a publication of the Esperanza Peace & Justice Center
April 2013 | Vol. 26 Issue 3
San Antonio, Tejas
La Voz de Esperanza April 2013
vol. 26 issue 3
Editor Gloria A. Ramírez Copy Editor Alice Canestaro-Garcia Design Monica V. Velásquez Contributors Jesús Alonzo, Manuel Barraza, Alice Canestaro-García, Lupe Casares, Marisol Cortez, Jaime González, Teresita Jacinto, Ricardo César Gaitán Muñoz, Glenaan O’Neil, Kamala Platt, René Roberts, Cynthia Spielman, Perla Terrazas
Esperanza Director Graciela I. Sánchez
Esperanza Staff Imelda Arismendez, Itza Carbajal, Marisol Cortez, J.J. Niño, Jezzika Pérez, Melissa Rodríguez, Beto Salas, Susana Segura, Monica Velásquez
H
appy Spring! – dear readers of La Voz de Esperanza.
This issue brings you the third installation of Cities as if Women Mattered by Marisol Cortez. The article, Thinking Hays Street and HemisFair in an Era of Neoliberal Urbanism examines issues of “gentrification” and “revitalization” of downtown San Antonio and what the real motivation is behind these moves. This series will continue in the next two issues of La Voz as Marisol delves deeper into the politics of urbanization locally and worldwide. A new series is introduced in this issue in anticipation of immigration legislation. Lupe Casares & Teresita Jacinto have written a series of stories about the experiences of being a migrant farmworker–the first story includes a short history lesson and introduces a strong mujer who confronts la migra with dignity.
Our front page offers a tribute to the victims of Fukushima in Japan, two years after a nuclear plant meltdown. A short article by Kamala and Alice bring the issue to the fore. In the next issue of La Voz, we will be talking more about issues of energy and sustainability and things happening in our own backyards. Tributes to Erica Andrews and Mim Scharlack round out this issue of Voz along with informative articles on the Tip Integrity Act, the Texas Civil Rights Project’s VAWA program assisting immigrant victims of domestic violence and the reopening of La Casa de Cuentos. Como siempre each issue of La Voz is made possible by people like YOU. Send articles and other literary contributions to lavoz@esperanzacenter. org. Gracias! - la editora, Gloria A. Ramírez
Homenaje a EVA GARZA y las divas de la canción Mexicana
Conjunto de Nepantleras
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-Esperanza Board of Directors-
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Brenda Davis, Araceli Herrera, Rachel Jennings, Amy Kastely, Kamala Platt, Ana Ramírez, Gloria A. Ramírez, Rudy Rosales, Nadine Saliba, Graciela Sánchez • We advocate for a wide variety of social, economic & environmental justice issues. • Opinions expressed in La Voz are not necessarily those of the Esperanza Center.
La Voz de Esperanza
is a publication of Esperanza Peace & Justice Center 922 San Pedro, San Antonio, TX 78212
210.228.0201 • fax 1.877.327.5902 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.
Esperanza Peace & Justice Center is funded in part by the NEA, TCA, theFund, Astraea Lesbian Fdn for Justice, Coyote Phoenix Fund, AKR Fdn, Peggy Meyerhoff Pearlstone Fdn, The Kerry Lobel & Marta Drury Fund of Horizon’s Fdn, y nuestra buena gente.
...an exhibit about Eva Garza y las divas– Rosita Fernández, Beatriz Llamas, Lydia Mendoza, Blanca Rosa, Chelo Silva, Perla Tapatía, and Rita Vidaurri continues through April 30th at Esperanza Peace and Justice Center, 922 San Pedro, Monday-Friday 10am - 7pm or by appointment. 210.228.0201. ATTENTION VOZ READERS: If you have a correction you want to make on your mailing label please send it in to lavoz@esperanzacenter.org. If you do not wish to continue on the mailing list for whatever reason please notify us as well. La Voz is provided as a courtesy to people on the mailing list of the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center. The subscription rate is $35 per year. The cost of producing and mailing La Voz has substantially increased and we need your help to keep it afloat. To help, send in your subscriptions, sign up as a monthly donor, or send in a donation to the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center. Thank you. -GAR VOZ VISION STATEMENT: La Voz de Esperanza speaks for many individual, progressive voices who are gente-based, multi-visioned and milagro-bound. We are diverse survivors of materialism, racism, misogyny, homophobia, classism, violence, earth-damage, speciesism and cultural and political oppression. We are recapturing the powers of alliance, activism and healthy conflict in order to achieve interdependent economic/ spiritual healing and fuerza. La Voz is a resource for peace, justice, and human rights, providing a forum for criticism, information, education, humor and other creative works. La Voz provokes bold actions in response to local and global problems, with the knowledge that the many risks we take for the earth, our body, and the dignity of all people will result in profound change for the seven generations to come.
A WAY OUT: BATTERED IMMIGRANTS, BARRIERS and SOLUTIONS
by Glenaan O’Neil
M
Barriers for immigrants Mariela felt desperately alone while she lived with her husband – but sadly, her situation is not uncommon. Immigrant victims of domestic violence, like Mariela, often come face to face
with nearly insurmountable barriers as they try to escape abuse. Domestic violence relies upon one individual having power and control over the other. This dynamic becomes particularly stark when applied to families with an immigrant spouse without legal status. Immigrants without status must rely completely and utterly upon their U.S. Citizen or Legal Permanent Resident (LPR) spouses. Finances frequently compel immigrant victims of domestic violence to remain with their abusers. Without a living wage, victims like Mariela have no hope of renting an apartment to house themselves and their children. “I did not think I would be able to feed my daughters if I left, Mariela confides. “I did not think I would ever be able to make more than maybe a few dollars here or there, cleaning houses.” Cultural and religious reasons can also play a role in the decision to stay with an abusive spouse. Machismo and marianismo (the idea that “my wife and mother to my children” must be longsuffering and modest) are a big part of the gender roles that some women are taught during their childhoods. Some churches teach that it is the wife’s duty to stand by her husband, no matter what the danger of doing so may be to the wife. These deeply held beliefs and traditions are hard to break from, even when faced with abuse. However, two of the biggest barriers to accessing services for immigrants are language and lack of knowledge of resources. It is hard to ask for help if no one speaks your language and many immigrants assume that they do not have certain rights or access to services since such rights and services are not available in their home countries.
