Elizabeth Lambert VIDEO: New Mexico Women's Soccer Game ...The soccer game of the New Mexico Lobos against BYU Cougars for the semifinals of the Mountain West Conference Tournament took a nasty turn when.
ELIZABETH LAMBERT IS THE DIRTIEST PLAYER EVER: BYU/NEW MEXICO ...ELIZABETH LAMBERT IS THE DIRTIEST PLAYER EVER: BYU/NEW MEXICO WOMENS SOCCER CATFIGHT. By Mike Responts. &fmt=18. Possibly related posts: (automatically generated). BRAZILIAN SOCCER PLAYERS KNOW HOW TO PARTY (EVEN WHEN ON FIRE) ...
Elizabeth Lambert of New Mexico women's soccer team's ...Posted in Featured, Sports | Tagged byu new mexico women s soccer, byu soccer, byu women s soccer, byu women s soccer fight, elizabeth lambert, elizabeth lambert new mexico, elizabeth lambert soccer, new mexico soccer, new mexico ...
Cat fighting gets ugly during byu vs. new mexico women's soccer ...Throwing elbows, puching in the back, tripping, hair pulling, kicking into someone's face and sucker punches? Sounds like a typical scrum between young.
Elizabeth Lambert (Photos) Is New Mexico's Dirty Soccer Player ...Women's college soccer is officially on our radar after University of New Mexico defender Elizabeth Lambert made SportsCenter last night for her destruction of BYU players in the Mountain West semifinals match. ...
Women's Soccer Fight! | NextRound.netYesterday's BYU-New Mexico women's soccer match got a little chippy. And by "chippy", I mean break out the wrestling mud. No one will judge you if these highlights do it for you.
Cat Fight Breaks Out During BYU-New Mexico Soccer Game (Video ...Cat Fight Breaks Out During BYU - New Mexico Soccer Game Hair-pulling, Tripping, Sucker-punches, Cheap-shot elbows and Kicking teeth in. That brand of violence doesn't even fly inside the UFC's octagon, let alone on an NCAA women's ...
Elizabeth Lambert Soccer | Time2newsThey are say many sport fans about the witness during a women's game. No matter the in sport for Women are plays to game similar to men. Here is a BYU vs. New Mexico women's soccer match video. ...
Zach Dundas - Renegade Sportsman – Girl-on-Girl Violence Makes ...T/S Network Activity ... No, it is definitely not fair that this orgy of senseless violence perpetrated by a single New Mexico player probably constitutes the single longest SportsCenter segment on NCAA women's soccer. ...
spelling and grammer help? El Chapulin is a very well-known restaurant in Mexico City. There were so many things that made it unique during my visit. When I’m there I feel satisfied and right at home. My favorite reason for visiting is being able to taste the foods of Mexico and being able to see its wonderful people just by being in El Chapulin. I like eating there because it’s a buffet and because I can eat anything I want; also, they have lots of variety like steak, chicken, spaghetti, a salad bar, fruits, pastries, ice cream, coffee and lots more.
When I arrived in El Chapulin the fist thing that I saw were the stone sculptures and famous paintings done outside. The restaurant is made out of mud and adobe like most houses in Mexico. Even though it is made out of mud, it looks very beautiful with the old still designs and the bright beautiful colors. Every time I go inside a server greets me and finds me a table. All the servers in the restaurant are both warm and hospitable. When I was walking to my table I was able to smell the wonderful food before I even saw them. Once I was able to see the buffet table I saw all the different kinds of food. Once I got to my table the server asked me what I would like to drink, then he handed me two plates so I could go up any time to serve myself. Once seated at my table, I saw the beautiful Aztec shield within the table and hand maid chairs that looked like thrones.
Once I decided to go up and get some food I took the long way to the buffet table. That way I could get a glance at the whole restaurant. While I was walking I saw a bar with lots of people cheering on their favorite soccer team on the flat screen TVs. I saw everyone was satisfied in the bar because everyone was getting their drinks fast. I wanted to see how many bartenders there were and to my surprise there was only one and it was a gorgeous Latin woman. She was making the drinks as fast as lightning. While I was walking I realized that this restaurant is very rummy and not crowded at all. The tables are separated and people have plenty of space between them. I also noticed that the place was very clean and it wasn’t hot since most buffets get hot with all the food out.
