Y ahora Univison despide a su conductor por un comentario racista

Actors in blackface makeup are used during coverage of the World Cup. The broadcasting company says it's just a harmless spoof, but commentators say Mexico as a whole is in denial about racism.

Reporting from Mexico City — Every morning during television coverage of the World Cup, on the Mexican equivalent of the "Today" show, co-hosts chat, trade barbs and yuck it up. Behind them, actors in blackface makeup, dressed in fake animal skins and wild "Afro" wigs, gyrate, wave spears and pretend to represent a cartoonish version of South Africa.
Yes, in the 21st century, blackface characters on a major television network.
But this is Mexico, and definitions of racism are complicated and influenced by the country's own tortured relationship with invading powers and indigenous cultures.
Many Mexicans will say they are not racist and that very little racism exists in Mexico, a nation, after all, of mestizos, who are of European and indigenous blood.
As proof, they point to the fact that slavery was ended in Mexico decades before it was abolished in the United States, and that Mexico never institutionalized racism the way the U.S. did with its segregationist laws that lasted into the 1960s.

It is true that Mexico was even seen as a refuge for some American blacks. Poet Langston Hughes did some of his earliest writing while living briefly with his father in Mexico, where the older man had gone to escape discrimination.
But the full truth is that racism is alive and well in Mexico. It is primarily directed at indigenous communities who account for as many as 11.3 million people, or roughly 10% of the national population. The indigenous remain disproportionately mired in poverty and denied work, political access, education and other rights.
And there is a smaller community of black Mexicans, Afro Mexicanos, many descendants of slaves first brought to the region by Spanish conquerors in the 16th century.
Often referred to by academics as the "third race" and concentrated in the coastal states of Veracruz, Oaxaca and Guerrero, they have been fighting for years for recognition as a distinct ethnic group, to be included in history books and to be given opportunities to transcend poverty.
"Racism in Mexico is covered up," said Ricardo Bucio, head of the National Council for the Prevention of Discrimination, which has protested the blackface TV caricatures. "There is a lot of denial about it."
Or, as columnist Katia D'Artigues once put it: "Although subtle, discrimination has become something invisible in our society. We no longer see it, or we consider it normal!"
Still, in Mexico and other parts of Latin America, people operate with a different comfort level when it comes to physical attributes. It remains common for Mexicans to use nicknames like "Chino" for someone with almond-shaped eyes, "Negrito" for someone with dark skin, "Gordo" (Fatso) for a plump person.
These terms are jarring when seen through the prism of U.S. sensibilities, but here they are usually used in a context of affection and friendship.
The issue of racism in Mexico exploded a few years back when then-President Vicente Fox, in what was meant to be a defense of Mexican immigration to the United States, told a U.S. audience that Mexican immigrants were necessary because they performed the jobs that "not even blacks" wanted to do.
He had to apologize and receive a visit from Jesse Jackson to atone. As the furor died down, another popped up when Mexico printed postage stamps that commemorated a well-known comic-book character from the 1950s, Memin Pinguin. The character is a black boy drawn with exaggerated features. It was seen as racist by many in the U.S. who demanded Mexico withdraw the stamps; many in Mexico, including several leftist intellectuals, defended Memin Pinguin as a beloved part of Mexican culture. (Withdrawing the stamps became a moot point when they sold out within hours of going on market.)
The people at Televisa, Mexico's preeminent broadcasting company, say they mean absolutely no harm with the blackface characters on their morning chat show. It's just a spoof, they say, a humorous segment when the news is over but the day's World Cup match hasn't yet started, and shouldn't be taken seriously. After all, one of the co-hosts is a green-haired clown. More "Saturday Night Live" than "Good Morning America."
The ratings, by the way, are through the roof, Televisa adds.
For Friday's game between Holland and Brazil, viewers in Mexico, minutes after the morning dose of blackface, saw the two teams read a pledge against discrimination and parade with a huge banner that said: "No to racism."

