Red Brown and Blue

Raise the Torch: The RBB Study of Undocumented Immigrants

Rudy Ruiz — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 15:28:31 +0000

Click to download full report.

Foreword

America is a nation of immigrants. We’ve heard that refrain time and again since our childhood. As a country we take pride in our history of welcoming newcomers from around the world, and putting them to work in building our great nation. Nothing can be more emblematic of this aspect of American culture than the Statue of Liberty, its torch held high to welcome immigrants onto our shores while also lighting the way to freedom and opportunity.

So what happened to that promise and ideal? Today, massive workplace raids root out undocumented immigrants. Technological advancements tighten the noose around them and the businesses that depend on their labor to survive and grow. Detained immigrants waste away in tent cities. Thousands of families are torn apart, American children kept from their undocumented immigrant parents. Border fences rise and the Border Patrol balloons as human beings seeking a better life die in deserts striving to elude them. And despite promises from politicians on both sides of the aisle, immigration reform remains a distant hope typically dangled before Latino voters only as elections near. How did we get to this point of policy failure and political intransigence so severe that it calls our own humanity and conscience as a nation into question? And how can we break the gridlock and forge a viable solution that upholds our ideals as a nation?

As Red Brown and Blue (RBB) pondered the problem and sought to contribute to that solution, we arrived at this hypothesis:

• Immigrants have always been – and continue to be – beneficial to America’s vitality and growth, but our immigration laws are outdated and must be reformed to legitimize the millions living here and contributing from the shadows. However, unfounded fears, misperceptions, and myths dominate public perception of undocumented immigrants and their impact on the American economy, culture, and society, forming daunting obstacles to immigration reform.

With this in mind, we devised Raise the Torch: the RBB Study of Undocumented Latino Immigrants. Our vision was to help light the way towards progress based on truths and facts, to inject new and accurate information into a dim and stagnant debate with the hope of:

• Helping to break the gridlock by illuminating new areas of shared understanding and potential consensus with regards to the intentions, attitudes, socioeconomic contributions, cultural characteristics, and longterm outlook of undocumented Latino immigrants

• Informing public policy with data-driven insights that might help policymakers craft legislative proposals which are not only palatable politically but are also highly feasible in implementation and compliance

• Empowering Americans to base their perceptions and opinions of undocumented immigrants, and their corresponding positions on immigration reform, on facts and improved understanding of this group, rather than on unfounded fears, myths, and misperceptions

The study illuminates a fascinating portrait of undocumented Latino immigrants in America. It captures the motivations, resilience, and hopes of a community in search of opportunity. The study depicts a population primed to blossom into patriotic and productive citizens if afforded the opportunity to contribute legitimately to our society and economy. At the same time, the findings cast a stark light on the harsh realities of immigrant life as well as the threats and challenges faced by this largely disenfranchised population vulnerable to discrimination, abuse, and hate crimes.

Opening our minds and evolving our positions in the face of new information is essential to our learning and growth both as human beings and as American citizens. A willingness to reevaluate complex issues based on a richer perspective is vital to constructive civil discourse. It is my belief that the information within this study can help voters, influencers, and policymakers more accurately understand undocumented Latino immigrants in order to craft well-informed, humane, just, and feasible bipartisan decisions on immigration reform.

In the end, should we not know a person or a group before we pass judgment upon them and determine their fate? At the very least, this study can help serve that purpose. And at its best, it might not only inform – but also inspire – Americans to prove that we can still raise the torch.

Rudy Ruiz has been hailed as a cultural visionary. A published author and multicultural advocate, Ruiz is an acclaimed multicultural communications entrepreneur. He founded Red Brown and Blue as well as Interlex, one of the nation’s leading advocacy marketing agencies ranked by Ad Age as one of the Top US Agencies across all disciplines. Prior to that, Ruiz earned his BA in Government at Harvard College and his Masters in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Permanent Punishment for Past Transgressions

Jake Negovan — Mon, 21 May 2012 21:18:01 +0000

When a person in the United States is found guilty of a crime by a jury of his or her peers, that person receives a sentence meant to deliver a balance of justice for the crime committed, whether through financial renumeration to the plaintiff or through incarceration. Once the handed-down punishment is fulfilled, the scales of justice are assumed to be even, the offender assumed to have learned a hard lesson in social responsibility, and all parties can proceed with normal life. Unfortunately, our society has developed an insistence on hanging permanent punishments upon people for even minor infractions.

