Archive for September, 2010
Police in LA Kill Guatemalan Day Laborer, Community Demands Answers
12:37 pm By Maegan La Mala · Guatemala|Los Angeles|Violence · 11 Comments
8 Sep 2010
Last Sunday, Manuel Jamines was shot and killed by police in Los Angeles. The why depends on who you ask. According to police, Jamines, aged 37, was drunk and was waving a knife around. Police claim that they ordered Jamines to drop the knife in English and in Spanish and when he didn’t, they shot and killed him. Others say that there was no knife and those that say there was say that directives were given by police only in English. The police claim a knife was recovered at the scene.
Edited to add (2:22 pm EST) that some reports that I am now reading say that Jamines may not have spoken Spanish that well either because he was an indigenous Guatemalan. This draws parallels to what happened with Cirila Baltazar Cruz
For two nights in the row the Latino community has taken to the streets, calling the killing an example of excessive use of police force. During those protests, riot police have fired foam projectiles and arrested over 20 people, mostly for failure to disperse and unlawful assembly.
Read more…
Grito de Lares Event in NYC : 9/23
7:41 am By Maegan La Mala · history|New York City|Puerto Rico · Comments Off
8 Sep 2010
Seattle Police Videotaped Beat Down Not a Crime
1:26 pm By Maegan La Mala · Immigration|Justice|Seattle|Violence · 2 Comments
7 Sep 2010Remember this incident caught on video…..
Apparently in Seattle, two officers beating an unarmed man and calling him “a Mexican”, and not as an identifier but rather as a slur, is not a hate crime.
From Colorlines:
King County prosecuting attorney Dan Satterberg wrote in his decision:
Cobane will not be charged with the felony crime of malicious harassment because prosecutors have found that he did not intentionally target or assault a person because of their race or national origin, as required under the State’s hate crime statute.
Satterberg explained that in order to charge Cobane with a hate crime, the 15-year Seattle Police Department veteran would have had to “maliciously and intentionally target[ed] Mr. Monetti due to his ethnicity.” Cobane merely “lawfully detained Mr. Monetti and the other two men because they had a reasonable belief that the men were involved in two armed robberies.” The prosecutor acknowledged that Cobane detained Monetti and his companions because they fit a description of Latino males who had been involved in a robbery nearby.
Satterberg also defended Cobane’s verbal and physical abuse. Cobane’s actions toward Monetti were not racially motivated, the prosecutor wrote, because he did not also beat up the two Latino men Monetti was with. The prosecutor also wrote that police have the right to use physical force “beyond what an ordinary citizen would be allowed to use so long as the force is reasonable in the performance of their duties.”
Leaving Water Bottles for U.S. Bound Migrants Not Criminal
7:57 am By Maegan La Mala · Immigration|Justice|U.S.-Mexico Border · 1 Comment
7 Sep 2010
Last year, activists from the organization No More Deaths were convicted of
“knowingly littering” by leaving water bottles for migrants crossing the U.S. border.
Last week, that conviction was overturned. From Colorlines:
Dan Millis, a volunteer with the humanitarian aid group No More Deaths, was convicted in a federal court of littering when he and three other volunteers left water for border crossers in 2008 along a section of the Arizona desert that was a designated wildlife refuge. He faced a $5,000 fine and six months in jail for refusing to pay the $125 ticket.
On Thursday the Ninth Circuit overturned his conviction and ruled 2-1 that the statute was vague enough such that water did not constitute garbage. The dissenting opinion was written by Judge Jay Bybee, a former Bush administration assistant attorney general who co-wrote that administration’s torture memos. Bybee wrote: “Leaving plastic bottles in a wildlife refuge is littering under any ordinary, common meaning of the word.”
Mala’s Media Minute : The Whitening of Anchor Babies
6:00 am By Maegan La Mala · Immigration|Media · 6 Comments
5 Sep 2010
The magazine was declared dead long before the internet was and yet I derive great pleasure (and pain) through leafing the pages of magazines. Most recently, I was reading the latest issue of Newsweek, dated September 6, 2010. On the back page there is always a section called “Back Story”, featuring quick and graphical information about a current hot button issue.
The latest “Back Story” targets the “Anchor Baby” issue but it does so in a way that makes the children of immigrants o.k. and less scary, as a way to allay the fears of the white masses by adhering to the cult of celebrity and mostly white celebrity at that.
Read more…
U.S. Dept. of Justice Files Lawsuit Against Sheriff Joe Arpaio
1:00 pm By Maegan La Mala · arizona|Immigration|Women · Comments Off
3 Sep 2010Yesterday morning, the United States Department of Justice announced the filing of a lawsuit against Maricopa County, Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio over his refusal to cooperate with a federal civil rights investigation by refusing to turn over requested documents for a year and a half.
America’s Voice has done a great job of researching and compiling his numerous civil rights violations and how ineffective they are in the context of “serve and protect”.