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ariela moved to the U.S. from Mexico because she thought all of her dreams had finally come true. She was a young bride, married to a United States citizen she met at church. After a whirlwind romance, Mariela was overjoyed to be starting a new life with her husband out on a ranch in Gillespie County. She felt certain that the future ahead of her was a bright one. However, her hope and optimism faded quickly as her husband began to control, isolate and degrade her. Six weeks after their wedding, Mariela called the police after her husband accused her of being unfaithful and choked her. It was the first time Mariela called the police, but not the last. During her eight year marriage, Mariela’s husband abused her physically, emotionally and economically. He kept her isolated from the rest of the world and did not even permit her to speak with her family back in Mexico. He also prohibited Mariela from learning English. He told Mariela that since he could speak Spanish, it was the only language she should need since she was never allowed to leave the house anyway. “My life was a prison with my husband,” Mariela recalls. “He was so jealous he would not let me even get the mail from our mailbox, so that I would not look at the male neighbors.” Soon after Mariela’s husband brought her into the U.S. on a fiancée visa, they were married. After things settled down a little bit, he promised to help her get her papers as soon as possible. Unfortunately, this was a promise he never kept. Whenever Mariela brought up her immigration status, her husband would say, “Why do you need papers? You don’t have to work. You just want to leave me and run around with other men.” Mariela and her husband had three daughters. They watched Mariela endure vicious beatings, and often went without as a result of his economic abuse. “I can remember one day my eldest daughter’s shoes fell apart when I tried to put them on her feet. They were her only pair. My husband spent his whole pay check gambling and drinking. It was cold out, so I gave her my shoes to wear to school. I felt so ashamed, but I did not have a choice,” Mariela confesses. Without immigration status, Mariela did not have the right to work legally in the U.S. or the right to drive legally in Texas. She says she felt stuck. “I couldn’t feed myself or my children if I left, and besides how would I go anywhere? I did not have a car, and did not know how to drive and if I tried, I thought I would be pulled over and deported. I had no friends or family to go to. It was like every door was closed in front of me,” she says. “I did not know there was a way out.”
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Immigrant victims of domestic violence married to a U.S. citizen or LPR may now submit their own immigration application without relying on their abusive spouses. The selfpetitioning process is completely confidential; survivors can rest assured that their abusers will not find out.
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Rights that immigrants share with everyone
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U.S. Citizen or LPR spouse in good faith and that they lived together. Additionally, they must show that they were victims of battery and/or extreme cruelty, and that they are people of good moral character. Please note that abused husbands, abused children, and abused parents of abusive U.S. Citizen children can self-petition as long a bona fide relationship is proved. Approved VAWA Self-Petitioners receive “deferred action status,” which helps protect them from deportation and qualifies them to apply for employment authorizations. Eventually, an approved Self-Petitioner may qualify for and receive Lawful Permanent Residence - what they could have applied for had it not been for their abusive spouse’s refusal to legitimize their status. Freedom from the fear of deportation coupled with the means to become financially independent often empowers survivors like Mariela to leave abusive homes and begin a new life for her and her children, without violence. This, in turn, helps make our communities safer.
A life with hope In 2011, Mariela heard a public service announcement on the radio: “It said women like me could get help. It said that I could get my papers fixed, without having to depend on my husband. I was scared to call, but I did, because I was so tired of feeling sick and afraid all the time.” Mariela contacted the Texas Civil Rights Project’s VAWA program. TCRP’s VAWA program works with immigrant victims of domestic violence living in Texas’ rural areas to obtain valid immigration status. A year after her application was submitted, she was approved and she received her deferred action status. Three months after that, her employment authorization arrived. Mariela goes on to say, “I knew that I could support myself and my family when I got my employment authorization. As soon as I got a job and saved up enough money to get my own place, I left my husband.” Now, Mariela and her two daughters live in an apartment in San Antonio. They are all in counseling to cope with the years of violence they endured. But, Mariela says with a smile, “I know that there are still hard times ahead of me, but now I know anything is possible for me and for my children. Now, I know that I can live my life with hope instead of fear.” q
We all have the right to call the police and we should call the police in dangerous and life-threatening situations. We all have the right to obtain emergency medical care, when necessary. We all have the right to access our court system. This means immigrants have the right to petition the court for protective orders, divorces, and child support or child custody, whether or not they have valid immigration status in the U.S. When in court, any person not fluent in English should be offered an interpreter. Interpreters can be expensive, and the courts may be obligated to provide one for people who cannot afford an interpreter due to dire financial need. In denying access to interpreters, courts deny persons with Limited English Proficiency (LEP) their constitutional right to due process and access to courts and make it impossible to tell their story. Battered immigrants married to U.S. Citizens or LPRs – like Mariela – also have the right to submit their own applications for status to Immigration. In 1994, Congress included the “self-petitioning” process as part of the Violence Against Women Act after recognizing the particularly vulnerable position of immigrant victims of domestic violence. Self-petitions take abusers out of the equation. Immigrant victims of domestic violence married to a U.S. citizen or LPR may now submit their own immigration application without relya nonprofit foundation, ing on their abusive spouses. The self-petitioning promotes civil rights and economic and racial justice for poor and lowprocess is completely confidential; survivors can income people throughout Texas, with offices in Austin, San Juan, El rest assured that their abusers will not find out. Paso, and Odessa. If you are an undocumented victim of domestic Immigrant self-petitioners spouses must demviolence seeking legal assistance, please contact the VAWA onstrate to Immigration that they married their Program at the Texas Civil Rights Project at 1-888-364-8277.
