Tens of thousands of immigrants and their allies (and maybe more) are heading to Washington, D.C. to march for comprehensive immigration reform this Sunday. When I was in San Jose for my book tour, I happened to join a prayer vigil for reform–expecting perhaps 50-100 people. Instead, the group that organized the action, People Acting in Community Together, turned out nearly 700 folks. It was amazing, and got me thinking about how there might be tons of really effective organizing–and really motivated leaders–that are just below the media’s radar.
I wrote a piece about the San Jose event, and the lead up to the march this Sunday, for The Nation. The article, “Immigrants to Obama: It’s Time,” is at http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100405/thompson.
Also, I’m happy to report that a Spanish press has expressed interest in publishing Working in the Shadows. This is absolutely wonderful; one of my disappointments with There’s No Jose Here is that it never got translated, so many of the people I wrote about couldn’t actually read it. It’s still early and nothing has been finalized, but I’m excited about the prospect of sending dozens of Spanish copies to all the people I met during the year.
Okay, that’s it for now. Hope everyone is well, and maybe I’ll bump into a few of you in D.C. on Sunday…
People don’t understand that there are jobs that even those out of work now because of the drop in the economy will do. If we need 500,000 new workers from outside our borders each year in a healthy economy to keep the economy going and the government only grants 5000 visas per year, and only 3 of those are from Mexico how are we going to get this economy working again. The jobs our college educated citizens want depend on there being people to do these other skilled and unskilled labor jobs. We are cutting the limb we are standing on.
CORRECTION: People don’t understand that there are jobs that even those out of work now because of the drop in the economy, will NOT do.