Compañeros y compañeras, everybody,
To the few and bold followers of this blog, I hope that you all are well. Perhaps this post will answer some questions for you, particularly on why I haven't been publishing anything recently.
I'm currently in Chiapas, Mexico. At the turn of the year I will attend the Intergalactico, an international encounter put on by the Zapatistas. I'm hoping to learn from and with global contingent of adherents to the Zapatista cause--against the grinding machinery of neoliberalism and for a "world in which fit many worlds". This is propagandistic at best, in my words, by the idea is to learn about a model of resistence that has worked and continues to work with an oppressed population.
I stopped blogging, more or less, in August. Since then I've spent a few weeks with No More Deaths in Tucson and Arivaca. I returned to the desert to talk with Minutemen and ranch owners. I made my way to El Paso and Juarez not once but twice for the Border Social Forum (Foro fronterizo social) and a stop with the Other Campaign, a listening tour by Zapatista spokesman Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos a.k.a. Delegado Zero. From there, I followed the Subcomandante through northern Mexico, made my way to Mexico City, visited friends in a Nahuatl-speaking community in Guerrero and found myself here. For the next few months I will be writing, revisiting and slowing making my way up north. From there, as always, we'll see what happens.
I've started writing the book. The working title is "Border 101", to no surprise. It will include 100 "voices"--transcribed and translated conversations--from the border and below. The 101st will be my own. I also write as a "zero voice" to accompany the different "chapters" or groups of voices in my life on the border.
Right now I have what we call in Spanish a "rompecabezas"--a "head burster". Photos, video, audio, you name it. In the future, I'll be able to sit down and put it all on this site. For now, however, I've convinced myself to become content with learning and living, rather than being overtly and excessively productive. The way I figure it, I have to develop a voice before I use it. For me, this means relative separation from internet cafes, web publishing software and, unfortunately for some, blogging. Know that I am putting my mind and soul to good use, however. You'll just have to be patient to see what comes out of this.
I appreciate all your support and guidance over these last few months, now years. I plan to be done with everything by the end of this upcoming summer. I love you all more than space here allows for me to say. Take care of yourselves and eachother. I'll write more in the future. I will need help. Know that I will do whatever I can for you.
Peace and rebeldía,
Ryan
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
Monday, October 23, 2006
for Teri's class...
Speech given by Joseph Nevins to the Coalicion de derechos humanos (Human Rights Coalition) in Tucson. Boundary Enforcement and National Security
in an Age of Global Apartheid.
Douglas Massey, The Walls that Keep Illegal Immigrants In. If you don't want to pay, try googling it.
From here on down, these sites are great resources. You can also subscribe to their listserves.
International Relations Center Americas Program: http://americas.irc-online.org/ Solid reporting on Latin America.
Southern Poverty Law Center: http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/intrep.jsp. Check out the Roy Warden article. He's nuts.
Narconews: http://www.narconews.com. Lot's of Zapatista, Oaxaca and Atenco coverage. "Below and to the left".
Frontera Norte Sur News (FNS News): http://www.nmsu.edu/~frontera/. The listserve is on hiatus, but they provide fantastic news reviews.
I'll get back to you on Peter Shay's site.
The Minuteman crowd:
Minuteman Civil Homeland Defense: http://www.minutemanhq.com/. Check out the blog/forum for key insight.
Minuteman of One: http://www.minutemanofone.blogspot.com/. Headed by Fred "shoot a couple of 'em bastards and they'll learn" Pucket.
Mothers Against Illegal Aliens: http://www.mothersagainstillegalaliens.org/. Head by Michelle "they're bringing leprosy into the United States" Dallacroce.
The Border Guardians: http://www.borderguardians.org/index.php. Headed by Roy "Rott Weiler" or "I will blow your freaking head off" Warden.
in an Age of Global Apartheid.
Douglas Massey, The Walls that Keep Illegal Immigrants In. If you don't want to pay, try googling it.
From here on down, these sites are great resources. You can also subscribe to their listserves.
International Relations Center Americas Program: http://americas.irc-online.org/ Solid reporting on Latin America.
Southern Poverty Law Center: http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/intrep.jsp. Check out the Roy Warden article. He's nuts.
Narconews: http://www.narconews.com. Lot's of Zapatista, Oaxaca and Atenco coverage. "Below and to the left".
Frontera Norte Sur News (FNS News): http://www.nmsu.edu/~frontera/. The listserve is on hiatus, but they provide fantastic news reviews.
I'll get back to you on Peter Shay's site.
The Minuteman crowd:
Minuteman Civil Homeland Defense: http://www.minutemanhq.com/. Check out the blog/forum for key insight.
Minuteman of One: http://www.minutemanofone.blogspot.com/. Headed by Fred "shoot a couple of 'em bastards and they'll learn" Pucket.
Mothers Against Illegal Aliens: http://www.mothersagainstillegalaliens.org/. Head by Michelle "they're bringing leprosy into the United States" Dallacroce.
The Border Guardians: http://www.borderguardians.org/index.php. Headed by Roy "Rott Weiler" or "I will blow your freaking head off" Warden.
Sunday, October 22, 2006
words from subcomandante marcos in tijuas, Spanish
Buenas noches Tijuana.
No, el honor es mío de haber estado en estas tierras. Voy a contarles una mentira, que es la que estamos viviendo en todo el país. Porque muchos de ustedes, si no es que todos, están trabajando y cada día que pasa ven que nada mejora. Y resulta que hay negocios y empresas aquí en Tijuana y en todo el país. Y hay un negocio y una empresa que no paga impuestos y que está llena de corruptos, que son los partidos políticos.
Lo que hemos escuchado en estos días que hemos estado en Baja California, nos lleva a pensar que el gobierno de Baja California es una vergüenza para nuestro país. Estuvimos en el Valle de San Quintín, donde el gobierno de Baja California dice que hay migrantes, y descubrimos otra Oaxaca: indígenas organizados y explotados, como si estuviéramos en la época del porfiriato.
Estuvimos también en el Cañón de Buenavista. Unos indígenas también de varios lugares de Oaxaca y de Chiapas, que ni siquiera habían reconocido su derecho a la tierra que llevan desde hace 16 años habitando. Peleando porque haya luz, porque haya agua, porque haya drenaje, y nada.
Y estuvimos también en La Zorra con el pueblo Kumiai, y escuchamos cómo les están despojando de la tierra, mientras que el gobierno de Baja California dice que en este estado no hay indígenas.
Estuvimos también donde está la regasificadora, que si hay una desgracia la gente que va a morir no es la gente que está arriba, sino la que está abajo.
Estuvimos en Ensenada y escuchamos mucho dolor. Y estuvimos aquí en Tijuana y escuchamos historias que dan rabia y vergüenza, como da rabia y vergüenza lo que hemos escuchado en todo el país.
Todos sabemos lo que nos está ocurriendo en nuestro trabajo, en nuestra casa, en la escuela. Nos cuentan que el salario anda por 100, 105 pesos al día en maquiladoras, ocho horas de trabajo. La cuenta que traemos nosotros: que para vivir decentemente se necesitan 485 pesos al día.
Y lo sabemos que sube la cuenta de la luz, del gas, del transporte. Todas las cosas que vamos consumiendo, que necesitamos para mal vivir.
Y nos platica un compañero aquí de Tijuana, de edad, ya mayor de edad, y nos dice que trabajó 45 años y ahora la pensión que recibe es de mil 600 pesos. Que va al Seguro Social y lo humillan, lo tratan mal, le recetan una medicina que además no tiene el Seguro Social y que tiene que ir a comprar a una farmacia y le cuesta 400 pesos y le dura 10 días. En el mes se tiene que gastar mil 200 pesos en medicina, y le quedan 400 pesos.
Y el señor Vicente Fox, que estuvo seis años haciéndose tarugo en la presidencia de la República, va a recibir una pensión de 3 millones 350 mil pesos. Y son tres las cosas que hizo Vicente Fox en su gobierno: comprarle las toallas a Martha Sahagún, uno. Proteger a los hijos criminales de Martha Sahagun, los hermanos Bribiesca. Y tres: imponer a Felipe Calderón como presidente de la República.
Entonces, resulta que en este país, un criminal recibe 3 millones 350 mil pesos de pensión por seis años de crímenes. Y un trabajador con 45 años de trabajo recibe la humillación y el desprecio del país al que sirvió tanto tiempo.
Y nosotros sabemos que quienes nos están escuchando no son criminales, son trabajadores. Si fueran criminales estarían en la presidencia municipal de Tijuana o en el palacio de gobierno de Baja California.
Nosotros estamos recorriendo el país, compañeros, todo el país. Venimos desde la otra esquina, desde Chiapas, desde las montañas del sureste mexicano. No estamos pasando a los centros turísticos, ni hablando con los políticos, porque nosotros hablamos sólo con gente decente.
Y estamos descubriendo, y el país que estamos descubriendo no tiene nada que ver con el que Vicente Fox está anunciando en la televisión. Ni con aquel que dice que va a gobernar Felipe Calderón, que no va a llegar al 2012.
Lo que estamos viendo es otro país: lleno de dolor, que quiere rebelarse y que está harto por todas partes. Lo que estamos viendo es que el gobierno de Vicente Fox lo único que hizo en los seis años es cargar sobre las espaldas de los mexicanos y chicanos que están trabajando al otro lado de la frontera no sólo el peso de sostener la economía norteamericana, sino que además ahora sostienen la economía mexicana.
Cómo es posible que además a esa gente se le persiga con la migra de aquel lado y con la migra de este lado. No es posible que la gente que está trabajando en estos comercios todo el día, honestamente, con empeño, no pueda vivir decentemente mientras los políticos están viviendo de no hacer nada y cada vez se enriquecen más.
Lo que nosotros queremos es conocer a México, al México de abajo, escucharlo. Nosotros no estamos proponiendo nada, no les estamos diciendo que hay que poner de candidato a Marcos, o a otro, al que sea. No estamos promoviendo un partido político. Nosotros no queremos tener el gobierno, queremos tumbarlo y lo vamos a hacer.
Queremos derrocar al gobierno municipal de Tijuana, al gobierno del estado de Baja California, y al gobierno de la República, y al gobierno de todos los estados, así como los oaxaqueños están por derribar a Ulises Ruiz en Oaxaca.
Y en su lugar ¿qué? ¿En su lugar otro que venga a engañarnos? Otro que venga a decirnos… Porque nosotros estamos diciendo aquí en la Otra Campaña que no queremos líderes, no queremos nadie que nos mande, ni queremos mandar a nadie.
Queremos que la misma comunidad en cada lugar decida cómo se va a gobernar, y decida qué es lo que se va a hacer. Porque descubrimos que en Tijuana hay mucha riqueza, y no la tienen los tijuanenses. Entonces, alguien se está quedando con esa riqueza. A lo mejor el banco HSBC que está ahí enfrente. Los banqueros, los grandes políticos, y los grandes empresarios.
Y ayer en la mañana que fuimos a orinarnos en la barda de la frontera —que eso fue lo que fuimos a hacer— nosotros nos dimos cuenta que la barda está para que nosotros los que estamos de este lado no nos crucemos de aquel lado, porque los gabachos cruzan como quieren con todo su capital. Y vimos en toda la península muchas empresas con capital norteamericano.
Y nosotros decimos: ¿dónde está la soberanía de esto que llamamos patria? ¿quién la está defendiendo y quién la va a defeder?
Y nosotros decimos que para que podamos vivir felices, para que no tengamos que vivir con la angustia. Si somos jóvenes vamos con la angustia de a ver cuándo nos va a levantar la tira, y cuánto nos va a bajar. Si a ver no nos va a despedir el patrón en la maquiladora o en la empresa donde estamos trabajando.
Si somos mujeres, con la angustia de ver si no nos van a agredir, a secuestrar, a violar o a asesinar. Si somos ancianos con la angustia a ver si vamos a poder encontrar algo para el día siguiente, para vivir con dignidad. Como niños, como estudiantes, con la angustia de ver si va a haber educación. Y como cualquier trabajador, con la angustia de si vamos a poder vivir. Y como ama de casa con la angustia de si va a alcanzar el gasto para el otro día.
Y no podemos seguir viviendo con esa angustia por tanto tiempo. Ni podemos, ni debemos pensar que alguien va a venir a resolver lo que tenemos que resolver por nosotros mismos.
Lo que se propone la Otra Campaña es eso: que cada pueblo, cada comunidad, cada barrio, tome en sus manos su propio destino y tome sus decisiones.
Se trata en breves palabras de acabar de destruir con el México que ahora es una vergüenza, el México de Fox y de Calderón, y construyamos otro México, sin esos políticos, sino con la gente de abajo. Con ustedes y con nosotros.
Gracias compañeros, gracias compañeras.
