Read: Call to action! Mobilizing for May 1 st

April 3, 2007 @8:46 AM

At 55-Earth years I have seen a lot of comings and goings over the decades in the Movimiento and I guess I am becoming a viejo with an elder's way of looking at the world. Nowadays I usually strive to have a global overview of the general world situation and its applicability to local connected realities.

We should see the whole immigrant rights issue inside the USA as a part of the whole humane rights movement worldwide. Plus, we should see any kind of Latino Liberation Movement as a part of the whole humane liberation movement worldwide. Nothing exists and thrives in isolation. We should strive for integration in all our endeavors and not isolate ourselves on a racial or nationalist basis.

Look at the key experiences of the now lagging Black Liberation Movement that was basically non-supportive of our marchas last year. Let us not make this strictly a brown thing, but a people thing. We need to absorb as many supporters and sympathizers as possible and no we are not going to all think alike, but with love in our hearts we can unify based upon our survival basics and humane democratic principles.

It is key for new social movements to maintain their momentum and this requires a structured political party that will build a functional infrastructure to sustain itself and protect itself from all external attacks and internal agent provocateurs. ICE be damned!

The immigration reform issue is not simply a 'Mexican immigrant' issue. It is a basic humane rights issue that calls into question the entire legitimacy of the United States government, its own national borders and matters related to international law. It ultimately calls into question the relevancy of building up a real psycho-social socialist revolution on a worldwide scale. Any calls for mere reform plays into the fascist con game. Revolution is the ultimate solution.

Nevertheless, the basics of the people's survival needs always remain the basics:

* Food

* Clothing

* Shelter

* Medical Care and

* Quality Education

I am watching C-SPAN right now on Immigration Reform and a panel mainly composed of 'gringos': MIchael Harrison {Talkers Magazine}, Laura Reifee {Essential Worker Immigration Coalition}, Craig Regelbrugge, Lionel {WOR Radio, New York Talk Show Host}, Martha Zoller {WDUN Radio – Gainesville, George Talk Show Host} and others. Where are our faces and our voices?

In 1986, during the Reagan years 3 million people were given Green Cards which was a kind of amnesty. A lot of research needs to be done by us from a Chicano/Latino viewpoint, at least a small educational pamphlet for community education on immigrant rights and a town hall forum. We cannot assume that others know what we know or do not know what we know. Consciousness will always vary in levels, degrees and dimensions.

The fact remains that the American economy needs Mexicanos and Latinos to keep it going. One-third of our work force is composed of 'Hispanics' who have arrived here since 2000. The idea that immigrants will leave U.S. soil then come back legitimately that is espoused by an illegitimate government astounds me for its sheer stupidity! We are already here now in the millions! None of us are illegal!

For starters, beyond a conference call, we need to concentrate on the coordination of communications online. I suggest a central Yahoo Group for Email Messages as it is utilized by most activists who get online, the most readily available and user-friendly. Plus, it can build up archives for future references. These Messages are basically lost after they are sent.

Whatever is clever, an educational forum is a good start, but we also need to look at ways of moving people around into safe zones.

Remember Hide-and-Seek?

Venceremos! US Out of Iraq!
+Peta-de-Aztlan+

Sacramento, Califas

Email: sacranative@yahoo.com

Cell: 916/ 968-1023

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Related Links:

Analysis on Latino Liberation Inside the United States: 10-18-06

By Peter S. Lopez

http://liberation-now.blogspot.com/2006/10/analysis-on-latino-liberation-inside.html

Apr 25, 2006: Can the Immigrant Rights Movement Be Channeled into Votes?

http://news.pacificnews.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=131a5389f5fb180cecefa2061d137ce7

August 28, 2006: Talking to Nativo Lopez / "The Immigrants' Rights Movement is in Good Hands" By RON JACOBS

http://www.counterpunch.org/jacobs08282006.html

Monday, May 1st, 2006: Immigrants Take to U.S. Streets in Show of Strength

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/02/us/02immig.html?ex=1161316800&en=71a1334ba8c643b6&ei=5070

Tuesday, May 2nd, 2006: The Meaning of the May Day Marches and the Future of the Immigrant Rights Movement

http://www.democracynow.org/print.pl?sid=06/05/02/1352230

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Re: [Fwd: Re: [HR4437] Call to action! Mobilizing for May 1 (important, please take time to read and comment)]
Alma Martinez <almartinez@ucdavis.edu> wrote:

-------- Original Message --------

Subject:	Re: [HR4437] Call to action! Mobilizing for May 1 (important, please take time to read and comment)
Date:	Mon, 02 Apr 2007 09:19:15 -0700
From:	Alma Martinez <almartinez@ucdavis.edu>
To:	HR4437@ms2.midtown.net, Rocio Franco <crfranco@ucdavis.edu>
References:	<C2361441.30151%mvcastillojd@gmail.com>

