Guerilla Philosophy: Is there room for philosophical graffiti?

The London Underground drivers are exposing commuters to philosophical thoughts ranging from Sartre to Gandhi (presumably over the speakers?). Here some philosophers and politicians share what aphorisms they would like to hear.

This made me think of what it would be like to do guerilla philosophy--graffiti with a philosophical twist, spread out across public spaces. Such graffiti is common in Latin America (Eduardo Galeano is good at collecting this "street wisdom." He has said: "The walls are the publishers of the poor".)


(Translation: Poverty is a time bomb)

Anyway, here is my selection for a philosophical nugget in the public sphere:

"With individuals, as with nations, respect for the rights of others means peace"

Benito Juarez

(Photo by Guillermo Campos via Flickr. Street art in Coyoacan, Mexico)

Is the U.S. ready for a new economic paradigm? America, Argentina, and a New Paradigm of Dignity

Back in December 2008, I compared the take over the the New Republic Window factory in Illinois with the factory take overs in Argentina in 2001.

This interview with a couple of Argentine journalists describes how the economic situation in Argentina in 2001 is similar to what is taking place in the United States today. They say we are now faced with making choice about whether we want to go back to a system in which banks control the economy, or a "new paradigm" in which work builds the economy in favor of the dignity of people and of society. Is the U.S. ready for a new anarchist inspired worker's movement?



Thanks to Latin American News Review.

Hope Reaches Guatemala: What Obama means to the Mayans

Dennis, over at Rhetorical Wasteland, has a thought provoking discussion about whether progressives should celebrate the Obama inauguration event on January 20, 2009. I tend to think his conclusion is spot on: we should not celebrate the man, so much, as the organizing that got him to where he is today.

At the same time, Obama is an exceptional person and has made a profound impact on not just U.S. history, but global history. Over at The Seditionist, a report from a Guatemalan Mayan village about the reactions of people there to the Obama victory. Xeni Jardin recounts:

"Despite many years visiting their homes and sharing their difficult life experiences, we were surprised by their reaction to the Obama election. It was of great symbolic importance. That sudden jolt of aspiration felt around the world? It struck here. Hard. It meant hope. It meant a renewed belief in change, for a people who have survived natural disasters, racism, and 36 years of civil war that many describe as the Mayan genocide. If a black man can enter the Casa Blanca, they are saying, maybe a Mayan person can one day become president of Guatemala. Maybe we will live to see a true democracy here, the thinking goes—a government that represents the rights of Guatemala’s First People, instead of representing their destruction."

Should Latino/a Workers Occupy a New Republic (Windows and Doors)?

A group of mostly Latino/a workers, who were laid off from a window factory in Chicago, have decided to stage an occupation of the factory rather than be turned out. You can read about this group of workers and the national attention they are bringing to the worries of ordinary working people here.

It seems that the workers feel they were not given full consideration of federal law before being laid off and are asking the owners of the factory, who claim they are broke, to give them the entire severance and vacation pay they are due. The workers claim that they will stay until Christmas, if need be.

The union to which the workers belong claims that they are simply engaging in an action that goes back to the 1930s when American workers would nonviolently occupy factories to pressure owners with their demands.


The occupation by the Republic Windows and Doors workers reminds me of the factory take overs in Argentina after the 2001 economic crisis. There, many factory owners also went bankrupt and simply left town, leaving the workers with little or no notice of a shutdown. Instead of simply accepting defeat, the workers of many of these factories went back to work and occupied facilities. They started to run the factories on their own, creating their own forms of management and production. Workers began to develop their own theories of a non-hierarchal work place, and of democratic decision making on the shop floor, that started to spread throughout the country. Soon, neighborhood assemblies were forming, in which people could talk about their reactions to economic crisis, and plan collective action that was independent from the state institutions and political parties. Some of these citizen activists called this kind of grassroots democracy horizontalism. You can read more about this movement here and also here.

The Republic workers aren't currently thinking of running the factory on their own. They simply want to get what is due to them. But wouldn't it be a great example if ordinary workers could take production matters into their own hands and demonstrate how the economy really works because of them and not because of the generosity of capital lending financial institutions which are pocketing so much of the taxpayer bailouts?

