Jim Gilchrist’s Fight at the Border

January 30, 2009

Minuteman founder Jim Gilchrist

On January 19, 2009, the prison sentences of former border patrol agents, Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, were commuted by outgoing President George W. Bush. In 2005, agents Ramos and Compean detained Osvaldo Davila for suspected marijuana smuggling along the Texas border. When Davila tried to flee, he was shot by agent Compean, who subsequently did not report the use of his weapon. Both agents were tried and convicted to lengthy prison terms for civil-rights violations and discharging a firearm during the act of a crime.

The case of these two former agents became a rallying point for anti-immigration activists. They argued that these agents where only doing their jobs and should be released. Jim Gilchrist, a founder of the Minuteman Project and co-author of Minutemen: The Battle to Secure America’s Borders, helped to lead the campaign for the agents’ release.

Maria Hinojosa talks with Gilchrist about the case and about the crossing of borders.

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El Norte Revisited

Zaide Silvia Gutiérrez in a scene from El Norte

Filmmaker Gregory Nava

Twenty-five years ago, Americans first saw the story of Rosa and Enrique, two teenagers from Guatemala who travel through Mexico to the United States in Gregory Nava’s ground-breaking film El Norte. “In our homeland there’s no place for us, they want to kill us. In Mexico there’s only poverty. And in the north we aren’t accepted. When are we going to find a home, maybe only in death?” asks Rosa.

When it was first released, Variety described the film as “the first American independent epic.” It won the Grand Prix des Amériques in 1984 at the Montréal World Film Festival. And screenwriters Nava and Anna Thomas were nominated for Best Screenplay in the 1985 Oscars. In January 2009, the film is being re-released on DVD. Maria talks with director Gregory Nava about the film’s impact and the current state of undocumented immigrants.

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Señor Coconut, the alter-ego of German-born producer and DJ Uwe Schmidt (who, for those of you keeping track, is also known as Atom™ along with about a dozen other names) is bringing the Mambo back — this time, with all the electronica of a Frankfurt danceclub. Schmidt cut his teeth producing dance music in the 90s (under the moniker “Atom Heart.”) In 1996, he moved to Santiago, Chile to explore Latin music. And it was there that Señor Coconut was born. Maria chats with him from his studio in Santiago. He says the Mambo is not a rhythm in and of itself, but was created to market a new musical style.

“Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)” by the Eurythmics

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“Sweet Dreams” covered by Señor Coconut

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