Fuente de informacion:
www.ezln.org
No, el honor es mío de haber estado en estas tierras. Voy a contarles una mentira, que es la que estamos viviendo en todo el país. Porque muchos de ustedes, si no es que todos, están trabajando y cada día que pasa ven que nada mejora. Y resulta que hay negocios y empresas aquí en Tijuana y en todo el país. Y hay un negocio y una empresa que no paga impuestos y que está llena de corruptos, que son los partidos políticos.
Lo que hemos escuchado en estos días que hemos estado en Baja California, nos lleva a pensar que el gobierno de Baja California es una vergüenza para nuestro país. Estuvimos en el Valle de San Quintín, donde el gobierno de Baja California dice que hay migrantes, y descubrimos otra Oaxaca: indígenas organizados y explotados, como si estuviéramos en la época del porfiriato.
Estuvimos también en el Cañón de Buenavista. Unos indígenas también de varios lugares de Oaxaca y de Chiapas, que ni siquiera habían reconocido su derecho a la tierra que llevan desde hace 16 años habitando. Peleando porque haya luz, porque haya agua, porque haya drenaje, y nada.
Y estuvimos también en La Zorra con el pueblo Kumiai, y escuchamos cómo les están despojando de la tierra, mientras que el gobierno de Baja California dice que en este estado no hay indígenas.
Estuvimos también donde está la regasificadora, que si hay una desgracia la gente que va a morir no es la gente que está arriba, sino la que está abajo.
Estuvimos en Ensenada y escuchamos mucho dolor. Y estuvimos aquí en Tijuana y escuchamos historias que dan rabia y vergüenza, como da rabia y vergüenza lo que hemos escuchado en todo el país.
Todos sabemos lo que nos está ocurriendo en nuestro trabajo, en nuestra casa, en la escuela. Nos cuentan que el salario anda por 100, 105 pesos al día en maquiladoras, ocho horas de trabajo. La cuenta que traemos nosotros: que para vivir decentemente se necesitan 485 pesos al día.
Y lo sabemos que sube la cuenta de la luz, del gas, del transporte. Todas las cosas que vamos consumiendo, que necesitamos para mal vivir.
Y nos platica un compañero aquí de Tijuana, de edad, ya mayor de edad, y nos dice que trabajó 45 años y ahora la pensión que recibe es de mil 600 pesos. Que va al Seguro Social y lo humillan, lo tratan mal, le recetan una medicina que además no tiene el Seguro Social y que tiene que ir a comprar a una farmacia y le cuesta 400 pesos y le dura 10 días. En el mes se tiene que gastar mil 200 pesos en medicina, y le quedan 400 pesos.
Y el señor Vicente Fox, que estuvo seis años haciéndose tarugo en la presidencia de la República, va a recibir una pensión de 3 millones 350 mil pesos. Y son tres las cosas que hizo Vicente Fox en su gobierno: comprarle las toallas a Martha Sahagún, uno. Proteger a los hijos criminales de Martha Sahagun, los hermanos Bribiesca. Y tres: imponer a Felipe Calderón como presidente de la República.
Entonces, resulta que en este país, un criminal recibe 3 millones 350 mil pesos de pensión por seis años de crímenes. Y un trabajador con 45 años de trabajo recibe la humillación y el desprecio del país al que sirvió tanto tiempo.
Y nosotros sabemos que quienes nos están escuchando no son criminales, son trabajadores. Si fueran criminales estarían en la presidencia municipal de Tijuana o en el palacio de gobierno de Baja California.
Nosotros estamos recorriendo el país, compañeros, todo el país. Venimos desde la otra esquina, desde Chiapas, desde las montañas del sureste mexicano. No estamos pasando a los centros turísticos, ni hablando con los políticos, porque nosotros hablamos sólo con gente decente.
Y estamos descubriendo, y el país que estamos descubriendo no tiene nada que ver con el que Vicente Fox está anunciando en la televisión. Ni con aquel que dice que va a gobernar Felipe Calderón, que no va a llegar al 2012.
Lo que estamos viendo es otro país: lleno de dolor, que quiere rebelarse y que está harto por todas partes. Lo que estamos viendo es que el gobierno de Vicente Fox lo único que hizo en los seis años es cargar sobre las espaldas de los mexicanos y chicanos que están trabajando al otro lado de la frontera no sólo el peso de sostener la economía norteamericana, sino que además ahora sostienen la economía mexicana.
Cómo es posible que además a esa gente se le persiga con la migra de aquel lado y con la migra de este lado. No es posible que la gente que está trabajando en estos comercios todo el día, honestamente, con empeño, no pueda vivir decentemente mientras los políticos están viviendo de no hacer nada y cada vez se enriquecen más.
Lo que nosotros queremos es conocer a México, al México de abajo, escucharlo. Nosotros no estamos proponiendo nada, no les estamos diciendo que hay que poner de candidato a Marcos, o a otro, al que sea. No estamos promoviendo un partido político. Nosotros no queremos tener el gobierno, queremos tumbarlo y lo vamos a hacer.
Queremos derrocar al gobierno municipal de Tijuana, al gobierno del estado de Baja California, y al gobierno de la República, y al gobierno de todos los estados, así como los oaxaqueños están por derribar a Ulises Ruiz en Oaxaca.
Y en su lugar ¿qué? ¿En su lugar otro que venga a engañarnos? Otro que venga a decirnos… Porque nosotros estamos diciendo aquí en la Otra Campaña que no queremos líderes, no queremos nadie que nos mande, ni queremos mandar a nadie.
Queremos que la misma comunidad en cada lugar decida cómo se va a gobernar, y decida qué es lo que se va a hacer. Porque descubrimos que en Tijuana hay mucha riqueza, y no la tienen los tijuanenses. Entonces, alguien se está quedando con esa riqueza. A lo mejor el banco HSBC que está ahí enfrente. Los banqueros, los grandes políticos, y los grandes empresarios.
Y ayer en la mañana que fuimos a orinarnos en la barda de la frontera —que eso fue lo que fuimos a hacer— nosotros nos dimos cuenta que la barda está para que nosotros los que estamos de este lado no nos crucemos de aquel lado, porque los gabachos cruzan como quieren con todo su capital. Y vimos en toda la península muchas empresas con capital norteamericano.
Y nosotros decimos: ¿dónde está la soberanía de esto que llamamos patria? ¿quién la está defendiendo y quién la va a defeder?
Y nosotros decimos que para que podamos vivir felices, para que no tengamos que vivir con la angustia. Si somos jóvenes vamos con la angustia de a ver cuándo nos va a levantar la tira, y cuánto nos va a bajar. Si a ver no nos va a despedir el patrón en la maquiladora o en la empresa donde estamos trabajando.
Si somos mujeres, con la angustia de ver si no nos van a agredir, a secuestrar, a violar o a asesinar. Si somos ancianos con la angustia a ver si vamos a poder encontrar algo para el día siguiente, para vivir con dignidad. Como niños, como estudiantes, con la angustia de ver si va a haber educación. Y como cualquier trabajador, con la angustia de si vamos a poder vivir. Y como ama de casa con la angustia de si va a alcanzar el gasto para el otro día.
Y no podemos seguir viviendo con esa angustia por tanto tiempo. Ni podemos, ni debemos pensar que alguien va a venir a resolver lo que tenemos que resolver por nosotros mismos.
Lo que se propone la Otra Campaña es eso: que cada pueblo, cada comunidad, cada barrio, tome en sus manos su propio destino y tome sus decisiones.
Se trata en breves palabras de acabar de destruir con el México que ahora es una vergüenza, el México de Fox y de Calderón, y construyamos otro México, sin esos políticos, sino con la gente de abajo. Con ustedes y con nosotros.
Gracias compañeros, gracias compañeras.
Fuente de informacion:
www.ezln.org
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Tucson, AZ: National Guard troops and "entry identification teams"
I spent half of last week with the Tucson-based No More Deaths in Nogales, Sonora, and I was suprised to see National Guard humvees and tents nestled into the hills next to border fencing and ports of entry. From everything that I had heard from and read in the media, the National Guard troops were deployed to the border in a strictly supportive role. They would build and maintain roads, map what poorly-charted terrain, and take part in behind-the-scenes operational activities--filing paperwork, monitoring border sensors, etc. This was all well and good from a public relations standpoint, but it didn't explain the presence of heavy-duty war-time vehicles and camouflaged troops just yards away from the border itself. "A crock of bullshit," I thought to myself.
I called up the Tucson-sector Border Patrol, and they connected me with Major Fay Ludens, a public information officer with the Army National Guard. She told me that a number of deployments have come to the border as "rotational staff". Troops from Arizona and New York left after three-week stints, while others from Virgina and Kentucky will be in the Tucson sector for weeks still.
The Virginia deployment, I wasn't suprised to find, is operating in "entry identification teams"--four person units that are the "eyes and ears for the Border Patrol," said Ludens. They sit on the border in strategic areas and call up B.P. agents when they see people crossing. "They are strictly in a support role," Ludens reiterated.
Unfortunately, that's not what I heard from migrants as they were returned to the Mexican side of the line. One group was quite adamant that they were detained by National Guard troops. The would-be migrants said that the troops came across their group in the early morning, corraled them, and had them in their custody for fifteen minutes before Border Patrol agents arrived. When asked if the detainers might have been BORSTAR operatives--a search and rescue contingent of the Border Patrol that, in their camouflaged uniforms, might be mistaken for soldiers--one individual said that they clearly identified themselves as National Guard troops.
Although the group didn't report any particular instances of abuse while in the soldiers' detention, one major abuse remains clear: if the story checks out, National Guard troops violated the law.
The Posse Comitamus Act of 18-- makes it unlawful for military personnel to actively police within the domestic United States. If the National Guard the migrants into custody within our borders, they would have acted in direct conflict with that law. Such an act would demonstrate complete disregard for the Constitutional rights extended to all people within the United States--citizens, undocumented migrants or otherwise.
Whether or not the National Guard detained the migrants without legal authorization, the character behind police-state enforcement tactics is pervasive. I relayed this story to a No More Deaths volunteer. "So, the National Guard troops are just like the Minutemen," he said. "They watch and wait for people to come across, and they call Border Patrol whenever they spot someone." "Yeah," I replied, and then I cringed. In my
personal experience, I've observed Minutemen detain not only migrants but also journalists and hikers. I've watched them assume and abuse rights that are not theirs. I've seen how the media reports them, I know their rhetoric, and I can testify that what they say and what is said about them only infrequently matches up with the reality of their behavior.
For this reason, I am wholly concerned about the National Guard troops on the border. If the troops received an executive order to carry out similar functions for another three years, as I was told by a reporter who spoke with the head of the Kentucky National Guard, the possibility that abuses will occur is greatly enhanced. In any case, their presence is now status quo.
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Chandler, AZ: update
Home sweet home.
To say that Arizona is wrought with political and social tension is an understatement. Arizonans feel the stress of immigration and border issues in their classrooms, their restaurants and their places of work. For many, the stress is pervasive, difusing from their local environment into their daily actions. For some, the Spanish-speaker down the street, monolingual or otherwise, is a stranger, an alien--nothing short of an incarnation of what shouldn't be in the United States. For others, that same person is part of a freshly charged and united community, regardless of his or her ethnicity or status within this nation's borders.
Ethnicity, status. Race, documentation. There's more to the border and immigration debate than just issues of economy and national security. Communities are split. Tensions are high. Comprehensive immigration reform might patch together broken policy, but it's not going to heal my state.
I'm not sure where you start. The last two weeks have been busy.
To say that Arizona is wrought with political and social tension is an understatement. Arizonans feel the stress of immigration and border issues in their classrooms, their restaurants and their places of work. For many, the stress is pervasive, difusing from their local environment into their daily actions. For some, the Spanish-speaker down the street, monolingual or otherwise, is a stranger, an alien--nothing short of an incarnation of what shouldn't be in the United States. For others, that same person is part of a freshly charged and united community, regardless of his or her ethnicity or status within this nation's borders.
Ethnicity, status. Race, documentation. There's more to the border and immigration debate than just issues of economy and national security. Communities are split. Tensions are high. Comprehensive immigration reform might patch together broken policy, but it's not going to heal my state.
I'm not sure where you start. The last two weeks have been busy.
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio organized his posse to arrest undocumented migrants, President Bush declared a controversial plan to place up to 6,000 National Guard troops on the border, and the rhetoric continued from the Minuteman camp and their splinter groups. Chris Simcox and the Minutemen claimed that they still have plans to construct border fences, while Roy Warden and his Border Guardians have threatened to "blow the heads off" any "Mexican" or pro-immigrant activist that interferes with their operations.