What Should Obama's Global Ethical Priorities Be?

Ethicist Peter Singer outlines some of the moral challenges on a global scale facing the new Obama administration:

1) Restoring the U.S.'s image internationally by following through on the promise to close Guantanamo prison and pulling troops out of Iraq.

2) Helping to usher in reform at the United Nations by making it more democratic--meaning that something needs to be done by reducing the power of the five permanent members of the Security Council: the U.S., the U.K., France, Russia, and China.

3) Increasing the amount of foreign aid the United States provides to the world (currently about $25 billion/year, but still far less, as a percentage of overall GDP, than most industrialized nations)

4) Reducing carbon emissions and finding a way to become part of the discussion on enforcing the Kyoto treaty for the reduction of greenhouse gases.

What other global issues need to be addressed?

I would add a couple of considerations:

a) joining the Rome Statute and becoming part of the International Criminal Court system. The U.S. has failed to join because of worry that the Court might be used by other nations to engage in politically motivated prosecutions of U.S. leader and military personnel. We should move fast to become part of this growing system of global law with a policy of "constructive engagement" so that the U.S. regains its footing as a prime mover of global law and ethical norms. As it is now, our legal ideas are becoming less and less relevant to the world.

b) examining our commitment to trade agreements, such as NAFTA, and other bilateral agreements that we have with numerous Latin American nations and ensure that we are engaging in fair trade. NAFTA has undoubtedly affected immigration to the U.S., and that has raised issues of human rights along the border and the treatment of immigrants within the country (now that we have a vastly expanded immigration enforcement bureau under Homeland Security)

Memories of Empire, Part Two: My Old San Juan

American citizens may soon be surprised to find out that their choice for President will be decided by people who are not allowed to vote in the November election. No, its not a conspiracy of capitalist thugs or some shadow government. Its the people of Puerto Rico.

Right now, Clinton and Obama are running neck and neck to attract delegates before the nominating convention this summer. It seems every state counts. Puerto Rico is not a state, but since 1917, all Puerto Ricans are U.S citizens. They will be allowed to vote in the Puerto Rican primary. And it is going to matter this year. Puerto Rico has 60+ delegates in the primaries. That's more than most states have and ranks it up there with the powerhouses of New York, California, and Florida.

However, Puerto Ricans will not be able to vote in the general election in November. Why? Because they do not live in a state. Puerto Rico is a commonwealth holding of the United States. It has limited powers of self-rule and any laws passed by the government of Puerto Rico can be vetoed by Congress. According to the Constitution, it is the states that get to set the rules for voting (in accordance with federal law and the Constitution). Hence, it is only citizens who are residents in states who may vote in federal elections( thus, citizens of Washington, D.C. don't get to vote either--of course, there are 4 million Puerto Ricans, so its a big difference).

As Antonio Darder point out here, this primary situation is a mixed blessing. Hopefully, some people might be shocked to learn the power Puerto Rico has in this decision making process of leadership--without really having a meaningful place at the table--and start to ask questions.

The reason for all of it, of course, is simple: colonialism. Puerto Ricans are second class citizens and the island, an economic disaster, has been exploited for its natural and human resources for over 500 years, first by the Spanish and then by the United States.

Over a hundred years ago, Mark Twain spoke out over this condition. He became a leader in the Anti-Imperialist League and wrote about the Treaty of Paris between the U.S. and Spain that gave the former control over Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Phillipines. Perhaps we should finally heed his words:

"It should, it seems to me, be our pleasure and duty to make those people free, and let them deal with their own domestic questions in their own way. And so I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land."

Memories of Empire, Part One: Absolut(ly) Aztlan

Absolut Vodka has created a huge web flurry with this new ad campaign in Mexico. The ad depicts what an "ideal" world might look like from the standpoint of Mexico--one in which Mexico has the national boundaries it had in about 1821. This was before Anglo-Mexican settlers revolted in the state of Tejas and created the Republic of Texas in 1836; and also before the war of 1846-1848 with the United States (regarded by many to have been an aggressive and unjust war for territorial expansion. Young Abraham Lincoln, then a Congressional Represenative from Illinois, voted against the war. Thoreau went to jail for failing to support it with his taxes. Even Ulysses Grant was shocked at the the conduct of U.S. troops during the war).

