ya what she say...

Why I Love the English Only Pushers

Ah, yes. The irony of some English-only fanatic going red in the face in the middle of Arizona - a state with a Spanish name. I love it.

I also love the English-only zealots because they are proving without question that the so-called "debate" about "illegal immigration" has been neither a debate nor about illegal immigration. It has been a good old-fashioned hate-mongering racist attack on Latinos, period.

Why would I love something like that? Four reasons.

1. The hatred comes from fear, and the fear comes from our very real, very impressive numbers. It's just like when the media complained and moaned and wailed about feminism and horrors of free women, right before women's equality became more or less a given in our society. We are witnessing the convulsive death throes of the old power establishment in the United States. We are literally witnessing their self-destruction. Yes, it's ugly. Yes, it's stupid. Yes, it expresses itself through scapegoating and senseless racism. But remember where it's coming from, and remember where we're actually going. We are becoming once more a Latin American nation, end of story. We are becoming once more a nation that realizes "Colorado" "Nevada" "California" and "Viva Las Vegas" are Spanish words. The racist fools can whine all they want, but it won't change a damn thing. Cheers.

2. The Republicans are catering to the far-right racist fringe on this issue, at a huge cost they don't seem to comprehend in a nation where salsa outsells ketchup. The false smile they've put on with regards to "minorities" is quickly slipping back into what it really was and always will be - the bubba-toothed snarl of hatred. Goodbye, inroads into the Latino voter world. Goodbye, power. Goodbye, White House. Goodbye, Republicans. They've taken their feet out of their mouths, only to shoot themselves in them with Dick Cheney's pelet gun. It's almost as much fun to watch as Mexican wrestling.

3. Those who scream "English only" are almost always the same people who speak the language with the least mastery of it. They also lack any grasp of history, current events or - hell, I'll just say it - a brain. By standing proudly for ignorance and monolingualism in a global economy and environment that requires education and multilingualism to succeed, they might as well have a finger up the nose and another up the ass. They look that stupid. Norway has seven official languages. Every Canadian must learn at least two languages. The isolationist hubris that leads the nose-pickers to BRAG about their monolingualism is hilarious. "Look, Ma, I'm a dumbass and durn proud of it!"

4. When Miami, a city that in many ways is a microcosm for what is happening and will happen in the nation at large (they're about 25 years ahead of everyone else), passed legislation REQUIRING all business to be conducted in English only, the reaction among bilingual people was...to speak English less. That's right. It's human nature. Tell someone they "can't" speak a language, they're bound to go surly teenager on you and speak it LOUDER than BEFORE. Miami is the only city in the US so far where you hear more Spanish than English on the street - even though everyone is perfectly capable of speaking English. By the very DEMAND from the racist right that we stop speaking Spanish (because it scares them terribly, even though they use Spanish themselves every time they say words like "Las Vegas" and "Florida") they are all but guaranteeing a Spanish-speaking future for the United States. Gracias, dipshits. You are building your own coffin. I love you for taking the time to do that. It leaves me more time to read People en Espanol.

posted by Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez @ 4:28 PM

snakes

snakes on a plane!

more pictures from after easter

Pilli pictures

I've been bad to post pilli picutres so here they go. Over the last month we were in Gridely and LA and Avenal.

Hiding

mostly from myself. soon I'll be back

lots of mari power here 

girls 

waltersito 

frank? 

mari is a g 

damas and guyes 

awsome fashion 

for mari's myspace 

espantado

from the blog of elmaschingon

El Espíritu No Sabe De Tiempo

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

I wore a watch to sleep because I never knew when I couldn’t sleep in the middle of the night, and I’d toss y turn, then stare at the ceiling before I’d check what time it was. I’m not one for big alarm clocks. “It’s 2:49 am,” I told myself.

I used to contemplate the reason why I’d wake up at this precise time. Was it the exact time I died in some other lifetime? Or perhaps, it was at this time that my spirit fled my body. “Estas espantado,” me derian los abuelos. “¡Apurale, mujer!” la abuela yelled at mamá, “Dame un huevo y esa yerba.”

A friend once told me she went to see a fortune teller, you know, the ones that read your hands, the cartas and own large statues of both Catholic saints and death. Her parents made her visit the fortune teller after she’d randomly lose track of time, suffered from insomnia, and whenever she found sleep, she’d awaken feeling just as tired and haggard as she felt before. It wasn’t depression, my friend told me, it was el espíritu, the soul.

“What about your soul?” I asked.

“Estoy espantada,” she said,”I’ve been for such a long time, that my spirit has a tendency to leave my body even when I do fall asleep.”

“Is that why you feel like shit when you wake up?” I asked.

“Yes, that’s why I feel like shit when I wake up,” she grins, “fucker.”

