QUIERES APRENDER LA DANZA GUERRERA MEXIKA

3 Sep

QUE ES LA DANZA MEXIKA????
La danza mexika es una serie de conocimientos que encierran la sabiduría del equilibrio y superación espiritual del hombre y su relación con la naturaleza.
…Antiguamente, aquí en Tenochtitlán a los niños cuando nacían eran presentados en los dos centros de enseñanza a los cuales a cierta edad deberían ingresar. Estos eran el Telpochkalli y el Kalmekak. En estas dos escuelas ellos aprendían los valores culturales mediante cantos e historias del pueblo, se les enseñaba la danza que era indispensable para la formación de conciencia y respeto a todo lo que les rodeaba,Después de la invasión española estos conocimientos fueron guardados por sabios indígenas descendientes de la nobleza mexika, quienes para conservar el conocimiento lo ocultaron bajo el sincretismo de una religión nueva para ellos. Ahora gracias al esfuerzo y dedicación de algunos maestros estamos retomando esa riqueza cultural.
La danza nos hace entender que la tierra, el viento, el agua, el fuego, los animales, los minerales, las flores y todo lo que nos rodea no nos pertenece ya que nosotros somos una pequeña parte de todo esto que es la naturaleza por lo tanto debemos respetarla y cuidarla.
El danzante mexika al mover en sincronía los brazos y piernas imitando los movimientos de los animales, los ciclos de las plantas y de los astros, se integra y forma parte de esa naturaleza que lo rodea.
Muchas veces nos hemos preguntado porqué al escuchar el sonido del huehuetl (tambor), caracol y de los ayoyotes nos produce gran emoción, nos hace vibrar por dentro, esto se debe a que en nuestra sangre corre la sangre de nuestros antepasados, que practicaron estas danzas y por lo tanto el sonido de estos despierte aquel conocimiento antiguo en nuestro espíritu.

Por ello si tu sientes esa energía dentro de ti, que esperas únete a nosotros, estamos ensayando los días MIERCOLES DE 6 A 8 PM EN EL CENTRO DE ENSEÑANSAS GUERRERAS KALMEKAK, UBICADO EN CERRADA DE PASCUAL OROZCO CASI ESQ PASCUAL OROZCO A DOS CALLES DE AV. RECREO MUY CERCA DEL METRO COYUYA, ESTO ES SIN COSTO ALGUNO .Tlazokamati.(gracias) TE ESPERAMOS
SOLO NECESITAS TRAER ROPA COMODA, UNA CINTA PARA LA CABEZA Y UNA SONAJA
EMPEZAMOS NUEVA DANZA EL MIERCOLES…
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HOUSTON: Workers Panel – Sept 7th @ Rothko Chapel

2 Sep

Enjoy your Labor Day Monday with friends, family and good food celebrating what the labor movement has won for working families!
… Then join us at the Rothko Chapel the next day to hear about how local workers are fighting to advance the movement for workers’ rights currently! 

The Struggle for Workers’ Rights in Houston
Christine Diaz, Moderator
Tuesday, September 7, 7pm
Rothko Chapel (1409 Sul Ross St, Houston, TX 77006)

On the day following Labor Day please join the Rothko Chapel for a discussion of the current state of worker rights here in the Houston area.  Organized in conjunction with the national Interfaith Worker Justice Committee campaign titled “Labor in the Pulpits, on the Bimah, in the Minbar,” the program will explore the links between faith, labor, and justice through conversations with four local workers involved in organizing efforts.   Workers will present personal reflections on unionization, health and safety issues, wage theft, and the importance of organizing for worker justice and respect for labor laws.

Christine Diaz, local labor leader and co-host of the KPFT radio program “Voices at Work” will moderate the conversation.  This program is co-sponsored with the Houston Interfaith Workers Justice Center.

Flyer also attached.
Please forward to your respective contacts!
Laura Boston
Houston Interfaith Worker Justice, Director

Leaving Footprints; Running for Justice

2 Sep

Leaving Footprints; Running for Justice
By Roberto Dr. Cintli Rodriguez
“We move energy the way our ancestors have shown us – in a way that enhances our humanity and brings beauty to our physical world.” 
Maria Vai Sevoi, Calpolli Teoxicalli
In Arizona, we know that the eyes of the world are upon us.

Perhaps this is why many of us hold vigils and forums, why we march, protest, rally, get arrested… and run.

In the past several years, the Sonora desert has become a super magnet for the forces of hate, bigotry, ignorance, false patriotism, censorship, demagoguery and especially, scapegoatery – or the art of blaming Mexicans or red/brown peoples for everything. So too has it become a magnet for those who struggle for peace, dignity, justice and human rights.

I am a newcomer to the desert and as such, I marvel at the amount of activism all around me, especially by youths. Actually, activism is not the right word for what I have been witnessing here for the past 3 years. Commitment is a better word. The level of commitment to social justice and for the right to a culturally relevant education has been affirming. What is daily affirmed is the belief that all human beings are created equal and all are entitled to full human rights, regardless of race, color, creed, religion, citizenship or migration status.

All this resistance has occurred as a result of a relentless campaign against the red-brown peoples of this state – whether they have been here for many thousands of years or if they just got here today. The racial profiling that everyone fears has always existed along the U.S.-Mexico border, so much so that labor leader Cesar Chavez used to refer to the migra or the U.S. Border Patrol as the “Gestapo of the Mexican people.”

That’s the reason for the relentless pushback against the state’s SB 1070 law. It seeks to federalize local police – giving them the “rights” that the migra has long exercised against the red-brown peoples they have always illegally and inhumanely profiled. In Tucson, the pushback has been against both SB 1070, and HB 2281, the effort to ban the teaching of ethnic studies.

What’s most impressive about the resistance is that it has been waged largely by K-16 students. That’s not to minimize the role of community organizers and community elders; quite the contrary. It is precisely this sector, led by groups such as Derechos Humanos, that has trained and essentially grown these young activists and organizers.

One group that rarely is recognized by the media – and the group likes it this way – is Calpolli Teoxicalli – a family of families that live Indigenous ways and who live by a sacred calendar. The Calpolli in Tucson or Tlamanalco as they refer to the Old Pueblo – has been present the past several years at virtually all the events and/or actions in regards to these assaults, albeit with a different role.

A passerby might see them as either simply those that lead the opening or closing prayers at events or those that provide the cultural expression (Aztec Dancing). But that would be to fundamentally misunderstand their role. While I am not a member of this Calpolli, I do take part in their runs – ceremonial runs and barrio runs. All the runs are spiritual and are not done in response to the actions of others, though they are indeed done with an awareness of all the negative forces – external and internal – that continually beset our communities.

We run for ourselves and those closest to us. We do the runs to help heal our communities – whether it is from diseases such as drugs and alcohol or gang and domestic violence – or from the diseases of hate and bigotry. A summer run last year included one from Tucson to Phoenix to defeat an attempt to eliminate Raza Studies statewide while another one was done as an effort to bring consciousness to our communities regarding the sky-high high rates of obesity, diabetes and heart disease.  The barrio/ceremonial runs are connected to the Peace and Dignity Journeys that take place every four years from Alaska and Chile to Central America. They are part of an Indigenous prophecy that seeks to unite Pacha Mama – Abya Yalla or North and South America.

The early morning barrio runs have a powerful effect, especially upon onlookers when they see the ceremonial staffs we run with. Onlookers might think that this is how we protest in Tucson, but we run not for the media nor for or against politicians. As the youngsters say, we speak with our feet and our feet do leave huellas or footprints.

In a few months, there will be a very special barrio run, co-sponsored by the American Cancer Society, to bring about cancer awareness to our communities – part of a dream of one of our young leaders – Consuelo Aguilar – who passed away a year-and a half ago in the heat of battle at the age of 27. That run will mark the second anniversary of her death in February and we expect our entire community to be there. She too will be there. Presente!

There will be a number of runs prior to the one for Consuelo. All are important. If you would like to participate in them, in preparation for the February run, please contact Calpolli Teoxicalli at: chuchruiz@yahoo.com or teoxicalli@yahoo.com. Regardless if you take part in the Barrio Runs, please consider fulfilling Consuelo’s dream this February.

Rodriguez, an assistant professor at the University of Arizona, can be reached at: XColumn@gmail.com.
Column of the Americas
PO BOX 3812
Tucson, AZ 85722

ARCHIVED COLUMN OF THE AMERICAS
http://web.me.com/columnoftheamericas
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SAN ANTO: Conjunto Heritage Concert – Sep 11

31 Aug

Foto Septiembre at the Conjunto Heritage Taller!

September 11, 2010.  6pm-9pm

Opening reception, concert, and jam!
Please Join us!

Bring your lawn chair to enjoy the concert!
Parking on St. Mary’s St. directly behind the Taller!

