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Lo Que Hay This Weekend Boston & NYC: Danza Mexicana y Mas

8:13 am By Maegan La Mala · Arts|boston|dance|Events|mexico · Comments Off

25 Nov 2011

Boston

Friday, November 18th

Paredes en Fuego: The 2011 Cacique Youth Art Show Opening Reception
Villa Victoria Center for the Arts
85 W. NEWTON STREET BOSTON, MA 02118

Ongoing

Calpulli Danza Mexicana in Queens Theater in the Park
Saturday, November 26 – 8 pm
Sunday, November 27 3 pm
Queens Theater in the Park, Flushing Meadow Park
Tickets available via the Box Office or by calling 718-760-0064

Tickets can also be purchased at event sponsor Compliments U Boutique in Jackson Heights, Queens (80-14 37th Ave.) and at Calpulli Youth Dance locations in Queens and Staten Island

Monday Morning Movie : This is not a Holiday Edition “Against Mexico – The Making of Heroes and Enemies”

7:39 am By Maegan La Mala · history|mexico|Texas · Comments Off

10 Oct 2011

While the clip of the PBS film , Against Mexico – The Making of Heroes and Enemies, featured below, has nothing to do really with Columbus Day, I chose to share it this morning because the subtext is a common one. How are holidays around history invented? What are the messages that we internalize around our inherent worth as diasporic peoples? How do we accurately portray history understanding that the “winning” side is not always the just side? What language do we adopt and what vocabulary do we reject in the context of how ethnicity still plays a role in how people are treated? And how do we approach these issues with our children so that they do not struggle, feeling they have to be “good” or “bad”?

Watch the full episode. See more PBS Presents.

Homeland Security’s New Bragging Rights : Denying Deferred Action & Deadly Force

8:32 am By Maegan La Mala · Immigration|mexico|Politics|Uncategorized · 21 Comments

14 Mar 2011

While states across the country continue to push anti-immigrant legislation which seeks to criminalize the most basic rights of people, the Department of Homeland Security under Secretary Janet Napolitano is being very clear about it’s policy of deportation and death on the Southern Border.

In hearings last week before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Napolitano bragged about the fact that the Obama administration granted deferred action in less than 900 cases last year. That was fewer than the Bush administration.

According to Immigration Equality‘s useful definition Deferred Action is:

a minimal humanitarian status which The Department of Homeland Security can grant in cases of extremely compelling humanitarian facts (such as a life-threatening illness). The status permits an individual to remain in the United States for a limited period of time (generally two years) after which point he or she must re-apply.

So essentially Napolitano is bragging about immigration policy becoming less humane under the Obama administration than under the last Bush administration.
Read more…

Susana Chavez is Una Mas : The Murder of a Ciudad Juarez Activist

7:29 am By Maegan La Mala · mexico|Violence|Women · 4 Comments

19 Jan 2011

***Post may contain triggers due to mentions of violence against women*****

She is credited with making the phrase “Ni una muerta mas,” (not one more dead woman) but 36 year old Susanna Chavez, an activist and poet who struggled for justice for the countless dead and disappeared women of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico became una mas when her body was found on Dia de los Reyes, January 6. She had been strangled and her left hand had been cut off.

What has happened since her body was found and identified follows the pattern of what some have called cover-ups to outright indifference regarding the death and disappearances in the Juarez region. Mexican officials say that Sanchez’s murder was not related to her activism or drug violence. Rather, Mexican officials seem to be engaging in some victim blaming.
Read more…

Parents of Mexican Teen Killed by Border Patrol File Suit

9:25 am By Maegan La Mala · Immigration|mexico|U.S.-Mexico Border|Violence · 5 Comments

18 Jan 2011

When 15 year old Sergio Adrian Hernandez-Huereca was shot and killed by the U.S. Border Patrol last summer, there was a rush to kill the Mexican youth again, by killing his reputation, by saying he deserved what he got, that is bullets to meet rocks that in all likelihood he didn’t even throw. There was a rush to label him a smuggler, a criminal, as if that justified an extralegal shooting into Mexican territory. The name of the agent that fired the lethal bullet has never been released, just like the name of the Border Patrol agent who shot and killed Ramses Barron Torres has not been released. Well the parents of Sergio Adrian Hernandez-Huereca just filed a lawsuit against the United States and this could be a step towards justice.

Justice is not the $25 million dollars asked for in the civil suit, but rather the process that goes with the civil suit that could force information from the U.S. Government, who has gone out of it’s way to protect Border Patrol Agents who kill unarmed Mexicans, perhaps in Mexican territory.

