By Bill Ong Hing


The truth is that state and local policies that reach out to try to incorporate newcomers documented and undocumented are in the best interest of society.

Philadelphia, San Francisco, Alaska, and Vermont are among the 120-plus cities and states that have passed resolutions denouncing the Patriot Act as a threat to fundamental rights. Yet Alabama, Colorado and Los Angeles County are seeking arrangements with the Department of Homeland Security to help enforce immigration laws, a precursor of things to come if the proposed federal CLEAR Act is enacted. (The CLEAR Act would require state and local police to enforce federal, civil immigration laws. This means that local police would be charged with investigating students who have dropped from full-time to part-time status, individuals who have remained in the U.S. longer than the date on their tourist visa allows, or businesses that have hired immigrants without legal papers.) In New York City, a coalition of elected officials, labor unions and community groups are pushing a proposal to extend the right to vote in local elections to lawful resident aliens; five towns in Maryland already allow noncitizenseven the undocumentedto vote in local elections. But in California where the plot to introduce the son of Proposition 187 has been hatched, one of Arnold Schwarzennegers first acts as governor was to cancel the right of undocumented workers to drivers licenses.

The bidirectional actions of state and local entities is emblematic of the two Americas in which we live. Both begin with the understanding that America is a land of immigrants. One America has embraced the notion of welcoming newcomers from different parts of the world, although depending on the era, even this more welcoming perspective may not have been open to people from certain parts of the world or of different cultural and ethnic backgrounds. The other America has remained largely mired in a Eurocentric (originally western Eurocentric) vision of America that idealized the true American as white, Anglo-Saxon, English-speaking and Christian. For the most part, this America has opposed more immigration, especially from regions of the world that are not white or supportive of our brand of democracy. So even though we are a land of immigrants, we are also a land that has debated immigration policy since the revolutionary period.

Local efforts to control immigration generally are considered unconstitutional. At first, the U.S. Supreme Court permitted state laws and local ordinances that targeted immigrants of color to stand. Those laws generally were intended to make life challenging for those immigrants. For example, Californias foreign miners tax was first aimed at Latin migrants, then Asians. And Californias infamous alien land law of 1912 (mimicked by other states and upheld by the Supreme Court in 1923) targeted all Asian immigrantsespecially Japanese and Indians who had become successful farmers. In several parts of the country, Asian Americans, like blacks, were forced into segregated school systems under the countrys apartheid-like separate but equal principle (again upheld by the Supreme Court in 1927). A noteworthy exception to the Supreme Courts early deference to states rights in the immigration field was in Yick Wo v. Hopkins (1886), where the Court struck down San Franciscos no-wooden-laundries restrictions aimed at Chinese on an economic rights principle.

The Supreme Court had long recognized that the Constitution granted the federal Congress virtually unlimited (plenary) power over the admission and exclusion of immigrants. Eventually the Court expanded that concept by holding that Congress had preempted the field, leaving the states without authority to enact laws that smacked of regulating immigration. Thus, the Supreme Court disapproved of alien land laws and fishing license restrictions in cases brought by Japanese Americans in 1948. The Court even threw out state attempts to bar lawful resident aliens from becoming lawyers or practicing other professions that required licenses. The Court did eventually carve a big exception to this line of cases, permitting states to require citizenship for public functions occupations, such as highway patrol officers and public school teachers. In Doe v. Plyler (1982), the Supreme Court also struck down Texas early version of Proposition 187 that attempted to exclude undocumented alien children from public schools. But interestingly, the Court did not use a preemption theory to strike the law, relying instead on a common-sense, equal-protection notion that not educating children was a self-defeating, short-sighted public policy.

So how would the courts look at the recent rash of state attacks on immigrants? A state that elects to deny drivers licenses to undocumented adults or in-state tuition benefits to undocumented college students might be challenged on a Doe v. Plyler theory, but its doubtful that the current Court would agree that those actions are bad public policy. On the other hand, states that wish to extend such rights are within their rights. States can grant greater rights but not fewer rights to immigrants than the federal constitution might require. So if a state wants to grant in-state tuition benefits for undocumented students of college age or voting rights to immigrants, it could do so even though the U.S. Constitution might not require that. The constitutionality of the proposed CLEAR Act raises different questions. The courts would have to decide whether the federal government can force the state government (and its police) to enforce federal laws. The answer is not a clear yes, because a serious separation of powers question arises that could go either way.