LAS MUJERES DEL MAR

From the banks overlooking Morúa Estuary on the outskirts of Puerto Peñasco, Mexico, Francisca Luna gazes out at the rows of stacked trays anchored in mudflats to bolster the life cycle of oysters wrapped inside.
It’s a balmy Saturday morning and Luna has just arrived at the open-air restaurant where she and other women sell the oysters they cultivate in the water. She squints in the bright sun as she tries to assess whether it is prime time to don her rubber boots and plunge into the lagoon. After brief contemplation, she decides to wait.
“The water is still high,” she says, almost in a whisper.
Luna’s sturdy frame slips past a ramada and into a narrow kitchen where her sister, Rosario Luna Javalera, shucks oysters over a big sink. Nearby, Francisca’s daughter, Angélica Medina, chops onions and chile peppers. Luna dives into a supply basket to retrieve crackers, condiments, and napkins. The crew’s daily ritual of preparing to serve the oysters nears completion.
“Let’s hope for a good day, girls,” Luna says, then rectifies. “It’s going to be a good day.”
The trio belongs to a women’s cooperative that for three decades has farmed oysters in the estuary just a few miles south of the heart of the town known in English as Rocky Point, which is about 60 miles south of the U.S.-Mexico border. The women’s enterprise is among the oldest oyster-farming ventures in Sonora, a leading producer of the shellfish. Pacific oysters (Crassostrea gigas) are the species most commonly produced in the state.
One of seven oyster farms in the region, the Women of the Sea cooperative has the distinction of being the first established by an all-female membership.
In Puerto Peñasco, residents refer to the cooperative simply as Las Mujeres, or The Women. Luna is one of the original 118 members who staked out a place in the estuary back in the early 1980s, when the beach resort that hugs the Sea of Cortez was still an isolated fishing village few Americans had discovered.

Whole families are involved in the cooperative, including kids.

Through the years, the back-breaking labor that is seeding, sorting, and cleaning oysters tested many members who chose to leave. Some left because of the unpredictable nature of trying to make a living growing oysters, others over apprehension about the staying power of the cooperative. The physical rigors of the job, which requires standing in water for hours at a time, also forced members out. Nowadays, six hardy women comprise the cooperative. Most rely on family members—including some males—to lend a helping hand.

“Growing oysters comes with many challenges,” says Maria Isabel Cervantes, the president of the cooperative. “It’s not for everybody.”
In the beginning, oyster mortality posed the greatest threat; cultivating the bivalve mollusks is risky because they are vulnerable to natural forces. But the mid-1990s ushered in a boom in growth that began to transform the town into a coveted tourist destination. Pristine beaches and teeming fisheries beckoned vacationers from both sides of the border. The wetlands became increasingly attractive to developers as new luxury houses and resorts took shape all around.
Sitting behind the wheel of her work truck one early afternoon, the soft-spoken Cervantes is not in the mood to recall legal battles waged to defend the women’s livelihood. She would rather talk about how the women are working to boost oyster production and obtain organic certification from the government. Someday, she says, the cooperative would like to export oysters to the United States.
From her vantage point on the shoreline, Cervantes points toward a wooden structure that stands half-built next to the restaurant up above. When completed, it will serve as a lab where the women will grow their own oyster seed, or larvae. The idea is to reduce the millions they buy from hatcheries each year to stock their operation.
“We will start small and, little by little, add more of the seeds we raise ourselves,” she adds.
All the women will be trained to handle the lab work, while continuing to care for oysters in the trays that stay in the water for months at a time, feeding on plankton and algae as they grow.

At “El Barco” Restaurant, the taste for oysters is cultivated early; Natividad Hernandez watches over her daughter.