A recent example in the news found a long-time employee of Wells Fargo fired for a shoplifting conviction 40 years in the past. This woman, Yolanda Quesada, was tried and sentenced for a petty crime committed as a teenager, moved on, and lived a lawful life working for Wells Fargo for many years. Bygones should have remained bygones. But the bank’s reading of federal law, and the inflexibility of both the law and the company’s policy, caused them to dig around in her distant past and resulted in her unemployment.

Like Ms. Quesada, a growing number of people today find themselves on the wrong side of the hiring line because of a minor misstep from long ago. Work histories can haunt job-seekers who can’t get far enough away from a long-ago termination. Teenage boys are labeled life-long sex offenders because of camera phone images and text messages from teenage girlfriends. Drug convictions linger throughout adulthood for average kids who experiment with marijuana.

Criminal records, once primarily a tool for law enforcement officials, have crept into everyday life. There no longer exists much opportunity for someone to reform and put the past behind, as any previous transgression will arise whenever an individual applies for a job or a place to live. He or she is effectively sentenced forever, punished in perpetuity for a single offense. The ubiquitous availability of all information, anytime, on anyone, in our electro-omniscient era has created a barrier to turning one’s life around that becomes increasingly difficult to overcome. While there is a minor benefit to screening some individuals out of a small pool of career fields, that benefit does not justify the intrusive examination of one’s life from birth to present day simply for consideration of employment.

The opinions expressed in this post and throughout RedBrownandBlue.com are intended to encourage civil discussion and invite well-reasoned alternatives. You can participate in the conversation by finding us on Facebook or Twitter. We also encourage you to drop us a line by writing to the Editorial Director at jake@redbrownandblue.com.

Jake Negovan drives Red Brown and Blue to be an outlet for progressive political opinion that leads to the betterment of life for the real, multicultural population of the U.S. and the rest of the world. His columns address the issues faced by our country as we continue growing toward a society of equality. More about Jake can be found on the web at jakejots.com or on Twitter@jakenegovan.

Beliefs Are Not Facts

Jake Negovan — Tue, 08 May 2012 18:21:30 +0000

Everyone gets to be right these days. Shaping reality to one’s benefit occurs simply by selecting the audience most likely to accept one’s account of the “facts.” That chosen audience then attaches itself to those facts, becoming emotionally and intellectually beholden to them, and then vigorously defends that version of reality from anyone presenting evidence to the contrary.

Doesn’t that sound crazy? It does. But it happens now and has happened for all of history. History; the recorded account of past events, usually told from the perspective of a conflict’s winner. Control of the public by controlling public information is a tradition that runs from kings and churches through today’s media conglomerates and cable news flavors. But the modern technology of wireless constant connectivity leads each member of the public to believe their individual viewpoints possess unassailable power. At the same time, modern Americans have a soft understanding of their right to intellectual and religious freedom. Those two things together lead many to a misguided notion that their personal beliefs hold the same weight and validity as concrete facts.

Beliefs are not facts. Beliefs are formed by attempts at reasoning without complete information. Facts are demonstrable and repeatable. Facts are measured, beliefs are felt. Beliefs should not be the guiding force of public policy. News, which should be an accounting of and a seeking of factual information, should not come in targeted political varieties. We live in a world where information can be almost instantly verified, if we are only vigilant in protecting truth. But we seem to prefer a world where wee are lied to and manipulated, protecting our own fantasies.

Senators Fail America Again by Not Doing Their Jobs

Jake Negovan — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 20:24:26 +0000

The “Buffet Rule,” a proposal to ensure the wealthiest one percent of Americans pay federal taxes at a rate of at least thirty percent, failed to get the required votes needed to pass and thus died in the United States Senate.

You already heard about that, right?

Just one problem: the bill did get enough votes to pass. The Democratically-controlled Senate, given a piece of legislation that the Democratic president has featured in speeches for months, took it to vote and achieved a 51-45 victory. The Senate is able to pass legislation with a simple majority, meaning one half of the total Senate body (one hundred members) plus one. Fifty-one votes. Fifty-one votes and the law passes. The Buffet Rule received fifty-one votes. So, what the hell?

Sixty votes are required in the Senate to invoke cloture and end the debate on a bill after 30 hours. Without cloture, debate can continue indefinitely, with opposing senators filling up time in any way they wish (one prominent Senator just a few decades ago was known to read from the phone book). This process is known as the filibuster, and the filibuster has been the lurking boogie man of Congress since the Democrats took control in 2009.

