La Voz - February 2019 by Esperanza Peace and Justice Center

February 2019 Vol. 32 Issue 1

San Antonio, Tejas

The Textile Legacy and Life of Mariana Ornelas

Rita Vidaurri

May 22, 1924 – January 16, 2019

La Voz de Esperanza February 2019 Vol. 32 Issue 1

Editor: Gloria A. Ramírez Design: Elizandro Carrington

Contributors

Marisol Cortez & Greg Harman (Deceleration News), Sarah Gould, Laura Flanders (Truthout), Jake Johnson (Common Dreams), Tom Keene, Pablo Martínez, Gloria A. Ramírez, Joel Rodríguez, Beth Standifird

La Voz Mail Collective

Alicia Arredondo, Gloria Castillo, Juan Díaz,, Jack Elder, Ray Garza, Araceli Herrera, Patria Huitfeldr, Paul Bain Martin, Olivia Martinez Angie Merla, Molly, Ceci Pérez, Lucy Andrew Perreta, Mary Agnes Rodríguez, Guadalupe Segura, Helen Villarreal

Esperanza Director Graciela I. Sánchez

Esperanza Staff

LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • February 2019 Vol. 32 Issue 1•

Elizandro Carrington, Yaneth Flores, Sarah Gould, Eliza Pérez, Paul Plouf, Kristel Orta-Puente, Natalie Rodríguez, Imgard Akinyi Rop, René Saenz, Susana Segura, Amelia Valdez

Conjunto de Nepantleras —Esperanza Board of Directors—

Norma Cantú, Rachel Jennings, Amy Kastely, Jan Olsen, Ana Lucía Ramírez, Gloria A. Ramírez, Rudy Rosales, Tiffany Ross, Lilliana Saldaña, Nadine Saliba, Graciela I. Sánchez, Lillian Stevens • 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 Esperanza Peace & Justice Center 922 San Pedro, San Antonio, TX 78212 210.228.0201 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 Letters with intent to slander individuals or groups will not be published.

Our beloved Tesoro, Rita Vidaurri, passed into spirit on Wednesday, January 16th. The Esperanza staff, conjunto and buena gente join in mourning her passing and celebrating her life and contributions to the San Antonio community. Our deepest sympathies to Linda Alvarado, her only daughter and her many family members including grandchildren, great grandchildren and many friends and admirers in San Antonio and beyond. An icon of the Westside of San Antonio, Rita grew up in el Callejón Montezuma and stepped out onto the world stage in the 40s and 50s singing with some of the greatest singers of our time: Celia Cruz, Pedro Infante, Jorge Negrete, Toña La Negra, Edie Gorme y Los Panchos, Olga Guillot and even Nat King Cole among others. She sang throughout Mexico and Latin America Rita at 90 years of age. and, even in Cuba—but she was destined to return to her San Antonio querido and live out her life as a wife and mother. Her early fame on stage and screen, unknown to many in San Antonio for years, was rediscovered in 2001 when she stepped on stage as an elder to serenade her comadre, Lydia Mendoza at her 86th birthday celebration at Plaza de Zacate sponsored by the Esperanza. That act served as a catalyst for her own comeback singing as an octogenarian with a voice that belied her age and set the foundation for the formation of a group of elder cantantes: the beloved Las Tesoros del Westside. With the passing of Rita, La Calandria and previously Janet Cortez, Perla Tapatia—sólo nos quedan dos Tesoros: Blanca Rodríguez, aka Blanca Rosa and Beatriz Llamas, aka La Paloma del Norte.

Que con los angelitos cantes y descanses, Rita. —Gloria A. Ramirez, editor Esperanza will publish a full tribute to our querida Rita in the March, 2019 issue of La Voz with details and photos of her incredible life. We encourage Rita’s público to write your recuerdos and literary ofrendas for this special issue. Send your photos and tributes to: lavoz@ esperanzacenter.org or drop by Esperanza at 922 San Pedro with your photos or stories to copy. ATTENTION VOZ READERS: If you have a mailing address correction please send it to lavoz@ esperanzacenter.org. If you want to be removed from the La Voz mailing list, for whatever reason, please let us know. 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 ($100 for institutions). 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.

Hilos que hablan:

The Textile Legacy and Life of Mariana Ornelas Exhibit & Tribute: Sat. Mar. 9, 2019 • 6–9 pm at the Esperanza By Gloria A. Ramírez

made for weddings or community celebrations. The colors, the symbols and the type of weaving in each huipil speaks volumes about the culture and spiritual beliefs of each indigenous community and their ties to the natural world. Throughout the U.S. women have been drawn to the wearing of huipiles, particularly Latinas. In San Antonio, a group of Chicanas known as Mujeres del Huipil would meet and share stories of their lives as they wore their huipiles. The pipeline from San Antonio and other cities in, the U.S. to parts of Mexico, particularly Oaxaca, and to regions throughout Guatemala has included Chicana writers like news journalist, María Martin (in Guatemala), literary figures like Sandra Cisneros (currently living in Mexico) and mujeres working as scholars and artists connecting to the work of Mexican and Latin American feminists in the cultural arts and literary worlds. Many of these women wear the huipil as a symbol of solidarity in support of the struggles of indigenous women in Mexico and Central America. Mariana’s own interest in collecting and wearing huipiles speaks to her own sense of history and dedication to community. Grounded in her own sense of Greek identity, Mariana Sculos grew up in Framingham, Massachusetts but chose to live most of her life in San Antonio because of the people, the culture and the Spanish language. After earning a bachelor’s degree in Spanish and French from Marietta College in Ohio in 1971, she enrolled at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico in Mexico City to pursue graduate studies in Latin American literature. About the same time, she met a harpist from Paraguay and moved there to learn to play the Paraguayan harp and An early performance of Mariana playing the harp at the old Espernza space at 1305 N. Flores. perfect her Spanish. She gradually became enamored with Latino culture, especially Mexican culture, and that eventually led her to live in San Antonio. Ultimately, Mariana loved the harp as much as the Presiden-

LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • February 2019 Vol. 32 Issue 1•