INEFFECTIVE TACTICS
* Violent Crime Rates Rise Under Arpaio, Fall in Rest of Arizona
* Under Arpaio, 911 Response Time Increased, Arrest Rates Decreased
* Arpaio Admits He Arrests ”Very Few” Non-Hispanics
* Over 40,000 Un-served Felony Warrants
* Conservative Think Tank Report: Arpaio’s Policies are Ineffective, Harmful, and a Waste of Millions of Taxpayer Dollars
* Mesa Police Chief: Arpaio’s Approach Hurts Community SafetyOPERATING ABOVE THE LAW
* Arpaio Under Investigation by the U.S. Justice Department for Civil Rights Abuses
* Arpaio Under FBI Investigation for Using his Power to Intimidate Political Opponents
* Judge Says Conditions in Arpaio’s Jails “Violate the Constitution”
* 2,700 Lawsuits Filed Against Arpaio
* Federal Officials Take Away Arpaio’s Deputies’ Authority to Make Immigration Arrests, Arpaio Vows to Defy the Restriction
* Arpaio Threatens Attorneys with Criminal Charges for Criticizing Him
* Department of Labor Investigates Arpaio, Finds He Owes Employees $2M in Unpaid Overtime
* Arpaio Suspected of Misspending $50M in Taxpayer Funds, Refuses to Turn Over Records
* Advocates Awarded $475,000 for Civil Rights Violations by Arpaio Deputies
* Arpaio Stages Phony Murder Plot Against Himself, Accused Released for Wrongful Imprisnment, County Pays Over $1 Million to SettleINSPIRING TERROR IN LATINO COMMUNITIES
* Arpaio Marches Immigrants in Shackles to Tent City Surrounded by Electric Fence
* Arpaio Separates Mother from Kids for Unpaid Traffic Ticket
* Arpaio Conducts “Crime Suppression” Sweeps in Latino Communities
* Arpaio Forces Mother to Give Birth while Handcuffed to Bed
* Arpaio’s Deputies Deploy Heavy Duty Machine Guns
Viernes Video : Arizona’s Jan Brewer Has Done So Much but Can’t Really Explain It
9:12 am By Maegan La Mala · arizona|Politics · 2 Comments
3 Sep 2010This is not really something to point and laugh at because really how can you laugh at incompetence veiled in hate. It’s really hard for me as an outsider in Arizona to know if Gov. Brewer’s 16 seconds of pain is a case of nerves or an indication of her inability to effectively govern as indicated by signing laws like SB1070 that hurt the state and it’s people. What do you think?
Isabel Allende Receives Chilean Literature Award with Some Controversy
7:17 am By Maegan La Mala · Chile|literature|Women · 2 Comments
3 Sep 2010
Earlier today I received a text message letting me know that author Isabel Allende had been given this year’s National Chilean Literature Prize. She is only the fourth woman to be given the award since its creation in 1942.
And yet her recognition isn’t without controversy. Some critics have labeled her writing, ranging from memoirs to short stories to novels and even a cookbook, as being too commercial and not “literary” enough.
VL At The Cine: Machete
6:38 pm By BiancaLaureano · Arts|Immigration|Movies · 8 Comments
2 Sep 2010
***SPOILERS***
I’ve been waiting for Machete to hit theaters for a long time. When SB1070 had been signed into law, I remember the film trailer being a hit and reaching various communities of practice within days. One of the reasons the trailer became so popular is because there is a social commentary woven into one of the first Latino superhero films. Check out the trailer below:
In a small room filled of mostly men, I was one of maybe three people whose gender expression and identity I read as women. It’s not often we see character actors of Color gain leading roles. We did see Samuel L. Jackson emerge from such a space, but it is a rarity. One of the many reasons I’ve wanted to see Machete was because of lead Danny Trejo. If you don’t know who Danny Trejo is I really don’t know what to tell you about yourself. He’s been in as many films as James Edward Olmos but rarely gets the recognition, which he seems all right with. I’ve noticed that many character actors feel this way and are happy to be able to get work on a regular basis. Trejo does play the same character in many of his roles, but that’s why I love him: he don’t play. He plays himself and I believe he can murder someone with his bare knuckles even if he is tied to a chair.
Community and Organizations Join to Stop Deportation of Maine Student
1:58 pm By Maegan La Mala · DREAM Act|Immigration|Maine|Portland · 3 Comments
1 Sep 2010
Earlier this month, as part of the DREAM Now Letters to Barack Obama series, we introduced you to Selvin Ovidio Arevalo, a Guatemalan student living in Maine who is facing immediate deportation.
There has been much talk by the right wing and some Republicans about returning to the “good ole American values rooted in Christianity”. While one could argue about what the values of this country really are and their history, what cannot be argued is that often the rhetoric against immigrants by those same people is anything but merciful. Selvin is a young man of faith and I wonder how many within the faith community, across party lines would step up for a young man like Selvin.
Read more…
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