Developments in the immigrants' rights arena

Last Friday, President Obama announced he would grant "deferred action" on deportation to certain young immigrants eligible under specific guidelines for a two-year period. While we welcome this decision, we also recognize its limitations in scope and implementation. Some immigrant youth will have much-needed reprieve, but countless others in our communities will continue to fall through the net. Our struggle continues. Several key developments in recent months - from the SCOTUS hearing on SB 1070 to Alabama's HB 658 to the new Border Patrol strategy - illustrate the challenges that we continue to face as diverse communities and as a movement for rights, justice and dignity of all people. We hope you'll join us in this journey as we continue to affirm the need to offer real opportunities for adjustment of status, a generous legalization program that upholds our humanity and respects our dignity.
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Supreme Court ruling on SB 1070 expected  

Later this month, the Supreme Court is slated to announce their final ruling on Arizona's anti-immigrant racial profiling law, SB 1070. What does this mean for our communities and how will we respond? We have compiled a few key resources to help make sense of it all.  Read more... 

Sisyphus Chicano Style

Abandonment or Struggle

By

Rodolfo F. Acuña

When asked what I have learned from writing about Arizona and what is going to happen in the future, I feel like the legendary king of Corinth immortalized by Albert Camus’ essay “The Myth of Sisyphus.” You remember the guy who was condemned for eternity to roll a rock up a hill.  Every time he felt that he was making progress, the giant rock rolled back to where he started. 

The moral of the story, according to Camus, is the absurdity of thinking we can learn the meaning of life.  This absurdity compels us to turn to religion for answers -- religious faith supposedly tells us the meaning of life without us having to find the answer for ourselves. It gives us faith that we can roll the rock up the hill even though it keeps rolling back.

For over forty-three years I have been pushing a rock called Chicana/o Studies, obsessed with the notion that we as a community can push the rock to the top of the hill. Chicana/o Studies would give a greater number of us access to knowledge that would free and enable us to solve the contradictions of American society. 

Instead of reaching the top, the rock has become heavier and it has slipped back to where we started in 1969. Still we believe that we can reach the top of the hill despite the size of the rock. Truth be told, it would be easier to leave the rock behind and “make it in my own.” 

National Network IRR on the change in Immigration Policy

We Welcome Promise to Stop the Deportation of (Some) Young Immigrants

Safety and Security for All Immigrants Still a Dream

We welcome President Obama’s decision to stop the deportations of over a million immigrant youth who may be eligible under terms described today. We hope this will be a first step towards ending the punishment of all undocumented immigrants and the separation of families.

We congratulate the tens of thousands of youths, their families, friends and allies who have fought for over a decade for relief from deportation, initially through the proposal of the “DREAM Act” and more recently with calls for an executive order by President Obama. Without a doubt, the very visible actions of undocumented youth and students in recent years “coming out” as undocumented, and leading nationwide actions and mobilizations, has been critical to this evolution of policy. Only yesterday, the TIME magazine cover story focused on young undocumented immigrants: “We are Americans – Just not legally.”

Not lost is the fact that Obama’s announcement comes as news polls are showing that Latino voters may not be as eager to cast their vote for him this November as they overwhelmingly did in 2008. The news also comes as we await the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on Arizona’s SB1070 -- a ruling expected to further bolster state-level policing and racial profiling of immigrants.

The Importance of Mexican American Studies- Acuña

Mexican American Studies :A Pedagogy

Not Sociology

By

Rodolfo F. Acuña

We have allowed the uninformed and ignorant to define what Mexican American Studies is. Every time I discuss the subject I feel as frustrated as a scientist trying to explain science to a creationist. No matter how well you know the field those who do not want to believe will distort your words to fit their preconceptions and belief system.

As I have explained, MAS or Chicana/o Studies is not sociology. MAS has courses in sociology that examine the MAS corpus of knowledge but MAS does not belong to the field of sociology.  If it were just sociology, it could be reduced to one or two courses on race.

MAS is a strategy that incorporates multi-disciplines. The truth be told, if the academy had cared about Latinos, which are the second largest Spanish-speaking nation in the world, it would have hired specialists to explore the role of Mexican Americans and other Latinos in the United States.

If this had happened Latino courses would be integrated organically within departments. But consequent to the racism in higher education this field of study has been ignored. Even today, most academic departments do not offer a single MAS or Latino course or employ a single Latino faculty member.

