Chicano Culture

Final Presentation Handout

2006-05-22T17:12:00.000-07:00

ES 4: Chicano Culture
Final Presentation Handout

For your final presentation, you will prepare an outline describing your culture (yes, your personal culture) and how race/ethnicity, class, and gender have influenced your own cultural production. You must first give a definition of culture and then provide some personal examples. (Do not include anything that you don’t want others to know).

Your outline should look like this:

1. Culture is:

2. My Culture is:

3. How race/ethnicity, class, and gender have influenced my culture?

A. Race/Ethnicity:

B. Class:

C. Gender:

4. Finish the following statement, “we are conditioned but not determined, that’s why my culture…”

One way to think about this assignment, is by paying attention to the three main components of culture: values/beliefs, norms and traditions, and objects. So, what do you believe and what does your background and social reality have to do with it? What are your norms and traditions, and what do they have to do with your background and social reality? What objects you use and what do they have to do with your background and social reality? Culture is also about what you do and what you like.

For question number four, think about how you have created your own culture. If you have brothers and sisters you might have different beliefs and values, different taste in music, different views about gender roles, etc. Meaning that just because you are from a certain ethnic group, it does not mean that this determines what your culture will be, although it does have a big influence. It also means that you can challenge ‘norms,’ such as dominant culture’s expectations on what women should or should not do, or how people should or should not dress, etc.

La Sexta Declaracion / The Sixth Declaration

2006-05-21T14:44:00.000-07:00

For those of you who are presenting on the Sixth Zapatista Declaration, you can click on the following links for the full text. Notice English and Spanish versions:

English:
Sixth Declaration

Spanish:
La Sexta

Please read the entire Declaration and be ready to present Thursday.

Peace with dignity.

Borderlands Questions

2006-05-09T10:38:00.000-07:00

Borderlands/La Frontera
Student Response Questions

1. What are the physical borderlands Gloria Anzaldúa talks about? What are the psychological borderlands?

2. How is the concept of Aztlan (as the U.S. South West) different than Anzaldúa’s concept of the borderlands? Where do Chicanos belong?

3. Who are self-identified Chicanas? Why does Anzaldúa and Cherrie Moraga prefer this term over Mexican-American or Hispanic? (They do use Mexican)

4. Who is a Mestiza? What cultural and political significance does Anzaldúa’s claim to indigeneity have?

5. How does Anzaldúa knows what she knows? What are her sources? How does she create theory and the “methodologies of the oppressed”? Think of how she uses Mesoamerican cosmology (knowledge, spirituality, etc), personal history, Chicano and Mexican history, feminism, etc.

6. What is the Coatlicue State? What is its significance for Anzaldúa?

7. What is the importance of language for Anzadúa? What is the connection of language and identity in Anzaldúa’s work? Why does she claim to have a “wild” and ‘forked’ [split] tongue?

8. What is “la facultad” and how does it allow the oppressed to survive?

9. What is ‘la consciencia de la mestiza/the new mestiza consciousness’? How does it relate to both culture and political identity?

10. What is Anzaldúa’s project for society? What solutions or visions does she present? How is it similar or different to popular ideas of “multiculturalism”? How is her conception of peoplehood different than the 60s’ Chicano nationalism?

11. What do you make of Anzaldúa’s concluding statement on page 113?

WASHINGTON POLICIES DRIVE MIGRANTS NORTH TO SEEK WORK

2006-05-05T11:31:00.000-07:00

(MSN editorial submitted to Chicago Tribume, 5/5/06. We encourage you t use this editorial or to submit simular one to your local editorial page.)

The immigration experience is not for the faint of heart. Young men and women, from Mexico and further South make the often painful decision to leave their families with a strong possibility that they won’t see each other again for years. If a mother or father dies, if a brother gets married, if a sister gives birth, there’s no opportunity to share the experience with other family members.

Just looking at migration from Latin America, the cost of crossing the border has skyrocketed in recent years - $2,500 for Mexicans and as much as $20,000 for South Americans. This means assuming a substantial debt, a kind of indentured servitude very similar to slavery. Even after spending these princely sums, the border crossing is dangerous. On average, someone dies every day in the attempt, usually of heat exhaustion or dehydration. We hear that young women often take birth control pills before leaving in the expectation that they will be raped during the journey. And when migrant workers finally arrive in the US, they live under constant fear of deportation. Those that find work end up with below minimum wage jobs and are the target of fraud, unfair work practices and abuse.

So if the process is so difficult and the results are so unrewarding, why do undocumented workers come to the US? Because they have no choice - the very survival of families back home depends on the income from undocumented workers in the US. And when it comes down to questions of survival, nearly any loving, responsible family member would make the same sacrifices and the same decisions.

Why aren’t there options South of the border? Much of the problem stems from policies implemented in Washington that directly impact people throughout the South. The majority of undocumented workers come from Mexico, and the relationship between policies devised in DC and the decisions by Mexicans to migrate is very clear.

When Mexico experienced debt crises in 1982 and 1994, two different US administrations developed “rescue” packages worth billions of dollars. Rather than allowing investors to take the hit for their bad investment decisions, the debt was socialized, a form of corporate welfare dictated by the US Treasury Department. Private investors and US bankers got their money and the Mexican ruling class escaped virtually unscathed, while millions of Mexican workers will pay the bill for generations to come. About a quarter of Mexico’s federal budget each year goes to debt payments, leaving no funds for investments to create jobs. And the interest rates are double or triple what the US pays for international loans.

Equally important, the debt crisis essentially gave control of Mexico’s major economic decisions to the US Treasury Department via a series of Structural Adjustment Programs negotiated with the International Monetary Fund and bilateral agreements negotiated directly with the US. Structural Adjustment turned Mexico into an export platform. Corporations make use of cheap labor and lax environmental regulations to produce for the US market. Today about one-third of everything produced in Mexico is exported, and 90% goes to the US market. Most of the major producers are US-owned firms who also send profits back home, leaving little income for investment. Equally important, export-oriented industries don’t have the internal multiplier effect that production for internal consumption affords. Since the goods that are produced in Mexico aren’t consumed in Mexico, the consumer motor that drives the US economy is absent. Production for export at these levels deforms the economy, leaving it on a constant treadmill, producing for export to earn dollars to pay off the international debt, while leaving the economy in a constant state of low growth as profits and debt payments are quickly sent north of the border.

NAFTA also has a decisively negative impact in Mexico, driving nearly three million farmers off their lands.

Corn is the most important crop in Mexico. About 18 million people depend largely on corn production for their survival, and corn provides about half of the caloric intake of a typical campesino diet. When NAFTA forced Mexico to lower protective tariffs and flooded Mexico with US grown corn (all agricultural tariffs are schedule to end in 2009), and the price of corn dropped drastically. Small farmers were no longer able to compete. Before NAFTA, these same farmers sold excess production in local markets, providing their only source of cash income for medicines, tools, and school supplies – anything they couldn’t produce themselves.

NAFTA forced millions of Mexican farmers to abandon their fields and look for another source of income as migrant workers. The export sector was supposed to provide these jobs, but these jobs are poorly paid (averaging around a dollar an hour), difficult, and, most importantly, insufficient to cover the demand. Now as a direct effect of NAFTA they have to look elsewhere for that income, and immigration is the only available alternative.

Comprehensive immigration reform requires a comprehensive look at the causes of immigration.

Obviously the Mexican government is not without blame and the Mexican people need to hold their government accountable for its economic decisions, but until Washington accepts its role in causing undocumented immigration and re-thinks NAFTA and its other so called “free trade” agreements, there is little chance for anything but band-aid policies that will not fix the problem and migration to the US will only increase.

Mexico-US Solidarity Network
www.mexicosolidarity.org

Articles

2006-03-23T09:55:00.000-08:00

State's low school spending yields few college graduates
STUDY IDENTIFIES ROADBLOCKS; EXTRA HURDLES FOR POOR MINORITIES

By Becky Bartindale
Mercury News

California sends a lower percentage of its seniors to in-state public four-year universities than any state but Mississippi -- and a report released Wednesday offers an explanation.

Topping the reasons: a shortage of high school counselors, adequately trained teachers and college-prep classes -- largely caused by one of the lowest levels of educational spending in the nation.

The study concludes that these roadblocks to college are present in every corner of the state -- including Santa Clara County. But they are the most prevalent in schools serving high percentages of poor minority students.

The study is the first to allow Californians to see how their schools fare in terms of having some of the most basic resources that influence whether students go on to college, its authors said. (Detailed, searchable information is available at www.ucla-idea.org.) It focuses only on students entering University of California and California State University campuses because the data was readily available and those schools are the main destination for the state's students who attend four-year schools.

``So many students begin high school saying they want to go on to college,'' said Professor Jeannie Oakes, one of the principal researchers and director of the Institute for Democracy, Education and Access at UCLA and the UC All Campus Consortium on Research for Diversity. ``Whether or not they do should be a matter of their decision, rather than being in a school with such a weak college-preparatory infrastructure that the decision is taken away from them.''

At the heart of the problem, concludes the study, is a failure to invest in education.

California is among the states with the highest per capita personal income in the country -- it ranks 11th -- yet when spending is adjusted for regional cost of living differences, it ranks 43rd in education spending, according to the report.

The study found tremendous differences among legislative districts in different areas of the state.

For example, the Midpeninsula region of the Bay Area shows the largest concentration of legislative districts sending the most students to California public universities, said study author John Rogers, associate director of UCLA's Institute for Democracy, Education and Access. Those districts also spend more money per student than the state average, Rogers said, and in some cases, more than the national average.

Among the study's findings:

• Only one-eighth of the California students who entered the class of 2004 as ninth-graders enrolled in one of the state's public four-year universities.

• California has the lowest ratio in the nation of high school students to counselors -- an average of 1-to-790 compared with 1-to-284.

• California's average high school class size is 21 students per teacher, though many classes are much larger. The national average is 15 students per teacher.

The study did not consider attendance at the state's private colleges or two-year colleges. While more California high school graduates attend community colleges than anywhere else, Oakes said the statewide transfer rate to four-year colleges is relatively low.

The lack of qualified teachers and not having enough counselors and college-prep courses is particularly acute in poor districts with large minority populations, Rogers said.

``Counselors are particularly important when we think about immigrant students whose families are not familiar with the California and U.S. higher education systems,'' he said.

Even without major infusions of money, Rogers said, there are things school districts can do to point more students toward college.

He praised the San Jose Unified School District's ``bold move'' to require all students to take college-prep courses to graduate, calling it a good model for other districts.

Contact Becky Bartindale at bbartindale@mercurynews. com or (408) 920-5459.

© 2006 MercuryNews.com and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.mercurynews.com

Educational System Fails Chicana and Chicano Students at Every Level

Date: March 22, 2006
Contact: Letisia Marquez ( lmarquez@support.ucla.edu )
Phone: 310-206-3986

Faced with dismal high school and college graduation rates for Chicana and Chicano students, educators, policy-makers, community leaders and other stakeholders must do more to increase the number of Chicanos attaining high school, college and graduate degrees, according to a UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center report.

Out of 100 Chicana and Chicano students who start elementary school, only 46 graduate from high school, eight receive a bachelor's degree and only two earn a graduate or professional degree, according to statistics based on 2000 U.S. Census Bureau and other educational data sources. Less than one Chicana and Chicano of the 100 earns a doctorate.

In contrast, of every 100 white elementary school students, 84 graduate from high school, 26 graduate with a bachelor's degree and 10 earn a professional degree, researchers said. Compared with other major racial and ethnic groups, Chicanas and Chicanos, who are the fastest growing segment of the student population in California and all major cities west of the Mississippi, have the lowest educational attainment of any group.

"Education is a crucial determinant for success in our society," said co-author Daniel Solórzano, a UCLA professor of education and the center's associate director. "What we see happening for Chicanos and Chicanas, however, is that they drop, or are pushed, out of the educational pipeline in higher numbers than any other group. While it is easy to blame the students, the responsibilities reside in the educational system itself."

Solórzano and Tara J. Yosso, an assistant professor of Chicana and Chicano Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a visiting scholar at the UCLA center, identified several conditions that impede the flow of Chicanas and Chicanos through what researchers termed "the educational pipeline."

"The educational system is clearly failing Chicana and Chicano students at every level," Yosso said. "We can no longer ignore these blatant inequalities. It is of extreme importance to address these issues now."

The researchers recommended focusing on three critical transition points: priming Chicana and Chicano K-12 students for college, community college students for transfer, and university undergraduates for graduate school.

Researchers cited various reasons for the disparities at each educational level. In urban, suburban and rural communities across the United States, Chicana and Chicano students usually attend racially segregated, overcrowded schools. Within poorly maintained facilities, students are often enrolled in classes where undertrained, undercredentialed faculty attempt to teach with minimal resources. Far too many Chicanas and Chicanos continue to be "tracked" into remedial or vocational programs. Rather than addressing structural inequities along the K-12 pipeline, schools continue to rely on standardized curriculum and high-stakes assessments, which yield statistically unreliable, inappropriate measures of student knowledge.

According to the researchers, the community college transfer function also is failing. In California, 40 percent of Latinos who enroll in community colleges aspire to transfer to a four‑year college or university. However, less than 10 percent of these students reach their goal of transferring to a four-year college.

"This is a tremendous talent loss to the state of California and the nation," Yosso said.

Once at a four-year university, Chicana and Chicano college students tend to experience higher levels of stress than other undergraduate students. They generally balance schoolwork with off-campus employment, which limits the students' time to speak with professors during office hours, ask an academic counselor for guidance, or participate in academic enrichment, tutoring or research programs.

The report further notes that Chicana and Chicano students often describe graduate school as a place where they feel invisible. Most graduate programs tend to be racially exclusive with predominately white students, faculty and curricula that omit Chicano histories and perspectives.

Solórzano and Yasso also made specific recommendations such as:

-Increase access to academic enrichment at K-12 levels including GATE and honors and AP classes.

-Make basic college entrance requirements the "default" curriculum accessible to all high school students.

-Decrease the overreliance on high-stakes, inappropriate testing and assessment.

-Train bilingual, multicultural educators to challenge cultural-deficit thinking and to acknowledge the cultural wealth of Chicana and Chicano student, their families, and communities.

