About ten years ago I wrote:
I find that I am bracing for a very ugly debate which will only serve to associate all of my Hispanic friends with the evils of drug trade from the south of our federal border.
I can just imagine how racism will attempt to cloak itself in the “stars and stripes”, as it seeks some sort of national justification.
Continue reading →The expression “right to life” in abortion discussions is very potent. Although popularized by Pope Pius XII in 1951, the phrase currently brings to mind the modern ultra-sound image of the unborn. Pro-Life advocates would view the premature removal of … Continue reading →
Continue reading →When President Donald Trump chose Liberty University in Lynchburg, VA to deliver a graduation speech, the school’s leaders were elated.
According to University President Jerry Falwell, Jr., President Trump is a “dream president” for evangelicals.
Not all of the 65,000 “distance learners” would agree, including Ivan Herrán, a church deacon and facilitator for incoming community college students. Ivan has not found the Trumpian message or agenda particularly helpful to the Hispanic community.
In addition to working full-time, Ivan has earned a Biblical studies and counseling degree from Liberty, and will attend the 2017 graduation. The irony of having President Trump as his graduation speaker has not gone unnoticed.
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Washington Post contributor Daniel W. Drezner may have gotten well over his skis when tweeting that Attorney General Jeff Sessions had referred to immigrants entering from Mexico as “filth”, in the prepared transcript for his border speech.
Drezner later retracted his statement with an apology for not correctly noting the context in which the phrase was originally intended. Sessions, for whatever reason, did not give voice to what he had written, and dropped the “filth” reference from his public proclamation.
Continue reading →For those of us who advocate discretion and compassion when dealing with families with an undocumented member, the emphasis on “enforcing the law” rings hollow.
In this “country of law”, there will always be a law to enforce.
Yet historically our laws have often been a way to codify some form of white supremacist dogma, as evidenced by the immigration hardliners such as Representative Steve King.
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But then, the question is, whether U.S. citizenship really matters. Or to say it another way, Do Brown Lives Matter?
Continue reading →When speaking before white folk, our black citizenry often feel forced to de-emphasize the fact and effects of our history regarding the “slave caste” upon which our new nation rested.
Their concern — that white folks are often in denial and just don’t want to hear about it — has validity. However, it is possible for one to be too accommodating.
Dr. Ben Carson, our new African American Secretary of HUD, shocked our country this week with his assertion that his ancestors were somehow inconvenienced immigrants nonetheless motivated by the American Dream.
Continue reading →We all would like for the immigration issue to have a simple solution. Must literally millions of people live in fear? Dare we throw away an entire generation of US citizens, who in the minds of many are worth-less and therefore disposable?
Larry doesn’t have all the answers, but he in committed to allow the teachings of Jesus to inform his viewpoint, as he daily seeks to embrace the immigrant communities that he has come to love, and invest in the young US born bilinguals — citizens who have so much to offer.
Continue reading →For years now Larry has been writing about the increasing negative sentiment directed at our Latino residents. In 2012 he wrote:
“We can say what we will about immigration law, but that doesn’t do much to free me from a haunting fear that I cannot dispel. With every new immigration effort targeting Hispanic immigrants, I feel it a little more. It’s like a noose slowly tightening.”
Continue reading →Larry was once taught that the institutional church and the kingdom of God were the same. Experience, however, has taught him differently. Larry grew up during racial segregation. Being a church leader involved in Hispanic outreach has resurfaced old questions about social responsibility.
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