La Voz - March 2016 by Esperanza Peace and Justice Center

a publication of the Esperanza Peace & Justice Center

March 2016, Vol. 29 Issue 2

San Antonio, Tejas

Plática with Cherríe Moraga at Esperanza Saturday, March 26 @ 7pm

La Voz de Esperanza March 2016 vol. 29 Issue 2

Editor Gloria A. Ramírez Design Elizandro Carrington Contributors

BAJI (The Black Alliance for Just Immigration), Esther Cantú, Rachel Hanes, Cherríe Moraga, Virginia Raymond, Randi M. Romo La Voz Mail Collective

Olga Crespin, Elisabeth Delgado, Juan Diaz, Margarita Elizarde, Charlie Esperiqueta, Mary Esperiqueta, Diamond GG, Rachel Hanes, Teresa Hernández, Nick Kim, Ray McDonald, D.L. McWhite, Maria J. Medellin, Angelita Merla, Sylvia Mireles, Maria Plemmons , Maria N. Reed, Blanca Rivera, Mary A. Rodriguez, Mike Sánchez, Guadalupe Segura, D.L. Stokes, Sandra Torres, Tomasa Torres

Esperanza Director Graciela I. Sánchez Esperanza Staff Imelda Arismendez, Elizandro Carrington, Elisa Pérez, Gianna Rendón, René Saenz, Susana Segura, Amelia Valdez

LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • March 2016 Vol. 29 Issue 2•

Interns

Paz García, Alexuss Green, Rachel Hanes, Nick Kim, Cameron King, Natalie Rodríguez

Conjunto de Nepantleras

Thirty-five years ago in 1981, This Bridge Called My Back was “collectively penned” and it remains the “bible” of radical woman of color feminist thought. It challenges us to recreate a world that is all inclusive with all of its complexities and contradictions that reaches outside— to bring everyone in towards full acceptance and validation. Bridge continues to challenge us to recreate that world. Thirty years ago in 1986 UTSA began celebrating Women’s History Month with programming for an entire week! Now the Month is celebrated with a full slate of activites. This year they will bring back its founders, most notably Linda Pritchard who worked with the women’s community in San Antonio and the Esperanza back then. We congratulate the Women’s Institute and challenge them to continue bringing radical women of color events year-round, for it is the Bridges of radical women of color that will connect us to global liberation. Join us on March 26th as we talk with Cherríe Moraga about the 35 years of This Bridge Called My Back, Writings by Radical Women of Color. (See back page.)

2016 UTSA Women’s History Month 1986 and Beyond: 30 Years of Empowerment through Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Opening: March 1, 2016—2 pm Main Campus, Univ. Ctr., Retama Aud. (2.02.02) With Dr. Susan Smulyan, Brown University Dr. Linda Pritchard, Eastern Michigan University Co-Founders of UTSA Women’s History Week

Women’s History Month Conference Jewelle Gomez, Third-wave world feminist author and editor; Isabel Ann Castro and Natasha Hernández, cofounders of St. Sucia: A Zine Exposing What it is to be a Mujer; James McGrath Morris on Ethel Payne:First Lady of the Black Press; Dr. Kristen Hogan on The Feminist Bookstore Movement and many more! For schedule: http://bit.ly/UTSA_WOMEN

Sanchez Fuentes Lanier Scholarship Fund

-Esperanza Board of DirectorsRachel Jennings, Amy Kastely, Jan Olsen, , Ana Lucía Ramírez, Gloria A. Ramírez, Rudy Rosales, Tiffany Ross, Lilliana Saldaña, Nadine Saliba, Graciela I. Sánchez, Lillian Stevens

¡BAILE! Tickets: $7 with DJ El General Saturday, April 9th-8pm

• 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.

Esperanza Peace & Justice Center 922 San Pedro

La Voz de Esperanza

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is a publication of Esperanza Peace & Justice Center 922 San Pedro, San Antonio, TX 78212

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* 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.

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.

“Catching Fire” By Cherríe Moraga

An Excerpt from the Preface to the Fourth Edition of

This Bridge Called My Back Writings by Radical Women of Color Edited by Cherríe Moraga & Gloria Anzaldúa

Editor’s note: La Voz offers our readers this excerpt of Catching Fire, Preface to the Fourth Edition of This Bridge Called My Back written by Cherríe Moraga and published by SUNY Press in 2015. Cherríe will be at Esperanza on March 26th speaking on “La Fuerza de Este Puente”|“The Power of This Bridge” and its enduring impact after 35 years. Check the back of La Voz for complete information. [Reprinted with permission]

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I was twenty-seven years old when Gloria Anzaldúa and I entered upon the project of This Bridge Called My Back. I am now sixty-two. As I age, I watch the divide between generations widen with time and technology. I watch how desperately we need political memory, so that we are not always imagining ourselves the ever-inventors of our revolution; so that we are humbled by the valiant efforts of our foremothers; and so, with humility and a firm foothold in history, we can ent er upon an informed and re-envisioned strategy for social/political change in decades ahead. Bridge is an account of U.S. women of color coming to late 20th century social consciousness through conflict—familial and institutional— and arriving at a politic, a “theory in the flesh” (19), that makes sense of the seeming paradoxes of our lives; that complex confluence of identities—race, class, gender, sexuality—systemic to women of color oppression and liberation. At home, amongst ourselves, women of color ask the political question: what about us? Which really means: what about all of us? Combahee River Collective writes: If Black [Indigenous]6 women were free . . . everyone else would have to be free since our freedom would necessitate the destruction of all the systems of oppression” (217). We are “third world” consciousness within the first world. We are women under capitalist patriarchy. We can impact United States foreign and domestic policy as union members, as organized domestic and service workers, as community farmers, as sex worker advocates and Native water rights activists, as student protesters and street protesters, as mountaintop mining resisters, as migrant workers and migrant rights workers, as public health care providers, as single-mothers really raising our kids and as academics really decolonizing young minds. We

