From a Dream to a Nightmare

by Guadalupe

Immigration is the most controversial issue here in Arizona and other places all around the world. Well in fact everybody is an immigrant. Not everyone's parents or relatives were born here so that makes you an immigrant to. Perhaps it was your grandparents or great grandparents.  It makes no difference. Joe Arpio needs to recognize that not every immigrant is the same. We are all different and we are all immigrants, so it's ridiculous to label us all as "lawbreakers." 

Have you ever notice that most of the immigrants around here are Latino? We are everywhere we are moving around the whole world! It would be easy for people to see this and get scared.  They might see us as "taking over."  But most of the immigrants are leaving a nation that doesn't have enough opportunties. Many of us act the same way: friendly. There is always a question in my head, "Why do some Americana's treat us differently?"  We are all the same. We are humans. We are all on a journey, whether from one nation to another or from one part of our life to the next.  Everybody does the same things and and goes to the same place. We go to the same grave.  We will all end up tossed into a hole in the same rugged earth. So why treat others differently? Are we really that different if by simply beginning at a different location?

We are the same. I realize that many immigrants speak a different language and are from a different place. Some of the customs and culture might seem strange.  But hang around us and you'll see that we have the same types of families and we engage in the same activities.  What seems different at first becomes something that all humans do.  We eat. We drink. We play. We laugh. 

Certain Americans discriminate toward immigrants in the same way they did to the African Americans. The person that hates us most is the sheriff Joe Arpaio, who is essentially the Bull Connor of our generation. He is always coming out in the news with a lot of prisoners and they are all immigrants.  He has even set up a hotline for paranoid racists to secretly spy on neighbors. I don't know what we did to him so that he can start discriminating us like that! I can't think of a person more racist than him and there are lots of people that are racist but not as much as him.  I think of how the Holocaust started and it was with ideas like this.  It was with the racism, the stereotypes, the scapegoating and labelling.

I have Uncles that have talked to me in the phone and they say that there wasn't any people there in Mexico anymore and with this of Joe Arpio and other people like him and the United States are taking everybody back.  So now Mexico is staring to fill up again with people that left to the United States.  Also many people are leaving because the houses are to expensive now and Joe Arpio is telling the business owners that they are going to take there buildings and close them. So there aren't jobs for immigrants anymore and yet the deportations lead to a worse housing crisis and a lack of labor and our economy plummets. 

The Pledge of Allegiance here for the United States say that it is the land of the free and the home of the brave. There isn't freedom and there aren't brave people to say something when Joe Arpio is taking the family's apart! I don't see brave people here I just remember somebody that died for being brave and standing up for the African Americans and that was Martin Luther King Jr. They killed him because he was brave to stand up for his own racist.There has to be a person like that and like Cesar Chavez he was a leader in favor of the immigrant he helped them a lot he made people respect them more and I think that he was great leader but to bad that he died he would of helped us a lot.

This isn't the land of the free anymore! It is the land of the racism and the injustice! We once had the American Dream but now they're turning it into the American Nightmare. 

Photo Credit

Flickr Creative Commons

http://www.flickr.com/photos/walkadog/3335526188/

The Immigrant Dream

The rallies suggest what many immigrants know: that we share a common American dream, because we are all immigrants

by Manny

Immigrants are those people who come here to look for the American Dream, who look upon their future looking to be a successful person, who think beyond their life right now and see themselves in a great paying business with a family that they love. They see themselves confronting all sorts of challenges that they are willing to take to reach their goals as a person.They challenge one of the most toughest things crossing the border to take one giant step into reaching their goals and their life.

Many immigrants take probably the most toughest challenge of their life. They risk it all the probability of losing their life to look for that bright future. They realize that in this great country their are most opportunities to succeed as a person and in their life. That in this country everybody can succeed. They can do whatever they want just by going to school and having the best education.

There some anti immigrants that make it so much harder for the immigrants to reach their goals. They provoke these immigrants to go back to their country because the "migra" is after every immigrants and sending them back to their country. One such man is Sheriff Joe who is filled with hate that fuels his even higher need for publicity. Arpaio is after all the immigrants and sending then back, destroying their dreams and future to become a successful person in their life. What he fails to see is that the very law he claims to uphold is meant to be below the even higher law of freedom and the values of America.

Another barrier is scapegoating. Immigrants get blamed when this country is in a crisis. Certain Americans think that the immigrants had everything to do with this problem, when, in reality, the immigrants are the ones who help this country.Who many of the workers help in construction building houses or anything else.They do those little paying jobs that help in there own certain way. Do you like the food you ate? It was probably an immigrant who picked it and planted it. Do you like your home? It was an immigrant who built it. How about that restaraunt you go to? Again, an immigrant prepared your food.

Should immigrants go back to their country? Or should they stay here and give these people a chance to succeed in life? Immigrants only come here to make the best of their opportunities
to succeed in life like I am. They come here to get the education, job and family and to actually be someone who likes their life and are proud of it. It's the immigrant dream and no matter what the law is, it will remain.

Photo Source
Flickr Creative Commons
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jvoves/110572067/

My Home

It represents two nations, one country. It's how I feel about this place. I belong in both places and I consider both my home.

Good Ol' Joe

illegal?

Is it o.k to cuff some one, and put them in a police car and take them to jail like if they were a criminal, and when their only "crime" is to be here illegally?

Multimedia Me: Immigrants Should Stay

by Karina

One thing that I believed deeply in is the right of immigrants to stay in America. So, I created a blog to advocated for their cause. If you'd like to visit it, it's at Mexicans Should Stay.

Paper Border

This project is still a work in progress. It's not really a mural, so much as a three-dimensional art project. On the front side (here) we still need to add detail work to the statue of liberty and to the scenes on the left and right. The statue of liberty represents immigration and the scene on the left is Ellis Island. The scene on the right is the dessert and represents immigration now. On the back, we have created a mock border and we'll have one hand print to represent each person who has died crossing the border in the last year.

We chose to create the border entirely out of paper (with starch to create paper machet and with a little duct tape to make it work.) We chose this, becuase it is often the legal barrier (the papers) that creates the biggest barrier for immigrants. By far this is the most controversial of all the visual arts projects we have created. It's still a work in progress and we're still trying to figure out how to improve the structural aspects of it.

For Our Paper Border

Manuel A. sketched this as an initial draft of what we will put on our "Paper Border" project.

Reflections of a Ninja Gangster

ninja gangster

Immigration Rap

Immigration Rap

reflect on the article

Check out this article at:
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/07/14/18288103.php

If your computer is able to view the video, you might want to see it.

Questions to consider:
1. Why didn't the police arrest the Minutmen member?
2. Would it have been different if the violence had been caused by an undocumented immigrant?
3. Is violence ever okay in a protest?