Let me start by saying that I never have been a sports fan and likely never will be. For whatever reason sports just never attracted me as a kid and unless you develop such an interest in childhood, I think it unlikely that you will take an interest later in life. It’s not because I lacked the aptitude for sports. I spent much of my youth on swim teams and running cross country. I would often start a season as one of the better athletes on the team; but by mid season my lack of interest and lack of willingness to put in much effort to the sport would usually mean I would fall to the back of the pack. I also played nearly every team sport except football at some point in my youth because my father’s firm belief that playing sports was good for you. I was less convinced. I think I generally rejected the whole idea that competition should be valued and I preferred the life of the mind rather than the world of the body. Asian martial arts were the only physical activity that interested me ...

Some of the most innovative and essential work being accomplished by both the labor movement and the movement for immigrant rights is, once again, happening right here in Chicago. The Chicago Committee Against No-Match Letters and the Rapid Response Network, lead by the UE (United Electrical Workers Union), Chicago Workers Collaborative, UFCW (United Food and Commercial Workers) Local 881, Interfaith Worker Justice and other Chicago area workers centers, has organized a fight back against Social Security “no-match” letters and ICE workplace raids in an effort to make Chicago a no-match and ICE raid free zone. The goal is to make the economic, political and social costs of terrorzing immigrant workers through no-match letters and workplace raids so high for employers and their friends at DHS (Department of Homeland Security) that they will be forced to back off. This is an extremely important effort, as no-match letters and ICE raids are a key strategy of the anti-immigrant forces who a...

David Bacon is one of the most insightful and forward thinking advocates for immigrant rights in the U.S. labor movement. His analysis of the relationship between trade and migration is essential to understanding the importance of the immigrant worker's struggles to the overall revitalization of the organized labor in the U.S. He has also consistently called for the most militant and thoroughgoing strategies to care the immigrant workers struggle forward. David circulated the following statement among immigrant rights groups in California last month. The type of working class solidarity, David calls for here is not only vital if we are to win the fight for migrants rights, but could lead to a radical transformation of union locals away from the type of business unionism that has dominated for decades toward a return to unions as vital organs of social change in the broadest sense… A Solidarity Campaign in Response to No-Match Letters: In the late 1980s, when anti-immigrant raci...

Members of immigrant rights organizations from around the country speaking out against the “immigration reform” proposals that were being discussed in the U.S. Congress earlier today at a press conference held at the Immigrant Rights tent at the USSF. We received word later in the day, that the reform proposals in Congress were defeated – to the relief of everyone here. http://www.archive.org/details/USSF-ImmigrantRightsPressConference

Gerald Lenoir of the The Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI), talks about immigrant rights as part of the larger struggle for racial justice at the Immigrant Rights Press Conference at the USSF (United States Social Forum)... http://www.archive.org/details/USSF-BlackAllianceJustImmigration