do all this in concert with women across the globe pursuing the same goals: a shared and thriving existence in a world where our leaders have for the most part abandoned us and on a planet on the brink of utter abandonment. Is not the United States’ delayed and “party-politics” response to the Ebola virus plagued with “exceptionalism” and xenophobia? Africa is not us, America lies. But, as women of color, how are we to look away from mirror of the Monrovian mother sitting stunned and broken by the small heap of crumbled cloth that is her now dead daughter7. It is not so far away. Global warming. Campus rape. “Dead Man Walking while Black” on the Fergurson Streets of the USA. Somehow all these concerns reside within the politic of women of color feminism; for it is a political practice that is shaped first from the specific econonomic conditions and the cultural context of our own landbase—from the innercity barrio to the reservation; from the middleamerica suburb This Bridge now in its 4th edition also was published in Spanish. to the Purépeha village transplanted to the state of Oregon; and, fundamentally, to a dangeously-threatened Earth. Daily, Indigenous relatives from the south are left splayed and bleeding across the barbed wire of a border, “defended” by United States amory, wielded by border patrol and drug cartels. Anti-immigrant racism fuels Congress’s policies of violent discrimination against Raza, funding the ‘round-up’ of undocumented immigrants and sequestering them into “family detention centers.” Our own Bridge contributor, Mitsuye Yamada (now, 91), could attest to the terrible familiarity of the times, remembering how—nearly seventy-five years ago—she and her family were among the 120,000 Japanese Americans, forcibly removed from their homes and sent to internment camps during World War II. “Invisibility is an Unnatural Disaster” (32); and

visibility, the most effective strategy to quell the rising tide of discrimination. In 2010, Arizona’s anti-immigrant legislation 8 sparked a swelling and ongoing resistance movement, distinguished by the visible participation and leadership of mujeres and undocumented queers. Gay and lesbian guatemaltecas, salvadoreños, mexicanas y más helped force the Immigrant Rights Movement into the national public eye through courageous acts of civil disobedience, risking jail and deportation. And they also made publicly evident, that “coming out of the closet”/“salir de las sombras” is not a single-issue. The Undocuqueer Movement reflects the “simultaneity of oppression,” 9 foundational to women of color feminism: that the queer daughters and sons of domestic workers, farmworkers, and day-laborers can fight for their familias’ rights, without compromise to the whole of their own identities. The political is profoundly personal.

American Indian, Black Power and Chicano Movements, the anti-(Vietnam) war movement, Women’s and Gay Liberation—all laid political ground and theoretical framework for a late 1970s feminism of color; as did so much of the concurrent radical literature of the period (The Wretched of the Earth, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, The Open Veins of Latin America, The Red Stockings Manifesto, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, The Dialectic of Sex, El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán . . .). Ten years before the publication of Bridge, the Third World Women’s Alliance had already begun publishing its Triple Jeopardy newspaper, linking “Racism, Imperialism and Sexism” to domestic worker and welfare rights, the political prisoner movement, the sterilization of Black and Puerto Rican women, reproductive rights, and the liberation of Palestine. In 1981, we were the inheritors of that vision. And it is my hope that the young readers of this fourth edition of Bridge will be the This Bridge Called My Top: (L to R) Cherrie Moraga, Gloria Anzaldúa, Barbara Cameron, Rosario Morales Bottom: Aurora Levins Morales, Barbara Smith, Kate Rushin, Beverly Smith, Nellie Wong, & hattie inheritors of ours, Back is less about each gossett at Boston Bridge opening. (1981 hIstoic photo—not in the book) informed by a twentyone of us and much more first century vision of mind and heart. about the pending promise inscribed by all of us who believe What brought me to feminism almost forty years ago that revolution—physical and metaphysical at once—is possible. Many women of my generation came to that belief based was ‘heart.’ Feminism allowed ‘heart’ to matter. It acknowledged that the oppression we experienced as human on the empowering historical conditions of our early years. beings was not always materially manifested, and that we The African Independence Movements of the early 1960s, also suffered spiritually and sexually. Women of color the Cuban Revolution, the Civil Rights Movement, the

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A 2-day intergenerational plática & celebration of the 4th edition of This Bridge Called My Back, Writings by Radical Women of Color brought together over ten of the original contributors of Bridge to the historic gathering at Stanford University in May of 2015. Pictured are some of writers in attendance at the 35th anniversary that included a reading, workshops, and panels with artists and feminist of color organizers. Luisah Tesh