Incredible but most schools of education have not developed courses on how to teach or counsel Latino students. This is criminal since I would not expect, no matter how good she is, an optometrist to perform open heart surgery.

{ed. note.  Including CSU-Sacramento since the end of Bilingual Education Dept.}

Untapped Electoral Power: Staggering Numbers of Unregistered Latinos and Immigrants Eligible to Naturalize in California | California Progress Report

Untapped Electoral Power: Staggering Numbers of Unregistered Latinos and Immigrants Eligible to Naturalize in California | California Progress Reportino

Dolores Huerta Receives Presidential Medal of Freedom

DSA Honorary Chair Dolores Huerta Receives Presidential Medal

Watch Dolores Huerta Calls Herself 'a Born-Again Feminist' on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.

 President Obama presented  Dolores Huerta with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Cesar Chavez once described Dolores Huerta as “completely fearless, both mentally and physically.”

Over six decades, Dolores Huerta put the nonviolent fight for civil and labor rights ahead of her personal interests, and sometimes before her personal safety. Like all the farm worker strikers and boycotters, she accepted a life of voluntary poverty for many decades. Her dynamic and inspiring leadership through the most difficult and turbulent times in the farm worker movement’s history established her not only as a leader of farm workers but as a role model for women and men across this nation and beyond.
Dolores is an Honorary Chair of Democratic Socialists of America. 

          

The termination of the Bilingual Education Department at CSU-Sacarmento

 The long march through the institutions has ended for the Bilingual /Multicultural faculty and students at CSU Sacramento.  On Sat, May 19, the Bilingual/Multicultural Education Department at CSU-Sacramento graduated its final class.  A movement that began in the  Mexican American Education Project of 1969-1974 came to a close.  See history here:

https://sites.google.com/site/democracyandeducationorg/chicano-mexican-american-digital-history-project/mexican-american-education-project

 I retired in 2008 and had little role to play in the decision to abandon this  civil rights project.  In the 15 year history of the department we graduated thousands of new bilingual teachers and educational leaders who, under the prior hegemonic system, would have been sorted out.  These graduates have gone into teaching and schools and influenced thousands of students.   Under the new system, they will again often be discarded. The drop out rate for Chicano students in California  remains near 50%. We know how to reverse this, but politicians and institutions are unwilling to dedicated the resources to this end. 

The students are still there.  The students of California still need bilingual and multicultural teachers.   Students who are descendents of Mexican and Chicano families now make up almost 48% of public school students.

There were budget cuts, but a united faculty could have retained the department if they so chose.  Instead, a new generation of faculty chose to abandon this institutional base that had been created by their predecessors.

For more history see; https://sites.google.com/site/democracyandeducationorg/chicano-mexican-american-digital-history-project/history-of-bilingual-education-dept-at-sac-state

"An injury to one is an injury to all."

This post dedicated to the memory of Hugo Chacon and Dr. Tom Carter. 

Glen Ford: Corporate Assault on Public Education

In the space of less than 20 years, the public school privatization movement has emerged from the narrow, right wing fringes to dominate both major political parties. From vouchers to school choice to charter schools, the issue has divided even Black Americans, who were once public education's most fervent supporters. Glen Ford explains how this came about by wealthy individuals buying black politicians and promoting their careers, particularly Corey Booker.

Glen Ford is a veteran of more than 40 years in broadcast, print and Internet journalism. A former Washington Bureau Chief and White House, Capitol Hill, and State Department correspondent, he is currently Executive Editor of Black Agenda Report (BlackAgendaReport.com), a weekly magazine of news, commentary and analysis from the Black Left. Along with co-host Nellie Hester Bailey, Ford hosts and produces the weekly, one-hour Black Agenda Radio program on the Progressive Radio Network.

Sponsored by LifeLines and Peace and Justice Task Force of All Souls Church. Event May 9, 2012 Camera, sound Joe Friendly

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdPACwRgw04

On Immigrant Day, California Offers Signs of Hope | California Progress Report

On Immigrant Day, California Offers Signs of Hope | California Progress Report

Every Worker an Organizer

Every Worker is an Organizer

Photographs by David Bacon

This exhibit in the California State Capitol is organized by Assembly Member Luis Alejo and his staff, and is part of the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the United Farm Workers of America.

