with those looking to get involved. Only a party that found racism acceptable could be comfortable with that.

UPDATE: Just because these things have a way of finding their way down the memory hole:

Andrew Romano at Newsweek:

From a purely economic standpoint, insuring illegal immigrants makes a lot of sense—and not just for them, but for everyone.

Consider a few statistics. According to a July article in the American Journal of Public Health, immigrants typically arrive in America during their prime working years and tend to be younger and healthier than the rest of the U.S. population. As a result, health-care expenditures for the average immigrant are 55 percent lower than for a native-born American citizen with similar characteristics. With the ratio of seniors to workers projected to increase by 67 percent between 2010 and 2030, it stands to reason that including the relatively healthy, relatively employable and largely uninsured illegal population in some sort of universal health-care system would be a boon rather than a burden. “Insurance in principle has to cover the average medical cost of all the people it’s serving,” explains Leighton Ku, a professor of health policy at George Washington University. “So if you add cheaper people to the pool, like immigrants, you reduce the average cost.” More undocumented workers, in other words, means lower premiums for everyone.

The actuarial advantages don’t end there. As it is now, undocumented workers (and others) who can’t pay their way receive free emergency and charitable care—a service that costs those of us with health insurance an additional $1,000 per year, as Obama noted. But if illegals were covered, this hidden tax would decrease, further lowering our premiums and “relieving some of the financial burden on state and local governments,” says Harold Pollack, a University of Chicago professor who specializes in poverty and public health. What’s more, employers currently have a clear economic incentive to hire undocumented immigrants: they don’t require coverage. A plan that mandates insurance for native workers but not their illegal counterparts actually makes life harder on the blue-collar Americans competing for jobs (and railing against immigrants) because it means that hiring them will cost more than hiring a recent transplant from Mexico City. As The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein recently explained, “If you’re really worried about the native-born workforce, what you want to do is minimize the differences in labor costs between different types of workers. A health care policy that enlarges those differences—that makes documented workers more expensive compared to undocumented workers—is actually worse for the documented workers.”

At this point, you’re probably wondering whether taxpayers would have to foot a bigger bill for these newly insured illegals. Not necessarily—at least in theory. As Obama said in Wednesday’s speech, “Like any private insurance company, the public insurance option would have to be self-sufficient and rely on the premiums it collects” to fund whatever care it provides. Given that many undocumented workers leave the country before they’re old enough to require much medical care, says Phillip Longman of the New America Foundation, “you could set up the system in a way that that they wind up contributing as much or more than they receive” in low-income subsidies, especially when the “offsetting savings of lower emergency-room use” are factored in.

As Romano notes, coverage of undocumented immigrants is politically impossible, even though it makes sense. (Via Ezra.)

So as previously noted, Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., last night got himself into trouble for calling the President a liar. Now, there’s nothing wrong with calling the President a liar; indeed, that’s a time-honored American tradition. But you’re not supposed to do so by shouting at him while he’s speaking to a joint session of Congress, especially if you’re a member of the House of Representatives. That will get you in enormous trouble.

That said, Right Blogistan is defending Wilson today, saying that was totally right to heckle Barack Obama, because the bill does totally take the money of honest white Americans and give it to dastardly illegal immigrants from Mexico. So who’s right? Well, as everyone knows, the media doesn’t deal in “right” or “wrong,” just “he-said-she-said.” So let’s take a look at the arguments side-by-side:

So that’s your summary! Were I a journalist, I’d be forced to point out that reasonable minds disagree, and some say that the Obama plan would force you to kill your grandma so that an undocumented alien can get Viagra. Being a dirty liberal blogger, though, I’ll simply say that the right’s argument is painfully specious, even by the right’s recent standards.

From Mississippi’s Clarion Ledger:

Immigration advocates are incensed over a Mexican woman’s fight to keep custody of her child after she was reported as an unfit mother two days after giving birth in a Pascagoula hospital.

An e-mail news release sent last week by the Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance accuses Singing River Hospital and the Mississippi Department of Human Services of “stealing immigrants’ babies.” The accusation involves Cirila Baltazar Cruz, who gave birth to her daughter, Ruby, Nov. 16 at the hospital.

According to documents obtained by The Clarion-Ledger, staff at the hospital filed a report two days later listing Ruby as a neglected child.

The report says Cruz “was exchanging living arrangements for sex” and planned to adopt out the child before returning to Mexico. The report also noted Cruz “is an illegal immigrant.”

Court records obtained by The Clarion-Ledger indicate Cruz is charged with neglecting her child, in part, because “she has failed to learn the English language” and “was unable to call for assistance for transportation to the hospital” to give birth. Her inability to speak English “placed her unborn child in danger and will place the baby in danger in the future,” according to the document.

