DOLORES Official Theatrical Trailer

Coming to theaters in Sept. 

Live DACA sit in in Austin, Texas

Watch LIVE as DACAmented immigrants risk arrest and deportation to fight for permanent protection, dignity, and respect for all 11 million immigrants.







18 DACAmented youth and allies are currently blocking the main access road to the capitol building in Austin, Texas in the first undocumented-led civil disobedience of the Trump Era. This bold action is sending a message to this country: we’re fighting for permanent protection for all of us. Watch us take historic and unprecedented action under Trump here.

Watch the action live here!

We are standing undivided in the face of national policies meant to divide our community into who is deserving and undeserving of permanent protection. We’re refusing to allow anti-immigrant policies to go into effect without a fight.

We’re doing this for the 11 million. For the 11 million who sustain this workforce. For the 11 million who are the pillars of our communities. For the 11 million who are our parents, our friends, and our neighbors. For the 11 million who deserve permanent protection, dignity, and respect because this country depends on us.

Historic State Fair Exhibit Recognizes Farmworkers

HISTORIC STATE FAIR EXHIBIT RECOGNIZES FARMWORKERS by David Bacon Capital & Main, 7/25/17 https://davidbaconrealitycheck.blogspot.com/2017/07/historic-state-fair-exhibit-recognizes.html https://capitalandmain.com/historic-state-fair-exhibit-recognizes-farmworkers-0725 Cutting the ribbon at the farmworker exhibition (left to right): Assemblymember Blanca Rubio, United Farm Workers President Arturo Rodriguez, State Sen. Ben Hueso, Assemblymembers Kevin McCarty and Freddie Rodriguez, Cesar Chavez Foundation President Paul F. Chavez, Assemblymember Anna Caballero, State Fair CEO Rick Pickering (partially obscured), Sacramento City Councilmember Eric Guera, State Sen. Ed Hernandez (partially obscured), State Treasurer John Chiang and Sacramento County Supervisor Phil Serna. For over 160 years the California State Fair/Cal Expo has been run by growers to showcase the wonders and wealth of the state's agriculture. And for over 160 years the fair did this without mentioning the people whose labor makes agriculture possible: farmworkers. This year that changed. Rick Pickering, chief executive officer of the California Exposition & State Fair, and Tom Martinez, the fair's chief deputy general manager, asked the United Farm Workers to help put together an exhibit to remedy this historical omission. As a result, for the first time the fair, which runs through July 30, has an exhibition that not only pays tribute to field laborers, but also acknowledges the long history of their struggle to organize unions. Growers are not happy, and fair organizers got some pushback. But at the ceremony inaugurating the exhibition, State Senator Ben Hueso (D-San Diego), the head of the California Latino Legislative Caucus, explained why they no longer have veto power. "We wouldn't be here without the work of farmworkers," he said. "The legislature now includes members who worked in the fields themselves, or have family who did, who know what it's like to work in 100 degree heat, to suffer the hardest conditions and work the longest hours. We want our families to work in better conditions and earn more money." Some of the farmworkers who came as guests of the fair were veterans of that long struggle. Efren Fraide worked at one of the state's largest vegetable growers, D'Arrigo Brothers Produce, when the original union election was held in 1975. However, it was only after the legislature passed the mandatory mediation law, forcing growers to sign contracts once workers voted for a union, that the first union agreement went into force at the company in 2007, covering 1,500 people. D'Arrigo workers maintained their union committee through all the years between 1975 and 2007, organizing strikes and work stoppages to raise conditions and wages. "I'm very proud to see that we're included here," Fraide said, gesturing toward the photographs on the walls in the cavernous exhibition hall. "It shows who we are and what we went through. Si se puede!" As the workers were introduced by UFW President Arturo Rodriguez, they stood up from their seats to applause. Rodriguez noted that some farmworkers, like those working at Monterey Mushrooms' sheds near Morgan Hill and Watsonville, now make a living wage of between $38,000 and $42,000 in year-round jobs with benefits. "This exhibition recognizes that farm labor is important work, and that it can be a decent job if it includes labor and environmental standards. It can come with job security, and can be professional work," he emphasized. "What's been lacking is an acknowledgment of the people who do the work," charged Sacramento County Supervisor Phil Serna, son of the capital city's late mayor, Joe Serna, and nephew of former UFW organizer Ruben Serna. "This exhibition documents their political activism. We wouldn't be here if it were not for the farmworkers movement." In the Fields of the North / En los Campos del Norte Photographs and text by David Bacon University of California Press / Colegio de la Frontera Norte 302 photographs, 450pp, 9”x9” paperback, $34.95 SPECIAL OFFER: order the book on the UC Press website: ucpress.edu/9780520296077 use source code 16M4197 at checkout receive a 30% discount En Mexico se puede pedir el libro en el sitio de COLEF: http://libreria.colef.mx/detalle.aspx?id=7560