Luna was in her mid-20s when she attended the first workshop on cultivating oysters after a friend told her about the nascent cooperative. She was an unemployed, single mother who had moved to Puerto Peñasco from Sinaloa state after the death of her husband.
Luna knew little about oyster farming, but she quickly seized on the new opportunity and set out to learn the trade.
“It’s intense labor,” she says. “But I’m grateful I came across the cooperative when I needed a job the most.”
Though her earnings are unpredictable because they depend on a variable rate of oyster mortality each season, Luna says she makes enough to raise her family’s standard of living and put two of her four children—three girls and a boy—through college. Luna’s second-oldest daughter chose to work alongside her mother and aunt.
The job has allowed Luna to be her own boss and, when her children were growing up, to bring them along to work and keep watch over them.
Compared to more than 30 years ago, when Luna and the other women farmed oysters without running water, the operation has come a long way, she says, wiping down kitchen counters before heading outside again. She jumps into her pick-up truck and drives to a shack overflowing with old boxes, foam squares, and plastic trays. Before she owned a car, Luna and her kids often slept in the darkened, closet-sized dwelling because transportation in and out of the estuary was hard to find.
“We spent a lot of weekends here,” she recalls.
On the shore a few minutes later, Luna unloads her gear from the back of the truck, puts on her rubber boots and long apron, wades through the water, and pulls out a tray full of oysters fit for consumption. She dips the heavy tray in the water forcefully, again and again, rinsing off the sediment covering shells. By the time she’s finished selecting and washing out the nearly 500 oysters she needs for the restaurant, Luna’s breathing has turned heavy. Tiny sweat drops on her forehead glisten in the sun as her ungloved, swollen hands carefully pick through the hundred in the last tray retrieved.
“These are ready,” she says, holding up one of the delicacies she would soon prepare for her customers.

Oysters grow from larvae in these stacked trays, which sit in the warm, shallow waters of the estuary.

Oyster farmers like Luna know about patience. It can take a year, and sometimes longer, for an oyster to reach maturity. Cooperative members plant seed at different intervals to produce oysters year-round.
The Intercultural Center for the Study of Deserts and Oceans, known as CEDO for its Spanish acronym, holds up the women’s enterprise as a model for responsible use of the estuary because of its low impact on the fragile ecosystem. Oysters act as natural filters, improving the quality of the water as they grow.
The nonprofit works with the women and other area oyster farmers to promote conservation of wetlands replete with crabs, octopus, snails, and dozens of bird species. The critters and plants that inhabit the estuary also grace the women’s restaurant in the form of a mural that University of Arizona students painted some years ago.
The center, which has an office in Tucson, long has encouraged oyster farmers to participate in ecotourism activities that can boost their business income and keep developers at bay.
“We go out there often with class groups and researchers that are coming to the area,” says Peggy Turk Boyer, the center’s director.
She and other conservationists are working to revive a dormant ecotourism corridor that in past years sought to connect visitors with the women’s cooperative and other local enterprises. The project had been going strong until the mid-2000s, when the economy crumbled and safety worries about Mexico travel kept tourists away.
The project stalled because “it has been really unclear where tourism was going,” she says. “But it seems like it’s picking up now.”
Back in the kitchen, Luna’s sister has finished her shift and gone home. It is Luna’s turn to shuck oysters, a skill she mastered long ago. She cups a hand over each oyster, jabs a short knife between its two shells and, in a swift motion, pries it open. For optimum freshness, Luna shucks oysters as orders come in. Her daughter prepares oyster plates. The women also serve fish tacos and ceviche, but raw oysters on the half shell are by far the most popular item on the menu.
It is late morning and a few customers start to trickle in. Off in the distance, tour guide Abraham Meza, who works for CEDO, explores the estuary with a Phoenix family. The group’s last stop is the restaurant, where some sample raw and steamed oysters. Medina walks out to the ramada and shares a bit of history about the women’s cooperative.
Around lunchtime, Luna’s two other daughters and their children burst into the restaurant, breaking the relative quiet with boisterous conversation and laughter. The kids soon scurry out of the room to frolic in the sand, as their mothers had done as girls.
Luna’s youngest daughter, 30-year-old Rosalba Corral, recalls spending a good part of her childhood in the estuary. “I’ve always loved it here,” she says.
She and her oldest sister, Silvia Medina, especially liked playing with their other siblings in the bony hull of a vessel that had washed ashore and become a landmark in the estuary. Later, in a nod to the old shipwreck, the women named their restaurant El Barco.
With full-time jobs and children to rear, Corral and her sister mostly drop by the estuary on weekends when their mother runs the restaurant. They help out, they chat, they eat together. On this Saturday, the family feasts on oysters and manta ray tacos.
By midafternoon, the tables under the ramada are emptying out. The last customers are leaving. Inside, Luna’s children and grandchildren are kissing her goodbye.
The grandmother looks tired, but content. Luna and her second-born daughter, Angélica Medina, take advantage of the lull in business to clean up.
“Not a bad day so far,” Luna says.