In solidarity with
Fukushima
K
Drawing by Pájara
by Kamala Platt & Alice Canestaro-García
oinobori (carp-shaped wind socks) have become a symbol of the end of Japanese nuclear power that Energia Mia has adopted in solidarity to send the same message to our local utilities. The wind socks are traditionally flown
on May 5th, Children’s Day. Two years after the nuclear plant meltdowns at Fukushima Daiichi, Japan, March 11, 2011 (our time), Japanese women are demanding that all nuclear power plants be closed. The nuclear disaster is still unfolding, and tens of thousands of people have permanently lost their homes, businesses and land because of it. In Japan, “women’s groups have been particularly ...effective in condemning the government’s casualization of exposure... its inadequate attention to ‘hotspots’ outside of the official evacuation areas, its calculation only of external radiation...” according to a JapanFocus article. While polls last June indicated 80% of Japanese prefer at least a gradual phase out of nuclear energy, women’s groups there have made “some of the most consistent and specific demands” drawing “attention to issues such as the exposure of children to radiation as well as food safety.” Energia Mia joins this majority to call for replacing nuclear energy with energy conservation, wind, solar, geothermal and sources of energy that are decentralized/ local, sustainable and affordable to all. Consider flying Koinobori with us: energiamia.org. q
While we do this–we talk and share stories, cook, and eat. We share recipes, stories and memories, ideas, photos, songs, and so much laughter! We call ourselves Corazones de Casa de Cuentos. We meet every second Saturday morning from 10 am to 1pm to share historias, memories, coffee, pan dulce, and laughter. If you or someone you know has memories of the people, stories about the neighborhood, or photos to share about the Westside from the ‘30s through the ‘60s, please join us at the Casa de Cuentos, 816 Colorado (near the corner of Guadalupe and Colorado Street). – Cynthia Spielman
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ow that most of the renovations are complete on the Casa de Cuentos (the main building) a group of sabios, keepers of community stories and memories, have come together to share ideas and plan projects for the space every Monday from 11am to 2pm. We are creating a statement of purpose and setting goals, compiling a history of the buildings for tours, formulating guidelines for volunteers, drawing up outlines of future projects, and planning for upcoming events, such as a the monthly second Saturday convivio of elders, and the upcoming Paseo por el Westside event. Some of our goals include community outreach - historias and interviews, platicas about the history and the future of the Westside. We will work on documentation and archiving and such proposed projects as a Westside cookbook with traditional recipes and stories.
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Erica Andrews
T
Que en paz descanse
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he news of Erica Andrews’s death on March 11, 2013 spread across social media and our community like a savage fire. Much like a fire, this news burned many of us at our core, leaving us to sort through the life-long memories she left us. At the Esperanza, Erica made an impact as an actor in Jotos del Barrio (2002) and Miss America: A Mexicanito Fairy’s Tale (2009). Below, former cast and crew members offer their remembrances.
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I’ve been trying for a week to put together a few words for Erica and I realized no matter what I jot down it won’t ever be enough to express how I feel about her loss. My greatest memory of her will always be working with her at the Esperanza while we did Miss America. We mourn Erica Andrews the entertainer but what I’m going to miss the most is my dear friend Erica Salazar. -Manuel Barraza I remember admiring Erica from afar. I always wished I could talk to her; maybe even get to perform with her. Years later I had the honor of sharing the stage with her in Miss America and my dream came true! We not only talked, we worked together and we built a life-long friendship. She taught me about strength, hope, and courage. She was a teacher of LIFE and a human filled with a lot of LOVE. She lives in me and in the hearts of everyone she touched. -Jaime Gonzalez
Erica > Sister. Her Love = Beauty. Perfectionism + Professionalism. Humilde, Reina y Mexicana. Master prankster • Fairy godmother. - Javier Simons
¡Una diosa de primera categoría! We had already known each other for a while, but what brought us closer together was working on Miss America, her as an actress and I as a choreographer. A true friend that gave me the nickname “Rufina.” All I can say is, I guess God needed her by His side. An angel will be watching and guiding us from above, keeping us safe. Con todo respeto, - Ricardo César Gaitán Muñoz
The first time I met Erica she asked if she could audition for a part in Jotos del Barrio. I thought this was absurd; Erica could have any role she wanted! But being the true professional artist and respectful person that she was, Erica came to her audition and blew us all out of our seats. Erica – amiga, hermana, compañera en el arte – ¡muchas gracias por todo! Above all, thank you for the lessons in courage, strength, respect, y humildad -Jesús Alonzo I met Eddie 25 years ago working at Glamour Shots and learned all about glamour from Erica. Thanks for all the talent and my very first drag make-up. I remember her calling me Goddess from that point on and I was never scared. THANK YOU MISS ANDREWS!!!!!! LOVE, - Rene Roberts aka BETTY ANDREWS
PART THREE Cities as if Women Mattered: a special series of La Voz
by Marisol Cortez
Thinking Hays Street and HemisFair in an Era of Neoliberal Urbanism
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ne of the common misunderstandings about the struggle over the fate of the Hays Street Bridge is that the struggle is merely about the integrity of the bridge as a physical structure. It’s not: at bottom, it is about relations between people, about the relations of inequality that motivate conflicting desires for urban space. The struggle over the Hays Street Bridge exposes the bigger forces driving downtown redevelopment generally, forcing the question of whether those forces serve those most vulnerable or whether they work in the interest of the most connected and secure. What happens to the bridge and the land surrounding tells us much about how we relate to one another, and how we relate to the land itself, as nature: that’s why it matters.
