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Posts Tagged ‘Netroots nation’

Post Netroots Nation Gratitude

7:12 am By Maegan La Mala · DREAM Act|Immigration|MINNEAPOLIS|Netroots Nation · Comments Off

21 Jun 2011

It’s been a day since I’ve returned home from Netroots Nation and am grateful for all the experiences had, conversations, reconnecting with old friends and meeting new ones. It’s always exciting when you meet someone you have worked with or engaged with online. That is what I have always found to be the most important takeaway from this conference. While some of the panels were good, it’s the conversations that will be built on away from Minneapolis that are most valuable.

It was especially exciting when those conversations were had with DREAMers from around the country that I hadn’t met in person before like Rigo, Felipe, Gaby, Tania, y Carlos who made me feel like a proud mami and fangirl all at the same time.

I had wonderful conversations with people in organizations that hopefully will lead to better communications and more effective and respectful collaborations on the issues that are critical to our communities.

A huge shout out to Democracy for America and America’s Voice who saw me worthy to receive a scholarship to participate in this year’s conference.

I am especially grateful to you the readers here and on twitter who followed the live tweets of various panels and events. I am working on a round up to fill in the gaps of the livetweets including what it was like to see the Right On! people in my bathing suit.

In a few days I am going to the Allied Media Conference with INCITE! so excuse me as I catch up. There are alot of updates on Secure Communities, work to be done to stop some deportations, and there will be a much fuller roundup of what went down at Netroots. As always stay connected.

Abrazos.

Live from Netroots Nation : Immigration and the Power of the Latino Vote Panel

10:17 am By Maegan La Mala · Immigration|Netroots Nation · 3 Comments

17 Jun 2011

I asked and you voted!

Starting in approximately 20 minutes I will be livetweeting at VivirLatino the Immigration and the Power of the Latino Vote Panel.

Here is what it is about so please comment, tweet questions etc.

Immigration and the Power of the Latino Vote: Why Harry Reid Came Back and Alex Sink Sunk
FRI, 06/17/2011 – 10:30AM, L100 FG
Latino voters were critical to 2010 Senate victories and will play an even more central role in the race for the White House in 2012. But with the immigration reform promise still unfulfilled, President Obama under heavy criticism for deporting more immigrants than Bush and a Republican party searching for a Latino marketing strategy to mask their extremist agenda, where will these voters go? This panel will share polling and demographic data to uncover the enormous promise and challenge facing both parties as they develop strategies to court these voters in 2012. We will discuss the role of immigration reform as the key motivator for this growing segment of the American electorate and will discuss how candidates, like Majority Leader Harry Reid, modeled a winning strategy by delivering on their immigration promise.
PANELISTS: Adam Luna, Maribel Hastings, Markos Moulitsas, Eliseo Medina, Rep. Luis Gutierrez

The role of Eliseo Medina will be played by Paco Fabian as apparently Mr. Medina’s flight was cancelled.

Help Mala Plan Her Time at Netroots Nation : Friday Morning

1:17 pm By Maegan La Mala · MINNEAPOLIS|Netroots Nation · Comments Off

16 Jun 2011

Today I will be travelling to Minneapolis to be at the Netroots Nation conference for the third year!

As I sit and try to figure out the best use of my time, I am requesting your help. What would you like to see/read about tomorrow morning here and via Twitter ( hashtags #nn11 & #MalaDoesNN11)?

All of the above have their potential for eye rolling and snarkiness on my part. I am leaning towards option #2 just based on my work over the past year. The last two – while I will go to if chosen – have the potential for me being dramatic and walking out but I will respect whatever you choose.

Also don’t forget you can sponsor airplane internet access, meal or a drink by making a donation here.

Mil gracias!

Mala Goes to Netroots Nation Next Week

9:38 am By Maegan La Mala · Immigration|Minnesota|Netroots Nation|VivirLatino · 6 Comments

9 Jun 2011

Thanks to some of your votes, Democracy for America, and America’s Voice, I will be in Minneapolis, Minnesota next week – from June 16th to the 19th – attending the Netroots Nation conference.

This will be my third year attending and those who have followed my participation before know that my coverage is complicated and controversial but also interesting and informative (and fun!).

