#the undocumented americans

[whilereadingandwalking]

The Undocumented Americans by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio is part memoir of a messy, undocumented daughter and her anger and love, part reported nonfiction about the lives of undocumented Americans, and part fiery essay about the metaphorical boxes we push undocumented people into and the psychological and physical dangers they face on a daily basis. It's self-depreciating and biting and bold, from a writer who gets involved in every case she reports, who knows the people she writes about, who drives their daughters to the movies and yells at their lawyers.

She writes about the raw injustices that take place each day, and about how our disasters hit the undocumented the hardest. Villavicencio writes about how undocumented workers helped lead clean-up of 9/11 and Ground Zero, only to be boxed out of compensation. Many of the undocumented people of Flint were the last to know about the bad water, and couldn't access bottled water because they didn't have state ID. Undocumented people can lose their job at any given day based on the government's or employer's whims, and they can be exploited at will because there aren't any protections for them.

By telling story on story of undocumented people in America, Villavicencio exposes the grinding life full of psychological torture and trauma that they face each day. The constant threat of ICE, the hard work and lack of insurance that leads to worse health outcomes, the inability to get a driver's license. She exposes the raw loneliness and hopelessness that infects so many undocumented people, particularly as they get old, and the pain, trauma, and anxieties of growing up the child to undocumented parents. Villavicencio exposes all of these horrors but through real people, and their real struggles, but also their real joys and lives and hopes and quirks. It's well-written, powerful, and raw in all the best ways.

Content warnings for racism, xenophobia, substance abuse, suicidal ideation, domestic violence, anxiety/ptsd.

#the undocumented americans #karla cornejo villavicencio #nonfiction books #bookworm #book love #my book reviews

[bunnylion17]

#books #pretty #pink #the undocumented americans #the secret history #atlas of ai #open veins of latin america #hispanic heritage month

[readtilyoudie]

I almost wish they’d called us something rude like “crazy fuckin’ Mexicans” because that’s acknowledging something about us beyond our usefulness—we’re crazy, we’re Mexican, we’re clearly unwanted!—but to describe all of us, men, women, children, locally Instagram-famous teens, queer puppeteers, all of us, as workers in order to make us palatable, my god. We were brown bodies made to labor, faces pixelated.

The Undocumented Americans by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio

#book quote #the undocumented americans #karla cornejo villavicencio #politics #nonfiction #quote #quotes #booklr #bookblr

[rotzaprachim]

a wild flavor of tumblr user is a certain kind of white American self id’d leftist or commie who reblogs and posts things about I just think all liberals and centrists should DIE (*guillotine* meme) and then posts things needing to be nicer to demographics that vote 80% Republican and are very systemically involved in the structural and practical oppression of people of color and the whole US hegemony like brooo I get having a seriously messy relationship with your own cultural background but who are you talking about? Guillotining everyone at mawmaw’s thanksgiving?

#My mom was bitter about white middle American farmers and like it made me kind of ….. #but also they do fucking vote 70-80% Republican and horrifically abuse the millions of undocumented laborers who run the system #But I see this kind of thing with a lot of white working class American groups #It’s not an argument against empathy we any group we all need more empathy #It’s that a) I think white Americans who got into leftism by themselves often end up #In this violence-centric ideas of reform that are still intensely conservative and culturally Christian #Like bro you just want to kill everyone to make a better shiny world of good people bro #And b) they have exceedingly little empathy with why people from any other background might have family or complex relationships #To conservative ideology #The white leftist culturally xtian relationship to many diasporic groups etc #Idk it’s interesting…… #Also like I’m not letting anyone off the hook but uh some of the language that gets pulled up in these talks #Can be a weird reflection of Fox News rhetoric #The Real WorkinG Class (from predominantly white and rural areas) #Versus the Coastal *Liberals* and *urban people* at fault for income inequality #Or the death of American working class leftism or something #Like blaming that specifically on California and New York and or some of the areas with the highest proportions of people of color and Jews #It’s just like hmmmmm sussssss to me

[mirrorofliterature]

why does america have so many undocumented migrants?

no, it’s not because people are ‘skipping the queue’ and ‘illegal’ :)

after reading my weekly email from never again action (which I receive after donating to them for FTH), I got a lovely reminder of how terrible ICE is.

so, to answer the question: because it is in america’s capitalist interests to have a cheap, exploitable and disposable source of labour. ‘illegality’ is a construct that is dehumanising and inaccurate.

a lot of us companies do not want to pay people properly or have proper safety protocols, so they hire undocumented workers to skirt around the law.

in short: zoom out. why has america created this system? exploitation.

