antiracismdsa

World Financial Crisis

2012-02-12T21:19:00.000-08:00

El Consejo de la Internacional Socialista celebró un encuentro en San José, Costa Rica, los días 23 y 24 de enero, contando con su partido miembro en ese país, el Partido Liberación Nacional (PLN) como anfitrión, y con la presencia de líderes y delegados de partidos socialdemócratas, laboristas y socialistas de diversas regiones del mundo (lista de participantes). La reunión, que tuvo como temas principales la actual crisis financiera mundial y el cambio climático, ambas materias hoy en el centro de las preocupaciones del movimiento socialdemócrata, contó con la participación de S.E. Laura Chinchilla, Presidenta de la República de Costa Rica en la sesión inaugural. El Consejo discutió asimismo el fortalecimiento de la Internacional, con miras al XXIV Congreso de la organización que se celebrará este año.

Apertura

Al iniciar las sesiones de esta primera reunión del Consejo en Costa Rica, el Secretario General de la IS Luis Ayala saludó los numerosos logros del PLN durante sus diferentes periodos en gobierno, que han hecho de este país, dijo, un buen ejemplo del éxito de las políticas socialdemócratas. Los socialdemócratas, enfatizó, se encontraban globalmente hoy en la vanguardia, ofreciendo un liderazgo progresista y proponiendo soluciones a las crisis financiera y climática, y esta reunión del Consejo era una muy buena oportunidad para definir juntos las actuales prioridades y los objetivos para hacerles frente desde nuestra propia visión y compromiso. Agradeció al PLN por acoger la reunión e invitó a su presidente a dirigirse al Consejo.

A nombre del partido anfitrión, Bernal Jiménez extendió una calurosa bienvenida a Costa Rica a todos los participantes (discurso). El presidente del partido expresó la satisfacción y el orgullo que sentía el PLN de recibir a la organización global de los socialdemócratas en su país, la democracia más antigua y con menos interrupciones en América Latina, la cual, expresó, aspiraba a llegar a niveles neutros de carbono para el año 2021 y que durante los últimos 62 años no ha tenido un ejército, dando en cambio prioridad al estado de bienestar. Durante muchos años, agregó, el PLN había estado en gobierno llevando adelante políticas que reflejaban los valores y principios de la Internacional y sus partidos miembros, y continuaría desempeñando un activo papel en la vida de esta organización.

En su intervención de apertura, el Presidente de la IS George Papandreou felicitó a la Presidenta Chinchilla y agradeció a Bernal Jiménez y al PLN, por ser una fuerza de progreso y prosperidad para Costa Rica y su pueblo, y que ha convertido al país en un ejemplo de políticas medioambientales sanas y de protección de la riqueza natural del mundo. Refiriéndose a las características políticas de la crisis financiera, señaló la urgente necesidad de que los mercados trabajen por el bien común y de mantener el proceso democrático sobre los especuladores y otros que erosionan la estabilidad financiera y el crecimiento de la economía real. El presidente de la IS destacó asimismo el compromiso de la Internacional de promover las políticas que se requieren para superar la actual crisis y hacer una diferencia con respecto al cambio climático.

La Presidenta Chinchilla en su discurso, expresó su satisfacción de estar entre representantes de partidos pertenecientes a la familia socialdemócrata provenientes de todas las regiones del mundo. Costa Rica, explicó, era un país en el cual la importancia del desarrollo sostenible se comprendía plenamente y donde los recursos humanos eran el activo más valorado. La fuerza de tal desarrollo sostenible con énfasis en la calidad de los recursos humanos había permitido a Costa Rica diversificar su producción y llegar a ser más competitiva, lo que era vital en tiempos de turbulencias económicas. La Presidenta destacó que a través de seis décadas Costa Rica había priorizado el gasto público en el mejoramiento de las condiciones de vida de la gente, ahorrando los recursos que se hubieran gastado en armas y soldados para investirlos en salud y educación, prioridades de los socialdemócratas a través del mundo.

Redefinendo los mercados en una democracia

La discusión de la agenda del Consejo comenzó con un discurso de fondo del ex Presidente de Guatemala, Alvaro Colom, quien reflexionó sobre los logros de su administración en la lucha contra la pobreza y el narcotráfico en ese país durante los últimos cuatro años. Puso énfasis en la importancia que la Unidad Nacional de la Esperanza había asignado a la defensa de las libertades políticas e individuales en Guatemala, las cuales estaban en peligro de ser erosionadas bajo la nueva administración. A este respecto, el Secretario General de la IS llamó la atención del Consejo sobre una reciente declaración de la IS expresando profunda preocupación por el hostigamiento político y las restricciones para viajar que se habían impuesto en los días previos al Consejo a Sandra Torres Casanova, miembro de la dirección del partido, lo cual la impidió de asistir a la reunión.

Otra persona invitada especialmente como orador de fondo proveniente de Centroamérica, fue el miembro de la dirección del FMLN y Presidente del Parlamento de El Salvador, Sigfrido Reyes. Durante la primera sesión, los delegados escucharon también las intervenciones del Presidente Honorario de la IS Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas (PRD, México) y del Vice-Presidente de la IS Alfred Gusenbauer (SPÖ, Austria), ambos miembros de la Comisión de la IS sobre Asuntos Financieros Globales, la cual se ha reunido con regularidad desde el año 2008 como un foro de intercambio de opiniones y puntos de vista sobre la crisis financiera bajo la presidencia del laureado con el premio Nobel Joseph Stiglitz.

A más de tres años del comienzo de la crisis financiera global, se ha hecho evidente que los problemas económicos son ahora más profundos que nunca. El crecimiento de la economía global disminuye, y los ciudadanos a través del mundo sufren con el aumento del desempleo y recortes a los servicios públicos. Iniciativas y decisiones que han sido demandadas por la Internacional Socialista por largo tiempo, tales como el rediseño de la arquitectura financiera global, una mejor regulación, la promoción del crecimiento sostenible y el refuerzo de la protección social, son más cruciales que nunca. Todos estas materias aparecieron claramente en las contribuciones hechas por los miembros de la Comisión, líderes de partidos y otros delegados sobre el primer tema principal de la agenda, ‘Redefiniendo el papel del mercado en una democracia y superando la crisis con crecimiento en la economía real’ (lista completa de oradores).

Luego de un constructivo debate sobre la economía global, una resolución del Consejo fue adoptada unánimemente, resaltando las prioridades de la organización en esta coyuntura tanto a mediano y largo plazo para corregir la economía y recuperar el crecimiento real, aumentar el empleo, lograr estabilidad y superar la crisis de la deuda soberana con sus perniciosos efectos en el resto de la economía. El documento argumenta a favor de rediseñar las instituciones financieras globales, la efectiva regulación del sector financiero, nuevos instrumentos para el desarrollo y el crecimiento sostenibles, abordar la crisis en la zona euro más allá de la austeridad, y aumentar la competitividad defendiendo al mismo tiempo la protección social y la inversión en crecimiento verde.

Fortaleciendo la Internacional

Los delegados discutieron y aprobaron el informe final del Grupo de Trabajo de la IS sobre Reforma, el cual fuera establecido en la reunión anterior del Consejo en Atenas para preparar propuestas sobre reforma de la IS a ser adoptadas por la reunión del Consejo en Costa Rica. El grupo estuvo co-presidido por los Vice-Presidentes Eero Heinäluoma (Finlandia, SDP), quien presentó el informe al Consejo, Beatriz Paredes (México, PRI) y Nouzha Chekrouni (Marruecos, USFP), y celebró dos reuniones durante el año pasado, en Ginebra en septiembre y en Marrakech en diciembre.

El informe cubre diferentes aspectos del funcionamiento de la Internacional, incluyendo materias de organización, estructuras de trabajo, comunicación, mujeres y juventud, financiamiento y elección del liderazgo.

Intervención Especial de un Premio Nobel

Una intervención especial tuvo lugar la segunda mañana de la reunión del Consejo por parte del laureado con el Premio Nobel y ex Presidente de Costa Rica, Oscar Arias, quien destacó el espíritu pacífico de Costa Rica, tipificado en la abolición de las fuerzas armadas en 1948. Las palabras y acciones del movimiento socialdemócrata serán centrales para poner fin a los conflictos alrededor del mundo, dijo, reforzando su deseo de continuar luchando por la paz y por el arribo del día en el que en todos los países del mundo la democracia, el desarrollo y la libertad, puedan existir, sin importar cuanto tiempo esto pueda tomar. Las inspiradas palabras del ex Presidente fueron saludadas con una ovación por parte de los delegados, quienes reconocieron en su mensaje de esperanza el verdadero espíritu de la social democracia global.

Idiotas, and Jan Brewer

2012-02-10T11:26:00.000-08:00

Enduring Fools.

By Rodolfo F. Acuña

Growing up, we used a plethora of words to dismiss fools. Fom two different worlds, my father was from Jalisco so his sayings were always blander my mother’s Sonorense expressions, which always seemed franker and more to the point. If you were ugly, they called you el feo. It was the cow culture that reveled in a no bull sh.. mentality. When I messed up badly, I was the pinche güero or the pinche buey, which depending on how it was said was generally a put down.

Words such as cabrón or chingado were rarely used unless in anger and mostly directed at someone outside the family. Even to this day they are words that are not taken lightly in Mexico, especially if used in the context of chinga tu madre.

(It was unlike today when an 85 year old lady will flip you off on the freeway.)

When you thought someone was stupid and just did not want anything to with them, it was estúpido,imbécil, baboso or pendejo. They had a shock value. My family was more passive and would just give you the señal de la cruz -- why call them names if they don’t exist for you.

In the past several years I have found myself giving most Tucson racists the sign of the cross – they are brain-dead.

Under normal circumstances, I would have given people like Arizona Attorney Tom Horne, Superintendent of Public Instruction John Huppenthal and the great majority of the board members of the Tucson Unified Schools the señal de la cruz. However, this was impossible because they do so much damage to an entire community. Reaching back into my consciousness I came up with the perfect descriptive word, idiota, a word that always had a poetic sound. Pinche güero was nice next to idiota!

It was a word that had to be said in Spanish. The word sounded dull in English. Idiot just doesn’t cut it. It is as if it is spoken by Joe Pesci. Idiota has the ring of Sophia Loren strutting down the streets of Pozuolli, Italy, waving her finger at Marcelo Mastroianni and shouting idiota. It sounds like an angry Luciano Pavarotti aura. It is not mealy mouthed like idiot.

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer wagging her finger at President Obama recently caught my attention; it a gesture that betrayed her IQ and upbringing. It was a punk act, and she did it because she knew she could get away with it.

Can you imagine her wagging her finger in John F. Kennedy’s face; JFK had enough Boston Irish not to have gotten angry, but he would have gotten even. Kennedy was just too rich to mess with, and father Joe Kennedy and brother Bobby Kennedy would have taken the insult personally

Lyndon B. Johnson would have told her where to stick it, and Richard Nixon would have fetched J Edgar Hoover on her.

Hilary Clinton would have taken her outside. She never would have tried that cheap trick with Congresswoman Maxime Waters who would have had her for breakfast. Brewer is an idiota and a coward who she did it for show. Like many of her supporters she has no class.

It goes without saying that Horne and Huppenthal are idiotas. Every time Horne says that he is with Martin Luther King and wants to judge a person by the content of his character rather than the color of his skin, he desecrates King’s legacy.

Horne judged La Raza Studies without knowing the definition of La Raza, and condemned the whole program without making a single classroom visit. Although he invokes King, Horne attends neo-Nazi gatherings like "Arizona Mainstream Project," that promotes Glenn Beck and Cleon Skousen. Horne who avoided military invokes phrases such as MAS “must be destroyed.” Yet, he is afraid to visit a MAS class.

Huppenthal dismissed a costly audit because he had heard differently from unspecified sources. Huppenthal compared TUSD Mexican students to the Hitler Nazi Jugend paramilitary organization at a Pima County Republican luncheon.

Tucson has more than its share of idiotas. The truth be told, TUSD superintendent John Pedicone banned Shakespeare’s The Tempest because the racist Prospero reminded him too much of himself. When he was campaigning for his position, he voiced support of the MAS program saying that he heard good things about it. Once he had his $300,000 job in tow, he became the bagman for the Southern Arizona Leadership Council – a gaggle of modern day Robber Barons.

Board President Mark Stegeman, who has not shown an ounce of intellectual curiosity,

has allowed Minutemen to speak while suppressing the Mexican American community. Stegemam is supposed to be evaluating curriculum but has come up with statements like La Raza is a cult because they use the farmworker handclap.

Like his Tea Party colleague Michael Hicks, he is continuously bested by students who have to correct him.

Alexandre Sugiyama, the latest appointment to the board, just sits there and votes with the majority that is rounded off by Miguel Cuevas, a college student who is a wannabe mover and shaker; he thinks that by siding with the SALC puppets, he’ll turn white. Cuevas would be the perfect Pancho in the Cisco Kid, or better still, the Lone Ranger’s sidekick Tonto.

However, it is too easy to make fun of sick people. In doing so, you can cross the line and become like them. It is not good taste to bait a mad dog. But, I have to confess that I have crossed over this line.

Aside from the main characters, the bagmen, there are scores of other idiotas. You have “Fringe characters” such Jared Laughner who shot Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), and killed six others. The wannabes can be found on the pages of the Tucson Citizen or other Arizona newspaper, grabbing their cheap thrills by writing commentaries to opinion pieces.

They don’t write anything of substance, coming up with inane comments such as “go back to Mexico” or “this America.” Mostly they are anonymous like the flasher they get momentary thrills.

In one case it was a CIA operative in Guatemala whose wife teaches in the Spanish Department at the University of Arizona who keeps up with Tucson via the internet and likes to feel important by dropping what he considers insider information.

There is little dialogue going on, just everyone trying to one up each other. Recently I wrote on the Spanish Inquisition and a person with the pseudonym of Marcus Tullius commented, “… of course, relate so well to the Spanish Inquisition because the inquisitors like Torquemada are your political antecedents…” He completely ignored the point of the article that likened the destruction of Mexican American Studies and the banning of the books to the Inquisition. In another commentary he wrote, “HA HA. Really? I mean REALLY? You’re hilarious! Bro, you had to sue for tenure when you were publishing in crap journals. Peer review is great when your peers aren’t first graders. I desk reject your crappy comments. No revise and resubmit for you!”

Marcus Tullius is of course Marcus Tullius Cicero purportedly Rome's greatest speaker and writer that greatly influenced European thought. Having read Cicero in Latin during my junior year in high school, I can say Mr. Anonymous is no Cicero.

This pedant assumes that if he adopts Cicero’s name that makes him famous.

Just as comical is that many of his cohorts seem to think that Marcus Tullius is Greek. Unfortunately, with people who hide under the cover of anonymity there can be no education, and they will forever remain idiotas. So, in the name of the father, the son and the Holy Ghost, “Liberate te ex inferis.”

Winnemum Wintu Tribe slams plan to raise Shasta Dam

2012-02-10T08:17:00.000-08:00

by Dan Bacher

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation on February 6 issued a controversial draft report claiming that a $1.07 billion plan to raise Shasta Dam by 18-1/2 feet is "feasible" and "economically justified," a contention that the Winnemem Wintu Tribe strongly challenged.

The dam raise would increase Lake Shasta's storage about 14 percent, supposedly benefitting municipal and agribusiness water users throughout California, according to the "Shasta Lake Water Resources Investigation" draft feasibility report.

Raising the dam would also "increase the survival" of chinook salmon, steelhead and other anadromous fish populations in the Sacramento River by increasing the cold water pool in Lake Shasta, the report claimed.

"Based on analyses to date, all comprehensive plans to enlarge Shasta Dam and Reservoir appear to be technically and environmentally feasible for implementation by the Federal Government," according to the report. "Based on analyses to date, all 18.5 foot dam raise alternatives appear to be economically justified for implementation by the Federal Government. The 6.5 foot dam raise alternative is marginally justified."

According to Bureau spokesman Pete Lucero, the Shasta Investigation is one of five surface water storage studies included in the 2000 CALFED Bay-Delta Programmatic Record of Decision and is a continuing feasibility study under the authority of Public Law 96-375.

