The Long March from Cinco de Mayo to Cinco de Pentagon

Those of us old enough to remember might recall those halcyon days when celebrating Cinco de Mayo meant many things: closing off a street in what was then known as a “barrio”, listening to sometimes inspired and sometimes less-than-inspired music of long-sideburned Santana wannabees from the local garage bands and eating food infused with the love of the local. And we sort of listened to the bandana’d radical Chicana organizer urging us to become part of the global liberation struggle commemorated on May 5th, when badly-equipped, but inspired Mexican guerrillas defeated the forces of Napoleon III’s French Empire in the 19th century.

Others may recall how, in the 80’s and 90’s, the long lost Decades of the “Hispanic”, many turned local street fairs across the Southwest into the larger, corporate-sponsored, alcohol-drenched festivals whose ghost we can still see today. The proud proclamations of culture and political struggle previously embodied by “Viva el Cinco de Mayo” gave way to the “Hispanic pride” contained in slogans like Budweiser’s “Viva la ReBudlucion!” or Absolut Vodka’s more recent racist -and ultimately failed-attempt to cash in on culture with its ad equating drinking vodka with a fictitious Mexican desire to re-conquer (the dreaded specter of “reconquista” promoted by anti-Latino groups and some media outlets) the Southwest.

Looking back on those days now, it’s clear how Latino children and adults going to Cinco de Mayo celebrations became a “mission critical market” in the clash of corporate empires that define a major part of our lives today. But, as a visit to most of the recent Cinco de Mayo and other Latino-themed celebrations makes clear, Latino events now move to the beat of a new power, that of the U.S. Pentagon.

No longer the small, intimate and largely unknown celebration it was in the 70’s, Cinco de Mayo is now celebrated from San Diego, California to Sunset Park, Brooklyn and beyond. And among the major powers present at such events are the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines. Ubiquitous at the hundreds of Cinco de Mayo street fairs in towns and cities throughout the country are military recruiters armed with trinkets, video games, loud music and hyper-hip Hummers that draw even more children and families than the colorful (and urine-smelling) playpens McDonald’s still deploys in its Latino outreach efforts.

As African American youth and females of all races continue to reject military recruiters in record numbers, the Pentagon finds itself with no choice but to invest hundreds of millions to capture the hearts and minds of young Latinos. Our children have become “mission critical” to the future of the empire itself. And, so, the U.S. military -and its high powered Hispanic advertising and publicity firms- has brought us a new Latino celebration, the Cinco de Pentagon.

But rather than fight these nefarious designs on our kids (ie; Until recently Chuck E. Cheese included military-themed puppet shows and television shows broadcast in its restaurants) with nostalgia, we should begin by cleaning house within our communities. First on my list would be a call on local and national organizations like LULAC and the National Council of La Raza to stop promoting the military in exchange for Pentagon sponsorship dollars for their events. The recent Pentagon propaganda scandal should not shock anyone who consumes Latino media; Many Latino media outlets are chock full of paid advertising propaganda and they should to stop taking advertising from the various branches of the Armed Forces that’ve turned them into mouthpieces for military recruitment. And, of course, we should approach local organizers of Cinco de Mayo and other events about boycotting the efforts of those who lie to our kids in order to get them to go fight losing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We need to remind them of the powerful anti-militarism traditions rooted deeply in the Chicano, Puerto Rican and other communities.

I live in New York, which is also called “Puebla York” because of the huge number of Mexicans from Puebla that live there. It’s painful to see how Cinco de Mayo has gone from celebrating the liberation politics and heroism of Puebla to celebrating the recruitment of the descendants of Zaragoza and other Poblanos by the very center of U.S. efforts to destroy global liberation, the Pentagon.

But, all is not lost. Latinos and others across the country have ramped up their efforts to stop the recruitment of Latino youth. Efforts like those in Puerto Rico, counter recruiters have fanned out to all 200 high schools to deliver their anti-militarism message to thousands of students. So, whatever your race, background or creed, if you’re opposed to the war in Iraq and to militarism generally, you might consider stopping recruitment among those without whom the future projections of the military will not be realized: Latino youth. And a good place to start might be to stop celebrating the Cinco de Pentagon and replacing it with something resembling the CInco de Mayo celebrations of old.

Interview: Decoding Liberation - The Promise of Free & Open Software

In the first of many interviews to come to you from Of América, we bring you an interview with Samir Chopra and Scott Dexter, authors of Decoding Liberation (DL) - The Promise of Free and Open Software.

I decided to bring this interview to you not only because of our wish to do more interviews about stimulating subjects with cool and smart people (We do); I also think that, in a “civilization” in which most of our infrastructure, most of our productive lives and our very DNA are mediated or manipulated by software, many of the classical questions and issues covered by one of my favorite pursuits, politics - freedom, power, citizenship, labor, production - must include a discussion of the liberatory potential in and of software.

Though interested in these critical, but heady topics, I am not the best person to either introduce or elucidate on such topics. Fortunately, my friend, Samir, and his colleague, Scott, are. So, without further adieu, here’s the interview, which covers lots of good and interesting ground.

Enjoy!

Of América: What is open source? Free software?

SC, SD: Over the past few decades, it has become common for software companies to provide their software only as executable programs: all we users have to do — all we can do — is install the software and start using it. But what if we users have an urge to modify the way these programs work? Maybe we wish some annoying behavior would go away, or we fantasize about some really useful feature that’s just not there. Most of the time, this sort of wishful thinking can’t go beyond fantasy: we’re at the mercy of the software company, who decides when and whether they’re going to distribute an update or new version. And any eventual update may not, of course, tend to our needs.

The obstacle here is that the executable form of the programs we’re given doesn’t give us access to the information — the progam’s “source code” — that a programmer would need to change the program’s behavior. Most of us aren’t programmers ourselves, but we could certainly hire one to do some customization for us, if we had the source code. But source code is guarded by proprietary software vendors as a trade secret, because they believe that much of the value of the company resides there.

But there is an obvious alternative: to distribute software with its source code. This is the guiding principle of free and open source software (FOSS). This distribution creates all kinds of possibilities: for users to inspect the code of the software they use, modify it if they have the need, and even, perhaps, to send these modifications back to the originator to be folded into future versions of the software. So, the core distinction between FOSS and proprietary software is that FOSS makes available to its users the knowledge and innovation contributed by the creator(s) of the software, in the form of the software’s source code. So what makes the software “free” is not that it’s free of charge (though it generally is), but that we’re free to do all these things with it.

The terms free software and open source software are nearly synonymous terms for this particular approach to developing and distributing software. The difference lies in how this software is described and what kind of advocacy is carried out: “open source software” advocacy mostly relies on arguments about this kind of software’s technical superiority and efficiency of production; “free software” advocacy certainly acknowledges these factors but also uses ethical arguments about users’ freedoms and the impact of software on the life of a community or society.

Why did you write this?

We began to wonder whether the freedoms of software bled over into spheres of activity that are affected by software, so our guiding question became, “What is the emancipatory potential of free software, and how is it manifested?” Freedom is a multifaceted concept subject to diverse interpretations across many contexts; our book is an attempt to bring out what specific moral goods free software might provide in several important areas. We wanted to understand what free software’s liberatory potential is and how we might go about realizing it: we thought we saw, behind the software freedoms, glimmers of some important messages about how we could work as a community, how knowledge could be shared, and what a highly technologized world could look like. This book is partly an expression of a utopian hope that these can be realized.