Assault on Mexican American Collective Memory

Dr. Rodolfo F. Acuña, like the late Dr. Howard Zinn, is an important and a prolific historian in academia and beyond.  He has long been an ally in important struggles. More specifically, he’s an indispensable historian of the marginalized, the maligned and the ignored by the oppressive U.S. state. With his 1972 book publication of the classic Occupied America—among many other books, essays and social commentaries—Acuña has become one of the premier historians of the Chicana/o people. In this topical and timely book, Acuña produces another exceptional, well-written and well-cited book. In his life-long efforts to recover/preserve the Chicana/o collective memory, in this must-read book, he thoroughly documents and analyzes current and past unjust attacks against Chicana/os and Mexican immigrants by racist politicians, government officials and public figures in states like Arizona, Texas and California. In doing so, Acuña also sheds light on the heroic resistance and social activism by the attacked—i.e., millennials, students, teachers, activists, immigrants, community members, etc.—to defend their/our basic human rights, dignity and self-respect in their/our ancestral lands.

Trump Proposes new "Guestworker" Program

Farm workers and their families are being threatened once again. The threat escalated this week with Trump’s GOP pushing a guestworker program that would make farm workers indentured servants to be imported in and out of the USA to feed us. This is a solution that will not work -- as according to a Department of Labor Report, at least half of all farm workers in the US are undocumented and many have been here for more than 15 years and have children who are citizens.

Our nation’s food supply relies on the hardworking men and women who labor to put food on our tables, so the solution must include an earned path to legalization for these people and their families who are essential members of our society.  

Wednesday, the House Immigration Subcommittee held a hearing on agricultural guestworker programs. Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), Chair of the Judiciary Committee, said he will introduce a bill to repeal and replace the current H-2A guestworker program. His bill would eliminate major labor protections on wages, housing and government oversight in addition to not offering a path to legal permanent residency and eventual earned citizenship for farm workers already laboring here. And Tuesday, the House Appropriations Committee without warning, tried to sneak provisions into an unrelated appropriations bill that would require the U.S. government to approve employers’ applications for permission to hire agricultural guest workers for jobs that are year-round. H-2A visas could be issued without regard to whether the jobs are temporary or seasonal. These moves could also worsen wages and conditions for documented and US citizen farm workers.  

The solution is the Agricultural Worker Program Act -- known as the "Blue Card” which was introduced last month in the Senate by Senator Dianne Feinstein and has 8 cosponsors and into the house by Congressman Luis Gutierrez and has 54 co-sponsors.  

The "Blue Card" offers experienced farm workers presently toiling in the fields the chance to legally remain working in agriculture in the United States, and is a much more workable solution than importing substantial numbers of additional guest workers from outside the country. The Blue Card takes care of a real need in the farm worker community. It will protect farm workers from deportation and put them on a pathway to legalization and citizenship -- if they show consistent employment in US agriculture and meet other criteria.

Sanctuary : A U.S. Tradition

Sanctuary: In a Great American and International Tradition

Dan La Botz

I was asked at a recent meeting of the NYC DSA Immigration Justice Working Group to say a few words to put our work in historical context and then asked me to write up my brief talk, because it might be useful to others. – DL

Our sanctuary work is in a great national and global tradition of humanitarianism and it is consistent with our social internationalist principles. Our work, while fighting for the reform of the immigration system, has as its goal the abolition of the capitalist system that causes involuntary mass migration. And while using existing law to defend immigrants and fighting for better laws, we stand opposed to the concept of the national state, which will never respect and defend immigrants as equals in our society.

We are at present working with the New Sanctuary Coalition in New York City. New Sanctuary’s method is—while never telling anyone to do anything illegal—to organize immigrant communities, the documented and the undocumented, to protect each other. In each community a place of worship is identified (a church, temple or mosque) as the local safe place. While places of worship have no special legal protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is reluctant to raid such places because it will outrage the community and lead to bad publicity. Other places such as local business are also asked to become sanctuaries in an emergency and to refuse to open their doors except if there is a judge-signed warrant.

Stop Texas Style Immigration Crackdown: Make California a Sanctuary State

Dolores Huerta
In the seven decades I’ve been fighting for social justice and human rights, I’ve never seen a year as scary as 2017.

The Trump administration is pushing a xenophobic agenda to deport millions of people and racially profile millions more. White supremacists are marching in public, committing heinous acts, and trying to influence public policy.

