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Lánzate 2024

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Month: October 2017

The People’s Sermon, by Paulina Helm Hernandez

Posted on by Mario Gil

At Mijente’s first ever member gathering, La Sazonblea, we kicked off our last day with a speech from Paulina to ground us spiritually for our next steps and commitments to each other as we build our political home together. You can read the speech below:

I’ve seen May Day co-opted over the years and real working people stomped over on the way to socialist rallies organized by people that cannot imagine such suffering. But our parents faces remind us of the true cost of sacrifice, and what it means to cross a river into a better life.

I think about race and ethnicity and culture + place. And love …love above all. The kind of love that asks you look somebody in the eye and tell them that you are willing to do ANYTHING so that they can eat, and sleep safely at night.

We know this political war was not made by immigrant people. It was not thought of by Native people, it was not dreamed of by Black folks, it was not design by Arab, Muslim or  Asian folks. Pacific Islanders and Caribbean folks ain’t even got time for that.

It was designed and architected by generations and scores of people who never planned on sharing any power; who only thought of monarchies fed by the bondage of others, and from there went sale prices, profit margins, open markets, deregulations, and skimming off the top while stealing from the bottom.

The same people who vote against our freedom time and time again.

I know in my indigenous mestiza bones that race, caste + class are inextricably braided into a noose meant to choke the life out of us. Or at least keep us tethered to a house / farm / ranch / kitchen / stable or basement that feed empires of wealth we can not touch or see, that is, until we can give more.

Dred Scott showed us that… him and his left a trail for us to follow back.  To the recent times of our political subjugation as Black / Brown / Indigenous and many other tribal people whose names we will never know. But we do know them in other ways.  Southern fields have drank from the blood of our kinfolk, sisters, mothers, fathers and babies. So many babies.

We hear their whispers across rivers and shores. Lloronas and keepers of our stories.

And yet the all mighty $ entices us into looking into the lives of the rich and infamous for culture and stories. Fictional yet seductive. Trump got that … the seducing power of affluence above all.  Assimilation isn’t just about whiteness or skin bleach. It’s also about walking down Main Streets of America pretending we don’t see the suffering on our Side Streets and underpasses where our folks often struggle to make a better life.

It binds us to a continental and global mandate to wretch power away from those that will continue to steal generations of our babies away into their wars, fields, boarding schools and factories so that America Can Be Great Again. #asif

I celebrate all working class folks today + #always.  I pray blessings into the beautiful hands that held us while we were sick at night, and then worked all day to feed us, house us, bless us the fruit of their labor and sacrifices. Young to old, children / sons / daughters /  cousins / mamis / papis / tíos + tias that STILL manage to send money home.

Wherever home is, is also the root of freedom. Because our freedom is about love and kinship. It’s about those of us that cannot walk away from our tribes. Who itch to know our names. Who search for a light glimmering in the darkness. And who for too long have struggled to stay out of county jails and detention centers so we could fulfill love’s promise on this side of the border.  Who risk death across fields, deserts, river and ocean shores to bless this land with our work and dreams too. We make bread and plant roses that seed a different kind of Latinx cultural revolution that will not disappear in our lifetime or the next.  Because it has met the generosity of the Southern Black freedom struggle + native sovereignty tribal and global movement and we are gathering to bless the hands that carry the water and fire… along with our babies and our babies’s babies.

We must reclaim our kinfolks out of bondage and bonded cages, along the land that holds our feet and futures – all worth protecting + defending.

I believe organizing is a freedom ritual – it’s an ask that we fulfill love’s promise to be about words AND deeds. So now I organize my life around my goals and my goals are freedom bound. From Borinquen to Aztlan – I too believe that we will win.

The Niña, The Pinta, and Hurricane Maria

Posted on by Amanda Chavez

Full Article Here by Ricardo Arroyo-Montano
​Foreword below by Eroc Arroyo-Montano

What am I driving at? At this idea: that no one colonizes innocently, that no one colonizes with impunity either; that a nation which colonizes, that a civilization which justifies colonization—and therefore force—is already a sick civilization.

