La Voz - July/August 2012 by Esperanza Peace and Justice Center

a publication of the Esperanza Peace & Justice Center

July/August 2012 | Vol. 25 Issue 6

San Antonio, Tejas

Inside: Obamaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s deferred action... deferred freedom, El Triunfo de la Masculinidad, Of Dreams & King, Stop Caterpillar!, The Other Parties... y mas

La Voz de Esperanza July/August 2012 vol. 25 issue 6

Editor

Gloria A. Ramírez

Editorial Assistance Alice Canestaro-Garcia

Design Monica V. Velásquez Cover Artwork Liliana Wilson - Maldita Alianza

Contributors Judith Norman, Paul Pipkin, Sylvia Rodríguez Vega, Natalia Thompson, Roberto Rodriguez

La Voz Mail Collective Sara De Turk, Amanda Haas, Gloria Hernández, Araceli Herrera, Lonnie Howard, Amalia Ibarra, Davina Kaiser, Gina Lee, Ray McDonald, Lynn McWhite, Angie Merla, Elva Perez Treviño, Luissana & Madelein Santibañez, Argelia & Lonnie Soto, Lucila Vicencio y MujerArtes

Esperanza Director Graciela I. Sánchez

Esperanza Staff

Imelda Arismendez, Verónica Castillo, Monica V. Velásquez

Conjunto de Nepantleras

LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • July/August 2012 Vol. 25 Issue 6•

-Esperanza Board of Directors-

Brenda Davis, Araceli Herrera, Rachel Jennings, Amy Kastely, Kamala Platt, Ana Ramírez, Gloria A. Ramírez, Rudy Rosales, Nadine Saliba, Graciela Sánchez • We advocate for a wide variety of social, economic & environmental justice issues. • Opinions expressed in La Voz are not necessarily those of the Esperanza Center.

La Voz de Esperanza

is a publication of The Esperanza Peace & Justice Center 922 San Pedro, San Antonio, TX 78212 (on the corner of Evergreen Street)

210.228.0201 • fax 210.228.0000 www.esperanzacenter.org Inquiries/Articles can be sent to:

lavoz@esperanzacenter.org Articles due by the 8th of each month Policy Statements

* We ask that articles be visionary, progressive, instructive & thoughtful. Submissions must be literate & critical; not sexist, racist, homophobic, violent, or oppressive & may be edited for length. * All letters in response to Esperanza activities or articles in La Voz will be considered for publication. Letters with intent to slander individuals or groups will not be published. The Esperanza Peace & Justice Center is funded in part by the TCA, AKR Fdn, Astraea Lesbian Fdn for Justice, the NEA, theFund, The Kerry Lobel & Marta Drury Fund of Horizon’s Fdn, Coyote Phoenix, Movement Strategy Center Fund, Peggy Meyerhoff Pearlstone Foundation y nuestra buena gente.

he article,

21st Century Witch Hunt, in this issue of La Voz reflects on the feminist movement from the perspective of a US student who spent time in Chile during the massive student protests of 2011. It was in this charged atmosphere that she met Chile’s most famous and outspoken feminist writer, Margarita Pisano, akin to the U.S.’s Adrienne Rich who died earlier this year on March 12, 2012. Like Rich, Pisano, has brought the discourse on feministas and lesbianas to a level that speaks to present time reality and the regressive tactics being used globally to keep women in or return them to their place. The U.S. is no exception. A review of Pisano’s book, El Triunfo de la Masculinidad, is part of the article and suggests women’s complicity in the triumph of masculinity. The cover of La Voz, Maldita Alianza (A Bad Alliance), by Chilean, Liliana Wilson, suggests as much. With recent legislation aimed at suppressing women’s control over our own bodies, our own families and our own destinies– the state of feminist thought has become exceedingly murky. In 1986 Adrienne Rich declared that “the repossession by women of our bodies will bring far more essential change to human society than the seizing of the means of production by workers.” –Of Woman Born (1986). In tandem with the economic situation of the U.S. that includes a power struggle over the means of production, it seems that forces worldwide are converging to repress women in earnest. The issue of who controls women’s bodies is not the only focus in the war on women in the U.S. In a recent article in The Nation, writer Jessica Valenti outlines “Five Overlooked Battles in the War on Women” [May 3, 2012]. First she notes that the U.S. is the only industrialized nation without mandated paid parental leave. We are also a nation that has not secured national healthcare for all as other industrialized nations have. And, it is generally women who are in charge of the healthcare of their families. Second, Valenti asserts that “over 30 states in the U.S. still allow the shackling of pregnant women in prison during labor and delivery, despite numerous human rights campaigns to ban the practice.” She adds that the practice has been particularly targeted at immigrant women and women of color. Certainly, as regards immigration, women are at the core trying to keep their families together. Read a dreamer’s story in this Voz issue. At number three is abstinence-only education that is still touted as the most effective birth control method for teens. Valenti notes that such education teaches young women “that premarital sex makes them dirty,” and “that boys can’t control themselves and that ‘good’ and ‘natural’ young women don’t like sex at all.” The issue of education in general is a holy mess for all of our youth and teachers, mostly women, are violently being pushed out of the profession. Such is the politics of today–misogynist. The 4th battleground for women is poverty. Having seen the movie Hysteria set in the 1880s, the issue of poverty and the rich establishment’s callous disregard of the poor was not lost on me. In the movie, one of the daughters of the doctor who “cures” the “hysteria” of women, opts to use her time helping women at a settlement house while pushing women’s rights and equality. For this, she is ostracized. In present time USA, we have a presidential candidate who declared, “I’m not concerned about the very poor.” Valenti points out that “The latest Census numbers show that ‘women’s poverty rate is at 14.5 percent, the highest its been in 17 years.” This, while corporate welfare thrives. Finally, the 5th battlefield is that of “The US War on Women Abroad.” The worst offense according to Valenti is perhaps “the way the U. S. has continually used [the] rhetoric of freeing oppressed women in certain countries to justify bombing and killing these women and their families.” There is so much more that signifies that there is a real war on women, today, in the USA. It is crucial that we all keep an eye on the upcoming presidential election and vote. More on this in upcoming issues. Contact me at lavoz@esperanzacenter.org for submission of articles. Gracias – Gloria A. Ramirez, editor ATTENTION VOZ READERS: If you have a correction you want to make on your mailing label please send it in to lavoz@esperanzacenter.org. If you do not wish to continue on the mailing list for whatever reason please notify us as well. La Voz is provided as a courtesy to people on the mailing list of the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center. The subscription rate is $35 per year. The cost of producing and mailing La Voz has substantially increased and we need your help to keep it afloat. To help, send in your subscriptions, sign up as a monthly donor, or send in a donation to the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center. Thank you. -GAR VOZ VISION STATEMENT: La Voz de Esperanza speaks for many individual, progressive voices who are gente-based, multi-visioned and milagro-bound. We are diverse survivors of materialism, racism, misogyny, homophobia, classism, violence, earth-damage, speciesism and cultural and political oppression. We are recapturing the powers of alliance, activism and healthy conflict in order to achieve interdependent economic/ spiritual healing and fuerza. La Voz is a resource for peace, justice, and human rights, providing a forum for criticism, information, education, humor and other creative works. La Voz provokes bold actions in response to local and global problems, with the knowledge that the many risks we take for the earth, our body, and the dignity of all people will result in profound change for the seven generations to come.

