Archive for May, 2009
Obama Reassures Latinos on Swine Flu Epidemic
4:35 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Health|Immigration|mexico|Obama|Politics · 13 Comments
8 May 2009
As the swine flu hysteria appears to be losing momentum, President Obama reached out to the Latino community today via Latino health professionals in a town hall style meeting with the aim of reassuring Latinos that the epidemic will not lead to discrimination. AP reports:
President Barack Obama sought Friday to reassure Hispanics that swine flu won’t lead to an epidemic of discrimination in the United States just because Mexico has been the epicenter of the outbreak.
At a town hall-style meeting at the White House, Obama told about 130 Latino public health professionals and neighborhood volunteers that the nation’s plan to fight the flu will not exclude their communities. Even if some residents are here illegally, they will still be able to get medical care for the flu, administration officials assured the group.
“We’re one country, we’re one community. When one person gets sick, that has the potential of making us all sick,” Obama said. “We can’t be divided by communities.”
I think it’s interesting that Obama chose to specifically address the Latino community on this issue right now. What do you think is behind this? Just a good excuse to do a bit more courtship?
Via / AP
Ken Salazar on John Stewart
8 May 2009At the risk of posting the entire episode of John Stewart, I just couldn’t ignore the following clip of Latino politician, Ken Salazar. Although his wikipage identifies him as “Spanish American,” all us young kids recognize that “Spanish American” is older folks code language for Mexican, Chicano, Tejano, etc. Thus I count him as a Latino–and as possibly one of the cutest freaking Latinos I have ever seen. Too bad he stands against gay adoption and ending protections against off shore drilling.
He might’ve been the perfect guy otherwise.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | M – Th 11p / 10c | |||
| Ken Salazar | ||||
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White in America: the children
1:17 pm By la Macha · Obama|youth · 3 Comments
8 May 2009What can be said here, except VIVA LA STEWART!
And DANG those *are* some smart white kids!!!!!
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | M – Th 11p / 10c | |||
| White in America – The Children | ||||
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Even Our Births are Disrespected : DHS Personnel May be Ripping Up Mexican-American Teenagers’ Birth Certificates
11:27 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · arizona|Immigration|U.S.-Mexico Border · 3 Comments
8 May 2009
In a series of workshops I did this week, I asked students if a person’s existence can be illegal. It certainly feels legal to attempt to erase us. Pero what about destroying proof that we exist and have specific rights? That may be happening in Arizona with the birth certificates of Mexican-American citizens being ripped up.
From amigo Manuél:
Here are descriptions of two previously unpublished accounts of U.S.-born Mexican-American teenagers who had their birth certificates ripped up by Customs and Border Patrol Agents. I have information on other similar cases, but only time to write up the details of these two, along with summaries and links to two other recent cases published elsewhere.
Just to be clear, a national identity card doesn’t solve these problems: in many cases of U.S. citizens deported ICE or Customs and Border Patrol doesn’t even check the digital files that have evidence matching the identity cards presented by the individual with the information in their databases– as was the case at several points for Mark Lyttle. If no one bothers to check that a passport (or national identity card) matches the information in a law enforcement database– as should happen when a U.S. citizen objects to having his proper identity disregarded by an agent or an immigration judge — then having a national card does nothing and is no improvement over our current system.
Mexican-Americans with Birth Certificates Border Patrol Destroys or Ignores
1. Mario, 17, was born in a Colorado hospital in the late 1980s and I’ve seen his birth certificate and hospital records.Mario’s mother is a U.S. citizen and his father Mexican. When Mario was a toddler his father and mother separated and Mario’s father brought him to Mexico. His father’s plan was to raise Mario, and then he would return to the United States. When Mario was 17 he decided it was time to “go back to the United States and claim his destiny,” according to an individual familiar with this case. Mario had uncles in Tucson who visited Mario frequently in Mexico. He was especially interested in finding his mother. A birth certificate is a valid form of identification for entering the United States, and Mario thought he was all set. (Mario couldn’t obtain a U.S. passport from Mexico because if you’re 17 or under, that requires the presence of both legal parents.)
In early 2007, when Mario tried to return through Nogales, Arizona the Customs and Border Patrol agent, the attorney said, “tore it up on the spot. They told him, ‘It’s not real. Go away, kid, this is fraud.’ There goes your Colorado birth certificate. Go away, have a nice day.” Mario was upset and insisted he was a U.S. citizen. “They told him that if he says he’s Mexican he can leave, but if he keeps saying he’s a citizen he’ll be detained at the Nogales border patrol station and arrested.” He signed and returned to Mexico.
There are at least four other cases of this happening, as reported by States Without Nations.
