Archive for April, 2009
SPEAK! Listening Party in Portland, Oregon This Saturday
3:23 pm By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Allied Media Conference|Events|Media|media justice|Oregon · 1 Comment
9 Apr 2009This Saturday the 11th, there will be a listening party for the release of the SPEAK! Radical Woman of Color Media Collective‘s spoken-word CD.
The It Is Better To SPEAK! listening party will be held Saturday, the 11th, at 7 to 9 pm at In Other Words Women’s Books and Resources, 8 B NE Killingsworth St., Portland, OR, 97211. All are welcome. Bring a friend and spread the word! I’ll see you there.
The CD, a compilation of poetry, prose, story and song, is packed with the work of people you know, including Blackamazon, Brownfemipower, Cripchick, Little Light, Sylvia, and many others including yours truly, la Mala.
As my dear Little Light said:
We made this project with love and held hands and hard work, and we’re proud to present it as a fundraiser to help get some radical mamis of color to the Allied Media Conference and support them in their activism.
At the listening party, you’ll have a chance to come together and hear the album, discuss it, and take it home with you. We’ve put together a whole curriculum, written together, to help facilitate, and both I and Adele Nieves, producer and contributor, will be present to help get things shaking.
Via / Taking Steps
Texas Lawmaker Wants Asian Americans to Change their Names
1:39 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Controversia|language|Politics|race|Texas · 2 Comments
9 Apr 2009This sounds like something out of The Onion, but sadly, it’s true. This disgusting piece of news comes to us from The Houston Chronicle, and it makes me fear a trip back home to Texas: a Texas legislator, one Rep. Betty Brown (R-Terrell) suggests that voters of Asian heritage change their names to make them “easier for Americans to deal with.” Take a deep breath before reading the following:
Brown suggested that Asian-Americans should find a way to make their names more accessible.
“Rather than everyone here having to learn Chinese — I understand it’s a rather difficult language — do you think that it would behoove you and your citizens to adopt a name that we could deal with more readily here?” Brown said.Brown later told Ko: “Can’t you see that this is something that would make it a lot easier for you and the people who are poll workers if you could adopt a name just for identification purposes that’s easier for Americans to deal with?”
You can watch a video above of the House Elections Committee where this went down. Ramey Ko, a representative of the Organization of Chinese Americans, testified to the difficulties that Asian Americans often face when attempting to vote.
The Texas Democratic Party has demanded an apology from Brown, while the Republican party says Democrats “want this to be about race”.
If it isn’t about race, then what is it about?
Via / Chron.com
Tengo Hambre: Evo Morales Goes on Hunger Strike
12:18 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Activism|Bolivia|Latin America|Politics · 1 Comment
9 Apr 2009
It’s breakfast time on the West Coast, but way down south in Bolivia, nobody’s eating. President Evo Morales has called a hunger strike to “defend the vote of the people”. What’s he talking about? Morales and supporters want to put pressure on the Bolivian congress to approve a bill which would set a date for general elections — elections in which Morales is poised to win re-election. AP reports:
Bolivia’s opposition-led Senate has failed to approve a law to handle the elections, which are mandated by a Morales-backed constitutional reform approved by voters in January.The socialist president, who took office in 2006, has suggested opposition leaders are trying to block the planned December elections with delaying tactics.
While they won’t be eating, AP reports that the President and his supporters will be drinking water and chewing coca leaves.
For continuing updates, follow Ahora Bolivia on Twitter. They will be following the situation closely.
Via / AP
Morning Bizarro: Billy Bob Thornton Goes Off (or IS off)
11:43 am By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Bizarro|Celebrities|Internet|Music|Twitter · Comments Off
9 Apr 2009The Twitter is buzzing this morning over a video of actor Billy Bob Thornton being interviewed about his musical career. Sounds pretty normal up until there, but the video is worth far more than any description I might be able to provide. Check it out (warning, this is extremely painful to watch):
My gut says this is a prank. Your thoughts? Is this just another Joaquin Phoenix-esque publicity stunt or is Billy Bob off his rocker?
Via / QTV on YouTube
Obama Administration Ready to Talk Immigration
8:19 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Immigration|Politics · 1 Comment
9 Apr 2009
One of the reasons that the Obama administration and its supporters have given for not working on immigration reform sooner is the economy, as if the lives of undocumented immigrants and indeed the lives of all of us have nothing to do with the millions who work in the U.S. without papers. However now, as we approach the worker’s day of May Day, a day that has also more recently been used to highlight the lives of the undocumented, the Obama administration is saying that this year it is going to address immigration
Mr. Obama plans to speak publicly about the issue in May, administration officials said, and over the summer he will convene working groups, including lawmakers from both parties and a range of immigration groups, to begin discussing possible legislation for as early as this fall.
Happy Passover and Holy Thursday
7:03 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Religion · 2 Comments
9 Apr 2009
Passover started yesterday at sundown and marks the start many holy high holidays in at least two faiths. Passover remembers the escape of the Jews from slavery in Egypt. Yesterday afternoon I asked a child I work with what Passover was, her four year old response was: “When Jewish people eat crackers”. I’m assuming she meant matzos aka unleavened bread symbolizing the haste in which the Jewish people had to leave.
Today is also Holy Thursday, marking Jesus’s Last Supper, which was actually a seder because yes, Jesus was Jewish.
I have been searching for stories about Latino seders or Latino synagogues in the U.S. so please if you are a Jewish Latino share your a pedacito of your vida with us. In the meantime, I’ve actually been going to church lately (God help us all, really) and am really interested in seeing how the church in my hood does Holy Week.