What does this stuff have to do with politics?

Technology has always had everything to do with politics! Technological artifacts of the past consisted only of hardware: engines, motors, pumps, levers, switches, gears. To control the hardware was to control the technology. Hardware is expensive to acquire and maintain, so technology was invariably controlled by large economic entities—states, then corporations. Concerns about social control invariably addressed control of technology; Marx’s concerns about the control of the means of production were focused on the hardware that both crystallized and generated capitalist power. The 20th century brought a new form of technology, the computer, in which hardware and control are explicitly separated. With the advent of the computer, the means of production no longer inhere solely in hardware; control is transferable, distributable, plastic, and reproducible, all with minimal cost. Control of technology may be democratized, its advantages spread more broadly than ever before. The reactionary response to this promise is an attempt to embrace and coopt this control to advance entrenched social, economic, and political power. It is this reaction that free software resists. Most fundamentally, free software is a vehicle for moral discourse and political change in the still-new realm of digital technology.

Why talk about liberation? What does software have to do with freedom? What does freedom have to do with software?

The ‘free’ in free software has been famously explained by Richard Stallman of the Free Software Foundation as, “Think free speech, not free beer.” That is, software is a mode of expression; the protection of that freedom of expression is even more valuable than getting software “for free.” More specifically, the seminal Free Software Definition explicitly identifies four freedoms that are fundamental to users and developers alike: the freedom to run software for any purpose, the freedom to study and adapt a program to your needs, the freedom to redistribute copies of software, and the freedom to share your improvements to the software with the public.

In our work, we take free software to be a liberatory enterprise in several dimensions; we’re interested in the impact of the software freedoms, which seem quite technical on a first reading, on political, artistic, and scientific freedoms. The title of our book is suggestive of this impact: in a world that is increasingly encoded, our free software carries much potential for liberation. Granted, claims about technology and freedom are nothing new; much of the early hype about the Internet was rhetoric of this kind. But what is important about the recurrence of such hyperbolic enthusiasm is that it is clearly articulated evidence of a broad social desire for technology to live up to its potential as a liberatory force.

How deeply is software embedded into our lives? Does software control us or do we control software?

In a heavily technologized, computerized world—which we are slowly moving toward–the personal and social freedoms we will enjoy will be exactly those granted or restricted by software. Eben Moglen, Professor of Law at Columbia Law School perhaps puts it best:

“In the twenty-first century, power is the ability to change the behavior of computers. If you can’t change the behavior of computers, you live within a Skinner box created by the people who can change the behavior of computers. Every artifact around you responds by either handing you a banana pellet or a shock, depending upon which button you push and whether you are “right,” from the designer’s point of view.”

The question then becomes, “How closely does the designer’s point of view match mine?” And what recourse do we have if it’s not a good match? Free software offers us a qualitatively different measure of control over our machines.

Is this another book about how evil the King of Proprietary Software, Bill Gates, is?

No, it’s not. It is hard, though, to write a book about modern software without discussing the impact of the 800-pound gorilla that is Microsoft. The free software community is directly impacted by some of Microsoft’s action, like it’s omnipresent threat to launch patent infringements suits against free software projects. On the other hand, Microsoft has clearly acknowledged the impact of free software, as they have an active development lab dedicated to improving interoperability between free software and Microsoft’s products.

And, in fact, when we want to make a point about the value of the collaboration that free software allows programmers, we quote Bill Gates, from a 1989 interview: “[T]he best way to prepare [to be a programmer] is to write programs, and to study great programs that other people have written. . . . You’ve got to be willing to read other people’s code, then write your own, then have other people review your code. You’ve got to want to be in this incredible feedback loop where you get the worldclass people to tell you what you are doing wrong . . .”

How do I impact any of this if I’m not a programmer?

Even non-programmer users, just by using free software, can make a real difference by asking for new features, pointing out problems, and making copies of the software to share with their friends. The free software community is incredibly good at taking advantage of these seemingly small contributions; developers are very eager to hear from people who are using their work and want to see it thrive. Even a small handful of demanding users can dramatically improve the quality of the free software they use. On a political and social scale, citizens can demand that governmental entities or their employers make the technology they use transparent by using free software (for instance, voters could demand, as, indeed, they already have, that voting machines only run free software).

How can community organizations, political groups take advantage of this?

Free software is intricately involved with a number of social goods that are increasingly under attack, ranging from consumer choice and the struggle against monopolies, to the distribution of creative and intellectual works, to the preservation of the creative and liberatory potential of the Internet, and the human right to communication. We hope our book will make these connections clear, and inspire thought about what sorts of political strategies will work best to preserve these goods. Another of our goals is to make the case to activists from a variety of struggles that tech activism, whether around free software, or privacy, or net neutrality, is an important factor in any fight — effecting change in the technological sphere has more and more to do with change in the “real world.”

Thanks, Samir & Scott.

The Rotten Tomatoes of Immigration Politics: Major Penn. Farm Shuts Down

This story in today’s Philadelphia Enquirer tells the sad, but revealing tale of one Keith Eckel, the soon-to-be former head of the largest tomato producing operation north of the Mason-Dixon Line. After decades of being the most important tomato grower on the East Coast, Eckel announced yesterday that he will be closing down his farm because he can’t find the 180 workers he needs to keep his business competitive and operational. Though successfully ignoring the plight of the workers, the story does say a lot about what many of us predicted would come about as a result of the repression unleashed on migrant workers.

“It’s a sad day,” said Eckel, who blames his woes on the lack of immigration reform. “We’re closing a part of our business that we really love.”

Eckel’s plight mirrors that of many farmers in the U.S., increasing numbers of whom find themselves living in a country where fewer and fewer natives want to work the land, a country in which gigantic agricultural and other corporate interests have hollowed out the economy and decimated the American Dream by exporting jobs. But rather than denounce, as Eckel did, the powerful interests responsible for the growers plight, many U.S. natives are drinking deadly doses of the nativist Kool Aid defining the new racial politics of the post-Mason-Dixon, post Southern Strategy moment. Minutemen, Republicans and growing numbers of Democrats and other politicos have made an industry of the politics of industrial decline.

Critical to any political strategy aspiring to reverse the anti-migrant hysteria is doing what Keith Eckel did: sling the rotten tomatoes of immigration politics at the right targets-politicos and the parasites of economic decline attached to them. Time to bust out our own radical Raid: truth backed by facts and political action like upcoming May 1rst (May Day) actions.

Hate Groups Funding Ads Pitting Latinos Against Blacks

This story from ABC 7 in Arlington, Virginia reports on the latest ad antics of the anti-immigrant set. Ads placed across the U.S. by a group calling itself the Coalition for the American Worker (CAW) are blaming black unemployment on Latino immigrants.

The problem with the article is that is fails to point out that the main group behind CAW is Numbers USA, a racist hate group headed by Roy Beck, who is also the spokesperson for CAW.

To further entangle matters, the spokesperson in the ads is Frank Morris, a former head of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, whose “facts” are wholly and absolutely fudged:

That ABC-7 should cover this so uncritically no longer surprises given the degree to which lies and myth have thoroughly saturated the political sphere and society in general.

But what this should move some of us to do is re-read people like Hannah Arendt, Jacques Ellul and others who’ve watched the especially rapid spread of such screed in times of crisis. Give their latest racial riffs, Hillary Clinton’s campaign seems to have caught on - but in the wrong way.

All the more reason to make three of my favorite words today’s anti-mentira mantra: Claridad, Claridad, Claridad.