California State Capitol

Hallway next to the Governor's Office
May 20-26, 2012
Sacramento, California

Open to the public


      Farm labor is a key element historically in the photographic documentation of social reality in the US, and in particular the documentation of social protest.  Dorothea Lange, Hansel Meith, Otto Hegel, and the generation of the 1930s and 1940s left a body of work showing the extreme exploitation of farm workers, and documenting the early farm labor organizing efforts, part of the great labor upsurge of those decades.
    The iconography of social documentary photography was shaped by images like Lange's mother and children in Nipomo, or those of the Pixley cotton strikers packed onto the back of a truck under their banner "Disarm the rich farmer or arm the workers for self-defense!" or the growers with their rifles waiting in ambush.
  The first two decades of the growth of the United Farm Workers was undoubtedly one of the most-photographed social protests of the civil rights era.  It too had its icons -- the line of marchers on their way from Delano to Sacramento, silhoutted against the sky, or Cesar Chavez weakened by his fast, at the side of Robert Kennedy.

California Immigration bills by Assemblymember V. Manuel Perez

AB 1544 Agriculture Jobs & Industry Stabilization Act of 2012 – creates a guest worker program, administered by the Employment Development Department, whereby current undocumented workers in the agriculture and service sectors, and their immediate family members, would be authorized to remain in California as legal residents provided they meet specified criteria. The program would be paid for with fees charged to those participating. The bill requires an analysis to be done in year three of the program to determine whether it had resulted in any displacement of employable U.S. citizens in the specified industries.

AB 1545 Bi-National Economic Development & Infrastructure Bank – establishes a state equivalent of the North American Development Bank to facilitate and finance economic and infrastructure projects in the California and Mexico border region. Improving the goods movement infrastructure and economy of California-Mexico border region, based on expediting legitimate commerce, will result in immediate and long-term benefits to the people of California. Economic stability in the border region also serves as a practical approach for minimizing and discouraging the unauthorized flow of individuals into California. This bill creates a tool to support the investment of private and federal dollars in projects that facilitate trade and economic growth and does not use state General Funds.

AB 1546 California High Skilled Worker Retention & Family Act of 2012 – authorizes the Employment Development Department to develop a state program that allows high skilled workers that meet specified criteria to be sponsored by businesses to work legally in California under the status of resident immigrant. The bill recognizes the economic importance of maintaining access to high skilled workers and creates a California version of the federal law related to sponsored immigrant workers. The program would be administered by EDD and would be paid for with fees from the sponsoring business.

Delusions with the Democratic Party in Arizona

An Illusion Becomes a Delusion

Maybe I am Missing Something

By

Rodolfo F. Acuña

The delusion takes over in ordinary life to the point that we develop a false consciousness.  During 911, for example, many Americans were convinced that we never violated the sovereignty of another state, although history is replete with examples to the contrary.

Thus, our delusions obfuscate reality. We don’t know that Donald Duck is not real.

I guess illusions are great if you want to control children by fixating them on the television tube.  But when the illusions become delusions and create false consciousness we have a problem.

This is how I felt about my last article dealing with the Arizona Democratic Party, criticizing its neglect by not building a core and its failure to protect the rights and interests of Latinos within that state. A small sector of readers reacted as if I were criticizing Holy Mother the Church. 

Their defense of the Democratic Party was delusional. I am accustomed to the excuse, “Well I vote Democrat because it is better of two evils.” I can buy that, but to say that the Party is looking out for the interests of Mexicans in Arizona is a bit much.

The email that bothered me most was from Luis Heredia, a longtime Democratic Party operative. Heredia worked for Raul Grijalava more than a dozen years ago. Since then he has tied his kite to the official Party bureaucracy.  His brother is the head of the Arizona Mi Familia Vota.

Boleros to Serenade on Mother's Day in Mexico by The World

Boleros to Serenade on Mother's Day in Mexico by The World

U.S. should return native lands- The U.N.,

• guardian.co.uk, Friday 4 May 2012 18.46 EDT
• Article history  Chris McGreal. 

A Native American at his home on Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota, which has some of the US's poorest living conditions. Photograph: Jennifer Brown/Star Ledger/Corbis

A United Nations investigator probing discrimination against Native Americans has called on the US government to return some of the land stolen from Indian tribes as a step toward combatting continuing and systemic racial discrimination.

