ArcaMax

SAN DIEGO -- In a crowded field, Julian Castro shows us that one way to climb up is to keep your head down.

Even if the polls don't show it. Castro is registering at just 1% in Iowa, an early-voting and overwhelmingly white state charged with choosing a president for a country that is -- with every census count -- becoming less white.

What do ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- As an LGBTQ ally, I am a work in progress. I don't know firsthand what it's like to be rejected or marginalized -- even by family and friends -- because of who I am, so Pride Month is a time for introspection.

My brother and I don't talk much about being Latino, or about being raised in a small farm town, or having an immigrant ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- Did you notice that Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and U.S. President Donald Trump both claimed victory in the recent tariff standoff?

The prospect of an ugly trade war between Mexico and the United States was never a win-win situation. Yet both sides say they won.

It's absurd. This is all political theater, a pair ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- President Trump is at it again. He is exploiting an issue he can't figure out, oversimplifying a complicated world and casting foreigners as the cause of America's problems.

That's how Trump rolls. First, he seized on immigration. He claimed to back legal immigration even as he tried to cut it in half by tying it to education and ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- You ever wonder how long Americans need to keep taking note of the first this, or the first that?

I have a simple answer: Until there's a second.

So, as a Mexican American who loves boxing, let me explain why it matters that 29-year-old Andy Ruiz Jr. -- who hails from the Imperial Valley, a rural desert region on the California-...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- The anti-immigrant crowd should just be honest and finally own up to the real reason they want to keep out foreigners.

It's fear of competition, silly. Same as it always was.

Oops, I shouldn't be talking. I've been put on notice. No sooner had President Trump sparked a national discussion about immigration than I was apparently ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- A reader recently asked me: "Is the USA full?"

This was no random survey. I had just asserted that legal immigration was the best thing about America.

The reader was not persuaded.

He asked: "Have you spent time in Los Angeles and experienced the transportation gridlock -- Bay Area, San Diego, San Bernardino, Sacramento, Orange ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- For those who think this nation of immigrants takes in too many immigrants, I hear you.

Restrictionists complain that the media doesn't listen to them. But whether it's through conservative talk radio, or right-wing cable television, or my own inbox, I hear these people.

They say it's not fair to generalize about motives, call ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- Sometimes the Gods offer human beings a mulligan, a chance to right a past wrong.

When a 19-year-old white male shot up a synagogue in Poway, California, the attack got me thinking.

Jews have been terrorized for 5,000 years. And, when they've sought refuge, they've been turned away.

Just think what Jews experienced as refugees ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- Turnabout is fair play. But does it also make for fair trade?

Americans are getting a dose of their own medicine in the form of unethical trade practices, and the process leaves a bitter taste. It turns out we care a lot more about the fairness of the game if we're behind on points. If we're coming out ahead, we're less concerned ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- As a Never Trumper who hopes that Democrats win back the White House and rescue the republic, I can't tell you how frustrating it is to watch Democrats lay the groundwork for once again snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

When I write that the country needs rescuing, Trump supporters send angry emails insisting that America ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- Fifteen years ago this week, I lost my best friend.

And yet the memory of this special young man -- who was also my college roommate -- remains a blessing. He is always on my mind, and his spirit at my side.

In his final years, we had drifted apart. There is no good excuse. You get busy with life, consumed with work. You take for ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- What's the matter with Washington?

Where should we start?

The Senate Judiciary Committee put on a three-ring circus last week where the spotlight was fixed on Attorney General William Barr, who testified about his interpretation of the Mueller report.

Some of this is complicated, but what led us here is simple: In Washington, no ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- Whenever I get angry and frustrated that Mexicans and Mexican Americans are blamed for America's afflictions, I try to remember that there is another group that has had it much worse for much longer.

For 5,000 years, Jews have been the world's favorite scapegoats. Lose a job, blame a Jew. Your son didn't get into Princeton? It's ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- Joe Biden is running for president -- again. And it's about time.

Time, time, time. That's a word we're going to hear a lot over the next year or so whenever journalists and pundits talk about Biden's third bid for the White House -- or, as the former vice president will package it, Barack Obama's third term.

We'll hear that this ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- Beware of those who complain about broken promises. They sometimes get carried away and start to think they're entitled to certain things when no one owes them anything.

Here's how life works. People make half-baked assumptions about how their lives are going to turn out. They convince themselves that a project, venture or decision...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- What's really going on with Julian Castro?

There are two conflicting narratives. One suggests that the presidential bid of the former secretary of Housing and Urban Development -- who is trailing in fundraising and barely a blip in the polls -- is dead in the water. The other predicts that Castro could surprise everyone -- like, ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- I confess that it took me awhile to convert to the Church of Pete. But now, I'm listening to the sermons. And I'm becoming a believer.

This is not to say that the 37-year-old mayor of South Bend, Indiana -- who recently entered the race for the Democratic presidential nomination -- is my choice. It's too early to pick a horse in ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- Zip it, Mitt. As the junior senator from Utah -- the area previously known as "Northern Mexico" -- you may feel that the debate over immigrants and refugees needs your perspective.

It does not. It's not that you -- Mitt Romney -- don't have anything to offer. In the past, you've been a moderate on the prickly question of what to do...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- Before we talk about Donald Trump and the U.S.-Mexico border, let's catch up on the contradictions.

Having been elected president in large part because he promised to take charge and end illegal immigration, Trump is now in retreat. Whereas he once boasted that border crossings were down, Trump now claims that the border is being ...Read more