In its release, MIRA disputes the accusations leveled against Cruz and says Cruz speaks an indigenous Mexican language, Chatino, spoken by fewer than 50,000 people, and speaks “very little Spanish and no English.” The hospital provided only a Spanish-language interpreter, the release says.

So they somehow determined that she “exchanged living arrangements for sex” and intended to have the baby adopted — even though they didn’t have an interpreter who actually spoke Ms. Cruz’s language? That seems dubious. If you can’t speak her language, then you can’t be certain what her intentions are.

(And by the way, I hate the assumption that if a parent does “exchange living arrangements for sex,” the proper response is for the government to take that parent’s child away. Nor does it make sense to take away a child because their parent is considering adoption.)

Since MIRA was able to find a translator, obviously finding a translator is not, in fact, impossible. Nothing should have been done in this case prior to finding a translator; and to take away a child because the parent(s) doesn’t speak English is disgusting.

Vivirlatino has an interesting post about this case and how the immigration debate is framed.

MIRA’s call to action is below the fold. Read the rest of this entry »

“He’s dead because he’s Mexican. This is jury nullification….”

Meanwhile, check out the reaction of the woman interviewed about one minute into this piece:

Ornicus writes:

Considering some of the details of the killing, it’s also inordinately clear this was a classic bias crime, with the incident instigated by racially charged taunts that made clear the victim was selected because of racial animus:

“Isn’t it a little late for you guys to be out?” the boys said, according to court documents. “Get your Mexican boyfriend out of here.”

… Burke recalled hearing one final, ominous threat as the teens ran. “They yelled, ‘You effin bitch, tell your effin Mexican friends get the eff out of Shenandoah or you’re gonna be laying effin next to him,’ ” she said.

That is, of course, the entire purpose of bias crimes: To hold the victim up as an example: “You’re next.” The purpose is to terrorize the target community, to drive them out, eliminate them.

Via: Racism Review. More on this case:

The Unapologetic Mexican
Stuff White People Do (source of the second video above)

Auguste is right — this really might be the dumbest cartoon ever in the history of the entire universe. And this is not just the universe where Chris Muir lives, but the one Bruce Tinsley lives in, too!

I’m not sure what my favorite part of this little slice of wingnuttery is. I think it’s the implication that these are things unique to Mexico. I mean, it’s not like America lacks drug gangs, kidnappings, unemployment, poverty, or even swine flu. And I thought conservatives liked guns! I mean, it’s not like America is anti-gun. Indeed, most of the guns in Mexico are coming from the U.S.

I can only conclude that we’re also bad neighbors. And we’re still here, because…um…well, I don’t know really where either America or Mexico is supposed to go.

In other news, the wingnuts have started calling the flu outbreak in Mexico the “Mexican Flu,” because, you know, the wingnuts are a bunch of racist assholes.

[Postscript from Ampersand: The cartoon Jeff criticizes was written and drawn by Donna Barstow, whose work can be found on the web here and here.]

Okay, there’s no need to panic, but the H1N1 outbreak in Mexico may well be cause for concern. But hopefully not too much of one:

So swine flu has come out of nowhere. It has unfortunately killed some people, and analysis shows it’s a brand-new virus with unknown potential to kill many more.

That doesn’t mean we can kiss civilization good-bye, or damn and blast the World Health Organization for not doing what we think it should. This strain of H1N1 is an interesting, and probably serious, new virus. The Mexicans seem to be doing the best they can, with limited resources and in a bad recession. We may end up thanking them for courageous decisions that cost them dearly.

But thanks or blame are both premature. We have only a handful of cases, and an even smaller number of deaths. In tracking H5N1, I’ve always thought: As long as we can count the dead, we’re OK. We can still count the dead, and mourn them.

We can also count the living, including eight kids in New York City. Every one of them is a promise that this may be less than a catastrophe…maybe even a wonderful anticlimax, where we all, around May 30, ask ourselves: “What were we so upset about?”

That’s the hope. And it’s important to keep things in perspective. So far, 81 people are dead, and roughly 1500 people are infected worldwide. Those numbers aren’t remotely close to pandemic levels. The fact that we’ve identified this outbreak this early gives us a chance to get it locked down and keep it from becoming a serious health concern. We hope.

Of course, because the outbreak started in Mexico, Michelle Malkin is sprinkling her bile into the discussion:

I’ve blogged for years about the spread of contagious diseases from around the world into the U.S. as a result of uncontrolled immigration. We’ve heard for years from reckless open-borders ideologues who continue to insist there’s nothing to worry about. And we’ve heard for years that calling any attention to the dangers of allowing untold numbers of people to pass across our borders and through our other ports of entry without proper medical screening — as required of every legal visitor/immigrant to this country — is RAAAACIST.

Sigh. As Crawford Kilian notes, “Cases outside Mexico have all been brought home by legitimate tourists who could afford travel to Mexico from places as remote as New Zealand and Israel.” This has absolutely nothing to do with immigration. I suppose we can quarantine Mexico completely — though frankly, the train’s out of the station here — but to what end?