Once I got to the buffet table I saw there was a giant grill where I could place and order of a steak and they cook it to my liken. They also offer a variety of menu items that are cooked at the grill right in front of me like, Grilled chicken, salmon, cheeseburger, and many more grilled favorites. The buffets it self has many favorites to choose from. I never eat the same thing twice because of the large varieties. While I was eating some of the female waitresses started to put on a show for the customers. The bartender put on a Mexican country song and the waitresses started to dance mean while the bartender was doing some tricks with the liquor bottles. I thought it was really cool and very entertaining. Once I was done eating I headed to the desert table, it was the biggest table with deserts I had ever seen. Every thing looked so taste from the cakes to the cookies and brownies.
To conclude my visit to El Chapuline, I had the greatest time there. I really enjoy their beautiful and very unique artifact in side and out. The large variety of food was very delicious and the steaks were cooked to perfection. However, my favorite part of the whole restaurant was the desert table, every thing there was mouth-watering. Hopefully, next time your in Mexico City you will give El Chapuline a opportunity. I know you will not be disappointed.
Spelling and Grammer help and anything u would like to add :P? 1.Whos Your Fav Soccer Player?
2.Whos The Soccer Player You Despise The Most?
3.Do You Like Sven"s Coaching In Mexico? (yes or no)
Extra: Who Do You Think Is The Hottest Woman In The World
If Your Bored Awnser My Questions (please)? i got a 1970 mexico olympic coin from my grandma and im wondering how much its worth. there are a ton on ebay for 20 dollars but this one is much more different. on one side it is a picture of a soccer player kicking a ball, a aztec totem pole, and a aztec playing soccer. and reads "ley 0950 mexico 1970 ". the other side is a picture of a women with wings above the olympics arena and the earth on each side of her. and reads "campeonato mundial de futbol - amistad paz deporte " she says my dead uncle paid 1000 pesos for it, about 90 USD in 1970 when he was shortly after shot in the face by mexican soldiers.
how much is my 1970 mexico olympic coin worth? I've never been in a relationship. i just don't feel like doing that yet, I'm 15, and i think i want to wait until 16 before even thinking about getting the least bit 'intimate' with my friends and other girls.. i am from Dallas, but i live in Mexico. i run, swim, play soccer, have good grades, play piano really well, and enjoy almost everything! since I'm starting to get close to 16, i was wondering from you girls what i should start looking for? I have friends that know about my relationship situation, and have respected me for that... but i was wondering what is it that girls just 'love' about guys, and what guys like more about girls? i don't smoke, don't drink, and don't 'abuse' women's privacy... tell me what you think.. you can also send me emails or pictures... I'm open to pretty much about anything in these answers! have fun answering!!!!if you would like to know more about me ,you can email me, but don't just email and get my picture or something like that, hen delete me, or stop talking to me... i am respecting of you girls... and i hope to talk with some of you.. once we get talking, i am willing to send pictures!
girls only...? if you are a guy.. im not picking you.? Is this essay descriptive? what do u suggest? I did indent but it doesnt shows here
My family and home are really important to me. My home is a typical regular house as all houses are around my block. My house is a place where all my family
co-exist peacefully and eat dinner every Sunday and watch a soccer game or a movie on television. My house and family are really special to me.
I live in a typical house, similar to all houses around my block. There are palm trees by the streets, entrance yard surrounded by a fence and a driveway in front of the garage. My house has two bedrooms, one bath, a large garage, a front yard with a small colorful vivid garden and a driveway. We always try to keep my house clean, dishes are always washed, and trash always taken out and the wood floor is always swept. However, sometimes there is dust on furniture, TV, on pictures and portraits. In the garage is where my family stores unused material belongings, such as old furniture, TVs, bicycles and clothes that we don’t like or wear no longer. The living room is ample, it has two leather soft brown sofas, a dinner table, a cabinet with a TV on top, two small tables beside the large sofa, a portrait of a flower and pictures on top of the middle table and pasted on the wall. My room, (which is my favorite part of the house) is always neat and clean and smells like Hawaiian breeze because of an air freshener. My room is like my sanctuary because it is where I can relax, be peaceful and have privacy.
