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Give Me Your Huddled Masses, Yearning to Live Straight [Karl]

The Chicago Tribune reports a bump on the road to excusing those who enter the United States illegally:

Chicago’s immigrant rights movement was on the verge of making history, and Nicole Perez was ready to lend her voice when she was told, with an angry sneer, that she was not welcome.

That was March 10, 2006. Perez and her lesbian partner, Xiomara Santana, had joined more than 100,000 demonstrators in the Loop for a march that kicked off a nationwide struggle for immigrant rights. Holding hands, the U.S.-born women looked at the Latino faces around them and were reminded of their own families.

Then an elderly man 2 feet away cursed at the couple, spitting out: “Why are you here?”

“I was like: ‘We’re all here for the same reason. This is as much my issue as it is yours,'” Perez, 25, said, recalling her tears of anger as others at the march laughingly trotted away from a gay and lesbian banner nearby for fear of being associated with the group…

Identity politics continue their devolution.  Somewhere, the late Iron Eyes Cody is weeping, too.

20 Replies to “Give Me Your Huddled Masses, Yearning to Live Straight [Karl]”

  1. happyfeet says:

    For instance, barely a word was spoken about the case of Victoria Arellano, a transgender woman with AIDS who arrived illegally from Mexico and died this summer in a detention center in San Pedro, Calif., after she was denied her medication.

    […]

    With the main argument for immigration reform modeled as an appeal to traditional family values, it may be tricky for mainstream groups to fully champion such battles, gay and lesbian activists acknowledged.

    That’s kind of a lie I think. I think 9 out of like 10 people would be less concerned with “family values” and would probably mostly just kind of note that maybe letting poor people with expensive to treat diseases immigrate might be something that is not necessarily wise. Mexico is kind of corrupt, they might reflect, and maybe they could kind of envisage the Mexican government encouraging people with communicable diseases to emigrate to the U.S. That’s kind of cynical, I guess, but the idea that opposition to AIDSy immigrants is centered on some idea that they would undermine “family values” seems just kind of silly. The mainstream organizations are probably figuring that the diseasey immigrants would raise estimations of the social cost of immigration and that maybe that’s not in the best interest of their “movement.” That’s what I think anyway.

  2. mojo says:

    HELLO… Is this thing on? IRONY ALERT!!

    Mexican consular sources in Phoenix say they are seeing a spike in the number of immigrants applying for Mexican citizenship for their U.S.-born children, which will allow them to enroll in schools in Mexico.
    http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN2126758320071224

  3. Rob Crawford says:

    I think 9 out of like 10 people would be less concerned with “family values” and would probably mostly just kind of note that maybe letting poor people with expensive to treat diseases immigrate might be something that is not necessarily wise.

    ISTR that it was once a requirement that immigrants be disease-free. There may have even been places where they were held in quarantine while that was tested.

    And I get the feeling that, as mojo points out, the Mexican laws on such things are rather stricter.

    Immigration reciprocity now!

  4. Carin says:

    Last month, the federal Department of Homeland Security proposed new regulations for HIV-related immigration cases that, among other things, would require foreigners to carry all the anti-retroviral medication they would need during their stay in the U.S. and to prove they have private health insurance accepted in this country for any medical emergencies. Gay and lesbian community activists are fighting to defeat the plan.

    On what grounds are they fighting this? AIDS isn’t a gay disease – we’ve had that drilled into our heads since the 80’s.

  5. Mike C. says:

    The first thing that came to my mind while reading this excerpt was Queers for Palestine.

  6. happyfeet says:

    Love knows no borders and also viruses and global warming, Carin. Because also of the social justice and pie. It’s a nationwide struggle, don’t you know.

  7. happyfeet says:

    (That’s a really really big struggle.)

  8. happyfeet says:

    Lesbians struggling and writhing for freedom.

  9. Pablo says:

    We should have some video of that, I think.

  10. Pablo says:

    Is Portia de Rossi involved? I might buy right in…if I see proof.

  11. Carin says:

    I sure these lesbian immigrants who were rejected weren’t of the “lipstick” variety.

  12. happyfeet says:

    I report you decide.

  13. B Moe says:

    Apparently Xiomara is Spanish for Rosie. Who knew.

  14. happyfeet says:

    this is completely off-topic but it’s the most interesting thing I found all day so far. It’s about the NYT and how the AP and others pimped its November advertising revenue results.

  15. Yeah couldn’t possibly be that they’re being shunned or shamed because they are wrong you know. They’re being unfairly treated!

  16. buzz says:

    So if this was an immigration rally, what was the gay and lesbian banner for?

  17. B Moe says:

    “So if this was an immigration rally, what was the gay and lesbian banner for?”

    OMG! TRUTH TO POWER!

  18. Gulermo says:

    They are scorned and ridiculed in most of the Latin American world. Happy: the link has photos from Playa Manuel Antonio, one of the most beautiful beaches anywhere.

  19. daleyrocks says:

    Clean our carpets, not each others’!

  20. steveaz says:

    Happyfeet’s got a point. Teh sick “undocumented” gheys screw up the PROG message because Duhseeziness breeds more Neediness.

    If I were a Democrat(ic) Senator from Illinois, I’d be thinking:

    Those gender-studies folks had better clam-up at these TRANZI rallies, at least until after the elections, or they can just say good-bye to getting “married,” and they should just forget about that boost in African AIDS funding that was promised.

    You frigging ingrates! We tenured you – and we can take it away!

    This one could go viral, guys.

Comments are closed.