Cherríe Moraga with Andrea Canaan

have traditionally served as the gateways—the knowledgeshelves. Often referred to by its believers as the “bible” of holders—to those profoundly silent areas of expression women of color feminism, it has been pirated on line for two and oppression: domestic abuse aggravated by poverty, hundred dollars a copy, reprinted in university course readers patriarchal strictures that distort the ‘spirit ‘of religious (with and without permission), pdf’d and copied, pressing its practice; false familial hierarchies that deform our yellowing pages against the xerox machine glass to capture children’s potential; erotic desire deadened by duty. in print that Kate Rushin “Bridge” poem, that “essay about Such suffering is experienced by both males and females growing up on the rez,” (Barbara Cameron) or “that Asian (not pro-portionately, but mutually). Women of color femiAmerican woman’s letter to her mom.” (Merle Woo). So, in nists see our movemany ways, Bridge ment as necessary has already fulfilled for the liberation its original mission: of men of color as to find its way into well: liberation from “every major city and war, from greed, hole in the wall in this from the theft of our country.”10 neighborhoods, and From a teaching from men’s destrucperspective, Bridge tive alienation from documents the living women and nature. experience of what This is no “stand by academics now refer your man” liberal to as “intersectionalfeminism, but one ity,” where multiple that requires intraidentities converge cultural conversation at the crossroads of a and confrontation woman of color life. in order to build an The woman of color Cherríe Moraga (L) and Gloria Anzaldúa (R), editors of This Brige Called My Back, Writings By Radical unyielding platform life is the crossroad, Womens of Color in a 1981 article from Sojourner, a Boston Women’s newspaper. of equity amongst us. where no aspect of Without the yoke of sexism and queer-phobias, we might our identity is wholly dismissed from our consciousness, even finally be able to build a united front against the myriad as we navigate a daily shifting political landscape. In many forms of racism we experience. ways Bridge catalyzed the reconstitution of Women & Gender and Ethnic Studies programs throughout the country. After Bridge ‘the race of gender and the gender of race’ could no In the twenty years that Bridge stayed in, and went out of, longer be overlooked in any academic area or political organipublication over 100,000 copies were sold. It has also been zation that claimed to be about Women or Ethnicity. Still, the read by thousands more. Early edition copies, dog-eared and “holes in Walls” of our thinking remain wide and many and there is an abundant amount of “bridging” left to be done. coffee-stained, have been passed from hand to hand, borrowed, then borrowed again, and “liberated” from library ©2015 by Cherríe L. Moraga

Chrystos

Cherríe with Mitsuye Yamada

LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • March 2016 Vol. 29 Issue 2

Genny Lin

[February 11, 2016 Laredo, TX] Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials in Texas are facing pressure from elected officials, advocates, and medical professionals nationwide as the medical condition of “Maribel,” an asylum-seeker who has been detained for over a year, rapidly deteriorates. The Black Alliance for Just Immigration joins in calling for Maribel’s immediate release and raise concerns for her health and treatment at the hands of ICE and detention officers. Maribel’s neglect and mistreatment at the hands of ICE is a clear example of how Black women are treated in custody. She came to the US. for safety after suffering horrific violence, and here her life is in danger because of the racist and sexist ICE system that ignores her case for asylum, and the detention officers punishing her for her protest and disregarding her illness,” says Opal Tometi, Director of Black Alliance for Just Immigration and Co-Founder Black Lives Matter. Maribel, a Black-Garifuna migrant, fled Honduras over a year ago fearing gang violence based on her family ties and ethnicity after surviving sexual assault and threats to her life and loved ones. The immigration judge overseeing her asylum claim deemed Maribel not to have an objective basis for her fear. Despite evidence to the contrary, including the disappearance of Maribel’s partner, with whom she left Honduras to seek asylum in the U.S following the murder of his father and brother. He is also presumed dead and now Maribel is a target of this same group responsible for this deadly violence, should she be deported to Honduras. Maribel also suffers from sickle cell disease causing a number of acute and chronic health problems, such as severe infections, attacks of severe pain (“sickle-cell crisis”), stroke, and an increased risk of death. The complications of sickle-cell disease can be prevented to a large extent with proper medical treatment, however ICE has ignored Maribel’s health needs and, on occasion, even punished her for fainting. According to Maribel’s attorneys, “Maribel is in need of immediate medical attention by health professionals who understand sickle cell disease.” Until recently, ICE, as well as officials from the Correctional Corporation of America managed Laredo Detention Center where Maribel is housed, denied knowledge of her illness, despite having access to Maribel’s medical records and numerous pleas from her attorneys and supporters. 6 Supporters speculate that the neglect and punitive treatment

of Maribel at the hands of ICE officials is retaliation for her participation in a hunger-strike at the Hutto Detention Center last October, along with 27 other women. After the hunger strike, Maribel was placed in solitary confinement, where access to her family, friends, and legal counsel was limited. Shortly thereafter, she was transferred to the Laredo Detention Center, without notice to her legal counsel. Since being transferred to Laredo, Maribel has observed blood in her urine on a regular basis and suffered from kidney, liver, and heart pain, as well as depression and inflammation. The Black Alliance for Just Immigration and supporters across the country are calling on the Department of Homeland Security to grant Maribel discretionary relief by administratively closing her case because she faces real danger should she be forced to return to Honduras. This would also ensure that Maribel obtains proper medical attention and care necessary to reverse her failing health. The Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI) believes that a thriving multi-racial democracy requires racial, social and economic justice for all. African Americans and black immigrants are stronger together and we can win by becoming leaders in the fight against structural racism and systemic discrimination. BAJI was formed to bring Black voices together to advocate for equality and justice in our laws and our communities.

Black Leaders Demand Release of Chronically Ill Asylum Seeker Suffering in Detention Decrying Racist and

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Sexist Abuse by ICE and Detention Officers

Artwork: Favianna Rodríguez

Resistance and Retaliation: Maribel’s Story Part-II Why Maribel* Left Honduras

By Virginia Raymond

Editor’s note: In the February issue of La Voz de Esperanza, Virginia Raymond wrote Maribel’s Story Part-I recounting her incarceration at the T. Don Hutto Residential Center where she was placed in solitary confinement after participating in a hunger strike with other immigrant women protesting conditions at the prison. In part II, she recounts why she initially left her home for the U.S. *Maribel’s full name is not used in order to protect her identity.