Mercedes:  Please include me on the conference call as I am sure there are many   here in Davis that would be interested in assisting.    Thank you,  Alma Martinez    Alma Martinez  Coordinator, Student Affairs  Chicana & Chicano Studies  2111 Hart Hall  Tel. 530.752.2421  Fax  530.752.8814                  Mercedes Castillo  wrote:  > Greetings CAUIL and Sactivistas...  >  > I am putting out a call to organize in the Sacras area for an  > education/community forum to take place on Saturday April 28, 2007.  >  > I attended the ZSC meeting today (or rather yesterday, as I realize I am  > writing this on Monday morning) and it was decided by the group that there  > is enough interest to proceed on organizing an event to counter/compliment  > the May 1 activities planned for Sacras and beyond.  >  > Some of the questions posed were the following:  >  >     *Is another march/boycott the most effective way to organize our  > communities?  >     *What are the real needs of our communities?  >     *How will we ensure that those needs are being addressed in both the  > short term and long term?  >     *How will we defend our communities from the raids, the driver's license  > checkpoints, the suspensions, the firings, the anti-immigrant backlash  that  > seems to only continue to grow?  >     *We marched, now what?  >  > After a long discussion, the ZSC has decided that with four weeks to  > organize and mobilize the most effective thing to do at this point is  > re-establish our ties to the community with a forum/educational event.  >  > There are obviously many things that need to be discussed from now until  > April 28.  But first things first...  >  > Who can commit to a conference call on Wednesday, April 4 at 7pm?  As of  > right now I have Esmeralda, David, Mario, Linda, and others who are  > committed to making this happen.  Please respond to me if you are interested  > in helping us plan the first of what could be several community education  > forums around the issues of: raids, deportations, immigration legislation,  > women's issues, worker rights issues and more.  >  > Each of us gave of our hearts to this movement last year...  Whatever the  >  reason, the results were beautiful.  It was the most amazing experience for  > myself and I know I am not only speaking for me.  We were able to reach  > students, parents, workers, and the community and engage them for a short  > second, provide them with the information they needed to be empowered, and  > for a moment, and TOGETHER, struggle for a better world for all of us.  >  > I would like to ask each of you, because I feel that we all need you, to  > think back to March of 2006 and pull whatever positive energy you had then  > to come back this year and achieve that which we talked about last year:  >  > full education and empowerment of our communities so that  > we/they/all/nosotros can defend ourselves against the forces which oppress  > us.  >  > Some of the ideas for April 28th are:  >  >     ** Developing a Response Network for our Communities in the face of ICE  > and Law Enforcement-What You Need To Know  (Mercedes)  >     ** Current Legislation and Why It Sucks (maybe the law students can help  > with this?)  >     ** Worker's Rights Revisited-Know Your Rights at the Workplace  > (Esmeralda)  >     ** El Poder de la Mujer-A Facilitated Discussion on issues that affect  > immigrant and Latinas in this movement (Fatima I am hoping you might be  > interested in working on this with me or other feminist students?)  >     ** May 1 Messages-What messages do we want to take to our communities  > the day of May 1?  How will we engage more community members to become  > active?  We can use the April 28th event to brainstorm how to reach out to  > the masses by effective leaflets.  >  > I also thought of a t-shirt idea in the car:  "Doing More Than Just  > Marching"  >  > LOL-Ok its 2am...  >  > I have committed myself to working on this action and providing the  > resources that I have to making this event happen.  What I  want to know now  > is who is on board?  >  > We have less than a month to make this happen and I think we can do it.  >  > Again, let me know if you can be on a conference call on Wednesday at 7pm  > and I will send you the conference call information.  >  > If you would like to call me you can reach me at (323) 482-9062.  >  > It starts with just a spark and we are all living proof that even just a few  > people can accomplish so much.  >  > Con amor y en solidaridad,  > Mercedes.  >  >  >       

-- Alma Martinez Coordinator, Student Affairs Chicana & Chicano Studies 2111 Hart Hall Tel. 530.752.2421 Fax 530.752.8814

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Petition to Help the Homeless In Sacramento!

Petition to Help the Homeless In Sacramento!

To the City-County of Sacramento in the State of California:

We, the signers below, hereby declare our support for year-round Emergency Night Shelter
for all homeless men, women and children.

The right to decent shelter is a humane right, especially during severe inclement weather.

Real Name Contact Information Comment

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Contact Person: Coordinator Peter S. Lopez ~aka Peta
Email: sacranative@yahoo.com

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Humane-Rights-Agenda/

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SHOC/

Posted: 4/01-2007

~ A HELP Project ~

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Humane-Rights-Agenda Blog
http://humane-rights-agenda.blogspot.com/

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3/23/07: What now? Homeless shelter closing soon: Aspen, Colorado

http://www.aspentimes.com/article/20070323/NEWS/103230075/0/FRONTPAGE

What now? Homeless shelter closing soon

Click to Enlarge Browse Aspen Times Photos Manager Danny Hanifen gives a tour of the St. Mary Church homeless shelter recently. Hanifen — who has been homeless for more than four years since he lost his job — says he's lived in Aspen for nearly 30 years and was a caretaker and ranch hand. (Aspen Times file)

By Charles Agar
Aspen, CO Colorado
March 23, 2007

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ASPEN — Eight to 10 people who sought refuge at St. Mary Catholic Church will be homeless once again March 31, when the shelter pilot project ends.

Twenty-two representatives of the Aspen Homeless Coalition - ranging from a jail supervisor to members of the housing authority, health and human services, nonprofits and the faith community - gathered Thursday to discuss the next step, including a planned day room and a possible year-round shelter.

