Tune into Poco a Poco Radio this Sunday at 1:30PM CST to hear the excellent BILINGUAL interview my father and I did with Leonard Ramírez and Magda Ramírez-Castañeda, about the much anticipated release of: Chicanas of 18th Street: Narratives of a Movement from Latino Chicago.(photos by Claudio Gaete-Tapia)
The Way Is Made By Walking: Cesar Chavez
¡Feliz Cumpleaños Cesar Chavez!
Cesar Chavez Coloring Page, from The Way Is Made By WalkingThe Way Is Made by Walking is a free popular education coloring book available at TheWayIsMadeByWalking.comEventually I would like TheWayIsMadeByWalking.com to become an active webportal for artists/activists/educators/students/parents/HUMANS. A place that will facilitate critical conversations and the exchange of resources: ideas, images, videos, lesson plans, projects, student work, etc. A sort of ongoing People's History, meant to be continually analyzed, expanded upon, revisited and challenged. (read more)
when physical appearance equals reasonable suspicion
Public Airways is an artwork that aims to help viewers imagine the consequences of proposed immigration laws that inevitably lead to increased racial profiling. Arizona's SB 1070 would make it legal for law officers to use someone’s physical appearance as a form of “reasonable suspicion” to demand proof of citizenship. Similar laws have been proposed in South Carolina, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Mississippi. Perhaps rightful citizens and casual world travelers subject to profiling will soon seek to avoid such destinations altogether: a 21st century "Non-White Flight."
follow @PublicAirways
The 1st Arizona Welcome Pics Are Here
please feel free to share and re-post...
visit: http://americanmediaoutput.com/arizonawelcome.html
TAKE ACTION AGAINST ANTI-IMMIGRATION ARIZONA LAWS
visit: AMericanMEdiaOutput.com/arizonawelcome.html
click hashtags #SB1611 and #SB1070
embeddable images of the Arizona Welcome Promo Girls will be avaliable soon...
Miguel del Valle Inspires Supporters to Keep Fighting for Reform, Declaring, “This is Chicago!”
repost of press release from www.delvalleformayor.com
Del Valle envisions new youth leaders emerging from campaignFebruary 22, 2011 (CHICAGO)-- After an impassioned campaign on behalf of Chicago’s neighborhoods, Miguel del Valle pledged to keep fighting for a citywide progressive agenda.“What will be your role?” del Valle asked a crowd of supporters at his campaign’s Election Night party at Revolution Brewing restaurant. “We’ve started something here. All the young people in this room--there are future leaders here, I know that.”State Senator Iris Martinez and State Representative Cynthia Soto introduced del Valle who welcomed his wife, daughter, and three sons to the stage. The entire family worked on the campaign, from recruiting and organizing volunteers to shooting YouTube videos.“This was a grassroots effort,” Sen. Martinez said. “And it was a victory for everyone in this room.”Del Valle led citywide conversations on issues ranging from neighborhood schools to the parking meter contract. “We set the agenda,” del Valle said. “An agenda that means progress for all, not for some.” A diverse coalition rallied behind that agenda, including seniors, veterans, and high school students.Del Valle has always said that time, not his opponents, was his worst enemy during the race. Tonight, he encouraged his supporters to keep believing in the city they envisioned during the campaign.“Give it time,” he said. “It’s not going to happen overnight. But I have been inspired by the number of people who want change in this city. And we’re not going to get that change without organizing our neighborhoods.”Huddled around tables and on staircases, volunteers continued to discuss a citywide organizing vision for Chicago’s communities. They batted around ideas for new models to improve neighborhoods, formed new relationships, and continued to build the coalition started during del Valle’s campaign.“Chicago is ready for reform,” del Valle said. “I know that because a lot of people did not vote in this election. They feel disgusted about Chicago politics. And we have to give ‘em hope.”
Internet Art & Activism- the #delValleMural
I am a Chicago-based digital media and performance artist. I created this grassroots, social media, portable mural in support of Miguel del Valle's campaign for Mayor.
follow hashtag: #delValleMural to see how the mural was created.
putting final touches on the #delValleMural
The #ChicagoMayor elections are right around the corner...
And I am happy to report that I am ALMOST done with the #delValleMural(the hashtag is silent)
#delValleMural in progress
As a community-based performance artist, I find the act of sharing the process equally important to the act of sharing the final product.Here are images from the last week of the #delValleMural unfolding.
THE WORLD IS WATCHING ARIZONA
(via guardian.co.uk article by Roberto Cintli Rodriguez)
Arizona's cultural genocide law
Legislators in Arizona are pursuing a white supremacist campaign to erase Mexican American presence from teaching
The onslaught in Arizona of reactionary and immoral racially-based laws has managed to attract worldwide attention. The brown peoples of this state are being relentlessly persecuted by a majority population that wants to forcefully remove us and suppress our rights and deny our humanity. Here, the state has even gone so far as to, via HB 2281, to prohibit the teaching of ethnic studies in Arizona schools.
