Rest In Peace....

Dear friends,

In addition to the solemn anniversary of the tragic events associated with the attacks in NYC and Washington D.C. on this date ten years ago, I wanted to pass on a sad message a friend recently sent me. It is about the death of Puerto Rican Independence champion Juan Mari Bras. Mr. Mari Bras fought for Puerto Rican sovereignty for decades and went as far as attempting to denounce his United States citizenship in an effort to proclaim Puerto Rican citizenship. United States officials, after initially accepting his act, later proclaimed he had no right to revoke his U.S. citizenship. In some of my works, I examined this effort to raise the question concerning whether United States citizenship for my brothers and sisters in the land of my ancestors is a mark rather than a bundle of rights.

I truly feel fortunate to have met Mr. Mari Bras when I gave a talk at the University of Puerto Rico and compared his challenge to subordinate membership to the brave efforts of Dred Scott. After the talk, Mr. Mari Bras approached me and we shared a tear-filled hug. I wanted to share this sad moment in an effort to remind us of the sacrifices of others.

Here is an article about this civil rights advocate:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/11/us/politics/11bras.html

Peace,

Ediberto Roman

Avoiding Arizona

The passage of the anti-Latina/o SB 1070 has really changed my TV-viewing habits. I am amazed at how many of my favorite television programs had Arizona connections. "Had" because I stopped watching anything that has any connection to Arizona.

House Hunters, on HGTV, for example, often features home searches in Arizona cities. Changed channels. Stopped watching.

ESPN of course features the many sports teams from Arizona, especially those that play at the University of Phoenix Stadium. So, no Arizona Diamondbacks, Cardinals or Rattlers; no Phoenix Suns, Coyotes, Mercury, or International Raceway; no Wildcats, Sun Devils or Lumberjacks. No Cactus League next year either. Change channels. I cannot stop watching all of ESPN —that would be wrong— so I just have to get good at channel-surfing. The ticker used during Sports Center makes it easy to plan which items I want to avoid. Arizona or Bob Knight (different story), change channels.

And then came the truly horrible realization. Even the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, the national championship of college football in which, with a little luck, the mighty Gators might play (I can dream). Change channels. Turn off TV.

Hasta la vista Arizona.

New Economic Data on Cuba From the Spanish Embassy in Havana

The Spanish Embassy in Havana has recently published a short economic analysis of the Cuban economy.  Embajada de España, Oficina Economía y Comercio de España, Coyuntura político-economía (March 2010).

The critical issue, ironically, was one of translation.  

La existencia de un sistema económico centralizado, con precios intervenidos y control de salarios, rentas y, lo que es más importante, controles sobre las cantidades de bienes y servicios suministrados, hace difícil traducir a términos de economía de mercado la información económica del país.  Id.

The systemic differences between free market and state market systems makes the use of numbers generated by each essentially incomprehensible to the other for purposes of comparison.  Moreover, the free market focus on pricing as an indicator of value is of little help in state market systems where price is an expression of political will with respect to availability rather than a measure of the value of the object priced. 

Los precios no funcionan como indicadores de los costes ni de las preferencias del consumidor: una parte importante del consumo de las familias lo proporciona el Estado a precios políticos, por lo que valorar dicho consumo es difícil (los costes salariales son determinados centralizadamente). Por otro lado, los márgenes de distribución de muchas empresas cubanas funcionan más como impuestos sobre el consumo que como retribución de la actividad empresarial.  Id.

For those interested in the relationship between law and economics, and the approaches to governance in states where the public and private spheres are conflated in a way that privileges government direction and control of the factors of production, the document makes fascinating reading.

For those interested in the subject, the country report on Cuba prepared by the  Oficina Económica y Comercial de España en La Habana (Feb, 2010) is also worth reading for a global Spanish perspective--sympathetic but critical, of the situation in Cuba. 

Illegal Immigration Has Declined: Why?

By Heather Horn

A new study from the Pew Hispanic Center finds that illegal immigration is down. Annual inflow between 2007 and 2009 was roughly two-thirds less than between 2000 and 2005, report Pew authors Jeffrey Passel and D'Vera Cohn. Furthermore, "the most marked decline in the population of unauthorized immigrants has been among those who come from Latin American countries other than Mexico."

This might not be what one would expect, given the current political tension over illegal immigration, say, in Arizona. Here's how immigration experts and political observers are parsing the numbers.

•'It's the (Labor) Market Stupid,' says Kevin Johnson, law professor and professor of Chicana/o Studies at University of California, Davis. Audrey Singer elaborates at The New Republic: "Loss of immigrants, particularly the unauthorized, may be the ultimate indicator of economic sluggishness." The fascinating thing about the Pew Hispanic Center estimates, she says, is that "because of the time period measured (through March 2009), [they] may not yet have captured the greatest declines in unauthorized immigrants for these states that have seen abrupt u-turns in their overall growth and as enforcement capacity is strengthened at the border."
•And a Few Other Factors The Washington Post's Tara Bahrampour talks to Princeton University sociologist Douglas Massey, who studies migration. He, too, says the recession and job market are "major factors." He brings up some other trends worth noting:
Massey also pointed to a rise in guest-worker visas, from 104,000 in 2000 to 302,000 in 2009, allowing more immigrants to come to the United States legally. The other likely reasons for the decline, he said, include an increase in law enforcement and deportations, and enactment of stricter legislation against illegal immigrants.