At Tucson-area high school, Dolores Huerta, a longtime Latino civil rights activist, proclaimed that "Republicans hate Latinos." The school countered by bringing in a Republican Latina to speak about the merits of the Republican party--how proud she was to be a Republican, etc. MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan) students wore shirts emblazoned with messages of support for Huerta, duct-taped their mouths, and walked out.
Tonight (Wednesday), the Sheriff's posse is meeting to wrangle up some new volunteers. Tomorrow, G Dub is venturing down to Yuma, Arizona, much to the delight of the local community.
Where to start? I'll be at both events.
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
Tucson, AZ: "accident" or foul play?
This is scary. Check out the A.P. article below on a immigrant who, contrary to the evidence given by his family, shot and killed himself.
Someone needs to do some serious investigation of what happened. If he was a migrant and if he was shot, my guess is that a ranchowner or vigilante could have pulled the trigger.
This just doesn't sound right. Not at all. I'd be interested to hear what the official word is from the Border Patrol as well.
Someone needs to do some serious investigation of what happened. If he was a migrant and if he was shot, my guess is that a ranchowner or vigilante could have pulled the trigger.
This just doesn't sound right. Not at all. I'd be interested to hear what the official word is from the Border Patrol as well.
Illegal Immigrant Found Dead in Desert Apparently Shot Himself
May 9th, 2006 @ 6:18am
by Associated Press
An illegal immigrant found dead in the desert south of Tucson apparently died from an accidental self-inflicted gunshot wound.
The Pima County Sheriff's Office says Reymundo Beltran-Aispuro died in a remote area after he entered the country Friday with his cousin and a group of other illegal entrants.
The cousin, Israel Beltran-Aispuro, told deputies they were crossing a fence when someone shouted ``stop,'' and then there was a gunshot.
The cousin says Reymundo Beltran-Aispuro then yelled that he'd been hit.
One member of the group used a cell phone to call relatives in California, who informed the Border Patrol.
Homicide detectives were still awaiting final autopsy results yesterday from the Office of the Medical Examiner
Friday, April 28, 2006
Three Points, AZ: scandalous
What is happening to all the Minutemen's money? An ABC 15 News clip out of Phoenix.
Connie Foust, a Minuteman information officer, denies the claims made in the report.
Connie Foust, a Minuteman information officer, denies the claims made in the report.
Three Points, AZ: adios media
Good ol' Patrick Lundy gets the big heave-ho from the Minutemen for spending a few moments with A.C.L.U. legal observers. Connie goes to town. I'm pretty sure that she hates us.
So that you know, Lundy is riding his motorcycle along the entire U.S.-Mexico border, compiling data and experience for what he calls a "personal narrative" on border life. Sounds vaguely familiar.
So that you know, Lundy is riding his motorcycle along the entire U.S.-Mexico border, compiling data and experience for what he calls a "personal narrative" on border life. Sounds vaguely familiar.
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Three Points, AZ: the bust
This was my official welcome to Minuteman Campaign '06. Dated to April 1st and requires Quicktime.
The Minuteman of One arrive upon a migrant pick-up. Watch 'em wave those guns. The supposed "coyotes" were actually two Sheriff's Department vehicles, and the Border Patrol agent really did say what you thought she said.
The Minuteman of One arrive upon a migrant pick-up. Watch 'em wave those guns. The supposed "coyotes" were actually two Sheriff's Department vehicles, and the Border Patrol agent really did say what you thought she said.
Three Points, AZ: news clip on vigilante groups
Here's a must-see news clip from CBS 5 of Phoenix. A glimpse into the Minutemen, Border Guardians and the Minuteman of One. Not far from what we've been seeing in Three Points day in and day out.
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
from the border: AZ Daily Star article on apprehension numbers
I wonder what the Minutemen would say about this...
Migrant tally called misleading
Experts: Apprehension numbers aside, most entrants make it in
By Brady McCombs
Arizona Daily Star
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 04.22.2006
In late February, Border Patrol agents apprehended and deported Roberto Robledo Sandoval after finding him with others inside a drop house in Mesa.
Robledo Sandoval, 45, called the experience — armed men kept them in the house waiting for family members in Mexico to wire more money — the worst nightmare of his life.
Nonetheless, after Border Patrol agents dropped him off the border in Nogales, he found another coyote — a people smuggler — and tried again the next day. A couple of days later, while walking in the Altar Valley southwest of Tucson, Border Patrol agents caught him again.
His story is a common one among the estimated 500,000 illegal entrants who make their way into the country each year, said Princeton professor Douglas Massey. He said research suggests that apprehensions don't stop migrants but rather force them to try repeatedly until they make it.
Yet, apprehension numbers kept by the Border Patrol don't reflect this reality.
Under the agency's guidelines, Robledo Sandoval would count as two apprehensions because the agency counts the event of each apprehension, not the number of people apprehended.
Internally, the Border Patrol tracks how many times each illegal entrant is caught, said Shannon Stevens, a spokeswoman with the Border Patrol's Tucson Sector. However, the agency doesn't release that number and didn't have an estimate on how many detainees have been caught previously.
The agency views the 11 percent decrease in apprehensions from fiscal year 2004 to fiscal 2005 and the 8 percent decrease so far in fiscal year 2006 in the Tucson Sector as an indicator of declining traffic in the sector and validation of the increased agents and technology devoted to the sector.
"I don't think it's due to the fact that we aren't catching as many," Stevens said. "I just don't think as many are crossing here."
But professors who study migration patterns such as Massey, Trinity University's David Spener and the Migration Policy Institute's Demetrios Papademtriou doubt that Border Patrol actions change the actual number of illegal entrants who make it into the United States.
Massey said the probability that a man or woman would leave Mexico to migrate illegally into the United States has fluctuated at around 1 percent for the past two decades despite the increase in Border
Patrol agents and budget. Nearly all make it, Massey said.
"Almost everybody gets in," Massey said. "It's just a matter of how many times it takes."
The number of Border Patrol agents and agency budget has been on the rise since 1992. The number of agents has more than doubled nationally from 4,139 in 1992 to 11,384 in 2006. When adjusted for inflation, the agency's budget has increased 220 percent since 1992 to $1.413 billion in 2005.
"There is virtually nothing one can infer about the volume of illegal migration from the number of apprehensions," said Massey, the author of "Beyond Smoke and Mirrors: Mexican Immigration in the Age of Economic Integration."
Spener, a sociologist at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, who studies U.S.-Mexican border relations, said that when border-wide apprehension numbers bulge in one sector they usually drop in nearby sectors or vice versa. But, like a balloon, the overall numbers remain nearly the same, Spener said.
Current numbers support his theory.
As Tucson Sector apprehensions declined by 10 percent in fiscal year 2005, apprehensions increased by 41 percent in the Yuma Sector to the west and by 18 percent in the El Paso Sector to the East. That trend continues so far this year as well.
Borderwide apprehensions for 2005 were only 5 percent higher than they were in 1984. In between, though, apprehensions peaked as high as 1.6 million in 1986 and in 2000 and below 1 million in 1988-1989 and again in 2002-2003.
Border Patrol officials recognize the funneling or bulging theory.
"If it makes it harder for them to cross, we are going to see a decrease because they are going to cross somewhere else," said Stevens, about increased resources in the Tucson Sector.
Massey and Spener said the Border Patrol deterrent programs, which started in El Paso in 1993 with Operation Hold the Line, Operation Gatekeeper in San Diego in 1994, and Operation Safeguard in Arizona in 1995, have done a better job at keeping illegal entrants in the country than out.
As it became more difficult to travel back and forth, married men brought their families and single men got married and had kids, Spener said.
"The longer they are away from their town or village in Mexico, there is less to go back to in many ways," Spener said. "So, it really encourages settlement."
Papademtriou said it would be incorrect to call this locking-in effect an "unintended consequence" because it's been happening for a decade, enough time for legislators to see the results. He said legislators in Washington "throw money" at the border as an easy way out of a problem they can't control.
"Clearly, we know this is happening, and we keep doing more of the same so clearly we must be comfortable with the consequences," said Papademtriou, president of the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington-based think tank that studies international migration
As he sat in the Nogales office of Grupo Beta, Mexico's special force for protecting migrants, Robledo Sandoval was already contemplating another attempt.
The reason: Back home in Mexico he can only make $80 a week as a painter, a fraction of what he can make in the United States.
If he tries and gets caught again, he'll add another digit to the ambiguous apprehension numbers.
Migrant tally called misleading
Experts: Apprehension numbers aside, most entrants make it in
By Brady McCombs
Arizona Daily Star
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 04.22.2006
In late February, Border Patrol agents apprehended and deported Roberto Robledo Sandoval after finding him with others inside a drop house in Mesa.
Robledo Sandoval, 45, called the experience — armed men kept them in the house waiting for family members in Mexico to wire more money — the worst nightmare of his life.
Nonetheless, after Border Patrol agents dropped him off the border in Nogales, he found another coyote — a people smuggler — and tried again the next day. A couple of days later, while walking in the Altar Valley southwest of Tucson, Border Patrol agents caught him again.
His story is a common one among the estimated 500,000 illegal entrants who make their way into the country each year, said Princeton professor Douglas Massey. He said research suggests that apprehensions don't stop migrants but rather force them to try repeatedly until they make it.
Yet, apprehension numbers kept by the Border Patrol don't reflect this reality.
Under the agency's guidelines, Robledo Sandoval would count as two apprehensions because the agency counts the event of each apprehension, not the number of people apprehended.
Internally, the Border Patrol tracks how many times each illegal entrant is caught, said Shannon Stevens, a spokeswoman with the Border Patrol's Tucson Sector. However, the agency doesn't release that number and didn't have an estimate on how many detainees have been caught previously.
The agency views the 11 percent decrease in apprehensions from fiscal year 2004 to fiscal 2005 and the 8 percent decrease so far in fiscal year 2006 in the Tucson Sector as an indicator of declining traffic in the sector and validation of the increased agents and technology devoted to the sector.
"I don't think it's due to the fact that we aren't catching as many," Stevens said. "I just don't think as many are crossing here."
But professors who study migration patterns such as Massey, Trinity University's David Spener and the Migration Policy Institute's Demetrios Papademtriou doubt that Border Patrol actions change the actual number of illegal entrants who make it into the United States.
Massey said the probability that a man or woman would leave Mexico to migrate illegally into the United States has fluctuated at around 1 percent for the past two decades despite the increase in Border
Patrol agents and budget. Nearly all make it, Massey said.
"Almost everybody gets in," Massey said. "It's just a matter of how many times it takes."
The number of Border Patrol agents and agency budget has been on the rise since 1992. The number of agents has more than doubled nationally from 4,139 in 1992 to 11,384 in 2006. When adjusted for inflation, the agency's budget has increased 220 percent since 1992 to $1.413 billion in 2005.
"There is virtually nothing one can infer about the volume of illegal migration from the number of apprehensions," said Massey, the author of "Beyond Smoke and Mirrors: Mexican Immigration in the Age of Economic Integration."
Spener, a sociologist at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, who studies U.S.-Mexican border relations, said that when border-wide apprehension numbers bulge in one sector they usually drop in nearby sectors or vice versa. But, like a balloon, the overall numbers remain nearly the same, Spener said.
Current numbers support his theory.
As Tucson Sector apprehensions declined by 10 percent in fiscal year 2005, apprehensions increased by 41 percent in the Yuma Sector to the west and by 18 percent in the El Paso Sector to the East. That trend continues so far this year as well.
Borderwide apprehensions for 2005 were only 5 percent higher than they were in 1984. In between, though, apprehensions peaked as high as 1.6 million in 1986 and in 2000 and below 1 million in 1988-1989 and again in 2002-2003.
Border Patrol officials recognize the funneling or bulging theory.
"If it makes it harder for them to cross, we are going to see a decrease because they are going to cross somewhere else," said Stevens, about increased resources in the Tucson Sector.
Massey and Spener said the Border Patrol deterrent programs, which started in El Paso in 1993 with Operation Hold the Line, Operation Gatekeeper in San Diego in 1994, and Operation Safeguard in Arizona in 1995, have done a better job at keeping illegal entrants in the country than out.
As it became more difficult to travel back and forth, married men brought their families and single men got married and had kids, Spener said.
"The longer they are away from their town or village in Mexico, there is less to go back to in many ways," Spener said. "So, it really encourages settlement."
Papademtriou said it would be incorrect to call this locking-in effect an "unintended consequence" because it's been happening for a decade, enough time for legislators to see the results. He said legislators in Washington "throw money" at the border as an easy way out of a problem they can't control.
"Clearly, we know this is happening, and we keep doing more of the same so clearly we must be comfortable with the consequences," said Papademtriou, president of the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington-based think tank that studies international migration
As he sat in the Nogales office of Grupo Beta, Mexico's special force for protecting migrants, Robledo Sandoval was already contemplating another attempt.
