Indigenous peoples in Indo-Afro-Latin America, especially Bolivia and Ecuador, are rising up to take control of their own lives and act in solidarity with others to save the planet. They are calling for new, yet ancient, practices of plurinational, participatory, and intercultural democracy.
They champion ecologically sustainable development; community-based autonomies; and solidarity with other peoples locally, regionally, and internationally – what they describe as “unity in diversity.” Their values are often different than those of the United States or Europe. One indigenous leader has stated: “We give what money we have not to banks to collect interest but to others – and their gratitude is the interest we receive.”
The Center for American Progress Action Fund has just released a huge in megabites strategy paper on the US Department of Labor - Enforcing Change - Five Strategies for the Obama Administration to Enforce Workers’ Rights at the Department of Labor December 2008
Editor’s Note: Immigrants in detention are signing their rights away and becoming eligible for an immediate removal order without understanding its implications says Jennifer Lee Koh, Esq., the Cooley Godward Kronish Fellow with the Stanford Law School Immigrants’ Rights Clinic. IMMIGRATION MATTERS regularly features the views of immigrant rights advocates.
In the past several years, nearly 100,000 non-citizens have been silently sent to their home countries under a federal government program called “stipulated removal.” Most of these 100,000 were in immigration detention. A vast majority had no criminal record. An overwhelming number did not have a lawyer. Under these conditions, government officials convinced them to sign pieces of paper that allowed the government to remove them right away, without a hearing before an immigration judge. It is not a surprise, then, that advocates are hearing reports that some were pressured to sign those papers.
The legal director of the ACLU in Arizona filed a civil rights action against Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio over his arrest and jailing hours when he went to observe a demonstration against Arpaio’s anti-immigrant policies. In the suit filed yesterday, legal director Daniel Pochoda says Arpaio accused him of “criminal trespass” on a public street, then lied about the incident to the media.
Human rights worker Christian Ramirez was filming in “Friendship Park,” where families come together along the U.S.-Mexicanborder, when he was detained by U.S. Border Patrol agents.
Over the last 15 years of my life, where I have been an activist and blogger working with and writing about immigrant issues, being told to go back where I came from (Queens, NYC) and being threatened is nothing new. But given the current political climate being a Latina and being an outspoken advocate for the basic human rights of immigrants has become more dangerous with the battleground extending from the borders to our bodies.
Take for example Isabel Garcia and the way her work for human rights is being attacked by dehumanizing her and sexually assaulting her in effigy.
Nurturing the desire for college and keeping it on track is the purpose of Comienza con un Sueño ( It Begins with a Dream ), a major college outreach event taking place this month at UCSD. Aimed at Latino and Mexican American students, parents and families, this free event will be held Saturday, May 31 from 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. in various stages on Library Walk, Center Hall and Geisel Library terrace.
More than 700 attendees from San Diego and Imperial counties are expected.
Ruben Salazar, a pioneering Latino journalist who was killed in 1970 by a tear gas canister fired by a sheriff’s deputy after an anti-war demonstration in Southern California, will be honored Tuesday with a commemorative U.S. postage stamp. The stamp is to be unveiled in Washington, D.C., along with four other stamps recognizing courageous American journalists. In Los Angeles, where Salazar became the first Mexican American foreign correspondent and columnist at the Los Angeles Times, his life will be remembered on a day the City Council has declared Ruben Salazar Day. First-class honor for brave Latino journalist
Indigenous peoples in Indo-Afro-Latin America, especially Bolivia and Ecuador, are rising up to take control of their own lives and act in solidarity with others to save the planet. They are calling for new, yet ancient, practices of plurinational, participatory, and intercultural democracy.