It’s remarkably hateful that someone can look at what is, at best, a catastrophe that has killed dozens, and see only a tool to use against Mexican immigrants. There is a word for that kind of worldview, and yes, Michelle, it is racist, a word that describes you to a T.

As for those of us who view this public health crisis as a public health crisis, the smart things to do right now are the smart things to do all the time. Wash your hands, use a hand sanitizer, be conscious of illness and go to the doctor if you’re sick (unless, of course, you don’t have insurance — then feel free to spread it willy-nilly to everyone and their twin sister). And take a deep breath, because this probably is not the long-feared flu pandemic. Or so we hope.

I think it’s fair to say that immigrants have long been positive contributors to the US economy.  In recent years, highly skilled immigrants have filled high demand jobs in science, technology, and  health care related fields.  Many of these immigrants have attended US universities and have advanced degrees.  They are relatively well positioned in US society, so why would they leave?

According to Vivek Wadhwa in this article from business Week, the pull to emigrate (Remember emigration with an “E” means exit.) back to their countries of origin has several origins.  The researchers on Wadhwa’s team, surveyed Chinese and Indian emigrants.  Some reasons given were personal and cultural,

Returnees cited language barriers, missing their family and friends at home, difficulty with cultural assimilation, and care of parents and children as key issues.

Another factor for the return was bureaucratic barriers that visa seekers faced in the US.

However, there were several pull factors that lead emigrants to feel they would have more opportunities in their countries of origin:

Eighty-seven percent of Chinese and 79% of Indians said a strong factor in their original decision to return home was the growing demand for their skills in their home countries. Their instincts generally proved right. Significant numbers moved up the organization chart. Among Indians the percentage of respondents holding senior management positions increased from 10% in the U.S. to 44% in India, and among Chinese it increased from 9% in the U.S. to 36% in China. Eighty-seven percent of Chinese and 62% of Indians said they had better opportunities for longer-term professional growth in their home countries than in the U.S. Additionally, nearly half were considering launching businesses and said entrepreneurial opportunities were better in their home countries than in the U.S.

The researchers don’t mention discrimination here in the US as a factor, but these statistics don’t preclude it as a possibility.  In previous studies, many Asian Americans, from both immigrant and non-immigrant backgrounds have reported difficulties in promotions.  These difficulties can be related to immigration status, ethnicity, or race.

Given the terrible state of the economy, I wonder if the sacrifice of leaving one’s culture and family isn’t being offset by financial rewards here in the US.  I’ve also read recent reports about a decline in remittances sent to Mexico and other countries.  This could mean either immigrants are living here but keeping money for themselves and/or immigrants are returning to their home countries.  Then again, these trends may have been happening even without the economic down turn since the economies in places like India and China are rapidly expanding.

From an article in Gourmet magazine:

Lucas’s “room” turned out to be the back of a box truck in the junk-strewn yard, shared with two or three other workers. It lacked running water and a toilet, so occupants urinated and defecated in a corner. For that, Navarrete docked Lucas’s pay by $20 a week. According to court papers, he also charged Lucas for two meager meals a day: eggs, beans, rice, tortillas, and, occasionally, some sort of meat. Cold showers from a garden hose in the backyard were $5 each. Everything had a price. Lucas was soon $300 in debt. After a month of ten-hour workdays, he figured he should have paid that debt off.

But when Lucas—slightly built and standing less than five and a half feet tall—inquired about the balance, Navarrete threatened to beat him should he ever try to leave. Instead of providing an accounting, Navarrete took Lucas’s paychecks, cashed them, and randomly doled out pocket money, $20 some weeks, other weeks $50. Over the years, Navarrete and members of his extended family deprived Lucas of $55,000.

Taking a day off was not an option. If Lucas became ill or was too exhausted to work, he was kicked in the head, beaten, and locked in the back of the truck. Other members of Navarrete’s dozen-man crew were slashed with knives, tied to posts, and shackled in chains. On November 18, 2007, Lucas was again locked inside the truck. As dawn broke, he noticed a faint light shining through a hole in the roof. Jumping up, he secured a hand hold and punched himself through. He was free.

What happened at Navarrete’s home would have been horrific enough if it were an isolated case. Unfortunately, involuntary servitude—slavery—is alive and well in Florida. Since 1997, law-enforcement officials have freed more than 1,000 men and women in seven different cases. And those are only the instances that resulted in convictions. Frightened, undocumented, mistrustful of the police, and speaking little or no English, most slaves refuse to testify, which means their captors cannot be tried.

