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Worst Week inWashington
The Fix’s By Chris Cillizza
vard Law School graduate, four-term member of Con- gress and, until Tuesday night, the man touted by state and national Democrats as the first black gov- ernor of Alabama and then . . . who knows? Riding that wave of promise, Davis was expected to sweep aside little-regarded state Agriculture Com- missioner Ron Sparks in the Democratic gubernatori- al primary Tuesday. Or not. Davis was swamped 62 percent to 38 per- cent, an across-the-board defeat that left political
T
urns out being the next Barack Obama isn’t as easy as it looks. Ask Artur Davis — African American, Har-
analysts — including this one — shaking their heads about how a black candidate seeking to make history could lose in a state where more than half of the electorate was almost certainly African American. (In the 2008 Democratic presidential fight between Oba- ma and then-Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, 51 percent of the Alabama primary electorate was black.) The answer is complicated, as it almost always is in politics, but involves two main factors: Davis’s vote against President Obama’s health-care bill and his re- fusal to court several influential African American or- ganizations in Alabama. Those groups, in turn, en- dorsed Sparks, who is white.
More broadly, Davis seemed to fall victim to the human instinct to search for the “next big thing”— whether it’s the next Michael Jordan (how’s that working out for you, Vince Carter?), the next Bea- tles (does Oasis even exist anymore?) or the next Secretariat (Mine That Bird! Big Brown! Funny Cide!). Davis’s defeat is yet more evidence that there is no formula for stratospheric success, and it should serve as a warning to all of the next next-Obamas — Newark Mayor Cory Booker, we are looking at you. Artur Davis, because you went from being
the next Obama to declaring your political ca- reer over in the space of 48 hours, you had the Worst Week in Washington. Congrats, or some- thing.
Have a candidate for the Worst Week in Washington? E-mail
chris.cillizza@
wpost.com with your nominees.
KB
KLMNO
SUNDAY, JUNE 6, 2010
job. “Our kids are of a different time. They feel they are a more vital part of America.” Her friend Ann Saladrigas added:
“They’re more out in the open.” The difference is striking to me, too.
As an immigrant who came of age in the early 1980s, I’ve watched this fledging movement with a mix of admiration and trepidation. I admire the young im- migrants’ unapologetic moxie, but I worry that it might cause a backlash. “American except on paper” is an im- portant distinction to a lot of people who view legal status as a privilege, not a right. Then again, few activist move- ments won new “rights” by waiting for them to be handed out; they got them by agitating for them. I came to the United States from Hai-
ti at age 6, along with four older sib- lings. Although my family came here le- gally, we had friends and relatives who were undocumented. In those days, we never discussed loved ones’ immigra- tion status with anyone outside the family. Rallies and sit-ins were out of the question. Being undocumented was a source of embarrassment and fear. It remains so for older immigrants, but the Dream Act generation considers it merely a temporary state.
JOSHUA LOTT/REUTERS Demonstrators in Phoenix protested Arizona’s new immigration enforcement law over Memorial Day weekend, marching to the state Capitol.
All-American, just not on paper A
by Marjorie Valbrun in phoenix
mong the 10,000 or so pro- testers who gathered in front of the state Capitol here last weekend under a scorching sun, one group stood out. De-
spite the heat, they wore graduation caps and gowns in shiny royal blue and sunburst yellow. They were graduates of American col-
leges, young people who mostly grew up in the United States, accidental Americans who just happen to be living here illegally. Like the rest of the crowd, they came to protest Arizona’s controversial new immigration enforcement law, but they also sought recognition of a long- sought goal — passage of the Dream Act, federal legislation that would pro- vide a path toward legal status for peo- ple like them, undocumented immi- grants who were brought to this coun- try as children by their parents. Unlike their parents, however, these young people aren’t keeping quiet about their immigration status. They are staging protests around the coun- try, risking arrest and deportation. It’s something their parents, for the most part, would never thinkof doing. But as this group of mostly 20-somethings sees it, they are American in every way — except on paper. They have lived in the United States for at least 10 years. They speak perfect English and attend- ed grade schools and universities here. They have American friends, American lifestyles and typical American sensibil- ities.