In previous segments of this series, we’ve been discussing the nature of these social and environmental relations, widening our lens so as to sketch out the basic characteristics of capitalism that inform land use decisions within cities. Overall, following urban geographer David Harvey, we’ve argued that the logic of capitalism is the logic of “accumulation through dispossession,” the logic of the land grab: the creation of wealth for a few through the enclosure and privatization of the commons that the many depend on—the land, air, and water which belong to everyone and to which we all belong. We’ve also argued that urbanization is one way that the state attempts to regulate “crises of accumulation,” or the patterns of boom and bust inherent to a capitalist economy. Building up cities to tear them down to build them up again is one way of absorbing surplus capital and labor during inevitable times of recession. In the third segment of this series, we continue exploring the struggles around the Hays Street Bridge and downtown redevelopment in relation to these two arguments, asking: How do the city’s plans for downtown and its peripheral neighborhoods represent a new phase of “accumulation through dispossession”—profit through land grabbery? The case I want to make is that we cannot understand the city’s plans, nor resistance to them, without understanding what Julie Sze and other
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omy in the global North; and—perhaps most significantly—the withdrawal of state regulation to permit and encourage capital’s new border-hopping, globalized character. Where monopoly capitalism was stable and centralized, neoliberal capitalism is flighty and unstable, with even less of a commitment to location. Neoliberal capitalism is also notorious for restricting posThe importance of understanding a technical mouthful like sibilities for a democratic political process, as it has meant the “neoliberal urbanism” is the importance of placing local efforts greater power of transnational corporations to shape the lives to protect public spaces into the wider context of long term shifts and wellbeing of local populations, with less input from those at the level of both national and global economies. Within the most impacted and with far less accountability to national govpast 40 years, the development of a neoliberal style of capitalernments. ism has produced new strategies of profit-making, new forms of Within cities, neoliberal restructuring has also meant “exurban governance, and new kinds of urban spaces and identities tensive changes in the institutions of urban governance,” acas well. As Gihan Perera from Miami Worker’s Center puts it: cording to geographer Mark Purcell. Whereas the function of “Take New York, for instance. To really understand the econolocal government in an earlier era of monopoly capitalism was my and structure of New York, you need to understand its role to administer federal distributions, Purcell states that the “local in finance and real estate not only in New York but throughout economy [is now] increasingly less a function of the national the globe. … [Similarly,] Miami holds almost every bank headeconomy[.] Local governments have become more concerned quarters in Latin America, and most decisions about investment with ensuring that the local area competes effectively in the are happening in cafeterias across the street from those banks global economy”—as evident in the emphasis of SA2020 on beon Brickell Avenue in Miami. And it’s from that context that coming a “world class” city. In this shift, local governments have investment and economic and policy decisions are being made begun to contract out previthroughout the world.” To understand ously public functions and local fights around Hays Street and services to “volunteer orgaHemisFair, we have to think global, nizations and private forms, . . . what we see in case of the in other words—which means underand [they] have developed standing the shift to neoliberal forms Alamo brewery project is that, quasi-public bodies—such of capitalism insofar as these shape as … urban development in the most cynical manner, the urban governance, and by extension, corporations and public prithe production of urban space. vate partnerships—to carry city is using programs intended As urban geographer David Harout many of the functions of vey put it in 1990, neoliberalism is a to reverse decades of inner city local government.” In this “different regime of accumulation,” way, corporations become disinvestment and resulting a new stage of capitalism that has the model for public entities emerged since the crash of the global (education, health care, parks racialized poverty as tools of property market in the 1970s, promptand recreation, arts), which ing a shift in how capitalism works on gentrification, displacement, more and more are forced to the economic, political, and cultural function like for-profit indusand resettlement. levels. While the essential logic—actry (witness the renaming of cumulation through dispossession— the city’s Office of Cultural has remained the same, this logic has Affairs as the Department of a different style and flavor. On the Creative Development, rideconomic level, no longer do we see the post-WWII triumvirate ing the wave of neoliberal rhetoric around “creative economies” of big business held in check by big labor and big government. driven by the “creative class”). As on the global level, the chief This earlier era of what Harvey and others have called moside effect of these developments has been the disenfranchisenopoly or Fordist capitalism was marked by large, centralized ment of urban residents, as real decision-making is transferred manufacturing sites able to offer workers a standard of living from local governments to the developers and industry boosters approximating something called “middle class” (or, the ability whose investments cities frequently court just to stay afloat. to consume what one produces without actually controlling the Under neoliberalism, even the mechanisms cities have creprocess of production) via stable, lifelong positions with benated to redress histories of uneven development become tools efits. for the transfer of wealth from poor communities to wealthy Instead, we find ourselves amidst a new relationship beinvestors, without much say so from anyone at all. For instance, tween state and capital that goes by different names: postinduswhat we see in case of the Alamo brewery project is that, in trial, flexible, postmodern, global, transnational, post-Fordist. the most cynical manner, the city is using programs intended Its biggest characteristics are casualization (the conversion of to reverse decades of inner city disinvestment and resulting rastable jobs for life into the uncertainty of “permatemp” posicialized poverty as tools of gentrification, displacement, and tions based on short term contracts); the deindustrialization of resettlement. As sociologist Robert Bullard and other transportraditional industrial centers as manufacturing relocates to third tation scholars have pointed out, the TEA-21 funds used by the world spaces where production is cheaper and more profitable; Hays Street Bridge Restoration Group to restore the bridge have the rise of a post-industrial service- and knowledge-based econbeen used by many communities around the U.S. to mitigate the urban scholars mean by neoliberal urbanism. Because if there is a single term that names what is happening, that is it.
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Neoliberal What?
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racist impacts of urban renewal, connecting inner city neighborhoods gutted by highway projects back to the downtown core. Additionally, inner city reinvestment money, infill policy fee waivers, and other public incentives offered to Alamo Beer have been given not to those historically excluded from this access, but to those already privileged by their political connections. Redistributive mechanisms that should be used to disrupt and correct histories of disinvestment are instead being used to extend a long history of transferring public wealth to outside investors rather than to local residents— except where residents can be redefined in accordance with neoliberal preferences as “paying customers.”
The Park Formerly Known as HemisFair
. . . much of the corruption that attaches to urban politics relates to how public investments are allocated to produce something that looks like a common but which promotes gains in private asset values for privileged property owners.
