Response: Arizona Police Officer Sues Over Immigration Law

Here's a link to the article on which I will comment in this blog, so take a read if you wish.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/04/29/arizona.immigration.lawsuit/index.html?hpt=Sbin

The new immigration laws that were passed in Arizona this past week have caught a lot of opposition across the United States. Many Americans believe that enforcing these laws would mean allowing police officers to racially profile in attempts to catch illegal immigrants in the state. Racially profiling is obviously an illegal practice that cannot be used by law enforcement, but the language in the new Arizona law in vague enough to allow profiling to occur. The new legislation also requires immigrants to carry their papers proving citizenship in the United States temporarily or permanently. Many believe this is an inconvenience that should not burden immigrants who lawfully went through the immigrations process, simply because a few bad apples that happen to have the same color skin as them did not do the same.

Days after this legislation was passed, Officer Martin Escobar has filed a lawsuit in federal court requesting that local police officers in Tuscon, Arizona not be required to enforce the new laws. Escobar believes that these new laws will prevent law enforcement to carry out all aspects of their jobs, most importantly the "successful commission of crimes". Like many Americans, Escobar does not see how the law can be enforced without enacting some sort of racial-bias to find those who are 'reasonably suspicious' (from the legislation). Still, Governor Brewer of Arizona and others deny that racial profiling has anything to do with the new law. This legislation hits close to home with police like Escobar, who themselves are naturalized American citizens. Since more than fifty percent of the residents of south Tuscon are Hispanic, the law would alienate a majority of the population. Escobar also believes that the laws would damage the integral relationship between police and the hispanic community that allows crimes to be solved and the community to remains safe.

I first heard of the new and extremely severe immigration laws in Arizona on the Colbert Report, which obviously took the topic and put a comedic spin on it. As funny as it was to hear Steven Colbert rip on the Arizona Government for the vague words "reasonably suspicious", this news story certainly brings me back down to earth. When foreigners from any nation decide that they would like to emigrate to the United States and they go through the correct legal process of naturalization, they should have the same rights as all of us. I could not imagine having to walk around as a legal immigrant, feeling like a constant suspect, fearing the police, and having to carry my papers around constantly. That would certainly not make me feel at home. Now don't get me wrong, some sort of change is necessary to stop illegal immigration to the United States, because its furthering unemployment and crime in our country. But basically questioning someone for being Hispanic is not right in my mind. Officer Escobar has a point with his lawsuit. To harvest trust between the police and Hispanic people in Arizona and other border states, discriminating laws like this cannot exist. They will foster more crime and a division within the community, something that an already tense situation does not need. Whether we need to up national security at the borders or do something else to prevent illegals from entering America, we cannot alienate our own citizens. These naturalized citizens rightfully pursued their American Dream, just like all of our ancestors who came here, and they deserve the right to freedom from fear in this nation.

American Dream: Joe Zawinul

Over the history of time, music has come to help define cultures and act as a voice for the emotion of different people all over the world. The first genre of music that can be considered truly an American creation is Jazz. I developed a love for jazz music in high school while playing bass in my school's band, but I never really appreciated the people behind the genre until I came to college and took a course in jazz history. One particular story of an Austrian jazz musician named Josef Zawinul, who played with greats like Miles Davis, Maynard Ferguson, Cannonball Adderley, and the Weather Report, is an example of the American Dream of jazz music.

Born into a family of gypsies in Vienna, Austria in 1932, Zawinul trained his entire childhood at a music conservatory in his homeland before emigrating to the United States for a career in jazz. He received a scholarship from Berklee School of Music in Boston to play the piano, one of the top music schools in our country. After playing with some of the original jazz greats like Adderley and Davis, Zawinul teamed up with a saxaphonist named Wayne Shorter to form the Weather Report. With the popularity of R&B and Rock music growing throughout this time in the 1960's and 70's, Zawinul and his group played music with the power of a rock group, all maintaining the technical musicianship of jazz musicians. Hits like "Birdland" thrust jazz music back into the mainstream, all be it for only a short time. But Zawinul's integration of electronic, jazz, rock, and R&B music to help form a new genre now known as 'jazz fusion' has had lasting impacts on American music to this day.