Stronger Latin Currencies Signal Declining U.S. Hegemon(e)y

This article from Bloomberg talks about another indicator of the decline of U.S. power in the hemisphere: rising Latin currencies.

Good news for an América Latina preparing, like the rest of the world, for the noxious effects of the U.S. recession. Historically, the continent of América has contracted economic flu and typhoid when the U.S. economy gets a case of a recessionary cold. Stronger pesos, reales and other currencies mean that the countries of the hemisphere are better-able to deal with the trickle down effects of failed U.S. economic policy. According to the Bllomberg article,

“A slowdown in the U.S. will have an effect,” said Silvia Marengo, who manages $130 million of bonds at Clariden Bank in London. “What’s different now is that these countries find themselves in better financial positions. In the past, we would be talking about which Latin American country would be the next to default.”

Oddly enough, Latin America (yes) is home to three of the four best-performing currencies against the dollar this year among emerging markets.

So, buy pesos!

President Calderon’s Message of Unity Brings Together Minutemen and Mexican Opposition

This story in La Opinion is bizarre in a uniquely L.A. way.

It describes how, “for a moment” anti-immigrant Minutemen joined pro-immigrant Mexican opposition groups (as in opposed to Calderon and Minutemen they consider racist) to loudly protest the visit of Mexican President Felipe Calderon.

According to the story written (translated por mi) by La Opinion’s Isaías Alvarado,

“The Los Angeles visit of Mexican President Felipe Calderon has, paradoxically, united groups traditionally antagonistic to each other.
As if in unison, protesters marching in front of the Omni Hotel shouted slogans like “¡Sin maíz, no hay país!” (”Without corn, there
is no country”) slogan of the sympathizers of the Party of the Democratic Revolution and ” ¡Pre-si-den-t Cal-de-rón go fix
.Mé-xi-co!” slogan of members of the Minuteman project. There were no violent incidents, including between people who engaged in previous disputes.”

In light of this bilingually bi-national bizarre moment, let me say that I actually believe that, at some point (not yet), those of us defending immigrants ravaged by globalization must make at least some peace with those other victims of globalization, white racists. Yes, I do believe that we need to build a big, unprecedented tent that allows us all to burn down the bigger tent of the corporate interests that unite Calderon, Bush and most other heads of state. Of course, we have to find a way to delete the racism before that happens and that’s a lot of work.

Or are we supposed to support that other election-stealer, Calderon, because he’s Mexican?

Para Nada. Despite his flowery calls to defend Mexican and other immigrants, he, his devastating policies are what turns a Mexicana(o) into an “inmigrante”.

Beware of the nation-state and the false consciousness of nationalism.

Speech: National Security and the Birth of the Anti-Immigrant State or Immigrants and the Birth of the National Security State?

And now for something that deviates from but is directly related to the election mania gripping the country.

This speech given at the Brecht Forum captures well some recent thoughts about the relationship between immigrants and the national security state. Basic idea is that immigrants provide the state with another excuse to put more people with guns in our midst, especially in times of crisis.

The speech goes against the traditional logic around immigration, which tells us that raids, repressive laws, etc. are solely about elections or about controlling low wage undocumented workers needed for corporate and private profits.

While winning elections and keeping a surplus of low wage labor are a part of the immigration equation, these explanations hardly capture the cavernous motives beneath the current immigrant zeitgeist. Stuff in the speech also runs contrary to the rather tired argument that what’s happening around immigration is just about immigrants. It’s also about controlling people like many of you and me, citizens.

To vary on a theme that defined the Clinton era, “It’s the national security state, stupid.”

Lurking beneath the stale arguments of pro and anti-immigrant forces is a nation state, an elite that’s preparing for the social unrest due to the death of the American Dream (if it ever actually existed).

I shared a 2 minute clip of the speech previously, but this link features the speech in its entirety (14 minutes).Hope you like it. I actually think it’s one of the better talks I’ve given in some time. Please do email me or comment if you listen to this as these ideas are a work in progress and I value your thoughts and opinions about it.

And thanks to the Brecht Forum and the folks at Law and Disorder Radio for the opportunity to share these thoughts.

Obama-Clinton Battle, McCain’s N.H. Surge Greeted by Merrill Lynch With News that Recession “has arrived”

While the rest of the world was being put to sleep…ooooops….. I mean “mesmerized” by electoral developments in New Hampshire, David Rosenberg was busy writing the next President’s script. Rosenberg, the widely respected chief national economist at Merrill Lynch, is the author of a report announcing that a recession “has arrived”.

And though our worsening economic woes are hardly news to even the most brain dead among us , it should give greater urgency to whomever comes out of New Hampshire with an eye on the hot seat of empire this November. This is, in no small part, because they will likely have to take immediate, urgent measures to deal with the cloud of recession descending on the U.S. This BBC story highlights a report by financial giant Merrill Lynch, which states that a recession “has arrived”.

Instead of waiting for slothfully slow and arcane body known as the National Bureau of Economic Research to officialize this predictably bad economic news, Merrill fired off a warning that has global markets scurrying for cover.

Meanwhile, the rest of we humans remain vulnerable to the showers of acid economic rain: rising oil prices, the sub-prime mortgage crisis and a flaccid dollar (On the D train yesterday, I sat next to some shopping bag-bearing Brits I jealously watched as they gabbed about the jumbo jet-fulls of goods just purchased here in the new Tijuana of the Hudson, NYC).

After Iowa and New Hampshire, I’m pretty charisma’d hoped and change’d out and am instead staring at the tea leaves and tatters of Wall Street in search of what the future holds.

BBC
Recession in the US ‘has arrived’

The feared recession in the US economy has already arrived, according to a report from Merrill Lynch. It said that Friday’s employment report, which sent shares tumbling worldwide, confirmed that the US is in the first month of a recession.Its view is controversial, with banks such as Lehman Brothers disagreeing.

But a reserve member of the committee that sets US rates warned that it could do little about the below-trend growth expected in the next six months.

“I am concerned that developments on the inflation front will make the Fed’s policy decisions more difficult in 2008,” Charles Plosser, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia said.He was referring to the problems faced by the US Federal Reserve, which might want to cut interest rates to avoid a recession, but is worried about inflationary factors such as $100-a-barrel oil. ‘Significant decline’ An official ruling on whether the US is in recession is made by the National Bureau of Economic Research, but this decision may not come for two years.The NBER defines a recession as “a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months”.It bases its assessment on final figures on employment, personal income, industrial production and sales activity in the manufacturing and retail sectors.Merrill Lynch said that the figures showing the jobless rate hitting 5% in December were the final piece in that puzzle.”According to our analysis, this isn’t even a forecast any more but is a present day reality,” the report said. ‘Actual downturn’ But NBER president Martin Feldstein denied Merrill’s claims.”I think we’re not in a recession now,” he told CNBC.”But I think there is a serious risk that it could get worse and we could see an actual downturn,” he added.Merrill said that the current consensus view on Wall Street that there is a good chance of avoiding a recession is “in denial”.

It also objected to the use of euphemistic terms for the state of the economy.

“To say that the backdrop is ‘recession like’ is akin to an obstetrician telling a woman that she is ’sort of pregnant’,” the report said.

Housing figures

There were further signs of the housing slowdown that has sparked off the problems in the US economy in home sale figures.

Pending sales of existing homes fell 2.6%, according to the National Association of Realtors, which saw its pending sales index drop to 87.6 in November, 19.2% below the point it was at a year ago.

