The Feminist Texican

Okay, so technically this isn’t Chicana, Feminist, Texas, or donut-related, but it’s definitely political and definitely regarding civil liberties, and it’s something I think many of us have been waiting for for almost 8 years:

via American Freedom Campaign:

Finally. 

More than seven years too late, it appears as if a growing number of congresspersons are realizing that they are part of a co-equal branch of government.  After allowing their institution to be disrespected and at times ignored by the executive branch, top officials in Congress are finally expressing a willingness to use their full power under the Constitution to rein in an out-of-control administration.

The current target:  Karl Rove.

Rove has been asked by the House Judiciary Committee to testify about his involvement in the Justice Department’s prosecution and imprisonment of former Alabama Governor Don Siegleman.  As Rove has so far refused to testify voluntarily, members of Congress have started sending signals that they are prepared to go to the mattresses over this.

Read the rest of this entry »

via Alternet

The Nation’s Robert Lovato published an article today linking the treatment of undocumented Mexican immigrants in the South to the treatment of blacks under Jim Crow:

Call it Juan Crow: the matrix of laws, social customs, economic institutions and symbolic systems enabling the physical and psychic isolation needed to control and exploit undocumented immigrants.

…[T]he surge in Latino migration (the Southeast is home to the fastest-growing Latino population in the United States) is moving many of the institutions and actors responsible for enforcing Jim Crow to resurrect and reconfigure themselves in line with new demographics. Along with the almost daily arrests, raids and home invasions by federal, state and other authorities, newly resurgent civilian groups like the Ku Klux Klan, in addition to more than 144 new “nativist extremist” groups and 300 anti-immigrant organizations born in the past three years, mostly based in the South, are harassing immigrants as a way to grow their ranks.

Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

via Washington Post

TIJUANA, Mexico, May 10 — You can walk to the U.S. border, Francelia Menchaca’s immigration lawyer advised her, but don’t put your fingers through its fence. It may hinder her immigration paperwork, the lawyer said.

But when, after a year apart, Menchaca’s mother arrived in her flowered straw hat here Saturday and put her small, wrinkled hands up to the cast-iron gate, Menchaca reached out and touched them.

Read the rest of this entry »

when dove’s real beauty campaign first came out, everyone was beside themselves kissing dove’s ass and talking about how great it was for female body image.

ever the pessimist, i’ve always thought the dove campaign was completely full of shit.  it’s a marketing ploy to get people to visit the dove website, and the “real beauty” they feature in ads and on their website is same ol,’ same ol.  “i have freckles, and i still think i’m beautiful.”  meanwhile, i’m thinking: you’re a ten year old red-headed white kid.  hello, lindsey lohan circa the parent trap?  of course people think you’re cute and beautiful.

Read the rest of this entry »

As a recovering Catholic turned devout atheist, it’s not often I say this: nuns kick ass.

Following Missouri’s proposal of (disenfranchising) new voter ID laws, (similar to Indiana’s), the Franciscan Sisters of Mary are protesting the laws that will make it more difficult for minorities and elderly to vote.

This comes after twelve Indiana nuns (all in their 80s and 90s) were recently turned away by a fellow Sister for lack of government-issued ID.

Read the rest of this entry »

I just think it’s really cool how some artists take the traditional image of the Virgen de Guadalupe, then turn it into contemporary/activist Marian art.  So continuing onward from my last collection of Virgen imagery…

Read the rest of this entry »

via New American Media

The day after May 1 immigrant rights marches, undercover ICE officials in the Bay Area raided a chain of taquerias, arresting three employees.  Immigrant rights organizations are claiming that the timing of these raids is no coincidence.

“I pay my taxes, I don’t have any tattoos and I don’t have a record,” said [José Sánchez López, one of the workers who was arrested]. “I’m one of those people who goes from my house to work, and on the weekends I take walks with my family,” said the young father of three.

Read the rest of this entry »

via Yahoo! News

TWIN FALLS, Idaho - A high school student says he may file a lawsuit against a physical education teacher who took a Mexican flag he had brought for Cinco de Mayo and put it in the garbage.

Clint Straatman denies Froylan Camelo’s version of events but said he took the flag Monday because “white kids” might have hurt the 16-year-old. He said he put it in a garbage can because he had no place else to keep it.

Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, the NY Times published a fantastic article about the state of immigration detention centers and the need to investigate the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency.  Between January 2004 and November 2007, 66 detainees have died under questionable circumstances (this is more than have died at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo combined).

The piece mostly centers around the story of Boubacar Bah, a 52-year-old immigrant from Guinea who overstayed his tourist visa and was living in the U.S.:

[F]or five days, no official notified [Bah's family]. When frantic relatives located him at University Hospital in Newark on Feb. 5, 2007, he was in a coma after emergency surgery for a skull fracture and multiple brain hemorrhages. He died there four months later without ever waking up, leaving family members on two continents trying to find out why[...]

Read the rest of this entry »