A New Book available:
Mexican immigration has become one of the most polarizing issues of Bush's second term and will remain a central topic in the coming years. Where once Mexicans had a sizable presence in a few select states like California and Texas, today the fastest growing populations are in places like North Carolina, Arkansas, Georgia, and Tennessee. Seemingly overnight, Americans across the country are finding their new neighbors to have names like Gonzales, Paulino, Sosa, and Aguilar.
Yet despite the intense passions that the immigration debate evokes, we remain largely ignorant about the actual lives behind the newspaper headlines and talk show bluster. Why don't Mexicans just "play by the rules" and enter legally? How do they cope, living in a strange country among people that speak a language they can't understand? And after everything they have gone through, do they see immigration as a blessing, a curse, or something in between?
There's No José Here gives voice to a group usually ignored: immigrants themselves. Throughout, the central narrative follows the engaging figure of Enrique, a thirty-four-year-old livery cab driver who came to the US illegally at the age of sixteen and has since seen his daughter poisoned by lead, his mother abandoned in Mexico by his father, his cousin murdered on the streets of Brooklyn, and his best friend deployed to Iraq.
In the harrowing and inspiring account, Gabriel Thompson reveals the lives of people struggling to survive in a new and often hostile land--forcing us to take a hard look at the immigration drama as it plays out in the real world.
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Gabriel Thompson
www.wherethesilenceis.org
This country was built by immigrants, it will continue to attract and need immigrants. Some people think there are enough people here now -- people have been saying this since the 1700s and it still is not true. They are needed to make up for our aging population and low birthrate. Immigrants often are entrepreneurs, creating jobs. We must help them become Americans and not just people who live here and think of themselves as visitors. When immigrants succeed here, the whole country benefits.
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