The Northwest Melting Pot!

Immigration Reform may have to wait!!!

2014-04-15T14:28:00.001-07:00

Liberals believe they cannot achieve their aim of the legalization of the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants living in the country without a comprehensive bill. For this reason, they oppose dealing with immigration reform with individual bills, as the Republican-led House majority intends to do.

http://m.townhall.com/columnists/mattmackowiak/2014/04/14/immigration-reform-may-wait-until-2017-n1824323

Bergen: U.S. extremists worse than jihadists

2014-04-15T08:41:00.001-07:00

"In fact, since 9/11 extremists affiliated with a variety of far-right wing ideologies, including white supremacists, anti-abortion extremists and anti-government militants, have killed more people in the United States than have extremists motivated by al Qaeda's ideology."

http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/14/opinion/bergen-sterman-kansas-shooting/

Latino auditions give voice to a more diverse stage community...in the Pacific Northwest

2014-04-15T07:44:00.001-07:00

With the aim of diversifying regional theater, Latino theater company eSe Teatro hosted the first Northwest Latino Regional Theatre Auditions for an audience of casting staffers from Seattle Rep, ACT and Oregon Shakespeare Festival, among others.
By Misha Berson

Many Latino actors face a double challenge. They want to be seriously considered and hired for roles that are not scripted as Latino but may be cast multiculturally (from a variety of ethnic groups and races). And they want to secure Latino-specific parts when they arise.

Latino auditions give voice to a more diverse stage community | Entertainment | The Seattle Times

Pelosi plays RACE card???

2014-04-14T08:29:00.001-07:00

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has claimed that if it were only Irish people who were illegal then Republicans would have passed immigration reform.

"I think race has something to do with the fact that they're not bringing up an immigration bill," she said at her weekly press conference. "I've heard them say to the Irish, 'If it were just you, this would be easy.'"
http://www.irishcentral.com/news/politics/Pelosi-claims-if-all-illegals-were-Irish-reform-would-pass.html

No Se Pudo!

2014-04-12T11:55:00.001-07:00

Supporters of driver cards this month failed to pass House Bill 4054, which would have allowed the Legislature to rewrite the referendum's ballot title to improve its chances of passage.

http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2014/03/driver_card_referendum_legisla.html

Act of Love of your Money

2014-04-12T08:12:00.001-07:00

If crossing the border is an "Act of Love" Immigration Reform would be an act of good economic policy...

Immigration reform would aid business

Oregon Latinos march for Immigrant rights

2014-04-11T13:28:00.001-07:00

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-frc3/t1.0-9/10171800_685137508214102_8685000996131516810_n.jpg

House Speaker John Boehner blames President Barack Obama for Congress’s inability to pass an immigration reform bill

2014-04-08T14:44:00.001-07:00

http://m.dailykos.com/story/2014/04/08/1290548/-Boehner-says-House-can-t-pass-immigration-reform-because-Obama-is-mean?detail=facebook

Deportation Nation!

2014-04-07T00:36:00.001-07:00

Perhaps, the stunning Jobs Report recently touted was.... if accurate, made possible by ICE being asked to ramp up the amount of job "Openings" despite how many families are torn apart.

NYTimes: More Deportations Follow Minor Crimes, Records Show : With the Obama administration deporting illegal immigrants at a record pace, the president has said the government is going after “criminals, gang

bangers, people who are hurting the community...

But a New York Times analysis of internal government records shows that since President Obama took office, two-thirds of the nearly two million deportation cases involve people who had committed minor

infractions, including traffic violations, or had no criminal record at all.

Yes He Can but Will He?

2014-04-05T22:53:00.001-07:00

NYTimes: Yes He Can, on Immigration http://nyti.ms/1ozMbqL

What happened to the Driver Card for all Oregon Residents?