#american politics #undocumented migrants #irregular migration #I have written a whole entire essay on this and studied it at university #so #I do know what I'm talking about! #technically two essays

[fiercynn]

okay, if you have ever made or reblogged a “hold your nose and vote for biden” post, this is for you.

here’s the fucking thing about these kinds of posts. i've been seeing them since i first returned to tumblr in, I think, late 2022? they've certainly increased in frequency since october 7, but they were there before too, ready to counter any kind of opposition to biden that has cropped up. many of them are not just trying to educate people about what positive things biden has done, which, like, at least I can understand the motivation behind those ones? but so many of them are directly in response to people criticizing biden, and their only real point is “sure you’re upset at this thing biden did, but have you considered the election?” starting YEARS before the next presidential election, mind you.

and october 7 only made that clearer. i don’t think it had been a week before i saw these posts cropping up. can you not see how fucking ghoulish that is? to look at the rightful pain and anger of those whose relatives and communities are being slaughtered with active american support, to respond to one of the few pieces of agency most americans have in influencing what their governments do – their vote – by saying “yes but trump would be worse.” as if the primary people you’re lecturing – palestinians, muslims, arabs, black people, indigenous people, disabled people, other marginalized people – don’t remember exactly how bad it was under trump!

and even if you think not voting is an empty gesture – something i, who studied political science at a mainstream american lib college, who has worked as a field organizer on a previous democratic presidential campaign and for several policy campaigns, who currently works in public policy in america, used to believe, but have absolutely changed my mind on – what is in no way an empty gesture is saying publicly that you will not vote for someone. the arguments people usually have about why simply not voting is bad are that you can’t tell why someone is not voting, so it is as likely to be apathy or disenfranchisement as it is a political statement. but saying publicly that you will not vote for someone, and why you will not vote for them, absolutely is a political statement, and potentially a powerful one! but you choose to negate and/or ignore that by trotting out the “lesser of two evils” bullshit.

and then there’s the whole “yes but people will DIE under trump”. PEOPLE ARE DYING NOW. even if you’re fucking racist and have decided that palestinian lives don’t count, have you forgotten biden’s ongoing covid minimalism and dismantling of the CDC’s covid research and prevention infrastructure? have you forgotten his increase in spending for law enforcement scant years after the murder of george floyd and his administration's surveillance of protesters, including cop city protesters? have you forgotten his recent ramp-up in deportations of undocumented immigrants, including the active continuation of many trump-era policies?

maybe you have forgotten all those things and do purport to care about palestinians, but you just think that biden is doing his best to influence netanyahu and is getting nowhere! but then you must have forgotten all of the things that biden and his administration themselves have done to further this fucking genocide, including:

continuing to send arms to israel

putting together a military task force within days of yemen’s red sea blockade and attacking yemeni ships

bombing yemen

bombing syria

bombing iraq

vetoing three ceasefire resolutions at the united nations

testifying to defend israel and its genocide and occupation at the international court of justice

refusing to rescue palestinian-americans stuck in gaza

halting funding to the united nations relief and works agency for palestinian refugees (UNRWA) based on israeli claims that 12 of UNRWA’s over 30,000 staff were hamas agents, even though u.s. intelligence has not been able to independently verify this

lying that he’s personally seen photos of babies beheaded by hamas when he hadn’t because they didn’t exist (and even when his own staff cautioned him that reports of beheaded babies may not be credible)

questioning the number of palestinian deaths reported by the gaza ministry of health (when even israel has not questioned them, since they are in fact proud of those numbers)

perpetuating lies about hamas having committed the attack on al-aqsa hospital

questioning united nations reports of adults and children raped by israeli soldiers while claiming to have proof (that no one else has seen) of hamas doing the same

honestly so many more things that i can’t remember them all but others feel free to add

or maybe you haven’t forgotten any of that, and think that you’re still justified in lecturing people about why they should vote for biden, because you genuinely believe trump would still be worse. if that is the case, you have still failed to see that by saying you will vote for biden no matter what, you are part of the problem of biden continuing to act like this. because biden is counting on fear of trump to win him this next election no matter what else he does. despite his appalling polling numbers, despite the knowledge that he is losing the palestinian-american vote, the arab-american vote, the muslim-american vote, the black american vote, the youth vote – despite all of that, he is secure in the idea that he will still win because he is better than trump. can you not see how that allows him to act without impunity? how it becomes increasingly impossible for his base to influence what he’s doing if he thinks that they will be with him no matter what? this is how you make yourself complicit to biden’s actions, by not affording anyone even the slightest power to hold him accountable for anything.

and in most cases, the “hold your nose and vote for biden” thing is the response of people who aren’t even being instructed by others not to vote for biden. it is their response to people saying they themselves are choosing not to vote for biden. fucking ghoulish.