Filibusters are not automatic. They require work and dedication by the party using them. A filibuster can backfire, causing tired, bored senators to switch over and vote in favor of cloture just so they can go home. If the opposition to a bill can’t fill the time on the floor 24 hours a day, every day, debate ends and the Senate votes. Fifty-one votes passes. The Buffet Rule had enough votes to pass.

So when you read or hear that the Buffet Rule didn’t pass, know that you’re being misled. The bill could have passed. The senators who are supposed to be aligned with President Obama, supposed to be aligned with the middle-class base of the Democratic Party, supposed to represent the interests of an American public that supports the Buffet Rule, well, those senators just didn’t feel like trying that hard. Your senators didn’t feel like doing their jobs.

Again.

Justice Comes Late, Victory Escapes

Jake Negovan — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 17:19:50 +0000

After 45 days of vacation, justice returned to work on April 11 when George Zimmerman was arrested and charged with murder for the gunshot death of Trayvon Martin.

Zimmerman’s arrest came far too late for anyone to look at this case as anything but a miscarriage of justice. A man killed a boy then received gentle and almost friendly handling from the police. Those police should have done their jobs in a far more professional manner. Those police should have recognized that the dead kid was the actual victim, not the living man with the deadly weapon. Though he still is entitled to a trial that will determine his ultimate culpability, some facts of the matter are undisputed. Zimmerman shot and killed an unarmed teenager. Nothing in that sentence is in question.

I confess to being pleased when the news of Zimmerman’s arrest broke. The chatter surrounding this story reinforced my awareness of the racist attitudes still subtly surviving in our nation, and bewildered me with the lackadaisical concern local law enforcement officials displayed in handling Trayvon’s death. Yesterday’s news felt like a victory, no matter how late-coming.

But then I saw Trayvon Martin’s parents on television.

They expressed gratitude and relief over the arrest. They held hope that justice would prevail in court, and that Trayvon’s legacy would lead to positive change. But as I watched them I was struck by the unchanged fact of their permanent loss. Their son is no more, and Zimmerman’s arrest doesn’t reverse that. Their boy is dead. Always. Forever.

There can be no victory with that realization.

The Silver Lining of the Supreme Court

Jake Negovan — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 14:53:10 +0000

With the Supreme Court reviewing President Obama’s Health Care law to determine whether the individual mandate to buy insurance is Constitutionally allowable, many progressives and liberals fear a defeat of the program. While a defeat would certainly be a major setback for Barack Obama and threaten his reelection campaign, the death of his plan would not be the worst thing for progressive proponents of health care reform in the United States.

Though they run and hide from any such suggestion now, the principle of an individual mandate to purchase health insurance originated with the Republican Party. They argued its merits vigorously during the mid-90s while President Clinton was in office and Hillary Clinton worked to achieve a national universal health care plan. Republicans insisted at the time that an individual mandate was the preferred alternative to the Clintons’ plan, which the GOP claimed would be too expensive and overly-bureaucratic. Always friends to big business, Republican lawmakers worked to deliver profits to insurance companies more than they worked in the interest of the citizenry.

If the Court finds Obama’s conciliatory appeasement of the insurance industry unconstitutional, Americans may be better positioned to someday achieve the universal health care other, more progressive leaders have worked to deliver. A single-payer health care system similar to those enjoyed by every other modernized nation on the planet could be made real by the expansion of Medicare and Medicaid. The Supreme Court reviewed those systems already (fortunately, not the present Justices) and ruled them well within the powers available to our federal government.

Republicans got the health care mandate they always wanted, but their imbecilic insistence to tear down any victory Obama could claim could very well cost them a future case against single-payer.

Shared Knowledge May Not Be Much

Jake Negovan — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 02:18:42 +0000

Today, large groups of people form opinions based on slanted and limited knowledge which they cull from social networks, television clips, and headlines sans story. These snippets tell less than half the tale, but spread like a disease of dumb. Rather than finding one’s knowledge insufficient to discuss opinions among reasoned adults, people are finding themselves surrounded by others who hold the same limited information, and thus wind up believing their knowledge on a particular subject is complete. The circuit of reports in recent weeks concerning the Kony 2012 viral video produced by Invisible Children, Inc. emphasizes a need for individuals to carefully educate themselves on political matters and other news.