With bigots and extremists sinking to new lows across the country, all of us who believe in equality and inclusion need to reach higher than ever before.

I’m counting on California to lead the way.

AS COMMUNITIES ACROSS THE NATION STAND UP AGAINST RACISM, CALIFORNIA NEEDS TO CREATE THE STRONGEST POSSIBLE COUNTERWEIGHT TO TEXAS AND TRUMP’S HATE.


Case in point: A Texas Republican legislator recently said he called immigration agents on community members protesting the state’s draconian anti-immigrant law. What’s more, he reportedly threatened to shoot a fellow legislator.

It’s no accident these threats came in the context of Texas’s odious SB 4, which embodies President Donald Trump’s most extreme ideas. That law will enlist local police in the feds’ deportation force and unleash a wave of racial profiling and arrests targeting black and brown people.

As communities across the nation stand up against racism, California needs to create the strongest possible counterweight to Texas and Trump’s hate. Gov. Jerry Brown and our Legislature must pass Senate Bill 54, the California Values Act.

This proposal by Senate President Kevin de León will make sure our local and state resources aren’t used to help the Trump administration deport millions of people.

We know firsthand that when law enforcement acts as deportation agents, that further weakens the community’s trust and confidence. And families get broken apart.

Many Californians have rallied, marched and lobbied for the California Values Act, which would limit sharing personal information with Trump’s deportation force. Also called the “sanctuary state” bill, SB 54 would help make our schools, hospitals, courthouses and libraries safe spaces for everyone in our community.

This bill stands for the simple principle that authorities should treat everyone fairly, regardless of birthplace, background or appearance. To prevent abuses, SB 54 also makes sure law enforcement won’t detain anyone for deportation without a warrant signed by a judge.

That sounds like common sense to me.

Sadly, the California State Sheriff’s Association is going out of its way to oppose the California Values Act, even though amendments have been made to address safety considerations and Los Angeles police Chief Charlie Beck has endorsed the bill.

Honestly, I worry some of our sheriffs are more aligned with Trump and Texas Republicans than with our values in California.

Take Sheriff Donny Youngblood of Kern County, where the Dolores Huerta Foundation and the United Farm Workers are based. He worked to declare our county a “non-sanctuary” and previously stated he felt the county would fit much better in Arizona.

Just a few months ago, Sheriff Youngblood and six other sheriffs met with none other than Jeff Sessions, Trump’s extremist attorney general, before he had even been confirmed. The California State Sheriff’s Association endorsed Session’s nomination.

We should all be concerned about the implications of the sheriffs’ entanglement with Sessions’ extremist agenda.

Back in the 1980s, my friend Coretta Scott King wrote: “Sessions has used the awesome powers of his office in a shabby attempt to intimidate and frighten elderly black voters.” He also has documented connections to nativist, anti-immigrant groups.

And Sessions, along with Trump and the California State Sheriffs Association, doesn’t hesitate to scapegoat, criminalize and demonize immigrants whenever it’s convenient.

We simply cannot allow this kind of extremism to poison the conversation in California and derail our progress.

We must take a clear stand for our deepest values: All people are created equal and deserve due process.

Anything less is giving in to Trumpism.

DOLORES HUERTA IS CO-FOUNDER, WITH CESAR CHAVEZ, OF THE UNITED FARM WORKERS AND PRESIDENT OF THE DOLORES HUERTA FOUNDATION. CONTACT HER AT CCHAVEZ@DOLORESHUERTA.ORG. Dolores is also a Honorary Chair of Democratic Socialists of America.

Reposted from the Sacramento Bee







Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/california-forum/article161083894.html#storylink=cpy

Gutiérrez: This is Our Call to Action to Defend DACA, TPS and Fight Depo...

Yesterday, July 12,  Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly met with Members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

We asked him about veterans who are being deported. We asked him why American citizens were increasingly having their families broken up by deportation. We asked about the 800,000 young people who signed up for DACA and the hundreds of thousands of long-term residents of the U.S. who have Temporary Protected Status or TPS.

Trump Admin. Will Not Defend DACA in Court

KELLY WON'T COMMIT TO DACA DEFENSE: "An Obama-era deportation relief program may soon face a legal challenge - and the Trump administration won't commit to defending it, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly told Hispanic lawmakers at a closed-door meeting Wednesday on Capitol Hill," POLITICO's Ted Hesson reports.

"Twenty Democratic members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus pressed Kelly for assurances that he would help preserve the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which grants deportation relief and access to work permits to undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. at a young age," he writes. "Kelly told the lawmakers that although he personally supports DACA, he can't guarantee that the administration would defend it in court. He also said that he'd consulted attorneys who told him the program wouldn't survive a legal challenge." 