Zawinul studied music in Austria with the dream to come to America and be a part of the jazz music culture in America. Instead, he came to our country and created his own American Dream, revolutionizing the genre and reaching a level of creativity in music that is no longer seen these days. Zawinul once said, speaking of classic jazz, “It was great music, ... but it has passed. It is wonderful to recall it, fun to hear it, but that is not for me: I get too restless, too bored; I need something new". If all Americans had that level of motivation and passion to change the world, our nation would certainly be a better place.

American Dream: "Sugar" (2008)

With baseball season just getting underway, I would be remiss if I didn't blog about America's pastime and my favorite sport in some shape or form. The other night I had the opportunity to watch an awesome movie called Sugar, suggested by a friend as an instant classic. The movie is a story of Miguel "Sugar" Santos, a Dominican kid living a different life than most of his peers. Sugar is enrolled in a baseball academy in the Dominican Republic, in hopes of honing his already phenomenal pitching abilities in order to save his family from their impoverished lives. Spending his weekends in a shack and his weekdays in a beautiful school, Miguel lives a double life, teetering between poverty and wealth. He is a celebrity around his village, and kids emulate him and his opportunity for a better life. His hope is to move to America and strike it rich playing major league baseball. After developing a nasty pitching repertoire, Sugar tries out for a major league team and he is signed to a deal with their single-A farm team in Iowa. With his dream seemingly coming true at the young age of nineteen, Sugar thinks he's on the fast track. Sugar lives with an American family that also houses a veteran teammate, Jorge, who is also Dominican and have traveled the same path as Sugar. Miguel finds it difficult to adjust to speaking English and living in a foreign land away from his family. Sugar's dominance on the field ends when he injures himself on a routine play. This injury would prove to be fatal to Miguel's dream, taking away his motivation and drive to play the game. Eventually, a new Dominican prospect begins to push Sugar out of the rotation, and at that point Miguel decides to leave baseball and his dream behind. Sugar moves to New York City to try to find his own American Dream, but again struggles to assimilate into American society. He eventually finds refuge with other Dominican baseball players who failed in the same quest.

This movie examines a culture in the Dominican that has produced some great baseball players, most notably Sammy Sosa and David Ortiz. These children's lives revolve around baseball, with their families hoping that they will be one of the lucky ones to make it big. Their American Dream therefore revolves around the money and fame achieved from being a professional athlete. But as we learn through Miguel in the movie, money does not buy happiness. His loneliness consumes him, although he is amidst the dream that he had worked so hard to achieve. His failure to achieve his dreams and the dreams of his family may have actually made him happier though, finding a community of friends in NYC and pursuing another dream, although it may not be what he had planned. This movie shows that the American Dream may not necessarily revolve around money and prosperity, but instead around happiness and camaraderie.

"Dive In" by Dave Matthews Band

"DIVE IN"

I saw a man on the side of the road
with a sign that read 'will work for food'
Tried to look busy, 'til the light turned green

I saw a bear on TV and his friends were all drowning
cause their homes were turning to water

A strange, kinda sad, big old bear
surely would happily eat me
he'd tear me to pieces that bear

Wake up sleepy head
I think the suns a little brighter today
Smile and watch the icicles melt away and see the water rising...
Summers here to stay, and all those summer games will last forever
Go down to the shore, kick off your shoes, dive in the empty ocean.

Tell me everything will be OK if I just stay on my knees and keep praying
believing in something
Tell me everything is all taken care of by those qualified to take care of it all.

Wake up sleepy head
I think the suns a little brighter today
Smile and watch the icicles melt away and see the waters rising
Summers here to stay, and that sweet summer breeze will blow forever
Go down to the shore, kick off your shoes, dive in the empty ocean

One day, do you think we'll wake up in a world on it's way to getting better?
and if so can you tell me
how?

