Many of you may have heard about the documentary MADE IN L.A., about garment workers in L.A. After five years in the making, MADE IN L.A. is finally finished! Please come support the Los Angeles premiere! It’s a FREE community screening at the Los Angeles Film Festival!!! MADE IN L.A. follows the remarkable journey of three Latina immigrants working in L.A.’s garment factories and their struggle for self-empowerment as they wage a three-year battle to bring a major clothing retailer to the negotiating table. In intimate verité style, MADE IN L.A. offers a rare and poignant glimpse into this “other” California, where immigrants in many industries toil long hours for sub-minimum wages, fighting for an opportunity in a new country. A film by Almudena Carracedo and Robert Bahar. In Spanish and English with bilingual subtitles!

WHEN: Saturday, June 23, 12noon The screening will be followed by a Q & A with the filmmakers and the women in the film.

WHERE: Los Angeles Film Festival –Mann Festival Theater, 10887 Lindbrook Dr., Los Angeles 90024 (Westwood)

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger told a gathering of Hispanic journalists that immigrants should avoid Spanish-language media if they want to learn English quickly. “You’ve got to turn off the Spanish television set” and avoid Spanish-language television, books and newspapers, the Republican governor said Wednesday night at the annual convention of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.  “You’re just forced to speak English, and that just makes you learn the language faster,” Schwarzenegger said.  “I know this sounds odd and this is the politically incorrect thing to say, and I’m going to get myself in trouble,” he said, noting that he rarely spoke German and was forced to learn English when he emigrated from Austria.Schwarzenegger was responding to a question about how Hispanic students can improve academically. Many journalists for Spanish-language organizations in the audience were surprised by the remarks.

“I’m sitting shaking my head not believing that someone would be so naive and out of it that he would say something like that,” said Alex Nogales, president and chief executive of the National Hispanic Media Coalition.  Hispanic immigrants need Spanish-language media to stay informed and “function in this society,” Nogales said.

While many others praised the Governor’s frankness, it was also noted that he bought advertising on Spanish network during his election campaign.

The California Republican Party has decided no American is qualified to take one of its most crucial positions — state deputy political director — and has hired a Canadian for the job through a coveted H-1B visa, a program favored by Silicon Valley tech firms that is under fire for displacing skilled American workers.  Christopher Matthews, 35, a Canadian citizen, has worked for the state GOP as a campaign consultant since 2004. But he recently was hired as full-time deputy political director, with responsibility for handling campaign operations and information technology for the country’s largest state Republican Party operation, California Republican Party Chairman Ron Nehring confirmed in a telephone interview this week.

In the nation’s most populous state — which has produced a roster of nationally known veteran political consultants — “it’s insulting but also embarrassing … to bring people from the outside who don’t know the difference between Lodi and Lancaster … and who can’t even vote,” said Karen Hanretty, a political commentator and former state GOP party spokeswoman.

U.S. Department of Labor records show the state Republican Party applied for an H-1B visa to fill the job of “political consultant” and was granted a visa labor certification in March 2007. The three-year H-1B visa does not become valid until Oct. 1, 2007, government records show.

Party officials said Matthews has been working in the interim under a “TN” visa — a renewable one-year special visa for Canadian and Mexican professional workers created under the North American Free Trade Agreement.  Matthews was hired by Michael Kamburowski, an Australian citizen who was hired this year as the state GOP’s chief operations officer. But neither new official has experience in managing a political campaign in the nation’s most populous state — and as foreign citizens, neither is eligible to vote.

Kamburowski, a former real estate agent who sold property in the Dominican Republic, is a permanent U.S. resident in the process of obtaining American citizenship and does not require a specialized work visa, state GOP officials said. “There are talented Republicans in California, and the message that (party chair) Ron Nehring is sending is that there’s no talent pool here,” Hanretty said.  The state party and its 58 county operations face several challenges, Hanretty said, including “redistricting on the ballot, uncertain legislative races ahead of us … and a number of Republican congressmen who are under federal investigation and are going to be challenged by Democrats.  “Who will help these candidates?” she asked. “A couple of foreign transplants who don’t know the political landscape and don’t know the history of the complicated politics in California?”

