Category Archives: Immigration

Stay Home Forever, Save More Lives

What an exciting time to be a grocery store clerk. You are hailed as a hero just for showing up at work. It’s a long way from storming the beaches of Normandy, but that was another America. In this America, we’re encouraged to behave like frightened hypochondriacs while our political leaders induce an economic meltdown, […]

‘What if God Was One of Us?’

Thousands of Mexican girls and women have disappeared into the deserts outside Ciudad Juárez, and it’s Bill Clinton’s fault. Nobody actually says so in Isaac Gomez’s play, “La Ruta,” being staged by Portland’s Artists Repertory Theatre. But the play links the murders of thousands of girls and young women in Juárez to the North American […]

Occupy ICE: A Portland cesspool

The one-month anniversary this week of the Occupy encampment at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Portland, Ore., ended with a quiet thud – not the day of action and celebration it was supposed to be. “Organizers behind #OccupyICEPDX are celebrating one month of collective resistance in a movement that has spread across […]

The Truth About Africa and Haiti

What a shit-storm over a question that deserves to be explored. Why should the United States take in immigrants from “shit-hole countries” like Africa and Haiti rather than from places like Norway? It’s hard to know what’s worse – that President Donald Trump was so indiscriminate in front of people he should’ve known would use […]

Media Trumped by Tribalism

There’s an old saying in journalism that a reporter is only as good as his or her sources. What does it say about America’s national news media that they were caught so surprised by Donald Trump’s victory? Perhaps they spend too much time talking to pollsters and each other. Instead of cultivating sources, they cultivate […]

Secrets of the Urban Forest

Donald Trump wants to build a wall. I’d like to get rid of some rats. What we want has something in common, but one is much easier to condemn than the other. To most people, rats are disgusting and unwanted; they are disease carriers. The illegal immigrants that Trump wants to keep out are human beings. […]

Young Fascists Colonize Portland

She was a picture of Aryan perfection: Blonde hair, the color of straw. Creamy complexion. Pale eyes. Thin, colorless lips. Blonde on blonde on blonde. She followed me into the Saffron Colonial Cafe in North Portland where I had taken a seat for a late Sunday lunch. “I want you to know that what you said […]

Heathens in The Grotto

The New York Times ended the year with the story and video of Farkhunda Malikzada, a young Afghan woman beaten to death and  desecrated by a mob of men because they believed she had burned a Quran. Not surprisingly, some Times’ readers rushed in to remind us that Nazis, Communists and American race-based lynch mobs […]

Fear of Black Men

The year 2042 can’t get here fast enough. That’s the year when demographers predict white people will be the statistical minority in the U.S. Finally, black folks will have to find someone else to blame besides whitey. Only joking. I’m not worried about being a statistical minority because I’ve never felt part of a majority. […]

The Virtuous Terrorist

It was a fine autumn day to sentence a man for attempting to detonate a weapon of mass destruction. A day as agreeable as that day in 2001 when terrorists brought down the Twin Towers. Mohamed O. Mohamud’s ambitions were smaller. He wanted to blow up the Christmas-tree lighting ceremony in downtown Portland, Ore. Two […]