Before she passed into the spirit world on March 6, 2017, Mariana Ornelas—professor of Spanish and Mexican American Studies at Palo Alto College, community & neighborhood activist, Paraguayan harpist extraordinaire, and former board member of the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center—donated her collection of beautiful textiles and huipiles to the Esperanza to help sustain its programming. To honor Mariana’s wishes, we shall have an exhibit and sale of her textiles and huipiles on Saturday, March 9th in a fundraiser entitled, Hilos que Hablan (Threads Mariana in one of her many huipiles that will be on exhibit & sale at the Hilos que Hablan event. that Speak), celebrating Mariana’s life and her legacy gift to the Esperanza. One evening, days before her passing, Graciela Sánchez, director of the Esperanza, Amy Kastely, Antonia Castañeda and Gloria Ramírez along with Lourdes Pérez and Annette D’Armata visited Mariana at her home as she laid in her hospital bed in her living room, where she had hosted many an evening with friends playing the harp and sipping wine. Once again, she received friends there in her last days of life. We joined Lourdes Pérez in singing to Mariana one of her favorite songs, Hasta Siempre, dedicated to Che Guevara that she often played on the harp.We lifted glasses of wine in a toast to Mariana’s life letting her know how much we valued her presence in each of our lives and in the lives of her students and colleagues at Palo Alto College and in her work with her community and neighborhood. Mariana was at peace, engaged with her visitors and aware of her state of being. It was then that she expressed to us her wish to donate her huipiles to the Esperanza. The huipil had special meaning to Mariana as it does to the Esperanza that has them for sale each year at the annual Peace Market. This special article of clothing usually made of organic fibers such as cotton, wool or silk is worn by indigenous women in parts of Mexico and throughout Guatemala. It represents the pueblos and cultures of specific indigenous communities and is used for daily wear with more elaborate ceremonial huipiles

LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • February 2019 Vol. 32 Issue 1•

tial Medal of Freedom recipient loved the accordion. She was Greek by birth but by all accounts with a Mexican heart. In 1982 when she enrolled at Tufts University earning a master’s degree in citizen participation and public policy, she met Willie Velásquez, founder of the Southwest Voter Registration and Education Project and Mariana wound up coming to San Antonio to work for the orgaMariana was part of the Free Speech Coalition that nization. In 1997, she challenged the city’s Pay Up or Shut Up policy. was hired at Palo Alto College as a professor of humanities and sociology. There, Ornelas taught the first course in Mexican American women’s studies and introduced students to strong female community leaders such as Maria Berriozábal and Rosie Castro. She also brought prominent jazz musicians to perform on campus. Mariana also co-founded the Dellview Area Neighborhood Association serving as president and served as a member of the city’s Zoning Commission. When she wrote an article for La Voz in 2006 after a trip to China, her love and interest in historic preservation was well noted in how she wrote about the destruction and urbanization (gentrification) taking place in Beijing, China’s hutongs [Beijing’s Rapid Urbanization and the Hutong, Ocotber 2006, La Voz de Esperanza]. She noted in the article that in San Antonio “Citizens regularly appear before planning, zoning commissions and city council to block harmful development projects and push for sustainable environmental policies…” She goes on to cite the PGA debates, the 2003 Tree Preservation Ordinance and the proposed Aquifer Protection Ordinance sponsored by AGUA. Mariana’s dedication to community extended to the indigenos pueblos represented in her collection of huipiles that will be featured at the Hilos que Hablan event will include huipiles from

specific states in Mexico and multiple regions throughout Guatemala. We will strive to give some background on each huipil and have been assisted in the initial stages of organizing this event by Frances Herrera, huipilista and immigration lawyer in San Antonio and artist, Carolina Rubio. Huipiles exhibited for sale will include huipils from the city of Juchitán, Tehuantepec in Mexico that are made from heavy velvet featuring large floral imagery to huipiles from pueblos throughout the state of Oaxaca featuring animals, plants and nature. Huipiles from pueblos of the many regions of Guatemala will feature more intricate designs and tight weaving in the tradition of indigenous weavers who have for centuries worn huipiles. In addition to the huipiles, Mariana, a consummate traveler, also bequeathed clothing (dresses, vests and blouses) she bought from her travels throughout Asia and South America. These items will also be for sale. We hope you join us in honoring and celebrating the life of this tireless advocate of social justice, inspiring teacher, consummate musician and dear friend on Saturday, March 9th, 2019 set for 6-9pm at the Esperanza at 922 San Pedro Ave. For additional information on the Mariana Ornelas Exhibit and Fundraising event, please call us at 210-228-0201 or email us at fundraising@ esperanzacenter.org. We invite you to submit any photos, video or other memorabilia that may be used in the exhibit honoring Mariana Ornelas, her life and legacy. Bring item(s) to the Esperanza at 922 San Pedro Ave. any day, Monday to Friday, between 10am-7pm, so we can make copies or scan photographs. The deadline to submit items is Friday, February 15th. Original items that need to be returned may be picked up by May 8th at the Esperanza or call 210.228.0201 for other arrangements. Mariana’s presence in our lives left us with a wealth of stories about her life. Should you wish to share a story about her, please email: fundraising@esperanzacenter.org with the subject “Mariana Story,” or drop off a hard copy to the Esperanza at 922 San Pedro Ave. You can also call 210.228.0201 and we can pick up your stories. If you are not on our mailing list and wish to receive an invitation to this event email: esperanza@esperanzacenter.org.

“Mariana was Greek by birth but by all accounts with a Mexican heart. “

A Brief History of the San Antonio Woolworth Building By Beth Standifird

Woolworth Building as it stands today. Courtesy Vincent Michael.

LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • February 2019 Vol. 32 Issue 1•