••• I am a Garifuna woman born in Honduras and I speak Garifuna and Spanish fluently. Although I was born in a town on the coast, I lived for more than twenty years in a larger city inland. We, my family, are very upright and hardworking people. We make a living by selling many different types of bread – coconut bread- coconut water- coconut oilcoconut soup and coconut craft. We also sell fried fish, and shark oil. We go out and sell our products under the sun and the rain to survive; we carry our products in our heads and yell to catch’s customers’ attention. Our mother raised us this way, and she gave my siblings and me our education. We

never received support from anyone, just my mother’s work and effort and our own work and effort. I have three children. When I was two months pregnant with my first child, the father of my child disappeared. I never found him, not even at the morgue. He completely disappeared, which is common in my city. My mother supported me with my pregnancy and she helped me give labor. I had my first child in the hands of my mother. Thanks to God, everything went well. A friend of mine told me that he would give his last name to my child, that there was no problem in doing that and that he would support me. He went and met my child. That is why my first child has his last name. He is a Garifuna man; a very good man and he helped us in the ways he could. A year later, I met my ex-husband. Let us call him “Mal Hombre” or “MH” for the purpose of this essay. I began a romantic-relationship with him like all of the couples. When we had six months dating, he moved in to my room. When we had eight months dating, I realized that I was pregnant. He hit me and raped me every time he came home high. He did not feed me and sometimes he would leave me locked up. I began to see what he was: a monster disguised as a person. Everyday he would hit me. When I was five months pregnant — it was a holiday — he hit me for no reason. My aunt, my sisters, and my mother intervened to help me. They would yell at him “Let her go! Don’t hit her! She can lose the baby!” But he dragged my aunt and me and caused my aunt’s knees to bleed and pinched us both because the women in my family were intervening and not permitting him to keep hurting me. They did not let him take me because he could kill my baby and me because he was drugged, drunk, and aggressive. MH was a maniac and a psychopath. He would rape me from behind and through all of the parts of my body. I would let him because I was too scared of him. One day I went

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The following is an abridged version of Maribel’s declaration — mostly in her own words — translated by Adriana Murga Gonzalez, a student at the University of Texas at Austin, with some modifications by Professor Olga Lydia Herrera of St. Thomas University, St. Paul, Minnesota. I have edited this declaration for length, have removed names, places, dates, and numerous other identifying details, and have added a few words and phrases for clarity. I have the original in my office. —Virginia Raymond

Artwork: Garifuna women processing casava by B. Nicholas.

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outside to wash diapers and when I went back inside, I saw something horrible. I began to cry when I saw MH giving my child his penis and my child would lick it because every time my child cried he always did this and would touch my child’s private parts. I told him “MH, don’t do that to your child!” and he yelled at me: “Shut up bitch, if you tell your mother or anyone what you saw I will kill you. You know me and I will chop you and I will bury you.” He would hit me and when I came back from selling bread, I had to give him 100 pesos for his marijuana. He would demand me to cook good food without him working. If I did not he would hit me and he would tell me that if he found any money on me he would take it and steal it. He took everything, even our children’s things, everything from me to sell it to buy his drugs, Later, various people told me: “Maribel, your husband works with a gang, what I will call, for the purpose of this essay, ‘Los Diablos.’ He is killing gangmembers, he is stealing cars, he is stealing motorcycles, he is raping many women at midnight, he is kidnapping. They say he is a hit man.“ I wondered what he did with all of the money he got for killing, and people told me that he used it to buy cocaine. He would snort the cocaine, and also he would invite his colleagues and friends to drink; they would go to the club and get women and when he was drugged, he would kill them. He told me this from his own mouth. He told me, that they took the women who prostituted themselves at the corner robbed them and raped them. Then to not have to pay them, they kill them. When MH killed a member of a rival gang, some members of that gang shot him in revenge. Then MH killed another member of that gang. This is why the relatives of the people MH killed want to kill me and my children. They say we have to pay what MH did, but neither my children nor I have killed anyone. After I left MH, I met another man and began living with him. I will call him “Angel” for the purposes of this essay. “Angel,” like me, was Garifuna. And like me, he was trying to escape from people who were trying to kill him: Angel’s father and brother had already been murdered, so Angel was 8 also afraid. [The reasons why people were after Angel make

for another, also complicated and long story. Suffice to say that he had a very well founded fear of persecution.] We lived together in my house until some men from MH’s gang told me that I had to leave. This is what happened. On, a certain day, Los Diablos came and told me that if I wanted to continue living in my house, I had to be with the boss of the gang. A few days later, they came and told me that if I wanted to keep living there I would have to take a Blackberry cellphone and put drugs into my vagina to take into the city jail. I just answered, “Give me time to think about it.” I always said that for fear. They also asked me to sell marijuana. I never decided to do what they wanted me to do and within three weeks, they came to my house. A bunch of them came in through the roof at about two o’clock in the morning. They stayed until 5:00 a.m., raping me. They raped through every part of me and gave me diseases from this rape; I received treatment for those problems. Three days later, they came again at 11:30 Artwork: Garifuna women by Virginia Castillo in the morning and they yelled at me “N…, [racial epithet] you have 24 hours to leave or we are going to come and kill you.” They said horrible things and they went away, but they returned at 2:30 pm with guns. Many guns: R15s, M16s, and AK-47s. All the men were armed. They yelled at me and my family: “You no longer have 24 hours. Instead you have 2 hours did you hear? Or else we kill you and your children: this and much more.” Horrible things were done to me. We left and went to another place to live. But after we were there for a week, one of my children came home and told me that she had seen the gang member, one of those who raped me and threatened to kill us, in a store nearby. That is when we decided to leave Honduras. I, Maribel, give permission to share this declaration of mine because I fear for my life because of everything I have lived through with the gang members and the mistreating from the father of my children. I want to take them out of Honduras before they get killed by the gang members or raped by their father, since he is a psychopath maniac he is capable of doing something. Thank you and I give my permission. Signed by: Maribel December 25th 2015

