SAVE THE DATE
Reading by the poetry collective, “Epicentro”
When: 5:00 p.m., Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Where: Social Ecology I, Room 112
Featuring: Leisy Abrego, Maya Chinchilla, Mario Escobar, Ernesto Garay, Jessica Grande, Gustavo Guerra-Vasquez, Karina Oliva, and Melissa Pina Rios and any surprise poets.
Cosponsored by: the Center for Global Peace and Conflict Studies, Center in Law, Society and Culture, Department of Chicano and Latino Studies, and Department of Criminology, Law and Society.
"From the center of America erupts Epicentro: an organic literary collective straddling performance, spoken word and testimonial artforms, composed of inter-generational community-minded cultural activists of Central American extraction that write to resurrect memory and inspire action. These Central American bodies in flux and immigrant voices rise from Hollywood bus stops, volcanic ashes, quetzal wings, peripheral MacArthur Park, Mission pupuserias y mas..."
Epicentro poets will visit the University of California, Irvine on Tuesday, April 27th to present and read from their personal collections and the anthology Desde el epicentro. Karina Oliva will also read from Transverse: Altar de Tierra Altar de Sol. Their rich poetry addresses a variety of themes, including historical memory, violence, immigration, gender, social justice, identity, empowering connections, rethinking nation, Los Angeles, race, and more. All are welcome.
For additional information, please contact Susan Coutin at scoutin@uci.edu. For more information about Epicentro, Transverse: Altar de Tierra Altar de Sol, or Izote Press, please see http://epicentroamerica.blogspot.com/2007/09/desde-el-epicentro.html or http://izotepress.com/catalog.html.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Update
The Anthology has had a limited run of printing in 2007-2008. Each author included in anthology has a digital copy and is allowed to make copies for their own use. Further plans will be made to publish the anthology when circumstances permit and the time is right. Thank you for all your support!
Welcome to EpicentroAmerica: "An Anthology of U.S. Central American Poetry and Art"
Foreword
The Epicentro collective has its history of transitions and what Maya Chinchilla calls “generations.” Epicentro itself emerged from a meeting brought together by Raquel Guítierrez and Marlon Morales. Named after the group’s first reading Epicentroamerican@s coined by Gustavo Guerra Vasquez, one of the original members and all co-founders, Jessica Grande, Dalilah Mendez, and Gustavo joined efforts with Raquel and Marlon to shape this unique and vibrant cultural group.
The anthology also has its history. A previous version was put together for a Central American Literature conference at Cal State Northridge (2001?). The current version began in 2005 at a barbecue at Mario Escobar’s house. Some members gathered to revive the group and to dream up a book of poems. This project is not about Epicentro specifically, but about all US Central Americans. In 2006, Maya came in motivating others to submit their work. Having been awarded the President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship at UCLA allowed for me to devote time to fulfilling the project. I have done so both as a scholar and poet involved in a labor of love. I too grew up yearning for stories of someone like me—a centroamericana poet and artist raised Pico-Union.
The anthology comes from our own interests in the cultural work of Central Americans born or raised in the U.S. and the void that currently exists in bookstores, academia and the media on the lives and stories of our people.
Each poet expresses a unique political, aesthetical, emotional, and intellectual viewpoint: I found Jessica’s bold work moving through the musicality of her words that sashay like dance. Leisy’s poignant reflections cut deep into yearning and conflict of family and self as a cultural poignancy shared also in Rossana’s and Leyda’s poems. Mario’s compelling work astonishes through the harsh realities of being a survivor. For most poets like Janssen, Johnnito, and Ernesto, politics have an aesthetic, and aesthetics are political. Gustavo’s bilingual and transnational work wittingly represent these concepts. Milta, Ana, Anayvette, and Maya build on these tropes to recenter and divulge the juiced and labored complexity of gender and sex. Marlon’s intense work speaks a naked honesty that all poets attempt to disclose whether in structural form, personal narrative, or historical reflection. Melissa pensively paints each line to awaken memory. Hugo epitomizes epicentro as he inspires all with his wise and jazzed infused art forms. Dalila’s evocative art visualize these same poetic concerns, while Raquel boldly and powerfully speaks in word and image.
This labor of love remains unfinished unless it is held close to the heart, smudged with use, and passed around. Join us in the effort to reflect, possibly empathize, and hear the memories, visions, lands, and peoples we carry. Hear the love.
Karina Oliva-Alvarado Co-editora
Introduction to forthcoming book:
This anthology is about creating a home for those who have lost their home, who were taken from their home, who had it stolen, who decided it was time to leave and for those who carry their home in their heart and need a place to rest. It is about recovering, documenting and making our own histories and demanding their rightful place among cultural, political and literary movements. We give our testimony to resurrect memory, inspire action, to laugh loudly and to heal old wounds.
We are often asked why we want to distinguish ourselves as Central Americans. Why not just join in or blend into other cultural and political movements that have more established visibility and community support? Many of us are a part of community spaces where we work as a part of or in solidarity with communities of color, queer folks, immigrants, and educators. But we feel the need to create a space for our own U.S. Central American voices, which are still rarely heard. Ours are the voices that many of us wish we had heard more of growing up so we didn't feel so alone and invisible in our multicultural/multi-lingual realities.