first city in the South to receive publicity for the desegregation of its lunch counters.”9 The Woolworth’s, a popular national discounter, fact that this particular store participated in the first came to San Antonio in 1912 and opened peaceful desegregation took on added signifia store on E. Houston Street. The comcance given the historical association of Alamo pany soon prospered enough to erect a new Plaza with freedom, public assembly, and makthree-story building “on San Antonio’s most ing public statements. Woolworth’s, by virtue prominent corner.”1 In June of 1921, the F. of its size, location, and company prominence, W. Woolworth Company opened its 5, 10, and played a key role in elevating San Antonio to 15 cent store at the intersection of E. Houston the national stage of civil rights history as a and Alamo Streets on Alamo Plaza, where the positive example in race relations. Jackie RobMaverick Bank Building once stood. inson, the African American baseball star who The $225,000 building had been designed helped integrate the major leagues, declared the by Adams and Adams.2 This local architectural Citizens stand in line at Woolworth’s cafeteria, event a story that “should be told around the firm designed other noteworthy structures in integrating the restaurant without incident, March 16, world.”10 Texas, including San Antonio’s Jefferson High 1960. Courtesy UTSA Libraries Special Collections The Woolworth Building became part School, the Hall of State for the Texas Centenof the Alamo Plaza National Register Historic District in 1977. nial in Dallas, and the Alamo Cenotaph, featuring Pompeo Coppini’s Inclusion in the city’s local landmark district followed in 1978. sculptures. 3 The newspaper ad announcing Woolworth’s formal Woolworth’s lunch counter continued to operate until 1986 opening boasted that, “We have added a number of features to our and the store was considered one of the oldest surviving in the service – but the one which you will appreciate most is our soda Woolworth chain before it closed in 1997.11 Express-News Senior fountain and lunch counter.”4 This lunch counter, touted by the local Critic Mike Greenberg opined in July of 1997 that, “If Woolmanager as the largest in the city,5 later catapulted San Antonio into worth’s decides to sell the building, city officials and downtown civil rights history. interests say it has strong potential for beefed-up retail use or as a On March 16, 1960, Woolworth’s became one of seven local visitor center and museum...With 45,000 square feet of space on stores that peacefully desegregated their lunch counters.6 No sit-in four levels, including a basement...”12 demonstrations were held, thanks to the cooperation of church Retail use won out when the Woolworth-owned Footlocker leaders, store managers, and members of the NAACP, who orshoe store opened in the space in 1998, followed in later years by chestrated the policy change behind the scenes.7 The San Antonio various entertainment-oriented businesses. The State of Texas Register, a local African-American newspaper, noted that, although purchased this building, along with the adjacent Palace Theater and Oklahoma City beat San Antonio for the distinction of becomCrockett Block, in December 2015. Two months later, Preservaing “the first southern, or southwestern, city to desegregate eating tion Texas added Woolworth’s to its 2016 Most Endangered Places facilities…San Antonio [was] the first, however, to act without list, reflecting the uncertainty of the building’s fate during the demonstrations, by resolving the issue in interracial conference.”8 Alamo master planning process. The San Antonio Express-News photographed history in the The Alamo Master Plan approved by City Council in 2017 had making at the Woolworth’s cafeteria, where the store’s equal service endorsed the reuse of the Woolworth Building, along with the Crockpolicy also helped San Antonio acquire the distinction of being “the ett Block and Palace Theater, as part of a planned Alamo Museum. During the interpretive planning of 2018, Join the “Save the Woolworth Building” effort. See Page 12 for more information Mayor Ron Nirenberg, District 1 Councilman Roberto Treviño, City Manager Sheryl Sculley, and County Judge Nelson Wolff went on the record supporting preservation of the three historic buildings. However, the 2018 interpretive plan approved by the Alamo Citizen Advisory Committee contradicted the earlier master plan by keeping the option open for the demolition of the Palace and Woolworth Buildings. This plan became effective on October 18, 2018, when the City of San Antonio accepted the Alamo Plaza lease and management agreement with the State of Texas.

Arundhati Roy on Fiction in the Face of Rising Fascism Interview by Laura Flanders @ Laura Flanders Show Reprinted from Truthout.org

LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • February 2019 Vol. 32 Issue 1•

Laura Flanders: You dedicate your book The Ministry of Utmost Happiness to the unconsoled, and I believe that we are unconsoled in this moment. But I do worry that we in the United States, as you’ve alluded, become inured, become maybe muddied in our seeing, in our thinking, because there’s so much coming at us at all times. Insofar as you have a take on what’s happening here, where do you think we are? And then obviously I want you to talk about home and where India is, because India we barely see at all.

Arundhati Roy: The thing is, people spend so much time mocking Trump or waiting for him to be impeached. And the danger with that kind of obsession with a single person is that you don’t see the system that produced him. You don’t see that, obviously, there was something about those eight years of Obama’s presidency that created Trump and if we just keep obsessing about this one person without seeing what would happen … what would happen if he wasn’t there tomorrow and Mike Pence came? Would it be better? You know? The kind of havoc that has been created in the world when I think about it now, between Europe and America increasingly, the simple truth is that these economies can only function by selling the weapons that they manufacture. Weapons which you cannot even imagine that the human mind can conceive of and they are doing the selling and we’re doing the buying. To keep that economy going, you need a world at war, or almost at war, or just about to go to war, whatever it is. Forget the past, but just look at it from 9/11 onwards. How many countries have been destroyed? Europe is now in chaos also because of the refugees and so on. But what is creating it? How is it possible to continuously believe that you can destabilize country after country after country and

anything good is going to come of it? LF: Is India destabilizing or stabilizing in a scary way? AR: India, it’s hard to say. This year’s going to be very important here. LF: How so? AR: Because the elections are coming next May and we’ve had a situation where somehow, since 1925, the goal of the Hindu nationalists was achieved in 2014 when Modi came to power with this absolute majority. In a way I was grateful for the absolute majority because there wasn’t anyone else to blame. There isn’t anyone else to blame for the chaos that has been unleashed. But what is very worrying is that, again, I keep saying you have to look and we have to find ways of keeping up our understanding of what’s going on. Two years ago Modi appeared on TV at 10 o’clock at night and announced that 80 percent of Indian currency was illegal from the next morning. That was like taking a baseball bat and breaking every single citizen’s spine. LF: They called it “demonetization.” AR: That’s right. We don’t even have a word in any Indian language for it. But then when you do that, regardless of the economic implications, what you’re doing is you’re sending a message saying, “I can control you at all points, every single one of you.” Now there’s another huge thing which they are trying to br ing into legislation called the Aadhaar card where every citizen’s private information, biometrics, all of it is going to be put on a unique identity card. Now, as you know, these databases are being hacked. People’s private information is being bought and sold. Information is gold now. That is a form of surveillance

and control that is there forever. Once they’ve got it there, you can’t undo it. People spend so much time mocking Trump, the danger with that kind of obsession with a single person is that you don’t see the system that produced him. So, these are things which are impossible to wrap your head around. You have the whole new media now. For example, I’m not even talking about Facebook, I’m not even talking about Twitter. I’m talking about a messaging service called WhatsApp, which is very, very big in India. And at one point all of us used to use it because it’s encrypted and the information [is] not available to the authorities. But now you have these kind of WhatsApp farms where fake news, fake videos, and videos that are meant to create communal conflagration are deliberately being sent around. So you have a situation where the only way now that Modi is going to win the election again, is to create massive communal strife between Hindus and Muslims, and so on. Or what they call a limited war with Pakistan, as you know, both are now nuclear neighbors. But the systematic sort of administering of hatred, a manifesto of hatred, is the basis of these people.