"The draft documents address the potential impacts, costs and benefits of the No Action alternative and five action alternatives evaluated to date," according to Lucero. "Reclamation and cooperating agencies are analyzing alternative dam raises from 6.5 to 18.5 feet and corresponding increases of reservoir storage from 256,000 to 634,000 acre feet."

The documents are available on Reclamation’s website, http://www.usbr.gov/mp/slwri/documents.html.

The Winnemem Wintu Tribe, which conducted a historic war dance at the base of Shasta Dam in September 2004 to protest the plan to raise the dam, blasted the report for a multitude of reasons.

EIS is a 'dehumanizing document'

"How do they justify flooding the Winnemem Wintu people out twice?" asked Caleen Sisk,Chief and Spiritual Leader of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe. "They still haven’t fulfilled the 1941 Act of Congress that said they are to provide like lands and pay for all the allotment and communal lands. They still haven’t fixed the cemetery problems as it’s still illegal for us to bury our people in the cemetery they set up, because it is held by the Bureau Land Management instead of the Bureau of Indian Affair like the Act called for. And the Shasta Dam is still not paid for by the public."

She emphasized that the EIS is a "dehumanizing document – it takes our beautiful culture and summarizes it into a couple paragraphs, and just names a couple sites."

"It doesn’t describe the importance of the sites to our people or the heartache and psychological destruction it would cause to us if these places were submerged," Sisk said. "They don’t talk about us as the people most impacted, or the fact we have nowhere else to go to practice our religion. We can only teach our distinctive lifeway to be Winnemem here. It will be extremely hard to teach the tribal youth when you can’t go to the sacred site, see it and feel it and develop a relationship with it to be Winnemem."

Sisk also noted the limitations of the study – the BOR only spent $8,000 to hire one archaeologist who only did one visit to their tribe.

"How could they possibly know anything about the 'cultural impact,'" she stated. "Anthropologists, filmmakers and journalists spend YEARS understanding the vast complexity in the survival of an old living culture. They came out here once when they were introducing the whole idea, and they met with us on the river once. They told us they only had an $8,000 budget to do this archaeological report for the 371 shore miles on the lake and the 200 river miles to the Delta."

Sisk also said it was difficult to understand why the Bureau is consulting 10 tribes when only the Winnemem and Pit River Tribe will be impacted and have cultural sites on Shasta Lake. "We figure they are going to want to be able to say 'we got 7 out of ten, a majority to agree,' so that’s too bad for the Winnemem, but we can’t please everyone," Sisk explained.

Plan wouldn't increase survival of salmon

Sisk took issue with the Bureau's claim that the dam raise and expansion would "increase the survival" of" salmon and steelhead - and noted that the study didn't include any exploration of the possibility of building a water way or "fish swim" around the dam to allow winter chinook to spawn in the McCloud River above Shasta Dam, as the Tribe and its allies have proposed.

"A bigger cold water pool IS NOT what’s best for salmon," she pointed out. "It seems as that is one of the first goals in the EIS. But, where is the study that shows how just building a water way or fish swim around the dam would benefit and increase the numbers of salmon? A fish swim would be cheaper and produce more salmon spawning grounds in already naturally cold water."

"It would save millions of dollars in the cost of the cold water pool currently. NOAA has already found that salmon need to go up above Shasta Dam to the McCloud because of climate change. The dam raise would flood more than 7 miles of cold water spawning grounds on the McCloud River, Squaw Creek, and the Sacramento River," said Sisk.

Other severe flaws she noted in the report include:

• The document assigns 61% of the “benefits” and costs to fish and wildlife. "This is a major flaw and major injustice to the public," said Sisk.

• The document is based on the 2004 biological opinions, which have been invalidated by the courts. "On first glance, this might have the affect of overstating environmental benefits; it pretty likely would overstate the water supply benefits of the project too," she stated.

"If we could describe what a sacred site is, maybe they (the federal government) would understand the connected lines and that all of them have a different purpose, and they all help us in different ways," concluded Sisk. "It’s not like a church where you have everything in one place. We could describe how sacred sites are the teachers."

The Tribe is now working with a Stanford student on a GPS project to document the sacred sites that are already impacted by the lake level now and to document the Winnemem’s attachment to these places, according to Sisk.

For more information about the Winnemem Wintu Tribe, go to http://www.winnememwintu.us. Dancing Salmon Home (http://www.dancingsalmonhome.com), a 60-minute documentary still in the making, will chronicle the Winnemem's remarkable trip to New Zealand in the spring of 2010 where they were reunited with the McCloud River winter run chinook salmon after 70 years of separation.

Peripheral canal, dam expansion designed to increase water exports

The report was released as the Brown and Obama administrations are fast tracking the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) to build the peripheral canal or tunnel to export more water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to corporate agribusiness on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley and southern California water agencies. The expansion of Shasta Dam will help to create extra storage behind Shasta Dam to facilitate the increase of water exports through the canal.

A coalition of Indian Tribes, Delta residents, family farmers, recreational anglers, commercial fishermen and environmental justice advocates is opposing the peripheral canal because its construction would lead to the extinction of Central Valley steelhead, Sacramento River chinook salmon, Delta smelt, longfin smelt, Sacramento splittail, green sturgeon and other imperiled fish species.

A complete Draft EIS will be prepared for formal public review and comment, consistent with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), as additional scientific information and understanding of the conditions in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is developed and incorporated into the Shasta Investigation. A comprehensive public outreach effort will be part of the NEPA process.

For questions, please contact Katrina Chow, Project Manager, Bureau of Reclamation, 2800 Cottage Way, MP-700, Sacramento, CA 95825, or fax 916-978-5094 or e-mail kchow [at] usbr.gov. To request an electronic copy of the draft documents, please contact Louis Moore at 916-978-5106 (TTY 916-978-5608) or e-mailwmoore [at] usbr.gov. Copies of the documents may also be viewed at Reclamation’s Regional Library, 2800 Cottage Way, Sacramento, 916-978-5593. For more information about the Shasta Investigation, please visit http://www.usbr.gov/mp/slwri/index.html.

Censorship in Tucson. Rodolfo F. Acuña.

2012-02-04T15:15:00.000-08:00

Giving Hypocrisy a Bad Name

Rodolfo F. Acuña

For the past six years or so I have heard constant threats from Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne (Canada) and Superintendent of Schools John Huppenthal (Indiana) that they were going to ban, destroy and wipe out Mexican American Studies, as well as Occupied America. Now after disregarding a $177,000 report that refutes their charges that the program and the book are racist and un-American, the nativists carry out their threats. They destroy MAS and snatch the books from on looking students. Their stupidity exposed them, so they now say it wasn’t so.

The problem is that witnesses saw Tucson Unified School District Superintendent John Pedicone’s (Illinois) swaggering thugs “remove” the books from MAS classes as students looked on.

Their cowardly behavior reached new lows when blogger Jeff Biggers wrote that the books had been “banned.” They protested that they were not “banned” but only “removed.”

Let me see if I understand: If the books would have been put on a prohibited list of readings they would have been banned, or better still censored. But, because they were already there and ripped from the sight of students, they were removed.

I have been visiting Tucson for the better part of my life. I could always understand white folk there, although I did not always agree with them. For example, Barry Goldwater was my ideological opposite, but he had an affinity for Arizona that few of the carpetbaggers such as Pedicone have today. He knew many of my relatives, and recognized that you better talk the talk.

Not so with the Arizona carpetbaggers (as distinguished from those of the 1860s who had a purpose). This recent bunch has moved there for the sun and the cash. They do not respect the environment, its traditions or the people. Witness the systematic destruction of Mexican American barrios. What is Old Town Tucson but a pseudo replica of Disney Land?

It is difficult to dumb down language to the level of the locust. So to start with, censorship is thought control. The First Amendment reads,

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances…

Thomas Jefferson and James Madison argued that this freedom was critical to a free society.

What is happening in Tucson is a political act designed to control what students and the community read and think. It is not a question of good taste or what is true or not. It was the intentional use of naked political power to suppress a particular people.

Huppenthal was elected on the platform of "stopping La Raza [the people]."

On May 12, 2010 Horne said, “The bill [HB2281] was written to target the Chicano, or Mexican American, studies program in the Tucson school system.” According to theLos Angeles Times, “He singled out one history book used in some classes, ‘Occupied America: A History of Chicanos,’ by Rodolfo Acuna, a professor and founder of the Chicano studies program at Cal State Northridge.”

Horne continued, "To begin with, the title of the book implies to the kids that they live in occupied America, or occupied Mexico." Horne’s language was pretty clear. He did not say remove but targeted the book and MAS.

As with Horne, others have labeled the book Marxist. A prominent scholar of European history labeled Occupied America, a Marxist book. When pressed on what he based this assumption, he fumbled around and finally said in a deposition that I used the term “hegemony” several times in the text.

In Horne’s case, he did not like the title because, according to him, it “implies” that the United States invaded Mexico – a historical fact. Evidentially, Horne has not read the autobiography of Ulysses S. Grant or Abraham Lincoln’s take on the war.

The truth be told, Occupied America does not refer to occupied Mexico; it refers to occupied America. If Horne had a grasp of Latin American history or geography, he would know that Argentines, Peruvians, Cubans, Central Americans and Mexicans are Americans. Indeed, U.S. secretaries of state have exploited the notion of Pan Americanism for economic advantage. Thus the occupation began in 1492 not 1836 or 1848.

The touted Cambium Audit, which Horne’s successor Huppenthal ordered and the citizens of Arizona paid for, said,

Occupied America: A History of Chicanos is an unbiased, factual textbook designed to accommodate the growing number of Mexican-Americans or Chicano History courses. It is the most comprehensive text in this market according to Amazon. The Fifth Edition of Occupied America has been revised to make the text more user-friendly and student-oriented., while maintain its passionate voice. This text provides a comprehensive, in-depth analysis of the major historical experiences of Chicanos that invokes critical thinking and intellectual discussion.

The curriculum auditing team refutes the following allegations made by other individuals and organizations. Quotes have been taken out of context. Therefore, the ‘controversial’ aspects are indicated in italics to demonstrate the claims made by concerned constituents.

Thus the nativists’ hypocrisy gives opportunism a bad name. They care nothing about the truth, they care nothing about Latino students, what they care about is controlling thought by “removing” books and killing a highly successful program.

They want to specifically suppress the thought of Latinos. The reason that they have not targeted Native, African and Asian Americans is that these groups are smaller and consequently more manageable. Latino public school students comprise 43 percent of the public schools, and they want to genetically engineer them.

Everyone in this country should be concerned about the removing or banning of books. They are euphemisms for censorship. What happened in Tucson constitutes an attack and constraint on everyone’s freedom.

The locust have a history of trying to control Mexican American Studies through prior restraint. When this did not work, they demolished the program and banned the books. This banning will have a chilling effect on the publication of future books. Usually, there is the opportunity to dispute the charge in court. This has not happened in Arizona – there was no trial.

Aside from Occupied America, Critical Race Theory by Richard Delgado, 500 Years of Chicano History in Pictures edited by Elizabeth Martinez, Message to Aztlan by Rodolfo Corky Gonzales, Chicano! The History of the Mexican Civil Rights Movement by Arturo Rosales. Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire, Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years edited by Bill Bigelow and Bob Peterson, William Shakespeare, The Tempest, more than a dozen other books have been banned.

The charges of censorship have shaken the administration. After acting brazenly they are drawing the distinction between “banned” and “removed.” However, the record is the record. The banning of the books did not occur in a vacuum.

I have personally never experienced this level of hypocrisy in over fifty years of activism. It seems as if the locust and I do not speak the same language. It is also frustrating because up to now no one seemed to be listening. How do you deal with people who lie with such impunity?

As for me, it is a badge of honor to appear on the same list as the other banned authors. But what I resent is the draft dodgers, Pedicone, Horne and Huppenthal questioning my patriotism. I volunteered draft during the Korean War although I had a student draft deferment. They should check the records; they will learn that Mexican Americans served at a much higher ratio than any group in Tucson.

So my advice to them is not be so be opportunistic and hypocritical. The Tucson cabal is giving these words a bad name. Horne said that 2281 targeted Mexicans and specified which books it was going to get rid of. Huppenthal has not listened to facts and pressured the TUSD to ban MAS and the books. As for Pedicone, he is the bagman.

Worse off than in the 60's ? Mexican Americans in schools

2012-01-31T16:01:00.000-08:00

Who Gives a Damn?

By Rodolfo F. Acuña

Teresa Wiltz in America’s Wire writes that despite claims of increased educational opportunities for minorities that the performance of black and Latino teenagers remains the same or lower than 30 years ago. In fact, the math and reading performance of black and Latino high school seniors equal that of 13-year-old white students – so much for the post racial society.

Educators and liberal politicos point the finger at low expectations, inequality of resources, less qualified teachers, the income inequality, teacher bias, and inexperienced teachers. They throw in the tracking of black and brown students into remedial class while whites are put into university bound classes.

Further, minority students are more likely to be given "A’s" for work that would receive a "C" in a rich school giving the illusion that they are being educated. Society would not tolerate this record in a football team at any level, or for that matter if we had fewer weapons of mass destruction than 30 years ago.

However, in my view, the major reason for the lack of progress of Mexican American and other minorities is society’s historical amnesia or more aptly its Alzheimer disorder that erases the memory of previous efforts or commitments to bridge the gap between black, brown and white – rich and poor.

The truth be told, educators pay less attention today to Mexican Americans than it did 50 years ago. In the sixties educators and reporters at least talked about it. The late Los Angeles Times’ columnist Ruben Salazar attacked the dropout problem and the failure of the schools to devise a relevant curriculum, as well as the failure to recruit and train effective Mexican American teachers.

In February 1963, Salazar began a series on Mexican American education. He titled his first article, “What Causes Jose's Trouble in School?: Mexican-Americans Problems Analyzed.” Salazar begins,

Kicked out of school, Jose Mendez at 16 has been trapped in a peculiar twilight zone of American life. They tested him, graded him and pigeonholed him...say some educators, the fault may lie in the tests and the teachers –not in Jose. Educational policy and curriculum are oriented towards the education of the middle-class, monolingual, monocultural English-speaking student … [Jose] is at a great disadvantage…[he] is a hyphenated American, a Mexican-American … he is culturally confused.

Salazar interviewed educators, Drs. George I. Sánchez, Paul Sheldon, Julian Samora and high school teacher Marcos de Leon on why José was dropping out of school. They attributed the dropout problem to the Mexican American’s inferiority complex, which has intensified his marginalization.

Salazar blamed the schools for the Mexican Americans failure. Schools nurtured a negative self-image, which was reinforced by the movies and literature, and failed to correct the stereotyping of poor Mexicans. It was a vicious cycle: the schools did think Mexicans could not learn, students developed a low esteem, they failed and dropped out.

The experts advocated bilingual-bicultural education, and initially there was a consensus for these programs, from President Lyndon B. Johnson to Republican St. Ronald Reagan. Yet, the Greek Chorus gained traction and labeled the programs separatist, un-American and racist. This nativist movement allied itself with right wing thinks tanks and foundations, and by the beginning of the 21^st century, bilingual ed died a violent death.

By and large educators were mute as bilingual programs were wiped out and university based teacher training programs specializing on Mexican Americans were eliminated. At teacher training institutions grade point average was favored over knowledge of the child’s background. Although Latinos comprised 75 percent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, student teachers were given minimal preparation on how to teach Latino students.

The dropout was one of the major reasons for the development of Chicano Studies in 1969. A solution was sought for the high dropout problem that was overexposing Latino students to a life of poverty and not incidentally to the Vietnam draft. One of my first books Cultures in Conflict: Case Studies of the Mexican American was written for fifth graders. The purpose was to build a positive image in order to facilitate the acquisition of skills. These skills would prepare students to enter which ever field they wanted.

The importance of self-image is common sense. I remember looking for engineering computer lab with my future wife at UCLA in the 1980s. We asked several students if they knew where the computer lab was. They all gave us blank looks. Finally, we asked a Latino student who told us to ask an Asian. We did and she told us where it was. Talking to Asian fiends they told me that they exceled in math because the teachers expected them to.