I have been thinking that lately the blood is increasing
the tourniquets not keeping hold in spite of our twisting
though we would like to believe we are
we are not in control
though we would love to believe

Wake up sleepy head
I think the suns a little brighter today
Smile and watch the icicles melt away and see the water rising...
Summers here to stay, and those sweet summer girls will dance forever
Go down to the shore, kick off your shoes, dive in the empty ocean

This song off of Dave's most recent album seems to be an interesting commentary on the global warming debate. Now my views on global warming are simple, so I'll get that out of the way now: regardless of whether rising temperatures are simply correlated to rising CO2 levels by chance or directly caused by the increase of carbon dioxide, America and other industrialized nations need to make changes in the way we power our infrastructure (a.k.a. ween ourselves off of fossil fuels). I know what you're thinking... I'm a radical. tree-hugging, unpatriotic socialist, but talk to me in forty years when society as we know it has crumbled when we run out fossil fuels. By then all the oil and drilling company execs will be dead and gone, after living a happy and wealthy life spent completely ignoring the well-being future generations and reaping the benefits of delaying our movement to alternative energy. (Just in case anyone actually reads this, I'm not a bitter person, but this topic is among a few that get my blood boiling) But I digress, this song captures the feelings of people from many points of view on global warming. I think the first stanza is trying to capture how the average American kind of ignores the affects of capitalism (e.g. global warming, homeless people or others who get left in the dust). The second stanza is clearly talking about polar bears who's 'homes', or our ice caps, are melting due to warming trends. The forth stanza, or the chorus, is a satire on the entire global warming situation, saying 'hey, this global warming thing isn't so bad, lets go down to the beach and enjoy the nice weather, and have the ocean all to ourselves'. Obviously, the naivety of this statement is intended. The empty ocean implies the death of sea life due to decrease in salinity of ocean water as polar ice caps melt. The thought of such ignorance of the depth of the effects of the global warming problem would be funny, if it weren't true. The fifth stanza comes from the point of view of Americans and really anyone who believes that the government completely acts on the interest of our well-being and that of future generations. The line "those qualified to take care of it all" seems to beg the question, 'what makes them qualified?'. Their degrees from prestigious Universities? Their election to office? We would all be fools to think (no pun intended) that elected officials don't sometimes have their own interests and the interests of their cronies (in the oil industry) in mind, ahead of their people. What I'm getting at is that, if we keep depending on those 'qualified' people to take care of necessary changes, such as funding for research in sustainable energy, the change may never come. The seventh stanza seems to suggest the same thing, if we want a better world, we're not just going to wake up to it one day, we need to individually make an effort to change things, whether energy related or otherwise. The eighth stanza states more of the same: although we would like to think that 'we the people' have some sort of control over the problems facing society, many of them may just be out of our control. Whether this is speaking our governments ultimate control over what happens, or our human inability to control cycles like global warming or economic recessions, I don't know. But I do know that this song gives a great perspective on the debate of global warming, and it speaks to Americans today in a way that is very relevant. To continue to live our 'American Dream' in this fashion of consumerism, without lifting our heads from our asses to see the negative effects, would be a mistake. This mistake may not manifest itself for a few more decades, but when it does, it will most certainly mark the end of the American Dream.