The article also discusses tomato pickers who, although not enslaved, are nonetheless working in terrible conditions for extremely low pay. Workers have been able to make some progress by organizing:

Even though the CIW has been responsible for bringing police attention to a half dozen slavery prosecutions, Benitez feels that slavery will persist until overall conditions for field workers improve. The group has made progress on that front by securing better pay. Between the early 1980s and the mid-1990s, the rate for a basket of tomatoes remained 40 cents—meaning that workers’ real wages dropped as inflation rose. Work stoppages, demonstrations, and a hunger strike helped raise it to 45 cents on average, but the packers complained that competition for customers prevented them from paying more. One grower refused to enter a dialogue with CIW hunger strikers because, in his words, “a tractor doesn’t tell the farmer how to run the farm.” The CIW decided to try an end run around the growers by going directly to the biggest customers and asking them to pay one cent more per pound directly to the workers. Small change to supermarket chains and fast-food corporations, but it would add about twenty dollars to the fifty a picker makes on a good day, the difference between barely scraping by and earning a livable wage.

The Campaign for Fair Food, as it is called, first took aim at Yum! Brands, owner of Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, KFC, Long John Silver’s, and A&W. After four years of pressure, Yum! agreed to the one-cent raise in 2005 and, importantly, pledged to make sure that no worker who picked its tomatoes was being exploited. McDonald’s came aboard in 2007, and in 2008 Burger King, Whole Foods Market, and Subway followed, with more expected to join up this year. But the program faces a major obstacle. Claiming that the farmers are not party to the arrangement, the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange, an agricultural cooperative that represents some 90 percent of the state’s producers, has refused to be a conduit for the raise, citing legal concerns.

The entire article is well worth reading. It ends with advice for people purchasing tomatoes; you should buy at Whole Foods if you can (they’ve made an agreement with the CIW), or if you shop elsewhere avoid tomatoes from Florida or Mexico.

Most of the comments following the article are reasonable, but one reader wrote:

I found your article “The price of tomatoes” by Barry Estabrook offensive. You are asking me to feel sorry for people who knowing broke our laws to send money home to Mexico. ARE YOU CRAZY?

Curtsy: Boing Boing.

Earlier, I was complaining that New York’s new Senator-select, Kristin Gillibrand, has a right-wing track record on immigration issues. Now that she’s serving the entire state, however, she’s learned the error of her ways with impressive rapidity:

And so often now, Ms. Gillibrand stands ready to “evolve” — that decorous political verb of choice — on policy questions. At present, the senator is evolving at a particularly rapid rate on immigration, an issue on which she had favored tough enforcement. She now inclines to the view that “cowboy” tactics in immigration raids are uncivilized.

“These stories are terrible,” she said Monday morning at a meeting in Lower Manhattan with the Hispanic Federation, which represents major social service agencies. “It’s disturbing to who we are as Americans.”

This is a woman who co-sponsored the SAVE Act, which was an act which — even according to those who supported it — was meant to make things hard on undocumented immigrants so they’d “self-deport.” But now she’s shocked, shocked!, that laws intended to make life hard on immigrants, make life hard on immigrants.

On Sunday, Ms. Gillibrand said she no longer favored branding immigrant-friendly cities such as New York as “sanctuary cities” and denying them federal tax benefits. On Monday, she no longer favored deputizing police officers as immigration officers.

“It’s not so much of changing my view as broadening,” Ms. Gillibrand said. [...]

“Clearly, there was a disconnect in her view of immigration until now,” said Lillian Rodríguez López, president of the Hispanic Federation. “We just hope that her views are really changing, and that she puts votes where words are.”

She shrugs. “It’s an imperfect world, what can I say?”

Gillibrand seems almost hilariously unprincipled — not that people can’t change their minds, of course, but the swiftness and political convenience of her “broadening” here is almost embarrassing. Still, I’d much rather the new Senator be flip-floppy than have her be anti-immigrant.

It remains to be seen how she votes. But even if she votes the right way once she’s in the senate — and I suspect she will — I still would have preferred a passionate advocate of pro-migrant policies, rather than a convert with her eye on statewide demographics.

(Actually, it’s possible that she’ll now be a much more reliable pro-immigrant vote than someone with a better track record would have been, since she knows that she doesn’t have any credibility built up.)

This bit is also notable:

Ms. Gillibrand is a mother of two boys, ages 5 years and 8 months. When inquiring about work, home life and the strains of her new job, a reporter notes that he hopes he would ask the same question of an ambitious male politician with young children.

She chuckles.

“You wouldn’t, but that’s O.K.,” she said. “My women friends ask each other these questions all the time.”

She’s being too nice — but good for her for pointing out that a male politician wouldn’t be asked the same question.