This book also comes from finding solidarity and a home in the group EpiCentroAmerica that has since found its home in cyberspace. Founded in 2000, the group Epicentro or EpiCentroAmerica doesn't exist as it once did; meeting to workshop writings, organize events and perform as a collective. But our vital passion for doing creative work, the need to hear each other's voices and the desire to inspire new voices remains.
This anthology, an often talked about dream in Epicentro, is my contribution to cultivation of new spaces for Central American voices, the kind of voices that we have always wanted to hear; the conscious and empowered voices of compañeras/os who are immigrants, workers, students, mothers, fathers, children of the borderlands and a part of solidarity movements.
I hope you are moved to support this book and later published versions. The book will fulfill its goal if you find what you are looking for in it or if it inspires you to create what you want to see in the world.
Maya Chinchilla
Co-editora
The Epicentro collective has its history of transitions and what Maya Chinchilla calls “generations.” Epicentro itself emerged from a meeting brought together by Raquel Guítierrez and Marlon Morales. Named after the group’s first reading Epicentroamerican@s coined by Gustavo Guerra Vasquez, one of the original members and all co-founders, Jessica Grande, Dalilah Mendez, and Gustavo joined efforts with Raquel and Marlon to shape this unique and vibrant cultural group.
The anthology also has its history. A previous version was put together for a Central American Literature conference at Cal State Northridge (2001?). The current version began in 2005 at a barbecue at Mario Escobar’s house. Some members gathered to revive the group and to dream up a book of poems. This project is not about Epicentro specifically, but about all US Central Americans. In 2006, Maya came in motivating others to submit their work. Having been awarded the President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship at UCLA allowed for me to devote time to fulfilling the project. I have done so both as a scholar and poet involved in a labor of love. I too grew up yearning for stories of someone like me—a centroamericana poet and artist raised Pico-Union.
The anthology comes from our own interests in the cultural work of Central Americans born or raised in the U.S. and the void that currently exists in bookstores, academia and the media on the lives and stories of our people.
Each poet expresses a unique political, aesthetical, emotional, and intellectual viewpoint: I found Jessica’s bold work moving through the musicality of her words that sashay like dance. Leisy’s poignant reflections cut deep into yearning and conflict of family and self as a cultural poignancy shared also in Rossana’s and Leyda’s poems. Mario’s compelling work astonishes through the harsh realities of being a survivor. For most poets like Janssen, Johnnito, and Ernesto, politics have an aesthetic, and aesthetics are political. Gustavo’s bilingual and transnational work wittingly represent these concepts. Milta, Ana, Anayvette, and Maya build on these tropes to recenter and divulge the juiced and labored complexity of gender and sex. Marlon’s intense work speaks a naked honesty that all poets attempt to disclose whether in structural form, personal narrative, or historical reflection. Melissa pensively paints each line to awaken memory. Hugo epitomizes epicentro as he inspires all with his wise and jazzed infused art forms. Dalila’s evocative art visualize these same poetic concerns, while Raquel boldly and powerfully speaks in word and image.
This labor of love remains unfinished unless it is held close to the heart, smudged with use, and passed around. Join us in the effort to reflect, possibly empathize, and hear the memories, visions, lands, and peoples we carry. Hear the love.
Karina Oliva-Alvarado Co-editora
Introduction to forthcoming book:
This anthology is about creating a home for those who have lost their home, who were taken from their home, who had it stolen, who decided it was time to leave and for those who carry their home in their heart and need a place to rest. It is about recovering, documenting and making our own histories and demanding their rightful place among cultural, political and literary movements. We give our testimony to resurrect memory, inspire action, to laugh loudly and to heal old wounds.
We are often asked why we want to distinguish ourselves as Central Americans. Why not just join in or blend into other cultural and political movements that have more established visibility and community support? Many of us are a part of community spaces where we work as a part of or in solidarity with communities of color, queer folks, immigrants, and educators. But we feel the need to create a space for our own U.S. Central American voices, which are still rarely heard. Ours are the voices that many of us wish we had heard more of growing up so we didn't feel so alone and invisible in our multicultural/multi-lingual realities.
This book also comes from finding solidarity and a home in the group EpiCentroAmerica that has since found its home in cyberspace. Founded in 2000, the group Epicentro or EpiCentroAmerica doesn't exist as it once did; meeting to workshop writings, organize events and perform as a collective. But our vital passion for doing creative work, the need to hear each other's voices and the desire to inspire new voices remains.
This anthology, an often talked about dream in Epicentro, is my contribution to cultivation of new spaces for Central American voices, the kind of voices that we have always wanted to hear; the conscious and empowered voices of compañeras/os who are immigrants, workers, students, mothers, fathers, children of the borderlands and a part of solidarity movements.
I hope you are moved to support this book and later published versions. The book will fulfill its goal if you find what you are looking for in it or if it inspires you to create what you want to see in the world.
Maya Chinchilla
Co-editora
Thursday, March 05, 2009
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
'Little Armenia' sign in Hollywood feels strange, but right
If you're from Los Angeles, you know that truer words were never spoken.