Input ranged from kudos for the winter shelter project to accusations of "enabling" Aspen's homeless to live unsustainable lives.

The winter shelter has served an average of eight people nightly since early December. Some 40 volunteers made 206 volunteer visits and, for the last six weeks, volunteers have provided breakfast and a sack lunch, according to the Rev. Mike O'Brien of St. Mary.

"Now that we're towards the end, people are moving on," O'Brien said. "I think overall we helped people."

Many shelter residents are working regularly and have improved physical health from getting a regular night's sleep, O'Brien said. And there have been few problems - just two incidents where intoxicated people wanted to stay, resulting in one police call in nearly four months, O'Brien said.

But O'Brien does not support a year-round homeless shelter in Aspen.

"Now we kick 'em out of the nest. ... We hope they'll fly," O'Brien said.

The coalition met at the site of a planned case management wing in the Health and Human Services building near Aspen Valley Hospital on Castle Creek Road. The building, now under renovation, will house offices of The Right Door, a substance abuse treatment nonprofit, Alpine Legal Services, mental health counselors and offices of the Valley Information Assistance.

"We are not planning to move the overnight shelter from St. Mary to here," said Brad Osborn, director of The Right Door. But one neighbor on Castle Creek Road was upset that shelter officials already had - at least for two nights.

"We have concerns about it becoming a night shelter," said Karen Ryman, who is a 15-year resident of Twin Ridge, employee housing near the Health and Human Services building.

Twin Ridge homeowners held a meeting the end of last week because they "heard some rumbles" about the day facility and possible move of the night shelter, Ryman said. And she was upset that shelter organizers didn't tell neighbors when they moved the shelter to Castle Creek Road for two nights while St. Mary Church was busy with St. Patrick's Day festivities.

Ryman is worried about security if the day facility becomes a full-time night shelter and wants shelter organizers to communicate with neighbors.

Osborn said Health and Human Services is a designated emergency shelter in event of catastrophe, which is why organizers moved shelter residents there for two nights. And he assured Ryman that there are no plans to create a full-time night shelter at the case management wing.

"We're trying to get people to look at their lives and make changes," Osborn said.

And while the donated space will house a day room with showers, laundry area, Internet service and phones, the amenities are simply a way to entice people to case workers specializing in mental health and substance abuse, Osborn said.

"We don't want to get into this enabling thing," said Osborn, who added that clients will be accountable through regular drug screenings and prescribed treatment plans.

"We don't have a solution right now," Osborn said. "If I had my way, we'd find a place we can do it year-round."

Some at Thursday's meeting questioned the logic of a homeless shelter in Aspen.

"I still feel as I felt when this started. We are enabling," said Jerry Rood, who runs LIFT-UP, an Aspen nonprofit that gives people food vouchers and temporary assistance.

"We really need to look at the values of what we're doing," Rood said. And he is skeptical of the time, money and effort going into helping people who aren't willing to change, and case management that is little more than acting like "Big Brother."

Vince Savage, whose nonprofit will use the new day facility, said he agreed that there should be no year-round facility, but added that case management works.

"In my mind, anybody who doesn't have a place to stay is in crisis," said Don Bird, Pitkin County's jail administrator. Bird occasionally welcomes overnighters in the jail lobby, and said that because the current shelter is mobile (when St. Mary has been occupied during the winter, the shelter moved to other Aspen spots), he suggested finding a new facility.

The group will meet again after the shelter closes at the end of March to discuss a possible year-round facility. Renovation of the case management wing at the Health and Human Services building is ongoing, and Osborn hopes the facility and day room will be up and running when the night shelter closes.

Charles Agar's e-mail address is cagar@aspentimes.com.

Comment:

We are now faced with a similiar situation here in Sacramento. As of today, April Fool's Day, there is no more Emergency NIght Shelter being provided by the Winter Overflow Program. Before people could gather at the Salvation Army, transported to buildings at Cal Expo, fed and give a bunk for the night.

Actual billions of dollars are spend on the American occupation of Iraq, but we cannot even take care of our own domestic refugees ~ the homeless ~ here inside the United States of America. Remember? Land of the brave, home of the free?

The right to housing is a basic humane need for all people, whether they are domestic refugees, foreign immigrants or souls who have been stranded by the rulers of society.

It is not a question of being politically correct. It is a matter of being morally involved as a humane being!

Help the Homeless!

~Peter S. Lopez, HELP Coordinator
Email= sacranative@yahoo.com

Sacramento, California

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Los Angeles Continumm of Care

