No More Deaths is a Tucson-based humanitarian organization that's mission is to help end suffering in the desert along the USA-Mexico borderlands. Throughout the year volunteers patrol migrant trails looking for people in need, giving medical aid, and placing water and food in strategic locations in the hope that it might save a life.
The summer months are a crucial time in this work, and to assist NMD in their mission I am asking for donations from friends, family and strangers to be collected between July 1st-15th. These donations will be driven out to Arizona in the 2nd half of the month.
For your convenience, there will be multiple drop-off locations around Los Angeles County. (If you or your organization/business/work would like to participate as a drop-off location please email me at xochitljulisa@gmail.com)
What to donate:
socks
running shoes
hiking boots
baseball caps
backpacks
jeans
t-shirts
underwear
You can also make a monetary donation directly to the organization by going here.
Where to donate:
BEYOND BAROQUE LITERARY/ARTS CENTER
681 Venice Blvd. Venice Beach
HRS: M-F: 8pm-10pm S-S: 11am-10pm (check event calendar for exact times)
http://www.beyondbaroque.org/calendar.html
TIA CHUCHA'S CENTRO CULTURAL & BOOKSTORE
13197 Gladstone Ave Sylmar, CA 91342
(818) 939-3433
Mon–Thurs: 2-8pm | Fri: 2-10pm
Sat: 11am-6pm | Sun: Closed (Cerrado)
ESPACIO 1839
1839 1st St
Los Angeles, CA 90033
(213) 399-9811
Wed - Thu: 12:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Fri - Sat: 12:00 pm - 9:00 pm
Sun: 12:00 pm - 6:00 pm
MARISCOS JALISCO
3040 E Olympic Blvd Los Angeles, CA 90023
M-S: 9am-6pm
Last year alone, 179 remains were found along the AZ-Mex borderlands.
For more information please visit the No More Deaths website.
Here is a poem inspired by my time on the border with No More Deaths. The video is directed by TV director and movimiento activist, Jesus Trevino.
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Hymn to Vatos Who Will Never be in a Poem
I realized that I didn't post any poems this year for National Poetry Month. So here is a beautiful piece by Luis Alberto Urrea that a friend just shared with me through email. Thanks, Melissa for the beautiful Sunday morning poem! I read it to the sounds of mariachi trumpets blaring from the church across the street.
Hymn to Vatos Who Will Never be in a Poem
by Luis Urrea
Hymn to Vatos Who Will Never be in a Poem
by Luis Urrea
All the vatos sleeping on hillsides All the vatos say goodnight forever All the vatos loving their menudo All the vatos faith in la tortilla All the vatos fearing the alarm clock All the vatos Wino Jefe Peewee All the vatos even the cabrones All the vatos down por vida homeboys All the vatos using words like ranfla All the vatos who woke up abandoned All the vatos not afraid of their daughters All the vatos arms around their sisters All the vatos talking to their women All the vatos granting their foregiveness All the vatos plotting wicked paybacks All the vatos sleeping under mota All the vatos with tequilla visions All the vatos they call maricones All the vatos bleeding in the alley All the vatos chased by helicopters All the vatos dissed by pinches white boys All the vatos bent to pick tomatoes All the vatos smoked by Agent Orange All the vatos brave in deadly classrooms All the vatos pacing in the prisons All the vatos pierced by needle lightning All the vatos who were once our fathers All the vatos even veteranos All the vatos and their abuelitos All the vatos proud of tatuajes All the vatos carrying a lunch pail All the vatos graduating law school All the vatos grown up to be curas All the vatos Jimmy Spider Tito All the vatos lost their tongues in Spanish All the vatos can't say shit in English All the vatos looking at her photo All the vatos making love till morning All the vatos stroking their own hunger All the vatos faded clear as windows All the vatos needing something better All the vatos bold in strange horizons All the vatos waiting for tomorrow All the vatos sure that no one loves them All the vatos sure that no one hears them All the vatos never in a poem All the vatos told they don't belong here All the vatos beautiful young Aztecs All the vatos warrior Apaches All the vatos sons of Guadalupe All the vatos bad as a la chingada All the vatos call themselves Chicanos All the vatos praying for their children All the vatos even all you feos All the vatos filled with life eternal All the vatos sacred as the Sun God All the vatos Flaco Pepe Gordo All the vatos rising from their mothers
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
US Border Patrol: What We Need to Know
Hernandez Rojas was caught not far from San Diego trying to enter the country illegally. While in the custody of border patrol agents, he was kicked in the ankle more than once, and when he asked to report the incident, he was taken to the border by vehicle, with his assailant in the car with him. Once at the border, eye-witnesses crossing back in to the US saw (and video recorded) a group of agents beat Hernandez Rojas, taser him a total of 5 times, and all while his arms and legs were tied. Soon after the incident, Hernandez Rojas died.
Unfortunately, what happened to Hernandez Rojas isn't a chance happening. According to PBS there have been “eight cases in less than two years followed by no public hearings, no criminal charges and no trials, including the Hernandez Rojas case.” One such case in Arizona in March, 2011, was of a 19 year-old Mexican-American who was shot "three times in the back as he climbed the fence back into Mexico.” Because of cases like these, and because of the border patrols' ability to freely police the border without impunity, humanitarian groups like No More Deaths, are calling the US border patrol abuses a Culture of Cruelty.
Talk about need to know. Did you know that “customs and border protection is now the largest law enforcement agency in the nation. Employing almost 60’000 agents and employees”? And yet, they are not held to the same scrutinies and checks that local police, county sheriff, or any other federal agents are held to. Did you know that “border agents are assaulted at a dramatically lower rate than police and, unlike police, are typically assaulted with rocks, not knives and guns”? And did you know “only once in ten years has a US border agent been criminally charged for killing a migrant, and that case was dismissed”?