-Reach out to parents as educational partners including making them aware of their rights to opt out of vocational programs and inappropriate standardized testing and opt in to English Language Learner support and academic enrichment programs.

As a first step in addressing these educational disparities, the UCLA center will host "The

Latina/o Education Summit — Falling Through the Cracks: Critical Transitions in the Latina/o Educational Pipeline" on March 24 on the UCLA campus. Los Angeles City Councilman Jose Huizar, who also is past president of the Los Angeles Unified School District board, will give the keynote address at the event.

"What makes this conference unique is that it brings together stakeholders in looking at the entire educational pipeline, not just one segment," said Carlos Haro, the center's assistant director and one of the conference organizers. "Our goal is to facilitate a more comprehensive dialogue about public education, especially in a city where nearly three-quarters of the students are Latino."

The event also will bring together policy-makers, educators, researchers and students. More information can be found at http://www.chicano.ucla.edu/center/events/default.htm.

-UCLA-

Article published Mar 20, 2006

Plight Deepens for Black Men, Studies Warn

By ERIK ECKHOLM
New York Times

BALTIMORE Black men in the United States face a far more dire situation than is portrayed by common employment and education statistics, a flurry of new scholarly studies warn, and it has worsened in recent years even as an economic boom and a welfare overhaul have brought gains to black women and other groups.

Focusing more closely than ever on the life patterns of young black men, the new studies, by experts at Columbia, Princeton, Harvard and other institutions, show that the huge pool of poorly educated black men are becoming ever more disconnected from the mainstream society, and to a far greater degree than comparable white or Hispanic men.

Especially in the country's inner cities, the studies show, finishing high school is the exception, legal work is scarcer than ever and prison is almost routine, with incarceration rates climbing for blacks even as urban crime rates have declined.

Although the problems afflicting poor black men have been known for decades, the new data paint a more extensive and sobering picture of the challenges they face.

"There's something very different happening with young black men, and it's something we can no longer ignore," said Ronald B. Mincy, professor of social work at Columbia University and editor of "Black Males Left Behind" (Urban Institute Press, 2006).

"Over the last two decades, the economy did great," Mr. Mincy said, "and low-skilled women, helped by public policy, latched onto it. But young black men were falling farther back."

Many of the new studies go beyond the traditional approaches to looking at the plight of black men, especially when it comes to determining the scope of joblessness. For example, official unemployment rates can be misleading because they do not include those not seeking work or incarcerated.

"If you look at the numbers, the 1990's was a bad decade for young black men, even though it had the best labor market in 30 years," said Harry J. Holzer, an economist at Georgetown University and co-author, with Peter Edelman and Paul Offner, of "Reconnecting Disadvantaged Young Men" (Urban Institute Press, 2006).

In response to the worsening situation for young black men, a growing number of programs are placing as much importance on teaching life skills like parenting, conflict resolution and character building as they are on teaching job skills.

These were among the recent findings:

¶The share of young black men without jobs has climbed relentlessly, with only a slight pause during the economic peak of the late 1990's. In 2000, 65 percent of black male high school dropouts in their 20's were jobless that is, unable to find work, not seeking it or incarcerated. By 2004, the share had grown to 72 percent, compared with 34 percent of white and 19 percent of Hispanic dropouts. Even when high school graduates were included, half of black men in their 20's were jobless in 2004, up from 46 percent in 2000.

¶Incarceration rates climbed in the 1990's and reached historic highs in the past few years. In 1995, 16 percent of black men in their 20's who did not attend college were in jail or prison; by 2004, 21 percent were incarcerated. By their mid-30's, 6 in 10 black men who had dropped out of school had spent time in prison.

¶In the inner cities, more than half of all black men do not finish high school.

None of the litany of problems that young black men face was news to a group of men from the airless neighborhoods of Baltimore who recently described their experiences.

One of them, Curtis E. Brannon, told a story so commonplace it hardly bears notice here. He quit school in 10th grade to sell drugs, fathered four children with three mothers, and spent several stretches in jail for drug possession, parole violations and other crimes.

"I was with the street life, but now I feel like I've got to get myself together," Mr. Brannon said recently in the row-house flat he shares with his girlfriend and four children. "You get tired of incarceration."

Mr. Brannon, 28, said he planned to look for work, perhaps as a mover, and he noted optimistically that he had not been locked up in six months.

A group of men, including Mr. Brannon, gathered at the Center for Fathers, Families and Workforce Development, one of several private agencies trying to help men build character along with workplace skills.

The clients readily admit to their own bad choices but say they also fight a pervasive sense of hopelessness.

"It hurts to get that boot in the face all the time," said Steve Diggs, 34. "I've had a lot of charges but only a few convictions," he said of his criminal record.

Mr. Diggs is now trying to strike out on his own, developing a party space for rentals, but he needs help with business skills.

"I don't understand," said William Baker, 47. "If a man wants to change, why won't society give him a chance to prove he's a changed person?" Mr. Baker has a lot of record to overcome, he admits, not least his recent 15-year stay in the state penitentiary for armed robbery.

Mr. Baker led a visitor down the Pennsylvania Avenue strip he wants to escape past idlers, addicts and hustlers, storefront churches and fortresslike liquor stores and described a life that seemed inevitable.

He sold marijuana for his parents, he said, left school in the sixth grade and later dealt heroin and cocaine. He was for decades addicted to heroin, he said, easily keeping the habit during three terms in prison. But during his last long stay, he also studied hard to get a G.E.D. and an associate's degree.

Now out for 18 months, Mr. Baker is living in a home for recovering drug addicts. He is working a $10-an-hour warehouse job while he ponders how to make a living from his real passion, drawing and graphic arts.

"I don't want to be a criminal at 50," Mr. Baker said.

According to census data, there are about five million black men ages 20 to 39 in the United States.

Terrible schools, absent parents, racism, the decline in blue collar jobs and a subculture that glorifies swagger over work have all been cited as causes of the deepening ruin of black youths. Scholars and the young men themselves agree that all of these issues must be addressed.

Joseph T. Jones, director of the fatherhood and work skills center here, puts the breakdown of families at the core.

"Many of these men grew up fatherless, and they never had good role models," said Mr. Jones, who overcame addiction and prison time. "No one around them knows how to navigate the mainstream society."

All the negative trends are associated with poor schooling, studies have shown, and progress has been slight in recent years. Federal data tend to understate dropout rates among the poor, in part because imprisoned youths are not counted.

Closer studies reveal that in inner cities across the country, more than half of all black men still do not finish high school, said Gary Orfield, an education expert at Harvard and editor of "Dropouts in America" (Harvard Education Press, 2004).

"We're pumping out boys with no honest alternative," Mr. Orfield said in an interview, "and of course their neighborhoods offer many other alternatives."

Dropout rates for Hispanic youths are as bad or worse but are not associated with nearly as much unemployment or crime, the data show.

With the shift from factory jobs, unskilled workers of all races have lost ground, but none more so than blacks. By 2004, 50 percent of black men in their 20's who lacked a college education were jobless, as were 72 percent of high school dropouts, according to data compiled by Bruce Western, a sociologist at Princeton and author of the forthcoming book "Punishment and Inequality in America" (Russell Sage Press). These are more than double the rates for white and Hispanic men.

Mr. Holzer of Georgetown and his co-authors cite two factors that have curbed black employment in particular.

First, the high rate of incarceration and attendant flood of former offenders into neighborhoods have become major impediments. Men with criminal records tend to be shunned by employers, and young blacks with clean records suffer by association, studies have found.

Arrests of black men climbed steeply during the crack epidemic of the 1980's, but since then the political shift toward harsher punishments, more than any trends in crime, has accounted for the continued growth in the prison population, Mr. Western said.

By their mid-30's, 30 percent of black men with no more than a high school education have served time in prison, and 60 percent of dropouts have, Mr. Western said.

Among black dropouts in their late 20's, more are in prison on a given day 34 percent than are working 30 percent according to an analysis of 2000 census data by Steven Raphael of the University of California, Berkeley.

The second special factor is related to an otherwise successful policy: the stricter enforcement of child support. Improved collection of money from absent fathers has been a pillar of welfare overhaul. But the system can leave young men feeling overwhelmed with debt and deter them from seeking legal work, since a large share of any earnings could be seized.

About half of all black men in their late 20's and early 30's who did not go to college are noncustodial fathers, according to Mr. Holzer. From the fathers' viewpoint, support obligations "amount to a tax on earnings," he said.

Some fathers give up, while others find casual work. "The work is sporadic, not the kind that leads to advancement or provides unemployment insurance," Mr. Holzer said. "It's nothing like having a real job."

The recent studies identified a range of government programs and experiments, especially education and training efforts like the Job Corps, that had shown success and could be scaled up.

Scholars call for intensive new efforts to give children a better start, including support for parents and extra schooling for children.

They call for teaching skills to prisoners and helping them re-enter society more productively, and for less automatic incarceration of minor offenders.

In a society where higher education is vital to economic success, Mr. Mincy of Columbia said, programs to help more men enter and succeed in college may hold promise. But he lamented the dearth of policies and resources to aid single men.

"We spent $50 billion in efforts that produced the turnaround for poor women," Mr. Mincy said. "We are not even beginning to think about the men's problem on similar orders of magnitude."

HR 4437, The Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005

2006-03-13T22:05:00.000-08:00

I borrowed this text from: http://www.ilrc.org/HR4437.html

Legislation Pending in Congress!

Something akin to a panic has descended upon the immigrants’ rights community with the introduction in December 2005 of Republican House Judiciary Committee Chairman Sensenbrenner’s HR 4437, The Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005. Passed last week in the House and poised to move quickly through the Senate, if passed, HR 4437 could signal some of the most sweepingly dramatic changes in immigration law since the now infamous Illegal Immigration Reform and Individual Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) of 1996 and could actually surpass that law in gutting judicial review and eroding due process.

Nothing in the bill provides a comprehensive and realistic plan for our immigration system to enhance border security, support economic growth and provide a legal means to lawful permanent residency for the millions of hardworking undocumented immigrants and their families in the United States. Nearly 500 organizations, including a wide variety of civic, religious and business groups are opposing this legislation. Below is a summary of just a sampling of the areas of greatest concern to the ILRC. See also www.ilrc.org/criminal.html for more information about drastic possible changes regarding immigration consequences of criminal convictions that would result if HR 4437 were passed.

* HR 4437 criminalizes organizations and individuals assisting undocumented immigrants

HR 4437 greatly expands the definition of “alien smuggling” to include assisting a person to remain or attempt to remain in the United States when the “offender” knows the person is in the United States unlawfully – thereby treating social services organizations, refugee agencies, churches, legal services and others the same as smuggling organizations and imposing criminal penalties for providing such assistance. Even family members and charitable workers could face federal prison time for assisting undocumented immigrants.

* HR 4437 criminalizes undocumented immigration status

Under current law, presence in the United States without valid status is a civil violation, not a criminal act. HR 4437 would create a new federal crime of “unlawful presence” and would define immigration violations so broadly as to effectively include every violation, however minor, technical or unintentional, as a federal crime. In addition to permanently barring the entire undocumented population – including 1.6 million children – from the United States, this would also lead to the tragic separation of families as undocumented members of mixed-status families would never be able to secure lawful immigration status in the United States.

* HR 4437 grants state and local law enforcement agencies “inherent authority” to enforce immigration laws

HR 4437 would grant law enforcement agencies the authority to investigate, identify, apprehend, arrest, detain and transfer to Federal custody immigrants they find in the United States. When police act as immigration enforcement agents, it undermines their ability to keep communities safe because immigrants and their family members will be scared to report crimes, fires, and suspicious activity out of fear of exposing themselves, families or neighbors to police. Inevitably, crimes will be left unsolved and the safety of entire communities will be compromised.

* HR 4437 furthers the erosion of due process

Our immigration laws provide that some individuals in removal proceedings can be granted voluntary departure – essentially leaving the United States on their own, with their own money – at the conclusion of the immigration hearing process. This is an important alternative to receiving a removal order because it allows an immigrant to reenter the United States lawfully in the future, despite having been in removal proceedings in the past. It is only granted to individuals with good moral character at the discretion of an immigration judge. Under HR 4377, noncitizens would be required to waive all rights to any further motion, appeals or petition for review related to removal or protection from removal in order to be granted voluntary departure, essentially barring them from a list with their family in the United States

Currently, various circuit courts have ruled that immigration officials may be prohibited from simply removing an individual from the United States without a hearing, based on the reinstatement of a prior removal order. HR 4437 purges this appellate court precedent. As a result, if passed, HR 4437 would strip the rights of immigrants with prior removal orders to any sort of hearing before being removed again.

HR 4437 would also eliminate the ability of any person who wishes to enter the United States on a nonimmigrant visa (such as a tourist visa, a student visa, etc.) to have a hearing before an immigration judge in the event that he or she is later charged with an immigration violation. This is because HR 4437 would prohibit the issuance of a nonimmigrant visa unless the applicant first waives his or her right to any review or appeal of an immigration officer’s decision.

* HR 4437 expands the costly detention of immigrants

HR 4437 would require the Department of Homeland Security to detain all noncitizens apprehended along the border until they are removed from the United Statues – thus filling up already overcrowded and tremendously costly facilities as detainees wait for final decisions on their cases. To address the overcrowding issue, HR 4437 authorizes an increase in DHS detention capacity by contracting with state and local jails – thus further criminalizing immigrants by placing them in criminal facilities.

* HR 4437 guts the federal courts’ authority to review immigration matters

HR 4437 would prevent courts from reviewing any application for naturalization denied because of a discretionary determination of ineligibility based upon “any relevant information or evidence.” This gives the immigration agency practically unfettered authority to deny naturalization applications with no judicial review.

HR 4437 also completely eliminates judicial review where noncitizens visas are revoked and is a specific attempt to remove courts’ ability to review consular decisions.

For the few remaining immigration cases that could be reviewed by an appellate court, HR 4437 implements an unprecedented system whereby no appellate court review is available unless a single judge certifies that the petitioner has “made a substantial showing that the petition for review is likely to be granted.” The decision of the single judge to deny certification for review would be not be open to appeal or review of any kind.