Looking back at my own life, I was fortunate that I ended up in a Jesuit high school where I had to take four years of Latin. My relatives would notice my Latin book on the table, would ask my mother who it belonged to, and they would remark that Rudy must be smart. In contrast, in the first grade, before I knew English, I was pushed out of public school as mentally retarded.

When I became smart, that is adhered to their rules, anytime a Mexican student would act up, other teachers would ask me why? When I told them, they generally did not like the answer. They thought I was flip when I said that my solution for the marginalization of Mexicans was to rewrite the bible and substitute the word Mexican for Israeli. In a couple of decades, Mexicans would start looking at themselves as the “chosen people.”

This identity has helped Jews survive and endure over 2,000 years of persecution. In my view it comes down to self-image.

This was the premise of the Tucson Unified School District’s program. It was the repairing the damage done by marginalization – of being written out of history. The thinking was that learning history, literature and the arts though their viewpoint would repair the image of the greaser, the loser and the numerous other stereotypes.

From the beginning, the xenophobes tried to send the Mexican American Studies program down the same path as bilingual education. It was unpatriotic to learn any language other than English, it was un-American to learn history other than the American way.

The reasoning ignored the past; it was as if the debates of the sixties and seventies never occurred. They disregarded pedagogical principles that even St. Ronald accepted.

One of the books banned in Tucson was Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed. It was based on a highly successful literacy campaign conducted in Brazil. The xenophobes’ main argument is that Freire was a Marxist, which is ridiculous since the pedagogy goes back to Socrates. With that aside, would we cast aside a cure for cancer because the researcher was a Marxist?

The Cambium Learning Corp’s Curriculum Audit of the Tucson Mexican American Studies Department which was commissioned by Arizona Superintendent of Schools John Huppenthal and cost the $177,000 concluded,

No observable evidence exists that instruction within Mexican American Studies Department promotes resentment towards a race or class of people. The auditors observed the opposite, as students are taught to be accepting of multiple ethnicities of people. MASD teachers are teaching Cesar Chavez alongside Martin Luther King, Jr. and Gandhi, all as peaceful protesters who sacrificed for people and ideas they believed in. Additionally, all ethnicities are welcomed into the program and these very students of multiple backgrounds are being inspired and taught in the same manner as Mexican American students. All evidence points to peace as the essence for program teachings. Resentment does not exist in the context of these courses observable evidence exists that instruction within Mexican American Studies Department promotes resentment towards a race or class of people … No evidence as seen by the auditors exists to indicate that instruction within Mexican American Studies Department program classes advocates ethnic solidarity; rather it has been proven to treat student as individuals

There has not been any credible proof to refute claims that the program has improved chances of graduation, improved the students’ self-images, and motivated them to pursue a higher education.

A society that has historical dementia or Alzheimers cannot correct the defects of the present just like it cannot correct racism, sexism or homophobia.

Stupidity and fanaticism led to the destruction of the most transformative movements in Latin American, Liberation Theology. The forces of reaction in order to protect the large landowners redbaited Liberation Theology and substituted a reactionary evangelical Christian movement that promised that their reward would come in the next world. So it is in Arizona.

With the destruction of Mexican American Studies and the banning of the books, Mexican Americans are being put in their place. Vicariously, they are burning the infidels. The difference is that students are fighting back! They are reading books and will remember that anybody can learn. It is their right.

Immigrants and Labor

2012-01-30T21:00:00.000-08:00

MARCHING AWAY FROM THE COLD WAR
By David Bacon
Chapter 11 in "Wisconsin Uprising - Labor Fights Back"
Monthly Review Press, 2012

http://monthlyreview.org/press/books/pb2808/

One sign carried in almost every May Day march of the last few years in the United States says it all: "We are Workers, not Criminals!" Often it was held in the calloused hands of men and women who looked as though they'd just come from work in a factory, cleaning an office building, or picking grapes.

The sign stated an obvious truth. Millions of people have come to the United States to work, not to break its laws. Some have come with visas, and others without them. But they are all contributors to the society they've found here.

In the largest U.S. May Day event this year, marchers were joined by the public workers who protested in the state capitol in Madison, Wisconsin, who have become symbols of the fight for labor rights in the U.S. Their message was the same: we all work, we all contribute to our communities and we all have the right to a job, a union and a decent life.

May Day marches and demonstrations over the last five years have provided a vehicle in which immigrants protest their lack of human rights, and unions call for greater solidarity among workers facing the same corporate system. The marches are usually organized by grass roots immigrant rights groups, increasingly cooperating with the formal structure of the labor movement. This year the attacks on public workers provided an additional push to unions to use May Day as a vehicle for protest.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka spoke at the largest of those marches, in Milwaukee, where national attention has focused on the attacks on public workers and their mass resistance. Trumka's presence marked two important political changes in labor. May Day is no longer a holiday red-baited in the U.S. labor movement, but one used to promote a defense of workers' rights, as it is in the rest of the world. And unions are slowly adopting a tradition of May Day demonstrations calling for immigrant rights, a tradition begun by immigrant communities themselves in 2006.

For the last five years, May Day protests have responded to a wave of draconian proposals to criminalize immigration status, and work itself, for undocumented people. The defenders of these proposals have used a brutal logic: if people cannot legally work, they will leave. But undocumented people are part of the communities they live in. They seek the same goals of equality and opportunity that working people in the United States historically have fought to achieve. In addition, for most immigrants, there are no jobs to return to in the countries from which they've come.

Instead of recognizing this reality, the U.S. government has attempted to make holding a job a criminal act. Thousands of workers have already been fired. Some have been sent to prison for inventing a Social Security number just to get a job. Yet they stole nothing and the money they've paid into Social Security funds now subsidizes every pension or disability payment.

Undocumented workers deserve legal status because of that labor-their inherent contribution to society. Past years' marches have supported legalization for the 12 million undocumented people in the United States. In addition, immigrants, unions and community groups have called for repealing the law making work a crime, ending guest worker programs, and guaranteeing human rights in communities along the U.S./Mexico border.

Undocumented workers and public workers in Wisconsin have a lot in common. With unemployment at almost 9% nationally, and higher in many states, all working families need the Federal government to set up jobs programs, like those Roosevelt pushed through Congress in the 1930s. If General Electric alone paid its fair share of taxes, and if the troops came home from Iraq and Afghanistan, every person wanting a job could find work building roads, schools, and hospitals. All communities would benefit.

Immigrants and public workers need strong unions that can push wages up, and guarantee pensions for seniors and healthcare for the sick and disabled. A street cleaner whose job is outsourced, and an undocumented worker fired from a fast food restaurant both need protection for their right to work and support their families.

Instead, some states like Arizona, and now Georgia, have passed measures allowing police to stop any "foreign looking" person on the street, and question their immigration status. Arizona passed a law requiring employers to fire workers whose names are flagged by Social Security. In Mississippi an undocumented worker accused of holding a job can get jail time of 1-5 years, and fines of up to $10,000.

The states and politicians that go after immigrants are the same ones calling for firing public workers and eliminating their union rights. Now a teacher educating children has no more secure future in her job than an immigrant cleaning an office building at night.

In Milwaukee President Trumka told marchers, "It's the same fight. It's the same people that are attacking immigrants' rights, workers' rights, student rights, voting rights." He paid tribute to the role immigrants have played in resurrecting May Day as a day for worker demonstrations in the U.S.

"Your voices have been heard across this nation," Trumka said, "inspiring an uprising of America's working people, standing together and saying 'No' to divide-and-conquer politics. 'No!' to tearing working families down, rather than building us up. 'No!' to corporate-backed politicians trying to turn us into a low-wage, no-rights workforce as payback to their CEO friends. And what is this America we want? It's a land of equal opportunity, a land of fairness in the workplace and society."

While May Day marches this year were smaller than the millions-strong turnout of five years ago, they had a more organized participation from unions themselves. That marks a fundamental shift in the attitude of U.S. labor towards May Day.

Although Mayday was born in the fight for the 8-hour day in Chicago more than a century ago, during the Cold War U.S. unions stopped celebrating it. In 1949 nine leftwing unions were expelled from the Congress of Industrial Organizations, and a witch hunt then purged activists, including Communists, socialists and anarchists, from leadership in most unions. The U.S. labor movement grew more conservative, enshrining a "business unionism" model, which negotiated increases in wages and benefits while defending the corporate system.

Eventually, some of the highest elements of U.S. labor leadership collaborated with U.S. intelligence services in supporting right-wing coups in other countries, in which labor and political militants were murdered. At the same time, unionists in the U.S. who advocated celebrating May Day as a symbol of international labor solidarity were attacked and red-baited.

In the late 1970s and 1980s, however, large corporations, assisted by the government, intensified their attacks on unions and workers. The percentage of workers belonging to unions fell drastically, causing an internal crisis in the labor movement. Many Cold War-era leaders were challenged, and at the AFL-CIO convention in New York in 1995 a contest over leadership brought John Sweeney to power as president. Richard Trumka, who'd led a critical battle of coal miners against the Pittston Corporation, was elected secretary-treasurer.

At that time, Trumka proposed a new model for internationalism in U.S. labor. "The cold war has gone," he declared. "It's over. We want to be able to confront multinationals as multinationals ourselves now. If a corporation does business in 15 countries, we'd like to be able to confront them as labor in 15 countries. It's not that we need less international involvement, but it should be focused towards building solidarity, helping workers achieve their needs and their goals here at home."

Jack Henning, past executive secretary of the California Labor Federation, one of the most vocal critics of the old AFL-CIO Department of International Affairs, admitted, "we were associated with some of the very worst elements...all in the name of anti-communism. But I think there's an opportunity now to review our foreign activities, to stop the global competition for jobs among the trade unions of the world."

Their ideas embodied a pragmatic view of solidarity, a first step away from that Cold War past. But it was not radical enough to confront the new challenges of globalization - the huge displacement and migration of millions of people, the enormous gulf in the standard of living dividing developed from developing countries, and the wars fought to impose this system of global economic inequality.

Slowly, Cold War barriers began to come down. In Colombia, the United Steel Workers became a bastion of support for the embattled unionists of its leftwing labor federation. In Mexico the USW supported striking copper miners in Cananea, and gave refuge to their exiled union president in Canada. Under pressure from US Labor Against the War, the AFL-CIO publicly rejected U.S. military intervention in Iraq. But progress was uneven. The Democratic Party's support for war in Afghanistan and for Israel's attack on Gaza was greeted with silence. In Venezuela, U.S. labor even supported coup plotters against the radical regime of Hugo Chavez.

Among U.S. union members at home, the key issues were jobs and trade policy, and their corollaries, displacement and immigration. The implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994 (supported by both U.S. political parties), and the battle in Seattle at the World Trade Organization meeting of 1999, profoundly affected workers' thinking about their own future. Many were educated by the fight against corporate trade policy, and began to understand the way neoliberal reforms displaced workers and farmers in Mexico, leading to migration across the U.S./Mexico border. That understanding created a base for solidarity with Mexican workers in the U.S. that did not exist during the Cold War era.

During the years after 1994, when NAFTA took effect, over six million people from Mexico migrated to the U.S. in search of jobs. The number of people living in the U.S. without legal immigration status climbed to over 12 million. Those workers, as they faced threats to imprison them as criminals because of their immigration status, began using May Day marches to call for human, political and labor rights. People migrating to the U.S. came with a tradition of using May Day celebrations to call for labor rights. May Day in the U.S. became their vehicle to challenge anti-immigrant hysteria.

This wave of increasingly assertive workers was hardly the first to challenge U.S. unions, many of which were organized by earlier immigrants and their children. But U.S. unions were organized in a working class deeply divided by race and nationality. Some unions saw (and still see) immigrants as unwelcome job competitors, and sought to exclude, and even deport them. But other unions fought racism and anti-immigrant hysteria, and argued for organizing all workers together.

Today, undocumented immigrants wonder, "Will my union defend me when the government tells my boss to fire me because I don't have papers?" It's not an abstract question. Thousands of workers have already been fired in the Obama administration's program to enforce immigration law in the workplace. Last year alone, almost 400,000 people were deported, almost all ordinary workers.

The debate over immigration policy puts critical questions before U.S. unions. Are unions going to defend all workers, including the undocumented? Should unions support immigration enforcement designed to force millions of workers from their jobs? How can labor achieve the unity and solidarity it needs to successfully confront transnational corporations, both internally within the U.S., and externally with workers in countries like Mexico?

The White House website says "President Obama will remove incentives to enter the country illegally by preventing employers from hiring undocumented workers and enforcing the law." A few months after taking office he told Congress members that the government was "cracking down on employers who are using illegal workers in order to drive down wages -- and oftentimes mistreat those workers."

The law Obama is enforcing is the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, which requires employers to keep records of workers' immigration status, and prohibits them from hiring those who have no legal documents, or "work authorization." In effect, the law made it a crime for undocumented immigrants to work. This provision, employer sanctions, is the legal basis for all the workplace immigration raids and enforcement of the last 23 years. "Sanctions pretend to punish employers," says Bill Ong Hing, law professor at the University of California at Davis. "In reality, they punish workers."

The history of workplace immigration enforcement is filled with examples of employers who use audits and discrepancies as pretexts to discharge union militants or discourage worker organization. The 16-year union drive at the Smithfield pork plant in North Carolina, for instance, saw two raids, and the firing of 300 workers for bad Social Security numbers.

Whether motivated by economic gain or anti-union animus, the firings highlight larger questions of immigration enforcement policy. "These workers have not only done nothing wrong, they've spent years making the company rich. No one ever called company profits illegal, or says they should give them back to the workers. So why are the workers called illegal?" asks Nativo Lopez, director of the Hermandad Mexicana Latinoamericana. "Any immigration policy that says these workers have no right to work and feed their families is wrong and needs to be changed."

President Obama says sanctions enforcement targets employers "who are using illegal workers in order to drive down wages -- and oftentimes mistreat those workers." This restates a common Bush administration rationale for workplace raids. Former ICE Director Julie Meyers asserted that she was targeting "unscrupulous criminals who use illegal workers to cut costs and gain a competitive advantage." An ICE Worksite Enforcement Advisory claims "unscrupulous employers are likely to pay illegal workers substandard wages or force them to endure intolerable working conditions."

Curing intolerable conditions by firing or deporting the workers who endure them doesn't help the workers or change the conditions, however. And that's not who ICE targets anyway. Workers at Smithfield were trying to organize a union to improve conditions. In Minneapolis, 1200 fired janitors at ABM belonged to SEIU Local 26, got a higher wage than non-union workers, and had to strike to win it. And despite President Obama's notion that sanctions enforcement will punish those employers who exploit immigrants, employers are rewarded for cooperation by being immunized from prosecution. This policy only hurts workers.

The justification is implicit in the policy's description on the White House website: "remove incentives to enter the country illegally." This was the original justification for employer sanctions in 1986 - if migrants can't work, they won't come. Of course, people did come, because at the same time that Congress passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act, it also began debate on the North American Free Trade Agreement. That virtually guaranteed future migration. "The real questions we need to ask are what uproots people in Mexico, and why U.S. employers rely so heavily on low-wage workers," says law professor Bill Ong Hing.

No one in the Obama administration wants to stop migration to the U.S. or imagines that this could be done without catastrophic consequences. The very industries it targets for enforcement are so dependent on migrant labor they would collapse without it. Immigration policy consigns those migrants to an "illegal" status, and undermines the price of their labor. Enforcement then becomes a means for managing the flow of these migrants, and making their labor available to employers at a price they want to pay.

Managing the flow is the object, not just of current policy, but also of the proposals for immigration reform that have been supported by the Obama, Bush, and Clinton administrations. Bush's Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff explained the purpose of these proposals clearly. "There's an obvious solution to the problem of illegal work," he said, "which is you open the front door and you shut the back door." "Opening the front door" allows employers to recruit "guest" workers to come to the U.S., giving them visas that tie their ability to stay to their employment. And to force workers to come through this system, "closing the back door" criminalizes migrants who work without "work authorization." When she was Arizona governor, current DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano supported this arrangement, signing the state's own draconian employer sanctions bill, while supporting guest worker programs.

The comprehensive reform bills died in Congress over the last several years. But Bush and Obama both began implementing their key provisions through administrative action. The use of guest worker programs, especially for farm workers, has grown rapidly. And enforcement through deportations, detention and firings has mushroomed.