Unquestionably, the brown peoples of this state are treated as less than human. Not everyone treats us this way – just the majority: mostly conservative Republicans, many of them with a supremacist ideology. Their general attitude is: if you're brown (read Mexican), get the hell out of our God-given country. And for those of you who remain, either assimilate and abide by our [contrived and unconstitutional] laws or face the full wrath of the state.
There is embedded hate against brown peoples in Arizona – the kind associated with the 1800s, a time when the United States forcefully annexed half of Mexico. All of it is thinly veiled under the guise of opposition to "illegal immigration" and "border enforcement". However, the battle here is actually civilisational: brown peoples, many of whom have been here for hundreds, if not thousands, of years, represent the unfinished business of Manifest Destiny. For conservatives, we represent a return to a past in which we are viewed as a conquered, subhuman species. This brazen attitude informs all the recent anti-Mexican and anti-immigrant bills, proposed laws that long for a return to an idyllic past, which, in fact, never existed.
Aside from HB 2281, other bills include : SB 1070 – the racial profiling law; SB 1097 – the proposed law that will require children to identify the immigration status of their parents; and HB 2561/SB 1308 and HB 2562/SB1309 – bills that seek to nullify birthright citizenship (guaranteed by the 14th amendment ) to children whose parents cannot prove their legal status.
And now, state legislators have introduced the most reactionary bill of them all: SCR 1010 (pdf). This bill seeks to exempt Arizona from international laws. With this bill, these legislators are acknowledging that all their anti-Mexican laws are also outside of international law.
AND read more about HB 2561/SB 1308 (via AlterNet article by Valeria Fernández)
Arizona Bill Would Create Second-Class Citizenship for US-Born Children of Undocumented Immigrants
A baby born in Arizona to two undocumented parents would have a birth certificate that indicates he is not a U.S. citizen under new legislation introduced in Arizona’s State Capitol on Thursday.
The bills (identical in House and Senate versions, HB 2561/SB 1308 and HB 2562/SB1309) will certainly be challenged in federal court and are already steering a polarizing debate in a state known across the nation as a laboratory for anti-illegal-immigrant policies.
NOW THIS IS GRASSROOTS!!
The Student's @DelValle4Mayor video just made it into the Huffington Post!!
Rahm Emanuel Hit On School Policy By High Schoolers For Del Valle
A group of Chicago high school students has decided to take Rahm Emanuel to task for his education policy.
Cristina Henriquez, Gerardo Aguilar, and Alexandra Alvarez appear in a YouTube video, uploaded Sunday, entitled "Invest in Our Public Schools." The spot attacks Emanuel for his praise of the city's charter schools, and backs rival candidate Miguel del Valle for supporting neighborhood schools.
"I go to Roger C. Sullivan High School," says Henriquez. "This is not one of the schools Rahm Emanuel cares about."
The students, who wrote the script for the video, according to its description on YouTube, also point out what they describe as a factual inaccuracy in Emanuel's portrayal of the city's charters. "When you take out North Side, and you take out Walter Payton, the seven best-performing high schools are all charters."
"Someone didn't do their homework," the video says, listing the seven top schools as reported by the Chicago Tribune. None of them is a charter school.
The video says it has no connection to any candidate, and judging by the del Valle camp's reaction, they seem to be telling the truth. Spokeswoman Joanna Klonsky didn't know much about the video's origins, except to say that "we didn't orchestrate it."
Watch the students take on Rahm:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afonAiiMTm8]
Invest in Chicago Public School Students
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afonAiiMTm8]On January 30, 2011 Chicago Public school students and graduates (from Chicago's Rogers Park neighborhood) got together to film a grass-roots/guerilla campaign ad to "tell it like it is," and support the best candidate to improve our neighborhood public schools.The footage used is filmed outside of Roger C. Sullivan High School and from WGN's January 27th mayoral debate. The stars and script writers of this ad are Sullivan HS students (in order of appearance) Cristina Henriquez, Gerardo Aguilar, and Alexandra Alvarez.On February 22, 2011 vote to improve our neighborhood schools - Miguel del Valle!http://www.delvalleformayor.comThis ad was not paid for or endorsed by any candidate or candidate's committee. Labor & love donated.Source of top seven high schools: Chicago Tribune 
If you support Prop 8 and/or SB 1070 un-friend me on facebook
I am incredibly proud of my husband's Facebook status.
Please feel free to repost on your own page:
___________ is fed up. If you support California's Proposition 8 or any of the Arizona anti-immigration laws, un-friend me now. NOW. Don't send me an email or comment on this post. This isn't a political issue, it's about avoiding the complacency-in-the-face-of-hatred that doomed 1930s Germany. How you can live with yourself is your own problem.
Appropriating and Recontextualizing Google Image Search Results
Part 1 of an article I wrote for jewishinstlouis.orgEvery art student learns about the fair use principle, granting us permission to use any image in our artwork as long as we transform it so that it conveys new meaning. But beyond that all-encompassing definition, we don’t know what transgressions, if any, we are actually committing.