The figures were better than expected, however, because October’s index reading was revised upwards from 87.2 to 89.9.

Philanthropy Illustrates How Immigration Will Not Stop Without 2 Things: Latin Development & Latinos

This story from the San Francisco Chronicle illustrates nicely how communities in América Latina and the United States are and must be at the heart reducing migration from Latin America to the United States (if indeed that’s what corporations and consumers really want, that is). Though I don’t think the implicit analysis of immigration in the story runs much deeper than a dry creek near the border, I do appreciate the focus on the border-smashing work of Hispanics in Philanthropy (HIP), a group founded by Douglas Patino (a good and honored friend) and other, mostly Latino leaders from the growing universe of Latino philanthropy .

The story makes clear how, rather than adopt the tired and untrue (and largely ineffective) approach of traditional philanthropy, which limits itself to working within the confines of that deadly illusion known as “the border”, HIP adopts what wonks call a “transnational” approach to dealings within the hemisphere Of América.

HIP’s leader, Diana Campoamor, a Cubana immigrant of much consequence, has a choice quote in the story, one powered by her own personal and professional experience (as opposed to the political desperation mixed with a growing sense of decline that motivates politico and racist alike). The quote along with her example as a leader of Latino extraction makes the point solidly:

“People don’t leave their homes unless there’s a hardship, economic or political,” said Campoamor, the president of Hispanics in Philanthropy, who is herself a refugee from Cuba. “Everyone should have a choice. We want to help people have a job and a chance to stay where they are, and to have a voice in their communities and their countries.”

I really like this story because, too often, we forget the economic and material component of the migration equation and, instead, focus solely on the politics of immigration as if it were really defined by politicos, Lou Dobbs and aging (Minute)men in search of a new frontier, a less flaccid empire. Unless Obama (or whoever ends up inheriting the mantle of declining power) can reverse the decimation of the state undertaken by Reagan, his descendants and the corporations that support them, the solutions will have to come from the rest of us.

But before getting too gushy I should mention that, even with good work like that of HIP or the hometown associations (also mentioned in the story) that send billions to América Latina each year, migration to the U.S. will continue without 2 other essential things: stopping the addiction of U.S. corporation and consumers to imported cheap labor and dealing frontally, decisively with the failure of capitalism in the hemisphere. And Barack Obama will fix this in his first 100 days in the White House, right?

Economic aid to give Mexicans, Central Americans work at home

Tyche Hendricks, Chronicle Staff Writer
Sunday, January 6, 2008

From her office on the edge of San Francisco’s Financial District, Diana Campoamor was networking - meeting for drinks with a banker, compiling a briefing book for a foundation trustee, exchanging phone calls with colleagues in Mexico City.

She was putting all the pieces in place so her group, Hispanics in Philanthropy, could cut its first check this month for a three-year, $219,000 grant to expand a goat-cheese cooperative in Guanajuato, Mexico.

More goats, corrals, pasteurizing equipment and refrigerators should allow the operation to grow from one village to four, providing work for hundreds of peasant farmers who might otherwise join their siblings and cousins as illegal immigrants harvesting peaches, slaughtering chickens, driving nails and scrubbing dishes across the United States.

The group’s decision to fund economic development projects in Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America, after almost 25 years working in U.S. Latino communities, is part of a movement taking hold in Northern California to tackle the root causes of illegal immigration.

“People don’t leave their homes unless there’s a hardship, economic or political,” said Campoamor, the president of Hispanics in Philanthropy, who is herself a refugee from Cuba. “Everyone should have a choice. We want to help people have a job and a chance to stay where they are, and to have a voice in their communities and their countries.”

Immigration is again moving front and center on the U.S. political stage. On the presidential campaign trail, Republicans are vying to be the toughest on sealing the border and enforcing immigration law, while Democrats temper the bad-cop rhetoric with talk of guest worker programs and a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants already here.

But if there is to be a lasting solution to illegal immigration, experts say, it will involve changes not just on this side of the border but in Mexico and Central America, which together account for three fourths of the estimated 12 million undocumented people in the United States.

“As far as what I’ve read about what the candidates are saying, I don’t see much discussion. It’s cheap rhetoric,” said Luis Guarnizo, a professor in the school of agriculture at UC Davis. “Everybody’s looking for a quick fix, the right slogan. … But we have to look at the larger picture. This is not just a law-and-order issue, it involves economic issues, social issues. Migration is a global process.”

In Northern California, some grassroots development and immigrant groups are trying a different approach. They reason that if people in Latin America had a way to lift themselves and their communities out of poverty, they wouldn’t need to leave home, risk their lives crossing the border and live on the margins of U.S. society to earn a living and support their relatives back home.

The projects range from small to large, and involve a variety of players - major foundations, socially conscious consumers and migrant workers themselves - in diverse approaches to improving life in some of the communities that are sending undocumented immigrants north. They’re helping build lagging village infrastructure, incubating productive rural projects and giving farmers fair access to global markets.

Part of the solution

Luis Alberto Rivera is president of an association of Californians originally from his hometown, Coalcomán, in the central Mexican state of Michoacán. Seeing thousands of Coalcomanenses migrate to the United States, Rivera and his compatriots were determined to do something to help improve life back home.

“We decided to push the authorities to clean the rivers, because they’re polluted,” said Rivera, a U.S. citizen, from his home near Modesto. “The whole ecosystem, the ability of people to get food from the river is destroyed. People are migrating because their life is over when the rivers are polluted. But if we go back and restore them, I think that’s part of the solution.”

Rivera and members of his hometown association offered to fund a sewage treatment plant and talked the town government into installing a system of sewers to collect the wastewater. They’ve set a fundraising goal of $100,000 and have already held a couple of benefit dinners in the Central Valley.

And the group plans to apply for matching funds under the Three for One program, whereby the Mexican federal, state and local governments each pitch in a dollar for every dollar contributed to a project by Mexican migrants outside the country.

Recognizing the billions of dollars that expatriate Mexicans send home each year to their families, the Mexican authorities created the matching fund arrangement in 2002 to channel some of that money to public works. In 2006, more than 1,000 Mexican migrant groups contributed close to $20 million to community improvement projects in 845 rural and urban locations, according to Martha Esquivel of Mexico’s Department of Social Development.

Rivera hopes his efforts will encourage more migrants to get involved with their hometowns in Mexico and work to fix the problems that forced them to leave home in the first place.

But some observers criticize the matching-fund program, saying it’s the responsibility of the Mexican government to build clean water systems and to provide schools, ambulances and other infrastructure, not the duty of Mexicans who left home due to a lack of opportunity.

After years of being all but ignored by their government, however, “the Three for One begins to signal to remittance senders that they’re going to get some respect,” said Campoamor.

She is an advocate of building links between immigrants in the United States and their home countries, in the way that hometown associations do. But her organization has opted to channel its funds specifically into initiatives that create jobs in Latin American countries.

Creating jobs

In the village of Tamaula, in the state of Guanajuato, Mexico, Pedro Laguna hopes that expanding his five-family goat-farming cooperative with the grant from Hispanics in Philanthropy can help stanch the flow of young people to the United States.

“I have nine kids in the United States, three daughters and six sons, but I have very little communication with them,” said the 60-year-old father of 13 in a telephone interview. “I don’t want to lose my children. We want to invest in our community so we have work here where we live.”

