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Despite several recommendations, I was never able to procure for myself a proper huarache while in Mexico in January. But I just had a piping hot one from Los Campos Meat Market in Boise (on Orchard). An oblong corn tortilla … Continue reading
A 24- or 25-year-old Mexican man shot himself in the head on Sunday at his family home in the city of San Juan del Rio in Querétaro, Mexico. According to two different newspaper accounts, he had been distraught at being separated from his American wife and two sons. The man, Cruz González Chávez, was deported from the United States about five months ago, according to a friend of his, who spoke with Diario Rotativo, a local paper. González had spoken of taking his own life, the friend said.
González had been talking to his family and apparently drinking on Sunday afternoon when he got up and left without a word. The next thing the family heard was a single gunshot, according to the news accounts.
The news comes via Burro Hall, a Querétaro-based blog.
I’m working on finding out more details about the case, but this is the first such deportation-related suicide I’ve read about, though I’m sure there are more instances. It’s another potent reminder that people’s lives are at stake in this immigration game. Real people’s lives.
After Mubarak stepped down as president of Egypt on Feb. 11, a popular question on Twitter—probably at lots of dining room tables as well—was, “which country is next?”
Like everyone else, I had no idea. But there is one country in the region that is ripe for an Arab youth-style revolution and has been for at least 44 years, if not 63 years: Israel.
Notice I say one country.
The young people of Israel and Palestine are just as wired, ambitious, internationalist and freedom loving as any of their Arab neighbors, if not moreso, given the higher standard of living and nods to democracy that Israel offers. In my experience, anytime these young people get together, they find that they share many of the same ideals and dreams but that the older generation with its Holocaust/Nakhba baggage and mutual religious obfuscation continues to snuff those ideals and dreams.
I asked a close Palestinian friend—the guy who originally showed me what it means to be Palestinian, back in 1997 at the Arava Institute—what Palestinian youth are saying now and he said roughly that they were doing nothing because they are stuck between a rock and a hard place with governance divided between Gaza and the West Bank and Israel’s thumb crushing any democratic aspirations anyway.
I can’t really see from a brief Web search what the Israeli peace camp is doing about the Arab revolutions either, if anything. Uri Avnery, the godfather of the Israeli peace movement, has written that Israel may now get left behind as neighboring Arab societies become more progressive:
Our future is not with Europe or America. Our future is in this region, to which our state belongs, for better or for worse. It’s not just our policies that must change, but our basic outlook, our geographical orientation. We must understand that we are not a bridgehead from somewhere distant, but a part of a region that is now – at long last – joining the human march towards freedom. —Uri Avnery writing at Gush Shalom
And some Israeli musicians have put out this video on YouTube:
Rabbi Michael Cohen, who officiated at my wedding, urged Israel to seize the moment in terms of a *final* negotiated settlement:
The next time the earth moves in the Middle East it will be much more violent. It would be another tragedy if that moment becomes the moment, and not the present moment, that we need to move the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations forward. —Cohen writing in Arab News
And another Palestinian friend, Fadi Abu Sa’da, with whom I attended a journalism training in Beirut a few years ago, hailed the non-violent aspects of the Arab uprisings:
It was odd, in Palestine, to listen to some people talk about the examples of Gandhi and Martin Luther King and their nonviolent struggle. But it was reassuring to know that people can, if they have the will, change their situation. —Fadi Abu Sa’da at fadisite.com
But each of these thinkers, all of whom I admire and respect, are relying on old paradigms of changing power dynamics—the pre-Tunisia paradigms. the new paradigm is to get rid of the people at the top who are blocking the way and in the Israeli-Palestinian case that is a lot of people all over the world.
The people I knew in Israel in the late 90s were already talking about the power of youth to remake society. We are all older now, so I call it “youth-style,” but my generation of Israeli and Palestinian youth should capitalize on this moment and at least hold an event together on the line. My dream was always to return to Israel for a big party: a giant music and politics fest somewhere near Bethlehem—this was before the wall, mind you—a party that refused to stop until the borders between Israelis and Palestinians were erased and True Democracy blanketed the region.
This sounds like hopeless dreaming now, but then again, it is not so far removed from what just happened in Tunisia and Egypt and what is happening in Libya and maybe in Bahrain.