The reason: Back home in Mexico he can only make $80 a week as a painter, a fraction of what he can make in the United States.
If he tries and gets caught again, he'll add another digit to the ambiguous apprehension numbers.
Friday, April 21, 2006
Tucson, AZ: Press on the Minutemen
Since the start of this month I've been in Three Points, Arizona, west of Tucson by a good thirty-five miles. I've been volunteering as a legal observer of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, a group that monitors for undocumented immigrants crossing through Arizona's southern deserts. For those reading along from Arizona State, a former alum, Ray Ybarra, is directing the legal observer efforts as a fellow with the American Civil Liberties Union (A.C.L.U.). He's a great person to learn from.
Three Points is a very strategic, intelligent spot for the Minutemen to patrol. It's a major corridor for migrant traffic, and it's far enough north of the border that the Mexican human rights arm, Grupo Beta, isn't making as extensive an effort at redirecting crossers away from the Minutemen as they did last year. At least that's the rumor. In any case, thus far the Minutemen have reported sightings of a thousand-plus migrants, and roughly a third of that number in apprehensions.
I'm inclined to believe that their numbers are inflated, judging from the chatter--or therefore lack of--on their radios. Spotting fifty-plus migrants is possible, although highly improbable. I'd venture to say that they're spotting closer to thirty.
For the last two days, the Minutmen have dropped from three full-time shifts to one afternoon shift. Their number of volunteers have decreased as well, from a peak of thirty on either morning (8 a.m. to 4 p.m.) or evening (4 p.m. to midnight) patrols to roughly fifteen on the lone evening shift. This, however, excludes the recent arrival of the "Raging Grannies", a retired crew of women ostensibly sent out to do public relations work with local and international (Belgian, I think) press.
From what observers have told me about last year, the press is largely absent from this year's round of Minutemen patrols. The first weekend was really busy. There was a Spanish news team out, along with, of course, Fox News, serveral Indymedia groups and plenty of local stations. The one-time Minutemen line of fifty quickly shrank to around half that size. Recently, however, the founder and C.E.O. of the Minutman Civil Defense Corps., Chris Simcox, announced that the Minutemen had allied with several ranchers to erect fencing on their property at or near the border. I imagine that this will bring them some more attention in the coming weeks. Personally, I don't see that ranchers or the Minutemen will make any movement on fencing i.e. walls. At best, they might have a nominal rise in volunteer applications.
I write "applications" because the reported "thousands" of Minutemen patrolling the border are nowhere to be found. Although volunteers might apply, they remain largely absent from the actual efforts along the border. This shouldn't really come as a surprise to anybody. People sign up, but they don't always show up. This is how volunteering normally goes.
Three Points is a very strategic, intelligent spot for the Minutemen to patrol. It's a major corridor for migrant traffic, and it's far enough north of the border that the Mexican human rights arm, Grupo Beta, isn't making as extensive an effort at redirecting crossers away from the Minutemen as they did last year. At least that's the rumor. In any case, thus far the Minutemen have reported sightings of a thousand-plus migrants, and roughly a third of that number in apprehensions.
I'm inclined to believe that their numbers are inflated, judging from the chatter--or therefore lack of--on their radios. Spotting fifty-plus migrants is possible, although highly improbable. I'd venture to say that they're spotting closer to thirty.
For the last two days, the Minutmen have dropped from three full-time shifts to one afternoon shift. Their number of volunteers have decreased as well, from a peak of thirty on either morning (8 a.m. to 4 p.m.) or evening (4 p.m. to midnight) patrols to roughly fifteen on the lone evening shift. This, however, excludes the recent arrival of the "Raging Grannies", a retired crew of women ostensibly sent out to do public relations work with local and international (Belgian, I think) press.
From what observers have told me about last year, the press is largely absent from this year's round of Minutemen patrols. The first weekend was really busy. There was a Spanish news team out, along with, of course, Fox News, serveral Indymedia groups and plenty of local stations. The one-time Minutemen line of fifty quickly shrank to around half that size. Recently, however, the founder and C.E.O. of the Minutman Civil Defense Corps., Chris Simcox, announced that the Minutemen had allied with several ranchers to erect fencing on their property at or near the border. I imagine that this will bring them some more attention in the coming weeks. Personally, I don't see that ranchers or the Minutemen will make any movement on fencing i.e. walls. At best, they might have a nominal rise in volunteer applications.
I write "applications" because the reported "thousands" of Minutemen patrolling the border are nowhere to be found. Although volunteers might apply, they remain largely absent from the actual efforts along the border. This shouldn't really come as a surprise to anybody. People sign up, but they don't always show up. This is how volunteering normally goes.
Saturday, April 01, 2006
from Alternet: Maria Luisa Tucker on Cesar Chavez
Viva la Immigration Debate
Maria Luisa Tucker, AlterNet
April 1, 2006
(Editor's Note: This story was originally posted in The Mix.)
Yesterday, as eight states recognized Cesar Chavez Day as an official
holiday, some groups recalled Chavez's memory in their own fight for
legislation that would provide 11 million undocumented immigrants with
a path toward citizenship.
The conflation of Chavez's work and the fight for compassionate
immigration reform is both right and wrong.
In spirit, it makes sense. Chavez, after all, worked on behalf of the
underdog and always clung to a spirit of nonviolence (just as
pro-immigrant demonstrators have done over the last week). A farm
worker who co-founded the National Farm Workers Association, he has
become a legendy figure of social justice and civil rights for
Chicanos. He followed Gandhi's example and fasted in 1968 to draw
attention to the poor treatment of farm workers. It was this sense of
justice and equality that makes Chavez a person to remember during the
debates on immigration.
However, Chavez was no friend to undocumented immigrants during his
time. He was born a U.S. citizen in Arizona and was loyal to American
farm workers. In fighting for the rights of agricultural workers, in
1969 his union protested farms that hired illegal immigrants as scabs
during a union strike. They even reported some suspected illegal
immigrants to INS.
I point out these two images of Chavez in order to make a point about
the immigration battle that will continue for weeks to come: Just as
Chavez was not a simple man, immigration reform it is not a simple
issue. It is not black and white. There is no perfect answer.
Those who support legalization of undocumented immigrants are not
against unions or worker's rights. Rather, we see that the ability for
families, no matter where they are from, to stay together and make
enough money simply to eat is a human right. The anti-immigrant
legislation that the House has already passed would rip families apart
-- parents who are illegally here would inevitably leave their
children and grandchildren who were born U.S. citizens -- and proposes
to send millions of immigrants back home to starve. I don't believe
this is the kind of "justice" that Cesr Chavez would condone.
Rather than pitting poor American citizens against poor illegal
immigrants, I propose that we take Chavez's vision of social justice
and apply it to all. Let's fight for legalization and workers' rights.
We can demand both, and I believe there is enough American wealth to
support all our nation's laborers and service workers, citizen and
noncitizen, alike. We need to concentrate on forcing those who own the
wealth to share it with their employees, rather than blaming our
nation's newest immigrants for our crappy wages. So, rather than
fighting one another for the pennies that corporations throw at their
workers, let's make the Wal-Marts of the world pay up.
After all, the problem is not a lack of wealth, it is the disparity of
the wealth. Why else would so many Latin American immigrants come
here?
--
www.border101.org
Monday, March 27, 2006
Laredo, TX: caught
I will make one confession: my time spent at the lake isn't always so idyllic. The other day, I had set up my tent, left it, and walked around the park. As I was ambling to another shore, a park ranger pulled up to me, flashing his lights. "Are you the owner of the green four-runner?" he asked.
"Uh, no," I answered.
"Well then, what are you driving?"
I paused and tried to work up enough moxy to lie about my camping status. "Uh, another car."
"Yeah, then where is it?"
"Well, you know, it's around. On the other side of the hill."
"What hill?"
"You know, the big one. Over there." I pointed from west to south.
"What's the color of your car?" he asked, sniffing my bullshit.
"Uh, well not the color of the four-runner. I'm not who you're looking for."
He looked me up and down, visibly pissed. "Okay," he said, and he pulled away.
I walked on for another ten minutes, and the ranger came up to me again.
"What car are you driving?" he asked, a little more forceful this time.
I knew that I was in for it. It was time for quick wits. "A car."
"And where are you camped? Are you staying the night?"
"Uh, no, um, I'm not staying the night. I'm just walking around the lake. And I already told you where my car was parked."
"By the hill?"
"By the hill."
"So that's not your little blue tent on the waterfront?" he said. "That's not your bike?"
I looked at him and then down at my cycling jacket. "Well, it could be. Do you mean my tent and bike down by the lake."
"What?"
"Yeah, those are mine."
"So are you camping here?"
"Camping? No. No way. I'm just walking. Yeah, I'm walking."
The man shook his head. "So did you pay to enter?" And then everything just went downhill from there. To make this long story short, I did everything I could to placate this man and avoide a fine. I confessed my sins, explained my project, played kissy-poo and generally offered to comply with the officer in any way that he'd ask. By the end of it, I left him with a handshake and a business card, smiling and happy. He let me keep my spot by the lake, eleven dollars poorer.
"Uh, no," I answered.
"Well then, what are you driving?"
I paused and tried to work up enough moxy to lie about my camping status. "Uh, another car."
"Yeah, then where is it?"
"Well, you know, it's around. On the other side of the hill."
"What hill?"
"You know, the big one. Over there." I pointed from west to south.
"What's the color of your car?" he asked, sniffing my bullshit.
"Uh, well not the color of the four-runner. I'm not who you're looking for."
He looked me up and down, visibly pissed. "Okay," he said, and he pulled away.
I walked on for another ten minutes, and the ranger came up to me again.
"What car are you driving?" he asked, a little more forceful this time.
I knew that I was in for it. It was time for quick wits. "A car."
"And where are you camped? Are you staying the night?"
"Uh, no, um, I'm not staying the night. I'm just walking around the lake. And I already told you where my car was parked."
"By the hill?"
"By the hill."
"So that's not your little blue tent on the waterfront?" he said. "That's not your bike?"
I looked at him and then down at my cycling jacket. "Well, it could be. Do you mean my tent and bike down by the lake."
"What?"
"Yeah, those are mine."
"So are you camping here?"
"Camping? No. No way. I'm just walking. Yeah, I'm walking."
The man shook his head. "So did you pay to enter?" And then everything just went downhill from there. To make this long story short, I did everything I could to placate this man and avoide a fine. I confessed my sins, explained my project, played kissy-poo and generally offered to comply with the officer in any way that he'd ask. By the end of it, I left him with a handshake and a business card, smiling and happy. He let me keep my spot by the lake, eleven dollars poorer.
Laredo, TX: no catch, no luck
My friend, the fisherman, didn't catch anything that day. No matter how many times he cast out his net, he haul was empty when he reeled it back in.
That night, well after he left, I sat on the banks of the lake and watched the fish jump and flop on the water's surface. I laughed when I thought of my friend.
That night, well after he left, I sat on the banks of the lake and watched the fish jump and flop on the water's surface. I laughed when I thought of my friend.
Laredo, TX: wading deeper
At six-twenty in the morning, every morning, waves of birds fly from the north shore of the lake to the south shore. Depending on the weather, they will fly high or low--cloudy, low; sunny; high--and they chirp in these great whoops: chirooop, chirooop, chirooop...
After having spent five, six weeks on the road, I needed to wake up to those birds once more. I needed to see their whirling, dipping waves cascade across the sky. I needed to know that they would still be there when I returned.
After having spent five, six weeks on the road, I needed to wake up to those birds once more. I needed to see their whirling, dipping waves cascade across the sky. I needed to know that they would still be there when I returned.
Laredo, TX: cast away
The lake has become my home.
I arrive late and night and leave early in the morning, avoiding park rangers and camp hosts. I don't pay for entry. I don't pay to camp. I just ride my bike through the back entrance, down my hill, and to the waterfront. There, I set up my tent behind a thicket of reeds--almost entirely hidden from the road but completely exposed to the lake.
As I fall asleep, I watch the lights of the north shore, constant and unblinking. I wait and listen for the two park cats, one black and one white, to rustle about. I wake up to my birds.
I arrive late and night and leave early in the morning, avoiding park rangers and camp hosts. I don't pay for entry. I don't pay to camp. I just ride my bike through the back entrance, down my hill, and to the waterfront. There, I set up my tent behind a thicket of reeds--almost entirely hidden from the road but completely exposed to the lake.
As I fall asleep, I watch the lights of the north shore, constant and unblinking. I wait and listen for the two park cats, one black and one white, to rustle about. I wake up to my birds.
Laredo, TX: the fisherman
After Mission, I returned to my lake. You can read the corresponding post about two really big margaritas. To be brief about it, I arrived in Laredo emotionally exhausted. The Missionaries' contamination, their colonias, the dead man on the river, the shootings in Nuevo Laredo, the migrants who've died in Arizona's deserts... I hadn't processed it all. It was just too much to take in.
