Fear of Being What We Are

Well, that is what it has come down to. Once again, in North Carolina. Again, I feel sorry for undocumented people living in this state. I’m glad I’m not there but I highly doubt my state is any better.

Anyway, it seems that Hispanic leaders have to be afraid because they are pro-immigrant. They have received the usual, profanity filled messages, hate messages, among others, I’ve received the same treatment. But now, they’ve received death threats. I mean, wow, how far are people willing to go.

This is from the News and Observer.

“This is not about immigration,” Bazán said. “This is not about debating policy. This has moved on to another sphere. This is hate.”

Rep. Pricey Harrison, a Greensboro Democrat who sponsored the bill (in-state tuition for undocumented students bill), said she received one phone message warning that “my days are numbered.” She said the message, which included profane insults, felt like a threat.

“I have not seen anything like what illegal immigration elicits,” Harrison said. “It’s revealing a very ugly side of humanity that I’ve never seen before.”

“When you describe immigrants as Third World invaders or murderers, or say that they are swarming or coming in hordes, this is dehumanizing language,” Lauter said. “That kind of rhetoric inspires others who might act out on hate.”

How low does this country have to go before things get better?

Of course, the comment section of the newspaper has comments like the following.

From Stonewall83.

Plain and simple get rid of those mexicans. We don’t need them. This is a country founded on wonderful anglosaxon traditions. Anything contrary is plain unamerican. Get out mexicans!

Buzzaw

People are sick and tired of non whites telling whites to conform to their cultures. This country was intended to be a european only country. Since we have strayed away from that, we have been on a sharp decline.

And I saw other recognizible names from an anti-immigrant website that I won’t mention, which leads me to believe that the rest of the comments are no better. It is sad that this is the norm. But at least we are not being killed on the streets–oh, wait.

Life as a Lie

I often say that my life is a lie. Some people disagree with me. But it is, it really is. While with my friends and girlfriend, it is not as much. It is their lack of understanding about this kind of life that makes them say that. My life is not a lie as it is with most people when I’m around them. I can thank them for that much, for making my existence easier.

As one girl from the video before said, you have to lie to everyone else about it, even joke about undocumented students and condemn them, in order to fit in. In order to let anyone suspect what you are. You can’t let people even suspect that you are one of the ‘other’. I’ve done so in the past. That is when it becomes obvious that I’m living a lie.

I have to ‘act’ almost all the time. 24/7. Keep up the charade. Not just on regards on being like everyone else, saying I’m legal and such, but also on regards to keeping my feelings in check. That means that when I’m depressed, I don’t act like it. I can’t. I don’t want people to see me and know and talk to me when I’m like that. So, the acting is a full-time gig.

But I’ve failed as an actor. Not totally failed but for someone in my situation, this kinds of failures could lead me to be in great trouble. The last slip-up was with my girlfriend. Or rather, before she became my girlfriend, she suspected that I was what I am. I was too emotional when I spoke about immigration and personalized the problem too much. But how could I not be personal when this is my life, all of this. It is taking a greater toll on me, this acting and I’m not able to do as easily as I did in the past. My failure showed me that. I have to get better, I have to continue the charade as best as I can. Hopefully this summer is helping me recharge for the coming school year because it will be challenging. I will have a new roommate, one that doesn’t know about my situation. With him, I’m not undocumented, I’m not living in fear, I’m not depressed, I’m not a blogger, I’m not everything I am. Hopefully things will go well.

So, lying is a way of life with me. It can’t be helped. By being honest I could lose everything. And for those who don’t understand that, well, I just hope you never have to be in my shoes.

Dream Act Students

Another great video. Must watch.