* HR 4437 turns many minor crimes into aggravated felonies, which carry the worst possible immigration consequences

Because aggravated felonies are supposed to be reserved for the worst and most violent of crimes such as murder and rape, they carry the most serious immigration consequences. HR 4437 would make makes minor offenses aggravated felonies, with same concomitant consequences. As a result, misdemeanor drunk driving offenses, mere presence in the United States without documentation, assisting an undocumented immigrant to reside in the United States, and minor accessory roles in the criminal conduct of others would all qualify as aggravated felonies. Most of these changes would be retroactive, meaning that someone who committed an offense 20 years ago that was not a deportable offense then could be charged with an aggravated felony now. By making these offenses aggravated felonies, HR 4437 seeks to treat those who commit nonviolent, negligent acts or omissions the same as those who have acted with criminal intent to injure. Regardless of whether it is a major or minor crime, the mere characterization as an aggravated felony will trigger the same immigration consequences – mandatory deportation, mandatory detention, disqualification for almost all immigration benefits, permanent banishment from the United States without hope of lawful return, and the inability to present any equities to immigration judges regardless of how long the immigrant has been in the United States and how many ties he or she has here. Those at risk include permanent residents who have lived here lawfully for decades. In addition, because the noncitizen population in the United States is so large and many American families include both immigrants and citizens, these deportations will break up U.S. citizen families without any possibility of reunification.

* HR 4437 expands the consequences of an aggravated felony and other offenses

Despite the current drastic consequences of an aggravated felony, HR 4437 seeks to add more. It would bar an immigrant from establishing good moral character required to become a U.S. citizen if they have an aggravated felony conviction in the past – even if they could prove that at the time the offense occurred it was not characterized as an aggravated felony, and they presently have excellent moral character. Under HR 4437, aggravated felonies would also bar admission to the United States and bar the ability to re-immigrate to the United States via an immediate relative as defense to removal. There would be no waiver available. It would further bar an asylum seeker who has an aggravated felony conviction from ever becoming a permanent resident. These provisions will eliminate the little available relief and benefits for immigrants with aggravated felony convictions who demonstrate rehabilitation and strong family, social and economic ties.

* HR 4437 eliminates key safeguards concerning evidence used to prove that an immigrant is deportable for an aggravated felony

Since 1990, the United States Supreme Court has established guidelines, called the “modified categorical analysis,” for how a court can characterize a prior conviction. While this may sound technical, the categorical analysis is a vital safeguard that protects immigrants from wrongful deportation. It ensures that immigration judges consider only the most reliable information and documents from a prior conviction – and not from facts that were not established at the original criminal trial – to identify the offense for which the person was actually convicted. HR 4437 seeks to eliminate these guidelines for those accused of being aggravated felons in immigration proceedings. This means that immigrants could be deported for a conviction of an offense that is not actually an aggravated felony, simply because the offense is listed in the same state criminal statute that also includes an aggravated felony. Eliminating the categorical analysis is a radical violation of basic fairness that seeks to overturn years of established judicial precedent.

* HR 4437 reverses the burden of proof

Historically, the burden has been on the government to prove deportation, because the hardship of deportation is so great. Analogous to the criminal “innocent until proven guilty” standard, the longstanding rule has provided that the government may not simply arrest a long-time permanent resident, allege that she is deportable, and force her to prove that she is not. HR 4437 reverses this burden of proof for those charged with aggravated felonies. This would be an extreme blow to deeply-rooted and longstanding notions of fairness. The result in practice is that once the government decides to charge the person, the low-income, unrepresented, detained immigrant will be required to obtain the public records and to produce the extremely complex legal arguments required to disprove the government’s assertion. If the person cannot meet this nearly impossible burden, he or she will face mandatory detention, deportation, and permanent exclusion and separation from family and friends in the United States.

* HR 4437 makes an immigrant associated with any street gang deportable and ineligible for any immigration benefits

Under HR 4437, immigrants who have never committed any crimes whatsoever and who have obeyed all of our laws can be deported, denied admission and the ability to obtain lawful status, subjected to mandatory detention, and denied all forms of protection such as asylum and temporary protected status, simply because the Attorney General has determined that they are associated with a designated street gang. The Attorney General, through a secret process that provides no notice or opportunity to be heard to the immigrant, can designate any formal or informal group of three or more persons who have committed two or more enumerated gang crimes a “criminal street gang.” As a result of this designation, many immigrants who never committed or supported a single criminal act may be punished severely for exercising their right to association – they may be deported to a country where they face interrogation, torture, detention and even death.

* HR 4437 undermines state court decisions regarding the reversal or vacation of convictions in immigration proceedings

HR 4437 would allow immigration authorities to ignore certain reversals and vacations of criminal convictions by state courts, such as the failure to advise the immigrant of the immigration consequences of the guilty plea. This provision will seriously undermine the concept of “full faith and credit” due to state courts. This is particularly so, in states like California, where the state Supreme Court and other lowers courts have ruled that the failure to advise and defend of the immigration consequences and giving affirmative misadvice as to the immigration consequences constitute ineffective assistance of counsel, meriting vacation of the conviction.

* HR 4437 imposes mandatory minimum sentences for many offenses

HR 4437 adds dozens of new mandatory minimum penalties to current law. It imposes the same sentences upon persons who aid or assist certain immigrants to enter the United States as the immigrants themselves would receive. The bill would also impose one to 10 year mandatory minimum penalties for those who reenter the United States after deportation. These mandatory minimum sentences punish arbitrarily and strip judges from the discretion to make the punishment fit the crime, while also increasing the cost of incarceration to American taxpayers.

***************************************************************************

To inquire about ILRC technical support on these and other immigration law issues, please contact our consultations program by email, ilrc@ilrc.org.

Quiz Tuesday. Ideology/Discourse. Historical Materialism.

2006-03-07T10:15:00.000-08:00

Ideology:
A system of beliefs that provides individuals with conceptions of the purposes of a social movement, a rationale for the movement'sexistence, an indictment of existing conditions, and a design for action.

Shared ideas or beliefs that serve to justify the interests of groups. Ideologiesare found in all societies in which there are systematic and ingrained inequalities between groups. The concept of ideology connects closely with that of power (and hegemony)since ideological systems serve to legitimize the power that groups hold (or the opposition agaisnt those in power).

Discourse:
Discourse referst to language use and forms of representation. The framework of thinking in a particular area of social life. For instance, the discourse of criminality means how people in a given society think and talk about crime. It reminds us that language and images have culturally and historically located meanings.

We learn and express ideology through discourse. Ideology can be expressed as well as concealed in discourse.

The discourse dimension of ideologies explains how ideologies influence our daily texts and talk.

Remember our talk on Heroes or bandits, Freedom fighters or Guerrilass. The language we use reflects our ideology.

Historical Materialism:
"Historical materialism is the application of Marxist scienceto historical development. The fundamental proposition of historical materialism can be summed up in a sentence: 'it is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but, on the contrary, their social existence that determines their consciousness.'" (Marx, in Preface to A Contributino to the Critique of Political Economy)

"Historical materialism looks for the causes of development and changes in human history in economic, technological, and more broadly , material factors, as well as the clashes of material interests among social classes." (From Wikipedia) Important to remember is that historical materialism provides a class analysis to history.

NO Class Thursday.

2006-03-07T09:57:00.000-08:00

NO class thursday, please read the articles below in addition to your class readings. Thanks.

Remedios, Limpias y la Escoba

2006-03-07T09:46:00.000-08:00

Remedios, Limpias y la Escoba
By Patrisia Gonzales
Column of the Americas © March 6, 2006
Patzin (Nahuatl for Venerable Medicine) - a monthly feature on indigenous medicine

For years I struggled with keeping my house swept until la tlazoteotl, fuerza regenerativa, taught me the spiritual power of the broom. It is one of the most basic limpias that we do. I vaguely recall my grand mother's broom, a short one she kept just for limpias on la gente. I still run to sweep the house minutes before midnight on New Years Eve, to sweep out the old year and make way for the new.

La escoba and ritual sweeping are recorded in the ancient picture books of Mexico. Tlazolteotl is often depicted with escobas and bundles of herbs. The daily sweeping so common among our elders and Mexican women is a legacy of the ritual sweeping our ancient abuelas did as part of their sacred responsibilities for healing and purification rites. Our ancestors knew we must cleanse matter and spirit for both to be clean. Tlazolteotl, which the Spaniards translated as the “goddess” of filth and sex, is in fact a feminine healing energy of the Earth associated with regeneration, fertility, the partera and the temazkalli, the sweatbath tradition of indigenous Mexico. With her weaving symbols, she is the Spider Woman of Mesoamerica. Y la escoba is one of her instruments. Our ancestors were scientists who did not believe in “gods,” but rather energetic functions, the way we understand gales and other forces of nature.

Cleaning our house is not only sanitary but a spiritual act because we clean out emotions and the energy of the days gathered in dust and dirt. My abuelas taught me to clean on Fridays (some say because it was an odd day and therefore potentially unlucky or because it was a powerful day for healing) and then smudge my house with copal or sage, romero or cedar. Before there was Pinesol, nuestras abuelas would put flowers in the pale and rinse the house with agua florida - our form of aromatherapy. I like lavanda or agua de limon, especially on the day of a full moon, when things come into completion. La abuela Celia says to smudge everyday and pray to live in a good way. …And buy yourself a broom.

All these things from the natural world help us to cleanse and regenerate and are also diagnostic tools for determining imbalances of body, mind, spirit. Do limpias for new beginnings, such or a new job or for when things have ended, or in times of distress. We have done limpias for torture survivors and given the White House grounds a limpia de flores. There are hundreds of ways to do limpias, all based on our relationship to the four elements of life and the hot/cold principals of Mexican indigenous medicine. For instance, to cool a “hot” condition, such as a rash, warrants cooling elements, such as cold-natured herbs and water.

Another basic limpia we do everyday is to take a shower or bath. Baños espirituales also are powerful ways to cleanse our spiritual, emotional and physical bodies of stress and other elements attached to our energy field. Baños are made like teas and then poured over us as we pray, following our showers or bath or added to bath water. Herbs can clean our spirit and body and many herbs drunk for stress or calming can be used as a baño. It is best to use the herbs that grow around us or that we have relationship with - like ones our abuelas used. A basic herbal bath includes a couple of handfuls of romero, albacar and a puñada of ruda. They should be boiled in a non-metal pot, (and can be strained) and kept covered to contain vapors until you are ready to pour. After your regular shower or bath, pour the liquid over you and pray que las santas plantas cleanse you deeply, pray to release stress and any mitotes you have with others. Helga Garcia-Garza of Calpulli Tlapalcalli in San Benito, Texas, who organizes an encuentro de medicina every year, suggests this baño fuerte, using the three plantas maestras. Prepare as above, except do not strain. With your legs in a V, take the herbs and rub them from below your stomach up, breathing deeply to release spiritual crud. Do for three consecutive days.

Such is the poder of a bath and a broom, the power of el baño y la escoba.

(c) Column of the Americas 2006

* We can be reached at: 608-238-3161 or XColumn@aol.com or Column of the Americas, PO BOX 5093 Madison WI 53705. Our bilingual columns are posted at: http://hometown.aol.com/xcolumn/myhomepage/

* For a copy of our trilingual Amoxtli San Ce Tojuan documentary, or our Cantos Al Sexto Sol and The Mud People books, or more info re future screenings contact us at XColumn@aol.com - 608-238-3161 - or go to: http://hometown.aol.com/aztlanahuac/myhomepage/index.html

US Intervention in Venezuela

2006-03-06T09:11:00.000-08:00

Published on Saturday, March 4, 2006 by CommonDreams.org
US Intervention in Venezuela
by Medea Benjamin

It never ceases to amaze me, in the middle of the massive failure of the war on Iraq, that the Bush administration still has time to mess up our relations with other countries. Yet it seems like that’s exactly what they’re doing with our neighbor Venezuela.

Last month, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld compared Hugo Chávez to Hitler, noting that “He’s a person who was elected legally — just as Adolf Hitler was elected legally — and then consolidated power and now is, of course, working closely with Fidel Castro and Mr. Morales and others.” The assault was timed to push the celebrations marking the 7th anniversary of the Chávez government off the front page of the opposition-controlled media in Venezuela.

In early February, Venezuela expelled the US military attaché in Caracas when he was caught red-handed bribing Venezuelan officers for military secrets. Instead of admitting to the spying, the US “retaliated” by expelling the Venezuelan Ambassador’s chief of staff.

Then on February 16th, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice chimed in with her sharpest criticisms yet of Venezuela, remarking at a Congressional hearing that Chávez is a leading a "Latin brand of populism that has taken countries down the drain.” She then urged a “united front” against Chávez, remarking that "the international community has just got to be much more active in supporting and defending the Venezuelan people.”

These comments are not new, but follow a pattern of increasing hostility and verbal aggression towards Venezuela. Rice’s concerns are allegedly based on her argument that Chávez isn’t a democrat, despite having won three elections.

But according to the 2005 survey by Latinobarómetro, an independent polling firm, Venezuelans are more likely than citizens of 18 other Latin American nations polled to describe their government as “totally democratic.” And Venezuelans have the second highest level of satisfaction with the way their own democracy functions. In addition, recent independent polls show President Chávez holding an approval rating of over 70% - a number that our president could only dream of. While there are policies in Venezuela, like in all countries, that people could certainly question or disagree with, the administration’s aggressive behavior towards Venezuela is totally unreasonable and violates that nation’s sovereignty. So why is the Bush administration so antagonistic towards Venezuela’s democratically elected government?

To answer this question, I recommend a report entitled “US Intervention in Venezuela, A Clear and Present Danger,” written recently by Venezuela expert Deborah James of Global Exchange and available on our website at http://www.globalexchange.org/countries/americas/venezuela/USVZrelations.pdf. The report tells a shocking tale of US intervention in Venezuela’s democratic process, examines a series of myths about Venezuela, and offers an explanation of the real concerns underlying the Bush administration’s antagonism towards Venezuela. Fortunately, it also offers US citizens some concrete ways we can get involved.

US Intervention: A Documented Fact, Not Allegations

According to the report, since 2002 the Bush administration has embarked upon a new strategy each year to oust and/or destabilize the democratically elected government of Venezuela. In 2002, the US Administration supported a military coup that briefly ousted the democratic government; in 2003 it used an economic sabotage campaign; in 2004 it supported the political strategy of the referendum; and in 2005 it waged a diplomatic battle.

