Justice Steven's Retirement: Will it bring a second Latina to the Supreme Court?

With Justice Stevens' retirement, President Obama has the opportunity to appoint another member of the Supreme Court. Conventional wisdom identifies as leading contenders U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan, Judge Dianne Wood of the Seventh Circuit, and Judge Merrick Garland, of the D.C. Circuit. However, both SLATE Magazine and the Sacramento Bee list Ninth Circuit Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw as a potential replacement as well. Judge Wardlaw, of Mexican American and Irish Scottish ancestry, was the first Latina appointed to a federal appeals court. She was appointed by President Clinton to the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California in 1995 and then again by Clinton to the Court of Appeals in 1998. According to SLATE, "[s]he sailed through both her confirmations with bipartisan support. (Sen. Dianne Feinstein is one of her backers.)" Judge Wardlaw was a front runner last year when Justice Souter retired. A graduate of UCLA both for undergrad and law school, she would add non Ivy League diversity to the highest court. HuffPo reports that at least one conservative pundit has urged President Obama to "avoid the Ivy League." SLATE further reports that Judge Wardlaw is best known as the author "the 9th Circuit opinion, which the Supreme Court largely concurred on appeal, which found a violation of the Fourth Amendment in an Arizona school's strip-search of a 13-year-old girl wrongly suspected of hiding prescription-strength ibuprofen in her underwear. Wardlaw wrote that 'a reasonable school official, seeking to protect the students in his charge, does not subject a 13-year-old girl to a traumatic search to 'protect' her from the danger of Advil.' "Judge Wardlaw is also notable for participating in 2007 in the first ever all Latino/a judge panel of the Circuit Courts of Appeals. The three 9th Circuit judges are pictured in the photograph above. (Left to right) Judge Arthur L. Alarcón, Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw, and Judge Ferdinand F. Fernandez, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, comprised the federal Judiciary’s first all-Hispanic appellate panel.

America’s Most Regrettable Sheriff

Proclaimed by the media as America’s Toughest Sheriff, Maricopa County, Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio is probably well known to readers of this blog for his theatrics that include distributing pink underwear and his terrorizing of immigrants through neighborhood sweeps, or when he paraded 220 undocumented immigrants in shackles through Phoenix in 2009 toward his notorious outdoor tent prison. http://www.azcentral.com/community/phoenix/articles/2009/02/04/20090204abrk-inmatesmarch0204-ON.html.

Despite the apparent human rights violations in Sheriff Joe’s efforts to strip prisoners of any shred of dignity, and the outcry over the years of Latino/a advocates challenging his targeting of undocumented immigrants under state law, voters in Maricopa County keep returning this pompous buffoon to office, most recently in 2008, by a substantial margin. Explaining this vote for me is a familiar species of comment posted on CNN’s website in April 2010 reading:

I live here in phoenix and all I have to say is

CLOSE THE BORDER before the crime makes it to your town. It started on the border and is making its way across the country. These people are criminals and cross without any resistance. By the time it gets to your house it will be too late.

First offense: deportation


Second offense: death

I view Sheriff Joe, along with the Minutemen, as poster children of our broken immigration system. Someday we will look back at his antics and sweep them into history’s dustbin, as one of the regrettable individuals of our time who left a legacy of shame for himself, his supporters, and more generally Phoenix and surrounding cities where racism and dirty politics run deep.

Ironically, Sheriff Joe’s brand of justice, a fusion of The Godfather and Wild West frontier justice, may be his undoing. The April 2010 ABA Journal hung out Sheriff Joe’s dirty (pink) laundry for the legal world to see in detailing what happens to those—whether reporters, county supervisors, or even judges—who dare challenge Sheriff Joe or divert resources from his empire. http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/the_maricopa_courthouse_war.

Sheriff Joe has said “My message to the illegals is this: Stay out of Maricopa County, because I’m the sheriff here.” I’m a U.S. born citizen born to a U.S. citizen mother of Mexican-born immigrant parents. But I’ll stay out of Maricopa County too.

DREAM Act coming up this summer? Time to get busy!

In today's Chicago Tribune, Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) writes an op-ed entitled: "Bipartisan support for Dream Act needed," see http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/ct-oped-0409-immigration-20100409,0,3614803.story. He reports that "he believe[s] Congress can pass immigration reform this year." This view is consistent with what I have heard here in Indiana from Senator Lugar's staff about the DREAM Act potentially coming up for a vote this August.