Blogs all over the web are calling for a boycott of Absolut, calling the ad "racist" and in poor taste.

While Mexico does have many monuments to heros who fought in the war against the United States, I hazard a guess that most Mexicans are not dreaming of any Reconquista (despite what the nativists are arguing).

What strikes me as more interesting is how vociferous and angry the responses have been to this ad among conservative voices.

I'm sure that the anger is not a reaction of guilt for the imperalist impulse that the U.S. embodied in the 19th century, leading it to land grab so much in Latin America. Its more likely the case that the reaction is part of the growing fear being felt in the U.S. about a loss of power and stature on the world stage. Gregory Rodriguez calls the new border fence a "670 mile-long shrine to American insecurity".

Honoring Cesar Chavez at 81

Today would have been Cesar Chavez's 81st birthday. He died in his sleep in 1993, reading a book on art. His life was cut short, not by an assassins's bullet as was Martin Luther King, or Malcolm X, or his colleague, Robert Kennedy, but because of years of self-denial. He suffered for years because of the fasts that he took on in the name of the farmworker struggle. During his life, he voluntarily denied himself food three times for periods of longer than 20 days. The toll on his body was immense. He underwent debiliating back pain for years. But during his last fast, in 1989, he told people he felt guilty and ashamed because he did not know how much the farmworkers in California had suffered as a result of pesticide use. So he fasted in order to be miserable, to feel pain, because the farmworkers felt pain, and he wanted to show solidarity with them. As a result of these choices, he died before his time, as do many of the workers whose lives are spent in toil so that the rest of us can simply eat.

Here you can listen to a lecture by Cesar Chavez, entitled "Reflections of Social Justice", a year before his death, at Harvard University. (The voice of Dr. King is well known to us, less so is the calm, yet passionate, voice of Cesar). In this lecture talks about pesticide exposure, the sexual harrassment of women farmworkers, the history of union labor in the fields, and the requirements of social justice.

What's interesting in this talk--in this period leading up to the presidential election this fall--is how Cesar discounts the idea of social change through electoral politics. For poor people, he says, it doesn't matter which politician get elected. The key to social justice is to realize that real change only takes place through people power--ordinary folks organizing themselves to put pressure and coercion on the powerful to change. There is power beyond the ballot box.


I examine these ideas of his in my book that was just released: Cesar Chavez and the Commonsense of Nonviolence. I hope some readers will be able to send me their thoughts on the book eventually.

Viva Cesar!

Mexicans on Ice: Lessons on Justice and Charity from Mexico City's Ice Rink

At the start of December 2007, the municipal government of Mexico City built an ice skating rink in the middle of the Zocalo, the central plaza at the heart of the metropolis. The Zocalo is model for most Mexican cities. It consists of a large open plaza (one of the largest in the world, next to Moscow's Red Square) that is ringed by the City Cathedral, the National Palace for the Mexican Congress, and the municipal government building, (the side opposite the National Palace is the Hotel Majestic--a little pricey for a budget traveller but it has a great view from the balconies)

You can watch a video of the ice rink here.

The municipal government is run by the leftist pary of the PRD. Some have criticized the project as a waste of city funds that could be used for improving a whole host of services. Part of the reason for spending millions of dollars on an ice rink, according to the city officials, is to give poor and working class citizens (who are a majority of the people) some leisure opportunities that they might not normally have. Entrance to the rink and the skate rental are free.

I've mentioned Pericles' "Funeral Oration" before as an early account of the values and institutions needed to maintain a democracy. One of the values that Pericles says is upheld by the Athenians is leisure (skole). The idea was that free citizens were not regimented in their thinking. Unlike the Spartans who knew only how to obey orders, the Athenians, according to Pericles, attended festivals, and sampled food and wine from all over the world, in order to develop their individual judgment and sense of taste. Leisure gave them time to become liberal and open-minded. Indeed, leisure here means more than our contemporary idea of "free time", i.e. time we are not a work, but, instead, skole is time in which we can dedicate ourselves to self-improvement.

