We did it!

Tomorrow we embark on our last decal of the semester. Words cannot describe how amazing and rewarding this experience has been.

We will make scrapbooks in class and then we are happy to have HECTOR CARDENAS, from the Goldman School of Public Policy, come and give a talk about U.S. Mexico relations and the future of immigration reform. From the GSPP website:

While he was still in the PhD program, he started The Ergo Group, a policy and technology consulting firm that specializes in bringing the digital age to government agencies and thus helping them to do more and better things for more and more people. He has worked at The Ergo Group since 2000 on projects with the Mexican federal government and with state and local governments in the US. He is the president of the Silicon Valley chapter of the Mexico Talent Network and serves on the California Business Advisory Board of Nacional Financiera (Mexico’s development bank). He is back at GSPP to teach a course on US-Mexico relations.

Anyone interested in watching the film, LA MISSION, sometime soon? It comes out in theaters this Friday, and Benjamin Bratt wants us to go:

Dear Friends,

It is with great pride in the efforts of literally hundreds of people
that we write to tell you that our film La MISSION will have its
national theatrical release beginning April 9th.

La MISSION pays homage to the neighborhood and people we grew up around,
and captures the vibrancy, cultural pride, flavor a...nd sound of this
ever-evolving barrio. At the center of the story is Che, an old school
reformed bad boy and single father who has dedicated his life to raising
his 18 year-old son. Jess is a UCLA-bound honors student who is hiding
a deeply-held secret from his macho father: he's gay.

La MISSION doesn't pull any punches. It takes a hard look at some of the
prevailing attitudes that still thrive and do damage within our
communities. But La MISSION also celebrates the humor, the sense of
pride, and the passion for life that exists alongside the everyday
struggles.

Opening weekend attendance is critical. The box office totals determine
the life expectancy of the film, including its afterlife on DVD. If
you, as we do, want to see more films that are authentically
representative of our experiences and our communities, we urge you to
support independent filmmaking by showing up at the theaters and buying
tickets. It's the only message exhibitors understand--they only run
films that will bring in large crowds.

Please check our website (www.lamissionthemovie.com) and also become a fan of
La Mission on Facebook. There you will find details on what cities and
theaters we are playing in, plus photos and information on the film and
its crew.

Thanks for supporting independent cinema, and a heartfelt thanks from us
for your support of La MISSION.

Power to the people!

Peter and Benjamin

American Dream or American Nightmare?

For these last two weeks, we would like to focus on life after the border. We are finally here... and is it truly the American Dream? Perhaps decades ago, life could have been prosperous for any immigrant, documented or undocumented. Now there are reports that with the economic crisis, remittances are down, immigrants are going back home, and the amount of people attempting to cross the border has dropped. Life is hard enough for the undocumented immigrant in the U.S. Most are unable to drive, to work, or to gain access to fair wages and social services such as health care. Yet, during our Spring Break, we worked with organizations such as Casa Familiar, and the Latino film festival, who have demonstrated that despite the furious discussion on immigration, Latino's have developed their voice and have established themselves well.

It seems that this American Dream is no longer a dream for higher wages and a better living. It is a dream for the right to identity. Read this article from the BBC, "U.S. Latino's are finding a voice." The immigration reform dilemma is affecting those without documents. But what about Latino's who are documented? What does immigration reform mean to them? Should they care? Also, what does something like the 2010 Census mean for the Latino community? This LA Times article "Univision promotes the census to Latino audiences" should help you ground some answers to this question.

Please respond to these two articles after this post.

The Border Crossed Us, 3/20-3/26

Immigration Explorer

Great job with the blog responses everyone. You've contributed some great input to the material we've looked at.

Here is an "Immigration Explorer," compiled by the New York Times. Adjust the date at the scroll bar towards the top, and select Mexico as the country. You will see the fluctuation in the Mexican population over time, specially around the 1920s. What events could these fluctuations be attributed to?