An agronomist is advising the cooperative on getting the goats to produce milk year-round, instead of seasonally. With more milk, the farmers can make more cheese and the sweet, caramelized dulce de leche known as cajeta, both of which sell well in Irapuato, the nearest city.

Laguna plans to pass on his cheese-making expertise to a group of women in another village who were left behind by husbands who migrated north, and to a youth group, the children of immigrants. Most urgently, he is working to persuade his 16-year-old daughter, his youngest child, to stay on the farm.

“At first she wanted to follow her brothers and sisters north, but I’ve been trying to convince her that going to the United States is not easy, and returning is less so,” he said. “Little by little, she’s thinking more about staying in school and training to make cheese. And she’s realizing that she can sell her little goats to earn some money. When there are animals at home, there’s work. And when there’s work, there’s money.”

Hispanics in Philanthropy plans to make three-year grants to half a dozen more projects in Mexico this spring and to begin similar efforts in Nicaragua and Guatemala. The group is already working in the Dominican Republic and Argentina.

Fair Trade

On a larger scale, and with a somewhat different approach, Oakland-based TransFair USA is promoting fair trade coffee, tea, chocolate, bananas, rice and other agricultural products from Mexico and many other developing countries.

“Our goal is to give people the tools and the market access to lift themselves out of poverty. When you do that, people don’t want to leave home,” said TransFair founder and president Paul Rice.

Rice, who lived for 11 years in Nicaragua and is married to a Nicaraguan, said he has seen up close in his own family the intense pressures that push people to leave home and seek their fortunes in el norte.

In the early 1990s, after years of working on traditional development projects, Rice realized farmers needed not only access to capital and technical assistance, but better access to markets in order to flourish.

He helped a group of peasant coffee farmers sell their beans in Europe, where a fledgling fair trade market was taking hold, allowing small producers to earn a premium price by eliminating the middleman. Soon Rice was promoting the idea in the United States to businesses like Starbucks and Wal-Mart, eager to burnish their image as responsible corporations. His group is still the only fair trade certifying body in this country.

“Globalization has led to more trade and economic growth,” he said. “But growth for whom? The benefits are not trickling down to the poor. Fair trade tries to make free trade work for the poor. … It’s not free trade if you depend on the guy who drives up in his pickup and says, ‘The price is 10 cents a pound, take it or leave it.’ “

Today, the coffee cooperative Rice started can guarantee $1.51 a pound to its 2,300 member families and still has money left over to invest in community projects.

“In Nicaragua, migration has been growing steadily over the past decade because of the lack of jobs,” said Merling Preza, the cooperative’s manager, speaking from the northern town of Estelí. “It’s leading to family disintegration and a loss of values, and that means more social instability. But the small farmers who have organized into cooperatives and sell on the fair trade market don’t need to leave their communities to survive.”

All these efforts to create economic stability in Mexico and Central America are laudable, say observers, but by themselves they can only help a small fraction of the population. Wealth and complexity in a nation’s economy are created by manufacturing goods, not selling raw materials, and above all, by investing in the country’s human capital, said Guarnizo, the UC Davis professor.

“It’s a political decision,” he said. “Think of the case of India with high tech. How did they do it? Was it because Indians are very clever? No. It’s because the state made a decision to put money into education. It took over 40 years, but they have that now.”

But Mexico, where the economy does not currently create enough jobs for the population, has come to rely on the remittances sent home by migrant workers, said another immigration analyst, Jeff Faux, the director of the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C.

“The deal works for the elites on both sides of the border. The U.S. business community gets cheap labor and suppresses wages, and the Mexican elite gets rid of people who are discontented and restless,” he said. “But you can’t develop a country by exporting your most ambitious people.”

Faux has proposed that the United States give Mexico a push to develop its economy through investing in its own people. In an article in this month’s American Prospect magazine, Faux suggests that the United States offer to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement to promote economic growth and a more equal distribution of wealth in Mexico. That, he said, could produce a real solution to illegal immigration.

In the meantime, groups in the Bay Area and beyond are determined to keep chipping away at the poverty that causes people to migrate. Building economic sustainability in Mexico and its poorer neighbors, they say, will do a lot more to prevent illegal immigration than putting up border fences or even offering guest worker visas.

In Tamaula, Pedro Laguna has built new roofs on his goat pens and when spring comes he’ll be buying more animals. He hopes not only to keep his teenage daughter around, but to encourage some of his other children to return.

“I have one daughter in Georgia who hasn’t worked for a year. She’s going to come home and I’ll have a job for her,” he said. “I hope that in not too long, I’ll be able to offer work to all of them.”

Resources

Hispanics in Philanthropy:

www.hiponline.org, (415) 837-0427

TransFair USA:

www.transfairusa.org, (510) 663-5260

Three for One Program:

www.ime.gob.mx, (213) 487-6577

Hispanics in Philanthropy: www.hiponline.org, (415) 837-0427TransFair USA, www.transfairusa.org, (510) 663-5260Three for One Program: www.ime.gob.mx, (213) 487-6577

E-mail Tyche Hendricks at thendricks@sfchronicle.com.

“Sound Familiar?” Clip of Talk About How Immigrants are Helping Build the (New) Police State

This clip comes to us from the folks at the Brecht Forum and is part of a longer talk about how immigrants are (again…much of this is not new) being used to justify the construction of another Byzantine state policing apparatus. In other words, the talk was about how immigrants are helping the government do one of the things it does best: spend our taxes on building massive security bureaucracies, in this case domestic policing and security bureaucracies like the Department of Homeland Security.

The “sound familiar?” question you’ll keep hearing refers to parallels between what previous elites -Federalists during post-Revolutionary period build-up of state bureaucracy & anti-immigrant “Red Scare” rationalization that led to the birth of the FBI- did and what todays’s national security elites (politicos, bureaucucrats, military-industrial corporations, etc.) are doing.

And yeah, that’s what I kinda look and sound like though the camera (and editors) digitally deleted my hair.

IMMIGRATION DEBATE RAGING IN HIGH TECH LABS

A couple of recent stories this week highlight how the immigration debate has given rise to both “reactionary” and pro-immigrant positions within the very immigrant-heavy high tech industry. This story titled “State of the Engineer: Immigration–The reactionary side of engineering” from the EE Times, a major electronics industry publication, makes clear that the country’s labs are hardly hermetically-sealed off from the greater ills of the larger society. A survey conducted by EE Times found that,

“On immigration, only 21.2 percent of respondents agreed with the idea of allowing an unlimited number of foreign engineers and technical professionals to work in America, and to work here without being asked to leave after a prescribed period of time (see chart below).

The remainder expressed the belief that either the number of foreign engineers should be restricted, or their time in America be restricted or both.”

But like the larger society, the countries labs are also home to many immigrants, an incresing number of whom find themselves having to raise their voices and placards in defense of their very existence. In another article published in today’s AP, I found this quote by a migrant tech worker particularly revealing of the future,

“I’ve never held a banner before, but I don’t know what else to do,” said Gopal Chauhan, a high-tech employee who has been waiting seven years for a green card. “We usually have better things to do, like invent the next iPod.”

And, in another quote illustrating how the Republican and, increasingly, Democrat short-term strategy of bashing migrants will result in economic blowback in the long-term, the the article states,

“The Indian and Chinese economies are being fed right now with people who get tired of waiting and go home,” Bhatia said.

The technological, scientific and immigration chickens are already coming home to roost.

TIMELINE SHOWS HOW OIL PRICES FUELED RISE AND FLACCIDITY OF U.S.

