ImmigrationProf Blog

Banda Star Jenni Rivera, Daughter of Mexican Immigrants, RIP

 

  

Jenni Rivera, the Mexican-American singer and reality television star known as “the Diva of Banda,” died early Sunday in a plane crash outside Monterrey, Mexico, after a performance there. She was 43.

Rivera began recording in 1992, and her recordings often have themes of social issues, infidelity, and relationships. Her tenth studio album, Jenni (2008), became her first number-one album in the Billboard Top Latin Albums chart in the United States. In 2010, she appeared in and produced the reality TV show Jenni Rivera Presents: Chiquis & Raq-C.

A U.S. citizen by birth, Rivera was born in Long Beach, California. Her parents were immigrants from Mexico.  Fans have been mourning at Rivera's home in Encino.

Rivera was a champion of immigrants rights.   On May 29, 2010, tens of thousands of protesters converged on Phoenix to denounce Arizona's immigration enforcement law known as S.B. 1070.  While other well-known musicians stayed away, or just signed a petition, Rivera showed up and marched five miles in scorching heat.   She went on to play a full concert and gave a speech for immigrant rights and justice for the community she came from and never left.

KJ

Happy Thanksgiving Day!

To all our ImmigrationProf readers, HAPPY THANKSGIVING!  Enjoy the pumpkin pie.

And the turkey y mole.

KJ

Thanksgiving Herring? What the Heck?

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and Americans are thinking about delicious Turkey.  Or is that tradition changing? 

In the immigrant capital of Los Angeles, Thanksgiving does not always involve turkey and mashed potatoes. In LA, Thanksgiving dinner may include a kebab or mole.  Turkey mole truly is the best.

"For those who eat turkey, there will be birds basted with butter, sure, just as there will be turkeys on tables throughout Southern California that have been stuffed with a delectable sticky rice mixture, Chinese style, rubbed with chile powder and served with chocolatey black mole Oaxacan style, or marinated in a garlic-sour orange Cuban-style mojo to make it, frankly, tastier."

Read on by clicking here and finding out what some other Angelenos are eating on Turkey Day.

KJ

David Bacon: Poverty and Hunger on the Border

 
 

In "BORDER COMMUNITIES ARE GROUND ZERO FOR HUNGER," David Bacon for New American Media writes about th epoverty in the U.S./Mexico border region.

SF Changes Policy on Immigrant Youth Offenders, Mayor's Policy Rejected

In the latest round arising from a blow-up last year over some Honduran youths charged with drug dealing that San Francisco did not report to federal immigration authorities, Jesse McKinley of the N.Y. Times (see also the S.F. Chronicle report) reports that the San Francisco board of supervisors voted Tuesday to overturn a city policy ordered by Mayor (and candidate for Governor) Gavin Newsom last summer, which requires the police to contact U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) when they arrest a juvenile on felony charges who they suspect is undocumented. Under the policy, an estimated 100 undocumented minors have been turned over to federal immigration authorities.  Under the policy as changed by the S.F. board of supervisors, referrals would be required only after juveniles were convicted of crimes, not merely upon arrest. "Immigration advocates say that referrals upon arrest have resulted in the deportation of innocent youths, the breakup of families, and a fear among immigrants of contacting the police when they are the victims of crime."

ImmigrationProf blogger Bill Hing and the Immigrant Legal Resource Center worked diligently to ensure that the Board of Supervisors approved this new change in policy.

UPDATE:  For a N.Y. Times blog posting on the new law, including comments from Professors Rose Villazor (Hofstra) and Pratheepan Gulasekaram (Santa Clara), click here.  I think that Professor Gulasekaram has the better of the argument as it applies to the new SF policy, which does not involve enforcement of the immigration laws by local authorities (like the Hazelton ordinace, for example) but only whether to report a youth offender to the federal immigration authorities upon arrest or conviction. 

KJ