Lourdes Medrano is a Tucson writer who covers stories on both sides of the border. Follow her @_lourdesmedrano

Eat, Visit, Farm

Judge Temporarily Halts Obama's Immigration Actions

WASHINGTON -- A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction on Monday that will temporarily prevent the Obama administration from moving forward with its executive actions on immigration while a lawsuit against the president works its way through the courts.
The order, by Judge Andrew Hanen of the U.S. District Court in Brownsville, Texas, was an early stumble for the administration in what will likely be a long legal battle over whether President Barack Obama overstepped his constitutional authority with the wide-reaching executive actions on immigration he announced last November.
While the injunction does not pronounce Obama's actions illegal, it prevents the administration from implementing them until the court rules on their constitutionality.

The federal government is expected to appeal the ruling.
The impact of the order will be felt almost immediately: One of Obama's actions is set to take effect on Feb. 18. On that day, the administration was set to begin accepting applications for an expanded version of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program. DACA allows undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children to stay in the country and work legally.
Now, newly eligible immigrants seeking to apply will be unable to do so while the lawsuit is pending. The administration will also be unable to move forward, for now, with a DACA-like program created under Obama's executive actions. That program confers similar relief to undocumented immigrants who are parents of legal permanent residents or of U.S. citizens.
Hanen, who was appointed to the court by former President George W. Bush, said in the ruling that the 26 states who brought the suit had standing to do so, and indicated he was sympathetic to their arguments.
The lawsuit against the executive actions was filed in December. Texas is leading the effort, joined by Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia and Wisconsin.
According to the suit, Obama's executive actions violate the Constitution, and allowing them to move forward would cause "dramatic and irreparable injuries" to the plaintiff states.
"This lawsuit is not about immigration," the complaint reads. "It is about the rule of law, presidential power, and the structural limits of the U.S. Constitution."
The White House has said that Obama acted within his authority and that the policies will allow immigration enforcement agents to focus on deporting higher-priority offenders such as convicted criminals, recent border-crossers and those who pose national security threats.
Attorneys general from 12 states and the District of Columbia signed onto an amicus brief in support of Obama's actions, asking the judge not to issue an injunction.
"The truth is that the directives will substantially benefit states, will further the public interest, and are well within the President’s broad authority to enforce immigration law," the amicus brief reads.
Obama's executive actions are at the center of a congressional impasse over funding the Department of Homeland Security. The dispute could cause an agency shutdown once funding runs out on Feb. 27. Most Republicans say they will only support a DHS funding bill if it includes measures to stop Obama's immigration policies, but those measures are being blocked by Senate Democrats. Even if such a bill were to reach the president's desk, Obama has said he would veto it.
The district court ruling was considered a potential game-changer for the funding fight, since some Republicans might be convinced to support a DHS funding bill with no immigration measures if Obama's actions were not moving forward anyway.
UPDATE: 8:20 a.m. -- White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest put out a statement early Tuesday defending the executive actions, which he said "are consistent with the laws passed by Congress and decisions of the Supreme Court, as well as five decades of precedent by presidents of both parties who have used their authority to set priorities in enforcing our immigration laws."
"The Department of Justice, legal scholars, immigration experts, and the district court in Washington, D.C. have determined that the President’s actions are well within his legal authority," Earnest continued. "Top law enforcement officials, along with state and local leaders across the country, have emphasized that these policies will also benefit the economy and help keep communities safe. The district court’s decision wrongly prevents these lawful, commonsense policies from taking effect and the Department of Justice has indicated that it will appeal that decision."