In his op-ed, Senator Durbin highlights his and Senator Dick Lugar's (R-IN) bipartisan sponsorship of the DREAM Act. He also states that "[t]he Dream Act, [is] a bipartisan bill to help students brought to the U.S. illegally at a young age. These students have lived in this country for most of their lives and it's the only home they know. Because they are undocumented, their options are limited and they could be deported at any time. The bill would permit these students to become permanent residents if they came here as children (younger than 16), have been here for five years, have good moral character and attend college or enlist in the military for at least two years.The bill isn't amnesty. It's narrowly tailored to assist a select group of young people in earning legal status. Most of these young people came here with their parents when they were too little to understand the consequences. This bill would allow a generation of immigrant students with great potential to contribute more fully to our society."

Senator Durbin further reminds us that "[w]e've come close to making the Dream Act law. Last Congress, our bill received 52 votes in the Senate, a majority vote — including 11 Republicans — but we needed 60 under Senate rules." Therefore, this is a call to our readers to contact their Senators to voice their support the DREAM Act!

For an excellent website with student experiences in support of the DREAM Act, see http://www.dreamactivist.org/.

The Texas Textbook Massacre: Latino/as and Epistemic Violence

The Texas School Board has recently been in the news for mandating a conservative perspective on courses in history and social studies. (See Terrence Stutz, Texts Won't Cover Tejanos at Alamo, Dallas Morning News, March 12, 2010). Among other things, the Texas School Board decided that Texas students need not be taught the names of the eight Tejanos or Latino Texans who died fighting at the Alamo in the war for Texas' independence. In contrast, the Board ruled that it was appropriate for students to learn the names of Anglos who fought at the Alamo, including Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie. The Board also rejected requiring history teachers to cover the appointment of Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court. On the other hand, conservatives from the 1980s and 1990s such as Phyllis Schlafly must be covered.

At this time in history, theorists of multiculturalism now understand that the failure to recognize minority cultures and histories is a form of oppression. Accordingly, broadening the educational curriculum is important to give appropriate recognition to those who have been left out. The Texas School Board's decision to omit Latino/as from history renders the Latino/a culture unrecognized and produces the special harm that comes from a failure to acknowledge. The Board's action is particularly shocking since Latino/as constitute roughly 30% of the Texas population and about 40% of the students in the Texas public schools.

THE CENSUS AND THE RACIAL POLITICS OF COUNTING

Apart from the category confusion regarding the “Hispanic” population in this year’s Census, the Detroit News reports brown-black tension regarding the city’s participation in the Census counting and outreach process. According to Eusebia Aquino-Hughes, Detroit activist, Mayor Bing’s office is concerned only with African-American and Arab/Muslim participation in the Census. She writes, “When one calls Mayor Bing’s offices concerning the Latino-American census count for 2010 one is told that ‘it is not a concern for the City of Detroit at this time.’” Could this really be true?

Coming on the heels of so many other racially polarizing incidents, this report from Detroit raises the specter of increased minority tensions at a time when coalitional cooperation can make the difference between policy success and failure. Chime in and let’s figure out how to transcend divisive identity politics in order to get something real done. How do we get from competition to collaboration? Share your ideas, experiences and insights with us!

http://detnews.com/article/20100317/OPINION01/3170307/Rebuttal--Don-t-forget-Latinos-in-census-count


Frank Valdes

Enrique Martin Morales aka Ricky Martin

A popular news item last week was singer Ricky Martin’s announcement that “I am proud to say that I am a fortunate homosexual man.” Writing in 2001 for a LatCrit symposium, Will the Wolf Survive? Latino/a Pop Music in the Cultural Mainstream, 78 Denver U. L. Rev. 719 (2001), I remarked on the LatPop phenomenon of 1999 and 2000 as showcasing artists (the likes of Jennifer Lopez, Marc Anthony, Christina Aguilera, Enrique Iglesias, and Martin) who were generally bilingual, young, attractive, light-skinned, and heterosexual. While I mentioned that Ricky Martin was dogged (most famously by Barbara Walters in 2000) about his sexuality, his lyrics and those of the other LatPop stars nonetheless tended to focus on the opposite sex, as in his smash single She’s All I Ever Had, or his 1999 anthem Livin’ La Vida Loca about the impetuous woman who took his heart and money.

The story here some ten years after I wrote the article is less about Martin’s announcement on his sexuality, which probably surprised few, but on the aftermath of the LatPop explosion. As I speculated in 2001, U.S. media and the music industry are famous for according their subjects fifteen minutes of fame and moving on. Some ten years after these artists burst on the scene and Christina Aguilera and Enrique Iglesias performed together at the 2000 Super Bowl halftime show, and the same year the Republican National Convention used Martin’s La Copa de Vida as its theme song, this phenomenon has passed. What is left is the desperate poverty of many Latino/a families, rampant hate crimes against Latino/as, restrictive immigration policies, accusations that Latino/as are ripping the social and cultural fabric of the United States, and other indications that life for many Latino/as in the United States is not the stuff of a Ricky Martin song where you frolic in the rain and order French champagne. Surely Latino/as did not “arrive” through the LatPop explosion. The popularity of Ricky Martin and others did not repair broken schools, economies, and immigration policies that hold Latino/as back. The doors that opened for Ricky Martin did not always open in the same way for Latino/as with darker skin, those speaking English with an accent, or those not speaking English at all.