http://www.lahsa.org/continuum.htm

Continuum of Care

The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development's Continuum of Care model recognizes that all homeless persons are not at the same level of stability and addresses a variety of needs. Recognized components of the Continuum of Care include: Prevention, Outreach & Assessment, Emergency Shelter, Transitional Housing, Permanent Housing & Permanent Supportive Housing, and Supportive Services. The Los Angeles Continuum of Care (LACoC) includes all areas of the County except for the cities of Long Beach, Glendale and Pasadena, and includes an estimated 74,900 homeless people. At 4,083 square miles, the County of Los Angeles is the largest urban county in the nation. While in some areas average incomes are amongst the highest in the country, there is also incredible poverty. Further, Los Angeles County is one of the most racially diverse and ethnically varied counties in the United States. The political landscape is even more complex as the LACoC includes 85 separate cities, of which 34 are entitlement cities. Many of the cities, including the City of Los Angeles, are further divided into council districts. All cities and unincorporated areas are overlaid by one of five County Supervisorial Districts. It is against this backdrop that the LAHSA faces the daily challenge of planning and coordinating housing and services for homeless individuals and families. To ensure local control and planning, LAHSA has divided the County into eight geographic areas designated as Service Planning Areas (SPAs). Each Service Planning Area is expected to have a balance of homeless services. LAHSA helps coordinate efforts among agencies, businesses, community leaders, government agencies, and elected officials to determine priority needs and services from an individual, regional, and countywide basis.

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George Orwell, Big Brother is watching your house

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23391081-details/George+Orwell%2C+Big+Brother+is+watching+your+house/article.do

31.03.07

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The Big Brother nightmare of George Orwell's 1984 has become a reality - in the shadow of the author's former London home.

It may have taken a little longer than he predicted, but Orwell's vision of a society where cameras and computers spy on every person's movements is now here.

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According to the latest studies, Britain has a staggering 4.2million CCTV cameras - one for every 14 people in the country - and 20 per cent of cameras globally. It has been calculated that each person is caught on camera an average of 300 times daily.

Foresight: The cameras crowd George Orwell's former London home

Use of spy cameras in modern-day Britain is now a chilling mirror image of Orwell's fictional world, created in the post-war Forties in a fourth-floor flat overlooking Canonbury Square in Islington, North London.

On the wall outside his former residence - flat number 27B - where Orwell lived until his death in 1950, an historical plaque commemorates the anti-authoritarian author. And within 200 yards of the flat, there are 32 CCTV cameras, scanning every move.

Orwell's view of the tree-filled gardens outside the flat is under 24-hour surveillance from two cameras perched on traffic lights.

The flat's rear windows are constantly viewed from two more security cameras outside a conference centre in Canonbury Place.

In a lane, just off the square, close to Orwell's favourite pub, the Compton Arms, a camera at the rear of a car dealership records every person entering or leaving the pub.

Within a 200-yard radius of the flat, there are another 28 CCTV cameras, together with hundreds of private, remote-controlled security cameras used to scrutinise visitors to homes, shops and offices.

The message is reminiscent of a 1949 poster to mark the launch of Orwell's 1984: 'Big Brother is Watching You'.

In the Shriji grocery store in Canonbury Place, three cameras focus on every person in the shop. Owner Minesh Amin explained: 'They are for our security and safety. Without them, people would steal from the shop. Although this is a nice area, there are always bad people who cause trouble by stealing.'

Three doors away, in the dry-cleaning shop run by Malik Zafar, are another two CCTV cameras.

'I need to know who is coming into my shop,' explained Mr Zafar, who spent £400 on his security system.

This week, the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAE) produced a report highlighting the astonishing numbers of CCTV cameras in the country and warned how such 'Big Brother tactics' could eventually put lives at risk.

The RAE report warned any security system was 'vulnerable to abuse, including bribery of staff and computer hackers gaining access to it'. One of the report's authors, Professor Nigel Gilbert, claimed the numbers of CCTV cameras now being used is so vast that further installations should be stopped until the need for them is proven.

One fear is a nationwide standard for CCTV cameras which would make it possible for all information gathered by individual cameras to be shared - and accessed by anyone with the means to do so.

The RAE report follows a warning by the Government's Information Commissioner Richard Thomas that excessive use of CCTV and other information-gathering was 'creating a climate of suspicion'.

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Ill homeless bump from ICU to shelter: Sacramento 3/23/2003

http://dwb.sacbee.com/content/news/story/6328003p-7281328c.html

Advocates are trying to repair a system that can put society's most vulnerable at risk.

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By Christina Jewett -- Bee Staff Writer

Published 2:15 am PST Sunday, March 23, 2003

County nurse Vickey Carlson reaches out to Leroy Burchett as he wakes from a nap under a semitrailer. He was awaiting glaucoma surgery. Sacramento Bee/Lezlie Sterling

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Gregory Holland took a cigarette break Monday, some time to stare at the blue sky rather than the beams that hold the bunk above him. He was staying at Sacramento's Salvation Army shelter, recovering from surgery after a blood clot lodged in his leg. A shelter manager is on the patio, too, smoking in the sun.

Neither realizes that, for Holland, each drag on the cigarette is like tightening a vise around his veins, increasing the chances that a clot will lodge in the path to his heart.

Holland is one in a steady number of homeless people in Sacramento who are sent from hospital bed to taxi cab to shelter curb. Area shelter managers say one or two arrive at each shelter every month, IVs in their veins, amputations beginning to heal. They see people suffering from pneumonia, cancer, AIDS.

Holland showed up at the shelter staggering, without a cane to support a swelling knee.

Two county nurses treat patients in Sacramento's half dozen or so shelters. Most shelter employees have little training beyond cleaning a cut; some are barred from distributing aspirin.

Hospital administrators in charge of discharging patients say they face dwindling resources and towering demand for beds. The problem is likely to compound if proposed federal, state and county budget cuts prompt hospitals to lay off staff and the county to close three clinics that serve the poor.

