Archive for November, 2005
Black Friday Doesn’t Have to be so Black
25 Nov 2005
My mother had to open the retail store she manages at 7 am today. My cousins said they would be at the toy store at 6 am. The mall near my apartment was open at 5 am. The leftover turkey in the fridge, it’s time to go shopping! The day after Thanksgiving is considered the biggest holiday shopping day of the year and is sometimes called “Black Friday”. But that doesn’t mean that we have to join in the shopping madness or given the recent conversation on VL about sweatshops that we can’t shop with a conscience. There are alternatives to the early bird shopping specials and red tag sales.
Salma to host Nobel Prize concert
6:55 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Celebrities|Entertainment|World · Comments Off
24 Nov 2005
I thought this piece of news was a bit weird, I guess because I’ve never seen the Nobel Prize concert and I don’t associate the prize itself with Hollywood celebrities:
Mexican film star Salma Hayek will host this year’s Nobel Peace Prize concert in Oslo next month.
“She is truly enthusiastic about this assignment. I have the impression that Salma is part of Hollywood’s intellectual elite, who feel that leading the Nobel concert is a great honor,” concert producer Odd Arvid Strømstad told newspaper VG.
The concert will be held in Oslo on Sunday, Dec. 11 and will feature artists such as Westlife, Damien Rice, Duran Duran, and the Sugababes.
Oprah Winfrey, Anthony Hopkins and Meryl Streep are among the celebrities who have hosted the concert in previous years.
It’s no weirder than Oprah hosting or Duran Duran performing. Good for Salma.
Via / Afterposten
Court: “English Only” unfair
4:09 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Bilingualism|California|Justice · Comments Off
24 Nov 2005
A landmark ruling has come down in a Southern California case challenging the state’s “English only” instruction rule for ballots, in which voters say they were misled by signature gatherers and were unable to know that because they didn’t speak English. A win for voter’s rights advocates:
The trustee, Nativio V. Lopez, had come under fire for seeking exemptions to the state’s English-only instruction requirements and was partly blamed for the district’s lack of new school construction. He was recalled by 71 percent of voters.
The decision Wednesday by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals could be used to force election officials throughout the state to require multiple-language petitions for ballot issues, voting-rights advocates said.
It means “non-English-speaking voters have the opportunity to participate in the entire electoral process, from beginning – which often means deciding whether to sign a petition – to end, in the voting booth,” said former Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund attorney Thomas Saenz, who represented the plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the Orange County Registrar of Voters.
Via / San Jose Mercury News
Documenting the Undocumented
4:04 pm By Maegan La Mala · Activism|Immigration · Comments Off
24 Nov 2005
The Border Film Project is very interesting project that hopes to raise awareness about the issues related to the border through images.
The purpose of the project is to capture the perspective of both immigrants coming to the United States and minuteman at the border attempting to stop them. Both groups are given disposable cameras to take pictures of their journey or their experience and they are asked to send them back to the Border Film Project.
Both sets of photographers have the power to show everyday Americans what they otherwise cannot see, providing a more personal look into a rich and complicated issue.
The project is run by Boston College grads Brett Huneycutt and Victoria Criado, and University of Arizona grad Rudy Adler.
At the conclusion of the project the various images will be shown in galleries in Mexico and the United States.
Via / Border Film Project
Poisonous Pesticide Clouds
24 Nov 2005
After a pesticide cloud drifted over the town of Earlimart in 1999, sickening 250 people, the state fined Wilbur-Ellis, the company found liable in the case, $150,000, but since then, hundreds of people have been poisoned by pesticide drifts in Kern County. The incidents often occur in the same towns and involve the same companies.
In the Central Valley you see the pesticides being sprayed everywhere, whether it’s by tractor or through the air with a crop duster. On many occasions I will be driving through back roads lined with orange groves and suddenly the car windshield will get sprayed with moisture. You then realize that you have just driven through a pesticide cloud or at least the residue of a recent spraying.
No Thanks on Thanksgiving
10:04 am By Maegan La Mala · New York City|Politics|radio · Comments Off
24 Nov 2005
While some Latino families will be eating pavo (or pernil) giving thanks in the tradition of a story passed on about Native Americans sharing with the pilgrims, others may be out serving those less fortunate. For many Latinos whose roots lie in Indigenous cultures across the Americas today is no party. It is a day or mourning and remembrance of colonization and genocide. Regardless of your position on this so called holiday, even if you’re just enjoying having the day off work and school, it never hurts to have a little background information.
From 10 am to 6 pm EST, WBAI Radio in NYC (99.5 fm or on the web at WBAI.org) will be telling the true story of Thanksgiving and how the Pilgrims, the Puritans, and the influences of Christianity created the American view of this day.
Have a safe and thoughtful day.
Via / WBAI.org
Racism and abuse in the Dominican Republic
5:18 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Dominicans|Immigration|Latin America · 18 Comments
23 Nov 2005
I was appalled but fascinated by an article I read in last Sunday’s New York Times. It talked about the savage, racist treatment of Haitians on the part of the government entities (and the people) of the Dominican Republic. The treatment of immigrant laborers in the United States is appalling, but the condition of Haitian workers in the D.R. is downright sickening:
“Where there are two Haitians, kill one; where there are three Haitians, kill two,” said leaders of the mobs that descended on the immigrants’ camps, the Haitians here recalled. “But always let one go so that he can run back to his country and tell them what happened.”
Farmworkers face Exploitation in Salinas Valley
4:02 pm By Maegan La Mala · Immigration|society · Comments Off
23 Nov 2005
It’s ironic that some farm workers live in the “salad bowl of the world,” powered by a 3 billion dollar agricultural industry yet they suffer from all types of socioeconomic ills from high poverty, to high unemployment, to poor housing. Farm workers face exploitative conditions everywhere they look.
Farm workers struggle earning poor wages with little or no benefits while working long hours. In the Salinas Valley area where housing is much more expensive, farm workers face the reality of having to pay in some cases upwards of $600 a month to rent a garage space to live in. In some cases some pay as much as 40 percent of their monthly earnings for housing. Aside from exploitative rent prices many have to worry about paying off debt accured by coming to the United States.
Here I am today, paying little by little, the debt with the coyote and trying to send something to my family that was left behind. But it is not easy, because the pay barely makes ends meet…In a good week, we earn about $200.
Via / La Opinión
VL Musica Review : Alma and Niurka
23 Nov 2005
The world famous world music club SOB’s located in New York City started its own music label. Last night I had the pleasure of attending the CD release party at Joe’s Pub for the label’s first release, Alma y Niurka. The two Cubana childhood friends, after years of working on separate musical careers all over the world, including Mexico and France, reunited to record this live album.
The Latino Happiness Bonus
23 Nov 2005
My friend Oso tipped me off to a very interesting article — about happiness of all things — which highlights research that suggests Latinos are happier than non-Latinos:
One of the most intriguing finds to come out of the research so far is that Latin Americans consistently rank happier in life-satisfaction surveys than would otherwise be expected, given that many in the region live in poverty. In an in-depth study of 120,000 people in 82 nations, the World Values Survey found what one researcher dubbed “the Latino bonus.”"
Hola!
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