UCLA Graduate in Limbo

An immigrant in limbo between two Americas

Maria Gomez, a UCLA graduate with a master's in architecture, grew up believing in the American Dream while living in its shadows as an illegal immigrant.

By Christopher Goffard, Los Angeles Times

June 8, 2012, 7:00 a.m.

Maria Gomez stood with the Class of 2011, waiting to climb the stage. The sun was bright on the UCLA campus, her fellow graduates buoyant.

To reach this elite company, she'd worked baby-sitting and housecleaning jobs, scraping up tuition from quarter to quarter. She'd lived on Cup Noodles and granola bars from the food bank when money ran out. She'd spent nights sleeping on the floor of the campus printing room.

At 26, she was getting her master's in architecture from one of the nation's top schools. But the triumph felt hollow, her sense of achievement tangled up with bitterness and fear.

From childhood on, she'd straddled paradoxical Americas.

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[posted by prof montejano]

Bring farmworker's plight into the sunlight

Growers worried about a possible labor shortage need to sharpen their political tools and spur Washington to take action. To read more click here. 

Celene Ambriz

Guest worker idea stuck in web of politics

California growers warn of a labor shortage unless a system is implemented to temporarily allow pickers into the United States legally. To read more click here.

Celene Ambriz

Two views of immigration from California

Mark Mardell | 02:00 UK time, Thursday, 5 August 2010

n the southern California countryside, Shellie Milne's children play on their two miniature ponies in their yard. She's just back from a Tea Party meeting: she's an enthusiastic organiser for the movement and she says her latest cause is immigration.

She's insistent that the organisation isn't about social conservatism but is purely about fiscal rectitude. How then does immigration fit into that?

She has six children and says her children's education is suffering directly because of illegal immigration. Many of the children don't speak English and even the children of illegal immigrants must, by law, be educated in the state system.

She adds that the health system is also over-burdened. Of course, there's no national health system here but hospitals do have to treat anyone who turns up in the emergency room. If they can't pay, the hospital foots the bill. Shellie says its like a party. If 30 people RSVP and you cater for that number and then 100 turn up, everybody goes short. It's not much of a party any more.

Her solution? Illegal immigrants should be deported or go to the back of the queue.

She says in opposing the Arizona law, President Barack Obama has behaved like a dictator, ignoring the will of the majority of people in the state and the country.

That you'd expect. But the president isn't popular with his own natural supporters either.

Angelica Salas, of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, says she's disappointed with President Barack Obama. She tells me that she expected it to be an uphill struggle to get the positive advances they wanted, but not to be on the defensive.

She says that the Obama administration will deport 400,000 illegal immigrants this year, much higher than the figure under George W Bush. She quotes Mr Obama's campaign promised not to rip a child from its mother and says he is now doing exactly that.

To continue reading click here

Posted by Kathy Vega

As Whitman and Brown dance toward the political center, they risk alienating their bases

By Ken McLaughlin and Steve Harmon Bay Area News Group Posted: 08/10/2010 04:02:41 PM PDT

When Meg Whitman went on the air last week with two red-meat-conservative talk show hosts, they mercilessly grilled her on what they characterized as inexcusable shifts on illegal immigration and the state's landmark global warming bill.

The drubbing was so bad that many listeners of "The John & Ken Show" pronounced that they'd never vote for such a namby-pamby candidate.

Less than three months before the general election, the Republican Whitman is experiencing the perils of what nearly every major party candidate for California governor must endure during the fall campaign: the risks associated with dancing toward the political center.

It's a necessary gamble in a state where about one-third of voters say they are "middle-of-the-road" and one in five people decline to state a political allegiance when they register to vote, political experts say.

Still, as Whitman and -- to a lesser extent her Democratic opponent, Jerry Brown -- woo voters in the middle, they are discovering just how far they can go to grab as much from the center before they start alienating their more partisan bases.

To continue reading click here

Posted by Kathy Vega

Controversial Arizona sheriff greeted by jeers, cheers in San Diego

August 11, 2010|By Richard Marosi, Los Angeles Times

Reporting from San Diego — Arizona's Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio brought his polarizing brand of immigration politics to San Diego on Tuesday afternoon, generating cheers and jeers as he faced off with protesters and later regaled a friendly audience with details of his enforcement tactics in Phoenix.

Arpaio, controversial for his tent city lockups and law enforcement sweeps targeting illegal immigrants, came bearing a message for Californians.

"A lot of [illegal immigrants] are heading to California that we arrest, and I would hope that your governor would at least send me a little note saying thank you for grabbing these guys," Arpaio said during a speech before a conservative group at the Country Club of Rancho Bernardo.

Before the talk, Arpaio confronted a group of about 150 protesters waving "Stop the hate" and "Down with Arpaio" signs. "Why do you hate Mexicans?" one man yelled. Arpaio, protected by police, tried to speak, but was drowned out with chants of "Racist go home."

It's the kind of heated reactions he gets all over the country, he told the audience later.

"It's crazy. They're all telling me to go home. I have a right to be in San Diego. If you want to see my papers, I'll show them to all of you," Arpaio said jokingly.

To continue reading click here

Posted by Kathy Vega.

Immigration agency working to fix visa denials to artists, others

By Teresa Watanabe, Los Angeles Times
August 10, 2010

A big increase in the denials had prompted an outcry by Hollywood, the performing arts community and research institutions.

The nation's immigration chief has launched a effort to quell the outcry from Hollywood and the performing arts community about a spike in visa denials, processing delays and requests for evidence to support their petitions to bring in leading foreign artists for U.S. performances.

In the last year, immigration attorneys across the nation have loudly complained about mounting roadblocks for performance visas from the California service center, which processes petitions for so-called O and P visas for artists and researchers of extraordinary ability.

The Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles had to cancel scheduled performances last year of an Argentine music group because California immigration officials challenged whether its fusion of Jewish klezmer music and tango met the requirement to be "culturally unique."

to contenue reading click here

[posted by Max Felipe]