Many of the US destabilization tactics parallel the maneuvers used against progressive governments such as Chile in 1973, including massive financial and other support to develop an oppositional civil society and shape and unify political party opposition; a media campaign against the government designed to impugn the government and create a sense of instability; and illegal espionage activities.

In 2002, the Bush administration knew that a coup against Chavez was in the offing before it happened, including the fact that dissident military officers would “try to exploit unrest stemming from opposition demonstrations slated for later this month or ongoing strikes at the state-owned oil company PDVSA.” They also knew about the coup in advance because the US government was funding many of the groups that took part in the coup. In fact, grants by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and USAID to opposition groups skyrocketed right before the coup.

To this day, Bush Administration officials routinely deny their involvement in the coup, in spite of official US documents that prove otherwise. But the truth is widely known in Venezuela, and forms the basis for the antagonism that plagues the US-Venezuela relationship. To be fair, Chávez engages in regular verbal tirades again Bush and Rice which overreach presidential diplomacy. But imagine how the US government would treat a foreign government that had financed domestic groups that participated in a coup against the US government…

Instead of abating in the post-coup period, US government collusion with anti-democratic forces continued during the following year. Groups such as NED and USAID actually continued to fund groups that had participated in the coup. This includes some groups that organized an insurrectionary managers’ strike at the end of 2002 and beginning of 2003 that cost the Venezuelan economy about $10 billion, resulting in a severe economic contraction and putting millions of workers and thousands of small businesses out of their jobs. The strikers’ goal was maintaining control over the national oil company so they could keep the wealth to themselves, and getting Chávez out of office. They lost, and Venezuela’s oil wealth now benefits the entire country instead of a traditional elite.

In 2004, I witnessed the referendum in Venezuela, which had been organized by the opposition as a way to get Chávez out of office legally (after so many illegal attempts had failed.) Here the US was active in demanding that the referendum take place, whether or not the legal criteria had been met. The NED even financed the opposition’s political platform! In the end, Chávez won the referendum in a landslide of 59% in a process that was certified as free and fair by the Carter Center and the Organization of American States (OAS).

The next year, both Rice and Rumsfeld toured Latin America, urging leaders there to criticize Venezuela in an attempt to isolate Chávez in the region. In her confirmation hearings in January 2005, the Rice named Chávez a “negative force in the region.” Fortunately, many regional leaders have rejected the pressure, including Brazil’s Lula, Uruguay’s Vazquez, Chile’s Lagos and even Colombia’s Uribe.

Though the extensive exposés about US government meddling in the internal affairs of Venezuela have raised a furor within Venezuela, US officials still not only deny involvement, but under the guise of supporting democracy they have actually expanded support for opposition groups, including groups that have refused to accept the results of the democratic referendum of 2004.

Myths and Facts: What is Really Happening in Venezuela

Since all of Venezuela’s elections - in which an overwhelming majority of citizens have voted for Chávez or his governing coalition - have been certified as free and fair by international monitors, US officials have turned to accusing Chávez of “being democratically elected but governing undemocratically.” Yet Venezuelans resoundingly approve of their democracy, and are experimenting with innovative ways to build participatory democracy in addition to the representative form. A detailed analysis of Venezuelan democracy is available in the report. It’s also ironic that this accusation should come from a US administration that has usurped unprecedented presidential power.

Another basic myth is that Chávez has limited freedom of speech and eroded civil rights. Yet whenever I go to Venezuela, I hear the private media spend enormous amounts of time criticizing the President, something I wish our media would do a little more of. Access to community media production – both radio and television – has vastly expanded in recent years. And no serious human rights group has alleged that civil rights have eroded under the Chávez administration, and civil rights compare favorably to past governments and to countries in the region.

Then there’s the accusation that Chávez is mismanaging the economy, nationalizing businesses and turning Venezuela’s economy into a “Castro-style Cuba.” Yet Venezuela is one of the fastest growing countries in the region. Per capita income growth was a whopping 17.9% in 2004, when the economy rebounded from the opposition’s economic sabotage, and continued to grow 9% last year as well. And while it’s true that most of this growth is due to the skyrocketing price of oil, the government is making great efforts to diversify the economy.

One of the most ridiculous assertions common to Ms. Rice is that Chávez is a “negative force in the region.” Venezuela has initiated an impressive array of programs to support Latin American and Caribbean nations, from supplying low-cost fuel to starting a new regional television channel, to buying bonds to help stabilize Argentina’s economy.

Venezuelans find the US government’s completely unsubstantiated assertion that their government supports terror the most absurd, especially coming from a country that not only illegally invaded Iraq, but is also harboring Luis Posada Carriles, a terrorist who escaped from jail in Venezuela after the 1973 bombing of a Cuban plane that killed 76 people. In a maddening double standard, the US has thus far refused to extradite Posada to Venezuela, for alleged fears that he will be “tortured.”

But the administration seems to overstep the bounds of rationality in its attempts to stoke fears that Chávez is about to cut off oil supplies to the US. Venezuela provides about 15% of US oil consumption, and is far more democratic than close US allies like Saudi Arabia by any stretch. It’s true that Chávez has threatened to cut off oil supplies to the United States – but only if the US invades Venezuela, or attempts to assassinate Chávez. Since US officials have repeatedly denied those intentions, what are they so concerned about?

The only change in Venezuelan oil supply to the US in the past three years has been this year’s program to provide 40% discounts on 49 million gallons of heating fuel for poor people in Massachusetts, Maine, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, New York, Delaware, and soon Vermont and Connecticut. How bizarre that Texas Republican Congressman Joe Barton has launched an investigation into this humanitarian offering, instead of investigating the US multinational oil companies that posted over $100 billion in corporate profits last year due to soaring gasoline prices.

So Really, Why Does Chávez Make them so Crazy?

As “US Intervention in Venezuela” makes clear, the Administration’s concerns about Venezuela are not fundamentally about these issues but relate to a deeper concern about the erosion of support for the neoliberal “free market” system promoted by the US government in Latin America for decades. The Chávez government is currently leading one of the fastest growing economies in the region, bringing down unemployment through the use of a dynamic set of policies that combine the assets of the private sector with, strategic government investment in specific industries, and incentives for cooperatives and small and local businesses.

Most importantly, the Chávez administration is funneling billions of dollars of the country’s oil wealth into social programs for the poor. These programs have succeeded in eradicating illiteracy in Venezuela; vastly increasing school enrollment; providing subsidized food and housing to the poor; and implementing a national system of preventative, community-based health care. Call it the threat of a good example!

In addition, the concerns of the Bush Administration stem from Chávez’s promotion of regional integration, because it interferes with the US attempts to impose the failed model of corporate globalization embedded in projects like the stalled Free Trade Area of the Americas, the top US priority in Latin America for the past decade.

But one of the most interesting hypotheses in the report is the notion that the fundamental antagonism between the US and Venezuela stems from the tension between the imperial designs of the Bush administration and an underlying goal of the entire Venezuelan project: a change in the global balance of power from a “uni-polar” world dominated by US economic and strategic interests, to a “multi-polar” world of real economic and political independence for the global South.

This helps put in perspective Venezuela’s recent decision to support Iran in the International Atomic Energy Association, because Iran is an historic ally of Venezuela in the building of OPEC decades ago (when the countries first came together to ensure that oil producing nations shared in some of the oil wealth along with the oil multinationals.) It also explains the increasing diversification of Venezuela’s foreign relations, deepening its alliances in Latin American and the Caribbean but also reaching out to China, Russia, and Spain.

And it explains why team Bush seem so irrationally focused on antagonizing an economic ally and democratic neighbor: in essence, because of the neocons’ unwavering ideological commitment to a corporate-oriented global economy dominated by US strategic interests. Chávez seeks to challenge that vision, and build a more balanced geopolitical map. And to the chagrin of the Bush administration, his vision has met with tremendous support both within Latin America and globally.

Where Do We Go From Here

The facts outlined in this report point to the need for a rethinking of US-Venezuela relations. They call out for a shift to a policy based on both the US and Venezuela’s shared economic interests, and respect for each country’s sovereignty and democracy.

A good start is learning about what’s really happening in Venezuela. Good resources include www.venezuelanalysis.com and www.venezuelafoia.info. The Venezuela Information Office offers a concise weekly listserve at www.rethinkvenezuela.org. Better yet, go and see for yourself. Check out Global Exchange’s amazing travel opportunities to Venezuela at http://www.globalexchange.org/tours/byCountry.html#100003.

In addition, you can promote more balanced coverage of Venezuela in the US press by writing letters to the editor and urging your local paper to be truly “fair and balanced.”. And if you buy gas, you can support Venezuela’s distributive oil policies by buying from the Venezuela-owned company Citgo. To find a local Citgo station, go to www.citgo.com/CITGOLocator.jsp.

Most important will be our collective efforts to pressure the Bush administration to steer a new course with Venezuela. This is unlikely to happen without concerted pressure from Congress, and congresspeople are only going to go out on a limb if they hear from their constituents. Especially crucial at this time is fighting House Resolution 328, introduced by Florida Republican Connie Mack, intended to condemn the government of Venezuela for all of the myths debunked in the report.

Let’s not let our government commit another grave error of “regime change”. Let’s act now to demand respect for Venezuela’s duly elected government, before it’s too late.

Medea Benjamin is cofounder of Global Exchange, a San Francisco-based human rights organization and CODEPINK: Women for Peace. She has traveled several times to Venezuela, most recently for the World Social Forum, and is reachable at medea@globalexchange.org.

border abuse

2006-02-28T10:09:00.000-08:00

I ran accross this link on the abused Mexicans faced when crossing the border. Check out the picture.

Border-crossing"

Revised ES 4 Syllabus

2006-02-27T21:36:00.000-08:00

Can download at: Revised ES 4 Syllabus

Revised Syllabus For ES 4: Chicano Culture

6
Film: Motorcycle Diaries [**Notice change in film selection**]
Latino/a Thought: Culture, Politics, and Society. Chapter 4 and “Summary and Conclusion” p. 166.
Presenters: Anabel, Ruben
7
Latino/a Thought: Culture, Politics, and Society. Chapter 12.
Latino/a Thought: Culture, Politics, and Society. Chapters 14 – 16.
Presenters: Teresa, Sal, Gloria, Mariella
8
Latino/a Thought: Culture, Politics, and Society. Chapters 17 – 18.
Film: Zoot Suit.
9
Latino/a Thought: Culture, Politics, and Society. Chapters 22 – 24.
Latino/a Thought: Culture, Politics, and Society. Chapters 26, 28, 29.
10
“Towards a Planetary Civil Society” by Rosalinda Fregoso.
Film: Señorita Extraviada

11
Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. “Introduction,” “Preface,” Chapter 1.
Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. Chapter 2 – 3.
12
Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. Chapter 4 – 5.
Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. Chapters 6 – 7.

13
The Mud People: Chronicles, Testimonios and Remembrances. “Ollin – The Journey,” “Ollin – The Book,” Part One.
The Mud People: Chronicles, Testimonios and Remembrances. Part Two.
Film: Selena
14
The Mud People: Chronicles, Testimonios and Remembrances. Part Three.
The Mud People: Chronicles, Testimonios and Remembrances. Part Four and “Ollin: Movement, Not Endings.

15
Zapatista Declarations 1¬- 6. Link Available at course website.
Film: Zapatista
Syllabus

Th. Quiz

2006-02-27T20:34:00.000-08:00

Historical Materialism:
"Historical materialism is the application of Marxist scienceto historical development. The fundamental proposition of historical materialism can be summed up in a sentence: 'it is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but, on the contrary, their social existence that determines their consciousness.'" (Marx, in Preface to A Contributino to the Critique of Political Economy)

"Historical materialism looks for the causes of development and changes in human history in economic, technological, and more broadly , material factors, as well as the clashes of material interests among social classes." (From Wikipedia) Important to remember is that historical materialism provides a class analysis to history (where culture, race, ethnicity, gender are secondary).

Quiz Thursday

2006-02-23T10:23:00.000-08:00

Hello Folks, we will have a quiz Thursday on the following terms:
Historical Materialism, Discourse, and Ideology.
I will talk about them on Tuesday, but please go to wikipedia for more expanded defintions.
Also, you can find defitions to Discourse and Historical Materialism in Appendix 3,4,5 and 6.

Historical Materialism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_Materialism

Discourse
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discourse

Ideology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideology

For next week, read Chapter 4 (it's a poem) and Chapter 10 as well.

Peace.

Presentation Handout

2006-02-22T09:06:00.000-08:00

Presentation HandOut

Corrido Links.

2006-02-14T10:23:00.000-08:00

Read the following biographies of Mexican outlaws. Also, listen to the corrido of Gregorio Cortez.
We will talk about them this Thursday.

Copy and paste the following links:

Corrido mp3s
http://sitemaker.umich.edu/swalton/hums_305_-_conjunto

Juan “Cheno” Cortina
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Cortina

Gregorio Cortez
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregorio_Cortez

Joaquin Murrieta
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joaquin_Murietta

Tiburcio Vazquez
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiburcio_Vasquez

Multiethnic mix includes Chinese roots

2006-02-14T10:05:00.000-08:00

Multiethnic mix includes Chinese roots

HISPANICS AND WEST INDIANS WHO TRACE THEIR HERITAGE TO ASIA ARE PART OF SOUTH FLORIDA'S MULTIETHNIC MIX
BY NICOLE WHITE AND JERRY BERRIOS, Miami Herald (February 12, 2006)
jberrios@MiamiHerald.com

In a region often defined by hyphenated cultures -- Cuban-American, Haitian-American, Jamaican-American -- some South Florida residents have lived quietly with a trifecta of titles: Chinese-Cuban-American, Chinese-Venezuelan-American and Chinese-Jamaican-American.

They and others share a genetic thread with their Chinese ancestors but grew up in Latin America and the Caribbean, where some of their families may have settled as indentured laborers in the 19th century, once the slave trade had been abolished, and later as immigrants to open their own businesses. Thousands now call South Florida home.

Now, they rarely speak the language of their Chinese heritage, conversing most often in a dialect or language that defies their facial features.

''I would open my mouth and start speaking patois and they would look at me in shock,'' Steve Chin said of the Jamaican dialect he grew up speaking on the island.