My family is one of the typical Mexican families. We go to church, celebrate important dates such as “Las Posadas” (Mexican Christmas Ceremony), Thanksgiving and Christmas. My mother is a hard worker, brave and strong. She has been both a father and a mother to me at times. She has been the only person that has been there for me, that has worked for my siblings and I to give us a better life, and that has worried about us. She has even worked up to twelve hours a day to bring food to the table and provide a roof for us to sleep under. My step-father is a serious and earnest person; he doesn’t like to drink, doesn’t like fast food or going to parties but he likes to watch the soccer games and spend time with family. In contrast, my 19 year old brother, who lives in Mexico, likes to drink, loves going to parties, likes clubbing and likes to spend time with his friends. My younger sister, Leslie, is annoying, stubborn and messy. She never listens to me; she always does the opposite of what I say, but I still love her.
My favorite part of my family is that we all co-exist peacefully and cheerfully including my aunts, uncles, and cousins. We all gather up to go to church, eat dinner, and to watch soccer games or a movie at night. In my family, women make the dinner but when they all work my uncles and my step-father make dinner, they take turns. When my uncles and step-father cook, they always cook “carne asada”, that is the only food that they can cook well. Whereas, my mother and aunts cook different sort of food such as shrimp soup or “birria,” which is goat meat. When all my naughty little cousins assemble, it is like a commotion in a hallway, they scream, talk loud and dance, they make a big mess all around the house, jumping on the couches like frogs, playing with toys and leaving them on the ground, and hanging on the entrance fence like monkeys on monkey bars.
My family and home are really important to me because that’s were all the ambitions, motivations and reasons to live are born and where the good examples are set for us to follow. It is like the biggest block at the bottom of the pyramid and without it we cannot get to the apex or the very top of the pyramid where our goals are placed for us to reach and thanks to god our families are there to help us climb. With out them by my side I could not be where I am today.
My family and home forms a great part of my life. I believe that with out family and love we would not be able to live or progress in life and we would all perish. Family is the strength and motivation to keep us moving forward in life.
Can Some one please revise my essay? My home and family are really important to me. My home is where I grew up. A place where all my family co-exists and eats dinner every Sunday. My home is a unique place.
My home is a typical house as all houses around my block with palm trees by the streets, entrance yard surrounded by a fence and a driveway in front of the garage. My house has two bedrooms, one bath, a large garage, a front yard with a small colorful vivid garden and a driveway. My home is always semi–clean, dishes are always washed, trash always taken out and the wood floor is always broom but there is dust on furniture, TV, on pictures and portraits. In the garage is where my family stores all our material belongings, such as old furniture, TVs, bicycles and clothes that we don’t like or wear. The living room is ample, it has two leather soft brown sofas, a dinner table, a cabinet with a TV on top, two small tables around the large sofa, portrait of a flower and pictures on top of the middle table and paste on the wall. My room which is my favorite part of the house is always neat and clean and smells like Hawaiian breeze because of an air freshener. My room is like my sanctuary because is where I can relax, have peace and privacy.
My family is one of the typical Mexican families. We go to church, celebrate important dates such as “Las Posada” (Mexican Christmas Ceremony), Thanksgiving and Christmas. My family is really compatible and hardworking. My mom is a hard worker, brave, and strong. She has been a dad and a mom to me at the same time; she has been the only one that been there for me, the only one that has work for me and my siblings, to give us a better life and the only person that has preoccupied about us. She had even worked up to twelve hours a day to set a roof over our heads. My step-dad is a serious and earnest person, he doesn’t like to drink, doesn’t likes fast food nor go to parties but he likes to watch the soccer game and spend time with the family. In contrast of my 19 year old brother, which he lives in Mexico, he’s an alcoholic, loves to go to parties, likes clubbing and spends time with his friends instead of his family. My younger sister Leslie is annoying, stubborn and messy. She never listens to me, she always do the contrary of what I say.
My favorite part my family is when we all co-exists including my aunts, uncles, and cousins. We all gather to go to church, eat dinner, and watch a soccer game or a movie. In my family women make the dinner but when they all work my uncles and my step-dad make dinner, they take turns. When my uncles and step-dad cooks they always make carne asada, the only food that they can cook well. Whereas my mom and aunts cook different sort of food such as shrimp soup or “birria”, which is a goat meat. When all my naughty little cousins assemble its like a commotion in a hallway, they scream, talk loud and dance, making a big mess all around the house, jumping on the couches like frogs, playing with toys and leaving them on the ground, and hanging on the entrance fence like monkeys on monkey bars.
