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Galeano, a Reminder of “Who” We Are – A Call to Action in Support of the Zapatistas

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By Ernie McCray

I hear all kinds of arguments about what’s wrong with schools and the sentiments tend to avoid the keys to what’s essential in the creation of a learning environment: an understanding of “who” the person is who’s being educated. And nothing gets at “who” a child, a student, is more than an educator who respects and appreciates that person’s culture and gives him or her an education that’s rich in the arts.

With that being said, on May 2, 2014, a hero of mine, a teacher extraordinaire, Jose Luis Solis Lopez (Galeano), was assassinated at the Zapatista’s “Little School” (La Escuelita), in Chiapas, Mexico. The school was built to celebrate “who” children are and “who” they can become.

Their culture is at the core of their school. The arts, drawing, painting, singing, dancing, poetry are interwoven in all that they do, enabling each child to get at what drives them, what they have to offer, how they fit into the scheme of things.   [Read more…]

They Are Watching You: 
The National Security State and the U.S.-Mexican Border 


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By Todd Miller / TomDispatch

Before 9/11, there was little federal presence on the Tohono O’odham reservation. Since then, the expansion of the Border Patrol into Native American territory has been relentless. Now, Homeland Security stations, filled with hundreds of agents (many hired in a 2007-2009 hiring binge), circle the reservation. But unlike bouncers at a club, they check people going out, not heading in. On every paved road leaving the reservation, their checkpoints form a second border. There, armed agents — ever more of whom are veterans of America’s distant wars — interrogate anyone who leaves. In addition, there are two “forward operating bases” on the reservation, which are meant to play the role — facilitating tactical operations in remote regions — that similar camps did in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Now, thanks to the Elbit Systems contract, a new kind of border will continue to be added to this layering. Imagine part of the futuristic Phoenix exhibition hall leaving Border Expo with the goal of incorporating itself into the lands of a people who were living here before there was a “New World,” no less a United States or a Border Patrol. Though this is increasingly the reality from Brownsville, Texas, to San Diego, California, on Tohono O’odham land a post-9/11 war posture shades uncomfortably into the leftovers from a nineteenth century Indian war. Think of it as the place where the homeland security state meets its older compatriot, Manifest Destiny.   [Read more…]

San Ysidro Bi-National Multi-Modal Transit Center

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By Beryl Forman

The City of San Diego’s 700 block of East San Ysidro Boulevard is likely the most integral property to activate the San Diego/Tijuana Bi-national Border Region, as high level economic dialogue between the U.S. and Mexico unfolds. This block is not only home to the world’s busiest pedestrian border crossing, but also San Diego’s most heavily traveled trolley station, by far.

With up to three hours delay at the border nearly every day, and 7 billion dollars a year lost in economic productivity due to border delays, a grand opportunity lies ahead for this strategically located property. In order to realize this potential, it is important to understand some of the current issues and proposed plans for this site.   [Read more…]

Lies and Deceit: One Neighbor’s Deportation Sheds Light on the Inhumanity of US Immigration Enforcement

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By Daniela Maria Ugaz / Upside Down World

I remember jolting awake at 6 AM. Still dark. Someone was banging on my neighbors’ door. I could hear whispering, then screaming. When I opened my eyes, just like that, I made out two, three, four distinct voices.

Months later, my neighbor, who I’ll call Beto, told me there must have been 10 to 12 police officers at his door that morning. They were definitely police and not Immigration. The squad car parked in front was stamped with the LAPD logo and the officers’ uniforms were neatly labeled POLICE. And yet this was an immigration raid. It had all the trappings of an immigration raid, from the hour it was conducted, to the defining fact that Beto, along with many other migrants in our LA neighborhood, were targeted that day for being in the country illegally. But we didn’t realize this until much later.   [Read more…]

My Buddy Has a Playmate

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By Judi Curry

My 13 year old Golden is having some hip issues

Trying to watch him walk down the stairs brings out the crying tissues.

He doesn’t seem to be in much pain and he “smiles” all the time,

Except when he tries to stand up and then you know he’s not fine.

He just helped me “dog sit” my daughter’s big dog,

Who really is a cross between a kangaroo and a frog.

  [Read more…]

The Drug War Fuels Mass Deportation of Nonviolent Migrants

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250,000 people have been deported for drug offenses in the last 6 years.

By Daniel Robelo / AlterNet

The drug war has increasingly become a war against migrant communities. It fuels racial profiling, border militarization, violence against immigrants, intrusive government surveillance and, especially, widespread detentions and deportations. 

Media and politicians have tried to convince us that everyone who gets deported is a violent criminal, a terrorist or a drug kingpin. But a newly released, first-of-its-kind report shatters that notion, showing instead that the majority (some two-thirds) of those deported last year were guilty of minor, nonviolent offenses – including thousands deported for nothing more than possessing small quantities of drugs, typically marijuana.   [Read more…]

Legalization is a Human Rights Issue: Latin America Steps Up Resolve to End the Drug Wars

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By Wendy Call/ Yes!
Seattle’s South Park neighborhood has seen its share of drug-related crime and violence. Many of its residents are recent immigrants from Mexico; some came north fleeing the drug cartel violence that has ravaged their home communities. So the South Park Community Center was a poignant venue for Mexican poet, writer, and activist Javier Sicilia to speak about his campaign to end the drug war in his home country. He began the evening with a moment of silence for all the lives lost – somewhere between 60,000 and 100,000 – since the Mexican government stepped up the war against drug cartels in 2006. Then, his commanding voice heavy with grief, Sicilia read a poem:

All absence is cruel
and nonetheless, remains like a space that comes from the dead,
from the bleached roots of the past.
Where might we turn?