Call this city home, and eventually L.A. will repay your devotion with a swift kick, a cold slap, and a mocking wave goodbye.
I learned this lesson the hard way after many years away. I decided to revisit the corner of L.A. where I was born and raised.
When I was a kid, I called this place Hollywood. The glitzier meanings of the name barely registered in my young brain. The Hollywood I knew was a sooty playground of concrete and asphalt where all my friends lived.
Then I got older, and moved to Montebello and many other places in California and beyond. I started telling people I was born in East Hollywood. I liked the gritty feel "East" added to its name.
But on my recent return, I found my old homeplace had a new name.
"Little Armenia" read the bold white letters on blue rectangular signs, installed by city workers on Hollywood Boulevard. Unfortunately, I am not Armenian.
Returning to your childhood home and finding it officially named for another ethnic group is sort of like going to your birthday party and finding someone else's name on the cake.
If the sign had read "Little Guatemala," I'm sure I would have felt a burst of pride: I might have called my immigrant mother to say, "There's a little part of L.A. named after us!"
The sense that the Armenians had picked my pocket, culturally speaking, lasted about three seconds -- three seconds in which I channeled my inner Lou Dobbs and scowled like Bill O'Reilly.
Then the great urban designer in the sky whispered in my ear, "Don't be a hypocrite."
My parents came here from Guatemala to reinvent themselves. Tens of thousands of Guatemalans followed after them, changing the L.A. neighborhoods they lived in.
Famous for both its transience and its diversity, Los Angeles is a place where any given street corner is rarely one thing exclusively for very long.
Little Tokyo, we read in this paper Saturday, is filling with Koreans. There's been a big Vietnamese and Cambodian presence in Chinatown for decades now. And my part of East Hollywood probably could just as easily be called Little Manila or Little San Salvador.
There's no denying the Armenian imprint on my old stomping grounds.
Armenian business owners have populated the neighborhood with signs written in the loops and arcs of their alphabet. My inability to speak Armenian led to a short conversation with a local merchant that ended with him apologizing for his poor English.
"I am not good listening already," he told me.
And when I thought about it, maybe I wasn't so good remembering.
Truth be told, there was always a little Armenia in the Hollywood of my childhood.
read more here
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
Saturday, July 05, 2008
Friday, May 30, 2008
TONITE
Body: JOIN US IN CELEBRATING
FLIGHT TO FREEDOM
ROSSANA PEREZ BOOK RELEASE
AND
ROQUE DALTON'S LEGACY
WITH A NIGHT OF MUSIC AND POETRY
Friday, May 30, 2008 @ 7pm - 9 pm
CARECEN
2845 West 7th Street / Los Angeles 90005
Friday, April 11, 2008
Lecture by Maya Professor Gaspar Pedro Gonzalez on Monday, April 14 @ CSUN
Professor Gaspar Pedro Gonzalez will be giving a lecture and reading on Monday, April 14, 2008, from noon-1:45pm in the Whitsett Room, Sierra Hall #451.
Professor Gaspar Pedro Gonzalez is a Maya-Q�anjob�al novelist, poet, painter, and literary critic. He is a graduate of the Universidad Mariano G�lvez in Guatemala City where he currently teaches Mayan literature and oral tradition. He is a member of the Academy of Mayan Languages . He has served as an official of the Ministry of Culture of Guatemala . In addition, Gonz�lez founded and serves as president of Sb'eyb'al, a leading Mayan cultural organization, which organized the First and Second Congresses of Indigenous Literature of the Americas in Guatemala City in 1998 and 1999. He has published several trilingual literary works (Maya-Q�anjob�al, Spanish and English). His book entitled Kotz'ib', nuestra literaturas maya (1997) is an important text that provides cultural and literary parameters in our interpretation of Indigenous cultural productions. His second novel, El retorno de los mayas/The Return of the Maya (2000) deals with the return of a group of Mayan refugees to Guatemala .
His other works published include The Dry Season; Q'anjob'al Maya Poems(2001) and 13 B'aktun: La nueva era 2012 (El fin del ciclo desde la �ptica maya contempor�nea) (2006). Gonz�lez�s two novels, collection of poetry and his text on Maya literature are widely used in university classrooms.
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Deporting the American Dream (repost)
Read entire article here
Deporting the American Dream
El Salvadorean Deportees Create Hybrid Culture
New America Media, News Report, Video, Josue Rojas, Posted: Apr 02, 2008
Editor’s Note: Recent reports have shown that in some states, the number of police referrals to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) has nearly doubled in the past year. A report by TRAC shows that ICE has the highest number of referrals for federal criminal prosecution of all law enforcement agencies. In El Salvador, these deportees are affecting the culture of the nation with their Americanized ways, working at call centers and struggling to survive. Josue Rojas is an artist and writer from San Francisco’s Mission District.
Salvadorean deportees, or DPs, have a few things in common: they think in English, they’re young and they’re influential. They’re importers of the culture they carry inside — the niche, regional culture of the American city they grew up in. Be it New York talk, L.A. talk, N’lawins or D.C talk… they speak it. Culturally, they’re intimately in the know of something else that is arguably the coolest thing in the hemisphere: Americana.