725 South Presa
San Antonio, TX, 78210
(210)212-8560
conjunto.h.taller@sbcglobal.net

The Only Thing Drug Gangs and Cartels Fear Is Legalization

31 Aug

From The Huffington Post

By Johann Hari
August 26, 2010 08:27 AM

To many people, the “war on drugs” sounds like a metaphor, like the “war on poverty.” It is not. It is being fought with tanks and sub machine guns and hand grenades, funded in part by your taxes, and it has killed 28,000 people under the current Mexican President alone. The death-toll in Tijuana — one of the front-lines of this war — is now higher than in Baghdad. Yesterday, another pile of seventy mutilated corpses was found near San Fernando — an event that no longer shocks the country.
Mexico today is a place where the severed heads of police officers are found week after week, pinned to bloody notes that tell their colleagues: “This is how you learn respect.” It is a place where hand grenades are tossed into crowds to intimidate the public into shutting up. It is the state the US Joint Chiefs of Staff say is most likely, after Pakistan, to suffer “a rapid and sudden collapse.”
Why? When you criminalize a drug for which there is a large market, it doesn’t disappear. The trade is simply transferred from off-licenses, pharmacists and doctors to armed criminal gangs. In order to protect their patch and their supply routes, these gangs tool up — and kill anyone who gets in their way. You can see this any day on the streets of a poor part of London or Los Angeles, where teenage gangs stab or shoot each other for control of the 3000 percent profit margins on offer. Now imagine this process taking over an entire nation, to turn it into a massive production and supply route for the Western world’s drug hunger.
Why Mexico? Why now? In the past decade, the US has spent a fortune spraying carcinogenic chemicals over Colombia’s coca-growing areas, so the drug trade has simply shifted to Mexico. It’s known as the “balloon effect”: press down in one place, and the air rushes to another. When I was last there in 2006, I saw the drug violence taking off and warned that the murder rate was going to skyrocket. Since then the victims have ranged from a pregnant woman washing her car to a four year-old child to a family in the “wrong” house watching television to a group of 14 teenagers having a party. Today, 70 percent of Mexicans say they are frightened to go out because of the cartels.
The gangs offer Mexican police and politicians a choice: plata o plomo. Silver, or lead. Take a bribe, or take a bullet. President Felipe Calderon has been leading a military crackdown on them since 2006 — yet every time he surges the military forward, the gang violence in an area massively increases. This might seem like a paradox, but it isn’t. If you knock out the leaders of a drug gang, you don’t eradicate demand, or supply. You simply trigger a fresh war for control of the now-vacant patch. The violence creates more violence.
This is precisely what happened — to the letter — when the United States prohibited alcohol. A ban produced a vicious rash of criminal gangs to meet the popular demand, and they terrorized the population and bribed the police. Now a thousand Mexican Al Capones are claiming their billions and waving their guns.
Like Capone, the drug gangs love the policy of prohibition. Michael Levine, who had a thirty year career as one of America’s most distinguished federal narcotics agents, penetrated to the very top of la Mafia Cruenza, one of the biggest drug-dealing gangs in the world in the 1980s. Its leaders told him “that not only did they not fear our war on drugs, they actually counted on it… On one undercover tape-recorded conversation, a top cartel chief, Jorge Roman, expressed his gratitude for the drug war, calling it ‘a sham put on the American tax-payer’ that was ‘actually good for business’.
So there is a growing movement in Mexico to do the one thing these murderous gangs really fear — take the source of their profits, drugs, back into the legal economy. It would bankrupt them swiftly, and entirely. Nobody kills to sell you a glass of Jack Daniels. Nobody beheads police officers or shoots teenagers to sell you a glass of Budweiser. And after legalization, nobody would do it to sell you a spliff or a gram of cocaine either. They would be in the hands of unarmed, regulated, legal businesses, paying taxes to the state, at a time when we all need large new sources of tax revenue.
The conservative former President, Vicente Fox, has publicly called for legalization, and he has been joined by a battery of former Presidents across Latin America — all sober, right-leaning statesmen who are trying to rationally assess the facts. Every beheading, grenade attack, and assassination underlines their point. Calderon’s claims in response that legalization would lead to a sudden explosion in drug use don’t seem to match the facts: Portugal decriminalized possession of all drugs in 2001, and drug use there has slightly fallen since.
Yet Mexico is being pressured hard by countries like the US and Britain — both led by former drug users — to keep on fighting this war, while any mention of legalization brings whispered threats of slashed aid and diplomatic shunning.
Look carefully at that mound of butchered corpses found yesterday. They are the inevitable and ineluctable product of drug prohibition. This will keep happening for as long as we pursue this policy. If you believe the way to deal with the human appetite for intoxication is to criminalize and militarize, then blood is on your hands. How many people have to die before we finally make a sober assessment of reality, and take the drugs trade back from murderous criminal gangs?
To support the right side in the referendum to decriminalize cannabis in California this November — one of the most important moves on drugs in the world at the moment — please donate or volunteer for the campaign here.
Johann Hari is a writer for the Independent. To read more of his articles, click here or here.
You can follow Johann at www.twitter.com/johannhari101 or email him at j.hari [at] independent.co.uk

To view this full article click here

Placing the Massacre of Migrants at the Feet of U.S. Immigration Control & Trade Policies

31 Aug

Dear NNIRR members, partners, allies & friends,
 
Migrant workers continue paying a heavy price as a result of the volatile mixture of the U.S. militarization of immigration control and border communities, the criminalization of migration, the expansion of NAFTA or “free” trade under the “Merida Initiative,” a war on drugs and national security.
 
On Tuesday, August 24, 2010, devastating news reports began trickling out about a horrific massacre of some 72 international migrants that took place in Mexico . Armed members of a drug cartel had kidnapped these Central and South America migrants. The cartel gunmen were trying to extort ransom money from them to let them continue on their dangerous journey to the U.S. with the hope of reuniting with their families and seek work to survive.
 
The drug traffickers had tied the migrants’ hands behind their backs and then executed them by shooting them in the back. One migrant who survived the execution, although gravely wounded, dragged himself miles when he stumbled upon a military checkpoint on a highway and alerted them. Some 200 soldiers were mobilized and went to the farmhouse where a heavy gun battle ensued, leaving one soldier and three drug cartel gunmen dead. Then the soldiers made the grisly discovery of the migrants’ bodies, 58 men and 14 women—migrants from Honduras, El Salvador, Ecuador, and Brazil—who been slaughtered inside a farmhouse close to San Fernando, a small farming community in the Gulf coast state of Tamaulipas and about a 100 miles south of Brownsville, Texas.
 
Epidemic of Abuse and Exploitation of Migrants
 
The Mexican government’s National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) reports that more than 10,000 migrant kidnappings have been reported in the first six months of 2010 in Mexico . Yet, the CNDH and the Mexican government have not worked to effectively protect migrants, expose the abuses and prosecute the traffickers and their collaborators in the police, military and other government entities.
 
Drug traffickers and smugglers, as well as police and military, often hold migrants hostage and force them to pay high ransoms before they are allowed to continue usually on the last leg of their journey to the U.S. The CNDH said that in the first half of 2009, when only some 9,000 migrant kidnapping cases had been reported, corrupt government officials and police, organized crime, traffickers and other criminals extorted as much as $25 million dollars from kidnapped migrants.
 
When migrants make it to the U.S.-Mexico border, they fare no better. The U.S. deliberately funnels migrants into the deserts and mountains of Arizona and parts of New Mexico and Texas . Here at the border they are subjected to another layer of abuse. They are thrown into the hands of smugglers and other traffickers who have no second thoughts about abandoning individuals, who are often injured or suffering severe exhaustion, in the wilds, where migrants face a certain death either by extremes of heat or cold.
 
As a result of criminalization and few if any options to regularize their status or migrate with rights, U.S. and international migration control policies make migrant workers easy targets for exploitation and criminal attacks and extortions, where they live and work or whether in they are in transit or in the U.S.
 
Although Mexico is a signatory to the “International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families,” the Mexican government’s de facto policies and treatment of migrants is a bloodied mark on the convention. The U.S. is not a signatory to the migrant workers’ human rights convention. U.S. immigration enforcement and services, bound up to the U.S. politics of national security, are rife with abuses and human rights violations.
 
Mexican and U.S. policies, collusion through inaction, and their own impunity have created a situation where thousands of migrants are being subjected to extremes of abuse. The massacre of migrants in Mexico shows that drug traffickers have “diversified” their wares to include humans. They act with impunity, either as a result of official corruption or collusion that turns a blind eye to the exploitation, and results in the unfortunate death of migrants “funneled” by U.S. policies through the deadly desert and mountainous areas of the border.
 
Migrants who survive the journey only slightly fare better. Once out of the clutches of traffickers and smugglers they face a gauntlet of unscrupulous police, elected officials and employers who prey upon them. Or they are further criminalized and are hunted down, filling the dungeons of prisons, euphemistically called “detention centers.”
 
What is to be done?
 