When Maribel and Angel arrived in the U.S., they were arrested learned that Angel had disappeared and is presumed murdered. by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and separated. Angel What can you do? You should pressure your U.S. Congreswas sent to the South Texas Detention Complex in Pearsall, run sional Representatives and Senators and President Obama to grant by the for-profit prison company GEO. Maribel was sent to the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to people from Honduras, El T. Don Taylor detention center Salvador, and Guatemala. (although it’s called a “residenThe desolate situation in tial” center) run by the for-profit these three countries — the Corrections Company of America Northern Triangle of Central (CCA). Neither Angel nor MaAmerica — is unspeakable. ribel found pro bono lawyers to If people can receive TPS assist them (the need is far greater because their lives have been than the supply of free legal asoverturned by a hurricane, sistance). Both went to hearings earthquake, or volcano, so in front of immigration judges too should the U.S. grant unrepresented. Both of them lost humanitarian relief when their claims for asylum. lives and communities are It is clear from the transcript destroyed or threatened by that Maribel’s story — which is pervasive violence. much abbreviated here — came Bio: Virginia Raymond (in across as confusing. It’s also her own head) is an unemclear that she was very upset ployed professor of literaand made erroneous assumpPhoto: Credit.com ture, anthropology, history, tions about what the judge knew. and Mexican American American Gateways staff helped Drawings of Angel by Maribel. (L) She described him as tall, with large lips and thick Studies and can belt out Maribel fill out a form to appeal hair. At right, the drawing shows a scar on his back left from a .22 bullet wound he powerful songs in the key of sustained when shot by gang members in Honduras. her case, but Angel apparently joyous melancholy sounding did not appeal. He was returned a lot like Mercedes Sosa. to Honduras. Maribel participated in the hunger strike at Hutto; a week later, she was moved to Laredo. During that week, she Note: At Press Time, Maribel had been released on bond.

10 am - Gather @ Plaza de Zacate Next to Downtown Mercado 501 W. Commerce St. SA TX

11 am- March begins

Rally & speakers after the March www.sawomenwillmarch.org

¡Mujeres Marcharán!

LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • March 2016 Vol. 29 Issue 2

IWD March - Saturday March 5, 2016

AN ENVIRONMENTAL INJUSTICE:

How San Antonio, Texas resembles Detroit and Flint, Michigan by Rachel Hanes

LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • March 2016 Vol. 29 Issue 2•

Almost all have heard of the ongoing water crisis in Flint, Michigan – how a rash of bad decisions has led to the people of Flint drinking highly contaminated water for over a year, leading to lead poisoning in many residents. While San Antonio is not dealing with such a severe crisis, the parallels between the two cities are remarkable and highly concerning:

decision to privatize water prompted Flint’s switch to a different water source, San Antonio is contracting with a private company, Abengoa BlueWater, to build the pipeline. Like Detroit, the privatization process is jacking up the price of water for residents at an unsustainable rate. Like Detroit and Flint, the increased rates are disproportionately affecting the economically disadvantaged, people of color, single-parent households, large families • Both cities’ problems arose from water and the elderly. In Flint the switch to a new water privatization: Using a public-private partsupply was meant to save the city $5 million but nership to build the Vista Ridge Pipeline has ended up costing $1.5 billion. In San Antonio in San Antonio and Flint switching to the the pipeline is meant to provide abundant water for Flint River after water privatization in future development and growth but due to climate Detroit. change and current predictions there is no guarantee • Both have high levels of the population bethe water will be there when we need it. low the poverty line: 20% in San Antonio The lead crisis in Flint was discovered quickly Water symbol: Codex Borbonicus and 40% in Flint. but with the Vista Ridge Pipeline the negative ef• Both are majority non-white: a 60% Hispanic population in fects may not be visible for years. This will make it easier for San San Antonio and a 50% black population in Flint. Antonio, SAWS, and Abengoa BlueWater to deny issues and cast • Both lacked a democratic process in deciding the city’s wa- aside concerns. For example, in December 2015 Abengoa declared bankruptcy and started to pull many projects in the United States ter future: a unanimous City Council vote in San Antonio while still claiming to be able to build the pipeline. Even though and a near unanimous vote in Flint. the project is now financially unstable, San Antonio is continuing to back it and has already begun to increase water rates for ratepayers San Antonio should pay heed to Flint’s predicament and its lesstarting in January 2016. They deny that there is any risk associated sons learned. It has been proven that time and again cities use subtle with the pipeline even though numerous sources and studies have racist and classist methods when making environmental policies. shown otherwise. In this denial, they risk unnecessarily raising rates Thus it is often the poor and communities of color that end up subsiand thus endangering the future of many ratepayers in San Antonio, dizing the development and health of wealthier, white communities. all for a venture that may never reap the benefits they expect. This happened in Flint and is on track to happen once again in San In continuing to show blatant disregard for citizens’ well-being, Antonio with the Vista Ridge Pipeline and the subsequent water rate San Antonio is getting ever closer to being the next Flint and the increases that have been put into effect this January to pay for it. next city in a water crisis. It is high time San Antonio and those Like Flint, the San Antonio City Council and mayor unaniassociated with the pipeline listen to the voices of those they claim mously voted for the installation of the Vista Ridge Pipeline. Like to speak for – the residents and ratepayers of San Antonio. It is high Flint, the democratic process in San Antonio was cast to the side as time San Antonio breaks the cycle of environmental injustice and be City Council and the San Antonio Water System did their best to an example to the rest of the United States. ignore and suppress the protests of the people. Like Detroit, whose Bio: Rachel Hanes is a student at Trinity University. Photo: Emily Mattiussi, 23/10/2012