This is a streaming MP4 video - you'll need Quicktime 6 or later to view it.
In a country celebrated in Central America as one of the region’s greatest friends to the U.S (and is often paraded as a flagship for development) the DP’s influence spreads. They are simultaneously embraced and rejected. They’re the cool kids that society hates to love — Central America’s most beloved, betrayed bad-asses.
The seven deportees I spoke to were not all members of the internationally infamous MS-13 gang, instead they were rappers and artists; they worked to remove tattoos and manned phone lines at call centers. They’re marginalized in a marginalized country –– foreign bodies amongst the harsh antibodies of a prejudice, hyper-conservative society still dealing with the duality of right-wing conservative culture and a stubborn attempt at a socialist revolution. Coming in by the tens of thousands each year, El Salvador is sweating from the fever of their infection. They’re the ones who couldn’t make it on the other side, yet they’re successful here.
Once you’re deported, you don’t fall into a black hole. Your life continues, and with it your dreams. Disappeared from North America and rejected by the mainstream in El Salvador, DPs emerge with a hybrid culture of their own. They haven’t lost the ‘American Dream’ – they’ve just been deported along with it.
Deporting the American Dream
El Salvadorean Deportees Create Hybrid Culture
New America Media, News Report, Video, Josue Rojas, Posted: Apr 02, 2008
Editor’s Note: Recent reports have shown that in some states, the number of police referrals to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) has nearly doubled in the past year. A report by TRAC shows that ICE has the highest number of referrals for federal criminal prosecution of all law enforcement agencies. In El Salvador, these deportees are affecting the culture of the nation with their Americanized ways, working at call centers and struggling to survive. Josue Rojas is an artist and writer from San Francisco’s Mission District.
Salvadorean deportees, or DPs, have a few things in common: they think in English, they’re young and they’re influential. They’re importers of the culture they carry inside — the niche, regional culture of the American city they grew up in. Be it New York talk, L.A. talk, N’lawins or D.C talk… they speak it. Culturally, they’re intimately in the know of something else that is arguably the coolest thing in the hemisphere: Americana.
This is a streaming MP4 video - you'll need Quicktime 6 or later to view it.
In a country celebrated in Central America as one of the region’s greatest friends to the U.S (and is often paraded as a flagship for development) the DP’s influence spreads. They are simultaneously embraced and rejected. They’re the cool kids that society hates to love — Central America’s most beloved, betrayed bad-asses.
The seven deportees I spoke to were not all members of the internationally infamous MS-13 gang, instead they were rappers and artists; they worked to remove tattoos and manned phone lines at call centers. They’re marginalized in a marginalized country –– foreign bodies amongst the harsh antibodies of a prejudice, hyper-conservative society still dealing with the duality of right-wing conservative culture and a stubborn attempt at a socialist revolution. Coming in by the tens of thousands each year, El Salvador is sweating from the fever of their infection. They’re the ones who couldn’t make it on the other side, yet they’re successful here.
Once you’re deported, you don’t fall into a black hole. Your life continues, and with it your dreams. Disappeared from North America and rejected by the mainstream in El Salvador, DPs emerge with a hybrid culture of their own. They haven’t lost the ‘American Dream’ – they’ve just been deported along with it.
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Francisco Goldman on Democracy now
Click the link above for audio or link below for democracy now site with links to video and transcripts.
Guatemala’s Indigenous Countryside Drives Election Victory Over Atrocity-Linked General
Guatemala’s Indigenous Countryside Drives Election Victory Over Atrocity-Linked General
Monday, December 03, 2007
Anti-Immigrant Rage Dehumanizes the Undocumented
New America Media, Commentary, Roberto Lovato, Posted: Nov 30, 2007
Editor's Note: The CNN/You Tube Debate earlier this week showed what a hot-button topic that immigration was -- with Republican candidates vying over who has the harshest measures concerning undocumented immigrants. But a closer look at the rising numbers of hate crimes reported against immigrants shows the deadly effects of anti-immigrant rhetoric, writes NAM contributor Roberto Lovato.
The focus of this week’s Republican debate on immigration makes one thing clear: We have entered the age of selective humanity. In other words, some humans are more human than others. Nowhere in the debate talk of “illegal aliens” and “sanctuary mansions” or who or what is “American” was there any notion that the undocumented were humans.
As a result, much of the “debate” around immigration has been and continues to be defined by the rage of the anti-immigrant right, a right that champions and humanizes those that shoot and jail migrants instead of focusing on the migrants themselves – who are stripped of anything beyond the parasitic, criminal image that makes for “fiery” television head-butting. Such a climate does not look at the violence and abuse suffered by migrants. It does not ascribe humanity to them.
