Miguel Perez Archive11/17/2009 Say Adios to Zelaya
After getting most world leaders reluctantly to demand his reinstatement as president of Honduras — even though they know he doesn't deserve it — Jose Manuel Zelaya now says he will not accept it. The ousted leftist president, ... 11/10/2009 The Lesser of Two Evils Just when we think going further to the right would drive conservative Republicans over a cliff, they go ahead and take another giant step into an abyss. Oops, adios! At least that's the way they are seen by many U.S. Latinos — ... 11/03/2009 The Closing Immigration Window Even those idealists who still believe it is possible for Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform legislation within the next year, even those dreamers who persist that President Barack Obama will keep his promise to Hispanic voters by ... 10/27/2009 A Time To Welcome the Spirits Editor's Note: This column, originally published in October 2005, is the 16th part of an ongoing series, "America's Hidden Hispanic Heritage." To read previous columns in the series, go to http://www.MiguelPerez.com. During ... 10/20/2009 From Cuba With Courage She is an outstanding writer, a great political analyst, a popular blogger and an award-winning journalist. But those are not the best adjectives to describe Yoani Sanchez. Courage is what makes her different. After all, writing, ... 10/13/2009 Bad Idea Turns Even Worse All along, it was obvious that deputizing local cops to do the job of federal immigration agents would be a bad idea. It was clear that such a policy would make undocumented immigrants reluctant to report real crimes and would drive them further ... 10/06/2009 Knock, Knock: Census Workers or Immigration Raid? Just when we thought things would be a little different under the Obama administration — because we were promised so much "change" — we realize that we are getting more of the same. On some issues with which we expected clear ... 09/29/2009 In Cuba Concert, Even the Audience Was Staged They were told that the Cuban government couldn't be trusted — warned by thousands that there was no way that outside promoters could stage and control a massive music concert under a very repressive communist dictatorship. But Juanes and ... 09/22/2009 Health Care Sends Immigration Into Coma They have been washing our cars and our dishes, caring for our children and elderly, picking our crops and mowing our lawns. They work in construction, restaurant kitchens and sweatshops, and those are some of the less hazardous jobs they do. And yet ... 09/15/2009 American Discovery Day Editor's Note: This is the 15th part of an ongoing series, "America's Hidden Hispanic Heritage." To read previous columns in the series, go to http://www.MiguelPerez.com. When he discovered the huge landmass now known as the United ... 09/09/2009 Our Quincentennial Is Coming! Editor's Note: This is the 14th part of an ongoing series, "America's Hidden Hispanic Heritage." To read previous columns in the series, go to http://www.MiguelPerez.com. SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — When they take the time ... 09/01/2009 America's Cradle Editor's Note: This is the 13th part of an ongoing series on America's hidden Hispanic heritage. To read previous columns in the series, go to http://MiguelPerez.com and click on "American's Hidden Hispanic Heritage." SANTO ... 08/25/2009 Peace Without Freedom? When the Colombian pop singer known as Juanes announced that he would take his music to Havana's Plaza of the Revolution soon to perform in a "Peace Without Borders" concert, I had some soul-searching to do. Surely it happened to most of my ... 08/11/2009 Repelling Latino Voters The feeling is hard to explain. Ethnic pride is like intense love — something you just can't put into words. You have to feel it to understand it. This is why, in the U.S. Hispanic community — in ways that are incomprehensible to ... 08/04/2009 A Dose of Cuban Reality For those who still had naive illusions about changing Cuba by befriending a couple of old tyrants, Raul Castro offered a dose of reality Saturday. "I wasn't elected president to return capitalism to Cuba or to surrender the revolution,&... 07/28/2009 The Giant Still Is Sleeping For U.S. politicians who may be weighing the significance of the Hispanic vote in future elections, the writing is on the wall: Although Latinos clearly swung several key states for Barack Obama in 2008, you haven't seen nada yet. ... 07/21/2009 The Solution for Honduras Granted: Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was a democratically elected leader who was on a mission to crown himself as dictator. He had joined the axis of evil of leftist Latin American presidents, and he was following their playbook on ... 07/14/2009 In Sotomayor Hearings, Republicans Are On Trial Shortly after the Judge Sonia Sotomayor confirmation hearings began Monday, Sen. Jeff Sessions let it be known that he and other Republicans intend to play hardball. And in the Latino community, where almost everyone enjoys a good ballgame, ... 07/07/2009 If It Smells Like a Coup ... The military raided the president's home, forcibly put him on an airplane and sent him out of the country, yet we are told that what happened in Honduras June 28 was not a coup d'etat. Of course, "if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck ... 06/30/2009 Keep Affirmative Action, Without Reverse Discrimination Some Republicans will tell us that Sonia Sotomayor is in trouble, that Monday's Supreme Court decision to overturn one of her appeals court rulings should disqualify her from joining the highest court in the land. Of course, because this is not ... 