This growing wave of firings is provoking sharp debate in unions, especially those with large immigrant memberships. ABM's janitors, for instance, were dues-paying members for years. They expect the union to defend them when the company fires them for lack of status. At American Apparel, where 2000 sewing machine operators were fired in 2009, there was no union, but some workers had actively tried to organize one. "I worked with the International Ladies' Garment Workers and the Garment Workers Center," recalls Jose Covarrubias. "When I got to American Apparel I joined right away. I debated with the non-union workers, trying to convince them the union would defend us." Covarrubias was fired with the rest, and unions in Los Angeles did very little to help them.

The twelve million undocumented people in the U.S., spread in factories, fields and construction sites throughout the country, includes lots of workers like Covarrubias. Many are aware of their rights and anxious to improve their lives. National union organizing campaigns, like Justice for Janitors and Hotel Workers Rising, depend on their determination and activism. That reality convinced the AFL-CIO in 1999 to reject the federation's former support for employer sanctions, and call for repeal. Unions recognized that sanctions enforcement has made it much more difficult for workers to defend their rights, organize unions, and raise wages.

Opposing sanctions, however, put labor in opposition to the Obama administration, which it helped elect. Some Washington DC lobbying groups now support sanctions enforcement instead. One group, Reform Immigration for America, says, "any employment verification system should determine employment authorization accurately and efficiently." The AFL-CIO and the Change to Win labor federation in 2009 also agreed on a new immigration position that supports a "secure and effective worker authorization mechanism ...one that determines employment authorization accurately while providing maximum protection for workers." Verification of authorization is exactly what happened at American Apparel and ABM. When workers couldn't provide authorization, they were fired.

With a few exceptions, U.S. unions have been mostly silent in the face of the firings. That undermines their growing criticism of the way corporate trade policies produce undocumented migration.

Before he retired and was succeeded by Richard Trumka, John Sweeney, former president of the AFL-CIO, wrote to President Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Harper. He reminded them that "the failure of neoliberal policies to create decent jobs in the Mexican economy under NAFTA has meant that many displaced workers and new entrants have been forced into a desperate search to find employment elsewhere." The joint immigration position of the AFL-CIO and Change to Win federations recognized that "an essential component of the long-term solution [to immigration reform] is a fair trade and globalization model that uplifts all workers."

Continued support for work authorization and employer sanctions contradicts this understanding. Even with a legalization program, millions of people will remain without papers, as more come every year. For them, work without "authorization" will still be a crime. And while employer sanctions will not stop migration, they will make those workers vulnerable to employer pressure.

In a speech in Cleveland in 2010 AFL-CIO President Trumka challenged "working people who should know better, some in my own family - [who say] that those immigrants are taking our jobs, ruining our country ... When I hear that kind of talk, I want to say, did an immigrant move your plant overseas? Did an immigrant take away your pension? Or cut your health care? Did an immigrant destroy American workers' right to organize? Or crash the financial system? Did immigrant workers write the trade laws that have done so much harm?"

Trumka accurately described the class exploitation that underlies U.S. immigration policy. "Too many U.S. employers actually like the current state of the immigration system-a system where immigrants are both plentiful and undocumented-afraid and available," he explained. "Too many employers like a system where our borders are closed and open at the same time - closed enough to turn immigrants into second-class citizens, open enough to ensure an endless supply of socially and legally powerless cheap labor."

Trumka concluded by declaring that "we are for ending our two-tiered workforce and our two-tiered society ... We need to restore workers' fundamental human right to organize and bargain with their employers. And we need to make sure every worker in America - documented or undocumented - is protected by our labor laws."

When he called for "a land of fairness in the workplace and society" in Milwaukee a year later on May Day, immigrant workers in the audience at that march, and those who read his words later, hoped this would mean a sharper challenge to the Obama enforcement policy.

Across the country, tens of thousands marched and rallied to call for national immigration reform and to support all workers' rights. Marchers often bore placards declaring: "Somos Unos-Respeten Nuestros Derechos" or "We Are One-Respect Our Rights." In addition to the 100,000 in Milwaukee, ten thousand marched in Los Angeles, five thousand in San Jose (in the heart of California's Silicon Valley), and thousands more in New York, Atlanta, Houston, Buffalo, Chicago and other major cities. Smaller towns with a large immigrant population, like Fresno, in the heart of California's agricultural complex, also turned out large demonstrations. In Boston, marchers demanded "From Cairo to Wisconsin to Massachusetts - Defend All Workers' Rights."

In Milwaukee, Jose Salazar, a volunteer with Equality Wisconsin, joined Trumka on the stage. "Issues relating to immigration and labor law affect us all," he told the crowd. "That is why the lesbian and gay community is joining today's May Day March for Immigrant and Worker Rights. We march to protest Governor Scott Walker's budget cuts that hurt our families and children. And we march to support the union between immigrant and worker communities."

For more articles and images, see http://dbacon.igc.org

See also Illegal People -- How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants (Beacon Press, 2008)

Recipient: C.L.R. James Award, best book of 2007-2008

http://www.beacon.org/productdetails.cfm?PC=2002

See also the photodocumentary on indigenous migration to the US

Communities Without Borders (Cornell University/ILR Press, 2006)

http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/cup_detail.taf?ti_id=4575

See also The Children of NAFTA, Labor Wars on the U.S./Mexico Border (University of California, 2004)

http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/9989.html

Mexican American students matter

2012-01-28T08:46:00.000-08:00

Associate Editor Pia Lopez of the Sacramento Bee wrote an interesting essay, “Canwe find common ground on schools?” on the ideas of Diane Ravitch in the Bee this morning- exceptfor one paragraph where Lopez is substantially wrong. She says, “ In the 1980’s she (Ravitch) helped write a history curriculumframework for California that still today is considered among the best in thecountry.”

Lets see. Shemust mean the California History Social Science Framework of 1987 – still inuse today- that almost completely ignores Mexican American History.

From my essay , “Why California Students Do not knowChicano/ Mexican American History. “

“The 1987 Framework still in usetoday expanded African American, Native American, and women’shistory coverage but remains totally inadequate in the coverage of Latinos andAsians. The only significant change between the 1985 and the 2005 adoptedFramework was the addition of a new cover, a cover letter, and additions ofphotos such as of Cesar Chavez . Latinos currently make up 48.1 percent ofCalifornia’s student population and Asians make up 8.1 %.

The dominant neo conservativeview of history argues that textbooks and a common history shouldprovide the glue that unites our society. Historical themes and interpretationsare selected in books to create unity in a diverse and divided society, a unityfrom the point of view of the dominant class. This viewpoint assignsto schools the task of creating a common culture. In reality, television andmilitary service may do more to create a common culture than do schools andbooks.

Conservatives assign the task of cultural assimilation to schools, withparticular emphasis on the history, social science, and literature curricula.Historians advocating consensus write textbooks that downplay the roles ofslavery, class, racism, genocide, and imperialism in our history. They focus onethnicity and assimilation rather than race, on the success of achievingpolitical reform, representative government, and economic opportunity forEuropean American workers and immigrants. They decline to notice the highpoverty rate of U.S. children, the crisis of urban schooling, and thecontinuation of racial divisions in housing and the labor force. In Californiathey decline to notice that Mexicans, Mexican-Americans and Latinos as well asAsians contributed to the development of this society.”

Atpresent California students are about 48% descendents of Mexican and otherLatino cultures yet they are not in the textbooks as a consequence of theRavitch History/Social Science Framework.

Thatis not “still considered among the best in the country,” except perhaps bypersons who know little about the issue, or care little about Mexican American students, their history and their success inschools.

Seemore on the Institute for Democracy and Education web site

https://sites.google.com/site/democracyandeducationorg/chicano-mexican-american-digital-history-project/why-california-students-do-not-know-chicano-history

Duane Campbell,

Professor Emeritus, Bilingual Multicultural Education.

Author, Choosing Democracy: a practical guide to multiculturaleducation. 2010.

Group Delivers Hundreds Of Tacos To Connecticut Mayor Who Insulted Latinos With ‘Tacos’ Comment

2012-01-27T21:42:00.000-08:00

Group Delivers Hundreds Of Tacos To Connecticut Mayor Who Insulted Latinos With ‘Tacos’ Comment: pLatinos in East Haven, Connecticut delivered hundreds of tacos to the town’s mayor Thursday, just two days after he made a flippant, derogatory comment about them while discussing alleged police discrimination and violence in his community. In the wake of those allegations, Mayor Joseph Maturo Jr. was asked what he would do to reach out [...]/p

Don't Get Angry - Get Even

2012-01-27T10:29:00.000-08:00

When Do You Start Counting? Rodolfo F. Acuña

When the great Muhammad Ali was asked how many sit ups he did, he responded, “I don’t count my sit-ups, I only start counting when it starts hurting, that is when I start counting, because then it really counts, that’s what makes you a champion.”

These words resonate in Tucson where Latina/o students are fighting for an education by sitting-in in the office of Tucson Unified School District Superintendent of Schools John Pedicone, walking out of classes, demonstrating, and taking to the streets.

Students are dispelling the myth that Mexican Americans do not care about education; they have started counting because it hurts. They know the difference between being warehoused, sitting through classes where teachers go through the motions. They know when the subject matter is relevant; and the teachers believe in what they are teaching.

At my own campus at California State University Northridge students are mobilizing. Up until now, a small minority protested the rising cost of tuition, which now tops $5,550 a year, promising to climb another 30 percent next year.

Because of the lack of accessibility to education, they are growing disillusioned with our system of government. They don’t believe the promises of President Barack Obama State of the Union. Desperate, many students are dropping out of school. The straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back occurred this week.

CSU Chancellor Charles Reed issued a threat to all state campuses that any institution that exceeded its target enrollment by more than three percent would be docked $7 million. The CSUN administration panicked and froze classes, not allowing needy students to enroll in classes, even when professors agreed to take them as an overload.

The result has been pandemonium. Many students are unable to get the requisite 12 units for financial and other scholarship aid. This action takes money out needy students’ pockets; the tuition for 12 units and 19 units is the same. Graduation will be deferred by a couple of years. For administrators earning $120,000 - $350,000 annually it is no big deal. But for poor and middle-class students it is a big deal.

The freeze has forced many students to start counting. It has dawned on them that they are being shut out of what the Tucson students are fighting for, a college education. Conservatives have always maintained that everyone has an equal opportunity; tragically many poor people believed that the myth.

However, this fairytale is being debunked by what is happening in California’s community colleges. Once a safety net where students could attend college almost tuition free and could live close to home and work, this is no longer the case.

Although the fees are still affordable at the two year colleges, the campuses have been flooded consequent to the pushdown of students who qualify for the University of California and the California State University systems but can’t afford it. Consequently, the problem for community colleges is not so much tuition but the flood of students that have drowned them.

Filled beyond capacity their infra-structures have been inundated, and even when students are matriculated they face the impossible task of getting classes. This situation promises to worsen as the UC resorts to the vigorous recruiting of wealthy foreign and out of state students who are displacing residents.

If by this time, we are not counting, we should be because the hurt will worsen.

The challenge for students is to develop a strategy. It is not going to do us any good to say I told you so or to get angry. We have to get even. The reason the system will continue as if the crash never happened is because we did not get even. Very few people have gone to jail, and the gaggle of thieves on Wall Street and government were not stigmatized.

Talk about class warfare, society differentiates between white and blue collar crime. Pure and simple, we are complicit and let the big ones get away.

In Tucson, the rich benefit directly from the destruction of the Mexican American Studies program. Brutalizing immigrants and Latino students is part of the grand strategy to keep Mexicans in their place.

The assassination of nine-year old Brisenia Flores in her home sent a chilling to other Mexicans. Shawna Forde, who had ties with the Minutemen and FAIR, the Federation For American Immigration Reform, led the assassins, but the truth be told, the Tucson white elite were complicit, they benefited.

Let me be clear, the purpose for the destruction of the MAS program was to intimidate other minorities. African, Native and other Americans were put on notice that they will suffer a similar fate if they protest too loudly. They heard about Mexican American students being forced to stand by while the banned books were boxed and carted away. Students watched in silence, they sobbed. Books had become important to them.

In the past I have spoken about Adolph Hitler’s “The Big Lie.” In that instance, the Jews and the gypsies were scapegoated. Hitler used hate to rally the German people. In a similar way, the anti-Mexican and anti-foreign hysteria helps conceal the criminality of ALEC (the American Legislative Exchange Council) that owns the Arizona state legislature and SALC (the Southern Arizona Leadership Council) that controls public and private institutions in southern Arizona. Superintendent Pedicone rose through SALC’s ranks and was its vice-president.

Republican politicians have exploited the hatred of Mexicans, using it to their economic and political advantage. The same goes for the Koch Brothers, the Tea Party, the minutemen, and the prison and gun industries, not to mention the bankers who launder money made from selling arms to the Mexican cartels.

Politicos such as Attorney General Tom Horn and Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction John Huppenthal have built their careers by spreading lies and bashing Mexicans. Tolerating them is like speaking respectfully of Hitler. ALEC and SALC leaders are criminals and child abusers. We should not abet their malfeasance by being respectful.

Some readers will say, “Rudy, you are going too far!” But am I going too far? Have they ever seen a 14 year old strung out on drugs, or a teenager that has a difficult time in explaining his or her thoughts? Who has created these conditions? Who is to blame?

I once told my wife when she was getting frustrated tutoring a second grader, “if Jorge does not learn to read, he will end up in jail.” She started to cry. Have you ever met a second grader who was bad?

Because of my early parochial education, I have a strong sense of right and wrong. For me, “sometimes there is no other side.” I have a mind, and as my teachers would tell me, “use it.” It is idiotic to say we are all equal in this country, it is a myth. In my vernacular, the word exploitation is the willful taking advantage of the poor. It is an abomination and cannot be tolerated

The wonderful quality about students is that many have retained the sense to be outraged at injustice. Reasoned moral outrage corrects the imperfections of society and achieves justice for all. And, that is precisely why the TUSD cabal is banning books. ALEC, SALC, the Tea Party and their gaggle can’t handle the truth, it is subversive.

William Shakespeare’s The Tempest was banned. Why? It is threatening because it talks about colonialism. It is about the Earls of Southampton, investors in the Virginia Company. At court they support a Protestant-expansionist foreign policy. King James opposes it because he does not want trouble with Spain. Eventually this leads James to executed Sir Walter Raleigh.

The Tempest is told through the eyes of Caliban, a native of a colonized island. It is about his accusations against the colonial governor, Prospero.

Prospero is the colonizer; Caliban, the colonized. Prospero looks at Caliban as being genetically inferior. The story betrays Prospero’s colonial mentality; he has little respect for the natives or the environment. His demeanor resembles that of Superintendent Pedicone and the white establishment of Tucson who regard Mexicans, whether born on this side or the other side of the border as aliens.

Rather than use history or literature to correct the imperfections of society, Huppenthal and the majority of the TUSD board chose to censor books. The Tucson cabal believes that it can hide the truth, and thus keep Mexicans in their place. It is similar to the efforts of many former confederate states to erase any mention of slavery as if it had never existed. According to them, African Americans were happy under slavery. It is similar to the efforts of neo-Nazis to deny the holocaust or the Turks’ denial of the Armenian genocide.

Their view is if people don’t know about it, it did not happen. Consequently, Mexicans can continue to drop out of school, go to prison, work at minimum wage jobs, and believe in fairy tales. If they learn, they may start counting.

Global Capitalist Crisis and the Second Great Depression

2012-01-25T13:35:00.001-08:00

Armando Navarro
RIVERSIDE, Calif. - Ethnic studies professor Armando Navarro will present a brief lecture and sign copies of his new book, "Global Capitalist Crisis and the Second Great Depression" (Lexington Books), on Jan. 25 at 6:30 p.m. in HUB 302 at UC Riverside.

Sociology professor Jose Calderon of Pitzer College will present his observations of the book and its timeliness. The event is free and open to the public. Parking costs $5. Event sponsors are Chicano Student Programs, the Department of Ethnic Studies, MEChA, African Student Programs, Asian Pacific Student Programs, and Native American Student Programs.

