Having returned to (graduate) school has sensitized me to a host of things academic: from the calendar itself, to current trends among students, to the agenda that some professors seem to be promoting to campus leadership. Speaking of the latter, a March article in the New York Times about an illegal immigrant running for student body president remains of interest as this is the season of graduations (one more thing to which I have been sensitized!)

Texas A&M University is the place. Jose Luis Zelaya, an illegal immigrant who came from Honduras at the age of 14, is the student. This year, Mr. Zelaya campaigned against five other students to lead the student body of 50,000. At the end of the election, Mr. Zelaya came in fourth. As reported in the New York Times, "Students said that Mr. Zelaya lost votes for reasons that had nothing to do with his status, like lack of name recognition." Mr. Zelaya, although asked, did not say whether or not he thinks that his status impacted his loss. Read more...

The New York Times article is titled "In Arizona, Immigrants Make Plans in Shadows". One key little adjective, a helpful, intellectually honest qualifier, however, is once again conveniently omitted: "illegal". Omitting it allows the article's author, Fernanda Santos, to make vague, blanket statements that serve to amplify her point, which essentially seems to be to frame what illegal immigrants are currently doing in the state of Arizona in terms of emotion (in particular, "meanness") and not in terms of law. So much for intelligent integrity and inquiry. Read more...

As reported in the Los Angeles Times last week, Mississippi House Bill 488 died in committee. Actually, the bill passed the state House (in March), but failed to pass the state Senate when Democratic Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Hob Bryan chose not to bring it before the committee for a vote. Gov. Phil Bryant, of course, could always call a special session of the legislature this summer to bring the bill back for consideration. Read more...

There is a Washington Post article about the recent ordinance by the Frederick County, Md., Board of County Commissioners adopting English as the official language of the county. As a former resident and current occasional visitor to Frederick, talk of immigration to, and language in, the city caught my eye. Dare I say: the political agenda of the article is barely veiled and all-too-predictable and tired. Read more...

Presidential candidate Mitt Romney's position on immigration (e.g. for a fence along the entire length of the United States' border with Mexico, against the DREAM Act – except perhaps for persons in the military, for the use of E-Verify…) has put him, in many ways, at odds with his church: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as Mormons. Read more...

The Washington Post recently offered a profile of immigration activist Jaime Contreras, who arrived illegally in the United States in 1988 at age 13, and currently chairs the Capital Area District of 32BJ, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union. It is actually difficult to understand the purpose of such a profile, especially since there is nothing specifically new on the horizon regarding the focus of Mr. Read more...

"Ethnicity", in my opinion, is a terribly vague category that we, in our excessive American preoccupation with classifying people, use mostly to our disadvantage. A recent New York Times article, "For Many Latinos, Racial Identity Is More Culture Than Color", underscores well just how vague it is. Read more...

It is when the rubber hits the road that we generally see when ideas are practicable, or that we generally see whether or not the true content of ideas is sound and/or intellectually honest. The rubber is hitting the road regarding illegal immigrant deportation now that concrete, special preparation is being asked of those who enforce immigration law on the front lines regarding the implementation of new deportation rules. Immigration officers are now being asked to place their focus on "criminals", that is to say, on illegal aliens who have broken laws other than immigration laws. Read more...

During the course of 2011, the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research produced a study on the question of immigrant assimilation, to which an article last month in the Wall Street Journal referred. The study concluded, and the article celebrated, that Americans do assimilation well. In comparison with an assortment of European nations and Canada, the United States ought to be proud of how they integrate newcomers. Read more...

This holiday season tends to bring with it hopes of harmony, of unity, of peace. Those who celebrate the holidays hope these for families, for friends, for the community. And some even wish these for the community that is the country. Harmony on the national stage, harmony regarding the broad cultural reality that is the United States of America, obliges one to consider the phenomena of assimilation and integration. Read more...

More and varied reactions to Alabama's recently enacted immigration law have understandably, expectedly surfaced. I came across another interesting editorial in Monday's New York Times: "On the Rise in Alabama". It seems to be another story meant to stir support for those affected (understood in the negative sense) by the law, HB56. No one is questioning, however (at least in my world), the fact that the new law is affecting people, unsettling lives. Such moving – even tragic – effects are inevitable. People are always impacted when they are living outside the law and are obliged to align themselves with it. In Alabama there will be a period of marked transition, as the local society adjusts to demands for a social arrangement that seeks to reflect the demands of federal immigration law, a law that has not been enforced and has led the state to act. Read more...

An interesting article in the Los Angeles Times by Richard Fausset seeks to describe the illegal immigrant situation in the Deep South, in the heart of that part of the country quite readily portrayed as closed to cultural diversity. The description is built on a profile of a gentleman who has emerged as a key figure in the movement against illegal immigrants taking unlawful root in the state of Mississippi and benefiting from that which is normally destined to citizens. Read more...

As ought to be expected, there is more brouhaha surrounding the recently enacted Alabama immigration law, HB56. There are claims of coldness in a state otherwise characterized by a warm climate and lots of Southern hospitality. Indeed, a New York Times article by Campbell Robertson from October 27, 2011, "Critics See 'Chilling Effect' in Alabama Immigration Law", considers a provision in the new immigration law that some claim is particularly cruel and, more specifically, dishonest in its real purposes. Read more...