Undocumented. Unafraid. Queer. Unashamed.

Last weekend, I had the honor of being recognized with the Leadership on Immigration Award at the National Creating Change Conference hosted by the National LGBTQ Task Force. Living at the intersection of two socially and systemically oppressed identities holds its own particular set of obstacles that are individually unique.
I am queer and I am undocumented. For 20 years, I lived in fear of family separation, whether it be from deportation or family rejection. Now, I help lead United We Dream, the first and largest immigrant youth-led network, as the National Coordinator for the Queer Undocumented Immigrant Project (QUIP). I help their efforts to bring justice to the more than 267,000 undocumented LGBTQ people living in the United States. I am helping build the foundation of the liberation movement that we are creating with our intersectional efforts.

Growing up in Los Angeles, the unique experience of being undocumented was something I was reminded of every day when my mother would spend the entire day working at a sweatshop, and when, during her morning routine, she would prep my siblings and I to say that we were born at the city's Children's Hospital, to avoid having our family torn apart.
Many of these experiences are also particularly poignant when it comes to my queer identity. I remember valuing the little time I had with my mother during Sunday mass, and feeling conflicted as the priest, again, decided to condemn homosexuality as a sin. I remember growing up in a Latino neighborhood and hearing the word "joto," or queer, thrown around as a word meaning weakness or shame, and I did not want to show weakness or bring shame to my mother, because I knew how tired she was from providing for my siblings and I.

This kept me in the shadows for a long time, but I wouldn't remain there much longer.

In 2008, my mother returned to Mexico with no idea if she would see us again. Her brother had passed away. Undocumented families always have to make the difficult decision of going back to spend time with loved ones at the risk of leaving life in the U.S. behind.
This moment was the catalyst that led me to come out as undocumented. The pain of losing her was too big, and I knew I had to do more for our community.
As young immigrants, we are determined to change the world. We fight against family separation, deportations and unjust detention, just some of the harsh realities undocumented immigrants face everyday.

Once in the movement, I saw women and queer youth leading efforts that empowered both my undocumented and queer identities, and gave me the strength to come out to my mother -- having to hear her process of acceptance in tears over a phone.

It was the undocumented youth movement that helped me organize Operation Butterfly, where I reunited with my mother in Nogales, Arizona and was able to hug her for the first time through a 12-foot-high border fence after five painful years without her. It was at this moment when she finally was able to fully understand and embrace my queer identity.

On November 20, 2014, the immigrant youth movement encouraged President Obama to take executive action and protect nearly five million people from deportation. I put myself in the line and was arrested; I galvanized our communities to make this our victory.

But that same executive action left so many out, particularly many of my LGBTQ brothers and sisters, leaving them vulnerable to the detention and deportation machine.

It's in these moments when the LGBTQ and immigrant movement must become one to protect our communities. Currently, many of the 34,000 people found daily in immigration detention continue to face abuse and trauma. The most vulnerable amongst these people are LGBTQ individuals, pregnant women and HIV-positive individuals.

These detention centers, many of which are privatized, often operate in isolation and a lack of oversight. They are for-profit institutions that have proven time and again that they are incapable of keeping LGBTQ detainees safe from sexual assault, and against other human rights violations. They put transgender women with the male population, and fail to provide consistent access to life-saving medications. Currently the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has launched an investigation on these particular claims.
Immigration detention centers have proven themselves to be rogue agencies that operate with little accountability. Their arbitrary demand to deport 400,000 people per year has systematized deportations that purposely criminalize our LGBTQ communities.

The release of one or two detainees out of detention is not enough. We must challenge the system itself. We need solidarity for those in our community, as well as for those who are not undocumented or LGBTQ.
With the Leadership on Immigration Reform Award, the organizers of Creating Change embrace that we are not single-issue people, and that our strength is rooted in the complexity of our identities.

We hope for a day when a border fence or law will no longer separate any of us from our loved ones. I hope for a day when our LGBTQ community is no longer exposed to the tortures of immigration detention. I am undocumented and unafraid, queer and unashamed, and this is our liberation journey.