A Texas-led coalition of 10 attorneys general has threatened to sue the Trump administration to eliminate DACA, which was created by President Barack Obama in 2012. Should the coalition follow through, a failure by the administration to defend DACA in court might mean its end. But on Wednesday, the attorneys general of California and Massachusetts said their states they would counter any litigation to end the program. "We are prepared to do everything in our power" to protect the estimated 800,00 undocumented minors identified under the program to date, said California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, who was joined by Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey on a conference call with reporters. "Everything is on the table, in terms of the advocacy and the effort we need to engage in." More on Kelly's meeting here.

From Politico's Morning Report 

Choosing Democracy: Trump, Right-Wing Populism, and the Future of the ...

Choosing Democracy: Trump, Right-Wing Populism, and the Future of the ...: Bill Fletcher

Republicans Plan to Fund Border Wall

BORDER BATTLE BREWING: "House Republicans are ready to provide a down payment on President Donald Trump's border wall with Mexico, reigniting a fight that could lead to a government shutdown this fall," report POLITICO's Rachel Bade and Seung Min Kim. "In a nod to Trump's signature campaign promise, the House Appropriations Committee unveiled a bill to fund homeland security Tuesday that matches the administration's request for $1.6 billion for the next fiscal year." 

When the Trump administration pushed for wall funding in April, Democrats stood unified in opposition, and the same trend appears to be emerging this time around. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi painted the latest proposal as an undue burden for taxpayers (Trump said just last week that Mexico would "absolutely" pay for the wall, a pledge that apparently didn't convince House appropriators). Pelosi called it "immoral, ineffective and expensive," a categorization that doesn't seem to leave much sunlight for dealmaking.

From Politico's Morning Report

In the Fields of the North

LIVING IN THE SHADOWS
Book Review By Paul Von Blum
Truthdig, Posted on Jun 30, 2017
http://www.truthdig.com/arts_culture/item/en_los_campos_del_norte_20170630
https://davidbaconrealitycheck.blogspot.com/2017/07/living-in-shadows-los-fotografos_9.html




"In the Fields of the North/ En los Campos del Norte"
A book by David Bacon


"When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. . . They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people."

-Donald Trump, June 16, 2015

We live in a despicable era of racism and xenophobia, fueled by the anti-immigrant fervor of the Trump regime and abetted by right-wing media forces. Mexican immigrants have borne the brunt of much of this public animus, including countless verbal assaults and some egregious examples of physical violence. Few perpetrators of this hostility recognize the long historical origins of their nativist outpourings. Even fewer realize the deep humanity and the powerful suffering of the Latino farmworkers who have come north to the United States to escape grinding poverty and hunger and try to eke out marginal livings for themselves and their families.

A new bilingual book by David Bacon offers both a dramatic antidote to the deplorable reality of racism and a majestic life-affirming view of these hidden women, men and children. "In the Fields of the North" is a landmark fusion of journalism and documentary photography. Bacon is an accomplished writer and photographer, with a long record of union organizing for the United Farm Workers, the United Electrical Workers, the International Ladies Garment Workers Union and others. He has effectively documented the impact of globalization, the degrading conditions of workplaces for many immigrants, the human consequences of migration, the political struggles for workers' and human rights, and many related topics in his books and commentary.

But above all, Bacon is a documentary photographer of extraordinary power, insight and skill. In his introductory comments to the book, he is modest-too modest-about contributing to the long history of socially conscious photography: "I hope my work contributes to this tradition today." I have had the privilege and pleasure of teaching and writing for many years about some of the giant American figures of this tradition, including Jacob Riis, Lewis Hine, Ben Shahn, Dorothea Lange, Margaret Bourke-White, Roy DeCarava and Gordon Parks.

Honest Government Advert - Visit Puerto Rico

Politics in a Time of Crisis - Podemos

Reading Politics in a Time of Crisis – A view from the Left.

By Duane Campbell

As we know, the economic crisis of 2008-2012 disrupted the U.S. economy.  The crisis was much worse in some of the peripheral countries of Europe (Greece, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, and Italy among others), and even more destructive in under-developed regions of African and Asia. 

Spanish political leader Pablo Iglesias Turrión has written Politics in a Time of Crisis: Podemos and the Future of European Democracy, published in an English translation by Verso Books. Iglesias provides a critical summary of the crisis that began in the U.S., and spread to much of the world causing political upheavals and leaving misery, starvation, and massive migration in its wake. 