I ask her to clarify (the whole spirit stuff), since she hasn’t explained what that has to do with time.

“The spirit knows no time. It can come and go as it pleases. Some people have more control of it than others, pero, answer this,” She tells me, “Have you ever seen yourself sleeping?”

I tell her, perhaps, in a dream.

“What if it isn’t a dream?”

I stare at her. And she continues.

“What if that’s really your espiritu watching itself as it returns?”

“¿De donde?” I say with a smirk, “If my spirit is having more fun at night than I am, and this is why I can’t sleep, then I want to be where my espiritu is.”

“You are,” my friend says.

“I’m in two places at the same time?” I ask.

“There is no time!” She says, and rolls her eyes.

“Answer me this then,” I tell her, “So, if there’s no time, then why do I feel I have to be in control of it?”

“You know for someone who believes in ghosts and aliens, you’re more a Scully than a Mulder,” she says.

On one of those nights, when I couldn’t sleep, I grabbed my journal and wrote: When I take my watch off, time isn’t bound to me.

I understand I’m not in control. That watch, is just a safety net, allowing me, with a glance, to direct me to what I should be doing. There are days when I feel that time is at it’s end of its tether, each strand tattering inch-by-inch, I lose it. I’m angry, sensitive, scared, defensive, and anxious all at once. I tell myself that it doesn’t make sense, nothing makes sense. I can’t even breath, the air is thick as if a rag is over my face (where the hell is my inhaler?)…like I’m drunk without even drinking.Se me cierran las puertas, here, now—there is no time.

¿Estoy espantado? My spirit out of the body and it can’t come back in?

But I go about my day trying to ignore this pagan feeling—más Scully que Mulder, my ass. Then it hits me, the fact that I have less time than I did yesterday.

PHX, AZ - 4/10/2006

Immigration Rally/March

just got done getting our signs and T-shirt ready. Pyched about the marches SI SE PUEDE.

Cesar Chavez Day

On the first anniversary of Cesar Chavez' death,
Dolores Huerta and Arturo Rodriguez are marching
in Sacramento at the end of a pilgrimage of 343 miles
retracing Cesar's march from Delano to Sacramento in 1966.

April 1994


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I was wrong for some reason I thought that the 15th was his b-day. It is today the 31st. this day is not only about him but the message, emotion he helped create in the Chicanos and Chicano Movement that continues to this day. Plus the people that made the movement go, thanks Dolores, and Jesse De la Cruz and the whole De la Cruz familia.

OLD School

one of my friends put this on myspace damn I still look like a dork almost 12 years later. From my first Homecoming back in high school 1994!

Even in Avenal

Back in 1996 I tried to lead a protest against Prop. 187 (anti immigrant bill) and then later against Prop. 209 in my high school. Sadly very few decided to join me so it was a silent protest for me and a few friends and some ditching of class. Now 10 years later the beast is around in a new round this time federally and an issue has again caught the fire and minds of our gente. Here from today's front page Avenal Progress, damn from Detroit to LA to DC. I'm so glad its spreading sometimes democracy can feel soo good!

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Students march against HR4437

Joe Santino/The Progress Students at Avenal High School demonstrate Tuesday morning. (March 29, 2006)

The Avenal High School student body staged a walkout at 11 a.m. Tuesday in protest of HR 4437.

Enrique Jimenez, one of the “committee of ten” that came up with the idea to march said, he thinks the law (HR 4437) is wrong.

“They want to criminalize everyone who supports illegal immigrants while trying to kick everyone out of the country that is illegal,” said Enriquez. “It is wrong.”

Some of the signs made by students said, “we’re not criminals,” “we’re helping our families,” “we did not cross the border, the border crossed us,” and “no to HR 4437.”

“Students were going to walk, were going to leave campus, but we wanted to make it a safe protest within the law,” Enriquez said. “We met with Dr. Mellor to see what we could do to avoid breaking any laws and get cited, and we talked with staff about leading a march that would be within the law.”

Enriquez said their priority was not only getting their message out, but the emphasis was also on safety. “We didn’t want anyone to get hurt,” he said.

“Everybody participated and we know what we had to do and it worked,” he said. “There was no violence and no tickets issued.”

“Before the march, students came to a couple of faculty members expressing their concerns about the ramifications of their impending action,” said Victoria Taylor, a teacher at the high school. “They asked how they could do a march and continue their education the same day, and do it within the law, and it worked.”

After the march around campus and a short rally, the student body split into a few groups and marched through the city - accompanied by staff - yelling USA, USA, USA.

They were noisy, but everything appeared to go well as they got their message out.

Joe Satino

(March 29, 2006)

Latinos get political!

I remember the debate for prop. 187 this is completely different, plus being on the federal level.

Update - I got this picture from the Latino Pundit who's blog is very good. Aplogies for not stating that earlier.