Latino Views on the 2016 GOP Field: Who Can Actually Win the Latino Vote?

By Matt Barreto
As the field of possible GOP contenders for the White House start to take shape, it is important to assess what Latino voters think about the potential presidential candidates, if they even know who they are, and how they can possibly position themselves to court the Latino vote. There is no question that Republicans will lose the White House again in 2016 if they repeat the mistakes of Mitt "I would veto the Dream Act" Romney and lose three-quarters of the Latino vote. GOP Chairman Reince Preibus has said future Republican candidates "must embrace and champion comprehensive immigration reform," while former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer told the Washington Post: "It was such a clear two-by-four to the head in the 2012 election," referring to Mitt Romney's low share of the Hispanic vote and poor positioning on immigration, concluding that "Republicans could never win again if that's the status."
Have Republican presidential hopefuls changed and embraced a kinder, gentler approach to immigration reform and Latino outreach? Latino Decisions has been asking voters how much they know, and what they think about the possible candidates in 2016. Here we review the findings of recent polling on Latino attitudes towards the Republican field:
Let's start with an older look, from back in July 2013 before too much jostling had started. Latino Decisions asked favorability ratings on seven GOP contenders and the biggest take away was back then, Latino voters had very low levels of information about the GOP hopefuls. Among those who did give an informed answer, Chris Christie led the pack with a 38% favorable rating versus a 12% unfavorable rating. Christie likely benefited from being in the news in 2013 during his gubernatorial re-election contest in which he ran virtually unopposed. Still a whopping 50% of Latino registered voters nationwide said they had never heard of, or had no opinion of Chris Christie. Likewise, New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez score a net positive approval with 25% favorable against 12% unfavorable, however she was the least known of all the names we tested with 63% giving no answer when prompted about Governor Martinez. Looking at Latino views towards the GOP field back in July 2013, none appeared to be runaway favorites to back inroads with the Latino vote in 2016. Jeb Bush 27% favorable, Rand Paul just 17% favorable. Even Marco Rubio stood at just 31% favorable.

What's Changed in Arizona Politics Since the Giffords Shooting

TUCSON, Arizona -- United in grief a year ago, this city on Sunday marked the anniversary of the day when six people who wanted to talk politics with Rep. Gabrielle Giffords at a local Safeway were killed and 13 others, including the congresswoman, were wounded. Though a bullet pierced her brain that day, Giffords sat smiling and swaying to the music Sunday as the crowd marveled to see her and hear the first words she's spoken -- the Pledge of Allegiance -- at a public event.
Both the candlelight vigil that Giffords and husband Mark Kelly attended and other weekend events sought to celebrate the lives that were lost and the community's determination to move past the tragedy, rather than relive the horrific events of Jan. 8, 2011. Bells rang throughout the city and pleas for civility and kindness echoed across the campus of the University of Arizona.
When Jared Loughner emptied a semiautomatic pistol into the crowd at Giffords' meet-and-greet, Arizona was already in the throes of fevered political incivility, fed by contentious campaigns and the state's battle over illegal immigration. A year later, the tenor of politics in the Grand Canyon state has changed somewhat, but the composition of Arizona's institutional leadership has largely remained the same: leaning to the right, with a Republican governor leading a Republican-controlled legislature.
As she left the vigil Sunday, nurse Anna Berube told me she felt a renewed sense of purpose. "This pulls us together, it gives us a spirit again to go on, work cohesively together." Then she paused. "For a while, anyway, then I think it goes back to the old stuff, unfortunately."
A year later, here's what changed in Arizona -- and what hasn't:
1. Former state Senate President Russell Pearce, one of the most powerful and polarizing figures in Arizona politics, was ousted from his seat in a vicious recall election in November. But the legacy of Pearce -- the godfather of the state's strident anti-illegal immigration law and a strong advocate of gun rights -- continues. His political allies are set to again push a controversial bill that would allow guns on college campuses. Gov. Jan Brewer vetoed a similar bill last session. Meanwhile, the state's crackdown on illegal immigration is on pause as the Supreme Court prepares to hear Arizona's appeal. And the most controversial portions of Senate Bill 1070 -- the 2010 law that gives local and state authorities the power to arrest those suspected of being in the country illegally -- are on hold.
2. A Department of Justice civil-rights investigation has severely curtailed Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's enforcement of immigration laws, accusing him of systematic discrimination against Latinos. He also faces questions about possible mismanagement of county funds and a failure to investigate hundreds of sex crimes, including some against children. A defiant Arpaio, who like Pearce rose to national prominence because of his tough stance on illegal immigration, recently announced he is running for re-election.
3. Given Giffords' serious injuries, potential candidates for her seat have mostly stayed quiet as they wait to hear whether she is well enough to seek re-election this fall. But as the May deadline to file papers for public office approaches without a Giffords decision, some are now criticizing her and positioning themselves to run for her seat. Her public appearance Sunday intensified speculation about her political future.
Image credit: REUTERS/Laura Segall

