Waking up to the immigration issue

Immigration is one of those topics that conjures such complicated thoughts that the blog post never gets written. I am going to try to avoid that fate by writing a quick post, accepting the fact that I am just scratching the surface.

I recently wrote about the Brazilian mother who was jailed in Charlotte, separated from her nursing baby and denied the opportunity to pump milk, on MomsRising.org.

This incident woke me up and I hope I stay alert to what is going on in our very own state.

I thought Ruben Navarette Jr.'s commentary on CNN.com was right on target. People's objections to immigration go to culture and a place to rest their insecurities. I think that anti-immigration sentiment is currently occupying the place of dishonor of culturally-sanctioned racism.

If you really want to stretch your mind, read Susan Faludi's meticulously researched and daringly original book The Terror Dream, and see how her analysis of our fear of dark foreigners can apply to everything from 1800's frontier wars, to the Ku Klux Klan, to 9-11, to immigration.