''They didn't realize that Jamaica had Chinese people,'' said Chin, who owns a martial arts studio in Miami-Dade. ``They think everyone there is black.''

This weekend, thousands of immigrants of Chinese descent like Chin, with lives richly textured by a palette of many cultures, will gather at Miami Dade College's Kendall Campus to celebrate their storied heritage.

MIXED MENU

Jamaican jerk chicken, fried green plantains or tostones will share space with fried wontons, char siu boa (roast pork bun) and pork fried rice. The festival, once so small it was held in someone's living room, will also mark the end of the Chinese New Year celebrations.

Hispanics and West Indians with Chinese roots are by no means the largest immigrant groups to settle here.

Recent U.S. Census figures show 142,000 people in the United States describe themselves as Hispanic and Asian. Miami-Dade County boasts 1,366 who fit that description; Broward County lists 356.

The number of Hispanic Chinese in Florida reached 5,055 in 1990 but fell to 3,437 in 2000. That decline could be attributed to people identifying themselves with one culture or another now that they live in the United States, said New York University professor Lok Siu, author of Memories of a Future Home: Diasporic Citizenship of Chinese in Panama.

In contrast, the number of West Indian-Chinese residents in Florida grew from 1,966 in 1990 to 2,591 in 2000, according to a Miami Herald analysis of Census data.

No matter their numbers, their presence has left an indelible imprint on a region defined by a variety of immigrant experiences.

Theirs has been an immigration with a strong entrepreneurial streak. Many operate successful businesses, including the Chinese-Cuban Aurora Restaurant in Miami and the Allapattah-based Ocho Rios food company, which distributes food products such as jerk curry and scotch bonnet sauce. The company is owned by Jamaican-born businessman Aston Lue.

Although their business acumen shines, they have not been a force politically.

''Chinese people are a much smaller group, too small to be a factor as far as voting,'' said Wilfred Lai, who is Jamaican Chinese and owns a T-shirt manufacturing company in Miami.

''I think most of us concentrate on being financially independent rather than stepping into politics,'' said Lai, the festival's producer.

Asians are known for being passive politically, NYU's Siu said. Plus, she said, ''Chino-Latinos'' are splintered along national differences and haven't recognized themselves as a cohesive group.

''You don't have that constituency constructed,'' Siu said. ``That takes a lot of mobilization.''

Ivonne Amor, Cuban Chinese and mother of two, relishes her life in South Florida with all its cultural contradictions.

At childhood family gatherings, ''You would see a lot of Asian faces and everyone is speaking Spanish,'' said Amor, a special projects producer at WSVN-Fox 7.

Amor's father is from China and moved to Havana when he was 12 to work in his father's grocery store. Her mother was born in Cuba to a Chinese father and Cuban-Spanish mother.

SPEAKING SPANISH

At her Miami Springs home, Amor and her husband, Henry, speak Spanish to Matthew, 4, and Ethan, 10 months. Amor also plans to enroll them in Mandarin classes so they can be part of China's economic juggernaut if they want.

''It makes me appreciate diversity,'' Amor said of her mixed background. 'People always ask me, `What are you? Where are you from?' I appreciate that.''

Santiago Alan's family moved from China to Cuba hoping to escape communism: ''Imagine what luck,'' Alan said. ``Leaving Mao and getting Fidel.''

The family moved to Costa Rica and eventually to Miami in the mid-1970s.

When Alan arrived, he spoke only Cantonese and Spanish but quickly learned English.

His family, like many others, established businesses in South Florida.

Alan runs the Aurora Restaurant, a Cuban eatery in Miami. After several years, they added a Chinese menu so patrons could mix moo goo gai pan with platanos maduros.

On a recent afternoon, Alan talked to one of his cooks in rapid-fire Spanish, joked with another in Cantonese and served some customers in English.

CUBAN SPIRIT

''We have that Cuban spirit,'' Alan said. ``Tenemos la salsa en la sangre -- We have salsa in our blood.''

Alan says people are shocked when they realize he speaks Spanish fluently.

''It breaks the ice,'' said Alan, a Pembroke Pines resident. ``They find it amusing that I can speak Spanish so well.''

Many admit that their inability to speak Chinese or Mandarin has caused some consternation with those who do. At past festivals, it was common to see a sign declaring: ''Don't speak Chinese'' at some booths.

''Many of us grew up to fit in the community where we were born,'' said the Jamaican-born Lai.

''It was easier for us to speak Jamaican patois. That is the language that all Jamaicans speak, even if they are black, white or Chinese,'' said Lai.

`KEEP LEARNING'

''But we have the festival because we have plenty of respect for our ancestors and we want to keep learning,'' he said, especially since China is growing as an economic powerhouse.

Venezuelan-born Meylin Arreaza, who considers herself more Venezuelan than Chinese, regrets that she does not understand her ancestors' language.

She says fellow Asians have stopped her on the street in Caracas and New York and spoken to her in either Mandarin or Cantonese. She can't tell the difference. She speaks neither.

''I feel badly because I don't speak the language,'' Arreaza said. ``I look like something I'm not.''

Arreaza, Alan and Amor all hope to someday travel to China and delve deeper into their Asian roots.

''I would like to see where my family is from,'' said Amor, ``I want to see that part of me that I don't really know.''

The Art of Saying Nothing

2006-02-12T11:34:00.000-08:00

New York Times
February 8, 2006

Editorial
The Art of Saying Nothing

We thought President Bush's two recent Supreme Court nominees set new lows when it came to giving vague and meaningless answers to legitimate questions, but Attorney General Alberto Gonzales made them look like models of openness when he testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday about domestic spying. Mr. Gonzales seems to have forgotten the promise he made to the same panel last year when it voted to promote him from White House counsel to attorney general: that he would serve the public interest and stop acting like a hired gun helping a client figure out how to evade the law.

The hearing got off to a bad start when Senator Arlen Specter, the Republican who leads the committee, refused to have Mr. Gonzales testify under oath. Mr. Gonzales repaid this favor with a daylong display of cynical hair-splitting, obfuscation, disinformation and stonewalling. He would not tell the senators how many wiretaps had been conducted without warrants since 2002, when Mr. Bush authorized the program. He would not even say why he was withholding the information.

On the absurd pretext of safeguarding operational details, Mr. Gonzales would not say whether any purely domestic communications had been swept up in the program by accident and what, if anything, had been done to make sure that did not happen. He actually refused to assure the Senate and the public that the administration had not deliberately tapped Americans' calls and e-mail within the United States, or searched their homes and offices without warrants.

Mr. Gonzales repeated Mr. Bush's claim that the program of intercepting e-mail and telephone calls to and from the United States without the legally required warrants was set up in a way that protects Americans' rights. But he would not say what those safeguards were, how wiretaps were approved or how the program was reviewed. He even refused to say whether it had led to a single arrest.

About the only senators Mr. Gonzales managed to answer directly were the more depressingly doctrinaire Republicans, who asked penetrating questions like whether Al Qaeda is a threat to the United States and whether Mr. Bush is trying hard to protect Americans from terrorists.

Generally, Mr. Gonzales stuck to the same ludicrous arguments the administration has continually offered for sidestepping the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which expressly forbids warrantless spying on people in the United States. He said that the president could make his own rules in time of war and that Congress had authorized warrantless spying in giving the president the authority to invade Afghanistan. Only the panel's most blindly loyal Republicans bought that argument.

To his credit, Mr. Specter pressed the attorney general hard on a legal position that, he said, "just defies logic and plain English." Mr. Specter forcefully pointed out that this isn't just an issue of public relations, but of the bedrock democratic principle of checks and balances. He said it is not possible to judge a program without knowing what it involves and said Congress's intelligence panels should review the domestic spying "lock, stock and barrel."

"Because if they disagree with you," he said, "it's the equilibrium of our constitutional system which is involved."

Mr. Gonzales seemed to brush off this idea, something that should surprise no one since Mr. Bush clearly sees no limit to his powers. But even Bush loyalists on the Senate panel seemed at least faintly troubled. Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas said it would be simple to amend the wiretapping law if it's too confining. And Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona suggested that some group â€” maybe even Congress â€” review the spying program regularly.

One hopeful sign of nonpartisan sanity came from the House yesterday. Representative Heather Wilson, the New Mexico Republican who heads the subcommittee that supervises the National Security Agency, told The Times that she had "serious concerns" about the spying and wanted a full investigation. With Karl Rove reported to be threatening Election Day revenge against anyone who breaks ranks on this issue, Ms. Wilson deserves support for a principled stand.

Hegemony

2006-02-07T23:05:00.000-08:00

Hegemony: he·gem·o·ny n
control or dominating influence by one person or group over others. Hegemony has been understood as being constituted by a combination of coercion or force and consent (ideas). A strong hegemony is one that does not depend on force, since those being dominated accept their domination. In this case, hegemony is established through the use of education, the media, religion, and other means which influence a person’s / group’s thinking. In other words, “if you can control a person’s thinking, then you can control his or her actions.”

Looking for the Woolworth's Lunch Counter of 2006

2006-02-07T09:50:00.000-08:00

Published on Saturday, February 4, 2006 by CommonDreams.org

Looking for the Woolworth's Lunch Counter of 2006

by Cynthia Bogard

Remember when protest was allowed to happen? When protest riveted the country and changed it too? In these dark days, when a grieving middle-aged mother is roughed up, removed and arrested for silently wearing the wrong t-shirt to a speech about how free we are, it's necessary to remember that it wasn't always this way.

Forty-six years ago this week, a silent protest by four young black men started a revolution. Remember?

It was on February 1, 1960 that Ezell Blair, Jr., Franklin McCain, Joseph McNeil and David Richmond, four freshmen enrolled at the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College, walked into the local Woolworth's in Greensboro, sat down at the lunch counter and asked to be served. They weren't, but they weren't arrested either and they remained seated at the counter, waiting, until the store closed that evening. By then, a crowd had gathered outside the store and news of the four young men's actions had spread throughout the state. The next day there were more than 20 students asking to be served. The following day other people showed up to sit-in at other lunch counters in Greensboro. By the sixth day the protests had attracted hundreds of participants, both black and white.

Newspapers all over the state ran banner headlines and some described in detail the strategies that the protesters used. Intense coverage of the sit-ins by newspapers and radio helped the protests to spread. Sympathizers in other cities scoured these stories of protest and then they replicated them in their own towns.

In the next two weeks sit-ins had spread to 15 other cities. By April, sit-ins - these straightforward and highly symbolic protests for recognition, justice, for equal treatment as American citizens - were taking place in more than 70 American cities.

A few months later, some of these protesters formed the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), one of the pivotal student protest groups of the era. SNCC members and many other Americans continued to protest for the cause of civil rights. Three years later, President John F. Kennedy asked for legislation that would give all Americans "the kind of equality of treatment which we would want for ourselves." That same summer, on August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King thrilled a crowd of more than a quarter million protesters in Washington with his dream for a future of racial integration and equality. Less than a year later, in the wake of the Kennedy assassination, Congress passed, and President Lyndon Johnson signed, the Civil Rights Act. The Voting Rights Act came the following year. Both bills passed with bipartisan majorities in Congress.

These acts of protest and their effects inspired the hopes of millions of Americans and gradually gave rise to the women's movement, the disabled persons' movement and the gay rights movement. And civil rights expanded significantly for all of us.

What a contrast with our nation's trajectory today, sliding fast into the dark waters of civil rights repression, even abrogation.

Today, protest is contained in advance.

Our unpopular president gives speeches to audiences specially selected for their inability to criticize him. When he's not talking to members of our armed forces, he's regaling his tuxedoed funders or pre-screened loyal members of his fan club. And occasionally, he speaks before that august body, our elected Representatives, who find it too unseemly, in their gentleman's fashion, to disrupt the man who would be monarch. So he speaks without opposition and admonishes the other side to mind their manners. And they do.

At contentious events, protesters face police-created "free speech zones" - chain-link and cement-barricaded cordons far from the action - where would-be protesters can complain - to nobody.

The Republican PR machine regularly rolls out dismissive or derogatory names for progressive protesters before they even open their mouths. They are "French," "unpatriotic," even "traitors." We have a name now for what will happen to those who dare protest: They will be swift-boated.

The mainstream media finds protest a yawn. They barely cover it. Peaceful protest, by today's standards, is insufficiently dramatic. When more people than ever marched against the Vietnam War take to the streets to protest the invasion of Iraq, newspapers bury it on page 23. The all-news channels spare 15 seconds in the wee hours to inform their viewers. And word of protest is contained.

Today's college students, the bulwark and often the shock troops of the movements of the sixties have been pre-contained too. They live at home with their parents until their late 20's (what could be more stultifying?), they work full-time, they take overloads to minimize their years in college. They mostly do these things because they must - the cost of an education is obscene these days and the widespread federal college education grants that gave the baby boomers the freedom and free time to protest no longer exist. Though many of today's students are dissatisfied with things as they are, most no longer believe in the potency of protest. So they don't.

The average American's response to protest has been contained too by the unrelenting cynicism that has become our cultural currency. Fed on a diet of television shows that revolve around glorified violence or humiliating the weak and nonconforming, our culture has seen to it that nothing shocks, nor impresses, nor moves the American heart anymore. We are indifferent. Thus are the potential effects of protest contained.

And in these days of massive technological abilities to snoop almost into our very thoughts, even those who still define themselves as citizens might hesitate to voice a protest. They self-censor and are contained.

We who continue to plan and participate in protests (and I do) knowing in advance that mostly we'll be unheard and contained, bear some of the blame too. It helps us through these hard times to gather with one another. But protests have become predictable rituals and we haven't often found the recipe to make them fresh again.

As Marcuse observed at a similar moment in our history, we have become a society without opposition.

America can't go back fifty years and regain the propriety that made that lunch counter protest a discomfiting act of persuasion. And we who would protest must keep faith with Gandhi, with Martin, with the Greensboro protesters and all those who were committed to non-violent social change.

But given the state of our union, it's crucial to free protest from the many ways it has been contained and find a way to make it shake up the nation again.

Where will we find the Woolworth's lunch counter of 2006?
Cynthia Bogard is a professor of sociology at Hofstra University in New York.