What is to be done? Certainly, we should call for the investigation and prosecution all the abusers and those in government who collaborated in this heinous crime. But even this will not be enough. To prevent further abuses will take historic efforts on our and the immigrant rights and justice movements’ part. It will mean organizing to make the U.S. and Mexican governments decriminalize migration and demilitarize immigration control and border communities. These demands also have to expose the root causes and push back on economic and trade policies that undermine communities and forcibly displace workers and divide families.
 
For now we ask everyone to take a minute to reflect on this horrendous massacre of innocents and to respect those migrants among us who have survived this odyssey – just to be with their families, to work and support their families and communities back home.
 
____________________________________________
Arnoldo Garcia
National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights
Red Nacional Pro Derechos Inmigrantes y Refugiados
310 8th Street Suite 303
Oakland, CA 94607
Tel (510) 465-1984 ext. 305
Fax (510) 465-1885
www.nnirr.org
 
READ NNIRR’s latest human rights report Guilty by Immigration Status
 
Show your support for justice & human rights!
 
Follow NNIRR on Twitter:
http://www.twitter.com/NNIRRnetwork

SAN ANTO: Indigenous Dignity Day Human Rights March – Oct 9

31 Aug

National: No al Muro! Oct 9-12

31 Aug

9 al 12 de Octubre días de Acción Continental

 

NO! Al muro de la muerte en la frontera EEUU-México!

SI!  Derecho de Ciudadanía Universal

9-12 de octubre es parte de la jornada Continental por parte de  Grito de Excluidos/as, COMPA y  Southwest Workers Unión como seguimiento a la resolución que fue aprobada en la Asamblea de los Movimientos Sociales en el foro Social de Estados Unidos II en Detroit en Junio y el Foro Social Américas IV en Agosto 2010

La jornada continental es para demandar los derechos de Migrantes y SI a la Ciudadanía Universal y NO MUROS, por parte de los movimientos sociales y activistas para que organicen acciones en su ciudad.

Los pueblos Indígenas que han luchado por 517 años contra la colonización hasta la fecha y tenemos el ejemplo de Puerto Rico como colonia que por siglos lucha por su independencia.

El libre comercio neo-liberal, son la causa principal por el desarraigo de millones de gentes campesinas a las ciudades o a Estados Unidos como migrantes como también la crisis económica propiciada por el neo-liberalismo.  El modelo neo-liberal no es compatible con la naturaleza y busca explotar los recursos naturales que cause el desalojo de millones de migrantes.

En los Estados Unidos esta jornada nos enfoca en Arizona con la 1070 y representa el frente de lucha por derechos de Migrantes. Los movimientos sociales estamos luchando contra la 1070 conocida como la ley anti-mexicana y latina  que es una acta racista y represiva y son políticas publicas que forman coalición en la Patrulla fronteriza, fuerzas policíacas, Caza-migrantes y el partido de extrema derecha racista de Te.    Arizona es el mismo estado donde mas de 200 Migrantes murieron en el desierto buscando cruzar la frontera en la brecha abierta en el MURO de la Muerte. Ahora una docena de estados buscan copiar la 1070 en su estado.

En 2005 el departamento de Seguridad Nacional (DHS) inicio la iniciativa de Frontera segura (SBI) con dos estrategias la SBI-net y base de datos sistema de identificación y SBI Infra-estructura táctica (TI) esto significa el MURO de la frontera.  Entre el año fiscal 2006 y 2009 la iniciativa SBI recibió $3.6 Billones de dólares y unos $2.4 Billones para terminar el MURO bajo el Consolidated Appropriations Act 2008 que requería se se terminara el MURO para 31 de Diciembre, 2008.

El Presidente Bush Jr. Firmo el acta que estableció el MURO en el 6 de Octubre, 2006.  Bajo su administración la seguridad fronteriza creció en presupuesto de $4.6 Billones el 2001 a $10.4 billones el 2006.  Estos dineros representan el doble crecimiento de la patrulla Fronteriza de 9,000 a 20,000 oficiales mas la Guardia Nacional.

El MURO de la muerte fronterizo debe ser vista en relación a la política fronteriza del gobierno de EEUU y es parte de las cuatro operativos militares fronterizos que empezó hace 15 años con Operación Guardián en California, Operación salvaguardar en Arizona, Operación Retener la línea en Texas y operación Rió Grande en el Sur Texas.  Estos operativos fueron fortalecidos por el acta patriótica y la acta REAL ID bajo el Departamento de Seguridad Nacional.  El MURO de la Muerte fue construida como parte del plan general de militarizar la frontera.

Bajo la administración de Obama, la seguridad fronteriza ha llegado a un nivel de militarización nunca visto anteriormente. Primero apoyando terminar la construcción del MURO de la muerte y ahora con aviones sin piloto y nuevos agentes federales de la Migra Fronteriza en Texas y los estados en el suroeste del país.  Estos aviones sin piloto van hacer posible vigilancia completa de la frontera y esto va hacer posible que el Congreso tome la cuestión de reforma migratoria (E & N Ag. 23, 2010).

Esta militarización fronteriza es parte del paquete aprobado por el Congreso “recientemente aprobó $600 millones bajo la ley de seguridad fronteriza”.  Esta nueva fuerza de patrulla Fronteriza tendra un “efecto multiplicador” que va incrementar en 1,500 nuevo personal”, digo Janet Napolitano, Secretaria de Seguridad Nacional en una entrevista con el  periódico Express & News de San Antonio.   Ella digo, “Nos da cobertura fronteriza 24/7 en la frontera Texas-México”.

La que fue gobernadora del estado de Arizona, Janet Napolitano ahora trabajando con la administración de Obama digo, “El Presidente piensa que ya es tiempo para enfocar en el sistema de migración”.  Napolitano digo,  “quien se opone a la reforma migratoria porque demandan una frontera segura primero según Napolitano podrán estar seguros de la frontera y ahora podrán consumir la reforma migratoria con camino a la ciudadanía”. 

Políticas publicas fronterizas y la muerte

“Las políticas publicas que impactan ambos lados de la frontera  han creado una crisis humanitaria que nos lleva a la muerte de mas de 5,000 migrantes” digo Kevin Keenan, Director Ejecutivo del ACLU del área de San Diego, California.

Muertes Cruze Fronterizo EEUU

Según la cifras de la Patrulla fronteriza 1,954 migrantes murieron cruzando la frontera EEUU-México entre el 1998 al 2004.  La muerte de migrantes ha doblado en numero desde el1995.

Arizona

1990-9 Muertes

2005-201 Muertes

Estadisticas del Gob. Mexicano

1996- 87 Muertes

1997-149 Muertes

1998-329 Muertes

1999-358 Muertes

2000-499 Muertes

La implementación de leyes fronterizas y migratorias es mas represión

Se aprobaron $32 Millones-para dos aviones sin piloto conocidos como Predator B turbo-prop (UAV) y su costo operacional para una cobertura de 24/7 por aire y vigilancia de tiempo completo…ahora hay 6 aviones sin piloto operados por CBP en la frontera norte y sur. “La agencia federal de Aviación aprobó los vuelos de aviones sin piloto en 800 millas de frontera en Texas desde el Valle del Rió Grande a la región de Big Bend”. (E&N Ag. 2010)

El pleito no es si hay violación de los derechos humanos no sobre cuantas gentes han muerto cruzando la frontera a consecuencia de las leyes represivas de inmigración sino donde se van instalar las bases de operaciones de estas naves sin piloto… según el Congresista Cuellar “Vamos hacer todo lo posible para retener estas bases en Texas”, el es presidente del subcomité de fronteras, puertos y contraterrorismo global bajo el departamento de Seguridad Nacional.

El porque el enfoque al estado de Arizona según Napolitano “fue la muerte del ranchero Robert Krentz Jr que dio origen a la demanda nacional sobre la seguridad fronteriza” (E&N’s).  Y que de las mas de  200-300 muertes anuales de migrantes cruzando la frontera de Texas-México?  Que de la muerte del joven de 14 años Sergio Adrián Hernández, y el joven de secundaria Ezequiel Hernández Jr. asesinado por un Boina Verde, y muchas otras personas muertas a mano de la Patrulla Fronteriza.  Las muertes de cientos y miles es el resultado directo de las políticas publicas de militarización de la frontera EEUU-México.  En este clima político racista, los políticos de derecha extrema y racistas explotan esto utilizando al migrante como chivo expiatorio quitando el enfoque de la crisis económica y de la guerra sin fin.

Que tipo de reforma migratoria vamos a conseguir bajo estos términos?

1.    Militarización (mas aun)

2.    Mas fondos públicos utilizados para crear un falso sentido de fronteras seguras.

3.    Mas violaciones de los derechos humanos y mas migrantes muertos en la frontera.

4.    Mas racismo, mas milicias armadas blancas racistas, y mas actos de violencia contra migrantes.

5.    Violaciones de derechos civiles

6.    Impunidad por la patrulla fronteriza, ejercito, Guardia Nacional  y la formación de coaliciones con Caza-migrantes y el partido de derecha Te.

