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Showing posts with the label illegal immigration

ESPERANZA RISING (audiobook) by Pam Muñoz Ryan

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  Originally published in book format in 2000. Published by Listening Library in 2003. Read by Trini Alvarado Duration: 4 hours, 42 minutes. Unabridged. Synopsis: Esperanza is the main character in a fictionalized version of the author's grandmother's adolescence.  In Mexico, Esperanza is the daughter of a wealthy landowner in Aguascalientes. On this ranch, life is wonderful. She has servants and attends a private school. But, life in Mexico in 1930 is fraught with danger. It is only 10 years after the 10 year long Mexican Revolution and armed bands still roam the countryside. One of these groups kills Esperanza's father and her conniving uncles take the ranch and burn the house down to make sure they keep the land.  The author, Pam Muñoz Ryan Esperanza and her mother join a family of their servants (the ranch manager, the household manager, and their son) and flee to America (California) with false paperwork. They hope to work on American farms and re-establish themselves.

AMERICAN REBOOT: AN IDEALIST'S GUIDE TO GETTING BIG THINGS DONE (audiobook) by Will Hurd

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  Published in March of 2022 by Simon and Schuster Audio. Read by the author, Will Hurd. Duration: 8 hours, 47 minutes. Unabridged. Will Hurd has done a lot of things in his 45 years. He has been an operations analyst for the CIA (working in Pakistan, India, and Afghanistan), he was worked in high-tech (including cyber-security and artificial intelligence), has served 6 years as a member of the House of Representatives from Texas, and is now a Republican candidate for President in 2024. This book was undoubtedly an attempt to introduce Will Hurd to a larger audience. I follow politics pretty well and I had never heard of Will Hurd until he announced his campaign for President in June of 2023 (to be fair, there are 535 members of Congress and most are not well known outside of their districts.) I heard about this book in a political podcast and, lo and behold, it turns out that my library had it. Just to let you know where I am coming from as I review this book, I am a Never Trump Repub

INSURGENCY: HOW REPUBLICANS LOST THEIR PARTY and GOT EVERYTHING THEY EVER WANTED (audiobook) by Jeremy W. Peters

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  Published in February of 2022 by Random House Publishing. Read by the author, Jeremy W. Peters. Duration: 13 hours, 46 minutes. Unabridged. Sorry that this will be a herky-jerky post. It deserves a better one, but that would have to be a much longer post, perhaps 3 or 4 times longer. That would be so lengthy that no one would bother to read it. Peters' book details how the GOP went from the party of Eisenhower and Reagan to the party of MAGA and Trump. The old GOP advocated Free Trade, welcomed immigrants , valued the NATO alliance and wanted to overturn Roe v. Wade. The MAGA party flirts with the idea of leaving NATO, denounces Free Trade agreements, openly despises illegal immigrants and openly discusses the idea that all immigrants (legal and illegal) are being brought into the U.S. to replace white people with more compliant people of color. As Tucker Carlson, the number one cable news voice of the MAGA movement, stated in April 202 1, " the Democratic Party is trying to

THE GOD WHO SEES: IMMIGRANTS, the BIBLE, and the JOURNEY to BELONG (audiobook) by Karen Gonzalez

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  Published by Tantor Audio in November of 2020. Read by Joana Garcia. Duration: 5 hours, 25 minutes. Unabridged. This is the second time in less than a month that I am reviewing and audiobook that covers the topic of immigration written by an Hispanic immigrant. In both cases, I came to the book highly prepared to like it and in both cases I was disappointed. The author, Karen Gonzalez I have no problem at all with the points that Gonzalez makes in this book. As a Christian, I think many Christians have been on the wrong side of this issue for decades (including me, for a while). However, this book just doesn't seal the deal. It says a lot of the right things, but it doesn't do the trick. Issues: 1) There are pieces of sloppy research, or maybe just sloppy writing or editing. For example, when the author asserts that the concept of borders came around with the end of the Thirty Years War and the series of treaties known as the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. I think she was refe

THE UNDOCUMENTED AMERICANS (audiobook) by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio

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  Published in 2020 by Random House Audio. Read by the author, Karla Cornejo Villavicencio. Duration: 4 hours, 53 minutes. Unabridged. Villavicencio is a "Dreamer", also known as a DACA kid. DACA is the program started by President Obama to deal with immigrants who came to the United States illegally as children. Generally speaking, the only country they've ever known is the United States and they had no say in immigrating to the United States. Congress refused to deal with this situation so President Obama created a program through executive orders. This meant that when President Trump came to office he was able to undo a lot of this plan with another executive order.  The author Villavicencio's very personal look at the DACA program and the general mess of our immigration policy was inspired by the election of Donald Trump, but it was not what I was hoping for when I started listening to this audiobook. I was really hoping for policy analysis with a healthy bit of p