AR: The thing is that there are so many different kinds of rape, right? You might have a group of … [rapists who kill] a child, but do they then have huge processions [of] people supporting them? Do they have demands that they be released or that the investigation doesn’t continue or that the investigation is handed over to people whom the majority community “trust”? LF: As happened in this case. AR: Yes, as happened in this case, but it keeps happening. I mean, there was another person who was arrested for raping, a sort of god man. There were massive protests in his favor. There’s another god man called Asaram Bapu. He was convicted of rape. There had to be security alerts in three states because it was now a question of people supporting him. You see? It’s not just that one community rapes and the other doesn’t. It isn’t that. I’m talking about the public support that comes out. And then there’s sort of [a] ritualistic, almost satanic element to it. It isn’t just rape and kill, but there’s something so terrible about it that you wonder, what is it? What is it? And you read it. I mean she’s one child, but it’s happening all over now. And sometimes I wonder, is this something that requires the sacrifice of the most beautiful thing, which is a little

LF: Is there? How do you see it? AR: I don’t know. Because we are living in this world of feudalism and all kinds of strange beliefs. I don’t know. I mean, I really don’t know. I don’t know how to think about it. None of us know. We are all unable to understand how things have come to this. LF: Except you are able to talk about it because this entire book is you talking about it. AR: True. It’s me thinking about it, mourning about it, and then finding how much beauty still d oes exist in the saddest places. How much strength and power still exists. I have in the last 20 years spent time in what people would consider to be the darkest and most hopeless places, but they have not been dark and hopeless. There are people struggling against it, fighting against it, speaking against it. And I don’t mean in a shallow sort of sloganeering way, but as a way of life. As a deep, dense understanding with poetry and music. Each of these things has such a deep history. The poets that ordinary people in the book recite, love, and whose shrines they go to, to lay flowers. You look at the power of that. People don’t forget their poets, however much violence is done. LF: Is that what brought you back to fiction? AR: What brought me back to fiction was just that I had become, as I keep saying, like a sedimentary rock. I have these layers and layers of looking at things. In nonfiction, I have argued, I’ve fought, I’ve driven myself, and other people, crazy. But the complexity of it — the humor, the love, the maverick-ness, the poetry — all of that was accumulating too. I’ve been writing it for 10 years. I was not interested in writing just about one particular class. Just this whole ocean of languages, beliefs, religions, intimacies and anarchies. The fact is that we are facing majoritarianism, which is actually bordering on fascism — not European fascism, our own variety of it. Yet India is a land of minorities. A land whose people are divided formally into castes, religions and ethnicities. People look at India and think it’s … archaic, but society lives in a grid. This book is about people who somehow are off grid and through that off grid-ness, you shine the light on the grid and you look at it, wonder about it. LF: Maybe we put our hope in the wrong places. Are we wrong to put our hope in democracy, elections? AR: Well, right now at this point in time, I am not one, though I have been one of those people who has all this time said how little difference there is between the various

Continued on Page 10

LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • February 2019 Vol. 32 Issue 1•

LF: We wonder about that here in the US, too. Once that hatred has been unleashed, is the individual required, if Modi doesn’t get elected or doesn’t get an absolute majority in 2019…? Is that the end of it? I mean, there was an eight-year-old girl kidnapped, raped, and murdered, Asifa Bano, recently. We can talk about who did it, et cetera, but what killed her? How do you reel that back?

girl? Is there something more to it than just carnal lust and brutality?

JT Deely (1977-2018): Energy Dusk to Energy Dawn Climate Action SA turns a funeral into a celebration while marking the last gasps of San Antonio’s oldest and dirtiest coal plant.

LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • February 2019 Vol. 32 Issue 1•

Marisol Cortez & Greg Harman, decleration.news

The tables were laid out with tamales and sangria (not to mention gluten-free vegan cupcakes), the walls covered in news articles telling a lengthy story of resistance. Inside Galería Guadalupe on San Antonio’s Westside, dancing feet shared time with celebratory speeches by community leaders, all to mark a momentous occasion: the beginning of the end of San Antonio’s coal age. In just a matter of days–on December 31, to be precise–the City-owned utility would finally shutter 40-year-old, 840-megawatt J.T. “Dirty” Deely– and local residents, many of whom had dedicated years of concerted engagement to closing the plant, couldn’t wait to throw the behemoth a retirement bash. Efforts to shut down San Antonio’s oldest and dirtiest coal plant date back more than a decade and were cemented in a 2011 deal struck between the environmental community and former CPS Energy CEO Doyle Beneby, which allowed the utility to avoid paying millions for pollution-reduction technologies in exchange for early closure. On December 15, nearly 200 celebrants from a wide swath of San Antonio’s environmental, climate, youth, and justice communities gathered for a four-hour “shutdown getdown,” an evening of potluck-swapped food and drink, coal-fight war stories, and dancing to the conjunto funk of Los Nahuatlatos and The Indigenauts. As captured by the welcome text posted at the front of the gallery: “We can’t take back the thousands of childhood asthma cases, premature deaths, and coal-connected heart attacks inflicted during these years of waiting. There’s no recalling the tens of millions of tons of globe-warming gases emitted between then and now. “But what’s not to celebrate in the closure of a beast like this, the largest emitter in the San Antonio region of brain-poisoning lead and mercury? What’s not to dance to?” Karla Aguilar of the Tap Pilam Coahuiltecan Nation offered the opening blessing, expressing “gratitude and encouragement to those of you who have been doing this work to shut down the Deely plant … and my prayers that it can be the first step in the right direction, to increase the dialogue in San Antonio and our

region to understand that this is just the first step.” Crucially, her blessing acknowledged that “all of those ones that are putting in the work have an understanding that the insurmountable cost of climate change is outrageously more than the growing pains of shifting to a green economy.” A press conference followed, with multiple speakers emphasizing that while the Deely closure is a major victory for environmental justice and public health, it is more significantly a way station in the current, ongoing effort to force the city to craft a climate plan that commits to closing down all coal plants by 2025 and transitioning to all renewable energy by 2030. As stated by Briauna Barrera of Public Citizen and the Climate Action SA coalition: “The battle to close Deely has been won, but the war for a fossil-free future continues. The City of San Antonio is leading an effort to create a climate plan, but a truly effective climate plan means shutting down all our coal plants and all of our natural gas infrastructure and rapidly transitioning to renewable energy. It means shifting priorities from those of endless growth to those of stability and sustainability. And it means redistributing resources.” Following the blessing and press conference, a celebratory dirge and procession organized by climate justice artivist Alice Canestaro-Garcia and choreographed by decolonial dancer Fabiola Torralba officially kicked off the party, leading participants into the gallery space (see final few minutes of video above, after press conference speakers). Yet as integral as fighting words or creative resistance were to the celebration, the heart of the event (for this liberation sociologist as least) was its documentation of the deep history bound up in the hearts and bodies of folks who participated, in many cases from the beginning, on the frontline of the long, slow struggle to close Deely. Though we missed several oral histories, including those of long-time Sierra Club activists Loretta Van Coppenolle and Jerry Morrisey, here are two we did capture, one from Karen Hadden of the SEED Coalition