06/23/2009 On Immigration, Bush and Obama Are No Different In one extreme corner, we have the immigrant haters, with their never-ending list of excuses for denying some form of amnesty to foreigners living in this country without proper documents. And in the other corner, just as extreme, we have the ... 06/16/2009 The Counterrevolutionary Perspective A long time ago, when I was too young to be interested in politics, the Cuban government labeled me as a "counterrevolutionary." I had nothing to do with it. It was my parents' decision to take me off the communist island to become a refugee ... 06/09/2009 Let's Give Clinton Some 'Credito' MIAMI — In Havana, the government-controlled press claimed the communist dictatorship had scored a "historic victory" at the Organization of American States meeting in Honduras last week. But here in Little Havana, USA, from the Cuban-... 06/02/2009 Who's on Trial, Sotomayor or Republicans? When I dared to suggest that Sonia Sotomayor could be a shoo-in for a Supreme Court nomination — three weeks before President Barack Obama actually picked her — some people told me I had gone too far out on a limb. "Está... 05/26/2009 Making Census Sense At first glance, it seems like a crazy idea, a counterproductive movement born out of frustration. But when you hear the people who are calling on illegal immigrants to boycott the 2010 census, some of their arguments make a lot of sense. The ... 05/19/2009 Hugo Being Hugo Say you saw Hugo Chavez shaking Barack Obama's hand and you thought the Venezuelan president was a different person. Say you no longer saw him as an arrogant, anti-American socialist dictator but as someone who could be swayed to rule by democratic ... 05/12/2009 Southern Hostility Remember the days when people, especially in the South, felt they had a perfect right to discriminate? Remember the time when skin color determined whether you would be treated like a human being? Well, that litmus test has changed! Now humane ... 05/05/2009 Supreme Court Shoo-In? She meets all the politically correct qualifications the Obama administration is seeking in its first Supreme Court nominee. As a woman, Sonia Sotomayor would help balance the court's lopsided 8-1 gender scale. As a Latina, she would give Hispanics ... 04/28/2009 Fidel Being Fidel Just when America's useful fools were getting ready to sing "Kumbaya" with Cuba's Castro brothers last week, just when they thought they had heard from Raul the kind of conciliatory remarks they never had heard from Fidel, that's when they ... 04/21/2009 Castro's Trojan Horse Cuban dictator Raul Castro says he is willing to talk to the United States about "human rights, press freedom, political prisoners — everything" — and everyone is biting, hook, line and sinker! We are so eager to see ... 04/14/2009 Obama Could Disarm Them He rules a country from the left, yet he doesn't have any need to be totalitarian. He has been called a socialist, yet he doesn't jail his political opponents, censor critical media, or try to amend the Constitution to prolong his time in power. <... 04/07/2009 Americans Surrender in Havana We don't hear them calling for Cuba's freedom or for at least a little less repression. We don't see them trying to meet with Cuban dissidents or making an effort to visit political prisoners. We don't see them seeking free elections. They are ... 03/31/2009 Latino-American History, Chapter 12: Whitman's Prophetic Letter The letter was penned in 1883, but it could have been written today. Its message is still very current. Its words still need to be repeated. "We Americans have yet to really learn our own antecedents," the letter noted. "Thus far,... 03/24/2009 Obama Should Stop Immigration Raids It's going to happen! Regardless of the fact that some people write me bitter letters assuring me that illegal immigrants never will be given any form of amnesty, this is the year when we finally will begin to fix our broken immigration system, with ... 03/17/2009 A Scary Domino Theory Like falling domino pieces, continuously tilting one another, our Latin American neighbors keep falling to the political left. And we don't seem to care, as if their dominoes can't reach us, their problems can't affect us. While we fight two ... 03/10/2009 When the Truth Becomes an Obstacle In Congress and in the media, Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., was being treated as an obstacle last week. He was telling the truth about Cuba, the land of his ancestors, but sometimes, for some people, the truth becomes an obstacle. One news ... 03/03/2009 Our Leaders Have No Shame Just when we thought congressional earmarks were becoming an abomination, after a presidential campaign that led us to believe that pork spending would be abolished soon, at a time when Americans are facing the worst economic crisis since the Great ... 02/24/2009 An Elitist Shortcut to Citizenship Say you had to make a choice between a young immigrant who is here temporarily (and still holds allegiance to a foreign country) and one who has been here most of his life and considers himself an American. Which one would you trust to defend the ... 02/17/2009 The Ultimate Paradox: A Democratic Dictatorship Until Sunday, Latin American dictatorships had been established by force. It usually took a strong-arm president, a coup d'etat or a violent revolution to violate a constitution and subject the people to a regime that deprived them of their civil and ... 