Mark Cuban Revolution

Never before in the history of major sports has a team's owner been the biggest star and most recognizable face of the franchise. But never before has professional sports seen a personality quite like Mark Cuban. He's the only owner I can remember getting ejected from a basketball game, attacking opposing players personally, and getting fined over 1.6 million dollars in total by the NBA for multiple infractions. But still he sits behind the Dallas Mavericks bench during every game. Although, his eccentric behavior and risk-taking sometimes get him in trouble, these same characteristics are what put Cuban in the position he is today, with a net worth of 2.3 billion dollars, among the top 300 richest people on earth. But Cuban didn't always have it so good. Born into a working class family in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, a grandson of Russian immigrants, Mark was a business man from the start. Cuban first entered the business world at the age of 12 to earn money for a pair of basketball shoes, and continued to work odd jobs during his education, including a stint as a disco dancing teacher. To pay for his college education at Indiana University, Cuban began a self made business selling stamps. After college, Cuban left his job as a software salesman to start his own software business, eventually selling this company years later for 6 million dollars. Cuban's real breakthrough occurred when he began an online broadcasting network with a former classmate, eventually selling it to Yahoo for 5.9 billion dollars. This rags to riches story truly captures what I believe to be the real American Dream: passion for his work, persistence, and setting himself apart from the rest, all coupled with hard work and innovative thinking. When asked by Forbes Magazine 'what is the American Dream?', Cuban stated, "The American Dream is knowing that you can create the life you want on your own terms." There's no doubt that Mark Cuban lives on his own terms, but despite the controversy, I would say he's better for it.

References: Forbes.com, Wikipedia

"Good Will Hunting" and the American Dream

As a part of the Thursday Night movie series held weekly in my friend Ernie’s dorm (aka Studio 54), I had the pleasure of watching “Good Will Hunting”, one of my favorite movies. This time watching it though, I saw the story from a different perspective after spending a few months discussing the idea of the American dream in English class. To give a very brief plot summary, the protagonist, Will Hunting, is an orphan of about twenty years old living on the south side of Boston who spends his days working as a janitor at MIT and his nights reading textbooks and novels. Will is a diamond in the rough, a self taught genius in just about every subject who conversely hangs with a tough crowd and has an extensive criminal record. His prodigious mind is discovered when he solves highly complex math problems that were left on the chalkboard for MIT graduate students to prove. At around the same time, his smarts and quick thinking also land him a girlfriend, Skylar, who is a student at Harvard. The professor who discovers Will, Gerald Lambeau, is himself a mathematical genius with numerous awards and wide notoriety in the field. Soon after, Will begins attending court-appointed meetings with a psychiatrist due to his past abuse at the hands of foster parents. His psychiatrist, Sean McGuire, who happens to be Lambeau’s former roommate at MIT, teaches at a community college and was recently widowed and like Will, is at a crossroads in his life. In short, the rest of the movie is a struggle between Sean and Lambeau to decide what is best for Will. Each of them have different views on what the American Dream is from their own past experiences, with Lambeau fixated on the Field’s medal that he won and his lucrative teaching position at the top technical college in the world. Contrastingly, Sean highlights the happiness he gained from waking up every morning next to the love of his life, teaching psychology and sharing his experiences with college students, and not ending up an arrogant prick like Lambeau despite their equal level of education. These contrasting views of the American Dream really make the viewer wonder how success is measured: awards, success, and money or happiness, companionship, and humility. Meanwhile, Will is making the decision between becoming a blue collar construction worker for life, which will allow him to stay with his friends and life safely within the life he already knows, or to follow the path of greatness that Lambeau has laid out for him. Overwhelmed and still obviously dealing with trust issues, Will breaks up with Skylar when she asks him to move to California with her. In a crucial point in the movie, Will is talking to his best friend, Chuckie, about his intentions to stay in south Boston forever with him, to which his friend replies, “If you’re still here in twenty years, I’ll fucking kill you…You’re sitting on a winning lottery ticket…I would kill to have what you have…It would be an insult to all of us here if you were still here”. Will’s desire at that point to continue to live an underprivileged life is basically the antithesis of my understanding the 21^st Century American Dream. Most Americans nowadays would give anything to do as little work as possible to cash in big. Will has the chance to do that because of his crazy intellect, but wants no part in it. In the end, after Will has a breakthrough in a psychiatry session, he chooses neither south Boston nor Cambridge (MIT); instead, he chooses Sean’s version of the American Dream, pursuing love and companionship by traveling out to California to be with Skylar.