Two Pennsylvania Undocumented DREAMers Arrested

Jessica Hyejin Lee and Tania Chairez are DREAMers that were arrested yesterday, March 14th, in Pennsylvania when they performed an act of civil disobedience in protest of the treatment and and 8 month detention of fellow DREAMer, Miguel Orellana Garcia.

There are no words to describe how unbelievably brave these women are. After being in the Arizona border last summer and feeling the real threat of being arrested for humanitarian aid, I know I could never do what they are doing for their community and for other undocumented youth in the country. BRAVE.

Undocumented. Unapologetic. Unafraid.

Please listen to Jessica and Tania tell their stories below.

A New "Coming Out"

Earlier in the week, NPR did a story on Jose Antonio Vargas, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist who has written for New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, and San Francisco Chronicle, who just "came out" as an illegal immigrant. In an interview on All Things Considered Vargas states: "I am sorry for breaking the country's laws — my country's laws...I am no different than anybody else in that I wanted to live my life and I wanted to survive and if I didn't tell those lies, I couldn't have gotten work and I couldn't have survived."

Coming out is the latest tactic taken on by DREAMer activists as a way to put pressure on Congress who voted down the Dream Act bill this past December. As Viridiana Martinez--an activist inspired by Jose Antonios Vargas' story--states: "The biggest obstacle we have is fear. So, coming out is a declaration that I am dropping the fear. I am taking my struggle in my own hands."

And perhaps in response, ICE has taken a surprising and hopefully promising turn with a new "memorandum granting its agents 'prosecutorial discretion' to extend leniency to DREAM Act-eligible people and others while cracking down on those who pose 'a clear risk to national security.' Leniency would take the form of deferred deportation, usually for up to 12 months, at which time individuals could request an extension and potentially reapply every year."

This new coming out is definitely the latest form of civil disobedience to take to the streets, not unlike the Montgomery bus boycott or the lunch counter sit-ins from the Civil Rights Movement of the '50s and '60s. As Thoreau said in his essay Civil Disobedience, "I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government." Let's hope Congress does right by these young people who have proven themselves smart, able, and willing members of our society, and lets hope they do it soon before some of these brave kids get deported.

In other news, Georgia recently voted in a SB 1070 copycat law, but Federal Judge Thomas Thrash blocked parts of the new law--scheduled to go into effect July 1--because "the state is enforcing immigration law that should be left to the federal government."

Two days ago DREAMers took to the public streets of Georgia and "Six young illegal immigrants were arrested...after they sat down and blocked traffic near the Georgia state Capitol to publicly declare their status and to protest state policies targeting people who are in the U.S. illegally, the latest in a string of such 'coming out' events."

Harlem and The DREAMers

April is National Poetry Month, and as celebration I will post poems through out the month of April that are somehow related to immigration.

Here's a particular favorite of mine by Langston Hughes. "Harlem" ponders the question, what happens to a dream deferred? Hughes was speaking about the marginalized and abused African Americans of Harlem and across the country in the 1930s, but I think his words hold relevance to the immigrant issues of today. The DREAMers are young men and women brought here illegally by their parents, who didn't have a say in the matter, who know no other home but the U.S., and who are now threatened as adults with detention and deportation every day. They are not allowed to dream or flourish, go to school or hold jobs, and are like prisoners in their own home. I wonder, what will happen to them if they are given no options?

HARLEM by Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?



To learn more about the Dream Act, or find a way to help go here.

Luis J. Rodriguez Speaks Up for the Youth

Author of Always Running: La Vida Loca: Gang Days in L.A. and founder of community cultural center and independent press, Tia Chuchas, Luis J. Rodriguez, wrote an opinion piece, Opinion: Arizona Teacher's Letter is Sleepy Lagoon All Over Again, comparing Arizona and the latest political focus on the gang and immigration "problem" to Sleepy Lagoon and the Zoot Suit Riots of 1943. What touched me most was Rodriguez's reminder that those the politicians target are those we should protect: our youth.