On Historical Trauma

2006-02-06T13:38:00.000-08:00

COLUMN OF THE AMERICAS
PATRISIA GONZALES & ROBERTO RODRIGUEZ
© Feb. 6, 2006
Trauma, Love & History
By Patrisia Gonzales
Paztin: venerable medicine in Nahuatl
(a monthly feature on indigenous medicine)

I've tried to write about historical trauma for 10 years. How can anyone write about the effect that history has had on our bodies, our families, our lands, our plants, animals and rivers in 700 words? Can oppression kill love? And why is it some of us, but not all, assume the burden strap and carry the grief for our peoples' sufferings? Start with Maria Yellow Horse Brave Heart's definition that helped to establish the very idea? Historical trauma (HT) is cumulative, collective wounding across generations “emanating from massive group trauma.”

For decades, native peoples have sought to address this wounding as part of mental health, also calling it intergenerational trauma, or multigenerational unresolved grief. As Choctaw scholar Karina Walters notes, “The trauma is targeted to the collective and the collective experience it …The trauma is held personally and transmitted over generations. Thus, even family members who have not directly experienced the trauma can feel the effects of the event generations later.” However, Walters' research shows that not everyone experiences “historical trauma response.”

Over the years, I've attended several conferences on historical trauma. The conferences of the Takini Network of native healers, scholars and therapists convened people such as Birgil Kills Straight, Nadine Tafoya, Larry Emerson, Lemyra DeBruyn, Bonnie Duran and Walters, who have helped establish an indigenous application of HT. Much of the development of HT theory for native peoples has its origins in this network when its members in the 1970's became conscious of their own unresolved traumatic grief.

On one occasion, Brave Heart recounted how she looked upon the photograph of her ancestors and began to “sob uncontrollably.” A Jewish mentor understood immediately, “That's genocide.” The experience of Jewish Holocaust survivors and their offspring has helped native peoples understand the Native American Holocaust. The grandchildren suffered trauma just from having heard the stories of their Jewish elders. And they are more likely to experience post-traumatic stress disorder following a stressful event, thus leading to intergenerational transmission of historical trauma. In ceremonies, Brave Heart released the deepest grief and these experiences lead her to develop the theory of Historical Trauma, which now is one of the foundations of indigenous knowledge and mental health, and as Walters says, is a “fact that needs to be considered in post-traumatic stress disorder.” Walters has developed a related concept to HT, that of Colonial Trauma Response in either individuals or the collective. “Living under colonialism and colonial structures puts you at risk,” she told a Medical College of Wisconsin conference on the topic. And she's referring to the racism and politics of the here and now of the United States, the memories triggered in the s-word, native mascots, or other desecrations, such as the road being built through native shrines in Albuquerque and terminator seeds. Yes, the earth is also a survivor of historical trauma.

The intellectual development of HT is far more than can be addressed here. For myself, it has led me to a most basic conclusion, that historical trauma has shaken our ability to love. I'd like to know, what happened to love? The ability to love -- to give it and receive it and to know it beyond a fantasy jewel. I wonder what love was like before boarding schools and forced conversion. Trauma corrodes the better part of us, eating away at the generosity still found among elders, a generosity of spirit, of accepting and welcoming people on their own terms, the sharing of yourself and the gifting of kindness.

Perhaps it's as Eduardo Duran says, that trauma is a spirit that must be left offerings so that it will be at peace. Leslie Marmon Silko has written that there are spirits in stories and history. HT is like the phantom pain of an amputated limb. Despite it all, it's a miracle that we can, and do love, and still see the goodness in another. Love may not be talked about, but it speaks in our actions. Yes, to enjoy good relations, with our selves and others, to care and to love is to change history.

I leave a few teas to help as we seek to release the grief and wounding. Drink boraja/borage during times of grief. It feeds the adrenal glands. Drink tea of rosemary flowers to calm the brain. Drink estafiate/mugwort, tila/linden and magnolia flower for the liver, nerves and heart in a 1:1:1 ratio. A teaspoon of herbs to one cup hot water. The plants will know what to do.

© Column of the Americas 2006

* We can be reached at: 608-238-3161 or XColumn@aol.com or Column of the Americas, PO BOX 5093 Madison WI 53705. Our bilingual columns are posted at: http://hometown.aol.com/xcolumn/myhomepage/

* For a copy of our trilingual Amoxtli San Ce Tojuan documentary, Cantos Al Sexto Sol and the Mud People, or more info re future screenings contact us at XColumn@aol.com - 608-238-3161 - or go to: http://hometown.aol.com/aztlanahuac/myhomepage/index.html

At Burial Site, Teeth Tell Tale of Slavery

2006-02-01T13:58:00.000-08:00

January 31, 2006
At Burial Site, Teeth Tell Tale of Slavery
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD

While remodeling the central plaza in Campeche, a Mexican port city that dates back to colonial times, a construction crew stumbled on the ruins of an old church and its burial grounds. Researchers who were called in discovered the skeletal remains of at least 180 people, and four of those studied so far bear telling chemical traces that are in effect birth certificates.

The particular mix of strontium in the teeth of the four, the researchers concluded, showed that they were born and spent their early years in West Africa. Some of their teeth were filed and chipped to sharp edges in a decorative practice characteristic of Africa.

Because other evidence indicated that the cemetery was in use starting around 1550, the archaeologists believe they have found the earliest remains of African slaves brought to the New World.

In a report to be published in The American Journal of Physical Anthropology, the archaeology team led by T. Douglas Price of the University of Wisconsin concluded, "Thus these individuals are likely to be among the earliest representatives of the African diaspora in the Americas, substantially earlier than the subsequent, intensive slave trade in the 18th century."

Dr. Price said last week that a more precise dating would be attempted soon with radiocarbon analysis of the excavated bones. Maps and other records of Campeche, on the Yucatán Peninsula, indicate that the burial ground was used from the mid-16th century into the 17th. A pre-1550 medallion was found in a grave.

Other archaeologists and historians who were not involved in the research said they knew of no earlier skeletal remains of African-born slaves that had been found in the Americas. Dr. Price said that a colleague in the research, Vera Tiesler of the Autonomous University of the Yucatán, who is a historian of the colonial period, thought the slave burials occurred in the cemetery's first years. She directed the excavations.

The fact that the burials were found in ruins of a colonial church could mean "that they had some kind of status or were converted to Christianity," said Richard H. Steckel, a professor at Ohio State University who studies health and nutrition of pre-Columbian American Indians.

Although ample records attest to the presence of African slaves in the New World at this time, Dr. Steckel, who had no part in the discovery, said: "Much less is known about their health. So, if researchers can document the stature, degenerative joint disease, dental decay, trauma and so forth, then it could be quite interesting."

William D. Phillips, a University of Minnesota professor who is a historian of Old World and New World slavery and who was not involved in this research, said it was not surprising to find African remains in the Yucatán at this time.

Dr. Phillips and other historians said colonial Campeche was an important Spanish gateway to the Americas and would have had substantial traffic in slaves. Within a few years of the first voyage of Columbus, in 1492, they noted, Africans were shipped to the Caribbean and then the mainland. Their numbers increased steadily as sugar plantations were established by the Spanish on the islands, then in Mexico and coastal Peru.

"Some experts suggest that more Africans than Europeans went to Spanish America in the period up to 1600," Dr. Phillips said.

Herbert S. Klein, a historian of Latin America at Stanford and an author of studies on slavery in the region, said, "The slave trade was in full development by the mid-16th century and would have brought African slaves to Mexico, though the primary work force remained Amerindians."

In time, as European diseases reduced Indian populations, the demand for labor from Africa increased. Over a span of four centuries after Columbus, it is estimated, as many as 12 million Africans were placed in bondage and brought across the Atlantic to ports throughout the Americas.

If any older slave burials have been excavated, Dr. Klein has not seen reports of them in the professional literature, he said. The most likely places for any earlier finds, he added, would be in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic or in Cuba, where African slaves were first introduced.

The site in Campeche was discovered in 2000. As researchers examined the remains, they determined that some belonged to Europeans and Indians. Then they were drawn to a few with the distinctive dental mutilations, their first clue that these were probably people born in Africa.

Upon further examination, James Burton, the third member of the team, said four of the individuals "were like something we'd never seen."

Dr. Burton and Dr. Price, who are colleagues at the Laboratory of Archaeological Chemistry at Wisconsin, and Dr. Tiesler embarked on the strontium studies, supported by the National Science Foundation. Such strontium research, often applied in physical anthropology, is a part of their broader investigation of social mobility — where people were born and how near or far from home they eventually settled — in ancient Mexico and Central America, known as Mesoamerica.

At least 10 skeletons appeared to be African, the researchers reported, and four had teeth with "unusually high" combinations of two isotopes of the element strontium. An isotope is a slight variation of a chemical element, with a different mass but otherwise the same as the basic element.

In this case, the ratios of the isotopes strontium 87 and strontium 86 were consistent with those in the teeth and bones of people who were born and grew up in West Africa. A comparison with strontium measurements of people born in Mesoamerica showed no similarities with the four specimens.

These strontium signatures enter the body through the food chain as nutrients pass from bedrock through soil and water to plants and animals. Different geologies yield different isotopic strontium ratios. This is locked permanently in tooth enamel from birth and infancy, an important tool to trace the migration of individuals.

The researchers said the findings showed that these four appeared to be original migrants to the New World, not their children. Five other individuals thought to be African slaves had isotope ratios expected for people born around Campeche, hence from a later generation.

"In a community occupied for several generations, only a relatively small proportion of the individuals in a cemetery would be expected to come from the first generation," they wrote in the report.

The four individuals, the researchers said, appeared to have come from the area around Elmina, Ghana, a major West African port in the slave trade.

This was also the region of origin of some of the slaves found in the 17th- and 18th-century African Burial Ground, uncovered in 1991 in Lower Manhattan.

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Cindy Sheehan

2006-02-01T13:36:00.000-08:00

Some folks might see this picture of proof of Cindy's un-Americanness, but how more American can she be when she defends our right to freedom of speech, which includes protesting against war. Also, she gave her son to this war, can she at least voice her pain and concerns?

Published on Wednesday, February 1, 2006 by CommonDreams.org
What Really Happened
by Cindy Sheehan

Dear Friends,

As most of you have probably heard, I was arrested before the State of the Union Address tonight.

I am speechless with fury at what happened and with grief over what we have lost in our country.

Anti-war protester Cindy Sheehan is escorted out of the House chamber by security personnel, January 31, 2006. (Jason Reed/Reuters)
There have been lies from the police and distortions by the press. (Shocker) So this is what really happened:

This afternoon at the People's State of the Union Address in DC where I was joined by Congresspersons Lynn Woolsey and John Conyers, Ann Wright, Malik Rahim and John Cavanagh, Lynn brought me a ticket to the State of the Union Address. At that time, I was wearing the shirt that said: 2245 Dead. How many more?

After the PSOTU press conference, I was having second thoughts about going to the SOTU at the Capitol. I didn't feel comfortable going. I knew George Bush would say things that would hurt me and anger me and I knew that I couldn't disrupt the address because Lynn had given me the ticket and I didn't want to be disruptive out of respect for her. I, in fact, had given the ticket to John Bruhns who is in Iraq Veterans Against the War. However, Lynn's office had already called the media and everyone knew I was going to be there so I sucked it up and went.

I got the ticket back from John, and I met one of Congresswoman Barbara Lee's staffers in the Longworth Congressional Office building and we went to the Capitol via the undergroud tunnel. I went through security once, then had to use the rest room and went through security again.

My ticket was in the 5th gallery, front row, fourth seat in. The person who in a few minutes was to arrest me, helped me to my seat.

I had just sat down and I was warm from climbing 3 flights of stairs back up from the bathroom so I unzipped my jacket. I turned to the right to take my left arm out, when the same officer saw my shirt and yelled; "Protester." He then ran over to me, hauled me out of my seat and roughly (with my hands behind my back) shoved me up the stairs. I said something like "I'm going, do you have to be so rough?" By the way, his name is Mike Weight.

The officer ran with me to the elevators yelling at everyone to move out of the way. When we got to the elevators, he cuffed me and took me outside to await a squad car. On the way out, someone behind me said, "That's Cindy Sheehan." At which point the officer who arrested me said: "Take these steps slowly." I said, "You didn't care about being careful when you were dragging me up the other steps." He said, "That's because you were protesting." Wow, I get hauled out of the People's House because I was, "Protesting."

I was never told that I couldn't wear that shirt into the Congress. I was never asked to take it off or zip my jacket back up. If I had been asked to do any of those things...I would have, and written about the suppression of my freedom of speech later. I was immediately, and roughly (I have the bruises and muscle spasms to prove it) hauled off and arrested for "unlawful conduct."

After I had my personal items inventoried and my fingers printed, a nice Sgt. came in and looked at my shirt and said, "2245, huh? I just got back from there."

I told him that my son died there. That's when the enormity of my loss hit me. I have lost my son. I have lost my First Amendment rights. I have lost the country that I love. Where did America go? I started crying in pain.

What did Casey die for? What did the 2244 other brave young Americans die for? What are tens of thousands of them over there in harm's way for still? For this? I can't even wear a shrit that has the number of troops on it that George Bush and his arrogant and ignorant policies are responsible for killing.

I wore the shirt to make a statement. The press knew I was going to be there and I thought every once in awhile they would show me and I would have the shirt on. I did not wear it to be disruptive, or I would have unzipped my jacket during George's speech. If I had any idea what happens to people who wear shirts that make the neocons uncomfortable that I would be arrested...maybe I would have, but I didn't.

There have already been many wild stories out there.

I have some lawyers looking into filing a First Amendment lawsuit against the government for what happened tonight. I will file it. It is time to take our freedoms and our country back.

I don't want to live in a country that prohibits any person, whether he/she has paid the ulitmate price for that country, from wearing, saying, writing, or telephoning any negative statements about the government. That's why I am going to take my freedoms and liberties back. That's why I am not going to let Bushco take anything else away from me...or you.

I am so appreciative of the couple of hundred of protesters who came to the jail while I was locked up to show their support....we have so much potential for good...there is so much good in so many people.

Four hours and 2 jails after I was arrested, I was let out. Again, I am so upset and sore it is hard to think straight.

Keep up the struggle...I promise you I will too.

Love and peace soon,
Cindy
.

Current events. News and Politics.

2006-01-29T21:14:00.000-08:00

Hello beautiful students, please read the following articles for this comming week. We will talk about them this Thursday. Peace.