So Clinton’s replacement in the Senate will be Representative Kirsten Gillibrand, a conservative Democrat who has often voted with Republicans on immigration issues and LGBT issues. From Wayne Barrett in The Village Voice:

Gillibrand has described her own voting record as “one of the most conservative in the state.” She opposes any path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, supports renewing the Bush tax cuts for individuals earning up to $1 million annually, and voted for the Bush-backed FISA bill that permits wiretapping of international calls. She was one of four Democratic freshmen in the country, and the only Democrat in the New York delegation, to vote for the Bush administration’s bill to extend funding for the Iraq war shortly after she entered congress in 2007.

Gillibrand is against drivers licenses for undocumented immigrants, and co-sponsored the SAVE act, a right-wing proposal intended to make life harder for undocumented immigrants, without facilitating legal immigration or addressing economic conditions driving immigration. (The SAVE act was also terrible politics for the Democratic party.)

On LGBT issues, Gillibrand has “voted against the repealing of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ legislation, opposed legislation that would grant equal tax treatment for employer-provided health coverage for domestic partners, opposed legislation to grant same-sex partners of U.S. citizens and permanent residents the same immigration benefits of married couples, and opposed legislation to permit state Medicaid programs to cover low-income, HIV-positive Americans before they develop AIDS.”

On the other hand, as Liss points out, now that Gillibrand is facing a statewide Senate race in 2010, she’s abruptly discovered her inner gay rights activist:

“After talking to Kirsten Gillibrand, I am very happy to say that New York is poised to have its first U.S. Senator who supports marriage equality for same-sex couples,” said Van Capelle. “She also supports the full repeal of the federal DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act) law, repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (DADT) and passage of legislation outlawing discrimination against transgender people. While we had a productive discussion about a whole range of LGBT concerns, I was particularly happy to hear where she stands on these issues.”

Hooray for lack of principles! Hopefully she’ll flop just as flippily on immigration issues.

Nonetheless, I’d rather have a real progressive in that seat. Hopefully she’ll be challenged in the 2010 primary.

One more bad thing about this selection — as Scott points out, her House seat isn’t a safe seat for Democrats, and this increases Republican odds of taking that seat.

UPDATE: It turns out that Gillibrand didn’t vote against any of those four LGBT issues, because they were never brought to a vote. (Thanks to Timothy at Box Turtle Bulletin for pointing this out to me.)

She did, however, turn down the chance to co-sponsor all four of those bills. All four of the bills had over a hundred Democratic co-sponsors, so they weren’t small or obscure bills; and according to HRC’s Congressional Scorecard (pdf link), Gillibrand has the worst record of supporting GLBT issues of any New York Democrat. So it’s fair to say that Gillibrand has been the least supportive Representative of any Dem from New York.

Nonetheless, she hasn’t actually voted against these things, so it’s not as bad as it at first appeared.

(On the other hand, her record on immigration issues does seem to be just as awful as it at first appeared.)

EDIT: The address is 1666 North Vermont, not 1666 Sunset.

If you’re free on Thursday afternoon from 4 to 5:30 and happen to be in Los Angeles, head on over to the Vermont Handwash at 1666 North Vermont for an interfaith protest against employee abuse in the L.A. and Orange County carwash industry, courtesy of PJA, the UCLA Labor Center, CHIRLA, CLUE, and the CLEAN Carwash Campaign.

From CLEAN’s website:

Workers Charge LA Carwashes with Dangerous Health and Safety Violations

Health and Safety Experts Warn of Serious Risks of Heat Illness and Toxics Exposure

Los Angeles–Carwash workers who are part of the Carwash Workers Organizing Committee of the United Steelworkers (CWOC-USW) filed complaints today with the California Department of Industrial Relations, Division of Occupational Safety and Health alleging serious health and safety violations at two Los Angeles carwashes owned by members of the Pirian family. The Community-Labor-Environmental Action Network (CLEAN), a coalition of community, labor, and faith-based organizations, called for a boycott of six Pirian family-owned carwashes in April because of a history of serious employment, health and safety, and environmental law violations at some Pirian family-owned carwashes.

“The complaints filed today against Vermont Hand Wash and Hollywood Car Wash reveal shocking violations of our state’s health and safety regulations,” said Eden Flynn, a health and safety expert who heads the Southern California Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health (SoCal COSH). “Among other serious violations, management has not provided shade and rest breaks for all workers, despite record high temperatures in Los Angeles. These workers are subject to the same risks of heat illness as farm workers in the Central Valley,” said Flynn.

Bosbely Reyna, one of the workers who filed the complaint against Vermont Hand Wash, said “We work in the hot sun drying cars, and when it’s busy we have to go without any break to drink water or cool off in the shade. But we’ve heard about the farm workers who died, we know we have the right to protect ourselves at work, and we know what the boss is doing is illegal.”

Workers in the carwash industry are regularly exposed to toxic chemicals in car cleaning products that are known by the state to cause cancer. Prolonged exposure to some of the chemicals found in LA carwashes can cause liver, kidney and heart, and central nervous system damage.