"We're frustrated," said Kevin Bond, director of social services for the Salvation Army. "We're taking care of horrible conditions. It's just not appropriate."

Shelter managers say they depend on Vickey Carlson, one of the county's two homeless care nurses.

On Wednesday, she sat on the pavement on 14th Street, outside the Volunteers of America Shelter. She woke Leroy Burchett, who was sleeping in the shade of a semitrailer. She jotted notes about his case: "staying at the VOA shelter, awaiting glaucoma surgery, has transportation."

She set her business card, which included her cell phone number, on Burchett's coat, which was spread out on the street.

"Don't hesitate to call me if you have problems," she said.

Carlson has a filing cabinet at each of the five shelters she visits weekly. She goes where the patients are: along the Sacramento River, in alleys downtown, near freeways.

When patients show up at shelters in terrible shape, she calls a cab to take them back to hospitals. In December, she called a cab for a man who was dropped off at a shelter with a fresh cast on a leg fractured in eight places and a crumbled prescription slip in his hand.

"He was immobile and in pain, and he had no means to fill the prescriptions," she said.

Carlson arranged for hospital administrators to place Holland at the Salvation Army shelter at 1200 North B St., the only one that allows up to eight patients to occupy beds during the day. She learned he had no cane and scoured her resources for a walker.

"These people can't even lay down on a park bench because they're going to get roused up," she said. "They need to just plain get well."

Seeking to remedy the situation, county Department of Health and Human Services officials in 2000 applied for federal funds to reserve six beds in a detoxification shelter, where a nurse could care for homeless patients. The annual price tag: $150,000. The proposal was denied.

"We need to work together to not make shelters a dumping ground," said Linda Shaw, co-chairwoman of a county and UC Davis Medical Center task force to address health care and homelessness.

"(Hospitals) need to get people out who have no place to go. Hospitals get desperate. It's a bad situation."

She said hospital and county officials came together this year to increase communication about discharge planning. They are seeking a California Endowment planning grant that would enable them to slow the merry-go-round of critical health recurrences among the county's poorest.

The grant would allow officials to fill a hole in the system: the lack of a buffer zone between intensive care units and shelter bunks.

Doctors tend to keep homeless patients longer than others, said Dr. Amerish Bera, medical director of primary care services for Sacramento County.

"It's an unnatural inclination for doctors to release someone into a black hole," Bera said.

It costs an average of about $3,600 per night for a patient to stay overnight in a surgery bed, said Carole Gan, a spokeswoman for UC Davis Medical Center.

Karen Warne, who manages discharge planning at UC Davis Medical Center, said patient stays in general have been growing shorter over the years as the hospital seeks to treat patients more efficiently. "We're always struggling for beds," she said.

Still, she said, all patients are evaluated for admission and discharge on medical merits, regardless of their living situations.

Shaw said the California Endowment grant might help if funding is secured for respite care rooms in the Saybrook Apartments, on 47th Avenue near Highway 99, which are being converted into transitional housing.

The rooms would be a miniature version of a 90-bed respite care house in Boston. There, at a cost of about $300 per night, professional staff cares for and feeds homeless patients, said Sarah Ciambrone, director of the Barbara McGinnis House.

"It's for people too sick to be in shelter, and not ill enough to be in a hospital," Ciambrone said.

And the concept may be spreading. Philip Mangano, a former director of Massachusetts homeless programs, overhauled that state's system with a zero tolerance policy: Jails, hospitals and mental health facilities were ordered to discharge people into a stable setting.

A year ago, President Bush appointed Mangano to head the nation's coordinating council for homelessness. Mangano said studies show that taxpayers spend about the same amount for homeless housing programs as repeat jail and emergency room visits.

"There are moral and humane reasons, but also economic reasons -- that the step out of an institution should be the first step out of homelessness," Mangano said.

Shaw already sees evidence of Mangano's work in her office. She said applications for federal money ask about discharge plans -- a clear sign that money might follow to implement them.

County and national proposals might help Carlson do her work, but during a recent visit she could reel off as many wrenching stories as homeless patients lined up to see her.

"They don't value their own health because no one else values their life," she said. "How do you instill in them it's important enough to hold onto?"

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About the Writer
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The Bee's Christina Jewett can be reached at (916) 321-1201 or cjewett@sacbee.com.

Gregory Holland, recovering from surgery for a blood clot, uses a walker to return to his bed at the Salvation Army shelter, which allows up to eight patients to occupy beds during the day. Sacramento Bee/Lezlie Sterling

Vickey Carlson, one of two county nurses who work with the homeless, hands medicine to Donna DeVaney, a homeless grandmother, after evaluating her grandson at St. John's shelter. Carlson sees patients at five shelters and travels to alleys, freeways, rivers -- wherever homeless people go. Sacramento Bee/Lezlie Sterling

Vickey Carlson questions Louis Reitman, homeless for two years, before a medical evaluation at the Volunteers of America shelter. Carlson says the very ill homeless urgently need a place to convalesce. Sacramento Bee/Lezlie Sterling
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Comment: This article may be kind of dated. However, the situation for homeless people in Sacramento is worse than ever, especially under the callous cold-blooded Bush Administration. My dear Friend Nurse VIckey is a blessing for many of the homeless and those living in transitional housing as a true medical spiritual helper. We need more such helpers but she is one of a kind.