My family is really important to me because from there is where I get all my strength to go forward in life. With out them by my side I could not be what I am today. I would do anything for them. From them is where I get support, love and advice. I belief that with out family and love we would not be able to live or progress in life.
can someone help me make a conclusion for this essay? and correct any mistakes? please? i red in the paper today that Marta is one off the nominees of the Laureus sport awards this year.
so she can be becide women soccer world player of the year also became the best sportwomen of the year in general.
there are 5 other nominees
Henin (Tennis Belgium)
Isinbayena (athletic Rusia)
Kluft (athletic Sweden)
Lenton (australia Swimming)
Ochoa (Mexico golf)
do you think she got a chance?
i think the biggest concurent will be justine heninhttp://www.laureus.com/
the website
ps who's voting anyone knows?
Marta nominated for world sportwomen of the year? She looked like a really pretty soccer mom but was moving some big time drugs around. I think she was arrested in mexico. They said she was a big fish in the cartel.
What is the name of the really cute cartel woman who was arrested? TOMMMOW IS MEXICO VS ARGENTINA
PART 3 WOMEN SOCCER LOL WHO CARES BUT IF MEXICO WINS THEY WIN LOL. SO WHERE CAN I SEE THE PAN AMERICAN GAMES IN THE US WHAT CHANNEL
mexico vs argentina part 3? http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0704060020apr06,1,1855420.story?coll=chi-news-hed&?track=sto-topstory
MEXICANS IN CHICAGO: A NEW KIND OF POLITICS
Influence on both sides of the border
Activists' political power is rising in Chicago and their homeland, as they seek reforms through marches and money
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By Antonio Olivo and Oscar Avila
Tribune staff reporters
April 6, 2007
To outsiders, the men and women gathered inside a sleepy West Side restaurant may have seemed unlikely power brokers: a janitor, a real estate agent and others hardly known outside their circuit of neighborhood dances and back-yard barbecues.
Jose Luis Gutierrez, who plotted strategy with the group as a soccer match flickered on a nearby TV, was himself a wholesale grocer until last year.
But Gutierrez is now a top aide to Gov. Rod Blagojevich, and he was joined at the table by leaders of Chicago-area Mexican immigrant clubs, the engines behind a new political movement that is making itself felt from Illinois to Michoacan.
Gutierrez received smiling nods when he likened the political muscle of the region's 563,000 Mexican immigrants to the power of Irish-Americans in the 19th and 20th Centuries, who came to control the Chicago machine.
In May, the strength of Mexicans will be on display when many of the region's 300 immigrant clubs -- known as "hometown associations" -- will help organize a march in downtown Chicago a year after their political coming-out party, demonstrations that flooded the Loop last spring and charged the national immigration debate.
For decades Mexican hometown associations have functioned as social networks whose members pooled their money earned here to help build new schools or churches back in Mexico.
But leaders in Chicago's largest immigrant group have a more ambitious worldview than their predecessors, even more than the ethnic blocs that preceded them decades ago.
Some, like Gutierrez, wield growing influence in both countries. One morning, he's unveiling a blueprint for more immigrant services in Illinois as director of the state's Office of New Americans Policy and Advocacy. The next night, he's brainstorming with activists in his home state of Michoacan about a slate of candidates for Mexico's congress.
An active role in Mexican politics might seem at odds with building political influence here. But Gutierrez and others say they form a budding new political consciousness among Mexican immigrants -- a "third nation" of sorts that transcends the border, advancing the community's cause on both sides.
"The nation-state concept is changing," said Gutierrez, 46, who came to Chicago in 1986 and led one of the Midwest's largest federations of hometown associations. "You don't have to say, `I am Mexican,' or, `I am American.' You can be a good Mexican citizen and a good American citizen and not have that be a conflict of interest. Sovereignty is flexible."
That concept worries some U.S. officials and scholars who see the dual loyalty as undermining the assimilation of Mexican immigrants.
Irish, German and Polish immigrants eventually melded into Chicago's landscape, their ties to their native soil largely sentimental. But Mexican immigrants today are linked to their homeland like no group before, scholars say, connected by NAFTA, satellite TV, the Internet, cell phones and cheap non-stop flights.
