“Fuck tha police,Comin’ straight from the underground.Young nigga got it bad ’cause I’m brown,And not the other color so police think,They have the authority to kill a minority.Fuck that shit, ’cause I ain’t tha one,For a punk …mutha fucka with a badge and a gun,To be beatin’ on, and thrown in jail.We could go toe to toe in the middle of a cell.”
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Well it’s started, the state of Arizona has just passed the most stringent, anti democratic, anti immigrant, anti Latino, anti worker, most repressive, ethnic profiling law that’s come down the pipe since the Japanese Americans were rounded up and put in concentration camps for being Asian looking, during world war 2. Being Mexican looking in Arizona has been dangerous for quite a while now but with this new law in effect looking Mexican can get you detained, locked up, and maybe deported.
Should someone start a little negocio in say Blythe Ca. that sells blond wigs and white pancake makeup for Mexican Americans who have to cross the Arizona border on Interstate 10 heading east? It might help in combating racial profiling by Arizona cops who are now mandated to check peoples papers if they meet certain “criteria’sâ€, you know, looking Mexican for example. Illegal trespassing in Arizona without proper papers can get you in trouble now, be cautious.
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Cops and Nazis
For a long while, I’ve been questioning the intended efficacy of public protests. I often wonder if the days of marching and holding signs and the persuasive effect they used to have on those in power is long gone. Public protests still serve a purpose though, they create a sense of solidarity with other like-minded folks, walking on empty streets with thousands of other people is an interesting way to take in the city, creative sign slogans are entertaining and inspiring, and protests can sometimes turn into riots. With these things in mind, I headed Downtown this weekend for the Anti-Nazi Protest with a Bay Area friend in-tow. I wanted him to experience Los Angeles style oppositional politics, a sorta intro to “This is how we do it.”
Last month a few of us dedicated library patrons gathered for a very poorly attended panel discussion at the Mark Taper Auditorium. Did you know there is a lecture auditorium called the Mark Taper at the Central Library? The next day and week [following that panel] there was an on-line discussion extolling the excellent people of San Francisco for both promoting and attending their library functions—in droves too! My brother, who works at the Central Library says that there is more power in using the library and its services, than launching the biggest rally in support of keeping it open. Many of us bloggers on LAeastside and you readers have been dismayed with the recent cutback attacks on our library system. This week, there is a very interesting award winning author speaking at the Central Library (details below) on my favorite subject: the border wars and Ciudad Juarez. If this is not your thing, attend one of the other FREE lectures coming up through the Aloud Series, or check out a book or video, reserve a computer, take the metro downtown and enjoy the architectural splendor and art at the Central Library. Keep the library abuzz with our presence!  RSVPs are required to attend the Aloud lectures and it only takes a few moments to reserve your seat/s at (213) 228-7025 or online. Continue reading
Broadcasting out of somewhere East LA comes Radio Sombra. Their site says:
“From the shadows comes the light!â€
An independent community internet radio station that will bring a new voice to the communities in East Los Angeles.
Programming will be open and accessible to the community.
From community organizations to political artists like Zack de La Rocha, Radio Sombra will keep it real on the dial.
As a way to fund the project, Radio Sombra will  be presenting Film Nights on varied topics at Centro de Comunicación Comunitaria.
This Thursday brings :
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Wow! We must be becoming visible at last! Mexifornia, the paranoid fear of the Joe Arpaio’s, Walter “my radio is speaking to me in Spanish!†Moore, the forgotten Lou Dobbs, and the author of “Mexifornia†Victor Davis Hansen, who had to build a fence in front of his central valley home to keep the Mexicans from throwing beer cans into his yard.