Lung Association. But as made clear in KSAT 12’s interview with current CPS Energy CEO Paula Gold-Williams, the city’s public utility is having a hard time letting go of the utility’s fossil fuel addiction—and an even harder time registering the community’s framing of Deely’s closure in terms of climate justice and public health rather than dollars and cents. In spite of recent promises by CPS Chief Operating Officer Cris Eugster that CPS “will not be building a large base-load power plant again,” GoldWilliams has instructed staff to explore how much it would cost to convert the structure into … wait for it … a natural gas plant. “We are having to do quite a bit of analysis,” she told KSAT reporter Sarah Acosta this week, “because once you use that footprint for coal, it’s pretty challenging to convert it to a gas unit. But we are looking at it to see if the economics of it do work to do something else with that unit.” The former utility financial officer hasn’t quite gotten the lay of the land when it comes to the severity of our current climate crisis. Neither does she own up to the fact that coal kills. Shutting down Deely, she told Acosta, was the right decision “from an environmental standpoint.” Not, we must point out, from a public health standpoint. And the future, she insists, “will be focused on gas and then new technologies coming down the pipe,” rather than the already existing clean-energy technology or carbonfree goals already under discussion in the city’s climate planning process. And so, we continue. Another day; another tango. The re-education of Paula Gold-Williams begins now.

!a y ! y a d d w w e e n n a’ s a s ’ t t . .I . I . GG o o do dB yBey e D eDeeley .l y .

LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • February 2019 Vol. 32 Issue 1•

(who discussed the Deely closure in the context of several other, overlapping dirty energy fights) and the second from environmental attorney Enrique Valdivia. These testimonios (bit. ly/deely-testimony)were further complemented by a small exhibit posted to the gallery walls, compiled by Russell Seal and Peter Bella, with archival materials and photographs detailing the fight against Deely but also those against the younger J.K. Spruce coal plant and the South Texas Nuclear Project. Listening to these stories, bumping into people we have worked alongside at various points but haven’t seen in years, remembering the intimacy of that work, recognizing those we know in photographs and newspaper articles, recognizing ourselves as a part of the histories recalled (and in some cases as documentarian)—we discover that if this is a story about energy descent, it is equally one about the long horizons of struggle and the relations of friendship and solidarity that emerge in the process. And if it is an effort to document what happened and what we accomplished, it is also a reminder of how much of the story of that struggle remains within us, untold or unheard, to be recorded or written down or summoned forth in dance or song or prayer. And, equally, if it is the celebration of an ending, it is also the ceremonial recognition of what begins and continues—of the work that remains. Deely’s last gasp arrived on December 31, 2018. A few of us got word of a TV truck prowling toward Calaveras Lake. New Year’s Eve champers in hand, we went into pursuit to make sure that local media, which had largely ignored the community story behind Deely’s demise, took proper notice. And as the News4 van returned to basecamp SA with a story of our lake-side toasting, we also double downed with more of our own documentation. An interesting (and sobering) postscript has emerged from this hard-won local media coverage. Those who labored long and hard to close Deely fully expected that its post-retirement plans would be limited to fishing in Calaveras Lake (watch out for that mercury, tho) and engaging in karmic repair by volunteering with the American

Julian Castro for President The Changing Face of the United States

Editor’s Note: The Esperanza Peace & Justice Center and its publication of La Voz de Esperanza do not endorse candidates for office. We offer space in La Voz for articles that express an opinion on candidates running for a variety of offices and on propositions up for a vote. We welcome more articles on the candidates running as the 2020 presidential elections approach.

LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • February 2019 Vol. 32 Issue 1•

By Joel Rodríguez

From the outside looking in, San Antonio stands out as an oxymoron of sorts; A booming city with a majority of Latin and Native Americans deep in the heart of Texas, a Republican “red” state. Success here is intertwined with inequality, technology evolves around tradition, and history competes with modernity to create a unique culture that is the very essence of San Antonio. Julian Castro is a shining example of this powerful and beautiful mixture, combining the struggles of a culture with the progress of equality around the country and the world. The actions of men like Castro symbolize how all of us as Latin and Native Americans have the capacity to participate in government affairs.

Unfortunately, many of us have not been raised with an awareness for citizen responsibility. As our parents and grandparents were raised in a different era, in a time of segregation and transition, at times we find ourselves falling backwards even as our momentum continues to propel us forward. Although this feels natural and gives us a sense of security, it does not honor those who came before us. In fact, it undermines the suffering and hard work that they lived through to get us to this pivotal point in United States history. Participating in government is a right that has been earned by the struggles of the past. Julian Castro and the City of San Antonio are in a position to be a beacon of hope for Latin and Native Americans in the United States and around the world. We owe it to our parents, our grandparents, and ourselves to promote home grown representatives as well as our Latin and Native American culture both domestically and internationally. A vote for Castro is a vote for progress. In Solidarity, Joel.

Julián Castro announced his candidacy for President in front of the Guadalupe Church on the westside of San Antonio.

Arundhati Roy Continued from Page 7 political parties. But today in India, we are facing a sittion where if the BJP comes back in 2019, I don’t think there’s going to be anything left of what we thought of. With all its flaws, it’s not that you’ll be voting for a friend, but just for the enemy that you want to have. So I don’t think we can afford to leave any spaces unchallenged and unfought, including the elections. But if all of us think that by defeating Modi or by impeaching Trump things are going to be OK, we got to have some extra iodine every night. BIO: Laura Flanders, a best-selling author of six books, a broadcaster and a contributing writer to The Nation, Truthout and YES! Magazine (‘Commonomics’) is also a regular guest on MSNBC. Follow her on Twitter: @GRITlaura.

Bio: Joel Rodríguez is founder and organizer of the Latin American Historical Awareness Society of the Americas: LAHASA.org

Psssttt! While you’re here we need your help

Since Donald Trump took office, progressive journalism has been under constant attack and companies like Facebook and Google have changed their policies to limit your access to sites like Truthout. The result is that our articles are reaching fewer people at a time when we need genuinely independent news more than ever. Here’s how you can help: Since Truthout doesn’t run ads or take corporate or government money, we rely on our readers for support. By making a monthly or one-time donation of any amount, you’ll help us publish and distribute stories that have a real impact on people’s lives. Go to truthout.org and click on the Donate button.

