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Fri09May2008

NYT Puts the Responsibility on the Community for Keeping Tabs on Immigrant Detainees' Deaths.

13:16 H | Topics: Immigration - Newspapers

cemetary.jpgThe New York Times recently ran a story about how it tried and was trying to find out information about immigrant deaths in detention.

The document that follows, "Detainee Deaths 2004-November 2007," is the government's fullest account to date of deaths in immigration detention. Compiled by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and obtained by The New York Times under the Freedom of Information Act, it lists the names of 66 people who died, their dates of birth and death, where they were last held, where they died and the cause of death.
But errors and omissions on the list made it difficult for The Times to confirm the identities of many whose deaths had not previously come to public attention, to find out why they died, or to locate relatives.
Along with 13 deaths cited as suicides, 14 as the result of various cardiac ailments and 9 related to H.I.V. and AIDS, the list includes cryptic causes of death like "unresponsive" and "undetermined. " The list does not mention the immigrants' nationalities or where they lived in the United States. Some names and birth dates appear garbled.

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Latino Book Month, May 9th, Mother's Day Weekend Pick : Paula by Isabel Allende

11:35 H | Topics: Books - Chile - History - Literature - Women

paula.jpgI know, this is the second Isabel Allende book I picked this week, but as I was scanning my bookshelves this morning, I was searching for a book on motherhood and mother daughter relationships. Since my book isn't done yet, I turned to Isabel Allende and Paula. This non-fiction book is a love letter to Allende's daughter who passed away at a tragically young age. It is a telling of Chilean history and one Latin American woman's struggle before, during, and after the Pinochet dictatorship in that country. It is an autobiography but also a confessional in a way that asks, "What would you tell your daughter if she were on her deathbed?"

Isabel Allende answers this question be connecting generations through stories and history.

As I mentioned earlier this week, I first read this book the summer before I moved to Chile, in 1996. And the book still makes me cry today.

Purchase Isabel Allende's Paula here.

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Have 7 Minutes : Then You Can Get the Democratic Primary

09:30 H | Topics: US Presidential Race 2008


Seems like this is a little Obama sided (and maybe even sexist towards Hillary Clinton) but funny none the less.

Via / Culture Kitchen

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Fri09May2008

Disturbing Statistic : San Francsico Has More Blacks in Jail than in the City

07:35 H | Topics: Justice - Race - San Francisco

sanfran.jpgThe prison industrial complex is alive and well in San Francisco and it's using blacks as the raw material. In recent years the black population in the city of San Francisco has been decreasing, with one exception, prisons.

More than 60 percent of all prisoners are African American, according
to a survey of the city jail's population. And of the 282 female
prisoners, 67 percent are black.
About 42 percent of the jail population is in custody for drug
offenses, the study found.
A similar study in 1996 found that half of the jail population was
African American. A 2005 study put the number at 53 percent.
In contrast, 6.7 percent of San Francisco residents are black- a number that has been in steady decline, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

What is the reason for this alarming stat? Racial profiling.

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Thu08May2008

This Just Makes No Kind of Sense : Catching the Undocumented Leaving the U.S.?

15:44 H | Topics: Immigration - Politics

bus.jpgIs the anti-immigrant movement so desperate to up it's numbers of undocumented that they have resorted to catching undocumented immigrants when they are leaving the U.S. into Mexico? Seems so. SAN DIEGO -- U.S. border authorities no longer apprehend illegal immigrants only as they enter the country. Now they're catching them on the way out.

At random times near the Tijuana-San Diego border, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers have been setting up checkpoints, boarding buses destined for Mexico and pulling off people who don't have proper documentation.
Vincent Bond, an agency spokesman, said departing immigrants are fair targets.
"If our officers come upon people who are here illegally . . . regardless of whether they're leaving the country, we detain them, make a record of the fact they were here illegally and return them to Mexico," Bond said.

Um. OK. With people all up in arms of how much "illegal immigration" is costing the country, does this seem like a good use of resources?

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I Never Buy the American Book Review : But I Will and You Should Too!

13:30 H | Topics: Books - Literature - Magazines - Women

IssueV29_N4.jpgI never buy the American Book Review, but I'm going to make an exception for their latest issue and you should too! The current issue features Women of Color Publishing and contains the words of some blogger/writer hermanas! Just a taste:

"This Instant and This Triumph" an introductory essay that puts the current women of color publishing movement into historical context by Alexis Pauline Gumbs

INCITE: Women of Color Against Violence's crucial The Revolution Will Not Be Funded reviewed by the strategically fly organizer PAULINA HERNANDEZ!

Girlchild Press's new anthology Just Like A Girl: A Manifesta reviewed by the most talented and necessary fiction writer of our generation DANIELLE EVANS! (I should note- La Mala is in here too!)

Hermana Resist's collaborative 'zine The MAIZ Chronicles reviewed by BROWNFEMIPOWER!

Check it out, buy it, and support.

Via / Kitchen Table : Women of Color Pressed for Knowledge

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Action Alert : Write and Call to Protest Recent ICE Raids

11:26 H | Topics: Activism - California - Children - Immigration - Justice

ice.jpgYesterday I wrote about how ICE has upped it's antics by terrorizing schoolchildren and their parents in the Bay Area.

Please call and write to protest these actions.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Office
630 Sansome Street between Washington and Jackson
San Francisco, CA

Ronald E. Le Fevre, Chief Counsel
415-705-4604
Washington, DC (Headquarters)

Michael H. Neifach, Principal Legal Advisor
(202) 514-1126
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
425 I Street NW, Room 6100
Washington, DC 20536


On the grassroots level, if you see ICE hanging around, let your neighbors know. Start a phone tree, text messaging system. If you can document ICE presence by taking photos and video (generally, they don't like to be watched).

Via / National Immigrant Solidarity Network

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Latino Book Month Thursday, May 8th Pick : Borderlands:la Frontera by Gloria Anzaldua

09:26 H | Topics: Activism - Books - Literature - Women

Borderlands.jpgThis book changed my life. Borderlands: La Frontera, The New Mestiza by Gloria Anzaldua. The borderland referenced is this book is more than just one of geographical space, it is one of identity or language and struggling to survive while living in a place that is neither here nor there. While Anzaldua speaks/write personally from the physical/internal Chicana borderland, as a Puerto Rican woman born on the NY side of the island, this book made me cry. From the chapter How to Tame a Wild Tongue:

Linguistic Terrorism
Deslenguadas. Somos los del espanol deficiente. We are your linguistic nightmare, your linguistic aberration, your linguistic mestisaje, the subject of your burla. Because we speak with tongues of fire we are culturally crucified. Racially, culturally, and linguistically somos herfanos-we speak an orphan tongue.

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Wed07May2008

What are you Doing? Follow VivirLatino on Twitter!

13:28 H | Topics: Internet - VivirLatino

VL.jpgYou can take VivirLatino with you! You can follow VivirLatino and all of our latest postings via Twitter.

Begin following us via our Twitter Profile.

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Latino Book Month Miercoles May 7th Pick :Eva Luna by Isabel Allende

11:44 H | Topics: Books - Chile - Literature - Women

evaluna.jpgI fell in love with Isabel Allende the summer before I went to Chile and I still lover her (although I enjoy her earlier works more than her later books). In Eva Luna, Allende weaved her story magic through the character of Eve, who is a storyteller herself. The storytelling is an act of escape, self-protection, and even revolution against the struggles Eva finds herself in, in an unnamed South American nation.

Just a beautiful book.

Buy it here

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