Abandoning old baggage
In the context of web site design, it is very important to stay up with the latest development before making drastic changes. For now, I have made a few minor changes; some you will notice and some you won’t. One noticeable change, I removed the global translator from my sidebar. Don’t worry, I am not taking it out completely; I am searching for another one to replace it.

Other changes, will hardly be noticed. Nowadays there really is no predicting where visitors will be viewing your site. When I designed this blog, Internet Explorer was the dominate web browser, however, Firefox was quickly gaining in popularity. Now there are a variety of web browsers to choose from to access the web. According to my data from a recent web analytics data report, the most popular browsers being used to access this site are: Firefox (37.40%), Internet Explorer (31.24%), Chrome (19.15%), and Safari (10.53%). The data is also showing some visitors are their mobile devices to access this site. As I continue to redesign my blog, it is imperative I make sure the markup for this blog is clean and with little to no errors so whatever browser being used, will be done with ease.

To say that the web is a different place now is an understatement. There is so much to think about and so many important decisions to make.

I’ve been flirting with this idea for a couple of years, but it really is time time to move on and update the site with the latest design practices and standards. There are also glitches that I don’t like, but I’ve never gotten around to fixing.

So, as you visit my site over the next several days and weeks, bear with me. I hope that some of you will find this an interesting experience as we see what changes I make, what decisions drive those changes, and how you, my audience, affect my decisions with your feedback.

In the past year, I know I have not blogged as much as did in the past. I apologize. This will change. I promise you.

My resolution is to work harder and smarter this year to inspire and empower YOU to make a difference. As a firm believer in truth to power, I want to do all I can to provide the tools and information to make it possible for YOU to go beyond being a passive observer.

Gracias for sticking by me. Stay save and see you next year.

Happy New Year!

Crimmigration Under Obama: Pushing Back Against the “Enforcement-only” Immigration Regime

Description: Immigration enforcement under the Obama administration has continued almost unchanged from the “enforcement-only” regime perfected by the Bus…h administration, applying criminal enforcement tactics to the civil immigration system. While Department of Homeland Security officials have promised to reform the immigration detention system after dozens of deaths in detention, the effort has been cosmetic and designed to forestall more rigorous oversight. Despite moving away from massive workplace raids, the agency has continued home and business raids under the radar, with the result that overall levels of deportation have actually increased under Obama. Meanwhile, legislative reform is stalled in Congress and the White House has not shown leadership. Join advocates and activists in a discussion of recent direct action pushing back against the Obama administration’s enforcement policy.

Speakers:
Yahaira Carrillo, DREAM activist
Madhuri Mohindar, Breakthrough
Edmundo Rocha, Xicano Power/ The XP Report
Vince Warren, Center for Constitutional Rights
Moderator: Will Coley, Aquifer Media

We plan to raise concerns about immigration enforcement throughout the conference and we’re planning an action related to SB1070 in Arizona.

If you are also attending Netroots, my panel will be on Saturday, July 24th, 10:15 AM – 11:30 AM in Miranda 3-4. Thanks to the wonders of social media, you can follow the discussion on Twitter by following the #NN10 and #StopICE hashtags.

These are the two panel proposals that were submitted:

What is Possible?
New media is our new frontier. The possibilities for what we can create online are endless. As humans it is ultimately up to us what we decide to invent, imagine and make possible. This panel will explore the possibilities for innovation, collaboration and transformation that become possible through New Media.

Is Technology the Great Equalizer?
Is technology the great equalizer or is said meme disguising another truth? This panel will explore said question and reflect on the experience, perspective and vision of the panelists and the community who comes willing to grapple with the question and its relevance in our current digital world.

Fellow panelists are:

Marisa Treviño
Marisa Treviño is a Dallas, Texas-based freelance opinion journalist and the publisher of the site Latina Lista. Latina Lista (www.latinalista.net) is an extension of her 16-year journalism career where she takes the news of the day that impacts the Latino community and adds her perspective — with the goal of creating dialogue and understanding across communities and borders. In addition, she is a weekly columnist with the online news site Rio Grande Guardian, a contributing columnist with Hispanic Link News service and is an award-winning public radio commentator for Texas public radio station KERA. Her columns have appeared in USA Today, as well as, syndicated across the country in both English and Spanish. She has also been a guest on CNN and NPR news shows.