Recently in the news is the preemptive lawsuit artist Shepard Fairey filed against the Associated Press. According to Fairey the AP threatened to sue him unless he pays royalties for the image that he used as source material for his now famous campaign poster of Barack Obama. Fairey argues that he is protected by the fair use principle. He claims that his intention was not to reproduce any particular image, but instead was to capture a specific gaze representative of the ideas of hope and change.In an interview on NPR, Fairey declared he was going forward with this suit on behalf of all artists, the thousands of artists that created their own campaign images in the same grassroots manner, pulling images from the web in support of the message of hope, change and a new administration in Washington.
screen shot of: first page of google image search results for "Barack Obama"
I am fascinated by Fairey’s implication that the process of appropriating and re-contextualizing Google image search results might be considered a grassroots action. As an artist, I frequently use images that that I find on Google. Like Fairey suggested, my motivation for using these images is to highlight the search itself, not the derivative image.Perhaps then, these cyber Robin Hoodian actions—using and transforming Google image search results—are capable of changing the structures that control the dissemination of information. After all, the order that information appears in Google searches is determined by the amount of people searching any given topic. And as a result of the Fairey’s appropriation, his campaign poster may be forever linked to Obama’s presidency.
email from President Obama
Obama’s popularity can be credited to his skillfully constructed presidential campaign that effortlessly linked his name to hope. I was quick to jump onto Obama’s online campaign message of hope. Like many others, I subscribed to his twitter, facebook, and YouTube pages. I now get weekly emails from him and I even have a blog on his site…
People's Hopes
There have been some wonderful submissions to togetherwehope.com. Here are some examples. Visit togetherwehope.com to share your hopes for the future.
Sarah Silverman for Obama
[youtube=http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=AgHHX9R4Qtk]
Guest Post by Debbie Wolen: Ta'anit Esther and Mardge Cohen
Guest Post by Debbie Wolen*: Ta'anit Esther and Mardge CohenI had never heard of the holiday [Ta'anit Esther] until one year ago, when Rabbi Brant said that the JRF and the RRC wanted to honor Dr. Mardge Cohen for Ta'anit Esther. Mardge asked me what Ta'anit Esther was. I had never heard of it, and I have been Jewish all my life.Isaac Saposnik is working on the Philadelphia side of this RRC/Kolot "reconstruction" of Ta'anit Esther as a Jewish Day of Justice. Ta'anit Esther is described in the Book of Esther (which I did actually read for the first time, in preparation for organizing this event. It describes Esther's initial reluctance to get involved with advocating for her people. When Mordicai first told Esther about the plot, she was afraid to intervene. Apparently, her conscience and sense of justice/solidarity/responsibility was stronger than her fear, and gave her the energy and courage to intervene. Her struggle is interesting and a process that I know I face often in my life, so I can really identify with Esther's struggle. Prior to her intervention, Esther fasted, and asked the whole Jewish community to fast with her in solidarity. Thus, the Fast of Esther is one of several Jewish fast days. (It lasts from sunrise to sundown on March 20. That is why we are having East African (Ethiopian) hors d'ouerves at the March 19 observance.)I bought an Art Scroll prayer book recently, so I looked, and sure enough, Ta'anit Esther is listed as a fast day. It is not described as a Jewish day of justice, however. This is the new reconstruction of it. I also mentioned it to an Israeli fellow, and he said, "Oh, yes, sure, Ta'anit Esther, of course." But, I have asked other people who are much more knowledgeable and involved Jewish people than I, and they had not heard of Ta'anit Esther previously.When I read the Book of Esther, I was somewhat concerned about the justice described there and the assumptions I made about what the reconstructionists meant by "Jewish day for justice." The justice in Esther is revengeful and quite bloody! I asked Isaac about this. He said this Jewish Day for Justice implies social justice, the type of justice that Mardge Cohen and others in Rwanda are working for, making the lives of the survivors of the 1994 genocide better, making the lives of the poor and powerless more empowered. Well, it was obvious, but the bloody revenge in Esther is called justice, too.Mardge Cohen, MD, is a woman who has struggled with social injustice during her whole medical career. She is really a remarkable woman, and her work is on the level of Paul Farmer, in my opinion. I saw some slides she showed at our workplace in 8/2000, of her tour of HIV projects in South Africa after the 2000 International AIDS conference. I was inspired by her slides so that I started trying to educate folks at JRC about AIDS in Africa, and to raise funds for HIV projects there. I am just one of many she has inspired by her example.Here is a jewish text study by Jordan Appel Ta’anit Esther text studyThanks a lot for your interest and supportDebbie Wolen
*About Debbi:
I'm a family nurse practitioner, have worked in HIV primary care at Cook County Hospital for nearly 17 years with people who are medically indigent and suffer the indignities of poverty. I was a public health nurse before that. I have sought inspiration from many sources. My first source of inspiration was my childhood rabbi, Leonard Mervis, who gave sermons on social justice, anti-war and in support of the civil rights movement (like you, my parents insisted on my attendance through high school, every single Friday evening! So, rather than be bored, I listened to the interesting sermons.) I am a product of Cicero, Illinois. My cousins marched against Martin Luther King when I was 15. That was a radicalizing experience that affects me even today, in my middle age. Also, your mother [Tina Escobar] was the only teacher I could really relate to in my two years at Rush College of Nursing, and she only taught our class for 2 weeks!