The media of just one week yields many examples of how undocumented immigrants suffer through things that no politician or pundit is talking about. For example, the Arizona Republic reported this week about a dramatic rise in the number of undocumented who are kidnapped at gunpoint, held for ransom, tortured and even killed; an analysis of the FBI hate crime statistics by the Southern Poverty Law Center found an estimated 35 percent increase in hate crimes against those perceived to be undocumented including cases like that of a Cuban man killed at an improvised roadblock and that of man sodomized with a patio umbrella pole; in Greensboro, Ga., last week, Police Officer Brent Gulley was caught stealing cash from Latinos pulled over for numerous alleged offenses while in Tucson another undocumented man was shot by authorities under questionable circumstances; and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Broward county is investigating an immigration agent who was transporting a 39-year-old mother for deportation to Jamaica and allegedly raped her in his home in what authorities say is the second such incident in the past month.
And to no one’s surprise, Lou Dobbs and the anti-migrant echo chamber exercised their right to selective humanity and regularly and completely ignore these stories and, instead, focus on faux-hero stories like that of Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean. Ramos and Compean became a cause celebre of the anti-immigrant set after being convicted for firing 15 bullets at a suspected drug dealer and then trying to cover up the evidence. Those who watch Dobbs' show are saturated with weekly reports about the families of Ramos and Compean and other humanizing stories. These same viewers – and most Americans – haven't an inkling of the deepening abyss of violence and hate aimed at immigrants.
It's no coincidence that such incidents come in a climate of increasing racial and economic tension as seen, for example, in the current rise in hate crimes. Sadly, crimes against immigrants go largely unreported not only because of the fear in the immigrant community. As the former president of the Los Angeles Human Relations Commission, I learned that migration status is not included as a category in most hate crime data-gathering and statistics. So, while the FBI report is helpful, it likely captures little of the official and un-official crimes against those vilified daily on CNN news and debates and in state legislatures.
Some of us are old enough to remember when the politics of selective humanity around immigration started back in the 90s, when the contemporary politics of immigration were first shaped in California. At that time, many Democrats and their allies pointed to polls showing that “moral arguments around immigration don't work with the voters.” In other words, pollsters were telling them that humanity and humanizing the issue wouldn't win elections against the immigration wedge-deploying Republicans. Today, we've reached a point in which, not only are “moral” or “humane” immigration policies taboo, but one in which even Democrats like Rep. Heath Shuler (D-N.C.) are co-sponsoring punitive, enforcement only policies like the SAVE Act (Secure America through Verification Enforcement). Some of the same Democratic politicos, pollsters and strategists who told us that “moral arguments around immigration don't work with the voters” are economically richer and more politically powerful. Until both parties recognize the humanity of immigrants, the barrage of horrific stories about crimes directed at this population will continue.
Editor's Note: The CNN/You Tube Debate earlier this week showed what a hot-button topic that immigration was -- with Republican candidates vying over who has the harshest measures concerning undocumented immigrants. But a closer look at the rising numbers of hate crimes reported against immigrants shows the deadly effects of anti-immigrant rhetoric, writes NAM contributor Roberto Lovato.
The focus of this week’s Republican debate on immigration makes one thing clear: We have entered the age of selective humanity. In other words, some humans are more human than others. Nowhere in the debate talk of “illegal aliens” and “sanctuary mansions” or who or what is “American” was there any notion that the undocumented were humans.
As a result, much of the “debate” around immigration has been and continues to be defined by the rage of the anti-immigrant right, a right that champions and humanizes those that shoot and jail migrants instead of focusing on the migrants themselves – who are stripped of anything beyond the parasitic, criminal image that makes for “fiery” television head-butting. Such a climate does not look at the violence and abuse suffered by migrants. It does not ascribe humanity to them.
The media of just one week yields many examples of how undocumented immigrants suffer through things that no politician or pundit is talking about. For example, the Arizona Republic reported this week about a dramatic rise in the number of undocumented who are kidnapped at gunpoint, held for ransom, tortured and even killed; an analysis of the FBI hate crime statistics by the Southern Poverty Law Center found an estimated 35 percent increase in hate crimes against those perceived to be undocumented including cases like that of a Cuban man killed at an improvised roadblock and that of man sodomized with a patio umbrella pole; in Greensboro, Ga., last week, Police Officer Brent Gulley was caught stealing cash from Latinos pulled over for numerous alleged offenses while in Tucson another undocumented man was shot by authorities under questionable circumstances; and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Broward county is investigating an immigration agent who was transporting a 39-year-old mother for deportation to Jamaica and allegedly raped her in his home in what authorities say is the second such incident in the past month.
And to no one’s surprise, Lou Dobbs and the anti-migrant echo chamber exercised their right to selective humanity and regularly and completely ignore these stories and, instead, focus on faux-hero stories like that of Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean. Ramos and Compean became a cause celebre of the anti-immigrant set after being convicted for firing 15 bullets at a suspected drug dealer and then trying to cover up the evidence. Those who watch Dobbs' show are saturated with weekly reports about the families of Ramos and Compean and other humanizing stories. These same viewers – and most Americans – haven't an inkling of the deepening abyss of violence and hate aimed at immigrants.
It's no coincidence that such incidents come in a climate of increasing racial and economic tension as seen, for example, in the current rise in hate crimes. Sadly, crimes against immigrants go largely unreported not only because of the fear in the immigrant community. As the former president of the Los Angeles Human Relations Commission, I learned that migration status is not included as a category in most hate crime data-gathering and statistics. So, while the FBI report is helpful, it likely captures little of the official and un-official crimes against those vilified daily on CNN news and debates and in state legislatures.
