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Hey Aaron,
Thanks for your insightful post. Good analysis as always, considering..."
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Remembering Luis
(This originally appeared on Rock the Trail -- a project of Rock the Vote and WireTap)
I was shocked when I found out that three teenagers beat a 25 year old Mexican immigrant to death. The Washington Times reported: "Three white teens were charged in what officials said was an epithet-filled fatal beating of an illegal Mexican immigrant in a small northeast Pennsylvania coal town."
Three caucasian teens were the cause of this heinous crime. I am 19 and these kids are 18, 17, and 16 years of age- just a year or two younger than myself. How can they be capable of doing this? These three teenagers beat up Luis Ramirez until he was left unconscious. He later died in the hospital.
I honestly thought that racism in our generation was a thing of the past -- I guess I was wrong. As these three young men were yelling racial slurs to Ramirez, they kicked him repeatedly in the head and in his body and he was left for dead. The three teens were yelling as they walked away and told Ramirez to go back to Mexico and that he didn't belong in this country. The words allegedly hurled at Ramirez, and the perceived sentiments behind them, have led prosecutors to label his death a hate crime. What were these kids thinking? The boys who committed the crime will be tried as adults in this case and their lives are guaranteed to change forever.
We need to understand that as a generation we must stick together and break the barriers of racism. According to CNN, "Eileen Burke, a retired Philadelphia police officer, had stepped out of her home after hearing Arielle Garcia's pleas to stop the beating. Burke recalled hearing one final ominous threat as the teens ran. "They yelled, 'You effin' bitch, tell your effin' Mexican friends get the eff out of Shenandoah or you're gonna be laying effin' next to him,' " she said.
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Marichu Suarez Baoanan's Case
A campaign around a woman being trafficked into the United States reveals another case of modern day slavery in New York City.
“My eyes became blurry from crying every night. It was like I did not have hope to escape or to continue to live. I thought about committing suicide because I was so depressed – I couldn’t even send money for my family’s food”.
These are the words of Marichu Suarez Baoanan when she spoke last week about being trafficked into the United States.
Marichu Suarez Baoanan Case
Marichu Suarez Baoanan met Norma Baja of Labaire International Inc. in the Philippines. Baja promised her a package deal of a visa, plane ticket, and work authorization to become a nurse in New York City. When Marichu paid the agency, they made her sign a contract that she could not read.
Upon Marichu’s arrival in New York, she was forced to work for the family who owned the travel agency, Lauro Baja the former UN Ambassador to the Philippines (2003-2006), his wife Norma Baja, and their daughter Maria "Beth" Facundo. She worked 18 or more hours every day for three months at the Bajas’ home in Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Her passport was taken from her and was left isolated inside the house, subject to verbal and physical abuse. Her compensation? One hundred dollars. The Bajas’ defense? She was indebted to them for the package deal.
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Burger King Caves!
After years of resistance, Burger King finally joined fellow fast food giants McDonalds and Yum! Brands in meeting farm worker demands for decent wages and working conditions. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers and Burger King announced on Friday that the fast food chain will begin paying a penny more per pound of Florida tomatoes in order to boost wages for tomato harvesters. A penny more per pound actually raises wages by 75 percent, if you can believe that. Until now, the standard rate has been about 45 cents for a 32-pound bucket.
As The Nation's Katrina vanden Heuvel points out, the victory is "testament to the tenacity and discipline of the Coalition, a community-based worker organization, which has exposed a half-dozen slavery cases that helped trigger the freeing of more than 1000 workers." The students who have continued to fight hard for this cause also helped pave the way for Friday's announcement.
In her piece, vanden Heuvel mentioned a Senate Labor Committee hearing on harsh working conditions for South Florida farm workers. At the hearing, Fast Food Nation author Eric Schlosser said simply of the Florida tomato harvesters:
"The exploitation of farm workers should not be tolerated in Florida. It should not be tolerated anywhere in the United States. There are many social problems that are extremely difficult to solve. This is not one of them."
It's especially not difficult for Burger King, who will only lose less than $300,000 a year -- that's nothing when BK made $2.23 billion last year.
A good bit of news for once for immigrant farm workers.
ICE Cold: A New Round of Raids As The Economy Sours
Immigration raids this week at a kosher beef processing plant in Iowa and earlier this month at 11 taquerias in San Francisco beg the question: are immigration control officers enforcing labor laws or dietary restrictions? Seriously, though, the Department of Immigration Control and Enforcement (ICE) raids come at a suspicious time for the US economy.
With a recession looming or in-progress (depending on who you speak to) it appears that federal government's plan to stimulate economic growth is to clamp down on low-wage workers. The intent seems to be to send a chill to potential migrant laborers and declare "Don't come to the US to work, we're hiring from within!"
In San Francisco, a publicly acknowledged sanctuary city, the timing surprised even long-time activists. As Bay Area Immigrant Rights Coalition's Evelyn Sanchez commented on May 2 after the taqueria raids:
"It was a gross violation of civil rights, and it's just unfortunate that this happened the day after May Day when literally thousands of immigrants throughout the Bay Area marched to have this type of activity stopped. It just goes to show we need new immigration laws. The raids and deportations divide our families, traumatize our communities and are a disaster for our economy."
In a show of rapid solidarity, on Cinco de Mayo, just three days after the raids San Francisco, activists mobilized marching to ICE's offices and demanding justice for the 63 detainees as detailed in the video below.
Elsewhere in the US, in towns big and small, the arrests continue. In April, poultry farms in five states were the target of raids.
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YM Blog-A-Thon: Life of a Refugee
(Editor's note: Youth Outlook and WireTap are kicking off the third Youth Media Blog-a-thon. This month's topic is money. Check back frequently for updates and feel free to join the discussion.)