#fuck biden #u.s. politics #free palestine #genocide #covid #immigrant justice #prison abolition #police abolition #ableism #from the river to the sea palestine will be free

[theobviousparadox]

Review: Spare Parts (Young Readers' Edition) by Joshua Davis and Reyna Grande

Spare Parts: The True Story of Four Undocumented Teenagers, One Ugly Robot, and an Impossible Dream (Young Readers’ Edition)Joshua Davis and Reyna GrandeFarrar, Straus, & GirouxPublished May 30, 2023 Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads About Spare Parts A riveting true story about dreams, dedication, and an amazing robot named Stinky, based on Joshua Davis’ New York Times bestseller and now adapted…

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#Dreamers #friendship #Immigration #Mexican American #robots #STEM #undocumented immigrants

[feckcops]

The workers who say their migrant status has been ‘weaponized’ against them

“More than one million workers in California are undocumented, making up 6% of California’s workforce and contributing $3.7 bn towards the state’s tax revenue, according to a University of California, Merced, report released in March. They also play a crucial part in the labor force, filling one in 16 jobs, especially in manufacturing, food service, construction and agriculture. Yet these workers are not eligible for unemployment benefits, making it more likely that they’ll end up working in exploitative or high-risk environments.

“The UC Merced report found that undocumented migrants in California were eligible for $1,700 in state and federal assistance in the first year of the pandemic, compared with $35,000 for residents who were also US citizens. Immigrants made up 58% of pandemic-related deaths in California’s deadliest industries – agriculture, landscaping and food processing – between March and December 2020.

“The data is not broken down for undocumented migrants, but activists who work with them say they have been especially vulnerable – particularly women, whose Top 10 occupations in the US all involve in-person work, such as cleaning, childcare and hospitality work.”

#undocumented workers #undocumented people #undocumented #migrant rights #migrants #immigration #unfair dismissal #low pay #insecure work #workers rights #workers #labour force #labor force #labour #labor #california #american politics #usa

[thenerdsofcolor]

Atsuko Okatsuka's Grandmother Comes Clean in 'Made From Scratch' Clip

Fuse’s standout original series Made From Scratch invites viewers into the kitchens of their favorite celebrities, like comedian Atsuko Okatsuka, as they cook their favorite dishes while sharing their most cherished memories with loved ones. (more…) “”

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#Asian American #Atsuko Okatsuka #comedians #comedy #cooking show #documentary series #Docuseries #exclusive clip #food #Fuse #Fuse+ #Immigration #Japan #Los Angeles #Made From Scratch #Stand Up Comedy #Streaming #The Intruder #Undocumented #YouTube

[wilwheaton]

GUNS DON’T KILL PEOPLE, TERRIFIED PEOPLE WITH GUNS KILL PEOPLE Again, the plural of anecdote is not data. And as the right is wont to note, the vast majority of gun deaths are not in mass shootings, they’re killings of the everyday American variety—with handguns. It wouldn’t be hard to scrape local news sites for even more anecdotal evidence, but there’s no need, because the hard data is devastating enough. To cite just one piece of such data, over the past two years gun deaths for people under the age 18 are up 50 percent. Still, the right-wing fearmongering culture warriors have nothing to say. However, I don’t have any doubt that had any one of the aforementioned shootings been committed by an undocumented immigrant or a Muslim fundamentalist, the “Don’t Tread on Me” right would be calling for the suspension of all kinds of liberties, so precious is even a single American life snuffed out by “the other.” And if these deaths had been attributed to COVID vaccines, Joe Rogan’s guests would be lining up to demand their Nobel Prizes. But when it’s Americans killing each other, the enormity of the numbers doesn’t resonate. Neither does the evidence that points to a culture of fear being the driving force in a lot of these killings.

America’s Tragedy Is Its Culture of Fear—Armed With Millions of Guns

[robertreich]

Five Biggest Border Lies Debunked 

Republicans are lying about immigrants and the border. Here are five of their biggest doozies.

1. They claim Biden doesn’t want to secure the border

Well, that’s rubbish. Biden has consistently asked for additional funding for border security.

Republicans have just as consistently refused. They’re voting to cut Customs and Border Protection funding in spending bills and blocking passage of Biden’s $106 billion national security supplemental that includes border funding.

2. They blame the drug crisis on immigration

That’s more rubbish. While large amounts of fentanyl and other deadly drugs have been flowing into the U.S. from Mexico, 90% arrives through official ports of entry, not via immigrants illegally crossing the border. In fact, research by the Cato Institute found that more than 86% of the people convicted of trafficking fentanyl in 2021 were U.S. citizens.