January 24, 2006

Flor de Borinquen

Bush's War Viewed from the South

By JORGE MARISCAL

Last summer when cable news made Cindy Sheehan the face of all those U.S. families who have lost a child in Iraq, communities of color rallied around her but could not help but wonder whether the majority of the American public cared as deeply about their loss. Latinos, for example, are sacrificing not only some of their finest young men to this war but their young women as well, women like Puerto Rican Lizbeth Robles.

When General Nelson Miles landed in Puerto Rico on July 25, 1898 at the head of U.S. invasion forces, his words resonated with the same imperial arrogance we have grown accustomed to hearing from George W. Bush: "We have not come to make war upon the people of a country that for centuries has been oppressed, but, on the contrary, to bring you protection, not only to yourselves but to your property, to promote your prosperity, and bestow upon you the immunities and blessings of the liberal institutions of our Government."

Ever since then the service of Boricuas (Puerto Ricans) in U.S. wars has been tinged with great irony. Passing out of the grip of one colonial power (Spain) to that of another brought rewards for a select few on the island but little respite for the majority. For the majority, the shifting stages of colonialism have meant limited opportunities and inequality for over a hundred years.

Moreover, the primary role assigned by the United States to Puerto Rico from the beginning as a strategic military outpost plagued the island with a hyper-militarized culture that included everything from environmentally disastrous installations such as the one at Vieques to a continuous siphoning off of its youth into the ranks of the U.S. armed forces.

A century after their homeland passed into the hands of Americans bearing gifts, young Puerto Rican men and women are fighting and dying in another war claiming to export democracy. To date over 230 Latinos have lost their lives in Iraq, including 47 Puerto Ricans. Early last year, the first young woman from the island died from injuries suffered in a vehicular accident. The official Pentagon press release read: "Spc. Lizbeth Robles, 31, of Vega Baja, Puerto Rico, died at the 228th Command Support Hospital in Tikrit, Iraq, on March 1."

The story of Lizbeth Robles teaches us much about young women in today's "volunteer" army. The daughter of a working class family, she became a leader in her church and an accomplished athlete. Robles did well academically and went on to college but after one year was unable to pay the tuition at the American University and transferred to Arecibo campus of the University of Puerto Rico where she was able to receive financial aid and complete her degree.

Her brother recalls that after expressing dissatisfaction with the jobs available to her she sent away for recruitment videos and decided to enlist. She told her mother to pray that she would pass the entrance exam. Her mother's response was less than enthusiastic. As quoted by Javier Colón Dávila of the El Nuevo Día newspaper, her mother said: "I thought, Lord, Lizzie has her dreams but if it is not your will and if they are too dangerous, don't let them come true." No wonder military recruiters have admitted publicly that the biggest obstacle to their enlisting Latino youth is the Latina mother.

According to her friend Pfc. Leila Groom, Robles enlisted in 2000 to "help others." Whenever her cousins asked her why she had joined the Army, she replied, "Because I like it." Scholar Gina Pérez of Oberlin College who conducts research on Latinas in Chicago has found that many young women of color believe one of the few ways in which they can gain respect is by joining JROTC and ultimately the military. These sentiments, often heard from working class youth who enlist, are far removed from the life experiences of most of those in the antiwar movement and poorly understood even by some counter-recruitment activists.

Young people with limited opportunities looking to "make a difference" or "to make their parents proud" are the savvy recruiter's primary targets. Middle-class activists whose message is a simplistic "Opt out" or "Don't enlist" but who cannot offer viable alternatives are unlikely to have an impact. As Kimi Eisele wrote on the AlterNet website about a young Chicano in Tucson she tried to mentor away from the military: "What I can't dispute is that the feeling of being wanted and needed is, for a young man like Anthony, more powerful than the fear of death. And much m ore immediate than the ambiguous promise of a middle-class future" (http://www.alternet.org/story/23953).

Liz Robles went on to serve in Korea and Uzbekistan before being assigned to Fort Carson, Colorado. From there she was deployed twice to Iraq, the last time as part of a support unit providing security for trucks transporting fuel throughout the most dangerous areas of the war zone. Although women are not technically given combat arms occupations, assignments such as that of Robles account for many of the killed and wounded. On February 28 of last year the vehicle she was riding in with fellow Puerto Rican Julio Negrón flipped over. She was rushed to the military hospital in Tikrit and passed away the following day.

La hermanas de Lizbeth (Lizbeth's sisters)

According to DoD numbers, women made up about 17% of active duty and 25% Selective Reserve personnel in 2003. Over 70% of active duty women were under the age of twenty-one. Although enlistment rates have fallen for women since the invasion of Iraq, military boosters often invoke the illusion of equal opportunity and fairness in the military as if the one place where affirmative action and even "feminism" have triumphed is the armed forces.

But the situation for women in the military is often dangerous. It is not uncommon to find women in Iraq carrying out assignments that have little or nothing to do with their training. Last summer, for example, three women °©20 year-old Dominican-born Ramona Valdez, a Marine corporal; Navy Reservist Petty Officer and single mother Regina Clark who was trained in food service; and Marine Holly Charette trained in mail handling °©were temporarily assigned to an entry control point in Fallujah in order to search Iraqi women. All three were killed on June 23 by a suicide bomber who attacked their vehicle.

In addition to the increased numbers of women soldiers in harm's way (over 50 have died in Iraq), other short and long-term hazards lay in wait. After conducting a four-year long study of over 2,500 veterans and active duty personnel, Dr. Maureen Murdoch of the VA Medical Center in Minneapolis found that 80% of women surveyed had experienced some form of sexual harassment (15.5% had experienced sexual assault).

In her memoir Love my rifle more than you: Young and female in the U.S. Army, former sergeant Kayla Williams writes: "A woman soldier has to toughen herself up. Not just for the enemy, for battle, or for death. I mean toughen herself to spend months awash in a sea of nervy, hyped-up guys who, when they're not thinking about getting killed, are thinking about getting laid. Their eyes on you all the time, your breasts, your ass-like there is nothing else to watch, no sun, no river, no desert, no mortars at night." According to Williams, the pressure to simply surrender to the sexism is often overwhelming.

Callie Wight, a trauma specialist with the Veterans' Administration in Los Angeles, reports that many women veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan present twin sets of post-traumatic stress symptoms, one stemming from their combat experience and another from being exposed to varying degrees of sexual harassment that range from casual comments to rape.

For young women who discover too late that military life is not for them or that they can no longer support a mission such as the occupation of Iraq there are few good options. Aimee Allison, a resister during the Gulf War and now a counselor with PeaceOut.com, said last November at the press conference for Katherine Jashinski, the first woman resister in the Iraq conflict: "I know many women who are afraid to speak publicly because they do not want to be harassed Some women take drugs. Some get pregnant to buy time. Some just go AWOL." The dire circumstances described by Wight, Williams, and Allison are often more difficult for women of color.

Despite the harsh realities for women in the military, some like Lizbeth Robles decide to make the military their career. Many do so out of the most traditional forms of patriotism. Others find a vocation in the military. Still others discover a sense of agency not afforded them by repressive domestic situations, traditional attitudes that women belong at home, or limited job opportunities on the island.

So for large numbers of young Puerto Rican women and men military service will continue to be an attractive option. But even those who claim to see no contradiction between their participation in military adventures like the one in Iraq and the history of their island cannot escape the irony of their decision to enlist.

As Lieutenant Laura Lopez wrote on a website dedicated to Boricua servicemen and women: "I am a full blood Puerto Rican woman. I am from Guaynabo and graduated from the University of Puerto Rico. I am in the United States Air Force, but very proud of my island and culture." The paradox contained in that "but" begins to explain the robust anti-militarism and counter-recruitment movements on the island.

Apologists for the war in Iraq describe it as a selfless act designed to bring democracy to the Middle East. From the perspective of Latin American history and the history of Latinas and Latinos in the United States, the war in Iraq looks more like another chapter in a long history of colonial exploitation and senseless bloodshed. As Puerto Rican scholar Ana Celia Zentella puts it: "The pain of serving in the imperial monster's war machine in order to further your education and feed your family is the ultimate trickery of colonialism."

When we recall those who enlisted for the best of motives only to lose their lives in foreign adventures with false origins and disastrous outcomes, the verses of the official hymn of Lizbeth Robles' hometown of Vega Baja are especially painful: "Más dulce que la miel es tu recuerdo/cuando lejos estoy, pueblo querido/ Mi alma te la envío en un suspiro/y en viaje hacia el ensueño en ti me pierdo" ("The memory of you is sweeter than honey/when I am far away, beloved home/I send you my soul in a sigh/and as I drift away I lose myself in you"). Whether they know Spanish or not, tonight 2,232 families understand the sadness in these words.

Jorge Mariscal is a Vietnam veteran and director of the Chicano-Latino Arts and Humanities Program at the University of California, San Diego. He is a member of Project YANO (San Diego). Visit his blog at: jorgemariscal.blogspot.com/ He can be reached at: gmariscal@ucsd.edu
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COLUMN OF THE AMERICAS
ROBERTO RODRIGUEZ & PATRISIA GONZALES
JANUARY 30, 2006
A MIGRANT CARAVAN OF JUSTICE

1st Person by Roberto Rodriguez

A march and caravan of justice departs from San Diego this week. It's destination: the nation's capital. It's goal: To bring about a humane solution to immigration.

Not a moment too soon. In close to 35 years of writing on immigration related issues, it's difficult to recall a time when the nation's anti-immigrant hysteria was at a higher peak.

The operative word is hysteria.

The tough issues resulting from immigration are difficult, but resolvable, yet the nation's politicians have never had the will to confront their political skinhead colleagues who traffic in fear and hate. It has become fashionable to nowadays link immigration with terrorism, with some even suggesting a 2000-mile militarized wall along the U.S./Mexico border.

The actual issue has been studied to death, literally. Thousands of migrants continue to unnecessarily die on the border. For big business and for the convenience of middle class America, it is desirable to maintain a large, exploitable, unorganized and expendable work force. This guarantees maximum exploitation and cheap consumer prices.

It has long been recognized that the problems related to immigration are primarily of an economic, not criminal nature. As such, that was the promise of the highly flawed NAFTA… that an immigration agreement would be immediately hammered out after it went into effect in 1994.

That nothing has happened is no surprise. It fits the nation's pattern of how it has historically viewed and treated its southern neighbors: goods and capital are welcome, but not human beings.

The truth is, the nation is in a crisis, yet, very little of it has to do with immigration. At the beginning of the year, Howard Dean prognosticated correctly that in 2006, the Republican Party would turn to immigrant scapegoating as a way to distract the nation from the Constitutional crises we face as a result of a myriad of abuse of power and corruption scandals. Most of them from the administration's clearly illegal and immoral war against Iraq.

That's where the brown hordes come in; without Mexicans, who else could these scoundrels scapegoat?

A generation ago, the anti-Mexican hate was very vicious, but mostly private. Today, we have CNN's Lou Dobbs daily anti-immigrant tirades and right-wing radio. All of this is within the context of the administration's constant drumbeat of fear. In the War on Terror, apparently the only two things to fear: Mexicans and Central Americans.

This false terrorism/immigration equation is permitting amoral politicians to push blatantly anti-immigrant and dehumanizing bills throughout the nation. In Arizona alone, aside from the Minutemen militias, there are some 30 anti-immigrant bills pending. In the House, Republican Jim Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin has shepherded a draconian anti-immigrant bill that would criminalize migrants, amongst other things.

Other proposals even include measures to overturn the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, which guarantees birthright citizenship.

There was a time when these attitudes were restricted to white supremacists who feared an invasion of brown hordes. But the drumbeat nowadays is so intense that it has spread to virtually all sectors of society, including other people of color. Several weeks ago, while driving to an event in Los Angeles, an African American doctor on “progressive” talk radio was ranting about how Mexicans were not only displacing African Americans from society's worst jobs, but that also, Mexican illegal aliens could effortlessly buy homes anywhere they choose.

It was heart-breaking to hear the rationale. Apparently, he couldn't hear the echoes.

It's all part of the politics of blame. All subterfuge. All a distraction, proving that no one is immune. Even Mexican Americans routinely blame Mexicans for the nation's problems.

Perhaps what the nation needs is a giant mirror to be able to see that it is not Mexicans who are threatening the economic well-being, the security, the rights, freedoms and Constitutional rights of Americans.

One such mirror will be that migrant caravan which seeks to bring consciousness to the nation regarding those anti-immigrant bills.

A solution to immigration is actually attainable, but it must begin with the acknowledgment that all human beings deserve to be treated with full dignity and respect. An agreement -- which both nations can easily hammer out -- can go a long way towards quelling that hysteria. It's time we insist that both governments act upon this crisis, but with the understanding that indeed, no human being is illegal.

For an update on the bills, go to: http://www.nnirr.org/about/about_mission.html

For info re the caravan, go to: www.borderangels.org or Enrique Morones (619) 269-7865.

© Column of the Americas 2006

We can be reached at: 608-238-3161 or XColumn@aol.com or Column of the Americas, PO BOX 5093 Madison WI 53705. Our bilingual columns are posted at: http://hometown.aol.com/xcolumn/myhomepage/

* For a copy of our trilingual Amoxtli San Ce Tojuan documentary, Cantos Al Sexto Sol and the Mud People, or more info re future screenings contact us at XColumn@aol.com - 608-238-3161 - or go to: http://hometown.aol.com/aztlanahuac/myhomepage/index.html
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A New World is Possible
Cindy Sheehan

And necessary! This is the theme for the World Social Forum that I (and tens of thousands of people from all over the world) am attending in Caracas this week. I know the idea of a world where everyone lives in peace and with justice is very "subversive" but the theme is very close to my heart and soul.

We need a new world. This one is broken.

Before my son, Casey, was killed in Iraq on April 04, 2004, I never traveled much to speak of. I had gone to Israel and Mexico and that was about it. I had a barely used passport.

Since I began to speak out against the dishonesty and deception that led to this illegal and morally reprehensible occupation of Iraq, I have journeyed all over the United States and now am starting to fill my passport with stamps.