For Aylan Kurdi

(and all the Syrian refugees that are starving, some to death.) The littlest boy cradle of sand waves gently erasing the possibility of who he could have been as he felt the terror of slipping from mother’s grasp siblings disappearing their crying washed out of their mouths not even old enough to know of, to call upon their Creator for rescue dying alone in the dark for no one cared about the stranger in their midst

Emma Tenayuca

Heads of state argue that they can allow no more of “those people” for fear that they will taint their pristine language, their Jesus, their bloodlines their precious votes they are sorry but there’s just not enough to take care of their own And Neptune yawns and stretches his arms leaving behind another little boy whose breath fled before the sea the stars above his face

Photo: Associated Press

the last thing he ever saw before he became grist for the media mill a CNN loop of the day a FaceBook “like” a casualty of the incivility of civil war and the beams that are lodged in their eyes splintered by tongues, hues and shrines —R. Romo © 9/2015

by Esther Cantú

I, Emma at 16, made history in 1933. I spoke out. It was forbidden. I fought for people in low paying jobs people who shelled pecans, made clothes, rolled cigars. people who needed better pay and working conditions I walked in protest. I shouted, “Huelga, Huelga! I was arrested many times. I never thought in terms of fear. I thought in terms of justice. I was a well-known Red!

Black listed; I lived through unemployment and poverty. In my fight for social justice; I sacrificed everything. They called me “la pasionera”; but my passion faded. Threatened; forced to leave my home, I remained committed to the end. In time I made my way back to the city that had shunned me. Years later they valued my work. It was not in vain My life was complicated; my simple tombstone reads, “Thy Will Be Done.”

LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • March 2016 Vol. 29 Issue 2

Emma Teneyuca’s involvement in bringing justice to the labor movement at such an early age exemplifies strong commitment and courage. Emma was a true trailblazer whose efforts were regrettably not acknowledged until after her death. We remember her as we celebrate Women’s History Month.

¡Ah, Qué Bueno! Raúl Ruben Rendón

Raul Ruben Rendon was born in Dilley, Texas. His father was a migrant worker who was brought into the United States as part of the Bracero program. Raul was deported during the Great Depression along with his family among other Mexicans and Mexican-Americans during that time. He lived in Mexico for four years in a jacal. When his family was allowed to come back to Dilley he was not allowed to attend school until he was 11 years old since he was Mexican. He often would tell of the train tracks that divided the white part of Dilley from the Mexican part of Dilley. He later worked in the fields picking watermelon and spinach. He wouldn’t eat fresh spinach until he was 85 years old. He joined the U.S. Marine Corps and fought in the Korean War so he could escape the life of a field worker, like many of his friends and other Mexicanos. He is one of the only two men who were rescued in a particular battle as part of the Chosin reservoir campaign. He is featured in the book Chosin by Eric Hammel. He was a recipient of the Presidential Unit Citation and Purple Heart. Although he is often known and remembered as a war hero, he would later tell his granddaughter Gianna that war is “not a good thing” and did not like the high the rate of veteran homelessness and what that says about the United States. And although he was seen and is seen as a decorated war hero, when he came back from the Korean War he faced racism and discrimination. He settled down with his wife Elvia on the Westside of San Antonio by Las Palmas and put his 3 children through school at St. Martin Hall, Central Catholic and Incarnate Word. Raul loved eating tortilla chips and French onion dip. He would often sit outside his red brick house with a hot plate cooking something. He often would come up with different recipe concoctions that he would write down so he could replicate later. He loved to make and preserve jams and salsas and his fridge could be found with bags of pecans he collected and shelled by hand.

He was preceded in death by his wife Elvia Garza Rendon, sisters Alma R. Vergara, Freya Mirta Rendon Garcia and parents Romana & Trinidad B. Rendon. He is survived by his children; Raul Rendon Jr. and his wife Anita Rendon, Robert Rendon and his wife Yvonne Rendon, Rosanna Rendon, grandchildren; Mark, Elyse, Justin, Gianna and brother Trinidad Rendon and his wife Frances Rendon, and his best friend Oscar Noriega who he met in a VA hospital in Corpus Christi while they were both recovering from war wounds. The Esperanza Peace & Justice Center extends our deepest condolences to his family and to our staffperson, Gianna who wrote of her grandfather: Today Feb. 4 we buried my grandfather... The number one thing he would say was “Ah que Bueno.” I often took it as him being sarcastic... He would especially say this after someone told him something that he knew was bull...I love these three words because they are complex in their simplicity. They could convey 20 different emotions depending on inflection and circumstance (irritation, love, joy, sadness). He didn’t have to yell to shut down a conversation if he was done with you. He’d just say this... I hope to incorporate Grandpa’s “Ah Qué Bueno” mentality to my life... Que descanse en paz.