James Anaya, the UN special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, said no member of the US Congress would meet him as he investigated the part played by the government in the considerable difficulties faced by Indian tribes.

Anaya said that in nearly two weeks of visiting Indian reservations, indigenous communities in Alaska and Hawaii, and Native Americans now living in cities, he encountered people who suffered a history of dispossession of their lands and resources, the breakdown of their societies and "numerous instances of outright brutality, all grounded on racial discrimination".

"It's a racial discrimination that they feel is both systemic and also specific instances of ongoing discrimination that is felt at the individual level," he said.
Anaya said racism extended from the broad relationship between federal or state governments and tribes down to local issues such as education.

"For example, with the treatment of children in schools both by their peers and by teachers as well as the educational system itself; the way native Americans and indigenous peoples are reflected in the school curriculum and teaching," he said.

Democratic Party politicians fail Latinos

All Politics is Local

Democratic Party’s Abandonment of the Core

By

Rodolfo F. Acuña

The fitness exercise pilates, from my limited understanding of the exercise method, works on the principle of developing “a strong core or center (tones abdominals while strengthening the back), and improving coordination and balance.” The principle fascinates me because it can be applied to almost any endeavor.

          

For example, when San Jose State Chicano professors approached me in 1969 with a plan to start a Mexican American Studies program at the Master of Arts level, I responded that I did not believe that a MAS graduate program could grow without a solid undergraduate degree. My thinking was that “a strong core or center” had to be developed to allow for the coordination and balance of a large program.

The core’s abdominal muscles are the masses of students. The only programs that are subsidized in the higher education are those blessed by the institution.  Logical persuasion would not develop a discipline or method to educate neglected sectors of society. You needed bodies to build the core. 

I have applied this principle to politics. Unless you have bundles of money such as the case of Republicans and you can buy elections, Mexican Americans and Latinos are not going to bring about changes in the political arena. A strong core is essential for coordination and balance to leverage this outcome.

The building of the political core does not depend as much on individual political activism as it does on the core, which is not built by electing Latino elected officials. You can have progressive representatives such as Arizona Congressman Raul Grijalva but his power although concentrated at the core can easily be isolated by the system.

In many ways Grijalva is an aberration, elected in an island of Mexican American and white liberal constituents. Even so he has problems raising political capital and he has organized successful re-election campaigns despite the Democratic National Committee whose main purpose is keeping control of the White House.

Latinos disaffected with government

Much has been written about the growth of the Latino population and its voting power. But truth be told, Latinos are growing increasingly disaffected with government and most are cynical about its fairness.
Rodolfo Acuña. 
See "Moral Authority and the U.S. Supreme Court," in post below. 

UFW 50th. Anniversary Convention

 Highlights of UFW 50th Anniversary Convention. United Farm Workers Union.  

Saturday, May 19,2012.  Rabobank Convention Center. Keene, California.

• A three-hour program (1-4 p.m.) honoring the UFW pioneers, with special segments on the 1962 founding convention, 1965-1970 grape strikers and boycotters, 1966 peregrinos who marched from Delano to Sacramento, the Filipino American grape strikers and the farm worker ministry. Among the speakers will be Dolores Huerta, Chris Hartmire and Luis Valdez, whose Teatro Campesino will perform old union songs and actos throughout the program.

• Other speakers include California Democratic Party Chairman John Burton and Maria Elena Durazo, former farm worker and head of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor.

Note:  Dolores Huerta, retired UFW Vice President, will receive the Presidential Medal Freedom this week.

Sunday, May 20, Rabobank Convention Center. Keene, California

• Mass at 7:45 a.m. with Bishop Richard Garcia from the Monterey Diocese presiding, honoring the rive UFW martyrs.

MAY DAY MARCH LOS ANGELES 2010

Moral Authority and the U.S. Supreme Court- Acuña

and La Mordida, by Rodolfo F. Acuña.

Direct forms of political control are easy to figure out. For a time, laws and police agencies can keep things together. However, most institutions and societies depend on social control to deceive people into thinking that they live in a democracy. They use processes that socialize them into believing that those in control have moral authority.

Belief systems exert a greater control on behavior than laws. For example, religion maintains control through laws. Nevertheless, institutions such as the Catholic Church maintain control more through their moral authority than their laws. A society does not stay together for a long period of time through the use of coercive powers alone.