2014-04-03T08:41:00.000-07:00

Last year we had a rally on May Day at the Oregon State Capital in which Governor Kitzhaber signed a bill granting all Oregon residents a drivers card. Racist Oregon residents circulated a petition immediately after effectively revoking the privilege of driving from people they consider should not have this privilege. It is amazing what fear and ignorance can do to poor uneducated folks.
How ignorant can people get? This drivers card has NOTHING to do with immigration laws, immigration rights or immigration privileges. It has to do with people actually being held accountable for what they do while driving. Do these racist folks really believe that if not given a drivers license people will simply not drive?

The economy is being hurt by keeping all Oregon residents from a drivers card. The drivers card would increase funding for everyone from government agencies to private businesses. People are always bitching about the economy, Governor Kitzhaber comes up with a way of increasing revenues and pumping money into the economy while not changing any immigration laws or affecting anyone negatively and people go crazy. This card would generate funds in processing the card itself. It would also allow Oregon residents to venture out and spend money in places they can't typically reach with out flawed transportation systems.

Racism is an UGLY thing, and this is the perfect example of how a racist person can get screwed with their own ideology. I still wonder what reasons people have for not wanting other drivers to be as accountable/identifiable as they are? I wonder if they actually believe that this affords brown people some kind of new immigration gain? The quality of life for the group affected by not having this card would not change much with the gain of this card. It would be business owners who would be affected positively. I hope come November people vote the right way for all Oregonians.

We are rallying/marching again this year! The May Day event will again be at the state capital building in Salem. We will be there 11:00 - 1:00. Come out and join us.

2014-03-13T12:30:00.003-07:00

Robots created by San diego company riding into f…: http://youtu.be/Z0t_1O5qb9I

Latinos among students with higher suspension rates

2014-03-13T11:27:00.001-07:00

http://m.dailykos.com/story/2014/03/13/1284429/-Guess-which-students-get-suspended-the-most-in-our-post-racial-society?detail=facebook

Dying GOP

2014-03-12T11:21:00.001-07:00

With the Mid-Term election season approaching, one thing will be on everyone's mind: How will Latinos vote?

Changing Demographics A Factor In Rhode Island's Gubernatorial Race

Aging GOP

2014-03-07T22:32:00.001-08:00

http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/21/politics/gop-census-latino/

2013-01-21T10:22:00.000-08:00

The Possibility of stripping a group from Driving legally in Washington

Lesly Salinas

Contributor

I was listening to the news on the radio yesterday and heard that Washington State is coming up with legislation to require proof of citizenship in order to gain a drivers license in that state. After my celebration for Illinois who did the exact opposite, this seemed awful. I'm always shocked when a state goes after a group of people and the communities in that state are okay with it. It is as if people didn't realize that this group of people that they are hurting and affecting are just that, a group of people. Just because you don't belong to that particular group of people, doesn't mean that you don't belong to some other group. Lately, the harassment has been focused on making undocumented people suffer. These people who are suffering are people just like you and I. They work, love, play, read, go to the movies, enjoy good food, parent, they are siblings, children, consumers, students. They also have feelings and emotions. It is awful when people are placed in a group like objects because of one similarity or one area in their lives where they happen to be targets and then bad things happen to them because of this, such as with this new piece of legislation that would prevent them from driving.

What if tomorrow, those same selfish dominant people decided that a group that you are part of should not have a driver's license anymore. What if they came up with a plan of action that would affect all people with target status? What if the schedule to remove Drivers licenses went like this:

Schedule for removing drivers licenses:

Feb. 1st: People who are Undocumented
Feb 15th: People Over 60
Feb 28th: People of color
March 15th: People who are Gun Owners
March 30th: People without Children
April 15th: People with disabilities
April 30th: People with any mental illness
May 1st: People who are women
May 30th: People who are Homosexual
June 15th: People with a criminal record

The list can go on and on, however because I am hungry I'm going to stop there! People wake up, this is a social justice issue! Don't wait until you are affected to stick up for your neighbors, customers, community members, students, employees who are not protected. We all need to drive!