Aime Cesaire

As news of the complete devastation across the island of Puerto Rico is released, I find myself incessantly hitting refresh on my Internet browser. With each click, my emotions and tears overwhelm me. A deep feeling of desperation follows. This has become an unintentional daily ritual since “natural disaster” Hurricane Maria struck the island.

I know I am not alone.

As 3.4 million Boricuas on the island are working to survive in the midst of a humanitarian crisis, over 5 million Boricuas across the Diaspora wait to hear from family and friends, while trying to simultaneously figure out how we can be the most helpful. Many have identified three specific ways to help the island progress.

  1. Donating towards humanitarian efforts. We trust and highly recommend giving to these grassroots organizations on the island: AgitArte, Defend Puerto Rico and CEPA.
  2. Calling for the elimination of the exploitive debt that strangles the Island.
  3. Organizing and fighting for a full repeal of the Jones Act.

Meanwhile, we are willingly or unwillingly participating in a collective mourning, a grieving of what has been lost. Deep down, we know that Puerto Rico and its people will never be the same again.
​
The entire island has lost electricity and won’t have it back for at least six months. A curfew is currently being enforced by the National Guard. People have lost their lives as the government failed to supply hospitals with diesel fuel for their generators. An estimated 44% of the Island is without clean drinking water. Over 80% of the island’s crops have been wiped out. Most schools across the island remain closed, leaving 700,000 students without access to formal education. Flooded towns across the island will have to deal with diseases that are common in contaminated drinking water and from mosquito breeding grounds in still water. We are still learning more about the devastation by the hour. ​

In the midst of all this hardship, empires twitter happy, white supremacist, misogynist, colonizer-in-chief managed to attack San Juan’s Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz from his golf course. Eventually making it to the island two weeks after the hurricane first hit, where he continued to insult the Puerto Rican people by insisting that they were not experiencing a “real catastrophe”.

Many Boricuas on the island and in the Diaspora are engaged. They are asking questions, the whys and hows, and many are immersed in the work. The multitude of challenges Puerto Rico faces today are symptomatic of the ongoing theft of the island’s resources, a neglected infrastructure, and widespread poverty. What is happening today is a direct result of 500 plus years of colonization. What is happening today is a direct result of the Jones Act of 1917. What is happening today in Puerto Rico is a direct result of the exploitative economic policies forced upon the island.

The people creating these economic disparities and creating deep debt are exploiting poverty and hoarding our resources. These vulture capitalists bank on our oppression. In essence, they have been squeezing the juice out of the island and its people, and then have the audacity to charge the people for a sip. ​

In the following essay, my brother, a Public Defender and community activist, Ricardo Arroyo-Montano, makes the clear connection between the policies and actions of the past and the continued colonization of Puerto Rico. Mass corporate media coverage would have us believe this is all happening in a vacuum, that this disaster and its effects are only about this hurricane. We hope that this piece can serve as a resource for those who are interested in learning more about Puerto Rico and its deep history of resistance.

In the midst of the devastation, I remember the words of Sufi poet and mystic, Rumi, “the wound is where the light enters.” Puerto Rico has suffered at the hands of U.S. imperialism and capitalist greed long before Hurricane Maria appeared on the forecast. I am not sure that any work on the decolonization of American Empire could be successful if it ignores the plight of Puerto Rico. While we grieve and rebuild, we must pursue radical hope and LOVE. We must prioritize healing justice as we find a way to build bridges between Boricuas on the island and Boricuas on the continental United States. We must radically imagine a new way forward. The diaspora must be engaged in the process. I have faith that another world is possible.

-Un Abrazo. In love & faith, Eroc

Read the Full Article Here

The most serious blow suffered by the colonized is being removed from history and from the community. Colonization usurps any free role in either war or peace, every decision contributing to his destiny and that of the world, and all cultural and social responsibility.

Albert Memmi

Read the Full Article to learn about Puerto Rico’s colonial history with the US.

Artist: Micah Bezant, AgitArte & Forward Together

For a colonized people the most essential value, because the most concrete, is first and foremost the land: the land which will bring them bread and, above all, dignity.” 