 

Las Halcones militaristas quieren mas militarización fronteriza…

“ El Congresista Cuellar dijo “vamos a necesitar cuatro o cinco naves sin piloto (UAV’s) eventualmente en Texas para cubrir la vigilancia fronteriza y las costas”.

El General mayor retirado de la Fuerza Área, y Comisionado asistente de Protección fronteriza y Aduanas de la oficina de Marina y aérea le dijo al subcomité de la Cámara de representantes que “son 24 aviones sin piloto (UAV’s) que eventualmente se necesitaran para darle cobertura a la frontera norte, sur y sus costas”.

La CBP empezó volando aviones sin piloto de Sierra Vista, Arizona sobre la frontera de California, Arizona y Nuevo México. 

El dinero de Obama para la seguridad fronteriza es para pagar por 500 nuevos oficiales de Inmigración y aduanas para “fortalecer los esfuerzos para frenar traficantes de drogas d lose carteles que se les culpa por la escalada de violencia en el norte de México” según janet Napolitano.

El Senador Cornyn dice que estos recursos  aprobados por el Congreso es un “paso en la dirección correcta” pero no es suficiente y demanda mas militarización, que resultara en mas muertes en la frontera.  Mas violaciones de derechos humanos y el crecimiento de milicias caza-migrantes.  La frontera EEUU-México es de 2,000 millas long y tiene 250 millones de cruces anualmente.  El gobierno de EEUU construyo el MURO de la muerte para físicamente cerrar la frontera sur.

Muerte a manos de la Patrulla Fronteriza

Este año el 7 de Junio, 2010 fue muerto a balazos de Sergio Adrián Hernández, joven de 14 años, muerto en la cabeza por un agente de la Patrulla Fronteriza en CD Juárez/El Paso.  Lo mato dizque por tirarle piedras.

El 31 de  Mayo, 2010 la Patrulla Fronteriza golpeo a Anastasio Hernández hasta la muerte en San Ysidro cerca de San Diego, California.  Según fue muerte a golpes por resistir su arresto.

El 2007, hombre armados dispararon a una camioneta que llevaba migrantes matando a dos hombres y una niña de 15 años.  Esto paso en  el bosque nacional conocido como Ironwood Forest National Monument.

Según el historiador, Dr. Rodolfo Acuña, entre  1988-1990 hubo 117 casos de violaciones de derechos humanos en la frontera EEUU-México.

El 2006, Guillermo Martínez Rodríguez, de 20 años, Muerto en la espalda por bala de la Patrulla Fronteriza.

El 2005 fue un año que rompió record en la muerte de Migrantes cruzando la frontera con 473 muertos en la frontera entera y de ellos 260 fueron en el estado de Arizona.

Desde el 2004 al 2009 1,086 migrantes murieron en la frontera de Arizona y esto es el resultado de una apertura en el MURO de la muerte para darle acceso a migrantes que entran al desierto del Sur de Arizona a una muerte cierta por deshidratación.

Esta política fronteriza de militarización tiene muchos paralelos con la política de EEUU sobre América Latina.  Refleja la militarización con el establecimiento de 7 bases militares en Colombia con mira a una guerra contra Venezuela. La 4ta Flota Naval de EEUU Naval y su presencia en aguas de America Latina amenaza con guerra y el derrocamiento del Presidente electo de Honduras es prueba de una guerra por Estados Unidos con el apoyo de México y Colombia.

Declaración de Grito de Excluidos/as

Compañeros y compañeras:
Anexo la Declaración del Grito de los Excluidos/as Continental previa al próximo 12 de octubre.

Este año tiene una especial significación ya que el Grito Continental llega a 10 años y a se realizará por 11° vez desde 1999, manteniendo el compromiso y la energía de luchar por un mundo humano, incluyente, democrático y justo.
Por favor divulgar este documento lo más ampliamente posible, sugerimos imprimirlo y distribuirlo entre los miembros de las organizaciones, reenviarlo por correo electrónico y colgarlo en los distintos sitios web de los movimientos. Deseamos que sea una herramienta para el debate y la consolidación de nuestras luchas.

Desde ahora invitamos a todas y todos a sumarse a la próxima Jornada de Movilización Continental del Grito de los Excluidos/as, que tendrá como sus dos ejes de convocatoria la Defensa de la Madre Tierra (sumándonos a la Jornada Mundial que tendrá lugar ese mismo día) y la lucha contra el golpe de Estado militar en Honduras y en solidaridad con el pueblo y movimientos sociales hondureños, esto además de todas las banderas locales y nacionales que los movimientos levantan y que este 12 de octubre esperamos resuenen de nuevo en un inmenso grito por Trabajo, Justicia y Vida.



Fraternalmente,

Secretaría Continental Grito de los Excluidos/as
Secretarías Regionales del Grito de los Excluidos/as (Caribe, Mesoamérica, Cono Sur y Países Andinos)
¡Por Trabajo, Justicia y Vida!

CONTACTAR: Ruben Solis Garcia grulla@swunion.org

Southwest Workers Union

PO Box 830706

San Antonio, Texas 78283

www.swunion.org

Rep. Grito de Excluidos/as EEUU.

COMPA-EEUU
Ruben Solis rubensolisgarcia@gmail.com University Sin Fronteras/SW Workers Union www.swunion.org skype: rubensolisgarcia

The Arizona Machine: Reflection on Tucson Kidnapping

23 Aug

Raúl al-qaraz Ochoa – www.antifronteras.com

It’s true. life in pre-BS 1070 Arizona is the same as post-BS 1070 Arizona.
I saw the video of yesterday’s kidnapping where young people in the south side of Tucson were forcefully separated from their dad and mom, they were taken away by Border Patrol. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ec9hxZiaKFg&feature=player_embedded
Watching this violent assault on youtube got me sick. My stomach turned into a clenched fist. The blood circulating throughout my body probably stopped flowing for a bit and it turned into boiling lava erupting from my sad and outraged heart. and all i could do was cry, cry like a baby… for those children, for that family, for my family, por mi tia, por las mamas y papas de Tucson con los que organizo, por l@s jovenes que estan tan dentro de mi corazon y rezos. Por todas ellas y ellos, y los millones que no conozco.
Almost reaching 400,000 deportations (250,000 of those being ‘non-criminal’), the Obama administration is on course to deport more people than any other president in u.s. history. His administration is following a disturbing government plan titled ”Operation Endgame”, which outlined since 2003 their goal of deporting all “removable illegal aliens by the year 2012″. This kidnapping does not represent an accident in the system, it is an intentional part of the larger plan.
The video made me feel disempowered. so overwhelmed. Imagine how it can destroy a mother and her children. It’s a trauma that never goes away. This nightmare is all too familiar to me and my family. Rage is too little of a word to describe my body’s reaction. In fact, there are no words in the english or spanish languages that can express the tremendous sense of indignation that not only shatters my every bone, it also shatters my spirit and essence as a human being in this community.
I wonder… when are we going to end powerlessness in the face of such a monstorous system? We’re up against law enforcement agents that operate under an evil state apparatus. Despite a court decision to temporarily block the “papers please” part of BS 1070, it still happens. and it will continue to happen with or without BS 1070. Clearly, if we are ever to achieve meaningful change, this oppressive machine must be entirely and completely dismantled. No court decisions, no laws or lawsuits, no elections and no public policies will ever be enough. Think of this unsuspecting family’s struggle in the larger context of white supremacy, colonization, capitalism, war and empire.
“There comes a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part, you can’t even passively take part, and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop. And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all.” (Mario Savio of the student movement of the 1960′s)
This quote rings true right now.
Mothers are being kidnapped. Fathers are being taken away on their way to work. and money is being made from their detention. CCA (Corrections Corporation of America, a private prison corporation) has infiltrated the corrupt AZ government forces and helped push for BS 1070 to pass! Deaths at the u.s.-mexico border continue to increase year after year after year as the national machine apparatus is scheduled to pour $600 million for even more border militarization!
Does this apparatus smell rotten to you? Does it make you sick at heart? Can you passively stand by as this is taking place on your clock, in your community? How would it look like for us to put our bodies upon the gears and wheels of this machine? What will it take to interrupt and completely shut down this machine? Somehow, somewhere, someday this empire machine will be taken down. It’s only a matter of perseverence and time.
I have hope. I have faith. I will continue to organize… for this machine to fall. I will continue to pray… for all of us–past, present and future.

Phoenix: Wakeup Call from the Nightmare of Manifest Destiny

27 Jul

Wakeup Call from the Nightmare of Manifest Destiny

The Jurisprudence of the Cochabamba Protocols vs. SB 1070 in Arizona

American Indian Airwaves Interview
Coyote Radio


Tupac Enrique Acosta of TONATIERRA

Challenging the “Divine Right of States”
1492 and AZ SB 1070

Wake Up Call From Manifest Destiny

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Links:
www.puenteaz.org

www.altoarizona.com

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NAHUACALLI
Embassy of the Indigenous Peoples
www.nahuacalli.org

Izkalotlan, Aztlan (Donde Vive el Espiritu de la Verdad): The West is a Guest

23 Jul

The West is a Guest

In 1848, the same year as the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ending the war between the United States and the Republic of Mexico, an experiment in techniques of colonization of the Indigenous Peoples and territories was initiated among the Donahguh (Seneca), one of the member nations of Huadenosaunee Six Nation Iroquois Confederacy.  Traditionally known as the People of the Longhouse, the Six Nations are the aboriginal sovereignty of the territories that came to be identified by the geography of the European colonizers as first New Amsterdam and then later, New York.