Manuel Guzmán
Manuel Guzmán is a resident of Tucson, Arizona and has been blogging as ManEegee since 2004, covering border policies and promoting a human rights-centric view of immigration reform. He holds a B.A. in Religious Studies from the University of Arizona and s the founder of Latino Politico as well as a contributor to The Sanctuary. Manuel sees the web as a tool to magnify grassroots efforts that fight on behalf of migrant workers and families as well as leverage political power to enact comprehensive immigration reform that respects the dignity and hard work of those ensnared by a broken system.

Dee Perez-Scott
From Migrant Worker in Michigan to Business Woman in Texas, Dee has supported Immigrant and Minority rights volunteering in the community, reading to children and advocating Education in order to achieve the American Dream. Dee’s Blog is: Immigration Talk with a Mexican American. She also writes for: The Sanctuary, Citizen Orange and The Peace Tree.

Kety Esquivel
Kety Esquivel is the New Media Manager for the National Council of La Raza (NCLR). She has over ten years of experience in the non-profit, private and political sectors. She directed Latino outreach for the Clark Presidential Campaign. Esquivel graduated from Cornell University where she served on the Board of Trustees. She is the founder of CrossLeft and co-founder of the Institute of Progressive Christianity and The Sanctuary. Her commentary has been featured and quoted in stories for the Wall St. Journal Online, HITN, PBS, XM radio, CNN, Televisa and Univision.

One more thing. Once you voted, if you could please leave a comment letting people know how awesome we are and it would be a mistake to leave us out.

Depression creates isolating behaviors, steals our energy and prevents us from being emotionally available to those around us. It creeps in and steals the very essence of a person so that the one you knew morphs slowly into somebody you’ve never met before.

It doesn’t care who you are, or where you come from. It is most indiscriminate in its selection of victims. Depression hurts.

The American culture so values individualism, asking for help is often viewed as a sign of weakness, perhaps more likely by those who need help the most. It’s almost as if the person attempts to punish himself into change. But the misery extends well beyond what is helpful in motivating change into a self-imposed purgatory.

I know there is plenty of advice out there for sufferers of depression, but this post is an inside look of it. I was fortunate enough I was able to recognize the symptoms, which included loss of interest, withdrawing from people, changes in eating and sleeping habits, trouble concentrating or making decisions, being angry, irritable or restless, lack of energy and feelings of sadness, worthlessness or guilt. Once I accepted that I needed help, I agreed to medication.

The biggest hurdles people face are their own mental stigma attached to anti-depressants and wondering how long they would be on them for. I am no different. But at the same time, it is important to realize, depression is a chemical imbalance and medication should be considered as an option in the treatment of depression.

If you had diabetes you would take medicine without a thought, so why are we so afraid of anti-depressants? For me, it was a choice between normalcy or falling into the dark abyss. I choose the former.

Sorry my friends about the absence, this road is slow, but I making my way back and little by little. Like me, this blog will also return to normalcy.

What got me past my little funk is was hope and faith. Unfortunately, even that is not enough to work right through this funk. It is hard to hold thought, while my temper gets shorter and I become more cynical. My employment situation, rather lack of, doesn’t help. Each time you turn one the television, the news is grim – more unemployment, hate crimes on the rise, and institutional racism is stronger than ever.

I will be back in full form, but for now I need to recharge. We all have ups and downs. But my non-employment situation can make the valleys lower and getting out of them tougher. As I continue to hear news, the one song that repeatedly plays in my head is the Black Eyed Peas’ “Where is the Love.”

This is not a goodbye, but just a plea for some patience and understanding. For now, I leave you the video of the Black Eyed Peas.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I finally understand what Texano78704 meant he said “Counting up the ten tiny fingers and toes forever changed my perspective on life.” There is something about holding an infant in your arms, however, I can’t help but wonder what the future has in store for Nora.