"In fact, in my work among the most gang-ridden neighborhoods in this country and elsewhere I’ve found that the majority of youth are not in gangs. And those that are usually join them when they are poor in material matters as well as cultural and spiritual ones...I’m convinced we can solve the economic mess we’re in by drawing on our common hopes, common aims, and common energies—and not at the expense of the most vulnerable or easily targeted among us."

This sentiment made me think of the DREAMers and of Father Boyle, author of Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion, and his Homeboys. You can now help Father Boyle and his effort to make "jobs not jails" by heading into your local Ralphs to purchase their chips and salsa.

Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times

We need to continue to find positive alternatives like these to help our community and our children find a safe place in this country because they deserve that much, they deserve our support.

Poets Take DC, Sandra Cisneros Talks Chicano Lit, and other News

This week the AWP 2011 Writing Conference will be held in Washington DC. Many different writers, publishers, schools, and journals from all over the country of all genres will gather together from February 2-5 to hold panels on a myriad of subjects and readings celebrating the work of our modern storytellers.

One event I wish I could buy a last minute ticket to DC for is a gathering of poets "for healing, tolerance, reflection and peace on the steps of the US Congress." On Saturday February 5th from 12pm-2pm there will be a press conference, rally, and public "floricanto" (a collective poetry reading) in response to the recent Arizona tragedy, passage of Arizona SB 1070 & HB 2281 (and other copycat state legislation), the death of the Dream Act in the senate, and the latest rounds of deportations.

For more information on the rally and other immigration and "Floricanto" events during AWP this week, go here.

It is essential for writers to speak about what is happening right now with immigration legislation. As quoted on the Poets Responding to SB 1070 fb page (where the Floricanto began), "Peace goes into the making of a poem as flour goes into the making of bread." -Pablo Neruda. It is our job to tell the stories of those that go unheard. It is our calling to be truthful and specific about our worlds and those not known by the mass public. But it is not easy.

NPR did a story this week, "New and Established Writers Redefine Chicano Lit", with interviews with Sandra Cisneros, author of House on Mango Street and Caramelo, and David Rice. I think Cisneros spoke well of the need, especially now, to create spaces for our writers and our stories: "when I wrote [House], I wrote it from someplace, a very optimistic young women in her early 20s, hoping things would get better in the United States for people of Mexican descent. But, I could never dream what would happen post-9/11 and with the community being under siege as it is right now with Mexican people really being vilified at this time of American history."She also spoke about the loss of Chicano literature in schools due to HB 2281 copycat legistlation in Texas: "I think it's a time where we're not having those opportunities to tell our story...I'm just one person that can go out to the schools, and the demand and requests from the schools is enormous. There aren't enough of us published to go out. And the ones that are published are not getting distributed. So it's a difficult task. I feel it every day...especially since, recently, our Texas Board, removed a lot of us from social studies. A lot of us are getting removed from textbooks...So we need those other writers, but it's a difficult time."

Speaking of published writers telling the immigrant story, I've been reading The Madonnas of Echo Park by Brando Skyhorse. It's a great read that tells multiple tales of Latinos living and working on the streets of L.A. from the time before Chavez Ravine was home to the Dodgers, up until modern day with an undocumented worker zigzagging through the booths of the annual Echo Park Lotus Festival in search of a place to dump a murder weapon.
Here is a quote from the book that had me thinking about SB 1070 and the like: "Anyone who works on the street knows there's a rule in L.A. the cops have: Special Order 40, or what the trabajadores call "santo cuarenta." The cops can't stop you if they think you're an illegal, only if they think you're an illegal about to commit a crime. This is to encourage illegals to come forward if they have information about a crime. They also can't hold you for more than twenty-four hours if the one thing they've got on you is that you're an alien. It's tougher in L.A. for illegals now, meaning cops have to ask you where you're from no matter what. But as long as you lie and tell them your from here, they won't check your background or report you to immigration. As long as you lie."

