Here is a video from the group No More Deaths, a humanitarian organization dedicated to saving lives along the US-Mexico border.
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Here is a video from the group No More Deaths, a humanitarian organization dedicated to saving lives along the US-Mexico border.
LATINO LIKE ME 
I am the child of an immigrant father from the continent of Africa. My father arrived here in 1959 legally. During that time students from parts of Africa were invited to Russia and the US to study. While he didn’t leave his country for economic reasons, I would shudder to think that he would be met with this level of inhumanity. Having said that, I think it important to note that my father’s homeland is not a neighbor of the US. Mexico does not only border the US but shares the same land mass. How can we be so hateful to our neighbors??? I think about the plight of our neighbors a lot. Probably more than I should, but I am a Californian. I think about how their plight affects me and other Americans. It is not an easy life. I also think about the plight of many African immigrants flooding not only their continental neighbors, but their European and Middle Eastern ones as well. They too are met with racism, and inhumanity. RACISM & SEXISM are cancers that we have to actively counterattack with vigilance. However, we do have laws, and regardless of our intentions we have to take responsibility for our challenging the law. Especially, when we are not a citizen of the land we are trying to enter. If we succeed, and laws are changed then all those who have lost their lives along the way will not be in vain. I know this, because all the lives lost ( during the middle passage, Chattel slavery, Jim Crowe lynchings, bombing of churches, etc) trying to achieve civil rights in a land where you were born in, a land my ancestors (who were exported unwillingly) helped to build economically with a whip to their back, and their offspring sold like rice, and who were not only thought to be 3/5th’s a human being but treated as less…those deaths are not in vain because although this country has a long way to go when it comes to race it has become more civilized by the laws challenged and changed by my ancestors. Before I close, I have to add, that I find it a little one sided to suggest (by not including) the role that the Mexican government is playing in the demise of it’s own people. As it would be negligent of me not to point out the corruption of those African countries that continuously mistreat it’s people causing them to flee. Perhaps, the issue is that the US has a problem with poor “dark skinned” Indian looking latino’s crossing the border (as this is the preferred depiction of the immigrant Latino) while we dismiss the “fair skinned” European looking ones. The US is a racialized society (so is Latin America) where the pigment of ones skin, usually defines the kind of treatment we can and often times will receive. Thank you for posting this and for your blog in general. I am an African American female born and raised in LA. I have all my life been raised around Latino’s. My mother (rip) an African American spoke Spanish fluently and loved Latin culture. Unfortunately, there is a rift between some Latino’s and African -Americans and this is a travesty.