The experiment was spearheaded by the Christian religious group known as the Society of Friends (Quakers), who had been successful in converting some of the Senecas to their belief system.  These converted Christianized Indians were to serve as representatives of the Seneca Nation to the governments of New York and the United States under a new regime to be implemented under a tribal council established through an elective system.  In essence a political coup, displacing from the decision making power over Seneca resources, membership and policy the traditional clan system of the Longhouse that had served the Haudenosaunee for generations, the establishment of elective systems with Tribal Council identities controlled by Washington began in 1848 with the Seneca and served as the model for federal control of native lands, populations, and identity for the next century.  While these programs of colonization continue today in advanced form among the federally recognized tribes under United States jurisdiction, the resistance of the Indigenous Peoples and the resiliency of our traditional government systems has also been uninterrupted, continuing to be assertive of the Right to Self Determination by implementing our own ancestral forms of self-governance within our traditional territories.  At the international level, this technique of collective political assassination by the creation of a political entity that usurps the symbolic identity of a native nation can be seen in the establishment of the Republic of Mexico in 1836 within the orbit of Hispanic control.

In the Xicano Studies courses taught by the University of Aztlan some thirty years ago, the question was asked “How could Mexicanos become U.S. citizens by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 when U.S. naturalization laws then in effect admitted into U.S. Nationality and Citizenship only those who could fulfill the racial criteria of being “WHITE”?  These courses were sometimes assignments in self directed study, such as research missions to the primary sources of the studies by Lewis Henry Morgan; sometimes the study involved strategy and tactics of indigenous self defense such as the Wounded Knee conflict in South Dakota in February of 1973. In all cases, in all courses, the curriculum involved searching for the threads of our indigenous identity that had been shredded by 500 years of genocide and strengthening the community building capacity and skills of our movement in order to rebuild our Indigenous Nations.  Along the way we realized that there was common element in the enemy concept, a psychological strategy that was being disguised as a form of jurisprudence:  a legal system.

The Maoris of Aoteroa have called it the “jurisprudence of oppression” referring to the colonizer’s systems of law that are the psychological instruments of colonization, implemented by physical force, establishing the context of rights, responsibilities and wrongs for the human society of a particular territory.  The bottom line is that these psychological systems establish the parameters of context for behavior and thought, identifying and protecting that which is “civilized” as opposed to savage, legal as opposed to criminal.  At the international level, the systems coincide and collaborate within the context of what is described as the United Nations system, a system controlled by government states in proportion to their respective economic and military power.

All legal systems are based on the customs and traditions of the Peoples from which they derive.  We too, as Indigenous Peoples have our own systems of jurisprudence; we call them the Tradition.  What is critical, now more than ever, is an effective evaluation of the relationship of these systems to the precept of justice, expressed in terms of the reciprocal nature of our global humanity.

Our tradition as Xicanos teaches that the principle of equilibrium within the ecosystems of the universe of the FOUR DIRECTIONS is integral to the concept of justice in the human realm.  This for us – defines for us, the courtroom of our collective community judgment. Self definition is the precept of self determination, and warrants self defense in terms of the current global campaigns of psychological warfare that dominate the agenda of the so called “civilized world”.

From this courtroom, from the OrigiNations themselves, a Warrant of Arrest is issued: not to incarcerate but to Liberate.  From within, the swirling space of sacred elements resonates with a voice that emerges from the future generations: the voice is echoed byTotatonatiuh (Father Sun) and Tonantzin (Mother Earth).  It is not one, but all Nations under God, and in terms of Civilization, here, on this our homeland as Indigenous Peoples – the West is a Guest.

Tupac Enrique Acosta

chantlaca@tonatierra.org

TONATIERRA

www.tonatierra.com

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Arizona: SB 1070 Is Not a Law

20 Jul

1070
Is Not a Law 

Word from an Elder Tupac Enrique Acosta
 
When in the course of Human Events, it becomes necessary for the Voice of the Peoples to be heard, and their presence as members all of the PUBLIC to be recognized as Human Beings with equal right of self identification and self determination as PEOPLES of the Nations and Pueblos of Mother Earth, such jurisprudence demands that at the present time the clarification be boldly made and convincingly argued that:
 
AZ SB1070 IS NOT RECOGNIZED AS LAW,
 
Being instead an ill-conceived and illegitimate product of state sanctioned racial profiling in the form of an unacceptable act of legislation, which is to the detriment of the common well being of all members of the State of Arizona, and which without recognition as law by the Peoples of Arizona, is hereby denounced and shall be defied in the
 
Spirit of Nonviolent Peaceful Resistance.
 
AZ SB 1070 a product of the tragically flawed legislative process of collusion and illegal manipulation of the powers of representative government to the benefit of an illegitimate and immoral power structure of historical complicity built upon the discriminatory principles of Manifest Destiny, whose precedent in the form of the Doctrine of Discovery we also now reject once more and shall continue to challenge as a deformation of our COMMON HUMANITY, which we share with All Our Relatives from the:
 
Four Directions of Mother Earth.

*******

TRIBUNAL de los PUEBLOS
PEOPLES TRIBUNAL
Sábado  Septiembre  11, 2010  Saturday
Juicio Comunitario de Rectificación
Community Judgment of Rectification
Re:
Violaciones de Los
Derechos Civiles – Civil Rights
Derechos Humanos – Human Rights
Derechos Indígenas – Indigenous Rights
Derechos de la Madre Tierra
Rights of Mother Earth
En los territorios del
Tratado de Guadalupe Hidalgo (US-Mexico 1848)
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Links
www.nahuacalli.org/News.html
www.nahuacalli.org/Abya_Yala.html
YouTube:
Columbus is Not a Day

AZ SB

Ipalnemoani: That For What We Live For

26 Jun

Column of the Americas

Ipalnemoani: That For What We Live For

By Roberto Dr. Cintli Rodriguez

As we prepare to get arrested as a result of the passage of a new anti-ethnic studies law in Arizona, several attorneys explain to about 30-40 of us in Tucson’s state building the consequences of getting arrested. As such, the numbers are winnowed down to 15 due to legal reasons, parental authority, age, etc. Many of those making these decisions are middle and high school and college students.

All of us who remain on the 2nd floor have thoughts racing through our minds. As I think about why I will get arrested, all I can think of is the Nahuatl concept of Ipalnemoani: That for what we live for – or the Maya concept of Hunab Ku.

We can summons all the linguists and all the great philosophers of the world, but in the end, their translations will not suffice. It is meaning that I am looking for, not words. This is about who we are and about what makes us human. At this time, it boils down to one question: What in life is worth getting arrested for?

For those of us here, the right to our own narrative – the right to memory – is one of them.

The decision to get arrested is a collective one. These youngsters are courageous and determined to defend that which is theirs: a department (Ethnic/Mexican American Studies) that affirms who they are as full human beings – as peoples with a thousands-of-years culture, history and philosophy on this very continent.

Perhaps another 200 protestors on the first floor are also subject to arrest because they are also participating in a boisterous demonstration inside the state building. It is here where the state superintendant, Tom Horne – who spearheaded this law – has taken refuge after he failed to show up at Tucson Unified School District headquarters where perhaps 1,000 students surrounded that building.

Now in the heat of summer, that question – as to what triggers a decision to get arrested – is foremost on peoples’ minds, especially here in Arizona. It has come to that.

Several weeks before the racial profiling law (SB 1070) was signed, nine students and community members chained themselves to the state capitol and got arrested (The charges have since been dropped). After the 15 of us got arrested for criminal trespass, the week after that, five Dream students and community organizers staged a sit-in at Sen. John McCain’s office in Tucson. All subjected themselves to historic arrests – exposing themselves to deportation. Then a week later, a dozen members of the statewide O’odham Solidarity Across Borders Collective took over and occupied the Border Patrol Headquarters in Tucson (http://oodhamsolidarity.blogspot.com/). Six were arrested for Disorderly Conduct and Criminal Trespass.

This flurry of arrests highlights and brings to the fore what is happening in this insane asylum called Arizona, including the forthcoming attempt to void the 14th Amendment, which guarantees birthright citizenship to all those born in this country. This is also happening amid the constant arrival of racial and political extremists to this state.

As Arizona gets more insane, we have arrived at a moral precipice. Soon, others will face the same question; beyond protesting, people will ask: what am I willing to get arrested for?

In other countries, and at other points in history, this has triggered a different question: What am I willing to fight and die for? Here, that question has been inverted: What am I willing to live for? That such a question is being contemplated tells us that many people here are not content with simply sending emails or blasting text messages to our senators, etc.