In Mexico, their power stems from the nearly $25 billion these immigrants send home every year, the country's second-highest source of income behind oil.
Their political influence surfaces in places like Teloloapan, far up in the cactus-filled hills of the state of Guerrero, where a Chicago restaurateur helped build new roads and business. Grateful townspeople elected him mayor in a landslide.
In the U.S., immigrants' power is driven by numbers and a growing deftness at the levers of this country's political machinery. That recently manifested itself in a fledgling political action committee called Mexicans for Political Progress, which raised $23,000 for Blagojevich's re-election and rallied volunteers to walk precincts during November's election.
An unfolding movement
Fabian Morales, a soft-spoken Realtor with a well-clipped mustache, stands at the center of the unfolding movement. He handled logistics for three massive immigration marches in Chicago last year -- including a four-day walk to suburban Batavia -- and co-founded Mexicans for Political Progress.
After coming to Chicago in 1970, Morales helped launch one of the city's then-few hometown clubs, devoted to his tiny native village of Xonacatla, Guerrero.
Back then, Xonacatla was without roads, potable water or electricity. It was a slow journey from other towns by foot or horseback, Morales said. The club members in Chicago resolved to change that.
Collecting $50 to $100 at a time, Morales and others raised enough through barbecues and door-to-door soliciting to replace a house used for worship services with a towering marble church that rises from the green hillside.
Morales has since helped develop CONFEMEX, an umbrella organization for most of the hometown clubs in the Midwest. Among other things, the group is a central voice in economic development in Mexico, representing an estimated $340 million in projects generated by U.S.-based hometown associations in the last five years, according to Mexican federal officials.
"We want to focus on creating more jobs there so they don't have to think about emigrating," Morales said.
The rising activity of hometown associations caught the eye of the Mexican government, which eventually created a "3-for-1" matching project, where federal, state and local governments split the cost of a new bridge or computer center with the U.S.-based groups.
Those projects have given Mexican immigrants "a great moral authority" in their homeland, as well as political cachet, said Carlos Gonzalez, executive director of the Institute for Mexicans in the Exterior, or IME, a Mexican federal government agency that fosters stronger ties with expatriates.
"During the 1970s, [Mexicans] called the people who left Mexico and acclimated to the U.S. 'pocho,' which, if you look in the dictionary, means 'spoiled fruit,'
" Gonzalez said. "The change we've seen in the public perception of Mexicans in the exterior has been 180 degrees."
In 2006, citizens abroad were allowed to vote in Mexican presidential elections for the first time. Leaders are also pushing for changes that would allow expatriates to vote in local elections and even hold elective offices while residing abroad.
Recently, Gutierrez and others persuaded Michoacan to become the first state in Mexico to extend voting rights to expatriates. Their rationale: Almost half of those born in Michoacan, Zacatecas and several other Mexican states now live in the U.S.
Timoteo "Alex" Manjarrez, 44, is among a small but growing number of Mexican immigrants making a bolder claim in their motherland.
Arriving from his native town of Teloloapan, Guerrero, in 1980, Manjarrez spent 19 years in Chicago. The stocky, boyish-looking immigrant worked for years as a dishwasher at the Columbia Yacht Club and, eventually, became owner of three Mexican restaurants in the city.
Fulfilling a desire shared by many immigrants, Manjarrez moved back to his native town in 1999 with enough money for his family to live comfortably.
But the place he had longed for all those years was still frustratingly poor, despite the investments Manjarrez's hometown club made in new roads and other improvements.
Manjarrez, who holds both Mexican and U.S. citizenship, settled in and quickly built a new health club and a hacienda-style restaurant named La Condesa, after the three he still owns in Chicago.
In 2004, he ran for mayor of Teloloapan. With long-distance backing from his hometown club friends in Chicago, who sent money and telephoned friends and local officials on his behalf, Manjarrez won handily.
'The city that works'
Since taking office, the man who sees Mayor Richard M. Daley as a political role model has pushed to remake Teloloapan into a Mexican version of "the city that works."
The effort includes newly paved streets, a recreation center that replaces a local swamp known as "black waters," and a towering hotel being built privately by Manjarrez's family.