So we might say that the Mexico City officials are onto something by spending millions of dollars to build an ice rink. They are acknowledging that government has a responsibility not just to provide security, and to keep the peace, but to contribute to the good life of its citizens, and hence, to democratic well-being.

On the other hand, Mexico has a history of engaging in elaborate public works that are sometimes little more than attempts to distract people from other social problems. In the early part of the 20th century, the Mexican government spent enormous amounts of money to build Bellas Artes,the Palace of Fine Arts. This is an enormous, and absolutely beautiful, opera house that contains some of Mexico's greatest mural art:



But part of the reason that Mexican president Porfirio Diaz commissioned it was to prove to Europeans that Mexico was not a backward country. It didn't matter that the country was on the verge of a revolution because of class inequality and oppression. At least Mexicans could hold their heads high and say they had one of the best examples of Art Nouveau architecture in the world!

There is no doubt that Diaz did Mexico a favor. Bellas Artes is a national, and perhaps even, a world treasure. And the Mexico City ice rink (the largest in the world) is quite a feat. But these might be better understood as acts of charity by powerful politicians that come at the expense of justice. The ice rink will eventually go away. Yet the problems of lack of potable water, personal violence, crime and insecurity, and environmental degradation that are everyday realities in this, the largest city in the world, remain. To paraphrase Martin Luther King, justice means more than just flinging a coin at a beggar on the street, but is, instead, working to change the conditions in society that produce beggars in the first place.

Latin America Human Rights Roundup

New developments on human rights in Latin America in the past few days:

In Guatemala, Nobel Prize winner Rigoberta Menchu criticized the courts for not taking action against military officials accused of participating in the genocide of civilians during the 1980s civil war. She filed a case in Spain and the Guatemalan legal system has refused to honor the indictments or hand over the accused.

In Argentina, on the other hand, the former head of the army during the 'dirty wars' in the 1970s and 1980s was sentenced to some 20 to 25 years for his abuses, including murders and torture, against civilians. However, he is 80 and in ill health and will probably not serve time.

Finally, in Mexico, it is the 10th anniversary of the Acteal massacre, in which pro-government supporters massacred a group of Zapatista supporters in an effort to intimidate the peasant community. Few of the perpetrators have been brought to justice and live side by side with families of the victims. Perhaps, luckily for the murderers, the victims were members of a pacifist group, Las Abejas (the Bees), who support the Zapatista uprising, but are personally non believers in violence.

Hate Crime in Spain

Via Guanabee:

I've been recently tracking examples of racist and anti-immigrant sentiment in Europe. Here is a shocking video from Barcelona, Spain. A young Ecuadorian woman was attacked by a Spanish man who entered the metro train. Apparently, he was ranting on about various racist things on the phone prior to the attack. He told her to go back to where she came from, calling her various names, all the while kicking her in the face.

Indigenous People's Day: Reclaiming the Values of Abya Yala

As some people may know, October 12, 1492 is traditionally thought to be the day on which Columbus's ship La Pinta first noticed land. His ships quickly made landfall and encountered native peoples. For anyone who has doubt that conquest and conversion were foremost on the minds of the Europeans, this excerpt from Columbus's journal, in which he describes the first people he came across on the islands, should suffice to dispel it:

"All of them alike are of good-sized stature and carry themselves well. I saw some who had marks of wounds on their bodies and I made signs to them asking what they were; and they showed me how people from other islands nearby came there and tried to take them, and how they defended themselves; and I believed and believe that -- they come here from tierrafirme to take them captive. They should be good and intelligent servants, for I see that they say very quickly everything that is said to them; and I believe that they would become Christians very easily, for it seemed to me that they had no religion. Our Lord pleasing, at the time of my departure I will take six of them from here to Your Highnesses in order that they may learn to speak..."