And thus, as the anti-Mexican/anti-Indigenous and anti-immigrant hate-and-fear drums continue to increase in volume, the Obama administration capitulates by continuing to further militarize the border. This Arpaioization of not simply the border, but the nation, continues to elicit an unprecedented response. Human rights activists nationwide have united to boycott the state, while more than 100,000 recently protested in Phoenix.

As July 29 fast approaches, the date when the racial profiling law will take effect, people in Arizona, but also nationwide, will face a life-changing decision (We will also face that decision on Jan 1, 2011, the date when the anti-ethnic studies law goes into effect). Will we commit to mass civil disobedience or will we lack the courage as happened when Americans sat idly by as their fellow Japanese American citizens were illegally and inhumanely marched off to camps during World War II?

This is when history calls upon all of us to make that momentous decision. This time around, hopefully, the right decision will be made.

Rodriguez, an assistant professor at the university of Arizona, can be reached at: XColumn@egmail.com

From Manifest Destiny to Manifest Insanity

23 Jun

By Roberto Dr. Cintli Rodriguez

As a result of several recent draconian laws, Arizona’s image has taken a drubbing internationally. And yet, Arizona is but the spear. In reality, its politics are not that dramatically different from other states and not that different from Washington. That more than a dozen states are waiting in the wings with copycat legislation and that the Obama administration continues to view migration through a law enforcement and military prism is plenty proof.

Those politics, fueled by hateful and cowardly politicians and the hate-radio universe, are undeniably anti-Mexican and anti-immigrant. Yet in truth, they actually are anti-Indigenous. In effect, the politics that we are seeing are undeniably but an extension of Manifest Destiny. Its modern expression is a Manifest Insanity – an attempt to maintain the myth of America – conceived of as a promise of a pristine, God-given home – reserved for English-speaking White Anglo Saxon Protestants, this amid the “browning” of the nation.

These Arizona laws are part of a spasmodic reaction to this demographic shift, an attempt to maintain a political and cultural dominance over [brown] peoples seen as less than human and as defeated peoples. These laws seek to maintain this narrative of conquest. This is why the loss of lives of some 5,000 Mexicans and Central Americans – primarily Indigenous peoples ––in the Arizona/Sonora desert in the past dozen years, mean little in this clash.  The same is true in regards to the recent killings of two Mexicans by U.S. agents along the U.S./Mexico border.

For those who are attempting to uphold this dominance, this browning represents a time reversal – a cultural and political reversal of the so-called triumph of Western Civilization. This is what Arizona represents; a civilizational clash and a clash of narratives over the myth of America itself. Nothing less.

Rodolfo Acuña, author of Occupied America, came to Arizona last week, offering a stark reminder about this clash. His book – along with Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed – has been at the center of the anti-ethnic studies firestorm and law – HB 2281 – signed last month by Gov. Jan Brewer (She had signed SB 1070 – the racial profiling law – the previous month). The controversy surrounding his book has been fueled by an extreme Eurocentric ignorance. For several years, State Superintendent, Tom Horne, has been pushing an “Americanization” agenda, insisting that Arizona students be exposed only to “Greco-Roman” knowledge. Knowledge centered elsewhere is generally considered subversive and un-American, including Mesoamerican or Maize knowledge – knowledge that is Indigenous to this continent It is this knowledge that is at the philosophical heart of Mexican American or Raza Studies. Arizona is not alone in this insanity; Texas Education officials recently banned the inclusion of labor leader Dolores Huerta in Texas school curriculums.

Horne, via HB 2281, has long-claimed that Raza Studies preaches hate, results in segregation and promotes anti-Americanism and the violent overthrow of the U.S. government. Truth is, he has had a vendetta against Raza Studies since Dolores Huerta proclaimed in 2006 at Tucson High that Republicans “hate Latinos.” Horne, who constantly denigrates her as “Cesar Chavez’s former girlfriend,” and his allies have spent the past several years trying to prove her right.

As Acuña found out in Arizona, for some, having a different philosophical center, in and of itself, constitutes a threat to this cultural and political domination. More than that, it threatens the national narrative of having tamed a wild, savage and empty continent… of having conquered, exterminated and civilized “the Indians.”

Enter Occupied America and it upsets the carefully crafted myth and narrative of the United States as the land of freedom and democracy or Paradise on Earth.

Raza Studies critics in Arizona – including media professionals – are barely familiar with Acuña’s book (He matter-of-factly tells them to read his book before attacking). At best, they spar over its title and a few catch phrases (mistranslating La Raza to mean “The Race” as opposed to “The People”) and attempt to denigrate an entire discipline on the basis of their ignorance. Yet, at the core, the critics are correct. Ethnic Studies indeed is a threat to the myth of America – the mythical America where genocide, land theft, slavery and dehumanization are denied or are but mere footnotes, as opposed to being the recognized foundation of this nation (Unchallenged, this glossed-over view is what permits U.S. citizens to view permanent war as a God-given birthright). With such a denial, the concept of Occupied America – an occupied continent – becomes unfathomable. The narrative of an empty continent, incidentally, is what permits the myth of “no occupation.”

The best Raza Studies critics do is attempt to dehumanize Mexicans/Chicanos. In their conjured up narrative, Mexicans/Chicanos are neither legitimate Americans, nor legitimate human beings. Neither are they afforded the status of Indigenous peoples; at best, they are mongrels, undeserving of full human rights. This dominant narrative is dependent upon this process of de-Indigenization and dehumanization. Those of us that cannot be deported (can’t wait for next year’s Arizona battle over the 14th amendment and birthright citizenship) are welcome here, as long as we participate in our own assimilation or ethnic cleansing and are happily subservient and willing to accept this nation’s mythologized narrative.

That’s the definition of Manifest Insanity.

Rodriguez, an assistant professor at the University of Arizona, can be reached at: XColumn@gmail.com

Column of the Americas
PO BOX 85476
Tucson, AZ 85754

ARCHIVED COLUMN OF THE AMERICAS
http://web.me.com/columnoftheamericas

CONAIE Presents Demands of Indigenous Peoples at National Assembly of Ecuador

23 Jun

TONATIERRA

Press Release

For Immediate Release
Date:  Tuesday June 22, 2010
Contact: Tupac Enrique Acosta  [Ecuador] 095061301
Email: chantlaca@tonatierra.org

From Quito to Cancun: The Declaration of Interdependence

Confederation of Indigenous Nations of Ecuador presents demands for Halt to Extractive Resource Mining in the Amazon and for Constitutional Reformation of Ecuador as a
Pluri-national State at the National Assembly in Quito

 Quito, Ecuador – Acting in representation of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), president Marlon Santi delivered a petition yesterday to the President of the National Assembly of Ecuador demanding recognition, respect, and constitutional protection for the Territorial Rights, Rights of Self Government, and the Right of Self Determination of the Nations and Pueblos of the Indigenous Peoples of Ecuador.

The delivery of the demands, presented on the floor of the National Assembly came after a two week trek by the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadorian Amazon (CONFEINIAE) to the Andean highlands of Quito, with pregnant women forming part of the delegation, and within the context of a continental celebration of the historic 1990 Indigenous Uprising in Ecuador.  The 1990 Indigenous Uprising, which paralyzed the entire country as thousands of Indigenous Peoples across Ecuador blocked roads and took direct action to address the demand to bring an end to racism and colonization of the Indigenous Nations, set the stage for the 1992 continental resistance by Indigenous Peoples in opposition to the plans to glorify the genocide of Indigenous Peoples via the Columbus Quincentennial Celebrations organized by the government states of the Americas.

Presenting themselves as the legitimate representatives of the voice of the Indigenous Governments, the CONAIE moves once again into the forefront of the continental indigenous movement, challenging now what has been termed the “Divine Right of States” in reference to the policy of government states in the Americas to assume plenary powers of state control and licensing for extractive mining over the natural resources in the territories of the Nations and Pueblos of Indigenous Peoples.  Of particular and priority concern is the national legislation in Ecuador regarding the water systems of the country, and the international regional mega-projects of resource exploitation including water systems which are threatening the sustainability of the ecology and self determination of Indigenous Peoples.

A principle demand of the CONFEINIAE is to call for halt to mining and petroleum extraction in the Amazon.  The Shuar Nation, members of the Confederacy of the Boa has vowed to battle to the death to protect their territories in defense of the Pachamama (Mother Earth).

Moving into the frame of a meeting of the ALBA countries to take place in Otavalo this week, the Indigenous Continental Movement is consolidating a proposal for effective engagement and rectification with the global economy based on respect for the Rights of Mother Earth.

The ALBA, Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra América groups together an economic bloc associated with socialist and social democratic governments and is an attempt at regional economic integration based on a vision of social welfare, bartering and mutual economic aid, rather than trade liberalization as with free trade agreements.  ALBA nations are in the process of introducing a new regional currency, the SUCRE. It is intended to be the common virtual currency by 2010 and eventually a hard currency.