But the controversy over the Hays Street Bridge is not an isolated or anomalous case—another common misunderstanding—but rather the visible outer edge of the exclusions and displacements inherent to downtown redevelopment generally, as evidenced in the case of the Hemisfair redevelopment project. Briefly, for those not yet acquainted with the details of the 10-15 year project, the city’s intent is to revitalize downtown in part by recreating HemisFair Park as a “world class urban park,” in the description of the Hemisfair Park Area Redevelopment Corporation (HPARC), the public-private entity tasked with the project. Features of HPARC’s plans include restoring the original street grid; widening the streets to accommodate pedestrians, bikes, and car traffic; demolishing the existing Convention Center to free up acreage for park land; and restoring the approximately 1200 residential units displaced in the creation of HemisFair ’68 by constructing downtown living space. As always, however, we have to look beyond the promise of
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downtown living and increased green space to ask: what kind of residential space will be created? What kind of green space? For whom? If rents will be anything like those in the restored Southtown lofts cited by Mayor Castro in his recent State of the City address as an example of the success of the “Decade of Downtown” ($1330 for a 1 bedroom apartment and $1845 for 2 bedrooms, with no affordable units set aside or section 8 allowed), then these are not questions we can afford to stop asking. Moreover, while the city is not technically selling the public lands of HemisFair Park outright to housing developers, those developers will have long term leases with the city, proceeds from which the city will use as income for park upkeep. While this sounds like a tidy solution to austerity-era budgets, what it means in effect is that the promised increase in green space acreage will be subject to increased private surveillance. This green space will no longer be for everyone—public space as commons—but for those who can afford to live there. In fact, journalist Alex Ulam goes so far as to argue that this way of funding parks represents the “contemporary park privatization model,” in which public dollars fund park construction, while maintenance and operations budgets derive from revenue generated by private development constructed on park grounds, leading to a conflict of interest between public function and commercial interests. As Harvey says in his recent book Rebel Cities, “much of the corruption that attaches to urban politics relates to how public investments are allocated to produce something that looks like a common but which promotes gains in private asset values for privileged property owners.” Tellingly, the rebranding of HemisFair Park to drop the “park” suggests this dual move to restrict physical access to urban space and political access to the decision making process over land use, displacing from both those who actually use city space to make way for a preferred class of urban identities. As an HPARC official reported in La Prensa in January of 2013, “another reason the word ‘park’ was removed is because research shows that in an urban setting people associate the word with vagrants and the homeless.” To redevelop The Park Formerly Known as HemisFair in these ways, the city moved to amend a state law protecting public lands from sale so that plans might proceed apace without the public votes otherwise required. While this move was blocked by state legislators, this same attempt to restrict public input on the question of public land sales has become the basis for the Hays Street Restoration Group’s lawsuit against the city. The statute is designed precisely for situations such as these,
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so as to protect the right of those who use land held in common to say what should happen to that land. This is especially critical when the city’s plans would effectively restrict access to public lands or displace a diversity of uses/users - homeless and residents and tourists in the same space - for a monoculture befitting a “world class” downtown. If plans are good, what can be the threat of a vote? Understanding neoliberal capital on the economic and political levels ultimately helps us understand it as a set of cultural transformations seeking to “colonize space for the affluent,” as Harvey puts it, especially in parts of the inner city previously treated as economic sacrifice zones. As with the Dignowity Hill neighborhood, as with the former neighborhoods of HemisFair Park, as with my dad’s old neighborhood now bordering the new Pearl, as with the Broadway corridor and the near-Westside near UTSA downtown, city space is unmade and remade to attract desirable new cosmopolitan mobilities and identities. Thus BudCo land becomes microbrewery turf, while high end retail spaces where local elites can lunch over business decisions are constructed on the ruined factories and foundries and quarries and railway corridors of the deindustrialized city. High rises and loft living then change the fabric and character of the working class neighborhoods that remain. For instance, real estate speculation on the eastern edge of downtown transformed the local neighborhood association from an advocate of longtime residents—a
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largely elderly, historically black and mexicano population—to a promoter of the city’s preferred development model. With the influx of residents from the Vidorra high rises, the neighborhood association became mouthpiece and justification for city’s privatization of the bridge and its surrounding land in an attempt to draw tourist dollars to the area, no matter that this project would betray the work of community groups that worked closely with the city to realize a more accessible vision for bridge and land. As with the role played by Avenida Guadalupe Association in the struggle to preserve Casa Maldonado from demolition, Dignowity Hill Neighborhood Association has functioned in the case of the Hays Street Bridge as a de facto public-private partnership, undercutting the work of community to protect the commons, and promoting instead the enclosures and removals required to make over a formerly working class neighborhood as a choice destination for preferred consumers.
To Gentrify Does Not Mean to Make Something More Beautiful Understood within the historical and political context of neoliberalism, the neighborhood changes on the edge of downtown are less revitalization than gentrification, or the process by which “capital and affluent populations flow to low-income and working class city quarters often resulting in displacement for the original inhabitants” (in the words of urban studies scholar Jonathan Jackson). As community trying to resist displacement, this is also why it is important that we get our terms right. Gentrification cannot and should not be understood (as in the city’s preferred definition) as a neutral process of neighborhood change, or worse, as making something implicitly ugly into something better or more beautiful. Within the historical and sociological context of neoliberalism, we can see how the rhetoric of redevelopment—terms like blight, underutilized, surplus, renewal, revitalization—is deeply racially and class-coded. Here, “underutilized,” a term often used to describe land around the Hays Street Bridge and HemisFair Park, means not un-used, but more nefariously, used by the wrong people for the wrong reasons. The point is not that places like HemisFair Park or the lot at the corner of Cherry and Lamar are better off the way they are (or were). The point is that scholars like Harvey accurately point out the dynamics shaping cities around the world, including here in San Antonio. The point is that powerful forces repeatedly build up the city to tear it down to build it anew, not to directly remedy histories of racialized and gendered poverty, but to continue ensuring capital accumulation for those who already own. The discourse of “economic development” is in fact a smokescreen for the dispossessions and displacements— the land grabs—on which redevelopment efforts necessarily rest. My task in this analysis is not to indict powerful individuals, but ultimately to understand the structural nature of power, the systemic forces involved in producing urban space in particular ways for particular interests. It is these structural forces, not individuals, which produce the historical repetitions we want to disrupt. It is not about the personal integrity of HPARC’s well-intentioned CEO, or even of headline-grabbing former deputy city managers with conflicts of interests (well, maybe it is). While individuals change positions, what we want is an understanding of the structural logic that persists to produce the same outcomes. Because what we want is nothing less than a different logic altogether. Next in this series, that new logic: Right to the City, Rights of Mother Earth. Bio: Marisol Cortez attempts to inhabit the impossible interstices between academic and activist worlds. She works primarily on issues of environmental justice as a creative writer, community organizer and liberation sociologist. Email her with thoughts at cortez.marisol@gmail.com
Tip Integrity Act y name is Perla Terrazas.
I was raised by two hard-working parents who worked tirelessly to provide the best for their family. Mi Tia, the Tip Integrity Act, is one way thousands of hard working San Antonio families like mine, can do the same. Mi Tia would prevent millions of dollars in tips from being stolen from service workers by their employers. Stealing hard earned tips from San Antonio families is wrong, and it must end!
LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • April 2013 Vol. 26 Issue 3•
The year 2013 marks the 30th anniversary of my mother’s special for her grandchildren. On several occasions, my mom arrival to this country. She came from Mexico to the United was told by guests that they would be leaving a tip for her, States as many had before and continue to do so. She came but then she wouldn’t receive it. When she asked her manager across the border as an “illegal” immigrant. She moved with about it, she was given no reason for the missing money. her father to Dallas, Texas where she began to work in order For too long, big hotel corporations have been taking tips to support herself. A few years later she and my father met that belong to the workers and pocketing it for the sole purpose and started a family. They had three children for whom they of padding their pockets. Not that these companies are in dire worked hard to support. My dad would go to work every morn- need of a few extra dollars. The Grand Hyatt received $207 ing, doing construction. My mom would stay home and cook, clean, wash, and care for us. They both did all they could to make sure we always had what we needed, or at the very least make us feel like we had everything we needed. They both became legal residents in the early 1990s. In 2002, we moved to San Antonio, the place we now love and consider home. My dad struggled to find work that paid enough to support a family of five, so my mom applied at the Hyatt Regency, where an aunt of mine was working at the time. She was hired as a housekeeper, a job she has done since with a lot of pride. After a few years, she began complaining of pain throughout her body. Her shoulders, arms, knees, her hands and back would ache. It was difficult seeing my mom come home from Perla Terrazas (right) with her mother, Elvia Claudio. Photo: SACurrent.com work, too tired to play with her grandchildren, or do work around the house as she had done for so many years. Finding million dollars from the City of San Antonio in tax abatements courage through the UNITE HERE union organizers, she stood when they came to the city. Aside from taking millions in resiup to her managers. Over the years Hyatt increased the number dents’ tax money, they are blatantly stealing tip money intendof rooms the housekeepers had to clean from 18 to now up to ed for workers. In a tourist city like San Antonio, millions of 30. More work in the same 8 hours a day meant working faster, dollars are paid in service charges. This is no small amount of getting injured more often, and having no time to stop and rest. money these companies are taking. I know for my family a few The Hyatt has for years abused their workers who they see as hundred dollars a month would have made a big difference. machines, not as my mom, or my nephew’s But why has the City of San Antonio done nothing to grandmother, or my father’s wife. They stop tip theft from happening to hard working people like my disrespect workers by treating them as mom? Why do these companies feel it is OK to take money objects instead of as human beings. that does not belong to them? It is because no one had done Aside from increasing the work- anything about it, or shined a light on it. Hotel and restaurant load, other problems emerged over the workers like my mom are standing up and supporting Mi Tia. years. When my mom began working This ordinance would make hotels and restaurants be honest at Hyatt, and for a few years after, she about where money that is left for workers is actually goreceived tips that guests left for her ing. Getting workers the money they work so hard for is the at the front desk. Although it was ultimate goal. People who work in the third largest industry not a great deal of money, every bit in San Antonio should not be struggling to support a family. helped–maybe for a few extra That is why we should all be urging our City Council repgroceries, paying a little more towards the bills, resentatives, and Mayor Julian Castro to support and going out for dinner pass the Tip Integrity Act! To get involved and have your every now and then, voice be heard, find us online at www.supportmitia.org or buying something or call UNITE HERE at 210-224-1520.
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la Migra
LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • April 2013 Vol. 26 Issue 3•
by Lupe Casares & Teresita Jacinto
editor’s note
A historical perspective
As the politics of immigration legislation heats up, it must be noted that the stories of Mexican immigrants and their descendents have been with us for generations. Our experiences as Chicanas/os have been inextricably linked to the immigrant experience. In tribute, La Voz de Esperanza presents a series of stories beginning with La Migra.
What the United States Department of Immigration and Naturalization officially called a repatriation project from the late 1940s to the 1950s, was in fact the militarization of the southern border of the United States in a de facto police state impacting thousands of families living mostly in states north of Mexico. The massive deportation campaign, known as “Operation Wetback” targeted men, women, and children for simply looking Mexican, although great numbers were then and later found to be US citizens. The operation employed policestate raids and practices that arbitrarily held hostage the residents of colonias and barrios throughout the southwest. The political scheme of the time was designed to rid the country of a mostly innocent and hard working people blamed for the economic woes of a country emerging from a world war. The project was largely enforced by white immigration agents who acted without protocols, training, or the rule of law. With the help of local and state police agencies, they simply enforced a policy that permitted them to use any and all means necessary to accomplish the ultimate goal of deporting the “Mexican-looking” population. To date there has not even been a national apology for the illegal seizure, torture, and deportation of well over a million Mexicans, many of whom were citizens of this country. While we are willing to forgive those who terrorized our people, we will never forget the humiliation, anguish, and degradation suffered at the hands of a country without a conscience.
T
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Immigrant stories, a series