About those opportunities…

Well, the following is written by Elrandomhero over at his blog, American Wetback. I advice everyone to read it, it is really cool. So, I decided to re-post his entry on my blog because he and I share the same feelings on regards to opportunities. Read on…

In the last few days I have been contemplating something that I shouldn’t be and that’s passing on an internship. Without getting into any incriminating details, I basically passed on an internship opportunity this week because it means putting my self at risk. Again without getting into too much detail, the government has way of knowing everything you do in your life, whether you want them to know or not. Taking on this paid internship would have meant doing things that I shouldn’t be doing in the first place. I am not a legal U.S. resident , thus I cannot legally work or apply for internships that pay. Obviously I have considered the chance that I might still be able to be part of the internship without pay, but I need to focus on other things, despite again passing up such a great opportunity. This is not the first nor the last time I will have to make a decision like this. I have turned down many a job because of my legal status and every time I go through this stupid cycle of semi-depression. Every time I get my hopes up thinking that this time around they’re be some way for me to be able to take on a better paying job, I get denied. I’ve done it so many times now that it has sadly become a routine. People see the type of person I am and want to help me, but what good is that help if the U.S. says I don’t qualify for that help because of my illegal residence. The depression use to be a lot worse a year ago. Ohh man when I got frustrated back then about work, life and my x-girl I would go outside and punch walls till my knuckles bleed. Now adays I just pretend like everything is cool, when in reality I’m still dealing with what happened inside my head. Sometimes all that thinking makes me hungry for junk food that’ll only make me fatter. Passing by on great opportunities is part of my daily life. I don’t get excited about anything anymore really. Why should when I know that I’ll be denied and tossed to the side. I know that there are internships that don’t ask for the things that I lack, but those are hard to come by and sought after, just like scholarships. I know that it’s not impossible to make it because others have and sometimes I look to those who came before me for inspiration. Then again they had the support of family and friends. I on the other hand am grateful and extremely lucky to have the friends that I have, but at the end of the day it’s just me and my dog against the world. That’s what I’m reminded of when I have to turn down great opportunities, it’s me against the world. Somedays I even feel like going to sleep and never waking up ever again. Course those are the days when I’m depressed or bummed out, kinda like today.

Thanks again Randomhero for allowing me to repost this entry.

Another Political Cartoon

This is another political cartoon I like. Enjoy. From the US News and World Report.

It Continues

Again from North Carolina, what’s wrong with these people, I would NEVER want to live there. Anyway, back to the point, again from North Carolina, another sign of the GREAT job the police are doing.

It was another dangerous mother, doing the horrible crime of driving. I’ll just quote the rest of the story, because seriously people, I couldn’t make this shit up even if I was paid to. From the News and Observer.

An illegal immigrant arrested on a traffic violation last month was forced to leave her three children on the shoulder of Interstate 85 in the middle of the night — where they were alone and stranded for eight hours.

An Alamance County sheriff’s deputy pulled Maria Chavira Ventura over just before 2 a.m. on June 14, according to arrest records. He took her to jail for driving without a license and displaying a false license plate, and she was eventually put under a federal deportation order. He left her children, 14, 10 and 6, with a man they barely knew, according to the N.C. Justice Center and Maryland social workers. He was a fellow church member who had been catching a ride with the family.

I’m just shocked by all the hypocrisy in the matter of enforcement. Many anti-immigrant advocates say that their problem is not with immigration, just with illegals. No, that’s a lie. Their problem is with brown people because policies that give immigration powers to police that only go after Latinos. That’s the truth. There is no way to differentiate between legal and illegal residents unless the assumption that all Latinos are illegal is made, which is what the anti people do. And please, don’t say that’s a lie, this is discrimination and demonization of an entire group of people. I thought America was better than this.

Radio Stupidity, and a Question.

I will put the following quotes from the man known as Michael Savage as he said them on his radio show. From Media Matters.

Now, the illness du jour is autism. You know what autism is? I‘ll tell you what autism is. In 99 percent of the cases, it’s a brat who hasn’t been told to cut the act out. That’s what autism is.

What do you mean they scream and they’re silent? They don’t have a father around to tell them, “Don’t act like a moron. You’ll get nowhere in life. Stop acting like a putz. Straighten up. Act like a man. Don’t sit there crying and screaming, idiot.”

Autism — everybody has an illness. If I behaved like a fool, my father called me a fool. And he said to me, “Don’t behave like a fool.” The worst thing he said — “Don’t behave like a fool. Don’t be anybody’s dummy. Don’t sound like an idiot. Don’t act like a girl. Don’t cry.” That’s what I was raised with. That’s what you should raise your children with. Stop with the sensitivity training. You’re turning your son into a girl, and you’re turning your nation into a nation of losers and beaten men. That’s why we have the politicians we have.

