VamosTogether

"Why are we getting all the publicity? I think it has to do with Alabama's past and the perception that people have of Alabama over the years that don't live in our state and really don't recognize the amount of progress we've made in Alabama over the last 50 to 60 years," said Republican Gov. Robert Bentley, who supported the law and signed it into effect.

The nation’s strictest immigration law has resurrected ugly images from Alabama’s days as the battleground state for civil rights.

Sharing a border with Mexico and being flooded with boycotts does not make Arizona the poster state for the challenges of immigration laws in the United States. Continue Reading →

Comedian Stephen Colbert

http://www.hulu.com/embed/7BPEWa3AnwIGjq1Blo4d2Q

Stephen Colbert was roundly criticized by politicos last year for his tongue-in-cheek congressional testimony on the plight of illegal farm workers, but now he’s getting to revel in his own prescience.

After spending a day working on an upstate New York farm as part of the Take Our Jobs project, Colbert testified about his experiences before congress, sarcastically lamenting the backbreaking nature of the work due to most soil being at ground level. The stunt was an attempt to shed light on the country’s benefiting off of the labor of the very people it maligns as a scourge on our resources, but it was a point not well-taken by many of the assembled.

Flash forward to today and the state of Alabama, having passed the country’s toughest immigration law, is seeing its crops rot on the vine due to a lack of experienced laborers to work the fields. Had Alabama’s legislators simply watched “The Report,” maybe they would have known what to expect. According to Colbert, “No one could have predicted this would happen, except me.” Continue Reading →

Kanye West & Jay Z

(AllHipHop News):

Almost 1,000 students have signed an online petition that is calling upon rap star Kanye West to speak out against Alabama’s new immigration law. Kanye is currently in Birmingham, Alabama, where he is spending the month preparing for his “Watch the Throne” tour with Jay-Z. The students are signing the petition on Change.org, in hopes of getting the superstar rap artist to meet with Civil Rights leaders, politicians and other influential individuals in Alabama, about HB 56. Continue Reading →

VamosTogether’s newly designed website includes new communication features ranging from Twitter to automatic translation (see: En Espanol) to our “What They’re Saying About HB56” page.  VamosTogether is continuing to accept testimonials for our “The Voices” projects, but we decided to launch “What They’re Saying About HB56″ to provide an evolving portrait of the discourse and perspectives surrounding HB56 from those of supporters, opponents, clergy, law enforcement, political leaders, community members, business leaders, immigrants, civil rights leaders, teachers, professors, doctors, and lawyers.

VamosTogether recognizes the power of language and the power of voices.  So VamosTogether invites you to join others from around the nation in a more insightful conversation about a complex issue, immigration.  Continue Reading →