I came back to Laredo and reflected over a couple of margaritas at happy hour. I thought, I tried to write, and I cried. I cried and cried and cried. The waitress came up to me several times. "Is everything alright?" she asked, in maybe limited English. "Is everything all right?"
For me, it was. I'm healthy and comparatively wealthy. For so many that I knew, it wasn't.
With some demons purged--or at least tamed--I returned to my lake. That night I slept deeply, slept soundly. I dreamed of silence. Nothing else.
The next morning I awoke to the usual weekend campers. My campsite, you see, isn't exactly legal. I spent the day with them, living vicariously through them with every chomp of a carne asada and cast of a fishing line. It was enough to be in the periphery of their company. I needed to be alone but connected.
I came back to Laredo and reflected over a couple of margaritas at happy hour. I thought, I tried to write, and I cried. I cried and cried and cried. The waitress came up to me several times. "Is everything alright?" she asked, in maybe limited English. "Is everything all right?"
For me, it was. I'm healthy and comparatively wealthy. For so many that I knew, it wasn't.
With some demons purged--or at least tamed--I returned to my lake. That night I slept deeply, slept soundly. I dreamed of silence. Nothing else.
The next morning I awoke to the usual weekend campers. My campsite, you see, isn't exactly legal. I spent the day with them, living vicariously through them with every chomp of a carne asada and cast of a fishing line. It was enough to be in the periphery of their company. I needed to be alone but connected.
Saturday, March 25, 2006
from the L.A. Times: having kicked the sleeping giant
An ecosocialist by the name of Micheal Lowy cites that we all suffer a
case of Gramsci's paradox--that "we live in a time in which the old
world order is dying (and taking civilization with it) and the new one
does not seem to be able to be born."
To this I give a rousing "bullshit".
Although I think that you could make a good case that the global capitalist vehicle piloted by the United States is not sustainable, here we see a case in which that system is giving way to something new, something inspired and driven. That "something" might very well be a genuine human rights movement that transcends barriers and calls into question the United States as a partner, rather than profiteer, in social and economic development. What might very well develop is a redefinition of what it means to be "American"--what defines the character of the diminishing middle class and what tenets we can still cling to in an equally diminishing "American Dream".
With this in mind, the following isn't too much of a surprise: it's a wake-up call. If 500,000 people were going to come out at in support of migrant rights, it was going to be in L.A. The religious, social and political left came out in full stomp. Galvanized by the Sensenbrenner-King bill, we might be seeing the beginnings of not only a "massive immigrant civil rights struggle" but also a collective in almost dialectical opposition to the "vast right-wing conspiracy".
To this point, one of the questions to ask again concerns sustainability. Rumor has it that the organizers behind the L.A., Denver, Phoenix et. al protest are planning a general strike next month. If organizers are able to take the energy from these marches into a strike and beyond, they might be able to avoid, say, the
ineffectiveness that similar actions had before the invasion in Iraq. Half-a-million person marches assure that protesters' voices will be heard on the street. Only a sustained effort will translate those voices into actual legislation.
To this extent, the actual content of the Sensenbrenner-King bill is helpful to undocumented immigrants and their supporters. With props. 187 in California and 200 in Arizona, there was opposition, yeah, but nothing like this. The previous bills' hazy language on restricted benefits couldn't incite the same reaction. Border walls and felony prosecution for undocumented presense, humanitarian aid, etc. should provide ample fuel to keep the fire both raging and indentifiable.
Who knows how high those flames will reach--or how far, for that matter. To the halls of Congress? To U.S. neighborhoods? Villages throughout Latin America and beyond? Our next presidential seat? Soon we'll find out.
-----
More Than 500,000 Rally in L.A. for Immigrants' Rights
By Teresa Watanabe and Anna Gorman, Times Staff Writer2:51 PM PST,
March 25, 2006
Joining what some are calling the nation's largest mobilization of immigrants ever, hundreds of thousands of people boisterously marched in downtown Los Angeles Saturday to protest federal legislation that would crack down on undocumented immigrants, penalize those who help them and build a security wall on the U.S. southern border. Spirited crowds representing labor, religious groups, civil-rights advocates and ordinary immigrants stretched over 26 blocks of downtown Los Angeles from Adams Blvd. along Spring Street and Broadway to City Hall, tooting kazoos, waving American flags and chanting "Si se
puede!" (Yes we can!). The crowd, estimated by police at more than 500.000, represented one of the largest protest marches in Los Angeles history, surpassing Vietnam War demonstrations and the 70,000 who rallied downtown against Proposition 187, a 1994 state initiative that denied public benefits to undocumented migrants.
The marchers included both longtime residents and the newly arrived, bound by a desire for a better life and a love for this county.
Arbelica Lazo, 40, illegally immigrated from El Salvador two decades ago but said she now owns two business and pays $7,000 in taxes
annually.
Jose Alberto Salvador, 33, came here illegally just four months ago to find work to support the wife and five children he left behind; in his native Guatemala, he said, what little work he could find paid only
$10 a day. "As much as we need this country, we love this country," Salvador said, waving a stick with both the American and Guatemalan flag. "This country gives us opportunities we don't get at home."
Saturday's rally, spurred by anger over legislation passed by the U.S. House of Representatives last December, was part of what many say is an unprecedented effort to organize immigrants and their supporters across the nation. The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee is to take up efforts Monday to complete work on a comprehensive immigration reform proposal. Unlike the House bill, which beefed up border security and toughened immigration laws, the Senate committee's version is expected to include a guest worker program and a path to legalization for the nation's 10 to 12 million undocumented immigrants.
In recent weeks, hundreds of thousands of people have staged demonstrations in more than a dozen cities. The Roman Catholic Church and other religious communities have launched immigrant rights
campaigns, with Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony taking a leading role in speaking out against the House bill and calling on his priests to defy its provisions that would make felons of anyone who aided undocumented immigrants. In addition, several cities, including Los Angeles, have passed resolutions against the House legislation and some, such as Maywood, have declared itself a "sanctuary" for undocumented immigrants.
"There has never been this kind of mobilization in the immigrant community ever," said Joshua Hoyt, executive director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. "They have kicked the
sleeping giant. It's the beginning of a massive immigrant civil rights struggle."
One of the marchers Saturday, Jose Alberto Salvador, 33, left his wife and children behind in Guatemala four months ago to cross the border into the United States so he could earn enough money to return home
and buy a house.
Jorge Valdovinos, 43, is a legal immigrant from Mexico who has three US-born children and works as a financial advisor.
Amid a sea of American and Mexican flags, protesters chanted "Si Se Puede!" and waved banners in Spanish that read, "We aren't criminals" and "The USA is made by immigrants."
"I love this country as if it were my own, for the opportunities it has given me," said Laurentino Ramirez, an illegal immigrant from Mexico who works at a garment factory. "The law is unjust for those who don't have papers. We come to work. We don't come to do harm to anyone."
Many of the marchers were immigrants themselves — both legal and illegal -- from Mexico and Central America. Some had just crossed the border, while others had been here for decades. There were construction workers and business owners; families with young children
and people in wheelchairs. Throughout the afternoon, protesters heard speakers demand a path toward legalization and denounce HR 4437, which would tighten border enforcement and crack down on employers who hire undocumented workers.
The rally was organized by numerous unions, religious organizations and immigrant rights groups and publicized through Spanish-language
media, which encouraged participants to wear white to symbolize peace and bring American flags. The mostly peaceful march stretched over 26 blocks, shutting down streets and tying up traffic around downtown for hours. Police estimated the crowd at 500,000, more than five times the size of the 1994 rally against California's Proposition 187, which would have denied services to undocumented immigrants. Participants said the massive mobilization shows that immigrants' voices must be
heard and that they are contributing to the country's economy.
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
from the New American: migrant violence and response
This is interesting, and I'm not entirely sure how to think about it.
One one hand, I see a mother with really valid concerns. Bang, bang.
One the other, from sources that I've read, 1 percent of all
undocumented immigrants are involved in violent acts. Is this enough
to expell the whole, our would such an action be an unfair
categorization of the undocumented as violence-prone, potential
criminals?
At age 16, Lupe dropped out of school and married Marcial Moreno, a
Mexican national and illegal immigrant who had been living in the
Morfin household. After giving birth to her fifth child at age 22, she
finally earned her high school diploma. Afterwards, she secured a
position in the county immunization department. It was there, while
serving large numbers of illegal immigrants, that Moreno began to
realize the true economic and social cost of the illegal alien
invasion. The story might have ended there, but in 1990, an event
occurred that profoundly altered the lives of Lupe Moreno and her
sister, Angie Morfin Vargas, and compelled them to take action.
An Activist Awakening
Ruben Morfin, Angie Morfin Vargas' son, was just 13 years old in 1990
when he was shot in the head by Ezequiel Mariscal while walking home
from a party. The killer, Mariscal, a gang member and Mexican
national, fled to Mexico, where he was eventually apprehended by
Mexican authorities with assistance from San Diego's Foreign
Prosecution Unit. Mexico's fugitive-friendly laws prevented Mariscal's
extradition, but he is now serving a 20-year sentence without parole
in the state of Jalisco, Mexico.
For Angie Morfin Vargas, her son's death was a brutal call to action.
The former Chicana activist felt particularly wounded because
Mariscal, an illegal alien, was the sort of person she might have
befriended in previous times. "It was a slap in the face," Morfin
Vargas told The New American. "For the first time in my life, I wasn't
sure who I was." Once a proponent of unfettered immigration, Morfin
Vargas now began to take a critical look at America's immigration
policy. Sensing a link between illegal immigration and increased gang
activity, she formed Mothers Taking Action Against Gang Violence and
began to lobby for an end to the nation's de facto open border policy.
--
www.border101.org
Monday, March 20, 2006
from the Tucson Daily Star: their view on a daughter's death
Opinion
Entrant held in daughter's death a cruel twist
Our view: Yes, illegal immigrants are breaking the law, but they should be viewed as human beings, not statistics
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 03.20.2006
The quest to stem the tide of illegal immigration into Arizona is taking its toll on humanity and compassion.
The Associated Press reported Tuesday than an illegal entrant and his 12-year-old daughter were crossing the border on foot recently when they were run over by a Border Patrol pickup.
The daughter was killed and the father was thrown in jail for putting the girl at "risk of imminent death" by taking her into the desert.
It seems a cruel twist. But every week in Arizona, it seems, illegal immigrants are marginalized a little more than the week before.
The Legislature is considering a bill to cut state funding for communities where local police don't enforce federal immigration laws and may put on the November ballot a measure to deny illegal entrants the right to subsidized child care, adult education and state financial assistance to attend college.
We acknowledge that entrants have broken the law by entering the United States without documentation, and we are not advocating that they are entitled to services funded by taxpayers, even though some undocumented workers do pay taxes.
We are concerned that the drumbeat of actions and statements conveys the idea that entrants should be subjugated into a single, subclass of humanity.
We believe that immigration reform requires a comprehensive, multitiered approach that includes border security, a guest-worker program and employer requirements. Throughout the debate and the discussion, illegal immigrants must be viewed as living, breathing human beings — not a set of statistics.
Illegal entrants should not be exalted, nor should they be dismissed and demonized.
Take the Yuma case.
Juan Cruz Torralva should have been consoled over the death of his daughter, Lourdes Cruz Morales, on March 5. Instead he was hospitalized for three days and locked up for five. He was released March 12 when the Yuma County Attorney's Office said it wouldn't prosecute.
He's back in Mexico, where his wife and 2-month-old son, who were living in California, will join him.
He'll live the rest of his life with bitter memories of the United States.
"I just want to leave this place and never come back. Never," he told The Associated Press.
Cruz's story is just one of many that puts a human face on border issues.
Some groups and legislators do not see the faces; they focus only on numbers and the problems.
Hugo Rene Oliva Romero, the consul general in Yuma, and Juan Manuel Calderon, the chief consul in Tucson, said that, in general, would-be entrants are oblivious to the anti-immigrant attitudes in Arizona and the United States.
"They come here with one goal … to find work," Calderon said.
But Oliva said they can sense where they aren't welcome.
"More often now they are going to states where they feel they aren't going to face discrimination, where they feel people will respect their human rights," Oliva said.
Oliva said Mexico in recent years has had to open consulates in Raleigh, N.C.; Omaha, Neb.; and St. Paul, Minn., to meet the needs of its citizens settling in places where they wouldn't have years before.
Some segments of our community will surely welcome the news that entrants may look to settle elsewhere.
Groups that rail against entrants, and lawmakers who hope to win votes by targeting border crossers, are sowing seeds of prejudice and discrimination by repeatedly minimizing one group of people.