3. They claim that undocumented immigrants are terrorists.

Baloney. For almost a half century, no American has been killed or injured in a terrorist attack in the United States that involved someone who crossed the border illegally.

4. They say immigrants are stealing American jobs.

Nonsense. Evidence shows immigrants are not taking jobs that American workers want. And the surge across the border is not increasing unemployment. Far from it: unemployment has been below 4% for roughly two years.

5. They blame crime on immigrants

More baloney. This has been debunked by numerous studies over the years. In fact, a 2020 study found that undocumented immigrants have "substantially" lower crime rates than native-born citizens and legal immigrants.

Notwithstanding the recent migrant surge, America’s homicide rate has fallen nearly 13% since 2022 — the largest decrease on record. Local law enforcement agencies are also reporting drops in violent crime.

Who’s really behind these lies?

Since he entered politics, Donald Trump has fanned nativist fears and bigotry.

Now leaning into full neo-fascism and using the actual language of Hitler to attack immigrants.

Trump wants us to forget that almost all of us are the descendants of immigrants who fled persecution, or were brought to America under duress, or simply sought better lives for themselves and their descendants.

Know the truth and spread it.

#youtube #video #videos #immigration #border #Donald Trump

[readtilyoudie]

Contractors have mastered a plantation model in their line of work, exploiting whatever sense of community that might exist among Latinx people. The workers think there are people along the chain of command who are watching out for them, but melanin and accents are ineffective binding substances.

The Undocumented Americans by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio

#book quote #the undocumented americans #karla cornejo villavicencio #nonfiction #politics #quote #quotes #booklr #bookblr

[foone]

Random thought brought on by seeing a veterinarian sign on the drive to Coffee Land, but I think Jesus would really appreciate people localizing his parable of the Good Samaritan.

Because, like, it's a good story, right? When the administrator-guy and the holy man wouldn't help the injured, the Samaritan went out of their way to make sure the injured man was able to get the help they needed, paid out of their own pocket. And that's good and all, but what even is a Samaritan? Do you know?

Well, they're a ethnoreligious group from northern Israel who follow Samaritanism, which split from Judaism sometime around the 11th century BCE. There's only about a thousand of them left. But around the time of Jesus, they were not very popular with your average Hebrew. Remember the Seleucid empire that was oppressing jews? There's a yearly celebration about it, involving a candle that lasted for 8 nights. Yeah. So at the time the Samaritans had taken the opportunity to point out they're not Jewish, they're Samaritans, so they wouldn't be persecuted. So they were seen as, like, selling out their brothers and sisters in the faith. Then by the time the Romans took over the whole area, the province of Judaea contained Samaria.

So basically the Jews and the seen-to-have-sold-them-out Samaritans were stuck in the same province, thanks to some Romans consolidating the areas they'd conquered. Tensions between the two groups were high, and I don't imagine either of them liked each other very much at all.

To a Jew of the first century CE, a Samaritan is basically the worst kind of person you could be, and that's exactly why Jesus used them in the parable of the Good Samaritan!

The parable isn't about Samaritans. It's about how the worst person you can imagine is a better person than the people you idolize and uplift, if that person takes care of their fellow man. It's about how you should love your neighbor as yourself, and who is your neighbor? Everyone. All people are your neighbors. Help them when they need help!

And that's why I say it should really be localized. You should tell this parable differently than it was told in AD 29 or whenever. Do you hate Samaritans? Probably not! You probably barely know who they are, even after I did some explaining up there. So why use them as your example? If Jesus was here, I don't think he would have done that.

So like, if you were giving a sermon on the good Samaritan in the 1960s to a white church, you should be like "so the policeman walked past, and the pastor walked past, but then a poor black guy saw the injured man, and got him help at the local hospital."

In the 80s, his rescuer is Soviet. In the 2000s, they're a Muslim, from Afghanistan or Iran.

Today? Maybe they're trans.

As an American, there's been many times that "Mexican" would have been the best choice. Maybe even today, especially if you specifically make them an undocumented migrant.

But yeah, the point is that you pick the group of people most hated by the audience you're talking to, and make the point that THEY ARE A BETTER PERSON THAN YOU and ALL THOSE YOU UPHOLD AS PILLARS OF THE COMMUNITY if they help their fellow man. If your worst enemy is lying injured in the street, you call the ambulance, you pay their doctor, you get them help. That's what Jesus says you should do. That's loving your neighbor, that's the Great Commandment.