Their life as a struggle working to survive
Take in anything they got just to stay alive
Comin' to America for a better day
Still working twice as hard gettin' minimum pay.
Living life through struggles every single day
Hoping that one day it'll be okay
Their life is hard as a refugee
Learning complex things in a new country
Being looked down on cause you're Nobody
White man so high cause he's Somebody
Who Am I? Who are We? The first generation of a refugee. In games, playing Chinese jump-rope with your shoes off. White people in their baseball caps and knee pads. They got it good or do we?
In the streets, Us driving our old busted up wagons. Them, rollin' up in their new Mercedes Benz. In school, Them getting their straight A's and We gettin' B- D's.
In Jobs, Them in their fancy business suits with their collared shirts and ties. Us working at Chinese food and sweat shops in ripped clothes and a T-shirt.
Then in life, our families struggle trying to find a good paying job to support the family. We work as hard as we can to pay rent, insurance, raise family, pay gas, water and electricity bills and trying to get a car for easy transportation. Working 'illegally' just to pay it all off. While They just sit back and not have to worry about a thing. They have food on the 'Family Table' sit and talk to each other, catch up on things with their perfect TV family. While We wake up at 4a.m. coming home at 10 or 11 late at night. Cold food on the couch and not so much of a "Hey, how's your day?"
They're rich, We're poor. They have their business suits and we have ripped jeans and a T-shirt. They have nice houses that they own and their nice parking spaces while We have the rented bottom floor apartment. We sleep and we hear disturbing sounds and wake up with a parking ticket sitting on the window of the car. They have their Albertson's and Ralphs and we have Eddies Jr. Liquor Market.
You sit and think to yourself how good their life is and just wish for a day when you could be like them: rich, smart and white. But, when you sit and listen, you hear the history about how brave Our grandmother was fighting as a Cambodian in the Vietnam War to protect her 12 children. And then you remember April 15th, Cambodian New Year and how you would play powder fight and laugh with your friends, as you lead the traditions. What do they have?
We have history, culture, tradition, background, they have the giant textbooks that make no sense. We come to KGA and learn about our Community how to help better it and to better Ourselves and We find we are Somebody.
So guess what? .... I am Somebody!
I'm the second daughter of a refugee
I live life to the fullest cause they set me
Free, with proper limitations and security
I got history and culture in my Community
So if you listen up close you can learn from me.
Who am I?
Who are You?
and, Who are We?
An immigrant, refugee, yes, I'm Julie ...
National Day of Action Targets Fast Food Giant
First it was Taco Bell, then McDonalds, and now Burger King. We’re not talking about greasy fried things, we’re talking about poor working conditions for immigrant farmworkers.
Boycotts and protests by the Student/Farmworker Alliance got Taco Bell and McDonalds to buckle under the pressure and give back just a tiny fraction of profits to ensure decent working conditions for tomato farmworkers struggling with poverty.
Now it's Burger King's turn.
On March 31st, farmworkers, students, and activists from across the country come together to fight the good fight against the home of the whopper on the SFA National Day of Action. Farmworkers and students will hold local protests, screen films on Burger King and farmworker poverty, and collect petition signatures.
The SFA won victories with Yum Brands (in 2005) and McDonalds (in 2007), forcing the corporations to take responsibility for the poor working conditions of their tomato farmers. After years of boycotting, Taco Bell and McDonalds came to agreements with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers to nearly double workers’ sub-poverty wages, pay a penny more per pound for Florida tomatoes, and enforce codes of conduct for agricultural suppliers.
But Burger King just won’t back down. The fast food monarch even joined with the tomato industry to launch a campaign threatening the deals made by McDonalds and Taco Bell.
Fortunately, the SFA won’t back down either.
On the SFA Day of Action, Burger King will learn just what farmworkers and students think of the big bad fast food chain. If the protests and boycotts don't eventually do the trick, the bad press hopefully will.
Visit SFA to find out how to get involved with National Day of Action events in your area or to find out how to organize your own events.
Heavy Rotation: The Rise of Filipino Radio Representation
Cassie, that one Asian guy from the Neptunes, the other producer who did that skateboard track for Lupe Fiasco, that main girl from the Pussy Cat Dolls, they're all at least part Filipino, right? Walk into a workshop focused on Filipino-American media representation, and this thin list of musicians would likely be all that the group would generate.
Though, the lack of talent in mainstream music is a result of the Filipino American community getting shafted by clueless A&Rs, radio broadcasters, and all the other corporate types who attempt to dictate what music gets heard. Enter Heavy Rotation, a new online radio show aimed at showcasing Filipino-American talent not given the opportunity by the likes of Clear Channel.
Already two shows recorded since its inception, Heavy Rotation is building itself to be a strong monthly medium exposing listeners to the deep musicianship in the Filipino community. Operating under the mantra, "The rise of Filipino Hip-Hop and R&B," there is an implied attitude that the presence of Filipinos in American pop culture will soon reach a tipping point. Who better to break folks off with the coverage of what could be a new cultural renaissance than a group of youthful individuals who have been working in the industry for some time?
DJ Marlino, nineteen-years thick in the DJ game, decided to set up shop in a small studio in San Diego as a base of operations. Along with co-hosts, Rich, Diane, and Jeff, the crew hopes to use the music to make the show. With much untapped talent yet to be heard by many music fans, the selection of music won't likely get dry any time soon.
Tuning into the two-hour program, sounds of boom-bap resonate from the Upstarts and Son of Ran, bullet-riddled political lyrics from Bambu and Kiwi (members of the now defunct Native Guns), and jazzy grooves from Freddie Joachim and Choice 37 can be heard, along with a hand picked selection of other artists found from Myspace and various cultural festivals. For some, listening to a show can incite thoughts of, "Oh, snap, these cats are actually Filipino?"
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