In "Global Capitalist Crisis," Navarro, a political scientist who teaches in the UCR Department of Ethnic Studies and has authored five other books, analyzes the political and economic decisions that led to the on-going global economic crisis that he contends put the nation's survival at risk. He argues that the country is in the midst of a deepening depression, which he calls the Second Great Depression. He calls capitalism a failed economic/political system controlled by "capital" that is in dire need of systemic change, and he provides several ominous forecasts that he believes will impact the country greatly in this decade, particularly in 2012 and 2013.

"In the history of modern capitalism, with the exception of the Great Depression, the world has never been economically in such calamitous turmoil," Navarro writes. "Not since that period have the economies of the world, especially that of the United States, been so egregiously impacted and threatened."

After WWII capitalism began to transition from the welfare capitalism of the New Deal to neoliberal capitalism in the 1980s. Navarro points to policies of the administration of President George W. Bush - including deregulation of the financial markets - as the cause of the subprime mortgage crisis in 2006 that precipitated the financial and economic crises that continue today. President Barack Obama followed with "quasi-welfare Keynesian-oriented policies," which "failed to halt the growing economic storm."

Navarro's book calls for radical reformation or transformation of the United States economic and political systems: social democracy or democratic socialism. He also argues that the re-election of President Obama hinges on the creation of a welfare capitalist New Deal II.

Using countries like Sweden and Norway as models, Navarro argues that social democracy would establish a multiparty system that provides viable choices, incorporate elements of both socialism and capitalism, foster a more equitable distribution of wealth, guarantee workers' rights, and create safety-net programs that facilitate quality of life and equal opportunity.

Democratic socialism, which Navarro calls the most transformative alternative, would replace the capitalist system with one characterized by the state's control or the workers' control of the country's means of production and distribution. This model, grounded on the concepts of social justice and equitable distribution of wealth and power, "operates on the principle that goods and services should be owned publicly, where planning denotes a peaceful and nonviolent transition to the state's power and control, via the nation's existing superstructure."

"Change will not happen without the creation of a new movement, such as the Occupy movement that has spread globally," he says. "Times of crises produce times of opportunity."

For more information about the book-signing contact
Maria Anna Gonzales at (951) 743-7173.

RELATED LINKS
· Armando Navarro website
· Chicano Student Programs

Debating Tucson School District's Book Ban After Suspension of Mexican American Studies Program

2012-01-21T15:54:00.000-08:00

Debating Tucson School District's Book Ban After Suspension of Mexican American Studies Program

Democracy Now.

Tucson eliminates Mexican American History

2012-01-21T15:52:00.000-08:00

Arizona School District Wipes Latino American History Off the Map

- Common Dreams staff

A catastrophe in slow motion has played out in Arizona schools over the last several years as anti-immigrant sentiment crept into state legislation guiding how and what kind of Mexican American and indigenous history could be taught in classrooms across the southwestern border state. What may have seemed absurd until recently is now a reality as boxes of banned books will now be gathered up and locked away.

UPDATED on 1/18/12: Jeff Biggers updates his previous reporting after the Tuscon Unified School District responded to various reports of books being banned in Arizona schools:

In a clarification of last Friday’s announcement of a list of Mexican American Studies books to “be cleared from all classrooms” in order to comply with a state ban on ethnic studies, the Tucson Unified School District (TUSD) declared Tuesday that it ”has not banned any books as has been widely and incorrectly reported.”

But, Biggers continues, opponents were not satisfied with TUSD's explanation:

The TUSD statement “lacks accuracy and represents a thinly veiled attempt to cover up with distortions what is happening,” said Richard Martinez, the lead attorney on behalf of teachers and students challenging the ban in federal court. “Pandora’s box has been opened and the ugly face of the bigoted right wing has been exposed for what it is: an attempt to keep Latinos, poor, dumb and abused.”

Whether the removal of the books from all classrooms should be considered an outright ban or a possibly temporary prohibition brought little comfort to supporters of Tucson’s Mexican American Studies program, who sponsored an emotional community forum last Saturday with students and teachers who had witnessed the forced removal of the books from their classrooms.

UPDATE: Amy Goodman hosted a spirited debate between Huppenthal and Martinez on Wednesday's Democracy Now!:

Jeff Biggers, who has covered the ethnic studies ban in Arizona extensively, reported atSalon:

As part of the state-mandated termination of its ethnic studies program, the Tucson Unified School District released an initial list of books to be banned from its schools today. According to district spokeperson Cara Rene, the books “will be cleared from all classrooms, boxed up and sent to the Textbook Depository for storage.”
Facing a multimillion-dollar penalty in state funds, the governing board of Tucson’s largest school district officially ended the 13-year-old program on Tuesday in an attempt to come into compliance with the controversial state ban on the teaching of ethnic studies.
This is the list of textbooks cleared from the classrooms,according to KGUN 9 in Tuscon:
Critical Race Theory– Richard Delgado
500 Years of Chicano History in Pictures – edited by Elizabeth Martinez
Message to AZTLAN – Rodolfo Corky Gonzales
Chicano! The History of the Mexican Civil Rights Movement – Arturo Rosales
Occupied America: A History of Chicanos – Rodolfo Acuna
Pedagogy of the Oppressed – Paulo Freire
Rethinking Columbus: The next 500 Years – Bill Bigelow
The list of removed books includes the 20-year-old textbook “Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years,” which features an essay by Tucson author Leslie Silko. Recipient of a Native Writers’ Circle of the Americas Lifetime Achievement Award and a MacArthur Foundation genius grant, Silko has been an outspoken supporter of the ethnic studies program.

Bill Bigelow, editor of the now banned Rethinking Columbus and of the magazine and websiteRethinking Schools, had this to say about the decision:

“By ordering teachers to remove ‘Rethinking Columbus,’ the Tucson school district has shown tremendous disrespect for teachers and students. This is a book that has sold over 300,000 copies and is used in school districts from Anchorage to Atlanta, and from Portland, Oregon to Portland, Maine. It offers teaching strategies and readings that teachers can use to help students think about the perspectives that are too often silenced in the traditional curriculum.”

Indian Country News explains:

Arizona’s state ban on ethnic studies—in HB 2281—took effect January 1, and states that no classes can be taught that “promote the overthrow of the United States government; promote resentment toward a race or class of people; are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group; advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals.”
The Arizona Department of Education can withhold 10 percent of a district’s state funding if it is found in violation of HB 2281. That provision put $15 million of state funding for TUSD in danger.
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne pushed for the passage of HB 2281 and has been criticizing ethnic studies programs in Tucson for years.

From: Democracy Now. Amy Goodman. Read the entire article and see the videos.

Acuña- Arizona and the Struggle Before Us

2012-01-19T19:20:00.000-08:00

In thisinstallment of our multi-part series on the struggleto defend ethnic studies in Arizona, ethnic studies pioneer Dr.Rodolfo Acuña, author of OccupiedAmerica, talks to CultureStrike’s Michelle Chen about what theongoing debate over Tucson’s Mexican-American Studies program says about deepercurrents of America’s history and political culture.

MichelleChen: You made public statements last year warning that the crackdown on ethnicstudies in Tucson was a harbinger of things to come (see this previous interview with Jeff Biggers). Since then,we’ve seen the legal and political war on ethnic studies intensify, culminatingin the “book ban,” along with a slew of other anti-immigrant policies from the statelegislature. In your view, have those earlier fears been borne out in the lastfew months?

Rodolfo Acuña:Yes, they unfortunately were borne out. What many don’t understand is thatArizona is a much more fertile test ground from the right than places likeWisconsin or Ohio where there is a long tradition and trade union movement. Thepress in Arizona is much more reactionary and money via the Koch Brothers and otherspecial interests gets much more for the buck. Consequently ALEC (the American Legislative ExchangeCouncil), the Tea Party, the Southern Arizona Leadership Council, et alcan control the legal system. It does not help that the White House isspineless and does not enforce the Constitution. It will get worse becausethere are no brakes. Mexicans don’t count for much–even among the Left.

MC: You recently wrote abouta political slippery slope, placing the crackdown on ethnic studieson the same continuum as, for example, the Spanish Inquisition, slavery, etc.Talk about the link between the more “obvious” forms of oppression, which manybelieve America has somehow overcome, and more insidious forms of abuse,censorship and disenfranchisement in the education system today.

RA: Well, when youget a nine year-old girl by the name of Bresinia Floresshot down in her home by extremists and the press ignores it until the time oftrial, I think that is pretty outrageous. You have seen my most recent articleon the Inquisition; the Inquisition is always in the past — it is the SpanishInquisition never the American Inquisition. Personally, I am pessimistic aboutthe future. I can see the obvious links between forms of oppression but I donot believe that even the Left does. If a nine-year old of any other race hadbeen assassinated there would have been an outcry by The Nation and theLeft Press gaggle. The Left cares about Mexicans, but we are low on itspriority list. There is always Wisconsin and Ohio. I don’t really know ifAmerica (the United States) can be redeemed. I don’t believe that the Germanpeople have been absolved for their silence during the Holocaust. I thinkpeople today who are complicit through their silence should be ashamed.

MC: Do you thinkpublic attitudes toward ethnic studies have changed since 9/11? What’s theconnection between increasing nationalism and militarism in the political arenaand our political culture, and educational policy?

RA: No, I believethat the feelings toward Mexican American Studies were not affected by 9/11.The assault on MAS began years before; it is an extension of the killing ofbilingual education. Propositions 187, 227 and 209 occurred inthe 1990s at a time when there was relatively prosperous times. You can’t blameit on one incident; the xenophobia is part of the American Way. Remember theRepatriations of the 1930s and the internment of the Japanese.

MC: When youpublished Occupied America, didyou face a similar political climate? In what ways was the public reactionsimilar, or different, back then?

RA: It wasdifferent then. The population was younger and although we had resistance, wealso had a young and politicized left. The energy of the black movement offeredsome shield. There were also less Mexicans in the United States so we were lessof a threat.

MC: Have you facedsimilar political battles in California over the teaching of your book or anyother ethnic studies initiatives? Is this a matter of opportunistic politiciansin Arizona exploiting the immigration issue, or does it represent broadertrend?

RA: There hasalways been resistance to my books. I published three children’s books beforeOccupied America, and two were banned in Texas. Some teachers in Californiathrew the books in the waste basket. Censorship in Tucson did not beginrecently. I hark back to the banning of bilingual education. What isfrightening about Arizona is that the right has singled out Mexicans becausethey know that there will be little push back. I think this will continue. InCalifornia the drive will be different, it will be through the initiativeprocess. If nativists go too far, they will just not get elected to statewideoffice. However, listen to the Republican presidential candidate, they trulyrepresent what Americans think.

MC: Thispresidential campaign will bring an onslaught of right-wing rhetoric andpandering to anti-immigrant groups. How might that escalate tensions withrespect to issues of race and diversity in public education?

RA: What I am mostafraid of is Obama. He is genuinely gutless. If he would have put his foot downand enforced the law in Arizona this would be over with. The right wing thereis trying to nullify the constitution but he thinks he can ride it out. Tucsonfor the past 30 years has been under a federal court order to desegregation. Ithas given hundreds of millions of dollars to it to desegregate, fifty yearsafter Brown v. the Board of Education, Tucson is still segregated. Charterschools offer white people an escape.

MC: Overall, whattrends have you witnessed in public education and higher education over thepast generation in terms of progressive pedagogy that examines society from asocial justice standpoint? Would you say there has been progress overall, andin what areas have we stagnated or regressed?

RA: No, therunaway tuition costs has wiped everything out. Teachers have helped little.You would think that the teachers’ unions would be in Tucson en masse–are they?No, instead, they are pushing for more raises parading will inane signs thatsay, “We teach the 99 percent!” Why aren’t they in jail?

MC: You’ve alwaysseen activism and education as deeply intertwined. When you see students inTucson mobilizing to defend ethnic studies, as well as these Occupy protests going on around thecountry, how do you think that might help shift the political climate? As anactivist and scholar, do you have advice on advocates for progressive educationcan build these movements?

RA: If theyweren’t Mexican, people might care. I think that they are heroic, but Arizona,as well as most states, are controlled by elderly white voters who just careabout themselves. “Don’t touch my social security but it is alright if youeliminated for others.” Scholars are not really activists; they may have beenat one time but today. Most resent having to teach; they want to come up withthe grand theory. “Progressive scholars” don’t have the foggiest as to what ishappening in Tucson. Mexican-American Studies was part of the pedagogy to bringabout methods built around critical thinking. But I haven’t heard much from the“progressive scholars.”

MC: When youpublished Occupied America, didyou face a similar political climate? In what ways was the public reactionsimilar, or different, back then?

Increasing Reliance on Guest Worker Programs – CIP Americas

2012-01-16T14:20:00.000-08:00

Increasing Reliance on Guest Worker Programs – CIP Americas

by David Bacon.

The Purge of Mexican Americans in Tucson schools

2012-01-16T13:09:00.000-08:00

by Salomón Baldenegro
Estimadas/os: First, let’s get the media-driven nonsense out of the way: “Ethnic Studies” was not dismantled in the Tucson UnifiedSchool District. Mexican American Studies was dismantled. It is the Mexican American community whose legitimacy in this country is being challenged. It is the history and contributions of the Mexican American community that are being de-valued by the concerted attack on our community by the Mexican haters and their enablers. All the other “ethnic studies” curricula in TUSD are intact and functioning—and “legal.”

The other bit of nonsense we need to get out of the way is the fiction—purveyed most recently in the Arizona Daily Star’s editorial of Sunday, January 15—that TUSD did what it had to do, that it really had no choice but to dismantle Mexican American Studies.

The indisputable fact of the matter is that TUSD had a choice: to go along with the Mexican haters Horne and Huppenthal or appeal Huppenthal’s decision, which would have put a hold on the threatened financial penalties on TUSD until the issue was resolved in court. TUSD made the conscious and deliberate choice to support Huppenthal.

Now to the matter of TUSD’s Mexican Purge:

The Purging of the Mexicans has begun in earnest in TUSD, one day after the pusillanimous TUSD school board, led by its chief Mexican hater Mark Stegeman, voted 4-1 to join hands withTom Horne and John Huppenthal and dismantle the Mexican American Studies curriculum.

Students forced to witness the Purge

The very next day after its nefarious vote, while classes were in session, TUSD conducted a purge of any and all books and teaching materials having to do with Mexican Americans and/or that deal with topics that are banned (e.g., civil rights) from MAS classrooms. Award-winning journalist Jeff Biggers reports that,

“According to district spokeperson Cara Rene, the books ‘will be cleared from all classrooms, boxed up and sent to the Textbook Depository for storage.’ ”

(The link below takes you to Biggers’ article in Salon.)

TUSD teachers and students who witnessed the purging of the books corroborate what Biggers reports. (Below is a link to a Three Sonorans article that contains relevant video about this.)

The depth of TUSD Superintendent John Pedicone’s hate for our students is evident in his ordering that the classrooms be purged of the books and teaching materials during class, forcing students to witness the purge. This was an act of pure, unadulterated meanness, vindictiveness, and hate.

Rudy Acuna’s, Arturo Rosales’, and Memo Shakespeare’s works not fit for Meskin eyes

Rudy Acuna (tilde on the “n”) and Arturo Rosales are outstanding Chicano historians—both of whom, coincidentally, have Tucsonroots. For obvious reasons their books are among the forbidden and purged texts in TUSD: they provide a scholarly, thorough, and documented history of the Mexican American community.

Shakespeare’s play “The Tempest” is also banned. Maybe he was too close to the Mexican stuff on the bookshelf and is suspected of being one a `em there Meskin lovers. Or, The Tempest’s characters’ names—Alonso, Ferdinand, Sebastian, Antonio, Gonzalo, Stephano, Trinculo, Claribel, Miranda, Prospero, and Ariel—sound too much like Mexican names (after all, most of them end in vowels!!!) to Stegeman, Pedicone and the other Mexican haters.

As you may remember, in “The Tempest” Prospero comes to an island and enslaves the indigenous people (Caliban, Ariel) and takes over—i.e., colonizes—the island, raising the issues of morality, fairness, and oppression. Discussing these topics, and specifically oppression, in the context of Mexican Americans is “illegal” according to Huppenthal, Pedicone, Stegeman, et al. and is banned. Therefore, Mexican American students are not allowed to read this subversive play.