I am an American youth-style Jew, sitting comfortably in the American heartland, sipping coffee and suggesting revolution for other people. But I know people are sitting at cafes in Tel Aviv and Ramallah sipping (better) coffee and wondering the same things. I have lost many of my ties to the region over the years because I cannot bear to watch the stagnation and repression. But I agree with Avnery that this is the moment for change, independent of any Western negotiator, the UN or the Old Guard. This is the time for a new way out of that quagmire.
There is an ongoing Twitter thread of revolutionary Arabic words. Thawra, revolution, is my favorite and is quite fitting for the Israel-Palestine situation. I’d like to add the first revolutionary Hebrew phrase to the mix: Yalla. It means “let’s go,” roughly equivalent to “vamanos” in Spanish.
And the best part: It’s the same in Arabic.
Yalla.
I’ve been wondering if there is a way to control my iPod Touch (4g) with voice commands, especially when skiing, when, for example an Indigo Girls song comes on or something and I need to skip to something more like Mac Dre. This would also be useful when using the rowing machine at the YMCA, jogging, biking or anytime I don’t want to dig the ipod out of a pocket or backpack.
There is a way, but it took me 30 minutes on Google to figure it out, so here is the process in a few easy steps.
1. You need headphones with a button.
The ones that come with the iPod actually have a button, though I did not know that. Maybe I’m the last iPod user to know, but I don’t think it said anywhere that the microphone is also a button.
2. Push and hold the button for two seconds.
The built-in Voice Control software opens up on the ipod. Again, Apple brags about this feature on its iPod web site and has an entire support page on using Voice Control that never mentions this button. You can also push and hold the iPod Home button (the little round one at the bottom center) to bring up Voice Control. But you don’t have to download an app or anything—it’s built in to the software (I looked on the app store three times trying to find Voice Control).
3. Speak to your iPod.
You can tell it the following:
It also recognizes a bunch of other commands cataloged here.
4. Bonus. The little button can also accomplish much of this without the voice commands. Double click to skip tracks, click to pause and play. Really I just want to skip tracks though, when a bad song comes on. That’s all. The time thing is cool.
One of the coolest things I experienced on my recent trip to Mexico was making tamales from scratch with Nicole. She’s already put together a really good description of the process on her website, so I merely add the video here, with a few comments.
1. Sweet tamales with raisins and brown sugar are really good.
2. I love the woman in the pink tank top. She was very proud of her masa and tried to school Nicole on cleaning the skins off the kernels better, but Nicole wasn’t having any of it.
3. I want access to a molino here in Boise … who’s in?
4. Sorry about my finger over the lens in a few spots.
Our first order of seed packets just arrived from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, purveyor of what my farming buddy Robert dubbed “seed porn,” out of Mansfield, Missouri … you have to order the catalog to get the full centerfold effect.
Heirloom seeds, soon to be mixed with dirt, water and sun.
A dizzying array of seedporn.
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I never got a proper kaffiyeh, though I did wear a really shitty, touristy one for many years, until it disintegrated in the desert. But I am prepared with my Egyptian worker hat, repping the Revolution in Boise. It’s still … Continue reading
National Public Radio has a story this morning on alternatives to health insurance mandates but they forgot one (as does everyone else who is talking about mandates): a national health care system.
U.S. Consulate waiting area in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.
Two stories caught my attention this morning in the feed reader (I’m still catching up with my feeds after the Mexico trip).
Change.org has the story (and petition) of a couple caught unawares by the ten-year bar when he self-deported to Mexico a year ago with hopes of returning with a marriage visa in short order.
Miguel Moreno was not aware that he was subject to a ten-year ban from the United States based on his illegal presence here, and he is not alone. Many people assume that once they marry a citizen (like Moreno did) or permanent resident, it is a simple process to immigrate legally. It’s not. When I was in Mexico last month I visited two couples who are living in “exile” because they cannot right their partners’ statuses, one gentleman living apart from his American wife since he was deported two years ago and a man who spent three months away from home, in Mexico, and was recently granted an I-601 waiver from the Consulate in Juarez. He is now home near Minneapolis planning for the rest of his life.
Moreno has four kids to take care of in California and had a good job. Now he is in limbo in Mexico, unsure if or when he might return to his family.
The Change.org post cites some older stats for I-601 waivers—a hardship waiver that erases the three- and ten- year bars for some immigrants if their U.S. partner can prove extreme hardship.