The intentions, motivations, and activities of the Invisible Children group have been scrutinized and called into question. So have the realities of the video’s subject, Joseph Kony. So have the actions of the United States in relation to the political situation in Uganda and neighboring nations. Trouble is, most of the scrutiny didn’t come until after millions of people viewed and shared the video, pledging support for its stated cause. Now confusion reigns among the general public, wondering if the whole thing was a con, a lie, an exaggeration, or a misunderstanding. Even worse, the public waits for the next snippet to arrive and give them the answers.

This abridgment of attention the public gives to matters of national or global concern fosters apathy. Accepting and passing on limited information poisons the mind against processing nuanced, complex political problems requiring nuanced, complex solutions.

We need to learn to seek facts before we share stories.

Killing in Afghanistan

Jake Negovan — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 01:44:19 +0000

One of the first stories coming across the news on Sunday morning told of a murderous spree during the night by a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan. The reports claimed a single soldier, acting on his own, broke into the homes of civilians in the Afghan village of Zangabad and murdered sixteen people, including nine children.

The press reports, built largely from details released by NATO and the U.S. government, urgently point out that the murderer acted alone and “outside his chain of command.” He left his post, noticed by Afghan soldiers who then reported his departure to the American forces, and the Americans went looking for him. At least one local witness, though, claimed to have seen several soldiers involved in the killings and reported that they were acting loud and intoxicated. Afghan officials question the reality of a U.S. soldier being able to stray from his post with such tight security enforced around the military base. Indications that the gunman suffered a “breakdown” arose in some stories while others specified that he had no prior record of mental or emotional difficulties during his time in the military. The bottom line is that we don’t know exactly what happened, and we probably won’t know the truth for a long time, if ever.

What we do know is that Americans have occupied Afghanistan for more than a decade. Many of the soldiers over there now were young children when the conflict began, and know no other condition for the country than as one of America’s remote battle grounds. In a fight that never had clearly defined goals, parameters, or even sides, the purpose of our continued presence blurs more with every passing day. The sanity of it all, sparse to begin with, is eroding, twisting the moral compass of men who expected to be heroes, turning them into monsters.

Reality Check for the Fantasists

Jake Negovan — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 05:54:31 +0000

Did the Republican Party finally get their fill of crazy in Michigan on Tuesday? Rick Santorum’s defeat in the Michigan and Arizona primaries after nearly a month of front-running momentum seemed to say so. In sports lingo, Santorum went for the “heat check” in the previous week by railing against college educations, JFK, and the separation of church and state. Turns out, he didn’t have the burn he thought he did, and the vote tally ended up pouring cold water over his aspirations of defeating Mitt Romney in Mitt’s home state.

It had been close – polls showed the two men running neck-and-neck until recent days when Santorum’s true colors started pouring out of his mouth. Rick revealed his beliefs that colleges and universities are liberal indoctrination factories populated by “snobs.” He also attacked the impassioned ideals of a man who not only isn’t alive to respond, but remains one of the most popular and beloved U.S. presidents in our history. John F. Kennedy’s words made Rick Santorum want to throw up, he said, because JFK had the audacity to suggest that no church control the American government, and that a man’s religion not be a barrier to participating in that government. Those ideas apparently make Rick Santorum violently ill.

Santorum’s aversion to non-theocratic American law should come as no surprise to anyone at this point. He has been clear and open that his faith is the basis of his world view, and his interpretation of that faith marginalizes women, homosexuals, non-Christians, Christians of non-Santorum-endorsed denominations, blacks, and non-Americans. The only surprising revelation arising recently is that his right-wing fantasies drift much further into the dark than even most Republicans are comfortable with. By attacking higher education, which many Republicans (including Santorum) benefited from, he went beyond attacking the public school system that the GOP has learned to loathe and went after a keystone of American success stories. By attacking Kennedy, he went beyond the dislike of all things Democrat and aimed at fallen president and a genuine American icon whose assassination is still remembered as a live event by many Republican voters.

The question must now be asked, after the voting GOP base has serial-dated a half-dozen hopefuls, if the insincere and out-of-touch Romney succeeds by being the least bizarre Republican candidate. The fantasists who crave a permanent religious conservatism, in which women are enslaved by biology and laws are transcribed from scripture, have now seen the flaws in Rick Santorum. The other handful of hopefuls who have come, gone, or chosen to senselessly linger each also had a moment of fervent support that dissolved once the reality of their own power fantasies came to light. The Republican base is begrudgingly coming to terms with fact that their array of candidates repels much of the general public because those candidates say out loud things intended to be whispered. That’s the reality, and there’s nothing that can change it at this stage.

