From the Immigrants' Perspective

This came to me from someone in the immigrant community. The perspective it offers is profound and moving:

The immigrant community says

What would you do if:

You were stereotyped, profiled, stopped and harassed due to the colorof your skin?

·You could not vote and make changes in unfair and immoral policies targeting YOU?

·You were separated from your family and incarcerated?

·Your child came home, found you had been taken, and your location unknown?

·You had no set future to look forward to?

·Your child's education was deliberately limited?

·You paid taxes and social security without any returns or benefits?

·You had no healthcare coverage?

·Your cultural, spirituality, diversity, and traditions were not accepted?

·You served and gave your life for this country, and it turned it's back on you and your loved ones?

We ALSO have a dream!

· To keep our families united.

·To continue contributing to the state and national economy.

·To be free of indiscriminate raids, deportations and employer sanctions,

·To have a real immigration reform that does not simply reduce us to the level of a modern slave (guest worker.)

Interest growing! Help needed!

Interest is growing in La Vela. Someone today approached me in public and thank me for the project and mentioned that they planned to put a candle sign in their car. What a great idea.

I need volunteers to help email out the press release on this project. I have run through most of my list but know there are lots of resources we are not reaching. If you are willing to copy and past a simple press-release and spread the news of this protest, please contact me at todd@tdrake.com Thanks!

What was old is new again

Woodie Guthrie wrote this song, Deportees, long ago. Why have we stood still when our hearts call us to go forward?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TN3HTdndZec

Deportee by Woodie Guthrie

The crops are all in and the peaches are rotting
The oranges piled in their creosote dumps
You're flying them back to the Mexican border
To pay all their money, to wade back again.

CHORUS:

Goodbye to my Juan, good-bye Rosalita
Adios mes amigos, Jesus and Maria
You won't have your names when you ride the big airplane
All they will call you will be deportee

My Father's own father, he waded that river
They took all the money he made in his life
My brothers and sisters come working the fruit trees
And they rode the truck till they took down and died

Some of us are illegal, and some are not wanted
Our work contracts out and we have to move on
Six hundred miles to that Mexican border
They chase us like outlaws, like rustlers, like thieves

We died in your hills, we died in your deserts
We died in your valleys, and died on your plains
We died 'neath your trees, and we died in your bushes
Both sides of the river, we died just the same

The sky plane caught fire over Los Gatos canyon
A fireball of lightning, and shook all our hills
Who are all these friends, all scattered like dry leaves?
The radio says they are just deportees

Is this the best way we can grow our big orchards?
Is this the best way we can grow our good fruit?
To fall like dry leaves, to rot on the topsoil
And to be called no name, except deportee.


"Our job aint so much to go way back into history, thats already been done, and we caint spare the time to do it all over gain. Our job is the Here and Now. Today. This week. This month. This year. But we've got to try and include a Timeless Element in our songs. Something that will not tomorrow be gone with the wind. But something that tomorrow will be as true as it is today. The secret of a long lasting song is not the record current event, but this timeless element which may be contained in the chorus or last line or elsewhere. " - Woody Guthrie

"Civil Rights Issue of our times" Article in N & O

Ruth Sheehan has written an important article in the News and Oberver in Raleigh, NC. In it Sheehan interview Dr. Hannah Gill, a friend of mine, and assistant for the Institute for the Studies of the Americas. Hannah shares worrysome stories of abuse of undocuments and the deteriating circumstances brought on by the out sourcing of immigration inforcement to local authorities. I have heard similar stories in my area of the state. Read the article.

How far does your sympathy go?

To paraphrase a personal email I recieved, the question has been asked, "How far does the sympathy of this campaign go? Does it include the undocumented immigrant who commits a violent crime?" This type of question seems to way a lot on peoples minds as they contemplate how to come down on this issue. Is illegal immigration the same thing as say, as driving while drunk?

What are your thoughts on this issue?

Unanse a la cadena de los miles que (documentados en el pais o no, hable el idioma o no) sufren muchas veces los abusos inflingidos a los immigrantes. Sólo enciende una vela eléctrica en tu ventana, no tienes que hacer nada más y únete a los miles que lloran y sufren por las deportaciones. A los niños que teniendo padres están siendo forzados a ser huérfanos, a los miles que este año no tendrán una Navidad.