02/10/2009 Running for Dictator Imagine what would happen if President Barack Obama started campaigning to end presidential term limits and if he told us we should amend the Constitution so he could run for re-election indefinitely. We would think he went crazy, right? ... 02/03/2009 Real Change or GOP Cosmetology? They keep claiming that their party needs to change, yet Republicans keep making only cosmetic changes. Some predict that the GOP is on the verge of becoming only a regional party instead of staying a national one, yet all they give us is cheap talk ... 01/27/2009 Presidents Are Elected In this country, the media are rightfully diligent in the way they scrutinize politicians. We go into their personal lives, their tax records and their questionable associations. We even question the "vetting process" by which politicians ... 01/20/2009 Just How Important Is 'Inmigración'? As if politicians needed any more excuses for ignoring one of the country's most pressing issues, a new poll says immigration reform "appears to have receded in importance among Latinos." Immigrant rights advocates are building a new, ... 01/13/2009 Adios, Amigo? President George W. Bush is going out the same way he came in: pretending to be compassionate with illegal immigrants while running an immigrant-bashing administration. With "amigos" such as Bush, immigrants don't need "enemigos&... 01/06/2009 Avoid Piecemeal Immigration Reform When anti-immigrant zealots were on a roll the past couple of years, introducing various "enforcement-only" measures to fix the nation's broken immigration system, they were wrong. The fix has to be comprehensive. And when they tried ... 12/30/2008 Still Waiting for White Dove's Peace On the way home from a New Year's Eve party, we saw something that made us stop and reflect. Standing on the sidewalk, daringly blocking our passage, was a white dove. It happened a half-century ago. It must have been 2 a.m., on the morning of ... 12/23/2008 What Are We, 'Amigos' or 'Imperialistas'? They choose to overlook Cuba's 50 years without free elections, free speech or freedom of the press. They refuse to see the dissidents rotting in jail or drowning while trying to escape from the communist island. They shamelessly align themselves with ... 12/16/2008 'Presidente' by Intimidation Only one year after the Venezuelan people rejected Hugo Chavez's bid to become their dictator, the socialist/narcissistic "presidente" wants another referendum that would enable him to stay in power indefinitely. Last December, when ... 12/09/2008 Obama's Election Didn't Cure Racism Remember when, just a few weeks ago, we thought the election of Barack Obama had dealt a major blow against racism in this country, when we temporarily were swept by a tidal wave of interracial harmony? Remember how some people were actually naive ... 12/02/2008 The Jobs That Americans Didn't Want It was bigger than any border wall, more secure than any sophisticated ID card, and more effective than immigration raids and border vigilantes. It turned out to be the most effective weapon for deterring illegal immigration. Who would have thought of ... 11/25/2008 Looking for Brown Faces As President-elect Barack Obama takes his time to make his first Hispanic appointment, the Latino leaders who supported him are beginning to squirm — not because they all expect job offers, but because they fear they could end up with egg on ... 11/18/2008 Blacks and Latinos: Natural Allies When Barack Obama was losing the Hispanic vote to Hillary Clinton during the Democratic primaries, some people automatically assumed that racial discrimination had something to do with it. There was widespread speculation that Hispanics wouldn't vote ... 11/11/2008 The Punching Bag Strikes Back Latinos flipped the vote in four battleground states and gave Barack Obama free passage to the White House. But did Obama earn the Hispanic vote, or did he win it by default? More importantly, will President-elect Obama repay his debt to ... 11/04/2008 Mexico Wears Two Faces At first, you think it must be some kind of sick joke. Someone must be trying to be funny by twisting a few things around and making it seem as if Mexico, the world's largest exporter of illegal immigrants, is vowing to arrest and deport anyone who ... 10/28/2008 'Locos' About Obama? He never has traveled to Latin America. He opposes free trade with Colombia, turning his back on one of the only U.S. allies in the region. He wants to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada. He insists on meeting &... 10/21/2008 In an Act of Desperation, McCain Tries To Connect With Latinos It took him a long time, but Sen. John McCain finally said what he needed to say to score some points with Latino voters. In last Wednesday's presidential debate, McCain brought up immigration, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, the pending free ... 10/14/2008 Latino-American History, Chapter 11: Two Good Places To Rest To most Spaniards, Christopher Columbus rests where he belongs: in the Gothic Cathedral of Santa Maria, in Seville, Spain, the city from where he set sail for the New World in 1492. But to most Dominicans, Columbus rests where he wanted to be ... 10/07/2008 Latino-American History, Chapter 10: Columbus Deserves His Day To most of us, he was the ultimate explorer, the gutsy genius who brought Europe to the New World, one of history's greatest figures. His name, of course, was Cristobal Colon, better known here as Christopher Columbus, the Italian navigator, ... 