Obama’s Deferred Action. . . deferred freedom

by Sylvia Rodriguez Vega

I think of the 13 years I have been fighting for human rights, and of all the effort many people have put into this battle. I think of not eating for days as we engaged in a hunger strike and fasted in prayer, in resistance, in hope. I remember organizing against Proposition 300 in Arizona as if my life depended on it, because it did. I remember the depression I felt as I realized the xenophobia of Arizona voters and “leaders.” I remember not having a place to live, no money to pay my phone, buy food, or go

I do celebrate this victory, because I like many Arizonians know, victories are hard to come across. However, we cannot stop here.

Artwork by Julio Salgado | juliosalgado83.tumblr.com

to the doctor. I remember the many amazing jobs I had to pass up because I did not have a 9-digit number. I remember being terrified of the police, sheriffs, highway patrol and any other authority figures that could deport me. I remember going to Washington DC to testify about SB1070 and Dream Act, and meeting with congress people. Telling them what I had been through and that I had Dreams of going to grad school, of making a difference, of being a legislator, a professor, building schools, non-profits…but nothing happened. Arizona became more hateful, Alabama followed, and many other states promised to make immigrants’ lives unlivable, in order to push us out of the country. . . . cont’d on pg 5

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eelings of happiness, anger, shock and disbelief begin to overwhelm my heart as I hear that President Obama just signed an order of deferred action making the Department of Homeland Security change the way they enforce immigration law. Now, thousands of young people who were at a loss because of their lack of immigration status will be able to have a work permit and they no longer will be deportable immigrants. Details of who qualifies: 1. Have come to the United States under the age of 16; 2. Have continuously resided in the U.S. for at least 5 years preceding the date of this memorandum and are present in the U.S. on the date of this memorandum; 3. Currently be in school, have graduated from high school, have obtained a general education development certificate, or are honorably discharged veterans of the Coast Guard or Armed Forces of the U.S.; 4. Have not been convicted of a felony offense, a significant misdemeanor offense, multiple misdemeanor offenses, or otherwise pose a threat to national security or public safety; 5. Not be above the age of thirty. I am happy, because I feel that hundreds of people I have met, and come across in my life will finally be able to use their degrees that they have worked so hard for. They will be able to help their families advance in life. They will be the one documented person at home, able to be a resource for their entire family. They will feel free… we will feel free. We are free. But, I am angry because I think about my friend Virginia Gutiérrez who was deported when she was attempting to get her car out of the tow yard. She had just been granted a full ride scholarship to study nursing at Arizona State University. I also think of the many others who have already been deported, who are over the age of 30, who have a record, who have not completed high school. I think of Joaquin, who committed suicide last year, because he felt an overwhelming sense of hopelessness. He thought he would never reach his dream of becoming an architect. Mr. President, in your hands was the power to do this and more, long ago. Yes, we are thankful that now, we have a victory. However, on your hands is the blood of Joaquin, and the sad fate of many other students for whom it’s too late. Those actions cannot be deferred.

Standing with Dignity, a Dreamer’s Story by Sylvia Rodriguez Vega

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hen my parents arrived to Arizona from Mexico, they had with them three things: me, at the age of almost three, their hearts full of dreams and aspirations for my future, and my dad’s encyclopedia set.

Their job was to clean rooms at a fancy hotel. They often worked weekends. On Sundays, this meant my brother Victor and I could walk to the store and with my dollar buy a big bag of white cheddar cheese popcorn, while Victor would buy a big bottle of yellow Gatorade. Together, we made it our Sunday tradition to watch Baywatch, eat popcorn with Gatorade, and clean the house. I remember that my mom would get home so tired from taking the bus, which took two hours. When she finally was home she would say “Mija, (my daughter,) the lazy in school work twice as hard later in life. So, please work hard at school.” My dad taught me two important things, how to dance a cumbia, and to not merely attend school “’pa calentar la silla” (to warm up the chair with my behind.) The two lessons that my parents taught me as a child still endure in my mind. Particularly, when I struggled through homelessness, oppression, and marginalization. This was due to my lack of status, when my visa expired as a young child. Despite the antiimmigrant sentiment in Arizona, I managed to become an outspoken leader for myself, and for many others who are punished for growing up to love a country that excludes them and denies them a post-secondary education. My passion for education as an essential part of our human right started when I was denied my own education. In 2006, during my sophomore year of college, the state of Arizona passed proposition 300. This law took away my scholarships, quadrupled my tuition and made me ineligible for governmental, state, and school funding. I gathered with a group of friends and decided to get the university’s administration involved. Along with a non-profit organization where I worked, we decided to create a scholarship fund to help the thousands of students that had been left out in the cold, with only their passion for an education as warmth. We fundraised over a million dollars in scholarships; I received the César Chávez Leadership Award from then Governor of AZ, Janet Napolitano (currently head of Homeland Security,) spoke with Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, about the Dream Act, and in 2009, I cel-

ebrated my graduation by hearing President Obama deliver our graduation speech. However, after graduation I faced the cruel reality of not being able to use my degree, so I applied for graduate school. My acceptance into Harvard University felt like the best thing that had ever happened to me and my community. Finally, after years of Arizona’s political leaders and voters shunning me, one of the top institutions in the world believed I was valuable. This was a huge message for the millions of undocumented students, who have grown up in this country. I was told that the cost of attendance was $80,000, but to not worry, the School of Education was going to provide $10,000, the rest I could get in loans. This was awful since I was not allowed to receive loans due to my immigrant status at the time. I was truly exhausted from fundraising scholarships my entire undergrad, and I was not sure I had another fight left in me, but I did. I started a national campaign called “Harvard, Si Se Puede!” (Harvard, Yes I/WE can) with, not only the goal to fundraise for my scholarship, but also to send out the message that all undocumented students caught in the middle of political debates have a right to an education; and that, as citizens of a free society, it is our responsibility that our future generations be educated. Through this campaign I mobilized immigrant youth from across the country. I went to speak to many colleges and high schools around the US. There were articles written in USA Today, Harvard Gazette, Univision, Telemundo, NPR, CNN, and even Fox wanted to know my story. I also made appearances on national Spanish news programs like Primer Impacto, Don Francisco Presenta, and José Ronstad’s NBC news show. One of the most exciting events through this journey was being asked to go to the nation’s capital and share my testimony before congress. I spoke about the need for a pathway towards legalization for undocumented students. I also lobbied on behalf of women and children who are going to be negatively impacted by Arizona’s law SB1070. During my time in DC, I was able to hold meetings with the Department of Defense, the office of the Presi-

...right when my final

dent, Homeland Security, and hundreds of representatives from women, children, and educational human rights organizations. Despite not having all the money, I went to Harvard. I wanted to tell the world how amazing it was to travel to the east coast for the first time and how incredible it was to be in a place where I never imagined myself. That is why I decided to start the Harvard Si Se Puede! Blog, where I was able to communicate my experience, progress, and journey. After the national exposure, I began to get emails from hundreds of students about their experiences. Until now, I stay in touch with some and have taken on the role of mentor. After my campaign, undocumented students began to use my same tactics for fundraising and perusing their education. Going back a little, when I was in Arizona my family was separated due to the fear of immigration raids and fascist-style tactics practiced by the Sheriff in Arizona, my family left Arizona and made a new life in San Antonio Texas, because they thought it would be best. This, however, was not true because right when my final exams at Harvard began, I got a call from my sister telling me to pray for my mother. I thought my mother had been injured. I called right away and found out that my sister’s high school was calling Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on our mother. I was in complete disbelief; I could not understand why or how this was happening. I dropped everything and flew to San Antonio to be with