I will be blogging here, tweeting on both the VivirLatino twitter and my own personal twitter account, as well as posting pictures, probably on our Facebook page. The hashtag is #NN11 and I will also be personally using #MalaDoesNN.

I haven’t had a chance to really plan my time there – I do know I will live-tweet/comment on the Taking Back Your State: Responding to Restrictive Immigration Legislation scheduled for Saturday, June 18th 1:30 PM – 2:45 PM (Minneapolis time).

While the DFA and America’s Voice Scholarship cover airfare, hotel, and registration, I am requesting support for , childcare, ground transport and food costs. So if you appreciate the work that VivirLatino does, consider making a small donation or if you are gonna be at the conference – I accept drinks and food .

Gracias!

Taking a Break To Give Thanks

6:58 am By Maegan La Mala · Events|Immigration|Netroots Nation · Comments Off

6 Aug 2010

It’s easy to follow the news cycle and react and move and critique and move from conference to conference without a breath. Throw in taking care of two kids and work that pays and there is even less a chance that you will stop, step back and rest.

Consider this post my breathing room.

1: First, good news for Marlen Moreno and her familia. It looks like her deportation has been temporarily put off. Thanks to all who sent faxes and emails and made calls to help a mami stay stay with her familia.

2: Remember Netroots Nation? I won the 2010 Credo Mobile Blogger Award thanks to people texting. This means I won a smart phone and a year’s service. This is a huge deal to me, who was running round with a prepaid that I had to watch every minute on and that got text messages 24 hours after they were sent. Now I can livetweet, take more pictures etc for the site. And I have to say that the peeps at Credo Mobile were so nice and sweet in helping me set up my phone today. One of the best customer service experiences ever!

3: From one conference to another. Mil gracias to the Latinos in Social Media crew for hooking Mala up with a scholarship so that I can attend the BlogHer 2010 conference. I was invited to speak last year at BlogHer but had no way of affording the travel expense. This year the conference is just a metrocard swipe away. I have my apprehensions. I’m not gonna front. Pero at the very least I will meet some people and check the scene out for myself. So stay tuned here and on the VivirLatino twitter account for updates today and tomorrow.

Feliz viernes and don’t forget to take a deep breath.

News With Nezua : The Illegal Europeans

8:21 am By Maegan La Mala · Immigration|Netroots Nation · 3 Comments

29 Jul 2010

For another perspective on the #MockICE Checkpoint that went down at Netroots Nation last week in Las Vegas, here is the latest edition of News with Nezua, cross-posted with the gracious permission of Alfredo de La Frontera Times and Nezua.

I really wanted to repost this because it is the only video that features the perspective of some of the Latinos who participated in the MockICE action at Netroots Nation last week and because specifically it features a mujer, Yahira Carillo, as mentioned in my last post on this, talking about how her multifaceted reality was completely overlooked and ignored by one of those stopped at the checkpoint.

Featuring the Netroots Nation 2010 Immigration Checkpoint mock ICE action.

In reference to the nightmare that SB 1070 represents, a group of friends and myself staged a mock immigration checkpoint where we racially profiled European immigrants and their descendants, and required them to show papers that proved they had a right to trespass on native land. Some were puzzled, many laughed, and a couple were furious. What made the difference in these reactions? And how would the most upset of these people feel were they to experience for even one day the true threat of being under the glare of anti-immigrant hostility and anti-Latino hate in the USA today?

ICE checkpoints at Netroots Nation

10:45 am By la Macha · Immigration|race · 15 Comments

24 Jul 2010

The following is going viral in a big way on the facebook/twitter rounds. Activists at Net Roots (where our own Mamita Mala is!) conducted ICE checkpoints to check for “illegal European immigrants” throughout the conference as a way to demonstrate how the immigration debate is a specifically race based one, how ICE is used to terrify specifically racialized communities, how you could be *doing nothing wrong* and still considered suspect.

I don’t know, I think it’s a good idea–but I also think that I saw too many white people smiling, thinking isn’t this so funny/cute! Here! Here’s my ID! Haha!