Entrants are not deserving of these attacks. They have broken U.S. immigration laws, but they are human beings who deserve compassion and understanding. We should be working toward solving the economic and societal issues that attract them across the border.
Entrant held in daughter's death a cruel twist
Our view: Yes, illegal immigrants are breaking the law, but they should be viewed as human beings, not statistics
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 03.20.2006
The quest to stem the tide of illegal immigration into Arizona is taking its toll on humanity and compassion.
The Associated Press reported Tuesday than an illegal entrant and his 12-year-old daughter were crossing the border on foot recently when they were run over by a Border Patrol pickup.
The daughter was killed and the father was thrown in jail for putting the girl at "risk of imminent death" by taking her into the desert.
It seems a cruel twist. But every week in Arizona, it seems, illegal immigrants are marginalized a little more than the week before.
The Legislature is considering a bill to cut state funding for communities where local police don't enforce federal immigration laws and may put on the November ballot a measure to deny illegal entrants the right to subsidized child care, adult education and state financial assistance to attend college.
We acknowledge that entrants have broken the law by entering the United States without documentation, and we are not advocating that they are entitled to services funded by taxpayers, even though some undocumented workers do pay taxes.
We are concerned that the drumbeat of actions and statements conveys the idea that entrants should be subjugated into a single, subclass of humanity.
We believe that immigration reform requires a comprehensive, multitiered approach that includes border security, a guest-worker program and employer requirements. Throughout the debate and the discussion, illegal immigrants must be viewed as living, breathing human beings — not a set of statistics.
Illegal entrants should not be exalted, nor should they be dismissed and demonized.
Take the Yuma case.
Juan Cruz Torralva should have been consoled over the death of his daughter, Lourdes Cruz Morales, on March 5. Instead he was hospitalized for three days and locked up for five. He was released March 12 when the Yuma County Attorney's Office said it wouldn't prosecute.
He's back in Mexico, where his wife and 2-month-old son, who were living in California, will join him.
He'll live the rest of his life with bitter memories of the United States.
"I just want to leave this place and never come back. Never," he told The Associated Press.
Cruz's story is just one of many that puts a human face on border issues.
Some groups and legislators do not see the faces; they focus only on numbers and the problems.
Hugo Rene Oliva Romero, the consul general in Yuma, and Juan Manuel Calderon, the chief consul in Tucson, said that, in general, would-be entrants are oblivious to the anti-immigrant attitudes in Arizona and the United States.
"They come here with one goal … to find work," Calderon said.
But Oliva said they can sense where they aren't welcome.
"More often now they are going to states where they feel they aren't going to face discrimination, where they feel people will respect their human rights," Oliva said.
Oliva said Mexico in recent years has had to open consulates in Raleigh, N.C.; Omaha, Neb.; and St. Paul, Minn., to meet the needs of its citizens settling in places where they wouldn't have years before.
Some segments of our community will surely welcome the news that entrants may look to settle elsewhere.
Groups that rail against entrants, and lawmakers who hope to win votes by targeting border crossers, are sowing seeds of prejudice and discrimination by repeatedly minimizing one group of people.
Entrants are not deserving of these attacks. They have broken U.S. immigration laws, but they are human beings who deserve compassion and understanding. We should be working toward solving the economic and societal issues that attract them across the border.
from the Rio Grande Guardian: Mission and the Bhopal, India disaster
Credit the following to the authors, Steve Taylor and Claudia Perez-Rivas of Steve Taylor the Rio Grande Guardian. They will be publishing more articles on Mission at the Rio Grande Guardian, www.riograndeguardian.com.
Indian students compare notes on Mission chemical plant and Bhopal disaster
By Steve Taylor and Claudia Perez-Rivas
Gauri Karve (photo by Guillermo Sosa)
MISSION - A group of graduate students from India visited Mission over the weekend to compare similarities between the city’s highly contaminated old Hayes-Sammons chemical plant and the Bhopal gas leak disaster.
The students, who study at the University of Texas at Austin, were given a tour of the former mixing plant and warehouses Saturday and introduced to Mission residents with chronic medical conditions.
Ester Salinas, a local community activist, and Iris Salinas, a journalist who runs a Web site about the Mission chemical plant and who is also a congresswoman for La Raza Unida's environmental committee, organized the tour. UT-Austin students in the Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán (MEChA) organization and young activists from the United Farm Workers also participated.
“We are here to learn more about the Mission struggle, to share our experiences, and to offer our solidarity,” said Gauri Karve, an engineer and member of the Association for India’s Development.
“I think there are a number of similarities between Mission and Bhopal. In both cases, poor communities were exploited. In both cases, the chemical plants were not cleaned up.”
Karve told the story of Bhopal. On a December night in 1984, a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal began leaking 27 tons of the deadly gas methyl isocyanine over a city with a population of a half a million people.
“Union Carbide had turned off all the safety systems and all the safety alarms to save money. So, people were gassed to death in their sleep,” Karve said. “3,000 people died in the first three days. After all this happened, Union Carbide left the country and left all the toxins. The factory still exists in the center of the city. And they got away with it.”
Some reports suggest as many as 20,000 people died as a result of the gas leak, with more than 120,000 still suffering from ailments caused by the subsequent pollution. The ailments include blindness, breathing difficulties, and gynecological disorders.
In 1999, local groundwater and well-water testing near the site of the Bhopal accident revealed mercury at levels between 20,000 and six million times those expected. Cancer, brain damage, and birth-defect-causing chemicals were found in the water.
“What we are trying to do is correct what has gone wrong and get the communities the medical help they need, the economic rehabilitation and the clean water that they need,” Karve said.
“A tanker comes once a week; they get two buckets of water. How are you supposed to survive? How is a family supposed to survive, it’s impossible. It’s very sad.”
Ester Salinas said there was a direct link between Bhopal and the Hayes-Sammons site. “When they closed one of our plants down in 1976, Monsanto and Dow took the poisons to India,” Salinas said. After the disaster, Union Carbide was bought out by Dow Chemicals. Ester Salinas said Dow was one the companies named in a lawsuit Mission residents have filed.
A report released in January by the Environmental Protection Agency showed that the levels of four chemicals found in the soil at the Mission plant were more than 100 times greater than the state of Texas allows for industrial sites. The report also found that pesticides that destroy hormone systems in the body are present at alarmingly high levels.
Iris Salinas gave the visiting students a potted history of the Mission chemical plant. She said that the Nazis were the first to experiment with deadly chemicals during World War II. When the war was over, she said, scientists in the United States began diluting the same chemicals so that the mixtures only killed pests. She said Valley farmers welcomed the arrival of the Mission chemical plant in the late 1940s because they thought fertilizers were being produced.
The students heard how the Mission plant used to produce 54 chemicals. Of these, eight have since been declared among the most hazardous contaminants known to man: Aldrin, Chlordane, DDT, Dieldrin, Endrin, Endrine Keytone, Heptachlor, and Toxaphene.
Iris Salinas said ample documentation had been collated over the years to show the negative impact the chemicals had on the neighborhood, with official reports of dermatitis outbreaks and the discovery of dead fish and birds. “We’ve got cancer clusters, sarcoma clusters, carcinoma clusters. TCEQ and EPA have a responsibility but they are not addressing them,” she said.
The students got to meet 76-year-old Mission resident Jose Garza, who, as a young man, used to gather grapefruit and oranges from around the chemical plant for his family. He also used to buy Chlordane, DDT and Toxaphene from the plant to kill the cockroaches in his house.
“We did not know anything about the chemicals in those days,” Garza told the Guardian. “They used to dig a hole and bury the powder and the fruit. When the hole was filled, they would cover it and start another one. I went in and grabbed the fruit. We never knew.”
Garza was a keen photographer and some of his photos of flooding in Mission in the 1950s and 1960s were on display. “We had no drainage or sewers and the floodwater was contaminated. The fire department used to get us out with boats, on Conway Street,” he said. Garza told how some of his family members have since developed tumors.
The students also visited Joe Salinas, a disabled man who lives across the road from the mixing plant. Salinas' home is considered the most contaminated in Mission. Instead of utilizing a smoke stack, exhaust from the plant was blown out by a fan in the roof directly into the neighborhood. Joe Salinas told how, before the plant was opened, his mother would win prizes for her gardening. After the plant opened, white dust engulfed everything, he said, and now nothing grows.
Iris Salinas declared the tour a great success. She said many thought the story of the Mission chemical plant and its “devastating impact” on residents and the environment would die out as its former workers passed away. She said that was not the case.
“They never counted on students finding out about this, having access to the Internet and feeling passionate about this,” said, Salinas who is also chair of MEChA's environmental committee. “We are getting a lot of ‘hits’ from everywhere and a lot of it is because students are raising awareness. They are talking to each other. We are making history with this. It is bigger than Mission.”
Indian students compare notes on Mission chemical plant and Bhopal disaster
By Steve Taylor and Claudia Perez-Rivas
Gauri Karve (photo by Guillermo Sosa)
MISSION - A group of graduate students from India visited Mission over the weekend to compare similarities between the city’s highly contaminated old Hayes-Sammons chemical plant and the Bhopal gas leak disaster.
The students, who study at the University of Texas at Austin, were given a tour of the former mixing plant and warehouses Saturday and introduced to Mission residents with chronic medical conditions.
Ester Salinas, a local community activist, and Iris Salinas, a journalist who runs a Web site about the Mission chemical plant and who is also a congresswoman for La Raza Unida's environmental committee, organized the tour. UT-Austin students in the Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán (MEChA) organization and young activists from the United Farm Workers also participated.
“We are here to learn more about the Mission struggle, to share our experiences, and to offer our solidarity,” said Gauri Karve, an engineer and member of the Association for India’s Development.
“I think there are a number of similarities between Mission and Bhopal. In both cases, poor communities were exploited. In both cases, the chemical plants were not cleaned up.”
Karve told the story of Bhopal. On a December night in 1984, a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal began leaking 27 tons of the deadly gas methyl isocyanine over a city with a population of a half a million people.
“Union Carbide had turned off all the safety systems and all the safety alarms to save money. So, people were gassed to death in their sleep,” Karve said. “3,000 people died in the first three days. After all this happened, Union Carbide left the country and left all the toxins. The factory still exists in the center of the city. And they got away with it.”
Some reports suggest as many as 20,000 people died as a result of the gas leak, with more than 120,000 still suffering from ailments caused by the subsequent pollution. The ailments include blindness, breathing difficulties, and gynecological disorders.
In 1999, local groundwater and well-water testing near the site of the Bhopal accident revealed mercury at levels between 20,000 and six million times those expected. Cancer, brain damage, and birth-defect-causing chemicals were found in the water.
“What we are trying to do is correct what has gone wrong and get the communities the medical help they need, the economic rehabilitation and the clean water that they need,” Karve said.
“A tanker comes once a week; they get two buckets of water. How are you supposed to survive? How is a family supposed to survive, it’s impossible. It’s very sad.”
Ester Salinas said there was a direct link between Bhopal and the Hayes-Sammons site. “When they closed one of our plants down in 1976, Monsanto and Dow took the poisons to India,” Salinas said. After the disaster, Union Carbide was bought out by Dow Chemicals. Ester Salinas said Dow was one the companies named in a lawsuit Mission residents have filed.
A report released in January by the Environmental Protection Agency showed that the levels of four chemicals found in the soil at the Mission plant were more than 100 times greater than the state of Texas allows for industrial sites. The report also found that pesticides that destroy hormone systems in the body are present at alarmingly high levels.
Iris Salinas gave the visiting students a potted history of the Mission chemical plant. She said that the Nazis were the first to experiment with deadly chemicals during World War II. When the war was over, she said, scientists in the United States began diluting the same chemicals so that the mixtures only killed pests. She said Valley farmers welcomed the arrival of the Mission chemical plant in the late 1940s because they thought fertilizers were being produced.
The students heard how the Mission plant used to produce 54 chemicals. Of these, eight have since been declared among the most hazardous contaminants known to man: Aldrin, Chlordane, DDT, Dieldrin, Endrin, Endrine Keytone, Heptachlor, and Toxaphene.
Iris Salinas said ample documentation had been collated over the years to show the negative impact the chemicals had on the neighborhood, with official reports of dermatitis outbreaks and the discovery of dead fish and birds. “We’ve got cancer clusters, sarcoma clusters, carcinoma clusters. TCEQ and EPA have a responsibility but they are not addressing them,” she said.
The students got to meet 76-year-old Mission resident Jose Garza, who, as a young man, used to gather grapefruit and oranges from around the chemical plant for his family. He also used to buy Chlordane, DDT and Toxaphene from the plant to kill the cockroaches in his house.
“We did not know anything about the chemicals in those days,” Garza told the Guardian. “They used to dig a hole and bury the powder and the fruit. When the hole was filled, they would cover it and start another one. I went in and grabbed the fruit. We never knew.”