Driving While Mexican

2012-12-21T22:30:00.000-08:00

"On June 25, 2012, the Supreme Court ruled on Arizona immigration laws. It voted against some portions of existing statutes – but upheld the right of police to check the immigration status of people they stop for traffic or other offenses. Immigrants in Oregon will feel the result of this ruling."

http://www.willamettelive.com/2012/news/driving-while-mexican/

Re-posted from WillametteLive.com

Union Summer: Turning Organizing Theory into Practice

2012-08-10T17:01:00.001-07:00

Organizing and mobilization, in theory, is one thing; it’s a whole different ballgame in practice.

After a week of orientation at the AFL-CIO headquarters in Washington, D.C.,Union Summer interns in Portland, Ore., are applying the theories they learned to the hands-on work they do on-site.
Intern Lesley Salinas explains:

"The time spent in Washington I classify as ’theory’ versus the hands-on training that I have been involved in locally in the community. During the training, I was given a lot of information that has been truly useful during these Union Summer weeks."

Union Summer: Turning Organizing Theory into Practice

News Analyst Discusses Media’s Role in Promoting Bigoted Ideas | Southern Poverty Law Center

2012-08-07T10:06:00.001-07:00

"One of the characteristics of having a narrow ideological spectrum in the mass media is that the media becomes inured to its own narrowness. The small differences become magnified to appear large on cable TV — the high decibels of the debate pass for wide diversity, which just isn't the case."

News Analyst Discusses Media’s Role in Promoting Bigoted Ideas | Southern Poverty Law Center

Study Finds Conservative Talk Radio Promotes Echo-Chamber Of Hate Speech

2012-08-06T00:39:00.000-07:00

The National Hispanic Media Coalition and UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center released a study showing that guests and topics discussed during "The Rush Limbaugh Show," "The Sean Hannity Show," "The Glenn Beck Program," The Savage Nation" and "The John and Ken Show" overwhelmingly marginalized minority groups.The findings reveal that the hosts promoted an insular discourse that focused on, for example, anti-immigration, anti-Islam, and pro-Tea Party positions and that this discourse found repetition and amplification through social media. reposted from mediamatters.org BLOG ››› AUGUST 3, 2012 12:40 PM EDT ››› SALVATORE COLLELUORI

Targets of Hate Speech :

Our analysis yielded no instances of the first kind of hate speech, which calls for “immediate unlawful action,” but we did identify and develop categories for six distinct targets of the second kind, which creates “a climate of hate and prejudice.”

"El Pachuco told me that it was a good idea to get behind President Obama"

2012-08-05T10:45:00.000-07:00

Embrace your inner Pachuco and exercise your right to vote!

Last night, the ghost of Pachuco's past, came to me in a dream. Yes! Edward James Olmos' character from Zoot Suit came in his true Pachuco character to warn me of the dangers of getting carried away with all of the attention we are getting as Latino's because of the upcoming election. "Orale vato, their only using you" he told me the same way he warned Hank about Alice Bloomfield, the woman who was trying to help their group. She wanted to create coalitions with the Mexican-American community that Hank belonged to. According to El Pachuco, the Mexican-American community who was being exploited, segregated and used was a perfect group to bring aboard in order to create the power of numbers. El Pachuco told me that although it was a good idea to get behind President Obama we should stay trucha (cautious) of this move. He told me that as a Latino I should support CAUSA because of their big push for immigrants rights, licenses for immigrants and making Latinos more aware of their voting power. Now is the time to negotiate the types of lives we want to have in the next four years. The President can make our lives better with moves like the announcement he made to include young Americans such as the Dreamers and integrating them legally into the only life known to them. I understand that white privilege has been sewn into the fabric of America and it is difficult for people with this privilege first to realize that it exists, and secondly give it up. Benefits such as health, wealth, housing, educational attainment and environmental quality are some of the areas in which white privilege is present.
Last month Obama came to Oregon and I felt like he didn't reach out to the Latino population. The fundraiser that he organized kept Latinos out because of the high prices of attending. Latinos however can vote and Obama should remember that. Note to our President Obama: Obama, we voted for you four years ago and we intend to do it again, however we do want to be acknowledged and courted the same way other groups are. The last time we entered into a relationship with President Obama it felt like a one night stand because after he got elected to office there were actually more deportations than ever. However, as in any good relationship we will overlook that and hope that he does something for us this time around.
We realize that after elections we will be in our same communities living our same lives. We would like to think that our valuable vote can give us and the ones we love a better life. If you look at the Sleepy Lagoon Riot stories from the 1940's things have changed. It was those coalitions that we built that made it happen and gave visibility to our cause. Let's make it happen again , embrace your inner Pachuco and exercise your right to vote! Change follows action! Chale, let's make this change happen!

