What Do Gays And Undocumented Do For "Us"?

Image from Governing.com


I've been hearing a lot about how good gay marriages will be for California's economy. I am not comfortable with this simplification of the issue. It's like heterosexuals have found a way to justify gay marriage in pure economic terms. After all, how much harm can homosexuality do to California's heterosexual culture if it does so much good to California's economy?

Michael LIndenberger from Time reports,

A report released by the Williams Institute at UCLA law school says fully half of the state's 102,000 gay couples could wed in the next three years. UCLA law professor Brad Sears told TIME that the number is in keeping with experience in Massachusetts, where gay marriage is also legal, and Vermont, which permits civil unions. Another 67,000 or so are expected to arrive from other states, says Sears, the report's co-author. Those couples and their guests will spend some $680 million in tourism dollars, a welcome boost to a state whose hard-hit economy could use all the help it can get.

Justin Ewers at U.S. News & World Report also mentions the UCLA study, which predicts,

approximately half of the 103,000 same-sex couples living in the state will get married in the next three years. Nearly 70,000 same-sex couples from other states, they predict, will come here to marry...the combination of marriage license fees, increased state and local tax revenues, and the attendant boost in tourism spending by wedding guests is likely to create and sustain over 2,100 jobs in California...Even Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has thrown his support behind the court's decision, has said same-sex marriage will be good for the state's economy. "You know, I'm wishing everyone good luck with their marriages, and I hope that California's economy is booming because everyone is going to come here and get married," he told a gathering in San Francisco on May 21.

This kind of talk reminds me of the cost-benefit discussions of undocumented immigration. Like those claims that undocumented immigrants don't pay taxes, strain our health are and public education, and abuse our welfare system--these are all misleading and largely untrue, but they strongly support our country's anti-immigrant sentiment. They are based on the idea that undocumented immigrants bring us a little labor and lots of family.

In other words, undocumented immigration today is hypersexualized, feminized. Pure labor wasn't a problem when it was just the men coming to work on a seasonal basis, we happily incorporate undocumented male labor into our economy. Why not? It's pure gain for U.S. citizens; they work hard and don't demand rights because we keep them under fear through their undocumented status. But we resist children and pregnant mothers because they become our dependents. Immigrant labor brings wealth to our country, but immigrant children bring costs: they are a net loss.

On the other hand, gay marriage is being framed, in an economic sense, like the pure undocumented male labor that is good for California's economy. Gay marriage is about non-dependent adults. They work, they spend money.

It doesn't feel right reducing gay marriage to pure economic gain. I know there are people using this information as one of the pluses for heterosexuals to accept gay marriage, and I get that. But it's just weird, and how do gay people feel about this? The us/them mentality really stands out with gay marriage just as it does with immigration--what can "they" do for "us?"

I don't know, as long as gay marriage passes, its advocates should be happy. But the end result can't be the only thing that matters--it's good to at least take a good look at what measures are taken to get to that result.

Come On America, Arizona's SB 1108 Is A Racist Bill

"I'm gonna show you WHO's BOSS"

To some people it may have seemed like the fight was against undocumented immigrants. They are "illegals," "aliens," "criminals" overrunning our nation.

Well for me that was never true. From my own experience, it's basically a fight against culture, language, and color. The anti-immigrant sentiment that is so strong today, as it has been throughout our history as the United Sates, is about hatred. It's about racism, colonial power, capitalist interest, and everything else you can think of.

Man, I am just sick and tired of this. I am sick and tired of this game that a lot of "Americans" are playing. This is not about immigration.

YOU KNOW WHY? THIS IS WHY: Arizona state lawmakers and their evil SB 1108 bill is about killing Mexican-American/Chican@/Latin@ identity. To say this bill is fueled by merely anti-immigrant sentiment is to confuse the real issue here--because anti-immigrant sentiment has always been about anti-Hispanic sentiment (hey I don't like calling it Hispanic, but that's what it is to them)

You can look up several news articles on the bill, but here's one:

Some state lawmakers are again sticking their noses where they don't belong and trying to tell educators what should or shouldn't be taught in public schools.

The Legislature is attempting to usurp the decision-making responsibilities of local school boards and is perpetuating lies and creating divisions among Arizonans by pushing a bill that seeks to end programs like Raza Studies in the Tucson Unified School District. The bill would deny state funding to schools whose courses "denigrate American values and the teachings of Western civilization."

Whatever that means.

Howard Fischer of Capitol Media Services reported in Thursday's Star that the bill, SB 1108, is aimed at MEChA, the Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán, a student group that state Rep. Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, describes as racist.

Raza Studies has also drawn the ire of anti-immigrant-rights activists and last year was criticized by state schools superintendent Tom Horne, who said the program was promoting "ethnic chauvinism."

Horne investigated the program and then quietly dropped his inquiry.

Pearce, one of the state's most strident opponents of illegal immigration, appears to have bought into the notion that MEChA followers want to take over the southwestern United States, which was part of Mexico.

That's hogwash.

The myth is perpetrated by right-wing anti-immigrant-rights groups like American Border Patrol and their Web sites. The lie gained new life over the last couple of years as the illegal-immigration debate reached a boiling point.