We can learn much from reading Iglesias about this crisis in Spain and  other countries and economies, including how the crisis led  several social democratic political parties in Spain, Greece, Italy, and elsewhere in Europe to collaborate with right-wing movements to impose austerity on the people.  This collaboration led to the collapse of  many social democratic political parties, the rise of  authoritarian right-wing parties,  and now the rise of a new left.  A similar process led to the collapse of social democratic parties in Brazil, Argentina and Mexico.  Currently in Mexico the formerly left-wing Party of Democratic Revolution (PRD) is working with the right-wing National Action (PAN) party while a new left –the National Regeneration Movement (“MORENA”) may well win this summer’s presidential elections.

Should Organizations Boycott Texas? SB 4.

To Boycott or not to Boycott Texas that is the Question?

By WCVI President Antonio Gonzalez

Twitter: @agonzalez1217

Texas' SB4 the "show me your papers" bill was signed into law on May 7 by Republican Gov. Abbott. On Sept 1, 2017 SB4 will take effect outlawing local "Sanctuary Cities" policies embraced by places like Dallas and Travis Counties. SB4 obligates local cities to spend local funds to cooperate with certain federal immigration enforcement policies; it also obligates local police to operate de-facto as immigration agents on the streets virtually guaranteeing the likelihood of racial profiling of some part of the 10 million US citizen Latinos who call Texas home.

The fight against SB4 mobilized Latino community and immigrant activists, local governments and the mostly Mexican American democratic caucus of the Texas legislature. But alas Texas' Republican-dominated state government has morphed from a business-friendly bipartisan regime to Tea-Party extremism since 2010, as extremist-Republicans have defeated common-sense legislative Republicans in four conservative primary seasons. Thus, Latinos and their allies had little chance to stop SB4 though they put up a good fight.

The question for Latino and immigrant leaders and organizations now is what to do?  Groups like ACLU and MALDEF have sued to enjoin the law from taking place on Sept 1. But given the givens of anti-immigrant ideologues in control in the White House, Congress, and now the Supreme Court it seems likely that SB4 will prevail, for now.

Assembly Committee Passes SB 54 - Sanctuary

Today the Assembly Committee on the Judiciary passed SB-54, the California Values Act, that places limits on California cites, police, and counties to not cooperate with federal ICE agents.  This bill next goes to the full Assembly.

 The California Values Act cleared another major hurdle last week when it passed the Assembly Public Safety Committee with overwhelming support. Our calling campaign has been going on for five months, and we have the momentum to pass SB 54 into law. We have to keep the pressure on.

SB 54 passed  the Assembly Judiciary Committee on Wed, July 5. 

If you live in the Sacramento region, call Assemblyperson Jim Cooper (Elk Grove) (916) 319-2009  and Assembly person Ken Cooley, (suburban Sacramento) (916) 319-2008. . Jim Cooper is a co sponsor of the bill. Insist that there not be further weakening amendments to the bill. 

See posts below for more information. 

 Until that happens and the bill passes, we need to continue to make clear our demands for protection for our immigrant friends, neighbors, and family members. Our broken and severely outdated immigration system criminalizes immigrant communities that contribute greatly to the great state of California, and to our country as a whole. This harsh, punitive system allows Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to separate, detain, and deport hard working people—and local and state resources are devoted to helping ICE do just that.

After Backing Trump, Christians Who Fled Iraq Fall Into His Dragnet - The New York Times

After Backing Trump, Christians Who Fled Iraq Fall Into His Dragnet - The New York Times

Cosecha Protests in Texas

Right now, Cosecha Texas is shutting down Austin’s July 4th parade to resist this country’s attacks on the immigrant community. We are celebrating the #DayofDependence -- to recognize the country’s dependence on immigrant consumption and labor. Click here to watch the action LIVE on Facebook.

Today’s action marks the launch of our campaign in Texas. Click here to see our campaign website.

Anti-immigrant politicians have stepped up their attacks: the US House of Representatives passed “Kate’s law” to further criminalize immigrants and the “No Sanctuary for Criminals Act” to punish sanctuary cities across the nation; the Texas Attorney General, Ken Paxton, has threatened Donald Trump with a lawsuit, pressuring him to repeal DACA; and Texas’ anti-sanctuary “show me your papers law” is set to take effect on September 1st.

But the fight in Texas this summer will be a turning point for the immigrant resistance. We will show this country that we fight back against racist and anti-immigrant laws like SB4, and we refuse to let them expand to the national level. 

Texas depends on us. It is time for Texans to realize that their economy would collapse without our labor and spending. We are calling for a month-long boycott of H-E-B, Texas’ #1 grocery chain to demonstrate the economic power of the state’s immigrant community. 

Click here to watch (and share) our LIVE action footage of the parade shut-down in Austin.