Archive for May, 2009
Meaningless cuteness
4 May 2009In the olden days, aka the days of Dick Cheney and guns and random shooting of old men, ducks avoided the White House like the Plague.
These days, mami’s feel perfectly fine herding up the brood and heading in for a visit.
Yes, change has truly come
Language, The Media, & Access to Power : Peruvian Congresswoman Hilaria Supa
12:00 pm By Maegan la Mamita Mala · language|Media|Newspapers|Peru|Politics|race · 3 Comments
4 May 2009
Via Global Voices comes the issue of language and power, specifically the criticism coming from a Peruvian newspaper that an indigenous congresswoman, Hilaria Supa, should not have her position because she doesn’t know proper Spanish.
El Correo de Lima wrote in a front page story:
Se trataba de Hilaria Supa, parlamentaria del Partido Nacionalista Peruano elegida por la región Cusco, y a decir de lo que descubrió una reveladora foto de Correo, sus limitaciones en cuanto a ortografía y sintaxis dejan mucho que desear. Las tomas obtenidas del cuaderno de notas de la mujer de 49 años hablan por sí solas.
My translation: This is about Hilaria Supa, Congresswoman form the Nationalist Peruvian Party chosen by the Cusco region, and based on a revealing photograph from el Correo, her limitations when it comes to her ability to spell and use of syntax, leave much to be desired. The images from a notebook of the writing of the 49 year old woman speak for themselves.
When $300 necklaces mean something
11:28 am By la Macha · economy|Family|Immigration|U.S.-Mexico Border|Violence · 1 Comment
4 May 2009While I was reading this post comparing the brutal murders of men of color and town reactions to the murders from Elle PhD, I came across this older article about the murder of Luis Ramirez in Pennsylvania.
By May, Ramirez had settled in Shenandoah, working two jobs after spending six months picking berries in Georgia.
“He worked hard so his kids would have more than he had growing up,” Dillman said. “He talked a lot about how we take so much for granted here.”
His diamond-encrusted religious medal, which cost him $300, now hangs over the fireplace in the three-story home on Main Street where Dillman and the children live.
“I just don’t understand how you can beat someone so badly when you don’t even know them,” Dillman said. “People here are just ignorant. They think life begins and ends in Shenandoah.”
It made me so sad to read this section. Earlier in the article, the author mentions that Ramirez had been kicked so hard by his murderers that the cross from that necklace left a cross mark on his chest.
Even as the article let’s the reader in on a detailed understanding of the lives of the “boys” accused of murdering Ramirez (honor students, football stars, etc), the one detail it tells us about Ramirez is that he spent $300 on a diamond encrusted necklace.
Oh, and he had two children out of wedlock. With a white woman. And was last seen walking down the street with a teenage girl.
Does it surprise anyone that the men accused of killing Luis Ramirez have been found not guilty?
Is it murder when you’re just doing something that everybody imagines doing themselves?
What right do dirty Mexicans have to “ruin the lives” of good boys, clean boys, who are doing their best to live day to day in a world that rewards criminals (with $300 necklaces) and denies jobs to hardworking “real Americans?”
Is it justice to punish those poor boys? Or is it justice that the visible display of Ramirez’s arrogance was used against him to destroy him?
Elle notes in her post:
Dr. King once said something to the effect of the arc of history** is long, but it bends towards justice.
Right now, I’m just stuck on how achingly long it is.
And all I can say is me too.
May is Teen Pregnancy Prevention Month and Masturbation Month
10:00 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Education|Health|sex|Women|youth · 1 Comment
4 May 2009
Bianca over at Latino Sexuality reminds us that May is Teen Pregnancy Prevention Month.
While I was already out of high school when I became pregnant with my first child, I was still a teen, and becoming pregnant as a teen isn’t the best thing in the world (pero it also isn’t the worst either, I want to be clear on that). It changed my life in some positive ways pero also in some negative ways and I wouldn’t recommend it.
So how do we teach the young mujeres in our comunidad to take care of themselves, while allowing them the space to feel positive about their sexuality?
Monday Morning Musica : Swine Flu Edition
8:00 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Health|mexico|Music · 3 Comments
4 May 2009I don’t want a pandemic I can’t dance to.
While the news is that in Mexico the swine flu is losing it’s punch, here in the U.S., especially in NY, it’s all swine flu worries all the time.
If you’re feeling well enough, you should dance. It’s good for you. Tapabocas are optional.
Via / The Mex Files
El Salvador Just Says No to Same Sex Marriage and Gay Adoption
6:00 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · El Salvador|GLBT · 1 Comment
4 May 2009
While the recent presidential election in El Salvador signaled a change in politics as usual, recently the legislature in the Central American country made a legislative move that feels like a move backwards for equal rights.
El Salvador’s Legislative Assembly approved an amendment to the constitution to ban marriage between same-sex couples and same-sex couples’ ability to adopt a child. This amendment was proposed in the final hours of the current Legislative Assembly session, which ends April 30th.
“Marriage is only for men and women, born that way. It remains consecrated in our country that this is not possible for same-sex couples,” (El Diario de Hoy, 30 April 2009) announced Rodolfo Parker, the major proponent of the amendment.
The amendment is being strongly pushed by the Catholic Church in el Salvador, which is leading activists to fight the amendment from the perspective of an issue of separation of church and state.
