Lennon James Martin

i am here

wait over here.

i get lost easy....

dang passwords.

where are you?

i was trapped under water for weeks...

but now i am back. wet but back. no not a wet back... just back and wet.

okay since we are on the topic.

The word "wetback" is a relatively new disparaging term for "an illegal Mexican immigrant or worker who crosses the Rio Grande into the United States, sometimes swimming to get across" (Hendrickson, 1997). There is some debate as to when the word was first recorded. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first recorded use of the word was in 1929 when Foreign Affairs used it to refer to a peon that walks or swims across and is welcomed by countrymen as a ‘wetback’. However, according to the Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins, the first recorded use was in 1948 when the number of illegal Mexicans swarming the United States increased by a significantly large percentage.

The word "wetback" became widely used when the United States became involved in a military operation known as Operation Wetback. Post World War II, millions of Mexicans swarmed to the United States as the demand for cheap agricultural laborers increased. Between 1944 and 1954, known as "the decade of the wetback," "the number of illegal Mexican alien workers swimming across the Rio Grande to the United States increased by 6,000 percent" (Operation Wetback, 1997).
As a result, in 1954 Operation Wetback got under way as a national reaction against illegal immigration. Commissioner of INS, Joseph Swing oversaw the Border patrol, and organized state and local officials along with the police. The purpose of border enforcement was "illegal aliens," but Operation Wetback became strictly focused on Mexicans in general. Officials swarmed Mexican American neighborhoods in southeastern states. Some Mexicans, "fearful of the potential violence of this militarization, fled back south across the border" (Operation Wetback, 1997). In 1954, the agents discovered over one million illegal immigrants. Many of the illegal immigrants were deported to Mexico by trucks, buses, trains, and even ships. In some cases, "illegal immigrants were deported along with their American-born children, who were by law U.S. citizens" (Operation Wetback, 1997). The agents used a broad criterion for determining who were potential aliens. They began racial profiling of Mexicans on the street. This practice incited and angered many U.S. citizens who were of Mexican American descent. "Opponents in both the United States and Mexico complained of "police-state" methods, and Operation Wetback was abandoned" (Operation Wetback, 1997).

next.

Jack has been found!

we found him with the neighbor walking down the side walk.

Lost Cat

Help me find my

Lost Cat

picture left to right: Perry (at home), Jack (missing)

you can look but you can't touch

this is a preview the the marketing launch of collective genius


www.collective-genius.com

tuesday?

i have decided to make today Friday.

blog it baby

blog IT.

the lot