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)

A professor visits migrants at the border near Nogales, Mexico

border_immersion_morenoBy the time the two young women walked into the shelter, the other migrants were mostly finished with their meals. They stood out as two women among dozens of recently deported men enjoying a meal before continuing on their way. I did what I had been doing all that January morning: I served them each a glass of hot chocolate and a plate of food.

We were volunteering at the Kino Border Initiative (KBI) in Nogales, Mexico, as part of the Center for Social Concerns’ Border Immersion Faculty Seminar. For several years, Notre Dame students have participated in this seminar, but this was the first time it was being offered to faculty and staff as well. As a professor of U.S. Latino literature who studies and teaches about the border, this was an opportunity for me to experience the border in a different way.

Mas…A professor visits migrants at the border near Nogales, Mexico

Juanes and John Legend sing Bob Marley’s ‘Redemption Song’ (video)

Won't you help to sing
These songs of freedom?
'Cause all I ever have:
Redemption songs.

As part of John Legend’s #FREEAMERICA “Listening and Learning tour,” Grammy Award-winning artists Legend and Juanes visited Eloy Detention Center, Tent City, and Puente Arizona Community Center earlier this month – with pop-up performances for both detainees and their separated families. Here they are with Bob Marley’s anthemic Redemption Song.

Vanessa Del Fierro is a coyote on a ‘Mexican Train’ (music video)

vanessahatSan Antonio sensation Vanessa Del Fierro is the alt.mariachi chingona behind Las Coronelas, whose mega-viral David Bowie cover almost blew up POCHO’s servers this week.

Vanessa also stars as an immigrant-smuggling coyote in a new video for her original composition Mexican Train. It’s a love song; too bad she’s in love with the wrong vato. Extra firme oldies points for the doo-wop backup girls, the triplets feel, and the tubular bells:

Mas…Vanessa Del Fierro is a coyote on a ‘Mexican Train’ (music video)

A funny thing happened on the way to ‘Bordertown’

BordertownBarracudaEPNHola. I’m Lalo Alcaraz. You might know me.

I have been a Chicano political cartoonist forever. I know, I know, it’s God’s work, you’re welcome. Now, all of a sudden I’m a primetime TV writer and producer. Huh? Yes, the last two years in my life have been a super WTF. With ten percent LOL. #facepalm

Like it or not, I am now part of a historic pop culture moment: the first season of the first animated primetime TV show featuring a large cast of Mexican and Mexican-American characters: Bordertown.

Mas…A funny thing happened on the way to ‘Bordertown’

What happens when young deportees get sent back? (PBS video)


Even before the recent MIGRA raids targeting families denied asylum, hundreds of thousands of undocumented Mexican immigrants have been deported annually. Many were kids when their parents brought them over the border.

And those who grew up in the U.S. have found themselves living in what feels like a foreign country — Mexico. It’s like a dream Los Otros Dreamers never imagined.

PBS News Hour Special Correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro talked with some young people who are dealing with culture shock as they try to start over — strangers in a strange land.

Lalo Alcaraz: My Excellent Texalent ‘Bordertown’ Adventure (photos)

crackerbarrelmcallen(TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20 2015 – TEXAS, USA) I’m “on tour” in South Texas, down along the border, screening episodes of the animated series Bordertown, which debuts next year on FOX.

It’s exotic! The indigenous cuisine served ^^^ at the Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, in McAllen, is like nothing I’ve previously encountered – it’s “quirky.” And I was surrounded by crackers; barrels not so much.

Mas…Lalo Alcaraz: My Excellent Texalent ‘Bordertown’ Adventure (photos)

‘Testimonios’ of the undocumented (Lalo Cura music video)


Testimonios tells the stories of undocumented immigrants and the “American Dream” — soulful rock en español from Lalo Cura. No one is illegal.

Lalo Cura is Sonny Carreño on drums, Adam Carter on guitar and backup vocals, Rafael Chávez y Moreno on guitar and vocals, Adam Hartung on bass and Sam Que on sax and backup vocals. Video by Sophia Vergara. Music and lyrics by Rafael Chávez y Moreno.

Official Report: La Migra’s border drone results not on fleek (videos)

droneThe Department of Homeland Security Inspector General may not have the sad, exactly, but his end-of-2014 report on border-patrolling drones was not very happy.

Tio Sam, the Inspector General recommended, should spend his Migra-Industrial Complex money somewhere else. More drones are not on fleek, the report concluded.

The LexisNexis newsroom pulled this quote from the report:

U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Unmanned Aircraft System Program Does Not Achieve Intended Results or Recognize All Costs of Operations

Although CBP’s Unmanned Aircraft System program contributes to border security, after 8 years, CBP cannot prove that the program is effective because it has not developed performance measures.

Mas…Official Report: La Migra’s border drone results not on fleek (videos)

Uncle Sam’s migracorrido ‘La Bestia (The Death Train)’ (music, lyrics)


From Central America comes this ballad that’s fast rising the Latin American charts. It’s all about the dangerous Death Train that Central American drug war refugees ride on their way across Mexico enroute to El Norte. In Spanish they call the train The Beast — La Bestia.

And who is the man behind this music? It’s a name we all love, but who knew he could sing!? This track comes from Uncle Sam, who hired an ad agency to make a hit record.

Mas…Uncle Sam’s migracorrido ‘La Bestia (The Death Train)’ (music, lyrics)

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