USCIS says that between 2005 and 2008, the number of these waivers, called I-601 forms, submitted in Juarez rose by 570%. To help eliminate the backlog, the agency hired two additional adjudicators and enlisted additional offices to review applications. But as of 2009, USCIS reported that only half of the I-601 forms submitted in Juarez were approved within a few days. The rest required further review and took 12 to 15 months to process. For families like the Morenos, that wait has dire consequences.
I have some newer stats to add: According to USCIS public affairs officer Tim Counts, there were 22,000 I-601s filed in FY 2010, 75 percent of them filed in Ciudad Juarez (the largest U.S. Consulate in the world). Fifty percent of the 601s filed in Juarez were approved within two weeks (although the total wait time for a visa is closer to three months; applicants must wait for an appointment at the Consulate first). At the end of FY 2010 (September 30), there were 3,900 pending 601s in the hopper, Counts told me via e-mail last month.
Not all of these applications are for spouses, but a large percentage definitely are; there are a ton of people in Badillo’s shoes.
Then there is the wrong way. L.A. Weekly has the juicy story (and juicy photos) of Fernanda Romero, who pleaded guilty to a marriage of convenience last week in L.A. last week.
It could earn them some pity in front of the judge; still, at worst, their consequences could be up to five years in prison and $250,000 in fees.
According to City News Service, “prosecutors claim the pair were living in separate homes and dating other people when they tied the knot.”
The question is, who is worse off? The guy who did it the right way has been separated from his family for a year, causing a major loss of income, stress and suffering for his wife and kids (and other friends and family). The woman who tried to sneak it lives in Westwood and stars in movies. I’ll bet she will not serve much time either, if any.
I dug out my Egypt journal from 1998 when I spent about a five weeks traveling across the Sinai, to Cairo and up the Nile (which means south, into Africa). This was my first time really traveling. I was 20 years old.
I was hoping for some penetrating political analysis that might help me understand the current situation in Cairo, but there’s not much there. I did meet tons of young Egyptians with very modern, occasionally progressive, selectively informed views of the world—some of whom I imagine are now gathered on Tahrir Square. But I was not very aware of Egyptian politics at the time.
There are a couple of themes that jump out:
1) I can never sleep: “I can’t sleep cuz of the damn Bedu Tea—that’s it!” (2/3/98)
2) I have lots of digestive problems (in retrospect, these are probably, wheat/gluten related, but I did not know it at the time:
“I shat and burped all nite long + hardly slept. I had something really bad in my stomach – I tried to sleep late but of course just lay there. So I took a cold shower, tried to shave, + made noodles that I couldn’t even eat. I lay in pain reading Song of Myself for and hr. or so + drank a Pepsi. Then I went off to check e-mail—oh shit. I was stumbling—my head is light… ” (2/4/98)
“Do they really drink Nile water here?? I think so…” (2/26/98)
“So I slept crappy in Mohammed’s crappy village. Shat bad thrice. This morn. really bad. All water every 20 min. I wanted to hurl. We had to ride a truck into Edfu — 1 LE — I was w/ 4 tourists now. Needed a shitter in Edfu – but no one helped me so I hurled in a coffee shop— a lot of Muhammed’s crappy sahleb did come up. And other undigested food. Perhaps the culprit. I then led the tourists to the temple and we are waiting for Jeff to get his Pharonic pleasure. The back to Luxor + either to the Red Sea or Cairo. We’ll see.” (3/4/98)
3) I’m still more obsessed with religion than politics:
“We talked about Jews, Is. + america, religion, sex, money, anarchy and I explained evolution. One lawyer guy thought I was Is. and kind of freaked me out. There was an old security guard from the bank there who was very funny. Sephina—moch kabir. Then I drank helba w/ three guys but they murdered a rat so I left nauseous. Now I am trying to sleep. —INCHALLAH.” (Esna — 2/26/98)
“Then I met up w/ 4 college kids + a mother—Fifi, Ibrahim, Mohammed, + Joseph. They were kinda young but we hung out for all afternoon. Went to a few mosques—I like a good mosque. Then I told them I was Jewish. They were shocked!! So was Gaza chick. And the boys I hung w/ last nite.” (Cairo 2/8/98)
“Then another “rich” friend Mohammed showed up + the religious conversations started. I am kinda tired of this but feel it is my duty to spread doubt + fear thru-out the Muslim world. Every Muslim I have met uses the same “Scientific” proof for god—the teleologic approach I think—who made the sun, the Nile, yo momma—chicken + egg, and well at least no Jesus stuff. We talked for a long time. They thought I was a spy … Then Mohammed gave me a Great Cheese Bun + I went back to Jamaica + slept on the porch-er balcón. This morn I talked to my two stoner roomates a Coloradan lad who is probably going to get … [censored!]” (Palestine Club, Aswan 2/29/98)
[CONTEXT: the "doubt + fear" I mention above is the absolutely intoxicating spasms of perplexity that an agnostic, pro-Arab Jewish American who speaks Arabic creates throughout the Muslim world, or at least did in 1998 (pre-GWOT)... nothing nefarious.]