Some of us are old enough to remember when the politics of selective humanity around immigration started back in the 90s, when the contemporary politics of immigration were first shaped in California. At that time, many Democrats and their allies pointed to polls showing that “moral arguments around immigration don't work with the voters.” In other words, pollsters were telling them that humanity and humanizing the issue wouldn't win elections against the immigration wedge-deploying Republicans. Today, we've reached a point in which, not only are “moral” or “humane” immigration policies taboo, but one in which even Democrats like Rep. Heath Shuler (D-N.C.) are co-sponsoring punitive, enforcement only policies like the SAVE Act (Secure America through Verification Enforcement). Some of the same Democratic politicos, pollsters and strategists who told us that “moral arguments around immigration don't work with the voters” are economically richer and more politically powerful. Until both parties recognize the humanity of immigrants, the barrage of horrific stories about crimes directed at this population will continue.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Maya-Kaqchiquel Poet and Indigenous Right Advocate
please let pass information of this great event to
others!
A Celebration: Envisioning the United Nations
Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (part I)
Maya-Kaqchiquel
Poet and Indigenous Right Advocate
Calixta Gabriel Xiquin
Location:
Whitsett Room,
Sierra Hall, Room 451
Date:
Wednesday,
October 31
Time: Noon-2:00pm
Calixta Gabriel Xiquín was born in the state of
Chimaltenango and speaks Maya Kaqchikel. She fled to
the United States after three of her brothers were
kidnapped and murdered, and she stayed in the United
States from 1981 to 1988. She has an undergraduate
degree in Social Work from the University of Rafael
Landívar and has published her poetry in many
anthologies in Guatemala. Her first book of poems was
entitled Hueso de la tierra and was published in 1996.
The poetry included here is from her collection
Tejiendo los sucesos en el tiempo/Weaving Events in
Time, with English translation by Susan G. Rascón and
Suzanne M. Strugalla. It was published in 2002 by Yax
te' Foundation and its first printing sold out in
Guatemala.
Sponsored by: College of Humanities Academic
Programming, Central American Studies Program,
Chicana/o Studies Department, CASAS, CAUSA, Associated
Students, and Colectivo Contacto Ancestral.
Alicia Ivonne Estrada, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Central American Studies Program
California State University, Northridge
18111 Nordhoff Street
Northridge, CA 91330-8246
Phone: (818) 677-2736
Fax: (818) 677-7578
others!
A Celebration: Envisioning the United Nations
Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (part I)
Maya-Kaqchiquel
Poet and Indigenous Right Advocate
Calixta Gabriel Xiquin
Location:
Whitsett Room,
Sierra Hall, Room 451
Date:
Wednesday,
October 31
Time: Noon-2:00pm
Calixta Gabriel Xiquín was born in the state of
Chimaltenango and speaks Maya Kaqchikel. She fled to
the United States after three of her brothers were
kidnapped and murdered, and she stayed in the United
States from 1981 to 1988. She has an undergraduate
degree in Social Work from the University of Rafael
Landívar and has published her poetry in many
anthologies in Guatemala. Her first book of poems was
entitled Hueso de la tierra and was published in 1996.
The poetry included here is from her collection
Tejiendo los sucesos en el tiempo/Weaving Events in
Time, with English translation by Susan G. Rascón and
Suzanne M. Strugalla. It was published in 2002 by Yax
te' Foundation and its first printing sold out in
Guatemala.
Sponsored by: College of Humanities Academic
Programming, Central American Studies Program,
Chicana/o Studies Department, CASAS, CAUSA, Associated
Students, and Colectivo Contacto Ancestral.
Alicia Ivonne Estrada, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Central American Studies Program
California State University, Northridge
18111 Nordhoff Street
Northridge, CA 91330-8246
Phone: (818) 677-2736
Fax: (818) 677-7578
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Writing Central American Poets into History
Celebrando los antepasados y el futuro!
Desde el EPICENTRO
Spoken Word Poetry with EPICENTRO POETS
Thursday NOV 1, 2007
11am-1pm
Multicultural Center (near bookstore across from Psychology building)
@ CSU Long Beach
featuring:
Hugo Nelson Chavez, Maya Chinchilla, Mario Escobar, Jessica Grande,
GusTavo Guerra Vásquez, Karina Oliva-Alvarado
and special guests
* donations accepted for upcoming anthology*
For more information:
Karina (626) 340-6970 or
Jayne Howell (562) 985-5192 jhowell AT csulb DOT edu
*Park in Lot 17 in meters or buy a parking permit at the visitor parking booth*
Sponsored by the program in Latin American Studies,
Department of Chicano/Latino Studies and Department of Sociology
Monday, October 15, 2007
Quique Aviles
heard about this poet when I was in DC where salvadorans are the dominant Latino group...yup you heard what I said...