In the end, the controversy remains over which America we wish to live in: the one that demonizes immigrants or the one that doesnt.

The truth is that state and local policies that reach out to try to incorporate newcomersdocumented and undocumentedare in the best interest of society. When it comes to the integration of immigrants and refugees, state and local governments should help lead the way. Immigration and naturalization policy is largely in the hands of the federal government. However, while federal policies determine how many immigrants and refugees enter the country, state and local governments directly face the challenges and opportunities that newcomers present. In this sense, integration policies are largely in the hands of the state governments. The states have a strong interest in promoting integration given the demographic changes that are taking place throughout the country. By investing in newcomers and encouraging them to participate in civic life, the social and human capital they represent infuses energy into all aspects of our society.

The countrys continued prosperity is dependent on the opportunities and achievements of all its residents. All of us benefit when immigrants are successful. Conversely, when immigrants are trapped in poverty and isolation, we all bear a higher burden. Our goal should be to support the ability of all residents, including immigrants, to be safe, healthy and law abiding, as well as live in affordable housing and be economically self-sufficient. Immigrants should participate in self-governance and feel they belong and are responsible to their community. The state should also try to influence federal policies to better align federal immigration practices with community goals. The reason is clear. Public policies that hinder immigrants ability to become self-reliant, responsible community members hinder the success of all Americans. State and local policies should be about reaching out to immigrants, not demonizing them, because we are all in it together.

SUCRE, Bolivia (AP) -- You have to press "Qallariy" to begin.

Pronounced "KAH-lyah-ree," the word replaces "Start" on Microsoft Windows' familiar taskbar in a new Quechua translation of the program, which gets its Bolivian debut Friday.

President Evo Morales, the South American nation's first Indian leader, has found an ally in the U.S. software giant as he promotes the native tongues of his country's indigenous majority.

Some 2.6 million Bolivians -- nearly one third of the country -- speak the Incan language, and Morales sees empowering these people as his primary mission. Among the first users of Quechua software will be Indian members of a constituent assembly meeting in this colonial city to rewrite the nation's constitution.

First launched in Peru in June and now freely available for download online, the software is a simple patch that translates the familiar Microsoft menus and commands. Microsoft Corp. teamed up with several universities in Peru's Quechua-speaking south to create the translation program, joining 47 other versions of Windows in such languages as Kazakh, Maori and Zulu.

"More than anything, I was surprised," said 21-year-old Dilma Arancibia, a Quechua speaker invited to a Thursday preview of the program. "If they hadn't done this with Quechua, and if we don't teach it to our children, the language would definitely cease to exist."

And while few of the estimated 10 million to 13 million Quechua speakers in South America have regular access to a computer, the project is paying dividends for Microsoft: The company recently won a contract from the Peruvian government for 5,000 Quechua-equipped computers.

"Technology should be available to all," Microsoft said in a statement in response to e-mailed questions about the translation. "It helps improve the lives of people."

Linguistics professors spent nearly three years reconciling 22 dialects of the language -- many without a formal written form -- to compile a vocabulary fit for Microsoft's programs.

For "file," they chose "kipu" (KEE-poo), borrowing the name of an ancient Incan practice of recording information in an intricate system of knotted strings. "Internet" became "Llika" (LEE-ka), the Quechua word for spider web.

The Quechua translation also includes many English words, as well as a few in Spanish.

The greatest challenge was likely finding a balance between the use of foreign words and the creation of new terms, said Serafin Coronel-Molina, a linguist at Princeton University and native Quechua speaker.

Borrowed words "are one way that a language evolves," he said. "But you can't just fill up a language with borrowed words, because then what have you got?"

It seems the computers are also still trying to figure out Quechua.

Sandra Picha was one of a dozen Quechua speakers invited to type out a letter to Morales at Thursday's preview. As she filled the screen with Quechua words, Microsoft's automatic spell-checker underlined every single one in red.

"It says I've written it all wrong"

CALPULALPAN, Mexico (Reuters) -- Skeletons found at an unearthed site in Mexico show Aztecs captured, ritually sacrificed and partially ate several hundred people traveling with invading Spanish forces in 1520.

Skulls and bones from the Tecuaque archeological site near Mexico City show about 550 victims had their hearts ripped out by Aztec priests in ritual offerings, and were dismembered or had their bones boiled or scraped clean, experts say.

The findings support accounts of Aztecs capturing and killing a caravan of Spanish conquistadors and local men, women and children traveling with them in revenge for the murder of Cacamatzin, king of the Aztec empire's No. 2 city of Texcoco.