Sicilia wrote this poem, “The Survivor,” in 2009. Two years later, he became a survivor of heartbreaking absence himself, when his 24-year-old son was murdered, with six of his friends, by drug traffickers in Cuernavaca, Mexico. With the cruel loss of his son, Sicilia did not know where to turn. He wrote a final poem dedicated to his son, Juan Francisco, and then renounced writing poetry.   [Read more…]

Mexico’s Oil Belongs to Its Citizens, Not the Global 1%

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On the anniversary of Mexico’s 1938 oil nationalization, artist Yoshua Okón argues that the “energy reform” currently underway in his country will deprive citizens of income directed toward education, health care and anti-poverty programs.

By Yoshua Okón / Creative Time Reports

Translated by Georgia Phillips-Amos

Oil in Mexico is much more than a symbol of national pride. For the past 75 years it has been an enormous source of income for developing Mexico’s infrastructure and improving social welfare. When, on this day in 1938, President Lázaro Cárdenas expropriated U.S.- and U.K.-owned oil companies, he allowed Mexico to achieve relative independence and modest prosperity. The nationalization of oil saved Mexico from becoming a paralyzed, essentially colonized country like Guatemala, which has a major mining industry that is almost entirely foreign-owned.

Petróleos Mexicanos (PEMEX), the state-owned company with exclusive access to Mexico’s oil, is one of the most lucrative companies in the world. In 2012 it declared profits of over 900 billion pesos (or $70 billion), earnings comparable to those of American oil and gas giants like ExxonMobil and Chevron. More importantly, PEMEX has historically distributed its profits among the Mexican population more equitably than any other industry in the country. Sixty percent of Mexico’s spending on social welfare comes from oil income. Among the things this income currently pays for are education, health care and programs to fight extreme poverty. Every Mexican citizen owns PEMEX, and the profits the company generates have made palpable differences in all of our lives.   [Read more…]

Love Transcends Borders and Legal Status

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Shameful immigration policies separate loved ones

By Brent E. Beltrán

Love doesn’t recognize borders. It doesn’t know if the person you love has papers or if they have done time for youthful indiscretions. None of that matters to love because love transcends all. My cousin Alma, who grew up on 29th St. near K St. in Grant Hill, knows about this kind of love. She and her children live it every day.

My cousin fell in love with, and eventually married, her husband Juan. Him not having legal status to live in the US didn’t bother her whatsoever. She was in love and her heart didn’t care if the man she wanted to be with was allowed to be in this country legally or not.

Alma met Juan in Tijuana in 1997. They must’ve hit it off pretty good because within a few months she was pregnant with their first child. At the time Juan used a temporary crossing card that he had had since he was eleven years old to cross the border. But when he used it he was breaking the law because he had been previously deported after being convicted of burglary.

Juan used to be in a gang. He lived the typical, poor, working class barrio lifestyle and all of the negatives that comes with that. Joining a gang helped him cope. Readers can judge all they want but if you don’t live this reality you will never understand the pressures of joining a gang and the hardships of living in the barrio.

After being convicted he served about two years between 1995-1997. Upon release he was deported. The same year he was released he met my cousin and his life changed. Love has a way of changing people. And for Juan it was for the better. When he found out they were pregnant he knew he could never be the person that he was.   [Read more…]

WILDCOAST Staff and San Diego’s Uptown Rotary Club on Oaxaca’s Coast

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Bi-national effort to preserve sea turtle habitat and protect mangrove ecosystems

By Staff

Last month members of the San Diego Uptown Rotary Club joined with WILDCOAST staff in a volunteer effort to preserve some of the world’s most important sea turtle nesting beaches along Oaxaca, Mexico’s coast. Their goal was to promote awareness of the ecological significance of the areas they visited to residents and visitors. They participated in the cleanups of the beaches and tidal lagoons which are essential to the health of the ocean and the life it supports.   [Read more…]

SDPD Strip Club Raid Raises More Integrity Questions

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By Doug Porter

It was another bad day for the San Diego Police Department. A group calling itself FED UP-San Diegans Against Police Sexual Misconduct held a morning press conference in front of the Hall of Justice demanding accountability for the repeated sexual assaults by SDPD officers.

Holding up signs that said “I am Jane Doe,” referring to the a victim currently battling the city in court demanding an outside monitor for the SDPD, the group demanded sweeping changes within the department.

And then the Washington Post posted a story –originally reported on Saturday by ABC 10News— about a police department raid on a local strip club. Ten armed officers wearing bulletproof vests closed down the Cheetah Club, located in Kearny Mesa on Thursday night. In addition to checking for permits, the officers lined up the women working at the club and photographed them in their semi-nude attire.   [Read more…]

NAFTA Birthday Bash Draws UCSD Protesters

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By Daniel Gutiérrez

On Thursday, March 6th, the Sanford Consortium hosted an event  in celebration of NAFTA’s 20th anniversary. The event, entitled, Mexico Moving Forward: 20 Years of NAFTA and Beyond, was put together by the Center for US-Mexico Studies, a policy research institute at UC San Diego’s School of International Relations and Pacific Studies.

However, outside of the Sanford Consortium, dozens of students and activists assembled to protest the event.

Protesters conducted a silent march from UCSD to the Sanford Consortium. All wore black and dawned masks or bandannas to reveal only the eyes. Anarchists flags were plenty. Banners read “EZLN” (Ejército Zapatista Liberación Nacional — Zapatista National Liberation Army) and “Ya basta! Para todos, todo” (Enough! Everything for everyone). Marching silently and two-by-two, the protestors lined up along North Torrey Pines Road and stood along the entrance. Protestors remained completely silent.   [Read more…]

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