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Archive for February, 2010

On January 19, 2010, Carlos Alberto Torres attended a video hearing presided over by a U.S. Parole Commission hearing examiner whose task was to consider the disciplinary charges stemming from last January, and to make a recommendation for what should happen with respect to his request to be released on parole. Carlos Alberto answered the questions posed, and his attorney Jan Susler asked that the Parole Commission release him on parole as previously recommended, regardless of the wrongful charges. She pointed out the vast, ongoing support for his release, and argued that there is absolutely no risk in releasing him, as evidenced by the impressive example of his compatriots who were released by presidential commutation in 1999. The hearing examiner then made a favorable recommendation. The Parole Commission will make the final decision, hopefully within the next 30 days.

The ProLibertad Freedom Campaign is launching a 30 day online petition campaign! We want 1000 people to sign our petition within the next 30 days showing their support for Carlos Alberto Torres.

At the end of the thirty days the petition will be mailed to the Parole Commissioner.

Sign this petition and forward it out to everyone you know!

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Miercoles Morning Musica : Grammy Award Winners Edition

7:44 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Music · Comments Off

3 Feb 2010

la Mala sometimes sucks at this pop culture stuff. I didn’t watch half a minute of the Grammy Awards. Despite there being a completely separate Latin Grammy Awards competition and show, there were some Latino and Latin American musical winners on Sunday night.

So put your headphones on and listen….

Best Latin Jazz Album
Juntos Para Siempre
Bebo Valdés And Chucho Valdés
[Sony Music/Calle 54]

Best Latin Pop Album
Sin Frenos
La Quinta Estación
[Sony Music Latin]

Read more…

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Living in Michigan (which in many areas is actually warmer than this reservation) and experiencing the bitter cold–reading this news completely distressed me. Please help if you can.

A State of Emergency has been declared on the Pine Ridge Lakota “Sioux” Indian Reservation. People have died. Many more people are at risk of freezing to death. Another cold front is coming in, yet where is the national media coverage?

Does the ‘Lacreek Electric Company’ – a non-Indian utility often thought
to be prejudice, care that people are suffering, since they are pulling
meters every day? (which is illegal throughout the rest of the u.s. during
the winter months).

What will Obama and the federal government do about this? While they dig
out Haitians, indigenous people right here may freeze to death. What are
we going to do about it?

Help put this message out for help. The children and families of the Pine
Ridge Indian Reservation need our help now. It is urgent that all 40,000
residents of the Oglala Nation have electricity and propane.

Call LaCreek toll free at 800-655-9324 or (605)685-6581 to see how you can
help pay into a customer’s account, example $5 into ten customers would
require a $50 donation by you. Tell LaCreek to make sure tanks are full
for ALL area residents between the months of November to March – and to
collect any delinquent payments between April and October.

Also, check out this non-profit to see if it is appropriate for you:
Arlene Catches The Enemy 605-867-5771 Ext 13.
Tax Deductable, Non-Profit (501-c-3). She can take credit cards over the
phone: Pine Ridge Emergency Fund, C/O Economic Development Administration
PO Box 669, Pine Ridge, SD 57770-0669

And call Lakota Plains Propane at 605-867-5199 and find out what homes have
elderly or children and if they need money put down on their account to be
able to have a warm home tonight.

*……………………..*……………………..*……………………..***************

List to assist Elders at Pine RidgeShare

Below are several Elders in the Kyle Community of Pine Ridge that are in
immediate need of assistance. The contact information has been confirmed
and permission has been granted to share their information with you.

There are several ways I will mention where assistance is needed and I’ll
share here before I begin the information for where you can assist in
paying for Propane for those who need it or to contact a local grocery
store to pay for food for families who need this. Other ways of assisting
the individual families will be listed with their contact information
below.

To pay for propane for any individuals listed below use the information
here and be sure to make your payment to the account of the individual(s)
you choose to help. The propane company requires a minimum order of $120
of fuel before they will make a delivery to the individual. You can also
pay for a persons propane and they will credit the individuals account so
that when they do run out of any fuel they may have at the moment they can

simply call and the company will deliver more.

Lakota Plains Propane (will take credit card)
Highway 407
Pine Ridge, SD 57770
605-867-5199
Be sure to request a receipt and use the contact for the person you are
helping to call and followup to be certain they received the help you paid

for.

Kyle Grocery (will take credit card)
Owner: Liz May
605-455-2824
Again be sure to follow up with the person you make a donation for to be
sure they received the appropriate credit for purchasing food.

Elders in need are as follows:

Adolph Bull Bear
605-454-2190
He remains in need of continued assistance for propane, his son who is
disabled lives with him and he is in need of food assistance which you can

contact Kyle grocery (above) to make a donation for food. He will also
need help with his electric bill.

