(Im)migrant Bashing Reprieve

James M. Munley, Judge from the central Pennsylvania district of Hazeltown, struck down the local ordinances that have sought to punish undocumented (im)migrants for trying to live and work in the brain-drained town. Evidence: Mayor Louis J. Barletta (whose name evinces more border crossing than a snake's shed skin) made tax payers pay for their own ignorance while scapegoating (im)migrants. Brain drain has been rough for the rust belt.


Hazleton immigration law is rejected: A city cannot take such a national issue into its own hands, a judge rules in Pennsylvania

Hazeltown, Pa., immigration, Mexican American body

(Im)migrant Bashing Reprieve

The Mexican Body as Fuel

Conservative CNN commentator and radio host Glenn Beck read a mock ad created by subscribers to his website that announced the profitable use of Mexican bodies as fuel. What other group could be as expendable in the national imaginary? Would anyone put up with such banter if it dealt with, say, African Americans?

See Text[t] Mex's post about this.

David Ritcheson

David Ritcheson, the Mexican American teenager who hated being known as "that kid," jumped off a ship to his death yesterday.

Ritcheson was beaten unconscious, burned with cigarettes, doused with bleach, carved with a knife, and sodomized with a plastic pole. One of his assailants shouted "White Power!" as he beat Ritcheson during the course of some five hours. The boy had tried to kiss one of the attacker's sister. My heart goes out to his family.

Background

Court description: What Does Hate Look Like?

As the dailykos noted last year: Shades of 1955?

Pedro Guzman's Forced Exile

See Man Eegee's posts.

Bodies Politic: Immigration Bill Stalls by 15 Votes

I'd like to be able to count more Mexican, Mexican American, and Latino reporters in the group surrounding Harry Reid other than the Argentine Telemundo reporter in the black suit left of center. As is known to those who follow Telemundo news, his position in the photograph does not speak to his politics.

"Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, said the bill had become 'more punitive and more onerous' because of amendments adopted in the last few days. Mr. Menendez pointed, for example, to one that denied the earned-income tax credit to illegal immigrants who gain legal status under the bill.

Cecilia Muñoz, a vice president of the National Council of La Raza, the Hispanic rights group, said she had similar concerns. Changes approved by the Senate this week make the bill 'not only more punitive, but also less workable,' Ms. Muñoz said."

Immigration and the U.S. Body Politic

"The glue that is keeping this process going is the absolute agreement by all the disparate groups that the current system is absolutely dysfunctional," Bruce Josten, chief lobbyist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. (Jonathan Weisman, Washington Post)

"El paso del norte" and the Mexicana Body

"El paso del norte": from the XIX c., to Juan Rulfo, to Ninón Sevilla in Aventurera, and on to Alicia Gaspar de Alba's Dessert Blood and our own present, the spaces between Ciudad Juárez, México, and El Paso, Texas, are more spectral and more deadly than what representation can conjure.

Life Along 'La Linea'
A portrait of the complexities of life along the U.S.-Mexico border