The above and the following examples are just that—examples. ALL books and teaching materials (there are too many to detail here) used in the MAS curriculum are banned and were seized by TUSD in the Great Mexican Book Purge.

“Bless me Ultima” banned only if read by Mexican American Students

But the book ban is racially-ethnically selective. Rodolfo Anaya’s award-winning novel Bless Me Ultima (accent on the “U”) is also banned but ONLY if read by Mexican American students in “Mexican” schools. Anaya’s book is still “legal” and continues to be used in (virtually all-white) University High School, TUSD’s quasi-private and exclusive high school for “gifted” students.

So, according to Pedicone and Stegeman, the nature and quality of “Bless Me Ultima” are different, depending on the color of the eyes reading it?

Mexican Americans banned from reading Thoreau also…

Thoreau's “Civil Disobedience (Resistance to Civil Government)” essay is used extensively at (virtually all-white) University High School, BUT that same essay is banned from Mexican American Studies (Literature and History) classes at predominantly Latino Pueblo and Tucson High Schools.

As I’m sure you remember, in his classic essay (published in 1849) Thoreau argues that (1) individuals should not permit governmentsto overrule or chip away at their consciences, and (2) it is the civic duty of citizens to fight against the government’s attempts to make them the agents of injustice. Thoreau was motivated in part by his disgust with slavery and the Mexican–American War.

So, according to Pedicone and Stegeman, Thoreau’s essay is intellectually stimulating when read by white students but subversive and “un-American” if read by Mexican American students?

At the risk of being repetitious, it needs to be emphasized that what is going on in TUSD is a concerted and targeted attack on Mexican Americans, as evidenced by the fact that “The Tempest,” “Bless me Ultima,” “Civil Disobedience,” etc., are “legal” in non-MAS classes. The Mexican Purge applies only to MAS classes and classrooms.

That TUSD board members Mark Stegeman and Alexandre Sugiyama, and Superintendent John Pedicone, all of whom teach at the University of Arizona, a scholarly space dedicated to the free exchange of ideas, willingly and with gusto participate in the banning of books and ideas is mind boggling. If the concept of malpractice applied to educators as it does to attorneys and physicians, the banning of books would be a textbook case of such malpractice. Yet, University of Arizona professors ordered the purge. Incredible!

The Arizona Daily Star ignores the banning of books and ideas…as will the university community

The only daily newspaper in Tucson is the Arizona Daily Star, which is heavily invested in Mark Stegeman and John Pedicone. The Star talks a big game, re: freedom of speech, etc., and it even hires fancy-pants lawyers to sue public bodies and make lofty speeches about the First Amendment when it wants to obtain documents from public bodies.

But since covering the Mexican Book Purge might be perceived as a criticism of Stegeman and Pedicone, the Star ignores it and, predictably, instead runs an editorial in defense of Stegeman and Pedicone, arguing (mimicking Stegeman’s and Pedicone’s talking points) that TUSD did what it had to do, that it really had no choice. And it says that with a straight face, as if it were true.

Except that it isn’t.

TUSD had a choice: to go along with the Mexican haters Horne and Huppenthal or appeal Huppenthal’s decision, which would have put a hold on the threatened financial penalties on TUSD until the issue was resolved in court. TUSD made the conscious and deliberate choice to support Huppenthal.

I’ll go out on a limb here and assert as an absolute fact that if books were banned in white schools (such as University High) and classes and school officials marched into classrooms, while class was in session, in those schools to seize all the books used in those classes, the harrumphing and howls of protest emanating from the Arizona Daily Star editorial offices could and would be heard all over town.

But since TUSD’s Great Mexican Purge only affects Mexican American Studies students, classes, teachers, and books…

Likewise, if Huppenthal, Horne or anyone else declared award-winning books used in university classes to be “illegal” because they might stimulate forbidden discussions and banned them and sent officials to go into classrooms to seize the offending books, the Faculty Senate and every other university official would, after recovering from their apoplectic shock, scream loud and incessantly about academic freedom, etc.

But since the architects of TUSD’s Great Mexican Purge are U of A professors and the Purge only affects Mexican American Studies students, classes, teachers, and books…I’m betting the university folks will ignore the banning of books and ideas.

The depth of the hate and the hypocrisy involved here is almost too profound to ponder and comprehend.

A public e-mail is not the forum to divulge our strategies of how to beat back the haters and their enablers. But this I can and will say: We are going to win this fight. As our history clearly details—we always do. Which is precisely why the haters and their allies do not want our children, or anyone else, to study our history.

Here are the links to Jeff Biggers’ and The Three Sonorans’ articles.

http://www.salon.com/2012/01/13/whos_afraid_of_the_tempest/

http://tucsoncitizen.com/three-sonorans/2012/01/15/video-mas-literature-teacher-yolanda-sotelo-describes-tusds-new-book-ban/

Salomon

Tucson bans books by Chicano and Native American authors

2012-01-16T13:03:00.000-08:00

Tucson schools bans books by Chicano and Native American authors
Posted by Brenda Norrell - January 14, 2012 at 11:53 pm

Banned books fuels calls for revolution in Tucson

Native authors in banned book include Leslie Marmon Silko, Buffy Sainte Marie and Winona LaDuke

By Brenda Norrell

Breaking news: Updated Sunday with response from banned author Roberto Rodriguez

TUCSON -- Outrage was the response to the news that Tucson schools has banned books, including "Rethinking Columbus," with an essay by award-winning Pueblo author Leslie Marmon Silko, who lives in Tucson, and works by Buffy Sainte Marie, Winona LaDuke, Leonard Peltier and Rigoberta Menchu.

The decision to ban books follows the 4 to 1 vote on Tuesday by the Tucson Unified School District board to succumb to the State of Arizona, and forbid Mexican American Studies, rather than fight the state decision.

Students said the banned books were seized from their classrooms and out of their hands, after Tucson schools banned Mexican American Studies, including a book of photos of Mexico. Crying, students said it was like Nazi Germany, and they were unable to sleep since it happened.

The banned book, "Rethinking Columbus," includes work by many Native Americans, as Debbie Reese reports, the book includes:

Suzan Shown Harjo's "We Have No Reason to Celebrate"
Buffy Sainte-Marie's "My Country, 'Tis of Thy People You're Dying"
Joseph Bruchac's "A Friend of the Indians"
Cornel Pewewardy's "A Barbie-Doll Pocahontas"
N. Scott Momaday's "The Delight Song of Tsoai-Talee"
Michael Dorris's "Why I'm Not Thankful for Thanksgiving"
Leslie Marmon's "Ceremony"
Wendy Rose's "Three Thousand Dollar Death Song"
Winona LaDuke's "To the Women of the World: Our Future, Our Responsibility"

The now banned reading list of the Tucson schools' Mexican American Studies includes two books by Native American author Sherman Alexie and a book of poetry by O'odham poet Ofelia Zepeda.

Jeff Biggers writes in Salon:

The list of removed books includes the 20-year-old textbook “Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years,” which features an essay by Tucson author Leslie Silko. Recipient of a Native Writers’ Circle of the Americas Lifetime Achievement Award and a MacArthur Foundation genius grant, Silko has been an outspoken supporter of the ethnic studies program.

Biggers said Shakespeare’s play “The Tempest," was also banned during the meeting this week. Administrators told Mexican-American studies teachers to stay away from any class units where “race, ethnicity and oppression are central themes."

Other banned books include “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” by famed Brazilian educator Paolo Freire and “Occupied America: A History of Chicanos” by Rodolfo Acuña, two books often singled out by Arizona state superintendent of public instruction John Huppenthal, who campaigned in 2010 on the promise to “stop la raza.” Huppenthal, who once lectured state educators that he based his own school principles for children on corporate management schemes of the Fortune 500, compared Mexican-American studies to Hitler Jugend indoctrination last fall.
http://www.salon.com/2012/01/13/whos_afraid_of_the_tempest/singleton/

Bill Bigelow, co-author of Rethinking Columbus, writes:

Imagine our surprise.
Rethinking Schools learned today that for the first time in its more-than-20-year history, our book Rethinking Columbus was banned by a school district: Tucson, Arizona ...

As I mentioned to Biggers when we spoke, the last time a book of mine was outlawed was during the state of emergency in apartheid South Africa in 1986, when the regime there banned the curriculum I’d written, Strangers in Their Own Country, likely because it included excerpts from a speech by then-imprisoned Nelson Mandela. Confronting massive opposition at home and abroad, the white minority government feared for its life in 1986. It’s worth asking what the school authorities in Arizona fear today.
http://rethinkingschoolsblog.wordpress.com/2012/01/13/rethinking-columbus-banned-in-tucson

Roberto Rodriguez, professor at University of Arizona, is also among the nation's top Chicano and Latino authors on the Mexican American Studies reading list. Rodriguez' column about this week's school board decision, posted at Censored News, is titled: "Tucson school officials caught on tape 'urinating' on Mexican students."http://drcintli.blogspot.com/

Rodriguez responded to Narco New about the ban on Sunday.

"The attacks in Arizona are mind-boggling. To ban the teaching of a discipline is draconian in and of itself. However, there is also now a banned books list that accompanies the ban. I believe 2 of my books are on the list, which includes: Justice: A Question of Race and The X in La Raza. Two others may also be on the list," Rodriguez said.

"That in itself is jarring, but we need to remember the proper context. This is not simply a book-banning; according to Tom Horne, the former state scools' superintendent who designed HB 2281, this is part of a civilizational war. He determined that Mexican American Studies is not based on Greco-Roman knowledge and thus, lies outside of Western Civilization.

"In a sense, he is correct. The philosophical foundation for MAS is a maiz-based philosophy that is both, thousands of years old and Indigenous to this continent. What has just happened is akin to an Auto de Fe -- akin to the 1562 book-burning of Maya books in 1562 at Mani, Yucatan. At TUSD, the list of banned books will total perhaps 50 books, including artwork and posters.

"For us here in Tucson, this is not over. If anything, the banning of books will let the world know precisely what kind of mindset is operating here; in that previous era, this would be referred to as a reduccion (cultural genocide) of all things Indigenous. In this era, it can too also be see as a reduccion."

The reading list includes world acclaimed Chicano and Latino authors, along with Native American authors. The list includes books by Corky Gonzales, along with Sandra Cisneros’ “The House on Mango Street;” Jimmy Santiago Baca’s “Black Mesa Poems,“ and L.A. Urreas’ “The Devil’s Highway.“ The authors include Henry David Thoreau and the popular book “Like Water for Chocolate.”

On the reading list are Native American author Sherman Alexie's books, “Ten Little Indians,“ and “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven.“ O’odham poet and professor Ofelia Zepeda’s “Ocean Power, Poems from the Desert” is also on the list.
DA Morales writes in Three Sonorans, at Tucson Citizen, about the role of state schools chief John Huppenthal. "Big Brother Huppenthal has taken his TEA Party vows to take back Arizona… take it back a few centuries with official book bans that include Shakespeare!"

Updates at www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com

Remember Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

2012-01-15T17:17:00.001-08:00

by Thomas F. Jackson

Almost 40 years ago, a united black community in Memphis stepped forward to support 1,300 municipal sanitation workers as they demanded higher wages, union recognition, and respect for black personhood embodied in the slogan “I Am a Man!” Memphis’s black women organized tenant and welfare unions, discovering pervasive hunger among the city’s poor and black children. They demanded rights to food and medical care from a city and medical establishment blind to their existence. That same month, March 1968, 100 grassroots organizations met in Atlanta to support Martin Luther King’s dream of a poor people’s march on Washington. They pressed concrete demands for economic justice under the slogan “Jobs or Income Now!” King celebrated the “determination by poor people of all colors” to win their human rights. “Established powers of rich America have deliberately exploited poor people by isolating them in ethnic, nationality, religious and racial groups,” the delegates declared.

So when King came to Memphis to support the strike, a local labor and community struggle became intertwined with his dream of mobilizing a national coalition strong enough to reorient national priorities from imperial war in Vietnam to domestic reconstruction, especially in America’s riot-torn cities. To non-poor Americans, King called for a “revolution of values,” a move from self-seeking to service, from property rights to human rights.

King’s assassination—and the urban revolts that followed—led to a local Memphis settlement that furthered the cause of public employee unionism. The Poor People’s March nonviolently won small concessions in the national food stamp program. But reporters covered the bickering and squalor in the poor people’s tent city, rather than the movement’s detailed demands for waging a real war on poverty. Marchers wanted guaranteed public employment when the private sector failed, a raise in the federal minimum wage, a national income floor for all families, and a national commitment to reconstruct cities blighted by corporate disinvestment and white flight. And they wanted poor people’s representation in urban renewal and social service programs that had customarily benefited only businesses or the middle class. King’s dreams reverberated back in the movements that had risen him up.

It is widely believed that King’s deep dedication to workers’ rights and international human rights came late in life, when cities burned, Vietnamese villagers fled American napalm, and King faced stone-throwing Nazis in Chicago’s white working-class inner suburbs. But King began his public ministry in Montgomery in 1956, dreaming of “a world in which men will no longer take necessities from the masses to give luxuries to the classes.” He demanded that imperial nations give up their power and privileges over oppressed and colonized peoples struggling against “segregation, political domination, and economic exploitation”—whether they were in South Africa or South Alabama.

King’s commitments to economic justice and workers’ rights are becoming more widely appreciated today as we continue to confront all of the unresolved challenges King confronted in his day.

Around 1964, King announced that the movement had moved “beyond civil rights.” Constitutional rights to free assembly, equality in voting, and access to public accommodations had marched forward with little cost to the nation, he said. Human rights—to dignified work, decent wages, income support, and decent housing for all Americans—would cost the nation billions of dollars. In other speeches, however, King recognized that human rights and civil rights were bound up with each other, part of a “Worldwide Human Rights Revolution.” The practical experience of building a movement had already made these connections. In Montgomery’s struggle to desegregate bus seating, for example, King heralded the American “right to protest for right,” but discovered that it was inseparable from the human rights to work and eat. Why? Hundreds of African Americans were fired or evicted or denied public aid for expressing themselves politically, and King was intimately involved in campaigns for their material relief. This pattern continued throughout the 1960s. The southern struggle for rights became a struggle against poverty long before Lyndon Johnson’s wars in Vietnam and on poverty.

Similarly, in New York City in 1959, King joined A. Philip Randolph and Malcolm X in supporting the white, black and Puerto Rican hospital workers of NewYork’s newly organized Local 1199. Over 3,000 hospital workers—laundry workers, cafeteria workers, janitors and orderlies—struck seven New York private hospitals. At the bottom of the new service economy they were legally barred from collective bargaining; excluded from minimum wage protections and unemployment compensation; and denied the medical insurance that might give them access to the hospitals where they worked. Harlem’s black community rallied to their defense. King cheered a struggle that transcended “a fight for union rights” and had become a multiracial “fight for human rights.”

King’s commitments to economic justice and workers’ rights are becoming more widely appreciated today as we continue to confront all of the unresolved challenges King confronted in his day. Joblessness is still pervasive under the official unemployment statistics, and wages remain too low to lift millions of people out of poverty. Conservative politicians and globalizing corporations have relentlessly chipped away at union rights and workplace safety. Tattered safety nets have become even shoddier for poor people who are not capable of earning. Forty-seven million Americans are, medically, second-class citizens. Unequal landscapes of wealth and opportunity in housing and schools still make the words “American apartheid” a dirty but accurate epithet. And again, in a different part of the world, our military wages a war of empire cloaked in robes of democratic idealism. On the right, complacent religious leaders preach family morality and personal responsibility, while neglecting our collective moral commitments to materially supporting “the least of these.” But across the country too, citizens are uncovering stones of hope and finding new democratic determination. We have come a long way, but we have a long way to go, as King would say. Lost ground and shattered dreams are bearable, he would have preached, as we continue the struggles for multiracial democracy, economic justice, and human dignity that were begun long ago, under even more challenging circumstances than we face today.

Thomas F. Jackson is Associate Professor of History at the University of North Carolina Greensboro, and author of the prizewinning From Civil Rights to Human Rights: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Struggle for Economic Justice (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007). For more about this important book, we recommend Maurice Isserman's review in the Summer 2007 Dissent.