Francisco Alarcón, 1954-2016

Francisco Alarcón of Davis, California passed into spirit on January 15, 2016. The Esperanza extends our sympathy to his family and wide and diverse community. He impacted my life as an early childhood bilingual educator Photo: Annie Valva as well as my life as a Chicana lesbian activist. Through his poetry he conveyed the richness of Chicano life, culturally and politically. Even to my young students, his poetry was accessible—written bilingually, in English and in Spanish, and on occasion,

Nahuatl. His ability to convey his roots through poetry was a gift to those who were not fortunate enough to have that connection in their own families. In the 80s, he co-founded the nation’s first gay Chicano poets collective. By doing so, he opened more doors and impacted more gente. Francisco wrote his last calavera for La Voz in November. It was, of course, on Donald Trump. His presence will always be felt. ¡Francisco Alarcón, siempre presente! —Gloria A. Ramírez, editor of La Voz

Photo:DarkMol Studios

LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • March 2016 Vol. 29 Issue 2•

September 14, 1928 - January 28, 2016

Ernestine Garza Moore August 6, 1923 - January 16, 2016

Tina Moore, age 92, passed away peacefully on Saturday, January 16, 2016 surrounded by her family. She was preceded in death by her husband, Alfred C. Moore, and is survived by her daughter Evita Sánchez; step-daughters: Mary Atkins, Charlotte Cadenas, Virginia Siedel, Alice Ontiveros (Manuel); sons: John Mendoza (Gloria), Richard Sánchez (Mary), Reynaldo Sánchez (Olivia), Frederick Moore (Antoinette); her many grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren. She lived for her family, especially during the holidays when she would cook turkey, tamales and cookies. Tina made a great contribution to the San Antonio community sharing stories of her sister, Eva Garza who was once considered one of the top ten singers of Mexico but went unrecognized in San Antonio, her hometown. Tina (and Eva), grew up in the Westside at the Alazan-Apache Courts. They played softball and attended Lanier High School in the 1930s. The culmination of Tina’s stories and photos that she provided was a memorable tribute to Eva Garza in February of 2013 at the Esperanza Center, where the star of the evening was Tina

Photo: www.mysanantonio.com

into the archives of American culture. Tina noted over and over that her sister was the first Latina to be broadcast on radio and was known as the “Sweetheart of the Americas.” During the 1940s Eva recorded for Columbia and sang on CBS radio’s Viva América program, broadcast over short wave radio in Spanish, English, and

Tina in front of the Alazan-Apache Courts with her sisters (L to R): Dora, Tina, Eva and Irene.

surrounded by family from throughout the U.S. and Mexico. The tribute, “Homenaje a Eva Garza y las divas de la canción Mexicana.” turned out to be an elegant and poignant event with Tina presiding as the matron of memories and familia. Tina felt that it was vitally important to recover the rich history of the Westside as exemplified through her life that was directly connected to Mexico through the music of her sister, Eva. Tina shared her photos and memories with the Esperanza’s Fotohistorias and Aquellos Tiempos programs and also gave invaluable information to Professor Deborah Vargas for her book, Dissonant Divas in Chicana Music: The Limits of La Onda that memorialized Eva and other Tejanas

Portuguese throughout the Americas. Tina recalled, “We could hear her here at 9 o’clock at night.” “She was the first to entertain the troops. She had a lot of personality and was good looking. We were very proud.” Tina was one of seven children of Procopio V. Garza and Cenobia B. Ramírez. Her father ran a barbershop on Commerce St. Tina, later, raised her family with her husband, “Cherry,” in the Loma Park area. In a letter written to her family Tina wrote, “My last goodbye to my children—with the grace of God—I have lived a long life. My children did not know that I lived a very glamorous life in Mexico City, but now they will know about it.” Tina accompanied Eva to cities throughout the Americas and attended events with the rich and famous: dignitaries, politicos, singers, and movie stars—but she knew that there would come to an end. When she came home to be with her mother, whom she dearly loved, she chose to live out her days in the Westside of San Antonio. The Esperanza Center and buena gente will forever remember Tina Garza Moore and be grateful to her for sharing her life’s memories and the rich history that is San Antonio! Que en paz descanses, Tina. No te olvidaremos.

LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • March 2016 Vol. 29 Issue 2

At the Eva Garza Homenaje Tina (R) with her sister, Sylvia, and Leticia, her niece, (L) who performed at the event.

People’s Power Coalition meets last Thursdays | 210.878.6751

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

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

* community meetings *

Amnesty International #127 For info. call Arthur @ 210.213.5919.

Celebration Circle meets Sun., 11am @ Say Sí, 1518 S. Alamo. Meditation: Weds @7:30pm, Friends Meeting House, 7052 Vandiver. 210.533.6767. DIGNITY SA Mass, 5:30pm, Sun. @ St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 1018 E. Grayson St | 210.340.2230 Adult Wellness Support Group of PRIDE Center meets 4th Mon., 7-9 pm @ Lions Field, 2809 Broadway. Call 210.213.5919. Energía Mía: (512) 838-3351 Fuerza Unida, 710 New Laredo Hwy. www.lafuerzaunida.org | 210.927.2294 Habitat for Humanity meets 1st Tues. for volunteers, 6pm, HFHSA Office @ 311 Probandt. LULAC Council #22198, Orgullo de SA, meets 3rd Tues. @ 6:45pm @ Papouli’s (Meeting room), 255 E. Basse Rd. To join e-mail: info@lulac22198.org

NOW SA Chapter meets 3rd Wed’s. For time and location check FB/satx.now | 210. 802.9068 | nowsaareachapter@ gmail.com

LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • March 2016 Vol. 29 Issue 2•

Pax Christi, SA meets monthly on Saturdays. Call 210.460.8448

Parents of Murdered Children, meets 2nd Mondays @ Balcones Heights Community Ctr, 107 Glenarm | www. pomcsanantonio.org. Rape Crisis Center 7500 US Hwy 90W. Hotline: 210.349.7273 | 210.521.7273 Email: sgabriel@ rapecrisis.com The Religious Society of Friends meets Sunday @10am @ The Friends Meeting House, 7052 N. Vandiver. | 210.945.8456. S.A. Gender Association meets 1st & 3rd Thursday, 6-9pm @ 611 E. Myrtle, Metropolitan Community Church. SA AIDS Fdn 818 E. Grayson St. offers free Syphilis & HIV testing | 210.225.4715 | www.txsaaf.org. SA Women Will March: www. sawomenwillmarch.org|(830) 488-7493 SGI-USA LGBT Buddhists meet 2nd Sat. at 10am @ 7142 San Pedro Ave., Ste 117 | 210.653.7755. Shambhala Buddhist Meditation Tues. 7pm & Sun. 9:30am 257 E. Hildebrand Ave. | 210.222.9303.