Historical events such as the Black Plague in the first part of the 14^th Century shook the Church’s moral authority and two centuries later the Protestant Revolt ended the hegemony of Catholicism in Europe. No one can predict what effect the Church’s pedophile scandal will have. One thing for sure is that the scandal has reduced the moral authority of the Church Fathers and their interpretation of what god wants.

In the similar vein, government has suffered a loss of moral authority. This is good and bad; one thing is for sure it is leading to a divided society. Although the number of southern states passing anti-immigrant laws has grown to over a half dozen and they are flushed with emotion, it must be remembered that California and New York alone dwarf the population numbers and wealth of the red states.

Much has been written about the growth of the Latino population and its voting power. But truth be told, Latinos are growing increasingly disaffected with government and most are cynical about its fairness.

The institution that has taken the hardest hit in the past dozen years is the Supreme Court.

Senate Hearing; Arizona 1070

05 Tierra y Soberanía Alimentaria

Support a progressive Democrat

I’ve sent you a short Bio of Wenona in previous e-mails. If you want me to re-send it, let me know, and I will.

Wenona is trying to get the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) to support her campaign. That support translates into MILLIONS of dollars in contributions (cash as well as in-kind resources, such as staff, mailings, television ads, etc.).

The choice for the DCCC is, in my estimation, very simple. The DCC has to choose between Wenona and Wenona’s Democratic Primary opponent, Anne Kirkpatrick, who served one term in Congress before being ousted due to her having turned her back on her base: Latinos, Native Americans, Labor, environmentalists, and progressives.

A couple of relevant examples that illustrate the stark difference between Wenona and Kirkpatrick:

*   Kirkpatrick supports SB 1070. She opposed the U.S. Department of Justice’s lawsuit against SB 1070. Kirkpatrick called the DOJ lawsuit a “sideshow” and insisted that SB 1070 be allowed to stand.

*   Kirkpatrick did not vote for the Dream Act the two times it came before the House during her tenure.

*   Kirkpatrick voted for the Bush tax cuts that benefited the wealthy at the expense of the middle class and working families.

In contrast, since the signing of SB 1070, Wenona has been at the forefront of the opposition to SB 1070. For example, she traveled to Mesa, AZ, to gather petition signatures to recall Russell Pearce and on election day canvassed key precincts in Mesa and worked the phones in the historic recall of Russell Pearce.

And Wenona has stood, and continues to stand, with the DREAMers in their principled struggle to get the Dream Act passed.

And Wenona has been very active in the struggle to save the Mexican American Studies program in the Tucson Unified School District (TUSD).

Justice for Anastasio Hernandez Rojas!!

The role if the middle class Hispanic

By Rodolfo F. Acuña

                                 

For the last couple of weeks, I have been revisiting pieces that I’d written in the past. They express concerns that formed my own consciousness and they are the bulk of the over 200 articles that will compose my new book: “My Journey Out of Purgatory.”

I had intended to rewrite the following selection, “The Making of the Political Pocho,” but never got around to it.

The term pocho is well known among Chicanos or Mexican Americans. It has been used for generations by Mexicans to describe Mexicans living in the United States.

Pocho can be a pejorative term that varies according to who is using it. It differs from a Mexican who has forgotten his culture, to one that speaks Spanish less fluently than a native Mexican.

Pocho literally means a fruit that has become rotten or discolored or has never ripened. I use the term in the latter sense.

Nationality has very little meaning for me. It is a construct and loyalty greatly depends on the ability of the state to bring about justice, which is iffy both here and in Mexico. Many of those using the term represent classes that brought about an uneven political and social landscape that forced the uprooting of millions of Mexicans.

Our grasp of a language depends on our vocabulary, which is learned; it is acquired through exposure to written culture. Vocabulary is enriched through reading and intellectual discourse.

The gist of the piece is that Chicanas/os and Latinos remain political pochos because once they are out of college most do not remain politically active. Their principle concern is how to make a living and support a family.

They are influenced by the vocabulary around them. They use words such as Hispanic that are gauche among current activists. Graduates of 70s are more moderate on social issues.    

The piece itself was not only directed at the new Chicana/o middle-class but at the politicos who they spawned. It is a vicious circle: the masses of poor, the middle-class and the Latino politicos.

