The National Congress for Puerto Rican Rights And Event Co-Chairs : David Galarza * Juan Ramos * Carlos "Charlie" Ramos, Jr.* Martha Laureano,*Julissa Santiago

Invite you To a Social Meet-and-Greet Entre Familia.

For An Evening of Music, Poetry and a Historical Reflection of the
NCPRR's 27 Years of Community Activism and its Role Today.

Featuring NuyoRican Poet Mariposa and Julisa Vale, Prisionera, Andy Torres and
Other great performers.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Latin Quarter's Nightclub

511 Lexington Avenue, New York City

Doors Open at 6:30pm

2 for 1 Drink special and Buffet

Admission:

$25 gets you Free Admission and a One Year Membership;

$15 Non-Members

Must be 21 or older to attend.

RSVP today and/or for more information, please contact
Juan Ramos at juan4thepeople@gmail.com

The Filiberto Ojeda Rios Film Festival 2008 is an initiative of the ProLibertad Freedom Campaign to showcase films that speak to our experience as a colonized people fighting for independence and self-determination!

We have named the film festival after assassinated Machetero leader Filiberto Ojeda Rios because his death raised consciousness throughout the Puerto Rican Diaspora; his murder illustrated the colonial oppression Puerto Rico faces and has radicalized a generation of young activists to continue the fight for independence.

We hope these films will do the same. Join us on our three consecutive Fridays!

Don’t support the Hollywood machine that feeds you nonsense, sex, violence and cheap humor! Learn about yourself, your people, and your struggle!

This Friday's film is la Operacion, a film I have written about and referenced often. Pero for those who have not been paying attention:

La Operacion/The Operation
This documentary brings to the foreground the problem of widespread
sterilization among Puerto Rican women through the use of personal testimony, newsreels, and government propaganda excerpts. The procedure is so common that more than one-third of all Puerto Rican women of childbearing age have been sterilized. Begun in the 1930's as a means of curbing the surplus population, it continues to be reinforced politically and socially in the Puerto Rican communities.

$5 donation/Best offer at each film!

Friday November 21st, 2008 @ 8pm @ The Brecht Forum 451 West Street (that's the West Side Highway) between Bank & Bethune Streets.

This is not just history. It is directly tied into how women's cuerpos are used today as projects and not respected, how the language of choice is often manipulated to help some while harm others and devalue our lives and how and when we continue to bring forth new lives or not.

Amy Richards & Maegan "Mamita Mala" Ortiz
Radical Mommyhood: A Coversation with Amy Richards and Maegan "Mamita Mala" Ortiz

Thursday, November 13 @ 7:00PM

Arlington St. Church, 351 Boylston St. Entrance, (Corner of Boylston and Arlington), Boston

Join Amy Richards and Maegan “Mamita Mala” Ortiz for a frank conversation on radical mommyhood—how making the decision to have a child impacts who we are and who we want to be (as women, feminists, anti-racists, and artists). We’ll chat about the intersections of feminism and motherhood and how race and class in particular, play an important role in how motherhood is encountered, seen, and experienced.

Amy Richards is the author of Opting In: Having a Child Without Losing Yourself, and the co-author of Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future and Grassroots: A Field Guide for Feminist Activism (both with Jennifer Baumgardner). She is co-founder of the Third Wave Foundation and the feminist speakers bureau Soapbox. She lives in New York City with her family.

Maegan “Mamita Mala” Ortiz is a radical Nuyorican mami, blogger, poeta, and freelance writer. La Mala is currently co-Editor of one of the top U.S. Latino blogs, VivirLatino. She is also a contributor on Anti-Racist Parent. Her words , blogging, and opinions have been featured at the Washington Post, The Huffington Post, NPR, and Latina Magazine. Check her out at: http://mamitamala.com/.

It should get interesting....

Red is a powerful color in the negative and positive sense of the word. Last year, people all over the world wore the color red in what is now a campaign and a movement against violence against women of color. Red the color of of righteous anger, the color of blood that is spilled and blood that boils at what has become so commonplace for so many women is silenced.