SUPERMAN: DAWNBREAKER: DC ICONS (audiobook) by Matt de la Peña

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Published by Listening Library in 2019. Read by Andrew Elden. Duration: 7 hours, 28 minutes. Unabridged. Set in modern America, Matt de la Peña delivers a traditional Superman origin story with a little bit of a twist. This book follows along the line of the Smallville TV show, with Metropolis being within driving distance of Superman's Kansas hometown instead of basically being a stand-in for New York City. Big things are going on in Smallville. A tech firm has moved in, bringing in lots of jobs and a new corporate headquarters. They also are buying up farm land. And, a new smaller company has come in as well. Also, LexCorp is sniffing around. Smallville is considering passing a law requiring people suspected of being illegal immigrants (there is a burgeoning Hispanic population who serve as farm workers and work in a meat processing plant) to produce papers on sight and Hispanic men are disappearing. Clark Kent has always been amazingly strong, but that could be passed of

STRANGER: EL DESAFÍO de un INMIGRANTE LATINO en la ERA de TRUMP (en español) by Jorge Ramos

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Published by Vintage Español in 2018. If you are not a viewer of Univision, you may be unfamiliar with Jorge Ramos. He is a news anchor/reporter for the network. I knew Ramos for one reason - he was literally thrown out of a major press conference during the Iowa Caucus season for asking then-candidate Donald J. Trump too many pointed questions about the centerpiece of his campaign - the wall.  Ramos (on the left with no tie) trying to ask then-Candidate Trump a few tough questions during the Iowa press conference.  Ramos was born and raised in Mexico City, but moved to America for additional journalistic training and in search of the opportunity to be more free in his journalistic practice. He kind of lucked into broadcast journalism but he has run with it and done quite well for himself. He has become an American citizen as well. Ramos addresses the press conference story right away. It's not as dramatic as it looked on TV, because the future President did let him come ba

Taken (Elvis Cole #15) (Joe Pike #4) by Robert Crais

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Published in 2012 by G.P. Putnam's Sons I've been reading a lot of "assigned" reading lately. By assigned reading I mean books I agreed to review for publishers/authors or books that I read just to shrink my dreaded 4-milk-crates-full "to be read" pile. They were mostly good books, (some were great, even) but when I was at the local purveyor of books I saw this Elvis Cole novel I had to get it to read just for me because it was my idea in the first place because I am such a fan of this series. Robert Crais In Taken Elvis Cole is hired to find a missing college student. A widowed mother has received a call for a few hundred dollar ransom but she believes her daughter has ran off with "that boy" and is trying to scam her for money to go off and get married in Las Vegas. Sadly, Cole proves her wrong. The girl and "that boy" have been kidnapped by bajadores - bad guys that kidnap illegal aliens coming into the United States in o

Rights at Risk: The Limits of Liberty in America by David K. Shipler

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Highly Recommended Published by Alfred A. Knopf in 2012 Last summer I read David K.Shipler's first book on this topic, The Rights of the People: How Our Search for Safety Invades Our Liberties (see my review by clicking here ) and I found it to be the most profound book I read that summer and maybe all year. I began my review of that book with this thought: "I always tell people that the traditional left-right continuum used to describe someone's politics is so inaccurate as to be useless. Really, what is the difference between an aging hippie living on a hill somewhere  raising some dope for personal use and telling the government to get out of his business and a Barry Goldwater-type conservative (like me) living by himself on a hill somewhere that tells the government to get its nose out of his business? Some dope. Otherwise, they are both determined advocates of civil liberties - keep out of my business if it is not hurting anyone else." When I read the f

Days of Obligation: An Argument With My Mexican Father (audiobook) by Richard Rodriguez

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Rodriguez writes a rambling, insightful and interesting work Published by Blackstone Audio in 2008 Duration: 8 hours, 14 minutes I first learned of Richard Rodriguez on C-Span's Booknotes program. He was an invited guest of First Lady Laura Bush to speak at an author's fair that she started hosting in Texas while she was the First Lady of Texas. Rodriguez was promoting his book Brown at the the time and I thought his observations were wonderful. Days of Obligations is in a similar vein, but not nearly as focused. He does (primarily) focus on the differences between Mexico and the United States Two interesting observations from Mexicans about America include: 1) "America is 'Organized'. Passive voice. Rodriguez notes that there seems to be no connection that actual Americans do the organizing. Rather it's almost like it is fate that America is organized. 2) Americans have too much freedom. Rodriguez digresses from his Mexico/America discu