Romney still hasn’t made a case for his candidacy. He’s letting his opponents do it for him by being themselves.

Should Race Matter to Colleges?

Jake Negovan — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 23:23:32 +0000

The news broke on Tuesday morning that affirmative action would be challenged again before the Supreme Court of the United States. In Fisher v. University of Texas, the Justices will hear the argument of a white applicant who believes she was denied admission to her college of choice because of her race.

Elevation of this case gives supporters of affirmative action plenty to worry about, considering the conservative bent of the present-day Supreme Court. The expectation/prediction/fear of many is that the Court will overturn their 2003 decision in Grutter v. Bollinger which upheld the use of affirmative action in college admissions to achieve a racially diverse student body, and instead fall more in line with the 2007 decision of Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1, which claimed achieving racial diversity in the classroom was not the role of the state. Justice Elena Kagan announced she would recuse herself from this case, further diminishing the counterbalance to the modern Court’s inhumane conservatism.

Putting all legal precedents and possible ramifications aside for a moment, this case is an embarrassment to the American justice system. The plaintiff’s core argument is that she should not have been refused admission to the college she wished to attend. The racially charged claim of “reverse discrimination” is a sad excuse used by certain white people who have become accustomed to getting their way too often and then suddenly don’t. What the plaintiff, Abigail Noel Fisher, fails to understand, and what the legal forces propelling this case to the high court refuse to concede, is that being denied because of your race is a different thing than not being accepted in favor of other qualified students who are minorities. The first is racial discrimination. The second is a side-effect of anti-discriminatory policies. Other students were selected, and no more room was left at Miss Fisher’s preferred school. It should be noted that Miss Fisher was in no way denied a college education. She simply didn’t get to go where she really wanted to go. Same story that faces thousands of college applicants every single semester who don’t blame it on black people.

See, Miss Fisher had a way into the school that would have circumvented any involvement of race. The University of Texas employed an admissions policy to automatically admit students who graduated in the top 10% of their respective class, regardless of race or any other consideration. That policy created a means of admission for the majority of freshmen accepted to the school. Unfortunately for Abigail Fisher, her grades placed her in the upper 12% of her class. Close, but no cigar.The remaining slots were distributed at the discretion of the school’s admissions board who, in the interest of creating a diverse student body, considered factors including race, economic background, community involvement, and academic performance. Miss Fisher was not selected.

Without having reviewed elements of the case argued in lower courts, this writer has difficulty believing that Miss Fisher was denied admission BECAUSE of her race. As stated above, being excluded because of one’s race is an entirely different matter than being passed over in favor of someone else who isn’t white. Unless her admission file at UT is stamped explicitly as DENIED, REASON: WHITE PERSON, any number of factors could have led to her exclusion. Under current law, no one in the United States is guaranteed a college education, no matter what preparatory steps one may have taken on the way to high school graduation. Miss Fisher’s suit seems to presume otherwise and, even worse, accuse minorities of stealing her right to choose her collegiate destiny.

The apparent weakness of the plaintiff’s argument combined with the ideological disposition of the Justices raises serious questions about the Supreme Court’s decision to hear the case. Rather than a pressing matter of concern for the American people, this looks like an opportunistic stab at affirmative action policies at a time the Court feels it has the votes to kill such policies. The only way for the Court to save face after dignifying this suit with its acknowledgement would be a brutal, shaming defeat of the plaintiff. That appears unlikely to happen. Because of the conservative leaning of the Court and the previous decisions rendered by the sitting Justices, a defeat of the defense seems far more assured.

The education provided by universities today does little to impress. More and more employers report graduates who appear unprepared for employed life. Minds are not tempered or challenged by American universities, but pushed through a systematic exchange of dollars for degrees. Despite the questionable job preparation though, college attendance does provide two important benefits. One is the degree itself, that simple piece of paper that opens the door to elevated incomes. The other is the cultural enrichment created by pooling individuals from different geographic regions, religions, sexual orientations, economic standing, and, yes, races. Eliminating affirmative action programs for college admissions limits minority access to the first of these (perpetuating historically below-average incomes) while also reducing the opportunity for all students to experience the second.

By taking on this case, the Supreme Court is poised to use Miss Fisher’s misguided sense of entitlement as a means of causing further damage to the quality and equality of U.S. education.