09/30/2008 Beating Around the Bush Bailout With leaders such as Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain, what's there to worry about? Did you see them in their highly anticipated first debate? Didn't you feel reassured that the nation's financial crisis soon will be in good hands? Not!... 09/23/2008 Latino-American History, Chapter 9: Latinos Are Failing About this time every year, when Latinos can't keep up with all the parades and fiestas to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month, I get terribly upset. I keep looking for the kind of substance that African-Americans absorb in serious seminars and ... 09/16/2008 Latino-American History, Chapter 8: We Are All 'Americanos' Perhaps I had not been paying attention, but now that I'm in the midst of writing a series of columns on the Latino contributions to North American society, I see a history column everywhere I look. When Sen. John McCain reminded us that a ... 09/09/2008 McCain Hits, Stays on 1st Base When it became John McCain's turn to bat in the contest to win the Hispanic vote, the senator from Arizona took a good swing at the "bola." But he got a base hit when he needed a home run. "We believe everyone has something to ... 09/02/2008 The 'Bola' Is in McCain's Court When they come to the barrios to seek the Hispanic vote, Democratic Party leaders tell us anything we want to hear, especially about their plans to fix our broken immigration system and to grant some kind of amnesty to the 12 million illegal ... 08/26/2008 Your Party or Your People? When they begin their journeys, their intentions are usually good and genuine: They seek personal political empowerment so they can help their people. But something happens to many Hispanic community activists on their way to gaining that power.... 08/19/2008 Georgia on Her Mind When she wrote about Tbilisi as part of a class assignment at Lehman College in the Bronx, N.Y., this spring, Ekaterine Osepashvili didn't know her hometown soon would become the center of world attention. Her article — published in The ... 08/12/2008 Latino-American History, Chapter 7: Exalted or Offended? It all began with an innocuous column to commemorate Hispanic Heritage Month, one that encouraged U.S. Latinos to take pride in the contributions their ancestors made to this great nation. And yet many non-Latinos were offended. Almost 20 years ... 08/05/2008 Going Home Is Painful, Even on Video Think of the house of your childhood, the one that you haven't seen in many years but still brings back very good memories. And then consider that it has been turned into a police station and that the bedroom you once shared with your brother is now ... 07/29/2008 Are Latinos Voting for Obama or Against Republicans? The dramatic surge in Latino support for Sen. Barack Obama may be the last straw that tips the scale and puts America's first black president in the White House. When many Latinos were voting for Sen. Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries,... 07/22/2008 Who Can Fix Immigration: Obama or McCain? It is a political minefield so dangerous that no one dares to lead us through it. The presidential candidates dance around it as if we don't notice, but both Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain clearly are avoiding one of the most important and ... 07/15/2008 Obama and McCain Are Making Me Punch Myself! Sen. Barack Obama challenges America to learn how to speak Spanish, and Sen. John McCain challenges Obama to deal with Latin America -- and my dual national personalities, Miguel and Michael, are fighting again. I'm at war with myself! As a Cuban-... 07/08/2008 Ingrid Walks Free, But Where Does She Stand? When I met her, about a month before she was kidnapped by leftist guerrillas in Colombia, Ingrid Betancourt struck me as an idealist bordering on naive. We were in New York, and she was going back to Colombia to run for president, but somehow, she ... 07/01/2008 Colombians Worship 2 Gods CARTAGENA, Colombia — Amid all the historical information going back several centuries, the tour guide kept referring to the past six years. It was unusual, given the fact that recent history doesn't normally compare to ancient times, especially ... 06/24/2008 Latino-American History, Chapter 6: Our Spanish Heritage CARTAGENA, Colombia — Surrounded by a wall fortified by cannons and in the midst of fortresses and castles, there is no better place to appreciate Spanish influence in the New World than in this beautiful city by the Caribbean Sea. This is the ... 06/17/2008 The Most Hated Woman in Colombia BARRANQUILLA, Colombia — Everywhere you go in this country, the mere mention of her name evokes angry reactions. Cursing is people's preferred method to describe how they feel about Colombian leftist Senator Piedad Cordoba. And it's all ... 06/10/2008 Latinos Will Select Our New 'Presidente' With Sen. Hillary Clinton out of the presidential race after having won most of the Hispanic vote in the primaries, Latinos and their issues are about to receive unprecedented attention from Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama. After all, neither of ... 06/03/2008 The Clinton Spin Cycle We have to grant it to them: When it comes to spinning the arguments — bordering on dishonesty — nobody does it better than Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and her band of professional spinners. For months, they have been telling us the ... 