Luis Ramirez and Every Mother’s Sons and Daughters : Seeking Justice by All Means Necessary
7:31 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Activism|crime|Immigration|Justice|media justice|pennsylvania|Politics|race|Violence · 6 Comments
8 May 2009
in 1991, in the rapidly changing immigrant community of Corona, Queens, NYC 19 year old son of Dominican immigrants, Manny Mayi Jr. was beaten to death.
Last year, Marcelo Lucero was killed.
At the start of the new year Wilter Sanchez was nearly killed.
In February of this year Jose Sucuzhañay, an Ecuadorian immigrant was beaten to death.
Speaking Spanish can get you beaten.
And most recently, Luis Ramirez was beaten and killed and those accused got away with murder.
I could go through recent and not so recent history and clearly see a pattern and practice of hate that has been growing. A pattern and practice of racism, nativism, fueled by the media and government, eaten up by the mainstream public.
People in Shenandoah celebrated, went out into the streets and rejoiced after an all-white jury found Brandon J. Piekarsky, 17, and Derrick M. Donchak, 19, guilty of lesser charges and acquitted them of criminal homicide and aggravated assault.
And then people have the nerve to ask why are more Latinos not more active in the fight for immigration change?
This is not just about laws, this about lives.
So what do we as a community do?
Miss California May Have to Give Up Crown Amid Photo Scandal
2:37 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · California|Celebrities|Chismes|Controversia|GLBT · Comments Off
7 May 2009
Yesterday La Macha told us about the apparent hypocrisy of Miss California Carrie Prejean – defender of American moral values — upon the revelation that she had posed nude. Now the firestorm against the beauty queen and 1st runner up for Miss America is getting stronger, as The HuffPost reports that yet another nude photo has leaked to press and that Carrie may have to give up her crown as a result of the scandal:
A second topless photo of Miss California Carrie Prejean has been released by TheDirty.com, days after Prejean promised the state pageant that there was only one such photo in existence. [...]Back to the crown drama. On Wednesday Prejean’s runner-up Miss Malibu told “Access Hollywood’s” Billy Bush she is ready to step in should Prejean lose her crown because of a morality clause in the pageant contract contestants sign that promises they have no nude or semi-nude photos in their past.
In an even more surprising twist, TMZ (consider the source, take it with a grain of salt) says Prejean’s bias against gay marriage might stem from the fact that her father is gay.
Via / HuffPost
Image via TheDirty.com
More Civil Disobedience : 30 Arrested at Minnesosta Immigration Facility
11:09 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Activism|Immigration|Politics · 2 Comments
7 May 2009
A third act of civil disobedience took place this week with 30 people blocking the entrances to the Bloomington, Minnesota Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility.
Immigrant rights activists and allies took action today at ICE headquarters, holding a conference just after 7am to demand that Obama sign an executive order to end all raids and deportations pending the passage of a just immigration reform act. Veronica Mendez described the climate of fear created by immigration raids: undocumented workers afraid to go to the police when robbed or assaulted, employees unable to fight back against employers who cheat them of wages or create unsafe working conditions, families whose children are citizens but whose parents are deported. “We in Minnesota have our own dark secrets of raids,…the times that in the middle of the night or in a parking lot you are simply rounded up and taken away,” said the Reverend Loren McGrail.
After the press conference the legal demonstration continued while those who planned to commit civil disobedience moved into place.
About 30 activists were arrested as they blocked the entrances to the Bloomington Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility as a support rally took place nearby. After activists had blocked all four driveways, Bloomington police clad in helmets and carrying extended batons, marking rounds and chemical canisters congregated around the activists at the east side of the facility. As activists from the initial blockade were arrested one by one and loaded onto a city-owned bus, others came from the other blockades to take their place. On the bus activists chanted and rocked vigorously. After the approximately twenty activists were arrested, the full bus was driven to the police station, returning thirty minutes later when the remaining activists were arrested.
Hypothetically speaking of course, wouldn’t it be something if there was a nationally coordinated day of direct action against ICE?
Via / ImmigrationProf Blog and Twin Cities IndyMedia
Chavez’s Daughter + Allende’s Grandson = LOVE
10:45 am By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Celebrities|Chile|Chismes|Latin America|Venezuela · 2 Comments
7 May 2009It’s not often that we hear about Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s personal life or family, but this latest bit of chisme about Huguito’s daughter is quite interesting. It seems that María Gabriela Chávez is dating the grandson of slain Chilean president Salvador Allende, Pablo Sepúlveda Allende. Chavez introduced the couple this week on his weekly TV show, Aló Presidente. Spain’s El País reports:
“Pablo!”, exclaimed the Venezuelan leader, embracing [him] told said that [he] was “a Chilean doctor, María’s partner and the grandson of Salvador Allende”, who he regularly says he admires and calls “the martyr president.”