And in the Roman province of Judea back in the first half of the first century, when talking to a Jewish audience, that meant the rescuer was a Samaritan helping a Jew. That was just the context for that one particular telling of the story. It shouldn't be told the same way today, or in the future. It should be an evolving parable, always changing, always adjusting the nationalities and situations and genders and everything. It's not a story about a specific event, it doesn't pretend to be history, it's a metaphorical lesson about what makes you a good person.

This parable is basically in the form of an "X, Y and Z walk into a bar" joke, and just like jokes, it should be updated over time. Those don't stay funny though the decades, as cultural attitudes shift. And this parable hasn't been updated in nearly two millenia, so it's long overdue.

#Biblical ranting #I'm not a Christian but I was raised as one so I still occasionally have Bible Thoughts

[partisan-by-default]

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the famously outspoken Democratic congresswoman from New York, says she has a simple approach to fixing the immigrant crisis in the U.S.

“The answer should really be, we should make it easier to be legal, documented and citizens of the United States of America,” Ocasio-Cortez said.

Ocasio-Cortez, talking to the “The Daily Show” host Desus Nice in an interview Monday night, said the country needs to return to how things were done in previous generations when the process for becoming an American citizen was more streamlined.

“From all parts of the political spectrum, one of the big issues that we have when it comes to immigration is the fact that we have an undocumented population,” Ocasio-Cortez said on the Comedy Central show. “Now you can fix that by trying to build a wall or you can fix that by trying to document people and create a path to citizenship.”

[batboyblog]

In speeches, interviews and campaign videos, Trump has promised to:

Use the military to participate in the largest deportation of undocumented immigrants in American history;

Order the National Guard into cities with high crime rates, whether local officials want it or not;

Prosecute Californians who protect minors coming to the state for gender-affirming care;

Impose a 10% tariff on almost all foreign goods, increasing prices for consumers;

Appoint a special prosecutor to “go after” his political opponents, beginning with Biden;

Purge the federal civil service of anyone who questions his views.

lets be clear here, Donald Trump wants to use the military to hunt immigrants and if you think it'll stop at "illegal" immigrants I have a bridge to sell you. He wants to place major American cities, Democratic cities under military occupation, oh also while he fires any Democrats from the civil service and "goes after" his political enemies. And as a cherry on top he'll make being trans illegal.

right now the world is trying to distract you from this, trying to act like this is a normal election with two more or less equal choices that both have problems and draw backs, thats not true. One side is selling an authoritarian dictatorship that wants to carry out a genocide of trans people, the other side is not.

#Politics #US politics #Donald Trump #Trump #Joe Biden #Republicans #vote #trans rights #trans #immigration #refugees

[blingblong55]

Can we vote?-141

Asian-American!reader

reader has been complaining about the upcoming American elections, and is annoyed that asians can't vote

A/N: superstore reference...

Price: and with tensions rising in America about the elections, this mission will be hard

Gaz: hey, we've got our own American 'ere maybe they can give us an insight

R/N: oh I can't...

Soap: why not?

R/N: I wish Asians were allowed to vote..

Kate: what?

R/N: I really don't get the whole basement thing--

Ghost: hold on-- wait a second.

Price: what are you talking about?

R/N: yeah I know it's a democracy. One person, one vote-- oh, unless you're Asian American, tell me why that is?

Kate: I don't know that I can

Gaz: are you-- R/N, you're an American citizen, right?

R/N: just 'cause im asian, I can't be a citizen?

Ghost: not what he meant, mate

Kate: occasionally, parents bring their kids into the country illegally, and then, they don't even tell them that they're undocumented

R/N: well, that's not me, I have the documents. I went to the green card store personally

Soap: the what store?

R/N: yeah, they sell knockoff bags, bootleg Spiderman DVD's

Kate:...sweetheart...I don't think that's right...

-cuts to R/N calling their grandma--

R/N: Grandma, naalala mo ba 'yong binili natin dati para sa 'kin?(Grandma, do you remember the one we bought for you before?)

R/N: So 'yong green card na 'yon, counterfeit?(So that green card, counterfeit?)

R/N: So, ibig sabihin hindi ako American citizen? (So, does that mean I'm not an American citizen?)

R/N: At pureed na nating panoorin ang spider man legally sa Netflix? (And can we watch spider man legally on Netflix?)

R/N: well I'm fucked....

#cod mw2 #cod #cod x reader #mwii #cod 141 #mw2 141 #task force 141 #141 #call of duty #superstore #cod modern warfare #cod ghost #cod mwii #cod price #cod gaz #cod soap #cod mw3 #call of duty modern warfare #cod incorrect quotes #incorrect call of duty quotes #incorrect cod quotes