This essay originally appeared on the website of Interfaith Worker Justice.
Posted from Talking Union.

In recognition of the King Holiday, Tavis Smiley moderated a conversation on solutions for restoring America's prosperity. Topics included the white paper from Indiana University's School of Public and Environmental Affairs (SPEA), released the previous day, titled At Risk: America's Poor During and After the Great Recession, which reveals the "new poor" and how the face of poverty in America has changed.

"Remaking America: From Poverty to Prosperity", was held at George Washington University's Lisner Auditorium,.
2 hours, 37 minutes | 4,145 Views

Speakers include Cornel West, Barbara Ehrenreich, Michael Moore, and more.
I tried to post this on Sat. but was unable to post.
On CSPAN. The video stream should still be available. Tavis Smiley said it would be played on PBS this week.

Tucson- No Tienen Madre : Rudy Acuña

2012-01-13T14:45:00.000-08:00

Tucson’s Sin of Scandal

Failing Students

Rodolfo F. Acuña

What is missing in the media’s coverage of the elimination of the Tucson Unified School District Mexican American Studies program is that students were learning and they wanted to go to school. I take this travesty personal. One of the reasons I have stayed in education for over fifty-five years is that I wanted to do something about the dropout problem. I always heeded John Dewey dicta that a student failure was that of the teacher. If students drop out then there is something wrong with the educational system.

Arizona education has many problems: taxpayers do not want to pay for schools and it is dead last in student per capita spending. White parents don’t want their children going to school with Latinos and blacks as well as other working class people, so charter schools have multiplied to “balance” student ethnicity by making it whiter.

Arizona has blatantly avoided federal court orders to desegregate: more than fifty years after Brown v. the Board of Education (1954), the TUSD is still under a federal court mandate to “balance” the schools. The federal government, meanwhile, has poured millions of dollars into Arizona to help pay for integration purposes.

The truth be told, there has been no improvement. The dropout problem remains over fifty percent. As part of an effort to correct imbalances, the federal court in its desegregation plan, included the MAS program, which federal government paid for.

Because I have been a highly successful educator, I have seen that building student identity ameliorates an inferiority complex ingrained by the educational process. Innumerable studies prove that an increase sense of self motivates students to better their skills and allows them to succeed in school.

The reason that I want to improve education is personal. I am not religious, but I always remember the nuns telling me when I saw a person less fortunate to say, “There for the grace of God go I.”

Although I could not do it, I appreciate the work of Fr. Greg Boyle and Homeboy Industries. It hurts me every time I see a gang kid because I realize that as a member of society I bear a responsibility for the outcome. My vocation differs Greg’s and I work with students by giving them an alternative to gangs when they are young. My feeling is every student that goes to college does not end up in a gang.

The TUSD MAS program was contributing to that end. Despite the racist lies of Arizona politicos it is a model to motivate students. And, despite the actions of the TUSD school board, other districts will emulate and study it.

My feelings about the people behind the destruction of the MAS program are that they have no redemption. They are no better than the members of the mafia who do not care about the outcome or hardships they cause as long as they make a profit.

Democracy has been dealt a blow. The actions of these racist has contributed to disillusionment among many students. They have brought about a loss of faith, which is always difficult whether it be in religion or politics. This loss leads to an emptiness and hopelessness. For instance, I know people who as a result of the pedophile scandals in the Catholic Church have not returned to mass.

In ending the MAS program, the state of Arizona has been complicit in condemning many Latino students to failure. Thomas de Aquinas defined scandal as a word or action that is intrinsically evil, and leads to the spiritual ruin of another person. You don’t necessarily have to physically cause someone’s sin, but only be the moral cause of the sin. A sin of scandal is not accidental but premeditated as in the case of Arizona elites.

From the top on down, Arizona officials know that their actions is causing many Latinos to be stigmatized. They know that they are contributing to their dropping out of school and they don’t care.

Mark Stegeman, Michael Hicks, Miguel Cuevas and the newly appointed Alexandre Sugiyama all know it. They are bought men who don’t care about the consequences as long as it fills their pockets.

For them, education is business and it doesn’t much matter if Mexican Americans get an education. As long as people hate Mexicans, it is easier to cash in on their lack of education.

It is a well-known fact that the Tea Party is not a populist movement. It is racist and driven by right wing funding that includes the Koch brothers who Mitt Romney says are the “financial engine of the Tea Party.”

Most Arizonans know the role of ALEC (the American Legislative Exchange Council). The People for the American Way Foundation and Common Cause have published a report documenting the fact that ALEC has inspired and written most anti- Latino and worker legislation in the state. It is at the forefront of anti-labor, anti-healthcare and anti-environmental. It is behind the privatization of schools and prisons.

Major corporations including Coca-Cola, Kraft, ExxonMobil and GlaxoSmithKline are key players in Arizona politics. Two dozen major corporations have sat on ALEC’s board which is insidiously called the “Private Enterprise Board.”

Well aware of the growing Latino population, it is to ALEC’s advantage to keep the state white and Mexicans disenfranchised. Thus, it has sponsored voter suppression bills that potentially disenfranchise tens of thousands of Arizonans.

The report identifies fifty Arizona state legislators who are current ALEC members. These bought politicos wrote and sponsored SB 1070, Arizona’s notorious immigration. It is no accident that privatized prisons are flush with immigrant detainees. Uneducated Mexican Americans also insure future inmate growth. Aside from money to run the prisons, prison labor is competing with free labor.

In Tucson, the Southern Arizona Leadership Council is an ALEC mini-me; an all-white country club whose members overlap with other heavy hitters locally, regionally and statewide. The TUSD superintendent of schools is a former SALC vice-president.

Recently, when Judy Burns, a supporter of the MAS program died, SALC engineered the appointment of Alexandre Sugiyama, a lecturer in Economics at the University of Arizona, to fill her seat. It accomplished its ends by stacking the selection committee.

Sugiyama was obviously selected because he is half Brazilian and half Japanese. He has no ties to the community; he is a lecturer with no publications, or knowledge or interest in education.

His student evaluations are low: “AVOID (reasons): 1. Resents his own job such that he's consistently 15 mins late to 1hr class…” Another “if you choose to take this class with this teacher you are in for a real treat. TORTURE. Sugiyama is such a horrid teacher it is unreal. Do yourself a favor and just say NO.”

As soon as Sugiyama was appointed, he voted with Stegeman and Hicks to replace Cuevas as chair and then with a 4-1 majority abolished MAS. Democracy in action.

Thus far, what is lost are the Latino students and no one gives a damn. Nobody cares if they end up in gangs, as long as they money for the elites -- that is what counts. Fear of ending up in a class with a Mexican will generate more Charter Schools and more dropouts will insure larger prison populations. Everyone makes money.

The disillusionment is not limited to Arizona politicos but includes the federal government. The federal courts have not enforced federal laws. The Obama administration is paralyzed furthering the feeling of abandonment and encouraging TUSD Tea Party Board member Hicks to go around saying that state law trumps federal law.

My mother would say about the gaggle in Tucson, no tienen madre. They are disrespectful; they don’t care about the law, or how many people are hurt by their actions.

I am not as nice as my mother was. I feel much like the people in the Boyle Heights area when the Night Stalker, Richard Ramírez, was terrorizing Los Angeles. They put out signs daring him to come East of the River, and then took care of him when he did.

Hopefully the Tea Party will come to L.A.

Migration: A Product of Free Market Reforms – CIP Americas

2012-01-13T11:28:00.000-08:00

Migration: A Product of Free Market Reforms – CIP Americas

by David Bacon

California Dream Act

2012-01-12T15:01:00.001-08:00

Uncertainties Hover OverCalifornia DREAM Act

By Edgardo Cervano-Soto

Despite the announcement of Gov. Jerry Brownsigning into law the California DREAM Act last October, students applying forcolleges at Richmond High School’s College and Career Center showed a mutedresponse towards legislation that may benefit undocumented students in the nexttwo years.

The California DREAM Act-- so-title from theacronym, Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors--actually consistsof two State Assembly Bills. AB 130, which went into effect on Jan. 1, allowscolleges to make private scholarships available to undocumented students. AB131 will, starting Jan. 1, 2013, make state funding, such as CalGrants,accessible to undocumented students.

But some high school counselors are hesitatingto promote the act’s benefits enthusiastically because of major problems withthe law.

No Celebration of DREAM

The Richmond High College and Career Centeroffice shows no signs celebrating passage of the California DREAM Act – one ofseveral passed by states around the country. Posted wall-to-wall are only theusual pristine posters of smiling college graduates, and bright letters yellingout places like Cal, Chico State and Stanford--as if AB 130 and 131 were neverenacted.

Students at the center sat in front of slowdesktop computers drafting personal statements, navigating college applicationsites, typing into empty fields and asking questions, such as whether theyshould declare a major, or what it means when the application asks, “Do youclaim California residency?”

“It was all on Facebook,” said program directorAngelica Arriaga of the unseen celebration. “If you go onto Facebook, you willsee that lots of kids, undocumented and documented were excited,” said Arriaga.But Arriaga has avoided the hype over access to financial aid guaranteed by theCalifornia DREAM Act.

Although passage of the California DREAM Acthas led students to apply for California State Universities (CSU’s) andUniversity of California campuses, instead of community colleges, Arriaga saidshe will not emphasize the act and its access to public funds as a security netfor undocumented students.

Initially, Arriaga said, many undocumentedstudents thought that beginning next year under AB 131, they’’ be able to signup for federal student aid get help right away. But the state still needs toanswer many questions about the program, its funding and implementation.

Arriaga manages College Is Real (CIR), acollege preparation program counseling up to 100 Richmond High students, aquarter of them currently seniors. Close to 90 percent of CIR students arefirst-generation, low-income and Latino.

Of the 26 seniors Arriaga counsels through CIR,less than 10 are undocumented and have applied to college. Maria, 17, is one ofthem. The news of the CA DREAM Act being approved came as a surprise to thestudent, who declined to provide her full name for this article. Nonetheless,the chance to apply for state financial aid comforts her, and perhaps, may be alifeline.

Maria “The Brain”

Maria, a senior, has a 4.1 grade point averageand is ranked in the top 10 in her class. She is enrolled in four advancedplacement courses including physics and calculus, a member of the JuniorStatesmen of America and has participated in Stanford University’s highlyselective Summer Math and Science Honor’s Academy.

During after school hours at the center, Mariais often called over by her peers to explain difficult science and mathconcepts. Deemed “The Brain” by other students, Maria aspires to be a doctor.

Despite her string of accomplishments, though,Maria’s life outside of school has unraveled. She does not live with herfamily. Following a visit from immigration officers to their home, Maria’smother and younger brother moved outside of Richmond. The incident promptedMaria’s mother to assume the name and identity records of a deceased relative.

Meanwhile, Maria’s father is a migrant worker inAlabama and Georgia. The anti-immigration laws passed in both states, causedhim to consider returning to California, but ultimately stayed, Maria said. Theexodus of undocumented laborers from those states left farms in need ofworkers, work that Maria’s father has accepted.

Every week, Maria’s father sends her money.Although she is living with her parents’ friends and their children, she saidit is difficult to go on without family support. Besides missing her family,Maria finds that issues, such as not having her own space, feeling unwantedsometimes and having insufficient money, can get her down.

Maria knows her father’s earnings are notenough to pay even a fraction of college fees. Having the support of theCalifornia DREAM Act and access to public funds, Maria said, is empowering. Sheadded that knowing of this option has relived the pressure on her.

Little Funding

But funding for the California DREAM Actcurrently falls far short of Maria’s hopes for assistance. Jose Arreola,outreach manager for Educators for Fair Consideration, (E4FC, animmigrant-students advocacy group) stated, “We are not looking at a lot ofmoney.”

Arreola explained that the CaliforniaDepartment of Finance estimates close to 2,500 undocumented students will beeligible for $14 million in CalGrant Funds--merely represents one percent ofthe $14 billion in financial aid allotted to California students.

“The caveat,” he continued, “is thatundocumented students will only get access to the aid that is left over afterall citizens and permanent legal residents receive theirs.”

At Richmond High, Angelica Arriaga said thisfinancial reality adds to her hesitancy to promote the act’s benefits. “It’s solimited in terms of the funds that are available to students. They are nowcompeting against each other for that one percent,” she said.

Furthermore, AB 130 does not requireuniversities to offer private scholarships funded by private sponsors and foundationsto undocumented students. It only allows them to do so, if they wish.

In addition, Arreola said students and theiradvocates need to realize that the California DREAM Act does not offer acomplete solution. Once they attend college and graduate, he said, willre-encounter the challenges of being undocumented.

“At the end of the day, it really is federalimmigration reform, like the DREAM Act, that we are going to need,” Arreolastressed.

Meanwhile, at the Richmond High College andCareer Center, Arriaga continues to help student apply for privatescholarships, private universities and the more affordable California StateUniversity system, until the state works out details of the California DREAMAct.

Unfazed

Maria is not fazed by the uncertainty of theCalifornia DREAM Act. She has chosen to focus on strengthening her applicationsto private universities, in hopes of receiving a full ride. She will also applyto many scholarships to fund her studies.

But for now, Maria is concentrating on heracademics and waiting for the day she can tear open the envelopes containingher college acceptance letters.

“I want to see the yes’s and the letters,”Maria said. “After that, hopefully it will be a smooth ride, and I will findthe ways to pay for college.”

This article was published at NationofChange at: http://www.nationofchange.org/uncertainties-hover-over-california-dream-act-1325868023. Allrights are reserved.

Alabama's anti immigrant campaign

2012-01-11T16:28:00.000-08:00

SPLC Ready for Long LegalBattle Over Alabama’s Harsh Anti-Immigrant Law

By Dan Werner, Deputy Legal Director

The Southern Poverty Law Centerhas won some encouraging victories in the months since we launched our effortto defeat Alabama’s harsh anti-immigrant law.

We’ve also had somedisappointments. And we’ve seen this law bring fear and chaos to this state.More than 3,000 calls have poured into our hotline for immigrants affected bythe law. But this legal battle is far from over. In fact, it’s just gettingstarted.

Currently, the followingprovisions of HB 56 are in effect:

• Police are allowedto check the immigration status of people they stop and reasonably suspect arein the country unlawfully.

• All new contractsbetween an undocumented immigrant and another person are unenforceable in statecourt, with the exception of contracts for one night’s lodging, food purchasesand medical services.

• It is a felony forundocumented immigrants to enter into a “business transaction” with the stateof Alabama. The scope of this felony remains unclear, but includes applying fora driver’s license or a business license. The provision also includetransactions with subdivisions of the state, such as cities and counties.

Beginning April 1, 2012,employers will be required to use e-verify to determine the immigration statusof prospective employees.

Other provisions of the lawhave been temporarily blocked by the courts. These include provisions that:

• Require K-12 schoolofficials to question students about their immigration status and that of theirparents.

• Prohibit residentsfrom transporting or harboring undocumented immigrants.

• Make it a trafficviolation for motorists who stop in the roadway to hire a day laborer.

• Prohibituniversities from enrolling certain immigrants – including asylees, refugees orthose granted temporary protected status.

• Make it amisdemeanor for failing to complete or carry an alien registration card.

• Prohibit employersfrom taking state tax deductions for wages paid to undocumented workers.

• Allow employers tobe sued for discrimination by people with U.S. citizen or legal immigrationstatus when they are fired or not hired by an employer with undocumentedemployees.

These parts of the law havebeen blocked as the lawsuits make their way through the courts. The trial andan appeals court agreed with our arguments – and the arguments of otherschallenging this law – that, among other things, allowing enforcement of theseprovisions would cause irreparable injury and that we were likely to succeed onthe merits of our claims.

We would have preferred for theentire law to be blocked until a final – and permanent – ruling is reached bythe judicial system. While that has not happened, we’re encouraged that we’vekept several provisions from taking effect.

It’s important because a longlegal process is ahead of us. Right now, we have been granted a partial preliminaryinjunction, which will last until the federal district court makes a finalruling in the case. It is this preliminary injunction that iscurrently on appeal in the Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit (it is also thepreliminary injunction that the 11th Circuit expanded by blocking two additional provisions of HB 56while the appeal is pending).