Although I support the bill’s effort to increase temporary H-1B visas it is critical that the annual level be based on the actual workforce needs of these sectors and not an arbitrary cap. The current caps of 65,000 for skilled professionals and 20,000 for holders of advanced degrees have proven to be far less than what is needed. Future levels for these visas must be based on the demands of the market or this policy will strangle these important industries, forcing them overseas. The H-1B program must also be enforced in a way that does not impose unnecessary, costly administrative burdens on law-abiding U.S. businesses. I am concerned that the current bill may make the H-1B program harder to administer, especially for smaller businesses, such as technology start-ups, and force these companies to consider moving critical functions, including product development, to facilities offshore. My greatest concern, though, is with the proposal for a new points-based “green card” system designed to encourage the immigration of workers with training and skills in key areas. Replacing the current employer-based system, where companies can identify the specific skills needed and sponsor qualified immigrants, with an untested system run by the government threatens the very foundation of the program and must be amended. I strongly urge the Senate to retain an employment-based application process and consider authorizing a smaller points-based pilot program prior to any wider implementation.

This opinion could be expected from a Governor who takes all his consul from large Corporations and campaign donors, but he has absolutely NO right to claim that he is representing the opinions of small business. The current H1B Visa program is a modern version of indentured servitude- a throwback to this seventeenth century system that was long ago banished from our society. Naturally big Corporations love the current H1B visa programs as it gives them a ready supply of something akin to slave labor- employees that are completely beholden to them and under their complete control. Ask anyone who has worked on an overseas contract as a small business or independent contractor- you must completely shut down your life to work on one of these contracts and you are completely at the mercy of your “Corporate Sponsor”.

In 1999 and 2000, at the tail end of the dot com boom, I worked as a Program Manager in Silicon Valley. The firm I worked for imported large numbers of technical workers from a large Central Asian country. My job was to try to manage these poorly trained workers who were assigned to companies in California cities outside of the Silicon Valley, and I can tell you from first hand experience that any claims that these workers are more qualified then Americans- or that they can’t find Americans to do these jobs, is simply laughable. They want the cheap slave labor- it is as simple as that.

If we need to let people into our country to fill workforce needs, then they should be allowed to work where ever they want in our economy for some specified period of time, and a comparable number of Americans should be allowed to go to those countries to work. If these corporations really must hire foreign workers instead of Americans, then they should be required to provide at least some re-training of American workers. What we are seeing here is a sad example of what happens when big Corporations hijack our Government and political system. Governor Schwarzenegger probably doesn’t know any of this as he has closed himself off to all business opinions except those expressed by large Corporations and select business associations, such as the California Chamber of Commerce. As a result, he presides over a State Government that has become increasing hostile to small business interests, and is well on its way to becoming far more corrupt then the Davis administration ever was. Please call or write Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and tell them to that on this issue, Governor Schwarzenegger is once again sadly misinformed and his opinions in this letter represent Corporate interests, not the interest of the people of the State of California.

The exact dimensions of growth are less important than the fact that it continues, and as it does, it will remain the most important factor in the state’s social, economic and political evolution. A half-million more Californians every year — more in some years — translates into a demand for about 200,000 additional units of housing, a quarter-million jobs and space on the roads for several hundred thousand more cars and trucks, for instance, as well as more water, more desks in schools and so forth.

Those demands fuel political conflicts — over water and housing development, to cite but two examples — that are made even more contentious by the fact that California’s population growth is almost entirely immigration-driven, both directly and through births to immigrant mothers. Environmental groups, for instance, often oppose housing developments, water projects, highway construction and retail complexes to serve population growth, while ignoring immigration issues out of fear of alienating Latino political figures…

Arnold Schwarzenegger, to his credit, has been more willing than any recent governor to acknowledge that population growth generates political conflicts that should not be ignored. He often cites the state’s relentless push toward 50 million people in urging other politicians and voters to invest in the infrastructure that was shamefully neglected for decades because of political denial and ideological gridlock.

Schwarzenegger doesn’t see growth as a cause for celebration, as Pat Brown and others of his era did, nor as something to be ignored, as Brown’s son and his successors often did, but simply as an inescapable fact of California life.

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