05/27/2008 Driving out of the FARC Tunnel The death of Colombian rebel leader Manuel "Sureshot" Marulanda, following a series of major setbacks to his Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), could mark the beginning of the end of Latin America's longest and bloodiest civil ... 05/20/2008 VP Pick Could Swing the Latino Vote As the Clinton campaign finally begins to read the writing on the wall — "Get Out" — and the race for president turns to vice presidential picks, Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama should try to avoid selecting running mates who ... 05/13/2008 In Puerto Rico, Rare Vote for 'Presidente' They serve valiantly in our armed forces, yet they don't have the right to vote for the president, who is their commander in chief during war. They are American citizens, yet they don't have a single voting representative in Congress. They are our 4 ... 05/06/2008 The Great Immigration Divide I've been saying it for years: The only reason we can't fix our broken immigration system is because on the issue of illegal immigration, there is no middle ground. But maybe I've been part of the problem; maybe I, too, should move to the middle ... 04/29/2008 From a Primaries Marathon to a General Election Sprint The more they try to be different the more they sound the same. Now that Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have convinced us that they are almost equal on every issue, now that petty attacks have taken over political discourse in this country, ... 04/22/2008 On Immigration, Some Popes Speak Louder Than Others The pope calls for compassion for America's "many immigrant children," and some people accuse him of meddling in American politics. My, how things have changed in this country! On immigration, the political pendulum has swung so far to the ... 04/15/2008 On Free Trade, Democrats Are Spineless Let's face it: There are good trade deals, and there are bad ones. Unfortunately, this country has been engaging in so many bad ones that when a good one comes along, our politicians don't have the courage to separate it. That's the kind of ... 04/08/2008 Cuba's 'Changes' Amount To Nada Just as America's "useful fools" were beginning to buy the smoke and mirror changes that appear to be taking place in Cuba, out comes a new report condemning the communist island for multiple human rights violations. The changes are ... 04/01/2008 Latino-American History, Chapter 5: Even on HBO, 'The Black Legend' Lives Watching the Founding Fathers and their historic creation of a new nation, even in a dramatization, always makes me feel proud to be an American. But just when I expected "John Adams" to make me feel proud to be a Latino, too, the new ... 03/25/2008 Latino-American History, Chapter 4: The Black Legend Returns Don't blame it on talk radio and conservative politicians, as if they started something new. The anti-Hispanic rhetoric poisoning political discourse in the United States lately actually dates back to 16th-century Europe. That's when British and Dutch ... 03/18/2008 Put Venezuela on the Terror List After years on the receiving end of insults and unfounded attacks from Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, President Bush finally is engaging in some tough talk with the firebrand/demagogue who wants to lead a leftist movement against the United States.<... 03/11/2008 'Los Presidentes' Assault Each Other Then Embrace In the end, they embraced each other, just like many boxers do moments after bloodying each other's faces. But I can't think of a boxing match that was more exciting than the face-to-face, blow-by-blow encounter between several Latin American ... 03/04/2008 War Is Knocking on Our Back Door At first, you get the impression that the Colombians overplayed their hand. You don't send armed troops across a border with a neighboring country — not even if you are chasing wanted criminals — unless you have permission from your ... 02/26/2008 Obama Is Naive About Havana Just as the ruthless regime of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro declared that it was gasping for its last breath of air last week, Sen. Barack Obama shamefully was sending oxygen to Havana. In his most recent debate with Sen. Hillary Clinton, only ... 02/19/2008 Texas Latinos Will Pick the Democratic Nominee After all the unforeseen twists and turns of the Democratic race for president this year, after all the times we thought one particular primary or interest group would be the one that would prop one candidate above all others, it is Latino voters in ... 02/12/2008 McCain's Delicate Dance One step to the right and two steps to the left. Two steps to the left and one step to the right. It's not easy doing the McCain Shuffle. It's a very delicate dance. One misstep could decide who the next president will be. Everyone is ... 02/05/2008 Free Trade for Freedom In these hard economic times, there are many compelling arguments against the free trade agreements we have been making lately. Too many American jobs, instead of U.S. products, are getting exported. But if there were ever a country that we ... 01/29/2008 Bashers Face Backlash As candidates keep dropping out, or getting trounced, in the race for president, the walls are caving in for those seeking to elect an anti-immigrant zealot. After all, those candidates who have practiced the politics of xenophobia are not doing too ... 01/22/2008 Watching Hugo Go Crazy As the world tries to ignore him, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez gets increasingly close to doing something crazy — just to get some attention. And when it happens, when Chavez declares war on a neighboring country or wages an oil war ... 