If you’d like to get some sense of where we are within the historical ebb and tide of empires, check out the timeline (below) from the Times UK . It documents the empire-determining fluctuation of crude oil prices from the early days of industrialization and consolidation of the nation-state to the present moment in which industrial strength and the nation-state are being radically reconfigured and redefined.

Helps make some sense of war, history and the decline of this empire. The comparison between present-day China and the present-day US is especially telling. The question is: how long will it take to figure out a way to blame immigrants for the flaccid dollar and crescendoing oil prices bringing the music of a multi-polar world symphony to the ears of Chavez, Ahmadinejad and OPEC?

We’d do well to remember the relationship between the current flood of hate in the late-great unipolar power, the US, and the weakening drip drop of oil.

So, enjoy your imperial citizenship - while it lasts.

Crude oil prices 1861 - 2006

Pennsylvania oil boom
Date	Price in US$ (money of the day)	US$ (2006)
1864	8.06	104.35

Russian oil exports start
Date	Price in US$ (money of the day)	US$ (2006)
1876	2.56	48.64

Rebuilding post World War Two
Date	Price in US$ (money of the day)	US$ (2006)
1948	1.99	16.74

Arab oil embargo
Date	Price in US$ (money of the day)	US$ (2006)
1974	11.58	47.54

Iranian revolution
Date	Price in US$ (money of the day)	US$ (2006)
1979	31.61	88.13

Iran-Iraq war starts
Date	Price in US$ (money of the day)	US$ (2006)
1980	36.83	90.46

Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait
Date	Price in US$ (money of the day)	US$ (2006)
1990	23.73	36.76

Asian economic crisis
Date	Price in US$ (money of the day)	US$ (2006)
1998	12.72	16.22

China 2nd biggest oil consumer
Date	Price in US$ (money of the day)	US$ (2006)
2003	38.27	40.83

Year-to-date average
Date	Price in US$ (money of the day)	US$ (2006)
*2007	65.57	65.57

Source: BP Statistical Review of World Energy June 2007/Reuters

Dream Act (and Democrat Support) is Dead: Time to Dream - and Act

Many an immigrant rights activist and blogger (not to mention immigrant students themselves) is mourning the defeat of the DREAM Act this week. And rightly so. But while we should indeed be saddened by this legislative defeat, there’s actually little time to do so given the threat looms on the electoral horizon: anti-immigrant Democrats joining Republicans.

Beneath the death of the Dream Act lies an even deadlier (as in more desert dead and more detained children and families) future previewed in key developments this week. Among the most disconcerting developments are statements about immigration made this week by Rep. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), the powerful chairman of the House Democratic Caucus and an architect of the Democratic congressional victories of 2006. Emmanuel is quoted as saying that immigration “has emerged as the third rail of American politics, and anyone who doesn’t realize that isn’t with the American people.” He also added that “This issue has real implications for the country. It captures all the American people’s anger and frustration not only with immigration, but with the economy,” and that “It’s self-evident. This is a big problem.”

Talk of a “third rail” coming from one of the top Democrats-one who is central to plotting strategy and raising money towards their 08 campaigns - is nothing less than dangerous. Such statements mean that candidates and incumbents not only need to stay away from immigration issues; such talk means that some Democrats will feel encouraged to follow the anti-immigrant path trod by some of their peers previously. Consider the crop of recently elected “pragmatists” like Montana’s Senator John Tester and Missouri’s Senator Claire McCaskill. Both ran to the hard right of even the most basic immigration reform earlier this year. And when the Dream Act came up for a vote Tuesday, they joined the Republicans in denying the Dream to immigrant students.

Rather than look at last year’s or this week’s votes, some of us need look back a bit further, to 1994, in search of answers about what is now likely to happen with the Democrats-and what we should do about it. That watershed year brought us the beginning of contemporary anti-immigrant politics in the form of California’s Proposition 187, which sought to deny health and education benefits to the children of the undocumented (sound familiar?). Most students of immigration politics trace the origins of the Republican anti-migrant kulturkampf (culture war) to then California Governor Pete Wilson and the Republican party. While true and while important to understand the similarities between California 1994 and a U.S. circa 2007 that’s starting to resemble the Golden state demographically, we miss much if we fail to include the other father of the anti-immigrant politic: Bill Clinton.

As we begin the search for a new way in immigration politics, some of us would do well to remember that the exponential increase in immigrant deaths in the desert began not with the Minutemen patrols but with Clinton, who launched “Operation Gatekeeper” in 1994. Recent desert history makes tragically clear that the Clintonian and Democrat third way in immigration leads directly to deadly mirages.

Rather than Dream with Democrats, some in the immigrant rights movement need to awake from the electoral slumber and get back to basics: local& regional power-building and direct action. Power-building because Emmanuel is almost right when he says that immigration “captures” people’s frustrations with the economy. But,I’d substitute the word “economy” with the word “capitalism”. “Economy” implies a faith in an economic system that’s abandoned even whites, which is why you have rabid Republicans, populist haters like Lou Dobbs and, lest we forget, Minutemen. “Capitalism” because it, not “the American Dream”, drive millions to levels of desperation requiring them abandon their homes, “capitalism” because it has pushed us to the brink of environmental destruction that creates environmental refugees who are branded “criminals” and “invaders” by the very people who either pilfer illusions like the now dead “American Dream” or sell them.

The possibility of the Dream Act and of “immigration reform” was not born in the rotting bosoms of the two corporate parties, nor of their allies in the community. It was born of dreaming and acting on the part of those with nothing to lose. I remember calling DC-based advocates last year and asking them about the prospects for new legislation. Most sounded like they do now: sad, lonely and scared, much like immigrants facing a less political, more existential reality inspired by the rabidity of the raids. Then, suddenly, the movements took schools, streets and the country entire. And the prospects for “reform” changed.

Elections and politicians alone will not solve either the general crisis at hand or the even greater immigration crisis that looms.;They matter only when there is power from below that obligates or persuades them to move.

So, I think we need to take a break from looking to DC groups and their Democrat allies for “reform”. That formula has failed and failed with fatal consequences for many years. Let’s stop believing the siren songs already heard in the Beltway that sound something like “Just wait til we elect a Democrat.”

Our timing needs to look beyond the electoral clock. Our target can’t solely be white and black voters. Our vision can’t just be limited to the illusion of the border. And we don’t just need to change parties. We need to change the country, change capitalism.

The Dream Act is dead. Time to Dream - and Act.

NEW TREND: “ONSHORING” TURNING U.S. INTO MAQUILA ECONOMY

For many months now, I’ve been noticing several reports about domestic and foreign companies investing in the US because it’s as cheap as doing so in what used to be called the “third world”. Take this story in the LA Times about “onshoring”, a trend describing how U.S. & foreign firms are opening production facilities not just at the border, but in places like the deep South, rural areas and suburbs across the country. Common sense and neoliberal economics tell us why: because its as cheap or cheaper than places like India or China for them to do so.

The story goes on to describe how low wages (as in union-unfriendly “right to work” states) and cheap real estate are enticing companies like bomber-builder Northrop Grumman and Accenture to invest in rural areas like Corsicana, Texas and the Umatilla Indian reservation in Oregon. Locating in these parts of the U.S. has become a cost-cutting measure designed to improve their positions vis a vis global competitors.