~Peter S. Lopez
Email= sacranative@yahoo.com

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Cesar Chavez: How labor leader inspired, empowered: Sacramento

http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/147334.html

How labor leader inspired, empowered

Legacy of Cesar Chavez: Six stories of changed lives

By Bobby Caina Calvan - Bee Staff Writer

Published 12:00 am PDT Saturday, March 31, 2007
Story appeared in MAIN NEWS section, Page A1

Reynaldo Acosta, a field worker who lives in Stockton, feels the muscle on the biceps of Cesar Luis Suchil-Magaña, 6. Cesar, named after labor leader Cesar Chavez, admires farmworkers like Acosta and says he wants to grow up strong, like them. Sacramento Bee/Autumn Cruz

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By most accounts, Cesar Chavez was a humble man, whose physical stature belies the vastness of the labor movement and civil rights struggles he helped launch in California and elsewhere. As he did in life, on what would have been his 80th birthday, Chavez, the embodiment of the United Farm Workers, is again bringing together throngs for marches, observances and tributes to his work advocating for the men, women and children who toil in the fields and to the diverse groups touched by his legacy.

"In truth, hundreds of thousands of farmworkers in California ... are better off today because of our work." -- Cesar Chavez, address to the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco, Nov. 9, 1984

Reynaldo Acosta sowed a life for his family in the fields around Stockton. In 1975, he slipped into the United States from Mexico, joining the migration north to toil in California farms. In Michoacán, Mexico, he grew corn but could not make a living for his family.

In Mexico, there was little other work, he said. When Acosta arrived in the United States, there were plenty of jobs in orchards and fields. He picked peaches one season, apples the next. Sometimes it was cherries. Other times, it was sunrise to sundown in asparagus fields.

"There were more jobs in the fields back then," he said, his daughter Cecilia, 18, interpreting as he pruned a tree at the Mexican Community Center on Stockton's Lincoln Street.

These days, jobs come more sporadically. It remains a difficult life, Acosta said. There are good places to work, and there are places to avoid -- if one has the luxury of turning down a job.

But imagine how much more difficult it would be, he said, without the work of Cesar Chavez, the United Farm Workers -- the union that grew from the grape strikes of the turbulent '60s -- and the movement that has become his legacy and is being celebrated today.

"He did a lot for a lot of people, a lot for our people," Acosta said. Because of Chavez and the UFW, many farmworkers are eligible for unemployment benefits. Working conditions have improved. Such workplace necessities as water and portable restrooms are now required by law. Workers' safety -- from potentially dangerous equipment, chemicals and other perils of the fields -- is no longer taken for granted.

"His name is a symbol for us, for us farmworkers," said Acosta, who became a legalized resident after the federal government in 1986 launched an amnesty program for thousands of illegal immigrants. Over the years, his family joined him in the United States.

His clan is expected to join hundreds, many of them fellow farmworkers, for today's march in Sacramento honoring Chavez -- "to remember a very important person for us," Acosta said.

"For those who already know his story, it is a very important day," Acosta said. "For those who don't know his story, it is important to teach them."

---

"All Hispanics ... are connected to the farmworkers' experience. We had all lived through the fields, or our parents had."

Her family name wasn't yet so famous when the man Becky Chavez knew as "Uncle Cesar" arrived with stacks of leaflets and an armful of picket signs in search of a few spare hands.

"Whenever he needed an instant picket line, we were his picket line," said Chavez, 52, whose father, Richard, was Cesar's older brother.

"I remember how he would gather all of us children -- his children, his brothers' and sisters' children, and he would take us somewhere in the San Joaquin Valley for leafletting," she said of her uncle.

At the time, "we didn't think it was hard work. My uncle would come by and said we had a mission to do. So we'd go."

It was one adventure after another. Rallies were a way of life for every member of the Chavez family.

"I really didn't think we were making history. But that was our family work. I don't think we as children knew the significance of what we were doing -- at least I didn't."

For Becky Chavez, the legacy of Cesar Chavez brings a burden of responsibility. The family name is revered, associated with a movement, a cause, a sense of history. Each year, the holiday yields numerous invitations to appear before groups or lend the family name to an event. Members of the Chavez family fan out to accommodate, lend their support and continue the work of the man that made theirs a household name.

About the writer:
The Bee's Bobby Caina Calvan can be reached at (916) 321-1067 or bcalvan@sacbee.com. Bee researcher Sheila A. Kern contributed to this report.

Guambry Santillan, 19, a student at Sacramento City College, shouts in support of fellow students while marching to the state Capitol from Hiram Johnson High School on Friday as part of a student protest demanding that school districts recognize Cesar Chavez Day as a holiday. Students from across California participated in the march, including about 100 from Hiram Johnson High School who boycotted classes for the protest. Sacramento Bee/Kevin German

Becky Chavez

Lorraine Agtang-Greer

José Montoya

"Part of his legacy is of community service. That's how he lived his life. He always worked for the community. So, our upbringing was about community service," said Chavez, who oversees a three-campus preschool program for the city of Sacramento.

