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."

Bodies Politic: Immigration Bill 27 Votes Short of Cloture

The New York Times, ROBERT PEAR and CARL HULSE

Immigration Bill Suffers Setback in Senate Vote

"Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic majority leader, scheduled another, make-or-break cloture vote for this evening. If that vote also falls short, Mr. Reid is expected to shelve the bill, meaning that changes in immigration law might not be considered again for many months."

Black and Latino Bodies Politic at War in Lynwood, Los Angeles

The long awaited LA Times article on the state of affairs between Latinos and Blacks in Los Angeles is out and it confirms what many have known all along. Racial enmity is tearing at the city’s seams. The limited distribution of resources has made the two groups fight each other while leaving structural inequalities for both intact.

Blogger coverage: “L.A. is going to blow again, and its not going to be pretty, a race riot that will make the ones of the 60s look like a day in Disneyland Park.”

Lynwood:
1990

Population: 61,945

Latino: 69%

Black: 22%

Other: 9%

--

2007

Population: 72,426

Latino: 87%

Black: 9%

Other: 4%

Immigrant, Migrant, or Refugee Bodies?: Point System Misses the Point

The proposed "point system" leaves Mexicans, the largest number of (im)migrants to the U.S., in limbo again. The system seeks to "award" points for better educated, higher skilled immigrants, and would remain in place for the next 14 years. But the point system isn't so much a compromise between Democrats and Republicans as it is a failed system from its conception. It does not address the most pressing issues affecting Mexican immigration to this country, the economies these immigrants help to keep afloat through their labor, nor the working conditions that make their bodies expendable commodities in this economy. Locking the point system into law for the next 14 years neither addresses the U.S.'s changing economy, nor its ability to compete in a "new world order" of its own creation.

"Ekaterina D. Atanasova, a civil engineer from Bulgaria who lives in southern Maine, wants to bring her husband to the United States. Under the Senate immigration bill, he would get high marks — at least 74 points — because he too is a civil engineer, has a master’s degree and is fluent in English.

But Herminia Licona Sandoval, a cleaning woman from Honduras, would have no hope of bringing her 30-year-old son to the United States. He works as a driver at an oil refinery, lacks a high school diploma, speaks little English and would fare poorly under the Senate bill, earning fewer than 15 of a possible 100 points." (Robert Pear, A Point System for Immigrants Incites Passions)

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)

Ken Burns, PBS and the Latino Body at War

Professor Maggie Rivas-Rodríguez "is credited with igniting a grass-roots effort to pressure famed documentary filmmaker Ken Burns to include Latinos" in his upcoming documentary The War. See Guillermo Contreras' article, "UT Professor Has a Way of Getting Nation's Ear."

Prof. Rivas-Rodríguez has also been involved in the "US Latinos and Latinas and World War II" project at UT, Austin. This important project seeks to document the stories of Latina and Latino participation in the armed services.

"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