01/15/2008 McCain Empowers Latinos For the past few months, it seemed as if Latino voters had lost their leverage. When the polls and the pundits gave Sen. John McCain of Arizona up for dead, when they said his presidential campaign was on life-support, Latinos lost their ability to ... 01/08/2008 Latino-American History, Chapter 3: Our Pre-Hispanic Heritage CHICHEN ITZA, Mexico — Until you get here and you stand before the great pyramid of Kukulcan, you don't fully appreciate the amazing ingenuity and achievements of the Mayan people. Sure, you may have seen pictures and heard that this ... 12/25/2007 One Down, Many Other Bashers To Go In a strange way, I was almost sorry to see Rep. Tom Tancredo drop out of the race for president last week. The immigrant-bashing Colorado Republican had proved to be such an extremist that he was hurting his own cause. Even other immigrant ... 12/18/2007 Latino-American History 102: A Tale of Two Cities Which came first: the Spanish conquistadors or the British colonists? Jamestown or St. Augustine? The Spanish language or the English language? Hernando De Soto or Lewis and Clark? Figuring out the answer to all those questions is much easier ... 12/11/2007 To Get to the White House, Go Through 'El Barrio' In spite of the anti-immigrant climate that has been sweeping the nation, a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll says 60 percent of Americans are still in favor of a legalization plan for law-abiding illegal immigrants. Other polls say two Republican ... 12/04/2007 Venezuelans Reject Chavez Dictatorship For several years, it seemed as if the Venezuelan people had gone crazy. Over various election cycles, they gradually had given away their freedom and allowed their madcap president to rule like a vociferous tyrant. It seemed as if we were ... 11/27/2007 Latino-American History 101: Our Pre-Mayflower Thanksgivings For Latino immigrants, no other American holiday is more precious than Thanksgiving. "El dia de accion de gracias," as we know it in Spanish, is a welcomed opportunity to reflect on the reasons we came here and to express our ... 11/20/2007 A Dangerous Clown The U.S. government pretends he is invisible, and the American people refuse to see him. Most of us don't see the threat he represents to U.S. interests. He keeps telling us he is powerful and dangerous, but because he acts like a clown, we just keep ... 11/13/2007 Hasta La Vista, Hillary! Think of it this way: From now on, whenever politicians want to avoid taking a position on illegal immigration, all they have to do is say they agree with Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York. Whenever they want to appear as if they are saying a lot ... 11/06/2007 A Cuban Movie Proposal As the world's leftists keep celebrating the 40th anniversary of Ernesto "Che" Guevara's death and keep selling him as the ultimate champion of a people's revolution, I keep thinking about my friend Carlos Barberia. When you talk to ... 10/30/2007 The Congress of Broken American Dreams When we can't even forgive the children of illegal immigrants, when we insist on penalizing them for decisions made by their parents, there's something wrong with us. On the scale that measures our compassion as a nation, we must be at an all-... 10/23/2007 The United States of Cubazuela Just when you thought the clown who rules Venezuela couldn't be any more bizarre or say anything more absurd, out comes President Hugo Chavez with yet another amazingly preposterous statement. It happens at least once a week. He is the shock ... 10/16/2007 An Unspoken Menace Threatens Latinos It sends Latinos to the hospital and the cemetery at a higher rate than violent criminals, and yet in the Hispanic community, most people don't like to talk about it. It's "el SIDA," the Spanish name for the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and it ... 10/09/2007 Bordering on Racism For years, xenophobic immigrant bashers have used national security as an excuse to go after the Mexican border and Latino immigrants who cross it without proper documents. They kept telling us that after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, we ... 10/02/2007 The Latin American Axis of Evil They are a new and emerging team of anti-American players — Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, Bolivia's Evo Morales, Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega and Ecuador's Rafael Correa. They call themselves socialists of the 21st century. And their team manager is the ... 09/25/2007 Instilling Fear of Reporting Crimes For years, there have been numerous warnings of what potentially could happen. If you deputize state and local cops to enforce federal immigration laws, we were told, illegal immigrants would stop reporting crimes. Those warnings came not only ... 09/18/2007 Our Undemocratic Primaries It's not likely to happen in the foreseeable future because, to many politicians, tradition is more important than logic. But we need a national primary system that levels the playing field for all American voters. How long will we allow the ... 09/11/2007 Winning the Hispanic Vote -- By Default Republicans give us their back, and Democrats give us demagoguery. That's what Latinos are getting from the presidential candidates, and nowhere was that more evident than in the debate hosted by the Spanish-language Univision TV network Sunday night ... 09/04/2007 The Lawyer Becomes the Accused For more than 10 years, ever since Florida attorney Magda Montiel Davis was caught on video kissing Fidel Castro and expressing admiration for the Cuban dictator, she has been persona non grata in Miami's Cuban-American community. And now that ... 