El Salvador at-a-glance
By Quique Aviles
El Salvador at-a-glance
Area: the size of Massachusetts
Population: Not much left
Language: War, blood, broken English, Spanish
Customs: Survival, dance, birthday parties, funerals
Major exports: Coffee, sugar, city builders, busboys, waiters, poets
El Salvador
little question mark
midget with a gun in his hand
belly button of the world
The only country in the world
know for eating its national flower
Little question mark that begins to itch
You were supposed to clean carpets
not ask for time out and dialogue
You were supposed to follow instructions
given in the English language
not go to the garden and write a song
It has been said that pain has the ability to travel
El Salvador’s major cities:
San Salvador
San Miguel
Santa Ana
Los Angeles
San Wachinton, DC
It has been said that pain does not know how to
pose for a green card picture
It has been said that truth has the ability to happen
in the strangest moments
in the strangest cities
under the strangest circumstances
El Salvador in Wachinton
little question mark
little east of the border
migrant earthquake
wet back volcano
banana eating
tortilla making
mustache holder
funny dressing
forever happy
forever sad
forever Wachintonian Salvadorean.
El Salvador at-a-glance
By Quique Aviles
El Salvador at-a-glance
Area: the size of Massachusetts
Population: Not much left
Language: War, blood, broken English, Spanish
Customs: Survival, dance, birthday parties, funerals
Major exports: Coffee, sugar, city builders, busboys, waiters, poets
El Salvador
little question mark
midget with a gun in his hand
belly button of the world
The only country in the world
know for eating its national flower
Little question mark that begins to itch
You were supposed to clean carpets
not ask for time out and dialogue
You were supposed to follow instructions
given in the English language
not go to the garden and write a song
It has been said that pain has the ability to travel
El Salvador’s major cities:
San Salvador
San Miguel
Santa Ana
Los Angeles
San Wachinton, DC
It has been said that pain does not know how to
pose for a green card picture
It has been said that truth has the ability to happen
in the strangest moments
in the strangest cities
under the strangest circumstances
El Salvador in Wachinton
little question mark
little east of the border
migrant earthquake
wet back volcano
banana eating
tortilla making
mustache holder
funny dressing
forever happy
forever sad
forever Wachintonian Salvadorean.
Friday, October 12, 2007
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Central American Cacus @ Latino Congresso
THE NATIONAL LATINO CONGRESO 2007
"THE POLITICS AND POLICY CONVENTION OF THE LATINO COMMUNITY"
October 5th-9th, 2007
Los Angeles, California
Sheraton Los Angeles Downtown
www.latinocongreso.org
1-888-222-4413
Dear Colleagues,
Greetings- Many of you all participated in last years National Latino Congreso and were present at the “Central Americans in the US and Central America: A Status Report Workshop.” Last year, it was resolved that Central American community members would use the National Latino Congreso to further discuss issues relevant to our community at future Congreso meetings. We hope to build on last year’s gathering by engaging distinct sectors of the Central American community in developing plans related to our community for public policy, advocacy, legislative and electoral strategies for the next year. We invite you to participate in this important day of discussion. Please note: in order to submit resolutions, your organization must be a Convener, Co-Convener, or a registered organization. (Resolutions deadline this Friday September 28th).
The National Latino Congreso 2007 will have a Central American Caucus on Saturday October 6th, at 8am. at the Downtown Sheraton in Los Angeles, CA. We are still seeking Sponsors for the Caucus, so if your organization is interested please contact me at the info below.
Please take a moment to check out our website www.latinocongreso. org. I invite you to endorse and register! Please join us in downtown Los Angeles for this important event.
Sincerely,
Miguel Perla
Coordinator, National Latino Congreso 2007
2914 N. Main Street, 1st Floor
Los Angeles, CA 90031
Phone: (323) 222-2217
Fax: (323) 222-2011
Cell: 415-279-9759
mperla@wcvi. org
www.latinocongreso. org
"THE POLITICS AND POLICY CONVENTION OF THE LATINO COMMUNITY"
October 5th-9th, 2007
Los Angeles, California
Sheraton Los Angeles Downtown
www.latinocongreso.org
1-888-222-4413
Dear Colleagues,
Greetings- Many of you all participated in last years National Latino Congreso and were present at the “Central Americans in the US and Central America: A Status Report Workshop.” Last year, it was resolved that Central American community members would use the National Latino Congreso to further discuss issues relevant to our community at future Congreso meetings. We hope to build on last year’s gathering by engaging distinct sectors of the Central American community in developing plans related to our community for public policy, advocacy, legislative and electoral strategies for the next year. We invite you to participate in this important day of discussion. Please note: in order to submit resolutions, your organization must be a Convener, Co-Convener, or a registered organization. (Resolutions deadline this Friday September 28th).
The National Latino Congreso 2007 will have a Central American Caucus on Saturday October 6th, at 8am. at the Downtown Sheraton in Los Angeles, CA. We are still seeking Sponsors for the Caucus, so if your organization is interested please contact me at the info below.
Please take a moment to check out our website www.latinocongreso. org. I invite you to endorse and register! Please join us in downtown Los Angeles for this important event.