After America: Get Ready for Armeggedon by Mark Steyn

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"If something cannot go on forever, it will stop" The above quote is from the economist Herbert Stein. Besides being a clever little bit of the obvious, a Yogi Berra-type quote, it is also part of a scary thought about America itself that Mark Steyn points out in After America - America cannot keep doing what it is doing forever and hope to lead the world - it will stop. It cannot keep  borrow 40% of its budget forever and hope to keep its economy afloat or offer its children a decent future. America cannot hope that a post-America world will be pleasant - as Steyn notes on page 14 "...it's not hard to figure out how it's going to end." After America: Get Ready for Armageddon is really the sequel to America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It a book that details how low birth rates, a general cultural malaise and a nanny state stupor threatens to overwhelm the same countries that once led the world in political, military and cultural might. N

Be the People: A Call to Reclaim America's Faith and Promise by Carol M. Swain, PhD

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Sometimes incredibly strong, sometimes deeply flawed. Carol M. Swain's Be the People: A Call to Reclaim America's Faith and Promise is a look at several broad areas of concern in American policy, including the high divorce rate, abortion, gay marriage, illegal immigration, race relations in America, HIV, school prayer and the high unemployment among those with lower levels of education. First, the positives: -Swain's personal story is inspirational and she shares it as she writes about these issues. -Swain accurately describes how illegal immigration destroys job opportunities for the least educated Americans by driving the wages down to a pathetically low level. It is not that Americans will not do those jobs, they will not do them for that low of a wage. She also provides a humane 15 point plan to deal with illegal immigration. -Her commentary on race and racism are quite interesting and well thought out. I teach in a multi-racial school with a near even mi

Illegals: The Unacceptable Cost of America's Failure to Control Its Borders by Darrell Ankarlo

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A thorough discussion of the topic, from a stop-the-bleeding perspective Mark Twain once noted that, "Everyone complains about the weather, but no one does anything about it. I was reminded of this quote while reading Darrell Ankarlo's  Illegals: The Unacceptable Cost of America's Failure to Control Its Borders. Everyone has an opinion about illegal immigration, but precious few people have even seen the border, let alone know anything about the high cost of illegal immigration, the physical danger it creates, how it is done and the long-term damage it does to the United States. This is an eye-opening, scary look at the world of illegal immigrants - the dangers of crossing the border, the coyotes who guide them across, the drug gangs, and the U.S. Border Patrol. The first half of the  book is a powerful and consuming introduction to how immigrants cross the border, how the Border Patrol pursues its policy of "catch and release" and the extreme poverty of pa

The Great Progression: How Hispanics Will Lead America to a New Era of Prosperity by Geraldo Rivera

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Much like Geraldo himself, this book is a lot of sizzle and not much substance Sadly, I have to establish my bonafides here, otherwise I'll just get attacked in the comments section. I am a history and a Spanish teacher (20th year this year!). I live in an ethnically mixed neighborhood in which my best neighbors are, by far, a Mexican family. I live with illegal immigration every day, in my neighborhood and at my work. I am not a raving nut that says "round 'em up!" Nor am I an open borders guy that wants to take in the whole world. My neighborhood has been improved, my workplace has not - thanks to No Child Left Behind, my school's population of non-English speaking Hispanics will doom us to be labeled a failed school (fail just one category, you fail - period!) because they cannot pass the tests in English. So, now that we've gotten that out of the way, on to Geraldo's book, The Great Progression: How Hispanics Will Lead America to a New Era of Pro

Brown: The Last Discovery of America by Richard Rodriguez

Great. Thought-provoking. Richard Rodriguez is a San Francisco-based writer who was asked to write a book about being Hispanic in America. I doubt Brown: The Last Discovery of America was the book that the publisher had in mind when they asked. Rodriguez is a true political maverick whose thesis is that America is becoming "Brown" - a mixture of Anglo, Hispanic, Black, Asian and whatever else you want to throw in. America can embrace this future (and probably will) or it can reject it and deny the reality that surrounds us all (and does it matter if you deny reality - it is still there). I first heard of Rodriguez on C-Span. He was giving a speech at the Texas Book Fair created by Laura Bush. His speech was truly wonderful and I just had to find his book. I could go into detail on his observations, but you would much prefer if you would read it the way he put them in his book - his writing style is so fluid that he sneaks major concepts into your thoughts before you ev

Alien Nation: Common Sense About America's Immigration Disaster by Peter Brimelow

Thought-provoking - made me question some long-held views Peter Brimelow has written a thought-provoking work that exposes the quirks and idiosyncracies of America's immigration policies by providing lots and lots of details, facts and charts while, for the most part, keeping the text lively and interesting. Not a mean feat. Brimelow is a writer for Forbes Magazine and, apparently, he enjoys digging into controversial topics. I've also reviewed another of his books concerning Teacher's Unions. He goes after the potentially explosive topic of immigration in two ways. First, he looks at the ways the current laws were supposed to have worked by delving in to the original debates of 1965. Secondly, he goes after America's cherished beliefs about immigration and asks rather simple questions that usually dismantle those beliefs as easily as a breeze destroys a house of cards. He tiptoes on the edge of sounding racist (he often questions whether it is in the best inter