Forced Labor Continues in Florida
1:18 pm By la Macha · Immigration|Labor · Comments Off
8 Apr 2009
This is one of the many consequences of criminalizing and dehumanizing those in the U.S. without proper documentation. Workers who are here legally, who have those precious papers, work in reprehensible conditions and have almost no power at all to fight back.
The U.S. Department of Justice reports a new case of forced labor in Florida agriculture. This is the seventh confirmed case of forced labor in the last decade in the state.
The report describes poor working conditions as well as workers being chained to poles, beaten, robbed, and locked inside trucks. A 17-count federal indictment outlines how a dozen workers living on a farm were forced to sleep in trucks and shacks, went unpaid for their work, and had to pay for food and showers. The cases were reported at the Six L’s and Pacific Tomato Growers farms. Both the farms are certified by the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange Socially Accountable Farm Employers program, which is supposed to prevent labor abuses.
In 13 confirmed cases, workers were beaten, including for trying to leave the farm. The workers also had their identification documents held to keep them from escaping.
To all those people who insist that they “support” those here legally–what is your answer to this? How do these workers get more power when the corporations employing them know damn well how to play a system against workers with limited or no power?
Youths imprisoned for life with no chance of parole
12:53 pm By la Macha · crime|Drugs|Violence · 2 Comments
8 Apr 2009I’ve been a long time advocate for prison “reform” (not sure what ‘reform’ means to me yet, but I am absolutely sure that the way prisons work today must change). I could speak very eloquently about why teens and younger kids should not be sentenced as adults for crimes they commit. But instead I’ll just point you to this article by CNN about Quantel Lotts, a young man that killed his step brother when he was 14-years-old.
Lotts is one of at least 73 U.S. inmates — most of them minorities — who were sentenced to spend the rest of their lives in prison for crimes committed when they were 13 or 14, according to the Equal Justice Initiative, a nonprofit organization in Alabama that defends indigent defendants and prisoners.
The 73 are just a fraction of the more than 2,000 offenders serving life sentences for crimes they committed as minors under the age of 18.
Across the country, most juvenile offenders and many adults are given a second chance. Charles Manson, convicted in seven notorious murders committed when he was 27, will be eligible for his 12th parole hearing in 2012. He’s been denied parole 11 times. Even “Son of Sam” killer David Berkowitz, who confessed to killing six people in the 1970s when he was in his 20s, has had four parole hearings, though he has said he doesn’t deserve parole and doesn’t want it.
But Quantel Lotts has no hope for a parole hearing. At least not yet.
To me, this is a very simple issue. Kids of color who sometimes don’t even commit murder (the article lists at least two youths who are facing life in prison with no parole-one for raping an elderly woman and the other for armed robbery) are being locked up for life with no chance to get out. Grown white men who have gone on killing sprees have have more of a chance than they do.
This is not an issue of do they “deserve” to be out, or can “reform” happen. This is a very simple issue of inequality. When kids of color are being locked for life and grown white men aren’t–that is an unequal standard of practice.
What are we going to do about it?
(and for some really disgusting justifications, notice in the article how victims rights advocates say these youths should continue to be locked up forever because there’s no resources to “fix” them on the outside. Totally makes sense, no? Lock youths up rather than oh, finding the resources to stop violence to begin with?)
He’s Still Alive : Fidel Castro Meets with U.S. Lawmakers
11:17 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Cuba|Politics · 4 Comments
8 Apr 2009
Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro is like the chupacabra. A few people have claimed to have seen him pero no one is really sure if he’s real, as in really still alive. Among the most recent to visit with the ailing Castro were three members of the Congressional Black Caucus who were in Cuba for a historic meeting.
The meetings were the highest-ranking US-Cuba meetings since former president Jimmy Carter visited Fidel Castro in Havana in 2002.
Castro “was very engaging, very energetic, (and) discussed a wide range of issues,” said Rep. Barbara Lee. Rep. Laura Richardson observed that Castro “looked directly into our eyes, quite aware of what was happening, and said to us ‘how can we help President Obama?’”
Among the issues discussed were lifting the travel ban and ending the U.S. embargo on Cuba.
The delegation also met with current Cuban President and Fidel’s little brother, Raul.
Via / The Latin Americanist, Reuters, The Telegraph
April is Freedom Month
8:03 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Activism|Justice|New York City|Puerto Rico · Comments Off
8 Apr 2009
Most know that April is Poetry Month (and really we’ll get on that) pero did you also know that April is Freedom Month? Specifically focusing on the case of the Puerto Rican Political Prisoners, April is period of time to raise awareness about the Puerto Rican Political Prisoners and the Independence of Puerto Rico. The Puerto Rican Political Prisoners are Oscar Lopez Rivera, Carlose Alberto Torres ,and Avelino Gonzalez Claudio.
This April marks the 29th anniversary of the capture of the Puerto Rican Political Prisoners! The Puerto Rican Political Prisoners were incarcerated for their actions in support of the Independence of Puerto Rico; a colony of the United States for 110 years. The Political Prisoners were never charged with any violent crimes, but were given unjust sentences and incarcerated in the worst prisons in the United States.
The month is filled with activities that are not just educational and serve justice, pero are also fun. While the events listed are in the NYC area, that shouldn’t keep you from being inspired to perhaps make your own event or take one small action.
For more information on Freedom Month and the Puerto Rican Political Prisoners visit ProLibertad.
Hola!
VivirLatino is a daily publication published by Mamita Mala Media, dedicated to featuring all the latest politics, culture, entertainment of interest to the diverse Latin@ diaspora.
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