Read more on Silvia’s blog: harvardsisepuede.wordpress.com

Obama’s Deferred Action... cont’d from page 3 I am trying to make sense of all of these political moves when the fate of many families are at stake. Many celebrate because of the Administrative Relief that students are obtaining, but what about our parents, our aunts and uncles, what about our friends that are already deported, dead, or have dropped out? What relief can politics provide for them? This is a critical and personal reflection on today’s events. I do celebrate this victory, because I, like many Arizonians know, victories are hard to come across. However, we cannot stop here. We do not only want to work, we want to live. We want to learn, travel, and vote. – June 16, 2012

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exams at Harvard began, I got a call from my sister telling me to pray for my mother... my sister’s high school was calling Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on our mother.

my mother and sister. She was not in custody so when we arrived we decided to leave the house. We drove to a town where we had a relative. As soon as we arrived my mother had a stroke, and we took her to the hospital. She was there a week, and the doctors told me she needed medical treatment and medication, which she had no access to because she could not legally obtain health insurance. As a family we decided that it would be best for my mother to return to Mexico with the rest of our family so she could receive the medical care she needed. Despite having to complete all my finals later, I graduated in May and was honored by the dean of the School of Education and the director of my program as Class Marshall. I was the first in line leading my entire class. Currently, I am preparing to begin my Ph.D at UCLA in the fall. I will be in the first cohort of doctoral students in the Chicana/o Studies department where I will research the effect of immigration raids on children’s education, physical, and emotional wellbeing. At the end of 2011 I was able to get my legal process started; but the cruelty I experienced Artwork by Julio Salgado | DreamersAdrift.com for wrongs I did not commit will always motivate me to fight for the human rights of all. Even WHEN the Dream Act passes, the fight will not be over; even then we will have to stand with dignity not ashamed of the color of our skin, our accents, and history. q

Of Dreams and King: dehumanization begets dehumanization by Roberto Dr. Cintli Rodriguez

fter 10 years of Congress stonewalling on the Dream Act, the president has now acted. For the students and families affected, the president’s new immigration policy directed at young undocumented students is akin to a modern-day version of an Emancipation Proclamation. Of course it’s a political move, just as everything the president does, and just as everything his opponents do, is political. But so too is dehumanization. O n l y w h e n p e o p l e

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In examining history, can we actually say that these ideas have gone away? In 1992, the King beating trial confirmed the common complaints of men of color, of always being beaten down and always being treated as less than human, sans justice. Like many, I am no stranger to that reality. I lived through something similar in 1979 in East Los Angeles. What made my case unique is that despite being brutally beaten and falsely arrested, I actually won my trial, not once but twice. What would permit officers to beat King, to regularly beat down men of color, as if indeed we were less than human? The

are dehumanized can they be treated as less than human, as peoples less deserving of full human rights.

20 years after Rodney King’s beating at the hands of police, a march against police profiling The death of Rodney King took place in New York City, ironically, on the same day as King’s death. reminds us of this. While seemingly unrelated, dehumanization is answer: Dehumanization. At the moment we’re all digesting President Obama’s news. It the common denominator.

The lack of justice for King triggered an urban rebellion, unprecedented in U.S. history in its scope and rage. What could trigger such unadulterated violence? The answer is very simple. King’s beating was not at all uncommon; people of color understand that violence. It is historic and it is systemic, and it has always been utilized as a means of control. That it was videotaped is what made it unique. Such kind of violence can only be employed successfully if a people or population is considered less than human. In history, this was usually accomplished by use of religious or “God-mandated” ideas; i.e., Providence and Manifest Destiny. The Doctrine of Discovery served the same purpose. Since no human beings (read Christians) existed on this continent, Christians were free to violently take the land, etc. Not being Christian was the same as not being human.

appears that one of the ugliest chapters of modern human history is about to end. And yet those very familiar voices, those commonly heard on talk radio and increasingly in the halls of power, are shouting at the top of their lungs, accusing the president of committing treason. They are determined to not only derail the president and his plan, but also oppose anything that treats undocumented immigrants with dignity and respect and as full human beings. Only when dehumanization becomes normalized can inhumane policies and decisions be justified. Those that are opposed to the president’s announcement long ago normalized the view that undocumented immigrants are either criminals or terrorists and certainly something less than human. Their refrain of those familiar voices has always been: “what don’t you understand about the word ‘illegal’.” Apparently, their own lack of humanity blinds them to this concept. Many of these . . . cont’d on pg 11

The 21st Century Witch Hunt A review of Margarita Pisano’s by Natalia Thompson

El triunfo de la masculinidad (2001, Surada Press, Santiago de Chile)

I arrived in Chile in August of 2011,

in the midst of a massive student movement that captured the imagination of the Latin American left and the attention of the international media, which transitioned from coverage of the “Arab spring” to dispatches from the “Chilean winter.” As I settled into a semester-long study abroad program, the student movement became a constant source of fascination.

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I was riveted by the weekly marches that brought hundreds of Given the patriarchal discourses that transformed young womthousands into the streets, despite heavy police repression; by the en in the movement into sex objects, my faith in the student moveastute leadership of Camila Vallejo, then the 23-year-old president ment began to fade. I attended marches with a homemade sign, of the confederation of Chilean students; and by the hundreds of “La revolución será feminista o no será,” but I failed to find others schools and universities “en toma,” occupied by students who bar- who shared my critiques of the movement—until I met the legricaded themselves inside, sometimes for months. endary Margarita Pisano. The author of five books and the founder The media highlighted students’ protests for free, universal ed- of Chile’s first and only feminist space under dictatorship (la Casa ucation, such as flash mobs in front of the presidential palace. Yet in my conversations with Chileans, I sensed something more profound than a desire for education reform: a growing refusal to comply with U.S.-dictated neoliberalism, which violently privatized Chile’s schools, healthcare system, and “bienes comunes” (otherwise referred to as natural resources). Despite the student movement’s contagious energy, the misogyny surrounding it left a sour taste in my mouth. Bolivia’s vice president, Álvaro García Linera, declared himself in love with Camila Vallejo, whom he described as “hermosa.” The New York Times called her “the world’s most glamorous revolutionary” and “a Botticelli beauty.” Social media sites spawned even more aggressive commentary: on Twitter, right-wing Chilean government official Tatiana Acuña Selles called for Vallejo’s assassination (“hay que matar a la perra y Chilean students at rally in Valparaiso - June 9, 2011 | Photo/Agencies se acaba la leva”); on YouTube, a fan posted a musical tribute to Vallejo in which he offered to ‘take’ her virginity (“hagamos un pacto y me entregas tu flor”). de la Mujer La Morada, established 1984) and its first feminist When I attended student marches, the tear gas left my eyes radio station (Radio Tierra, founded 1991), Pisano is a tireless and throat burning—but the machismo stung more. I was particu- activist and a prolific theorist. Her visions of a feminist politics larly horrified by how many young women seemed to internal- that unites “lo íntimo, lo privado y lo público” have deeply influize the misogynistic logic that has long reduced women in leftist enced lesbian-feminist and radical feminist movements throughmovements to sex objects. Some protested naked, covered only out Latin America. I met her inside the occupied Universidad in body paint; others participated in stunts like “wet t-shirts for de Chile, where she spoke to students residing inside “la toma.” education”—tactics startlingly similar to those long deployed by She eloquently demarcated the limits of a student movement that PETA in the U.S., whose efforts to promote animal welfare are sought to undo neoliberal privatization—yet failed to address the infamous for their degradation of women’s bodies. masculinist ideologies underpinning the system masterminded by

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[Margarita] Pisano has written extensively about how “una cultura del dominio”—a patriarchal order marked by histories of colonization and more recent neoliberal projects — has dismembered women’s bodies (literally and figuratively) and deformed social movements.