Experts say the discovery proves some Aztecs did resist the conquistadors led by explorer Hernan Cortes, even though history books say most welcomed the white-skinned horsemen in the belief they were returning Aztec gods.

"This is the first place that has so much evidence there was resistance to the conquest," said archeologist Enrique Martinez, director of the dig at Calpulalpan in Tlaxcala state, near Texcoco.

"It shows it wasn't all submission. There was a fight."

The caravan was apparently captured because it was made up mostly of the mulatto, mestizo, Maya Indian and Caribbean men and women given to the Spanish as carriers and cooks when they landed in Mexico in 1519, and so was moving slowly.

The prisoners were kept in cages for months while Aztec priests from what is now Mexico City selected a few each day at dawn, held them down on a sacrificial slab, cut out their hearts and offered them up to various Aztec gods.

Some may have been given hallucinogenic mushrooms or pulque -- an alcoholic milky drink made from fermented cactus juice -- to numb them to what was about to happen.

Teeth marks
"It was a continuous sacrifice over six months. While the prisoners were listening to their companions being sacrificed, the next ones were being selected," Martinez said, standing in his lab amid boxes of bones, some of young children.

"You can only imagine what it was like for the last ones, who were left six months before being chosen, their anguish."

The priests and town elders, who performed the rituals on the steps of temples cut off by a perimeter wall, sometimes ate their victims' raw and bloody hearts or cooked flesh from their arms and legs once it dropped off the boiling bones.

Knife cuts and even teeth marks on the bones show which ones had meat stripped off to be eaten, Martinez said.

Some pregnant women in the group had their unborn babies stabbed inside their bellies as part of the ritual.

In Aztec times the site was called Zultepec, a town of white-stucco temples and homes where some 5,000 people grew maize and beans and produced pulque to sell to traders.

Priests had to be brought in for the ritual killings because human sacrifices had never before taken place there, Martinez said.

On hearing of the months-long massacre, Cortes renamed the town Tecuaque -- meaning "where people were eaten" in the indigenous Nahuatl language -- and sent an army to wipe out its people.

When they heard the Spanish were coming, the Zultepec Aztecs threw their victims' possessions down wells, unwittingly preserving buttons and jewelry for the archeologists.

The team, which began work here in 1990, also found remains of domestic animals brought from Spain, like goats and pigs.

"They hid all the evidence," said Martinez. "Thanks to that act, we have been allowed to discover a chapter we were unaware of in the conquest of Mexico."

I'm sure their is much much more too uncover, cant wait when they find evidence of Aztlan here in the United states.

-JB

Latino Punk in the 1990s

For years, punk rock has been perceived as fast, in-your-face music played by weird-looking white youth. However, since the late 1970s, Chicano and Latino punks have been playing music and getting their own bands together, putting out zines, setting up benefit shows for groups in their communities, releasing records, and changing the face of punk.

The Latino punk scene grew dramatically in the early 1990s. The notorious racist attacks of that decade -- such as California Propositions 187, 209, 227, and 21 inspired the Chicano and Latino communities, including punks, to rise up to fight, by organizing and by song. These struggles helped to shape a distinct Chicano and Latino punk scene.

"The Latino punk scene in the early 1990s really exploded because all of a sudden we had a hell of a lot to sing about," Sorrondeguy says in his documentary. "What started happening politically in the United States pissed us off so much, and we were feeling so targeted and cornered as a community, that we began to write songs about it."

In the United States, bands like Los Crudos connected the institutionalized racism, such as California Governor Pete Wilson's promotion of anti-immigrant hysteria, to the more subtle racism that was occurring within the punk movement itself. On the international front, the 1994 Zapatista uprising in Mexico inspired Spanish-speaking punk bands -- both in the United States and Latin America -- to see their identity as more than just punk, but also as rooted in their language and culture.

Screaming Thoughts

Lina, a vocalist for the Los Angeles-based punk band Subsistencia, stresses the importance of the "indigenous roots" of their music and lyrics. Formed a few years ago, Subsistencia's lyrics are about what the group sees and lives every day in their communities: repression by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, gang violence, and life in the inner city.

"Why use punk rock as our medium of expression?" asks Lina. "Because through our music, we can express--we can scream--our thoughts and emotions of all the things that are happening in our communities."