This year, on the first anniversary of the Be Bold Be Red Campaign, we invite you to make your bold stance against the violence enacted on women and girls of color in our society visible. In D.C., Chicago, Durham, Atlanta and Detroit women of color will be gathering to renew our commitment to creating a world free from racialized and gendered violence, and this time, we’ll be using a new technology called CyberQuilting to connect all of these gatherings in real time. To learn more about CyberQuilting, which is a women of color led project to stitch movements together using new web technologies and old traditions of love and nurturing, visit www.cyberquilt.wordpress.com.

For more information visit Document the Silence.

The two-time Latin Grammy nominee, who has made millions of fans around the world over a 30-year career, makes her debut in Miami on Saturday, November 1 at the John S. and James L. Knight Concert Hall at Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County, followed by concerts at Berklee Performance Center in Boston, Carnegie Hall in New York City, and the House of Blues in Chicago.

She will debut songs from her upcoming 2009 CD, Quimba, Fa, Malambo, Ñeque to be released on Times Square Records.

For more on her music and performance, see after the jump.

Luz Rodriguez, of SisterSong, Women of Color Health Care Collective, speaks of human rights.

See more Latina women, including Kety Esquivel and VL Editor Maegan la Mala, speak what they want after the jump.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008
7:00pm - 9:00pm
LaGuardia Community College
Mainstage Theater, 31-10 Thomson Avenue
Long Island City, NY

Got something to say about the economy, the war, health care, or any other issue?

Then don't miss This Is What Women Want: a pre-debate speakout in NYC!

This Is What Women Want is your chance to cut through the spin and tell the media, the candidates and the world exactly what you want this election season.

We're on a This Is What Women Want Tour of speakouts across the country. We started in Boston on Thursday, 8/21, and now we're taking it to each debate city the night before the debate.

On Tuesday, October 14, local and national media will sit up and listen to women in NYC - from national leaders to the not-yet-known. It could be your voice at that mic!

Come tell us exactly what you want from the candidates, the media and the next President. We’ll be sending the best speakouts to the media and the candidates.

From the economy, to sexism, racism, and other bias in the media’s coverage of the campaign, to immigration, war, poverty, health care, reproductive justice, sexual freedom, worker’s rights, violence, education, environmental concerns and more, this is an unprecedented chance to set the agenda for the country. Whether you’ve got a criticism of the status quo or a visionary idea that no one has yet considered, we want to hear from you.

Our goal is simple: to ensure that the real and varied concerns of women are a force to be reckoned with this election season.

This is What Women Want
Find the Event on Facebook

Saturday, October 11, 2008 - 7:00pm
Bluestockings Books
172 Allen Street
New York, NY
www.bluestockings.com

Just Like A Girl is a rough-and-tumble, sassy, kick-ass travelogue through the bumpy, powerful, action-packed world of GIRL. A world where girls and women know how to pick themselves up and brush themselves off. These are the clever girls. The funny girls. The girls who know there is no sin in being born one.

-Irma Galido
-Claudia Barragán
-Daniel Reyes y Nilko Andreas

Come through if you can.

Friend the event on Facebook.

Yours truly, Maegan la Mala, is a featured poet at one of the events and will attend as many events as I can (Before I was Blogger, activist, and Mami, I was a poet).

Hope to see some of you there.

This year, Dominicanos Aventura will also be performing, meaning there is gonna be a strange but wonderful mix of Latinos in midtown later tonight.

Image Via / The Sun Times

Kinky from Monterrey, are one of those bands that sound great on CD and absolutely wow you live. So if you haven't seen Kinky live and are in NY today, run.

Also playing with Kinky are Pistolera, Mariacho Real de Mexico.

and as a special treat, The Mexican Institute of Sound was just added to today's lineup!!! This is the first full band M.I.S. performance ever in the U.S.!

Also performing are the Villa-Lobos Brothers and el Grupo Norteño.

Here's a lil taste of Lila's musica.....

It got packed early with a mix of mostly LES locals of all ages.

It was a long wait but well worth it after Willie went on stage.

Willie Colon sang many of his well known classics as well as a new tune. But it was his tribute to Hector Lavoe that got the overwhelmingly Boricua crowd going.