To those people who say, they came here illegally, they get what they deserve, I ask the question, when did illegally crossing the border become a crime punishable by death? When did a border patrol agent become judge, jury, and executioner?
Anastasio Hernandez Rojas was a man trying to return to his wife and five children in the US. He was a man that begged for his life at the hands of nearly a dozen border patrol agents. He did not deserve to be hog-tied, beaten, and tasered to death.
Please take 20 minutes to watch the story. Be warned that recordings of the beating and Anastasio's cries for help do air in the story, but please do not turn away. We need to know.
And now that we know, isn't it time we get outraged?
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
John Stewart and the Arizona Ban on Mexican-American Studies
Check out the report by Al Madrigal for The Daily Show with John Stewart on the ban on Mexican-American ethnic studies program in Arizona. It's tragic that young Mexican-American students eager to learn are not allowed to learn their history and their cultural contributions to our nation.
A thanks to John Stewart for talking about Arizona's latest cultural atrocity.
Let it be known that in Arizona sharing a burrito is subversive.
And now the state legislatures have their eyes set on college ethnic classes.
A thanks to John Stewart for talking about Arizona's latest cultural atrocity.
Let it be known that in Arizona sharing a burrito is subversive.
And now the state legislatures have their eyes set on college ethnic classes.
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Two Pennsylvania Undocumented DREAMers Arrested
Jessica Hyejin Lee and Tania Chairez are DREAMers that were arrested yesterday, March 14th, in Pennsylvania when they performed an act of civil disobedience in protest of the treatment and and 8 month detention of fellow DREAMer, Miguel Orellana Garcia.
There are no words to describe how unbelievably brave these women are. After being in the Arizona border last summer and feeling the real threat of being arrested for humanitarian aid, I know I could never do what they are doing for their community and for other undocumented youth in the country. BRAVE.
Undocumented. Unapologetic. Unafraid.
Please listen to Jessica and Tania tell their stories below.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Martin Espada's Allegory of the Oppressed
In finding ways to write about immigration and immigrant communities of Los Angeles, I decided to study Martin Espada's collection, City of Coughing and Dead Radiators. In my study of his poems, focused on urban centers and working class and immigrant communities of the east coast, I discovered that many of his poems were allegorical. Characters like The Toolmaker became symbols for the working class and characters like The Lawyer and The Landlord became symbols for the ruling class, which is why I like to call is Allegory of the Oppressed.
Besides the characters, he also uses paradox and symbols, both common in allegory, but more specifically, he uses Catholic symbols. For example, in “Who Burns of the Perfection of Paper,” Espada writes, “Ten years later, in law school, / I knew that every legal pad / was glued with the sting of hidden cuts, / that every open law book / was a pair of hands / upturned and burning” (49). The image of the wounded palms alludes to Jesus on the cross and is symbolic of sacrifice.
I grew up Catholic, and made 4 of the 7 sacraments by the age of 15, but now at 31, I do not subscribe to the beliefs or practices of the Catholic Church. But that doesn't stop me from being drawn to Catholic symbols in my work, and by being comforted by images of the Virgin Mary or by the language and ritual of Sunday Mass when I find myself in the midst of them. I have great respect for the symbolic language my Catholic upbringing afforded me. And it can only enrich my work as I try to write to and for my community because Catholicism is our shared language.
Dana Gioia, perhaps best known for his essay, "Does Poetry Matter?" is a practicing Catholic, and he said, “the Catholic, literally from birth, when he or she is baptized, is raised in a culture that understands symbols and signs. And it also trains you in understanding the relationship between the visible and the invisible. Consequently, allegory finds its greatest realization in Catholic artists like Dante.”
The Parables of the Bible were some my earliest introductions to storytelling, and I appreciate that Espada has found a way to integrate aspects of this type of story into his poetry, especially when writing about Latino-American communities and culture. It is our shared language, and to someone like myself, it only feels natural.
For a full analysis of Espada's City of Coughing and Dead Radiators, you can check out my annotation at Annotation Nation.
Here is a clip of Espada reading Who Burns of the Perfection of Paper.
Monday, February 20, 2012
Biking the Border
I met Katy and Eric in Tucson back in August with No More Deaths. At that time they had just come off of a 5 week stay in Nogales, MX helping newly deported migrants make phone calls home, locate their confiscated personal items, and document border patrol abuses. The efforts in Nogales is another major humanitarian project within No More Deaths. I spent one day there serving lunch in a soup kitchen and talking to men who waited at a dusty bus station all day for a chance to make a 5 minute phone call home from a pay-as-you-go No More Deaths cell phone. The one thing that stood out to me in Nogales was the waiting.
When I met Katy and Eric at a Tucson migrant half-way house, they told me of their plan to bike the entire border. I'm relieved to know they made it, and I'm impressed with their conviction to get up close and personal with immigration reform. I only wish more people would be willing to see for themselves what the border and the "illegal-immigration issue" really looks like.
“I think people in the north don't really understand what's going on in the southern borders,” said Katy. “Hearing politicians talk about a wall might sound feasible to people.”
“But when you come down and you witness it, it seems kind of crazy."
When I met Katy and Eric at a Tucson migrant half-way house, they told me of their plan to bike the entire border. I'm relieved to know they made it, and I'm impressed with their conviction to get up close and personal with immigration reform. I only wish more people would be willing to see for themselves what the border and the "illegal-immigration issue" really looks like.
“I think people in the north don't really understand what's going on in the southern borders,” said Katy. “Hearing politicians talk about a wall might sound feasible to people.”
“But when you come down and you witness it, it seems kind of crazy."
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