That’s Revolting!: Radical queer activism

That’s Revolting!: Radical queer activism — past, present, and future.
Thursday, June 5, 6pm
San Francisco Main Library
Latino/Hispanic Meeting Room (downstairs)
100 Larkin Street
(415) 557-4566
Co-sponsored by the National Queer Arts Festival.

Join Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore to celebrate the arrival of the
expanded second edition of That’s Revolting! Queer Strategies for
Resisting Assimilation, with a dangerous and illuminating discussion
featuring Carol Queen, Bo Brown, Ralowe T. Ampu, Tommi Avicolli Mecca,
Eric Stanley and Gina de Vries.

Has the nightmare of gay marriage sandblasted the dreams of ’70s gay
liberation revolutionaries? Has the feverish potential of queer sexual
splendor been annihilated by the consumerist frenzy of assimilationist
gay culture? Is there hope for radical queer troublemaking in the
hyper-gentrified monoculture of current-day San Francisco? Bring your
questions, ideas, plots and dreams. And remember, this will be the
first opportunity to purchase the new edition of That’s Revolting!,
with five new essays covering everything from blowing up buildings in
the 1970s to stripping naked to fight global AIDS.

Drum Youth Win Immigrant Education Victory!

DRUM YOUTH WIN
IMMIGRANT EDUCATION VICTORY!

On Thursday, May 15, 2008, DRUM- Desis Rising Up & Moving’s YOUTHPOWER!
won the signing of the FIRST IMMIGRANT SAFE ZONE in a New York City public school.

Hillcrest High School in Jamaica, Queens, with over 3,500 largely immigrant students, became the first school to create protections and needed services to immigrant students to be able to access education without fear.

DRUM YouthPower!’s Education not Deportation campaign, launched in 2006, will keep organizing to declare more schools across the city as Immigrant Safe Zones.

COME OUT & SUPPORT:

Wednesday, June 4th at 3:30 PM
PRESS & COMMUNITY SIGNING OF IMMIGRANT SAFE ZONE DECLARATION
Hillcrest High School
160-05 Highland Avenue
Jamaica Estates, New York 11432
[Take the F train to Parsons Blvd. in Queens]

Thursday, June 5th
Youth Rally against Education Budget Cuts
City Hall
(time & details TBA)
*Organized by Urban Youth Collaborative & NY Student Union

BACKGROUND:

* Since 2005, South Asian immigrant youth leaders of DRUM have been surveying hundreds of immigrant students about the fears and access barriers they face in schools, particularly for undocumented students and their families
* In 2006, DRUM released a ground-breaking report called “Education not Deportation: Impacts of New York City School Safety Policies on South Asian Immigrant Youth”
* 51% of youth reported exposure to harassment by authorities
* Nearly half of youth (45%) reported being asked about their immigration status by authorities
* Most NYC public schools, which are already underfunded and over-policed, have little to no ability to deal with undocumented students
* Undocumented students don’t get financial aid and most scholarships, so many can never afford college

The Immigrant Safe Zone at Hillcrest High School will:

1. Ensure city and DOE laws are actually being followed to protect immigration status information of students and their families- that immigration status is not being asked, compiled, or reported at all
2. Train school workers in the full rights of immigrant students to education and to better serve immigrant youth
3. Create services for immigrant youth and families within the school in partnership with community organizations- DRUM will begin regular programs for youth and parents at Hillcrest High School this year including immigration and deportation advocacy and Know Your Rights trainings

This first victory would not have been possible without the fierce organizing of our South Asian immigrant youth members of DRUM across the city and their families and:
- The Community Development Program of the Urban Justice Center
- The students and administration of Hillcrest High School
- The following endorsing organizations:

Adhikaar
CAAAV Organizing Asian Communities
Center for Immigrant Families (CIF)
Each One Teach One
FIERCE
Families United for Racial & Economic Justice (FUREE)
Independent Commission on Public Education (ICOP)
National Economic and Social Rights Initiative (NESRI)
Queens Community House
Prison Moratorium Project (PMP)
Teachers Unite
Ugnayan ng mga Anak ng Bayan
Urban Justice Center (UJC)
Urban Youth Collaborative (UYC)
VAMOS Unidos
YA-YA Network

Oaxaca in revolt again…

via

A 21 day series of strikes and occupations by the radical Sección 22 in Oaxaca of the Mexican teachers’ union Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores en la Educación kicked off in earnest on Tuesday. As of Thursday, the strike appears to be spreading - with popular support, solidarity and an increasing volume of activity.

The teachers’ strike has various demands, although it’s mostly calling for the freedom for all political prisoners, an end to the arrest orders and ongoing intimidation by the judicial authorities against the movement, new elections within the SNTE, and the handing over of all Oaxacan schools controlled by the pro-government Sección 59.