Milton Friedman’s “Chicago Boys” and installed by Pinochet. she suggests, the well-established structures of patriarchy have Like those of many leftist social movements, the Chilean mutated, modernized, and re-emerged camouflaged as an entity student movement’s partisan politics (most closely linked to the she describes simply as “masculinity”: a “super-ideology” more Partido Comunista) defined the enemy as late capitalism, or more comprehensive, and insidious, than any other belief or ideology specifically, as neoliberalism. As such, the mouthpieces of the produced before by patriarchy. movement—from Camila Vallejo to unofficial representatives, In the title essay of El triunfo, Pisano describes how a glolike French-Chilean rapper Anita Tijoux—spoke almost exclu- balized, neoliberal masculinity has adapted patriarchy’s sinister sively of neoliberal profiteering. Tijoux, who has performed in standbys—such as its narratives of conquest (whether on the San Antonio, Texas in 2010 and 2011, dedicated her 2011 single, battlefield or in bed)—in its creation of an apparatus marked by “Shock,” to the student movement. Referencing Naomi Klein’s a misogyny more profound, more hidden, and more devastating The Shock Doctrine, Tijoux sang, “Ya todo lo quitan, todo lo than that of old-school patriarchy. As she writes: venden / todo se lucra / la vida, la muerte… No permitiremos más, más tu doctrina del shock.” Her words reached hundreds of thousands, if not millions. In turn, Margarita Pisano’s critique foregrounds the violence of a patriarchal civilization, rather than merely the violence of neoliberalism. Her utopian visions of change are distinctly feminist, rather than communist or socialist: she asserts that masculinist ideologies are behind not only neoliberalism, but leftist projects. For those familiar with the misogyny of Latin America’s leftist heroes, from Che Guevara to Evo Morales, this comes as no surprise. In her intimate “charla” at the Universidad de Chile, Pisano argued for situating a society in which “todo lo venden” within a patriarchal, Western civilization in which domination and exploitation are justifiable within a “divine” order. She rattled off a number of contemporary phenomena Margarita Pisano (center with scarf) with mujeres in Guatemala in Chile produced not only by neoliberalism, but also by centuries of patriarchal, colonizing projects, including the recent privatization of Patagonia’s Río Baker, the heightened militarization of Mapuche territories, and the increased traf“Lo que el patriarcado trajo como esencia desde su lógica ficking of Chilean girls and women. Ultimately, Pisano revealed de dominación—la conquista, la lucha, el sometimiento por la how privatization—a process that strips peoples of self-determi- fuerza—hoy se ha modernizado en una masculinidad neoliberal nation and transforms “bienes comunes” into lucrative natural y globalizada que controla, vigila y sanciona igual que siempre. resources—is inextricably linked to a central aspect of patriarchal Pero esta vez a través de un discurso retorcido, menos desentrasocieties: “una cultura del dominio,” in which a privileged few ñable y en aparente diálogo con la sociedad en su conjunto, donde exert power and control over “the 99%” (in Occupy Wall Street- va recuperando, funcionalizando, fraccionando, absorbiendo e speak). invisibilizado a sus oponentes y que trae consigo una misoginia Pisano has written extensively about how “una cultura del más profunda, escondida y devastadora que la del viejo sistema dominio”—a patriarchal order marked by histories of coloni- patriarcal.” zation and more recent neoliberal projects—has dismembered Pisano’s powerful assertion—that women face greater viowomen’s bodies (literally and figuratively) and deformed social lence today than ever before, despite centuries of feminist activmovements. In El triunfo de la masculinidad (2001), a collection ism—flies in the face of mainstream feminists’ declarations of of essays on violence and feminist resistance in neoliberal times, “progressive victories.” Indeed, whereas many feminists hailed Pisano takes us past simplistic understandings of “patriarchy.” As Michelle Bachelet’s presidency in Chile (2006-2010) as a sign of

progress, Pisano cautions against putative victories, arguing that women’s access to leadership roles within masculinist societies has not produced the slightest cultural shift. Instead, she argues, women’s presence has only legitimized masculinist systems. Michelle Bachelet and Cristina Fernández in the Southern Cone— along with leaders like Hillary Clinton, Condoleezza Rice and Sarah Palin in the U.S.—have merely embodied discourses that claim that since women no longer face discrimination and gender equality is around the corner, radical social change is no longer necessary. Yet, as Pisano reminds us in El triunfo, the elite class of women who wield militarized, masculine power (such as Bachelet, who previously served as Chile’s defense minister) only perpetuate a system in which half of the world’s population remains relegated to domination and exploitation.

intellect. As Pisano suggests in El triunfo, these ideologies equate masculinity with intellect and femininity with intuition. As a result, Pisano writes, each time a woman appropriates the supposedly masculine attributes of critical thinking and political leadership, the backlash is profound. In her introduction to El triunfo, Pisano writes, “Transitamos en el tiempo, en el olvido sadomasoquista que sostiene la sumisión del amar y admirar a quienes nos someten.” With “sadomasochist oblivion,” she refers to our ability—as women, as feminists—to forget that the patriarchal attacks we face today, from the virulent misogyny hurled at leaders like Vallejo to the escalating epidemic of femicide in Mexico and Central America, have historical antecedents. In an essay in El triunfo on lesbianism (“Incidencias lésbicas o el amor al propio reflejo”), she urges us to stop collaborating “con el mismo sistema que hace años nos quemaba en las plazas públicas y que de otra manera, menos visible, nos sigue quemando, nos sigue persiguiendo, nos sigue reciclando.” If we are to understand today’s witch hunt—one that seeks to silence women into submission, whether through verbal attacks in the media or through sexual violence—we must know our own history.

argarita Pisano’s writings

Screenshot of Francisco Goldman’s article on nytimes.com - April 5, 2012

, Camila Vallejo landed in Mexico City to meet with leaders of the nascent #YoSoy132, a student movement that emerged in May, calling for media reform in the days leading up to another rigged presidential election in Mexico. On the streets, #YoSoy132’s protests against PRI candidate Enrique Peña Nieto reminded me of Chile’s student marches. At a massive demonstration in the Zócalo on June 10, for instance, young feminists painted their bodies purple and marked themselves with the number 922: the number of femicide cases documented in the Estado de México during Peña Nieto’s term as governor of that state (20052011). They seemed oblivious to the irony behind their decision to sexualize their bodies in order to protest femicide, an epidemic that thrives on the fetishization of women’s sexualized, hyperfeminine bodies. A few days later, I went to hear Vallejo speak to students at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana’s campus in Xochimilco. As she concluded her speech and left the stage, a range of misogynistic calls rang out (the man next to me yelled, “Camila, yo quiero ser tu perro!”) and a few dozen male students broke past the security barriers to run after her. The fact that Camila Vallejo had to sprint from a pack of drooling, misogynistic men in Mexico says something about globalized, neoliberal masculinity. The eerily similar response to Vallejo’s leadership throughout the Americas, from the Times Square offices of the New York Times to the Santiago offices of right-wing Chilean politicians, indicates the hegemony of these masculinist ideologies, such as those that eroticize women’s bodies, not their

All of Margarita Pisano’s books, along with several “charlas,” are available for free download at mpisano.cl. For newer pieces, find her on Facebook: “Margarita Pisano.” Bio: Natalia Thompson studies Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Yale University. She is currently researching the Latin American lesbian-feminist movement with the support of the Mellon Mays-Bouchet fellowship.

LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • July/August 2012 Vol. 25 Issue 6•

n a sunny day in June of 2012

are rooted in a Chilean context and reflect her own life experiences, including her childhood in Tierra del Fuego, a desolate archipelago off South America’s southernmost tip; her transformation from heterosexual wife and mother to lesbian-feminist activist at age 47, in 1979; her activism under dictatorship, working with women in Santiago’s impoverished “poblaciones”; and her lifelong struggle with dyslexia. Yet her words speak to the realities of life throughout the neoliberal Américas. Though published in 2001, El triunfo remains relevant to a range of struggles against neoliberal violence and masculinist supremacies. A few months after the publication of El triunfo, Pisano traveled to Chiapas to speak on feminism in Zapatista communities. (A staunch critic of academia, Pisano spends little time on the university circuit, but she has worked with grassroots groups throughout Latin America.) After reading El triunfo, Subcomandante Marcos decided to publish a special edition of the book for use within the Zapatista movement. Today, clandestine copies of Pisano’s book still circulate in Mexico. I first encountered Pisano’s work in Mexico City, when members of a lesbian-feminist collective shared a photocopied version of El triunfo with me. If Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera is a Chicana bible for navigating the liminal, in-between spaces she called “nepantla,” El triunfo is a feminist survival guide for alienating and inhospitable times. In an era of inoffensive, tepid feminisms (consider, for instance, the recent SlutWalk phenomenon, which made an appearance in Chile as La Marcha de las Maracas), it offers a critical roadmap for distancing ourselves from masculinist logics—in our politics, in our activism, and in our intimate relationships. Ultimately, El triunfo challenges us to free ourselves from “the nostalgic desires of remaining within a culture that, as much as we want to believe it is our own, remains alien to us.” q

El triunfo de la masculinidad: Una mirada crítica a la violencia del patriarcado modernizado by Natalia Thompson

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n 1979, cuando Chile estaba en plena dictadura, una arquitecta renombrada de 47 años se entregó a un hospital en Santiago, padeciendo de encefalitis. En esa época, obraba con diversos clientes, ya sea construyendo casas de 35 metros cuadrados para ocho personas, planificadas por el Ministerio de Vivienda, hasta “súper casas” para los que más lucraban de la dictadura. Cuatro días después, volvió a abrir los ojos en neurocirugía. Esa misma noche, se dio cuenta de que no definitivamente podía acomodarse al sistema instalado por Pinochet—un sistema patriarcal, violentamente neoliberal y masculinista. Desde esa toma de conciencia, empezó a construir una nueva conciencia crítica y una nueva vida. Esta chilena—Margarita Pisano—fue desprendiéndose “de la heterosexualidad, del matrimonio, de la familia, de la maternidad, de la arquitectura”, como Andrea Franulic nos relata en Una historia fuera de la historia: Biografía política de Margarita Pisano. A lo largo de los ochenta, Pisano no sólo se sumó a la resistencia contra Pinochet, sino que empezó a plantear un discurso feminista radical, uno que se nutría de sus experiencias colaborando con mujeres de diversos sectores sociales. A pesar de su dislexia, escribió textos, participó en encuentros feministas y realizó talleres (su serie de charlas feministas, los “Lunes abiertos”, sigue hasta la fecha). Hoy, a los 79 años, Pisano es autora de 5 libros y fundadora de la primera Casa feminista, sin fines de lucro, en Chile, La Morada (fundada en 1984), y la estación de radio feminista, Radio Tierra (fundada en 1991). Según Franulic, Pisano es “una pensadora controvertida dentro del movimiento feminista”, ya que ha elaborado “una crítica sin concesiones a las prácticas políticas de un sector mayoritario del feminismo chileno y latinoamericano”. Este “feminismo moderado” se adoptó a “la era de la negociación y de la tolerancia que se acentúa, en Chile, a partir del fin formal de la dictadura”—muchas veces apropiándose de las lógicas neoliberales sin cuestionar su trasfondo patriarcal. Por medio de la presente compartimos fragmentos de algunos ensayos recopilados en El triunfo de la masculinidad (2001), un libro que toca diversos temas, entre ellos la feminidad, el aborto, el deporte, los movimientos feministas, el cuerpo y el lesbianismo…

Introducción:

“Es difícil hacer un análisis de cómo o cuándo perdimos la batalla las mujeres, cómo fuimos sometidas, cuándo fuimos narradas y colocadas en el ámbito cultural de estas lecturas míticas donde está instalada la idea de la superioridad masculina en contrapartida a nuestra inferioridad. Transitamos en el tiempo, en el olvido sadomasoquista que sostiene la sumisión del amar y admirar a quienes nos someten.”

El triunfo de la masculinidad: “No niego que en

estos últimos tiempos [las mujeres] hemos tenido acceso a ciertos espacios de poder y de creatividad, pero aún no hemos logrado cambiar un ápice la cultura de la masculinidad, por el contrario, nuestro acceso ha vuelto a legitimarla y a remozarla […] Nunca hasta ahora, habían existido en proporción tantas mujeres ex-

plotadas y pobres, ni tantos pobres en el mundo, ni tanta violencia hacia la mujer.” “La feminidad no es un espacio autónomo con posibilidades de igualdad, de autogestión o de independencia, es una construcción simbólica y valórica diseñada por la masculinidad y contenida en ella como parte integrante.” “Las mujeres [rebeldes] que se salen de esta estructura simbólica [la feminidad] atentan contra la estructura general del sistema y su existencia. Por esto la persecución histórica y virulenta hacia ellas, que traspasa los límites de lo público invadiendo sus vidas privadas, tiene características que no ha tenido jamás la persecución a los varones, porque entre ellos existe la legitimidad del poder y su jerarquización.”

Margarita Pisano y Andrea Franulic

La consanguinidad:

“Esta idea de consanguinidad, que hace a-cultural a las expresiones homo-lésbicas, es la misma que produce en estos espacios de márgenes culturales la añoranza de la familia como lugar de pertenencia, a pesar de ser la ejecutora del castigo.”

Obligar a la vida, Ejercicio de la mentira:

“El aborto se representa como una traición a la vida, pero más que nada, la traición de la madre—la menos perdonable de todas—, la que teniendo el mandato divino y cultural de parir, niega la potencialidad del nacimiento de un sujeto. Estas lecturas simplistas y demagógicas sobre el aborto, legitiman las exigencias de vida de una cultura de la muerta, llena de transgresiones básicas a la vida ya habida, gestora de guerreras, hambrunas, cárceles de menores, orfelinatos infrahumanos, persecutora de raza enteras.”

Una larga lucha de pequeños avances,

es una larga lucha de fracasos: “Hemos repetido las mismas luchas por siglos y una cierta omnipotencia nos hace creer que nuestros pequeños avances se traducen en grandes cambios.” q Todos los libros de Margarita Pisano, junto con varias charlas suyas, están disponibles para su descarga gratuita en mpisano.cl. Sus nuevos textos se encuentran en Facebook, en las páginas de Margarita Pisano y Andrea Franulic. En las mismas páginas web encontrarán una versión en español del artículo publicado en esta edición (“The Twenty-First Century Witch Hunt”), intitulada “La recurrente toma histórica de las mujeres”.