The piece criticizes Chicano politicians for not taking stands on the horrific police brutality taking place at the Ramparts Division. The atrocities involved were mostly against Salvadorans. I essentially accused the politicos of paying more attention to Mexican American voters, forgetting that it was the large numbers of Latinos, which included immigrants and non-voters that constructed their districts.

Manning Marable wins Pulitzer Prize

 Manning Marable.  Co founder of the Anti Racism Commission and of anti racism work within DSA was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for 2012  for his final book, Malcom X, A Life of Reinvention.

See his obituary here:http://antiracismdsa.blogspot.com/2011/09/manning-marable-1950-2011.html

  Manning Marable, a founding Vice-Chair of DSA, passed away Friday, April 1, 2011 from complications of pneumonia. The death of our comrade Manning is a great loss for the broad left in our country. His major biography of Malcolm X, Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention,  tragically came out just after his death.  He had many other major works, including "How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America", a biography of W.E.B. DuBois, a total of  11 books and hundreds of articles on the important issues of our days. 

People's History On The Economy

Educational "Reform" Proposal Misses the Mark

By Carl Bloice - BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board

BC   March 29, 2012 By Carl Bloice 

http://www.blackcommentator.com/465/465_lm_reform.php

On the same day a national task force warned that the country’s security and economic prosperity are at risk if America’s schools don’t improve, California State University system said it would shut out thousands of mid-year applicants for spring terms starting in January.

According to the Oakland Tribune, only eight of the system’s 23 campuses will accept transfer students for the spring 2013 term, and none will accept new freshmen. “The decision will leave thousands of community-college students with an unenviable choice:

Spend the time and money taking unnecessary community-college classes for an extra semester or drop out and try to make ends meet until Cal State reopens its doors,” wrote Matt Krupnick.

“The dominant power of the 21^st century will depend on human capital,” the 30-member task force, led by former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Joel Klein, the former chancellor of New York City’s school, declared this week. “The failure to produce that capital will undermine American security.” This statement came shortly after U. S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan told a Howard University gathering, “President Obama has challenged all of us to lead the world with college graduates by 2020. But we cannot reach that goal unless educational opportunities are extended to everyone fairly and accurately.”

Regrettably, the contrast between what is being said about education in our country, and what is actually happening on the ground, serves to illustrate the galling amount of flim-flam and hypocrisy that characterizes today’s public discussion of the nation’s schools from kindergarten to the university level.

Since Duncan took up his post, somewhere in the vicinity of 270,000 teachers and other public school employees have lost their jobs because state and local education budgets have been slashed. “The teachers who have not been laid off have also been deeply affected by the economic downturn: class sizes are larger, after-school and arts enrichment programs have been cut, and an increasing number of their students are relying on safety net sources for health services and other basic needs,” observed the New York Times March 7.

In California alone, the number of full-time teachers has decreased by 32,000 statewide over the past four years.

Tucson - Mexican American Studies

From “Deliverance” to “The Godfather”

“Be Careful What You Wish for 'cause It Might Come True"

By

Rodolfo F. Acuña

My dream was to live in Tucson. In the early 1970s I even applied for a job at the University of Arizona, but the interview invitation was withdrawn after I participated in a protest there the weekend before my interview. I woke up.

The saying, “Be Careful What You Wish for 'cause It Might Come True," could have not have been more prophetic.

I did much of the research for my dissertation in Tucson. The pueblo’s charm was seductive and eclipsed its flaws: Whites and Mexicans rode separate bus lines and housing patterns created two Tucsons. Yet, change was possible and white and brown progressives coalesced on many issues.

In the late 1960s there were not many Mexicans at the U of A. Most professors there seemed to believe that Arizona history began in 1853 when US minister James Gadsden told Mexico, sell us southern Arizona for $10 million or we'll take it.

Western history was Wyatt Earp and the OK Corral. A well-known U of A history professor taught his classes with six shooters holstered at his side, wore cowboy boots and had a swagger to his walk and talk.