“None of the carwash workers we spoke to had received any training whatsoever on the handling of these highly toxic chemicals,” said Flynn, “and many are forced to work without protective equipment such as gloves or masks.”

The complaint also describes faulty equipment that causes chemical spills, such as a leaking hose that transports acid for wheel cleaning. When workers have used the hose to clean wheels, acid leaked onto their skin.

“When the acid touches your skin, it burns and makes your hands peel and crack. We never received any training on what the chemicals are or how to use them, so sometimes the workers mix up window cleaner with the acid and when they spray it onto the windshields it gets in their eyes. Some of the guys have problems seeing for months after that,” said Reyna.

Carwash workers described bathrooms shared by more than 30 people with no soap or toilet paper, and toilets clogged for as long as a week at a time.

The complaint also details broken machinery at Hollywood Car Wash that has injured workers, such as a dryer that workers must stick their arms into to stop manually. Due to the dryer’s excessive heat and constant spinning, at least one employee has been burned while attempting to retrieve a towel from the dryer.

The CLEAN Carwash Campaign welcomed yesterday’s announcement that the Labor Commissioner’s office had conducted sweeps of dozens of Southern California carwashes. “CLEAN welcomes the state’s efforts to clean up the carwash industry,” said Lilia Garcia, a leader of the CLEAN coalition and the head of the Maintenance Cooperation Trust Fund. “The violations uncovered in the sweeps confirm that this is a dirty industry and violations by carwash owners are rampant. Just one sweep exposed carwash owners who were violating child labor law, failing to pay minimum wage, and failing to insure for workers’ compensation.”

More than half of the L.A. and Orange County carwashes inspected in the sweeps were cited for violations of employment laws. “We look forward to working with Labor Commissioner Angela Bradstreet to ensure consistent and aggressive enforcement of employment laws in the carwash industry. We know that real enforcement of our laws, combined with workers organizing for their rights, is the only way to create sustainable compliance with the law by owners,” said Garcia.

See you there!

(Cross-posted at Modern Mitzvot.)

When I first started teaching I taught a class called “Prejudice and Discrimination,” in order to get my students to examine race, class, gender, and sexuality issues (later I added disability) I gave them an assignment where they had to watch a TV program, and analyze it from a sociological perspective. Basically, I wanted them to apply a theory from sociology to the program they chose. It was 2000, and one student did his analysis on the Olympics. He decided to use what I’ll call a functionalist multicultural perspective. In sociology, functionalism is a conservative theoretical view that argues that society is made up of interrelated and interdependent parts, which work together to create stability harmony, and order. Functionalists generally want to minimize change, and they tend to see everything having a functional purpose. The competing theory is conflict theory. Conflict theorists see a society that is driven over competition for scarce resources–in particular they see conflict stemming from the competition between society’s haves and have nots. Since conflict theory is inspired by some insights of Marxism, conflict theorists believe that social change is necessary.

In my student’s view, the Olympics were great because they brought all the people of the world together. Furthermore, everybody was competing on an equal playing field. He also felt that the spirit of the Olympic movement wiped out race, class, gender, and sexuality issues. In other words, the Olympics made all of these things moot, and nobody cared about any of these things when watching the Olympics.

Sarcastically, I asked myself–is this student watching the same Olympics as I am. I suppose when we take a functionalist view, the Olympics is a sample of stability and harmony, but I don’t see how we can watch the Olympics without noticing the haves and have nots of the world. While one can see some functionalist elements at the Olympics; you have to be deliberately obtuse to miss how Olympic competition is just as much about the social inequalities between groups.

Let’s start with gender. If you watched careful, there were a few occasions when I saw events for men labeled in a neutral way–i.e. the basketball finals– but events for women were labeled as women’s events–i.e. the women’s basketball finals. Isn’t it interesting that even though women participate in most sports at the Olympics, the men’s events are still central in most of those sports. I’ve also noticed that some countries have significantly fewer successful women athletes, and that is often related to the limited number of opportunities for women to compete in those countries. Think about those Kenyan and Ethiopian runners–it has only been recent that women in those countries have been recruited and trained to run like their male counterparts. I also couldn’t stand looking at yahoo during the Olympics where butt shots of women’s beach volleyball players were consistently in the top 10. Don’t get me wrong these women were talented, but it was obvious that their skimpy uniforms were part of the reason the networks had them in primetime.