For many Chicano and Latino punk bands, being up-front about their politics also differentiates them from more established Rock en español bands such as Maldita Vecindad and Mana. For Sorrondeguy, Rock en español means crass commercialism: marketing, money, and business. "Rock en español is stripped of its danger. The way I interpret it, music has an element of danger and risk-it's a way of taking some type of action. Rock en español is neutralized and safe and I'm just not attracted to that."

Many of the lyrics that Sorrondeguy wrote for Los Crudos were first sung in Spanish at shows in Pilsen, the Latino barrio in Chicago where the band lived. "For us, singing in Spanish was to really be direct with who we were talking to, and if it meant communicating with young people or people in our communities, well, what better language than the one we were all originally raised with," he says.

Besides making music, Sorrondeguy keeps himself busy by running his own record label, Lengua Armada, setting up benefit shows for traveling bands, and documenting the role of Chicanos and Latinos in punk rock through photography and video.

Do-It-Yourself

A central theme in punk -- now often called hardcore -- has been individualism, anti-authoritarianism, and a Do-It-Yourself philosophy that encourages action instead of apathy. In his insightful overview of punk rock and hardcore, The Philosophy of Punk: More Than Noise!, Craig O'Hara gives three possible definitions of what punk might be: "Punk is a youth trend, punk is gut rebellion and change, and punk is a formidable voice of opposition."

Although O'Hara's groundbreaking work attempts to cover the many different scenes within punk, he fails to investigate the role of Chicano, Latino, or other punks of color. In his only comment about race and punk, O'Hara comments, "As punk is now comprised of a clear majority of middle-and service-class whites instead of inner-city working-class whites or minorities, an important action has been to reject their own privileged places in society."

Furthermore, O'Hara does not question whether racism within the punk scene might have discouraged Chicano and Latino bands from getting more involved in punk. By contrast, many Latino punk bands have used their shows to critique white liberal notions of a "colorblind" punk subculture. The Los Crudos song, "That's right motherfuckers, we're that spic band," was written specifically for a person who had called the group a "spic band" at one of their shows.

Safe Spaces in the Punk Scene

Sometimes the need to discuss racism within the punk scene has made white punk rockers defensive. When punks of color demanded a room (a "safe space") to discuss racism within the scene at last year's "More Than Music Festival" in Columbus, Ohio, many white punks criticized them for "self-segregation" and accused them of undermining "unity within the scene." In response, Josh Sanchez, a participant in the people of color discussion group at the festival, told a group of people: "The safe spaces aren't there to keep you out. They're there so we punks of color can be together and learn from one another. We don't get that opportunity that often. What happens with my Mexican family is something you can't understand. Yesterday I went to the minority discussion, and for the first time ever since I've been involved in punk, I sat in a room full of people who did."

The fact that some punks at the festival found the "safe space" troubling is representative of where punk rock has been and where it must go -- even if punks of color have to force these issues into the punk/hardcore movement.

Many Chicano punks, such as Mike Amezcua of the East L.A.-based El Grito Records, have begun to address issues of race and nationality within the punk scene. They've taken the Do-It-Yourself ethic that is central to punk and hardcore and repackaged it to address their concerns. In a 7-inch record compilation that Amezcua put out as a benefit for immigrant rights groups in the Los Angeles area, Amezcua and Danny Echeveria write: "We feel immigration affects all of us in one way or another, but more directly the Latino communities that we grew up and live in. From Los Angeles to New York, Tijuana to Juarez, from the beat downs and harassing of our relatives at the borderlines, to the INS raids at our homes and workplaces. What does this have to do with you? Well, you as an individual can do a big part in this just by educating yourself and looking into the issue."

In addition to dealing with white liberal racism within the punk scene, Chicano and Latino punks must also deal with Latino communities which do not understand punk rock. To address this, Amezcua and others have staged many benefit shows in Pico Union and other Latino neighborhoods in Los Angeles, and given money to local grassroots organizations. Amezcua stresses the need for Chicanos, Latinos, and punks in general to see punk not as "art for art's sake," but as part of a larger movement where art and culture can be at the forefront of progressive social movements.

At the premiere screening of Beyond the Screams at the famous Gilman Street Club in Berkeley, California, Sorrondeguy told the punk kids in the audience to try to find ways to do "political things that might not be narrowly perceived as punk....There are so many things that punk kids could be doing if they really want to make punk a threat again," says Sorrondeguy. "Realizing the diversity within punk can only help punk and hardcore as more than just music, but as a political movement."