Frantz Fanon

Click Here for the Full Article and Share

For more info on PROMESA check out this report from Action Center on Race and the Economy by clicking on the above image: https://www.acrecampaigns.org/puertorico

Eroc Arroyo-Montano is a Mijentero and founding member of the critically acclaimed Independent Hip Hop group, Foundation Movement. An educator, artist, activist, healer and a proud father of three. Follow him & his work at www.sonofatabey.com

Eroc Arroyo-Montano is a Mijentero and founding member of the critically acclaimed Independent Hip Hop group, Foundation Movement. An educator, artist, activist, healer and a proud father of three. Follow him & his work at www.sonofatabey.com

Five Things the ‘Safe City’ Raids Can Teach Us About the New Era of Enforcement

Posted on by Mario Gil

Last week Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) released information that they had detained 450 people across the country in cities and counties that have restrictions on the participation of local police in immigration enforcement, or so-called “Sanctuary” cities.

Although this was not the 10K person mass raid that community members were warned about a few weeks ago, there are five elements we thought important to highlight that show us that we are in a new era of enforcement that requires us to track emerging tactics and technologies and have with solid and innovative response. And in an era where any contact with local law enforcement becomes an opportunity to detain, deport, and incarcerate, highlighting the role of local governments in creating real sanctuaries and pushing back against criminalization is key.

As we figure out what those responses are, here are five things that we should  be paying attention to in responding to Operation ‘Safe City’ and any that follow:

  1. This is what mass raids look like. We don’t have to wait for a 10,000 person raid to be announced in order to sound the alarm. This is what a raid and the propaganda that follows it looks like. The numbers and regions will vary, but ICE will always say the people they detained are dangerous and emphasize the stories that reinforce that narrative. But a raid like ‘Safe City’ is no less dangerous to members of our communities — including those who have been criminalized by local law enforcement or those who may not have been on the target list but are still detained as ‘collateral.’
  2. Everyone is a priority, everyone is a criminal. In their press communications ICE officials wrote that the raid “targeted individuals who have violated U.S. immigration laws, prioritizing aliens with criminal convictions, pending criminal charges, known gang members and affiliates, immigration fugitives and those who re-entered the U.S. after deportation. Individuals with active DACA were not targeted for arrest.” Read this paragraph carefully, because (i) it names that the target of the operation is people who have violated immigration law — aka every undocumented immigrant except people with DACA, (ii) it includes people with pending criminal charges, making it so that there is no due process or judicial review of people’s charges before they get targeted for deportation, making a person’s deportation literally up to a local police officer, and (iii) including everyone with any sort of criminal conviction. That’s a lot of people.
  3. Sanctuary cities are contributing data to inform the ICE raids. This raid is part of an on-going attack on any municipality that places some restrictions in the participation of local law enforcement with immigration enforcement. Although most cities that have been labeled ‘Sanctuary’ jurisdictions have defended their existing policies and their right to protect immigrants, they contribute by sharing information such as the names and police records of individuals suspected to be gang members. In the City of Chicago, for example, there is a  city-wide campaign to get an immigrant father, whose home was raided by ICE, off the Chicago Gang Database. Wilmer Catalan-Ramirez and his family are suing the City of Chicago and the Chicago Police Officers who put him in the database for their responsibility in the immigration raid that led to his detention. Attacks on sanctuary cities will more and more look like this.
  4. ICE has been expanding their ability to process data and spy on people, information that they use to target individuals during immigration raids. The Federal Government has invested billions of dollars in private companies to collect and process information to make the lists of people to target in these raids. The information includes fingerprints, suspected gang affiliation, people’s criminal and immigration records, DNA, and social media information. This is the data that is used during immigration raids, such as ‘Safe City.’
  5. Look out for aggressive prosecution of people in these raids for immigration related crimes in federal court. People who are picked up in these raids are also potentially facing a felony and a long time in jail before deportation. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is partnering with the Sessions Department of Justice to bring additional charges and years in federal prison for many of the people arrested as part of immigration operations. This is part of a broader effort to increase incarceration of immigrants. We don’t know yet how many people will be prosecuted as part of Operation “Safe City”, but paying attention to this will help us track how immigration enforcement is taking place and find more effective ways to respond.

Keeping these five perspectives in mind as we continue to figure ways to effectively defend our communities and fight back against these raids, can help us important to track how immigration agents are conducting operations, identify new tactics and trends, and pay attention to the relationships between law enforcement and the different government agencies at work.