On this xenophobic and paranoid produced Mexifornia driver’s license is a picture of one of the great actors in American and Mexican history, Alfonso Bedoya, who was a modern day Chicano, being born in Sonora, schooled in Houston Texas, residing for many years in Los Angeles.Â
“Badges? Badges? I don’t have to show you no stinking badges!†One of the great lines in film history, from one of my all time favorite movies “The Treasure of the Sierra Madreâ€, about three gringo wetbacks that travel into the Sierra Madre of Mexico searching for gold but end up finding other treasures (except for poor Humphrey Bogart),
Seeing Bedoya on a driver’s license gives me great pleasure, I feel so good I feel like listening to a song to celebrate. I’ll also share it with you.
And get ready for an onslaught of this type of nativist racism when the coming ussue of immigration reform is debated.
On April 1, 2010, the entire board of supervisors for Los Angeles County witnessed a historical event at the East Los Angeles civil court: the marriage of Juana Juanes-Robinson and her two husbands, Juan Juanes and Bob Robinson. After twelve years of protest and push from community residents and supporters throughout the county, thousands of supporters for PWWMT (People Who Wanna Marry Two) waited outside of the civil courthouse for Juana and her two husbands to tie their knots.
Thirty seven more 2+1 marriage ceremonies are scheduled through the summer of 2010.
In yet another sign of the times, the Mayor is proposing a new fee for crossing our city bridges as a way to make up for some of the loss of revenue that bad planning and poor management has meant for our city. And let’s not even get into the welfare for the rich scenarios that have given us nothing but ugly spaces at a high price. It’s pretty messed up how they’ve managed this city into a financial hole, just to keep developers and campaign funders happy. But what else is new, que no?
Well this IS new: they want to charge people for crossing any bridge in the city. Even the ones that span the river and connect the Eastside with the rest of the city. And they want to charge you in both directions. As if times weren’t tough enough.
Ron Unz announced that he was planning on opening an elementary school in the MacArthur park area to be named after his good friend and fellow Republican Jaime Escalante.
An Unz spokesman Will Garglio, stated that this will be called Jaime Escalante Westside Elementary School (JEWES). Unz plans to open a similar school on the Eastside.
JEWES curriculum will be total English immersion with a focus on media manipulation. Plans include having a student run television station just like professional Latino TV stations. They plan to staff the station with the lightest and blondest of the community, even if they have to import them all the way from Miami to do so. Will Garglio said, “We want these youth to feel like they are in the real world and that world doesn’t look or speak like them, so they need to get used to it now.”
Textbook orders have already been filed and include texts that exclude Sal Castro, Che Guevarra, Rudy Acu~a and other Chicano/Latino heroes that might instill pride in the students, something that must be avoided, according to textbook publisher: Bendover for Texas Press.
Last weekend of art activism– A Prayer for Juarez closes. This Friday and Saturday doors open at 7:15pm for final viewing of the protest art exhibit. Casa 0101 Annex, 2102 1st Street, Boyle Heights. All events are FREE!
Friday, March 26, Film Screening of El Traspatio/Backyard from Mexico. Not yet released in the US. Stars Jimmy Smits & Ana de la Reguera. [Mexico, 2009 – 122 mins]. Screening starts at 8pm
Saturday, March 27, Award Winning Reporter Diana Washington Valdez updates us on the latest from Ciudad Juarez, from an insider’s point of view. Starts at 8pm.
Diana Washington Valdez, an investigative reporter for the El Paso Times, has covered the murders in Ciudad Juarez since 2001. In her book The Killing Fields: Harvest of Women, Washington Valdez contends the killings are part of a circuit of parties hosted by prominent Juarez citizens. Former FBI official Frank Evans said, “Diana Washington Valdez is a witness to the truth.†Ms. Washington Valdez has taken the message about the femicides in Ciudad Juarez to 30 cities in the United States and other countries. She is featured in the documentary Border Echoes, produced by Lorena Mendez Quiroga of Los Angeles and in Bajo Juarez by Alejandra Sanchez and Jose Cordero. Both films feature author Washington Valdez’ examinations of the Texas-Mexico border atrocities. Diana Washington Valdez has been interviewed for features on CNN, the New York Times, Aljazeera, Televisa, Channel 4 (London, England), and other news media.
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