Centuries later indigenous people in the Americas (or as some are calling it, using the indigenous term from the peoples of Panama, Abya Yala), are struggling to reclaim their culture and their place in history. This speech by Peruvian indigenous leader Hugo Blanco, given this past September 2007, lays out this indigenous perspective. The hope is to be able to resuscitate the native relationship to nature and reimplement the ideas of labor which are meant to reflect a culture of communal solidarity and respect for the ecology. The goal is not to overturn European ideals or ways of life, but to find a way to live in justice with them. Its a very good statement of the philosophy of interculturalism that is developing in Latin American and worth a careful read.

Onwards Forever, Commander! Che Guevara 40 years Later

Today marks the 40th anniversary of the execution of Ernesto "Che" Guevara in the jungles of Bolivia. In this interview, Greg Grandin explains why Che remains an important figure in Latin American protest movements, especially those against neoliberal globalization. This photo display provides a portrait of the figure and his legacy in Cuba (at least in terms of great monuments).

Finally, doctors in Venezuela should be celebrating today as well--a 60% raise in honor of Che, who was a trained physician.

Pope Benedict XVI and the Conquest of the Americas

Pope Benedict XVI concluded his first trip as pontiff to Latin America last week. He affirmed his resistance to liberation theology--not surprising since as Cardinal Ratzinger, his job was to be the enforcer of the pope and church doctrine, and he did so with relish against many liberation theologians, such as Leonardo Boff and Jon Sobrino, who taught about the need for the church adopting a "preferential option for the poor".

But some of his most controversial remarks had to do with the history of the church in Latin America and its relationship to indigenous peoples. Benedict claimed that the church did not engage in the "imposition of a foreign culture" on the indigenous peoples but had helped to forge a "synthesis between their cultures and the Christian faith."

Clearly, the pope is engaging in a bit of revisionist history here. Its hard to see how the indigenous people of the Americas were in any position, post Conquest, to engage in a dialogue about synthesizing their worldviews with those of the Europeans. The pope's comments suggest a dialogue among equals or peers about theology. As Bartolome de las Casas makes very clear in his analyses of the Americas, the Europeans, in large part, did not treat the indigenous with any sort of humane respect. Instead, they were beaten into submission and treated like cattle.

Other chroniclers of the Conquest, such as Alonso de Zorita and Fray Mendieta, point out that there was a spiritual dimension to the take over as well. The religious developed very sophisticated techniques for evangelizing among the native peoples that were far from benign. They included dramatic recreations of hell in which dogs and cats were thrown into ovens before crowds, creating cadres of children who could spy on their parents and tell the church if their families still practiced native religions in the home, and forms of corporeal punishment for parishioners who came late or not at all to Mass. Such techniques seemed designed to create a climate of fear or intimidation rather than calm discussion. Indeed, Mendieta recounts how some natives would quake and shiver in the presence of a rosary. He took this as a sign of their awe before the Holy Spirit. Seems more likely they were afraid of being beaten yet again.

It would appear that after 500 years, the colonial mindset of Europe is still very strong.

UPDATE (May 23, 2007:

As a result of strong objections from Latin Americans, the Pope recently backpedaled his remarks about the treatment of the indigenous, acknowledging that serious injustices had been perpetuated in the name of Christianity there. Perhaps there can be room for restorative justice.

Learning to See Abya Yala: Movements in Indigenous Thought and Organizing

Marc Becker provides a very helpful report on the Third Continental Summit of Indigenous Peoples and Nationalities of Abya Yala that occured in Guatemala in March. "Abya Yala" is the term used by the indigenous people of Panama to refer to the territory that is known to Europeans as Central America. It is now being reappropriated by this transnational movement of native peoples to refer to the continent.

Becker gives updates on some of the political movements that were represented at this summit held two weeks after U.S. President Bush made a rare tour of Latin American countries. Most importantly, the groups represented at the summit adopted a declaration whose motto is "From Resistance to Power". Among the points that were made with consensus were rejection of neoliberal trade policies, the border wall between the U.S. and Mexico, and a strong endorsement of diversity and human rights. It is very clear, as Allison Davis White Eyes pointed out in her podcast with me, that thousands of native peoples are organizing themselves to indigenize the world.