But even global competitors from countries formerly designated “third world” (refers more to regions than entire countries now) like India, where Bangalore-based Wipro technologies has just outsourced work to Atlanta are taking advantage of the economic decline of the majority in this country. A weak dollar and a fast-strengthening rupee and yuan (China) make it easier for outsourcer countries to reciprocate by outsourcing to the US. This article in PC World magazine and this one in the NYT make the same and other points about the maquilization of large swaths of increasingly cheap U.S. real estate. But, instead of telling us abut the devaluation of our work, property and existence, too many media simply adopt uncriticially the buzz words, the phraseology of corporate PR flaks who define many “trends”.

This “trend” inn particular has as much to do with the anti-Latino, anti-immigrant moment, but neither right-wingers nor most mainstream “immigrant rights advocates” mention it either.

Some of us might want to think about or mention this next time we come across a local Minutemen or other angry, mostly white anti-immigrant workers (see this story I wrote about whites and globalization) abandoned by big capital that once promised them good paying work for a lifetime. Immigrants have little to do with the investment portfolios of global corporations whose decisions determine who does and doesn’t work where and for how cheap. Lou Dobbs Manichean populism (ie; hate trade, blame immigrants) shows that he understands this. Though he does so in a warped, racist way, he does not shy away from talking about the the fact of open borders or the abandonment of US workers.

We, on the other hand, ignore the maquilization of the US economy at our own peril.

INTERVIEW W/ I. WALLERSTEIN ON “THE INEVITABLE DECLINE OF THE AMERICAN EMPIRE”

Agree or disagree with him, world systems theorist, Immanuel Wallerstein always has some stimulating, provocative things to say about a lot of things. In this interview he did in Latin America with Raul Zibechi of the Americas Program at the Center for International Policy (CIP), Wallerstein talks about America Latina’s position within the multipolar world rising rapidly out of the ashes of US domination.

The question it raises for me is, “What is our role here in on the northern front?”

Whatever our work, I think it’s important for those of us in the belly of the ailing beast to read stuff like this as we analyze, dialogue and define our own roles. To remain within the increasingly infantile and infantilizing logic of citizenship, sovereignty and “illegality” has proven itself a very dangerous go-nowhere proposition. Like America Latina, we may well have a historic role- a barbarian’s role, if you will- vis a vis the decline of this empire, but don’t know it-yet. Thinking about the historical position and empire questions can only expand the prevailing politic that’s defined by the parameters of electoral politics or the borders of that isolationist, isolating nation-state box known as the TV (I mean how far can we go with the narcoleptic dualism of the “Are you for Hillary or Obama?” question?)

Quotes like this one about the relationship between social movements and political parties should resonate with those of us pondering how to relate to the Democrat-SEIU-big philanthropy-funded nonprofit complex that brought us the “immigration reform” debacle:

A head-on collision is a problem, as is not doing anything. In my opinion the movements should take a clear stance: support the better parties but without expecting that they will make fundamental changes. It is a defensive position, but it is a matter of trying to maintain autonomy.

Not sure I wholly embrace his social-democrat logic, but it does stir thinking outside that nasty nation-state box. Hope you enjoy the rest of the article.

Thanks to my friends Laura Carlsen and Katie Kohlsted at the CIS for the links to the Americas program.

R

“IT IS ALSO ABOUT THE INTEGRATION OF PEOPLE”: VENEZUELAN AMBASSADOR ON LATINOS & LATIN AMERICA

 

(photo by Jesse Spector of NYC brownstone housing Venezuelan consulate)

A recent interview with Venezuela’s ambassador I did for New America Media.

U.S. Latinos Very Important to Latin America: Venezuelan Ambassador

New America Media, Q&A, Roberto Lovato, Posted: Oct 16, 2007

The National Latino Congreso draws Latino leaders from across the United States to discuss policy and electoral strategy. But the presence of representatives of Latin American governments alongside the U.S.-based Latino groups and community based organizations at the meeting raises intriguing questions about Latino and Latin American identity. NAM Contributing Editor Roberto Lovato spoke with Venezuelan Ambassador Bernardo Alvarez Herrera at the National Latino Congreso in Los Angeles.

What draws you, a representative of the Venezuelan government, to a meeting of U.S. Latinos?

It’s very natural. There are longstanding and deep cultural, economic and political ties between Latinos in the United States and Latin America. We support the agenda in Latin America and we support the Latino agenda in the United States.

Do you feel or are you treated as someone foreign to this kind of meeting?

Even three years ago, it was strange to see people coming from South America at these kinds of meetings (i.e. Latino Congreso). Now, we’re seen as a close reality, as not so distant. There are commonalities and there is even a common agenda developing. It’s very exciting.

Where do you see these commonalities?

I look at the facial expressions here and I see meetings I’ve been to in America Latina (Latin America). I listen to the issues they discuss and they are the same issues: housing, employment, the environment, women’s issues, community development and others.

How do you respond to those who say that, through your work with Latinos and other groups in the United States, you are helping create a fifth column subverting the “American Way”?

In order to understand these kinds of statements and what’s happening today, you need to understand the Cold War. It’s like a 50-year-old man who can no longer read well, one who doesn’t want to accept that he needs glasses. This (U.S.) Cold War vision is blurred and negative and has been an abject failure. It looks for terrorists and finds them wherever it looks.

And where do you see this playing out here in the United States today?

Immigrants in the United States are being looked at as terrorists. First they (the government) began criminalizing them. Now, immigrants are viewed through the lens of “National Security” because the primary threat in the world is now defined as international terrorism. There seem to be good and bad terrorists. It seems that some use the words “terrorism” and “terrorist” when it suits their interest.

Any specific examples?

Take the case of (Cuban-born Venezuelan) Luis Posada Carriles. He planted a bomb on a civilian (Cuban) airplane and killed more than 70 people. That is a clear act of terrorism, but the (U.S.) Department of Justice and the Bush administration refuse to extradite him as we have requested. Meanwhile, we are watching how national security is increasingly being used to deal with domestic, internal issues like immigration. As in the Cold War, national security is used with foreign countries and with people inside the country.

Do you think U.S. Latinos will form part of the integration processes taking shape in Latin America?

The Washington Consensus (U.S. trade and economic policy in Latin America in the 80’s and 90’s) was a failure. We’re developing a new vision of integration. The first priority is to take care of the needs of our people. Then, the priority is integration with our neighbors. And then integration of the cultural base. In the case of the United States, we’re not just talking about Latinos, but African American and other communities as well. For example, we produce energy and we cooperate with families in Venezuela and other countries with different programs. We also cooperate with low-income families in the United States through our heating oil program.

Do Latinos in the United States fit into this integration and, if so, how?

Latinos in the United States are very important to Latin America. They send billions of dollars in remittances to almost every country. Latinos in the United States need to pay close attention to economic policies. Right now, the United States is promoting neo-liberal trade through Free Trade Area of the Americas (ALCA in the Spanish initials). We have joined Cuba, Bolivia, Ecuador, Haiti and Nicaragua to start a different mechanism, the Bolivarian Alternative for Latin America and the Caribbean (ALBA in the Spanish initials). U.S. Latinos should follow what the United States government is proposing through ALCA and what we are proposing with ALBA.

What’s the difference and why should U.S. Latinos care?

It’s just being decided by a small cabal, but seeks consensus between governments and between social organizations and people. Because of their history in this country, Latinos in the United States will easily understand why the main difference between the proposals is that ALBA is not just about the integration of markets. It is also about the integration of people.