Wow, well, stupid and sexist. Apparently, autism is a disease for girls only, according to his logic. Now, this individual put his opinion out there, with no training whatsover and why is he still on? I can read about cancer and yet I’ll probably still know next to nothing, which is why I don’t put an opinion or diagnose anyone on the disease or cures or whatever. So, America, why is this man still on the air? Really? Please, explain this to me America. WHY? Please, America, take the garbage off the air. Oh, by the way, you have the politicians you have because you elected them…

Immigration Enforcement Working!

Oh yea, enforcement is working. It is taking those countless criminal scumbags of aliens of the streets and back where they belong. They are all so dangerous and scary. Lets take a look at the first example of a dangerous individual.

First up, as reported by FOXNews. There was an evil librarian in the town of Burlington, NC. Yep, she was taken care of. She was dangerous all right, being here for so long that she doesn’t remember the place she came from. And of course, she married a real American and had a kid. She committed the crime of stealing that guy from a real American woman. The shame! I’m so glad that giving the police immigration powers is working so swell.

Second to the plate, by the NY Times. This wretched human being was caught for driving badly. So, she went to jail for 6 days, she was 9 months pregnant and had a kid on a hospital while having an officer watching over her. Of course, she was also chained to the bed with handcuffs while having the kid. We all know women usually have a very merry time while giving birth. Having a kid is so easy that she could have tried to escape. So the police did the right thing by chaining her, right.

Now, I’m not even going to bother writing anything about this because I couldn’t seriously make this up or make fun about it, I’ll just quote the article.

After she was discharged from the hospital, Mrs. Villegas was separated from her nursing infant for two days and barred from taking a breast pump into the jail, her lawyer and a doctor familiar with the case said. Her breasts became infected, and the newborn boy developed jaundice, they said.

No, let me speak seriously for a minute. ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS??? The woman had a baby for Christ’s sake. But of course, she is a dangerous individual.

I’m so tired of the bullshit that comes from giving police immigration powers. Instead of going after people that actually put people in danger, you know, actual criminals, they do this shit. Going after librarians? Recent mothers? People working at factories? I mean, come on, the hypocrisy of immigration enforcement is so thick I could cut it with a knife.

Those two stories above are shameful and people should be embarrassed that their tax payer money (including my parents’) is being used like that. How did we come to this? What next? I’ll be taken out because I was having fun at my university?

Op-ed on recent immigration raid in Providence

Garcia Hernandez gives a good historical background & some really disturbing reflections on the judiciary’s involvement in this raid & on its implications for migrants’ ability to seek justice in the US.

read more | digg story

Hate Crime

Wow, this sort of news makes me sad for America. America  is supposed to be better than this but apparently not. A man named Luis Ramirez was beaten to death by 6 teenagers in the town of Shenandoah, Pennsylvania. The following are quotes from the article from ABC News.

“From what we understand right now, it wasn’t racially motivated,” Nestor said. “This looks like a street fight that went wrong.”

Umm, no, a street fight is one thing. Ganging up on someone and leaving them one step away from death is another. Look at the picture below.

Luis Ramirez. This is the result of a hate crime. (Crystal Dillman/AP Photo)

Retired Philadelphia police Officer Eileen Burke, who lives on the street where the fight occurred, told The Associated Press she heard a youth scream at one of Ramirez’s friends after the beating to tell her Mexican friends to get out of Shenandoah, “or you’re going to be laying next to him.”

On Dillman’s fireplace mantel hangs a medallion of Jesus that Ramirez was wearing the night he was beaten. Ramirez had an imprint of the medallion on his chest, marking where an assailant stomped on him, she said.

The Garcias said they heard the youths call Ramirez “stupid Mexican” and an ethnic slur.

Burke, the former Philadelphia officer, said she saw shirtless youths swarming around Ramirez, called 911 and went outside, when she heard a youth yell obscenities and make the get-out-of-Shenandoah remark.

But do the people in the town choose to believe this. Take a look at the quote below to know.