Our world is so beautiful and the people who inhabit it are, for the most part loving, and all they want is a good life for themselves and their children. They just want to feel safe and secure in their communities. They want to be warm and fed. They want clean drinking water and they want to dance and laugh when appropriate. They want to live long lives with their families and they want their children to bury them at the end of their time here. In short, the people of the world want what we Americans want.

It is our governments who want to demonize and marginalize other cultures, religions, races and ethnic groups. George Bush and his coldhearted cronies and his easily misled and willingly blind followers want to "fight them over there so we don't have to fight them over here!" Who are these "themes" that we are fighting over there? Are they the babies lying in their cribs when a bomb (chemical or conventional) is dropped on their house? Is it the mother who has gone shopping for her family's daily food who is killed by a car bomber who never even thought to commit such a heinous act until his country was occupied by a foreign invader? Is it the grandmas and grandpas who are too old, or too stubborn, to leave their lifelong homes when the coalition troops are illegally carpet bombing civilian centers?

We as citizens of the United States of America must stop allowing our leaders to give the orders to kill innocent people. I almost said: we must stop allowing our leaders to "kill" innocent people. But we all know the cowards don't fight their own fantasy battles or send their own children to fight in the causes that they idiotically and diabolically iterate are "noble." No, they order our children to go over and do their dishonest and destructive dirty work! Our soldiers are taught that "Hajis," the brown skinned people of Iraq who clean their toilets, showers, and wash their clothes are less than people…which enables them to be killed more easily. The dehumanization of the Iraqi people is also dehumanizing our soldiers. Our children.

I got a hate email from a "patriotic American" once who told me that when we see the mothers and fathers of Iraq screaming because their babies have been killed, that they "are just acting for the cameras. They are animals who don't care about their children because they know they can produce another." This is the mentality of General Sherman when he said "the only good Indian is a dead Indian." This wicked rhetoric is the rhetoric that dehumanizes us all.

A new world is necessary and it can only be possible if we believe and live the belief that every human being is inherently the same as we are. They feel pain when they are hurt. They have hunger pains when they haven't eaten. Their mouths go dry when they are thirsty. They mourn when they experience a loss. They shiver when they are cold. They laugh when they are happy. How can we condone, or even allow, are leaders to kill our brothers and sisters like this?

A new world is necessary and it can only be possible if we rein in the depraved corporations that thrive off of the flesh and blood of our neighbors all over the world and here in America. War profiteers like Halliburton, Bechtel and General Electric who are racking up obscene profits and increasing the bottom line of their shareholders while they are running roughshod over this planet. Malevolent companies such as Dow who dump chemicals and other pollutants into the water and atmosphere that kill people, our environment and our future! Companies like Wal Mart that exploit workers in the U.S. and abroad to enrich a family that already has more than enough money to fund healthcare and a living wage for all of its employees and have a little extra left over to pay their country club fees.

A new world is necessary and it can only be possible if we decrease our dependency on oil and use some of the money that we are pouring into the desert sands and sewers of Iraq to expand research on renewable energy sources and expound and promote the renewable sources we already have such as bio-diesel. I have talked to many citizens of Venezuela who are understandably nervous about a U.S. invasion and they know that it is not about the idea that President Chavez is a "dictator" which he is not, he is a democratically elected leader who is very popular in his country. The people of Venezuela are very savvy and they know that if the U.S. invades their country that it won't be because we are spreading "freedom and democracy" to them. They know they already have it.

A new world is necessary but not possible until we Americans get over the arrogant idea that we can solve the Iraq issue and the human rights violations problems alone. We have to reach out to fellow members of the human race all over the world to forge the bonds that are crucial to protecting innocent members of humankind who are impoverished or killed by our government and corporatism that has gone wild and is largely unchecked.

Peace and justice are intimately connected and the world can't have one without the other. True and lasting peace can only occur when we the people force out leadership that is dependent on the war machine for their jobs and for their lives and demand justice for the crimes against humanity that are perpetrated on the world on a daily basis by such "leaders."

A new world is possible and it is attainable. For this new world to become a reality it is necessary for us to take into our beings what Martin Luther King, Jr. said of his own eulogy, but more importantly, the way he lived his life:

"I'd like somebody to mention that day, that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to give his life serving others. I'd like for somebody to say that day, that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to love somebody. I want you to say that day, that I tried to be right on the war question. I want you to be able to say that day, that I did try, in my life, to clothe those who were naked. I want you to say, on that day, that I did try, in my life, to visit those who were in prison. I want you to say that I tried to love and serve humanity. Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice; say that I was a drum major for peace; I was a drum major for righteousness."

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Tired of the White Left
New America Media, Digest, Roberto Lovato, Jan 26, 2006

Editor's Note: NAM contributor Roberto Lovato is attending the World Social Forum in Caracas, where more than 60,000 people, half of them from outside Venezuela, have gathered for the annual event. His impressions will be posted throughout the week.

CARACAS, Venezuela -- Standing proudly beneath the statue of Latin American liberator, Simon Bolivar, located at the center of a Caracas plaza, World Social Forum delegate Dorothea Manuela says she feels more at home here than she does standing near the statues of dead white revolutionary men dotting parks back home in Boston.

"It's inspiring to come here and see people from all over the world leading their own struggles," she says. I ask her about the leadership of struggles in the United States and the beaming smile of the self-described "black woman who is ethnically Puerto Rican" disappears.

"Being here reminds me how very important it is for all of us to change the U.S. But we can't change the U.S. unless we all deal with the white left's racism and privilege" says the statuesque "fifty plus" Manuela. Along with members of her Boston-based Rosa Parks Coalition, Manuela and many of the World Social Forum delegation from the U.S. are delivering a strong message to the thousands attending the global gathering: We (nonwhites/people of color) can lead ourselves. Whites do not speak for all of us.

At a forum beneath a large tent on the Caracas air force base where immigrant leaders and activists from across the continent debate hemispheric migration, Christian Ramirez of the San Diego based American Friends Service Committee reminded the black, Mestizo, Indian and other participants about the kinds of barriers he faces in the progressive movement.

"None of the whites who spoke on behalf of the U.S. delegation at the opening ceremonies of the Foro remembered to mention the more than 35 million immigrants in the US," he says. He later detailed how he and other Latinos in the U.S. are meeting with Senators and House members in order to have the voice of immigrants added to a debate led largely by liberal and conservative whites in the Beltway.

Hearing all this, and observing the impressive coalition of mostly non-white delegates, I'm reminded of how, despite all the sacrifices of Salvadoran exiles and refugees who built the most powerful solidarity movement of the 1980's, most of the recognition for and credit for leadership of the movement was given in the U.S. - and in El Salvador -- to the Norteamericanos, many of whom married Salvadorans. Developments in Caracas seem to hint that another U.S. is possible.

The broadening of the US delegation which now includes more than 1000 participants -- many of whom are black, Latino and Asian -- has not escaped the attention of the very sophisticated leaders of the Foro. Brazilian businessman Oded Grajew, the bearded white haired older statesman of the Foro, who is widely recognized as one of the forum's founders, sees Hurricane Katrina like an x-ray into the issues that divide the U.S. and countries like his.

"The Katrina disaster is a measure of social injustice in the United States. It gave a name, color, and an identity to social injustice there," he says.

But not every delegate understands things like Grajew. At a panel of U.S. opposition to the Iraq war that included peace mom, Cindy Sheehan, lesser known peace papa, Fernando Suarez del Solar and former U.S. Navy soldier, Pablo Paredes from New York, pony-tailed Peruvian delegate Carlos Flores told me that he "expected to hear more North American North Americans instead of Latin Americans living in the U.S. (Del Solar is a citizen and Paredes was born in the sovereign nation of El Bronx).

Del Solar, who shook the audience when he cried as he described the death of his son Jesus in Iraq, had previously told me that he is not distracted by the focus on white leaders in the U.S. peace movement. "Many of us are organizing a conference to bring together the many, many Latino activists organizing against this evil war."

I later found some solace in seeing Del Solar speaking in Spanish to a throng of people at an event advertised as a "Cindy Sheehan" event. And none of the delegates packed into the lobby of the hotel recognized or spoke with Sheehan when I saw her there.

The racial dynamics at the Foro seem more like the dynamics on the field of the World Cup, where the non-white majority exercise leadership concomitant with their numbers, while whites have their place too. The tenor here touches on a shift in the way movements have historically been carried out in the U.S. "Why don't they come here to Latin America to lead struggles here?" asks Dorothea Manuela. "Because they know they can't. Why do they lead struggles in places where they are now a minority? Because we let them - and that has to change. That will change."

Another World Is Possible.

--RL

New America Media is a project of Pacific News Service
Copyright © Pacific News Service

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Teacher Awaits Day in Court

By Matthew Rothschild, The Progressive

January 25, 2006

Deb Mayer was a teacher of fourth, fifth, and sixth graders at Clear Creek Elementary School in Bloomington, Indiana, during the 2002-2003 school year.
On January 10, 2003, she was leading a class discussion on an issue of „Time for Kids‰˜Time magazine‚s school-age version, which the class usually discussed on Fridays and which is part of Clear Creek‚s approved curriculum.
There were several articles in the magazine that discussed topics relating to the imminent war against Iraq, and one that mentioned a peace march.
According to Mayer, a student asked her if she would ever participate in such a march.
And Mayer said, „When I drive past the courthouse square and the demonstrators are picketing, I honk my horn for peace because their signs say, ŒHonk for peace.‚ ‰ She added that she thought „it was important for people to seek out peaceful solutions to problems before going to war and that we train kids to be mediators on the playground so that they can seek out peaceful solutions to their own problems.‰
Mayer claims in a pending federal lawsuit that the school chilled her First Amendment rights because of this one conversation in class, which she says took all of about five minutes, and that the school district refused to renew her contract because of it. (The quotes above are taken from court documents.)
I spoke with Mayer on January 24˜more than three years after this incident took place.
„It didn‚t dawn on me that people would object to me saying peace was an option to war,‰ she says. „I didn‚t even think it was controversial.‰
But it sure turned out to be.
„One student went home to tell her parents that I was encouraging people to protest the Iraq War,‰ she says. „The parents called the principal and demanded to have a conference. The dad was complaining that I was unpatriotic. He was very agitated. He kept raising out of his chair and pointing his finger at me and yelling, ŒWhat if you had a child in the service?‚ I said, ŒI do have a child in the service.‚ ‰
At the time, one of Mayer‚s sons was a naval nuclear engineer aboard the USS Nebraska, she says, adding that he‚s now an officer in Afghanistan.
She told the parent, Mark Hahn, that her son also „doesn‚t preclude peace as an option to war,‰ she recalls. „And that made him even angrier.‰
At the end of the meeting, Hahn insisted that the principal, Victoria Rogers, make Mayer refrain from talking about peace again in the classroom. „I think she can do that,‰ Principal Rogers responded, according to Mayer‚s deposition. „I think she can not mention peace in her class again.‰
„I was just floored,‰ Mayer says, „but I said OK because we had a parent out of control, and I didn‚t want to be insubordinate. I thought that would be the end of it.‰
It wasn‚t.
At the end of that day, Principal Rogers circulated a memo, entitled „Peace at Clear Creek,‰ that said: „We absolutely do not, as a school, promote any particular view on foreign policy related to the situation in Iraq.‰ And she cancelled the annual „peace month‰ that the school had been holding.

On February 7, 2003, Rogers also sent Mayer a letter telling her to „refrain from presenting your political views.‰

Mayer and her lawyer, Michael Schultz, contend that this illegally infringed on Mayer‚s First Amendment rights.
At the end of the spring semester, the school district did not renew Mayer‚s contract, and she and Schultz allege that this was in retaliation for her political expression.
„This is a classic First Amendment free speech case,‰ says Schultz. „It involves, for the first time as far as I can tell, the right of a teacher to express an opinion in a classroom while teaching approved curriculum.‰
The school district, the Monroe County Community School Corp., takes a different view.
While neither Principal Rogers nor anyone at the school district would respond to my phone calls because the case is pending, the district is mounting an aggressive legal defense. Represented by the law firm of Locke Reynolds in Indianapolis, the district is seeking summary judgment, asking the judge to throw out the case.

I called Heather Wilson, one of the Locke Reynolds attorneys on the case, but she would not comment, suggesting only that I examine the court documents.
„Ms. Mayer‚s one-year contract was non-renewed after ongoing parent complaints about her and her teaching style, and five students being transferred out of Ms. Mayer‚s classroom at the parents‚ request,‰ says the brief for the school district. And it summons affidavits from parents finding fault with Mayer‚s teaching style.
The brief does not deny the Iraq War discussion took place, or that the Hahns got upset by it. In fact, it acknowledges that Mayer was instructed to refrain from discussing her opinions on the war. But the brief says that during the parent conference on the subject, „according to Principal Rogers, Ms. Mayer was borderline unprofessional.‰ And it states further that the Hahns alleged that Mayer continued to talk about the war in class, a charge she denies.
The gist of the district‚s case, as outlined in its brief, is this: „Ms. Mayer‚s speech on the war was not the reason for her ultimate termination. Instead . . . the motivating factor for her termination was her poor classroom performance, the ongoing parental dissatisfaction, and the allegations of harassment and threats towards students.‰
Schultz, in his court filing in response to the request for summary judgment, rebuts this argument. He says the affidavits about poor performance are pretexts. They „were signed in the summer of 2005, more than two years after Plaintiff‚s termination. . . . Those alleged complaints about Ms. Mayer were not and could not have been relied on by Principal Rogers in making her decision to terminate Plaintiff‚s contract with the school.‰ He also cites an evaluation that Mayer received that had praised her effusively.
Schultz says that Mayer deserves her day in court not only because of what he calls the „wrongful termination‰ but also because her First Amendment rights were violated.
Mayer says at one time the school district did offer to settle˜for $2,500. She had already spent ten times that amount, so she refused it, she says. Plus, she wants to defend the free speech rights of teachers. „If the school prevails on this, teachers have no protected speech at school and can be fired for saying anything,‰ she says.
The case has cost Mayer dearly, she says. „I have lost my house, my income, my health insurance, my life savings, and my prospects for employment.‰
If the judge does not grant summary judgment, the case will begin on March 6.

Welcom to ES 4: Chicano Culture

2006-01-05T21:39:00.000-08:00

In this weblog I will post links to articles and other class material. You can download a copy of the syllabus by clicking here: Syllabus.