A continental economic development strategy based not on the concept of “Development” but instead on the Indigenous Peoples concepts of Sumak Kawsay, “Living with wellness” is in the process of articulation.  A first phase in the articulation of the plan begins with the Protection of Sacred Sites, Waterways, recognition of the Rights of Migratory Workers, along with implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples continentally with a fundamental recognition of mutual obligations and shared responsibilities to protect the Rights of Mother Earth.

The hosting of the ALBA meeting in Ecuador at a time when the Indigenous Peoples of the country are in open conflict with the policies of the government of President Rafael Correa, presents a challenge by the Indigenous Peoples demanding clarification of criteria in the process of defining of economic development policies by the government states in Latin American.

The diverse representations of Nations and Pueblos of Indigenous Peoples of the continent from Canada to Tierra del Fuego who attended the Kuntur Anka Pachacutic last week here in Ecuador, are calling for realization and the exercise of the Right of Self Determination in this process of clarifying criteria by proclaiming the Protocols of Cochabamba as a fundamental standard of relationship to the Mother Earth and the natural world, from a local to global context that originates with the ancestral and sacred relationship of the Indigenous Peoples to their territories and responsibilities as caretakers and defenders of the Rights of Mother Earth.  The Protocols of Cochabamba are derivatives of the World Peoples Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth which took place in Cochabamba, Bolivia in April of 2010.

Realization and implementation of the Cochabamba Protocols begins to address the root cause of global colonization, namely the commodification and privatization of the material world that has driven the global economy to climate crisis, including global warming caused by capitalistic industrial development, exploitive economic practices and terracide.  In complement to this process, TONATIERRA has communicated directly to the leadership of the CONAIE the Declaration of Interdependence which was proclaimed in Phoenix, Arizona on May 29, 2010 subsequent to the National March for Human Rights which drew 100,000 participants in condemnation of the officialization of racial profiling by state authorities.

The Declaration of Interdependence is a CHACANA (organic conceptual formation) of four ecological principles that projects Respect, Inclusivity, Complementarity, and Self Determination as essential elements for the holistic realization of the Right of Self Determination for Humanity, and as a necessary platform for effective grassroots global strategy to address the issues of climate change, global warming, climate chaos and the Rights of Mother Earth.

To this end, the CONAIE has announced a parallel encounter during the ALBA event in Otavalo, Ecuador this week and has made compact with the Continental Council of the Confederacy of Nations and Pueblos of Abya Yala to advance from the traditional jurisdictions of the Kuntur Anka Pachacutic to exercise the implementation of the Cochabamba Protocols, via the CHACANA of the Declaration of Interdependence.  Regional actions of implementation by the Nations and Pueblos of Abya Yala will continue to press forward continentally and globally with intentions of bringing the process of clarification of criteria to the next global Conference of the Parties (COP16) of the UN Climate Change conference to be in November in Cancun, Mexico.

www.tonatierra.org

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Articles:

El Levantamiento Indigena de Ecuador 1990-2010

Links:

Kuntur Anka Pachacutic

Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador – CONAIE

World Peoples Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth

DEMAND JUSTICE FOR SERGIO ADRIAN HERNANDEZ HUERECA!

23 Jun

On Monday evening, 14-year-old Sergio Adrian Hernandez Huereca was shot and killed by a Border Patrol Officer at an international bridge near downtown El Paso, Texas. The boy was unarmed, but the officer claims he used deadly force in self-defense. Meanwhile, witnesses claim that Sergio was running from the agent when lethal bullet struck his head.

Currently, the Federal Bureau of Investigations in El Paso is investigating the incident, and you can view their press release here.

However, we are calling on the White House to conduct an independent investigation of the killing.

- We demand an investigation that doesn’t start by equating the issue of immigration with border violence and drug trafficking.

- We demand the Obama administration to understand that there is a human rights crisis on the border and the overwhelming majority of immigrants crossing into the U.S. are victims, not perpetrators, of that crisis.

- We demand President Obama to stop appeasing the far right fringe with enforcement-first immigration policy (he recently promised 1,200 National Guard Troops and a request for $500 million for border enforcement).

Instead, the President should endorse legislation that provides a path to citizenship for the estimated 12 million Americans in Waiting currently living and working in the US without political equality. Furthermore, the President should unequivocally end the local enforcement of immigration law that is criminalizing our immigrant communities.

Violence is the inevitable result of dehumanization. When people are deemed “illegal,” when entire communities are criminalized, and when the border is militarized, then it’s easy for society to look the other way when a 14 year old “illegal” boy gets shot in the head by Border Patrol.

Please join us in demanding a proper investigation – one that has some teeth – into the death of young Sergio Adrian Hernandez Huereca.

President Barack Obama
Phone:(202) 456-1111
Fax:(202) 456-2461

Via AltoArizona! Blog

Phoenix: Please help me make my Dream a reality!

16 Jun

harvard-header-bigger.jpg

Testimony presented by Silvia Rodriguez before Congress on June 10th, 2010 [via Harvard, Si Se Puede! Blog] :

My name is Silvia Rodriguez I will be 23 years old later this month. I was brought to Arizona from Mexico over 20 years ago, when my family came in search for a better life. We entered the country with visas, which later expired. Our family lived like every other family, my mother and father worked, my brother and sister both US citizens and I, grew up with the children around us. I learned English at a young age from a purple dinosaur, enjoyed pizza, and pool parties with friends. But our lives at home were not ideal.

When I was 13 I decided that enough was enough. The way my mother was being treated was not right.  The continual physical, emotional, and verbal abuse that my father inflicted upon my mother drove me to call the police. After this, my family was able to live in relative peace and safety for a short period of time. The strong anti-immigrant climate of hate in Arizona is worse and becoming normalized. Policies such as 287(g) and SB1070 make it impossible for families going through domestic violence to seek help. As a young woman if I currently experienced domestic violence, I by no means would call the police on someone that was threatening our lives. For fear of the well-known abuses and violation of human rights in Maricopa county jails, as well as the eminent disintegration of my family.

Things did not get better, when I wanted to get a driving permit, apply for scholarships to attend college, or register to vote.  My mom brought me to reality by telling me that our families’ visas had expired. Since my siblings are US citizens, I was the only one left out completely lacking the ‘appropriate’ documents necessary to exist in this society.

Due to my determination I was able to attend Arizona State University and graduate Cum Laude last year in 2009 with two BA’s one in Political Science and another in Transborder Chicana/o Latina/o Studies. During those four years my scholarships were taken away three times, I did not qualify for federal, state, or university financial aid. I was charged out of state tuition by the state I had grown up in. On the other hand, I received the Cesar Chavez Leadership Award in 2006 for my community service and leadership from then governor Janet Napolitano, who is now the head of Home Land Security.

The terrorizing raids from Sheriff Joe Arpaio in our community forced my family to flee the state my last year of college. We had only one week to erase the 20 years we had contributed to Phoenix.

While this left me with out a car, home, or family I now understand that it pushed me outside the bounds of my mental limits. Being that I have been accepted to start my Masters at Harvard University this fall.  Its ironic that the most prestigious university in the world has invited me in, has stated that I am welcomed, and believes that I am of value in this society, yet the state that I call home criminalized me, dehumanizes me, and makes me feel unworthy of existing let alone of an education. I ask that congress pass the Dream Act now, so that students like me can once again feel worthy and proud of the education they receive. I have done nothing wrong, I have not broken any laws, I did not have control where I was born, or what my parents did with me at the age of two. I refuse to be labeled a criminal, an illegal, or even undocumented.

As I stand with my community, with Dream Act students, and the state of Arizona, we are crying out for help. We cry out for justice. We cry out for respect, and we defend our dignity here in Washington DC, and at home. End 287(g) agreements in the country, put an end to SB1070 in Arizona, prevent similar bills in other states, and pass the Dream Act as a stand-alone bill.

Thank you.

Silvia Rodriguez

Master’s of Arts in Education Candidate
Class of 2011
Harvard University

El Paso: ¿HASTA CUANDO?

11 Jun

¿HASTA CUANDO?

De nueva cuenta el odio y la xenofobia se manifiestan, ahora en la ciudad de San Isidro, California y en ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, le tocó al señor Anastacio Hernández Rojas, trabajador de la construcción, en San Diego, California, y con 25 años de residir, sin documentos que lo autoricen a trabajar y vivir en los Estados Unidos, por esa razón y derivado de una infracción de tránsito, fue deportado a México, deportación a la que se resistió el señor Anastacio Hernández, por considerar que sus hijos habían nacido en Estados Unidos, consideración no válida para la Border Patrol, quienes con saña inaudita sometieron al señor Hernández, hasta causarle la muerte, disparándole con pistola eléctrica que despide hasta 5000 voltios de carga, causándole daños irreversibles que le provocaron la muerte a los pocos días.