Sincerely,
Miguel Perla
Coordinator, National Latino Congreso 2007
2914 N. Main Street, 1st Floor
Los Angeles, CA 90031
Phone: (323) 222-2217
Fax: (323) 222-2011
Cell: 415-279-9759
mperla@wcvi. org
www.latinocongreso. org
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Of organized truth, the Jena6, and immigrant rights
From Echolandia and Youth Media Council:
Published on: September 22, 2007
Published by: karlos schmieder
We've been kicking around a quote at the YMC office since the POWER 10th Anniversary, em(Power)ed. Minister Christopher Mohamed, the keynote, came real.
He said, "Truth is essential, but it is, of itself, insufficient. Because disorganized truth can be overcome by an organized lie.”
I mean, he said a bunch of other deep shit.
This quote really struck a cord at YMC.
I thought a lot about it as I watched the Jena 6 coverage on CNN.
I have to say, the demonstration was beautiful. I wish I had gotten it together to get there.
Yet I heard CNN anchors gush all day that it was "the biggest civil rights demonstration in a generation."
Just so we're clear. The Jena6 demos WERE NOT the biggest civil rights demonstrations in a generation. The biggest were, of course, the May 1st marches for the civil rights of immigrants the past couple of years.
Now, the question isn't which were bigger. The question is how we connect these movements.
Race and civil rights are once again becoming central to the political debate in the United States. Unequal justice is a familiar theme.
Whether it's the immigration debate, Katrina, Jena6, education, health care...whatever.
And we've seen these major diverse and different gatherings of marginalized peoples.
* The May 1st demonstrations
* The United States Social Forum, and all the regional forums leading into it
* Jena 6
Yet none have truly been connected. Yes, there's been an effort. It's not as if people aren't doing stuff. The US Social Forum was an attempt at that, no doubt. There are folks connecting as a result. The Jena6 could've been helped by the forum happening in the South. But to say these movements are truly connected, or even "organized" in the traditional sense, would be foolish. (There's this viral thing to the way these events have manifested that we haven't figured out yet either.)
Folks have pointed out that it would have been great to see the crowds in Jena be more diverse. Same could be said for the May 1st demos.
And this just ain't a black/brown thing. It's about the inequalities and lack of opportunities for all our communities. It's about poor and working white folks and Native Americans too. It's about our Filipino sisters and brothers. It's about all of us. Civil and human rights at the center of the debate in this country is an opportunity to connect our movements, struggles and, yes, victories.
At the em(Power)ed event, Minister Mohamed quoted Frederick Douglas and Louis Farrakhan. "Power concedes nothing without demand," was the quote from Douglas. Mohamed pointed out that Farrakhan said power doesn't concede demand with out more power to back up that demand.
So that's my question. How do we organize our truth and power into collective demands that benefit us all? How do we really become a movement? Ok two questions...and even more than that.
Published on: September 22, 2007
Published by: karlos schmieder
We've been kicking around a quote at the YMC office since the POWER 10th Anniversary, em(Power)ed. Minister Christopher Mohamed, the keynote, came real.
He said, "Truth is essential, but it is, of itself, insufficient. Because disorganized truth can be overcome by an organized lie.”
I mean, he said a bunch of other deep shit.
This quote really struck a cord at YMC.
I thought a lot about it as I watched the Jena 6 coverage on CNN.
I have to say, the demonstration was beautiful. I wish I had gotten it together to get there.
Yet I heard CNN anchors gush all day that it was "the biggest civil rights demonstration in a generation."
Just so we're clear. The Jena6 demos WERE NOT the biggest civil rights demonstrations in a generation. The biggest were, of course, the May 1st marches for the civil rights of immigrants the past couple of years.
Now, the question isn't which were bigger. The question is how we connect these movements.
Race and civil rights are once again becoming central to the political debate in the United States. Unequal justice is a familiar theme.
Whether it's the immigration debate, Katrina, Jena6, education, health care...whatever.
And we've seen these major diverse and different gatherings of marginalized peoples.
* The May 1st demonstrations
* The United States Social Forum, and all the regional forums leading into it
* Jena 6
Yet none have truly been connected. Yes, there's been an effort. It's not as if people aren't doing stuff. The US Social Forum was an attempt at that, no doubt. There are folks connecting as a result. The Jena6 could've been helped by the forum happening in the South. But to say these movements are truly connected, or even "organized" in the traditional sense, would be foolish. (There's this viral thing to the way these events have manifested that we haven't figured out yet either.)
Folks have pointed out that it would have been great to see the crowds in Jena be more diverse. Same could be said for the May 1st demos.
And this just ain't a black/brown thing. It's about the inequalities and lack of opportunities for all our communities. It's about poor and working white folks and Native Americans too. It's about our Filipino sisters and brothers. It's about all of us. Civil and human rights at the center of the debate in this country is an opportunity to connect our movements, struggles and, yes, victories.
At the em(Power)ed event, Minister Mohamed quoted Frederick Douglas and Louis Farrakhan. "Power concedes nothing without demand," was the quote from Douglas. Mohamed pointed out that Farrakhan said power doesn't concede demand with out more power to back up that demand.
So that's my question. How do we organize our truth and power into collective demands that benefit us all? How do we really become a movement? Ok two questions...and even more than that.
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