Join the chain of thousands, (documented or not, English-speaking or not) who are suffering abuses based on prejudice against immigrants. Just light one electric candle in your window. You don’t have to do anything else, just join the thousands who are crying and suffering over these deportations. For the children who have parents (possibly undocumented) who are being forced to become orphans, to the thousands who will not have a Christmas.

Add a candle in protest to your website

Add this image to your website and join the protest against immigrant abuse. Make it a link to this blog and help spread the word. Thanks!

Report on Effects of Raids

Washington, DC– A new report released today by the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) and the Urban Institute found that for every two people detained in immigration enforcement operations, one child is left behind. Two-thirds of these children are U.S. citizens and a similar share is under age ten.
The report, Paying the Price: The Impact of Immigration Raids on America’s Children, details the consequences of immigration enforcement operations on children’s psychological, educational, economic, and social well-being. It also outlines the heavy burden that workplace raids are placing on communities, school systems, social service providers, and religious institutions, which have acted as first responders for families in these incidents.
“The local governments and communities we studied did not have adequate resources to deal with children’s needs in the aftermath of the raids,” said Randy Capps, a demographer with the nonpartisan Urban Institute. “At the same time, the federal government did not have in place policies and procedures that explicitly consider the protection of children.”
A team of researchers from the nonpartisan Urban Institute studied three communities that experienced large-scale worksite raids by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents within the past year: Greeley, Colorado; Grand Island, Nebraska; and New Bedford, Massachusetts. A total of 912 people were arrested and 506 children were directly affected.
NCLR funded the study to obtain an independent, objective assessment of how recent immigration actions have affected the children of immigrants.
“That we are putting the youngest, most vulnerable members of our society at profound risk is something that must be taken into consideration in any policy decision. This report clearly demonstrates that it may be years before we know the full effect of the worksite raids on these children and the long-term costs to our society,” stated Janet Murguía, NCLR President and CEO.
The study found that the raids forced schools, child care providers, and extended families to act swiftly as important safety nets for children. On the day of the raids in all three sites, for example, the school districts made sure that children were not dropped off to empty homes or left at school overnight.
“Strong extended networks of families and friends took on significant caregiving and economic support responsibilities for children with parents arrested in the raids,” said Urban Institute researcher Rosa Maria Castañeda. “These resourceful networks were effective in ensuring that no children were left alone or taken into the custody of the state.”

Will We Reap What We Sow?

Miami Herald writer Andres Oppenheimer asks this question of the swelling hysteria against undocumented immigrants in his recent article. What becomes of a Dream deferred? Where do good people go when they are cased as "illegal" humans for the want of a simple visa? "We cannot let everyone in!" will be the refrain. But this does no justify the unorganized, mean spirited, manner in which everyday people are trying to solve the problem. Where is the leadership? Have we not learned that meanness only begets meanness?

Several years ago I conducted a painting workshop titled "Planting Anew" in which I paired people from different backgrounds together (immigrant with minority, African with Asian,) and asked them to create a collaborative painting. Titled "Planting Anew" it was a hopeful project that got its name that came from the Gardener's habit of deciding each year what to plant. Today, I fear we are planting the seeds of a bitter garden.

Does this make sense?

Does this graphic make sense? Some say I need to put the line down the middle. What's your opinion?

Book mark this blog

Book mark this blog and return soon to read stories of abuse and neglect levied against undocumented immigrants in the United States.

5 things you can do:

1.Send your stories, links, original art, poems, and essays, on the subject to todd@tdrake.com for inclusion in this site.

2. Go out and buy an electric candle (safe) and place it in your window. Take a picture and send it to todd@tdrake.com .

3. Tell others about this protest, send them a link to this blog. Organize a "one candle campaign" at your place of worship.

4. Write a letter to your local newspaper editor sharing some of the stories and facts you have learned here.

5. Call your Senator and demand their action on creating a sane, humanitarian, nationwide immigration policy-now-not post election.