Part of this movement involves a shift in our geo-political categories. As I mentioned in another post, Walter Mignolo's work is very good at describing how the idea of "Latin America" arose as a way for European descendants to consolidate their power in the Americas. But this displaced the ways in which indigenous people's had come to view and understand their world. Ideas such as Abya Yala or Anahuac (the concept the ancient Nahaus or Aztecs used to describe what we now know as Meso America) were discarded in favor of maps that described discrete nation states with definite boundaries tha served the interests of the ruling European elites.

Now the native peopes of Abya Yala are working to get the world to think of many different categories in different terms, including "natural resources", 'boundaries", and "justice". How might this reconceptualization work toward global justice?

Chiquita, Coke, Nestle: The Moral Cost of Clean Hands

It was reported this past week that the Chiquita banana corporation had paid almost 2 million dollars to the United Self Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) for "protection money" between 1997-2003. The AUC are right wing paramilitary squads involved in the 40+year civil war in Colombia against the left wing guerilla movement, FARC. The AUC and the FARC are officially listed by the U.S. Government as terrorist organizations. Chiquita has agreed to pay $25 million in fines to the U.S. Justice Department. There is also discussion now that top Chiquita executives be extradited to Colombia for doing business with the AUC.

Chiquita does not seem to be alone in its dirty business in Colombia. Human rights NGOs have been accusing Chiquita, along with Coca Cola and Nestle, of collaborating with right wing paramilitaries, for many years now. As in most human rights abuses in Latin America, it is poor and indigenous people who are the ones swept up in the violence by such armed forces. The Coca Cola corporation, of course, denies invovlement, but the Chiquita case raises the question about whether or not doing business in Colombia can really be done with clean hands.

A few posts ago, I asked whether or not ordinary citizens can be held accountable for the crimes committed by their goverments. The Chiquita case raises another dimension: In this globalized world, can we, as consumers of products such as Chiquita bananas (or Coke or Nestle products) be held morally responsible for the kinds of violent crimes unleashed by multi national corporations?

A colleague of mine suggests that we might not be responsible, or at least as responsible, because consumers have a different relationship to corporations than citizens do to their governments. In a democracy, we can directly elect our leaders and hold them accountable; not so with a multinational corporation.

How responsible are people, qua consumers, for the crimes committed by corporations operating in a globalized world?

Native Americans, Modern Science, and Globalization

A new Engage podcast is now available. It contains my interview with Allison Davis-White Eyes, Director of the Oregon State University Indian Education Office.

In our discussion, we talked about the National Geographic Society's Genographic Project and that fact that many native groups have refused to participate in the DNA sampling. The goal of the project is to provide detailed genetic maps of human migration over the entire globe. Davis White-Eyes tries to give us reasons for why Native Americans might be hesitant to go along with this collection process.

The most interesting part of this podcast for me was when we started to discuss the meaning of being a "globalized Indian". Davis-White Eyes claims that because of the interconnectivity of the planet, now in the era of globalization, native peoples might have a special responsibility to "indigenize" the world. This means more than simply promoting an end to discrimination and inequality for native peoples, but pushing for some kind of dynamic transformation of philosophical/scientific/political world views to reflect indigenous values.

There is definitely a movement underlying some her comments. In Latin America, there is now discussion of "interculturality". Indigenous leaders in Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia are urging the rejection of "multiculturalism" (which means finding a way for different communities to live side by side) and the adoption of "Interculturality" (which means finding a way for different communities to inform and interact with one another and develop new principles of cooperation that reflect creative sythesis). Indeed, this principle is quickly becoming a model for building schools and designing curricula in Latin America.

A good book that examines the effect that interculturality will have in our understanding of what it means to be indigenous and the future of the Americas is Walter Mignolo's "The Idea of Latin America".

New Law Against Violence Toward Women in Mexico: Hope to an End of Femicide?

