Texas Governor Perry ‘outraged’ at deportation center photos

deporttion640(PNS reporting from AUSTIN) Texas Governor Rick Perry was “outraged” after seeing leaked photos of crowded child detainees at the U.S. Border Patrol Detention center in Brownsville, PNS has learned.

“The kind of sloppy detention seen in those photos is a clear waste of space as well as taxpayer dollars,” Perry said in an email sent to aides Monday night.

Perry thinks the centers could squeeze in more detainees using the “tight pack” system long advocated by GOP lobbyist John E. Rebb.

Mas…Texas Governor Perry ‘outraged’ at deportation center photos

Mexicans + Lexington, Kentucky = ‘Mexington’ (photos, audio)

mexingtonheaderSteven Alvarez, POCHO amigo and Assistant Professor (Writing Rhetoric and Digital Media, Latin America Studies, English) at the University of Kentucky, teaches a course called Mexington, about the growing community of Mexican Americans in UKY’s hometown, Lexington.

Here’s a student podcast interview with the Profe (he’s on the Twitter, too) and a few selected photos from the recent field trip he led to Mexington.

Mas…Mexicans + Lexington, Kentucky = ‘Mexington’ (photos, audio)

POCHO wishes you a Merry Christmas (toon)

lalomerryMerry Christmas from the Pochodores: Lalo Alcaraz, Jefe-in-Chief; Dennis Wilen AKA Comic Saenz, Jefe de Editorial; Sara Inés Calderón, Subcommandanta del Ñews; Victor Payan, Subcommandante de la Cultura; Beto Mesta AKA Eres Nerd, Texas Burro Jefe; Santino J. Rivera, Florida Burro Jefe; Elise Roedenbeck, New Jack City Burro Jefe (Emeritus); Melanie Ruiz, Director of Marketing; Al Madrigal, Migrant Editor.

Feminists: The struggles of immigrants are our struggles, too

immigrationmarch600I’m often asked, “Where were you born?”

My answer? Houston, Texas.

“Where were your parents born?”

El Paso, Texas.

“Where were your grandparents born?”

El Paso, Texas, Balmorhea, Texas and Ft. Davis, Texas.

That is when people usually start to get frustrated and ask, “Well, where is your family from originally?”

The actual meaning behind this statement is “You are a brown-skinned woman and brown-skinned women are not native to the U.S.”

My answers explain that I am not the stranger. Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada and Utah were all once part of Mexico, after all.

Mas…Feminists: The struggles of immigrants are our struggles, too

Califas will issue driver’s licenses to the undocumented

cdlFox Latino, which puts “undocumented” in their headline but “illegal” in their story, reports:

California, home to the nation’s largest immigrant population, would become the 11th state to grant immigrants who are in the country illegally [sic] the right to a driver’s license under a bill that passed the Legislature late Thursday and that Gov. Jerry Brown supports.

The success of the legislation comes after years of setbacks for Democratic lawmakers and Latino activists.

The state Assembly approved the bill on a 55-19 vote late in the evening, hours after the Senate passed it on a 28-8 vote. The Democratic governor issued a statement indicating he would sign it into law.

MAS Whitewashing: Tucson OKs textbook list with NO Chicano authors

tusdlogo640Let me tell you a joke. Ready? The Tucson Unified School District. Get it?

No? Allow me to me explain.

On Tuesday night the TUSD approved a textbook list for their now defunct Mexican-American Studies program, which they have dubbed “Culturally Relevant US History and US Government.” The list, which consists of 25 books, has absolutely ZERO Chicana/o authors on it.

Go ahead and read that again.

If you have been following the divine comedy in Tucson at all then you already know that they not only destroyed their wildly successful Mexican-American Studies program but that they also banned a laundry list of books by Chicana/o authors, closed barrio schools and fired MAS teachers.

Mas…MAS Whitewashing: Tucson OKs textbook list with NO Chicano authors

Sheriff Joe is racist, says Federal judge, and Pocho Ocho other things

The news broke out of Phoenix late Friday, but to tell you the truth, we weren’t surprised. Judge G. Murray Snow of the United States District Court for Arizona officially declared the policing policies of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio unconstitutionally “racist.”

The New York Times summed up the decision this way:

… the sheriff relied on racial profiling and illegal detentions to target Latinos, using their ethnicity as the main basis for suspecting they were in the country illegally. Many of the people targeted were American citizens or legal residents.

It took us a while to read the entire ruling but we went through the whole thing and came up with eight additional findings about “America’s toughest sheriff”:

Mas…Sheriff Joe is racist, says Federal judge, and Pocho Ocho other things

How many generations until Latinos become ‘Americans’?

I consider myself Latina, close to my family’s Mexican culture; I’m bilingual and I’m happy with that identity. But, more often than not, it seems like everyone else is trying to corral me into some other identity, telling me that mine is not sufficient.

The neighborhood where I live (photos, above) is a perfect example.

It’s split in two: one part of it is gentrifying rapidly, and the other is filled with Mexican and many immigrant families. I where it’s more Mexican, which makes me — in all my professional hipster-ness — stand out sometimes, but people still speak to me in Spanish and often I just become part of the scenery. But then there are other times.

Mas…How many generations until Latinos become ‘Americans’?

PNS*Hot*Flash: Sequestration Proclamation frees the ‘Pedroes’

(PNS reporting from WASHINGTON, DC) President Barack Obama today issued a “Sequestration Proclamation,” which authorizes the freeing of an additional 300 undocumented immigrants from detention centers around the country in advance of looming budget cuts.

While Republicans claimed the freeing of these so-called “Pedroes” would lead to the total collapse of the U.S. economy, the only immediate impact has been the creation of 900 new jobs.

Obama is being hailed as “The Great Sequestrator” by Latinos around the country, and Obama-themed corridos are already staples on Mexican radio.

Mas…PNS*Hot*Flash: Sequestration Proclamation frees the ‘Pedroes’

Sequester-released immigrants head to D.C. to fix the budget

(PNS reporting from WASHINGTON, D.C.) Scores of immigrants released due to sequester-forced budget cuts are headed to the nation’s capital to fill gaps in the labor pool, PNS has learned.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) began releasing low priority immigrants from detention centers in New Jersey, Louisiana, California, Texas and Florida earlier this week.

After the immigrants were released, PNS got reports that congressional staffers were driving past detention centers trying to pick up the immigrants for jobs in Washington.

“Immigrants are, once again, doing the job that no one else can do: balancing the budget,” said Manuel Padilla, who was released from a detention center in New Jersey Monday. “About 40 of us came from Jersey, in the back of three pickups!”

Mas…Sequester-released immigrants head to D.C. to fix the budget