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"Once social change begins, it cannot be reversed."

Lorraine Agtang-Greer envisioned her future and saw nothing but fields and vineyards. Many roads led to the growers camps near Delano, she said, but few ways out.

"I looked forward to a life working in the fields like my parents. At that point, I didn't have much hope. I knew my future," she said. "If it wasn't for Cesar, I'd still be there."

Her family was poor. Seven children in a two-bedroom house. As a teen, she went to work harvesting grapes. The extra income helped her family survive.

Her father had come from overseas, from a fishing and farming village in the northern Philippines, finding his way to one of the camps outside of town. Her mother made her way from a tiny ranch outside Guadalajara, Mexico. It was an unlikely union.

In Delano and many other farming towns, divisions were everywhere, she recalled. Railroad tracks cut a line between rich and poor. "Theirs" and "ours" extended not only to neighborhoods, but to churches. Even among laborers, it was "us" vs. "them," Latino vs. Filipino.

The Agtang family was both -- and found itself caught in the strife between two ethnic populations equally struggling against poverty and mistreatment, but seemingly worlds apart.

"Not many people realize that Filipinos played a big role" in the early days of the farm labor movement, said Agtang-Greer, who after six years of working for the UFW moved to the Sacramento area in 1978 and supervises a staff of clerks for a Yolo County agency. It was Chavez, she said, who persuaded Latinos and Filipinos to work together, to exploit the power of their numbers, to unite under a common flag.

"If Cesar left a legacy, it was how he united people in their common struggle. He brought people together," said the 55-year-old former farmworker.

"He was so charismatic," she recalled. When he spoke -- often from a flatbed truck that roved from camp to camp -- his words rang true, she said. "He told us we deserved more than what we had."

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We created confidence ... in an entire people's ability to create a future.

It was 1969 when the Rebel Chicano Art Front -- later known as the Royal Chicano Air Force -- harnessed art to help bring voice to California's Chicano movement and embrace the cause of Cesar Chavez and the UFW.

José Montoya, a founder of the group who would later become Sacramento's poet laureate, found inspiration from the man who would become the embodiment of the farmworkers movement.

In turn, Chavez would become fascinated by the work of Sacramento's vanguard of Latino artists. Montoya and Chavez became quick friends.

"Whenever he came to Sacramento, he wanted to meet with our group, his friends," Montoya recalled. "He was so amazed by the silk-screening process, so amazed that we could fit this equipment into a Volkswagen and take it anywhere with us. To him, it was like a printing press you could take anywhere."

Chavez had grown larger than life. "He was such a giant, this huge leader of this movement," Montoya said. "But his physical stature and his humble demeanor were totally opposite to his achievements."

His legacy was his ability to bring "dignity to the people who toiled in the fields, to give people that dignity was an awesome achievement."

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"You cannot humiliate the person who feels pride."

Carole Migden had boycotted table grapes. She picketed grocery stores, took part in rallies and marched under the banner of the UFW. She stood with Cesar Chavez, even if she stood afar as just one in a crowd of sometimes thousands.

His cause became hers. Over the years, her own cause -- advocating for gay and lesbian rights -- would become his, the UFW banner waving boldly among a myriad of rainbow flags.

"Anyone who was subjugated or oppressed -- he was going to defend those people," Migden said.

In 1983, during a gathering at a Los Angeles nightclub, Chavez spoke of his support for gay and lesbian rights.

"Many years ago, we were struggling in Delano to try to build an organization to defend the rights of workers, men and women who worked in the fields," Chavez was quoted in the Los Angeles Times. "It was along those years that we began to know from friends that supported us about the problems that the gay and lesbian communities were facing throughout the country."

His appearance at the event, his first before a gay and lesbian group, was a risky move, a courageous move, said Migden, now a state senator from San Francisco and one of several openly gay and lesbian members of the Legislature.

"He opened doors," she said.

In San Francisco, separate marches organized by union and gay activists would meld into one, sometimes to the consternation of his own followers.

"His legacy," Migden said, "was his extreme selflessness."

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"You cannot uneducate the person who has learned to read."

The legacy of Cesar Chavez was already well-established before Jesse Thomson-Burns was born in 1990. The labor leader's name was already familiar in the Latino community, on college campuses and in progressive circles. When California passed its state holiday honoring Chavez, it also put him on the curriculum of public schools.

"I've always been kind of interested in the '60s. They were doing things right," said Thomson-Burns, a student at River Valley School in Sacramento who earlier this week left for a 10-day tour of the South as part of a survey of the civil rights movement. "Back then, people just went out and did what they could do. They worked together. That's what I saw in the United Farm Workers."

On Friday, students across California, including about 100 from Sacramento's Hiram Johnson High School, boycotted classes to demand that their school districts recognize the state holiday that gives the day off to state employees. Other student groups used the day to bring attention to Latino causes, including a demonstration at Woodland Community College to bring attention to the dearth of faculty of Latino descent.

"People need to stand up for justice. Even if it's a hard thing, it's the right thing to do, and you have to do it," Thomson-Burns said. "He showed people that there was a problem, that it needed to be dealt with. ... He took step one -- making the problem visible to people."