Garza was a keen photographer and some of his photos of flooding in Mission in the 1950s and 1960s were on display. “We had no drainage or sewers and the floodwater was contaminated. The fire department used to get us out with boats, on Conway Street,” he said. Garza told how some of his family members have since developed tumors.
The students also visited Joe Salinas, a disabled man who lives across the road from the mixing plant. Salinas' home is considered the most contaminated in Mission. Instead of utilizing a smoke stack, exhaust from the plant was blown out by a fan in the roof directly into the neighborhood. Joe Salinas told how, before the plant was opened, his mother would win prizes for her gardening. After the plant opened, white dust engulfed everything, he said, and now nothing grows.
Iris Salinas declared the tour a great success. She said many thought the story of the Mission chemical plant and its “devastating impact” on residents and the environment would die out as its former workers passed away. She said that was not the case.
“They never counted on students finding out about this, having access to the Internet and feeling passionate about this,” said, Salinas who is also chair of MEChA's environmental committee. “We are getting a lot of ‘hits’ from everywhere and a lot of it is because students are raising awareness. They are talking to each other. We are making history with this. It is bigger than Mission.”
Mission, TX: welcome back
I'm back in Mission, Texas, home of cancer victims, the physically deformed and the all-around chemically contaminated. If you kept up
with Voluntour 1951, you'll remember that I spent a couple of weeks
here in the superfund, i.e. a site so polluted by chemical shipping
and manufacturing companies that the government has put major moneys
into remediation. Unfortunately for Missionaries, remediation means
soils transfers, asphalt caps and partial reconstructions.
Missionaries would prefer to have enough money to move and get the
hell out of there.
I saw two of my buddies, both with huge plum-sized bumps in their arms. The bumps house pumps, and the pumps circulate blood through their bodies that their failed kidneys--they're on dialysis, of course--cannot.
Friend number one used to be a top-notch balet folklorico dancer. He can't dance anymore, much less work. The man sells dishes--plates of food--for a living because he can't really leave his house. His body
has already rejected three kidneys. He's thirty-one.
Friend number two is twenty-four. My age. Her dad left years ago,
her mom's sick, she hasn't finished college, she can't get a job,
she's on welfare, she's just scraping by, and she's playing mom to her
two younger brothers. One of them gave the other a black eye the
other day. You can imagine how well things are going for them.
Here's where things get really good: a group from Bhopal, India just recently
came to Mission. it seems that Dow chemical, after being forced out
of Mission, traveled to India to reestablish their operations.
Apparently toxifying one community wasn't enough. They almost
completely eradicated another overnight.
One night while the villagers were sleeping, gas started to leak out through a faulty safety system. No one attended to the spill until the
next day--call this an extremely untimely case of sleeping on the
job. To make a long story short, 3,000 people died that night and 20,000 died in days to come. 20,000. Think Casa Grande, Arizona. 20,000 people. If they were
really lucky, they died in their sleep. If they weren't so lucky, they
gagged to death, unable to breathe through throats and lungs
undergoing rapid and exponential decay.
Think of what a happy meeting that might have been! Numbers one and two, meet numbers 20,001 through 20,006.
Greetings from Mission!
Thursday, March 16, 2006
newswire: "sanctuary" penalties
Too bad that this blurb doesn't say anything about actual immigrants.
An appeal of the "sanctuary" laws would mean that police would have to
start arresting undocumented immigrants. For those of you who are for
this, consider the following: if police had to arrest the undocumented
on contact, then chances are they would choose to come into contact
police on only the rarest of occasions. Many--if not most--wouldn't
report crimes committed against them for fear of being deported. One
logical conclusion to this policy is a veritable "open season" on
migrants.
E.g.: Don't like the migrant down the street? Beat the shit out of
him. He won't say anything, and if he did, he'd be deported anyway.
Yikes.
AZ House backs off 'sanctuary' penalties
PHOENIX --
Reversing course, the House of Representatives refused Wednesday to
financially penalize cities and counties whose police departments
don't enforce federal immigration laws. The 32-28 vote to kill the
legislation came amid complaints from some lawmakers the bill would
amount to the state's taking control of the operations of local police
agencies. The bill, which had been tentatively approved, would have
denied cities that have "sanctuary" policies for illegal immigrants
their share of state sales and income taxes.
Rep. Nancy Barto, R-Phoenix, said it's one thing to encourage local
police to enforce federal laws that make it a crime to be in this
country illegally. But she said this measure went a step too far.
"This bill . . . would penalize local law enforcement for not doing
what they cannot do anyway, which is handle a federal problem without
enough federal dollars to accomplish the task," she said...
--
www.border101.org
Laredo, TX: for the man face down in the mud
Yesterday I saw the body of a dead man on the Rio Grande.
I was with a college group that was collecting water samples. Upstream, some six or seven children started shouting at us, "hay un mojado", "hay un mojado"--"there's a crosser", "there's a wet". Our group didn't know what to make of this at first. Were the kids really saying what we thought they were saying? Did they mean what we thought they meant?
I started walking towards the kids, alone, as they began coming our way. When we met, all suspicions were confirmed. While fishing, they had found an "hombre muerto"--a "dead man".
I walked up the river with them. We strode down the shore, chattering, crawled under a barb wire fence and criss-crossed from island to island. The walk seemed so deliberate.
We arrived at body, and we stopped. Just stopped. The kind of stop that you see in the movies, when the protagonists walk into the room with the corpse and they don't know what to do until, of course, they whisper about and try to understand what had happened. They take slow looks around and even slower steps forward. They return to normal time.
The body was red and black, burnt by the sun and charred with decay. The man's hands--surely he was a man at one point--were taut and sinewy. You could see his bones through thin layers of muscle. His torso was bloated, raw and yellowish by the waistline. A whole in his back, along his spine and directly between his shoulder blades, was bubbling like some festering geizer. The man's body was giving one last and long exhale.
I called 9-1-1. I took pictures. The children walked away, perched on a island far away.
I looked at the body, face down and unmoving. Get up, I couldn't help thinking. Why wouldn't he get up? Get up.
He didn't.
The college students arrived and milled about, some close and some far, but all within eyeshot. Would he get up for them?
He didn't.
******
There are two stories to this man's death. The first is the one you might expect. He drowned.
According to official counts by the Border Patrol, four-hundred and seventy-two people died trying to cross the Rio Grande/ Rio Bravo into the United States last year, forty-nine in Laredo. Unofficial counts put the first number much higher--around eight-hundred. Oft-referred to "mojados" cross for many reasons: some haul drugs, more reunite with family and most seek jobs. The river can be unforgiving in these ventures. It swells with irrigation water, whorls in unseen whirlpools and charges with undercurrents. Most know its dangers, but few expect to confront them.
Face-down in the mud, this man had no other choice.
The second story: he was murdered.
Next to the man was a shopping cart, upturned and sinking into the earth along with its ill-fated partner. Had one wanted to kill the man and discard of the body in the river, a shopping cart might have been a sufficient, however unlikely, vehicle to navigate the maze of undergrowth in the hills above. The final heave of the cart might have left the man prone, sprawled and perpendicular to the shoreline.
This year, an average of two homicides are committed in Nuevo Laredo every three days. Chalk up the murders to drug-related violence. Some violence has spilled over into its American sister, Laredo, but at a number that pales in comparison: twenty-one.
The death wasn't reported in the news today. Bodies in the river don't usually make the five o'clock.
Chances are, the man died while trying to cross the river. Homicides are a relatively rare occurrence in Laredo, the body lacked visible signs of trauma, the cart would have been difficult if not impossible to squeeze through thick scrub, and the river was strong enough to carry both cart and body miles from upstream. Ahkam's razor cuts to drowning.
Chances are, I'll never know for sure.
*****
As I walked back downstream, past the bras and panties, shorts, candy wrappers and plastic bags of the successful, I spoke with a director of the college program. A regular of the water sampling trips, this was his third run-in with would-have-been crossers. The second was a skeleton, bleached by the sun and adorned with a burial shroud of swimming trunks. The first was a body, much like the one we just saw.
"You know what the weird thing is, Ryan?", he asked. "We talk about the wages in Mexico, as far as NAFTA and all that.. I'll tell you my personal opinion. Even if they raise wages some, some of the companies are moving because they still can compete. They still have to move to other parts of the world, where labor's even cheaper. And they're not paying much here, y'know?"
He stopped and turned around, facing me. "It all comes back to the consumer," he said.
"How much are you willing to pay?"
*****
While the college group finished collecting samples, I sat and wrote, trying to collect my thoughts.
Hundreds of migrants must have passed through that spot--an enclave of desert thicket, discarded clothing and trash bags, trash bags and more trash bags. Trash bags were everywhere: at my feet, among the empty bags of Ramen and potatoe chips; at my side, wrapped around the trunk of a tree; and overhead among dense, interlocking branches, dangling like cheap party decorations and dancing like phantoms.
I looked at one bag, white and calling for peace. I looked at another, black and signaling death.
There was no peace with this death, I thought. This death was no peace.
I scribbled haltingly, imagining forty-nine bodies stacked one by one by one, placed next to each other in one long string of compounded, irreconcilable failure. I thought of migrants back home--two hundred and eighty two of them--emptied, withered and wasted, leaning against saguaros and swimming through sandy deserts. I thought of the man upstream, and after a while I didn't think any more.
I looked to my right and saw the river. It seemed so peaceful. Peaceful, comforting and inviting.
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Fwd: FNS News: Media Black Out Immigrant Protests
A note on national media coverage of pro-immigrant actions and
protests. I read about some of these marches almost in passing, in
blurbs. I had no idea that the turnouts--especially in Chicago--ere
so huge.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: fnsnews@nmsu.edu
Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 19:55:09 -0700
Subject: FNS News: Media Black Out Immigrant Protests
To: fns_nmsu-l@nmsu.edu
March 15, 2006
Immigration News
US Media Black Out Immigrant Protests
If you relied on the US media, you might not have noticed
the massive pro-immigrant protests held in US cities in
recent days. A survey of several leading US border and
national media outlets revealed scant or non-existent
coverage of protests against the Sensenbrenner immigration
bill, HR 4437, convened in Chicago, Washington, D.C., and
Tampa by Latinos Unidos, the Illinois Coalition for
Immigrant and Refugee Rights, Sin Fronteras, and scores of
other organizations.
The dearth of coverage is striking considering the ample
doses of recent media attention on the Minutemen,
immigration legislation and the growth of the undocumented
workforce in the United States. Not surprisingly, the US
exception was the Spanish-language television giant
Univision which featured prominent stories about the
protests on its nightly newscast. A program on a Univision-
affiliated radio station in Chicago is credited for helping
promote that city's action.
To sum up: An estimated 20,000 people rallied in Washington
D.C. on Tuesday, March 7, against the provisions of the
Sensenbrenner immigration bill passed by the US House of
Representatives last December. On Friday, March 10, from
75,000 to 150,000 demonstrators-or more- held a massive
protest in the heart of Chicago against Sensenbrenner.
Local media called it the largest demonstration in the
Midwestern City since an anti-Iraq war protest in 2003.
Taking on the characteristics of a strike, businesses were
shut down and traffic was snarled for hours. Bus loads of
demonstrators arrived from surrounding communities in
Wisconsin and Indiana to participate in a march addressed
by Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, Chicago Mayor Richard
Daly and US Representative Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.), among
many others. "You are not criminals!" said Gov. Blagojevich
in his speech. "You are workers who love your families!"
Protestor Abigail Marquez, an immigrant from Guadalajara,
Mexico, said she was satisfied at the community response to
the convocation. "I feel happy, because this shows we are
united," Marquez said. Although US and Mexican flags were
prominent in the crowd, people from other nations joined in
the protest. Contingents from the Caribbean, Central
America, Ecuador, Colombia, Poland, Ireland, and China were
especially noted. Other forces supporting the demonstration
included labor unions, evangelical churches, the Puerto
Rican Cultural Center, and the Nation of Islam.
Besides the Washington and Chicago protests, a smaller
demonstration against the Sensenbrenner bill, but still
drawing hundreds of people, was conducted in Tampa,
Florida, on Saturday, March 11. Despite the large turn-
outs, many US English-language media outlets in the border
region initially ignored the protests. The Internet news
sites of the Laredo Morning Times, El Paso Times, Las
Cruces Sun-News and Albuquerque Tribune did not carry any
stories about the burgeoning pro-immigrant movement in the
two days following the Washington rally. Nor did the print
edition of the Albuquerque Journal, New Mexico's largest
circulation daily. The publications are located in cities
with huge Mexican immigrant populations.
