Your Weekly Immigration Newsladder

By Nezua, Media Consortium. Posted December 5, 2008.

As noted, these are not abstract events to the communities from which these children (and others) belong. They are very real and very painful and dire. In In These Times’ The Crisis of Wage Theft, by Kim Bobo, we learn that “[b]illions dollars in wages are being illegally stolen from millions of workers each and every year.” And New America Media reminds us that adolescent Latinas have the highest rate of “attempted suicides among groups of teenagers in the nation,” and also tells of a new program aimed at helping.

Also aiming for a positive solution to much of the Latina/o community’s current needs is an article by Jessica Gonzales-Rojas called The Power of the Latina Vote. Gonzales-Rojas talks about organizing around issues important to the community because “[i]t is undeniable that the Latino vote had a tremendous impact on the election.” She goes on to inform us how much of that impact was brought about by mujeres (women), and what should be next.

Now that we have new leadership in place, we advocates, activists and organizers must rise to the occasion. We must take the momentum of this election to our everyday organizing and activism, placing women’s ability to care and provide for their families at the center of our platform. [...] What does this new era mean? What do we want for our families and communities? What does a Latina agenda for reproductive justice and immigrant rights look like?

Because the fact is, “[t]he great transformational politics of ‘hope’ and ‘change’ do not translate to tangible benefits for new immigrants. In fact, many health and career services for immigrants are cut back or all together shut down due to lack of federal and state funds.” So Diana Jou writes in the personal and fun essay Coming to America. And as David Bacon makes clear in a post on The Nation called Change Immigrants and Labor Can Believe In, “[a] new administration that has raised such high expectations should look for new ideas in the areas of immigration reform and trade policy, not recycle the bad ones of the last few years. The constituency that won the election will support a change in direction, and in fact is demanding it.”

But there is tension in the dialogue. John Riley of The Dallas Morning News covers the same ground but muses that “Mr. Obama is focused on the economic crisis and may not make immigration legislation a priority early in his administration.” However, Riley begins his article with the recognition that “huge increases in Latino voter turnout” are coupled with “credit for helping to propel Barack Obama into the White House” in the minds of Immigrant Rights groups.

Let’s hope for the nation’s sake that some of the recently-trumpeted change makes its way to the communities now in dire need of it.

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This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about immigration. Visit Immigration.NewsLadder.net for a complete list of articles on immigration. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy and health issues, check out Economy.NewsLadder.net and Healthcare.NewsLadder.net. This is a project of The Media Consortium , a network of 50 leading independent media outlets, and created by NewsLadder.

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