And what’s more American than speaking out? “In school we learned that if you do
everything right and live by the rules, that you’ll be rewarded, that everything will pay off, that you can be whatever you want to be,” said Lizbeth Mateo, 25, who came to this country from Mexico
at age 14. “We really believed that. We never felt different from other Amer- ican kids, and now we want to start con- tributing to our country and make our country better.” In the past few weeks, as public criti- cism of Arizona’s law has grown, several young activists have been arrested while engaging in civil disobedience. They’ve sought to capitalize on a mo- ment when Americans are fixated on immigration to draw attention to their own political battle. Though they de- spise the Arizona law, they don’t want the Dream Act to get lost in the debate. They support comprehensive reform that would provide a path to legaliza- tion for the estimated 11 million un- documented immigrants living in this country, but they want separate legisla- tion — “a down payment” for the rough-
.
ly 1.5 million people who would be eli- gible for the Dream Act — passed in the interim. These young people are tired of wait-
ing. So they are staging sit-ins at the district offices of members of Congress and blocking traffic in front of federal buildings. In some cases, those arrested may face deportation to countries where they have not lived for many years and where they no longer have strong ties. “We’ve been organizing for years,”
said Yahaira Carrillo, 25, who came to the United States at age 8 with her par- ents. “We’ve done everything else that we could, the faxing letters to Congress, the lobbying, the letter-writing cam- paigns, the conference panels, the me- dia interviews. What else do we need to do for our political leaders to hear us?”
What’s the big idea?
Call it the case of the missing summer jobs. According to Northeastern University economist
Andrew Sum, only a third of American 16- to 19-year-olds had a job last summer, the lowest level on record and down from 52 percent a decade ago. The decline began long before the current economic crisis, so high unemployment is not the only culprit. But the question of who is to blame has launched your classic Washington think tank skirmish. First up, Steven Camarota, a researcher at the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors tighter restrictions on immigration. In a paper released last month, he points a finger at (yes) immigrants, who
often fill the types of low-skill jobs that teenagers have traditionally held. But in reviewing Camarota’s paper, Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the liberal Economic Policy Institute, spotted what she considered a glaring omission. “He didn’t mention rising summer school enrollment,” she told me last week. “It’s this massive trend that he just didn’t talk about.” Shierholz put out a brief critiquing Camarota’s
argument: “CIS Analysis of Immigration’s Impact on Youth Employment Omits Key Facts.” She argued that increased summer school attendance more than accounted for the decline in teen employment. After what a post on the EPI Web site describes as “friendly discussions,” the dueling researchers reached a detente. Shierholz now reckons that summer school accounts for only around a third of the overall decline. Camarota, for his part, concedes that school enrollment might be playing
Without question, these young activ- ists are a sympathetic and impressive bunch. Many were top high school stu- dents who went on to earn college de- grees. Well-educated, media savvy and politically astute, they have something to say and are not shy about saying it. Over the years, they’ve consistently earned the support of both Republican and Democratic lawmakers. In April, Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) asked Homeland Securi- ty Secretary Janet Napolitano to halt deportations of students who would be eligible for legal status under the Dream Act. The legislation has languished in Congress for nearly a decade, despite lobbying by the students and immi- grant advocacy organizations. If passed, it would permit certain undocu- mented students to become permanent legal residents if they came to this country before age 16 and attend col- lege or enlist in the military. “Everyone who is in this group has
Carrillo was one of five students who took part in a sit-in last month outside the Tucson office of Sen. John McCain (R). They were hoping to convince the senator to help revive the Dream Act legislation. Instead, four of them were arrested and are awaiting a court hear- ing later this month. Three of the stu- dents, including Carrillo, are undocu- mented.
And if they face deportation? “That’s
something that we’ll deal with when we have to,” Carrillo says calmly. That fearlessness — or naivete — sep-
arates Carrillo’s generation from that of her parents. This divide was evident at the protest last Saturday. “These are dif- ferent times,” said Irene, an older im- migrant from El Salvador who took part in the march and did not give her last name for fear of repercussions at her
been fighting for the Dream Act for years,” said Tania Unzueta, 26, who emi- grated from Mexico when she was 10 along with her parents and 6-year-old sister. She took part in the sit-in at the McCain office but left before being ar- rested. “It’s not just about us,” she says. “We see many other people even younger than us going through this, so we want- ed to give it our most and take this last stand.” As she knows from her fellow protest-
ers awaiting court hearings, it’s a stand that could land them very far from the place they call home.
mvalbrun@americasvoiceonline.org
Marjorie Valbrun is a journalist and senior writer at America’s Voice, an immigration advocacy organization in Washington.
some role. “It wouldn’t be plausible if the whole story is immigration,” he told me. In other words, the mystery remains. Other suspects: older workers who aren’t retiring as quickly as expected; increases, in some states, in the minimum wage; and that old standby, changing values.
One thing everyone agrees on? Summer jobs, if they can be found, don’t pay anything like they used to. “When I was a teenager in the early ’80s in New Jersey,” Camarota said, “It was not uncommon for a hard job to pay $7 an hour, which would be about $15 an hour now. Now nobody, under any
circumstances, pays a teenager $15 an hour.” — Kate Julian
juliank@washpost.com
Have a contender for the Big Idea? Let us know at
outlook@washpost.com.
Outlook’s editors welcome comments and suggestions. Write to us at
outlook@washpost.com.
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