Despite the witness statements, Borough Manager Joseph Palubinsky said he doesn’t believe Ramirez’s ethnicity was what prompted the fight: “I have reason to know the kids who were involved, the families who were involved, and I’ve never known them to harbor this type of feeling.”

Of course, the witnesses are lying. Yep. They are just out to ruin the kids who were defending themselves from the big scary Mexican illegal. OOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH look out, I’m also scary. I’m like boogie man, out to get you. I guess someone forgot to inform my girlfriend and friends that I’m scary, because all Mexicans are, right?

The people defending on this story are full of shit, it is that simple. They are defending kids because what, they are football players and win games. Because they know the families involved? All shit. The kids deserve to go to jail or more for the crime they committed. It doesn’t matter whether the person who is now dead was illegal or not, he was attacked by the simple fact of being Mexican. The man was stomped one and kicked in the head, how is that not a crime.

This article and event are disturbing beyond belief, I’m Mexican and I’ve always been afraid of something like this happening to me or my family. This is what happens when the immigration debate gets out context and everyone within group are labeled as demons, in this case, Latinos. I thought American was better than this.

The rest of the abomination is written in the following article by ABC News, the quotes and pictures belong to them.

Sweeps Threaten Latinos and Constitution in Maricopa County

The deputies began driving into the neighborhood, terrorizing the community until almost 11 p.m. that night. Young Latino men were brought into the parking lot in handcuffs. They looked terrified as they arrived in the back of sheriff
’s vehicles.Stadium lights were everywhere. The media was on-site interviewing deputies and concerned residents.

read more | digg story

Not My World

I found this via Citizen Orange (belonging to Signs of the Times), this picture, as Kyledeb said, is the world where the antis would love to live in. This is not how its going to go down though, or I least I hope not. I think the world is moving to a more progressive side, slowly but surely, we will get there and this picture will not come to pass.

Beaufort County, SC and Operation Surge

What, now counties? Unlike my other two postings, which consentrated on blaming immigrants for the end of the world, now it is an entire county. It seems like we are moving up. Actually, this is quite scary since this has been the third article of this kind in the last couple of days.

So, what’s going on in South Carolina. Well, the entire state hates us but this county does it with a vengeance. The started something called Operation Surge, which to what I’m reading, it means that all brown people will be arrested and have the documents checked. No, of course there is no racial profiling, who would ever think that!?

It is disgusting that things are happening this way. Note to self, never visit Beaufort County, Escondido or Freemont. I’ll take my money elsewhere.

Read the article over the crap that is going over there in the following link.

Our Stories

Do you know how it feels to be unwanted? Do you know how it feels to be a burden? To be unknown and untruthful? Do you know how it feels to be invisible? Do you know how it feels to be not understood. To live in the shadows and in fear? Being undocumented is that and so much more. Try to understand us and watch, we only want to be accepted.

Escondido, oh the irony…

The city of Escondido is now adding itself to the list of cities that want to get rid of us.  Because we are nuisances. It’s ironic that the city is trying to get rid of its brown residents when the name of the city itself comes from such people. Escondido, El Paso, Los Angeles, San Fransisco, and the like, all the cities with Spanish backgrounds. It is just funny to me.

Anyways, the mantra of Escondido is that if you can’t get rid of us directly, use the stereotypes against us. Ordinances against trash, graffiti and junk cars. Oh no, this is not racist at all, because really, only Latinos do this, no wait! Undocumented people is now a race.

From the article.

The police department’s most controversial move, however, was establishing checkpoints to find unlicensed drivers. Last year, the department set up 18 license checkpoints, resulting in 293 impounded cars, 14 arrests and 296 citations. Maher said those checkpoints helped officers find at least 290 unlicensed drivers and helped reduce the city’s number of hit-and-run crashes.

“Some folks say they are controversial because they target a specific segment of the population,” he said. “That is absolutely not true. Our checkpoints are for one reason and one reason only: traffic safety.”

Traffic safety? Yeah, right. What a world we live in folks. The purges continue and another dark chapter in the long dark history of US immigration is being written. Unfortunately for me, I feel the damn ink hurting all over.

Read the rest of the article here, courtesy and all rights belonging to the LA Times.