Sección 22 was instrumental in the 2006 revolt in Oaxaca, where they saw their strike betrayed by the SNTE national leadership in alliance with the Oaxacan state governor, one Ulises Ruíz Ortíz. Sección 59 was established by the priísta SNTE leader, Elba Ester Gordillo, as a rival local to Sección 22 in Oaxaca, and its members were promptly sent back to work as a means of breaking the strike.

However this time round, there seems to be increasing evidence of the strike’s spread into a generalised movement within Oaxaca. On Tuesday, a building belonging to PEMEX (Petróleos Mexicanos - the state petrol monolopy which is on the verge of being privatised) was blockaded, while on Thursday various neighbourhood organisations within the city assisted in the occupation of a Centro de Atención Múltiple, the state institution charged with educating special needs children, which is controlled by Sección 59. MORE

It’s Paradise

via Whenua Fenua Enua

Hip/hop confronting domestic violence

Who is more undesirable, the illegal alien or homosexual?

via

Over the weekend, I was reading some pro-migrant news at a Catholic site that I had stumbled on via Google News Alert service. And on the sidebar, the very site was spewing hatred about same-sex marriage in California. The churches and religious ‘right’ who first established ’sanctuary’ and are very pro-migrant, are also the ones who are very wrong on LGBT issues. So what happens when we have a gay undocumented migrant??

This post has been in my mind for quite some time because lets face it, those of us in the pro-migrant community know undocumented persons who are also gay, lesbian, transgender. This intersectionality is further complicated by our homophobic and heterosexist immigration laws that do not recognize ‘marriage’ or partnership between people of the same-sex, and hence we have undocumented partners who are forced to live in the shadows, break off their relationships or move to another country. MORE

Congressional Hearings on ICE raids

“ICE’s immigration raids have been so sweeping that they have ensnared U.S. citizens, including innocent children, in their dragnet,” said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. “There are no regulations controlling ICE’s reckless raids, and ICE routinely violates due process while conducting raids.”

During a raid last year in the San Francisco Bay Area, Kebin Reyes, a then 6-year-old U.S. citizen, was detained for 10 hours in an ICE field office after his home was raided by ICE. The ACLU, with the San Francisco Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, sued ICE on behalf of Reyes, arguing that his detention violated his constitutionally protected civil rights. Katherine Gibney, the principal of Reyes’s school, is scheduled to testify in today’s subcommittee hearing.

Fear and Loathing the Prime Time

Fear and Loathing in Prime Time
Immigration Myths and Cable News

A really great study of how cable news works to perpetuate hate and fear against the immigrant community.

Welcome to the Blog of the immigrant people!!

Welcome to the Blog of the immigrant people!!

This blog is inspired in resistance to the actual economic policies (NAFTA) in Mexico and Latin America that have been imposed by the North American government that cause us to be displaced to the United States. The current repressive immigration laws in this country have caused Flor to flourish in these dark times.

And this is the story of my resistance inspired by the same situation in which 12 million immigrants live on a daily basis in this country.

And this is why Flor Resists!!!
We expect you to do the same!!!

Sexual favors allegedly expected from some Postville workers

via des moines register

Reports that there was an expectation of sexual favors at Agriprocessors Inc. are beginning to emerge from workers at the Postville meat processing plant, and advocates for immigrants in Postville today are trying to collect and validate the stories.

Sister Mary McCauley, a Roman Catholic nun at St. Bridget’s Catholic Church, said workers have said that “there was sexual abuse, that there’s propositioning.”

If a worker wanted, say, a promotion or a shift change, “they’d be brought into a room with three or four men and it was like, ‘Which one do you want? Which one are you going to serve?’” said McCauley in an interview today with Des Moines Register editors and reporters.

“Unfortunately, they are grateful for some of their ESL classes, and they knew what some of those words meant,” McCauley said. “If they had the courage, they could refuse it.”

Chaim Abrahams, an Agriprocessors representative, declined to address the allegation of sexual favors in exchange for job-related requests.

“As with any legal matter, Agriprocessors cannot comment about any specific allegation,” Abrahams said in a written statement. “The company is performing an independent investigation and will continue to cooperate with the government about this matter.”

Federal agents raided Agriprocessors Inc., a kosher meat-processing plant, on Monday in the largest single-site immigration bust in U.S. history. Arrest warrants were issued for 697 people who work at the plant.

Federal agents detained 389 in Waterloo, charged 306 with various fraud-related charges, and released 62. Twenty-one remain in custody pending immigration hearings.

Since the raid, stories of how employees were mistreated has emerged, including verbal abuse by supervisors.

Last November, the federal search warrant released after the raid said, Immigrant and Customs Enforcement agents interviewed a former Agriprocessors supervisor who said some employees were running a methamphetamine lab in the plant and were bringing weapons to work.

Another source alleged worker abuse, officials said in the warrant. In one case, a supervisor covered the eyes of an employee with duct tape and struck him with a meat hook.

Advocates are trying to document workers’ personal stories, McCauley said.

Women leaders from Guam say no to a massive U.S. military build-up on their island.

Women leaders from Guam say no to a massive U.S. military build-up on their island.