•More Evidence This Immigration Debate Is Bizarre This report is "yet another piece of information which seemingly debunks" the idea that we're in an "immigration 'crisis,'" thinks Doug Mataconis. "Before we start engaging in a wholesale immigration debate, it would be nice to get the facts right."
•But Unlikely to Change Anything Adam Serwer, filling in for Greg Sargent at the Washington Post, agrees: "The report ... offers more evidence that the criticisms of Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer and other Republicans about lax enforcement on behalf of the federal government are overblown." But "none of this is likely to change the politics of comprehensive immigration reform."

I-95 A 'Trap' For Migrant Fruit Pickers

September 4, 2010

Audio for this story from Weekend Edition Saturday will be available at approx. 12:00 p.m. ET
Transcript
Phillippe Diederich/Getty Images
Farmers depend on cheap and flexible labor to pick fragile crops like oranges, peaches, blueberries and more.
text size A A A September 4, 2010 Look closely at the traffic on Interstate 95, between the tractor-trailers and the vacationing families piled into minivans, and you might see them: migrant farm workers, following the growing season from state to state. When the season ends in the North, those workers along the East Coast will head south in search of work.

For the undocumented workers who make up the majority of that labor pool, the journey can be harrowing. Just ask Ramiro, a migrant worker on a tomato farm in New Jersey. "Last year, we almost had an accident," he says. "Thanks to God we didn't, but we came close."

Ramiro was riding in a van with other undocumented workers on I-95 in Maryland when another car swerved into their lane. Ramiro's van wound up on the side of the road, and the police came to investigate. He was afraid of being deported.

"We definitely were scared. It stays stuck in your mind," he says.

Ramiro doesn't want his last name used because he's afraid of attracting attention from immigration officials. But it's a risk migrant workers can't always avoid when traveling.

"They just move and hope they will not be detained, stopped or anything like that. So that's the risk that they're taking," says Nelson Carrasquillo, the general coordinator of CATA, a support group for agricultural workers in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

Carrasquillo says migrant workers try to keep a low profile, traveling with friends and labor contractors in cars and unmarked vans. They generally avoid buses for fear of running into immigration checkpoints.

"The 95 corridor — the traditional way of moving for them — has become kind of a trap," Carrasquillo says.

A Change Along The Way

Greg Schell, an attorney at the Migrant Farmworker Justice Project in Florida, estimates that more than 100,000 farm workers commute up and down the I-95 corridor every year.

"When the Florida harvest ends and the workers need to get to North Carolina, the fastest way there is to get on the interstate," he says. "Likewise, when they finish in the Carolinas and need to get to Pennsylvania or New Jersey, Interstate 95 or other interstates are the highway of choice."

Migrant workers have been traveling up and down the East Coast since well before the days of I-95. Farmers depend on cheap, flexible labor to pick fragile crops like tomatoes, peaches, blueberries and more.

In the 1960s, the workers were mostly American citizens. University of Delaware professor Mark Miller says the migrant workforce has changed dramatically since he began studying it 30 years ago. "There, still at that juncture, was a prevalence of African-American migrant workers from Florida. Today, the composition is very different. There's been a 'Hispanization' of the agricultural workforce," he says.

African-Americans have largely moved on to jobs with better pay and working conditions, Miller says. Back on the New Jersey tomato farm, Ramiro says he, too, would like to settle down.

"I've been thinking about it," he says. "Work's going to be finishing up pretty soon. I would like to stay here, but I don't know what else to do."

Without documentation, Ramiro says, it's difficult to find work in the off-season. So in October, he'll probably head back down I-95 to Florida and take his chances.


by Joel Rose
NPR News

Katrina, Kimberly and Scott Roberts and "Con Todo Mi Corazon"

This year marks the fifth year since the full force of Katrina and the “man made” contributions of its failed levees brutalized New Orleans. For the past couple of weeks the media has broadcasted various news clips on what has been identified as one of the nation’s deadliest storms to hit the coastal and Gulf of Mexico regions. Amid the news clips and the focus of this post emerged a documentary that speaks volumes as to how the poor, the disabled and elderly in New Orleans’ 9th Ward were left to confront the storm and attendant breach of the levees. Although issued last year and while there have been other films on what happened during Katrina, the documentary “Trouble the Water” is compelling beyond the norm.

The documentary features Kimberly Rivers Roberts, her husband Scott and their family, as they fought to survive Katrina in their house a few blocks from the ill “maintained” levee system that bordered the 9th Ward. The Roberts along with their poor, elderly and disabled neighbors were unable to leave because they lacked funds. The City’s failure to provide public transportation to safer grounds moreover forced the Roberts’ and their neighbors to confront inestimable odds in their fight to survive.