Posteriormente se trasmite un video casero, donde se alcanzan a percibir gritos desgarradores y llenos de dolor, rogándole a los pretorianos de la Border Patrol, que ya no lo flagelaran, todo fue inútil, fue lapidado hasta su desfallecimiento.

Nunca podré  entender como puede incubarse tanto odio y desprecio por el ser humano, la vida Dios nos la dio para vivirla, sufrirla y gozarla, y el único que puede disponer de ella es el Gran Arquitecto Del Universo, atribución que se acredita para si cualquier cuerpo policíaco del mundo; ahora solo falta saber si habrá castigo para los responsables.

En ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, pasó por lo mismo el niño Sergio Adrián Hernández con la salvedad que este jovencito contaba apenas con 14 años de edad, el error de este menor, fue asomarse y presenciar como le lanzaban piedras desde el lado mexicano, algunos jóvenes, a los elementos de la patrulla fronteriza, de inmediato Sergio Adrián fue avistado y puesto en la mira de la pavorosa escuadra del elemento de la patrulla fronteriza (lamento no mencionar el calibre de dicha escuadra, no me fue posible conseguirlo) quien sin consideración alguna descargó su frustración y su coraje en contra del menor Sergio Adrián, volándole la tapa de los sesos.

Según las primeras investigaciones, el guardia fronterizo disparó desde el lado mexicano, esto se desprende por los casquillos recién percutidos encontrados muy cerca del cuerpo de la víctima, la investigación aún no concluye pero de ser así, no se cual sería la explicación en las oficinas de la patrulla fronteriza.

En casos como el que nos ocupa es muy común que el autor de los hechos, sea asignado a trabajo de oficina, donde seguirá gozando de sus beneficios laborales y consecuentemente seguirá contando con el apoyo de sus compañeros de labores, que seguramente lo seguirán estimulando con las siguientes frases de aliento: “Don´t worry” (no te preocupes), “You did right” (hiciste lo debido), “You will come out” (tu saldrás de esto), “You did your job” (hiciste tu trabajo), “You kept your duty” (cumpliste con tu deber); finalmente solo fue un mexicano mas.

Por último falta saber si los millones de dólares que pagamos los millones de mexicanos por concepto de visa lasser y demás servicios migratorios, sirven para adquirir el armamento con que somos agredidos y ultimados ¿HASTA CUANDO?

Rubén Rolando Ríos González

rriosrevolucion@hotmail.com

10 de junio de 2010.

VIGILIA BINACIONAL PARA SERGIO ADRIAN HERNÁNDEZ HUERECA- El Paso, TX 8:30PM, WED. June 9

10 Jun

PARA LIBERACIÓN INMEDIATA
FECHA: MIÉRCOLES, 9 de JUNIO, 2010

HORA: 8:30 P.M.

LUGAR: PUENTE NEGRO (CERCA DEL PUENTE SANTA FE)

Sergio Adrian Hernández Huereca, adolesente mexicano de 14 años, fue asesinado por un agente de la Patrulla Fronteriza el Lunes 9 de Junio cercas del Puente Negro. Este no es ni un incidente aislado ni una aberración, este acto inhumano refelja el sentimiento anti-inmigrante visto en este pais y los patrones de violencia y abuso en la frontera, charesteristicas de las regiones militarizadas de frontera.

En respuesta a este acto violento por la patrulla fronteriza, las comunidades en ambos lados de la frontera se reuniran hoy en la noche en vigilia y solidaridad con la familia del joven asesinado por la patrulla fronteriza. Demandamos justicia y responsabilidad por el crimen aterrorisante por la patrulla fronteriza en contra de nuestras comunidades! Invitamos a los miembros de las comunidades en Juarez y El Paso a que nos acompañen en esta vigilia. Les pedimos que porfavor se vistan de negro y traigan velas.

On Monday, June 9, 2010, Sergio Adrian Hernández Huereca, a 14-year-old Juarense, was shot dead by a Border Patrol agent near the Puente Negro.  Neither an isolated incident nor aberration, this reprehensible act reflects larger antimigrant attitudes and longstanding patterns of violence and abuse characteristic of the border region.

In response, individuals on both sides of the border will gather tonight in solidarity with the youth and his loved ones to mourn his death and to demand justice and accountability for such a heinous crime.  We invite members of the El Paso and Juárez communities to join us in mindful reflection.  We ask that participants wear black and bring candles.

PARA MÁS INFORMACIÓN LLAME A:
Zelene Pineda – 713.499.9083
Mikey Velarde – 915.538.9973

organizado por Fronteriz@s de Abajo en Movimiento

International: MIGUA – Pídele al Presidente Barack Obama el TPS para Guatemala

10 Jun

MIGUA: Movimiento de Inmigrantes Guatemaltecos en los Estados Unidos

COMUNICADO DE PRENSA

9 de junio de 2010

Para difusión inmediata

Contactos:

Edgar Ayala ayaladesign@sbcglobal.net (510) 332-4187; Oakland, CA

Carlos Gómez cargoand25@sbcglobal.net (773) 610-3053; Chicago IL

Claudia Carias julialapo@yahoo.com (646) 220-2460; New York

http://www.miguainfo.blogspot.com

La tormenta Tropical Agatha golpeó a Centro América el 29 de Mayo de 2010 causando gran devastación, especialmente en Guatemala que al mismo tiempo sufrió una erupción volcánica que botó millones de toneladas de arena sobre una cuarta parte del país y recibió la mayor cantidad de lluvia de su historia en una pocas horas.  LA DEVASTACION ES TERIBLE.  Es hora que el Gobierno de EE.UU. otorgue el Estatus de Protección Temporal  (TPS por sus siglas en inglés) para que las y los inmigrantes guatemaltecos no sean deportados a un país que no los puede recibir y les otorgue el mismo trato que El Salvador y Honduras recibieron bajo similares circunstancias en años pasados.

Ante la presión de los inmigrantes guatemaltecos en Estados Unidos, el Gobierno de Guatemala presentó oficialmente la petición de TPS ante la Administración Obama, el 4 de junio.  El 50% ya se logró.  Ahora nos corresponde a las y los inmigrantes y al pueblo de EE.UU. pedirle al presidente Barack Obama el Justo TPS para Guatemala!.

Pídele al Presidente Barack Obama el TPS para Guatemala: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact

Comments: 202-456-1111 Switchboard: 202-456-1414 FAX: 202-456-2461

ANTE LA POSIBILIDAD DE QUE LA ADMINISTRACION OBAMA APRUEBE UN TPS PARA GUATEMALA Y DEBIDO A LA INCERTIDUMBRE QUE ESTO HA GENERADO.

MIGUA HACE SABER A LA COMUNIADA INMIGRANTE GUATEMALTECA:

1.     Que en vista que este remedió legal conocido por sus siglas en inglés como TPS ya ha sido presentado de forma formal por el gobierno de Guatemala, ante el de EE.UU.

2.     Y que el TPS todavía no ha sido aprobado y NO existe un 100% de certeza que el Presidente Barack Obama lo autorice

3.     Y puesto que hay incertidumbre sobre las reglas y los requisitos legales para que un individuo pudiera solicitarlo en caso de ser aprobado por EE.UU.

MIGUA HACE LA SIGUIENTE ADVERTENCIA:

  • NO entregar dinero a ningúna persona que ofrezca “tramitar” o “llenar una solicitud” del TPS para los guatemaltecos puesto que todavía no ha sido aprobado
  • Que para informarse sobre los requisitos del TPS, NO hay que contratar a un abogado(a) ya que existen organizacines de inmigrantes en EE.UU. que pueden ofrecer esa informacion, no obstante, sugerimos no abrumar a estas organizaciones antes de tiempo; tampoco abrumar a los Consulados de Guatemala en EE.UU. sobre un remedio inmigratorio que todavía no existe para las y los guatemaltecos
  • Que el TPS NO es una residencia permanente sino simplemente una suspensión temporal de deportación, y que al igual que en otros procesos de solicitud de ajuste inmigratorio, el o la solicitante deben llenar ciertos requisitos, incluyendo: a) el que el o la inmigrante no halla sido previamente procesado penalmente por un delito grave (“felony” en inglés); b) no haber cometido dos faltas (“misdemeanor” en inglés); ó, c) no haber cometido crímenes graves antes de arribar a los EE.UU. como robo, trafico o posesión de drogas ilegales, disparo de arma de fuego, entre otros.

Nuevamente MIGUA encomia al gobierno de Guatemala por hacer eco a nuestras sugerencias sobre solicitar un TPS como algo viable y oportuno en estos momentos.  El clamor de la comuniad guatemalteca y la esperanza porque se logre el TPS se han multiplicado y decenas de organizaciones guatemaltecas y otros grupos pro inmigrantes continúan sumandose a este esfuerzo, sin embargo, no podemos olvidarnos de quienes sufrieron en carne propia la devastación en Guatemala y que hoy irónicamente han abierto la posibilidad de una solución migratoria para nuestra comunidad inmigrante en EE.UU.. Nuestra solidaridad material y agradecimiento van para todas y todos ustedes.

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