The Other Parties With the “major party” primaries underway, as people go to the polls to vote for their favorite players on the Red and Blue teams, why do so many ignore the other parties? The Green Party

young students, who will now be able to continue on with their studies and work in two-year increments, were brought to this country as infants or very small children. They know no country other than this one. But forget compassion; let’s examine the law. To commit a crime, one needs to be conscious that one is committing a crime. A three-month old infant cannot legally commit a crime therefore, it is impossible for that child to ever be prosecuted or branded as a criminal. In making his announcement, the president also made the mistake of saying that these young people came to this country through no fault of their own. Implicit is that it is the parents who are at fault. The moral lesson of history is that parents at-

Of Dreams

. ..cont’d from pg 6 |

Bio: Paul Pipkin lives in San Antonio, Texas and is active with Occupy Bexar and the Bexar County Green Party

tempting to better the lives of their children are not committing a crime, but rather, following the natural laws of survival. Congress will again have the opportunity to treat both the students and their parents as full human beings by passing the Dream Act later this year. To do something less, is to abscond from their responsibility. It’s actually time for Congress to resolve the nation’s immigration issues. But here’s a hint; human beings, not walls or the military, have to be at the center of any proposed solution. Failure to do so will simply prolong the human crises. q

Bio: Dr. Cintli, an assistant professor at the University of Arizona, is the author of Justice a Question of Race and can be reached at: XColumn@gmail.com

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of Texas is fielding as many candidates for office as the rest of the United States combined. I’ll skip the primaries this year The Green Party has been traditionally skeptical of so-called “Straight-Party” or “Straight-Ticket” voting in general elections. True, while it makes the voting process seem easier, it also makes voters lazy while keeping the two-party system in power. The Green Party isn’t big enough yet to have active chapters in every corner of the massive state of Texas; thus an appeal to voters to fill out the entire ballot & hopefully Go Green in some races. However, some counties have more Green candidates. I, myself, will VOTE ONLY GREEN from the Presidential to Justice of the Peace. No, there are no “good guys” among the corporate offerings sufficiently compelling for me to take the time to work them in. I will not foreclose the option of voters in Bexar & Harris Counties who have the good fortune to vote Straight Green should they choose to. Greens in San Antonio and Houston have a more robust vision than to constrain our activity to a routine four-year 3rd Presidential ticket bid--containable and castrated. Among broad outreach already underway, when Occupy took to the streets, we immediately back-burned preconceived electoral agenda and placed ourselves at the disposal of the new movement. Thanks to the collaboration of Occupiers in Houston & San Antonio, Green Party has helped to enable an Occupy political voice. NOT off in 2014 or 2016, but RIGHT-NOW for the 2012 electoral cycle. Whatcha gonna do in November? Vote for corporates against Occupiers? Look at all the Occupy candidates at bexargreens.org. The corporate parties have a division of labor: Republicans work to deny the vote to as many Americans as possible (i.e. gerrymandering, unreasonable voter ID, calculated confusion of districts at every level). Their Democrat partners exert themselves

to deny you any substantive choice (devoting as much attention to lawsuits, spying & false-flag gambits against the tiny Green Party as on their putative “competition” with Republicans). Jack London wrote a century ago: “There is no Thanks to the collaboration Republican Party. There is no Democratic Party. of Occupiers in Houston & There are no RepubliSan Antonio, Green Party cans nor Democrats in this House. You are lickhas helped to enable an spittlers and panderers, the creatures of the Plutocracy. Occupy political voice. You talk verbosely in antiquated terminology of your love of liberty, and all the while you wear the scarlet livery of the Iron Heel.” MORE true today than when London wrote in 1906. “Major party” is a misnomer. There are no such parties. Most “precinct chairs” sit empty. Activist orgs like Greens, Libertarians, Socialists, etc. together might field “party loyalists” comparable to the few in the paper shells of the “majors”. The Republican-Democrat primary election machinery, funded by corporations & wedded like retail banking to the government, ARE NOT PARTIES by any conventional definition. It’s a huge shell-game, run by masters of the short con. And it’s never going to change until YOU begin to vote differently. COLORS: it’s not about the Presidential–it never was. We’re in Texas, duh? You can mix Green & Blue whatever way you want & not balance out the Red. The winner takes all those electoral votes. In Texas, this year, it’s not a third party, but the Democrat vote that is a “wasted ballot”, accomplishing nothing–nothing at all. You want to make a statement for politics independent of corporate corruption, TEXAS IS THE PLACE, and GREEN IS THE LINE! q

by Judith Norman

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On Wednesday, June 13th Caterpillar

Inc. held its annual shareholder meeting in San Antonio. The company probably chose San Antonio thinking it would escape the sort of protests the annual meetings had attracted at its headquarters in Chicago in recent years. If so, it was sadly mistaken: a group of loud and dedicated activists were waiting outside the downtown meeting venue to greet the shareholders, media, and passers-by with signs and information about the company’s malfeasant behavior. What has Caterpillar done? The company has been supplying bulldozers to the Israeli Defense Forces since the beginning of Israel’s occupation of Gaza and the West Bank (in 1967).1 And Israel has been using the machines to continue many of the illegal activities involved with its occupation, activities that include the destruction of civilian homes and property, the destruction of Palestinian infrastructure and agricultural industry, the construction of the illegal “border wall” in the West Bank, and most horrifically the killings of several civilians. At first glance, it seems inappropriate to blame the machines. After all, we think of bulldozers as construction equipment, not weapons. It first became clear to the broader international community that the Israeli army was using the machines as weapons in the wake of the destruction of the Jenin refugee camp in April 2002, using D9 bulldozers. The D9s are massive, 53 ton machines, equipped with a front blade that is 6 ft high and 15 ft wide. On the back is a ripper that can penetrate more than 5 ft into the ground. The Israeli army militarizes the machines to include machine gun mounts, smoke projectors, and grenade launchers. They entered the refugee camp as weapons of war.2 This function was not lost on their operators either. In an infamous interview in the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot following the destruction in Jenin, Moshe Nissim, a bulldozer operator, boasted of his experience: I had no mercy for anybody. I would erase anyone with the D9 … when I was told to bring down a house, I took the opportunity to bring down some more houses … They were warned by loudspeaker to get out of the house before I came, but I gave no one a chance. I didn’t wait. I didn’t give one blow and wait for them to come out. I would just ram the house with full power, to bring it down as fast as possible.”3 This is typical of the use of the D9 bulldozers in the conflict. Homes and infrastructure are destroyed in a wanton and brutal manner, serving no other strategic purpose than to punish and terrorize the civilian population. The second event to bring Caterpillar to widespread international attention was the killing of 23 year-old American peace activist, Rachel Corrie, in Gaza in March 2003. Corrie was working with the International Solidarity Movement and trying to protect a Palestinian home from destruction when she was crushed by a D9 bulldozer.4 This is only the best-known of the several extrajudicial killings the Israeli army has committed with the use of