A dark cloud of hatred has befallen the Hispanic population in Alabama, and this darkness has now translated into the harshest of immigration laws in the country. In response to this, parents are taking preemptive measures, and preparing alternate guardians who would take care of their children should their (lack of) legal status be discovered, and they be deported.

Such, at any rate, is the narrative proposed by Jay Reeves in an recent Associated Press report. Such is the narrative of much of the mainstream media, and a segment of the Alabaman population. How accurate is this narrative? Read more...

There is a very interesting case in Arizona regarding the English language, a case that began in the mid-2000s and has recently come to a head, a case that raises questions about culture and linguistic patrimony, cultural assimilation, and even of just administration in the academic arena. Foreigners come to the United States and experience the challenge of a new culture and the language that is the vehicle for that culture—namely (although not officially encoded in federal law) English. My parents did as much. They came from Belgium in 1958, French-speakers, unable to speak English. Read more...

Today's paper offered us another tragic immigration story, Washington Post-style. Such stories, alas, are all too frequent, and familiar. Know that I seek not to minimize the pain involved in the pending deportation of Paula Godoy of Richmond, Va., to her native Guatemala (the article, in all honesty, comes across as an appeal to readers to raise their voices in opposition to her deportation). I simply want more clarity. Read more...

Who does not love irony? I always get a kick out of reading on the editorial page of the Washington Post – the only page where one sees in bold print "AN INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER" – an article with a very specific political perspective. Call me naive, but I read "independent" to mean "above the fray", "apolitical" or, at the very least, uncomfortable with current specific political perspectives (somewhat like independent voters), and led to articulate a little of both sides of the issue. Read more...

Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta is the largest hospital in the state of Georgia. It was founded in 1890. As the public hospital for the city of Atlanta, its mission is such that it serves a large proportion of low-income patients. As can be imagined, such a noble operation has not been without financial challenges. In 2004, for example, Grady sued the state over lack of Medicaid compensation. The hospital, which became a non-profit organization in 2008, depends on the government and on numerous foundations to keep its doors open. Read more...

“Amid Rise of Multiculturalism, Dutch Confront Their Questions of Identity,” an article published in the New York Times on August 14, 2011, places the question of immigration squarely before the reader. The title of the article is somewhat misleading, however. Read more...

The immigration law recently enacted in Alabama (HB 56) has expectedly stirred and awakened responses from religious leaders in the state. An interesting article this week in the New York Times speaks of the passionate reactions articulated by some of them. The article primarily highlights those who stand in opposition to the law: Mitchell Williams, pastor of First United Methodist Church in Cullman, Ala., being a leader most prominently featured. Read more...

Bloomberg Businessweek magazine recently did a piece on a unique piece of legislation passed in Georgia, on a part of the state's new immigration statute. Some qualify the statute as one of the toughest in the nation. Others might qualify it as one of the clearest and/or most comprehensive in the nation, whose enforcement is not tough, but simply a fact. Take your pick. I suppose it depends on how one views the role of law in governance. Read more...

A recent New York Times article by Princeton professor of sociology and public affairs, Douglas S. Massey, "Isolated, Vulnerable, and Broke", offers an analysis of a recent Pew Research Center study on current disparity of wealth between the "races". Read more...

The Wall Street Journal noted last week that "Gov. Susana Martinez is renewing her battle to make New Mexico the 49th state to prohibit illegal immigrants from getting driver's licenses." If her efforts were to succeed, Washington would remain the only state to offer driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. We shall see. Read more...

As reported by the San Francisco Chronicle last month, "San Francisco Sheriff Michael Hennessey will start releasing illegal immigrants arrested for low-level crimes from jail even if federal officials notified through a controversial fingerprint identification program request that they be held for a deportation hearing." The "controversial fingerprint identification program" is Secure Communities, the federal program launched in 200 Read more...

On May 3, I had the privilege of attending a banquet in celebration of the 28th anniversary of the founding of the Ethiopian Community Development Council. The ECDC is a non-profit, community-based organization providing services to the growing Ethiopian community in the United States, working primarily to resettle refugees. Read more...

The New York Times recently published an article by Kate Taylor, on a proposed national museum intended to honor "Hispanic" Americans: "National Latino Museum Plan Faces Fight" (for our purposes, "Hispanic" and "Latino" will be used interchangeably). Read more...

Is nativism really mean? Is nativism really naïve? Is nativism the beginning of the end?

An editorial last month in the New York Times entitled "The Anti-Arizonans" celebrates different expressions of opposition to legislative action taken in Arizona aimed at restricting illegal immigration. Such celebrations of righteous indignation have become fairly commonplace in much of the media. The Gray Lady is no exception. Read more...

Imagine a large, competitive landscaping company, in the United States, in 2011, with an entirely legal workforce. Such imaginings defy the stereotype. In fact, there is no need simply to imagine, for it is a reality. Read more...

A Massachusetts hospital has become the country's first health care facility to sign an agreement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to strengthen hiring practices and to combat the unlawful employment of illegal aliens. Read more...