Thank you Mayor Rivera!
The entire country is on pins and needles with the deportations issue. Seems that we are constantly hearing about cities that have adopted “sanctuary” status and it is still not clear who they are trying to protect.
As an immigrant, I feel sadness for the families affected by ICE last Friday because they were in the process of legalizing their status. One of them only had traffic violations. They are not the “illegal immigrants with criminal records” that the president said would be deported. Living in this country as an undocumented alien is not a choice. I know the difficulties of normalizing that situation and sometimes people have no way out. The families left behind, including their American citizen children, will be suffering the consequences for a long time.
But what happened in Lawrence last Friday was the direct result of Mayor Rivera’s actions joining forces with the City of Chelsea to sue the President for his decision regarding illegal aliens.
Before Lawrence was declared a “sanctuary city” I had the opportunity to speak to some city councilors about the effect this could have for us. We already had the Trust Act which gives a certain amount of protection from the police department; there was no need to make so much noise calling for Washington’s attention to this little city of troublemakers. They even agreed with me once we had a chance to reason things out. They understood that if President Trump makes good on his threat of withholding federal funds, Lawrence could not survive and that’s a risk we should not take.
Well, the mayor felt that he could beat Goliath by suing the federal government and we are seeing the results now. It can only get worse because they have the power and this is revenge.
Something that bothers me is that the whole thing is misguided by including “all” immigrants. Why is it that everyone feels the need to jump on this bandwagon? President Obama deported more illegal immigrants than any other president in the history of the United States and you heard nothing on the news. Immigration officials were doing their job as well ICE is doing its job today. This is purely political, a Trump issue trying to arouse all immigrants against him and when the dust settles, no one would even remember that there are people in this country struggling to provide for their children while keeping a low profile. They can thank Mayor Daniel Rivera and State Representative Juana Matías who had plenty to do creating this ambience of fear across the state.
And for those people who can’t comprehend what they are reading, find somebody who can read it and interpret it for you. I don’t want to get crucified by public opinion on this topic just because your mind was made up and didn’t hear what I had to say.
Marihuana Sales in Lawrence
Last week I wrote about precautions Hispanic Week should be considering for next year when all the regulations for sale, distribution and consumption of marihuana will be established. I had suggested the possibility of someone wanting to rent space for the purpose of selling. Of course, I was speculating because no one knows what the regulations will be but, being a controlled substance (like alcohol), it would probably be treated as such.
Well, hopefully they’ll luck out. There is a movement to request from the Legislature that Lawrence along with several other communities across Massachusetts to prohibit the sale and use of marihuana here. If they succeed, they’ll have nothing to worry about.
Oh, another Election year!
I really don’t find anything exciting about elections; they create more work for us and little revenue. Candidates want to be interviewed which takes time and when the time comes to place ads, they depend on their friends on the radio to get it for free because they can’t pay.
The reason for that is that part of the Latino culture is to make noise for their favorite candidates screaming that we are the majority, attend their meetings, eat their food and don’t write a check. Notice that non-Spanish-speakers go to a function and the first thing they do is write a check with their contribution.
Programming change at WCCM-1110 AM
In case you have not noticed it, WCCM made a radical change by becoming all music. Luis Hiraldo and Maria Ortiz are now at the same time from 7 to 9 a.m. on WCEC 1490 AM. Also, Nunzio DiMarca came to his usual time slot but at WCEC, as well.
That change represents a big loss to the non-Spanish community because they don’t have a local radio station to keep them informed.