This photo by Jorge Urzon literally puts a face on the murdered women of Juarez. These are models of women's faces forensically reconstructed from skulls found in the Mexican desert. In honor of International Women's Day 2007 today, I offer a note of hope, but also of caution. The Mexican Congress has passed a new national law to address violence toward women. It is quite a radical move within Latin America to propose this--it goes straight to the heart of machista culture, namely that violence toward women by men is not a private matter, but one of public health and human rights.

Critics of the law are pointing out its vague definitions of harm against women. That can be handled by the legal specialists, hopefully. The big worry is that there has been no budget allocated to enforcing the new law. Some have even suggested taking some money away from the special prosecutor's office in Juarez that is charged with investigating the femicides in order to pay for the national effort. This seems like a dangerous compromise.

Reporting on this issue is dangerous business. Journalist Diana Washington Valdez claims that women are being killed simply for sport in northern Mexico. Her new book, "Harvest of Women" is now out. And she continues to recieve serious threats on her life.

Please listen the Engage interview with Alicia Gaspar de Alba, done last year for International Women's Day, to find out more about the situation in Juarez.

Immigration and the Globalization of Food

The New York Times reports today that the new Democratic leadership is considering reviving immigration legislation that floundered because of Republican opposition right before the November elections. The new legistlation would create paths to citizenship for immigrants and their families who can show that they have been working and not breaking criminal law that poses physcial threats.

The article reports that the immigration reform movement is getting support from American farmers who last year had to watch thousands of acres of crops go to waste because there were not enough workers during harvest time. One farmer claims that if some reform doesn't occur, allowing Mexican labor to work the fields, then key agricultural industries will be "outsourced" to foreign countries.

This globalization of the food chain is worrisome not only because of the loss of American agricultural jobs and the erosion of American farmers. It also raises questions about the health and quality of the produce in the chain.

A couple of years ago, The Orange County Registar did an investigation which found high levels of lead in candy imported from Mexico. Much of the contamination came from the packaging of the candy and there were also indications of lead contamination in the soil where the chile was grown that was put on the candy.

This reminded me of accounts by a friend who studied farmworker conditions in Chile and told me that pesticides are continually used on grapes grown there. It turns out that in some seasons almost 90% of the grapes available in the United States are grown in Chile. In fact, some groups argue that significant portions of the fruits and vegetables imported to the United States test positive for high levels of pesiticides, some which are banned in the U.S. Recent studies show that children are much more sensitive to these chemicals and their effects.

In a globalizing world, concerns of immigration reform matter for the health and safety of all.

Immigration and Family Values: "All They Will Call You Will Be 'Deportee""

Our friend Dennis alerts us to the week's news about the large immigration raids that netted about 1300 undocumented workers. The raids, part of Operation Wagon Train, raised another fear around immigration: identity theft. Many workers use fake IDs with old Social Security numbers. There is a booming underground business in these IDs (called mica chuecas). What was left out of the reports by Homeland Security this week is that these fake IDs held by undocumented workers are generating billions of dollars in Social Secuity taxes. Most of this money, taken out by employers in the form of payroll taxes, will never been seen by the workers themselves, but goes into the general SSA fund.

What many people found hard to deal with in these raids was how they separated families. Hundreds of children around the country had their parents arrested and husbands and wives were separated from their spouses.

This separation of families is not something new to Mexicans in the United States or to immigrant families now. In 1931, the United States mounted a massive repatriation program that sent almost half a million Mexicans and Mexican Americans back to Mexico. Many people were arrested and not allowed to contact their families. Many were actually American citizens, and not undocumented aliens. The plight of this group was captured in song by Woody Guthrie's song "Plane Wreck at Los Gatos".



A wonderful documentary that captures the displacement and loss of family unity because of immigration is "Letters from the Other Side". I really recommend it for anyone who wants to see how trade policies such as NAFTA have affected rural Mexican families and put pressure on so many young men to cross the border looking for work. The result over the last 12 years is many communities in Mexico in which there is nothing but women and children trying to scrape by economically, dealing with the emotional loss and an indifferent Mexican government.