Chik-Fil-A equals Fascism!

2012-08-02T02:02:00.001-07:00

Corporate America has crossed a very fragile threshold between business and politics. In this round of this ideological war, Chik-Fil-A draws first blood.

Fascism: is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek elevation of their nation based on commitment to an organic national community where its individuals are united together as one people in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry and culture through a totalitarian state that seeks the mass mobilization of a nation through discipline, indoctrination, physical training, and eugenics. Fascism seeks to eradicate perceived foreign influences that are deemed to be causing degeneration of the nation or of not fitting into the national culture.(Definition by Wikipedia)

In the last few days Americans have been made to feel that they can vote with their dollars for the corporations that profess their similar views on social and political issues. While it may seem absurd to those who have been voting with their dollars for a long time, what makes this next move by corporate America different is that traditionally if you wanted to support companies that you felt deserved your dollars, you would have to rely on word of mouth referrals or personal research about companies ethics and or political affiliation. Corporations used to keep their support for conservative causes away from the public eyes since it seemed that America was on track since the Civil Rights era to be a socially inclusive Nation. I remember the first time that I heard from a friend that she did not shop at K-mart since she had learned that the K-mart corporation was a major funding source for conservative causes and Candidates, I remember since that moment on that I would keep in my mind a log of companies that I would try to avoid. But I also remember that such information was not so easy to find then.

With the Chik-Fil-A incident I began to wonder why such a company would make their bigotry public and why would the business friendly punditry rally behind this story since it is not a business friendly practice to polarize their customer base. I realized that this marriage between business and religion is the same feared marriage of business and politics that characterizes a fascist form of government, only this time it is a polygamous union proper for a Mormon president. Chris Hedges author of many books regarding the rise of fascism in America. In 2007 after the release of his book American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War On America Hedges spoke with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now, in his interview Hedges discusses the research that he synthesized in his latest book and how corporations were slowly blurring the line between business and government and that there is a new regressive movement afoot in America:

"This is a new movement, as embodied by people like James Dobson or Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell, who call for the creation of a Christian state, who talk about attaining secular power. And they are more properly called dominionists or Christian reconstructionists, although it’s not a widespread term, but they’re certainly not traditional fundamentalists and not traditional evangelicals. They fused the language and iconography of the Christian religion with the worst forms of American nationalism and then created this sort of radical mutation, which has built alliances with powerful rightwing interests, including corporate interests, and made tremendous inroads over the last two decades into the corridors of power." (excerpt from Democracy Now! interview).

The Chik-Fil-A incident must be dealt with. There are more open- minded people than regressives in America. Let's Vote with our dollars but let's not forget that this is another divide and conquer technique.

Unions did such a good job…that so much of their work goes unnoticed

2012-08-01T14:38:00.000-07:00

Union Summer participant Lesly Salinas, 36, will be working with Portland hairstylists, janitors and bus drivers, trying to form unions when she goes out into the field. She says the Union Summer training resonated strongly with her passion to help people who are less privileged than she:

"I hope to create change. I hope to have an impact. The interesting thing about Union Summer is that not only do we get to participate in this program, but we are gaining these skills for life. I hope to bring all the knowledge I gained from Union Summer into my community and create change for them."