...What lawmakers like Pearce ignore is that programs like Raza Studies and MEChA help many Hispanic students excel.

By learning more about their race's culture, the students become engaged in the education process and go on to become better taxpaying members of society.

OH I'M SORRY AMERICA. I'm sorry that because world history is OBVIOUSLY distorted in every damn aspect of our education to favor learning about white people, I have to oppress my own identity and educate myself about subjects that are not only irrelevant to my culture and diversity, but are also not reflective of true history.

It wasn't until college that I finally came to understand the dimensions of my Latina identity. It wasn't until college that I learned about the atrocities of white America's past and present--the genocides, the school of the Americas, the coups, the SLAVERY, the exploitation, the National Origins Quota, the "treaty" of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the promises of reparations, the diseased blankets, Thanksgiving, Africa, Guatemala, the list goes on...

I AM NOT ANTI-AMERICAN. The REAL anti-Americans are those people who RESIST accepting that AMERICAN MEANS MANY LANGUAGES,CULTURES,RACES,AND HISTORIES. American is NOT CITIZEN--AMERICAN IS PERSONHOOD. I AM AMERICAN BECAUSE I AM A LATINA BORN IN THE UNITED STATES who is an active member of society, respects her fellow Americans (documented or not), and upholds her values of tolerance and human rights for all. I recognize that HISTORY is not ONE STORY, BUT MANY. Our country does not have a history, as our euro-centric society would have it, our country has HISTORIES--good and bad--of peoples from all perspective.

I am tired of being taught one perspective. What Ethnic studies does, let alone Chican@ studies, is give us ANOTHER perspective--one that often reflects that of us "Hispanics" who are trying to learn something other than the white history. LETS KEEP TEACHING WHITE HISTORY BUT NOT WHITE HISTORY ALONE. Let's teach many histories.

With all my heart, with all my soul, I beg others to join me and many others in saying: AMERICA, THIS BILL IS RACIST, XENOPHOBIC, AND UNCONSTITUTIONAL.

Immigration Is Also Emigration

We are fed stark images of brown men in running or jumping positions; brown pregnant women clutching the hands of their several little brown children; gardeners in pickup trucks; and Spanish-speaking cleaning ladies and nannies who now fill the shoes that were once worn bitterly by black women.

From Fidel Castro's recent retirement to the genocide of indigenous Guatemalans by the CIA-funded military during the eighties, undocumented immigration has more to do with what's going on beyond our borders than within them.

Undocumented immigrants are depicted as two-dimensional creatures who overrun our country, never as humans leaving their own countries. Sure they are specified as Mexicans, Hondurans, or Haitians, but always in a way that neglects their personal histories back home. A Guatemalan man who enters the country without documents seems to suddenly pop into existence upon crossing our southern border. The fact that he is an indigenous Mayan fleeing military persecution--which the U.S. has historically funded--disappears in the eyes of Americans who accuse him of unlawfully invading their territory.

Beyond our borders are all those countries where “illegal” immigrants aren't yet immigrants, but citizens in their native lands. The same people who come here as unwanted strangers are only perceived of as invading homes, never as leaving behind their own homes, families and friends.

Through our conversations of undocumented immigration, we always frame them as the assaulters of our national sovereignty. What conveniently fails to come into our discussions, however, is the United States’ own assaults against the national sovereignty of the countries from which they are coming. After the passing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) of 1994, hundreds of thousands of Mexican farm workers were thrown off their lands by a corrupt Mexican government working in league with greedy American developers. Even those that kept their land had a difficult time competing with heavily subsidized U.S. agricultural goods. As a result, they fled, and continue to flee, here by the hundreds of thousands seeking work to sustain their families.

The Cuban “wet-foot dry-foot policy” grants automatic admission to any Cuban who sets foot upon our soil, thanks to our animosity towards Fidel Castro’s government. Yet many people from poor Caribbean nations experiencing diasporas are continually rejected, especially Haitians who are continually denied recognition of amnesty status because of our diplomatic relations with the government of Haiti.

It’s important to see that there are many factors pushing immigrants out of their countries and pulling them into ours, many of which are greatly influenced by U.S. foreign relations. Once we expand the depth of our understanding of the processes of undocumented immigration into our country, we will come to understand that our popular policy approaches to the issue are far from solutions. From building walls to guest-worker programs, undocumented immigration is going to remain strong as long as we continue to tackle it as a mere occurrence within our borders.

San Francisco's ID Cards Are Only The First Step

Are you human? Do you live in San Francisco? Here's an ID card!

I'm in love with San Francisco all over again. Beginning next year, San Francisco will be issuing identification cards to anyone who lives there.

Javier Erik Olvera of Mercury News Reports:

The board of supervisors Tuesday gave the final OK needed to create the ID card program, systematically legitimizing the city's estimated 40,000 illegal immigrants.

The cards will be available to anyone living in the city next August and used as proof of identity when it comes to most facets of city business, from library service to police stops. Although immigrants are the prime target for the ID program, the cards will available to anyone who wants them.