With the way the legislation is currently going it will only target the wrong people, and make it harder to convict the real criminals, so we have to look for positive alternatives like The Dream Act.

Unfortunately (unfortunately doesn't really communicate the amount of pain and disappointment, the breaking of hopes, felt by the Dreamers), the Dream Act was voted down in the senate recently, after it passed in Congress. It was a major blow to our educated youth who have been working hard to make a life here in the U.S.

Fortunately, President Obama did not forget about the Dreamers, and in last week's State of the Union Address, called for the senate and congress to look again at The Dream Act saying, "They grew up as Americans and pledge allegiance to our flag, and yet live every day with the threat of deportation." I think many were unhappy he did not say more, but the fact he is addressing it, can only be positive. This article from Reuters, "Obama to push for Dream Act again in 2011" has more on Obama's plan to push for the passing of the Dream Act.

Drop Dead Diva, Deportation, and a Dream

Click here to watch the clip at mylifetime.com.

Drop Dead Diva, an original Lifetime program, is a scripted show about a young fashion model named Deb who dies in a car accident and comes back to life as Jane, an older, wiser, plumper attorney. The latest episode had a storyline about Jane's assistant, Terry (played by comedian Margret Cho), whose cousin, a young man that she and her mother raised from infancy, is arrested on a minor charge, found guilty of a misdemeanor, and ordered to return to South Korea, although he has lived in the U.S. his entire life and, until his arrest, did not know he was an illegal immigrant.

Because this is an uplifting show about human experience, the storyline has a happy ending when Jane, the young man's defender, finds a loophole discovering that her client's biological father was a North Korean and argues asylum. But reality is not as kind as prime time programming. In our real court system this young man would have been deported, or--if he had the means--been held in a detention center for an unknown amount of time as he fought for asylum. In our real court system, immigration hearings are never so neatly and happily tied up.

It is sad to think how many real stories begin much like this fictionalized one, but end very differently. There are infants and children brought into this country every day, without say or explanation. My own mother was brought into the country illegally as an infant by her parents, and she never understood why her father would leave her behind in L.A. every time he took her younger sister and brothers to visit family in Baja California. (She began to believe she wasn’t his daughter.) These things do happen, but unfortunately they happen to people who don’t have the luck of fictional T.V. characters who can afford high class lawyers. No, the real world is much much harsher.

Perhaps the result of Drop Dead Diva’s immigration storyline is unbelievable, but it is good to see a prime time show presenting a story on immigrant rights through a recurring character (Cho) that the audience has connected with. And also, that the story focused on a Korean American family because we are all connected in these stories.

If you are interested in immigrant rights for children of immigrants you can check out the Dream Act and sign a petition here, or get active here.

Splintered Thoughts: Poetry, Politics, and the Individual

Click here for the latest Splintered Thoughts Blogtalk show.
On today's show we listened to poet and Mexican immigrant, Erika Ayon, share narrative poems about her childhood as a street vendor selling oranges. Her poems give us a personal and touching view of a way of life many of us will never experience, but pass by (at least in L.A.) daily. She also introduced us to the Dream Act, a proposal for undocumented students to become citizens under certain moral and educational stipulations. This month is very important for the Dream Act and in order to help this proposal become a bill you can call California Senator Diane Feinstein and ask her to support the proposal, or for more information you can visit dreamactivist.org. Don't be afraid to get active. Here is something we can do now to help young, hardworking students have a brighter future.

We also spoke to Arizona-based activist, Walt Staton. He is familiar with the immigration issue as he has been volunteering with human rights group No More Deaths since 2004, bringing water and medical aid to migrants crossing the dangerous deserts of Arizona. He spoke out against the negative turn Arizona has taken, and asked us all to look for a more positive solution. Instead of making the border a full out military zone, he suggests tearing down the wall and decriminalizing immigration. Perhaps, he has a point. The more we criminalize immigrants the bigger the war will get. If we don't take a different approach, who knows when it will stop?

Fight fear with knowledge and compassion, not guns and walls. And remember that we are all human, all individuals.