Medi-Cal and undocumented immigrants

http://www.latimes.com/local/politics/la-me-immigrants-medi-cal-20160427-story.html

This article discusses the efforts being made to enable undocumented immigrants to get health care in California. Apparently, the state has decided to allow anyone under 19 who is here illegally to be covered under Medi-Cal. That comes out to about 17,000 people.

The article explains that it's easy to get health insurance for kids, since it's cheaper and easier to get people on board with. The issue is whether undocumented adults will get the same coverage, which is described as being "a much harder sell."

"Excuse me, sir"

Here's that article I mentioned in class last time. It's about a construction worker named Diego Reyna, who hung a Mexican flag on the Trump Tower project in Vancouver, Canada. He is a Canadian citizen, but is from Mexico, and some of his friends work at the site. The point he was trying to make is that despite Trump's rhetoric about Mexican immigrants, he still has no objection to taking advantage of the work they do.

Reyna then took a picture of the flag, which then was spread all over the Internet. He is is quoted in the article as saying "I’m a humble, middle-class construction worker. He’s a huge guy, a billionaire, and a candidate to run one of the most powerful countries in the world. Putting a Mexican flag on his tower is the only possible way I can say, ‘Excuse me, sir.’"

Personally, I think this was an effective means of protest. His actions made a clear statement without being violent or destructive, and putting it on the Internet made sure it was noticed in the United States as well as Canada. Predictably, the flag has since been removed.

Deportation and crime

This article from the New York Daily News website tells the story of a few individuals who were faced with deportation after committing crimes. The first one mentioned was a man from Guyana who was almost sent back after being caught for a crime he committed a decade prior. Since then he'd gotten involved in nonprofit organizations dealing with criminal justice, and the people he'd met through that work were enough to keep him in the country. However, most people in his situation are not so lucky.

It might seem like an unusual case, but apparently it isn't at all unusual for immigrants who commit crimes to be deported, even if they came here legally. According to the article, this became common practice in the mid-90s under the Clinton administration, mostly because of the War on Drugs. Obama has continued the trend, and the article claims that the number of deported criminals under his administration is nearly 2 million.

The article makes it clear that not everyone caught in this situation are planning to turn their lives around. In many cases, they really are dangerous criminals who are likely to keep breaking the law once they're out of jail. However, whether deporting them is a good idea or not is a complicated question, especially if they came here legally. Even criminals have families, after all, and deporting them could mean sending them away from their friends and loved ones. Furthermore, deporting criminals does not necessarily make them less likely to be repeat offenders. It seems to me like it's just dumping the problem on someone else, where it's not as visible, instead of actually working to solve it. Then again, I'm no expert on this issue, so there are probably plenty of other elements to it that I'm not aware of.

Illegal immmigration in response to Donald Trump

An article from the Christian Science Monitor website claims that over the last year, illegal immigration from Mexico to the U.S. has gone up 24 percent. It argues that between Donald Trump's promises to build a wall on the border and his success in the polls and primaries, people who had been planning to sneak into the country may feel like this is their last chance. In that regard, Trump's plans may have backfired somewhat.

The article goes on to say that smugglers who make a living taking people over the border are using Trump's claims to convince people to use their services. Additionally, people already in the country are using the same argument to try and get their family members over. While they are concerned about the possibility of living under a Trump presidency (one interviewee claims that people "think he looks like a dictator"), they believe that it would still be better than staying in Mexico or Central America. Many of the people who enter the U.S. illegally do so in order to escape poverty or gang violence, so a chance at a life here seems like a much better option - even if they risk being deported later.

Beyoncé and Formation

Beyonce's new music video has gotten a lot of criticism from various individuals, often for being "anti-police" or "anti-white." On the other hand, it has received praise for its support of the black community, and many have argued that just being pro-black is often interpreted as anti-white.

I have not seen the video myself (although since I'm posting this, I should do so eventually), but I did find an article that contains links to six other articles on the topic. All of them were written by women of color, and the white male author of the article feels that it is better to share their commentary than to try and explain it himself.

Language distribution between states

I mentioned this in class already, but this map shows the most common language in each state besides English and Spanish.

Some of the answers are easy to guess - it's French in Louisiana and Mississippi, big surprise - but others are not so predictable. For example, for Texas, it's Vietnamese. You don't usually think of Texas as a place with a lot of Asian immigrants of any kind, but apparently it has the second-highest Vietnamese-American population in the country (source). German was listed the most, with sixteen states. Additionally, three states had Native American languages listed - Dakota for South Dakota, and Navajo for Arizona and New Mexico.

Another thing that surprised me was that the only state that has Chinese listed is New York, since historically the East Coast was more associated with European immigrants rather than Asian. Then again, that was a long time ago, and it's probable that the demographics have shifted since then.

For California, apparently it's Tagalog. I expected it would be something Asian, and I knew there are a lot of Pacific islanders in general in the state, but I didn't know we had that big of a Filipino community. There were two other states - Nevada and Hawaii - that were also listed with Tagalog.

Race and poverty in Flint, Michigan

The article I found this time has to do with the current water crisis in Flint, Michigan. Long story short, the city switched its water source from Lake Huron to the Flint River in order to save money. The river was known to be contaminated, but the new water was not properly cleaned. It ended up being highly corrosive and nowhere near safe to drink. In addition, many of the pipes that carry water to the city are made of lead, meaning that the water ate away at the pipes and added lead poisoning to the list of problems. The city has since switched back to the old water supply, but the damage is already done, and many of the pipes will need to be replaced. In addition, ten people have died from drinking the contaminated water, and since the city's entire population has been exposed to it, more cases might come up over time.

Some are arguing that the situation is largely a racial problem. Flint's population is 57% black, and in addition, 40% of the city's people are below the poverty line. Some groups, such as the NAACP and the Black Lives Matter movement, are claiming that this issue would have been addressed sooner if it had occurred in a predominantly white city. The governor, on the other hand, blames incompetent bureaucrats and their poor decision making.