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Archive for June, 2010

My sister, a pre-K teacher in Queens, NYC took her class to a puppet show on safety last week. Her four year old students knew that in case of a fire, they could turn to a firefighter, but when presented with a puppet of a police officer, all the students, responded to the question: “Can you talk to this person?” with a loud, firm “NO!”.

In Queens, NYC, which houses one of the largest and most diverse immigrant populations, children may not understand what SB1070 is or the distance between Roosevelt Ave. and Arizona but they don’t have to. With racial profiling rampant, police interactions rarely are positive. Vendors, a staple on the streets from Jackson Heights to Flushing, complain about how police ticket them relentlessly, even when they have the proper licenses.

That’s why I am glad to see the following event happen within walking distance from Casa Mala.
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Fasting, denying oneself food has been done for spiritual reasons & political reasons. Today, more than 50 immigrant community members, clergy, NY City Council Members and advocates will go on a 72 hour fast to demand comprehensive immigration reform in 2010, among them are Puerto Rican Congresswoman Nydia Velasquez.

The fast is being paired with an education campaign that highlights the contributions immigrants have made to New York City and the United States, and illustrate the need for changes in immigration policy on both a national and local level.

Make the Road NY and New Sanctuary Coalition members will also be conducting a massive community education and outreach effort to engage thousands of community members in the national campaign to pass comprehensive immigration reform, the local campaign to end New York’s collaboration with immigration enforcement at Rikers Island and to repudiate the signing of SB 1070 into law by Arizona Governor Jan Brewer (R-AZ).
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When I first saw the pictures, I thought they were photoshopped. Poorly at that. But then I started reading around, and no, this is real. It really happened.

via the Christian Science Monitor

The storm hit on Saturday, just two days after the the Pacaya volcano, about 20 miles south of Guatemala City, erupted, causing the international airport to shut down.

Guatemalan President Álvaro Colom had declared a 15-day calamity, before Tropical Storm Agatha dumped three feet of water in the western part of the country. Officials have said that the ash from the volcano, which again covered the airport Monday, could aggravate flooding as it blocks the nation’s drainage systems.

The Guatemalan government posted photos of the flooding tragedy, including one of a sinkhole apparently the size of an entire street block, that opened in the northern section of Guatemala City. A three-story building was swallowed by the hold. Authorities are investigating the cause. A sinkhole in the same area killed three people in 2007.

I was immediately tempted to make jokes, this seems so unreal that it is comical–but then I read that this sinkhole comes with tragedy. At least 150 people have died already because of the mammoth scale of the storms (that also helped cause this sinkhole).

I hope that all the late night comediennes and bloggers remember that before they start up with the jokes.

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The other day my 12 year old hija asked me if watching a show about Arizona was breaking the boycott. What isn’t breaking the boycott are a group of musicians who have joined forces by deciding to not bring their talents to the state so long as SB1070 remains as law. They have decided to not play in Arizona not just because they themselves could be racially profiled, but more importantly because their fans could be threatened. From a press release announcing the Sound Strike:

Fans of our music, our stories, our films and our words can be pulled over and harassed every day because they are brown or black, or for the way they speak, or for the music they listen to. People who are poor like some of us used to be could be forced to live in a constant state of fear while just doing what they can to find work and survive. This law opens the door for them to be shaked down, or even worse, detained and deported while just trying to travel home from school, from home to work, or when they just roll out with their friends.

The artists who have signed onto the Sound Strike include:

Cypress Hill
Juanes
Conor Oberst
Los Tigres del Norte
Rage Against the Machine
Cafe Tacvba
Micheal Moore
Kanye West
Calle 13
Joe Satriani
Serj Tankian
Rise Against
Ozomatli
Sabertooth Tiger
Massive Attack
One Day as a Lion
Street Sweeper Social Club
Spank Rock
Sonic Youth
Tenacious D
The Coup

I think that artists that who put themselves out there should be supported by the community. Additionally, there are local artists in Arizona who need to work in order to survive, the un-superstars. So I’m wondering how we support those artists inside the belly of the beast, if you will, who don’t have the luxury of leaving or not working.

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For the last two years, I have been blessed enough to attend the Allied Media Conference and both times my attendance was thanks to the generosity of others. This year, with the conference less than a month away, my attendance feels like an impossibility, especially since I would need expenses covered for myself and my two children who would have to travel with me but miligros do happen and even if not for me, for other amazing mujers whose work I respect.

INCITE! will partner with To Tell You The Truth to host a track of workshops and strategy sessions at the Allied Media Conference, June 17-20, 2010 in Detroit, MI. Read more about the track at http://alliedmediaconference.org/program/tracks.

We need to raise $4,000 to support travel, housing, food and childcare costs for 10 AMAZING mamas, community care-givers and their kids attending the AMC and USSF. Read more about them below. We need your help!

Please support the INCITE/To Tell You The Truth Track by making a donation on the To Tell You The Truth site by following the PayPal link on the bottom right of the page here.

As a thank-you for your donation, you will be entered into a raffle, with the chance to win one of the 2 FABULOUS RAFFLE PACKAGES of Mamas and Feminist of Color Media (described below).

For a $5 donation, you will receive one raffle ticket
For a $20 donation, you will receive five raffle tickets
For a $100 donation or more, you will receive 60 raffle tickets

Make your donation today here!