Tucson's Arizona Daily Star and the San Diego Union-Tribune
ran small stories from the Reuters and Associated Press
news services, respectively. Written by Karen Hawkins, the
Associated Press piece included quotes from the director of
the Illinois Minuteman Project , Rosanna Pulido, who
participated in a press conference and tiny counter-
demonstration in Chicago. Pulido said she didn't want to
Chicago become a "sanctuary city," adding that 14 million
underemployed US citizens could assume the jobs currently
done by immigrants. Another Minuteman Project member,
Carmen Mercer, was quoted by the EFE news service as saying
that 9-11 made it imperative to oppose undocumented
immigration.
Although the movement kicking off last week's protests has
obvious national implications, as well as local ones in
communities across the US, the importance was missed by the
US border media outlets surveyed. The significance of the
movement wasn't lost on the Chicago Sun-Times, however,
which ran a follow-up story to last Friday's massive
march. "We've been taught a lesson by Chicago," said Martha
Ugarte, an activist in Los Angeles, California, with the
pro-immigrant movement. Ugarte said the Chicago rally was
the talk of the town in Los Angeles, where organizers are
gearing up for a similar action later this month.
According to Univision, anti-undocumented worker laws in
Arizona are also inspiring the movement. Back in the Windy
City, the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee
Rights plans an event next weekend to help newly-
naturalized citizens register to vote. On the other hand,
members of the Illinois Minuteman Project and 9/11 Families
for a Secure America blasted the pro-immigrant
mobilization. Rosanna Pulido said US citizens are fed up
with the illegal immigrant population. The Minuteman
Project leader hoped that the "the outrage of the people of
Illinois is heard through voting."
For their part, Mexican border and national press outlets
gave high profile treatment to the immigrant
demonstrations. Accompanied by an article drawn from
different news wires, Mexico City's La Jornada daily
displayed a big photo of the Chicago protest on the home
page of its website, as did El Sur of Acapulco, Guerrero.
The newspaper is widely distributed in state that
contributes large numbers of migrants to the Latino
population of Chicago. El Universal, El Diario de Juarez
and enlineadirecta, an Internet news site based in
Tamaulipas state, all featured stories written by the EFE,
Notimex and the Spanish-language AP news services.
Additional sources: Univision, March 7, 10, 11, 14, 2006.
Univision.com, March 10, 2006. Article by Fabian Santillan.
El Universal, March 11, 2006. La Jornada, March 11, 2006.
El Sur, March 11, 2006. enlineadirecta.info, March 11,
2006. El Diario de Juarez, March 11, 2006. Arizona Daily
Star March 11, 2006. San Diego Union-Tribune, March 11,
2006. Chicago Sun-Times, March 11 and 12, 2006. Articles by
Dave Newbart, Monifa Thomas, Oscar Avila, Antonio Olivo,
and Rick Pearson. HoyInternet.com, March 10, 2006. Article
by Leticia Espinosa.
Frontera NorteSur (FNS): on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news
Center for Latin American and Border Studies
New Mexico State University
Las Cruces, New Mexico
For a free electronic subscription email fnsnews@nmsu.edu
--
www.border101.org
Fwd: laredo--violence and renewal article
A look into Laredo, Nuevo Laredo and the oft-asked question of violence.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: ryan riedel <ryan.riedel@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 18:32:09 -0600
Subject: laredo--violence and renewal article
To: ryan.riedel@gmail.com
Posted on Tue, Mar. 14, 2006
As violence grips neighbor, Laredo revels in renewal BY DAVID MCLEMORE The
Dallas Morning News
*LAREDO, Texas - *This border city and its neighbor just across the Rio
Grande in Mexico have long been dependent on each other - bound by language,
culture and geography for 250 years.
But the almost daily outburst of drug-fueled violence in Nuevo Laredo has
begun to change that relationship.
Laredo's economy is booming. Unemployment is at historic lows. Businesses
are opening in record numbers and the housing market is rapidly expanding.
At the same time, pedestrian traffic is down in both directions, and many of
those new businesses and new residents pouring into Laredo are coming from
Nuevo Laredo, seeking the safety and sanity of the U.S. side.
Reluctantly, Laredo accepts that the good news comes at the expense of its
neighbor, confident that the violence stops at the river. This U.S. city
works to keep itself from being identified with the violence across the
river. Last month, the city launched a $100,000 public relations campaign to
boast its good news to potential visitors from all over the state.
"It's very frustrating what's happening in Nuevo Laredo. We are connected -
without the one, the other doesn't survive," said Laredo Mayor Betty Flores.
"But ... we have to keep reminding the rest of the nation that we are in the
United States and that the violence is in Mexico. This is a very safe city."
So it seems.
With a population of about 250,000, Laredo reported 21 homicides in 2005,
compared with more than 170 in the same period in Nuevo Laredo, a city more
than twice its size. Eleven police officers were shot down in Nuevo Laredo
last year, including the daylight assassination of the new chief of police.
A Laredo officer hasn't died in the line of duty since 1984.
But some Laredo leaders see evidence that Mexico's drug battles have already
spilled across the border. You just have to look at the signs, said Webb
County Sheriff Rick Flores.
"We've had our deputies fired on, and we've had instances of home invasions
where the suspects used AK-47s and hand grenades, a technique used in Nuevo
Laredo," said Flores, who recently equipped his deputies with body armor and
automatic rifles.
"In January, Laredo police raided two homes where they found more than 30
homemade bombs. It's the same people, the same weapons and the same methods
as in Nuevo Laredo. And it's happening on our side."
The sheriff points to other troubling signs. There's the double-homicide in
Laredo last summer that has been linked to members of the Zetas, a gang of
former Mexican army soldiers who now work for the drug cartels. There are
the more than 40 people from Laredo who have been kidnapped in Nuevo Laredo.
Recently, the sheriff said, his department learned that the two Mexican drug
trafficking organizations engaged in Nuevo Laredo's turf war have hired
members of Texas prison gangs, the Texas Mexican Mafia and Los Hermanos
Pistoleros Latinos, as hit men and enforcers for work on the U.S. side.
"They are known as Zetillas - little Zetas," he said. The Zetillas are 18-
to 20-year-olds out to make a name for themselves by performing hits and
related chores under Zeta direction, according to a report that the Webb
County sheriff provided Congress during a recent hearing in Washington.
On Jan. 3 in El Cenizo, about 25 miles south, deputies encountered a group
of men loading duffel bags in a van on the U.S. side. As the van drove back
across the river, the men on the Mexican side pulled AK-47s on the deputies
and taunted them in English to fight.
"They are testing us, pushing at us all the time to see what we'll do," the
sheriff said. "No one wants to talk about the situation we're in, and I know
it's bad for business. But we can't hide our heads."
Sheriff Flores' comments are not always well-received by other Laredo
leaders.
Mayor Flores, no relation to the sheriff, said she doesn't "turn a blind eye
to the crime."
"But I'm not going to react hysterically," she added. "I detest the fact
that people come here to see the border violence. It's been sensationalized
by the media. Events that on their own are horrible are blown out of
proportion, and it has paralyzed Nuevo Laredo's tourism."
The mayor stressed that she still frequently goes to Nuevo Laredo.
"I'm not afraid to go there because I don't go to the places where trouble
breaks out," she said. "Most areas of the city are where people feel safe
and their kids can play in their yards. There are two Nuevo Laredos, and
only one is being reported."
The mayor repeats a line she delivered during an interview on the Lou Dobbs
television show on CNN: Good people aren't being kidnapped.
"I've taken heat for that," she said, "but I said it because it's true and
because I didn't want people to be afraid to come down to the border."
Nuevo Laredo's problems have not slowed the volume of international trade
that has made Laredo the biggest inland port in the United States - and one
of the nation's busiest trade centers.
More than 10,000 commercial trucks and 2,000 rail cars pass through this
city each day. Nearly $94 billion in goods was shipped via Laredo last year.
In the last five years, 78 new companies moved to Laredo, adding 13,653
jobs, ranking the city No. 1 in growth in Texas by the Milken Institute.
A number of Nuevo Laredo businesses, including the venerable El Rancho
Restaurant, have opted to move to Laredo and its perception of safety.
Meanwhile, tourism in Nuevo Laredo has essentially melted away. Shops in the
popular tourist section along Guerrero Street have reported that business
has fallen by 80 to 90 percent.
"We've trended well for the past decade, and we show no signs of slowing
down because of the violence in Nuevo Laredo," said Guillermo "Memo"
Trevino, chairman of the Laredo Chamber of Commerce. "But we can't sugarcoat
what's going on across the river. In Nuevo Laredo, the violence has had a
terrible impact on their lives. Sadly, that has benefited us."
There has been another effect, Trevino said. In Laredo, going across the
river was like going across the street in other U.S. cities. You went over
to visit friends and relax.
"Now, we're aware of the violence. It hasn't stopped us from going across.
But now ... you watch over your shoulder a little more than before," he
said. "Before, day or night, you wouldn't be worried. Now, you're just more
careful."
The violence in Nuevo Laredo has raised the fear factor. Southbound
pedestrian traffic across Laredo's international bridges fell by nearly
162,000 in 2005 and northbound traffic dropped by nearly a million.
"The publicity over the explosion of violence in Nuevo Laredo has had an
effect," said Patricia Taylor, executive director of the Laredo Convention
and Visitors Bureau. "The group tour market - those who come to Laredo for
shopping and tourism in Mexico - has essentially dried up. It's not the
largest sector of our visitor market, but it has had an impact on some
Laredo hotels."
State tourism data show that hotel occupancy in Laredo remains a healthy 70
percent.
"We have consciously decided to develop new tourism markets - for example,
focusing on the Hispanic market, something we haven't done before," Taylor
said. "Nuevo Laredo is devastated. Much of its business is hurting, while
we're experiencing a healthy renewal."
One of the first questions visitors ask, Taylor said, is how safe it is
across the river. She answers with commonsense advice on where to go and
when, she says. But concern for violence is always in the back of the
conversation.
"There's no way we can separate the two sides - if Nuevo Laredo hurts, we
hurt," she said. "We know what unites us and what divides us but we now have
a chance to show what Laredo really is. On the border, life is always about
making adjustments."
But Taylor, like Mayor Flores and virtually anyone you talk to in Laredo,
stresses that Laredo will not abandon Nuevo Laredo to its fate.
"We really are two cities with one heart," she said. "The violence will one
day go away. But we will still be standing with Nuevo Laredo."
The linkage between the cities is perhaps best symbolized by the $24 million
El Portal project. Roughly half finished, it will create a revitalized
crossing point adjacent to Bridge No. 1, the oldest crossing point in
Laredo.
The complex is conceived as a new pedestrian crossing point consisting of
retail shops, fountains and sun-drenched plazas that feed into the bridge
and a covered walkway into Mexico. El Portal will also use smart-card
technology, much like that used in the New York subway system, to speed the
cross-border traffic for both nations.
"This is not only a catalyst to revitalize downtown, but it brings the river
into focus as a connection to Nuevo Laredo, not a barrier," said Laredo
Assistant City Manager Rafael Garcia. "For generations, we've taken it for
granted. Now, we've brought the river crossing back into our lives and it
will be beautiful."
Discussions of Laredo's future are often clouded by the drug battles just
across the river. But opposing camps agree on one thing: The U.S. government
must step up efforts to improve border security.
"Is Laredo safe? Yes. But we can't ignore that the violence is here and it's
here now," Sheriff Flores said. "We work hard to keep it down, but we can't
do it alone."
Flores recently joined other members of the Border Sheriffs Coalition to
testify before a congressional hearing in Washington in an appeal for
increased federal spending for border security.
The coalition has already received about $9 million from Texas Gov. Rick
Perry as part of a border initiative. About a third was spent to improve
radio communications among the 16 Texas border counties. The remainder was
divided evenly among the member sheriffs. Flores used his $370,000 to outfit
his deputies with body armor and automatic rifles.
Trevino of the Chamber of Commerce stresses that a balanced approach between
economic development and public safety will benefit both cities.
"If there is a positive spin, it will bring more awareness about Mexico's
importance to the United States. It will, I hope, let us find ways to help
Mexico deal with its problems," he said. "If a neighbor's house is burning,
it's in your best interest to help them put out the fire."
--
www.border101.org
Saturday, March 11, 2006
After three months back home, I finally made my way back to Laredo. 'Course the mode of transportation wasn't by bicycle. I had left ol' bikey in a heap of spokes and gears, rotting in a friend's office. What a good friend to put up with such a stench.
At any rate, I took only the finest transportation back to Texas: Greyhound. Twenty-two hours of fun. To sum up my thoughts on the matter, I wrote the following in my notes: "Greyhound buses aren't made for adults. If anything, they're made of packrats with short attention spans." Now, I would add "and no legs".
As a basis for comparison, you should view this clip A with the subsequent (next) clip B.
If there's a step below economy class, is it just called "bike"?
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