CESAR ESTRADA CHAVEZ
Born: March 31, 1927
Died: April 21, 1993

Known for: United Farm Workers union leader, led the landmark 1960s nationwide grape boycott, became a symbol for Latino civil rights, spokesman for the poor -- especially his fellow Mexican American farmworkers.

Background: When he was 10, his parents lost their farm and the family became migrant workers in California. Chavez began to organize grape pickers in 1962, when he established the National Farm Workers Association with Dolores Huerta. In 1966, the union merged with another into the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee. The two unions had been on strike since 1965 against California grape growers. After the merger, California's wine grape growers agreed to accept the UFWOC as the collective bargaining agent for grape pickers. But table grape growers refused to do so. Chavez then organized a nationwide boycott of California table grapes. In 1970, most table grape growers agreed to accept the union, and the boycott ended. Later that year, Chavez called for a boycott of lettuce produced by growers without union contracts. Chavez remained committed to nonviolence despite occasional outbreaks of violence during UFW strikes. He declared that the "truest act of courage ... is to sacrifice ourselves for others in a totally nonviolent struggle for justice."

Source: World Book Encyclopedia 2007

CELEBRATIONS: Sacramento

What: "United We Win: Justice for All Workers," the annual march and celebration of the life and legacy of Cesar E. Chavez.

When: 10 a.m. march, noon rally

Where: March begins at Southside Park, Eighth and T streets, and proceeds to Cesar Chavez Plaza, 10th and J streets.

Details: The rally includes a cultural program, a folkloric dance troupe, speakers, poetry and information booths.

More information: (916) 446-3021.

Rocklin

What: Cesar Chavez celebration

When: 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Where: Sierra College

Celebration of arts, health, education and job fair featuring groups Luvtaxi, Sueños Ballet, Aztec and salsa dancers, rappers and workshops.

Information: (916) 532-5998

POEM EXCERPT

Just the other day
In Fresno
In a giant arena
Architectured
To reject the very poor
Cesar Chavez brought
The very poor
Together
In large numbers
...
That humble man's
Awesome task
Of organizing
The unorganizables!

-- José Montoya, Sacramento's past poet laureate (from "Faces at the First Farmworkers' Constitutional Convention")

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Castro criticizes U.S. biofuel policies

Wake up and take heed people! Oppose Fuhrer Bush! USA Out of Iraq! Leave Iran Alone! Long LIve Fidel Castro! Cuba Libre! ~Peta

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070329/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cuba_castro_8

Thursday, March 29, 2007

Castro criticizes U.S. biofuel policies:By ANITA SNOW, Associated Press Writer

HAVANA - Fidel Castro lashes out against U.S. biofuel plans in an op-ed piece published Thursday, a sign Cuba's 80-year-old leader may be taking a more active role in public affairs after months sidelined by a still undisclosed illness.

The article is written in the same kind of apocalyptic style Castro typically adopts when discussing the impact of U.S. international policies on developing nations, and there was no reason to doubt he was the author.

President Bush's support for using crops to produce ethanol for cars could deplete food stocks in developing nations, the article in the Communist Party daily Granma asserts.

The headline reads: "Condemned to Premature Death by Hunger and Thirst more than 3 Billion People of the World."

"This isn't an exaggerated number; it is actually cautious," says the article distributed by e-mail early Thursday to international correspondents by foreign ministry officials.

As in some shorter messages signed by Castro in the eight months since he fell ill, the piece does not seem aimed at dispelling rumors about his health, but rather at drawing attention to his stand on world affairs.

It was unclear what the message means in terms of Castro's future role in domestic affairs.

In recent weeks, Bolivian President Evo Morales and several senior Cuban officials have indicated that Castro could soon take a more active role in public affairs and may even return to the presidency.

Castro temporarily ceded power to his younger brother Raul, the 75-year-old defense minister, on July 31 after announcing he had undergone intestinal surgery. He has not appeared in public since.

Morales recently said from Bolivia that he expects to see Castro in public on April 28 during a meeting in Havana with presidents celebrating a regional trade and cooperation pact.

Castro's condition and his exact ailment are a state secret but he is widely believed to suffer from diverticular disease, which causes a weakening in the walls of the colon.

His older brother Ramon Castro told reporters Wednesday that Fidel was doing very well but dodged questions about whether he would soon appear in public. "He's in one piece," Ramon Castro, 82, said of Fidel as he toured a cattlemen's fair and rodeo. "These Castros are strong!"

In his Thursday article, Fidel Castro quotes extensively from a Washington-datelined story by The Associated Press reporting on a meeting Monday between Bush and U.S. automakers and their comments about using corn to create ethanol as an alternative to fossil fuels.

"The sinister idea of converting food into combustible was definitively established as the economic line of the foreign policy of the United States," he writes.

The Cuban leader notes that Cuba has also experimented with extracting ethanol from sugarcane.

But if rich nations decide to import huge amounts of traditional food crops such as corn from developing countries to help meet their energy needs, it could have disastrous consequences for the world's poor, Castro writes.

"Apply this recipe to the countries of the Third World and you will see how many people among the hungry masses of our planet will no longer consume corn," the article said. "Or even worse: by offering financing to poor countries to produce ethanol from corn or any other kind of food no tree will be left to defend humanity from climate change."

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