Who's más American?

My jaw dropped down to my navel when I heard the woman from Tennessee say, “The only immigrants who’ve become real Americans are those who arrived through Ellis Island.”
She was a caller at one of those public affairs talk shows on cable television. She sounded quite agitated. “Everyone else is illegal!” she screamed and then hung up.
Well, I imagine that it’s quite possible that there may be people in Tennessee and other such places who still don’t know that the airplane has been invented. Otherwise, they’d know that in the last 50 years way more immigrants have arrived through Kennedy, LAX and Miami international airports than the paltry 12 million that came through Ellis Island between 1892 and 1954. And definitely, their mode of transportation and port of entry doesn’t make them and their descendants less American.
Read the full column at the New York Daily News.

Quinceañeras Gone Wild

What used to be a traditional Latino "rite of passage" has turned into what one of the teenagers interviewed by Julia Álvarez for her fascinating new book, "Once Upon a Quinceañera-Coming of Age in the USA," calls, in a marvelous example of insightful misspelling, "a right of passage."
No longer a simple affair for family and a handful of friends, quinceañera parties have become as big and expensive as a keeping-up-with-the-Perezes wedding — minus the groom.

Read my Daily News column of August 8 on the subject.

Simpaticos No More?

Because of history and geography and because we have more things in common that things that separate us, Americans and Latinos have been amigos for ages. Now we are not so sure.

The overheated, hateful, anti-Hispanic rhetoric fouling the air around the public debate about immigration reform has left a bad taste in the mouth for millions of Latinos who no longer feel welcome in El Norte. And I'm not talking about undocumented Latinos who've seen their hopes of legalization dashed in a hail of misunderstanding and xenophobia. I'm talking about long-established American citizens and documented residents. . .

Read my full column on the subject published in the New York Daily News July 11, 2007.

To Bee or Not To Bee

Bees are disappearing by the billions. Who will tackle all that pollinating American bees can't or don't want to do? Are we condemned to a world without flowers and fruits? Will the country fall prey to the Colombian gladiola cartel, be driven into foreign fruit dependency, international honey laundering schemes, wax contraband and artificial pollination?

Read all about it in my NY Daily News column, Where the Bees Are

Reggaeton Lyrics Demean Women

Since the Don Imus debacle, rap and hip hop have been under the magnifying glass for dissing women. Latinos should also do some soul searching about the vulgar, violent thugish reggaeton lyrics. Women have had it with this kind of language. Check out my Daily News column on the subject.

Alberto Gonzales and the Latino PMG Syndrome

Why have most of the major Latino organizations remained silent about Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' woes? They're suffering from PMGS (Pero es Mi Gente Syndrome).

Check out my recent New York Daily News column on the subject: Vaya con Dios, Alberto Gonzalez.

El corrido de Alberto Gonzalez

El corrido (ballad) is a Mexican folk genre, part oral history, part cultural myth. It was a sure thing that sooner rather than later, the saga of Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez would become the stuff corridos are made of. And here it is: a new corrido, to be moaned rather than sung. Ay.

El corrido de Alberto Gonzalez

By Lola la bloguera

Poor Alberto Gonzalez made his camino all the way to the top

His father was un borracho but his mama was requete wise

Al graduated from Harvard, was a Texas Supreme and knew about big planes

But then poor Alberto Gonzalez hitched his wagon to a poisonous bush

And although he made the White House and became the country's A.G.

his jefe, el patron The Decider kept him on a very short leash

Now the big caca has hit all the fans and Al gets kicked in el tush

The serious hombre de San Anton gets thrown to the lobos

all because he hitched his wagon to a poisonous bush

Ay ay ay, adios Al Gonzalez you'll go back to las siembras tejanas

Aunque republicano, once we were proud of you for all that you achieved

but it now seems you were too brown-nosed even for the White House

y ahora pronto to esperan potatos, tomatos and chiles picantes

but Lola just wonders what would Molly Ivins have said about all this

Ay, ay, ay. . .