08/28/2007 Running for President -- of Flip-Floppers Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney are not only competing to see who takes the hardest line on immigration, but who can be the biggest hypocrite. The two leading contenders for the Republican presidential nomination are trying so hard to please the ... 08/21/2007 The Making of a Constitutional Dictator Just when we thought there was nothing more Hugo Chavez could do to legally entrench himself as dictator of Venezuela, out he comes with yet another proposal that we think free and democratic voters will have to reject. But amazingly, they ... 08/14/2007 With Amigos Like Bush, Who Needs Enemigos? When he first ran for president, George W. Bush wanted us to think he was a "compassionate conservative," the kind of leader who could be firm yet humane while fixing the nation's broken immigration system. But when members of his ... 08/07/2007 For GOP, Immigration Reform Is About Self-Preservation We knew it all along: Self-preservation was always the main reason why so many Republicans were opposed to giving illegal immigrants a path to citizenship. But if we had any doubts, a new proposal by Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., confirms the main ... 07/31/2007 Same Question, New Word "What part of the word 'illegal' don't you understand?" That is by far the most frequently asked question I get from readers who disagree with my columns on illegal immigration. They are so fixated on that word that somehow they think ... 07/24/2007 Courting Latinos, Without Shame He spends much of his campaign time feeding the flames of hatred against illegal immigrants, yet Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has the gall to go courting Hispanic voters. There is a Spanish word to describe that kind of person, &... 07/17/2007 As McCain Slips, Latinos Lose Leverage The unfortunate demise of the presidential candidacy of Sen. John McCain is taking away Latino leverage with Democratic candidates. Until now, whenever Democrats began to take Latino voters for granted, we could still threaten them with McCain. ... 07/10/2007 A Narrowing Field of Candidatos For Latino voters, especially those fed up with the anti-immigrant climate that has created storms of intolerance across the nation, the field of presidential candidates is rapidly shrinking. As they appeal to the worst xenophobic instincts of ... 07/03/2007 Only Elections Will Fix Immigration When pro-immigrant activists somehow learn to be as driven and aggressive as the anti-immigrant zealots, that's when comprehensive immigration reform will become a reality in this country — and when the broken immigration system will finally be ... 06/26/2007 From Punching Bags to Voters Let's face it, they have us playing defense. Those of us seeking fair and comprehensive immigration reform are barely holding the line against those who promote anti-immigrant sentiments. Immigration restrictionists, conservative radio ... 06/19/2007 Tactless Governator Does It Again SAN JOSE, Calif. — Everyone knows California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is a big guy, and that since he is not a career politician, he is prone to blunder. But not everyone knows he has the tact of an elephant. Last week, the governor ... 06/12/2007 Grave Dancing is Permissible The immigrant bashers are dancing on the grave of the immigration reform bill, and they write me sarcastic letters because they expect me to be in mourning. "All the Americans united to kill that stupid amnesty bill," one xenophobe ... 06/05/2007 Venezuela Unplugs Opposition TV When the people freely give away their freedom, as they have in Venezuela, can you really feel sorry for them? In Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez gives the people every indication that he intends to gradually take away their liberties, and yet ... 05/29/2007 For Immigration, A Remedy Worse Than the Illness It never really mattered how much immigrant rights activists were willing to concede in order to reach a compromise on comprehensive immigration reform. If the deal included any kind of legalization path for the 12 million illegal immigrants already ... 05/22/2007 A Huge Leap Backward He was a key negotiator in the closed-door Senate meetings that produced an immigration reform agreement with the White House last week. But in the end, in good conscience, he could not go along with it. And that makes me proud to say, I voted ... 05/15/2007 Grand Bargain or Huge Rip-Off? Betraying America's commitment to a family-based immigration system, a group of key U.S. senators and White House officials are reportedly negotiating a "grand bargain" immigration reform package that would shift the primary basis for legal ... 05/08/2007 Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric Leads to Violence When Los Angles police launched an attack on thousands of peaceful immigrant-rights protesters and many members of the news media last week, the violent nature of the U.S. anti-immigrant movement was finally exposed. The immigrant-bashing ... 05/01/2007 Strong Ideals, Weak Leaders The marchers may be fewer, some may even be piggybacking to promote their own wacky agendas, but the cause behind the May 1 "Great American Boycott II" is still a valid one: Comprehensive immigration reform, with a little compassion, is ... 