Here's what I love--anyone can get one. We have the power to single out or not single out undocumented immigrants, depending on the actions of legal San Franciscan residents. If we are to truly fight for their rights to human decency, we need legal San Franciscan residents to use these ID cards too. If I lived there, I'd get one immediately.

Why? Because I feel that it is necessary to erase the stigma. Let's not make this into a Food Stamp situation--let's try to add more than one color and one language to the look and feel of these cards. San Francisco's political leaders have taken the first step, but it is now in the hands of San Francisco's legal residents to walk side-by-side with the undocumented residents and get ID cards so that no one is singled out or negatively labeled by this program, which has the potential to be a triumph or a disaster depending on how it is handled.

The first step has been taken, the second step is necessary if we are to fight racism and injustice.

Get an ID card and use it. Show it to the police, librarians, and everyone else who asks for a form of identification. Only when they ask for a specific other form of identification should you revert to the California ID card.

Although San Francisco is not the first place to issue this ID system, it is one of the few. With all my heart and soul, I am praying that as many people as possible will participate to bring our beaten and bruised undocumented peoples out of the shadows and into a new light of human decency.

This is only the first step people, let's get everyone involved and prove to less progressive parts of our country that this is a great idea!

Hazing Our "Illegal" Immigrants Into Citizenship

Let's Zoom In On Virginia today.

First, an effort to build a special prison for undocumented immigrants has been denied. The driving force behind this failed effort was to improve the number deportations of undocumented immigrants accused of crimes. It's already bad enough to be a person of color convicted of a crime who is a citizen, I can't imagine being undocumented. For more, see the link at the bottom of this post.

Even though this effort failed to pass the Virginia state panel, there is a second effort that passed with flying colors, and it involves the criminalization of all who fit the "illegal immigrant" description.

At CBS NEWS:
"It calls for cuts to certain county services and prohibits undocumented residents from getting business licenses. The resolution also expands police authority allowing officers to ask people about their legal status. "

How far must we go to hunt down these supposed foreign enemies of ours? We must turn our police into immigrant-sniffing dogs who raid the personal space of anyone who looks illegal. This is outrageous, this is unconstitutional.

Even more outrageous is a citizen remark reported by CBS:

"Manassas resident Robert Stephens, addressing the large crowd of Hispanic residents, reported the Post. "Who invited you? You cry for your rights? You have none."

That's right Mr. Stephens, human rights are the reward of citizenship. We have organizations like PETA that strive to secure the rights of all animals--who don't need U.S. citizenship to solicit our paternalistic humanism. But international human rights of all human peoples? Excuuuuuse me, you get those from invitation-only in the United States of America! So what do we get out of Mr. Stephens' flawless logic? Well for one thing, when it comes to people, undocumented immigrants are not only sub-human, they are sub-animal.

Hey PETA people, why don't you create a new "illegal" immigrant branch since apparently foreigners without papers don't count as humans?

This is all outrageous. None of this is new, and none of what I say matters. So here is my suggestion, more modest than the "illegal" immigrant branch PETA proposal: Due to the tension between the cool invitation-only citizens and the uncool immigrant reject-newbies, Why don't we start doing immigrant hazing? Let's really put these people to the test and subject them to cruel, abusive practices...

Wait, don't we do that already?

LINKS:
On The Failed Immigrant-Prison Virginia Resolution
CBS Report On The Successful Virginia Resolutions

California DREAM Act Is Vetoed

For the second year in a row, Arnold Schwarzenegger has vetoed the California DREAM Act, stating in a letter to lawmakers that that the state cannot afford to bear the costs of financing the higher education of undocumented students who would be eligible to apply for financial aid under the DREAM Act.

But highly educated students are generally assets to California, aren’t they? Societies usually benefit from having more highly educated people because they tend to become more productive members of their communities.

But since the governor is most concerned with the costs and benefits of undocumented students, there are two ways that he has lost the opportunity to invest in a valuable group that would have returned more than what would have been invested in them.

First, when denied financial assistance, many undocumented students are financially hindered from going to college. When they are unable to earn college degrees, they are unable to earn higher incomes. We therefore prevent our government from collecting higher taxes from their higher incomes—which would have been used to the benefit of society.

Second, without higher incomes, the current college-age undocumented students will not have as many resources to provide for their children. Unlike their undocumented parents, these children can’t be denied state assistance and other social services because they will be U.S. citizens. Denying aid to our current generation of undocumented students will therefore cost the state more in the near future.

The governor’s decision to veto the DREAM Act is a shortsighted decision because the amount of money it would have cost the state would have returned at least two-fold.

Yet there is something more important at stake here than the monetary costs and benefits of the state. When some of us oppose the DREAM Act as a policy that would have given amnesty to “illegal immigrants,” we are hurting our society more than we think. Many of us choose to romanticize the European immigrants from the twentieth century as having tried hard to become active members of society, insisting that immigrants today are doing the opposite.

But by vetoing this act we are forcing undocumented students to continue living in the shadows of society. We then hold this against them as proof that they refuse to assimilate. But the very fact that these students are trying to go to college demonstrates that they want to become productive members of this country.

It proves that they do wish to assimilate.