NY Times Immigration Explorer

Drugs, Violence, and the Militarization of the Border

Last week, we continued our discussion of maquiladoras and ended with the screening of Maquilapolis. To finish off this discussion, we are pleased to invite guest speaker Garrett Brown, coordinator of the Maquiladora Health & Safety Support Network.
From their website:

The Maquiladora Health & Safety Support Network is a volunteer network of 400 occupational health and safety professionals who have placed their names on a resource list to provide information, technical assistance and on-site instruction regarding workplace hazards in the 3,000 "maquiladora" (foreign-owned assembly) plants along the U.S.-Mexico border. Our goal has always been to build the capacity of workers and their organizations to understand occupational health and safety issues and to be able to speak and act in their own name to protect their health and to exercise their rights. Our activities have included providing information and trainings to workers, plant-wide health and safety committees, and to community, human rights and professional associations; technical assistance to workers filing complaints under international trade agreements; and technical information for grassroots organizations monitoring the performance of transnational corporations and government health and safety agencies in the global economy.

We hope you can bring your questions from the film and our class discussions for Mr. Brown.

This week, we would like to discuss drugs, violence, and the militarization of the border. The TWO readings are Narcovirus by Alma Guillermoprieto and Stage of Siege by Denise Dresser. If you took the course The Southern Border, you may have read these articles. Denise Dresser discusses the "militirization of Mexico." This following quote was taken from another reading:

"The growing military presence at the border is a "low-intensity warfare against immigrants."

How do you think this "militarization of the border" has come to affect immigrants? This changes the security and drug discussion to one about social justice and human rights. Think about projects like Operation Gatekeeper and the Secure Fence Act of 2006. Currently, the Obama Administration is still following Bush's plan to build "The Great Wall of Mexico," as some have coined it. There have even been talks of bringing U.S. troops to the border. This NYTimes article sheds some light on the current immigration and security discussion in politics. Also think about our discussion with Michael Dear and his images of the border to answer this question. Post your response on this blog.

In class, we will be watching some video clips from the documentary project, "The Wall" and try to connect two different perspectives on this issue.

Gender, Health, and Environment

Following up on the discussion on NAFTA, we will be looking at the maquiladora industry more in depth, with a focus on gender roles, health, and environmental degradation. For your reading assignment, there are two articles to read. The first is "Women, Migration, and Household Survival Strategies: Mixtec Women in Tijuana," by Laura Velazco Ortiz, from the book Women and Migration in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands. This reading is important as it gives insight on the rural populations that migrate to the border, which includes indigenous groups like Mixtecs. In contrast, the film we will be watching in class presents a different group of women working in the maquiladoras. These women come from urban areas around Mexico and are generally more educated and skilled, as the article will mention.

The second reading is an "Environmental Justice Case Study," which provides an introduction to environmental issues around the maquiladora industry. This article mentions the case of our community partners in Tijuana (Metales y Derivados), which also appears in the film.

Please respond with a blog comment to these readings, either one or both, with a paragraph after this post. Are there any questions that you still have after these readings?

Midterm Books

For the midterm, we ask that you choose a book from the following list. Each book is a work of non-fiction that serves as a more personal account of life at the border or the life of immigrants and will aid you to undestand the issues that we study academically. On the day of the midterm, come prepared to present your book and what you've learned with this personal account of the US-Mexico border. Hopefully you can find the book in the library or at a bookstore. If you find another memoir that you would like to read, please let us know so we can check it out. Please COMMENT below with the book you'd like to read - do not choose a book another person has already selected. Thanks, and happy reading!

Crossing Over: A Mexican Family on the Migrant Trail
Ruben Martinez

Coyotes: A Journey Across Borders With America's Illegal Migrants
John Annerino

Dead in Their Tracks: Crossing America's Desert Borderlands
John Annerino

The Devil's Highway: A True Story
Luis Alberto Urrea

Enrique's Journey
Sonia Nazario

Journey of Hope, Memoirs of a Mexican Girl
Rosalina Rosay

Diary of an Undocumented Immigrant
Tianguis Pérez, Dick J. Reavis

Across the Wire: Life and Hard Times on the Mexican Border
Luis Alberto Urrea

Undocumented in L.A.: An Immigrant's Story
Dianne Walta Hart

Lives on the Line: Dispatches from the U.S.-Mexico Border
Miriam Davidson

The Short Sweet Dream of Eduardo Gutierrez
Jimmy Breslin

By The Lake of Sleeping Children: The Secret Life of the Mexican Border
Luis Alberto Urrea, John Lueders Booth