ArcaMax

SAN DIEGO -- Immigrants do so much for Americans. They care for our children, look after our elderly, cook our food, make our beds, trim our lawns and perform other tasks in our homes and businesses.

Must they now entertain us? Do we expect them to make us laugh to help pass all the free time we have because they're doing our chores?

Many ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- Americans get all fired up over politics even though not many of us seem to understand the subject matter.

For example, on both the right and the left, you will find true believers who share a common view that the two parties are vastly different and present a stark contrast to voters.

That's adorable. There are actually ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- As a journalist, there are at least three things that really annoy me.

One is when elected officials or public servants who bristle whenever folks in my tribe tell them how to do their jobs then turn around and tell us how to do ours.

Another is when government officials gaslight members of the press, trying to convince us to ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- Confused and rudderless, the Democratic Party has been derailed. Only Cory Booker seems to be on the right track.

The Democratic senator from New Jersey is demanding that fellow Democrats battle Republicans, stand their ground and fight GOP efforts to make America the 1950s again.

An autopsy is in order. Democrats wound up in a ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- Crafting a column can be an unpredictable endeavor. That is especially true when you're writing about politics.

Like most human beings, elected officials can be awfully complicated.

Take California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is as complicated as they come. His personal story is filled with paradoxes.

On the one hand, as the son of ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- I'm the product of a mixed marriage. My parents are both Mexican American, but they were born on what sometimes seem like different planets.

I'm a lifelong Californian, who has spent all but a dozen of my 58 years living in the Golden State. I share those roots with my father, who was born in Central California in 1941.

But I'm ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- Good mentors can teach us a lot, except how to say goodbye.

One of mine -- who entered my life a quarter century ago as one of my graduate school professors and who I was later fortunate to call "friend" -- schooled me both in and out of the classroom.

Even now, I hear his gravelly voice in my head offering a gentle scolding: "...Read more

ATTENTION RUBEN NAVARRETTE EDITORS: THE 8TH GRAF REFERENCES LANGUAGE THAT SOME READERS MAY FIND OFFENSIVE. THANK YOU. -- CREATORS

Trump's Immigration Crackdown Creates Mayhem and Madness. Here's What We Can Do.

SAN DIEGO -- It feels as if California has a new state motto that boils down to just four words: "What can we do?"

As a Mexican ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- What does political analysis sound like when it comes from Generation X? For one thing, it can be set to 80s music.

Talking Heads probably hoped that a Trump presidency was a trauma that Americans would only have to experience Once in a Lifetime.

No such luck. The sequel isn't even six months old, and already, many critics agree...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- Well, this Fourth of July weekend will be awkward.

As we mark the end of the first month of the Trump administration's occupation of Los Angeles -- which is centered around an un-American crackdown on Latino immigrants, and anyone who looks like them, by masked men who won't identify themselves, don't act like police and get ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- It's been nearly eight months since the 2024 presidential election, and Americans are still debating what happened, why it happened and what it means that it happened.

The Pew Research Center recently provided more grist for the mill when it released an extensive study of nearly 9,000 voters conducted in the weeks following the ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- As they try to tell the complicated story of what has been happening for the last three weeks on the streets of Los Angeles, the media have been making a big mistake.

Reporters, anchors and columnists need to stop accepting at face value the increasingly dubious claim that these are, in fact, "ICE agents" who are snatching from ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- The modern-day classic Western "Tombstone" has plenty of memorable scenes. One of the best is set in a saloon when Doc Holiday (played masterfully by the late Val Kilmer) meets fellow gunslinger Johnny Ringo (played exceptionally well by Michael Biehn).

Referencing Ringo, Holiday turns to his female companion and asks: "What do you...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- Some say politics is poetry. But much of it is metaphor.

As a disturbing symbol of the extreme disrespect being shown Latinos in California, U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif. -- a mild-mannered Mexican American MIT-trained engineer -- was recently manhandled, thrown to the ground and handcuffed by members of Secretary of Homeland ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- Americans are really good at pointing out the contradictions of others, but really bad at acknowledging their own.

The immigration debate proves it. That's where consistency goes to die.

Trust me. Having written and spoken about that issue for more than 35 years, I've become an expert.

I'm not saying I'm an expert on ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- The Trump administration's invasion of the City of Angels is really quite devilish.

A Mexican American friend says that what surprises him most is that this is occurring in a city that is overwhelmingly Latino.

My friend is half right. Occupy L.A. is happening not despite the fact that Los Angeles is a Latino city but because it...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- If presidencies were akin to attractions at Disneyland, President Donald Trump's second term would be Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.

When it comes to spreading demagoguery, creating mayhem, generating chaos and turning people against one another, Trump really is in a league of his own. He has a knack for doing the wrong thing.

Trump's ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- I've given commencement speeches. Many graduates want a warm bath. But what they really need is a cold shower.

This is what the class of 2025 needs to hear. And it wouldn't hurt the rest of America to listen in as well.

Dear graduates:

There is an expression that is usually identified -- some claim, misidentified -- as a ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- As a newsman who has been on the job for nearly four decades, I'm embarrassed to admit that the happiest people I know make a point of not following the news.

I don't blame them. These days, the process of following current events is often dark, depressing and disempowering.

Still, totally checking out of news coverage isn't the...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- I always wondered why Harvard turned out so many lawyers. Now, due to overreach by the Trump administration, I know the answer. It's all the better to sue you with.

My MAGA friends think that President Donald Trump can perform miracles. Yet, as a "Never Trumper" who thinks the con man is desecrating the country, I was skeptical. ...Read more