Proyecto Hospitalidad Liturgy meets Thurs. 7pm, 325 Courtland.

S.N.A.P. (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests). Contact Barbara at 210.725.8329.

Metropolitan Community Church services & Sunday school @10:30am, 611 East Myrtle. Call 210.472.3597

Voice for Animals: 210.737.3138 or www.voiceforanimals.org

Overeaters Anonymous meets MWF in Spanish & daily in English | www. oasanantonio.org | 210.492.5400.

SA’s LGBTQA Youth meets Tues., 6:30pm at Univ. Presby. Church, 300 Bushnell Ave. | www.fiesta-youth.org

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Progressive Movement in San Antonio

¡Todos Somos Esperanza! Start your 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. 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, sigue! FOR INFO: Call 210.228.0201 or email: esperanza@esperanzacenter.org

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Notas Y Más March 2016

The Thing Itself Literary Journal out of Our Lady of the Lake University calls for submissions to its Inaugural Social Justice Issue: Encouraging Empathy—Cultivating Compassion. Submit one prose fiction or nonfiction piece of up to 5,000 words or 1-3 poems to: thethingitself.submittable. com/submit. Check: www.ttijournal.org Deadline: March4th.

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.

4.04.22) in the John Peace Library on Friday, March 4th at 7 pm. See: www. colfa.utsa.edu/english/CW/cwreading

Museum’s Leeper Auditorium. Tickets are $75. Check geminiink.org for more.

The 27th Earthwise Living Day event will be held on March 5th from 9am-2pm at the Leon Valley Community Center, 6427 Evers Road with demos, exhibits and vendors for eco-friendly iving. Free. Call 210.684.6999 or 210.215.2252. The Chicana Great Books Series Gemini Ink and The Guadalupe moderated by Patricia Portales takes Cultural Arts Center welcome NYU place at Gemini Ink (*unless otherwise professor and noted poet and performer, noted): on March 8th—Under the Feet Urayoán Noel, for a reading and book signing on March 3rd from 7-8pm at The of Jesus by Maria Viramontes; on Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center in San April 5th—Chicana Falsa & Other Stories by Michele Serros (*at Barrio Antonio. He will also teach Performalist Barrista Coffeehouse, 3735 Culebra Rd.); Poetics: An Exploratory Workshop on and on May 10th—Sonnets to Human March 5th at Gemini Ink. Cost: $95. Beings by Carmen Tafolla. Free. Contact Call 210.734.9673 or see geminiink.org geminiink.org or call 210.734.WORD. The UTSA Creative Writing Series Geminiink’s Autograph Series presents 2015-2016 presents Rigoberto González, author of 4 books of poetry, most recently, Sandra Cisneros on March 26th from 7-9 Unpeopled Eden, which won the Lambda pm in a Free Public Reading at the Palo Literary Award and the Lenore Marshall Alto College Performing Arts Center. Prize. It takes place at the Main Campus, A ticketed Author Luncheon follows Monday, March 28th at the McNay Art Faculty Center Assembly Room (JPL

San Anto Cultural Arts of San Antonio, invites folks to check the website for job postings at: www.sananto.org/jobopportunites-2016.html Those interested in Chicano grassroots cultural arts organizing be sure to check this out! Call for Papers on Archives and Public History: Places, Pasts & Identities—A special issue of Archives and Records seeks to explore approaches to the public use of archives, from all fields of study: history, literature, art, sociology, geography, heritage and information studies. Contact the guest editor at: Victoria.hoyle@york.ac.uk to dicuss potential articles. Submissions deadline: July 31. Check: www.tandfonline.com

March 12th, 10am-12pm Cocina de Cuaresma/ Lenten Food Share capirotada recipes or Lenten food at Casa de Cuentos, 816 S. Colorado.

*To schedule scanning of Westside photos (1880-1960) or for information on Fotohistorias call 210.228.0201.

LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • March 2016 Vol. 29 Issue 2

2nd Saturday Convivio*

Life and Death on the Border 19101920 is on exhibit at the Bullock State History Museum in Austin through April 3rd. Check: http://www.thestoryoftexas. com/visit/exhibits/life-and-death-on-theborder or Refusingtoforget.org

LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • March 2016 Vol. 29 Issue 2•

Noche Azul

Cantoras del Sur Saturday March 19th

de Esperanza

Pedro Infante • Saturday, April 16th

Azul pays tribute in song to...

Pedro Infante is known as one of the greatest cantantes and actors of the Golden Age of Mexican cinema.

Mercedes Sosa of Argentina who made

Latin American folk music and nueva canción known throughout the world. She was known as the “voice of the voiceless.”

Violeta Parra, Chilean

composer, songwriter & ethnomusicologist who pioneered Nueva canción Chilena. Her most famous song was Gracias A La Vida.

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’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

Soledad Bravo,

Venezuelan singer who met with success singing multiple styles and who recorded more than 30 albums. Doors open 7:15pm • Program 8pm $5 Mas O Menos at the Door

Musicians: Aaron Prado, George Prado and Nina Rodríguez

The Power of This Bridge La Fuerza de Este Puente A plática with Cherríe Moraga

Saturday March 26 @ 7pm Esperanza Peace & Justice Center 922 San Pedro Ave., San Antonio, TX Parking available at San Antonio College

OPEN TO THE PUBLIC | DONATIONS WELCOME