US Border Patrol Unleashes Tear Gas Against Children in Mexico By Jake Johnson, Common Dreams

LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • February 2019 Vol. 32 Issue 1•

In what human rights groups condemned as a “cruel and Dreams reported, CBP agents fired tear gas across the U.S.inhumane” act that Mexico border in late November, forcing must be independently women and children to flee “screaming investigated, agents and coughing.” with President Donald The Trump administration’s use of Trump’s Customs and chemical agents against asylum-seekers Border Protection (CBP) comes amid a government shutdown on Tuesday reportedly over the president’s demand for $5 bilhit women, children, and lion in border wall funding. journalists near the U.S.While Democratic leaders have thus Mexico border with tear far rejected Trump’s demand for wall gas, smoke, and pepper money, progressive advocacy groups spray. raised alarm in a letter last week that the According to an AssociDemocrats’ plan to reopen the governated Press photographer ment present at the scene, CBP would agents fired “at least still proA migrant family, part of a caravan of thousands traveling from Central America three volleys of gas” vide the to the U.S., run away from tear gas in into Mexico at around Departfront of the border wall between the U.S. 150 asylum-seekers who and Mexico in Tijuana, Mexico, on Nov. ment of approached the border in 25, 2018. Kim Kyung Hoon—Reuters Homethe early hours of Tuesland day morning. Security Contradicting CBP’s claim that the tear gas was used (DHS)— to deter migrants who were throwing rocks over the borwhich der fence, the AP photographer said rocks were thrown oversees “only after U.S. agents fired the tear gas.” CBP— In a statement Tuesday night, Justin Mazzola, deputy with subdirector of research at Amnesty International, said CBP’s An activist helps a couple of Central American migrants who were affected by stantial the tear gas that the border police threw into Mexican territory to prevent them actions should be viewed as part of the Trump adminisfunding from crossing into the U.S. on January 1, 2019, in Tijuana, Mexico. Cristopher tration’s sweeping anti-immigrant agenda. to carry Rogel Blanquet / Getty Images “Using tear gas against men, women, and children out the seeking protection is cruel and inhumane,” Mazzola declared. president’s anti-immigrant agenda. “There needs to be a thorough and independent investigation “As much as we all desire an end to the shutdown,” the into the reported use of tear gas and other agents in this incigroups wrote, “rewarding Trump’s DHS with border barrier dent. However, this incident needs to be examined within the money is the wrong course of action, especially at a time broader context of US policies at the border.” when its personnel are tear gassing toddlers, separating and “The Trump administration is defying international law detaining families and presiding over custodial deaths, includand orchestrating a crisis by deliberately turning asyluming those of a 7-year-old girl named Jakelin and an 8-year-old seekers away from ports of entry, endangering families who boy named Felipe in Border Patrol custody just this month.” see no choice but to take desperate measures in their search As Hurricane Trump intensifies his campaign of chaos and for protection,” he continued. “These dangerous policies must destruction, leaving federal workers, food stamp recipients end immediately. The U.S. must welcome people safely into and migrants in its wake, we need to redouble our efforts to the country while their asylum claims are reviewed.” end the devastation. CBP’s use of tear gas against asylum-seekers on Tuesday marked the second time the agency has fired the chemical Jake Johnson is a staff writer for Common Dreams. Follow into Mexico over the past several weeks alone. As Common him on Twitter: @johnsonjakep. Reprinted with permission.

Mil Gracias to our End-of-Year Donors!

LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • February 2019 Vol. 32 Issue 1•

Pat Saliba & Linda Libby Meredith McGuire & Jim Spickard Gloria Ramírez Marian J. I. Walls Laura Butterfield Alicia Arredondo Mary L. Croft & Thomas H. Croft Jr. Robert & Rosa Milk Maria & Manny Berriozábal Modesta Treviño Will Wauters & Ana Guerra-Wauters Connie Reyes & Philip Reyes Margaret Joseph Juanita Criado Dolores & Julio Esparza Daniel Graney & Rolando Jaimes Mesco Julio González & Estela González Dwight Platt Liz Helenchild Maria Socorro (Choco)

Leandro-Dresser & Robert Dresser Richard C. Arredondo NIcholas R. Moreno Jerry Ramírez Mary Elizabeth Schultz G.A. Ozuna & Y. Ozuna Laura J. González Dudley D. Brooks & Tomas Ybarra Frausto Graciela Rosales Deborah Myers & Mary Irma Valdez (Nickie) Yolanda M. Patino, Rowena V Sancho & Patience M Lares Guillermo C. Nicolás Kathleen Hudson Daniel Gonzales

Wishing you

Laura E. Burt Graciela Sánchez Sylvia Reyna Maria Velásquez Miller Hector & Delia Cárdenas David Peña Jr. Sagrano González- Mejia & Adán González David D. Dobbs José Rodríguez Jan Davis Arturo Madrid & Antonia Castañeda. Ray Mc Donald Sister JT Dwyer Arturo R. Morales & Mary Hope Morales Dr. Cynthia Orozco

Save the Woolworth Building In December 2018, the Esperanza Peace & Justice Center joined the Coalition for the Woolworth Building, a grass-roots advocacy group that supports the preservation of San Antonio’s iconic Woolworth Building located across the street from the Alamo. We want to build on the historic site’s presence in Alamo Plaza to share an integrated history that includes African-Americans and the Civil Rights Movement. Coalition members include the San Antonio African American Community Archives and Museum, Westside Preservation Alliance, San Antonio Conservation Society, and concerned historians, civic leaders, and community members. We invite you to get involved and share your support for saving the Woolworth Building by contacting:

Commissioner George P. Bush, Texas General Land Office, Email: bit.ly/tx_land_office Phone: 1-800-998-4GLO (4456) State Senator José Menéndez (District 26) Website : bit.ly/sen_menendez Phone: (512) 463-0126 (Capitol) or (210) 733-6604 (District Office) State Representative Diego Bernal (District 123) Website: bit.ly/rep_bernal Phone: (512) 463-0532 (Capitol) or (210) 308-9700 (District Office)

and your loved ones a Happy New Year in 2019

We are water

A special

oozing over walls, under and around.

thanks to our MONTHLY

ESPERANZA

DONORS ALWAYS,

we currently have

NEW AND OLD — ¡Gracias!

Refugees

125

110

150

Monthly Donors

We are music and poems wafting in air for all to breathe. We are truth lacing down lies,

Please Help Us Reach Our Goal of 150 Monthly Donors!

ever risking, ever rising.

Call Natalie @ 210.228.0201 to sign up in 2019!