4) I think the most interesting post journal entry (beside my immature ponderings on women, tourism and food) is my experience visiting the town of Asyut, a long time fundamentalist stronghold that was under lockdown in 1998 by Egyptian police (army?) I hitchhiked there:
2/22/98 Al-Qasr —>Asyut
“So I continued up the street and encountered two nice boys … from Farafra of course … we sat down + the younger one ran off-returning moments later w/ two heads of lettuce for me. So I broke out the peanuts. 1/2 hr. later a big truck pulled up—I lashed my bag to the bed + Ahmad + his friend + I took off for Asyut!! Quais! He was a very nice man from Alexandria. We talked about the desert a lot—he doesn’t like the desert. At the rest stop they shat in the desert and then made tea w/ a big gas stove in the cab of the tractor trailer. They kept a tea pot, cups, sugar etc in the glove compartment. They dropped me—for a head of lettuce—7 km from Assyut, center of Islamic fundamentalism + terrorist activity. I walked a km. and then a small pickup stopped +took me into town. I met some local college boys + we walked over the bridge in search of coshari—only to be stopped by the police—copious police you could say—they got rid of the college boys + took over. I watched as they searched targeted galibeya’d individuals from every minivan. 3 guys w/ guns felt ‘em up looking for a gun I guess—checked ID worked em over. I wasn’t quite sure why or why I was just standing there. Then the CAPTAIN came up + asked me about a hotel + made conversation. Of course leading to Iraq + US + well the inch-Allahing Sadaam wiping out Israel. w/ a hearty laugh + smile. I just swallowed … [censored] … I gave them my nus-nus Is/Pal bit—then I jumped on a police transport w/ two armed guards + crossed the channel. I switched trucks + went to get coshari w/ an armed guard. I was really laughing now. Then I got a hotel room for 20 lbs—not what I really wanted, but fine—my own room—and Mr. Mamdough who likes dealing w/ Americans + wants to migrate. There are 3 police here guarding me. Thanks.”
2/23/98 Jihad —> Masr Qadimah
“Slept fine—survived at least—I waited around for my police escort this morning + we went out—the 4 of us. I got some good falafel — 1.80 for a lot. Then we walked to the Nile—checked it out. They wouldn’t even let anyone talk to me or even come near — I bought some good hot bread. We let it cool on the street. There is a whole culture of letting fresh bread cool here. In fact—all of society may be based on the 15 min cooling period of bread. Then I bought the pigs tea—went to get my bag + we all went to the train station. 13 LE to Luxor—I think 2nd class. We waited in the train station cafeteria for 45 min. + then they “helped” me on the train. Very strange … The train was pretty nice—a lot of leg room. I read a little—looked out the window—the whole way was NICE farm land. I love the geometry of farm land I think. It is beautiful squares + diff. levels of tall sugarcane, dwarfing hashish, soldierly onion … and the occasional squatting fellahin changing all that geometry w/ a sickle.”
One of my assignments this month is to put together a formal nonfiction book proposal, which—aside from a few chapters of the book, of course—includes several elements that are a bit outside my normal journalism purview. The rules for this proposal game are still a bit vague to me, but I’m going off a no-nonsense two-page outline a friend sent me, Elizabeth Lyon’s Nonfiction Book Proposals Anybody Can Write, which annoys me because it is so formulaic and strips all of the art out of publishing a book, and Nathan Bransford’s blog which is sarcastic and cocky enough to provide a good antidote to Lyon.
For this proposal, I need to consider the market for my book, draft a basic marketing plan and assess the competition. I’ve been monitoring immigration-related books for a while now, trying to read as much as I can, but I finally got over to Barnes and Noble in Boise last weekend and had a surprisingly good time. First of all, the place was packed on a Sunday afternoon. The coffee shop was full of people going through stacks of books, there was a steady line at the cash register and I came across some interesting reads.