Arlene Talks (age 72)
605-407-8243
She has a daughter and a granddaughter (age 7) who lives with her and is
in need of propane and food assistance and you can contact the propane and

grocery above to assist. You could also contact her for mailing address to

send items for her granddaughter such as clothes, etc.

Janice One Feather (age 61)
605-455-2889
Mailing Address: P.O. Box 44, Kyle SD 57752
For Propane Delivery give House # 307
She has two grandsons living with her. Asa Steele age 7 and Dillon
Westover age 9. You can mail donations for the two boys to the mailing
address above for her and if you mail by fedex, UPS, etc use the house
#307 Kyle SD 57752. She is in desperate need of food assistance and
propane and you can use the info for propane and grocery companies above
to pay for those items.

Donna Garnette
605-455-2527
605-441-7541
She has two grandchildren (Boy and girl), you can contact her for an
address to offer assistance in clothes, etc for the children. She is in
need of Propane and food assistance and you can use the info above for
both companies to assist them with that.

Lilly Mae Red Eagle (age 88)
605-455-2612
Mailing address: P.O. Box 2, Kyle SD 57752
For propane delivery give House #HC2
She is in need of Propane and food assistance. You can use the info above
for both companies to assist them with that. For deliveries by fedex, ups,

etc use the house #HC2 Kyle SD 57752

Perlene Yellow Wolf (age 65 approx)
605-455-1458
She is in need of propane and food assistance. She lives with her daughter

Crystal and three children. You can use the info above for both companies
to assist them with that. They have a lot of problems with pipes freezing
so if anyone in the immediate area could help with this that would be
greatly appreciated.

May you be richly blessed for sharing your blessings with these elders and

ensuring some relief to their suffering. Please help now as the need is
immediate but please remember to help again in the future if you are able
to as their needs are continual. Thank you in advance for sharing your
love and helping these elders.

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Regardless of your position on the allocation of months to highlight specific racial and ethnic groups, I think many of us can agree that LatiNegr@s are often not included as much as we can be in Latino Heritage Month and Black History Month. As a result, several writers/bloggers (many of whom are self-identified LatiNegr@s/Afro-Caribeños/Afro-Latinos) have joined together to help compliment any curriculum/celebrations/rituals/commemorations/etc. that people have planned for Black History Month to include LatiNegr@s.

It all started when I posted a list of LatiNegr@s To Look Out For In 2010.  I began to talk with writer and poet Anthony about how so many of us don’t know our history, how we are omitted, and the need for recognition and representation. We decided to create a virtual project on our own online homes as well as create a communal space for discussion, engagement, and knowledge production. We’ve announced the project in various spaces and hope people will self-select to participate in whatever ways they are most comfortable/able. Here are the goals of the project:

As the formal US focus on Black History Month (February 1-28/9) is upon us we seek to celebrate all of the peoples who have influence and history via the African Diasporas. Expanding the inclusively of Black History Month is a goal for several of us, self-identified LatiNeg@s, Afro-Latinos and Afro-Caribeños. As people who recognize and claim the African heritage and history, we have often been excluded from US History, whether it be Black history or Latino history (Septermber 15-October 15). Join us in honoring and recognizing LatiNegr@s this year during Black and Latino History Month. We are Black, Latino and from the Caribbean. We REPRESENT!

Please share any images, videos, quotes, websites, links etc. you’d like to include on this page. Go to http://lati-negros.tumblr.com/submit to submit what you’d like to contribute.

Inspired by Maegan’s creation of the 30 Days of Latino Heritage Tumblr (I hope you contributed!) we’ve created a LatiNegr@s Tumblr where you may submit any video, foto, quote, link, resource for an inclusive, and hopefully, comprehensive representation of LatiNegr@s. Submissions are subject to our approval.

Online individuals/groups/spaces that are participating in this grassroots project and will be either featuring posts discussing various contributions, perspectives, and politics about LatiNegr@s or sharing on the Tumblr page include (and this is just a handful! If interested let us know and I’ll update the list):

Inside My Head

Latino Sexuality

Like A Whisper

You!

Efrain’s Corner

Chronicles of the American Pupusa

If you would like to participate please do so and send us your information here or via the LatiNegr@s Tumblr page where you can submit something. Shameless plugs for your blogs/online homes, quotes from past/current writing, fotos you’ve taken or that inspire you are all welcome! You may post anonymously on the Tumblr page if you choose.

In solidarity.

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With many saying that immigration reform is dead, we have to look at what is the alternative. Unfortunately under the Obama administration so far, the United States has seen a continuation and expansion of policies that criminalize immigrants. The alternative to immigration reform being presented by the actions of the Federal Government is more people being incarcerated, tortured, and killed in detention centers across the country. Recently, Jean Montrivil was released from his three week detention in an ICE jail in Downtown New York City and another detention center in Pennsylvania. His story is representative of too many families.