Labor Solidarity Tour: Mexican trade unionists

by Duane E. Campbell

A delegation of Mexican labor organizers speak at CSU-Sacramento  on  April 3, as a part of a Labor Solidarity Tour.  Humberto Montes de Oca, of the SME Electrical Workers union spoke on their struggle over the last two years since 44,000 workers were dismissed and the electrical company privatized under the order of Mexican President Felipe Calderon.  Some 16,000 workers remain on strike.   They occupied the Zocalo in Mexico City for over 6 months.  Currently they are working to defeat the two conservative candidates for president, representing PAN and PRI. They are working for Manuel Obrador of the PRD who has supported their struggle.   For more on this struggle see David Bacon    http://talkingunion.wordpress.com/2011/10/12/free-trade-agreements-killing-jobs-and-labor-rights/ .http://talkingunion.wordpress.com/2011/10/12/free-trade-agreements-killing-jobs-and-labor-rights/ .

Fernando Mendoza of  the Teachers Union and Ignatius Mercedes of the Mine workers in Canea, Sonora,  explained the role of neo-liberalism in privatizing public industries including public schools.  They urged the students at the university to unite with the faculty in their own struggle to renew their contract which has expired.  The tour has traveled from Los Angeles, to San Diego and San Jose and plans on appeals to workers for international solidarity. 

Labor Solidarity Tour

Cesar Chavez, Dissent, and Nelson Lichtenstein

Duane Campbell and Cesar Chavez, 1972. 

 by Duane E. Campbell

   Dissent Magazine has a review of Frank Bardacke’s book on the Cesar Chavez written by Nelson Lichtenstein,  Director of the Student of Work, Labor and Democracy at U.C. Santa Barbara.  The review is here. http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=4096

While there are some distinct strengths to the Bardacke book I also find some strong drawbacks which Lichtenstein did not deal with.   I wrote a response to the Lichtenstein review but Dissent decided to not post nor print my response.  Here is my response.      I think that these issues concerning Chavez and the UFW deserve a response, not because Chavez is above reproach, which he wasn’t, but because the Chavez -Huerta, Vera Cruz legacy of the UFW has made a strong and lasting contribution to Chicano/Latino politics.

The review of Frank Bardacke’s book,  Trampling Out the Vintage: Cesar Chavez and the Two Souls of the United Farm Workers,  by Nelson Lichtenstein that appears in the Winter 2012 Dissent does an excellent job of describing some of the issues in farm worker organizing in California and of summarizing the views of Bardacke in his book.   It also makes some strong arguments about union organizing and repeats several unfortunate claims about Cesar Chavez and the union.

            Trampling Out the Vintage: Cesar Chavez and the Two Souls of the United Farm Workers. (2011, Verso). is the view of a well- informed observer  who  worked in the lettuce fields near Salinas for six seasons,  then spent  another 25 years  teaching English to  farm workers  in the Watsonville, California  area. His views on the growth and decline of the United Farm Workers union – some of which I do not share–  offer  important points of history and reflection  for unionists today.

            Lichtenstein in his review  summarizes well  some of this important issues and he reveals his own position in claims such as , “ instead he focuses his narrative onto the next decade when Chavez became increasingly self-destructive  leader even as an enormously hopeful wave of farm worker militancy exploded across the state..” By the way.  Why was there an explosion of militancy ? Perhaps it was the development of hope for change provided by the early UFW victories.

Cesar Chavez: A True American Hero | California Progress Report

Cesar Chavez: A True American Hero | California Progress Report

Intellectual Incest

By  Rodolfo F. Acuña

It has always been difficult to convince Anglo-Americans that they should know more about Latinos.  It did not seem to matter to Anglos that their ignorance spawned stereotypes that damaged Mexican American children.    

This brings me back to Tucson, which as you all know has been on my mind. Right now the issues are being played out in the courts where the state courts punctuated by intellectual light weights are beholding to politicians beholding to the same special interests as those influencing the Supreme Court.

Red flags went up when United States District Judge, David C. Bury, held “This Court finds that discontinuance of the MASD courses during the remainder of the USP’s life expectancy will not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution by intentionally segregating or discriminating against student’s based on race or ethnic group.” The issue with many of us was the enforcement of the law, which Arizona has avoided with impunity since Brown v. The Board of Education.

Bury acted on the recommendation of Special Master Willis Hawley who on paper has a good record in supporting progressive education. But most of his experience is with African Americans in Maryland and he has had little exposure to Latinos and even less with Arizona politics.  The decision alarmed many of us since we have seen the decimation of Tucson Unified School District’s Mexican American Studies program and the retaliation against teachers through retaliatory, disparate, and discriminatory practices.