he constant loud barking alerted Dona Teresa Navarro that something was terribly wrong. She had just assured herself that the baby’s bath water was exactly lukewarm, for, although it was midsummer, the two-year-old Dora didn’t like water cold. Teresa noticed the first man running past the window as she gently placed the baby inside the round tub. The neighbors that followed him were evidence of a colonia turned into an infierno. As children screamed, men and women held small personal belongings on their backs with babies were clutched tightly as everyone ran to save themselves. “La migra! la migra! Dona Tere, corra, nos llego la migra.” Margarita from next door was warning her, but it was not in Tere to run. She did what she had done in previous raids, she remained calm and dealt with the fear. Decisively, she sped up the baby’s bath and dressed her comfortably. Rushing over to the small closet, she reached for her husband’s jacket where documents were tucked safely in a small plastic wrap. Outside the screaming had given way to children sobbing. The agents were barking orders in an attempt to load people unto green cattle trucks. The moment she had dreaded had arrived, and she could hear heavy footsteps outside her door. The short delay had given her time to do what she needed to do. She picked the baby off the bed and held her snugly next to her breast to minimize the alarm. The old door swung open abruptly to the shadow of a man standing in a frame of sunlight. He seemed much taller than other agents she remembered. His cold, gray eyes fixed on her, and his hand rested on the butt of a holstered gun. “Ondey ehsta otros?” He managed in awkward Spanish. “No hay nadie mas, sólo mi niña y yo!” Tere answered. The agent scanned the room making a mental note that there was not much space for anyone to hide. “Tener tu papeles?” he continued. She quickly unfolded the small plastic bag removing a document. “Solo esto.” On other occasions the letter had been enough to keep her from being arrested. The document was a notarized letter describing her husband as a U.S Citizen and herself as a beneficiary in line for legal resident status. The agent did not take too much time studying the document. Unimpressed, he waved a hand signaling her to step before him. Without hesitation, she quickly packed a few more things in an old paper bag. All her movements were those of a submissive prisoner, until the agent attempted to grab her by the arm. She stopped him cold. “No señor, a mi no tiene que mangoniarme, yo no corro de nadie.” (No sir!, there is no need to subdue me; I don’t run from anyone.) It wasn’t her words that surprised the agent since he didn’t understand much Spanish anyway. It was her expression and demeanor that he had not seen before today. Both Tere and the agent looked at each other with a new understanding. Despite the circumstances, Tere was keeping her dignity, and the agent was meeting with an unmistakable demand for respect. q
Homenaje a Eva Garza
Agradecimientos Friday & Saturday, February 23 &24, 2013 Casa de Cuentos Lucy & Ray Perez Luis Mercado Mariana Vasquez Maria & Manuel Berriozabal Maria Salazar & JoAnn Castillo Mario E. Carbajal Mario Tristán Marisela Barrera Marisol Cortez Martha Prentiss Mary Esther & Joe Bernal Melissa Ann Rodríguez Mildred Hilbrich Miriam Bujanda & Gerald Poyo Monica Velásquez Rachel Hinojosa Raul Castellanos Ray Zamora Ronald Valdez Roy Faz Sam Bruce Samantha Valdez Sandra Cisneros Sandra & Raphael Guerra Sharyll Teneyuca Tina Garza Moore Tino Villanueva Tomás Ybarra Frausto & Dudley Brooks Velia Sánchez Victoria Traversi Yolanda Broyles González
Photos by Antonia Padilla, Bernard Sanchez y Esperanza staff
LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • April 2013 Vol. 26 Issue 3•
Abraham De La Torre Alexis Marie Estrada Alice Canestaro-García Angie Merla Antonia Castañeda y Arturo Madrid Bat Bernard Sánchez Carlos Salazar Solorzano Cynthia Spielman David Zamora Casas Edward Vela & Evergreen Nursery Efrain Loredo Ellen Riojas Clark Eloise Castro Elva Perez Trevino Gilda “Gigi” Carreon Gloria Ramirez Grace Ibarra Graciela Sanchez & Amy Kastely Hilda Arévalos Imelda Arismendez Isabel & Enrique Sanchez Leticia L. Sanchez Itza Carbajal Janie Barrera Jeremia Bredvad Jezzika Lee Perez Josie Merla Martin Laura Varela Los Corazones de la
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* community meetings *
Amnesty International #127 meets at various sites during the year. Contact Arthur Dawes at 210- 2135919 for details. Anti-War Peace Vigil every Thursday (since 9/11/2001) from 4-5pm @ Flores & Commerce Contact Tim 210.822.4525 | timduda@aol.com Bexar Co. Green Party info@bexargreens.org or call 210.471.1791. Celebration Circle meets Sundays, 11am @ JumpStart at Blue Star Arts Complex. Meditation, Weds @ 7:30 pm @ Quaker Meeting House, 7052 Vandiver. 210.533-6767 DIGNITY S.A. mass at 5:30 pm, Sunday @ Beacon Hill Presbyterian Church, 1101 W. Woodlawn. Call 210.735.7191. GLBT Wellness Support Group sponsored by PRIDE Center of SA meets 4th Mondays, 7-8:45pm @ Lions Field Club House, 2809 Broadway. Call 210.213.5919 for info Energia Mia meets 3rd Saturday, 1pm @ Oblate School of Theology, 285 Oblate Dr. Call 210.849.8121
LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • April 2013 Vol. 26 Issue 3•
Fuerza Unida, 710 New Laredo, Hwy. 210.927.2297 www.lafuerzaunida.org
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Be Part of a
611 East Myrtle, has services & Sunday school @ 10:30am. Call 210.599.9289.
Progressive Movement
PFLAG, meets 1st Thurs @ 7pm, 1st Unitarian Universalist Church, Gill Rd/Beryl Dr. Call 210.655.2383. PFLAG Español meets 1st Tuesdays @ 2802 W. Salinas, 7pm. Call 210.849.6315
in San Antonio
¡Todos Somos Esperanza!
Start your 2013 monthly donations now!
Proyecto Hospitalidad Liturgy each Thursday at 7pm at 325 Courtland. Call 210.736.3579. The Rape Crisis Center, Hotline @ 210.349-7273. 210.521.7273 or email Drominishi@rapecrisis.com 7500 US Hwy 90 W. The Religious Society of Friends meets Sundays @ 10am @ The Friends Meeting House, 7052 N. Vandiver. 210.945.8456. San Antonio’s Communist Party USA holds open meetings 3-5 pm 2nd Sundays at Westfall Branch Library, 6111 Rosedale Ct. Contact: juanchostanford@yahoo.com S.A. Gender Association meets 1st & 3rd Thursdays, 6-9pm @ 611 E. Myrtle, Metropolitan Community Church, downstairs. www.sagender.org
Habitat for Humanity meets 1st Tues. for volunteer orientation, 6pm, HFHSA Office @ 311 Probandt.
The San Antonio AIDS Foundation offers free HIV testing 6 days a week at 818 E. Grayson St. 210.225.4715 | www.txsaaf.org.
S.A. International Woman’s Day March & Rally planning committee meets year-round. www.sawomenwillmarch.org or 210.262.0654
Shambhala Buddhist Meditation Center classes are on Tuesdays at 7pm, & Sun. at 11:30 am. at 1114 So. St. Mary’s. Call 210.222.9303.
LGBT Youth Group meets at MCC Church, 611 E. Myrtle on Sundays at 10:30am. 210.472.3597
S.N.A.P. (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests). Contact Barbara at 210.725.8329.
Metropolitan Community Church in San Antonio (MCCSA)
Voice for Animals: 210.737.3138 or www.voiceforanimals.org for info
Esperanza works to bring awareness and action on issues relevant to our communities. With our vision for social, environmental, economic and gender justice, Esperanza centers the voices and experiences of the poor & working class, women, queer people and people of color. We hold pláticas and workshops; organize political actions; present exhibits and performances and document and preserve our cultural histories. We consistently challenge City Council and the corporate powers of the city on issues of development, low-wage jobs, gentrification, clean energy and more. It takes all of us to keep the Esperanza going. When you contribute monthly to the Esperanza you are making a long-term commitment to the movement for progressive change in San Antonio, allowing Esperanza to sustain and expand our programs. Monthly donors can give as little as $5 and as much as $500 a month or more. What would it take for YOU to become a monthly donor? Call or come by the Esperanza to learn how. ¡Esperanza vive! ¡La lucha sigue! Call 210.228.0201 or email esperanza@esperanzacenter.org for more info
Make a tax-deductible donation. $35 La Voz subscription
for more info call 210.228.0201
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Notas Y Más April 2013
The 10th annual Center for Mexican Ameican Studies & Research (CMASR) Conference, Higher Education: Cultural Issues & Cultural Studies, takes place April 4 & 5 at Our Lady of the Lake University. See www.ollusa.edu.
