SWCAMBORNE

“Poverty needs no

passport to travel.”

Oscar Arias

Former President of Costa Rica

Nobel Peace Prize

Winner 1986

Andrea Perusquia Artist

I wrote a story about the miners from Cornwall, England’s contribution to the cuisine of Mexico.  I know it sounds strange but Cornish Pastys are part of the food heritage of Moreles, Mexico.

I posted the story on my Rational Immigration site.  But I though I should share it here if only because it made me think about Elizabeth C and her empanadas.   And it raised the eternal question:  Which came first the Empanada or the Pasty?

English food suffer from a bad naming issue.  Which would you prefer egg pie or souffle?

Tijuana Jews from Isaac Artenstein on Vimeo.

Tijuana is not just a place that has crime and drugs and lawlessness. It also has a Jewish Community and peaceful people raising families and living marvelously ordinary lives.

On Monday October 31 Dr Oscar Arias visited the School of Trans Border Studies at ASU and I had the honor of giving him a tour of the Changing Boundaries Map Exhibit.  Arias won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work to end the fighting in Central America in the 1980′s while he was President of Costa Rica the first time.  Before the tour he gave a short talk about his attempt to get the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) passed by the US Senate.  During the talk he told a story about US politics that I am paraphrasing here:

” In the 1980’s Senators Ted Kennedy and George Mitchell and other Democrats supported my Central American Peace Plan but then in 2006 the same Democrats opposed CAFTA (the Central American Free Trade Agreement).

I was puzzled by this until I figured out that they weren’t trying to do the right thing.  They supported my peace plan because President Reagan a Republican opposed it and years later they opposed the trade agreement because President Bush another Republican supported it.  It was all about politics not about what was best for the US or for the world.”

A depressing story from someone who has seen politics from the inside.

You can read what he said about immigration here.

Dr Arias used his Nobel award money to start a peace foundation.

I posted my views on the new Obama administrations new immigration policy on Rational Immigration

Exerpt: “So the best deal that the Obama administration have offered Hispanics is: No Dream Act, no chance to work legally and if you have an interaction with the authorities you might still get deported.  This is from the supposed friend of the Hispanics.”

“The proper way to end illegal immigration is to re-legalize immigration.”

Mark Hinkle
Libertarian Party Chair
October 26, 2010

Simon’s Immigration Site

“The right to go where you want should be a principle in a decent world.”
Noam Chomsky

I’m still plugging away on Rational Immigration (formerly Radical Immigration for those of you with a memory) This week we are expanding from the Website that incorporates a blog to a group on Facebook that will work as the blog and then we will transition the web site into a more static site where the arguments in favor of a more Rational (get it) Immigration policy are made.

The new Logo

It is an uphill battle against the wind but I have no doubt that within the life of my children the right to migrate will be recognized as a human right.  The struggle first has to be won by helping people overcome their instinctive fear of strangers.  Hopefully I can contribute a little bit to that process.

You can help by going to Rational Immigration on Facebook and adding it to your favorites.

The link: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1067520248&ref=name#!/pages/Rational-Immigration/192327340800980

What more can I say.

Let them stay and contribute.

Opponents of the Dream Act are on the wrong side of history.

A week or so ago I went up to Cal State University Channel Islands (CSUCI) in Camarillo to view the Bracero Exhibit.  The Bracero Program was a mid 20th century guest worker program.  The result was, as the subtitle of the exhibit explains, a “bittersweet harvest.”  It may be the best guest worker program possible but it still was demeaning to the participants, fraught with corruption and caused some exploitation of workers.  On the other hand it gave millions of Mexican workers: jobs, money and a vision of another life.

I asked Jose Alamillo the Professor at CSUCI most responsible for the exhibit if in balance he thought the bracero program was a good thing for the workers.  His response was equivocal just like mine.  In balance it might have been good for the participants but couldn’t we find a better way.

CSUCI is a very beautiful campus built on the grounds of the old Camarillo Mental Hospital.  It represents a modern version of turning your swords into plowshares.  The only new structure I saw was the Broome Library.  Which spans the area between two of the old mission style buildings.

Visually the exhibit is a series of fourteen illustrated explanatory panels from the Smithsonian with some very interesting artifacts collected by Professor Alamillo and his students.  The best part however is the audio.  You can hear the voices of the workers telling the story of getting the bracero jobs.  The oral histories were collected by the Smithsonian over the last five years in a project with CSUCI and others.

Click here to read more about where I stand on guest worker programs.

Read the rest of this entry »