After the 11th Circuit rules, the same issuescould go as high as the U.S. Supreme Court. But that is just the beginning.After the appeals process of the preliminary injunction is over, we will goback to the U.S. District Court and seek a permanent injunction – anorder that permanently blocks parts of the law from taking effect.

The SPLC is ready for this longlegal battle. The fear and panic that has spread across Alabama is a stark andfrightening reminder of why this law must be struck down. We have seen familiespulling their children from school out of fear. Crops are rotting in the fieldsbecause workers – regardless of their immigration status – have fled the staterather than live under this law. Families have been told their water supplywill be cut off because they cannot produce their “papers.”

This isn’t a viable or humanesolution to the problems in our nation’s immigration system. It’s a campaign offear and chaos that has trampled the rights of the state’s residents. We willnot stop until this law is defeated and the rights of all Alabamians areprotected.

Southern Poverty Law Center

Bad Education

2012-01-09T17:47:00.000-08:00

Bad Education

Arizona moves to ban Ethnic Studies.

Obama Administration changes rules on immigration adjustment of status

2012-01-08T15:13:00.000-08:00

The Obama Administration acted on Friday to permit thehusbands, wives, and children of U.S. citizens to adjust their status and toallow them to gain Green Cards or permission to become a resident alien. This is a return to the policybefore the 1996 Republicansponsored Immigration Act.

The primary beneficiaries of the Obama administration's move are families in which somemembers are US citizens and some aren't. At present some family members must return to their home country for upto 10 years while they apply for U.S. residency as a 1996 law – approved by aRepublican-led Congress – mandates.

The proposed change will undergo a review but doesn'trequire congressional approval. Under the so-called "hardshipwaiver," illegal immigrants who are married or otherwise related toUS citizens would be able to pick up the waiver before leaving the United States andthen be allowed to return almost immediately after picking up visas in theirhome countries. This policy used to be known as advanced parole.

According to an article in the New York Times, for Sat.Jan. 7, by Julia Preston the union representing ICEagents is resisting this policy change. It has not allowed its members to participate in training to implementthe new rule. Chris Crane,the president of the American Federation of Government Employees claims thatnew rule amounts to violating the law. ( This was the law prior to 1996) Crane, of AFGE, is working closelywith Lamar Smith, the Texas Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and aRepublican leader on opposition to immigration reform.

In examining individual cases that may not be representativeI note that the current practice with ICE is that residents fromWhite ( European) countries are commonly allowed to adjust their status whileremaining in the U.S. Residents from non White countries, particularlyLatin American and Asian, are required to return to their home countries andapply for immigration- a process that can take up to a decade. The reason forthe difference ? Persons from mostly European countries ( and Australia),do not have a significant backlog of applications for immigration thus,their cases can be resolved in a matter of months- not so for Mexican,Philippinos, Chinese and similar groups.

SEIU Vice President Eliseo Medina praised the new rules onFriday. Here is the SEIU statementon the issue.

SEIU applauds today's announcement by the Obama Administration toknock down bureaucratic obstacles for U.S. citizens who currently face hardshipbecause their spouses cannot remain in the country legally.

The decision makes a small but significant change. It will allowspouses and a small number of adult children to apply for a hardship waiverfrom inside the U.S. instead of facing the risk of returning to their homecountries to apply and being denied reentry into the U.S. for as long as 10years. The risks, uncertainties and delays that come with applying for the visafrom abroad create unnecessary burdens on families in hardship cases.

To qualify for the waiver, the U.S. citizen must show that she wouldsuffer "extreme hardship" if forced to remain separated from a spouseor parent. Typical examples include U.S. citizens who are sick or disabled andare being cared for or supported by their immigrant spouse or parent.

The policy change to let immigrants in hardship cases remain in theU.S. while their applications for hardship wavers are reviewed was welcomed bySEIU's International Secretary-Treasurer Eliseo Medina in the followingstatement:

"Outdated laws and procedures should not keep families apart. Thenew process will lessen the burden on U.S. citizens, whose family members areafraid or unable to leave the country specifically because of the hardshipsthey face. For example, a wife who is taking care of her citizen husband, apermanently disabled war veteran, will not have to choose between providing forher husband or leaving the country to apply for a green card, which carries therisk of being denied reentry for up to 10 years.

"This streamlined procedure also makes budgeting sense. Insteadof having U.S. State Department officers posted overseas to shuttle applicationsback to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security here in Washington, theprocess and the costs will be cut.

"The Obama Administration is applying smart governing principlesto a very simple problem and deserves credit for moving ahead in the absence ofcomprehensive immigration legislation from Congress. While just one smallbureaucratic change will make a difference in the lives of families facinghardships, comprehensive reforms could vastly improve our economic, nationaland family security.

Migration from Oaxaca,

2012-01-07T08:40:00.000-08:00

by David Bacon

OAXACA,MEXICO - The Oaxacan Institute for Attention to Migrants, and itsdirector Rufino Dominguez, called for a new era of respect for the rights ofmigrants, in commorating the International Day of the Migrant in the Palaciodel Gobierno, Oaxaca's state capitol building. Representing thenewly-elected state government, Dominguez paid tribute to the contributions ofthe braceros, the first of Oaxaca's migrant workers to travel to the UnitedStates. from 1942 to 1964, and to the women who cared for the families they leftbehind.

Around thebalconies of the palacio's courtyard hung photographs showing the lives ofcurrent migrants from Oaxaca, working as farm laborers in California. Migrant rights activists, artisans and public officials spoke about theimportant role migration continues to play in Oaxaca's economic, social,political and family life. The state, in southern Mexico, is the sourceof one of the largest waves of migration from Mexico to the U.S.

Dominguez, theformer coordinator of the Binational Front of Indigenous Organizations, whichorganizes indigenous migrants in both Mexico and the U.S., was appointeddirector of the IOAM by Oaxaca's new governor, Gabino Cue Monteagudo. Cuedefeated the PRI, the party that governed Oaxaca for the previous 80 years. In an interview with David Bacon, Dominguez described the different road thenew government is taking to ensure social justice for Oaxacan migrants today:

We can't tell theU.S. government, or the governments of California and other states, to respectthe rights of our people who are living there, if we ourselves are notrespecting the rights of migrants here in Oaxaca. Many migrants passingthrough Oaxaca from Central America and other places suffer systematicviolations of their human rights. Have we just paid attention to migrantsin the U.S. because they send dollars home? Sometimes the problems ofmigrants within Mexico are even greater than those we have in the U.S.

Oaxacans are alsomigrants within our own state, like those who work in the coconut palms on thecoast. About 30,000 Oaxacans migrate for work without leaving the state,and we've never paid attention to them. Another 300,000 live in MexicoCity and states in the north, like Sinaloa, Sonora and Baja California. The Institute hasn't paid attention to them in the past either.

And we've neverconsulted the people who actually live in the U.S. about our activitythere, or asked for their opinions. We want a different vision, a morelevel or equal relationship where we're not dictating policies because we'rethe government, but asking people for their input and opinions.

Our starting pointis to understand the need for economic development, because the reason formigration is the lack of work and opportunity in people's communities oforigin. If we don't attack the roots of migration, it will continue togrow. There's a fear of investing in our own people, but there's no otherway. We have to have economic development, and respect for the humanrights of migrants as they come and go.

We also have totell people about the risks of migrating. In Durango and Tamaulipasthey've found hidden graves of many migrants, and the surprising thing is thatthe big majority killed with such cruelty are Mexicans. It's not just arisk to cross the border into the U.S.. You're risking your lifemigrating here in your own country. People also need to understand thatthe economic crisis in the U.S. hasn't gotten any better. When you getthere, your chance of finding work is worse than ever, and there's a lot ofcompetition for jobs.

So we have to workon implementing the right to not migrate, while protecting the ability tomigrate safely, making sure that people's dignity and human rights arerespected.

In March alone,four thousand migrants were sent back after trying to cross into the U.S. That tells us that there's still a huge number of people trying to cross, andthat the number isn't getting any smaller. The economic pressure onpeople to migrate, and the violation of human rights on the border, are stillpart of our reality. Migrants are raped and beaten, and recruited intocriminal gangs. Over 300 Oaxacans have disappeared, and we don't know ifthey're alive or dead. Their families haven't heard from them. Ourstate is responsible for them, along with the Federal government. Yet wedon't accept responsibility for the economic development that could changeit. This silence is a disgrace, at the same time we've become sodependent on the remittances migrant send back to their families..

The labor ofmigrants in the U.S. has been used throughout history. They tell us tocome work, and then when there's an economic crisis, we're blamed for it. They accuse us of robbing other people's jobs, and our rights are notrespected. These new state laws in Alabama, Florida, South Carolina,Arizona and elsewhere are not just anti-immigrant but inhuman. Meanwhile,the current U.S. administration has hardened its policy of detaining anddeporting immigrants unjustly, which accomplishes nothing. In IOAM wefeel like we're just shouting at the wall -- they don't hear us.

I don't believethat a program of guest workers or braceros will resolve these problems ofmigration. First, it perpetuates a dependence on remittances. Wealso know from our experience with the bracero program in the 1950s and 60sthat these programs don't work. We have many former braceros who arestill fighting to get the 10% of their wages that was withheld during those years. Current H2A and H2B programs give people a work visa, but the rights of workersin these programs are not respected. Often they aren't paid legal wages,they live in terrible conditions in substandard housing, and they have no rightto organize or make demands on their employers.

With a green card,or residence visa, people migrating have some security. That doesn'texist with a guest worker visa or crossing with a coyote. If people'srights are violated, if they're not paid adequately, if they can't earn SocialSecurity to allow them to eventually retire, then this system isworthless. It's just producing throw-away workers, whose labor gets usedbut who have no benefits. So why are we talking about more programs thatfail to respect human and labor rights, and which don't guarantee housing,education and healthcare?

If we begin bytalking about rights and decent wages and conditions, maybe we can see a wayforward. But if it's just "come sell your labor" with norespect for your rights, these programs are worthless. The governments ofboth Mexico and the U.S. must prioritize human and labor rights.

We will work witheveryone. We are a government of everyone. We say, we are allOaxaca, with a government for all of us. So we have to implement this ideain practice.

For more articlesand images, see http://dbacon.igc.org

See also IllegalPeople -- How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants (Beacon Press, 2008)

Recipient: C.L.R.James Award, best book of 2007-2008

http://www.beacon.org/productdetails.cfm?PC=2002

Obama Administration proposes Immigration change

2012-01-07T08:26:00.000-08:00

Today, the administration is proposing changes that would keep hundreds of thousands of families together.

Imagine this scenario: your father leaves home to apply for his US visa -- and finds himself barred from returning. Or your wife, finalizing her application to gain a visa, is stuck waiting months across the border, with no form of recourse.

Situations like these are reality for hundreds of thousands of immigrants and their families. It’s a catch-22 in the American immigration system: if you return to your country of origin to apply for a visa, you trigger a bar of 3 or even 10 years that prevents you from coming back to the US.

The administration is proposing family unity waivers that would allow spouses and children of US citizens to file for visas while remaining in the US.

Today's announcement is welcome news. This reform could prevent parents from missing a decade of their children’s lives, and spouses from facing years without the support and care of their partners. There’s nothing abstract about potentially sparing hundreds of thousands of individuals from being separated from their families for years.

Read more about what these changes mean and how you can join in our commitment to make 2012 the year for even more common-sense reform to keep families together.

With hope,

Donna De La Cruz
Reform Immigration FOR America

Latino Students Defend Education

2011-12-29T16:57:00.000-08:00

Introduction: Latino Student Movements

by Editors. NACLA

Our education is under attack! What do we do? Fight back!” chanted high school students defending their beloved Mexican American Studies program in a Tucson, Arizona, school board meeting in April. They are not the only students fighting to defend education. Almost everywhere, education is under attack, and students across the Americas are fighting back in so many places that it would be impossible to include them all in just one issue.

Since the 1980s, the United States has been taking a page from the Pinochet neoliberal education playbook. Then president Ronald Reagan offered federally funded school vouchers for underprivileged youth to study at private schools (rather than investing the money into improving public schools). Voucher programs were promoted by right-wing think tanks, and former presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush. Vouchers have grown exponentially over the last three decades.

However, the modern-day assault on U.S. public higher education was actually launched by Reagan long before he had been elected to the Oval Office.

“Ronald Reagan launched his political career as governor of California in 1967 by having run not so much against his popular New Deal opponent, Pat Brown, as against the students and faculty of the University of California at Berkeley,” wrote University of California (UC) Santa Barbara English professor Christopher Newfield in a 2008 exposé on the privatization of the U.S. public university.³

Once elected, Reagan attacked public higher education. He called for an end to free tuition for state college and university students, demanded annual 20% cuts in higher education funding, slashed state funding for public university capital projects, and declared that the state “should not subsidize intellectual curiosity.”⁴

Indeed, since the late 1970s, in the United States, student contributions as a percentage of total university income have been on the rise, from 35% to 48% in 1998. Meanwhile state and local contributions fell from over 55% to less than 43%.⁵ This trend has only been exacerbated in recent years, with massive budget cuts, tuition hikes, and layoffs at universities across the country in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.

As in the 1960s, with the UC Berkeley Free Speech Movement and Reagan’s subsequent crackdown, California’s universities have again become the battleground over public education. In November 2009, the UC Regents passed a 32% tuition hike. Students responded by occupying campuses across the state. In his article, sociologist Zachary Levenson charts the struggle of California students against the privatization of California public universities. Spurred by the nationwide Occupy movement, and despite police repression, mobilizing is again on the rise. But, Levenson asks, will students in California be able to shut down their campuses indefinitely—like in Chile or Puerto Rico—in order to demand an end to austerity?

Across the region, occupations have become the tactic of choice for students looking to demand change. While students continue to hold marches and rallies, drawing thousands, they are also embracing other more creative and radical tactics: sit-ins, kiss-ins, street theater, and direct action. Using blogs and social media, this new generation of students are telling their own stories, rather than waiting for someone else to do it.

These creative tactics have increasingly been used by DREAM activists in the United States in their fight against deportations and for legislation that would give undocumented youth a path to citizenship. In her article, UCLA political scientist Arely M. Zimmerman analyzes how the undocumented youth movement in the United States has transformed from being largely focused on passing the DREAM Act to increasingly using direct action to bring attention to broader issues of immigrant, civil, and human rights. As Zimmerman explains, the shift has been in response to a changing political climate, where the will to pass immigration reform has waned in Washington, deportations are on the rise, and local anti-immigrant ordinances are being considered at unprecedented levels.

While the DREAM Act has galvanized youth across the country, it has also recently come under increasing criticism, especially for the military provision in the present bill that, as a favor to Republican supporters, would allocate an additional $670 billion to the U.S. military.

In Arizona, undocumented immigrants are not the only ones under attack—so are Ethnic and Mexican American Studies programs. But students in Tucson are responding. University of Arizona professors Nolan L. Cabrera and Roberto Dr. Cintli Rodriguez, and student Elisa L. Meza document the struggle to save Mexican American Studies in the Tucson Unified School District. Led by the radical youth organization UNIDOS and their direct-action tactics, community members staved off two school board meetings that threatened to effectively dismantle Mexican American Studies in the district. The authors point out the hypocritical discourse of Arizona leaders, such as former Arizona State superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne, who introduced the state ethnic studies ban while invoking Dr. Martin Luther King,

Together all of these student movements are standing up for their right to free, universal education, without mandates from above over who gets to study or what should be studied. These movements are also increasingly collaborating across borders. On November 24, students from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Peru held a united day of Latin American student demonstrations.

“A continental movement is growing in defense of education as a right,” Jairo Rivera, spokesperson for Colombia’s National Student Broad Table, told BBC Mundo.⁶

This was the sentiment of both Giovanni Roberto and José Ancalao Gavilán, student leaders from Puerto Rico and Chile, who are interviewed by NACLA

editor Michael Fox in the final piece in this Report

read the entire issue at www.nacla.org

To see why California k-12 students do not have Mexican American history, go to the Chicano/Mexican American Digital History Project.

https://sites.google.com/site/democracyandeducationorg/chicano-mexican-american-digital-history-project/why-california-students-do-not-know-chicano-history