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.

On April 10, 1919, Zapata was tricked into a meeting with Gen. Pablo González, who was supporter of the Mexican president, Venustiano Carranza. One of González’s men, Col. Jesús Guajardo, invited him to a meeting to inform Zapata he wanted to “switch sides.” As Zapata arrived to meet with Guajardo, he was riddled with bullets.

Zapata’s legacy as the champion for the poor is still not forgotten, nor are the beliefs he fought for, justice and agrarian reform, “Reforma, Libertad, Justicia y Ley!” (“Reform, Freedom, Justice and Law!”). He is not only seen as a national hero in Mexico, but also outside of Mexico. While many people focus on the influences American foreign policy had on Mexico, but it is hard to deny the influence people like Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa had on the Mexican American community. Viva Zapata!

Here are three short videos of describing the day Emiliano Zapata was murdered. (h/t Think Mexican)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Constant Orwellian propaganda by the media, think tanks, politicians, and business leaders denies the class polarization of capitalist society. An important element of this misinformation campaign is the mythology surrounding the “free market” economy.

In William Domhoff’s controversial book “Who Rules America?”, he noted that class and power are terms that make Americans uneasy because it goes against Horatio Alger Myth. And that concepts such as “ruling class” and “power elite” immediately put people on guard. The very idea that a relatively small group might dominate government as well as the economy went against the American grain, he wrote.

History shows we have been warned about our current crisis, but it is the strong belief in Horatio Alger Myth that dooms this country in repeating past mistakes. In Franklin D Roosevelt’s 1944 State of the Union, FDR proposed a “second Bill of Rights” that would protect us modern day robber barons.

As our Nation has grown in size and stature, however—as our industrial economy expanded—these political rights proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness.

We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. “Necessitous men are not free men.” People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all regardless of station, race, or creed.

Among these are:

The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the Nation;

The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

The right of every family to a decent home;

The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

The right to a good education.

All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.

America’s own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for our citizens. For unless there is security here at home there cannot be lasting peace in the world.

One of the great American industrialists of our day—a man who has rendered yeoman service to his country in this crisis-recently emphasized the grave dangers of “rightist reaction” in this Nation. All clear-thinking businessmen share his concern. Indeed, if such reaction should develop—if history were to repeat itself and we were to return to the so-called “normalcy” of the 1920’s—then it is certain that even though we shall have conquered our enemies on the battlefields abroad, we shall have yielded to the spirit of Fascism here at home.

If anything, we should have listen to President Jimmy Carter’s July 15th, 1970 “Energy Speech” how our values of owning and consuming will be our downfall.

Click here to view the embedded video.

For now, enjoy this video by former Rage Against the Machine front man Zack De La Rocha.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Crossing Over is a collection of inter-related stories about immigrants of different nationalities struggling to navigate through the complicated immigration system to achieve legal status. Writer-director Wayne Kramer, The Cooler and Running Scared, masterfully interweaves the different sides of this complicated issue to present an intricate overview of the challenges and choices people make so they can remain in the United States.

Max Brogan (Harrison Ford), veteran Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent, is conflicted with the moral and ethical ramifications of his job. Sympathetic to the plight to the people he is required to detain, Brogan is not afraid to be their advocate in an environment hostile towards immigrants. As Mireya Sanchez (Alice Braga) captured during one of ICE’s immigration raid, Mireya pleads with Max to check up on her young son, left in the care of a ruthless neighbor. Max refuses to help her to prove to his co-workers he is not gone “soft.” However, his conscience gets the better of him and decides to take the boy back to his grandparents in Mexico, only to find the mother is missing.

After finding out Claire Shepard (Alice Eve), an aspiring Australian actress, is filing an extension for her visitor’s visa, Cole Frankel (Ray Liotta), an immigration adjudicator with the power to derail her life, requests that she meet with him in private to discuss her “options.” Shepard reluctantly agrees, only to find herself at his mercy. Frankel blackmails her by spelling out the scenario for what would happen to her if she didn’t sleep with him, “some mama Latina would make you her bitch in lockup.” After sleeping with her, he makes a proposition to help her secure immigration papers in exchange for two months of unlimited sex as his sex slave.

Gavin Kossef (Jim Sturgess) is a young South African immigrant trying to break into the indie-rock scene. Through the help of his manager, Kossef is hired a Hebrew school, which makes him eligible to apply for a visa as a religious worker. The process for completing a religious worker visa, he must demonstrate his familiarity with the Jewish religion. Kossef is ethnically Jewish, however, there is a small problem, he happens to be an atheist.

Hamid Baraheri (Cliff Curtis), Max Brogan’s partner, is a naturalized Iranian-American who struggles with assimilation – to uphold his cultural values and traditions while living in the United States. His cultural value comes into question when tensions between his sister, Zahra, and his family. Zahra is born in the US and has embraced many of America’s values. Hamid and his family disapprove with Zahra’s lifestyle and her with her Latino boss, who happens to be married and has kids. Hamid’s father, who is on the brink of naturalization, encourages his brother to “teach them a lesson,” but he ends up killing them. When Hamid finds out, his life is irrevocably altered.

Denise Frankel (Ashley Judd), is a compassionate immigration attorney and is taken by an African orphan, Alike, who is locked at an immigration detention center. Alike has been in at the detention center for 23 months awaiting sponsorship because her is in a hospice dying of AIDS and her father back in Nigeria denies her. We learn Denise is Cole Frankel’s wife. The two have been trying to have a baby for sometime. After several unsuccessful tries, Denise is interested in adopting Alike, however, Cole is not interested.

Saving the best for last. Taslima Jahangir (Summer Bishil) is a 15 year old Bengali girl who is turned into the FBI by her own school principal for writing an essay about the reasons for jihad. She explained that despite what the 9/11 hijackers did was downright unforgivable; they died for what they believed in. As we may view our soldiers as heroes, they are calling our soldiers terrorists. The essay brought the wrath of the FBI to her and her family. Her world was suddenly turned upside down when ICE discovered her family are undocumented. ICE offers Taslima’s parents one of the most heartbreaking choices an immigrant parent would have to make. Since Taslima’s two younger siblings are US citizens, ICE was willing to allow only one parent to stay, while the other would voluntary deports with Taslima. They would have to choose which parent would stay behind. Even more heartbreaking, after Taslima’s mother decided she would be the one who would leave with Taslima, ICE did not give Taslima a chance to say goodbye to her father.

If you never heard of the film, you probably never will. The film critics picked apart the film, calling it “simplistic,” sanctimonious, self-righteousness film. So critics even expounded bordered on anti-immigration rhetoric.

Each year in the United States, several hundred thousand non-citizens are arrested and detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials. Wayne Kramer, an immigrant from South Africa, did a great job stripping away the common black and white view on immigration, and challenges the viewers to see the different shades of gray. Not only does he address American immigration experience, but he invites the viewers to examine more closely the impact our current immigration system has on us as a society and the tragedies many immigrants face.

Being an immigrant advocate, this film really resonated with me because each storyline reminded of an incident I either read or written on this blog. I guess I take issue with the bad reviews because it was viewed through a myopic anti-immigrant and post 9-11 paranoia lens. It also didn’t help theatrical cut left out an important story from the original version.

This film certainly receives the XicanoPwr vote of approval. If you haven’t seen it yet, I highly recommend it.

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.