Salinas says her time at the AFL-CIO made her realize how important the labor movement is:

"Unions did such a good job…that so much of their work goes unnoticed—kind of like the civil rights movement. Now we have all these rights in the workplace and we don’t even think about them because they are just rights….We don’t know how we got there, and I think young people need to be invested in the possibility of creating positive change for the future."

President Obama's announcement... A Cinderella Story!

2012-08-01T10:55:00.001-07:00

In honor of the Union Summer Dreamers... You are a true inspiration!

Yesterday I received a petition via Facebook asking me to sign for the release of a Dreamer that was to be deported. I was supposed to call the ICE office and plea for this young man to be released from the detention center here in Oregon. I was so upset because I felt like President Obama was not making good on his word to hold off on deportations when he made his announcement last month to defer these.
It made me think of the story of Cinderella and I will use this as an analogy of how I view the dreamers debate and the issues that surround them. Cinderella is the underdog, the disadvantaged, and how she wanted to attend the ball is her trying to reach a goal of acceptance and belonging much the same way as the dreamers are trying to achieve citizenship but in both these cases they are not allowed by the powers that be. In both cases these privileges are being denied by these underprivileged people's family and community.
     The evil step-mother, who can be viewed as the person of power making decisions, in this case President Obama, thinks of a plan to make this situation seem fair. She tells Cinderella that if she can perform a series of duties that are unrealistic she can go to the ball, creating this immense hope for Cinderella that makes her work even harder than ever. Cinderella in this case can be viewed as the dreamers (undocumented youth who were brought here as children and were not involved in the decision making process surrounding this move) working hard to reach their goal of citizenship, a goal that mind you, many of us fortunate ones were granted just by being born in a particular space.
     The evil sisters are appalled and complain and whine to their mother asking "what are you doing?, what did you say to her?, she can't go to the ball." This reminds me of certain groups in the U.S. who think that white privilege is the only FAIR state of being for the united states. Any equality measure becomes unfair because they want and demand their privilege.
     The evil step-mother then appeases them by saying " Now now girls don't get all excited all I said was IF, I said IF." That seems to be what Obama said to our dreamers, he said "IF." STOP the deportations NOW President Obama, be true to your word!

Muhammad Ali was stripped of his title, while Mitt Romney got to go to the Olympics

2012-08-01T07:39:00.001-07:00

This is not the first time in Mitt Romney's life that the Olympics, Religion,Race and war intersect. During The Vietnam War, Mitt Romney received four deferments for religious study. Non-pacifist churches have at times deferred missionaries as "divinity students". During the Vietnam War the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints became embroiled in controversy for deferring large numbers of its young members.^[2] The LDS church eventually agreed to cap the number of missionary deferments it sought for members in any one state; however, this generally did not stop LDS missionaries who lived outside Utah^[2] (such as 2008 and 2012 presidential candidate Mitt Romney) from receiving deferments with relative ease. (from wikipedia) During the same war, Olympic medalist Muhammad Ali was stripped of his title for refusing to fight in Vietnam as a conscientious objector based on his religious beliefs. The outcomes were very different for both men who refused to fight in that war. While Mr. Ali was stripped oh his medal Mr. Romney got to represent the U.S. at the London Olympics as a diplomat. Mitt Romney representing the American right then goes on to Israel and reveals his parties bigotry to the world when he proclaims that some cultures are better than others. Not only that but it seems Mr. Romney shape-shifts on his draft dodging Romney’s selective memory on his draft record . As a Latino, it is clear to me that Romney would take us back to an institutionally white America. The Latino community should not vote for Romney as he declared his thoughts on cultural differences making these the reason for poverty in Palestine just as he had used this argument before when comparing the US and Mexico (Reported by The New York Times). Cultural differences are clearly not the cause of poverty Mr. Romney!