Demonstration outside shareholder meeting, San Antonio, June 2012

bulldozers. The other killings have occurred when the army has demolished houses and failed to give the family inside sufficient time to escape, or to help mobility-impaired members of the family escape. In one case, a D9 destroyed the house of Mahmoud Al Sho’bi, killing eight people including three children, ages 4, 7 and 9.5 Finally, the Israeli army used Caterpillar D9s in May 2004 in their assault on Rafah (in the West Bank). In a report to the UN General Assembly following the assault, John Dugard, UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in the Occupied Territories wrote: “Homes have been destroyed in a purely purposeless manner. Bulldozers have savagely dug up roads, including electricity, sewage and water lines, in a brutal display of power … The time has come for the international community to identify those responsible for this savage destruction of property and to take the necessary legal action against them.”6 Caterpillar became an object of activist attention in the context of the BDS movement – boycott, divestment, sanctions.7 BDS is a collection of different strategies that aim to isolate Israel – economically, politically, culturally – because of the occupation, with an aim to ending the occupation. Many of the BDS tactics are inspired by the movement to end South African apartheid. Caterpillar became a target specifically for divestment. Anti-occupation activists urge shareholders to divest from Caterpillar as a form of protest and pressure, to try to stop the company from providing the Israeli army with some of the most deadly and effective weapons in its arsenal. The divestment strategy is quickly gaining ground. In particular, churches have been considering divesting from Caterpillar as well as Hewlett-Packard and Motorola, companies that also sup-

ply some of the technical support for the occupation regime. The Quaker’s investment group, Friends Fiduciary Corporation has divested from these companies.8 For years, the Presbyterian Church has been debating divestment as well, in its General Assembly. It has already condemned the occupation – now many people in the church are urging divestment as a way for the church to align its actions with its principles. This year, for the first time, the Pres-

tor of the Socially Responsible Investment Coalition11 were both present to table a resolution urging Caterpillar in the direction of corporate responsibility. It is because the Presbyterian church has failed to convince Caterpillar to take these resolutions seriously that it is now considering divestment. The divestment movement experienced a set-back in May, when the Methodist Church failed to approve a divestment proposal that

Anti-occupation activists urge shareholders to divest from Caterpillar as a form of protest and pressure, to try to stop the company from providing the Israeli army with some of the most deadly and effective weapons in its arsenal. it came up for debate at the United Methodist Church’s General Conference.12 One of the factors in the defeat was the objection that divestment is too punitive a strategy – that rather than punish Israel, the Church should try to help Palestine through positive investments – in Palestinian olive oil, for instance. Although positive investment sounds like a reasonable and attractive alternative, it betrays an ignorance of the situation in Palestine.13 The Israeli destruction of Palestinian homes and land is relentless – it will do no good to invest in Palestinian industries that Israel is committed to destroy. Before the good can be done, the harm needs to stop. A key strategy in this struggle is to stop Caterpillar. Bio: Judith Norman lives in San Antonio with her partner and two children. She is a professor of philosophy at Trinity University, and a member of A Jewish Voice for Peace. Complete footnotes and references can be requested from lavoz@esperanzacenter.org

Spinning San Antonio correction

Mujeres at Spinning San Antonio | photo by Jane Madrigal

The June 2012 issue of La Voz featured the article and action, Spinning San Antonio: Latina/o Resistance to Cultural Erasure in the Heart of San Antonio. We unwittingly attributed all photos to Joan Frederick when the author, Roberta Hurtado, herself took the photo on page 4 and the background photo for the front page. In addition, we got a call from Frances Herrera questioning the use of the word “head” in the quote highlighted on page 4. She suggested that it might have have been “heed.” Roberta confirmed that, indeed, her computer must have changed the word from “heed” to “head”. Expecting that the DRT and other groups would “head the voices of those demanding social justice” was beyond reality! Our apologies to Roberta who was very gracious in acknowledging the errors. And, thanks to the readership for their ojos de aguilas. -La Editora

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byterian Church’s (USA) Committee on Mission Responsibility Through Investment is recommending divestment; the church is set to vote in July.9 This is a hugely exciting moment for the BDS movement: there is an excellent chance that the Presbyterian Church will choose to divest. Divestment is a strategy that is pursued after constructive engagement has failed. Groups interested in socially responsible investments will begin positively, by trying to use their influence as shareholders to help shape company policy to change the problematic behavior. This has been the case with Caterpillar – investors have been attending the shareholder meeting for years to try to pass resolutions that would hold Caterpillar to internationally established codes of corporate conduct. The June 13 shareholder meeting in San Antonio was no exception. Gabriel Schivone from A Jewish Voice for Peace10 and Sr. Susan Mika, Executive Direc-

* community meetings *

Amnesty International #127 meets at various sites during the year. Contact Arthur Dawes at 210213-5919 for details. Anti-War Peace Vigil every Thursday (since 2001) from 4-5pm @ Flores & Commerce Contact Tim Duda at 210.822.4525 or timduda@aol.com Bexar Co. Green Party info@bexargreens.org or call 210.471.1791. Celebration Circle meets Sundays, 11am @ JumpStart at Blue Star Arts Complex. Meditation, Weds @ 7:30 pm @ Quaker Meeting House, 7052 Vandiver. 210.533-6767 DIGNITY S.A. mass at 5:30 pm, Sun. @ Beacon Hill Presbyterian Church, 1101 W. Woodlawn. Call 210.735.7191. Fuerza Unida, 710 New Laredo, Hwy. 210.927.2297, www.lafuerzaunida.org Habitat for Humanity meets 1st Tues. for volunteer orientation @ 6pm, HFHSA Office @ 311 Probandt.

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LGBT Youth Group meets at MCC Church, 611 E. Myrtle on Sundays at 10:30am. 210.472.3597

Metropolitan Community Church in San Antonio (MCCSA) 611 East Myrtle, services & Sunday school @ 10:30am. Call 210.599.9289. PFLAG, meets 1st Thurs @ 7pm, 1st Unitarian Universalist Church, Gill Rd/Beryl Dr. Call 210. 655.2383. PFLAG Español meets 1st Tuesdays @ 2802 W. Salinas, 7pm. Call 210.849.6315

Be Part of a

Proyecto Hospitalidad Liturgy each Thursday at 7 pm at 325 Courtland. Call 210.736.3579.

Progressive Movement

The Rape Crisis Center, 7500 US Hwy 90 W. Hotline @ 210.3497273. 210.521.7273 or email Drominishi@rapecrisis.com The Religious Society of Friends meets Sundays @ 10 am @ The Friends Meeting House, 7052 N. Vandiver. 210.945.8456. San Antonio Communist Party USA meets monthly. For summer meetings contact juanchostandord@ yahoo.com San Antonio Gender Association. meets 1st & 3rd Thursdays, 6-9pm at 611 E. Myrtle, Metropolitan Community Church downstairs.| www.sagender.org SA Healthcare Now Coalition meets 1st Thursdays at 6:30pm @ National Nurses Organizing Committee office 7959 Fredericksburg Rd. 210.882.2230 or healthcarenowsa.org Shambhala Buddhist Meditation Center classes are on Tuesdays at 7pm, & Sun. at 11:30 am. at 1114 So. St. Mary’s. Call 210.222.9303. The Society of Latino and Hispanic Writers SA meets 2nd Mondays, 7 pm @ Barnes & Noble, San Pedro Crossing. S.N.A.P. (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests). Contact Barbara at 210.725.8329. Voice for Animals Contact 210.737.3138 or www.voiceforanimals.org for meeting times

in San Antonio

¡Todos Somos Esperanza!