Next to a new medical clinic, a donated Chicago ambulance sits in the parking lot. Its emblem has been painted over, but it serves as a reminder of the continued links Manjarrez has to his former city, where he maintains a home near Midway Airport, votes in U.S. elections and checks in on his businesses.
Aurelio Santamaria Bahena, mayor of a town near Manjarrez's called Tlapehuala, labeled such changes "a blessing" for an area of Mexico dominated by crumbling lean-to houses and children in bare feet pulling bone-thin donkeys.
But, as with other parts of the country where the immigrant handprint is deepening, the introduction of U.S.-style governance has also bred resentment.
Local leaders of Manjarrez's own Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) are trying to drum him out of office, arguing he is too brash and condescending. The mayor counters the fight is about his efforts to take away "a plate of corruption that they've been able to eat from for years."
The conflict was an uncomfortable backdrop during a recent PRD strategy meeting at a restaurant in Chilpancingo, Guerrero's capital. Headlines that morning featured a march against Manjarrez, orchestrated by his opponents.
"People see you as an outsider," a worried Santamaria cautioned Manjarrez. "People don't think you see things as they are here."
Manjarrez, wearing a black "La Condesa" windbreaker, patted his friend on the back and smiled. He had a media plan, one that might have made Daley proud.
"We'll publish photos of the streets of Teloloapan before and after I came into office," Manjarrez said. "And, we'll ask the people: `Which would you prefer?'
"
That same week, Mexican immigrants from the U.S. and Canada met in Mexico City, as members of an advisory council created by the Mexican government.
With a brash American style, they soon escalated their advice to demands, the members' voices echoing through the meeting hall.
Morales, the Chicago Realtor, and about 100 other council members pushed Mexico to lobby the U.S. harder on immigration reform. They chastised their hosts for not creating more jobs. Buttonholing federal legislators in hallways, they reminded elected officials how much their districts relied on money sent from the U.S.
They want 'results now'
Gregorio Luke, a blond member of the council from Los Angeles partial to designer suits, observed that this kind of behavior wouldn't exist in a purely Mexican forum, where deference toward authority guides nearly all dialogue.
"These people come here speaking Spanish, but they're negotiating as Americans," said Luke, a museum director who once oversaw cultural affairs at the Los Angeles Mexican Consulate. "They want to see results now."
The meeting of the advisory council also illustrated the provocative overlap of Mexican and American political action.
In addition to all-day strategy sessions on how to improve Mexico, council members brainstormed over late-night drinks on next moves in the fight for U.S. immigration reform. Many members had used their existing e-mail network to coordinate simultaneous demonstrations in Chicago, Los Angeles and other cities.
Though not active participants in the U.S. immigrant movement, Mexican officials urged their compatriots to keep on fighting.
"Let there be no barriers or walls between Mexicans here on the inside and the outside," former Mexican President Vicente Fox told the group, referring to a 2006 U.S. law that allows for a 700-mile fence to be built at the border. The audience stood and cheered.
The idea that the Mexican government might be helping its nationals shape U.S. politics has raised red flags, both in the halls of academia and in the more volatile world of talk radio and the Internet.
Robert Leiken, director of the immigration and national security program at the right-leaning Nixon Center in Washington, argued that binational activism among Mexican immigrants is bad for both countries. In the U.S., the meetings in Spanish and the often-passionate interest in Mexico's future hinder assimilation, he said.
In Mexico, the relationship to hometown associations fosters an unhealthy economic dependence on U.S. remittances.
"If I went out to Pilsen and spent some time with people from a hometown association, I'd think these are really cool people," Leiken said. But, "Standing back and looking at this from a social policy standpoint, I see some real problems."
James McCann, a Purdue University political science professor, found that immigrants interested in Mexican affairs were more likely to participate in U.S. politics. He helped interview about 1,100 Mexican immigrants and found that hometown clubs promoted activism.
"The conventional wisdom is that any transnational engagement is going to suck the oxygen out of your civic life in the States," McCann said. "But it seems that if you open a new avenue of expression in Mexico, that new avenue might pay some other dividends in the U.S."
Some of those dividends went directly to the Blagojevich campaign last fall, when the governor found himself being serenaded by a trumpet-playing mariachi band inside the Hacienda Tecalitlan restaurant on the Near Northwest Side.