Raffle Package #1
* An INCITE! T-shirt
* The Gloria Anzaldua Reader by AnaLouise Keating. This reader—which provides a representative sample of the poetry, prose, fiction, and experimental autobiographical writing that Anzaldúa produced during her thirty-year career—demonstrates the breadth and philosophical depth of her work.
* A one-year subscription to Make/Shift magazine. Make/shift creates and documents contemporary feminist culture and action by publishing journalism, critical analysis, and visual and text art. Made by an editorial collective committed to antiracist, transnational, and queer perspectives, make/shift embraces the multiple and shifting identities of feminist communities. We know there’s exciting work being done in various spaces and forms by people seriously and playfully resisting and creating alternatives to systematic oppression. Make/shift exists to represent, participate in, critique, provoke, and inspire more of that good work.
* I Was a . . . Student Nurse! by China. Every page oozes personality: a distrust of science, a vague but persistent spirituality, her own brand of low self-esteem, love for her children and friends, and a constant desire to be anywhere but where she is. And the setting–nursing school–is one we’ve never seen depicted from this angle. (Poems about genetic recombination and stoichiometry? Never saw that coming.) Sometimes we found ourselves screaming (at least in our heads) at China to get over her fear of hospitals. She’s the one who chose nursing school, not us. But it’s China’s ability to cause such reactions that keeps us reading.
* Los Viajes: a literary anthology by POOR Magazine. For a year and a half POOR Magazine conducted free bi-lingual, multi-generational, art and writing workshops in shelters, schools and community centers with migrant poverty scholars from across the globe to be included in the audio and print anthology called Los Viajes..Los Viajes introduces a new lens on migration of peoples across Pacha Mama informed by the UN Declaration on Indigenous Peoples.
* A DVD of Motherland, a Jennifer Steinman film. An honest and intimate look at the complexities of grief and healing, Motherland is about resilience, triumph of the human spirit and the power of unconditional love. It also reminds us of the vastly different ways in which disparate cultures confront deeply felt personal challenges.Each year over eight million families around the world suffer the loss of a child. In Jennifer Steinman’s moving and inspiring documentary film, a 17-day trip to South Africa transforms the lives of six grieving women from across the US.
* Dressy Bessy: holler and stomp – CD
* To tell the Truth Freely by Mia Bay
* Mamaphiles #4 – Raising Hell – Mamaphiles returns for its fourth issue with the theme of “raising hell.” The newest installment includes 34 contributors, including papa zinesters. Check in with your favorite parent zinesters and discover some new favorites as you learn about the many zines that have come out since #3 was released in 2007. In addition to fabulous essays, poems, artwork, and photos, #4 includes comprehensive ordering information about each contributor’s zine. This is all new material, no repeats of the pieces in previous issues. (118 pages, half size)
* “Program a Playshop” Residency at Gris Gris Lab in New Orleans, LA. Program a Playshop is a Gris Gris Lab signature community building residency. Advocates, artists, healers, activists can live and work at GGL for up to 10 days and produce a playshop for the New Orleans Community. Work must involve some aspect of one of these themes: healing work,art, food justice and urban farming, sustainable economics or woman-centered work.

Raffle Package #2
* AN INCITE! T-shirt
* The Gloria Anzaldua Reader by AnaLouise Keating. This reader—which provides a representative sample of the poetry, prose, fiction, and experimental autobiographical writing that Anzaldúa produced during her thirty-year career—demonstrates the breadth and philosophical depth of her work.
* One year-long subscription to Make/Shift Magazine. Make/shift creates and documents contemporary feminist culture and action by publishing journalism, critical analysis, and visual and text art. Made by an editorial collective committed to antiracist, transnational, and queer perspectives, make/shift embraces the multiple and shifting identities of feminist communities. We know there’s exciting work being done in various spaces and forms by people seriously and playfully resisting and creating alternatives to systematic oppression. Make/shift exists to represent, participate in, critique, provoke, and inspire more of that good work.
* Slant by Laura Williams
* The Dancer from Khiva by Bibish. An autobiographical story, this is an unflinchingly honest memoir, The Dancer from Khiva is a true story that offers insight into Central Asian culture through the harrowing experiences of a young girl.
* Mamaphiles #4 – Raising Hell – Mamaphiles returns for its fourth issue with the theme of “raising hell.” The newest installment includes 34 contributors, including papa zinesters. Check in with your favorite parent zinesters and discover some new favorites as you learn about the many zines that have come out since #3 was released in 2007. In addition to fabulous essays, poems, artwork, and photos, #4 includes comprehensive ordering information about each contributor’s zine. This is all new material, no repeats of the pieces in previous issues. (118 pages, half size)
* Discovering Pig Magic by Julia Crabtree
* The Color of Violence INCITE! Anthology – What would it take to end violence against women of color? How does the mainstream antiviolence movement help? How does it hinder? When will we admit that repositioning women of color at the center of the movement— women more often harmed by the police, prisons, and border patrols than aided by them— means that we must address state violence?
* Once You Go Back by Douglas Martin
* Hermana, Resist : The Poetry Collection: “…media can be yours/and you can write your own history.” – Noemi Martinez. Authored and compiled by Noemi Martinez of Hermana, Resist this zine is breathtakingly beautiful and contains poems from 2000-2007.
* Resistance is a Duty! and other essays by comrades from Action Directe – Kersplebedeb
* I Was a . . . Student Nurse! by China. Every page oozes personality: a distrust of science, a vague but persistent spirituality, her own brand of low self-esteem, love for her children and friends, and a constant desire to be anywhere but where she is. And the setting–nursing school–is one we’ve never seen depicted from this angle. (Poems about genetic recombination and stoichiometry? Never saw that coming.) Sometimes we found ourselves screaming (at least in our heads) at China to get over her fear of hospitals. She’s the one who chose nursing school, not us. But it’s China’s ability to cause such reactions that keeps us reading.
* The Astonishment: Banana Sandwich

A subscription to make/shift magazine, one of the great raffle prizes!
This raffle is made possible with support from: Gris Gris Lab, New Mythos project (To tell you the Truth), INCITE!, Feminist Review!, Allied Media Projects (AMP)
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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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