Here, There by Pablo Martinez

Tom Keene and Muse December 18, 2018

In shelters from Kansas to New York, hundreds of migrant children have been roused in the middle of the night in recent weeks and loaded onto buses with backpacks and snacks for a cross-country journey to their new home: a barren tent city on a sprawling patch of desert in West Texas. —The New York Times, September 30, 2018

They call it Tornillo, Mamá. Every day we are drilled deeper into sunburned chambers. Yes, some night-dreams sneak in, but before you know it, they’re pawed and caged in babies’ cries. The nights are furred hunger, Mamá, a growling that never swells into fiesta’s loud-color cheer. Here there’s a stiff list of no’s: no cartwheels, no books filled with heroes, no caricias, no besos. Our memories keep getting caught on spines of nopal. Here, tomorrow is blanketed, Mamá—foiled. Chelita says you are fading to a dot, a faraway point when she squints. Why did you disappear, Mamá? Here no wind-jewels to ring my wrist, shells Abuela strung, shells that sing when I clap, when I run to you, only you, when daylight Tent city at the runs out. A la ru-ru. You’d smooth our hair, Mamá. At night, Marcelino Serna Port no canciones de cuna, only fright-twisted smiles, no Mami kisses, of Entry in Tornillo, Far no starry faldas twirling across our folclórico sky. No rhymes West Texas. to soothe me and Chela when locks clank—an exclamation at the end of a sentence—when we cry. Soon I will clap, the bright shells filled with sound like raindrops back home. Back home, Mamá, away from this AP: Nearly 2,000 sand-without-sea, orphan emptiness. children were Please tell Abuela to send her angels to rouse us. We are ready to leap, to fly, to hold you, Mamá. For now, we wait, wingless, and think of our casita and those mornings and braids and atole and you and Abuela, there and here, the words so close, so separate, so far.

separated from their families at the border over a period of 6 Weeks in June. Buzz60. Source: El Paso Times

LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • February 2019 Vol. 32 Issue 1•

* community meetings * LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • February 2019 Vol. 32 Issue 1•

Amnesty International #127 Call Arthur @ 210.213.5919 for info.

oasanantonio.org | 210.492.5400.

Bexar Co. Green Party: Call 210. 471.1791 | bcgp@bexargreens.org

PFLAG, meets 1st Thurs. @ 7pm, University Presbyterian Church 300 Bushnell Ave. | 210.848.7407.

Celebration Circle meets Sun., 11am @ Say Sí, 1518 S. Alamo. Meditation: Weds @7:30pm, Friends Meeting House, 7052 Vandiver. 210.533.6767.

Parents of Murdered Children, meets 2nd Mondays @ Balcones Heights Com. Ctr, 107 Glenarm | www.pomcsanantonio.org.

DIGNITY SA Mass, 5:30pm, Sun. @ St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 1018 E. Grayson St. | 210.340.2230

Rape Crisis Center, 4606 Centerview Suite 200, Hotline: 210.349.7273 | 210.521.7273 Email:sschwab@ rapecrisis.com

Adult Wellness Support Group of PRIDE Center meets 4th Mon., The Religious Society of Friends 7-9pm @ Lions Field, 2809 Broadway. meets Sunday @10am @ The Friends Call 210.213.5919. Meeting House, 7052 N. Vandiver. | 210.945.8456. Energía Mía: Call 512.838-3351 for information. S.A. Gender Association meets 1st & 3rd Thursday, 6-9pm @ 611 E. Myrtle, Fuerza Unida, 710 New Laredo Hwy. Metropolitan Community Church. www.lafuerzaunida.org | 210.927.2294 SA AIDS Fdn 818 E. Grayson St. Habitat for Humanity meets 1st offers free Syphilis & HIV testing | Tues. for volunteers, 6pm, HFHSA 210.225.4715 | www.txsaaf.org. Office @ 311 Probandt. SA Women Will March: www. LGBTQ LULAC Council #22198 sawomenwillmarch.org | (830) 488meets 3rd Thursdays @ 6:45pm 7493 @ Luby’s on Main. E-mail: info@ SGI-USA LGBT Buddhists meet 2nd lulac22198.org Sat. at 10am @ 7142 San Pedro Ave., rd NOW SA meets 3 Wed See FB | Ste 117 | 210.653.7755. satx.now for info | 210. 802. 9068 | Shambhala Buddhist Meditation nowsaareachapter@gmail.com Tues. 7pm & Sun. 9:30am 257 E. Pax Christi, SA meets monthly on Hildebrand Ave. | 210.222.9303. Saturdays. Call 210.460.8448 S.N.A.P. (Survivors Network of Proyecto Hospitalidad Liturgy meets those Abused by Priests). Contact Thurs. 7pm, 325 Courtland. Barbara at 210.725.8329. Metropolitan Community Church Voice for Animals: 210.737.3138 or services & Sunday school 10:30am, www.voiceforanimals.org 611 East Myrtle. Call 210.472.3597 SA’s LGBTQA Youth meets Tues., Overeaters Anonymous meets 6:30pm at Univ. Presby. Church, 300 MWF in Sp & daily in Eng. www. Bushnell Ave. | www.fiesta-youth.org

Start your 2019 tax deductible gifts Give to the Esperanza in spirit of solidarity so we can continue to speak out, organize and fight for our communities for another 30 Years. Your support is needed NOW more than ever! Thank you for your gifts! Send donations to Esperanza

Esperanza Peace And Justice Center 922 San Pedro Avenue San Antonio, Tx 78212 To sign up as a monthly donor, Call 210.228.0201 or email: fundraising @esperanzacenter.org Visit www.esperanzacenter.org/donate for online giving options.

¡Mil Gracias!

Send your 2019 tax-deductible donations to Esperanza today! I would like to donate $________ each month by automatic bank withdrawal. Contact me to sign up.

I would like to send $________ each ___ month ___ quarter ___ six-months through the mail.

Name _____________________________________________________________________________________ Address ___________________________________________________________________________________ City, State, Zip ______________________________________________________________________________ Phone ____________________________Email_____________________________________________________ For more information, call 210-228-0201 Make checks payable to the Esperanza Peace & Justice Center. Send to 922 San Pedro, SA TX 78212. Donations to the Esperanza are tax deductible.

Enclosed is a donation of ___ $1000 ___ $500 ___ $250 ___ $100

___ $50

___ $15

___ 10

___ $25

La Voz Subscription ___ $35 Individuals ___ $100 Institutions ___ other $ _______________ I would like to volunteer Please use my donation for the Rinconcito de Esperanza

Notas Y Más February 2019

Centro Cultural Aztlán has presented the annual Segundo de Febrero exhibit since 1978. The 2019 exhibit, Borrando Fronteras/Erasing Borders, commemorates the anniversary of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the ending of the U.S. Mexican war, and the redistribution of a border creating a new bicultural citizenry with a new consciousness of Mexican American dual identity, history, culture and traditions.The opening reception is Saturday, February 2nd from 6-9 p.m. and continues through February 28th, M-F, 9am-5pm. See www. centroaztlan.org/ for more.