Start your 2012 monthly donations now! Esperanza works to bring awareness and action on issues relevant to our communities. With our vision for social, environmental, economic and gender justice, Esperanza centers the voices and experiences of the poor & working class, women, queer people and people of color. We hold pláticas and workshops; organize political actions; present exhibits and performances and document and preserve our cultural histories. We consistently challenge City Council and the corporate powers of the city on issues of development, low-wage jobs, gentrification, clean energy and more. It takes all of us to keep the Esperanza going. When you contribute monthly to the Esperanza you are making a long-term commitment to the movement for progressive change in San Antonio, allowing Esperanza to sustain and expand our programs. Monthly donors can give as little as $5 and as much as $500 a month or more. What would it take for YOU to become a monthly donor? Call or come by the Esperanza to learn how. ¡Esperanza vive! ¡La lucha sigue! Call 210.228.0201 or email esperanza@esperanzacenter.org for more info

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for more info call 210.228.0201

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Notas Y Más July/August 2012

Gemini Ink’s 15th Annual Summer Literary Festival, Courting Bliss, is scheduled for July 6 - 22 with classes for children and adults. See geminiink.org/summer2012-classes or call 210-734-9673.

Brief notes to inform readers about happenings in the community. Send announcements for Notas y Más to: lavoz@esperanzacenter.org or by mail to: 922 San Pedro, San Antonio, TX 78212. The deadline is the 8th of each month.

ners will each receive a cash prize of US sistance” will be held October 19th & $10,000. See: www.changemakers.com/ 20th. Contact Dr. Carolina A. Villarroel in 713. 743.3128 or at artrec@mail.uh.edu girltech for specifics. Mujeres Activas en Letras y CambioSocial (MALCS) will hold its Summer Institute, “Todos Somos Arizona:” Confronting the Attacks on Difference, on July 18-21 at UC – Santa Barbara. Email malcs2012ucsb@gmail.com for details.

The Austin Tejano Music Coalition, hosts the 2nd Annual CANTA contest in October with auditions underway. Contact Aggie Sánchez at 512.912.6925 or email info@austintejanomusic.org for a schedule of auditions. See www.austintejanomusic. com/ or www.ATMC-Tejanoidol.com The Tejas Foco of NACCS (National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies), Chican@ Studies, ¡Ahora! focusing on Community Based Pedagogies, Scholarship and Activism will be on February 21-23, 2013. Proposals are due December 1, 2012 to mas@utpa.edu. See:www.naccs. org/naccs/Tejas.asp

A young Latina recently opened an independent bookstore in East Harlem called La Casa Azul. Check out the bookstore lutions that equip girls & women with new The 2012 Recovering U.S. Hispanic Lit- at: www.lacasaazulbookstore.com/ and digital technologies. The final deadline erary Heritage in the U.S. Conference, follow her on Twitter: @lacasaazulbooks is August 15, 2012 when the top 3 win“Literatures of Dissent, Cultures of Re-

National Call for Organizers, Artists and Activists: Say No to Banned Books! Education is a Human Right! - July 2012 This summer Tucson is Ground Zero for the Chicana/o movement. For the past 2 years Raza and Allies have been fighting the power structure there to Save Mexican American Studies and Ethnic Studies. In July, activists in Arizona are expecting rulings on SB 1070, the racial profiling law, as well as HB 2281, the law that specifically targeted the destruction of Tucson Unified School District’s Mexican American Studies program. A broad coalition of local and national organizations are calling on artists and activists from around the country to converge on Tucson this summer as we advance the struggle for human rights. Tucson Freedom Summer is a non-violent convergence in the tradition of militant direct action that will bring the best of social justice agitation with it. As such, participants will be expected to go through training on non-violence and issues specific to this struggle. Freedom Summer members will be expected to follow the rules of Tucson Freedom Summer. To get involved and for details on housing, transportation and activiities contact: Ernesto @ 517.881.6505 ph; Sean @ 520.975.4780; Curtis @ 520.891.7327; or tucsonfreedomsummer@gmail.com

LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • July/August 2012 Vol. 25 Issue 6•

The 4th Annual Christmas in July Mercado Arts & Craft Fair will be held Friday, July 13th from 10 am to 3 pm at the Christus Heritage Hall at The Village of the Incarnate Word, 4707 Broadway. American Association of Hispanics in Call 210.829.7561 x114 for details. Higher Education (AAHHE) with Texas URBAN-15 sponsors the 6th Annual Jo- A&M University-Corpus Christi (TAsiah Media Festival Thursday, July 12th MUCC) announce the Outstanding Thesis to Saturday, July 14th at the URBAN-15 in Food and Agriculture Sciences CompeStudio, 2500 S. Presa. Call 210.736.1500 tition of 2013 open to any Hispanic (must be a U.S. Citizen or U.S. Permanent Resior email josiahfestival@urban15.org. dent) who has completed a thesis that foThe San Antonio Coalition of Reason is cuses on the Food and the Agricultural Scisponsoring a talk on witchcraft in Africa ences between December 2010 and August and its negative impact on family units. A 1, 2012. The first place winner will receive guest from Nigeria will talk on the subject at an award of $3,000, second place,$2,000 the First Unitarian Universalist Church, and third place, $1,000. The winners will 7150 Ih-10 (I-10 & 410) on July 16th at 7 also present at the 2013 AAHHE National pm. Call Jane Tuch at 210.828.4627. Conference on March 28-30 in San AnIntel Corporation & Ashoka Change- tonio, Texas. The first deadline for submakers are launching an online competi- mission is August 24, 2012, 5 p.m. CST. tion to find the world’s most innovative so- Check www.AAHHE.org for details.

The University of Cincinnati College of Law’s Center for Race, Gender, and Social Justice 2012 Conference, Social Justice Feminism, is on October 26th & 27th. Call 513.556.1220 or contact kristin. kalsem@uc.edu for info.

LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • July/August 2012 Vol. 25 Issue 6• Esperanza Peace and Justice Center & Jump-Start Performance Co. present

OUTSIDE THE CIRCLE A new play by Andrea Assaf and Samuel Valdez that examines the nature of love, and what happens to love when we internalize society’s phobias June 29-July 1 & July 7-8 @ Jump-Start www.esperanzacenter.org

Sterling Houston Theater, 108 Blue Star | 210.227.5867

¡Queers, Presente! ~ 25 años 25 artists

La Voz de Esperanza

www.jump-start.org

922 San Pedro San Antonio TX 78212 210.228.0201 • fax: 210.228.0000 www.esperanzacenter.org

Non-Profit Org. US Postage PAID San Antonio, TX Permit #332

Haven’t opened La Voz in a while? Prefer to read it online? Wrong address? TO CANCEL A SUBSCRIPTION EMAIL: lavoz@esperanzacenter.org CALL: 210.228.0201

Ted Abercrombie • Laura Aguilar • Bernice AppelinWilliams • Philip Ávila • Sabra Booth • Rolando Briseño • Hazel M. Browning • David Zamora Casas •

Jose Chapa • Agosto Cuellar • Ana Fernandez •

Anel Flores • Marsha Gómez • Ester Hernández • Lisa Mellinger • Franco Mondini-Ruiz • Peter Ortiz •

Antonia Padilla • Kristy Pérez • Martha Prentiss

•

Elizabeth Puentes • Chuck Ramírez • Angel

Rodríguez-Díaz • Rosalynn Warren • Liliana Wilson queerated by Penelope Boyer

Exhibit runs thru August 18

@ Esperanza Peace & Justice Center, 210.228.0201 Gallery Hours: M-F, 10am-7pm, call for weekend hrs

Noche Azul de verano

Join us for our monthly concert series & cool off with the mellifluous sounds & songs of Azul

Doña Enriqueta Contreras Contreras

Remedios para la buena salud

Jazzul - July 21

Azul and special guests play jazz and blues

¡¡Cumbia!!

Saturday

- August 18th

Pura cumbia from Colombianas to Tejanas.

$5 más o menos

8pm @ esperanza

Saturday, Aug 18, 2012 210.228.0201 www.esperanzacenter.org