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How Mexicans Became Americans

SOUTH GATE, Calif. — A FEW weeks ago, the City Council in this suburb southeast of Los Angeles appointed a Mexican immigrant to its advisory council. Jesus Miranda is from Michoacán and owns a taco restaurant here. He’ll advise the council on housing development and other issues.

Mr. Miranda’s appointment is hardly national news. But small moments like these are signs of a historic change of heart toward America and civic engagement among Mexican immigrants, many of whom, like Mr. Miranda, have been here for decades. No place offers a clearer view of this change than the suburbs southeast of Los Angeles.

South Gate (pop. 96,000) and its neighbors were mostly farmland until the 1930s, when migrants from the Midwest and later World War II veterans moved to work in the factories of Chrysler, G.M., Firestone and Bethlehem Steel. Subdivisions sprouted. Towns emerged with bucolic names: Maywood, Huntington Park, Bell Gardens. Union jobs sustained a civic ecosystem of local newspapers, Rotary Clubs and Fourth of July parades.

Then, in the late 1970s, the factories started leaving, and so did the white people. Their civic institutions atrophied. By 1990, towns like South Gate that had been 90 percent white were more than 90 percent Latino.

The new residents, crucially, were not from East Los Angeles, where Mexican-Americans had developed an activist political tradition since the 1960s. Instead, they were Mexican, straight from the ranchos — small villages on Mexico’s frontiers, far from the center and from government. Most came here to work in jobs they believed, even after decades, would be temporary. They focused their lives on returning home someday. They packed into cheap housing and spent their savings on building homes back in Mexico.

Mexican rancho culture valued self-reliance and hard work. But rancheros also shunned politics, and, in particular, the paternalistic embrace of the PRI, the party that ran Mexico like Tammany Hall for 71 years. Immigrants brought that history with them, and in the dense southeast enclaves, their attitudes didn’t change.

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This tradition of non-engagement, combined with Mexico’s proximity to California, meant that this wave of immigrants was fundamentally different from previous groups in other parts of the country.

Arriving in the United States, the Irish in Chicago, Italians in New York and Cubans in Miami came for good. They wedged their way into big cities using politics as the crowbar to more economic opportunity, and jobs in government. They had to compete with, and learn from, established groups and elites.

This was not the case for Mexicans in the California suburbs. As the region morphed into a service economy, they easily found work. In 1986, Congress passed legislation granting amnesty to around 800,000 immigrants in Los Angeles County, many of whom eventually acquired citizenship. Suddenly many residents were voters, yet without any tradition of informed franchise or accountability. What’s more, those who lived out in these Los Angeles suburbs had no one to show them a way to civic engagement. Not many had the education, or English, necessary to run a California municipality. Caring little for politics, they avoided city hall and rarely participated in civic institutions. Beginning in the mid-1990s, an astonishing cast of scoundrels was voted into office by immigrants casting the first votes of their lives.