The Venezuelan press had recently reported that the journalist, second daughter from Chavez’s first marriage, had managed to convince Sepúlveda Allende that he leave the medical center where he worked in the Chilean city of Coquimbo, opened by his grandfather who was also a doctor, to reside in Venezuela.
Might this be the making of a Latin American left political superfamily?
Via / El País
Latino Civil Disobediance : Mexicans in NY, Ricans in DC
10:04 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Activism|Justice|Media|media justice|mexico|New York City|Newspapers|Politics|Washington DC · Comments Off
7 May 2009
The past few days have been busy for activists around the issues of Puerto Rico’s colonial status and Mexican political prisoners.And yet, I can’t seem to find much information about either act of civil disobedience in the mainstream news media.
From Narco News:
Today, May 4, 2009, the Other Campaign New York took over the Mexican Consulate in New York to demand the liberation of the 12 political prisoners who have been brutally repressed for resisting neoliberal urbanization projects that are destructive to human life and culture, specifically the construction of an airport in Atenco, and for protecting displaced flower vendors in Texcoco.
Today, on this third anniversary of the repression, the arrests, the violations, the torture, and the breaking and entering made by the military police in Atenco, a delegation of members of Movement for Justice in El Barrio succeeded in entering the offices of the Consulate of Mexico in New York despite the fact that these offices have been under strict and tightened security since precisely 3 years ago when Mexicans of The Other Campaign New York with real heart and memory, demanded the liberation of the political prisoners of Atenco. We succeeded in entering the offices to hold a non-violent protest demanding the immediate release of the prisoners of Atenco.
Once inside, the compañer@s of the Other Campaign New York, amongst the clamor of: “Freedom for political prisoners (Presos politicos, libertad)!, Liberty, liberty, to those prisoners for fighting (Libertad, libertad, a los presos por luchar)!, We are all Atenco (Todos Somos Atenco)!”, along with other chants, and with our signs, some with prison bars to look like a cell, and also with bandanas, gave out to our fellow country men and women at the Consulate DVD’s of the video “Breaking the Siege”, about the repression in Atenco, and informational flyers where we explain our main demands.
Later, we demanded to speak with the consul Ruben Beltran in order to give him a letter of demands. First, they told us that he was not there because he was in Mexico, but we knew that this was a lie, since the day before the consul was in El Barrio at an event proselytizing for PAN during the imposed Cinco de Mayo celebration.
After a while, the authorities of the Consulate told us that the Consul was in New York but that he could not be found in the Consulate, and they closed consular services to the public, asking all of their clients to abandon the offices. By the end of our action, the consul arrived. We gave him a giant size letter on a poster-board with the following
demands:1. Liberty for the political prisoners in Atenco.
2. Cancel the arrest warrants for those 2 who are being persecuted.
3. Revoke and appeal the sentences.
4. Complete respect for the human rights of the detained and the persecuted.
5. Punishment for those responsible for the violations of human rights.
The consul, Rubén Beltrán, first told us that he was open to engage in dialogue with all Mexican people in New York and listen to all opinions, but then blamed us – and our cause, the liberation of the prisoners in Atenco – for having closed the services of the Consulate and for having left so many people unattended.
Augusto Boal, Founder of the Theater of the Oppressed, Dies at 78
9:17 am By la Macha · Allied Media Conference|Arts|media justice · Comments Off
7 May 2009
I had never heard of Augusto Boal until I listened to yesterday’s Democracy Now!
Augusto Boal, the legendary Brazilian political playwright and popular educator, died this weekend at the age of seventy-eight. He was the founder of the Theater of the Oppressed, a popular international movement for a participatory form of theater as a means of promoting knowledge and democratic forms of interaction. Boal conducted workshops all over the world. His techniques of using theater to discuss power and oppression have been widely inspirational and influential.
In 1971, the Brazilian military dictatorship imprisoned and tortured Boal for four months. After his release, he was forced into exile for fifteen years. He’s written a number of books, including Theater of the Oppressed and Games for Actors and Non-Actors, as well as The Rainbow of Desire and Legislative Theater. In the ’90s, Boal also served as a city councilmember for Rio de Janeiro.
Boal was tireless ’til the end of his life. According to a statement from the Center for the Theater of the Oppressed in Rio, Boal left behind a completed new version of his book The Aesthetics of the Oppressed, and he spent the day before his death, May Day, in a solidarity vigil with workers. Read more…
Hola!
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