“Part of this lawsuit seeks to require the government to turn over the border camera video and see it and get a better look at it,” said Bob Hilliard, attorney for Sergio’s family.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in El Paso, names the Department of Homeland Security, The U.S. Border Patrol, the U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and an “unnamed agent” of the U.S. Border Patrol as defendants.
“The parents are hopeful that the main thing they get is an accounting of the Border Patrol’s conduct,” Hilliard said, adding he is hoping that criminal charges will be filed against the agent.

The Other Arizona Shooting

10:09 am By Maegan La Mala · arizona|Immigration|mexico|U.S.-Mexico Border|Violence · 6 Comments

11 Jan 2011

Before Congresswoman Gifford and others were shot in Tuscon, Arizona , 17 year old Ramses Barron Torres was shot and killed by a bullet originating in Nogales, Arizona. There have been no national moments of silence for the apparently unarmed teenager. No memes speculating on the sanity of the shooter(s) or if violent rhetoric played a role. That’s probably because Ramses Barron Torres is Mexican and was shot by U.S. Border Patrol.

The story on what actually happened to Torres depends on what source you believe. From Immigration Clearinghouse:

It took the players all day to get their stories to a point where it was agreed that the agents fired their weapons into the air, and they put Torres as either “in the US, throwing rocks at agents, when he fell and hit his head on a rock and died”, or, he fell from the fence which he was trying to scale while chunking rocks at BP agents, a truly awesome display of athletic ability were it to be true.

But something wierd happened. Torres body showed up at a hospital in Nogales Sonora with a gunshot wound, throwing all to hell the claims that he was in the US throwing rocks at BP agents.

…

The Sonora State Investigative Police, or PEI, said 17-year-old Ramses Barron Torres, who died shortly after 3 a.m. at a Nogales, Sonora hospital, was shot in the back of the right arm, with the bullet continuing into his chest cavity, puncturing a lung, and lodging in the left side of his ribcage.

In “the back of the right arm” meaning Torres would have had his back to the BP agents who murdered him.

Mexico is Not the Most Dangerous Latin American Country

7 Jan 2011

The mainstream media, the United States government, and even some commenters here want to paint Mexico as the biggest danger to the United States since hmmm communism/the Russians/ Cubans…ay you get the point. Some stats tell a different story though.

The country currently with the highest murder rate is Honduras, followed closely by El Salvador.

There is no analysis as to why, although many will point to the drug war and gangs which really are crimes based in poverty. Much of the poverty in Latin America can be linked to inequity which can be linked in part to United States intervention ( a la NAFTA and more direct military interventions).

What I have not seen is much analysis about how many of these deaths are that of mujeres and under what circumstances. In El Salvador, 562 women were killed. We do know that in Honduras, for example, post-coup (because we can call it a coup now) there has been an increase in violence against women.

Via / The Mex Files

The 58 Dreams Deferred Daily : 2010 Mexican Migrant Children Statistics

10:48 am By Maegan La Mala · children|Immigration|mexico · 2 Comments

4 Jan 2011

According to an article in today’s El Diario/La Prensa, everyday an average of 58 Mexican minors are “voluntarily repatriated” , that is deported to Mexico. Of those 58, around 70 percent of them are unaccompanied. Doing that math, that means that around 40 children are sent back to Mexico without adults on a daily basis. And these are incomplete numbers, meaning they do not include children who were deported outside of an agreement signed between Mexico and U.S. Homeland Security in 2004.

These numbers, which came from the Mexican agency, Instituto Nacional de Migración (INM), further state that in between January and November of 2010, there were 439,898 deportation cases of which 19,296 were children, and out of the children, 3,653 were identified as female.
Read more…

Why Haven’t We Heard More About the Asylum Granted to Alexandra Reyes

1:24 pm By Maegan La Mala · GLBT|Immigration|mexico · 7 Comments

19 Nov 2010

I have been meaning to write about Alexandra Reyes for about a week now and in that week I am surprised (well kind of) that more attention hasn’t been given to her.

Alexandra Reyes was granted asylum earlier this month that will allow her to stay in the United States. Reyes , like so many others, came into the United States without documents. She came escaping violence from her family in Mexico and from Mexican society because she is a transgender woman.

“It would be physically dangerous for her to walk down the street,” said her attorney, Bryon Large. “She could be sexually assaulted.”

Martes Morning Movie : Los Invisibles, Part I

10:02 am By Maegan La Mala · Immigration|Media|mexico|Videos · 1 Comment

16 Nov 2010

Yesterday, I wrote to you all about a four part film released by Amnesty International and Gael Garcia Bernal, los Invisibles. The film focuses on Central American immigrants traveling through Mexico into the United States. Today, as promised, here is part one of the film, titled Seaworld. Why Seaworld ? Because that is how one little girl in the film envisions the United States to be like.

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