Activist and law student Andrea Ayala explained her presence at one of the many demonstrations the Alliance held in front of the Legislative Assembly, “Personally I am not asking them for marriage, because, well, I think we are light years away from this…I simply ask that they do not obstruct our rights to equality. Our right to equality is protected in the United Nations Human Rights Charter…For me, as a lesbian, it is humiliating that they are trying to continue obstruct the right that we have to freely exercise our sexuality.”
Via / Narcosphere
Images from NYC May Day 2009 Immigrant Rally & March
12:33 pm By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Activism|Events|Immigration|Justice|Labor|media justice|New York|Politics · 2 Comments
3 May 2009You may have noticed that I didn’t post on Friday, May Day. It wasn’t cuz I was being lazy. I was in Union Square, NYC with my daughters, at the May Day Rally and March for Immigrants.
The number of people at the rally this year was much smaller than last year, and I’m sure the sudden downpour didn’t help. Pero the energy of the people that were there was strong, especially the many Latino workers and community members who were there, singing, chanting, and dancing.
I put together this little slideshow cosita con musica de Lila Downs. And yes, that is amigo Kaieating an empanada during the march. And yes those are my chicas at the end.
Enjoy.
P.S : i have some video clips that I will share soon as well.
Were you at any May Day Immigrant events? Tell us.
GABRIELA USA Honors Working Women World-Wide
1 May 2009sent via email
For Immediate Release
May 1, 2009Reference: Raquel Redondiez, Chair, GABRIELA USA, 415-244-9734
GABRIELA USA Honors Working Women World-Wide and
Calls for Renewed Struggle for Comprehensive Immigration ReformThe women of GABRIELA-USA will march in four cities on May 1, 2009 to honor and celebrate the perseverance, hard work, and economic and social contributions of working women everywhere, on International Workers’ Day. We join the wide range of immigrant communities coming together in the US to march for a change in working conditions and immigrant legislation. We understand that it is the labor of working women throughout the world that sustains families and keeps bankrupt economies, like the Philippines, afloat. We honor the work of all women, and especially recognize the victories and milestones achieved by women’s movements, such as that of GABRIELA Philippines who this year celebrates its 25th anniversary of fighting to advance working conditions and basic rights of Filipino women.
Given the economic crisis of U.S. led imperialism that has caused the massive job loss for millions of people, the collapse of the housing bubble, and major cuts to social spending, without a doubt, working women and their families will bear the brunt of this systemic crisis. We recognize that this crisis, caused by capitalist and imperialist greed, will accelerate forced migration of women from developing countries to the U.S. The crisis, manifested in continued harsh working conditions, will follow migrant working women in their first world destinations.
Meanwhile, in the U.S., the incredible unemployment rate and desperate competition for jobs will surely be exploited by corporations in order to push down wages and pit immigrant workers against other workers. Already, immigrant families are subjected to the terror of middle-of the night ICE raids and unjust deportation of parents or children. Hundreds of families are torn apart because of the raids or the broken immigration system backlogs that prevent the re-unification of tens of thousands of families.
On this May 1st, GABRIELA USA calls on all women and their families to continue the struggle against forced migration and for comprehensive immigration reform in the U.S. We join the working men and women of the broad immigrant rights movement to demand from the Obama administration an end to the raids and deportation that are tearing apart our families! We need family reunification and not deportation, bail-out for families and not for corporations, economic opportunities and social services for all working people!
NO TO RAIDS, DETENTIONS, AND DEPORTATIONS!
SWIFT FAMILY REUNIFICATION NOW!
SCRAP THE IMMIGRATION BACKLOG!
BAIL-OUT THE WORKERS, NOT THE BANKS!
END ALL NEOLIBERAL TRADE POLICIES!GABRIELA USA is the Sisters of Gabriela Awaken (SiGAw) in Los Angeles, Babae in San Francisco, Pinay Sa Seattle in Seattle, and Filipinas for Rights and Empowerment (FiRE) in New York City.
As May Day activities heat up here in the U.S., Europe is already in the thick of things. France, of course, is in the workers rights lead–managing to bring out tens of thousands (as compared to–um, NONE where I live).
From the BBC News:
Some 300 rallies are taking place across France, which has already seen strikes by hospital staff, fishermen and university staff, among others.
Across the country, tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets in cities such as Marseille, Bordeaux and Grenoble, ahead of a major demonstration in Paris.
This year’s traditional Labour Day in France comes against a backdrop of mounting social tension, reports the BBC’s Paris correspondent Emma Jane Kirby.
There is a growing perception that little has been done to protect the ordinary person’s job and wages, while executives from banks bailed out by the government have enjoyed generous pay-offs and bonuses, she says.
The country’s eight main unions have urged people to come out and protest in their third such day of action this year.
Violence erupted in Istanbul as hundreds of left-wing and trade union groups tried to pass through police checkpoints into the city’s main Taksim square.
The protesters had been refused permission to hold rallies in the square but, as in previous years, they chose to ignore the ban, reports the BBC’s David O’Byrne in Istanbul.
The marchers took to the back streets after they were met with police water cannon, and hurled stones and other missiles at police who responded by firing tear gas.
When capitalism exists as a world wide economic structure, it doesn’t make much sense to me to have an ununionized work force. Make no mistake, unions have their problems–they aren’t the perfect solution to all the problems works face. But they’re the best thing the worker has right now–and workers are *entitled* to the protection (however limited) unions can bring them.
Solidarity forever!
Hola!
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