The Benjamin V. Cohen Peace Conference–Promoting Nonviolence at Home and Beyond takes place April 5th and 6th in Muncie, Indiana. Visit www.bsu.edu/cohenpeaceconference for details. Dignity San Antonio will host an art exhibit, If you are going to paint my world, paint it in fabulous colors! Saturday, April 6th, 1-5 pm at Viva Bookstore, 8407 Broadway. Contact vivabooks.com or www.dignitysanantonio.com The San Antonio Communist Party USA Club will meet on Sunday, April 14, 3-5pm at the Westfall Public Library meeting room, 6111 Rosedale Ct., 78201, (210) 344-2373. The topic of discussion will be the May city and school elections.
The first San Antonio Q Fest, an LGBT themed film festival will occur April 21, 22, and 23. See www.farrisfamilyfp.com/ video/sa-q-fest/ for more.
years of age & younger for the 7th Annual Josiah Media Festival to be held July 11th13th. Postmark deadline is June 1st. Call URBAN-15 at 210-736-1500 or email us Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education at josiahfestival@urban15.org. & Society is calling for submissions on The 9th Annual Queer Women of Color conditions of Indigeneity in local contexts Film Festival is scheduled on June 14-16 & how these relate & interact with larger in San Francisco. See www.qwocmap.org/ global decolonization movements. Submit to www.decolonization.org by April 26. CantoMundo for Latina/o poets convenes June 27-30 at UT–Austin. Apply at: www. Mujeres Unidas, Inc. that provides educa- cantomundo.org/guidelinesapplication/ tion & support services to bilingual/bicultural communities faced with HIV/AIDS Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio So& other health concerns will sponsor the cial (MALCS) invites submissions for its 15th Annual Baile de Vida on Friday, May annual Summer Institute: ¡Aquí Estamos!/ 10th at 300 Callaghan Rd. Tickets are $30. We Are Here!: Movements, Migrations, Pilgrimage and Belonging to be held July Call 210.738.3393. 17-20 at Ohio State University in ColumThe Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center is bus, Ohio. Check: comparativestudies.osu. looking for writings on conjunto music for edu/events/malcs-2013-summer-institute its 32nd Annual Tejano Conjunto Festival publication. Email: juantejeda@sbcglobal. The 38th National Conference on Men net no later than early April. The 2013 & Masculinities ~ Forging Justice: CreTejano Conjunto Festival will take place ating Safe, Equal & Accountable ComMay 15–16 at the Guadalupe Theater and munities of the National Organization May 17–19 at Rosedale Park in San Anto- for Men Against Sexism meets August nio, Tx. Contact (210) 271-3151 or www. 8-10 in Detroit. See: www.nomas.org. guadalupeculturalarts.org. The 2013 American Grants & Loans URBAN-15 is seeking outstanding short Catalog contains more than 2800 financial films in the categories of narrative, docu- programs, subsidies, scholarships, grants mentary, animation & experimental films & loans offered by the federal government. 15 from students or independent artists 21 To order call: 1 (800) 610-4543.
The Esperanza began a journey into the queer visual experience on May 19, 1989 that was sparked by a diminutive elder, Mim Scharlack. who had been a dancer in Hollywood and lost friends to the AIDS pandemic including Liberace. She expressed her feelings of anger and sadness for friends who had died from AIDS in a series of paintings. Attending the exhibit was David Zamora Casas who later wrote: “The Esperanza was the only gallery that would house an exhibit at the time dealing with issues related to AIDS. Large dramatic red, black and white paintings inspired by death, suffering and pain created by a little lady who I would come to know as Mimi Le Mew. Art brought me to the Esperanza. Art and AIDS…” That same spring David curated an exhibit in observation of Gay Pride entitled, Equal Rights for Whom? –the first public exhibit of its kind in San Antonio and in Texas. The lesbian and gay community had finally come out unwittingly prompted by Mim’s bold step in exhibiting The AIDS Series. Mim, a gifted dancer, musician, performance artist and poet was an integral part of the San Antonio arts community who made a difference in Esperanza’s history as well as other organizations, most notably Jump-Start Performance Co.
She will long be remembered. Que en paz descanse.
LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • April 2013 Vol. 26 Issue 3•
The Scholar: St. Mary’s Law Review on Race and Social Justice will sponsor the Immigration Symposium on Friday, April 5th at the San Antonio Plaza Club in the Frost Bank Tower in San Antonio. Contact Claudia at claudiavballi@yahoo.com or Francisca at lawscholar@stmarytx.edu.
Brief news items on upcoming community events. Send info 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.
LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • April 2013 Vol. 26 Issue 3•
g
film screenin
An ongoing public education program of the Esperanza Center presents
City of Hope Dir. john sayles 1991
Join us for our monthly concert series with singer/songwriter Azul
Sat April 27 6pm Hays St Bridge free
Saturday April 20th 8pm
La Voz de Esperanza
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BAILE! tickets
with DJ El General
7
$
Saturday, 8pm April 13, 2013
@ Esperanza peace & justice ctr Call Isabel at 227.6868 or the Esperanza at 228.0201
Celebrating the Spanish Romani (Gypsy) Historia y Arte Friday, April 5th 7pm-10pm
• Free Workshop on Belly Basics (all skill levels) w/ Gio of Zombie Bazaar Belly Dance • Raza Cale Plática with Spain’s Silvia Salamanca - $5 Saturday, April 6th
¡Vengan, enjoy a day of música, films, photos, food, y más!
Saturday, May 4, 2013 @ Rinconcito de Esperanza, 816 S. Colorado
@1412 El Paso St, (210) 223-2585
9am-10pm
• Registration • Workshop w/ Erin Gillespie - $15 • Zambra Mora Workshop - $30 • Gitana Revolución Performance - $8
@ Esperanza, 922 San Pedro Contact Gio at giomarabaz@yahoo.com | 210.459.6660
For more info: (210) 228.0201
Mother’s Day Exhibit & Sale Special Preview Friday, May 3rd, 6pm $20 Admission Exhibit May 4th-11th 10am-3pm, Free handcrafted ceramics to honor all women who have nurtured and advocated for their families, friends and community.