Jean’s story represents so many of the problems that exist in the current broken system. Here is a man who had his U.S. legal residence but because of a crime in his past, that he served jail time for, was kept under close watch. Here is a man who established a life in the United States with citizen children, separated from his family. In Obama’s infamous few words uttered on immigration during the State of the Union address, the President said that those who respected the laws should be able to stay in this country. Does respecting the law not include paying for any crimes already committed? How long is an old criminal record a valid reason for deporting someone? When is the arbitrary cut off? Just who do these rules regarding deportation serve to protect? How is it possible to use the criminal justice system as a constant threat over someone’s life, playing with someone’s life the way they essentially have done with Jean Montrivil?
Read more…

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I just read this, in my opinion, fabulous piece in the New Yorker on Obama by Junot Diaz. Here’s an excerpt:

All year I’ve been waiting for Obama to flex his narrative muscles, to tell the story of his presidency, of his Administration, to tell the story of where our country is going and why we should help deliver it there. A coherent, accessible, compelling story—one that is narrow enough to be held in our minds and hearts and that nevertheless is roomy enough for us, the audience, to weave our own predilections, dreams, fears, experiences into its fabric. It should necessarily be a story eight years in duration, a story that no matter what our personal politics are will excite us enough to go out and reëlect the teller just so we can be there for the story’s end. But from where I sit our President has not even told a bad story; he, in my opinion, has told no story at all. I heard him talk healthcare to death but while he was elaborating ideas his opponents were telling stories. Sure they were bad ones, full of distortions and outright lies, but at least they were talking to the American people in the correct idiom: that of narrative. The President gave us a raft of information about why healthcare would be a swell idea; the Republicans gave us death panels. Ideas are wonderful things, but unless they’re couched in a good story they can do nothing.

What Diaz wrote really resonated with me on a number of levels. Having been lucky enough to cover some of the events on Obama’s road to the presidency, even though I was never an Obama girl, I could feel the magic of the story he wove and it’s importance. Watching him accept the Democratic Party nomination in Denver, his election, and his inauguration made me tear up. I thought all of those moments amazingly beautiful for their story and my part in it and I don’t feel that anymore.

As Obama said in his SOTU address, he is not magic, and maybe that’s the role of a campaign, to lure us in so that we can work to help write the story ourselves. And I know many may people who are doing the work now and I consider myself among them in a small way. So should Obama be creating the story or should we through our actions?


Read Junot Diaz’s entire New Yorker piece here
.

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If NYC is truly a city that values it’s immigrant residents, then why is there a federal immigration detention center in downtown Manhattan? The Varick Federal Detention Facility is actually about to be closed, perhaps in part to protests focused on the release of Jean Montrevil, which drew attention to the horrible conditions inside the detention center, but also problems with the very idea of criminalizing immigrants for just being immigrants.

A broad coalition of 16 national and community groups, legal service providers, and advocacy organizations urged the Department of Homeland Security to release immigrant detainees currently held at the Varick Federal Detention Facility and to provide reasonable alternatives to detention. The call for release comes in response to the recent announcement that the downtown Manhattan detention center would be closed and its roughly 300 detainees moved to a New Jersey county jail.

“The first question that the federal government should ask is not where people are being detained, but why people are being detained,” the organizations said in a statement to DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano.

Varick has been the subject of numerous complaints over the years concerning inhumane living conditions, indefinite detention, and detainees’ restricted access to legal services. The groups insisted that all detainees at Varick receive a prompt case-by-case review of their detention, particularly since many are legally eligible for release. They also argued that transferring detainees to facilities where they will encounter similarly unacceptable conditions and restricted access to their families and lawyers is not a solution to Varick’s problems.

“Transferring detainees from Varick to other facilities does nothing to address the well-documented problems associated with detention,” said Alina Das, supervising attorney of the Immigrant Rights Clinic at NYU School of Law and one of the signatories to the advocates’ statement. “It’s no secret that the detention system is broken, ineffective, and inhumane.”

Detention, advocates further claim, is prohibitively expensive: it costs the federal government approximately $1.7 billion a year, while alternatives to detention cost as little as $12 a day. Meanwhile, both immigrant families and the government take on additional financial burdens as noncitizens who remain in detention are unable to provide for their loved ones and contribute to the economy.

“Especially given the current budgetary crisis in our country, DHS is acting irresponsibly and recklessly by detaining people when they can be released,” said Manisha Vaze of Families for Freedom, another signatory to the statement. “Community-based alternatives are effective, significantly less expensive, and enable families to maintain stability while they pursue viable options to get or maintain status.”

Noncitizens who could be released from immigration custody and placed into alternatives to detention programs include those who qualify for Temporary Protected Status (including Haitians due to the recent earthquake), those who are entitled to bond determinations or lower bond amounts, and those who have faced prolonged detention.

These and other immigrants, Das said, should be released immediately. “Our community members should not bear the burden of DHS’ failure to overhaul the detention system.”

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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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