Brief news items on upcoming community events. Send items for Notas y Más to: lavoz@esperanzacenter.org or mail to: 922 San Pedro, San Antonio, TX 78212. The deadline is the 8th of each month.

Frontera in Focus, the nation’s first and longest running independent Latino film festival is set for July 11-14, 2019 at the historic Guadalupe Theater in San Antonio. The annual film fest is sponsored by the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center. Films can be submitted for consideration through February 8th at: filmfreeway.com/SanAntonioCineFestival or see: www.guadalupeculturalarts.org/ cinefestival-copy/ for more.

The Julian Samora Research Institute (JSRI) at Michigan State University is holding a Graduate Student Paper Competition as part of its 30th Anniversary Conference Celebration on October 31 – November 2, 2019. The conference theme is “Latina/os and the Renewal of U.S. Democracy.” The winner will receive an award of $2,000 and will present at the conference. Submissions are solicited on a broad range of topics focused on Latina/o communities in the Midwest. Deadline is August 2nd. See: jsri.msu.edu. The Nation, the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the U.S., and the most widely read weekly journal of progressive political and cultural news has been hosting unique travel experiences for readers and supporters since 1998. Their mission has always been to design singular excursions for our community of adventurous, intellectually curious, and open-minded progressives. Find out more at: thenation.com

July 23 – 28, 2019 • Texas A&M University • San Antonio Texas

MACONDO Writers Workshop The Macondo Writers Workshop is an association of socially-engaged writers working to advance creativity, foster generosity, and serve community. Founded in 1998 by writer Sandra Cisneros and named after the town in Gabriel García Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, the workshop gathers writers from all genres who work on geographic, cultural, economic, gender, and spiritual borders. An essential aspect of the Macondo Workshop is a global sense of community; participants recognize their place as writers in our society and the world. Workshops/Instructors: Fiction: Helena Maria Viramontes • Poetry: Sherwin Bitsui • Cre-

ative Non-Fiction/Memoir: Joy Castro • Fiction, Creative Non-Fiction and Memoir Veterana/os Course: Sandra Cisneros and Ruth Behar (open only to past Macondistas with preference given to those who have served in an advisory capacity, given a seminar or a workshop). Plus! 2019 Independent Project Chuparosa Residency (open to past Macondistas only). The application deadline is February 15, 2019. Accepted participants will be announced no later than March 31, 2019. For Details and Information: www.MacondoWriters.com or Facebook: Macondo Writer’s Workshop Application

LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • February 2019 Vol. 32 Issue 1•

Welcoming Immigrants and Newcomers in Turbulent Times: Knowledge, Connections and Action sets the stage for the 18th annual 2019 Cambio Conference set for June 5-7 The 7th Annual Bexar County/ in Columbia, Missouri. Cambio de Colores ArtsFund—Art’s Internship Program— is (Change of Colors) is a multistate accepting applications from nonprofit arts conference about integration of immigrants organizations in Bexar County. Ten groups in new destinations. People who work with will be selected to receive funds to Latinos and immigrant communities come provide one paid internship to an together to share research and best practices undergraduate student to assist their that facilitate the integration of newcomers. organization with seasonal or special A Call for Presentations is now open. projects in the summer of 2019. The grant Deadline is February 14th at 11:59pm. provides $3500 to each group , for a See: CambioConference.wordpress.com/ 10-week internship, from June 3 to August 9, 2019. The deadline to submit The 2019 National applications is February 8th by 4pm. Association for Chicana and Read the 2019 Bexar County Arts Chicano Studies (NACCS)– Internship Guidelines at: theartsfundsa. Tejas Foco is a regional wildapricot.org/Arts-Internship interdisciplinary conference to be held at The 41st edition of CineFestival, Houston Community College, Eastside

Campus, on February 14-16. The 2019 theme is Semillas de Poder: Honoring Chicana/o/x Movements & Mapping 21st Century Resistance. For more go to: www. naccs.org/naccs/Tejas.asp

LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • February 2019 Vol. 32 Issue 1•

Second Saturday Convivio

Do you remember Ruben’s Ice House?

Saturday Feb. 9th at 10am Monthly at the Casa de Cuentos, 816 S. Colorado St. SA TX 78207 Photo scanning & story sharing + fun!

We’re collecting memories, stories, and photos of Ruben’s Ice House, the future home of Esperanza’s Museo del Westside. If you would like to participate, call 210-228-0201 or email museo@esperanzacenter.org. Gracias!

Call 210-228-0201 for more information

para el mes de

amor

Noche Azul de Esperanza

Esperanza Peace & Justice Center

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

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

Haven’topened Haven’t openedLa LaVoz Vozinina awhile? while? Prefer Prefertotoread readititonline? online?Wrong Wrongaddress? address? TO CANCEL AA SUBSCRIPTION SUBSCRIPTIONEMAIL Email:lavoz@esperanzacenter.org lavoz@esperanzacenter.orgCALL: CALL:210.228.0201 210.228.0201

Saturday Feb.16 @ 8pm and Sunday Feb. 17 @ 3pm Tickets: $7

más o menos at the door Doors open 1 hr. before show Donations appreciated. call 210-228-0201 for info 922 San Pedro, SA TX 78212 www.esperanzacenter.org

SAVE THE DATE!

CHICANA MOVIDAS

New Narratives of Activism and Feminism in the Movement Era

Handmade Con Amor MujerArtes Exhibit + Sale MujerArtes Studio Feb. 2‑14 at Rinconcito de Esperanza,

816 S Colorado St, San Antonio, TX 78207

Opening Sat. FEB. 2 @ 6:00 pm

Hours: Saturdays 11am-3pm Monday to Friday 9am-4pm Book reading & Plática with editors: Dionne Espinoza, María Eugenia Cotera & Maylei Blackwell Plus, some contributing writers (TBA).

Sunday, March 3, 2019 @ 3pm Esperanza Peace & Justice Center, 922 San Pedro

When you purchase a hand-built clay art piece at MujerArtes, you help support the clay arts cooperative and nurture the talents of individual women artists from San Antonio’s Westside community. Find unique expressions of love from MujerArtes to celebrate your love this February!

Call 210-228-0201 for more info • www.esperanzacenter.org