GARDENERS GIVING WHAT GOVERNMENT WON’T: MINI-DREAM ACTS FOR MIGRANTS

(Bay Area Gardeners Foundation founder, Catalino Tapia, an unidentified friend and Catalino’s panza sharing a cheerful moment beneath the trees in Redwood City, California)

The big immigration news out of California was Governor Schwarzenegger’s veto of the California Dream Act legislation last week. But the allegedly immigrant Governor is hurting - not killing- California Dreams. Less known, but of no less import than the news of the veto, is this story in today’s SF Chronicle about the Bay Area Gardners Foundation. It tells the very inspired and inspirational tale of Catalino Tapia, a 63 year-old gardener in Redwood City California who started the Foundation along with a dozen other gardeners to help Latino students pay for college.“This year,” according to the story, “the foundation gave out nine scholarships of $1,500, almost double what it distributed in 2006, its first year.”

Tapia came to the US with a 6th grade education and $6 in his pocket and exemplifies a reality that more of us should wake up to: we need grow our own. Whether its families and hometown associations that sent $50 billion in remittances to families across Latin America last year or whether its those atlas-like mothers who who facilitate the upward mobility of white middle class women while carrying and caring for families in the US and Latin America, Latino immigrants are leading. In much the same way that Latin America is leading its own way past the economic and political failure of the Washington Consensus at the root of much migration, immigrants in the US have much to teach us about how to do with and, increasingly, without government.

Again, we see a new more autonomous politic developing as a complement and/or alternative to that “ethnic” politic focused almost exclusively on hitting the government pinata for economic dulces to drop out.

But let me not dwell on the past. Let me instead leave you with that beautiful gardener who reminds me so much of my and many of our parents who carried and poured their tears and sweat into this land so that we might blossom.

Another pic that says so much about why the future is so ours:

When we let these political defeats defeat us we forget what our parents would tell us if we asked them about such a loss: Forget the Dream Act; Remember the Dream - and Act.

VICENTE FOX PROMOTING (TOP-DOWN) OPEN BORDERS / INTEGRATION?

During this interview with Larry King, former Mexican President Vicente Fox appears to advocate open borders, albeit a top-down version lead by hemispheric and global elite interests:

Such statements promoting Fox’s rather garishly titled new book, Revolution of Hope, are causing the Bush Administration to cringe as they issue statements clarifying that they don’t “think that that’s something we’re actively considering.” Fox and the Bush are giving Lou Dobbs and former Swift Boater-turned closed border activist, Jerome Corsi even more fodder for their futile efforts to build Fortress America.

This should be watched, especially by those of us lacking any vision beyond the border walls. This causes me to ask “If Vicente Fox and Lou Dobbs have positions about this, what is the ‘progressive position’ with regard to regional integration?” Is there an alternative to the top down or closed border vision? Though we’ve not yet articulated such an alternative, at least some of us are shortcircuiting Fox and others efforts to give credibility to the continuation of the top-down politica that’s ruined so many lives, including that of murdered New York media activist, Brad Will, and Mexican activists repressed by Fox and his successor, Felipe Calderon.

Please remember to dream beyond the walls of civilized discourse.

R

BROWN WATERS, CLEAR WATERS RUN DEEP AT LATINO CONGRESO

This week’s Latino Congreso taught me that, from Maywood, California to the Bronx and Cochabamba, Bolivia, brown people are drinking brown water. I also learned about the deepening wells of of elite fear beneath racist metaphors like “brown tide rising” used to describe the political ascent of Latinos across the continent.

But what struck me most was how problems like the dirty brown water are giving rise to a political clarity and unified vision unprecedented in the annals of hemispheric history. Like the oceans and subterrenean waterways that have always united us beneath the surface, political agendas from the Canadian border to Patagonia are starting to flow from the same source: the pursuit of justice.

I heard this from 22 year-old Latino Congreso delegate Karen Linares. After looking at a thick, rusted pipe and a bottle of brown water used as part of the presentation by a South LA activist on a panel about “Water Justice”, very smiley Salvadoran-Mexican college student Linares got a serious look about her. “The L.A. river water running by my house is full of filth. I saw the same brown water in El Salvador. In Tijuana you see the sewage trickling down the dirt roads.” Asked whether a and what, if any, connection existed between what she saw in her neighborhood and in her parent’s homelands the rather “shy” (ie; “You should talk to my friend cuz this is my first event and she knows more”) answered, “Clear water runs upward where the money runs. Brown water runs down where poor brown people are.” In listening to Linares’ “shy” brilliance one hears the political music of the spheres, the hemispheres being written.

The beauty I found running through the Congreso was in how the line connecting Linares’ issues and consciousness to the rest of the continent is growing. “I look at the facial expressions here and I see meetings I’ve been to in America Latina” said Bernardo Alvarez, the US Ambassador of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela who also attended the Congreso as part of a large Latin American contingent. “I listen to the issues they discuss and they are the same issues: housing, employment, the environment, women’s issues, community development and others. We support the agenda in Latin America and we support the Latino agenda in the United States.”

Though not yet concluded, the Latino Congreso has already managed to channel the insurgent energies of its more than 1,500 delegates towards the development of a broad, inclusive and different Latino agenda that brings together and connects many issues. For example, members unanimously passed a resolution calling on the US to stop signing trade agreements they believe are one of the primary causes of immigration. Also connecting several issues, Oscar Chacón, Executive Director of the National Association of Latin American and Caribbean Communities, a National Congreso convener said “NAFTA has been the main cause for more than 1.3 million Mexican campesinos to lose their livelihoods. Not surprisingly, the number of Mexicans who have emigrated to the United States rose 60 percent in the first six years after NAFTA,” adding “We can only resolve immigration issues by addressing the bigger question of what is forcing so many people to emigrate in the first place. The first step is to stop expanding the same agricultural rules of NAFTA to Peru and other Latin American nations.”

Chacón and other Congreso delegates also passed resolutions around such “non traditional” Latin issues as Renewable Energy, Farm Bill Reform, Production, Ocean Management , Green Schools and many others. And, of course, they also addressed the very continental issue of how to turn brown water into clear water - and clear continental thought. Have a a clarisimo day

R

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY: A NEW FRONTIER IN GLOBAL IMMIGRATION DEBATE

(Racist pic of “Mexifornia” drivers license, a favorite of the anti-immigrant set)

Politicians and technologists of all stripes and in most countries are mining the global immigration crisis for opportunities to advance their agendas. This report in today’s BBC about a controversial new immigration proposal made by French President Nicolas Sarkozy is a case in point. According to the report, “… the legislation would demand the relatives take a DNA test to prove their applications were genuine.”

Sarkozy’s proposals are neither new nor solely a European innovation. Earlier this year, U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., and Maricopa County, Ariz., Sheriff Joe Arpaio, proposed taking DNA samples from undocumented federal detainees as a way to facilitate identifying and tracking potential terrorists. The ACLU and other critics of science and technology “solutions” view such proposals as a way of paving the path towards application of such technologies to the general populace. Shortly after 9-11, for example, Larry Ellison, head of software behemoth Oracle, offered to provide the government “free” (renewals and upgrades would cost billions) software for the creation of a national ID card. Some have even said that the National ID components of the recent immigration reform proposal are what actually killed it. REAL ID and other immigrant and technology proposals follow the same logic of using immigrants to advance political and business fortunes in the name of “combating terrorism”, “Homeland Security” and other now thoroughly normalized terms.

Time to fear what’s normal.