So did my almost 6-year-old daughter. She spent an hour with a picture book of U.S. presidents (so far she only knows George Washington and Barack Obama, but I made her look up Lincoln and Roosevelt (Teddy) and she told me the relative era of each based on the clothing styles and modern conveniences depicted). My first experiment was to ask a clerk where the immigration books were. He sent me to “Current Affairs” where I immediately spied several books by Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin. Current Affairs is a dumping ground for books by politicians and pundits, which probably sell pretty well, but I’m not sure if that’s where my book will belong. [Strangely enough there is no Current Affairs section online at barnesandnoble.com ... perhaps it only has relevance in a dead tree context, whereas everything online is current?]
In Current Affairs I found a wave of new books on human trafficking (The Slave Next Door and Disposable People, both with Kevin Bales of the NGO Free the Slaves and Not for Sale by David Batstone). These books all argue strongly against human trafficking—not a very difficult position to take, and perhaps it’s their strong point of view that lands them beside Beck and Palin.
My book—called Amor and Exile for now, a working title—will have several strong points of view. My own, of course, those of the couples I’m profiling and the strong, first-person views of one heretofore source with whom I’m discussing a potential collaboration (more on that soon, when the proposal is done). After mulling it over, I do like the idea of appearing as a counter to Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin (my wife points out it will be closer to Sean Hannity because of that pesky alphabetical order thing)—offering a mountain of truth, personal experiences and facts to counter their emotional ideologizing.
There are some great looking immigration books in Current Affairs as well, including The Devil’s Highway, by Luis Alberto Urrea (Humingbird’s Daughter) a border crossing tale that I have yet to read. (I read two books in this genre a while ago: The Death of Josseline, a worthwhile investigation by a fellow reporter into the death of a young migrant in the Arizona desert and Border Crosser, a mendacious—he claims to have crossed illegally, but never actually does so—and self-absorbed book by a guy calling himself Johnny Rico.)
[Notice in the right hand sidebar appears growing list of books that I need to read and that you are most welcome to buy for me if you are ever in the mood.]
Another book in Current Affairs is Charles Bowden’s Murder City, which is top of my reading list since my return from Juarez. Bowden and I have some mutual friends there and I readily admit he has much larger cojones [scary read, behind a paywall] than I.
There are a ton of immigration/latino studies books in “Cultural Studies,” another section that at first blush does not appeal to me because of it’s overly academic tone. The book Hispanic Nation by Geoffrey Fox is 15 years old, but still appears on the shelves here … it looks a bit outdated, and has one of those über-academic subtitles: Culture, Politics and the Constructing of Identity. Mexican Enough by Stephanie Griest, a memoir by a bi-cultural journalist who covers immigration and Latino Affairs looks good as does Mexican Lives by Judith Hellman, another 15-year-old book that is still on the shelves (the publisher intrigued me as well, a nonprofit publishing house called The New Press).
Jesus this is a long post … I hope it’s helpful to someone out there. It’s definitely helping me out …
There is a fat book in the “History” section called Imperial, about the generations of migrants in California’s Imperial County. I should probably read it, but probably will save it for my graduate school backup plan. I picked up two books in “Journalism,” which might be a good fit (it’s right next to Current Affairs): Samantha Powers Chasing the Flame because I like her writing and her point of view, and Our Patchwork Nation, a demographic study that got a lot of press when it came out.
That’s what I found at Barnes and Noble. I did not find books about immigration outside the Mexican context, an unfortunate gap. I did not find books about mixed-immigration status families, though I’m sure some of the above do mention the phenomenon. Again, this is just what was available on a given day at a chain bookstore in Boise, Idaho. There are plenty of other good reads out there (any suggestions?), but it did make me want to buy a book (I bought one for my kid—Barbie related—ugh).
Frankly, I was not sure if people were still buying paper books in chain bookstores. I have not done that for many, many years, preferring local used bookstores or the convenience of Amazon.com (usually to find used books).
I’m curious how many blog readers regularly browse for titles at their local chain bookstore (or any brick and mortar bookstore) and come home with an actual book?
Escucha aquí a mi primer entrevista en español sobre mi trabajo. Estaba unos dias en México, en Playa del Carmen, entrevisando a Ben Reed, el radio personalidad, cuando el me reversó la mesa, como decimos, y me entrevisó. Ben trabaja como DJ en 970 AM La Fantastica en Burley y Rupert y el valle magico de Idaho, desde su “cabina” en Playa.