04/24/2007 Bad News? Cringe and Pray! You hear the news of a mass murder or some other horrible crime, and if you are a white American you probably wonder about the criminal's motivation or the way he executed his plan. But if you are a minority American, immediately the first ... 04/17/2007 A Lesson in Latino vs. Black Power For weeks before Don Imus was fired for making racist and sexist remarks on the radio, two other shock jocks were already targeted for protests and boycotts for making insensitive remarks on New Jersey's 101.5 FM. The two jocks, known as "... 04/10/2007 A Platform Based on Fear and Hatred We know they have a constituency, but is it bigger than the voting bloc they are alienating? Can conservative Republicans continue to offend Latinos and not pay a price on Election Day? Apparently, some of them still think so. They believe ... 04/03/2007 The Hidden Anti-Latino Agenda At a time when immigration reform proposals have been moved so far to the right that even conservative Republicans could support them, out comes the White House with its own remarkably hawkish set of ideas. For a president who supposedly wants ... 03/27/2007 Vigilante Radio Stoops to New Low Just when we thought American xenophobes couldn't stoop any lower, when their mean-spirited behavior couldn't be any more repulsive, two New Jersey radio shock jocks are seeking to reach a new low. The two jocks, knows as "The Jersey Guys,&... 03/20/2007 Gonzalez Must Tell the Truth or Say Adios The lynch mob is out to get U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, and his survival may depend on whether he can tell the truth — the whole truth and nothing but the truth. If he had something to do with the politically motivated ... 03/13/2007 Bush Rediscovers the New World Just when we thought Hugo Chavez had been given free rein to take over Latin America, President Bush suddenly remembered that there are 19 countries just south of the Mexican border. After neglecting Latin America for the past six years, and ... 03/06/2007 The Democrats' Secret Weapon She is just about the best thing that could have ever happened to the Democratic Party, the reason why they may retake the White House in 2008, the person who will finally make most Americans see just how destructive conservative extremists can be for ... 02/27/2007 Let Them Swear on Their Faith When someone is taking an oath, and placing his or her hand on a holy book, you want it to be a scripture that person believes in, right? It's only logical. If they swear on something for which they have no respect, how valid is the oath they are ... 02/20/2007 Immigrant Bigots Cause Indigestion When your mail is filled with hatred and vicious remarks from xenophobic native-born Americans who are inexplicably offended by your calls for compassion for illegal immigrants, somehow you get used to it. You accept the fact that intolerance is ... 02/13/2007 Colombia Forced to Gamble With Hostages' Lives When I first met her in New York five years ago, Ingrid Betancourt was campaigning to be president of Colombia. She had been a strong critic of the leftist guerrillas who had caused so much bloodshed in her war-torn homeland, and she knew her ... 02/06/2007 Bush Doesn't Practice What He Preaches Since President Bush claims he wants to "resolve the status of the illegal immigrants who are already in our country, without animosity," you would think his administration would be putting the breaks on efforts to arrest and deport them. ... 01/30/2007 On Immigration Reform, There are Few True Leaders Contrary to the wishful thinking of immigrant rights advocates who applauded President Bush's vague words on immigration reform during his State of the Union speech, I'm not impressed. He said he wants a guest workers' program and comprehensive ... 01/23/2007 Faked Fear of Persecution is Asylum Fraud Immigrants who obtained green cards after entering the United States through political asylum now run the risk of losing that privilege if they return to the countries where they claimed they were persecuted, according to a warning posted on a federal ... 01/16/2007 Sheehan Leads Delegation of Hypocrites As they traveled through Cuba, on their way to protest against the detention of al-Qaida suspects at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo last week, American peace activists displayed the hypocrisy of their cause. To get to Guantanamo, they had to ... 01/09/2007 Say Adios to Venezuelan Democracy Until now, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has been able to claim that he rules over a democracy. But that is about to change. You can't have a democracy if opposing the government becomes a crime, if the media is censored and only one ... 01/02/2007 The Year For Immigration Reform Thanks to a significant political shift dictated by the November midterm elections, the New Year begins with high hopes for resolving one of the most controversial issues of 2006. Immigration reform — the issue that polarized the country, ... 12/26/2006 Back From Cuba, With Nada A U.S. congressional delegation just went to Cuba, got absolutely no concessions from the Castro communist dictatorship, and still they had the gall to come back and tell us that the next move is up to Washington. Excuse me? Why? Did the ... 12/19/2006 Romney For President -- Of Hypocrites On the list of opportunistic Republican politicians who pick on immigrants just to pander to the conservative extremists in their party, add the name of Mitt Romney. The outgoing governor of Massachusetts, who is thinking of making a bid for ... |
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