This post has also been published as an article in the January 4, 2008 issue of El Paso’s Newspapertree.com. A version also appears in the Jan. 1-15 issue of CounterPunch. Lots of Americans have heard about the Mexican city Juarez, just across the river from El Paso, Texas, and the 400 or so female murders [...]
Read MoreCounterPunch just reprinted a fascinating piece by Uruguayan journalist Raul Zibechi about Mexico’s Brigada Callejera de Apoyo a la Mujer (Street Brigade in Support of Women). It’s part of the Mexican Sex Work Network collective, which works with prostitutes and transvestites. “This has meant transcending the ‘victim’ role and becoming people who want to be [...]
Read MoreI still get asked about David, whom I wrote about in New York Magazine a couple of years ago. He’s the undocumented Mexican who was living in a basement with over two dozen other immigrants. People wonder how he’s doing. David and one of his former roommates, Jose, keep in touch because they live near [...]
Read MoreTo get to Carrollton, the suburb just north of Dallas where my sister lives, you have to drive through mean little Farmers Branch. Which is yet another burb, lately in the news because the town has been trying to keep landlords from renting apartments to “illegal aliens.” I passed through Irving, Texas too – where [...]
Read MoreI’ve been busy this week! Sorry for not posting till now. Story in the NY Times today about yuppie males in the city who want pix taken of themselves proposing marriage to their girlfriends in Soho. They pay $500 for this service — to people like an ex-photojournalist featured in the article. The Times published [...]
Read MoreOrale! (Translation: “Dude!”) Seth B. is winner of last week’s T-shirt design contest. He’s shown here in the shirt I made after he submitted the prize acronym for “Gringo.” Seth is now catwalk ready for his next demonstration or protest march. Felicidades!
Read MoreIn an episode from the late 1950s or early 60s, Alan Funt approached people outside an employment agency and described the most disgusting, ill-paid work imaginable – he called it something like “The Job from Hell.” It involved shoveling offal in a “flaming pit,” with sweltering temperatures, deadly germs, and a salary of $60 for [...]
Read MoreAn old friend in the border city El Paso writes, lamenting that she looked drab at a recent protest against the idea of building a wall to keep out immigrants. It’s hard to believe she came off as less than fabulous, since she’s a veteran street campaigner, versed in the art of political buttons, placards, [...]
Read MoreMiss Teen Mexico US Latina’s gown is aqua, shiny, liquid and long. Just like the Rio Grande River, and surely you wouldn’t want it — or her — trussed up and blocked by ugly old concrete or girders. Miss TMUSL (her name is Breeana Shaw) doesn’t like that idea. Lovely Miss Texas Latina, Martha Barraza, [...]
Read MoreSeriously, New York City needs to screen Nacho Libre for our cops. That’s the implication of today’s news that an immigrant arrested in May while wearing a mask at a protest march was just vindicated in court. The case has been covered by the Spanish-language paper El Diario, but ignored by the mainstream media. That’s [...]
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