While I love the new features, I do have to make some modifications to the blog. One of the major changes in WordPress 2.7 is the comment section. WordPress has completely redone and redesigned the comment system. If you notice I had to take down the “recent comment” section on my sidebar because the code I had was not compatible with WordPress’ new comment system.

Please bare with me as I slowly make the necessary updates.

This is not only a major hit to the people working there, but this is just another after effect of Hurricane Ike. This is not good, because local unemployment rate for October is 5.4 percent, up from 5.1 percent in September, just below the national average, 6.5 percent.

It would be easy to blame Hurricane Ike, however, this is not the case. Last week, the Labor Department announced that new claims for unemployment benefits jumped last week to a 16-year high. If that is not bad enough, the Federal Reserve on Wednesday released projections that the jobless rate will climb to between 7.1 percent and 7.6 percent next year.

It is not easy to lose a job, sometimes it can be made worse when friends and family accidentally say something callous and ill-considered words trying to find some way to console you. Being let go from your job can be difficult, stressful and surprising all at once. Without a job to go to, you suddenly feel you have been stripped of one’s personal worth and identity; leaving a gap that needs to be filled. Days you look for that small glimmer of hope that somebody actually thinks you are good enough to work for them.

Since we do go through life labeling ourselves in terms of the work we do, the type of response we give – “what we do” – becomes the heart of numerous subtle judgments, ranging from a person’s worth, financial status, intelligence, education level, ambition, and social position.

So just imagine, if you no longer have that defining “label,” we are not only admitting to ourselves but to the world, “I don’t do anything,” which may seem equivalent of saying “I am nothing.” Depending on how long a person is unemployed, less value is put on you. Many presume if you are unemployed the person must be “lazy” or “a bum” because we are conditioned to think if a person who has been unemployed for a long period of time must seriously not be looking for a job.

Three years ago I was laid off and since then, I am still unemployed. Throughout these three years I have applied for literally every job I felt I qualified for, and nineteen times out of twenty, I didn’t hear back. We are talking about jobs for which I knew I was the ideal candidate. During the year, I have been a finalist for several, but never to get the position.

This year was a little better, unlike the last two years, I worked on a couple of contracts that paid me pretty well. Since Thanksgiving is suppose to be thankful, I will use this opportunity to do so. While being unemployed has its downside, I can’t not help but reflect on the opportunities that came my way this year.

Since 2006, the Latino/a blogosphere in the US has grown by leaps and bounds. I am thankful I had the opportunity to be part of it. As editor/publisher of this blog and co-founder of the Sanctuary, I and my fellow bloggers had the opportunity to collaborate with nation organizations such as, National Council of La Raza, America’s Voice, National Immigration Forum, Fair Immigration Reform Movement, and Voto Latino, this is just to name a few.

In response to the immigration raid at Action Rags USA in Houston, I am also involved with the Houston Raid Rapid Response Team. I have also been awarded the Texas Progressive Alliance’s Silver Star by the Texas Progressive Alliance and the 40 under 40 Award by New Leaders Council; invited to appear on a public access cable TV talk show, GreenWatch TV, to talk about the Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids and to appear on HITN TV’s Destination Casa Blanca 2008: The Latino Voice in the Presidential Election, with fellow blogamigios to discuss the impact Latino bloggers have on this year’s election; and I also invited to part of panel discussion at Netroots Nation to discuss online strategies for Latino bloggers. Finally, I was fortunate enough to go to Denver, with my fellow co-bloggers at Scholars and Rouges to cover the DNC. There are probably a lot more that occurred I did have forgotten to mention.

I don’t know if all this would have occurred if I was employed. Even though blogging has help keep my sanity, but being jobless still weighs on my mind. Because the holidays are coming around again, an emptiness is slowly creeping in again. It is a reminder something is missing in my life.

All I can do is hope this Christmas I am able to find a job offer in my stocking instead of a lump of coal I have found in the past three years.