Near a trickling courtyard fountain, Morales praised the governor in Spanish at the kickoff dinner for the Mexicans for Political Progress PAC. While Morales once raised money for his hometown with $1 tamales, the price here was as much as $500 a plate.
"Let us demonstrate our political power by voting in the election, by voting for our friends interested in the prosperity of Mexicans. Friends like Gov. Rod Blagojevich!" Morales told the crowd.
Blagojevich, who speaks a hint of Spanish, took the microphone and shouted: "Viva Chivas!" a reference to a popular Mexican soccer team.
When the laughter and applause subsided, he switched to English and added: "By organizing, you are empowering a community. Your voice will be heard."
The mood is darker in northwest suburban Carpentersville, where a growing Mexican community has rallied in large numbers in the face of a local backlash against undocumented immigrants.
Last fall, about 3,000 Mexican immigrants and their supporters turned up outside Carpentersville's City Hall in an unexpected show of opposition to a proposed ordinance that would penalize landlords who rent to illegal immigrants and employers who hire them. The crowd was so riled a vote on the ordinance was postponed and has yet to be taken.
The quick response came largely due to the hometown association representing the village of La Purisima, Michoacan, local activists said. The club turned to its telephone list of 400 families, said Salvador Balleno, the group's president.
The turnout was a victory, but it has not deterred Carpentersville trustees from other proposals that would allow local police to trigger deportation proceedings against illegal immigrants and make English the village's official language.
And as Balleno has struggled to register voters and rally volunteers for this month's village elections, even sympathetic politicians have seemed hesitant to link themselves too closely with the hometown association. Balleno now fears the village's hard-liners have the upper hand, intimidating some of the immigrants who protested last fall.
"The [club] members know that if these people stay [in office] it is going to affect their kids," Balleno said, sounding anxious that an opportunity was slipping through his fingers.
Jose Artemio Arreola, a key organizer of next month's march in Chicago, has been actively monitoring the battle in Carpentersville.
He sees the activity there as part of a plan to create a political empire for Mexican immigrants, one linking hometown associations in Chicago and other cities to labor unions and Mexico's congress.
His strategy includes moving back to his native state of Michoacan to run for congress there, something Arreola never imagined doing when he left a town overrun by poverty and ruled by local drug kingpins.
He got his start in Chicago working in a plastics factory. Frustrated by the union representation there, he ran for shop steward and won. Unable to speak English, he relied on his bilingual co-workers to help him negotiate union contracts.
He has since become a school janitor in Oak Park. The position pays little, but it has allowed Arreola to climb the ranks of the Service Employees International Union, where he has become key in that union's national efforts to tap further into the country's exploding Mexican immigrant workforce.
All the while, Arreola has used the sharp elbows and old-school union tactics acquired in Chicago to become a power broker in his hometown of Acuitzio del Canje.
He started in 2004 when the local mayor refused to back projects proposed by his hometown association. Arreola, a burly backslapper partial to gold neck chains, recalled thinking: "I need to take them out."
He recruited a teacher to run for mayor in the Mexican town. Arreola then brought back a town phone book and, with others in Chicago, called voters one by one, promising a stream of U.S. investment if his candidate won. The incumbent opted for traditional rallies and car tours through town with a bullhorn.
More than two years later, sitting in a Pilsen restaurant, Arreola opened a laptop computer and showed off the fruits of what proved to be an easy victory. Pictures of a new retirement home popped onto the screen, one featuring a grinning Arreola at a groundbreaking ceremony.
Another showed a new computer lab with 40 computers for local schoolchildren, an investment in the future of Acuitzio del Canje.
The town's name comes from an 1865 decision to make it the site for a "canje," or exchange of prisoners between warring Mexican and French troops.
Sitting deep in the dusty mountains of Michoacan, it was neutral ground back then, Arreola explained, territory that didn't fully belong to either country but, in some ways, belonged to both.
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oavila@tribune.com
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IN THE WEB EDITION
Jose Artemio Arreola is one of several Mexican hometown association leaders in Chicago with multiple connections in Mexico and the U.S. From helping organize last year's massive immigration marches to slating political candidates in his home state, he wields influence on both sides of the border. To learn more about Arreola, watch videos and see photo galleries, go to chicagotribune.com/mexicansinchicago.
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