What about Patriotism and ethnocentrism? As a very public sociologist noted in the thread last week, the US media listed the medal count as opposed to the gold medal count. China ran away with the gold medal count, but I guess it makes us look better to note that we won more over all medals. You could also see the bias in coverage. For the most part if the US wasn’t doing good in an event, then the coverage of that event was either non-existent or relegated to a sound bite. I’ve always felt that the Olympics is largely about Patriotism; it’s a way for countries to feel good about themselves and their people, a way to show strength (quite literally). In the 1936 Olympics, Hitler wanted to prove how great the “Aryan” race was, but he was upstaged by the great African American athlete Jesse Owens.  This was the classic example of the political clashes that often occur at the Olympics.  Don’t get me wrong, there are events that symbolize coming together in spite of our differences–this year the Georgian and Russian competitors in the Women’s air pistol certainly would be an example.  But overall, the examples of countries trying to upstage each other or athletes coming to be representatives for the social and political causes of their nations are probably more numerous.  The Olympics are a competition after all.

The other issue that I’m reminded of is global inequality and its connection to immigration.  I was struck by how the US and China dominated the competition, but one thing I noticed in particular is how many top athletes representing the US were born in other countries and, in many cases, competed for those countries in the past.  I noticed a former Chinese ping pong player, a former Kenyan distance runner, and a Trinidadian sprinter.  Under the 1965 immigration Act, these immigrants are given the fast track to citizenship because of their special skills.¹  The US obviously benefits, as do many other Western countries.  These athletes are able to leave poor countries and head to wealthier ones.  When we are talking about science and occupations, this is called the brain drain.  Perhaps in sports it should be called the “muscle hustle.” ; )  Wealthy countries siphon off the top athletes from poor countries; moreover, many of the athletes from poor countries train, compete, and live in wealthy nations.  I don’t know how many people noticed how many of the West Indian (such as Trinidadian, Jamaican, Bahamian) sprinters attend college and train in the US.  I’d be curious to know how many of these athletes are able to stay in the US because of their skills.

Now I haven’t even touched on racism in this already long post, so I’ll keep it brief.  Sport is often used as a way to reinforce racial stereotypes.  Rather than connecting the racial make-up of an Olympic sports team to social opportunities, many try to assert biological distinctions between races, ignoring those who defy racial stereotypes and ignoring economic and social factors that result in racial differences.  (Feel free to share your own examples for this one.)

What do you think? How does conflict theory play out at the Olympics?  What ways do you think the Olympics represents a functionalist world view?

1. This is also applied to scientists, artists, and people in some high demand occupational fields. (back)

More people are becoming aware of the massive injustices increasingly faced by undocumented immigrants. But now it turns out that even legal immigrants are being deported based on next-to-nothing.

From Asian-Nation:

As the New York Times reports, many legal immigrants are being caught in a web of technicalities, bureaucracy, and injustice and in fact, end up fighting orders from the Immigration Control and Enforcement (ICE, the successor to the INS) to be deported back to their sending country, even though they came to the U.S. legally [...]

The article includes many examples of how the ICE has used various bureaucratic items to order legal immigrants to be deported: a discrepancy regarding marriage status from 25 years ago, a 10-year old misdemeanor conviction that was wiped from one’s record, green card holders mistakenly voting in state elections, failing to update one’s home address, falsely accusing someone of committing a felony, and not showing up to an ICE office to be fingerprinted even though the person was a quadriplegic. [...]

Apparently, a person’s decades of positive actions and contributions to his/her community don’t matter in whether or not they should be considered an American.

What seems to be more important these days is whether they’ve completed a form properly or not.

There’s more.

As C.N. at Asian-Nation points out, this sort of thing is a natural byproduct of the climate created by the “war on terror.”

Duke at Migra Matters writes:

Each year approximately 2.8 million students graduate from US High Schools. Some will go on to college, join the military, or take other paths in life, hopefully all becoming productive members of society.

But for approximately 65,000 of them, these opportunities will never be available. Not because they lack motivation, or achievement, but because of the undocumented status passed on to them by their parents.

Lacking legal status and social security numbers, these students, raised and schooled in the US, cannot apply to college, get jobs other than those at the bottom of the economic ladder, or otherwise follow their dreams.

(There’s lots more in Duke’s post.)

From ADreamDeferred.org:

All three presidential hopefuls co-sponsored the federal DREAM Act, yet it has never been made law. The DREAM Act would enable states to grant in-state tuition to these hardworking immigrant students, making higher education (and eventually citizenship) a real possibility.

We need to put pressure on all three presidential candidates to commit to securing America’s future by enacting the federal DREAM Act in their first 100 days of office.

Sign the petition so that we can show our elected officials that the dreams of students must not be sacrificed to the anti-immigrant, anti-American status quo.

I’m hereby banning the use of the word “illegals” to refer to human beings on “Alas,” with exceptions for sarcasm (i.e., someone using the term to mock anti-immigrant attitudes). A database search shows that many posters here have used the term — not all the time, but on occasion. I’m confident it’s a habit we can break.

I’m not banning “illegal immigrant” or even the vile “illegal alien,” although I hope most “Alas” comment-writers will choose not to use these terms, out of respect for my sensibilities (you are a guest here, blah blah blah) if nothing else.