Kimberly who happened to purchase a $20.00 camcorder to film family events instead used it to record what they and their neighbors endured during and after the storm. The result provides a much-needed historical record of what the poor faced and how they survived nature’s force.

Yet while much of New Orleans weathered the storm the poorly maintained levees further constructed the horror story that the Roberts and 9th Ward confronted. At one point in the film we see the family and the neighbors in the Roberts' attic and the shots Kimberly took of outside showing the forceful rain, and increasingly rising water and winds left us breathless.

The documentary takes us on a journey of the difficulties the Roberts’ witnessed during and after the storm. It provides extensive heart-wrenching details of the wide spread governmental failures that added to the family’s distress. Aside from failing to maintain the levees that exposed the 9th Ward to great dangers, the government also barred the Roberts’ and their tiny band of survivors from staying in a vacated National Guard building. When the Roberts’ requested entry (after the water had subsided) the guards denied them access with M16s. Thereafter the government that failed the Roberts commended the guards for protecting governmental property.

Other details reveal the cavalier responses of government officials that caused the family to endure so much. Their dealings with FEMA for example underscores the scary and violent spaces the poor confront. Eventually after a series of delays Kimberly receives the funds FEMA promised, but her brother who lacked a permanent address was denied financial assistance.

Yet what remains truly astonishing is the hope that Kimberly possessed notwithstanding each hurdle she confronted. She kept her family together and rescued others with immeasurable courage and astonishing hope that tomorrow would bring improved conditions.

In sum, the documentary also speaks volumes as to what status the poor reside in, shows in concrete detail the class struggle and hardships that poverty imposes on those from working class and impoverished backgrounds. It reveals moreover causal links with the disparate treatment and the lack of foresight attendant to the nation’s stubborn refusal to eradicate poverty across the country. Try and reconcile the governmental subsidies the agricultural industrial complex obtains with the narrow definitions of who among the impoverished “qualify” for food stamps and other government “assistance.” Impossible!

Finally and although five years after Katrina and the breach of the levees, a recent tour of the 9th Ward still packs an emotional wallop. For me moreover and ultimately rendering a mystery was the huge writing across an abandoned ranch style house in the 9th Ward. Written across the length of the house was this: “Con todo mi corazon” (“with all my heart”) that left me with yet another reminder.

While New Orleans' history is tightly woven with earlier Spanish governance, how and why those four Spanish words ended up on a house in the 9th ward is a mystery. The words nonetheless underscore how the violence of poverty and particularly as constructed and maintained by ill intended governmental policies show a systemic and perpetual harm on the poor. This stance moreover tainting and spreading across class, race and gendered lines.

Kimberly Rivers Roberts and her hopeful stance ultimately help conclude this post. How? Kimberly is a rap musician who writes music that speaks to the difficulties she faced and the hope she promotes. You can find her music at http://www.bornhusterrecords.com. A copy of the documentary can also be purchased at http://www.troublethewaterfilm.com.

Sheriff Joe

On Thursday, the Department of Justice turned up the heat on Sheriff Joe by filing a lawsuit in federal district court to force the controversial Sheriff to cooperate in the DOJ’s investigation of allegations that his policies and policing discriminate against Latinos/as. The complaint can be found at: http://www.scribd.com/doc/36806322/DOJ-suit-against-sheriff-joe. That investigation dates to early 2009 and encompasses alleged unconstitutional search and seizures and discriminatory practices, including those targeting limited or non-English proficient inmates. Among the allegations investigated is that Maricopa County’s Sheriff Joe runs an English-Only jail, requiring even bilingual officers to speak to inmates in English at all times, except in emergencies.

Even prisoners have constitutionally protected language rights, sourced in constitutional guarantees of free speech and protection from cruel and unusual punishment. Of course, these protections are balanced against safety prerogatives and funding issues. For example, a Wisconsin prison demanded its inmates speak English in front of staff, fearing that Spanish conversations might include discussions of escape, assault, hostage-taking, riots, and gang activity. State of Wisconsin ex rel. Velez v. Litscher, 680 N.W.2d 833 (Wis. Ct. App. 2004 ) (unpublished opinion affirming dismissal of lawsuit based on these security concerns and the bilingual capability of the complainant prisoner). This is reminiscent of employer arguments in Title VII cases attempting to justify English-Only policies to prevent worker plots to steal from the workplace. Of course, hiring a bilingual supervisor or prison guards would solve the problem, and there is always the potential for planning illicit activity, in any language, out of earshot of guards.

Prison officials might be motivated by legitimate safety concerns to impose restrictions on non-English language in some limited prison settings. My assumption, however, is that Sheriff Joe cares little for the nuances of constitutional balancing and imposes his English-Only policies as part of his overarching campaign to humiliate prisoners. Pink underwear, scorching tent cities, and forced marches through the streets are the stuff of legend in Arizona, but signal a man with an outlaw agenda that surely exceeds the bounds of decency and constitutional privilege.