Lin-Manuel Miranda’s powerful new video for Immigrants (We Get The Job Done) is based on a track from The Hamilton Mixtape.
Mas…Lin-Manuel Miranda ‘Hamilton’ video: ‘Immigrants get the job done!’
borders
To win playing BORDERS, you need to beat La Migra (video)
BORDERS is a game from Gonzalo Alvarez where players walk in the shoes of an immigrant to endure the danger of a journey across the desert. You only win if you can avoid La Migra and beat the heat by hiding under bushes and staying hydrated. Many make the journey towards the border with the promise of a better life, but only the fittest survive.
Mas…To win playing BORDERS, you need to beat La Migra (video)
British rapper M.I.A. hates ‘Borders’ (music video)
In her new music video Borders, Brit rapper M.I.A. (Mathangi “Maya” Arulpragasam) says “No More Deportations” — #Not1MoreDeportation –– for the refugees.
Stephen Colbert: I pity the poor immigrants (video)
Whatever it is these poor kid refugees are fleeing — Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, El Diablo — Stephen Colbert pities them. But not too much.
Por los que no se rajan — for those that don’t crack
(Antigua, Guatemala — December 2000) I glanced up from my plate of rice, beans and perfectly grilled chicken breast. I was nauseous and weak from days of vomiting. Third-world cuisine always leaves me thinner than when I arrive.
In hindsight, I’m not sure if it was the beautiful colors in the woman’s “huipil” or if it was the look of angst on her face that caught my eye. As I gazed out the window of the restaurant I sat in, all I could think about was my own discomfort and what my friends back in the U.S. were doing.
While I contemplated these trivial matters, my father jumped up from his chair. I watched as he grabbed my uneaten plate, bolted out the front door of the restaurant and caught up to the woman I had seen walk by.
Scary kid immigrants from Japan: ‘Emoji Among Us’ (video)
They entered our God-Blessed America via smartphones and social media, and now these pint-sized Japanese are everywhere. Were these yellow-skinned child-like emo pictograms invited? Do they even have documents, bro?
Mas…Scary kid immigrants from Japan: ‘Emoji Among Us’ (video)
Don’t call me a ‘Mexican,’ America! Also, I’m not a ‘Latino’
It’s a phenomenon older than the United Estates of America. We’ve named it Looking Down On More Recent Immigrants Syndrome:
- In 1751, Founding Father Benjamin Franklin, a North American colonial with British roots, disparaged “stupid” and “swarthy” recently-arrvied German immigrants, who, he wrote, were too dumb to learn English, and did we mention they were “swarthy”?
- Discrimination against Irish Catholic immigrants by their English Protestant predecessors was one of the reasons 200 fresh-off-the-boat Irish United States Army draftees switched sides and fought for Mexico in the Mexican-American War of the 1840s. These deserters/heroes formed the famed Saint Patrick’s Battalion (Los San Patricios.)
- Hoity-toity German and Sephardic Jews who immigrated to the U.S.A. in the 18th and 19th Centuries were ashamed of the Hebrew homies who arrived later from Eastern Europe; the assimilated Jews banded together to “Americanize” the Russian and Polish immigrants in the 1880s.
Last week three latter-day Looking Down Syndrome sightings lit up our screen, INSISTENT MESSAGES from people who want you to know THEY ARE DEFINITELY NOT THOSE OTHER PEOPLE OVER THERE — those Mexicans and/or Latinos.
Mas…Don’t call me a ‘Mexican,’ America! Also, I’m not a ‘Latino’
Aloe Blacc’s ‘Wake Me Up!’ tells immigrants’ stories (music video)
This is not an American tale. This is a tale of ordinary people around the world over who have to cross manmade borders to secure a future for themselves and their families. Panamanian-American Aloe Blacc sings their story in Wake Me Up!
Breaking: AZ Gov. Jan Brewja endorses President Obama (video)
Arizona Gov. Janet Brewer (AKA Jan Brewja) has surprising news for America.
Mas…Breaking: AZ Gov. Jan Brewja endorses President Obama (video)
La Chata’s Music Box: Outernational ‘The Beginning Is Here’ (video)
La Chata’s Music Box presents spankin’-good Spanglish ska from Outernational – The Beginning Is Here, the first video from the activist New York collective’s latest CD (Todos Somos Ilegales We are All Illegal.) (NSFW lyrics.) The title track video (with special guest stars!) is right here, and the band is on the Pocho Hour of Power today at 4PM PDT on KPFK.
Outernational ‘We Are All Illegals Todos Somos Ilegales’ (music video)
New York band Outernational rocks the message in Spanglish with We Are All Illegals featuring Tom Morello, Chad Smith and Residente Calle 13.
LaChata’s Music Box: Aztlan Underground’s newest video ‘Our Nature’
With love from LaChata: For 20 years, Aztlan Underground has presented an evolution of consciousness intertwined with pre-Colombian thoughts, feelings and sounds. In a search for the other — the unknown — Aztlan Underground gives birth to a visceral sound that challenges listeners.
Check out their new, visually-stunning music video Our Nature. It starts with indigenous drums, channels the apocalyptic opera of the Doors and celebrates the natural animal spirit that inhabits us all.
From the hidden vaults of the Mayan pyramids, two more videos below:
Mas…LaChata’s Music Box: Aztlan Underground’s newest video ‘Our Nature’