It’s a lot different being asked by activists trying to prove a point for your ID than it is being asked by official government agents with their machine guns drawn for your ID. It sorta makes me think of Coco Fusco and Guillermo Gomez Pena’s series of museum tours where they imprisoned themselves in a cage and posed as “exotic Indians” from a fake country. Some people got it, other people thought it was cute. I wonder how many Native peoples or Latin@s are laughing and smirking their way through ICE checkpoints?

When there is no power in the work to terrify–you are relying as “artists” on irony to make your point, and some people will get irony others won’t. Hopefully in the whitened halls of Netroots, more people got it than didn’t.

What do you think?

Miercoles Morning Musica : En El Desierto (Going to Vegas)

6:24 am By Maegan La Mala · Events|Las Vegas|Netroots Nation · Comments Off

21 Jul 2010

Today I travel to Las Vegas to attend Netroots Nation. This year I am one of a group of scholarship winners chosen by Democracy for America, with support from the National Council of la Raza and America’s Voice, which allows me to go, as I am not in a position to travel to any conference without help. VivirLatino isn’t funded by foundation money and the little money we do make goes to trying to pay our editors a small token amount not at all reflective of the work that gets put into this space. I will be proudly representing VivirLatino as an independent mujer led space.

Those who have been following VivirLatino for over a year will remember that my first time at Netroots, last year, wasn’t the easiest time. A combination of being new in the space and other incidents related to my being a radical woman of color without a network of support, led to it feeling like one of the most challenging conference spaces I have been in. That’s not to say it wasn’t valuable. Personal connections with people that I interact with online only are made stronger by personal contacts and even organizations with whom I haven’t had the most agreeable relationships have been able to come to some understanding with how to move forward on common issues because I could sit down and talk. Face to face. In the age of the blog, human connection still trumps wires and waves.

VivirLatino Says Vegas or Bust

8:03 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Las Vegas|Media|Netroots Nation · 2 Comments

12 May 2010

Last year was Mala’s first time at Netroots Nation. Thanks to a scholarship from America’s Voice, who yes have purchased ads on the site (full disclosure), I went to Pittsburgh not knowing what to expect and had a tough time, to say the least.

So why would I apply for a scholarship to go again? Women like me aren’t usually invited to these types of events. The costs are prohibitive and there isn’t child care. Often women of color radical media makers hear that we were referenced, talked about but are not included in the conversation. Situations that we are living like the intersection of enforcement heavy immigration, sexual violence and mami’hood. Even when we are invited to conversation spaces like conventions, we find ourselves isolated, tokenized or ignored.

Part of me considers these conferences and conventions a social experiment where I test my own limits and the limits of others. I always end up crying. Sometimes those are tears of joy, sometimes those are tears of anger, fear, frustration. You can tell alot by who you end up crying with at a conference.

The last time I was in Las Vegas was in 2007 to cover the Latin Grammy Awards. We’ve changed alot since then.
Now towards the end of July, I will be in Vegas again for this year’s Netroots Nation, thanks to a scholarship from Democracy for America.

I feel like this year, I know what to expect and how to navigate a little better. I want to thank the ~~academy~~ people who voted for me and those on the judging panel who thought that my voice, presence, and experience was important. I hope that I can do my comunidad justice.

PS : I’m also excited that Prerna Lal from DREAM Activist will be there also via a scholarship.

Now I just need funding for my airfare!!!

Netroots Nation : Invisibility and Identity in Progressive Spaces Part 2 (Immigration)

23 Aug 2009

100_0275

It’s been a week since I left Pittsburgh, pero drama from NN09, a mounting stack of bills, and la vida have prevented me from writing out this second part in a more timely manner.

The Movement is in the Messenging?
As I mentioned before, I was able to attend Netroots Nation gracias to a scholarship from America’s Voice because of my history of writing on immigration. Understandably, this was a decision that wasn’t popular with everyone since I am constantly pushing back on the beltway and their “progressive” supporters. Pero that is what I consider my job to be. I am not beholden to anyone except myself and my community which is why I think it’s really important to look at how the issue of immigration and the parties that claim to represent the issue in the real world and blogosphere are represented, specifically in the Netroots Nation ’09 context.

VivirLatino