In South Gate, an unhinged brand of politics mutated, based on anonymous fliers. In 1999, one council candidate was accused, in a fake newspaper article reprinted in an anonymous flier, of molesting two boys. In 2001, anonymous fliers mailed to voters falsely claimed that two councilmen had fathered children they later abandoned. Tapping immigrants’ deep connection to Mexico, fliers, in Spanish and English, accused candidates of being related to Carlos Salinas de Gortari, the disgraced ex-president of Mexico, and of belonging to the PRI.

These fliers seem clownish, but immigrant voters believed them.

The council majority that won power paid voters back with classic PRI-style giveaways: free hot dogs and sodas at first, and then toys one Christmas. Once in power, it was police badges to cronies and millions of dollars to law firms.

Eventually, enough voters woke up. Ashamed they’d been duped, they recalled the treasurer and his cronies in 2003. The treasurer was later prosecuted and sent to federal prison. South Gate, however, was on the brink of bankruptcy.

Most southeast towns, stripped of their civic girdings, have gone through similarly toxic municipal episodes.

María Chacón, an immigrant from Chihuahua who ran Bell Gardens (pop. 42,000) like a Mexican cacique, or political boss, was convicted of conflict of interest for engineering her appointment as city manager.

The town of Cudahy hired a former janitor as city manager, and an opposing candidate had a Molotov cocktail thrown at his house.

In Bell (pop. 36,000), the city manager voted himself and others annual salaries well above that earned by the president of the United States. He and his former assistant are now in prison. Five southeast suburbs, in fact, had at least one elected official go to prison in the last dozen years.

But each boil of corruption, once lanced, left its respective town a little cleaner, more chastened.

Today, a virtually secured border has significantly slowed the flow of new immigrants who kept ranchero political culture alive. Mexico’s recent medieval violence has also terrified many of those who are already here into staying put.

As a result, many Mexican immigrants no longer cling to the dream of returning home one day. This change is happening across the United States — from Idaho to North Carolina — but it is most palpable in these Mexican immigrant enclaves of Los Angeles County.

“I get the sense that folks now see this as home,” said Jorge Morales, a South Gate city councilman and son of Mexican immigrants. “My parents always talked about going back to Mexico. Now it’s a place they’ll visit, but this is home.”

Last summer, a shopping center opened in South Gate. It was to be called El Portal (The Gateway), but a market survey found that people in an area that is more than 90 percent Latino wanted no Latino theme to the center. “What people wanted was something like they saw on the West Side” of Los Angeles, which is predominately white, said Councilman Morales.

The Azalea Regional Shopping Center, as it was named instead, held a Christmas-tree-lighting ceremony last month, at which members of South Gate’s Girl Scout Troop 16325, Latinas all, sang “Jingle Bells” and “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”

No Girl Scout troop had existed in South Gate for some three decades. But two years ago, a local mother got fed up with driving her daughter two towns over and formed her own troop. “People are getting involved, coming out of their shells,” Daisy Prieto, the volunteer troop leader, and daughter of Mexican immigrants, told me.

St. Helen Catholic Church for years held toy drives for orphanages in Tijuana. This year, the drive benefited needy kids in South Gate.

MEANWHILE, immigrants like Mr. Miranda have learned to use city hall, and local government has become significantly more professional since the days of rancid fliers and giveaways. At a recent meeting, the City Council took up mundane but essential municipal issues: purchasing a diesel flatbed truck, zoning for emergency homeless shelters and appointments to its advisory council. The town’s advisory councils are populated by a healthy mix of white and black, as well as Latino.

South Gate’s experience stands as a template for hundreds of small towns in Tennessee, the Carolinas, Kansas and elsewhere — towns that have been rejuvenated by new Mexican workers, who now form their essential working classes, yet remain civically absent.

When I started reporting on the southeast suburbs in the 1990s, they felt to me like one enormous Mexican rancho — the way the Lower East Side of Manhattan must have once seemed a big shtetl. Today, they feel like an iceberg finally separating and floating away from mother Mexico. People are more focused on how things run where they raise children than in villages they’ll never return to.

It’s taken a long time. But it is a good thing for Mexican immigrants and for the small American towns where so many have landed.

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