Despite his commodification as an artist and the diluted music served up for mainstream audiences, Ricky Martin and the other LatPop stars at least displaced a small dog hawking tacos as the mainstream media ambassador for Latino/as. And Ricky Martin did seem far removed from the derogatory and menacing image of Puerto Rican men in West Side Story. Viewed against the incessant images propounded today on hate radio and other mainstream media of the undeserving or even criminal Latino/a immigrant, I hope that years from now we don’t view the LatPop explosion as the zenith of the artistry and contributions of Latino/as in the United States. Rather, I expect someday Latino/as will claim their rightful and long ignored place in our cultural record on fronts that extend far beyond musical artistry and that Latino/as won’t have to change their names, mask their sexuality, or speak in English to collect their reward.

Si Se Puede and Blueberries

With much appreciation the United Farmworkers (“UFW”) website announced yesterday that in a meeting with UFW co-founder Dolores Huerta and UFW President Arturo Rodriguez, President Obama was going to officially proclaim March 31, 2010, as Cesar Chavez Day.

The announcement is stellar but also comes with a fragile hope that it will draw much needed attention to the population that feeds the nation under grueling conditions. Farm work is dangerous employment whether resulting inter alia from pesticide exposure or the physical demands cultivating and harvesting commodities exacts on the human condition. Its no secret the extent to which the environment can injure field workers.

Heat exhaustion for example has resulted in field workers’ deaths while toiling in 100 degrees tying grapes to vines or harvesting commodities. Intensive heat caused the 2008 death of seventeen-year-old Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez who had been working in the California grape fields. The death of fifty-four year old Eladio Hernandez also bears witness to the failure of agricultural employers expediting breaks or permitting access to shade and other heat relief measures. While the state has strict heat related laws and while agricultural leaders might assert such deaths are rare the fact remains life saving equipment was not available in the rural fields where both collapsed. The distance from medical care with attendant delays in seeking treatment for Maria and Eladio may have also expedited their deaths.

Further harm to farmworkers includes funding decreases for summer school programs denying their children alternatives from working alongside their parents. For decades lacking childcare or the impoverishment of the families has caused children to accompany their parents in fieldwork. Last fall young children were discovered and photographed picking blueberries in a Michigan field that included a five-year-old child. The photograph revealed in each of her tiny hands a bucket of berries thereby causing further anguish for those who enjoy consuming the fruit of her labor. Ultimately the employer was fined but additional questions surface as to what happened to this little person and her familia.

Declaring March 30^th Cesar Chavez Day is thereby additionally important as a reminder that farm laborers are critical to feeding the nation and expediting global agricultural markets. Yet federal law precludes their attempts in improving their terms and conditions of employment or fail to allow lack child care for their precious children. Grounded in the “golden period” of the New Deal a host of agricultural laws privileged small owner operators with exemptions from law applicable to other industries. The National Labor Relations Act for example in defining who is included also provides that the Act “. . . .shall not include any individual employed as an agricultural laborer.”[1] Yet in contrast the farming of today is an entirely different enterprise than what motivated the 1930-1940 exemptions and underscore changes are mandated in the present. In turn a huge agricultural history illustrates farmworker activism witnessing brutality, violence and as in the present, resistance to legislative attempts in improving their conditions.[2] This history also shows while the majority of farmworkers are of Mexican and Indigenous origins, farmworker communities are diverse that include among others, Jamaicans, Haitians, Asians who have collectively advocated for change.

With this very important Presidential Proclamation an opportunity in turn thereby emerges. Specifically the USDA, nutritionists and others strongly encourage the increasing consumption of fruits and vegetables. Yet these commodities rely extensively on migrants and seasonal workers and while some employers are sanctioned, limiting remedial relief to sanctions merely repeats the status quo. For example, while OSHA and the Department of Labor might ultimately levy fines against violators of child labor laws or environmental harms, the reality of farm labor conditions remains. Farmworkers and yes even in limited circumstances their employers of small independent operations need assistance to challenge and transform agricultural exceptionalism in meeting the reality of agricultural labor in the present.

During his 2008 election campaign President Obama adopted Cesar Chavez’s “si se puede” with amazing results. In this instance, and perhaps on the strength of “si si puede” change for the nation’s farmworkers is not only critically important but also possible.

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[1]National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. § 152 (3) (2010).

[2]Emily Claire Atkin, Farmworker Bill Amended, Resistance Doesn’t Fade Away, Legislativegazette.com, Jan. 19, 2010.