While students were on their holiday break, Arizona issued a disturbing wake-up call to anyone who thought the education system had evolved to reflect America’s diversity. In a legal challenge to a controversial law passed in 2010, an administrative law judge pummeled a flagship educational initiative by supporting restrictions on programs based on Latino history and culture.

Jack Markowitz, a retired editor, has a column in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review this morning where he argues that high unemployment among today’s youth is the result of poor personal habits and values. Markowitz bases this argument on a story he tells about two young men — one employed with a failed marriage and living with his parents rent free, and the other an unemployed ex-convict. Markowitz is, in effect, arguing that the rise in unemployment is the result of a wholesale outbreak of vice among the young which happened to coincide with the beginning of the recession.

The only comfort of America’s illogical use of resources on prejudice and emotion is that were not alone…wait a minute that isn’t comforting at all.

One of the most compelling elements of this political drama has been the interaction between The LGBT movement and the migrant youth movement. What to an outsider might be perceived as two unrelated constituencies, perhaps even hostile to each other, have been working long before this moment to build unity and solidarity. It is one thing to believe in the truth that we are all woven into a “single garment of destiny.” It is another to live that truth and act on it. The migrant youth movement and the LGBT movement having been living and acting on that truth, as we all should. My freedom is tied up with the freedom of everyone else in the universe, and today we have a chance to set close to a million people free.

Papers the Movie: Stories of Undocumented Youth delivers the poignant stories of five undocumented students whose life in the United States is colored daily by their lack “papers.” Without proof of their immigrant status, it is against the law for them to drive or work, and it is difficult or impossible for them to get into college.