I myself will try to use “undocumented immigrants.” This seems to me to be less logical than my preferred term, “unauthorized migrants” (which is the most accurate term, with the least derogatory implications), but “undocumented immigrants” has come to be the consensus term among most people defending the interests of undocumented immigrants.

* * *

In our last discussion on this, Robert, Ron, and Sailorman offered a variety of arguments in defense of “illegal alien” and/or “illegal immigrant,” and against “undocumented immigrant.” None of the arguments were persuasive.

1. The appeal to accuracy.

First was the argument that “illegal alien” is the most accurate term. But in fact the term carries two inaccurate connotations in regular English usage. (It is accurate in legalese, but since “Alas” is not a legal journal legalese isn’t the relevant criteria.)

The term “illegal” implies that a felony has been committed; but being an undocumented immigrant is not a felony, it’s a misdemeanor. The term “alien” implies “strange,” “adverse,” and “hostile” — not to mention “non-human” — according to Webster’s. None of that is accurate.

Furthermore, we don’t use the word “illegal” to refer to people who commit misdemeanors, except in the case of undocumented immigrants. We don’t call teenagers out after a legal curfew “illegal teenagers”; we don’t call a speeding driver an “illegal driver.” For that matter, even in the case of felonies, we don’t call the person “illegal.” The action is illegal; the person is not. Referring to the person as illegal is inaccurate.

So neither the term “illegal alien” or “illegal immigrant” can be defended on the basis of superior accuracy.

2. The argument from necessity.

It was implied that not using the term “illegal immigrant” will somehow prevent us from discussing what immigration laws should be, and how our laws and practices should address undocumented immigrants. As Robert put it, “the existing [alternative terms] are pathetic jokes that attempt to win the argument by defining it out of existence.”

This argument is so stupid that I don’t know how to respond to it. Consider this sample dialog:

SUE: I think the police should round up undocumented immigrants and feed them cupcakes.
NANCY: They can’t do that without a warrant.

See? Perfectly easy to argue policy one way or the other. This is because “illegal immigrant” is not, in fact, the only term that can be used — hence the debate over which term to use. If I decide to use the term “big” instead of “large,” that doesn’t mean I’ve defined the concept of “large” out of existence.

3. The argument from indifference. (”So what if the term I used is insulting to the people I’m talking about? Why should I care?”)

In response, I’d argue that undocumented immigrants are people, and needlessly insulting or dehumanizing them is wrong simply because needlessly hurting people is wrong. There is no policy approach towards immigration (including undocumented immigration) which cannot be argued for while avoiding the term “illegal immigrants,” or the vile “illegal aliens.” There is therefore no need to use these terms when discussing policy.

If that doesn’t sway you, then consider the practical implications. Many politically engaged Latin@s are insulted by the terms “illegal” or “alien.” Needlessly alienating large numbers of Latinos and Latinas is poor strategy if you actually want to have your policy preferences on this issue enacted.

4. “This argument is just semantics.”

Well, it’s certainly true that this is a semantic argument, and that people choose words based not only on literal meaning, but also based on subtext. For instance, while not all who use the term “illegal aliens” hate immigrants, among immigrant-haters the use of the term (or its shorter form “illegals”) is commonplace. That’s not a coincidence; immigrant-haters recognize that these terms are dehumanizing, and that’s why they prefer to use them.

So yes, it’s a semantic argument. But “semantic” doesn’t mean “illegitimate.” It’s perfectly legitimate not to want people referred to with terms that both they, and those who hate them most, recognize as dehumanizing and insulting.

From the AP story:

A wrongly deported U.S. citizen who was missing for months in Mexico sued the Department of Homeland Security and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department on Wednesday.

Pedro Guzman, 30, who is mentally disabled, was deported last May after he was arrested and jailed on a misdemeanor trespassing charge. For nearly three months, his family searched for him in shelters, jails and morgues in Tijuana, Mexico, and the surrounding area.

During that time, he rummaged for food in garbage cans, washed himself in rivers and walked as far south as Ensenada — more than 60 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border, according to the lawsuit.

Guzman tried to return to the United States several times, but was turned away. He was found near the Calexico border crossing in August and reunited with his family.

“I will never forget what Peter looked like when he finally returned to the U.S. — exhausted and in terrible shape,” said Guzman’s brother, Michael. “Peter’s life is forever changed by what his government did to him.”

His lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages, was filed in federal court in Los Angeles by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of Guzman.

“Not only does Peter and his mother want some vindication, they want to make sure immigration officials understand they can’t do this,” said attorney Jim Brosnahan, who represents Guzman. “They should have apologized and said they would take steps to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

A statement released by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a branch of Homeland Security, called the incident a “one-of-a-kind case” and added more than 1 million illegal immigrants have been deported since the agency’s inception.

See other posts on Guzman here and here.

Cross-posted at The Gimp Parade